Tikhon gave him a questioning look.
“And ... you actually see him?” he asked, dismissing, in fact, any question of its being a false and morbid hallucination. “Do you actually see a certain image?”
“It is strange that you should lay such stress upon this, when I have already told you that I do see it.” Stavrogin again began to grow more and more irritated with each word. “Of course I see it; I see it as plainly as I see you ... and sometimes I see it and I’m not sure that I see it, although I do see it ... and sometimes[[13]] I do not know what is real: I or it ... it’s all nonsense. And can’t you possibly believe that this is indeed the devil?” he added, breaking into a laugh and passing too abruptly into derision. “Surely that would be more in keeping with your profession.”
“It is more likely a disease, although....”
“Although what?”
“Devils certainly exist, but one’s conception of them may be very various.”
“And you have again just looked down,” Stavrogin broke in with an irritating laugh, “because you were ashamed that I should believe in the devil; but I made out that I did not believe and cunningly put the question to you: does he or does he not really exist?”
Tikhon gave a vague smile.[[14]]
“Well, know then that I am not at all ashamed, and to make up for my rudeness I will tell you, seriously and unblushingly: I do believe in the devil, I believe canonically, in a personal, not allegorical, devil, and I do not in the least want to extort an answer from any one; now that’s all.”[[15]]
He gave a nervous, unnatural laugh. Tikhon looked at him with curiosity, with a rather timorous, yet gentle look.