"Who-m?"
"Ivan the Tsarevitch. You! You!"
Stavrogin thought a minute.
"A pretender?" he asked suddenly, looking with intense-surprise at his frantic companion.
"Ah! so that's your plan at last!"
"We shall say that he is 'in hiding,'" Verhovensky said softly, in a sort of tender whisper, as though he really were drunk indeed.
"Do you know the magic of that phrase, 'he is in hiding'?
But he will appear, he will appear.
We'll set a legend going better than the Skoptsis'.
He exists, but no one has seen him.
Oh, what a legend one can set going!
And the great thing is it will be a new force at work!
And we need that; that's what they are crying for.
What can Socialism do: it's destroyed the old forces but hasn't brought in any new.
But in this we have a force, and what a force! Incredible.
We only need one lever to lift up the earth.
Everything will rise up!"
"Then have you been seriously reckoning on me?" Stavrogin said with a malicious smile.
"Why do you laugh, and so spitefully?
Don't frighten me.
I am like a little child now. I can be frightened to death by one smile like that.
Listen. I'll let no one see you, no one. So it must be.
He exists, but no one has seen him; he is in hiding.
And do you know, one might show you, to one out of a hundred-thousand, for instance.
And the rumour will spread over all the land,
'We've seen him, we've seen him.'
"Ivan Filipovitch the God of Sabaoth, has been seen, too, when he ascended into heaven in his chariot in the sight of men. They saw him with their own eyes.
And you are not an Ivan Filipovitch. You are beautiful and proud as a God; you are seeking nothing for yourself, with the halo of a victim round you, 'in hiding.'
The great thing is the legend.
You'll conquer them, you'll have only to look, and you will conquer them.
He is 'in hiding,' and will come forth bringing a new truth.
And, meanwhile, we'll pass two or three judgments as wise as Solomon's.
The groups, you know, the quintets—we've no need of newspapers.
If out of ten thousand petitions only one is granted, all would come with petitions.
In every parish, every peasant will know that there is somewhere a hollow tree where petitions are to be put.
And the whole land will resound with the cry,
'A new just law is to come,' and the sea will be troubled and the whole gimcrack show will fall to the ground, and then we shall consider how to build up an edifice of stone.
For the first time!
We are going to build it, we, and only we!"
"Madness," said Stavrogin.
"Why, why don't you want it?
Are you afraid?
That's why I caught at you, because you are afraid of nothing.
Is it unreasonable?
But you see, so far I am Columbus without America. Would Columbus without America seem reasonable?"
Stavrogin did not speak.
Meanwhile they had reached the house and stopped at the entrance.
"Listen," Verhovensky bent down to his ear. "I'll do it for you without the money.
I'll settle Marya Timofyevna to-morrow!... Without the money, and to-morrow I'll bring you Liza. Will you have Liza to-morrow?"
"Is he really mad?" Stavrogin wondered smiling.