"

"I did talk like that, but it was not I who outraged children,"
Stavrogin brought out, after a silence that lasted too long. He turned
pale and his eyes gleamed.

"But you talked like that," Shatov went on imperiously, keeping his
flashing eyes fastened upon him. "Is it true that you declared that you
saw no distinction in beauty between some brutal obscene action and any
great exploit, even the sacrifice of life for the good of humanity? Is
it true that you have found identical beauty, equal enjoyment, in both
extremes?"

"It's impossible to answer like this.... I won't answer," muttered
Stavrogin, who might well have got up and gone away, but who did not get
up and go away.

"I don't know either why evil is hateful and good is beautiful, but I
know why the sense of that distinction is effaced and lost in people
like the Stavrogins," Shatov persisted, trembling all over. "Do you know
why you made that base and shameful marriage? Simply because the shame
and senselessness of it reached the pitch of genius! Oh, you are not
one of those who linger on the brink. You fly head foremost. You married
from a passion for martyrdom, from a craving for remorse, through moral
sensuality. It was a laceration of the nerves... Defiance of common
sense was too tempting. Stavrogin and a wretched, half-witted, crippled
beggar! When you bit the governor's ear did you feel sensual pleasure?
Did you? You idle, loafing, little snob. Did you?"

"You're a psychologist," said Stavrogin, turning paler and paler,
"though you're partly mistaken as to the reasons of my marriage. But
who can have given you all this information?" he asked, smiling, with an
effort. "Was it Kirillov? But he had nothing to do with it."

"You turn pale."

"But what is it you want?" Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch asked, raising
his voice at last. "I've been sitting under your lash for the last
half-hour, and you might at least let me go civilly. Unless you really
have some reasonable object in treating me like this."

"Reasonable object?"

"Of course, you're in duty bound, anyway, to let me know your object.
I've been expecting you to do so all the time, but you've shown me
nothing so far but frenzied spite. I beg you to open the gate for me."

He got up from the chair. Shatov rushed frantically after him. "Kiss
the earth, water it with your tears, pray for forgiveness," he cried,
clutching him by the shoulder.

"I didn't kill you... that morning, though... I dr