He jumped up from his place; there was even foam on his lips.
"On the contrary, Shatov, on the contrary," Stavrogin said, with remarkable seriousness and restraint, without rising from his place, "on the contrary, with your ardent words you've revived many extremely powerful recollections in me. I recognize in your words my own state of mind two years ago, and I shall no longer say to you, as I just did, that you have exaggerated my thoughts of that time. It even seems to me that they were still more exceptional, still more absolute, and I assure you for the third time that I would wish very much to confirm everything you've said, even to a word, but..."
"But you need a hare?"
"Wha-a-at?"
"Your own vile expression," Shatov laughed spitefully, sitting down again.”‘To make sauce from a hare, you need a hare; to have belief in God, you need a God,' you went around saying in Petersburg, I'm told, like Nozdryov, who wanted to catch a hare by its hind legs." [94]
"No, he was precisely boasting that he'd already caught it. Incidentally, though, allow me to trouble you with a question as well, the more so as it seems to me I now have full right to ask. Tell me about your hare—have you caught it, or is it still running around?"
"Do not dare to ask me in such words; use others, others!" Shatov suddenly trembled all over.
"As you wish, here are your others," Nikolai Vsevolodovich looked at him sternly. "I simply wanted to know: do you yourself believe in God, or not?"
"I believe in Russia, I believe in her Orthodoxy ... I believe in the body of Christ ... I believe that the new coming will take place in Russia ... I believe..." Shatov babbled frenziedly.
"But in God? In God?"
"I ... I will believe in God."
Not a muscle moved in Stavrogin's face. Shatov looked at him fierily, defiantly, as if he wanted to burn him with his eyes.
"But I didn't tell you I don't believe at all!" he finally cried. "I'm only letting you know that I am a wretched, boring book, and nothing more so far, so far... But perish my name! The point is in you, not me... I'm a man without talent, and can only give my blood, and nothing more, like any other man without talent. Perish my blood as well! I'm talking about you, I've been waiting here two years for you... I've just been dancing naked for you for half an hour. You, you alone could raise this banner! ..."
He did not finish, but leaned his elbows on the table and propped his head in both hands, as if in despair.
"I'll merely note, incidentally, as a strange thing," Stavrogin suddenly interrupted, "why is it that everyone is foisting some banner on me? Pyotr Verkhovensky is also convinced that I could 'raise their banner,' or so at least his words were conveyed to me. He's taken it into his head that I could play the role of Stenka Razin [95]for them, 'owing to my extraordinary capacity for crime'—also his words."
"How's that?" Shatov asked.”‘Owing to your extraordinary capacity for crime'?"
"Precisely."
"Hm. And is it true that you," he grinned spitefully, "is it true that in Petersburg you belonged to some secret society of bestial sensualists? Is it true that the Marquis de Sade [96]could take lessons from you? Is it true that you lured and corrupted children? Speak, do not dare to lie," he cried, completely beside himself, "Nikolai Stavrogin cannot lie before Shatov who hit him in the face! Speak everything, and if it's true, I'll kill you at once, right here, on the spot!"
"I did speak those words, but it was not I who offended children," said Stavrogin, but only after too long a silence. He turned pale, and his eyes lit up.
"But you spoke of it!" Shatov went on imperiously, not taking his flashing eyes from Stavrogin. "Is it true that you insisted you knew no difference in beauty between some brutal sensual stunt and any great deed, even the sacrifice of life for mankind? Is it true that you found a coincidence of beauty, a sameness of pleasure at both poles?"
"It's impossible to answer like this ... I won't answer," muttered Stavrogin, who could very well have gotten up and left, but did not get up and leave.
"I don't know why evil is bad and good is beautiful either, but I do know why the sense of this distinction is faded and effaced in such gentlemen as the Stavrogins," Shatov, trembling all over, would not let go. "Do you know why you married so disgracefully and basely then? Precisely because here the disgrace and senselessness reached the point of genius! Oh, you don't go straying along the verge, you boldly fly down headfirst. You married out of a passion for torture, out of a passion for remorse, out of moral sensuality. It was from nervous strain... The challenge to common sense was too enticing! Stavrogin and a scrubby, feebleminded, beggarly lame girl! When you bit the governor's ear, did you feel the sensuality of it? Did you? Idle, loafing young squire—did you feel it?"
"You're a psychologist," Stavrogin was turning paler and paler, "though you are partly mistaken about the reasons for my marriage ... And who, incidentally, could have given you all this information?" he forced himself to grin. "Could it be Kirillov? But he had no part in it..."
"You're turning pale?"
"What do you want, anyway?" Nikolai Vsevolodovich finally raised his voice. "I've sat for half an hour under your lash, you could at least politely let me go ... if you indeed have no reasonable purpose in acting this way with me."
"Reasonable purpose?"
"Undoubtedly. It was your duty at least to announce your purpose to me finally. I kept waiting for you to do so, but all I've found is frenzied spite. I ask you to open the gate for me."
He got up from the chair. Shatov rushed frantically after him.
"Kiss the earth, flood it with tears, ask forgiveness!" he cried out, seizing him by the shoulder.
"Anyhow, I didn't kill you... that morning ... I put both hands behind my back..." Stavrogin said, almost with pain, looking down.
"Say it all, say it all! You came to warn me about the danger, you allowed me to speak, you want to announce your marriage publicly tomorrow! ... Can't I see by your face that you're at grips with some awesome new thought?... Stavrogin, why am I condemned to believe in you unto ages of ages? Would I be able to talk like this with anyone else? I have chastity, yet I wasn't afraid of my nakedness, for I was speaking with Stavrogin. I wasn't afraid to caricature a great thought by my touch, for Stavrogin was listening to me... Won't I kiss your footprints when you've gone? I cannot tear you out of my heart, Nikolai Stavrogin!"
"I'm sorry I cannot love you, Shatov," Nikolai Vsevolodovich said coldly.