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sentence IS carried out, and he gets the twenty lashes, what will it
benefit you?"
"He will not again strike a woman," Ivan replied.
"What is it he will not do? He does not do anything worse than what you
are constantly doing!"
This conversation enraged Ivan, and he shouted: "Well, what did he do?
He beat a woman nearly to death, and even now he threatens to burn my
house! Must I bow to him for all this?"
The old man sighed deeply as he said: "You, Ivan, are strong and free to
go wherever you please, while I have been lying for years on the oven.
You think that you know everything and that I do not know anything. No!
you are still a child, and as such you cannot see that a kind of madness
controls your actions and blinds your sight. The sins of others are ever
before you, while you resolutely keep your own behind your back. I know
that what Gavryl did was wrong, but if he alone should do wrong there
would be no evil in the world. Do you think that all the evil in the
world is the work of one man alone? No! it requires two persons to work
much evil in the world. You see only the bad in Gavryl's character, but
you are blind to the evil that is in your own nature. If he alone were
bad and you good, then there would be no wrong."
The old man, after a pause, continued: "Who tore Gavryl's beard? Who
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