I didn’t want to lie about it even to myself. It wasn’t to help my mother I did the murder⁠—that’s nonsense⁠—I didn’t do the murder to gain wealth and power and to become a benefactor of mankind. Nonsense! I simply did it; I did the murder for myself, for myself alone, and whether I became a benefactor to others, or spent my life like a spider catching men in my web and sucking the life out of men, I couldn’t have cared at that moment.⁠ ⁠… And it was not the money I wanted, Sonia, when I did it. It was not so much the money I wanted, but something else.⁠ ⁠… I know it all now.⁠ ⁠… Understand me! Perhaps I should never have committed a murder again. I wanted to find out something else; it was something else led me on. I wanted to find out then and quickly whether I was a louse like everybody else or a man. Whether I can step over barriers or not, whether I dare stoop to pick up or not, whether I am a trembling creature or whether I have the

right ⁠ ⁠…”

“To kill? Have the right to kill?” Sonia clasped her hands.