"H'm! And is it true?" he asked, with an angry smile. "Is it true that when you were in Petersburg you belonged to a secret society for practising beastly sensuality?
Is it true that you could give lessons to the Marquis de Sade?
Is it true that you decoyed and corrupted children?
Speak, don't dare to lie," he cried, beside himself. "Nikolay Stavrogin cannot lie to Shatov, who struck him in the face.
Tell me everything, and if it's true I'll kill you, here, on the spot!"
"I did talk like that, but it was not I who outraged children," Stavrogin brought out, after a silence that lasted too long.
He turned pale and his eyes gleamed.
"But you talked like that," Shatov went on imperiously, keeping his flashing eyes fastened upon him.
"Is it true that you declared that you saw no distinction in beauty between some brutal obscene action and any great exploit, even the sacrifice of life for the good of humanity?
Is it true that you have found identical beauty, equal enjoyment, in both extremes?"
"It's impossible to answer like this.... I won't answer," muttered Stavrogin, who might well have got up and gone away, but who did not get up and go away.
"I don't know either why evil is hateful and good is beautiful, but I know why the sense of that distinction is effaced and lost in people like the Stavrogins," Shatov persisted, trembling all over. "Do you know why you made that base and shameful marriage?
Simply because the shame and senselessness of it reached the pitch of genius!
Oh, you are not one of those who linger on the brink. You fly head foremost.
You married from a passion for martyrdom, from a craving for remorse, through moral sensuality.
It was a laceration of the nerves... Defiance of common sense was too tempting.
Stavrogin and a wretched, half-witted, crippled beggar!
When you bit the governor's ear did you feel sensual pleasure?
Did you?
You idle, loafing, little snob. Did you?"
"You're a psychologist," said Stavrogin, turning paler and paler, "though you're partly mistaken as to the reasons of my marriage. But who can have given you all this information?" he asked, smiling, with an effort. "Was it Kirillov?
But he had nothing to do with it."
"You turn pale."
"But what is it you want?" Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch asked, raising his voice at last.
"I've been sitting under your lash for the last half-hour, and you might at least let me go civilly. Unless you really have some reasonable object in treating me like this."
"Reasonable object?"
"Of course, you're in duty bound, anyway, to let me know your object.
I've been expecting you to do so all the time, but you've shown me nothing so far but frenzied spite.
I beg you to open the gate for me."
He got up from the chair.
Shatov rushed frantically after him.
"Kiss the earth, water it with your tears, pray for forgiveness," he cried, clutching him by the shoulder.
"I didn't kill you... that morning, though... I drew back my hands..." Stavrogin brought out almost with anguish, keeping his eyes on the ground.
"Speak out! Speak out! You came to warn me of danger. You have let me speak. You mean to-morrow to announce your marriage publicly....
Do you suppose I don't see from your face that some new menacing idea is dominating you?... Stavrogin, why am I condemned to believe in you through all eternity?
Could I speak like this to anyone else?
I have modesty, but I am not ashamed of my nakedness because it's Stavrogin I am speaking to.
I was not afraid of caricaturing a grand idea by handling it because Stavrogin was listening to me.... Shan't I kiss your footprints when you've gone?
I can't tear you out of my heart, Nikolay Stavrogin!"
"I'm sorry I can't feel affection for you, Shatov," Stavrogin replied coldly.
"I know you can't, and I know you are not lying.
Listen. I can set it all right. I can 'catch your hare' for you."
Stavrogin did not speak.
"You're an atheist because you're a snob, a snob of the snobs.
You've lost the distinction between good and evil because you've lost touch with your own people.
A new generation is coming, straight from the heart of the people, and you will know nothing of it, neither you nor the Verhovenskys, father or son; nor I, for I'm a snob too—I, the son of your serf and lackey, Pashka.... Listen. Attain to God by work; it all lies in that; or disappear like rotten mildew. Attain to Him by work."
"God by work?
What sort of work?"
"Peasants' work.
Go, give up all your wealth.... Ah! you laugh, you're afraid of some trick?"