Part 8. Chapter 9.

These doubts fretted and harassed him, growing weaker or stronger from time to time, but never leaving him. He read and thought, and the more he read and the more he thought, the further he felt from the aim he was pursuing.

Of late in Moscow and in the country, since he had become convinced that he would find no solution in the materialists, he had read and re-read thoroughly Plato, Spinoza, Kant, Schelling, Hegel, and Schopenhauer, the philosophers who gave a non-materialistic explanation of life.

Their ideas seemed to him fruitful when he was reading or was himself seeking arguments to refute other theories, especially those of the materialists; but as soon as he began to read or sought for himself a solution of problems, the same thing always happened. As long as he followed the fixed definition of obscure words such as spirit, will, freedom, essence, purposely letting himself go into the snare of words the philosophers set for him, he seemed to comprehend something. Tant qu'il suivait la définition fixe de mots obscurs tels que esprit, volonté, liberté, essence, se laissant volontairement aller dans le piège des mots que les philosophes lui tendaient, il semblait comprendre quelque chose. But he had only to forget the artificial train of reasoning, and to turn from life itself to what had satisfied him while thinking in accordance with the fixed definitions, and all this artificial edifice fell to pieces at once like a house of cards, and it became clear that the edifice had been built up out of those transposed words, apart from anything in life more important than reason. Mais il n'avait qu'à oublier le train artificiel du raisonnement, et à se détourner de la vie elle-même à ce qui l'avait satisfait en pensant selon les définitions fixées, et tout cet édifice artificiel tomba en pièces à la fois comme un château de cartes, et il Il devint clair que l'édifice avait été construit à partir de ces mots transposés, en dehors de tout ce qui était dans la vie plus important que la raison.

At one time, reading Schopenhauer, he put in place of his will the word love , and for a couple of days this new philosophy charmed him, till he removed a little away from it. À un moment donné, lisant Schopenhauer, il a mis à la place de sa volonté le mot amour, et pendant quelques jours cette nouvelle philosophie l'a charmé, jusqu'à ce qu'il s'en éloigne un peu. But then, when he turned from life itself to glance at it again, it fell away too, and proved to be the same muslin garment with no warmth in it. Mais alors, quand il s'est détourné de la vie elle-même pour y jeter un coup d'œil à nouveau, il est également tombé et s'est avéré être le même vêtement de mousseline sans chaleur.

His brother Sergey Ivanovitch advised him to read the theological works of Homiakov. Levin read the second volume of Homiakov's works, and in spite of the elegant, epigrammatic, argumentative style which at first repelled him, he was impressed by the doctrine of the church he found in them. Levin a lu le deuxième volume des ouvrages d'Homiakov et, malgré le style élégant, épigrammatique et argumentatif qui l'a d'abord repoussé, il a été impressionné par la doctrine de l'Église qu'il y trouvait. He was struck at first by the idea that the apprehension of divine truths had not been vouchsafed to man, but to a corporation of men bound together by love—to the church. Il fut d'abord frappé par l'idée que l'appréhension des vérités divines n'avait pas été accordée à l'homme, mais à une corporation d'hommes liés par l'amour - à l'Église. What delighted him was the thought how much easier it was to believe in a still existing living church, embracing all the beliefs of men, and having God at its head, and therefore holy and infallible, and from it to accept the faith in God, in the creation, the fall, the redemption, than to begin with God, a mysterious, far-away God, the creation, etc. Ce qui le ravissait, c'était la pensée à quel point il était plus facile de croire en une église vivante encore existante, embrassant toutes les croyances des hommes, et ayant Dieu à sa tête, et donc saint et infaillible, et à partir d'elle d'accepter la foi en Dieu, dans la création, la chute, la rédemption, que de commencer par Dieu, un Dieu mystérieux et lointain, la création, etc. But afterwards, on reading a Catholic writer's history of the church, and then a Greek orthodox writer's history of the church, and seeing that the two churches, in their very conception infallible, each deny the authority of the other, Homiakov's doctrine of the church lost all its charm for him, and this edifice crumbled into dust like the philosophers' edifices. Mais ensuite, en lisant l'histoire d'un écrivain catholique de l'Église, puis l'histoire d'un écrivain grec orthodoxe de l'Église, et voyant que les deux Églises, dans leur conception même infaillible, nient chacune l'autorité de l'autre, la doctrine d'Homiakov sur l'Église. a perdu tout son charme pour lui, et cet édifice s'est effondré en poussière comme les édifices des philosophes. All that spring he was not himself, and went through fearful moments of horror.

"Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life's impossible; and that I can't know, and so I can't live," Levin said to himself. "In infinite time, in infinite matter, in infinite space, is formed a bubble-organism, and that bubble lasts a while and bursts, and that bubble is Me." "Dans un temps infini, dans une matière infinie, dans un espace infini, se forme un organisme-bulle, et cette bulle dure un moment et éclate, et cette bulle c'est Moi." It was an agonizing error, but it was the sole logical result of ages of human thought in that direction. C'était une erreur atroce, mais c'était le seul résultat logique de siècles de pensée humaine dans cette direction.

This was the ultimate belief on which all the systems elaborated by human thought in almost all their ramifications rested. C'était la croyance ultime sur laquelle reposaient tous les systèmes élaborés par la pensée humaine dans presque toutes leurs ramifications. It was the prevalent conviction, and of all other explanations Levin had unconsciously, not knowing when or how, chosen it, as anyway the clearest, and made it his own. C'était la conviction qui prévalait, et de toutes les autres explications que Levin avait inconsciemment, ne sachant ni quand ni comment, l'avait choisie, comme de toute façon la plus claire, et l'avait fait sienne.

But it was not merely a falsehood, it was the cruel jeer of some wicked power, some evil, hateful power, to whom one could not submit. Mais ce n'était pas simplement un mensonge, c'était la raillerie cruelle d'un pouvoir méchant, d'un pouvoir maléfique et haineux, auquel on ne pouvait pas se soumettre.

He must escape from this power. And the means of escape every man had in his own hands. He had but to cut short this dependence on evil. Il n'avait qu'à couper court à cette dépendance au mal. And there was one means—death.

And Levin, a happy father and husband, in perfect health, was several times so near suicide that he hid the cord that he might not be tempted to hang himself, and was afraid to go out with his gun for fear of shooting himself.

But Levin did not shoot himself, and did not hang himself; he went on living.