"But you're not afraid, are you?"
"N—no. I'm not very much afraid.... But your case is quite different.
I warned you that you might anyway keep it in mind.
To my thinking there's no reason to be offended in being threatened with danger by fools; their brains don't affect the question. They've raised their hand against better men than you or me.
It's a quarter past eleven, though." He looked at his watch and got up from his chair. "I wanted to ask you one quite irrelevant question."
"For God's sake!" cried Shatov, rising impulsively from his seat.
"I beg your pardon?" Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch looked at him inquiringly.
"Ask it, ask your question for God's sake," Shatov repeated in indescribable excitement, "but on condition that I ask you a question too.
I beseech you to allow me... I can't... ask your question!"
Stavrogin waited a moment and then began.
"I've heard that you have some influence on Marya Timofyevna, and that she was fond of seeing you and hearing you talk.
Is that so?"
"Yes... she used to listen..." said Shatov, confused.
"Within a day or two I intend to make a public announcement of our marriage here in the town."
"Is that possible?" Shatov whispered, almost with horror.
"I don't quite understand you.
There's no sort of difficulty about it, witnesses to the marriage are here.
Everything took place in Petersburg, perfectly legally and smoothly, and if it has not been made known till now, it is simply because the witnesses, Kirillov, Pyotr Verhovensky, and Lebyadkin (whom I now have the pleasure of claiming as a brother-in-law) promised to hold their tongues."
"I don't mean that... You speak so calmly... but good!
Listen! You weren't forced into that marriage, were you?"
"No, no one forced me into it." Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch smiled at Shatov's importunate haste.
"And what's that talk she keeps up about her baby?" Shatov interposed disconnectedly, with feverish haste.
"She talks about her baby?
Bah!
I didn't know. It's the first time I've heard of it.
She never had a baby and couldn't have had: Marya Timofyevna is a virgin."
"Ah!
That's just what I thought!
Listen!"
"What's the matter with you, Shatov?"
Shatov hid his face in his hands, turned away, but suddenly clutched Stavrogin by the shoulders.
"Do you know why, do you know why, anyway," he shouted, "why you did all this, and why you are resolved on such a punishment now!"
"Your question is clever and malignant, but I mean to surprise you too; I fancy I do know why I got married then, and why I am resolved on such a punishment now, as you express it."
"Let's leave that... of that later. Put it off. Let's talk of the chief thing, the chief thing. I've been waiting two years for you."
"Yes?"
"I've waited too long for you. I've been thinking of you incessantly.
You are the only man who could move... I wrote to you about it from America."
"I remember your long letter very well."
"Too long to be read?
No doubt; six sheets of notepaper.
Don't speak! Don't speak!
Tell me, can you spare me another ten minutes?... But now, this minute... I have waited for you too long."
"Certainly, half an hour if you like, but not more, if that will suit you."
"And on condition, too," Shatov put in wrathfully, "that you take a different tone.
Do you hear? I demand when I ought to entreat. Do you understand what it means to demand when one ought to entreat?"
"I understand that in that way you lift yourself above all ordinary considerations for the sake of loftier aims," said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch with a faint smile. "I see with regret, too, that you're feverish."
"I beg you to treat me with respect, I insist on it!" shouted Shatov, "not my personality—I don't care a hang for that, but something else, just for this once. While I am talking... we are two beings, and have come together in infinity... for the last time in the world.
Drop your tone, and speak like a human being!
Speak, if only for once in your life with the voice of a man.
I say it not for my sake but for yours.