Page 17 - GALIET BENEATH THE ICON: The Lamp Dostoevsky´s Kirillov IV

saying that he will find him “believing in God”17 upon his return. It is difficult to accept that Kirillov doesn’t believe in God or that he doesn’t love life at this point, for he does tell Stavrogin that he has meant much in his life. Moreover, when Stavrogin’s remarks that Kirillov “doesn’t ‘know’ he believes in God,”18 he rejects the idea as twisted, yet he says it kindly. Kirillov’s humanism, goodness, kindness and faith in this dialogue become undeniably manifest: he also tells Stavrogin that he prays and feels grateful. Whether Kirillov “lits the lamp under the icon” (the image of the savior) as an act of faith or goodwill 3⁄4 because “the old woman likes the lamp lit... and she (the old lady) didn’t have time (to light it) today”19 3⁄4 it demonstrates that his nihilism, up to now, is life affirming rather than life denying. What's more, everything in this dialogue points to Kirillov’s vacillations between his belief and non-belief in God. According to V.L. Komarovich, a Russian critic,
“Dostoevsky connects logically the suicide of Kirillov with the atheistic dogma of Feuerbach (religion, the idea of God, is rooted in the fear of weak and ignorant man). Since in the 1840’s Feuerbach was close to Fourier, suicide as a means of surmounting fear, of overcoming God by the ‘godly’ man 3⁄4 is ‘in the style’ of the humanism of the forties 3⁄4 the humanism which was turning, but
17 p. 251 18 p. 252 19 p. 251
• 17 •