CHAPTER IX[54]
CHAPTER IX[54]
CHAPTER IX[54]
Thereading lasted for about an hour. Tikhon read slowly, and, possibly, read certain passages twice over. All the time Stavrogin had sat silent and motionless.[55]Tikhon took off his glasses, paused, and, looking up at him, was the first to begin to speak rather guardedly.
“Can’t certain corrections be made in this document?”
“Why should there? I wrote sincerely,” Stavrogin replied.
“Some corrections in the style should....”
“I forgot to warn you,” he said quickly and peremptorily, pulling himself up, “that all you say will be useless; I shall not postpone my intention; don’t try to dissuade me. I shall publish it.”
“You did not forget to tell me that, before I began to read.”
“Never mind,” Stavrogin interrupted peremptorily, “I repeat it again: however great the force of your objections may be, I shall not give up my intention. And observe that, by this clumsy or clever phrase—think of it what you like—I am not trying to get you at once to start arguing and coaxing me.”[56]
“I shall not argue with you, still less coax you, to give up your intention, nor could I do it either. Your idea is a great idea, and it would be impossible to express more perfectly a Christian idea. Repentance cannot go further than the wonderful deed which you have conceived, if only....”
“If only what?”
“If it were indeed repentance and indeed a Christian idea.”
“I wrote sincerely.”[57]
“You seem deliberately to wish to make yourself out coarser than your heart would desire....” Tikhon gradually became bolder. Evidently “the document” made a strong impression on him.
“‘Make myself out’? I repeat to you, I did not ‘make myself out,’ still less did I ‘pose.’”[58]
Tikhon quickly cast his eyes down.
“This document comes straight from the needs of a heart which is mortally wounded,—am I not right in this?” he said emphatically and with extraordinary earnestness. “Yes, it is repentance and natural need of repentance that has overcome you, and you have taken the great way, the rarest way. But you, it seems, already hate and despise beforehand all those who will read what is written here, and you challenge them. You were not ashamed of admitting your crime; why are you ashamed of repentance?”
“Ashamed?”
“You are ashamed and afraid!”
“Afraid?”
“Mortally. Let them look at me, you say; well, and you, how will you look at them? Certain passages in your statement are emphasized; you seem to be luxuriating in your own psychology and clutch at each detail, in order to surprise the reader by a callousness which is not really in you. What is this but a haughty defiance of the judge by the accused?”
“Where is the defiance? I kept out all personal discussion.”
Tikhon was silent. His pale cheeks flushed.
“Let us leave that,” Stavrogin said peremptorily. “Allow me to put to you a question on my side: we have now been talking for five minutes since you read that” (he nodded at the pages), “and I do not see in you any expression of aversion or shame.... You don’t seem to be squeamish....”
He did not finish.[59]
“I shall not conceal anything from you: I was horrified at the great idle force that had been deliberately wasted in abomination. As for the crime itself, many people sin like that, but they live in peace and quiet with their conscience, even considering it to be the inevitable delinquency of youth. There are old men, too, who sin in the same way—yes, lightly and indulgently. The world is full of these horrors. But you have felt the whole depth to a degree which is extremely rare.”
“Have you come to respect me after these pages?” Stavrogin said, with a wry smile.
“I am not going to answer that straight off.But there certainly is not, nor can there be, a greater and more terrible crime than your behaviour towards the girl.”
“Let us stop this measuring by the yard.[60]Perhaps I do not suffer so much as I have made out, and perhaps I have even told many lies against myself,” he added suddenly.
Tikhon once more let this pass in silence.[61]
“And the young lady,”[62]Tikhon began again, “with whom you broke off in Switzerland; where, if I may ask, is she ... at this moment?”
“Here.”
There was silence again.
“Perhaps I did lie much against myself,” Stavrogin persisted once more. “Well, what does it matter that I challenge them by the coarseness of my confession, if you noticed the challenge? I shall make them hate me still more, that’s all. Surely that will make it easier for me.”[63]
“That is, anger in you will rouse responsiveanger in them, and, in hating, you will feel easier than if you accepted their pity.”
“You are right. You understand.” He laughed suddenly. “They may perhaps call me a Jesuit and sanctimonious hypocrite after the document, ha, ha, ha! Yes?”
“Certainly there is sure to be some such opinion. And do you expect to carry out your intention soon?”
“To-day, to-morrow, the day after to-morrow, how do I know? But very soon. You are right: I think, indeed, it will in the end happen that I shall publish it unexpectedly, and, indeed, in a revengeful, hateful moment, when I hate them most.”
“Answer me one question, but sincerely, to me alone, only to me,” Tikhon said in quite a different voice; “if some one forgave you for this” (Tikhon pointed at the pages), “and not one of those whom you respect or fear, but a stranger, a man whom you will never know, if, reading your terrible confession, he forgave you, in the privacy of his heart—would you feel relieved, or would it be just the same to you?”
“I should feel easier,” Stavrogin said in an undertone. “If you forgave me, I should feel very much relieved,” he added, casting his eyes down.
“Provided that you forgive me too,” Tikhon murmured in a penetrating voice.[64]
“It is false humility. All these monastic formulas, you know, are not fine in the least. I will tell you the whole truth: I want you to forgive me. And besides you—one or two more, but as for the rest—let the rest rather hate me. But I want this, so that I may bear it with humility....”
“And universal pity for you—could you not bear it with the same humility?”
“Perhaps I could not.[65]Why do you....”[66]
“I feel the extent of your sincerity and am, of course, very much to blame, but I am not good at approaching people. I have always felt it a great fault in myself,” Tikhon said sincerely and intimately, looking straight into Stavrogin’s eyes. “I just say this, because I am afraid for you,” he added; “there is an almost impassable abyss before you.”
“That I shan’t be able to bear it? Notable to endure[67]their hatred?” Stavrogin gave a start.
“Not their hatred alone.”
“What else?”
“Their laughter.” Tikhon half whispered these words, as if it were more than he had strength for.
Stavrogin blushed; his face expressed alarm.
“I foresaw it,” he said; “I must have appeared to you a very comic character after your reading of my ‘document.’[68]Don’t be uncomfortable. Don’t look disconcerted. I expected it.”
“The horror will be universal and, of course, more false than sincere. People fear only what directly threatens their personal interests. I am not talking of pure souls: they will be horrified in themselves and will blame themselves, but no notice will be taken of them—besides they will keep silent. But the laughter will be universal.”[69]
“I am surprised what a low opinion you have of people and how they disgust you.” Stavrogin spoke with some show of anger.
“Believe me, I judged rather by myself than by other people!” Tikhon exclaimed.
“Indeed? but is there also something in your soul that makes you amused at my misery?”
“Who knows, perhaps there is? oh, perhaps there is!”
“Enough. Tell me, then, where exactly am I ridiculous in my manuscript? I know myself, but I want you to put your finger on it. And tell it as cynically as possible, tell me with all the sincerity of which you are capable. And I repeat to you again that you are a terribly queer fellow.”
“In the very form of this great penance there is something ridiculous. Oh, don’t let yourself think that you won’t conquer!” he suddenly exclaimed, almost in ecstasy. “Even this form will conquer” (he pointed to the pages), “if only you sincerely accept the blows and the spitting. It always ended in the most ignominious cross becoming a great glory and a great strength, if the humility of the deed was sincere. Perhaps even in your lifetime you will be comforted!...”
“So you find something ridiculous in the form itself?”[70]Stavrogin insisted.
“And in the substance. The ugliness of itwill 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 hiseyes 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 findnecessary. 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 inorder 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.