'She does.'
'I didn't know. Never heard it from her. Often?'
'Almost every month, or oftener.'
'I never, never heard. Never heard. And you, of course, have heard from her that I'm crazy,' he suddenly added.
'No, not really that you're crazy. However, I have also heard this notion, but from others.'
'You must have a very good memory, then, if you can recall such trifles. And have you heard about the slap?'
'I've heard something.'
'Everything, that is. You have an awful lot of spare time. And about the duel?'
'And about the duel.'
'You've heard quite a lot here. No need for newspapers in this place. Did Shatov warn you about me? Eh?'
'No. I do know Mr. Shatov, however, but it's a long time since I've seen him.'
'Hm... What's that map you've got there? Hah, a map of the last war! How do you have any need for that?'
'I was checking the chart against the text. A most interesting description.'
'Show me. Yes, it's not a bad account. Strange reading for you, however.'
He drew the book to him and took a fleeting glance at it. It was a voluminous and talented account of the circumstances of the last war,[214]though not so much in a military as in a purely literary sense. He turned the book over in his hands and suddenly tossed it aside impatiently.
'I decidedly do not know why I've come here,' he said with disgust, looking straight into Tikhon's eyes, as if expecting him to reply.
'You, too, seem to be unwell?'
'Yes, unwell.'
And suddenly, though in the most brief and curt expressions, so that some things were even hard to understand, he told how he was subject, especially at night, to hallucinations of a sort; how he sometimes saw or felt near him some malicious being, scoffing and 'reasonable,' 'in various faces and characters, but one and the same, and I always get angry...'
These revelations were wild and incoherent, and indeed came as if from a crazy man. But, for all that, Nikolai Vsevolodovich spoke with such strange sincerity, never before seen in him, with such simple-heartedness, completely unlike him, that it seemed the former man, suddenly and inadvertently, had vanished in him completely. He was not in the least ashamed to show the fear with which he spoke about his phantom. But all this was momentary and vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.
'This is all rubbish,' he said quickly and with awkward vexation, recollecting himself. 'I'll go to a doctor.'
'You certainly should,' Tikhon confirmed.
'You say it so affirmatively ... Have you seen such people as I, with such visions?'
'I have, but very rarely. I remember only one such in my life, an army officer, after he lost his wife, an irreplaceable life's companion for him. The other I only heard about. They were both cured abroad... And how long have you been subject to this?'
'About a year, but it's all rubbish. I'll go to a doctor. It's all rubbish, terrible rubbish. It's I myself in various aspects and nothing more. Since I've just added this... sentence, you must be thinking I'm still doubtful and am not certain that it's I and not actually a demon?'
Tikhon gave him a questioning look.
'And ... do you see him really?' he asked, so as to remove all doubt that it was undoubtedly a false and morbid hallucination, 'do you actually see some sort of image?'
'It's strange that you should insist about it, when I've already told you I do,' Stavrogin again began to grow more irritated with every word, 'of course I do, I see it, just as I see you... and sometimes I see it and am not sure I see it, though I do see it... and sometimes I'm not sure I see it, and I don't know what's true: he or I. . . it's all rubbish. And you, can't you somehow suppose that it's actually a demon?' he added, laughing, and changing too abruptly to a scoffing tone. 'Wouldn't that be more in line with your profession?'
'It's more likely an illness, although...'
'Although what?'
'Demons undoubtedly exist, but the understanding of them can vary greatly.'
'You lowered your eyes again just now,' Stavrogin picked up with irritable mockery, 'because you were ashamed for me, that I believe in the demon, and yet in the guise of not believing I slyly asked you the question: does he or does he not actually exist?'
Tikhon smiled vaguely.
'And, you know, lowering your eyes is totally unbecoming to you: unnatural, ridiculous, and affected, and to give satisfaction for my rudeness I will tell you seriously and brazenly: I believe in the demon, believe canonically in a personal demon, not an allegory, and I have no need to elicit anything from anyone, there you have it. You must be terribly glad ...'
He gave a nervous, unnatural laugh. Tikhon was gazing at him with curiosity, his eyes gentle and as if somewhat timid.
'Do you believe in God?' Stavrogin suddenly blurted out.
