"That will amount to nothing, my son.Go and sin no more."Upon which the serf raised himself and left the room, smiling throughout.Ivan's smile is an exotic plant which I am not acquainted with, and which only grows in Slavonic soil, a strange smile,--real prodigy of baseness or heroism.Which is it? I am sure I cannot tell.
In spite of my trouble, I had been able to observe Stephane at the beginning of the punishment.At the first blow, a flash of triumphant joy passed over his face; but when the blood started he became horribly pale, and pressed one of his hands to his throat as if to arrest a cry of horror, and with the other he covered his eyes to shut out the sight; then not being able to contain himself, he hurried away.God be praised! compassion had triumphed in his heart over the joy of seeing his jailer chastised.There is in this young soul, embittered as it is by long sufferings, a fund of generosity and goodness; but will it not in time lose the last vestiges of its native qualities? Three years hence will Stephane cover his eyes to avoid the sight of an enemy's punishment? Within three years will not the habit of suffering have stifled pity in his breast? To-morrow, to-morrow perhaps, will not his heart have uttered its last cry!
Since you have no tender words for him, Count Kostia, would that Icould close his ears to the desolating lessons that you give him!
Do you not see that the life he leads is enough to teach him to hate men and life, without the necessity of your interference? He knows nothing of humanity, but what he sees through the bars of his prison; and imagines that there is nothing in the world but capricious tyrants and trembling, degraded slaves.Why thus kill in his heart every germ of enthusiasm, of hope, of manly and generous faith?