I saw before me (oh, not in reality! and if only, if only it had been a real vision!), I saw Matryosha, wasted and with feverish eyes, exactly the same as when she had stood on my threshold and, shaking her head, had raised her tiny little fist at me. And nothing had ever seemed so tormenting to me! The pitiful despair of a helpless ten-year-old being with a still unformed mind, who was threatening me (with what? what could she do to me?), but, of course, blaming only herself! Nothing like it had ever happened to me. I sat until nightfall, not moving and forgetting about time. Is this what is called remorse of conscience or repentance? I do not know, and I cannot tell to this day. Perhaps even to this moment I do not loathe the memory of the act itself. Perhaps this remembrance even now contains something pleasurable for my passions. No—what is unbearable to me is only this image alone, and precisely on the threshold, with its raised and threatening little fist, only that look alone, only that minute alone, only that shaking head. This is what I cannot bear, because since then it appears to me almost every day. It does not appear on its own, but I myself evoke it, and cannot help evoking it, even though I cannot live with it. Oh, if only I could ever see her really, at least in a hallucination!
I have other old memories, perhaps even better than this one. I behaved worse with one woman, and she died from it. In duels I have taken the lives of two men who were innocent before me. Once I was mortally insulted and did not take revenge on my adversary. There is one poisoning to my account—intentional and successful and unknown to anyone. (If need be, I'll tell about it all.)
But why is it that none of these memories evokes anything of the kind in me? Only hatred, perhaps, and that caused by my present situation, while before I would cold-bloodedly forget it and keep it away.
After that I wandered about for almost this whole year trying to occupy myself. I know I can remove the girl even now, whenever I wish. As before, I am in perfect control of my will. But the whole point is that I have never wanted to do it, I myself do not want to and will not want to; that I do know. And so it will go on, right up to my madness.
In Switzerland, two months ago, I was able to fall in love with one girl, or, better to say, I felt a fit of the same passion, with the same sort of violent impulse, as used to happen only long ago, in the beginning. I felt a terrible temptation for a new crime—that is, to commit bigamy (since I was already married); but I fled, following the advice of another girl to whom I confided almost everything. Besides, this new crime would in no way have rid me of Matryosha.
So it is that I have decided to print these pages and bring them to Russia in three hundred copies. When the time comes, I will send them to the police and the local authorities; simultaneously, I will send them to the editorial offices of all the newspapers, requesting that they be made public, and to my numerous acquaintances in Petersburg and in Russia. They will equally appear in translation abroad. I know that legally I will perhaps not be inconvenienced, at least not considerably; I am making this statement on my own, and have no accuser; besides, there are very few if any proofs. Finally, there is the deeply rooted idea that my mind is deranged, and the efforts my family will certainly make to use this idea to stifle any legal prosecution that might be dangerous for me. I state this incidentally, to prove that I am fully in my right mind and understand my position. But there will remain for me those who know everything and who will look at me, and I at them. And the more of them the better. Whether this will make it any easier for me—I do not know. I am doing it as a last resort.
Once again: a good search through the Petersburg police records might turn something up. The tradespeople might still be in Petersburg. The house will, of course, be remembered. It was light blue. As for me, I won't be going anywhere, and for some time (a year or two) I can always be found at Skvoreshniki, my mother's estate. If I'm summoned, I'll appear anywhere.
Nikolai Stavrogin
The reading took about an hour. Tikhon read slowly and perhaps reread some passages a second time. Stavrogin sat all the while silent and motionless. Strangely, the shade of impatience, distraction, and as if delirium that had been on his face all that morning almost disappeared, giving way to calm and as if a sort of sincerity, which lent him an air almost of dignity. Tikhon removed his glasses and began first, somewhat cautiously.
"And might it be possible to make some corrections in this document?"
"What for? I wrote it sincerely," replied Stavrogin.
"To touch up the style a little."
"I forgot to warn you that all your words will be in vain; I will not put off my intention; don't bother talking me out of it."
"You did not forget to warn me of that earlier, before the reading."
"Never mind, I repeat again: no matter how strong your objections, I will not leave off my intention. Note that by this unfortunate phrase, or fortunate—think what you like—I am in no way inviting you to quickly start objecting to me and entreating me," he added, as if unable to help himself, again suddenly falling for a moment into the former tone, but he at once smiled sadly at his own words.
"I would not even be able to object or to entreat you especially to give up your intention. This thought is a great thought, and there is no way to express a Christian thought more fully. Repentance cannot go any further than the astonishing deed you are contemplating, if only ..."
"If only what?"
"If only it is indeed repentance and indeed a Christian thought."
"These are fine points, it seems to me; does it make any difference? I wrote it sincerely."
"It is as if you purposely want to portray yourself as coarser than your heart would wish ..." Tikhon was growing more and more bold. Obviously, the "document" had made a strong impression on him.
“‘Portray'? I tell you again: I was not 'portraying myself and especially was not 'posturing.’”
Tikhon quickly lowered his eyes.
"This document comes straight from the need of a mortally wounded heart—do I understand correctly?" he went on insistently and with extraordinary ardor. "Yes, it is repentance and the natural need for it that have overcome you, and you have struck upon a great path, a path of an unheard-of sort. But it is as if you already hate beforehand all those who will read what is described here and are challenging them to battle. If you are not ashamed to confess the crime, why are you ashamed of repentance? Let them look at me, you say; well, and you yourself, how are you going to look at them? Certain places in your account are stylistically accentuated; as if you admire your own psychology and seize upon every little detail just to astonish the reader with an unfeelingness that is not in you. What is that if not the proud challenge of a guilty man to his judge?"
"Where is there any challenge? I eliminated all personal reasoning."
Tikhon held his peace. Color even spread over his pale cheeks.
"Let's leave that," Stavrogin brought it abruptly to a halt. "Allow me instead to make you a question: here it is already five minutes that we've been talking after that" (he nodded to the pages) "and I don't see any expression of loathing or shame in you... you're notsqueamish, it seems! ..."
He did not finish and grinned.
"That is, you wish I'd quickly voice my contempt for you," Tikhon rounded off firmly. "I won't conceal anything from you: I was horrified at this great idle force being spent deliberately on abomination. As for the crime itself, many people sin in the same way, and live in peace and quiet with their conscience, even regarding it as one of the inevitable trespasses of youth. There are old men who sin in the same way, even contentedly and playfully. The whole world is filled with all these horrors. But you have felt the whole depth of it, something which rarely happens to such an extent."