Chapter 45 Chapter 20 Stavrogin Stavrogin (1)

Smog hung over the city.Soot filled the sky.In some places, the snow is gray. He sat alone in the room all morning.Now, he knew why he didn't go back to Yelajin Island.He dreaded seeing the earth shoveled aside, the grave open and the body disappear.A corpse that has not been properly disposed of.At this moment, it was buried in his body and in his heart.The corpse stopped crying, just hissed frantically, whispering to him as it fell. he is sick.He knew what was wrong with him.Nechayev, the voice of the times, called this disease revenge.However, the more accurate name of this disease is not so grand, it should be called: resentment.

There was a choice before him.In this ignominious autumn, he can cry out for help, wave his wings like arms, and ask God or his wife to save him.Or he just threw himself in, rejecting the anesthesia of fear and unconsciousness, listening for moments that may or may not come.At that moment, it was not his power that could push it—from a body that was plunged into darkness to a body whose mind was plunged into darkness.When this process occurs, a body is declared born that contains its own corruption, its own darkness. He told Anna Sergeyevna that if everyone was destined to experience the madness of our time, he would be included in it.Not only did he live in this autumn unharmed, he also gained what his son did not have: to fight against the roaring darkness, to possess the darkness, to turn the darkness into a means; to turn the fall into an ascension, even ascension Slow, old, clumsy as a tortoise run.Live where Pavel died, live in Russia.He would listen to the murmurs of Russia's complaints.He carried it all: Russia, Pavel, death.

That's what he said.But is this true, or just boastful?The answer doesn't matter as long as he doesn't flinch.It doesn't matter if he has a point, if he converts his nasty and despicable weakness into a symbolic disease of the times.Madness was attached to him, and he was attached to madness.They think about each other.No matter what you call each other, madness, epilepsy, revenge, or zeitgeist, they have no causal connection with each other.This was not a house he could rent in his madness, nor was it the mad city of Petersburg.He was one of the madmen, and whoever admits to being one must be mad.Everything he said was false, nothing was true, nothing was credible, and nothing could be refuted.He can't hold onto anything but falls.

He opened the pencil case and arranged the stationery.He no longer heard the cry of the lost child from the dark stream.When he succumbs to Pavel, he won't be so devout to him anymore.He wouldn't trust him that much anymore.On the contrary, he might betray him—first love, then Pavel, the mother, the child.Distortion: Everything and everyone is put to another use.He will hold fast and let them fall with him. He remembered Maximov's assistant and the question he had asked: "What kind of writer?" Now, he knew the answer he should have given: "My writing is a distortion of the truth. I choose to take a detour, that is Lead the child to a dark place. I follow the meaning of the pen."

He glanced quickly at the mirror on the dressing table to see himself bent over writing.He didn't wear glasses, and under the dim light, he almost regarded himself as a stranger.The black beard is like a cover, like a dense nest of bees. He moved his chair so he wouldn't look in the mirror.But the feeling that there was someone else in the room kept chasing him.Not the whole person, then, would be a thin shadow, a scarecrow.Dressed in old clothes, with a head made of a bulging sugar bag and a square scarf dangling from its mouth. He is distraught.He was even angry with himself because he was upset.Because of his anger, he always felt that the Scarecrow was a living person.For his anger, the Scarecrow showed wordless indifference.This made him even more angry.

He paced around the room.After a while, move the table.He bent down to look in the mirror, examining his face carefully.He examines the pores on the skin.He cannot write.He cannot think. He cannot think.because?He did not forget the thief that night.If he had been saved, it must have been the work of the thief that night.He has to keep an eye on the thief all the time.However, the thief did not come until the master forgot about him and fell asleep.The owner may have just stopped monitoring and did not wake up, otherwise, this fable would not hold true.The master must sleep.If he must sleep, how can God blame him for sleeping?God had to save him, God had no choice.But isn’t it deliberate provocation and blasphemy to use a whole host of reasons to tease God in this way?

