Page 1735 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

responsibility of beginning wars; that can only be done by
a government, which is called upon to do this, and is
driven inevitably into war. On the other hand, both
political science and common sense teach us that in

matters of state, and especially in the matter of war, private
citizens must forego their personal individual
Sergey Ivanovitch and Katavasov had their replies
ready, and both began speaking at the same time.
‘But the point is, my dear fellow, that there may be
cases when the government does not carry out the will of
the citizens and then the public asserts its will,’ said
Katavasov.
But evidently Sergey Ivanovitch did not approve of this
answer. His brows contracted at Katavasov’s words and he
said something else.
‘You don’t put the matter in its true light. There is no
question here of a declaration of war, but simply the
expression of a human Christian feeling. Our brothers,
one with us in religion and in race, are being massacred.
Even supposing they were not our brothers nor fellow-
Christians, but simply children, women, old people,
feeling is aroused and Russians go eagerly to help in
stopping these atrocities. Fancy, if you were going along
the street and saw drunken men beating a woman or a

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