“Because all will has become mine. Can it be that no one in the whole planet, after making an end of God and believing in his own will, will dare to express his self-will on the most vital point? It’s like a beggar inheriting a fortune and being afraid of it and not daring to approach the bag of gold, thinking himself too weak to own it. I want to manifest my self-will. I may be the only one, but I’ll do it.”
“Do it by all means.”
“I am bound to shoot myself because the highest point of my self-will is to kill myself with my own hands.”
“But you won’t be the only one to kill yourself; there are lots of suicides.”
“With good cause. But to do it without any cause at all, simply for self-will, I am the only one.”
“He won’t shoot himself,” flashed across Pyotr Stepanovitch’s mind again.
“Do you know,” he observed irritably, “if I were in your place I should kill someone else to show my self-will, not myself. You might be of use. I’ll tell you whom, if you are not afraid. Then you needn’t shoot yourself to-day, perhaps. We may come to terms.”
“To kill someone would be the lowest point of self-will, and you show your whole soul in that. I am not you: I want the highest point and I’ll kill myself.”
“He’s come to it of himself,” Pyotr Stepanovitch muttered malignantly.
“I am bound to show my unbelief,” said Kirillov, walking about the room. “I have no higher idea than disbelief in God. I have all the history of mankind on my side. Man has done nothing but invent God so as to go on living, and not kill himself; that’s the whole of universal history up till now. I am the first one in the whole history of mankind who would not invent God. Let them know it once for all.”