War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy

[olyclimber]

this hurts me as much as its hurting you

[Squid]

The princess smiled. She rose with the same unchanging smile with

which she had first entered the room--the smile of a perfectly

beautiful woman. With a slight rustle of her white dress trimmed

with moss and ivy, with a gleam of white shoulders, glossy hair, and

sparkling diamonds, she passed between the men who made way for her,

not looking at any of them but smiling on all, as if graciously

allowing each the privilege of admiring her beautiful figure and

shapely shoulders, back, and bosom--which in the fashion of those days

were very much exposed--and she seemed to bring the glamour of a

ballroom with her as she moved toward Anna Pavlovna. Helene was so

lovely that not only did she not show any trace of coquetry, but on

the contrary she even appeared shy of her unquestionable and all too

victorious beauty. She seemed to wish, but to be unable, to diminish

its effect.

[olyclimber]

Oh, if I had done nothing simply from laziness! Heavens, how I should have respected myself, then. I should have respected myself because I should at least have been capable of being lazy; there would at least have been one quality, as it were, positive in me, in which I could have believed myself. Question: What is he? Answer: A sluggard; how very pleasant it would have been to hear that of oneself! It would mean that I was positively defined, it would mean that there was something to say about me. "Sluggard"–why, it is a calling and vocation, it is a career. Do not jest, it is so.

[Squid]

"How lovely!" said everyone who saw her; and the vicomte lifted

his shoulders and dropped his eyes as if startled by something

extraordinary when she took her seat opposite and beamed upon him also

with her unchanging smile.

[knotzen]

It all began in the room with the purple wall.

[olyclimber]

But these are all golden dreams. Oh, tell me, who was it first announced, who was it first proclaimed, that man only does nasty things because he does not know his own interests; and that if he were enlightened, if his eyes were opened to his real normal interests, man would at once cease to do nasty things, would at once become good and noble because, being enlightened and understanding his real advantage, he would see his own advantage in the good and nothing else, and we all know that not one man can, consciously, act against his own interests, consequently, so to say, through necessity, he would begin doing good?

[Squid]

"Madame, I doubt my ability before such an audience," said he,

smilingly inclining his head.

[olyclimber]

I have a friend for instance ... Ech! gentlemen, but of course he is your friend, too; and indeed there is no one, no one to whom he is not a friend! When he prepares for any undertaking this gentleman immediately explains to you, elegantly and clearly, exactly how he must act in accordance with the laws of reason and truth. What is more, he will talk to you with excitement and passion of the true normal interests of man; with irony he will upbraid the short- sighted fools who do not understand their own interests, nor the true significance of virtue; and, within a quarter of an hour, without any sudden outside provocation, but simply through something inside him which is stronger than all his interests, he will go off on quite a different tack–that is, act in direct opposition to what he has just been saying about himself, in opposition to the laws of reason, in opposition to his own advantage, in fact in opposition to everything ... I warn you that my friend is a compound personality and therefore it is difficult to blame him as an individual. The fact is, gentlemen, it seems there must really exist something that is dearer to almost every man than his greatest advantages, or (not to be illogical) there is a most advantageous advantage (the very one omitted of which we spoke just now) which is more important and more advantageous than all other advantages, for the sake of which a man if necessary is ready to act in opposition to all laws; that is, in opposition to reason, honour, peace, prosperity–in fact, in opposition to all those excellent and useful things if only he can attain that fundamental, most advantageous advantage which is dearer to him than all.

[Squid]

The princess rested her bare round arm on a little table and

considered a reply unnecessary. She smilingly waited. All the time the

story was being told she sat upright, glancing now at her beautiful

round arm, altered in shape by its pressure on the table, now at her

still more beautiful bosom, on which she readjusted a diamond

necklace. From time to time she smoothed the folds of her dress, and

whenever the story produced an effect she glanced at Anna Pavlovna, at

once adopted just the expression she saw on the maid of honor's

face, and again relapsed into her radiant smile.

