'Man is afraid of death because he loves life, that's how I understand it,' I observed, 'and that is what nature tells us.'
'That is base, that is the whole deceit!' his eyes began to flash. 'Life is pain, life is fear, and man is unhappy. Now all is pain and fear. Now man loves life because he loves pain and fear. That's how they've made it. Life now is given in exchange for pain and fear, and that is the whole deceit. Man now is not yet the right man. There will be a new man, happy and proud. He for whom it will make no difference whether he lives or does not live, he will be the new man. He who overcomes pain and fear will himself be God. And this God will not be.'
'So this God exists, in your opinion?'
'He doesn't, yet he does. There is no pain in the stone, but there is pain in the fear of the stone. God is the pain of the fear of death. He who overcomes pain and fear will himself become God. Then there will be a new life, a new man, everything new... Then history will be divided into two parts: from the gorilla to the destruction of God, and from the destruction of God to...'
'To the gorilla?'
'... to the physical changing of the earth and man. Man will be God and will change physically. And the world will change, and deeds will change, and thoughts, and all feelings. What do you think, will man then change physically?'
'If it makes no difference whether one lives or does not live, then everyone will kill himself, and perhaps that will be the change.'
'It makes no difference. They will kill the deceit. Whoever wants the main freedom must dare to kill himself. He who dares to kill himself knows the secret of the deceit. There is no further freedom;
here is everything; and there is nothing further. He who dares to kill himself, is God. Now anyone can make it so that there will be no God, and there will be no anything. But no one has done it yet, not once.'
'There have been millions of suicides.'
'But all not for that, all in fear and not for that. Not to kill fear. He who kills himself only to kill fear, will at once become God.'
'He may not have time,' I observed.
'It makes no difference,' he replied softly, with quiet pride, almost with scorn. 'I'm sorry you seem to be laughing,' he added half a minute later.
'And I find it strange that you were so irritated earlier today, and are now so calm, though you talk heatedly.'
'Earlier? Earlier today it was funny,' he replied with a smile. 'I don't like to abuse, and I never laugh,' he added sadly.
'Well, you do spend your nights rather cheerlessly over your tea.' I rose and took my cap.
'You think so?' he smiled, somewhat surprised. 'But why? No, I... I don't know,' he suddenly became confused, 'I don't know how it is with others, and my feeling is that I cannot be like any other. Any other thinks, and then at once thinks something else. I cannot think something else, I think one thing all my life. God has tormented me all my life,' he suddenly concluded, with surprising expansiveness.
'And tell me, if I may ask, why do you speak Russian not quite correctly? Can it be you forgot in your five years abroad?'
'Do I, really, incorrectly? I don't know. No, not because of abroad. I've spoken this way all my life ... it makes no difference to me.'
'Another question, a more delicate one: I fully believe that you are not inclined to meet people and that you speak little with them. Why did you get into conversation with me now?'
'With you? You sat there nicely this morning, and you ... anyway it makes no difference... you very much resemble my brother, a lot, extremely,' he said, blushing. 'He died seven years ago—the older one—very, very much.'
'He must have greatly influenced your way of thinking.'
'N-no, he spoke little; he said nothing. I'll deliver your note.'
He walked me to the gate with a lantern, to lock up after me. 'He's crazy, of course,' I decided to myself. At the gate a new encounter took place.
IX
Just as I lifted my foot to step over the high sill of the gate, someone's strong hand grabbed me by the chest.
'Who's this?' someone's voice bellowed, 'friend or foe? Confess!'
'He's one of us, one of us!' Liputin's little voice squealed nearby.
'It's Mr. G——v, a young man of classical upbringing and connected with the highest society.'
'I love it, if it's society, clas-si... that means high-ly ed-u-ca-ted... retired captain Ignat Lebyadkin, at the world's and his friends' service ... if they're faithful, faithful, the scoundrels!'
Captain Lebyadkin, over six feet tall, fat, beefy, curly-haired, red, and extremely drunk, could barely stand up in front of me and had difficulty articulating. I had, incidentally, seen him even before, from a distance.
'Ah, and this one, too!' he bellowed again, noticing Kirillov, who was still standing there with his lantern. He raised his fist, but lowered it at once.
'I forgive him on account of his learning! Ignat Lebyadkin—the high-ly ed-u-ca-ted...
A cannonball with hot love loaded In Ignat's noble breast exploded. Again with bitter torment groaned Sebastopol's armless one.
Though I was never at Sebastopol,[53] nor am I armless—but what rhymes!' He thrust himself at me with his drunken mug.
