"You exclude yourself?" again escaped from Stavrogin.
"And you. You know, I thought of handing the whole world over to the Pope. Let him come out on foot, unshod, and show himself to the mob, as if to say: 'Look what I've been driven to!'—and everyone will swarm after him, even the army. The Pope on top, us around him, and under us—Shigalyovism. It's only necessary that the Internationale agree to the Pope; but it will. And the old codger will instantly agree. Besides, he has no other choice, so remember my words, ha, ha, ha, stupid? Tell me, is it stupid, or not?"
"Enough," Stavrogin muttered in vexation.
"Enough! Listen, I'm dropping the Pope! To hell with Shigalyovism! To hell with the Pope! We need actuality, not Shigalyovism, because Shigalyovism is a piece of jewelry. It's an ideal, it's for the future. Shigalyov is a jeweler and as stupid as every philanthropist. We need dirty work, and Shigalyov despises dirty work. Listen, the Pope will be in the West, and we, we will have you!"
"Leave me alone, drunk man!" Stavrogin muttered, and quickened his pace.
"Stavrogin, you are beautiful!" Pyotr Stepanovich cried out, almost in ecstasy. "Do you know that you are beautiful! The most precious thing in you is that you sometimes don't know it. Oh, I've studied you! I've often looked at you from the side, from a corner! There's even simpleheartedness and naivety in you, do you know that? There is, there still is! You must be suffering, and suffering in earnest, from this simpleheartedness. I love beauty. I am a nihilist, but I love beauty. Do nihilists not love beauty? They just don't love idols, but I love an idol! You are my idol! You insult no one, yet everyone hates you; you have the air of being everyone's equal, yet everyone is afraid of you—this is good. No one will come up and slap you on the shoulder. You're a terrible aristocrat. An aristocrat, when he goes among democrats, is captivating! It's nothing for you to sacrifice life, your own or someone else's. You are precisely what's needed. I, I need precisely such a man as you. I know no one but you. You are a leader, you are a sun, and I am your worm..."
He suddenly kissed his hand. A chill ran down Stavrogin's spine, and he jerked his hand away in fright. They stopped.
"Madman!" whispered Stavrogin.
"Maybe I'm raving, maybe I'm raving!" the other went on in a patter. "But I've thought up the first step. Shigalyov could never think up the first step. The Shigalyovs are many! But one man, only one man in Russia has invented the first step and knows how to do it. That man is me. Why are you staring at me? It's you I need, you, without you I'm a zero. Without you I'm a fly, an idea in a bottle, Columbus without America."
Stavrogin stood looking fixedly into his insane eyes.
"Listen, first we'll get trouble going," Verkhovensky was hurrying terribly, and kept seizing Stavrogin by the left sleeve every moment. "I've already told you: we'll penetrate among the people themselves. Do you know that we're already terribly strong now? Ours aren't only the ones who knife and burn, or perform classic pistol shots, or bite people. That kind only gets in the way. I can conceive of nothing without discipline. I'm a crook, really, not a socialist, ha, ha! Listen, I've counted them all up: the teacher who laughs with children at their God and at their cradle, is already ours. The lawyer who defends an educated murderer by saying that he's more developed than his victims and couldn't help killing to get money, is already ours. Schoolboys who kill a peasant just to see how it feels, are ours. Jurors who acquit criminals right and left, are ours. The prosecutor who trembles in court for fear of being insufficiently liberal, is ours, ours. Administrators, writers—oh, a lot of them, an awful lot of them are ours, and they don't know it themselves! On the other hand, the docility of schoolboys and little fools has reached the highest point; their mentors all have burst gallbladders; everywhere there is vanity in immeasurable measure, appetites beastly, unheard-of... Do you know, do you know how much we can achieve with little ready-made ideas alone? When I left, Littré's thesis that crime is insanity was raging; I come back— crime is no longer insanity but precisely common sense itself, almost a duty, at any rate a noble protest: 'But how can a developed murderer not murder, if he needs money!' [155]And this is just the fruit. The Russian God has already folded in the face of 'rotgut.' The people are drunk, mothers are drunk, children are drunk, the churches are empty, and in the courts it's 'two hundred strokes, or fetch us a pot.' Oh, just let this generation grow up! Only it's a pity there's no time to wait, otherwise they could get themselves even drunker! Ah, what a pity there are no proletarians! But there will be, there will be, we're getting there..."
"It's also a pity we've grown more stupid," Stavrogin muttered, and moved on his way.
"Listen, I myself saw a six-year-old child leading his drunken mother home, and she was swearing at him in foul language. You think I'm glad of that? When it's in our hands, we may even cure it ... if need be we'll drive them into the desert for forty years [156]... But one or two generations of depravity are necessary now, an unheard-of, mean little depravity, that turns men into vile, cowardly, cruel, self-loving slime—that's what's needed! And with a bit of 'fresh blood' to boot, for the sake of habit. Why are you laughing? I'm not contradicting myself. I'm only contradicting the philanthropists and Shigalyovism, not myself. I'm a crook, not a socialist. Ha, ha, ha! It's just a pity there's so little time. I promised Karmazinov I'd start in May and be done by the Protection. Too soon? Ha, ha! Do you know what I'm going to tell you, Stavrogin: so far there's been no cynicism in the Russian people, though they swear in foul language. Do you know that the enslaved serf had more self-respect than Karmazinov? He got flogged, but he upheld his gods, and Karmazinov did not."
"Well, Verkhovensky, I'm listening to you for the first time, and listening in amazement," said Nikolai Vsevolodovich. "So you're really not a socialist, but some sort of political... climber?"
"A crook, a crook. You're concerned about who I am? I'll tell you presently who I am, that's what I'm driving at. It was not for nothing that I just kissed your hand. But we need the people also to believe that we know what we want, and that the others are merely 'brandishing their cudgel and striking their own.' Eh, if only there was time! That's the one trouble—no time. We'll proclaim destruction... why, why, again this little idea is so captivating! But we've got to limber up. We'll get fires going... We'll get legends going... Here every mangy 'crew' will be of use. I'll find such zealots for you in these same 'crews' as would be ready for any kind of shooting and would even be grateful for the honor. Well, sir, so the trouble will start! Such a heaving will set in as the world has never seen ... Russia will be darkened with mist, the earth will weep for the old gods ... Well, sir, and then we'll bring out... whom?"
"Whom?"
"Ivan the Tsarevich." [157]
"Wh-o-om?"
"Ivan the Tsarevich—you, you!"
Stavrogin thought for a minute or so.
"An impostor?" [158]he suddenly asked in profound surprise, looking at the frenzied man. "Eh! so this at last is your plan."
"We'll say he's 'in hiding,’” Verkhovensky said softly, in a sort of amorous whisper, as if he were indeed drunk. "Do you know what this little phrase—'he is in hiding'—means? But he will appear, he will appear. We'll get a legend going better than the castrates'. [159]He exists, but no one has seen him. Oh, what a legend we can get going! And mainly—a new force is on the way. And this is what's needed, this is what the people are weeping for. What is there in socialism: it destroyed the old forces, but didn't bring any new ones. And here we have a force, and such a force, unheard-of! We need it just this once as a lever, to raise up the earth. Everything will rise!"