Dasha: Protect them all, good Lord, protect them all before protecting me too. What do you want with me?
Stavrogin: I want to ask you to leave with me tomorrow.
Dasha: I will! Where shall we go?
Stavrogin: Abroad. We shall settle there for good. Will you come?
Dasha: I’ll come.
Stavrogin: The place I am thinking of is lugubrious. At the bottom of a ravine. The mountain cuts off the view and crushes one’s thoughts. It is the one place in the world that is most like death.
Dasha: I’ll follow you. But you will learn to live, to live again.... You are strong.
Stavrogin: Yes, I am strong. I was capable of being slapped without saying a word, of overpowering a murderer, of living in dissipation, of publicly confessing my downfall. I can do anything. I have infinite strength. But I don’t know where to apply it. Everything is foreign to me.
Dasha: Ah, may God give you just a little love, even if I am not the object of it!
Stavrogin: Yes, you will be a good nurse! But don’t let yourself be taken in. I have never been able to hate anything. I shall never love. I am capable only of negation, of petty negation. If I could believe in something, I could perhaps kill myself. But I can’t believe.
Dasha: Nicholas, such a void is faith, or the promise of faith.
Stavrogin: I have faith. (Gives her a letter.) Don’t say anything. I have something to do now. What weakness to have come for you! You were dear to me, and in my sorrow it was pleasant to be with you.
Dasha: You made me happy by coming. (Leaves)
Stavrogin: Happy?... No, it isn’t possible... I bring nothing but evil...