door, and somebody flies at him like a wild beast. He shuts the door with all his might, and remains listening. He hears nothing, and as he is now convinced that Kirilov will not commit suicide, he makes up his mind to kill Kirilov himself, now that he has got the paper. He knows that in a quarter of an hour his candle will be entirely consumed; he sees there is nothing else to be done but to kill Kirilov, but at the same time he does not wish to do it. At last he takes the revolver in his right hand and the candle in his left hand, and with his left hand manages to open the door. The room is apparently empty. At first he thinks that Kirilov has fled; then he becomes aware that against the wall, between a window and a cupboard, Kirilov is standing, stiff and motionless as a ghost. He rushes toward him. Kirilov remains motionless, but his eye is fixed on Peter, and a sardonic smile is on his lips, as though he had guessed what was in Peter’s mind. Peter, losing all self-control, flies at Kirilov, who knocks the candle out of Peter’s hand, and bites his little finger nearly in two. Peter beats him on the head with the butt of his revolver, and escapes from the room. As he escapes, he hears terrifying screams of “At once! at once! at once!” Peter is running for his life, and is already in the vestibule of the house, when he hears a revolver shot. Then he goes back and finds that Kirilov has killed himself. This is practically the end of the book. Peter gets away to St. Petersburg, and all his machinations are discovered. The corpse of Chatov is found; the declaration in Kirilov’s handwriting at first misleads the police, but the whole truth soon comes out, since nearly all the conspirators confess, each being overcome with remorse. Peter escapes and goes abroad. Nicholas Stavrogin returns to his home from St. Petersburg; he is not inculpated in any way in the plots, since the conspirators bear witness that he had nothing to do with them. But he hangs himself nevertheless. As I have said before, the chief characters of this book, Stavrogin, Peter, Chatov, and Kirilov, who seemed such gross exaggerations when the book was published, would surprise nobody who has had any experience of contemporary Russia. Indeed, Peter is less an imitation of Nechaev than a prototype of Azev. As to Kirilov, there are dozens of such men, possessed by one idea and one idea only, in Russia. Stavrogin also is a type which occurs throughout Russian history. Stavrogin has something of Peter the Great in him, Peter the Great run to seed, and of such there are also many in Russia to-day. VIII _THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV_