The narrator and main character in VN's novel Otchayanie (“Despair,” 1934), Hermann is an atheist:
Небытие Божье доказывается просто. Невозможно допустить, например, что некий серьезный Сый, всемогущий и всемудрый, занимался бы таким пустым делом, как игра в человечки, – да притом – и это, может быть, самое несуразное – ограничивая свою игру пошлейшими законами механики, химии, математики, – и никогда – заметьте, никогда! – не показывая своего лица, а разве только исподтишка, обиняками, по-воровски – какие уж тут откровения! – высказывая спорные истины из-за спины нежного истерика. Все это божественное является, полагаю я, великой мистификацией, в которой, разумеется, уж отнюдь не повинны попы: они сами – ее жертвы. Идею Бога изобрел в утро мира талантливый шелопай, – как-то слишком отдает человечиной эта самая идея, чтобы можно было верить в ее лазурное происхождение, – но это не значит, что она порождена невежеством, – шелопай мой знал толк в горних делах, – и право, не знаю, какой вариант небес мудрее: ослепительный плеск многоочитых ангелов или кривое зеркало, в которое уходит, бесконечно уменьшаясь, самодовольный профессор физики. Я не могу, не хочу в Бога верить еще и потому, что сказка о нем, – не моя, чужая, всеобщая сказка, – она пропитана неблаговонными испарениями миллионов других людских душ, повертевшихся в мире и лопнувших; в ней кишат древние страхи, в ней звучат, мешаясь и стараясь друг друга перекричать, неисчислимые голоса, в ней – глубокая одышка органа, рев дьякона, рулады кантора, негритянский вой, пафос речистого пастора, гонги, громы, клокотание кликуш, в ней просвечивают бледные страницы всех философий, как пена давно разбившихся волн, она мне чужда и противна, и совершенно не нужна.
The nonexistence of God is simple to prove. Impossible to concede, for example, that a serious Jah, all wise and almighty, could employ his time in such inane fashion as playing with manikins, and--what is still more incongruous--should restrict his game to the dreadfully trite laws of mechanics, chemistry, mathematics, and never--mind you, never!--show his face, but allow himself surreptitious peeps and circumlocutions, and the sneaky whispering (revelations, indeed!) of contentious truths from behind the back of some gentle hysteric.
All this divine business is, I presume, a huge hoax for which priests are certainly not to blame; priests themselves are its victims. The idea of God was invented in the small hours of history by a scamp who had genius; it somehow reeks too much of humanity, that idea, to make its azure origin plausible; by which I do not mean that it is the fruit of crass ignorance; that scamp of mine was skilled in celestial lore--and really I wonder which variation of Heaven is best: that dazzle of argus-eyed angels fanning their wings, or that curved mirror in which a self-complacent professor of physics recedes, getting ever smaller and smaller. There is yet another reason why I cannot, nor wish to, believe in God: the fairy tale about him is not really mine, it belongs to strangers, to all men; it is soaked through by the evil-smelling effluvia of millions of other souls that have spun about a little under the sun and then burst; it swarms with primordial fears; there echoes in it a confused choir of numberless voices striving to drown one another; I hear in it the boom and pant of the organ, the roar of the orthodox deacon, the croon of the cantor, Negroes wailing, the flowing eloquency of the Protestant preacher, gongs, thunderclaps, spasms of epileptic women; I see shining through it the pallid pages of all philosophies like the foam of long-spent waves; it is foreign to me, and odious and absolutely useless. (Chapter Six)
In Part One of his Ethics (1677), “On God,” Spinoza says that God necessarily exists:
Proposition 11: God, or substance, consisting of infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality, necessarily exists.
Proof—If this be denied, conceive, if possible, that God does not exist: then his essence does not involve existence. But this (Proposition 7) is absurd. Therefore God necessarily exists.
Another proof—Of everything whatsoever a cause or reason must be assigned, either for its existence, or for its non-existence—e.g., if a triangle exist, a reason or cause must be granted for its existence; if, on the contrary, it does not exist, a cause must also be granted, which prevents it from existing, or annuls its existence. This reason or cause must either be contained in the nature of the thing in question, or be external to it. For instance, the reason for the non-existence of a square circle is indicated in its nature, namely, because it would involve a contradiction. On the other hand, the existence of substance follows also solely from its nature, inasmuch as its nature involves existence. (See Proposition 7.)
