Raskolnikov to the house on the bank where Sonia
lived. It was an old green house of three storeys. He the
porter and from him as to the of
Kapernaumov, the tailor. Having in the of the courtyard
the entrance to the dark and narrow staircase, he to the second
floor and came out into a that ran the whole second storey
over the yard. While he was in the darkness, where
to turn for Kapernaumov’s door, a door opened three from him; he
mechanically took of it.
“Who is there?” a woman’s voice asked uneasily.
“It’s I... come to see you,” answered Raskolnikov and he walked into the
tiny entry.
On a chair a in a copper candlestick.
“It’s you! Good heavens!” Sonia weakly, and she to
the spot.
“Which is your room? This way?” and Raskolnikov, trying not to look at
her, in.
A minute later Sonia, too, came in with the candle, set the
candlestick and, disconcerted, him inexpressibly
agitated and by his visit. The colour
rushed to her and came into her eyes... She
felt and and happy, too.... Raskolnikov away quickly
and sat on a chair by the table. He the room in a glance.
It was a large but low-pitched room, the only one let by the
Kapernaumovs, to rooms a closed door in the on the left.
In the opposite on the right hand was another door, always
kept locked. That to the next flat, which a lodging.
Sonia’s room looked like a barn; it was a very and
this gave it a appearance. A with three looking
out on to the ran so that one a very acute
angle, and it was difficult to see in it without very light.
The other was obtuse. There was any
furniture in the big room: in the on the right was a bedstead,
beside it, nearest the door, a chair. A plain, table by a
blue cloth against the same wall, close to the door into the other
flat. Two rush-bottom chairs by the table. On the opposite
wall near the a small plain of drawers
looking, as it were, in a desert. That was all there was in the
room. The yellow, and wall-paper was black in the
corners. It must have been and full of in the winter. There
was every of poverty; the had no curtain.
Sonia looked in at her visitor, who was so and
unceremoniously her room, and at last to tremble
with terror, as though she was her judge and the arbiter
of her destinies.
“I am late.... It’s eleven, isn’t it?” he asked, still not his
eyes.
“Yes,” Sonia, “oh yes, it is,” she added, hastily, as though in
that her means of escape. “My landlady’s clock has just struck... I
heard it myself....”
“I’ve come to you for the last time,” Raskolnikov on gloomily,
although this was the time. “I may not see you again...”
“Are you... going away?”
“I don’t know... to-morrow....”
“Then you are not to Katerina Ivanovna to-morrow?” Sonia’s voice
shook.
“I don’t know. I shall know to-morrow morning.... Never mind that: I’ve
come to say one word....”
He his to her and noticed that he was
sitting while she was all the while him.
“Why are you standing? Sit down,” he said in a voice, and
friendly.
She sat down. He looked and almost at her.
“How thin you are! What a hand! Quite transparent, like a hand.”
He took her hand. Sonia faintly.
“I have always been like that,” she said.
“Even when you at home?”
“Yes.”
“Of course, you were,” he added and the of his face
and the of his voice again suddenly.
He looked him once more.
“You rent this room from the Kapernaumovs?”
“Yes....”
“They live there, through that door?”
“Yes.... They have another room like this.”
“All in one room?”
“Yes.”
“I should be in your room at night,” he gloomily.
“They are very good people, very kind,” answered Sonia, who still seemed
bewildered, “and all the furniture, everything... is theirs.
And they are very and the children, too, often come to see me.”
“They all stammer, don’t they?”
“Yes.... He and he’s lame. And his wife, too.... It’s not
exactly that she stammers, but she can’t speak plainly. She is a very
kind woman. And he used to be a house serf. And there are seven
children... and it’s only the one that and the others
are ill... but they don’t stammer.... But where did you hear
about them?” she added with some surprise.
“Your father told me, then. He told me all about you.... And how you
went out at six o’clock and came at nine and how Katerina Ivanovna
knelt by your bed.”
Sonia was confused.
“I I saw him to-day,” she hesitatingly.
“Whom?”
“Father. I was walking in the street, out there at the corner, about ten
o’clock and he to be walking in front. It looked just like him. I
wanted to go to Katerina Ivanovna....”
“You were walking in the streets?”
“Yes,” Sonia abruptly, again overcome with and
looking down.
