“So you find something ridiculous in the form itself?”[70] Stavrogin insisted.
“And in the substance. The ugliness of it will kill it,” Tikhon said in a whisper, looking down.
“Ugliness! what ugliness?”
“Of the crime. There are truly ugly crimes. Crimes, whatever they be, the more blood, the more horror in them, the more imposing they are, so to say, more picturesque. But there are crimes shameful, disgraceful, past all horror, they are, so to say, almost too inelegant….”
Tikhon did not finish.
“You mean to say,” Stavrogin caught him up in agitation, “you find me a very ridiculous figure when I kissed the hands of the dirty little girl….[71] I understand you very well, and that is why you despair for me, that it is ugly, revolting—not precisely revolting, but shameful, ridiculous, and you think that that is what I shall least of all be able to bear.”
Tikhon was silent.[72]
“I understand why you asked about the young lady from Switzerland, whether she was here.”
“You are not prepared, not hardened,” Tikhon said timidly in a whisper, casting his eyes down; “you are uprooted, you do not believe.”
“Listen, Father Tikhon: I want to forgive myself, and that is my object, my whole object!” Stavrogin suddenly said with gloomy ecstasy in his eyes. “Then only, I know, that vision will disappear. That is why I seek boundless suffering. I seek it myself. Don’t make me afraid, or I shall die in anger.”
The sincerity was so unexpected that Tikhon got up.
“If you believe that you can forgive yourself and attain that forgiveness in this world through your suffering; if you set that object before you with faith, then you already believe completely!” Tikhon exclaimed rapturously. “Why did you say, then, that you did not believe in God?”
Stavrogin made no answer.
“For your unbelief God will forgive you, for you respect the Holy Spirit without knowing Him.”
“Christ will forgive too?” asked Stavrogin, with a wry smile and in a quickly changed tone; and in the tone of his question a suspicion of irony could be heard.
“It says in the Book: ‘And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones,’ you remember. According to the Gospel there is no greater crime….”[73]
“Quite plainly, you don’t want a row, and you are laying a trap for me, venerable Father Tikhon,” Stavrogin muttered scornfully and with annoyance, making as if to get up; “in a word, you want me to settle down, to marry, perhaps, and end my life as a member of the local club, and visit your monastery on holidays. Why, that’s penance! isn’t it so? though as a reader of hearts you, perhaps, foresee that it will certainly be so, and all that is needed now is for me to be nicely wheedled into it for form’s sake, since I am only too eager for that,—isn’t it so?”
He gave a wry smile.
“No, not that penance, I am preparing another for you!” Tikhon went on earnestly, without taking the least notice of Stavrogin’s smile and remark.
“I know an old man, a hermit and ascetic, not here, but not far from here, of such great Christian wisdom that he is even beyond your and my understanding. He will listen to my request. I will tell him about you. Go to him, into retreat, as a novice under his guidance, for five years, for seven, for as many as you find necessary. Make a vow to yourself, and by this great sacrifice you will acquire all that you long for and don’t even expect, for you cannot possibly realize now what you will obtain.”
Stavrogin listened gravely.
“You suggest that I enter the monastery as a monk.”[74]
“You must not be in the monastery, nor take orders as a monk; be only a lay-brother, a secret, not an open one; it may be that, even living altogether in society….”
“Enough, Father Tikhon.” Stavrogin interrupted him with aversion and rose from his chair. Tikhon also rose.
“What is the matter with you?” he suddenly exclaimed almost in fear, staring at Tikhon. Tikhon stood before him, with his hands clasped, and a painful convulsion seemed to pass for a moment across his face as if from the greatest fear.
“What’s the matter with you? What’s the matter?” Stavrogin repeated, rushing to him in order to support him. It seemed to him that Tikhon was going to fall.
“I see … I see, as if it stood before me,” Tikhon exclaimed in a voice which penetrated the soul and with an expression of the most violent grief, “that you, poor, lost youth, have never been so near another and a still greater crime than you are at this moment.”
“Calm yourself!” pleaded Stavrogin, decidedly alarmed for him. “Perhaps I shall still postpone it…. You are right….”
“No, not after the publication, but before it, a day, an hour, perhaps, before the great step, you will throw yourself on a new crime, as a way out, and you will commit it solely in order to avoid the publication of these pages.”
