'You were eavesdropping at the door? Wait, what is it you've arrived with? I promised you something, I know... Aha! I remember: to go to 'our' people! Let's go, I'm very glad, and you couldn't have thought of anything more appropriate right now.'
He grabbed his hat, and the two men left the house without delay.
'You're laughing ahead of time at seeing 'our' people?' Pyotr Stepanovich fidgeted gaily, now trying to keep in stride with his companion on the narrow brick sidewalk, now even running down into the roadway, right into the mud, since his companion was completely unaware that he was walking in the very middle of the sidewalk and thus occupying the whole of it with his own person.
'Not laughing in the least,' Stavrogin answered loudly and gaily, 'on the contrary, I'm sure you've got some serious folk there.'
“‘Gloomy dullards,' as you were pleased to put it once.'
'There's nothing gayer than certain gloomy dullards.'
'Ah, you mean Mavriky Nikolaevich! I'm sure he came just now to give up his fiancee to you, eh? Imagine, it was I who set him onto that, indirectly. And if he doesn't give her up, we'll take her ourselves—eh?'
Pyotr Stepanovich knew, of course, the risk of allowing himself such flourishes, but when he was excited he preferred sooner to risk everything than to leave himself in ignorance. Nikolai Vsevolodovich merely laughed.
'And you still count on helping me?' he asked.
'If you call me. But, you know what, there's one way that's best.'
'I know your way.'
'Ah, no, so far it's a secret. Only remember, secrets cost money.'
'I even know how much,' Stavrogin growled under his breath, but checked himself and fell silent.
'How much? What did you say?' Pyotr Stepanovich fluttered up.
'I said: to hell with you and your secret! Better tell me who you've got there. I know we're going to a name-day party, but who, namely, will be there?'
'Oh, all sorts of things, in the highest degree! Even Kirillov.'
'All members of circles?'
'Devil take it, you rush so! Not even one circle has taken place here yet.'
'Then how did you manage to spread so many tracts?'
'Where we're going only four of them are members of the circle. The rest, while they wait, are spying on each other as hard as they can and bringing everything to me. Trustworthy folk. It's all material for us to organize, and then we clear out. However, you wrote the rules yourself, there's no need to explain to you.'
'So, what, the going's hard? Got stuck?'
'The going? Easy as could be. This'll make you laugh: what first of all affects them terribly is a uniform. There's nothing stronger than a uniform. I purposely invent ranks and positions: I have secretaries, secret stool pigeons, treasurers, chairmen, registrars, their adjuncts— it's all very much liked and has caught on splendidly. Then the next force, naturally, is sentimentality. You know, with us socialism spreads mostly through sentimentality. But the trouble here is with these biting lieutenants; you get burned every so often. Then come the out-and-out crooks; well, they can be nice folk, very profitable on occasion, but they take up a lot of time, require constant surveillance. Well, and finally the main force—the cement that bonds it all—is shame at one's own opinion. There is a real force! And who was it that worked, who was the 'sweetie'[142] that labored so that there isn't a single idea of one's own left in anyone's head! They consider it shameful.'
'But if so, why are you bustling about like this?'
'But if it's just lying there gaping at everybody, how can one help filching it! As if you don't seriously believe success is possible? Eh, the belief is there, it's the wanting that's needed. Yes, precisely with their sort success is possible. I tell you, I can get them to go through fire, if I just yell at them that they're not liberal enough. Fools reproach me for having hoodwinked everyone here with my central committee and 'numerous branches.' You yourself once reproached me with that, but where is there any hoodwinking: the central committee is you and me, and there can be as many branches as they like.'
'And all with these dregs!'
'It's material. They, too, will come in useful.'
'And you're still counting on me?'
'You are the chief, you are the force; I'll just be at your side, a secretary. You know, we shall board our bark, and her oars will be of maple, and her sails of silk, and in the stern there sits a beautiful maiden, the fair Lizaveta Nikolaevna ... or how the devil does the song go...'[143]
'Muffed it!' Stavrogin burst out laughing. 'No, I'd better give you the refrain. Here you're counting off on your fingers what forces make up a circle? All this officialdom and sentimentality—it's good glue, but there's one thing better still: get four members of a circle to bump off a fifth on the pretense of his being an informer, and with this shed blood you'll immediately tie them together in a single knot.[144] They'll become your slaves, they won't dare rebel or call you to accounts. Ha, ha, ha!'
'You, though... you're going to pay for those words, my friend,' Pyotr Stepanovich thought to himself, 'and even this very night. You allow yourself too much.'
Thus, or almost thus, Pyotr Stepanovich must have reflected. However, they were already coming up to Virginsky's house.
'You've no doubt presented me there as some sort of member from abroad, connected with the Internationale, maybe an inspector?' Stavrogin suddenly asked.
'No, not an inspector; the inspector won't be you; you are a founding member from abroad who knows the most important secrets— that's your role. You are, of course, going to speak?'
