arms.
{He goes out. ALEXEY leaves by a door upstage.
Second Part 66
PETER VERKHOVENSKY looks around him, then
goes over and ransacks the drawer of a secretary.
He takes out some letters and reads them, STEP AN
TROFIMOVICH enters, PETER hides the letters.)
STEP AN: Alexey Yegor ovich told me you were
here, son.
PETER: Why, what are you doing in this house?
I thought you had been driven out.
STEP AN: I came to get the last of my things, and I
am going to leave without hope of returning and
without recriminations.
PETER: Oh, you'll come back! A parasite is always
a parasite.
STEP AN: I don't like the way you talk to me.
[PETER: You have always said that truth was par-
amount. The truth is that you pretended to be in
love with Varvara Petrovna and that she pre-
tended not to see that you were in love with her.
As a reward for such silliness, she was keeping
you. Hence you are a parasite. I advised her yes-
terday to put you in a suitable home.
STEPAN: YOU spoke to her about me?
PETER: Yes. She told me that tomorrow she would
have a conversation with you to settle every-
thing. The truth is that she wants to see you
squirm once more. She showed me your letters.
How I laughed�good Lord, how I laughed!
STEPAN: YOU laughed. Have you no heart?] Do
you know what a father is?
PETER: You taught me what a father is. You never
provided for me. I wasn't weaned yet when you
shipped me off to Berlin by the post. Like a
parcel.
67 Scene 5
STEP AN: Wretch! Although I sent you by the
post, my heart continued to bleed!
PETER: Mere words!
STEPAN: Are you or aren't you my son, monster?
PETER: You must know better than I. To be sure,
fathers are inclined to have illusions about such
things.
STEPAN: Shut up!
PETER: I will not. And don't whimper. You are a
patriotic, sniveling, whimpering old woman. Be-
sides, all Russia whimpers. Fortunately, we are
going to change all that.
STEPAN: Who is "we"?
PETER: Why, we normal men. We are going to
remake the world. We are the saviors.
STEPAN: Is it possible that anyone like you aims to
offer himself up to men in the place of Christ?
But just look at yourself!
PETER: Don't shout. We shall destroy everything.
We'll not leave a stone standing, and then we'll
begin all over again. Then there will be true
equality. You preached equality, didn't you?
Well, you shall have it! And I bet that you won't
recognize it.
STEPAN: I shall not recognize it if it looks like you.
No, it was not of such things that we used to
dream! I don't understand anything any more. I
have given up understanding.
PETER: All that comes from your sick old nerves.
You made speeches. We act. What are you com-
plaining about, scatterbrained old man?
STEPAN: How can you be so insensitive?
PETER: I followed your teachings. According to
Second Part 68
yon, the thing to do was to treat injustice harshly
and to be sure of one's rights, to go ever forward
toward the future! Well, that's where we're go-
ing, and we shall strike hard. A tooth for a tooth,
as in the Gospels!
STEPAN: You poor fellow, it's not in the Gospels!
PETER: The devil take it! I have never read that
confounded book. Nor any other book. What's
the use? What matters is progress.
STEPAN: No, you're crazy! Shakespeare and Hugo
don't stand in the way of progress. Quite the
contrary, i assure you!
PETER: Don't get excited! Hugo is an old pair of
buttocks. As for Shakespeare, our peasants work-
ing in the fields don't need him. They need shoes
instead. They will be given them as soon as
everything is destroyed.
STEPAN (trying to be ironic): And when will this
be?
PETER: In May. In June everyone will be making
shoes, (STEPAN TROFIMOVICH falls into a chair,
crushed.) Rejoice, ancestor,�for your ideas are
going to be put into practice.
STEPAN: They are not my ideas. You want to
destroy everything; you don't want to leave a
single stone standing. But / wanted people to love
one another.
PETER: No need for love! Science will take its
place.
STEPAN: But that will be boring.
PETER: Why should it be boring? That's an aris-
tocratic idea. When men are equal, they are not
6g Scene 5
bored. "They don't have a good time either.
