"Comrades, may I be frank?"
"Of course," said the directress. "After all, that's why you're here."
"And you won't be angry?"
"Say what you have to say," said the directress.
"Very well, I'm going to confess to you then. I really do believe in God."
He glanced at his judges, and it seemed to him that they all exhaled with satisfaction. Only the woman janitor snapped at him. "In this day and age, comrade? In this day and age?"
Eduard went on: "I knew that you'd be angry if I told the truth. But I don't know how to lie. Don't ask me to lie to you."
The directress said (gently): "No one wants you to lie. It's good that you are telling the truth. But please tell me how you, a young man, can believe in God!"
"These days, when we send rockets to the moon!" The teacher lost his temper.
"I can't help it," said Eduard. "I don't want to believe in God. Really I don't."
"How can you say you don't want to believe, if you do?" The gray-haired gentleman (in an exceedingly kind tone of voice) joined the conversation.
"I don't want to believe, but I do believe." Eduard quietly repeated his confession.
The bespectacled teacher laughed. "But there's a contradiction in that!"
"Comrades, I'm telling it the way it is," said Eduard. "I know very well that faith in God leads us away from reality. What would socialism come to if everyone believed that the world is in God's hands? No one would do anything and everyone would just rely on God."
"Exactly," agreed the directress.
"No one has ever yet proved that God exists," stated the teacher.
Eduard continued: "The difference between the history of mankind and prehistory is that man has taken his fate into his own hands and no longer needs God."
"Faith in God leads to fatalism," said the directress.
"Faith in God belongs to the Middle Ages," said Eduard, and then the directress said something again and the teacher said something and Eduard said something and the inspector said something, and they were all in complete accord, until finally the teacher with glasses exploded, interrupting Eduard: "So why do you cross yourself in the street, when you know all this?"
Eduard looked at him with an immensely sad expression and then said: "Because I believe in God."
"But there's a contradiction in that!" repeated the teacher joyfully.
"Yes," admitted Eduard, "there is a contradiction between knowledge and faith. I recognize that faith in God leads to obscurantism. I recognize that it would be better if God didn't exist. But what can I do when here, deep down"?at this he pointed to his heart?"I feel that he does exist? You see, comrades, I'm telling it to you the way it is! It's better that I confess to you, because I don't want to be a hypocrite. I want you to know what I'm really like," and he hung his head.
The teacher had a shortsighted view; he didn't know that even the strictest revolutionary considers violence merely a necessary evil and believes that the intrinsic good of the revolution lies in reeducation. He, who had become a revolutionary overnight, did not enjoy much respect from the directress, and he did not suspect that at this moment Eduard, who had placed himself at his judges' disposal as a difficult case and yet as an object capable of being reeducated, had a thousand times more value than he. And because he didn't suspect it, he attacked Eduard with severity and declared that people who did not know how to part with their medieval faith belonged in the Middle Ages and should leave their position in a present-day school.
The directress let him finish his speech, then administered her rebuke: "I don't like it when heads roll. This comrade has been sincere, and he told us the truth. We must know how to respect that.'' Then she turned to Eduard. "The comrades are right, of course, when they say that religious people cannot educate our youth. What do you yourself suggest?"
"I don't know, comrades," said Eduard unhappily.
"This is what I think," said the inspector. "The struggle between the old and the new goes on not only between classes, but also within each individual. Just such a struggle is going on inside our comrade here. With his reason he knows, but his feelings pull him back. We must help our comrade in this struggle, so that reason may triumph."
The directress nodded. Then she said: "I myself will take charge of him."
6
Eduard had thus averted the most pressing danger: his fate as a teacher was now in the hands of the directress exclusively, which was entirely to his satisfaction: he remembered his brother's observation that the directress had a weakness for young men, and with all his vacillating youthful self-confidence (now deflated, then exaggerated) he resolved to win the contest by gaining as a man his sovereign's favor.
When, as agreed, he visited her a few days later in her office, he tried to assume a light tone and used every opportunity to slip an intimate remark or bit of subtle flattery into the conversation, or to emphasize with discreet ambiguity his singular position as a man at a woman's mercy. But he was not to be permitted to choose the tone of the conversation. The directress spoke to him affably, but with the utmost restraint; she asked him what he was reading, then she herself named some books and recommended that he read them; she evidently wanted to embark on the lengthy job to be done on his thinking. Their short meeting ended with her inviting him to her place.
As a result of the directress's reserve, Eduard's self-confidence was deflated again, so he entered her studio apartment meekly, with no intention of impressing her with his masculine charm. She seated him in an armchair and, in a friendly tone, asked him what he felt like having: some coffee, perhaps? He said no. Some alcohol then? He was embarrassed: "If you have some cognac ..." and was immediately afraid that he had been presumptuous. But the directress replied affably: "No, I don't have cognac, but I do have a little wine," and she brought over a half-empty bottle, whose contents were just sufficient to fill two glasses.