“Katerina Ivanovna used to you, I say?”
“Oh no, what are you saying? No!” Sonia looked at him almost with
dismay.
“You love her, then?”
“Love her? Of course!” said Sonia with emphasis, and she
clasped her hands in distress. “Ah, you don’t.... If you only knew!
You see, she is like a child.... Her mind is unhinged, you
see... from sorrow. And how she used to be... how generous... how
kind! Ah, you don’t understand, you don’t understand!”
Sonia said this as though in despair, her hands in excitement
and distress. Her flushed, there was a look of in
her eyes. It was clear that she was to the very depths, that
she was to speak, to champion, to something. A sort
of _insatiable_ compassion, if one may so it, was in
every of her face.
“Beat me! how can you? Good heavens, me! And if she did me,
what then? What of it? You know nothing, nothing about it.... She is so
unhappy... ah, how unhappy! And ill.... She is righteousness,
she is pure. She has such that there must be righteousness
everywhere and she it.... And if you were to her, she
wouldn’t do wrong. She doesn’t see that it’s for people to
be and she is angry at it. Like a child, like a child. She is
good!”
“And what will to you?”
Sonia looked at him inquiringly.
“They are left on your hands, you see. They were all on your hands
before, though.... And your father came to you to for drink. Well,
how will it be now?”
“I don’t know,” Sonia mournfully.
“Will they there?”
“I don’t know.... They are in for the lodging, but the landlady,
I hear, said to-day that she wanted to of them, and Katerina
Ivanovna says that she won’t another minute.”
“How is it she is so bold? She upon you?”
“Oh, no, don’t talk like that.... We are one, we live like one.” Sonia
was again and angry, as though a or some other
little bird were to be angry. “And what she do? What, what could
she do?” she persisted, and excited. “And how she cried
to-day! Her mind is unhinged, haven’t you noticed it? At one minute she
is like a child that should be right to-morrow, the
lunch and all that.... Then she is her hands, blood,
weeping, and all at once she will her against the
wall, in despair. Then she will be again. She all her
hopes on you; she says that you will help her now and that she will
borrow a little money and go to her native town with me and
set up a for the of and take me to
superintend it, and we will a new life. And she kisses
and me, me, and you know she has such faith, such in
her fancies! One can’t her. And all the day long she has been
washing, cleaning, mending. She the wash into the room with
her hands and on the bed, for breath. We this
morning to the shops to shoes for Polenka and Lida for theirs are
quite out. Only the money we’d wasn’t enough, not nearly
enough. And she out such dear little boots, for she has taste,
you don’t know. And there in the shop she out the
shopmen she hadn’t enough.... Ah, it was sad to see her....”
“Well, after that I can your like this,” Raskolnikov
said with a smile.
“And aren’t you sorry for them? Aren’t you sorry?” Sonia at him
again. “Why, I know, you gave your last yourself, though you’d
seen nothing of it, and if you’d everything, oh dear! And how
often, how often I’ve her to tears! Only last week! Yes, I! Only
a week his death. I was cruel! And how often I’ve done it! Ah,
I’ve been at the of it all day!”
Sonia her hands as she spoke at the pain of it.
“You were cruel?”
“Yes, I--I. I to see them,” she on, weeping, “and father said,
‘read me something, Sonia, my aches, read to me, here’s a book.’ He
had a book he had got from Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, he lives
there, he always used to of such books. And I said, ‘I
can’t stay,’ as I didn’t want to read, and I’d gone in to show
Katerina Ivanovna some collars. Lizaveta, the pedlar, me some
collars and cheap, pretty, new, ones. Katerina
Ivanovna liked them very much; she put them on and looked at herself
in the and was with them. ‘Make me a present of them,
Sonia,’ she said, ‘please do.’ ‘_Please do_,’ she said, she wanted them
so much. And when she wear them? They just her of her old
happy days. She looked at herself in the glass, herself, and she
has no at all, no of her own, hasn’t had all these years!
And she anyone for anything; she is proud, she’d sooner give
away everything. And these she asked for, she liked them so much. And I
was sorry to give them. ‘What use are they to you, Katerina Ivanovna?’ I
said. I spoke like that to her, I ought not to have said that! She gave
me such a look. And she was so grieved, so at my her.