But the reason for the existence of a triangle or a circle does not follow from the nature of those figures, but from the order of universal nature in extension. From the latter it must follow, either that a triangle necessarily exists, or that it is impossible that it should exist. So much is self-evident. It follows therefrom that a thing necessarily exists, if no cause or reason be granted which prevents its existence.
If, then, no cause or reason can be given, which prevents the existence of God, or which destroys his existence, we must certainly conclude that he necessarily does exist. If such a reason or cause should be given, it must either be drawn from the very nature of God, or be external to him—that is, drawn from another substance of another nature. For if it were of the same nature, God, by that very fact, would be admitted to exist. But substance of another nature could have nothing in common with God (by Proposition 2), and therefore would be unable either to cause or to destroy his existence.
As, then, a reason or cause which would annul the divine existence cannot be drawn from anything external to the divine nature, such cause must perforce, if God does not exist, be drawn from God’s own nature, which would involve a contradiction. To make such an affirmation about a being absolutely infinite and supremely perfect is absurd; therefore, neither in the nature of God, nor externally to his nature, can a cause or reason be assigned which would annul his existence. Therefore, God necessarily exists. Q.E.D.
Another proof—The potentiality of non-existence is a negation of power, and contrariwise the potentiality of existence is a power, as is obvious. If, then, that which necessarily exists is nothing but finite beings, such finite beings are more powerful than a being absolutely infinite, which is obviously absurd; therefore, either nothing exists, or else a being absolutely infinite necessarily exists also. Now we exist either in ourselves, or in something else which necessarily exists (see Axiom 1 and Proposition 7). Therefore a being absolutely infinite—in other words, God (Definition 6)—necessarily exists. Q.E.D.
Q.E.D. is the abbreviation of quod erat demonstrandum (which was to be demonstrated), a Latin phrase used by Hermann (in Otchayanie, the Latin phrase quod erat demonstrandum is written in Russian characters) in the last, eleventh, chapter of Despair:
30 марта 1931 г.
Я на новом месте: приключилась беда. Думал, что будет всего десять глав, – ан нет! Теперь вспоминаю, как уверенно, как спокойно, несмотря ни на что, я дописывал десятую, – и не дописал: горничная пришла убирать номер, я от нечего делать вышел в сад, – и меня обдало чем-то тихим, райским. Я даже сначала не понял, в чем дело, – но встряхнулся, и вдруг меня осенило: ураганный ветер, дувший все эти дни, прекратился.
Воздух был дивный, летал шелковистый ивовый пух, вечнозеленая листва прикидывалась обновленной, отливали смуглой краснотой обнаженные наполовину, атлетические торсы пробковых дубов. Я пошел вдоль шоссе, мимо покатых бурых виноградников, где правильными рядами стояли голые еще лозы, похожие на приземистые корявые кресты, а потом сел на траву и, глядя через виноградники на золотую от цветущих кустов макушку холма, стоящего по пояс в густой дубовой листве, и на глубокое-глубокое, голубое-голубое небо, подумал с млеющей нежностью (ибо, может быть, главная, хоть и тайная, черта моей души – нежность), что начинается новая простая жизнь, тяжелые творческие сны миновали… Вдали, со стороны гостиницы, показался автобус, и я решил в последний раз позабавиться чтением берлинских газет. В автобусе я сперва притворялся спящим (и даже улыбался во сне), заметя среди пассажиров представителя ветчины, но вскоре заснул по-настоящему.
Добыв в Иксе газету, я раскрыл ее только по возвращении домой и начал читать, благодушно посмеиваясь. И вдруг расхохотался вовсю: автомобиль мой был найден.
Его исчезновение объяснилось так: трое молодцов, шедших десятого марта утром по шоссе, – безработный монтер, знакомый нам уже парикмахер и брат парикмахера, юноша без определенных занятий, – завидели на дальней опушке леса блеск радиатора и тотчас подошли. Парикмахер, человек положительный, чтивший закон, сказал, что надобно дождаться владельца, а если такового не окажется, отвести машину в Кенигсдорф, но его брат и монтер, оба озорники, предложили другое. Парикмахер возразил, что этого не допустит, и углубился в лес, посматривая по сторонам. Вскоре он нашел труп. Он поспешил обратно к опушке, зовя товарищей, но с ужасом увидел, что ни их, ни машины нет: умчались. Некоторое время он валандался кругом да около, дожидаясь их. Они не вернулись. Вечером он наконец решился рассказать полиции о своей находке, но из братолюбия скрыл историю с машиной.
