“Enough. Tell me, then, where exactly am I ridiculous in my manuscript? I know myself, but I want you to put your finger on it. And tell it as cynically as possible, tell me with all the sincerity of which you are capable. And I repeat to you again that you are a terribly queer fellow.”
“In the very form of this great penance there is something ridiculous. Oh, don’t let yourself think that you won’t conquer!” he suddenly exclaimed, almost in ecstasy. “Even this form will conquer” (he pointed to the pages), “if only you sincerely accept the blows and the spitting. It always ended in the most ignominious cross becoming a great glory and a great strength, if the humility of the deed was sincere. Perhaps even in your lifetime you will be comforted!...”
“So you find something ridiculous in the form itself?”[[70]] Stavrogin insisted.
“And in the substance. The ugliness of it will kill it,” Tikhon said in a whisper, looking down.
“Ugliness! what ugliness?”
“Of the crime. There are truly ugly crimes. Crimes, whatever they be, the more blood, the more horror in them, the more imposing they are, so to say, more picturesque. But there are crimes shameful, disgraceful, past all horror, they are, so to say, almost too inelegant....”
Tikhon did not finish.
“You mean to say,” Stavrogin caught him up in agitation, “you find me a very ridiculous figure when I kissed the hands of the dirty little girl....[[71]] I understand you very well, and that is why you despair for me, that it is ugly, revolting—not precisely revolting, but shameful, ridiculous, and you think that that is what I shall least of all be able to bear.”
Tikhon was silent.[[72]]
“I understand why you asked about the young lady from Switzerland, whether she was here.”