rty-seven minutes past two."

"As an emblem of the fact that there will be no more time?"

Kirillov was silent.

"They're bad because they don't know they're good. When they find out,
they won't outrage a little girl. They'll find out that they're good and
they'll all become good, every one of them."

"Here you've found it out, so have you become good then?"

"I am good."

"That I agree with, though," Stavrogin muttered, frowning.

"He who teaches that all are good will end the world."

"He who taught it was crucified."

"He will come, and his name will be the man-god."

"The god-man?"

"The man-god. That's the difference."

"Surely it wasn't you lighted the lamp under the ikon?"

"Yes, it was I lighted it."

"Did you do it believing?"

"The old woman likes to have the lamp and she hadn't time to do it
to-day," muttered Kirillov.

"You don't say prayers yourself?"

"I pray to everything. You see the spider crawling on the wall, I look
at it and thank it for crawling."

His eyes glowed again. He kept looking straight at Stavrogin with
firm and unflinching expression. Stavrogin frowned and watched him
disdainfully, but there was no mockery in his eyes.

"I'll bet that when I come next time you'll be believing in God too,"
he said, getting up and taking his hat.

"Why?" said Kirillov, getting up too.

"If you were to find out that you believe in God, then you'd believe in
Him; but since you don't know that you believe in Him, then you don't
believe in Him," laughed Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch.

"That's not right," Kirillov pondered, "you've distorted the idea. It's
a flippant joke. Remember what you have meant in my life, Stavrogin."

"Good-bye, Kirillov."

"Come at night; when will you?"

"Why, haven't you forgotten about to-morrow?"

"Ach, I'd forgotten. Don't be uneasy. I won't oversleep. At nine
o'clock. I know how to wake up when I want to. I go to bed saying 'seven
o'clock,' and I wake up at seven o'clock, 'ten o'clock,' and I wake up
at ten o'clock."

"You have remarkable powers," said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, looking at
his pale face.

"I'll come and open the gate."

"Don't trouble, Shatov will open it for me."

"Ah, Shatov. Very well, good-bye."

VI

The door of the empty house in which Shatov was lodging was not closed;
but, making his way into the passage, Stavrogin found himself in utter
darkness, and began feeling with his hand for the stairs to the upper
story. Sudden