The Theme in the Work
The question of why live appears in the novel through three mouths, and none of them answers it fully. Alexei Kirillov answers it with a certainty that came to him one night: man is unhappy because he does not know he is happy, and whoever teaches otherwise closes the world. From this he draws the obligation to kill himself, and makes it seem the freest act. Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin does not answer: he has a strength he cannot find a use for, spends the book trying out occupations that do not hold him, and ends in an attic. Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky, who lived on pose, reaches at the end the need for something infinitely great, without which, he says, men would die of despair. The town, among the three, has another answer: a young man who spent his sister's money kills himself in a hotel room, and the ladies go to look.
In Part One, Chapter III, in the pavilion, Kirillov tells the chronicler what he is looking for: why people do not dare to kill themselves. Two prejudices hold them, pain and the other world, and freedom will come when it is a matter of indifference whether one lives or does not live.
In Part Two, Chapter I, he tells Stavrogin that he loves life and has decided to kill himself, and that one thing does not contradict the other, because there are minutes when time stops.
Есть минуты, вы доходите до минут, и время вдруг останавливается и будет вечно, there are moments, you reach certain moments, when time suddenly stops and will be eternal.
And he gives the thesis from which the rest follows.
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.
In Part Two, Chapter V, Liza's ride stops at the hotel room where a nineteen-year-old boy killed himself after spending four hundred rubles entrusted by his family for the trousseau of his older sister. The ladies, who had never seen a suicide, want to see. One says it was the best way out, another that at least he lived one good moment, and Lyamshin steals a bunch of grapes from the tray.
In Part Two, Chapter VI, when Pyotr recalls the agreement, Kirillov says there is no agreement, and that death is only his will.
Только уговору нет и не было, и я ничем не вязал. Была одна моя воля и теперь одна моя воля, but there is no agreement, nor was there ever one, and I bound myself to nothing. It was only my will, and now it is only my will.
In Part Three, Chapter V, amid the birth of Shatov's wife, Kirillov describes the seconds in which eternal harmony is felt, and what it demands of the body.
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, fully attained. It is not earthly; I do not mean that it is heavenly, I mean that a man in earthly form cannot bear it. One must change physically or die. This 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... this is not tenderness, 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 frightening thing is how terribly clear it is, 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 I would give my whole life for them, because they are worth it.
Hours later, Shatov, who preached a God he did not have, tells Arina Prokhorovna what he saw born.
Тайна появления нового существа, великая тайна и необъяснимая, Арина Прохоровна, и как жаль, что вы этого не понимаете! [...] Было двое, и вдруг третий человек, новый дух, цельный, законченный, как не бывает от рук человеческих; новая мысль и новая любовь, даже страшно… И нет ничего выше на свете!, the mystery of the appearance of a new being, a great and inexplicable mystery, Arina Prokhorovna, and what a pity that you do not understand it! [...] There were two, and suddenly a third person, a new spirit, whole, complete, as is never made by human hands; a new thought and a new love, it is even frightening... And there is nothing higher in the world!
In Part Three, Chapter VI, on the night he kills himself, Kirillov reduces reason to a rule.
Я обязан себя застрелить, потому что самый полный пункт моего своеволия — это убить себя самому, I am obliged to shoot myself, because the fullest point of my self-will is to kill myself.
And he gives the question to which it is the answer, before the image of the Savior.
если законы природы не пожалели и Этого, даже чудо свое же не пожалели, а заставили и Его жить среди лжи и умереть за ложь, то, стало быть, вся планета есть ложь и стоит на лжи и глупой насмешке. Стало быть, самые законы планеты ложь и диаволов водевиль. Для чего же жить, отвечай, если ты человек, if the laws of nature did not spare even Him, did not spare even His own miracle, but forced Him too to live amid lies and to die for a lie, then the whole planet is a lie and rests on lies and a stupid mockery. That is to say, the very laws of the planet are a lie and the devil's vaudeville. Then what is the point of living, answer me, if you are a man?
