“The principal strength,” he says on one occasion, “the cement which binds everything, is the fear of public opinion, the fear of having an opinion of one’s own. It is with just such people that success is possible. I tell you they would throw themselves into the fire if I told them to do so, if I ordered it. I would only have to say that they were bad Liberals. I have been blamed for having deceived my associates here in speaking of a central committee and of ‘innumerable ramifications.’ But where is the deception? The central committee is you and me. As to the ramifications, I can have as many as you wish.” But as Peter’s plans advance, this cement, consisting of vanity and the fear of public opinion, is not sufficient for him; he wants a stronger bond to bind his disciples together, and to keep them under his own immediate and exclusive control; and such a bond must be one of blood. He therefore persuades his committee that one of their members, Chatov, to whom I have already alluded, is a spy. This is easy, because Chatov is a member of the organisation against his will. He became involved in the business when he was abroad, in Switzerland; and on the first possible occasion he says he will have nothing to do with any Nihilist propaganda, since he is absolutely opposed to it, being a convinced Slavophil and a hater of all acts of violence. Peter lays a trap for him. At a meeting of the committee he asks every one of those present whether, should they be aware that a political assassination were about to take place, they would denounce the man who was to perform it. With one exception all answer no, that they would denounce an ordinary assassin, but that political assassination is not murder. When the question is put to Chatov he refuses to answer. Peter tells the others that this is the proof that he is a spy, and that he must be made away with. His object is that they should kill Chatov, and thenceforth be bound to him by fear of each other and of him. He has a further plan for attributing the guilt of Chatov’s murder to another man. He has come across an engineer named Kirilov. This man is also possessed by one idea, in the same manner as Raskolnikov and Chatov, only that, unlike them, his character is strong. His idea is practically that enunciated many years later by Nietzsche, that of the Superman. Kirilov is a maniac: the single idea which in his case has taken possession of him is that of suicide. There are two prejudices, he reasons, which prevent man committing suicide. One of them is insignificant, the other very serious, but the insignificant reason is not without considerable importance: it is the fear of pain. In exposing his idea he argues that were a stone the size of a six-storied house to be suspended over a man, he would know that the fall of the stone would cause him no pain, yet he would instinctively dread its fall, as causing extreme pain. As long as that stone remained suspended over him, he would be in terror