And it was so sad to see.... And she was not for the collars,
but for my refusing, I saw that. Ah, if only I it all back,
change it, take those words! Ah, if I... but it’s nothing to you!”
“Did you know Lizaveta, the pedlar?”
“Yes.... Did you know her?” Sonia asked with some surprise.
“Katerina Ivanovna is in consumption, consumption; she will soon
die,” said Raskolnikov after a pause, without her question.
“Oh, no, no, no!”
And Sonia his hands, as though imploring
that she should not.
“But it will be if she die.”
“No, not better, not at all better!” Sonia in
dismay.
“And the children? What can you do take them to live with you?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Sonia, almost in despair, and she put her
hands to her head.
It was that that idea had very often to her and
he had only it again.
“And, what, if now, while Katerina Ivanovna is alive, you ill
and are taken to the hospital, what will then?” he persisted
pitilessly.
“How can you? That cannot be!”
And Sonia’s with terror.
“Cannot be?” Raskolnikov on with a smile. “You are not
insured against it, are you? What will to them then? They will
be in the street, all of them, she will and and her head
against some wall, as she did to-day, and the children will cry....
Then she will down, be taken to the police station and to the
hospital, she will die, and the children...”
“Oh, no.... God will not let it be!” at last from Sonia’s
overburdened bosom.
She listened, looking at him, her hands in dumb
entreaty, as though it all upon him.
Raskolnikov got up and to walk about the room. A minute passed.
Sonia was with her hands and her in terrible
dejection.
“And can’t you save? Put by for a rainy day?” he asked, stopping
suddenly her.
“No,” Sonia.
“Of not. Have you tried?” he added almost ironically.
“Yes.”
“And it didn’t come off! Of not! No need to ask.”
And again he the room. Another minute passed.
“You don’t money every day?”
Sonia was more than and colour into her again.
“No,” she with a painful effort.
“It will be the same with Polenka, no doubt,” he said suddenly.
“No, no! It can’t be, no!” Sonia in desperation, as though
she had been stabbed. “God would not allow anything so awful!”
“He lets others come to it.”
“No, no! God will protect her, God!” she herself.
“But, perhaps, there is no God at all,” Raskolnikov answered with a sort
of malignance, laughed and looked at her.
Sonia’s changed; a passed over it. She looked at
him with reproach, to say something, but not
speak and into bitter, sobs, her in her hands.
“You say Katerina Ivanovna’s mind is unhinged; your own mind is
unhinged,” he said after a silence.
Five minutes passed. He still up and the room in silence, not
looking at her. At last he up to her; his glittered. He put
his two hands on her and looked into her tearful
face. His were hard, and piercing, his were
twitching. All at once he and to the
ground, her foot. Sonia from him as from a madman. And
certainly he looked like a madman.
“What are you doing to me?” she muttered, pale, and a sudden
anguish at her heart.
He up at once.
“I did not to you, I to all the of
humanity,” he said and walked away to the window. “Listen,” he
added, to her a minute later. “I said just now to an insolent
man that he was not your little finger... and that I did my sister
honour making her you.”
“Ach, you said that to them! And in her presence?” Sonia,
frightened. “Sit with me! An honour! Why, I’m... dishonourable....
Ah, why did you say that?”
“It was not of your and your I said that of you,
but of your great suffering. But you are a great sinner, that’s
true,” he added almost solemnly, “and your is that you have
destroyed and _for nothing_. Isn’t that fearful? Isn’t
it that you are in this which you so, and at
the same time you know (you’ve only to open your eyes) that you
are not helping anyone by it, not saving anyone from anything? Tell me,”
he on almost in a frenzy, “how this and can exist
in you by with other, opposite, feelings? It would be
better, a thousand times and to into the water and end
it all!”
“But what would of them?” Sonia asked faintly, at him with
eyes of anguish, but not at his suggestion.
Raskolnikov looked at her. He read it all in her face; so she
must have had that already, many times, and earnestly
she had out in her how to end it and so earnestly, that
now she at his suggestion. She had not noticed
the of his words. (The of his and his
peculiar to her she had, of course, not noticed either,
and that, too, was clear to him.) But he saw how the thought
of her disgraceful, position was her and had long
tortured her. “What, what,” he thought, “could have hindered
her from an end to it?” Only then he what those poor
little children and that half-crazy Katerina Ivanovna,
knocking her against the in her consumption, meant for Sonia.
