Pyotr Stepanovich snatched himself from his place and instantly gave him an inkstand, paper, and began to dictate, seizing the moment and trembling for his success.
“‘I, Alexei Kirillov, declare...’”
"Wait! I don't want to! Declare to whom?"
Kirillov was shaking as if in a fever. This declaration and some sudden, special thought about it seemed to have absorbed him entirely all at once, as if it were some outlet where, if only for a moment, his tormented spirit rushed precipitously:
"Declare to whom? I want to know whom!"
"To nobody, to everybody, to the first one who reads it. Why specify? To the whole world!"
"To the whole world? Bravo! And so there's no need for repentance. I don't want repentance; and not to any authorities!"
"No, no need, devil take the authorities! but write, if you're serious! ..." Pyotr Stepanovich yelled hysterically.
"Wait! I want a face at the top with its tongue sticking out."
"Ehh, nonsense!" Pyotr Stepanovich got furious. "All that can be expressed without any drawing, just by the tone."
"The tone? That's good. Yes, by the tone, the tone! Dictate with the tone."
“‘I, Alexei Kirillov,’” Pyotr Stepanovich dictated firmly and imperiously, leaning over Kirillov's shoulder and following every letter as he traced it with a hand trembling from excitement, “‘I, Kirillov, declare that today, the -th of October, in the evening, between seven and eight, I killed the student Shatov, for betrayal, in the park, and for his denunciation about the tracts and about Fedka, who secretly lodged with the two of us in Filippov's house, and spent ten days' nights there. And I kill myself today with my revolver not because I repent and am afraid of you, but because abroad I had the intention of ending my life.’”
"Only that?" Kirillov exclaimed with astonishment and indignation.
"Not a word more!" Pyotr Stepanovich waved his hand, trying to snatch the document from him.
"Wait!" Kirillov placed his hand firmly on the paper. "Wait, that's nonsense! I want who I killed him with. Why Fedka? And the fire? I want everything, and also more abuse, in the tone, in the tone!"
"Enough, Kirillov, I assure you it's enough!" Pyotr Stepanovich almost implored, trembling lest he tear the paper up. "So that they'll believe you, you must be as obscure as possible, precisely like that, with just hints. You must show only a little corner of the truth, exactly enough to get them excited. They'll always heap up more lies for themselves, and will certainly believe themselves better than us, and that's the best thing, the best of all! Give it to me; it's splendid as it is; give it to me, give it to me!"
And he kept trying to snatch the paper away. Kirillov, his eyes popping out, listened as if trying to make sense of it, but it seemed he was ceasing to understand.
"Eh, the devil!" Pyotr Stepanovich suddenly got furious, "but he hasn't even signed it yet! Why are you popping your eyes out— sign it!"
"I want more abuse..." Kirillov muttered, though he did take the pen and sign. "I want more abuse..."
"Sign: Vive la république, and enough."
"Bravo!" Kirillov almost bellowed with rapture. "Vive la république démocratique, sociale et universelle ou la mort! ... No, no, not that! Liberté, égalité, fraternité ou la mort![clix] There, that's better, that's better," he wrote it delightedly under his signature.
"Enough, enough," Pyotr Stepanovich kept repeating.
"Wait, a little bit more... You know, I'll sign it again in French: 'de Kirilloff, gentilhomme russe et citoyen du monde.'[clx] Ha, ha, ha!"[197] he dissolved in laughter. "No, no, no, wait, I've got the best one, eureka: gentilhomme-séminariste russe et citoyen du monde civilisé![clxi]—that's better than any..." he jumped up from the sofa and suddenly, with a quick gesture, snatched the revolver from the windowsill, ran into the other room with it, and closed the door tightly behind him. Pyotr Stepanovich stood for a moment pondering, looking at the door.
"If it's right now, maybe he'll really shoot, but if he starts thinking— nothing will happen."
Meanwhile, he took the paper, sat down, and looked it over once more. He was pleased, again, with the wording of the declaration.
"What's needed meanwhile? What's needed is to throw them off completely for a time, and so distract them. The park? There's no park in town, so they'll figure out for themselves that it's Skvoreshniki. While they're figuring it out, time will pass; while they search—more time; and once they find the corpse—it means what's written here is true, and so it's also true about Fedka. And what is Fedka? Fedka is the fire, he's the Lebyadkins; so everything was coming from here, from Filippov's house, and they didn't see a thing, they overlooked it all—now, that will put them into a real whirl! It won't even enter their minds about our people; it's Shatov, and Kirillov, and Fedka, and Lebyadkin; as for why they killed each other—there's another little question for them. Eh, the devil, no sound of a shot yet! ..."
Though he was reading and admiring the wording, he still kept listening every moment with tormenting alarm and—suddenly got furious. He glanced worriedly at his watch; it was a bit late; and it was a good ten minutes since the man had gone out... Grabbing the candle, he made for the door of the room where Kirillov had shut himself up. Just at the door it occurred to him that the candle was also burning down and in another twenty minutes would go out entirely, and there was no other. He put his hand on the latch and listened cautiously; not the slightest sound could be heard; he suddenly opened the door and raised the candle: something bellowed and rushed at him. He slammed the door with all his might and leaned on it again, but everything was already quiet—again dead silence.
For a long time he stood indecisively, candle in hand. In that second as he had opened the door, he had been able to make out very little, and yet there had been a flash of the face of Kirillov standing at the back of the room by the window, and of the beastly rage with which the man had suddenly flown at him. Pyotr Stepanovich gave a start, quickly placed the candle on the table, readied his revolver, and sprang on tiptoe to the opposite corner, so that if Kirillov were to open the door and rush at the table with his revolver, he would still have time to aim and pull the trigger ahead of him.
Pyotr Stepanovich had now lost all belief in the suicide! "He was standing in the middle of the room and thinking," went like a whirlwind through Pyotr Stepanovich's mind. "A dark, horrible room, besides... He bellowed and rushed—two possibilities here: either I hindered him the very second he was pulling the trigger, or ... or he was standing and thinking about how to kill me. Yes, right, he was thinking about it. . . He knows I won't leave without killing him, if he turns coward himself—so he must kill me first, to keep me from killing him ... And again, again the silence in there! It's even frightening: he may suddenly open the door... The swinishness is that he believes in God worse than any priest. . . He won't shoot himself for anything! ... These ones that 'reason it out for themselves' have been multiplying lately! Scum! Pah, devil take it, the candle, the candle! It'll certainly burn out in a quarter of an hour... This has got to be finished; finished at all costs ... Well, so I could kill him now ... With this paper, they'll never think I killed him. I could arrange him and adjust him on the floor with the discharged revolver in his hand so they'd certainly think he himself... Ahh, the devil, how am I going to kill him? I'll open the door, and he'll rush again and shoot first. Eh, the devil, he's bound to miss!"