“Have you come to respect me after these pages?” Stavrogin said, with a wry smile.
“I am not going to answer that straight off. But there certainly is not, nor can there be, a greater and more terrible crime than your behaviour towards the girl.”
“Let us stop this measuring by the yard.[[60]] Perhaps I do not suffer so much as I have made out, and perhaps I have even told many lies against myself,” he added suddenly.
Tikhon once more let this pass in silence.[[61]]
“And the young lady,”[[62]] Tikhon began again, “with whom you broke off in Switzerland; where, if I may ask, is she ... at this moment?”
“Here.”
There was silence again.
“Perhaps I did lie much against myself,” Stavrogin persisted once more. “Well, what does it matter that I challenge them by the coarseness of my confession, if you noticed the challenge? I shall make them hate me still more, that’s all. Surely that will make it easier for me.”[[63]]
“That is, anger in you will rouse responsive anger in them, and, in hating, you will feel easier than if you accepted their pity.”
“You are right. You understand.” He laughed suddenly. “They may perhaps call me a Jesuit and sanctimonious hypocrite after the document, ha, ha, ha! Yes?”