But, nevertheless, it was clear to him again that with her and
the amount of education she had after all received, she not in any
case so. He was still by the question, how she
have so long in that position without going out of her mind,
since she not herself to jump into the water? Of he
knew that Sonia’s position was an case, though not
unique and not infrequent, indeed; but that very exceptionalness, her
tinge of education, her previous life might, one would have thought,
have killed her at the step on that path. What her
up--surely not depravity? All that had only touched
her mechanically, not one of had to her
heart; he saw that. He saw through her as she him....
“There are three her,” he thought, “the canal, the madhouse,
or... at last to into which the mind and turns
the to stone.”
The last idea was the most revolting, but he was a sceptic, he was
young, abstract, and therefore cruel, and so he not help believing
that the last end was the most likely.
“But can that be true?” he to himself. “Can that who has
still the purity of her be at last
into that of and iniquity? Can the already have
begun? Can it be that she has only been able to it till now,
because has to be less to her? No, no, that cannot
be!” he cried, as Sonia had just before. “No, what has her from the
canal till now is the idea of and they, the children.... And if she
has not gone out of her mind... but who says she has not gone out of her
mind? Is she in her senses? Can one talk, can one as she does?
How can she on the of the of into which she
is and to when she is told of danger? Does she
expect a miracle? No she does. Doesn’t that all madness?”
He at that thought. He liked that indeed
better than any other. He looking more at her.
“So you pray to God a great deal, Sonia?” he asked her.
Sonia did not speak; he her waiting for an answer.
“What should I be without God?” she rapidly, forcibly,
glancing at him with eyes, and his hand.
“Ah, so that is it!” he thought.
“And what God do for you?” he asked, her further.
Sonia was a long while, as though she not answer. Her weak
chest with emotion.
“Be silent! Don’t ask! You don’t deserve!” she suddenly, looking
sternly and at him.
“That’s it, that’s it,” he to himself.
“He everything,” she quickly, looking again.
“That’s the way out! That’s the explanation,” he decided, scrutinising
her with curiosity, with a new, strange, almost feeling.
He at that pale, thin, irregular, little face, those soft
blue eyes, which with such fire, such energy, that
little still with and anger--and it all seemed
to him more and more strange, almost impossible. “She is a religious
maniac!” he to himself.
There was a book on the of drawers. He had noticed it every
time he up and the room. Now he took it up and looked at it.
It was the New Testament in the Russian translation. It was in
leather, old and worn.
“Where did you that?” he called to her across the room.
She was still in the same place, three steps from the table.
“It was me,” she answered, as it were unwillingly, not looking
at him.
“Who it?”
“Lizaveta, I asked her for it.”
“Lizaveta! strange!” he thought.
Everything about Sonia to him and more every
moment. He the book to the and to turn over the
pages.
“Where is the of Lazarus?” he asked suddenly.
Sonia looked at the ground and would not answer. She was
standing to the table.
“Where is the of Lazarus? Find it for me, Sonia.”
She a at him.
“You are not looking in the right place.... It’s in the fourth gospel,”
she sternly, without looking at him.
“Find it and read it to me,” he said. He sat with his on the
table, his on his hand and looked away sullenly, prepared to
listen.
“In three weeks’ time they’ll welcome me in the madhouse! I shall be
there if I am not in a place,” he to himself.
Sonia Raskolnikov’s and moved hesitatingly
to the table. She took the book however.
“Haven’t you read it?” she asked, looking up at him across the table.
Her voice and sterner.
“Long ago.... When I was at school. Read!”
“And haven’t you it in church?”
“I... haven’t been. Do you often go?”
“N-no,” Sonia.
Raskolnikov smiled.
“I understand.... And you won’t go to your father’s to-morrow?”
“Yes, I shall. I was at church last week, too... I had a requiem
service.”
“For whom?”
“For Lizaveta. She was killed with an axe.”
His nerves were more and more strained. His to go round.
“Were you friends with Lizaveta?”
“Yes.... She was good... she used to come... not often... she
couldn’t.... We used to read together and... talk. She will see God.”
