egs."

"No, what he did was to boast he'd caught him. By the way, allow me to
trouble you with a question though, for indeed I think I have the right
to one now. Tell me, have you caught your hare?"

"Don't dare to ask me in such words! Ask differently, quite
differently." Shatov suddenly began trembling all over.

"Certainly I'll ask differently." Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch looked coldly
at him. "I only wanted to know, do you believe in God, yourself?"

"I believe in Russia.... I believe in her orthodoxy.... I believe in
the body of Christ.... I believe that the new advent will take place in
Russia.... I believe..." Shatov muttered frantically.

"And in God? In God?"

"I... I will believe in God."

Not one muscle moved in Stavrogin's face. Shatov looked passionately and
defiantly at him, as though he would have scorched him with his eyes.

"I haven't told you that I don't believe," he cried at last. "I will
only have you know that I am a luckless, tedious book, and nothing more
so far, so far.... But confound me! We're discussing you not me.... I'm
a man of no talent, and can only give my blood, nothing more, like every
man without talent; never mind my blood either! I'm talking about you.
I've been waiting here two years for you.... Here I've been dancing
about in my nakedness before you for the last half-hour. You, only you
can raise that flag!..."

He broke off, and sat as though in despair, with his elbows on the table
and his head in his hands.

"I merely mention it as something queer," Stavrogin interrupted
suddenly. "Every one for some inexplicable reason keeps foisting a flag
upon me. Pyotr Verhovensky, too, is convinced that I might 'raise his
flag,' that's how his words were repeated to me, anyway. He has taken it
into his head that I'm capable of playing the part of Stenka Razin for
them, 'from my extraordinary aptitude for crime,' his saying too."

"What?" cried Shatov, "'from your extraordinary aptitude for crime'?"

"Just so."

"H'm! And is it true?" he asked, with an angry smile. "Is it true
that when you were in Petersburg you belonged to a secret society for
practising beastly sensuality? Is it true that you could give lessons to
the Marquis de Sade? Is it true that you decoyed and corrupted children?
Speak, don't dare to lie," he cried, beside himself. "Nikolay Stavrogin
cannot lie to Shatov, who struck him in the face. Tell me everything,
and if it's true I'll kill you, here, on the spot!