Теперь же оказывалось, что те двое, сломав машину, спрятали ее, сами притаились было, но погодя благоразумно объявились. "В автомобиле, – добавляла газета, – найден предмет, устанавливающий личность убитого".
Сперва я по ошибке прочел "убийцы" и еще пуще развеселился, ибо ведь с самого начала было известно, что автомобиль принадлежит мне, – но перечел и задумался. Эта фраза раздражала меня. В ней была какая-то глупая таинственность. Конечно, я сразу сказал себе, что это либо новая уловка, либо нашли что-нибудь такое же важное, как пресловутая водка. Но все-таки мне стало неприятно, – и некоторое время я даже перебирал в памяти все предметы, участвовавшие в деле (вспомнил и тряпку, и гнусную голубую гребенку), и так как я действовал тогда отчетливо, уверенно, то без труда все проследил и нашел в порядке. Квод эрат демонстрандум.
I have moved to a slightly higher altitude: disaster made me shift my quarters.
I thought there would be ten chapters in all--my mistake! It is odd to remember how firmly, how composedly, in spite of everything, I was bringing the tenth one to a close; which I did not quite manage--and happened to break my last paragraph on a rhyme to "gasp." The maid bustled in to make up my room, so having nothing better to do, I went down into the garden; and there a heavenly, soft stillness enfolded me. At first I did not even realize what was the matter, but I shook myself and suddenly understood, the hurricane wind which had been raging lately was stilled.
The air was divine, there drifted about the silky floss of sallows; even the greenery of indeciduous leafage tried to look renovated; and the half-bared, athletic torsos of the cork oaks glistened a rich red.
I strolled along the main road; on my right, the swarthy vineyards slanted, their still naked shoots standing in uniform pattern and looking like crouching, crooked cemetery crosses. Presently I sat down on the grass, and as I looked across the vineyards at the golden gorse-clad top of a hill, which was up to its shoulders in thick oak foliage, and at the deep-deep blue-blue sky, I reflected with a kind of melting tenderness (for perhaps the essential, though hidden, feature of my soul is tenderness) that a new simple life had started, leaving the burden of laborious fantasies behind. Then, afar, from the direction of my hotel, the motorbus appeared and I decided to amuse myself for the very last time with reading Berlin papers. Once in the bus, I feigned to sleep (and pushed that performance to smiling in my dream), because I noticed, among the passengers, the commercial traveler in ham; but soon I fell asleep authentically.
Having obtained what I wanted in town, I opened the newspaper only when I got back, and with a good-humored chuckle settled down to its perusal. All at once I laughed outright: the car had been discovered.
Its vanishing received the following explanation: three boon companions walking, on the morning of the tenth of March, along the highway--an unemployed mechanic, the hairdresser we already know, and the hairdresser's brother, a youth with no fixed occupation--espied on the distant fringe of the forest the gleam of a car's radiator and incontinently made towards it. The hairdresser, a staid, law-abiding man, then said that one ought to wait for the owner and, if he did not turn up, drive the car to the police station at Koenigsdorf, but his brother and the mechanic, both liking a bit of fun, had another suggestion to make. The hairdresser retorted, however, that he would not allow anything of the sort; and he went deeper into the wood, looking about him as he did so. Soon he came upon the corpse. He hurried back, halloing for his comrades, and was horrified at not finding either them or the car. For some time he loitered about, thinking they might return. They did not. Towards evening he at last made up his mind to inform the police of his "gruesome discovery," but, being a loving brother, he said nothing about the car.
What transpired now was that those two scamps had soon damaged my Icarus, which they eventually hid, intending to lie low themselves, but then thought better of it and surrendered. "In the car"--the report added--"an object was found settling the murdered man's identity."
First, by a slip of the eye, I read "the murderer's identity" and this increased my hilarity, for was it not known from the very beginning that the car belonged to me? But a second reading set me thinking.
That phrase irritated me. There was some silly hugger-mugger about it. Of course, I at once told myself that either it was some new catch, or else they had found something of no more importance than that ridiculous vodka. Still, it worried me--and for a while I was conscientious enough to check in my mind all the articles that had taken part in the affair (I even remembered the rag he used for a handkerchief and his revolting comb) and as I had acted at the time with sharp and sure accuracy, I now had no difficulty in working back and was satisfied to find everything in order. Q.E.D.
In VN’s novel Hermann kills Felix, a tramp whom Hermann believes to be his perfect double. In Proposition 2 Spinoza (who has fifteen Propositions) says:
Two substances, whose attributes are different, have nothing in common.
