"Certainly, about two thousand, or a minimum of fifteen hundred. Give it to me tomorrow, or even today, and by tomorrow evening I'll have sent him packing off to Petersburg for you, and that is precisely what he wants. If you wish, with Marya Timofeevna—mark that."
There was something completely thrown off in him, he spoke somehow imprudently, ill-considered words escaped him. Stavrogin was watching him in surprise.
"I have no need to send Marya Timofeevna away."
"Maybe you don't even want to?" Pyotr Stepanovich smiled ironically.
"Maybe I don't."
"In short, will there be money or won't there be?" he shouted at Stavrogin in spiteful impatience and as if peremptorily. The latter looked him over seriously.
"There'll be no money."
"Eh, Stavrogin! Do you know something, or have you done something already? You're—on a spree!"
His face became distorted, the corners of his mouth twitched, and he suddenly burst into somehow altogether pointless laughter, inappropriate to anything.
"You got money from your father for the estate," Nikolai Vsevolodovich observed calmly. "Maman gave you about six or eight thousand for Stepan Trofimovich. So you can pay fifteen hundred of your own. I don't want, finally, to pay for other people, I've given out a lot as it is, it makes me feel bad..." he grinned at his own words.
"Ah, you're beginning to joke..."
Stavrogin rose from his chair, and Verkhovensky instantly jumped up as well and mechanically turned his back to the door, as if blocking the way out. Nikolai Vsevolodovich had already made a motion to push him away from the door and go out, but he suddenly stopped.
"I won't let you have Shatov," he said. Pyotr Stepanovich gave a start; the two men stood looking at each other.
"I told you earlier why you need Shatov's blood," Stavrogin flashed his eyes. "You want to stick your crews together with that muck. You drove Shatov out superbly just now: you knew very well he wouldn't have said, 'I won't inform,' and he would have regarded it as baseness to lie in front of you. But me, what do you need me for now? You've been pestering me almost since abroad. The way you've been explaining it to me all along is just sheer raving. And yet what you're driving at is that by giving fifteen hundred to Lebyadkin, I would thus be giving Fedka an occasion for putting a knife into him. I know you've got the notion that I'd like to have my wife killed at the same time. By binding me with a crime you think, of course, you'll be getting power over me, right? What do you want that power for? Why the devil do you need me? Take a good look once and for all: am I your man? And leave me alone."
"Did Fedka come to you on his own?" Verkhovensky asked, short of breath.
"Yes, he did; his price is also fifteen hundred... But he'll confirm it himself, he's standing right here..." Stavrogin reached out his arm.
Pyotr Stepanovich quickly turned around. On the threshold, out of the darkness, a new figure emerged—Fedka, in a sheepskin jacket, but without a hat, as if at home. He stood and chuckled, baring his white, even teeth. His black eyes with their yellow cast darted cautiously around the room, watching the gentlemen. There was something he could not understand; he had obviously just been brought by Kirillov, and it was to him that his questioning eyes turned; he stood on the threshold but would not come into the room.
"You stashed him away here so he could listen to our bargaining, or even see the money in our hands, right?" asked Stavrogin, and without waiting for a reply, he walked out of the house. Verkhovensky caught up with him at the gate, nearly crazy.
"Stop! Not another step!" he cried, seizing him by the elbow. Stavrogin jerked his arm, but did not jerk it free. Fury came over him: seizing Verkhovensky by the hair with his left hand, he flung him down on the ground with all his might and went through the gate. But before he had walked even thirty steps, the man caught up with him again.
"Let's make peace, let's make peace," he whispered to him, in a convulsive whisper.
Nikolai Vsevolodovich heaved his shoulders, but did not stop or turn around.
"Listen, I'll bring you Lizaveta Nikolaevna tomorrow, do you want that? No? Why don't you answer? Tell me what you want and I'll do it. Listen, I'll give you Shatov, do you want that?"
"So it's true you've decided to kill him?" Nikolai Vsevolodovich cried.
"But what do you want Shatov for? What for?" the frenzied man went on in a breathless patter, running ahead all the time and seizing Stavrogin's elbow, probably without even noticing it. "Listen, I'll give him to you, let's make peace. You've run up a big account, but... let's make peace!"
Stavrogin finally glanced at him and was struck. This was not the same look, not the same voice as always, or as in the room just now; he saw almost a different face. The intonation of the voice was not the same: Verkhovensky was imploring, beseeching. This was a man still stunned because his most precious thing was being, or had already been, taken away.
"But what's the matter with you?" Stavrogin cried. The other did not answer, but kept running after him, looking at him with the same imploring and yet inexorable eyes.
"Let's make peace!" he whispered once more. "Listen, I've got a knife stashed in my boot, just like Fedka, but I'll make peace with you."
"But what the devil do you need me for, finally!" Stavrogin cried out, decidedly wrathful and amazed. "Is there some mystery in it, or what? What sort of talisman have you got me for?"
"Listen, we're going to stir up trouble," the other muttered quickly and almost as if in delirium. "You don't believe we're going to stir up trouble? We'll stir up such trouble that everything will go off its foundations. Karmazinov is right that there's nothing to cling to. Karmazinov is very intelligent. Just another ten crews like that all over Russia, and I'm uncatchable."
"Of the same sort of fools?" reluctantly escaped from Stavrogin.
"Oh, be a bit stupider, Stavrogin, be a bit stupider yourself! You know, you're not at all so smart that one should wish you that: you're afraid, you don't believe, you're frightened of the scale. And why are they fools? They're not such fools; nowadays nobody's mind is his own. Nowadays there are terribly few distinct minds. Virginsky is a most pure man, ten times purer than the likes of us; well, good for him, in that case. Liputin is a crook, but I know one point in him. There's no crook who doesn't have his point. Only Lyamshin doesn't have any, but he's in my hands to make up for it. A few more such crews, and I'll have passports and money everywhere, how about that alone? Just that alone? And safe places, and then let them search. They'll root out one crew but flub the next. We'll get trouble going... Do you really not believe that the two of us are quite enough?"
"Take Shigalyov, and let me in peace..."
"Shigalyov is a man of genius! Do you know he's a sort of genius like Fourier, but bolder than Fourier, but stronger than Fourier; I'm going to concern myself with him. He's invented 'equality'!"
"He's in a fever, and he's raving; something's happened to him, very peculiar," Stavrogin thought, looking at him once more. Both men walked on without stopping.
"He's got it all down nicely in his notebook," Verkhovensky continued. "He's got spying. He's got each member of society watching the others and obliged to inform. Each belongs to all, and all to each. They're all slaves and equal in their slavery. Slander and murder in extreme cases, but above all—equality. First, the level of education, science, and talents is lowered. A high level of science and talents is accessible only to higher abilities—no need for higher abilities! Higher abilities have always seized power and become despots. Higher abilities cannot fail to be despots and have always corrupted rather than been of use; they are to be banished or executed. Cicero's tongue is cut off, Copernicus's eyes are put out, Shakespeare is stoned—this is Shigalyovism! Slaves must be equal: there has never yet been either freedom or equality without despotism, but within a herd there must be equality, and this is Shigalyovism! Ha, ha, ha, so you find it strange? I'm for Shigalyovism!"