These doubts fretted1 and harassed2 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 reread thoroughly3 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 fat himself a solution of problems, the same thing always happened. As long as he followed the fixed4 definition of obscure words such as SPIRIT, WILL, FREEDOM, ESSENCE, purposely letting himself go into the snare5 of words the philosophers set for him, he seemed to comprehend something. 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 edifice6 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.
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. 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.
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 repelled7 him, he was impressed by the doctrine8 of the church he found in them. He was struck at first by the idea that the apprehension9 of divine truths had not been vouchsafed10 to man, but to a corporation of men bound together by love--to the church. 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. 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 crumbled11 into dust like the philosophers' edifices12.
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."
It was an agonizing13 error, but it was the sole logical result of ages of human thought in that direction.
This was the ultimate belief on which all the systems elaborated by human thought in almost all their ramifications14 rested. 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.
But it was not merely a falsehood, it was the cruel jeer15 of some wicked power, some evil, hateful power, to whom one could not submit.
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 dependence16 on evil. 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 tempted17 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.
1 fretted | |
焦躁的,附有弦马的,腐蚀的 | |
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2 harassed | |
adj. 疲倦的,厌烦的 动词harass的过去式和过去分词 | |
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3 thoroughly | |
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地 | |
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4 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
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5 snare | |
n.陷阱,诱惑,圈套;(去除息肉或者肿瘤的)勒除器;响弦,小军鼓;vt.以陷阱捕获,诱惑 | |
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6 edifice | |
n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿,教室) | |
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7 repelled | |
v.击退( repel的过去式和过去分词 );使厌恶;排斥;推开 | |
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8 doctrine | |
n.教义;主义;学说 | |
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9 apprehension | |
n.理解,领悟;逮捕,拘捕;忧虑 | |
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10 vouchsafed | |
v.给予,赐予( vouchsafe的过去式和过去分词 );允诺 | |
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11 crumbled | |
(把…)弄碎, (使)碎成细屑( crumble的过去式和过去分词 ); 衰落; 坍塌; 损坏 | |
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12 edifices | |
n.大建筑物( edifice的名词复数 ) | |
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13 agonizing | |
adj.痛苦难忍的;使人苦恼的v.使极度痛苦;折磨(agonize的ing形式) | |
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14 ramifications | |
n.结果,后果( ramification的名词复数 ) | |
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15 jeer | |
vi.嘲弄,揶揄;vt.奚落;n.嘲笑,讥评 | |
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16 dependence | |
n.依靠,依赖;信任,信赖;隶属 | |
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17 tempted | |
v.怂恿(某人)干不正当的事;冒…的险(tempt的过去分词) | |
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