Absorbing Question

When the nose itches can the mind choose what is next to occur; or is the finger predestined to scratch or not to scratch? This absorbing question, baffling to speculators of every age,* was recently discussed again, at Ufa, between a 19-year-old student, Sergei Slovochotov, and his fiancee, Zina Jukova, 16, in the presence of half a dozen student friends. "There is no limit to freedom of the will!" raged Student Slovo-chotov, "I am prepared to do anything at any time!" "Prepared to commit murder--?" taunted the petite, personable Zina. "You couldn't kill me, could you Sergei?" "Yes, I swear it! If anyone here will sign a document saying I am not to blame, I am ready to kill that person without hesitation, drink two bottles of beer afterwards, go to the cinema, and then give myself up to the police." From her small purse Zina Jukova produced a bit of paper and a pencil. Pursing her lips, she wrote. "Draw that long Finnish knife you have, Sergei!" she laughed. "Here is your paper." Trembling, Student Slovochotov drew his knife. The girl, still laughing, unbuttoned her bodice with one hand, threw back her head, and pouted her lips to receive a kiss. . . . Some hours later Sergei Slovochotov gave himself up to the police. Before that he had sat through a cinema show. Before that he had gulped down two bottles of beer. Before that he had plunged his long Finnish knife into Zina Jukova's warm flesh and through her heart. Last week the High Court at Moscow ruled that the murderer was of completely sound mind, and had acted without malice. He was sentenced to nine years of solitary confinement. Meanwhile questions loomed: "Could Sergei Slovochotov have chosen between killing his fiancee and kissing her? Could Zina Jukova have chosen between experimenting with her sex appeal and keeping still? Were they free-willed tragic fools, or was their fate predestined and so neither comedy nor tragedy?"

* Dr. Samuel Johnson probably best expressed the opinion of Anglo-Saxons on this point. Said he: "All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience for it. . . . We know our will is free, and there't an end on't!"