Nothing matters and everything is on the same
plane. When we have justice plus science, then
both love and boredom will be done away with.
People will forget.
STEPAN: NO man will ever be willing to forget his
love.
PETER: Again you're indulging in words. Just re-
member, ancestor, that you forgot; you got mar-
ried three times.
STEPAN: Twice. And after a long interval.
PETER: Long or short, people forget. Conse-
quently, the sooner they forget, the better. Oh,
but you get on my nerves, never knowing what
you want! / know what I want. Half the heads
will have to be cut off. Those that remain will be
taught to drink.
STEPAN: It is easier to cut off heads than to have
ideas.
PETER: What ideas? Ideas are nonsense. Nonsense
has to be suppressed to achieve justice. Nonsense
was good enough for oldsters like you. A man
has to choose. If you believe in God, you are
forced to say nonsense. If you don't believe in
him and yet refuse to admit that everything must
be razed, you will still talk nonsense. You're all
in the same boat, and consequently you can't
keep yourselves from talking nonsense. / say that
men must act. I'll destroy everything and others
will construct. No more reform and no more im-
provement. The more things are improved and re-
formed, the worse it is. The sooner people begin
Second Part 70
to destroy, the better it is. Let's begin by destroy-
ing. What happens afterward doesn't concern us.
The rest is nonsense, nonsense!
STEP AN (rushing out of the TOOTH, terrified): He's
mad, he's mad. . . .
(PETER VERKHOVENSKY laughs uproariously.)
BLACKOUT
THE NARRATOR: Well, so much for that! I have
forgotten to tell you two facts. The first is that
the Lebyatkins had mysteriously moved while
Stavrogin was bedridd
en and had settled in a
little house in the suburbs. The second is that a
convicted murderer had escaped and was prowl-
ing among us. As a result, rich people did not go
out at night.
The street at night, STAVROGIN is walking in the
dark, unaware that FEDKA is following him.
SCENE 6
The common room of the Filipov rooming house In
Epiphany Street, KIRILOV is on all fours to retrieve a
a ball that has rolled under a piece of furniture.
While he is in that position, STAVROGIN opens the
door, KIRILOV, with the ball in his hand, gets up as
he sees him come in.
STAVROGIN: You are playing ball?
KIRILOV: I bought it in Hamburg to throw it up
and catch it; nothing strengthens the back like
that. Besides, I play with the landlady's boy.
STAVROGIN: Do you like children?
KIRILOV: Yes.
STAVROGIN: Why?
KIRILOV: I like life. You want tea?
STAVROGIN: Yes.
KIRILOV: Sit down. What do you want of me?
STAVROGIN: A service. Read this letter. It is a chal-
lenge from the son of Gaganov, whose ear I bit
some time back, (KIRILOV reads it and then places
it on the table and looks at STAVROGIN.) [Yes, he
has already written me several times to insult me.
In the beginning I answered to assure him that
if he was still suffering from the insult I had done
his father, I was ready to offer him every apol-
ogy. I insisted that my deed had not been pre-
meditated and that I was ill at the time. Instead
Second Part
72
of calming him, this seemed to irritate him even
more, if I can believe what he said about me.
Today I am handed this letter.] Have you read
what he says at the end?
KIRILOV: Yes, he speaks of a "face I'd like to
smack."
STAVROGIN: That's it. Hence I have to fight him,
although I don't want to. I have come to ask you
to be my second.
KIRILOV: I'll go. What should I say?
STAVROGIN: Begin by repeating my apologies for
the offense done to his father. Tell him that I am
ready to forget his insults if only he will cease
writing me this kind of letter, especially with
such vulgar expressions.
KIRILOV: He won't accept. It's clear that he wants
to fight you and kill you.
STAVROGIN: I know it.
KIRILOV: Good. Tell me your conditions for the
duel.
STAVROGIN: I want everything to be over tomor-
row. Go and see him tomorrow morning at nine
o'clock. We can be on the field at about two.
will be ten yards apart. Each of us shall take his
stand ten paces from his barrier. At the signal we
shall walk toward each other. Each may shoot as
he walks. We shall shoot three times. That's all.