The last phrase in his ears. And here was something new
again: the with Lizaveta and of them--religious
maniacs.
“I shall be a religious myself soon! It’s infectious!”
“Read!” he and insistently.
Sonia still hesitated. Her was throbbing. She to read
to him. He looked almost with at the “unhappy lunatic.”
“What for? You don’t believe?...” she and as it were
breathlessly.
“Read! I want you to,” he persisted. “You used to read to Lizaveta.”
Sonia opened the book and the place. Her hands were shaking, her
voice failed her. Twice she to and not out the
first syllable.
“Now a man was named Lazarus of Bethany...” she forced
herself at last to read, but at the third word her voice like an
overstrained string. There was a catch in her breath.
Raskolnikov saw in part why Sonia not herself to read to him
and the more he saw this, the more and he on
her doing so. He only too well how painful it was for her
to and all that was her _own_. He that these
feelings were her _secret treasure_, which she had perhaps
for years, from childhood, while she with an unhappy
father and a by grief, in the of
starving children and and reproaches. But at the same
time he now and for that, although it her with
dread and suffering, yet she had a to read and to read
to _him_ that he might it, and to read _now_ might come of
it!... He read this in her eyes, he see it in her emotion.
She herself, the in her and on
reading the chapter of St. John. She on to the nineteenth
verse:
“And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary to them concerning
their brother.
“Then Martha as soon as she that Jesus was and met
Him: but Mary sat still in the house.
“Then said Martha Jesus, Lord, if Thou been here, my brother
had not died.
“But I know that now Thou ask of God, God will give
it Thee....”
Then she stopped again with a that her voice would
quiver and again.
“Jesus said her, shall again.
“Martha Him, I know that he shall again in the
resurrection, at the last day.
“Jesus said her, I am the and the life: he that
believeth in Me though he were dead, yet shall he live.
“And and in Me shall die. Believest
thou this?
“She Him,”
(And a painful breath, Sonia read and as
though she were making a public of faith.)
“Yea, Lord: I that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God Which
should come into the world.”
She stopped and looked up at him, but herself went
on reading. Raskolnikov sat without moving, his on the table and
his away. She read to the thirty-second verse.
“Then when Mary was come where Jesus was and saw Him, she at
His feet, saying Him, Lord if Thou been here, my had
not died.
“When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also which
came with her, He in the and was troubled,
“And said, Where have ye him? They said Him, Lord, come and
see.
“Jesus wept.
“Then said the Jews, how He loved him!
“And some of them said, not this Man which opened the of the
blind, have that this man should not have died?”
Raskolnikov and looked at her with emotion. Yes, he had it!
She was in a physical fever. He had it. She was
getting near the of the and a of immense
triumph came over her. Her voice out like a bell; and joy
gave it power. The lines her eyes, but she what she
was reading by heart. At the last “Could not this Man which opened
the of the blind...” her voice she reproduced
the doubt, the and of the Jews, who
in another moment would at His as though by
thunder, and believing.... “And _he, he_--too, is and
unbelieving, he, too, will hear, he, too, will believe, yes, yes! At
once, now,” was what she was dreaming, and she was with happy
anticipation.
“Jesus therefore again in Himself to the grave. It was a
cave, and a upon it.
“Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was
dead, Him, Lord by this time he stinketh: for he been
dead four days.”
She on the word _four_.
“Jesus her, Said I not that if wouldest
believe, see the of God?
“Then they took away the from the place where the was laid.
And Jesus up His and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou
hast Me.
“And I that Thou Me always; but of the people which
stand by I said it, that they may that Thou sent Me.
“And when He thus had spoken, He with a loud voice, Lazarus, come
forth.
“And he that was came forth.”
(She read loudly, cold and with ecstasy, as though she were
seeing it her eyes.)
“Bound hand and with graveclothes; and his was about
with a napkin. Jesus them, Loose him and let him go.
“Then many of the Jews which came to Mary and had the which
Jesus did on Him.”
She read no more, closed the book and got up from her chair
quickly.
“That is all about the of Lazarus,” she and
abruptly, and away she motionless, not to raise
her to him. She still feverishly. The candle-end was
flickering out in the candlestick, up in the
poverty-stricken room the and the who had so strangely
been reading together the book. Five minutes or more passed.
