What It Is
Those are two images with which Alexei Kirillov tries to prove that man is already happy and does not know it. The first is a tree leaf. Kirillov saw one, yellowed and rotten at the edges, carried off by the wind, and it reminded him of the green, shining leaf, with its veins and sunlight, that at ten he used to imagine with his eyes closed in winter and that, when he opened them, he could not believe existed. He refuses the word allegory: it is a leaf, a single one, and the leaf is good. The second is the seconds of harmony, five or six at a time, in which one feels all of nature and says yes, and which the body cannot bear for long. Both carry the doctrine that binds him to Stavrogin and to Shatov: to suffer is not to know that everything is good, and whoever teaches that ends the world.
Where It Appears
In Chapter I of Part Two, at Filippov's house, Kirillov plays on the floor with a baby and a red rubber ball, and answers Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin that he loves life and has decided to kill himself, and that one thing does not contradict the other. For him death does not really exist, because there are minutes when time stops.
Есть минуты, вы доходите до минут, и время вдруг останавливается и будет вечно, there are minutes, you reach certain minutes, and time suddenly stops and will be eternal.
Stavrogin asks why he was angry with Liputin a few days earlier. Kirillov replies that he did not yet know he was happy, and it is here that he brings in the leaf and fixes the thesis.
Человек несчастлив потому, что не знает, что он счастлив; только потому, man is unhappy because he does not know that he is happy; only for that reason.
Stavrogin objects with the hungry man and with the man who dishonors a girl, and Kirillov says that this too is good, for those who know. His certainty came one Wednesday night, walking about the room: he stopped the clock, which read two thirty-seven. Stavrogin asks whether the clock is the emblem of time that must stop, and Kirillov does not answer. Then comes the conclusion he draws, and which he wishes to be taught.
Кто научит, что все хороши, тот мир закончит, whoever teaches that all are good, that man ends the world.
In Chapter V of Part Three, when Ivan Shatov comes back to his house while his wife is in labor, Kirillov is so distracted that he forgets the old woman he had promised to send, and he suddenly asks whether Shatov has ever had minutes of eternal harmony. He speaks more coherently than usual, like someone who has already formulated the idea.
Есть секунды, их всего зараз приходит пять или шесть, и вы вдруг чувствуете присутствие вечной гармонии, совершенно достигнутой. Это не земное; я не про то, что оно небесное, а про то, что человек в земном виде не может перенести. Надо перемениться физически или умереть. Это чувство ясное и неоспоримое. Как будто вдруг ощущаете всю природу и вдруг говорите: да, это правда. Бог, когда мир создавал, то в конце каждого дня создания говорил: «Да, это правда, это хорошо». Это… это не умиление, а только так, радость. Вы не прощаете ничего, потому что прощать уже нечего. Вы не то что любите, о — тут выше любви! Всего страшнее, что так ужасно ясно и такая радость. Если более пяти секунд — то душа не выдержит и должна исчезнуть. В эти пять секунд я проживаю жизнь и за них отдам всю мою жизнь, потому что стоит, there are seconds, five or six of them come at once, and suddenly you feel the presence of eternal harmony, perfectly attained. This is not earthly; I do not mean it is heavenly, I mean that man in his earthly form cannot bear it. One must change physically or die. The feeling is clear and indisputable. It is as if you suddenly sense all of nature and say: yes, this is true. God, when he created the world, at the end of each day of creation said: "Yes, this is true, this is good." This is... this is not tenderness, it is only joy. You forgive nothing, because there is nothing left to forgive. You do not merely love, oh, it is higher than love! The most terrible thing is that it is so frighteningly clear and such joy. If it lasts more than five seconds, the soul cannot bear it and must vanish. In those five seconds I live a whole life, and for them I would give my entire life, because it is worth it.
Shatov answers with a clinical fact: this is how epilepsy begins, and he recalls Muhammad's pitcher, which was not spilled while the prophet rode through paradise on horseback. Kirillov replies quietly that there will not be time.
In Chapter VI of Part Three, on the night of his death, the doctrine is complete: if there is no God, he is God, and the fullest point of self-will is to kill oneself. What the scene shows at the last instant is something else. Kirillov knocks over the candle with a head-butt, bites the finger of Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky and screams that he wants to curse, and then repeats "now, now" ten times before the shot.
Я хочу изругать… [...] Я хочу изругать…, I want to curse... [...] I want to curse... And, as Pyotr flees, the cries come from inside the house:Сейчас, сейчас, сейчас, сейчас…, now, now, now, now...
The doctrine is thought out with method, and the scene shows the body contradicting it: Kirillov, when touched, knocks over the candle and bites, and only after the "now, now" repeated ten times does he shoot. The one who says "I am God" presses into a corner like a cornered animal, laughs and curses in French. This does not invalidate the logic, but the novel lets the character say one thing and shows another.
In Chapter VIII of Part Three, in the letter to Darya Pavlovna, Stavrogin reads the death of the other man as the book showed it.
Великодушный Кириллов не вынес идеи и — застрелился, но ведь я вижу, что он был великодушен потому, что не в здравом рассудке, the magnanimous Kirillov could not bear the idea and shot himself, but I see that he was magnanimous because he was not in his right mind.
What It Means
The leaf and the seconds do the same work with opposite materials. The leaf is ordinary, anyone can see it, and that is why Kirillov offers it as proof: the good of the world would be in plain sight for anyone who knew how to look. The seconds are rare, and that is why he treats them as knowledge: what a man sees in them is perfect harmony, higher than love, so clear and so joyful that the soul could not withstand more than five seconds and would have to change physically or vanish. The doctrine is born from that alternative. If the body cannot bear the truth, the new man is the one who changes the body, and the man who cannot change it dies in its name.
The book never tests the harmony, it tests the man. Shatov gives it a medical name in the same chapter in which Kirillov describes it, and the suicide scene shows no harmony at all: it shows laughter, hiding, a bite, and a count of "now". This can be read in two ways. In one reading, the body refutes the logic at the moment of proving it, and the novel judges the idea by that refutation. In the other, the logic remains intact and the body does what bodies do, and the distance between doctrine and scene is the one Stavrogin names in the letter, when he says that Kirillov was magnanimous because he was not in his right mind. Either way, the serenity usually attributed to Kirillov's suicide is not in the text.
Relationships
- Standard themes: Meaning of life, God and the divine, Happiness.
- Themes in the work: Meaning of life, God and the divine.
- Characters: Alexei Kirillov, Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin, Ivan Shatov, Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky, Liputin.
- Neighboring symbols: The spider, which Kirillov thanks for climbing the wall in the same conversation as the leaf, and The icon and the lamp, before which he dies.