See Turgenev’s letter of Sept. 24, 1882, to Schedrin; also N. N. Strakhov’s letter of Nov. 28, 1883, to Leo Tolstoi.
“The scene from Stavrogin (the rape, etc.),” of which Strakhov speaks in the letter to Tolstoi, is preserved in the Dostoevsky Archives which belong to the Pushkin Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences.[92] It is a note-book of seventy-seven pages carefully executed in the handwriting of A. G. Dostoevsky, a copy, although unfinished, of a hitherto unknown manuscript of Dostoevsky. It is not difficult to determine the place which had been intended for that fragment in _The Possessed_. The manuscript is headed “Chapter IX. At Tikhon’s.” From the contents it can be seen that the chapter so numbered must be referred to Part Second of the novel. In our fragment the following incidents are supposed to have already taken place: Shatov’s box on Stavrogin’s ear (the last chapter of Part I.) and Stavrogin’s conversation with Shatov in the night (the first chapter of Part II.). On the other hand Stavrogin’s public declaration of his marriage with Maria Timofeevna (Chapter X. Part II.) is only expected and is still being considered by Stavrogin and Tikhon. Thus, our Chapter IX. ought to follow immediately after Chapter VIII. of Part II. (“Ivan the Tsarevich”), where the maddened Peter Verkhovensky confesses in a passionate whisper his incredible love of Stavrogin, and where Stavrogin—in the highest state of tension (as was ever the case with Dostoevsky)—reveals his true self. (Stavrogin as Ivan Tsarevich, the unknown “he” of all Russia, is hiding himself, the “beautiful” and “sun,” but through Verkhovensky’s wiles is already enslaved by the demon of nihilism.) Yet Stavrogin has two ways and two inclinations which constitute the basis and centre of the novel so far as it affects the religious destinies of Russia. Apart from the temptations of nihilism, he, like the future Aliosha Karamazov, knows also the way to the monastery and to religious obedience. Thus after the embraces of the devil—Verkhovensky (in Chapter VIII.)—there is the confession to Tikhon (in our Chapter IX.).
The author of this article, published in _Builoe_, No. 18, 1922, seems at the time of writing to have been ignorant of the version of Stavrogin’s Confession published by the Central Archives.—TRANSLATORS.