Stavrogin stood looking fixedly into his insane eyes.
"Listen, first we'll get trouble going," Verkhovensky was hurrying terribly, and kept seizing Stavrogin by the left sleeve every moment. "I've already told you: we'll penetrate among the people themselves. Do you know that we're already terribly strong now? Ours aren't only the ones who knife and burn, or perform classic pistol shots, or bite people. That kind only gets in the way. I can conceive of nothing without discipline. I'm a crook, really, not a socialist, ha, ha! Listen, I've counted them all up: the teacher who laughs with children at their God and at their cradle, is already ours. The lawyer who defends an educated murderer by saying that he's more developed than his victims and couldn't help killing to get money, is already ours. Schoolboys who kill a peasant just to see how it feels, are ours. Jurors who acquit criminals right and left, are ours. The prosecutor who trembles in court for fear of being insufficiently liberal, is ours, ours. Administrators, writers—oh, a lot of them, an awful lot of them are ours, and they don't know it themselves! On the other hand, the docility of schoolboys and little fools has reached the highest point; their mentors all have burst gallbladders; everywhere there is vanity in immeasurable measure, appetites beastly, unheard-of... Do you know, do you know how much we can achieve with little ready-made ideas alone? When I left, Littré's thesis that crime is insanity was raging; I come back— crime is no longer insanity but precisely common sense itself, almost a duty, at any rate a noble protest: 'But how can a developed murderer not murder, if he needs money!'[155] And this is just the fruit. The Russian God has already folded in the face of 'rotgut.' The people are drunk, mothers are drunk, children are drunk, the churches are empty, and in the courts it's 'two hundred strokes, or fetch us a pot.' Oh, just let this generation grow up! Only it's a pity there's no time to wait, otherwise they could get themselves even drunker! Ah, what a pity there are no proletarians! But there will be, there will be, we're getting there..."
"It's also a pity we've grown more stupid," Stavrogin muttered, and moved on his way.
"Listen, I myself saw a six-year-old child leading his drunken mother home, and she was swearing at him in foul language. You think I'm glad of that? When it's in our hands, we may even cure it ... if need be we'll drive them into the desert for forty years[156]... But one or two generations of depravity are necessary now, an unheard-of, mean little depravity, that turns men into vile, cowardly, cruel, self-loving slime—that's what's needed! And with a bit of 'fresh blood' to boot, for the sake of habit. Why are you laughing? I'm not contradicting myself. I'm only contradicting the philanthropists and Shigalyovism, not myself. I'm a crook, not a socialist. Ha, ha, ha! It's just a pity there's so little time. I promised Karmazinov I'd start in May and be done by the Protection. Too soon? Ha, ha! Do you know what I'm going to tell you, Stavrogin: so far there's been no cynicism in the Russian people, though they swear in foul language. Do you know that the enslaved serf had more self-respect than Karmazinov? He got flogged, but he upheld his gods, and Karmazinov did not."
"Well, Verkhovensky, I'm listening to you for the first time, and listening in amazement," said Nikolai Vsevolodovich. "So you're really not a socialist, but some sort of political... climber?"
"A crook, a crook. You're concerned about who I am? I'll tell you presently who I am, that's what I'm driving at. It was not for nothing that I just kissed your hand. But we need the people also to believe that we know what we want, and that the others are merely 'brandishing their cudgel and striking their own.' Eh, if only there was time! That's the one trouble—no time. We'll proclaim destruction... why, why, again this little idea is so captivating! But we've got to limber up. We'll get fires going... We'll get legends going... Here every mangy 'crew' will be of use. I'll find such zealots for you in these same 'crews' as would be ready for any kind of shooting and would even be grateful for the honor. Well, sir, so the trouble will start! Such a heaving will set in as the world has never seen ... Russia will be darkened with mist, the earth will weep for the old gods ... Well, sir, and then we'll bring out... whom?"
"Whom?"
"Ivan the Tsarevich."[157]
"Wh-o-om?"
"Ivan the Tsarevich—you, you!"
Stavrogin thought for a minute or so.
"An impostor?"[158] he suddenly asked in profound surprise, looking at the frenzied man. "Eh! so this at last is your plan."
"We'll say he's 'in hiding,’” Verkhovensky said softly, in a sort of amorous whisper, as if he were indeed drunk. "Do you know what this little phrase—'he is in hiding'—means? But he will appear, he will appear. We'll get a legend going better than the castrates'.[159] He exists, but no one has seen him. Oh, what a legend we can get going! And mainly—a new force is on the way. And this is what's needed, this is what the people are weeping for. What is there in socialism: it destroyed the old forces, but didn't bring any new ones. And here we have a force, and such a force, unheard-of! We need it just this once as a lever, to raise up the earth. Everything will rise!"
"So you've seriously been counting on me?" Stavrogin grinned maliciously.
"Why do you laugh, and so maliciously? Don't scare me. I'm like a child now, I can be scared to death by just one such smile. Listen, I won't show you to anybody, not to anybody: it must be that way. He exists, but no one has seen him, he's in hiding. And, you know, it's even possible to show you, for example, to some one person out of a hundred thousand. And it will start spreading all over the earth: 'We've seen him, we've seen him.' Even with Ivan Filippovich God-of-Sabaoth, they saw how he ascended to heaven in a chariot in front of the people, saw it with their 'own' eyes. And you're no Ivan Filippovich; you're beautiful, proud as a god, seeking nothing for yourself, with the halo of a victim, 'in hiding.' The main thing is the legend! You'll win them over, you'll look and win them over. He's bringing the new truth and is 'in hiding.' And here we'll get two or three judgments of Solomon going.[160] These crews, these fivesomes—no need for the newspapers! If just one petition in ten thousand is granted, everyone will come with petitions. In every village, every peasant will have heard tell that there exists somewhere this hollow in a tree where petitions are to be put. And the earth will groan a great groan: 'A new, just law is coming,' and the sea will boil up and the whole showhouse will collapse, and then we'll see how to build up an edifice of stone. For the first time! We will do the building, we, we alone!"
"Frenzy!" said Stavrogin.
"Why, why don't you want it? Afraid? But that's why I seized upon you, because you're afraid of nothing. Is it unreasonable, or what? But so far I'm a Columbus without an America; is a Columbus without an America reasonable?"
Stavrogin was silent. Meanwhile they had come right up to the house and stopped at the entrance.
"Listen," Verkhovensky bent towards his ear, "I'll do it for you without money; I'll end it tomorrow with Marya Timofeevna... without money, and by tomorrow I'll bring you Liza. Want Liza tomorrow?"
"Has he really gone crazy?" Stavrogin thought, smiling. The front doors opened.
"Stavrogin, is America ours?" Verkhovensky seized his hand one last time.
"What for?" Nikolai Vsevolodovich said seriously and sternly.
"No desire, I just knew it!" the other cried out in a burst of frenzied spite. "You're lying, you rotten, lascivious, pretentious little squire, I don't believe you, you've got a wolf's appetite! ... Understand, you've run up too big an account now, I really can't renounce you! There's no one else in the world like you! I've been inventing you since abroad; inventing you as I looked at you. If I hadn't been looking at you from a corner, nothing would have come into my head! ..."