"Oh, get along with you! An inveterate supporter of serfdom at
heart, like all of them!" said Sviazhsky.
"Whose marshal you are."
"Yes, only I marshal them in the other direction," said
Sviazhsky, laughing.
"I'll tell you what interests me very much," said Levin. "He's
right that our system, that's to say of rational farming, doesn't
answer, that the only thing that answers is the money-lender
system, like that meek-looking gentleman's, or else the very
simplest.... Whose fault is it?"
"Our own, of course. Besides, it's not true that it doesn't
answer. It answers with Vassiltchikov."
"A factory..."
"But I really don't know what it is you are surprised at. The
people are at such a low stage of rational and moral development,
that it's obvious they're bound to oppose everything that's
strange to them. In Europe, a rational system answers because
the people are educated; it follows that we must educate the
people--that's all."
"But how are we to educate the people?"
"To educate the people three things are needed: schools, and
schools, and schools.
"But you said yourself the people are at such a low stage of
material development: what help are schools for that?"
"Do you know, you remind me of the story of the advice given to
the sick man--You should try purgative medicine. Taken: worse.
Try leeches. Tried them: worse. Well, then, there's nothing
left but to pray to God. Tried it: worse. That's just how it is
with us. I say political economy; you say--worse. I say
socialism: worse. Education: worse."
"But how do schools help matters?"
"They give the peasant fresh wants."
"Well, that's a thing I've never understood," Levin replied with
heat. "In what way are schools going to help the people to
improve their material position? You say schools, education,
will give them fresh wants. So much the worse, since they won't
be capable of satisfying them. And in what way a knowledge of
addition and subtraction and the catechism is going to improve
their material condition, I never could make out. The day
before yesterday, I met a peasant woman in the evening with a
little baby, and asked her where she was going. She said she was
going to the wise woman; her boy had screaming fits, so she was
taking him to be doctored. I asked, 'Why, how does the wise
woman cure screaming fits?' 'She puts the child on the hen-roost
and repeats some charm....' "