Then she told Eduard that he must not regard her as an inquisitor; after all, everyone has a complete right to convictions he believes to be correct. Naturally, one can of course (she added at once) wonder whether such a person is fit to be a teacher; for that reason, she said, they had had to summon Eduard (although they hadn't been happy about it) and have a talk with him, and they (at least she and the inspector) were very pleased with the frank manner in which he had spoken to them, and the fact that he had not denied anything. Then she said that she had talked with the inspector about Eduard for a very long time, and they had decided that they would summon him for another interview in six months' time and that until then the directress would help his development through her influence. And once again she emphasized that she merely wanted give him friendly help, that she was neither an inquisitor nor a cop. Then she mentioned the teacher who had attacked Eduard so sharply, and she said: "That man is hiding something himself, and so he would be glad to sacrifice others. Also, the woman janitor is letting it be known everywhere that you are insolent and pigheadedly stick to your opinions, as she puts it. She can't be talked out of her view that you should be dismissed from the school. Of course I don't agree with her, but on the other hand you must understand her. It wouldn't please me either if someone who crosses himself publicly in the street were teaching my children."
Thus the directress showed Eduard in a single outpouring of sentences, how attractive were the prospects of her clemency and also how menacing the prospects of her severity. And then to prove that their meeting was genuinely a friendly one, she digressed to other subjects: She talked about books, showed Eduard her library, and asked how he liked the school, and after his conventional reply, she herself spoke at length. She said that she was grateful to destiny for her position; that she liked her work because it was a means for her to educate children and thus be in continuous and real touch with the future, and that only the future could, in the end, justify all this suffering, of which she said ("Yes, we must admit it") there was plenty. "If I did not believe that I am living for something more than just my own l
ife, I probably couldn't live at all."
These words suddenly sounded very sincere, and it was not clear to Eduard whether the directress was trying to confess or to commence the expected ideological polemic about the meaning of life. Eduard decided to interpret them in their personal sense, and he asked her in a choked, discreet voice:
"And what about your own life?"
"My life?"
"Yes, your own life. Doesn't it satisfy you?"
A bitter smile appeared on her face, and Eduard felt almost sorry for her at that moment. She was pitifully ugly: her black hair cast a shadow over her bony, elongated face, and the black fuzz under her nose began to look as conspicuous as a mustache. Suddenly he glimpsed all the sorrow of her life. He perceived the Gypsy-like features that revealed violent sensuality, and he perceived the ugliness that revealed the impossibility of appeasing that violence; he imagined her passionately turning into a living statue of grief upon Stalin's death, passionately sitting up late at thousands of meetings, passionately struggling against poor Jesus. And he understood that all this was merely a sad outlet for her desire, which could not flow where she wished it to. Eduard was young, and his inclination toward compassion had not yet vanished. He looked at the directress with understanding. She, however, as if ashamed of having involuntarily fallen silent, now assumed a brisk tone and went on: "That's not the question at all, Eduard. One doesn't live for oneself. One always lives for something." She looked deeply into his eyes: "But it's a matter of knowing for what. For something real or for something fictitious? God is a beautiful idea. But the future of man, Eduard, is a reality. And I have lived for reality; I have sacrificed everything for reality."
She spoke with such conviction, that Eduard did not stop feeling that sudden rush of understanding that had awakened in him a short while before; it struck him as stupid that he should be lying so brazenly to another human being, and it seemed to him that this intimate moment in their conversation offered him the opportunity to cast away finally his unworthy (and, moreover, difficult) deception.
"But I agree with you completely," he quickly assured her. "I too prefer reality. Don't take my piety so seriously!"
He soon learned that a man should never let himself be led astray by a rash fit of emotion. The directress looked at him in surprise and said with perceptible coldness: "Don't pretend. I liked you because you were frank. Now you're pretending to be something that you aren't."
No, Eduard was not to be permitted to step out of the religious costume in which he had clothed himself. He quickly reconciled himself to this and tried hard to correct the bad impression: "No, I didn't mean to be evasive. Of course I believe in God, I would never deny that. I only wanted to say that I also believe in the future of humanity, in progress and all that. If I didn't believe in that, what would my work as a teacher be for, what would children be born for, and what would our lives be for? And I've come to think that it is also God's will that society continue to advance toward something better. I have thought that a man can believe in God and in communism, that the two can be reconciled."
"No," said the directress with maternal authorita-tiveness. "The two are irreconcilable.''
"I know," said Eduard sadly. "Don't be angry with me.
"I'm not angry. You are still a young man and you obstinately stick to what you believe. No one understands you the way I do. After all I was young once too. I know what it's like to be young. And I like your youthfulness. Yes, I rather like you. ..."
And now it finally happened. Neither earlier nor later, but now, at precisely the right moment. (That right moment, as can be seen, Eduard had not chosen; it was the moment itself that made use of Eduard to make it happen.) When the directress said she rather liked him he replied, not too expressively:
"I like you too."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Well, I never! I'm an old woman. ..." objected the directress.
"That's not true,'' Eduard had to say.
"But it is," said the directress.
"You're not at all old, that's nonsense," he had to say very resolutely.
