hilists incapable of loving beauty? It's only idols they
dislike, but I love an idol. You are my idol! You injure no one, and
every one hates you. You treat every one as an equal, and yet every one
is afraid of you--that's good. Nobody would slap you on the shoulder.
You are an awful aristocrat. An aristocrat is irresistible when he goes
in for democracy! To sacrifice life, your own or another's is nothing
to you. You are just the man that's needed. It's just such a man as you
that I need. I know no one but you. You are the leader, you are the sun
and I am your worm."

He suddenly kissed his hand. A shiver ran down Stavrogin's spine, and he
pulled away his hand in dismay. They stood still.

"Madman!" whispered Stavrogin.

"Perhaps I am raving; perhaps I am raving," Pyotr Stepanovitch assented,
speaking rapidly. "But I've thought of the first step! Shigalov would
never have thought of it. There are lots of Shigalovs, but only one man,
one man in Russia has hit on the first step and knows how to take it.
And I am that man! Why do you look at me? I need you, you; without you
I am nothing. Without you I am a fly, a bottled idea; Columbus without
America."

Stavrogin stood still and looked intently into his wild eyes.

"Listen. First of all we'll make an upheaval," Verhovensky went on in
desperate haste, continually clutching at Stavrogin's left sleeve. "I've
already told you. We shall penetrate to the peasantry. Do you know that
we are tremendously powerful already? Our party does not consist only of
those who commit murder and arson, fire off pistols in the traditional
fashion, or bite colonels. They are only a hindrance. I don't accept
anything without discipline. I am a scoundrel, of course, and not a
socialist. Ha ha! Listen. I've reckoned them all up: a teacher who
laughs with children at their God and at their cradle; is on our side.
The lawyer who defends an educated murderer because he is more cultured
than his victims and could not, help murdering them to get money is one
of us. The schoolboys who murder a peasant for the sake of sensation are
ours. The juries who acquit every criminal are ours. The prosecutor who
trembles at a trial for fear he should not seem advanced enough is ours,
ours. Among officials and literary men we have lots, lots, and they
don't know it themselves. On the other hand, the docility of schoolboys
and fools has reached an extreme pitch; the schoolmasters are bitter
and bilious. On all