lost his true national identity (inextricably linked, for Dostoevsky, with the Orthodox Christian faith) and tries to fill the void with ideas derived from Western modes of thought—Catholicism, atheism, scientism, socialism, idealism, etc. As teachers and strong personalities, Stavrogin and Stepan Trofimovich influence those around them, and thus the demons enter the swine. Only at the end, after a heartfelt acknowledgment of their fault, are they given the possibility of redemption—Stavrogin when Tikhon offers him life as a Christian renunciate (an offer that Stavrogin refuses) and Stepan Trofimovich as he approaches death. Instead of belief in God, Stavrogin has rationality, intellect, self-reliance, and egoism, but the spiritual longing and sensual ardour of his childhood, over-stimulated by his teacher Stepan Trofimovich, has never left him. Unfettered by fear or morality, his life has become a self-centred experiment and a heartless quest to overcome the torment of his growing ennui. The most striking manifestation of his dilemma is in the dialogue with Tikhon, where we find him, perhaps for the only time, truthfully communicating his inner state. In this dialogue there is an alternation in his speech between the stern, worldly voice of rational self-possession and the vulnerable, confessional voice of the lost and suffering soul. Many of the other characters are deeply affected by one or other of the two aspects of Stavrogin's psyche. The nihilist Pyotr Verkhovensky is in love with the cynical, amoral, power-seeking side, while Shatov is affected by the ardour of the feeling, spiritually-bereft side. Shatov "rose from the dead" after hearing Stavrogin's uncompromising exhortation of Christ as the supreme ideal (an assertion made in a futile effort to convince himself: he succeeds in convincing Shatov but not himself). Conversely, Kirillov was convinced by Stavrogin's exhortation of atheism—the supremacy of Man's will, not God's—and forges a plan to sacrifice himself to free humanity from its bondage to mystical fear. But Stavrogin himself does not even believe in his own atheism, and as Shatov and Tikhon recognize, drives himself further into evil out of a desire to torture himself and avoid the truth. Kirillov sums up Stavrogin's dilemma thus: "If Stavrogin believes, then he doesn't believe that he believes. But if he doesn't believe, then he doesn't believe that he doesn't believe." Suicide Dostoevsky saw Russia's growing suicide rate as a symptom of the decline of religious faith and the concomitant disintegration of social institutions like the family.