Book 2 Chapter 27 The State Church and the People

"It all depends on him. He will be consulted, anyhow. And perhaps
he may himself meet your wishes."

"If you advise it I shall go."

"That's right. Well, and how does Petersburg agree with you?"
shouted Bogatyreff. "Tell me. Eh?"

"I feel myself getting hypnotised," replied Nekhludoff.

"Hypnotised!" Bogatyreff repeated, and burst out laughing. "You
won't have anything? Well, just as you please," and he wiped his
moustaches with his napkin. "Then you'll go? Eh? If he does not
do it, give the petition to me, and I shall hand it on
to-morrow." Shouting these words, he rose, crossed himself just
as naturally as he had wiped his mouth, and began buckling on his
sword.

"And now good-bye; I must go. We are both going out," said
Nekhludoff, and shaking Bogatyreff's strong, broad hand, and with
the sense of pleasure which the impression of something healthy
and unconsciously fresh always gave him, Nekhludoff parted from
Bogatyreff on the door-steps.

Though he expected no good result from his visit, still
Nekhludoff, following Bogatyreff's advice, went to see Toporoff,
on whom the sectarians' fate depended.

The position occupied by Toporoff, involving as it did an
incongruity of purpose, could only be held by a dull man devoid
of moral sensibility. Toporoff possessed both these negative
qualities. The incongruity of the position he occupied was this.
It was his duty to keep up and to defend, by external measures,
not excluding violence, that Church which, by its own
declaration, was established by God Himself and could not be
shaken by the gates of hell nor by anything human. This divine
and immutable God-established institution had to be sustained and
defended by a human institution--the Holy Synod, managed by
Toporoff and his officials. Toporoff did not see this
contradiction, nor did he wish to see it, and he was therefore
much concerned lest some Romish priest, some pastor, or some
sectarian should destroy that Church which the gates of hell
could not conquer.