Bachkov: I’d rather move under the shed and play dominoes with the boys, it’s getting too hot here.
Exits.
Andrei, grinning: I guess it’s the topic which got too hot for him.
Victor: He’s the most decent male-nurse we have here. He studies at a medical college, incidentally. There are also two drunkards from the nearby alcoholic ward; as for the third one, I have no idea who he is, but he has the manners of a criminal, and he associates with Sasha’s sort.
Andrei: To tell you the truth, of the three types you’ve mentioned it’s the «decent» type I trust least. When I got in a psychiatric hospital for the first time and they certified me as non compos mentis, I went on a hunger-strike, demanding a court trial. On its seventh day, the hospital administration ordered me force-fed. And there were two male-nurses on duty that day: a «decent» one, as you say, incidentally, a college student too, and the other, an ex-convict, with two prison terms for burglary. And it was this guy who refused to take part in my force-feeding. So they asked for volunteers among the patients – about two thirds of our ward were criminals, brought either for forensic examination or transferred from psychiatric prisons. Well, none of them volunteered. The two who did came from a «decent» background. So your thesis that morals and ethics begin when scheming ends, I can confirm by my own past experience.
Victor: Well, what I said was that the human mind cannot foresee all the consequences of human acts, which is why it resorts to such safety rules as morals and ethics. But taking into account that the human mind, as it becomes increasingly ego-centered, quickly turns to scheming, rather than reasoning, I think your way of putting it is quite correct. Moreover, it may be painful for you to hear, but your interpretation is close to
Lenin’s. He, too, was rather skeptical of the intellectuals’ worth, remarking that they are not the nation’s brain, but rather its bran, or excrement.
Andrei: I don’t know what he said on that score. Anyway I’m not going to replace Christ’s commandments with class morals, the way he and his gang did.
Victor: Never say «never», because to some extent he was right on that score too. Of course, the morals of a social class are a poor substitute for Christ’s commandments, or rather the moral-ethical norms of the
Cosmos…
Andrei: So, why was Lenin right, then?
Victor: He was right to a point because the degree of human receptiveness to Christ’s commandments, incidentally, based on love – that is, the capability of compassion and sacrifice – this receptiveness, indeed, depends on class consciousness: the more oppressed it is, the greater its capacity for compassion and sacrifice. It’s not so much our being, as our beatings, which determine our consciousness. Christ himself stressed that idea, remarking that it’s easier for a camel to pass through the needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Andrei: It’s no use arguing with you.
Victor: Why not? It’s in dispute that truth is discovered. Though our cellmates with criminal records, like
Sasha, would say that «He who argues isn’t worth shit».
Andrei: I’m afraid they are more correct under the present conditions.
Victor smiling: I see you are already learning the principle of relativity and condition. Incidentally, if I got you right, you live in Star City?
