The day they had planned to begin their journey Stavrogin was not to be found, but search of the loft revealed his body hanging from a hook by means of a silken cord which had been carefully soaped before he slung it around his neck.
At the inquest the doctors absolutely and emphatically rejected all idea of insanity.
“The Possessed” has been the most enigmatic of the writer's books because critics could not agree as to the motives of Stavrogin's crimes and conduct. With the publication of “Stavrogin's Confession” the riddles were solved. In the book as originally planned (and modified at the request of the publisher of the periodical in which the novel originally appeared), Stavrogin, instead of hanging himself, went to Our Lady Spasso-Efimev Monastery and confessed himself to Bishop Tikhon. Dostoievsky recruited his spiritual menschenkenners from the ranks of those who, in youth, had played the game of life hard, transgressed, and repented. Tikhon was one of them, a strange composite of piety and worldliness chained to his cell by chronic rheumatism and alcoholic tremours.
Stavrogin had been obsessed by a phrase from the Apocalypse: “I know thy works; that thou art neither hot nor cold. I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth.” He would be lukewarm no longer. He handed Tikhon three little sheets of ordinary small-sized writing paper printed and stitched together. It was entitled “From Stavrogin” and was a confession of his sins. He couldn't dislodge from his mind the vision of the little girl Matryosha. He identified her with photographs of children that he saw in shop windows. A spider on a geranium leaf caused the vision of her as she killed herself to rise up before him, and this vision came to him now every day and every night
“not that it comes itself, but that I bring it before myself and cannot help bringing it although I can't live with it. I know I can dismiss the thought of Matryosha even now whenever I want to. I am as completely master of my will as ever. But the whole point is that I never wanted to do it; I myself do not want to, and never shall.”
Tikhon suggested that he would be forgiven if his repentance was sincere, and told him he knew an old man, a hermit and ascetic of such great Christian wisdom that he was beyond ordinary understanding. He suggested that Stavrogin should go to him, into retreat, as novice under his guidance, for five years, or seven, for as many as were necessary. He adjured him to make a vow to himself so that by this great sacrifice he would acquire all that he longed for and didn't even expect, and assured him that he could not possibly realise now what he would obtain from such guidance and isolation and repentance.
Stavrogin hesitated and the Bishop suddenly realised that he had no intention of repenting. It dawned upon him that Stavrogin's plan was to flaunt his sin in the face of God as he had previously flaunted it in the face of society, and in a voice which penetrated the soul and with an expression of the most violent grief Tikhon exclaimed,
“Poor lost youth, you have never been so near another and a still greater crime as you are at this moment. Before the publication of the 'Confession,' a day, an hour perhaps before the great step, you will throw yourself on another crime, as a way out, and you will commit it solely in order to avoid the publication of these pages.”
Stavrogin shuddered with anger and almost with fear and shouted “You cursed psychologist!,” and left the cell without looking at Tikhon.
The annihilation of the sense of time in Dostoievsky's stories was first dwelt upon by Merejkowski, and it has been much discussed by all of his serious commentators. Events occur and things take place within a few hours in his books which would ordinarily take months and years. The reason for this timeless cycle of events may be sought in the experiences that the author had in the moments preceding his attacks of epilepsy in which he had thoughts and emotions which a lifetime would scarcely suffice to narrate.