my next article I'll talk about
that perhaps. Thank you for reminding me."

And a week later my friend kept his promise. That was just at the
period--in the eighties--when people were beginning to talk and
write of non-resistance, of the right to judge, to punish, to make
war; when some people in our set were beginning to do without
servants, to retire into the country, to work on the land, and to
renounce animal food and carnal love.

After reading her brother's article, Vera Semyonovna pondered and
hardly perceptibly shrugged her shoulders.

"Very nice!" she said. "But still there's a great deal I don't
understand. For instance, in Leskov's story 'Belonging to the
Cathedral' there is a queer gardener who sows for the benefit of
all--for customers, for beggars, and any who care to steal. Did
he behave sensibly?"

From his sister's tone and expression Vladimir Semyonitch saw that
she did not like his article, and, almost for the first time in his
life, his vanity as an author sustained a shock. With a shade of
irritation he answered:

"Theft is immoral. To sow for thieves is to recognise the right of
thieves to existence. What would you think if I were to establish
a newspaper and, dividing it into sections, provide for blackmailing
as well as for liberal ideas? Following the example of that gardener,
I ought, logically, to provide a section for blackmailers, the
intellectual scoundrels? Yes."

Vera Semyonovna made no answer. She got up from the table, moved
languidly to the sofa and lay down.

"I don't know, I know nothing about it," she said musingly. "You
are probably right, but it seems to me, I feel somehow, that there's
something false in our resistance to evil, as though there were
something concealed or unsaid. God knows, perhaps our methods of
resisting evil belong to the category of prejudices which have
become so deeply rooted in us, that we are incapable of parting
with them, and therefore cannot form a correct judgment of them."

"How do you mean?"

"I don't know how to explain to you. Perhaps man is mistaken in
thinking that he is obliged to resist evil and has a right to do
so, just as he is mistaken in thinking, for instance, that the heart
looks like an ace of hearts. It is very possible in resisting evil
we ought not to use force, but to use what is the very opposite of
force--if you, for instance, don't want this picture stolen from
you, you ought to give it away rather than lock it up.