Stavrogin shuddered with anger and almost with fear.[75] “You cursed psychologist!”—he suddenly cut him short in fury and, without looking round, left the cell.
PLAN OF THE NOVEL, THE LIFE OF A GREAT SINNER
20/8 December.
—Accumulation of wealth.
—The birth of strong passions.
—Strengthening of the will and of the inner powers.
—Measureless pride and struggle with ambition.
—The prose of life and a passionate belief that incessantly overcomes it.
—That all should plead; I only demand.
—Not to be afraid of anything. The sacrifices of life.
—The influence of vice; the horror and coldness from it.
—A desire to defile every one.
—The romance of the years of childhood. Maccary.[76]
—Schooling and first ideals.
—Gets to know everything secretly.
—Alone, to prepare himself for anything.
(He is incessantly preparing himself for something, although he does not know for what, and—what is strange—he does not care about the what, as though perfectly sure that it will come of itself.)
—Either slavery or domination. He believes. And that only. Unbelief for the first time—strangely springing up and taking shape only in the monastery. The little lame girl. Katya. Brother Misha. The Stolen Money. Underwent punishment. Fearlessness. A Cornfield. Do not kill me, Uncle. Love of Kulikov. John. Brutilov. The Frenchman Pougot. Upbraids Brutilov. Goes on with his studies. The diver. Albert.[77] Shibo. Receiving the communion. Albert does not believe in God. The old people. Loves a great many things secretly and keeps them to himself. They call him a brute and thus he behaves like a brute. Passionate desire to surprise all by unexpectedly impertinent tricks? But not from ambition. By himself. The old people. Songs, Therese-Philosophe John, Brin, Brutilov—Brother, Albert. Friends, and yet they torture a friend; disgusting. A meek, good and pure friend before whom he blushes. Training himself by hardships and accumulating money. Humboldt.
They immediately inform him that he is not their brother.
He makes friends with Kulikov. The lady doctor. He sees her in a halo. A passionate desire to foul himself, to degrade himself in her eyes, but not to please her. A theft took place. They accuse him, he exculpates himself, but the affair becomes clear. The step-brother committed the theft.
A strong and permanent trait.
Disrespect for the people round him, but this is not yet based on reason, but solely on a repulsion for them. Much repulsion. I eat grapes. He is beaten and flogged for his repulsion. He only shuts himself up in himself and hates still more. Haughty contempt for his persecutors, and rapidity of judgment. Extraordinary quickness of judgment signifies a strong passionate individuality. He begins to feel that he ought not to make quick judgments and for this he must strengthen his will.
First signs of expansiveness.
The mother’s boys are at Sushar’s and at Chermak’s. (Their repulsion comes from stupidity.)
—It is a lie, mon Mushvar.
Arkashka and French conversations.
Arkashka, Brutilov and himself keep together.
At Sushar’s—only Brutilov and his history; altogether two chapters—
All up. Because he slapped Sushar. The beginning of Albert.
The boarding-school. An unjust punishment takes place in the house. Exams. In the country. Self-renunciation. Katya. In the town and in the boarding-school he surprises by his brutality. Lambert. Heroic acts—to run away with Katya. Kulikov, with him. Murder. He does not forgive any lie or falsehood and without reasoning instantly rushes into a fight. For a long time he does not believe Katya, then he put her to the test and at last intimidated her with the disgrace.
—Strength of will—this he set before himself as the chief thing.
—After Kulikov, he immediately goes to ask about the lame girl.
Just here they caught him.
—In the country the lady doctor falls in love with him.
He caught her with a lover.
The lady doctor. Mr. Alfonsky—characters.
At the house of the old people. With the old man—reading Karamzin, Arabian tales—On Suvorov, etc. On interest on money. He offended the younger old lady. Ask pardon, I do not want to. He locked them in. Death. Anna and Vasilissa ran away. They sold Vasilissa. The last communion. The first confession. Repulsion. Is there a God? Bible and reading.
January 2.
He smashed the mirror deliberately.
He decides to keep silent and not to say a single word—
—St. mother: why do you make a show of yourself as a sacrifice? (An ideal and strange creature.)
Alfonsky, the father. (His speeches to his son and aspirations.)
—A feeling of destruction.
How many sciences must one know (his conversation with Vanka).
—Voluptuousness (he wants to remain in this state until he has money).
—And the enormous