He fell into the old maze again.This is the story of gambling disguised as something else.He gambled because God would not speak.He gambled to make God speak.However, it is a blasphemy to God to let God speak at the moment of the flop.God can only speak when he remains silent.God seemed to speak, but God did not speak. He sat at the table for hours.The pen didn't even move.The thin figure turned back from time to time, just like a funny portrait squashed by himself, like an old man.He is locked up.He is behind bars. Why?Why is that? He closed his eyes and faced himself to the figure, making it clearer.The mask on his face seemed to be still there, and he seemed powerless to take it off.Only the shadow can do it, and the shadow won't do it unless asked to.Let the shadow pick it, he must know the name of the shadow.What is the name of the shadow?Ivanov?Is this Ivanov back, the vague Ivanov, the forgotten Ivanov?What is his real name?Or, the shadow is Pavel?So who rented this room before Pavel?Who is PAI?Owner of the suitcase? Does P. stand for Pavel?Is Pavel's real name Pavel?If Pavel had been called by the wrong name, would he still be here?

Pavel was once a lost man.Now he himself is lost.He was so lost.He didn't know how to ask for help. If he let the pen drop, would the figure cross the table to pick it up and write it himself? He remembered what Anna Sergeyevna had said: You are mourning yourself. Tears flowed down his cheeks, clear and almost tasteless.If it was said that he would continue to purify himself, then his current purification behavior was surprisingly pure. This could not bring his child back from the dead after all.If he insisted on seeing him, he would have to wait until after death. suitcase.white clothes.The white clothes are still there, still somewhere.Is there such a method?Starting with the feet, the body is built in the clothes, until finally the face is revealed.Even if it's Baal's bull face.

Shadow's head grew slightly across the table, beyond what a normal human should be.In fact, in terms of overall proportions, the shadow is only slightly off, slightly larger. He was confused.Does he have a fever.Unfortunately, he couldn't get Matrona from next door to touch his forehead. He couldn't find any feeling from this shadow, couldn't find any feeling.To be more precise, he felt that the shadow was surrounded by a large area of ​​indifference governed by the power of the shadow, like a dark curtain.Was that why he couldn't find the man's name?Not because the name is hidden, but because the shadow is indifferent to all names, all words, and everything about it.

This force was so powerful that he felt the pressure.Wave after wave of silence. The third test.He said to Anna Sergeyevna: I am destined to live a Russian life.Is this the way Russia speaks for itself?A way to use such power, use such darkness, use such indifferent names? Was the name hidden from him the name of another boy?Is it the boy Nechayev whom he criticizes so strongly?Is this what he has to learn?In the eyes of God, Pavel Isaev and Sergey Nechayev are like two sparrows of the same weight, there is no difference between them.Will he be forced to abandon his last conviction?No longer believe in Pavel's innocence, admit that he is Nechayev's comrade and follower, admit that he is a restless young man, unreservedly implement everything Nechayev ordered.Not only an adventurous plot with Nechayev, but also a heightened pleasure in the way of death in his heart.Just as Nechayev hated his fathers, the contradiction between father and son became an irreconcilable contradiction, so Pavel was allowed to follow him. Will he be forced to give up his last belief?

