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 drew back my hands …” Stavrogin brought out almost with anguish, keeping his eyes on the ground.
“Speak out! Speak out! You came to warn me of danger. You have let me speak. You mean to-morrow to announce your marriage publicly.… Do you suppose I don’t see from your face that some new menacing idea is dominating you?… Stavrogin, why am I condemned to believe in you through all eternity? Could I speak like this to anyone else? I have modesty, but I am not ashamed of my nakedness because it’s Stavrogin I am speaking to. I was not afraid of caricaturing a grand idea by handling it because Stavrogin was listening to me.… Shan’t I kiss your footprints when you’ve gone? I can’t tear you out of my heart, Nikolay Stavrogin!”
“I’m sorry I can’t feel affection for you, Shatov,” Stavrogin replied coldly.
“I know you can’t, and I know you are not lying. Listen. I can set it all right. I can ‘catch your hare’ for you.”
Stavrogin did not speak.
“You’re an atheist because you’re a snob, a snob of the snobs. You’ve lost the distinction between good and evil because you’ve lost touch with your own people. A new generation is coming, straight from the heart of the people, and you will know nothing of it, neither you nor the Verhovenskys, father or son; nor I, for I’m a snob too—I, the son of your serf and lackey, Pashka.… Listen. Attain to God by work; it all lies in that; or disappear like rotten mildew. Attain to Him by work.”
“God by work? What sort of work?”
“Peasants’ work. Go, give up all your wealth.… Ah! you laugh, you’re afraid of some trick?”
But Stavrogin was not laughing.