XIII.
I renounced the life of our circle, having come to recognize that that was not life, but only a likeness of life, that the conditions of superabundance in which we lived deprived us of the possibility of understanding life, and that, in order that I might understand life, I had to understand not the life of the exceptions, not of us, the parasites of life, but the life of the simple working classes, of those who produced life, and the meaning which they ascribed to it. The simple working classes about me were the Russian masses, and I turned to them and to the meaning which they ascribed to life. This meaning, if it can be expressed, was like this:
Every man has come into this world by the will of God. God has so created man that every man may either ruin his soul or save it. The problem of each man in life is to save his soul; in order to save his soul, he must live according to God’s command, and to live according to God’s command, he must renounce all the solaces of life, must work, be humble, suffer, and be merciful. The masses draw this meaning from the whole doctrine, transmitted to them by past and present pastors and by tradition, which lives among the masses.
This meaning was clear to me and near to my heart. But with this meaning of the popular faith, our non-dissenting masses, among whom I lived, inseparably connect much which repelled me and seemed inexplicable to me: the sacraments, the church service, the fasts, the worshipping of relics and images. The masses cannot separate
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