Chapter 39 Chapter 16 Printing House (2)

His comrade yawned.It seemed that the man's indifference had irritated Nechayev. "It's true! That's why they need agitation! If you let them go, they'll be forever in nagging and arguing, and then everything will go wrong. Your stepson is like that, Fyodor . Mikhailovich: Always talk. What the people in dire straits need is not talk, but action. Our purpose is to get them to act. If we can provoke them to act, the battle is half won. Maybe they will be Killing, there may be new repression, but that will only cause more suffering more hatred and more desire for action. This is a virtuous cycle. Not only that, some people suffer, and all people suffer What justice is there in suffering? All we do is speed up the process. You'd be amazed at how fast history moves once we let it go. The cycles of history get faster and faster The shorter. If we act today, the future will unfold before our eyes before we know it."

"So, you can allow forgery, and you can do whatever you want." "Why not? There's nothing new about that. For the future, anything is allowed—even believers say so. I wouldn't be surprised if it were in the Bible." "Of course you don't think it's weird. Only Jesuits would say that. They can't be forgiven. Neither can you." "Can't be forgiven? Who knows? We're talking about pamphlets, Fyodor Mikhailovich, who cares who wrote them? Words are like a gust of wind, blowing today Here, blow there tomorrow. No one owns words. We are talking about the masses, and of course you are a part of the masses. The masses do not care about authorship. The masses have no intelligence, they only have passion. You Do you mean something else?"

"I mean, you'll never be forgiven if you deliberately belittle the suffering of those poor kids next door in the name of the future." "Deliberately? What do you mean? You've been babbling on about the inside of the human heart. History is not ideas, history is not made of people's hearts, history is made in the streets. Don't tell me now I'm talking about ideas with you .that would just be another clever argument trap, the kind that confuses students. I'm not discussing ideas, and if I were, it wouldn't matter. I can think about it one minute, and the next. That matter, as long as I act, there is no problem. People act, except act, you are wrong! You don't understand your faith! Have you heard that the mother of God will go on a pilgrimage? The end of the day is coming , all in their place. The gates of hell are closed. The mother of God will leave her throne in heaven and make a pilgrimage to hell, begging herself to be damned. She will fall on her knees and refuse to get up until God is merciful and man Man is forgiven, even if he is an atheist, even if he is a blasphemer. So, you are wrong. You are contradicting what is written in your own book." Nechayev, with a gleam in his eyes, threw him A glimpse of victory.

Forgive all.Just thinking about it made his head spin.They will unite, father and son.That comes from the dirty mouth of a blasphemer, so shouldn't it be true?Who should dictate where the Mother of God placed her refuge?If Christ was hidden, why couldn't He be hidden in these basements?Why couldn't he be here at this very moment, among the children hanging from the breasts of the woman next door, among the dull, worldly, cunning little girls, among Sergei Nechayev himself? "You're mocking God. If you try to gamble with God's mercy, you'll lose it. Don't think of that any more—listen to me!—or you'll go to hell."

His voice was so hoarse that he could hardly speak.Nechayev's comrade raised his head for the first time and looked at him with interest. Nechayev seemed to sense his weakness.He spoke, and the voice bit him like a dog. "Eighteen centuries, nearly nineteen centuries have passed since the birth of Christ! We are now on the brink of a new age, free to think about anything. There is nothing we cannot think about! Surely you know that. Surely you know—this is what your Raskolnikov said before he fell ill!" "You're crazy, you don't know how to read," he murmured.But he didn't know what to say, because he understood.He didn't know what to say because, in this debate, he didn't trust himself.And he didn't believe in himself because he didn't know what to say.Everything collapsed: logic, rationality.He stared at Nechayev, and all he could see was a crystal ball, self-enclosed and impenetrable, gleaming in the desert light.

"Be careful," Nechayev said meaningfully, tapping a finger. "Be careful what words you use about me. I'm Russian: when you say I'm crazy, you're saying Russia is crazy." "Excellent!" said his comrade, clapping his hands lazily and mockingly. He tried one last time to pull himself together. "No, you're not right. That's just your sophistry. You're just a part of Russia, just a part of Russian madness. I'm just a—" He put a hand on his chest, and was caught by the affected gesture. moved.He dropped his hand and continued, "I'm just someone who cares about that kind of madness. It's my fate, it's my burden. It's not yours. You're a child, not old enough to carry that burden."

"Brilliant again!" said the man, clapping his hands. "He's positioned you, Sergey!" "Well, then, I'll negotiate terms with you," he went on. "I'll write it eventually, for your printing house. I'll tell the truth, all the truth on a single page at your request. My condition is that you print it as it is, without altering a single word." , send them out." "Let's write!" Nechayev said decisively with triumphant eyes. "I like the conditions! Give him paper and pen!" The other man put a clipboard on the composing table and spread out the paper.

He wrote: "On the night of October 12, 1869, my step-son Pavel Alexandrovich Isaev died at the bullet-making tower of the Joinery Wharf. The third department of the police, this story is a deliberate fabrication. I believe that my stepson was murdered by his inhumane friend Sergey Gennadevich Nechayev. "May God forgive his soul. "F. M. Dostoevsky. "November 18, 1869." His hands trembled slightly, and he handed the slip of paper to Nechayev. "Excellent!" said Nechayev, passing the slip of paper to another. "The truth, the truth as the blind see it."

"Print it." "Print," Nechayev ordered the man. The man gave him a hard, dubious look. "is this real?" "Really? What is real?" Nechayev's scream echoed throughout the basement. "Pull! We've wasted enough time!" It was obvious at this moment that he had fallen into the trap. "Let me change it," he said.He took the paper back, rolled it up, and stuffed it into his pocket.Nechayev made no attempt to stop him. "It's too late," he said. "You have written it, and there are witnesses in sight. We will print it, as I promised you, word for word."

A trap, a malicious trap.After all, he thought about it, he was not a faction figure who could easily insert himself into the quarrel between his stepson and the anarchist Sergey Nechayev.Pavel's death was only the bait that drove him from Dresden to Petersburg.But he was a prey from beginning to end, being lured so that he had nowhere to hide.At this moment, Nechayev's words blocked him, making him feel stuck in his throat. He glared at him; Nechayev gave up on pushing the envelope.