"Do you think so?"
"Of course. I like you very much."
"Don't lie. You know you shouldn't lie."
"I'm not lying. You're pretty."
"Pretty?" The directress made a face to show that she didn't really believe it.
"Yes, pretty," said Eduard, and because he was struck by the obvious improbability of his assertion, he at once took pains to support it: "I'm mad about dark-haired women like you."
"You like dark-haired women?" asked the directress.
"I'm mad about them," said Eduard.
"And why haven't you come by all the time that you've been at the school? I had the feeling that you were avoiding me."
"I was hesitating," said Eduard. "Everyone would have said I was sucking up to you. No one would have believed that I was coming to see you only because I liked you."
"But there's nothing to be afraid of now," said the directress. "Now it's been decreed that we must see each other from time to time."
She looked into his eyes with her large brown irises (let us admit that in themselves her eyes were beautiful), and just before he left she lightly stroked his hand, so that this foolish fellow went away feeling the elation of a winner.
7
Eduard was sure that the unpleasant matter had been settled to his advantage, and the next Sunday, feeling carefree and impudent, he went to church with Alice and not only that, he went there full of self-confidence, for (although this arouses in us a compassionate smile) his visit to the directress retrospectively provided him with glaring evidence of his masculine appeal.
In addition this particular Sunday in church he noticed that Alice was somewhat different: As soon as they met she took his arm and even in church clung to him; while formerly she had behaved modestly and inconspicuously, now she kept looking around and smilingly greeted at least ten acquaintances.
This was curious, and Eduard didn't understand it.
Then two days later, as they were walking together along the streets after dark, Eduard became aware to his amazement that her kisses, once so sadly matter-of-fact, had become damp, warm, and fervent. When they stopped for a moment under a streetlight, he found her eyes looking amorously at him.
"Let me tell you this: I love you," Alice blurted only and immediately she covered his mouth. "No, no, don't say anything. I'm ashamed of myself. I don't want to hear anything."
Again they walked a little way, again they stopped and Alice said: "Now I understand everything. I under stand why you reproached me for being too comfortable in my faith."
Eduard, however, didn't understand anything; so he too didn't say anything; when they had walked a bit farther, Alice said: "And you didn't say anything to me. Why didn't you say anything to me?"
"And what should I have said to you?" asked Eduard.
"Yes, that's really you," she said with quiet enthusiasm. "Others would put on airs, but you're silent. But that's exactly why I love you."
Eduard began to understand what she was talking about, but nevertheless he asked: "What are you talking about?"
"About what happened to you."
"And who told you about it?"
"Come on! Everybody knows about it. They summoned you, they threatened you, and you laughed in their faces. You didn't renounce anything. Everyone admires you."
"But I didn't tell anyone about it."
"Don't be naive. A thing like that gets around. After all, it's no small matter. How often nowadays do you find someone with some courage?"
Eduard knew that in a small town every event is quickly turned into a legend, but he hadn't suspected that the worthless episodes he'd been involved in, whose significance he'd never overestimated, possessed the stuff of which legends are made; he hadn't sufficiently realized how very useful he was to his fellow citizens who, as is well known, adore martyrs, for such men soothingly reassure them about their sweet
inactivity, and corroborate their view that life provides only one alternative: to obey or be destroyed. Nobody doubted that Eduard would be destroyed, and admiringly and complacently they all passed the news on, until now, through Alice, he himself encountered the splendid image of his own crucifixion. He reacted calmly and said: "But my not renouncing anything is completely natural. Anyone would else would do the same.''
"Anyone?" Alice shouted. "Look around to see how people behave! How cowardly they are! They'd renounce their own mothers!"
Eduard was silent, and Alice was silent. They walked along holding hands. Then Alice said in a whisper: "I would do anything for you."
No one had ever said such words to Eduard; they were an unexpected gift. Of course Eduard knew that they were an undeserved gift, but he said to himself that if fate withheld from him deserved gifts, he had a complete right to accept these undeserved ones. Therefore he said: "No one can do anything for me anymore."
"How's that?" whispered Alice.
"They'll drive me from the school, and those who speak of me today as a hero won't lift a finger for me. Only one thing is certain. I'll remain entirely alone."
"You won't," said Alice, shaking her head.
"I will," said Eduard.
"You won't!" Alice almost shouted.
"They've all abandoned me."
"I'll never abandon you," said Alice.
"You'll end up abandoning me too," said Eduard sadly.
"Never," said Alice.
"No, Alice," said Eduard. "You don't love me. You've never loved me."
"That's not true," whispered Alice, and Eduard noticed with satisfaction that her eyes were wet.
"You don't, Alice. A person can feel that sort of thing. You were always extremely cold to me. A woman who loves a man doesn't behave like that. I know that very well. And now you feel compassion for me, because you know they want to destroy me. But you don't really love me, and I don't want you to deceive yourself about it."
They walked still farther, silently, holding hands. Alice cried quietly for a while, then all at once she stopped walking and amid sobs she said: "No, that's not true. You have no right to say that. That's not true."