His face was unnaturally pale, and there was a terribly heavy look in his eyes.
He was like a man in delirium.
Pyotr Stepanovitch thought he would drop on to the floor.
"Give me the pen!" Kirillov cried suddenly, quite unexpectedly, in a positive frenzy.
"Dictate; I'll sign anything.
I'll sign that I killed Shatov even.
Dictate while it amuses me.
I am not afraid of what the haughty slaves will think!
You will see for yourself that all that is secret shall be made manifest!
And you will be crushed.... I believe, I believe!"
Pyotr Stepanoviteh jumped up from his seat and instantly handed him an inkstand and paper, and began dictating, seizing the moment, quivering with anxiety.
"I, Alexey Kirillov, declare..."
"Stay; I won't!
To whom am I declaring it?"
Kirillov was shaking as though he were in a fever.
This declaration and the sudden strange idea of it seemed to absorb him entirely, as though it were a means of escape by which his tortured spirit strove for a moment's relief.
"To whom am I declaring it?
I want to know to whom?"
"To no one, every one, the first person who reads it.
Why define it?
The whole world!"
"The whole world!
Bravo!
And I won't have any repentance.
I don't want penitence and I don't want it for the police!"
"No, of course, there's no need of it, damn the police! Write, if you are in earnest!" Pyotr Stepanovitch cried hysterically.
"Stay! I want to put at the top a face with the tongue out."
"Ech, what nonsense," cried Pyotr Stepanovitch crossly, "you can express all that without the drawing, by—the tone."
"By the tone?
That's true.
Yes, by the tone, by the tone of it.
Dictate, the tone."
"I, Alexey Kirillov," Pyotr Stepanovitch dictated firmly and peremptorily, bending over Kirillov's shoulder and following every letter which the latter formed with a hand trembling with excitement, "I, Kirillov, declare that to-day, the —th October, at about eight o'clock in the evening, I killed the student Shatov in the park for turning traitor and giving information of the manifestoes and of Fedka, who has been lodging with us for ten days in Filipov's house.
I am shooting myself to-day with my revolver, not because I repent and am afraid of you, but because when I was abroad I made up my mind to put an end to my life."
"Is that all?" cried Kirillov with surprise and indignation.
"Not another word," cried Pyotr Stepanovitch, waving his hand, attempting to snatch the document from him.
"Stay." Kirillov put his hand firmly on the paper. "Stay, it's nonsense!
I want to say with whom I killed him.
Why Fedka?
And what about the fire?
I want it all and I want to be abusive in tone, too, in tone!"
"Enough, Kirillov, I assure you it's enough," cried Pyotr Stepanovitch almost imploringly, trembling lest he should tear up the paper; "that they may believe you, you must say it as obscurely as possible, just like that, simply in hints.
You must only give them a peep of the truth, just enough to tantalise them.
They'll tell a story better than ours, and of course they'll believe themselves more than they would us; and you know, it's better than anything—better than anything!
Let me have it, it's splendid as it is; give it to me, give it to me!"
And he kept trying to snatch the paper.
Kirillov listened open-eyed and appeared to be trying to reflect, but he seemed beyond understanding now.
"Damn it all," Pyotr Stepanovitch cried all at once, ill-humouredly, "he hasn't signed it! Why are you staring like that? Sign!"
"I want to abuse them," muttered Kirillov. He took the pen, however, and signed.
"I want to abuse them."