The Propositions of Spinoza's Ethics are derived from the Axioms and Definitions. According to Hermann, the official definitions in the brief list of Felix’s personal features did not quite correspond with the epithets in his own passport:
Я пришел на станцию вовремя. Через десять минут услужливым привидением явился нужный мне поезд. Половину ночи я ехал в громыхающем, валком вагоне на твердой скамейке, и рядом со мной двое пожилых мужчин играли в карты, – и карты были необыкновенные – большие, красно-зеленые, с желудями. За полночь была пересадка; еще два часа езды – уже на запад, – а утром я пересел в скорый. Только тогда, в уборной, я осмотрел содержимое мешка. В нем, кроме сунутого давеча, было немного белья, кусок колбасы, три больших изумрудных яблока, подошва, пять марок в дамском кошельке, паспорт и мои к Феликсу письма. Яблоки и колбасу я тут же в уборной съел, письма положил в карман, паспорт осмотрел с живейшим интересом. Странное дело, – Феликс на снимке был не так уж похож на меня, – конечно, это без труда могло сойти за мою фотографию, – но все-таки мне было странно, – и тут я подумал: вот настоящая причина тому, что он мало чувствовал наше сходство; он видел себя таким, каким был на снимке или в зеркале, то есть как бы справа налево, не так, как в действительности. Людская глупость, ненаблюдательность, небрежность – все это выражалось в том, между прочим, что даже определения в кратком перечне его черт не совсем соответствовали эпитетам в собственном моем паспорте, оставленном дома. Это пустяк, но пустяк характерный. А в рубрике профессии он, этот олух, игравший на скрипке, вероятно, так, как в России играли на гитарах летним вечером лакеи, был назван "музыкантом", – что сразу превращало в музыканта и меня. Вечером, в пограничном городке, я купил себе чемодан, пальто и так далее, а мешок с его вещами и моим браунингом, – нет, не скажу, что я с ними сделал, как спрятал: молчите, рейнские воды. И уже одиннадцатого марта очень небритый господин в черном пальтишке был за границей.
I reached the station in time. Ten minutes later, with the serviceableness of an apparition, there arrived the train I wanted. I spent half the night in a clattering, swaying third-class carriage, on a hard bench, and next to me were two elderly men, playing cards, and the cards they used were extraordinary: large, red and green, with acorns and beehives. After midnight I had to change; a couple of hours later I was already moving westwards; then, in the morning, I changed anew, this time into a fast train. Only then, in the solitude of the lavatory, did I examine the contents of the knapsack. Besides the things crammed into it lately (blood-stained handkerchief included), I found a few shirts, a piece of sausage, two large apples, a leathern sole, five marks in a lady's purse, a passport; and my letters to Felix. The apples and sausage I ate there and then, in the W.C.; but I put the letters into my pocket and examined the passport with the liveliest interest. It was in good order. He had been to Mons and Metz. Oddly enough, his pictured face did not resemble mine closely; it could, of course, easily pass for my photo--still, that made an odd impression upon me, and I remember thinking that here was the real cause of his being so little aware of our likeness: he saw himself in a glass, that is to say, from right to left, not sunway as in reality. Human fat-headedness, carelessness, slackness of senses, all this was revealed by the fact that even the official definitions in the brief list of personal features did not quite correspond with the epithets in my own passport (left at home). A trifle to be sure, but a characteristic one. And under "profession," he, that numbskull, who had played the fiddle, surely, in the way lackadaisical footmen in Russia used to twang guitars on summer evenings, was called a "musician," which at once turned me into a musician too. Later in the day, at a small border town, I purchased a suitcase, an overcoat, and so forth, upon which both bag and gun were discarded--no, I will not say what I did with them: be silent, Rhenish waters! And presently, a very unshaven gentleman in a cheap black overcoat was on the safer side of the frontier and heading south. (Chapter Nine)
Spinoza’s Proposition 5 is, perhaps, also worth quoting:
There cannot exist in the universe two or more substances having the same nature or attribute.
Proof—If several distinct substances be granted, they must be distinguished one from the other, either by the difference of their attributes, or by the difference of their modifications (Proposition 4). If only by the difference of their attributes, it will be granted that there cannot be more than one with an identical attribute. If by the difference of their modifications—as substance is naturally prior to its modifications (Proposition 1)—it follows that setting the modifications aside, and considering substance in itself, that is truly, (Definitions 3 and 6), there cannot be conceived one substance different from another—that is (by Proposition 4), there cannot be granted several substances, but one substance only. Q.E.D.