You got married out of a passion for inflicting torment, out of a passion for feeling the pangs of conscience, out of moral carnality.
Very important quote, and true about Stavrogin. Lmao Shatov knows him so well.
Stavrogin’s ‘moral carnality’ is a gratitiuous passion for inflicting pain on the helpless - Matryosha was his victim before Marya. Honestly, I think this moral carnality is something our two serpents have in common: Pyotr’s determination for dominance in his revolution is probably also driven by this same passionate drive to inflict pain on the helpless - the desire for utopia is much more superficial than they make it seem.
