"What?" Pyotr Stepanovich pricked up his ears. "What idea? Did he tell you something himself?"
"No, I myself guessed it: if Stavrogin believes, he does not believe that he believes. And if he does not believe, he does not believe that he does not believe."
"Well, Stavrogin also has other things more intelligent than that. . ." Pyotr Stepanovich muttered peevishly, watching with alarm the turn of the conversation and the pale Kirillov.
"Devil take it, he won't shoot himself," he thought. "I always suspected it; it's a kink in his brain and nothing more. What trash!"
"You're the last to be with me; I wouldn't like to part badly with you," Kirillov suddenly bestowed.
Pyotr Stepanovich did not answer at once. "Devil take it, what's this now?" he thought again.
"Believe me, Kirillov, I have nothing against you personally as a man, and I've always..."
"You are a scoundrel and a false mind. But I am the same as you are, and I will shoot myself, while you remain alive."
"That is, you mean to say I'm so base as to want to remain alive."
He still could not tell whether it was profitable or unprofitable for him to continue such a conversation at such a moment, and decided to "give himself up to circumstances." But Kirillov's tone of superiority and ever undisguised contempt for him had always annoyed him before, and now for some reason even more than before. Perhaps because Kirillov, who was going to die in an hour or so (Pyotr Stepanovich still kept that in mind), appeared to him as something like a half-man, something of such kind as could no longer be allowed any haughtiness.
"You seem to be boasting to me about shooting yourself?"
"I've always been surprised that everyone remains alive." Kirillov did not hear his remark.
"Hm, that's an idea, I suppose, but..."
"Ape! You yes me to win me over. Keep still, you won't understand anything. If there is no God, then I am God."
"Now, there's the one point of yours that I could never understand: why are you God then?"
"If there is God, then the will is all his, and I cannot get out of his will. If not, the will is all mine, and it is my duty to proclaim self-will."
"Self-will? And why is it your duty?"
"Because the will has all become mine. Can it be that no one on the whole planet, having ended God and believed in self-will, dares to proclaim self-will to the fullest point? It's as if a poor man received an inheritance, got scared, and doesn't dare go near the bag, thinking he's too weak to own it. I want to proclaim self-will. I may be the only one, but I'll do it."
"Do it, then."
"It is my duty to shoot myself because the fullest point of my self-will is—for me to kill myself."
"But you're not the only one to kill yourself; there are lots of suicides."
"For reasons. But without any reason, simply for self-will—only I."
"He won't shoot himself," flashed again in Pyotr Stepanovich.
"You know what," he observed irritably, "in your place, if I wanted to show self-will, I'd kill somebody else and not myself. You could become useful. I'll point out whom, if you're not afraid. Then maybe there's no need to shoot yourself today. We could come to terms."
"To kill someone else would be the lowest point of my self-will, and there's the whole of you in that. I am not you: I want the highest point, and will kill myself."
"Reasoned it all out for himself," Pyotr Stepanovich growled spitefully.
"It is my duty to proclaim unbelief," Kirillov was pacing the room. "For me no idea is higher than that there is no God. The history of mankind is on my side. Man has done nothing but invent God, so as to live without killing himself; in that lies the whole of world history up to now. I alone for the first time in world history did not want to invent God. Let them know once and for all."
"He won't shoot himself," Pyotr Stepanovich worried.
"Who is there to know?" he kept prodding. "There is you and me, and who—Liputin?"
"Everyone is to know; everyone will know. There is nothing hid that shall not be revealed.[195] He said that."
And he pointed with feverish rapture to the icon of the Savior, before which an icon lamp was burning. Pyotr Stepanovich got thoroughly angry.
"So you still believe in Him, and keep the little lamp lit; what is it, 'just in case' or something?"
The other was silent.
"You know what, I think you believe maybe even more than any priest."
"In whom? In Him ? Listen," Kirillov stopped, gazing before him with fixed, ecstatic eyes. "Listen to a big idea: There was one day on earth, and in the middle of the earth stood three crosses. One on a cross believed so much that he said to another: 'This day you will be with me in paradise.'[196] The day ended, they both died, went, and did not find either paradise or resurrection. What had been said would not prove true. Listen: this man was the highest on all the earth, he constituted what it was to live for. Without this man the whole planet with everything on it is—madness only. There has not been one like Him before or since, not ever, even to the point of miracle. This is the miracle, that there has not been and never will be such a one. And if so, if the laws of nature did not pity even This One, did not pity even their own miracle, but made Him, too, live amidst a lie and die for a lie, then the whole planet is a lie, and stands upon a lie and a stupid mockery. Then the very laws of the planet are a lie and a devil's vaudeville. Why live then, answer me, if you're a man."
"That's another turn of affairs. It seems to me you have two different causes mixed up here; and that is highly untrustworthy. But, excuse me, what if you are God? If the lie ended and you realized that the whole lie was because there had been this former God?"
"You've finally understood!" Kirillov cried out rapturously. "So it can be understood, if even someone like you understands! You understand now that the whole salvation for everyone is to prove this thought to them all. Who will prove it? I! I don't understand how, up to now, an atheist could know there is no God and not kill himself at once. To recognize that there is no God, and not to recognize at the same time that you have become God, is an absurdity, otherwise you must necessarily kill yourself. Once you recognize it, you are king, and you will not kill yourself but will live in the chiefest glory. But one, the one who is first, must necessarily kill himself, otherwise who will begin and prove it? It is I who will necessarily kill myself in order to begin and prove it. I am still God against my will, and I am unhappy, because it is my duty to proclaim self-will. Everyone is unhappy, because everyone is afraid to proclaim self-will. That is why man has been so unhappy and poor up to now, because he was afraid to proclaim the chief point of self-will and was self-willed only on the margins, like a schoolboy. I am terribly unhappy, because I am terribly afraid. Fear is man's curse... But I will proclaim self-will, it is my duty to believe that I do not believe. I will begin, and end, and open the door. And save. Only this one thing will save all men and in the next generation transform them physically; for in the present physical aspect, so far as I have thought, it is in no way possible for man to be without the former God. For three years I have been searching for the attribute of my divinity, and I have found it: the attribute of my divinity is—Self-will! That is all, by which I can show in the main point my insubordination and my new fearsome freedom. For it is very fearsome. I kill myself to show my insubordination and my new fearsome freedom."
His face was unnaturally pale, his look unbearably heavy. He was as if delirious. Pyotr Stepanovich thought he was going to collapse right there.
"Give me the pen!" Kirillov suddenly cried quite unexpectedly, in decided inspiration. "Dictate, I'll sign everything. I'll sign that I killed Shatov, too. Dictate while I'm laughing. I'm not afraid of the thoughts of arrogant slaves! You'll see yourself that all that is hid shall be revealed! And you will be crushed ... I believe! I believe!"