Page:The Kingdom of God is within you, by Leo Tolstoy.pdf/348

 over, a majority of them can now read, and the books they read are not all such as exalt a military life; there are some which point out its immorality. Among them are often free-thinking comrades—who have enlisted voluntarily—or young officers of liberal ideas, and already the first germ of doubt has been sown in regard to the unconditional legitimacy and glory of their occupation.

It is true that they have all passed through that terrible, skillful education, elaborated through centuries, which kills all initiative in a man, and that they are so trained to me chanical obedience that at the word of command: "Fire! — All the line!—Fire! " and so on, their guns will rise of themselves and the habitual movements will be performed. But " Fire!" now does not mean shooting into the sand for amusement, it means firing on their broken-down, ex ploited fathers and brothers whom they see there in the crowd, with women and children shouting and waving their arms. Here they are—one with his scanty beard and patched coat and plaited shoes of reed, just like the father left at home in Kazan or Riazan province; one with gray beard and bent back, leaning on a staff like the old grand father; one, a young fellow in boots and a red shirt, just as he was himself a year ago—he, the soldier who must fire upon him.. There, too, a woman in reed shoes and panyova, just like the mother left at home.

Is it possible they must fire on them? And no one knows what each soldier will do at the last minute. The least word, the slightest allusion would be enough to stop them.

At the last moment they will all find themselves in the position of a hypnotized man to whom it has been suggested to chop a log, who coming up to what has been indicated to him as a log, with the ax already lifted to strike, sees that it is not a log but his sleeping brother. He may per form the act that has been suggested to him, and he may