! Speak, if only for once in your life
with the voice of a man. I say it not for my sake but for yours. Do you
understand that you ought to forgive me that blow in the face if only
because I gave you the opportunity of realising your immense power.
... Again you smile your disdainful, worldly smile! Oh, when will you
understand me! Have done with being a snob! Understand that I insist
on that. I insist on it, else I won't speak, I'm not going to for
anything!"

His excitement was approaching frenzy. Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch frowned
and seemed to become more on his guard.

"Since I have remained another half-hour with you when time is so
precious," he pronounced earnestly and impressively, "you may rest
assured that I mean to listen to you at least with interest... and I am
convinced that I shall hear from you much that is new."

He sat down on a chair.

"Sit down!" cried Shatov, and he sat down himself.

"Please remember," Stavrogin interposed once more, "that I was about
to ask a real favour of you concerning Marya Timofyevna, of great
importance for her, anyway...."

"What?" Shatov frowned suddenly with the air of a man who has just been
interrupted at the most important moment, and who gazes at you unable to
grasp the question.

"And you did not let me finish," Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch went on with a
smile.

"Oh, nonsense, afterwards!" Shatov waved his hand disdainfully,
grasping, at last, what he wanted, and passed at once to his principal
theme.

VII

"Do you know," he began, with flashing eyes, almost menacingly, bending
right forward in his chair, raising the forefinger of his right hand
above him (obviously unaware that he was doing so), "do you know who are
the only 'god-bearing' people on earth, destined to regenerate and save
the world in the name of a new God, and to whom are given the keys of
life and of the new world... Do you know which is that people and what
is its name?"

"From your manner I am forced to conclude, and I think I may as well do
so at once, that it is the Russian people."

"And you can laugh, oh, what a race!" Shatov burst out.

"Calm yourself, I beg of you; on the contrary, I was expecting something
of the sort from you."

"You expected something of the sort? And don't you know those words
yourself?"

"I know them very well. I see only too well what you're driving at. All
your phrases, even the expression 'god-bearing people' is only a sequel
to our talk two years a