full
expression of public opinion is the service of the press and a
phenomenon to rejoice us at the same time. Twenty years ago we
should have been silent, but now we have heard the voice of the
Russian people, which is ready to rise as one man and ready to
sacrifice itself for its oppressed brethren; that is a great step
and a proof of strength."

"But it's not only making a sacrifice, but killing Turks," said
Levin timidly. "The people make sacrifices and are ready to make
sacrifices for their soul, but not for murder," he added,
instinctively connecting the conversation with the ideas that had
been absorbing his mind.

"For their soul? That's a most puzzling expression for a natural
science man, do you understand? What sort of thing is the soul?"
said Katavasov, smiling.

"Oh, you know!"

"No, by God, I haven't the faintest idea!" said Katavasov with a
loud roar of laughter.

"'I bring not peace, but a sword,' says Christ," Sergey
Ivanovitch rejoined for his part, quoting as simply as though it
were the easiest thing to understand the very passage that had
always puzzled Levin most.

"That's so, no doubt," the old man repeated again. He was
standing near them and responded to a chance glance turned in his
direction.

"Ah, my dear fellow, you're defeated, utterly defeated!" cried
Katavasov good-humoredly.

Levin reddened with vexation, not at being defeated, but at
having failed to control himself and being drawn into argument.

"No, I can't argue with them," he thought; "they wear
impenetrable armor, while I'm naked."

He saw that it was impossible to convince his brother and
Katavasov, and he saw even less possibility of himself agreeing
with them. What they advocated was the very pride of intellect
that had almost been his ruin. He could not admit that some
dozens of men, among them his brother, had the right, on the
ground of what they were told by some hundreds of glib volunteers
swarming to the capital, to say that they and the newspapers were
expressing the will and feeling of the people, and a feeling
which was expressed in vengeance and murder. He could not admit
this, because he neither saw the expression of such feelings in
the people among whom he was living, nor found them in himself
(and he could not but consider himself one of the persons making
up the Russian people), and most of all because he, like the
people, did not know and could not know what is for the general
good, th