“I too have heard that you were a man with self-control. But this is not the first time to-day that I’ve noticed your violent movements.” Doulebov made an effort to recover himself. He said more quietly: “It is a revolting pornography!” “And what do you call pornography?” asked Trirodov. “Don’t you know?” said Doulebov with a sarcastic smile. “Yes, I know,” said Trirodov. “In my conception every written lechery and disfigurement of beautiful truth to gratify the low instincts of the man-beast--that is pornography. Your thrice-assured State school--that is the true example of pornography.” “They walk about naked here!” squealed Doulebov. Trirodov retorted: “They will be healthier and cleaner than those children who leave your school.” Doulebov shouted: “Even your instructresses walk about naked. You’ve taken on depraved girls as instructresses.” Trirodov replied calmly: “That’s a lie!” The Headmaster said sharply and excitedly: “Your school--if this awful, impossible establishment can be called a school--will be closed at once. I will make the application to the District to-day.” Trirodov replied sharply: “That you can do.” Soon the visitors left in an ugly frame of mind. Doulebova hissed and waxed indignant the whole way back. “He’s clearly a dangerous man,” observed Kerbakh. CHAPTER XXXIII Piotr and Rameyev arrived at Trirodov’s together. Rameyev more than once said to Piotr that he had been very rude to Trirodov, and that he ought to smooth out matters somehow. Piotr agreed very unwillingly. Once more they talked about the war.[34] Trirodov asked Rameyev: “I think you see only a political significance in this war.” “And do you disagree with me?” asked Rameyev. “No,” said Trirodov, “I admit that. But, in my opinion, aside from the stupid and criminal actions of these or other individuals, there are more general causes. History has its own dialectic. Whether or not a war had taken place is all the same: there would have been a fated collision in any case, in one or another form; there would have begun the decisive struggle between two worlds, two comprehensions of the world, two moralities, Buddha and Christ.” “The teachings of Buddhism resemble those of Christianity considerably,” said Piotr. “That is its only value.” “Yes,” said Trirodov. “There appears to be a great resemblance at the first glance; but actually these two systems are as opposite as the poles. They are the affirmation and the denial of life, its Yes and its No, its irony and its lyricism. The affirmation, Yes, is Christianity; the denial, No, is Buddhism.” “That seems to me to be too much of a generalization,” said Rameyev. Trirodov continued: “I generalize for the sake of clearness. The present moment in history is especially convenient. It is history’s zenith hour. Now that Christianity has revealed the eternal contradiction of the world, we are passing through the poignant struggle of those two world conceptions.”