“Are you fond of children?”
“I am,” answered Kirillov, though rather indifferently.
“Then you’re fond of life?”
“Yes, I’m fond of life! What of it?”
“Though you’ve made up your mind to shoot yourself.”
“What of it? Why connect it? Life’s one thing and that’s another. Life exists, but death doesn’t at all.”
“You’ve begun to believe in a future eternal life?”
“No, not in a future eternal life, but in eternal life here. There are moments, you reach moments, and time suddenly stands still, and it will become eternal.”
“You hope to reach such a moment?”
“Yes.”
“That’ll scarcely be possible in our time,” Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch responded slowly and, as it were, dreamily; the two spoke without the slightest irony. “In the Apocalypse the angel swears that there will be no more time.”
“I know. That’s very true; distinct and exact. When all mankind attains happiness then there will be no more time, for there’ll be no need of it, a very true thought.”
“Where will they put it?”
“Nowhere. Time’s not an object but an idea. It will be extinguished in the mind.”
“The old commonplaces of philosophy, the same from the beginning of time,” Stavrogin muttered with a kind of disdainful compassion.
“Always the same, always the same, from the beginning of time and never any other,” Kirillov said with sparkling eyes, as though there were almost a triumph in that idea.
“You seem to be very happy, Kirillov.”
“Yes, very happy,” he answered, as though making the most ordinary reply.
“But you were distressed so lately, angry with Liputin.”
“H’m … I’m not scolding now. I didn’t know then that I was happy. Have you seen a leaf, a leaf from a tree?”
“Yes.”
“I saw a yellow one lately, a little green. It was decayed at the edges. It was blown by the wind. When I was ten years old I used to shut my eyes in the winter on purpose and fancy a green leaf, bright, with veins on it, and the sun shining. I used to open my eyes and not believe them, because it was very nice, and I used to shut them again.”
“What’s that? An allegory?”
“N‑no … why? I’m not speaking of an allegory, but of a leaf, only a leaf. The leaf is good. Everything’s good.”
“Everything?”
“Everything. Man is unhappy because he doesn’t know he’s happy. It’s only that. That’s all, that’s all! If anyone finds out he’ll become happy at once, that minute. That mother-in-law will die; but the baby will remain. It’s all good. I discovered it all of a sudden.”
“And if anyone dies of hunger, and if anyone insults and outrages the little girl, is that good?”
“Yes! And if anyone blows his brains out for the baby, that’s good too. And if anyone doesn’t, that’s good too. It’s all good, all. It’s good for all those who know that it’s all good. If they knew that it was good for them, it would be good for them, but as long as they don’t know it’s good for them, it will be bad for them. That’s the whole idea, the whole of it.”
“When did you find out you were so happy?”
“Last week, on Tuesday, no, Wednesday, for it was Wednesday by that time, in the night.”
“By what reasoning?”
“I don’t remember; I was walking about the room; never mind. I stopped my clock. It was thirty-seven minutes past two.”
“As an emblem of the fact that there will be no more time?”
Kirillov was silent.
“They’re bad because they don’t know they’re good. When they find out, they won’t outrage a little girl. They’ll find out that they’re good and they’ll all become good, every one of them.”
“Here you’ve found it out, so have you become good then?”
“I am good.”
“That I agree with, though,” Stavrogin muttered, frowning.
“He who teaches that all are good will end the world.”
“He who taught it was crucified.”
“He will come, and his name will be the man-god.”
“The god-man?”
“The man-god. That’s the difference.”
“Surely it wasn’t you lighted the lamp under the icon?”
“Yes, it was I lighted it.”
“Did you do it believing?”
“The old woman likes to have the lamp and she hadn’t time to do it today,” muttered Kirillov.
“You don’t say prayers yourself?”
“I pray to everything. You see the spider crawling on the wall, I look at it and thank it for crawling.”
His eyes glowed again. He kept looking straight at Stavrogin with firm and unflinching expression. Stavrogin frowned and watched him disdainfully, but there was no mockery in his eyes.
“I’ll bet that when I come next time you’ll be believing in God too,” he said, getting up and taking his hat.
“Why?” said Kirillov, getting up too.
“If you were to find out that you believe in God, then you’d believe in Him; but since you don’t know that you believe in Him, then you don’t believe in Him,” laughed Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch.
“That’s not right,” Kirillov pondered, “you’ve distorted the idea. It’s a flippant joke. Remember what you have meant in my life, Stavrogin.”
“Goodbye, Kirillov.”
“Come at night; when will you?”
“Why, haven’t you forgotten about tomorrow?”
“Ach, I’d forgotten. Don’t be uneasy. I won’t oversleep. At nine o’clock. I know how to wake up when I want to. I go to bed saying ‘seven o’clock,’ and I wake up at seven o’clock, ‘ten o’clock,’ and I wake up at ten o’clock.”
“You have remarkable powers,” said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, looking at his pale face.
“I’ll come and open the gate.”
“Don’t trouble, Shatov will open it for me.”
“Ah, Shatov. Very well, goodbye.”
VI
The door of the empty house in which Shatov was lodging was not closed; but, making his way into the passage, Stavrogin found himself in utter darkness, and began feeling with his hand for the stairs to the upper story. Suddenly a door opened upstairs and a light appeared. Shatov did not come
