_February 1878._
‘THOU SHALT HEAR THE FOOL’S JUDGMENT....’--_PUSHKIN_
‘Thou shalt hear the fool’s judgment....’ You always told the truth, O
great singer of ours. You spoke it this time, too.
‘The fool’s judgment and the laughter of the crowd’ ... who has not known
the one and the other?
All that one can, and one ought to bear; and who has the strength, let him
despise it!
But there are blows which pierce more cruelly to the very heart.... A man
has done all that he could; has worked strenuously, lovingly, honestly....
And honest hearts turn from him in disgust; honest faces burn with
indignation at his name. ‘Be gone! Away with you!’ honest young voices
scream at him. ‘We have no need of you, nor of your work. You pollute our
dwelling-places. You know us not and understand us not.... You are our
enemy!’
What is that man to do? Go on working; not try to justify himself, and not
even look forward to a fairer judgment.
At one time the tillers of the soil cursed the traveller who brought the
potato, the substitute for bread, the poor man’s daily food.... They shook
the precious gift out of his outstretched hands, flung it in the mud,
trampled it underfoot.
Now they are fed with it, and do not even know their benefactor’s name.
So be it! What is his name to them? He, nameless though he be, saves them
from hunger.
Let us try only that what we bring should be really good food.
Bitter, unjust reproach on the lips of those you love.... But that, too,
can be borne....
‘Beat me! but listen!’ said the Athenian leader to the Spartan.
‘Beat me! but be healthy and fed!’ we ought to say.
_February 1878._