When he asked that question, when he admitted for the first time that Pavel had tried to hate and kill, he felt himself begin to stir.First with Pavel, then with Nechayev, with all of them.Father and Son: Enemies, Enemies of Death. Sitting like this, he felt numb.Pavel was still with him, a child who clogged up the grave of sorrow, weeping endlessly.Or, he was begging an angry Pavel to break free from his opposition to his father's dogma.He also tried to lessen his anger a little.He is like the devil in the bottle, attacking the sons who are disrespectful, filial and ungrateful. That's all he saw.Not having a choice is also a choice.He couldn't think.He cannot write.He cannot mourn.In addition to mourning yourself, mourning for yourself.Until Pavel, the real Pavel, voluntarily and of his own free will, visits him.He is a prisoner in his own heart.He couldn't be sure that Pavel hadn't been here that night, hadn't spoken to him. He only had one chance to speak to Pavel.Not only that, he couldn't accept Pavel's unforgiveness towards him.When Pavel spoke, he couldn't bring himself to play deaf, asleep, or stupid.So, all he could hear was Pavel's recitation.He absolutely believes that he should not just listen to other people's reports, and he has never heard them.However, he believed that he would always hear a quote. He knows his peril, and he's betting on his second chance.Once he's betting money on second chances, he can't lose.He had to do what he couldn't: be willing to wait for things to happen, either to speak or to remain silent. He was afraid that Pavel had already spoken.He believed Pavel was going to speak.Two possibilities.Chalk and cheese. That's what he thought as he sat at Pavel's table.He stared at the phantom across the table.The phantom seems to be as focused as he is, and the phantom is destined to show its real body. Not Nechayev—now, he knew.That shadow is greater than Nechayev.Also not Pavel.Pavel might become like this, one day, a full grown man, from a boy to a handsome man with a cold face.He is not moved by love, even if he is admired by a little girl who is willing to do anything for him. This thought disturbed him.It's not real, at least not yet.But he shuddered at the thought that Pavel was no longer a child, beyond love.Pavel grows not in the human pattern, but in the insect pattern—completely changing shape at every stage of evolution.It's like diving to the bottom of the Nile and coming face-to-face with a gray, cold behemoth.Maybe this thing was once born by a woman, but as the years passed, it degenerated into stone again.This thing does not belong to his world.This thing will curb all his imagination. He is also controlled by Christ of Calvary.But the shadow before him was not the shadow of Christ.He sensed no love in that shadow.All he could perceive was a stone-like cold and boundless indifference. This ghost, so dark, has no figure.This is what he must nurture and give life to his flesh and blood?Or, was he mistaken, wrong from the start?He needs to throw away all of himself, all of what he has accomplished, and throw himself into that figure, reincarnated as a baby?He can't raise the figure in front of him, must he be reincarnated and be raised by it? If that's what he has to do, if that's the truth is the way of resurrection, he'd rather do it himself.He is willing to put everything aside.He would rather be naked as a baby, and follow that shadow to the gates of hell. An image formed in his mind.For a month he had been dreading its presence: Pavel, naked and bloodied, in the morgue.The seeds in his body were either dead or dying. Nothing personal anymore.His eyes fixed on parts of the body without blinking.Pavel would not have been a father without these parts.His thoughts drifted back to the museum in Berlin, thinking of the goddess who specialized in sucking seeds from corpses and storing them. It's finally time.The hand with the pen began to move.However, what was written with that pen was not a word about salvation.Instead, the pen wrote the fly, a black fly, buzzing and slamming against the closed windowpane.It was midsummer in Petersburg, hot and humid.From the street below there was noise and music.In the room, a little girl with brown eyes and beautiful straight hair was lying naked next to the man, her slender feet just reaching the man's ankle.Her face pressed tightly against his shoulder.She snuggled there, motionless as a baby. Who is that man?The figure of man is as perfect as the figure of God.His body, however, radiated a marble-like coldness.Therefore, it is impossible for the child lying in his arms not to feel the bone-chilling cold.As for the man's face, it was invisible. He sat with a pen in his hand, forcibly dragging himself back from the description he had been concentrating on.Such a description would not exist in the world.Such a description is in an inverted position, limited to the moment on which creation depends, the moment when he releases tension and begins to fall. At this moment, he is transforming into a connoisseur, an apprentice.This moment he will be cursed. Restless, he stood up and took out Pavel's diary from the suitcase.He turned to the first blank page.Pavel didn't write on it because he was dead by then.It was on this page that he picked up his pen again and began to write. When he wrote, he was still sitting in this room, at the same table where he is now.The room belonged to Pavel, and it was Pavel's room alone.He was no longer himself, no longer a man who had reached the age of forty-nine.Instead, he grew younger.He had all the strength of the arrogance of his youth.He was wearing a well-tailored white suit.In a way, he was Pavel Isaev.Although, Pavel Isaev was not the name he wanted to call himself. He found a sense of triumph in the blood of the young man who had become Pavel.He had crossed the threshold of death, and now he returned.Nothing could move him anymore.He is not a god.He is no longer human.He was in a sense beyond human, beyond man.He can do anything. With the pen of this young man, the apartment house, with its stale-smelling corridors and dark corners, began to write about itself, about Russia, about this apartment in Petersburg. At the top of the page, in neat capital letters, he wrote the word apartment, and went on: