“I want to abuse them,” muttered Kirillov. He took the pen, however, and signed. “I want to abuse them.”
“Write ‘Vive la république,’ and that will be enough.”
“Bravo!” Kirillov almost bellowed with delight. “‘Vive la république démocratique sociale et universelle ou la mort!’ No, no, that’s not it. ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité ou la mort.’ There, that’s better, that’s better.” He wrote it gleefully under his signature.
“Enough, enough,” repeated Pyotr Stepanovitch.
“Stay, a little more. I’ll sign it again in French, you know. ‘De Kirillov, gentilhomme russe et citoyen du monde.’ Ha ha!” He went off in a peal of laughter. “No, no, no; stay. I’ve found something better than all. Eureka! ‘Gentilhomme, séminariste russe et citoyen du monde civilisé!’ That’s better than any.…” He jumped up from the sofa and suddenly, with a rapid gesture, snatched up the revolver from the window, ran with it into the next room, and closed the door behind him.
Pyotr Stepanovitch stood for a moment, pondering and gazing at the door.
“If he does it at once, perhaps he’ll do it, but if he begins thinking, nothing will come of it.”
Meanwhile he took up the paper, sat down, and looked at it again. The wording of the document pleased him again.
“What’s needed for the moment? What’s wanted is to throw them all off the scent and keep them busy for a time. The park? There’s no park in the town and they’ll guess its Skvoreshniki of themselves. But while they are arriving at that, time will be passing; then the search will take time too; then when they find the body it will prove that the story is true, and it will follow that’s it all true, that it’s true about Fedka too. And Fedka explains the fire, the Lebyadkins; so that it was all being hatched here, at Filipov’s, while they overlooked it and saw nothing—that will quite turn their heads! They will never think of the quintet; Shatov and Kirillov and Fedka and Lebyadkin, and why they killed each other—that will be another question for them. Oh, damn it all, I don’t hear the shot!”
Though he had been reading and admiring the wording of it, he had been listening anxiously all the time, and he suddenly flew into a rage. He looked anxiously at his watch; it was getting late and it was fully ten minutes since Kirillov had gone out.… Snatching up the candle, he went to the door of the room where Kirillov had shut himself up. He was just at the door when the thought struck him that the candle had burnt out, that it would not last another twenty minutes, and that there was no other in the room. He took hold of the handle and listened warily; he did not hear the slightest sound. He suddenly opened the door and lifted up the candle: something uttered a roar and rushed at him. He slammed the door with all his might and pressed his weight against it; but all sounds died away and again there was deathlike stillness.