[knotzen]

[olyclimber]

Yes, but here I come to a stop! Gentlemen, you must excuse me for being over-philosophical; it's the result of forty years underground! Allow me to indulge my fancy. You see, gentlemen, reason is an excellent thing, there's no disputing that, but reason is nothing but reason and satisfies only the rational side of man's nature, while will is a manifestation of the whole life, that is, of the whole human life including reason and all the impulses. And although our life, in this manifestation of it, is often worthless, yet it is life and not simply extracting square roots. Here I, for instance, quite naturally want to live, in order to satisfy all my capacities for life, and not simply my capacity for reasoning, that is, not simply one twentieth of my capacity for life.

[knotzen]

[Squid]

The little princess had also left the tea table and followed Helene.

[billcoe]

You guys get paid by the word?

[olyclimber]

Gentlemen, let us suppose that man is not stupid. (Indeed one cannot refuse to suppose that, if only from the one consideration, that, if man is stupid, then who is wise?) But if he is not stupid, he is monstrously ungrateful! Phenomenally ungrateful. In fact, I believe that the best definition of man is the ungrateful biped. But that is not all, that is not his worst defect; his worst defect is his perpetual moral obliquity, perpetual–from the days of the Flood to the Schleswig-Holstein period. Moral obliquity and consequently lack of good sense; for it has long been accepted that lack of good sense is due to no other cause than moral obliquity. Put it to the test and cast your eyes upon the history of mankind.

[Squid]

"Wait a moment, I'll get my work.... Now then, what are you thinking

of?" she went on, turning to Prince Hippolyte. "Fetch me my workbag."

[Squid]

There was a general movement as the princess, smiling and talking

merrily to everyone at once, sat down and gaily arranged herself in

her seat.

 

"Now I am all right," she said, and asking the vicomte to begin, she

took up her work.

[olyclimber]

You will scream at me (that is, if you condescend to do so) that no one is touching my free will, that all they are concerned with is that my will should of itself, of its own free will, coincide with my own normal interests, with the laws of nature and arithmetic.

[Squid]

Prince Hippolyte, having brought the workbag, joined the circle

and moving a chair close to hers seated himself beside her.

[olyclimber]

Good heavens, gentlemen, what sort of free will is left when we come to tabulation and arithmetic, when it will all be a case of twice two make four? Twice two makes four without my will. As if free will meant that!

[Dechristo]

It was a dark and stormy night... And all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even my louse.

Took a kerosene bath before bed, eh?

[Ireneo_Funes]

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:

 

-- Introibo ad altare Dei.

 

Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called up coarsely:

 

-- Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!

 

Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding country and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.

[Squid]

Le charmant Hippolyte was surprising by his extraordinary

resemblance to his beautiful sister, but yet more by the fact that

in spite of this resemblance he was exceedingly ugly. His features

were like his sister's, but while in her case everything was lit up by

a joyous, self-satisfied, youthful, and constant smile of animation,

and by the wonderful classic beauty of her figure, his face on the

contrary was dulled by imbecility and a constant expression of

sullen self-confidence, while his body was thin and weak. His eyes,

nose, and mouth all seemed puckered into a vacant, wearied grimace,

and his arms and legs always fell into unnatural positions.

[olyclimber]

Ha! ha! ha! But you know there is no such thing as choice in reality, say what you like, you will interpose with a chuckle. "Science has succeeded in so far analysing man that we know already that choice and what is called freedom of will is nothing else than--"

[Squid]

"It's not going to be a ghost story?" said he, sitting down beside

the princess and hastily adjusting his lorgnette, as if without this

instrument he could not begin to speak.

 

"Why no, my dear fellow," said the astonished narrator, shrugging

his shoulders.

 

"Because I hate ghost stories," said Prince Hippolyte in a tone

which showed that he only understood the meaning of his words after he

had uttered them.