"That's just what it doesn't do. Society has not the means of doing either the one thing or the other."
"How is that? I don't understand," said Rogozhinsky with a forced smile.
"I mean that only two reasonable kinds of punishment exist. Those used in the old days: corporal and capital punishment, which, as human nature gradually softens, come more and more into disuse," said Nekhludoff.
"There, now, this is quite new and very strange to hear from your lips."
"Yes, it is reasonable to hurt a man so that he should not do in future what he is hurt for doing, and it is also quite reasonable to cut a man's head off when he is injurious or dangerous to society. These punishments have a reasonable meaning. But what sense is there in locking up in a prison a man perverted by want of occupation and bad example; to place him in a position where he is provided for, where laziness is imposed on him, and where he is in company with the most perverted of men? What reason is there to take a man at public cost (it comes to more than 500 roubles per head) from the Toula to the Irkoatsk government, or from Koursk--"
"Yes, but all the same, people are afraid of those journeys at public cost, and if it were not for such journeys and the prisons, you and I would not be sitting here as we are."
"The prisons cannot insure our safety, because these people do not stay there for ever, but are set free again. On the contrary, in those establishments men are brought to the greatest vice and degradation, so that the danger is increased."
"You mean to say that the penitentiary system should be improved."
"It cannot he improved. Improved prisons would cost more than all that is being now spent on the people's education, and would lay a still heavier burden on the people."
"The shortcomings of the penitentiary system in nowise invalidate the law itself," Rogozhinsky continued again, without heeding his brother-in-law.
"There is no remedy for these shortcomings," said Nekhludoff, raising his voice.
"What of that? Shall we therefore go and kill, or, as a certain statesman proposed, go putting out people's eyes?" Rogozhinsky remarked.
"Yes; that would be cruel, but it would be effective. What is done now is cruel, and not only ineffective, but so stupid that one cannot understand how people in their senses can take part in so absurd and cruel a business as criminal law."
"But I happen to take part in it," said Rogozhinsky, growing pale.
"That is your business. But to me it is incomprehensible."
"I think there are a good many things incomprehensible to you," said Rogozhinsky, with a trembling voice.
"I have seen how one public prosecutor did his very best to get an unfortunate boy condemned, who could have evoked nothing but sympathy in an unperverted mind. I know how another cross-examined a sectarian and put down the reading of the Gospels as a criminal offence; in fact, the whole business of the Law Courts consists in senseless and cruel actions of that sort."
"I should not serve if I thought so," said Rogozhinsky, rising.
Nekhludoff noticed a peculiar glitter under his brother-in-law's spectacles. "Can it be tears?" he thought. And they were really tears of injured pride. Rogozhinsky went up to the window, got out his handkerchief, coughed and rubbed his spectacles, took them off, and wiped his eyes.
When he returned to the sofa he lit a cigar, and did not speak any more.
Nekhludoff felt pained and ashamed of having offended his brother-in-law and his sister to such a degree, especially as he was going away the next day.
He parted with them in confusion, and drove home.
"All I have said may be true--anyhow he did not reply. But it was not said in the right way. How little I must have changed if I could be carried away by ill-feeling to such an extent as to hurt and wound poor Nathalie in such a way!" he thought.
