"You say a letter no one received," Kirillov remarked. "In rage it's possible; written more than once. Pushkin wrote to Heeckeren.[86] All right, I'll go. Tell me how."
Nikolai Vsevolodovich explained that he wanted it to be tomorrow, and that he would certainly begin with the renewal of his apologies, and even with the promise of a second letter of apology, but with the understanding that Gaganov, for his part, should also promise not to write any more letters. The letter in hand would be regarded as never having existed.
"Too many concessions; he won't agree," Kirillov said.
"I've come primarily to find out whether you will agree to take these conditions to him."
"I will. It's your affair. But he won't agree."
"I know he won't."
"He wants to fight. Tell how you'll fight."
"The point is that I'd like to finish it all tomorrow for certain. You'll be at his place around nine in the morning. He'll listen and not agree, but he'll get you together with his second—say at around eleven. You'll arrange things, and by one or two everyone should be on the spot. Please try to do it that way. The weapon is pistols, of course, and I especially ask you to arrange it like this: the barriers should be ten paces apart; then you place each of us ten paces from the barrier, and at a sign we start walking towards each other. Each must be sure to reach his barrier, but he can fire before, as he's walking. That's all, I believe."
"Ten paces between barriers is too close," Kirillov observed.
"Twelve, then, only not more, you understand, he seriously wants to fight. Do you know how to load a pistol?"
"I do. I have pistols; I'll give my word that you've never fired them. His second will also give his word about his; two pair, and we'll do odds and evens, his or ours."
"Fine."
"Want to see the pistols?"
"Why not?"
Kirillov squatted down in front of his suitcase in the corner, which was still not unpacked, but from which he took things as he needed them. He pulled from the bottom a boxwood case lined with red velvet, and took from it a pair of elegant, extremely expensive pistols.
"I have everything: powder, bullets, cartridges. I also have a revolver, wait."
He again went into the suitcase and pulled out another case, with a six-chambered American revolver.
"You've got plenty of weapons, and very expensive ones."
"Very. Extremely."
The poor, almost destitute Kirillov—who, incidentally, never noticed his destitution—was now obviously boasting as he displayed the treasures of his weaponry, no doubt acquired at great sacrifice.
"You're still of the same mind?" Stavrogin asked, after a moment's silence, and somewhat cautiously.
"The same," Kirillov answered curtly, guessing at once by the tone what he was being asked about, and he began to remove the weapons from the table.
"When?" Nikolai Vsevolodovich asked even more cautiously, again after some silence.
Kirillov meanwhile put both cases into the suitcase and sat down in his former chair.
"That's not up to me, as you know; when they say," he muttered, as if the question were somewhat burdensome, but at the same time with an obvious readiness to answer all other questions. He looked at Stavrogin, not tearing his black, lusterless eyes away, with a certain calm but kind and affable feeling.
"I, of course, understand shooting oneself," Nikolai Vsevolodovich began again, frowning somewhat, after a long, three-minute-long, thoughtful silence. "I myself have sometimes imagined, and there's always some new thought here: if one did some villainy or, worse, some shame, that is, disgrace, only very mean and ... ludicrous, so that people would remember it for a thousand years and spit on it for a thousand years, and suddenly comes the thought: 'One blow in the temple, and there will be nothing.' What do I care then about people and how they'll be spitting for a thousand years, right?"
"You call that it's a new thought?" Kirillov said, after some reflection.
"I... don't call... once, when I reflected, I felt quite a new thought."
"'Felt a thought'?" Kirillov repeated. "That's good. Many thoughts are there all the time, and suddenly become new. That's right. I see much now as if for the first time."
"Suppose you lived on the moon," Stavrogin interrupted, not listening and continuing his thought, "suppose that there you did all those ludicrous, nasty things... From here you know for certain that there they'll laugh and spit on your name for a thousand years, eternally, all over the moon. But you are here now, and you're looking at the moon from here: what do you care here about all you've done there, or that they'll spit on you there for a thousand years, isn't it true?"
"I don't know," Kirillov answered. "I haven't been on the moon," he added, without any irony, solely to note the fact.
"Whose baby was that just now?"
"The old woman's mother-in-law came; no, daughter-in-law ... it makes no difference. Three days. She's lying sick, with the baby; cries a lot at night—stomach. The mother sleeps, and the old woman brings it; I give it the ball. The ball's from Hamburg. Bought in Hamburg, to throw and catch: strengthens the back. A girl."
"You love children?"
"I love them," Kirillov echoed—quite indifferently, however.
"So, you also love life?"
"Yes, I also love life, what of it?"
"Yet you've resolved to shoot yourself."
"So what? Why together? Life's separate, and that's separate. Life is, and death is not at all."
"You've started believing in the future eternal life?"
"No, not future eternal, but here eternal. There are moments, you reach moments, and time suddenly stops, and will be eternal."
"You hope to reach such a moment?"
"Yes."
"It's hardly possible in our time," Nikolai Vsevolodovich responded, also without any irony, slowly and as if thoughtfully. "In the Apocalypse the angel swears that time will be no more."[87]
"I know. It's quite correct there; clear and precise. When all mankind attains happiness, time will be no more, because there's no need. A very correct thought."
"And where are they going to hide it?"
"Nowhere. Time isn't an object, it's an idea. It will die out in the mind."
"Old philosophical places, the same since the beginning of the ages," Stavrogin muttered with a certain squeamish regret.
"The same! The same since the beginning of the ages, and no others, ever!" Kirillov picked up with flashing eyes, as if this idea held nothing short of victory.
"You seem to be very happy, Kirillov?"
"Yes, very happy," the latter replied, as if making the most ordinary reply.
"But you were upset still so recently, angry with Liputin?"
"Hm... now I'm not scolding. Then I didn't know I was happy yet. Have you seen a leaf, a leaf from a tree?"
"I have."
"I saw one recently, a yellow one, with some green, decayed on the edges. Blown about by the wind. When I was ten years old, I'd close my eyes on purpose, in winter, and imagine a leaf—green, bright, with veins, and the sun shining. I'd open my eyes and not believe it, because it was so good, then I'd close them again."
"What's that, an allegory?"
"N-no... why? Not an allegory, simply a leaf, one leaf. A leaf is good. Everything is good."
"Everything?"
"Everything. Man is unhappy because he doesn't know he's happy; only because of that. It's everything, everything! Whoever learns will at once immediately become happy, that same moment. This mother-in-law will die, and the girl will remain—everything is good. I discovered suddenly."
"And if someone dies of hunger, or someone offends and dishonors the girl—is that good?"