KIRILOV: Ten yards between the barriers isn't
much.
STAVROGIN: Twelve, if you prefer. But no more.]
Have you pistols?
KIRILOV: Yes. You want to see them?
73 Scene 6
STAVROGIN :" Certainly.
(KIRILOV kneels doivn in front of a traveling bag
and takes out a pistol case, which he places on the
table in front of STAVROGIN.)
KIRILOV: I also have a revolver I bought in Amer-
ica. (He shows it to him.)
STAVROGIN: YOU have many guns. And very hand-
some ones.
KIRILOV: They are my sole wealth.
(STAVROGIN looks at him fixedly, then closes the
pistol case without ceasing to look at him.)
STAVROGIN (with a slight hesitation): Are you still
firm in your intention?
KIRILOV (immediately and with a most natural man-
ner) : Yes.
STAVROGIN: I mean in regard to suicide.
KIRILOV: I understood what you meant. Yes, I
have the same intentions.
STAVROGIN: Ah! And when will it be?
KIRILOV: Soon.
STAVROGIN: You seem very happy.
KIRILOV: I am.
STAVROGIN: I understand that. I have sometimes
thought of it. just imagine that you have com-
mitted a crime, or, rather, a particularly cow-
ardly, shameful deed. Well, a bullet in the head
and everything ceases to exist! What does shame
matter then!
KIRILOV: That's not why I am happy.
STAVROGIN: Why, then?
KIRILOV: Have you ever looked at the leaf of a
tree?
STAVROGIN: Yes.
Second Part 74
KIRILOV: Green and shiny, with ail its veins visible
in the sunlight? Isn't it wonderful? Yes, a leaf jus-
tifies everything. Human beings, birth and death
�everything one does is good.
STAVROGIN: And even if . . . (He stops.)
KIRILOV: Well?
STAVROGIN: If a man harms one of those children
you love ... a little girl, for instance ... If
he dishonors her, is that good too?
KIRILOV (staring at him in silence): Did you do
that? (STAVROGIN shakes his head oddly in si-
lence.) If a man commits such a crime, that is
good too. And if someone splits open the head
of a man who dishonored a child or if, on the
other hand, he is forgiven, all that is good. When
we know that once and for all, then we are happy.
STAVROGIN: When did you discover that you were
happy?
KIRILOV: Last Wednesday. During the night. At
two thirty-five.
(STAVROGIN rises suddenly.)
STAVROGIN: Was it you whojighted the lamp in
front of the icon?
KIRILOV: It was I.
[STAVROGIN: DO you pray?
KIRILOV: Constantly. Do you see that spider? I
watch her and am grateful to her for climbing.
That's my way of praying.
STAVROGIN: DO you believe in a future life?
KIRILOV: Not in eternal life in the future. But in
eternal life here below.
STAVROGIN: Here below?
KIRILOV: Yes. At certain moments. Such a joy that
75 Scene 6
one would die if it lasted more than five seconds.]
(STAVROGIN looks at him with a sort of con-
tempt.)
STAVROGIN: And you claim not to believe in God!
KIRILOV {quite simply): Stavrogin, I beg you not
to use irony in talking to me. Just remember what
you were for me, the part you played in my life.
STAVROGIN: It's late. Be on time tomorrow morn-
ing at Gaganov's. Remember . . . nine o'clock.
KIRILOV: I am punctual. I can wake up when I
want to. When I go to bed I tell myself "Seven
o'clock," and I awake at seven o'clock.
STAVROGIN: That is a very valuable trait.
KIRILOV: Yes.
STAVROGIN: Go and sleep. But first tell Shatov that
I want to se
e him.
KIRILOV: Just a minute. (He takes a stick from the
comer and knocks on the side wall.) There, he'll
come now. But what about you; won't you
sleep? You are dueling tomorrow.
STAVROGIN: Even when I am tired, my hand never
trembles.
KIRILOV: That's a valuable trait. Good night.