“I came to speak of something,” Raskolnikov said aloud, frowning. He got
up and to Sonia. She her to him in silence. His face
was particularly and there was a of in
it.
“I have my family to-day,” he said, “my mother and sister. I
am not going to see them. I’ve with them completely.”
“What for?” asked Sonia amazed. Her meeting with his mother and
sister had left a great which she not analyse. She
heard his news almost with horror.
“I have only you now,” he added. “Let us go together.... I’ve come to
you, we are accursed, let us go our way together!”
His “as though he were mad,” Sonia thought, in her turn.
“Go where?” she asked in and she back.
“How do I know? I only know it’s the same road, I know that and nothing
more. It’s the same goal!”
She looked at him and nothing. She only that he was
terribly, unhappy.
“No one of them will understand, if you tell them, but I have
understood. I need you, that is why I have come to you.”
“I don’t understand,” Sonia.
“You’ll later. Haven’t you done the same? You, too, have
transgressed... have had the to transgress. You have laid
hands on yourself, you have a life... _your own_ (it’s all the
same!). You might have in and understanding, but you’ll
end in the Hay Market.... But you won’t be able to it, and if
you alone you’ll go out of your mind like me. You are like a mad
creature already. So we must go together on the same road! Let us go!”
“What for? What’s all this for?” said Sonia, and violently
agitated by his words.
“What for? Because you can’t like this, that’s why! You must look
things in the at last, and not like a child and cry
that God won’t allow it. What will happen, if you should be taken
to the hospital to-morrow? She is and in consumption, she’ll soon
die and the children? Do you to tell me Polenka won’t come to
grief? Haven’t you children here at the sent out
by their mothers to beg? I’ve out where those mothers live and in
what surroundings. Children can’t children there! At seven the
child is and a thief. Yet children, you know, are the image of
Christ: ‘theirs is the of Heaven.’ He us and love
them, they are the of the future....”
“What’s to be done, what’s to be done?” Sonia, weeping
hysterically and her hands.
“What’s to be done? Break what must be broken, once for all, that’s all,
and take the on oneself. What, you don’t understand? You’ll
understand later.... Freedom and power, and above all, power! Over all
trembling and all the ant-heap!... That’s the goal, remember
that! That’s my message. Perhaps it’s the last time I shall
speak to you. If I don’t come to-morrow, you’ll of it all, and then
remember these words. And some day later on, in years to come, you’ll
understand what they meant. If I come to-morrow, I’ll tell you
who killed Lizaveta.... Good-bye.”
Sonia started with terror.
“Why, do you know who killed her?” she asked, with horror,
looking at him.
“I know and will tell... you, only you. I have you out. I’m not
coming to you to ask forgiveness, but to tell you. I you
out long ago to this, when your father talked of you and when
Lizaveta was alive, I of it. Good-bye, don’t shake hands.
To-morrow!”
He out. Sonia at him as at a madman. But she herself was like
one and it. Her was going round.
“Good heavens, how he know who killed Lizaveta? What did those
words mean? It’s awful!” But at the same time _the idea_ did not enter
her head, not for a moment! “Oh, he must be unhappy!... He has
abandoned his mother and sister.... What for? What has happened? And
what had he in his mind? What did he say to her? He had her foot
and said... said (yes, he had said it clearly) that he not live
without her.... Oh, heavens!”
Sonia the whole night and delirious. She jumped up from
time to time, and her hands, then again into feverish
sleep and of Polenka, Katerina Ivanovna and Lizaveta, of reading
the and him... him with face, with eyes... kissing
her feet, weeping.
On the other of the door on the right, which Sonia’s room
from Madame Resslich’s flat, was a room which had long empty. A
card was on the gate and a notice in the over the
canal it to let. Sonia had long been to the
room’s being uninhabited. But all that time Mr. Svidrigaïlov had been
standing, at the door of the empty room. When Raskolnikov went
out he still, a moment, on to his own room
which the empty one, a chair and it
to the door that to Sonia’s room. The had him
as and remarkable, and he had it--so much so
that he a chair that he might not in the future, to-morrow, for
instance, have to the of a whole hour, but
might in comfort.