In Part Three, Chapter VIII, in the letter to Darya Pavlovna, Stavrogin writes of his own strength, which he has proved everywhere and found to be unlimited, without seeing what to apply it to.
На бревне можно переплыть реку, а на щепке нет, one can cross a river on a log, but not on a chip of wood.
That is why he refuses suicide, and the reason is the last deception.
Я знаю, что мне надо бы убить себя, смести себя с земли как подлое насекомое; но я боюсь самоубийства, ибо боюсь показать великодушие. Я знаю, что это будет еще обман, — последний обман, I know I ought to kill myself, sweep myself off the earth like a vile insect; but I am afraid of suicide, because I fear showing magnanimity. I know that this would still be a deception, the last deception.
The novel gives Kirillov the most complete doctrine about meaning and refutes it in the scene; it gives Stavrogin his absence and confirms it in the attic; and it gives Shatov and Marie, in two days, what Kirillov's doctrine called harmony, with no doctrine at all: the tea, the old woman who was sent, the boy, the name Ivan. Meaning appears in those who do not seek it. Those who seek it by reason, Kirillov by deduction, Stavrogin by experiment, end up dead by their own hands, and Shatov, who has it close at hand in his son, is killed by the hands of others on the night of the same day. The book does not make meaning a guarantee.
Who Embodies It
Kirillov is meaning by deduction: he has a rule, a date, an act. Stavrogin is meaning by absence, the man who tries everything and, in the words of the letter to Darya Pavlovna, manages to desire good and evil with the same pleasure, without any desire being great enough to guide him. Stepan is meaning by pose, who only on his deathbed asks for the infinitely great, in Part Three, Chapter VII. Shatov and Marie are meaning in passing: the birth, the tea, the day of feverish talk about starting over "anew and forever," in Part Three, Chapter V.
Where It Appears
- Part One, Chapter III: Kirillov says he is looking for why people do not dare to kill themselves, and that freedom will come when it is a matter of indifference whether one lives or does not live.
- Part Two, Chapter I: Kirillov says he loves life and has decided to kill himself, and that man is unhappy only because he does not know he is happy.
- Part Two, Chapter V: Liza's ride stops at the hotel room of a nineteen-year-old boy who killed himself after spending four hundred rubles entrusted to him by his family.
- Part Two, Chapter VI: Kirillov tells Pyotr that there is no agreement and that the death is only his will, and Pyotr counts on it.
- Part Three, Chapter V: Kirillov describes to Shatov the seconds of eternal harmony, and Marie gives birth to a boy whom Shatov calls a great mystery.
- Part Three, Chapter VI: Kirillov says he is obliged to kill himself because the fullest point of self-will is to kill oneself, and he fires after shouting "now" several times.
- Part Three, Chapter VII: Stepan Trofimovich, sick, says that without the infinitely great men would not live and would die of despair.
- Part Three, Chapter VIII: Stavrogin writes to Darya Pavlovna that he has unlimited strength and nothing to which to apply it, that he fears suicide as the last deception, and he is found hanged.
- With Tikhon: Stavrogin tells Tikhon that he seeks suffering without measure, because only by forgiving himself will the vision that pursues him disappear.
Where the Readings Diverge
Albert Camus, in The Myth of Sisyphus, takes Kirillov as the limit case of logical suicide, of someone who decides on death by reasoning, and this reading is about the doctrine, not the scene. The scene in Part Three, Chapter VI shows Kirillov laughing, hiding in a corner, biting and shouting before the shot, and Stavrogin, in the letter in Part Three, Chapter VIII, says that he was magnanimous because he was not of sound mind. From this come two readings. In one, Kirillov's suicide confirms the logic, and the body only shows the price of carrying it to the end. In the other, the body refutes it, and the novel judges the idea by that refutation.
The text supports both because Kirillov is conceived with method and executed in frenzy, and the novel lets the character say one thing while it shows another. It is worth noting, however, what the two readings have in common: neither finds serenity in the scene, and serenity is what Kirillov's doctrine promised to whoever carried it to the end. Anyone who wants to cite the suicide as proof of meaning must choose between the doctrine, which is cold, and the death, which is not.