(SHATOV appears in the doorway upstage, KIRILOV
smiles at him and leaves by the side door, SHATOV
stares at STAVROGIN and then enters slowly.)
SHATOV: HOW you worried me! Why were you
so slow in coming?
STAVROGIN: Were you so sure that I would come?
SHATOV: I couldn't imagine that you would for-
sake me. I can't get along without you. Just re-
member the part you played in my life.
STAVROGIN: Then why did you strike me? (SHA-
Second Part 76
xov says nothing.) Was it because of my affair
with your wife?
SHATOV: No.
STAVROGIN: Because of the rumor that started
about your sister and me?
SHATOV: I don't think so.
STAVROGIN: Good. It hardly matters anyway. As I
don't know where I'll be tomorrow evening, I
came merely to give you a warning and to ask
you a service. Here is the warning: you may be
murdered.
SHATOV: Murdered?
STAVROGIN: By Peter Verkhovensky's group.
[SHATOV: I knew it. But how did you find it out?
STAVROGIN: I belong to their group. Like you.
SHATOV: You, Stavrogin, are a member of their
society? You joined up with those vain and idi-
otic flunkies? How could you? Is that worthy of
Nicholas Stavrogin?
STAVROGIN: Forgive me, but you ought to get out
of the habit of looking upon me as the Tsar of all
the Russias and yourself as just a speck of dust.
SHATOV: Oh, don't talk to me that way! You
know very well that they are knaves and flunkies
and that you don't belong among them!
STAVROGIN: Indubitably they are knaves. But what
does that matter? To tell the truth, I don't belong
altogether to their society. Whenever I helped
them in the past, I did so as a dabbler and because
I had nothing better to do.
SHATOV: Is it possible to do such things as a dab-
bler?
STAVKQGIN: People sometimes get married as dab-
77 Scene 6
biers, or have children and commit crimes as dab-
blers! But, speaking of crimes, you are the one
running the risk of being killed. Not I. At least
not by them.]
SHATOV: They have nothing against me. I joined
their organization. But my ideas changed when I
was in America. I told them so when I got back.
I was very fair in telling them that we disagreed
on all points. That's my privilege, the right of
my conscience. I will not accept�
STAVROGIN: Don't shout, (KIRILOV comes in, picks
up the pistol case, and leaves.) Verkhovensky
won't hesitate to liquidate you if he gets the idea
that you might compromise their organization.
SHATOV: They make me laugh. Their organization
doesn't even exist.
STAVROGIN: I suppose in fact that it's all a figment
of Verkhovensky's brain. [The others think he is
a delegate of an international organization and so
they follow him. But he has the talent to make
them accept his myth. That's the way you form
a group. And then someday, starting from the
first group, he may succeed in creating the inter-
national organization.]
SHATOV: That insect, that poor fool, that idiot
who doesn't know anything about Russia!
STAVROGIN: It is true that such people don't know
anything about Russia. But, after all, they know
only a little less about it than we do. Besides, even
an idiot can shoot a revolver. Which is why I
came to warn you.
SHATOV: Thank you. And I thank you particularly
for doing so after I struck you.
Second Part 78
STAVROGIN: Not at all. I return good for evil. (He
laughs.) Don't worry, I am a Christian. Or,
rather, I should be if I believed in God. But . . .
(He gets up.) . . . there is no hare.
SHATOV: No hare?
STAVROGIN: Yes, to make jugged hare, you need a
hare. To believe in God, you need a God. (He
laughs again, but icily this time.)
SHATOV (greatly excited): Don't blaspheme like
that! Don't laugh! And get rid of that pose; take
on a normal human manner. Speak simply and
humanly, if only for once in your life! And re-
member what you used to say before I left for
America.
STAVROGIN: I don't remember.
SHATOV: I'll tell you. It's high time for someone to
tell you the truth about yourself, to strike you if
need be and remind you of what you are. Do
you recall the time when you used to tell me
that the Russian people alone would save the
universe in the name of a new God? Do you re-
member your words: "A Russian atheist is an
impossibility"? You didn't say then that the hare