来自：Crime and Punishment
IV
Raskolnikov went straight to the house on the canal where Sonya lived. It was a three-story building, old and painted green. He sought out the janitor and received from him vague directions as to where Kapernaumov the tailor lived. Having found in a corner of the courtyard the entrance to a narrow and dark staircase, he finally climbed to the second floor and came out onto a gallery that ran along it on the courtyard side. While he wandered in the darkness and perplexity, wondering where the entrance to Kapernaumov's might be, suddenly, three steps away from him, some door opened; he seized hold of it mechanically.
"Who's there?" a woman's voice asked anxiously.
"It's me... to see you," answered Raskolnikov and entered a tiny entryway. There, on a broken-down chair, in a crooked copper candlestick, stood a candle.
"It's you! Lord!" Sonya cried out weakly and stood as if rooted to the spot.
"Where to you? Here?"
And Raskolnikov, trying not to look at her, quickly passed through into the room.
A minute later Sonya also came in with the candle, set down the candle and stood herself before him, completely flustered, all in inexpressible agitation and, evidently, frightened by his unexpected visit. Suddenly color rushed into her pale face, and even tears came to her eyes... She felt both sick, and ashamed, and sweet... Raskolnikov quickly turned away and sat down on a chair at the table. In a glance he managed to take in the room.
It was a large room, but extremely low-ceilinged, the only one rented out by the Kapernaumovs, whose locked door was located in the wall on the left. On the opposite side, in the wall on the right, there was yet another door, always locked tight. There was already another, neighboring apartment there, under a different number. Sonya's room resembled a barn, had the appearance of a very irregular quadrilateral, and this gave it something misshapen. The wall with three windows, looking out onto the canal, cut across the room somehow at an angle, which made one corner, terribly acute, run off somewhere into the depths, so that with the weak lighting one couldn't even make it out properly; the other corner was already too monstrously obtuse. In all this large room there was almost no furniture at all. In the corner, on the right, was a bed; beside it, closer to the door, a chair. Along the same wall where the bed was, right by the door to the other apartment, stood a simple deal table covered with a blue tablecloth; near the table were two wicker chairs. Then, by the opposite wall, near the acute corner, stood a small, plain wooden chest of drawers, as if lost in the emptiness. That was all there was in the room. The yellowish, shabby and worn wallpaper had blackened in all the corners; it must have been damp and full of fumes here in winter. The poverty was evident; even the bed had no curtains.
Sonya silently looked at her guest, who was so attentively and unceremoniously examining her room, and even began, finally, to tremble with fear, as if she stood before a judge and decider of her fate.
"Am I late... Is it eleven o'clock?" he asked, still not raising his eyes to her.
"It is," murmured Sonya. "Oh yes, it is!" she suddenly hurried, as if this were her entire way out, "the landlords' clock just struck... and I heard it myself... It is."
"I've come to you for the last time," Raskolnikov continued gloomily, though this was actually only his first time, "I may not see you again..."
"You're... going away?"
"I don't know... everything tomorrow..."
"So you won't be at Katerina Ivanovna's tomorrow?" Sonya's voice trembled.
"I don't know. Everything tomorrow morning... That's not the point: I came to say one word..."
He raised his thoughtful gaze to her and suddenly noticed that he was sitting while she was still standing before him.
"Why are you standing? Sit down," he said suddenly in a changed, quiet and gentle voice.
She sat down. He looked at her kindly and almost with compassion for a minute.
"How thin you are! Look at your hand! Completely transparent. Your fingers are like a dead person's."
He took her hand. Sonya smiled weakly.
"I was always like this," she said.
"Even when you lived at home?"
"Yes."
"Well, yes, of course!" he pronounced abruptly, and the expression of his face and the sound of his voice suddenly changed again. He looked around once more.
"You rent from Kapernaumov?"
"Yes, sir..."
"They're there, behind the door?"
"Yes... They have the same kind of room too."
"All in one?"
"In one, sir."
"I'd be afraid in your room at night," he remarked gloomily.
"The landlords are very good, very kind," answered Sonya, still as if not having recovered and come to her senses, "and all the furniture, and everything... everything is the landlords'. And they're very kind, and the children often come to me too..."
"The ones who can't speak properly?"
"Yes, sir... He stammers and is lame too. And his wife too... Not that she stammers, but as if she can't pronounce everything. She's kind, very. And he's a former house serf. And there are seven children... and only the eldest one stammers, and the others are just sickly... but don't stammer... But how do you know about them?" she added with some surprise.
"Your father told me everything then. He told me all about you... And about how you went out at six o'clock and came back at nine, and about how Katerina Ivanovna knelt by your bed."
Sonya became embarrassed.
"I thought I saw him today," she whispered irresolutely.
"Whom?"
"Father. I was walking down the street, there nearby, on the corner, at ten o'clock, and he seemed to be walking ahead. And just as if it were him. I was about to go to Katerina Ivanovna's..."
"You were walking?"
"Yes," Sonya whispered again abruptly, becoming embarrassed and lowering her eyes.
"Katerina Ivanovna nearly beat you, at your father's place?"
"Oh no, what are you saying, what are you saying, no!" Sonya looked at him with something like fright.
"So you love her?"
"Her? But ho-o-ow!" Sonya drew out plaintively and with suffering, suddenly clasping her hands together. "Oh! if you only... If you only knew. She's just like a child... Her mind is quite disturbed... from grief. And how intelligent she was... how generous... how kind! You don't know anything, anything... oh!"
Sonya said this as if in despair, agitated and suffering, and wringing her hands. Her pale cheeks flushed again, anguish expressed itself in her eyes. It was evident that much had been touched in her, that she terribly wanted to express something, to say something, to defend. A kind of insatiable compassion, if one may put it thus, was suddenly depicted in all the features of her face.
"Beat! What are you saying! Good Lord, beat! And even if she did beat me, so what! Well, so what? You don't know anything, anything... She's so unfortunate, oh, how unfortunate! And sick... She seeks justice... She's pure. She believes so much that there must be justice in everything, and demands it... And though you torture her, she won't do anything unjust. She herself doesn't notice how all this is impossible, for there to be justice among people, and gets irritated... Like a child, like a child! She's just, just!"
"And what will become of you?"
Sonya looked questioningly.
"They're left on your hands after all. It's true, even before everything was on you, and the deceased used to come to you when hungover to ask for money. Well, but now what will happen?"
"I don't know," Sonya pronounced sadly.
"Will they stay there?"
"I don't know, they owe money for that apartment; but the landlady, I heard, said today that she wants to give notice, and Katerina Ivanovna says that she herself won't stay a minute."
"Why is she being so brave? Relying on you?"
"Oh no, don't say that!.. We're one, we live together," Sonya suddenly became agitated and even irritated again, exactly as if a canary or some other little bird had gotten angry. "And what else can she do? Well what, what can she do?" she asked, getting heated and agitated. "And how much, how much she cried today! Her mind is disturbed, didn't you notice? Disturbed; she worries like a little child about tomorrow being proper, about having refreshments and everything... then she wrings her hands, coughs up blood, cries, suddenly starts banging her head against the wall, as if in despair. And then she consoles herself again, she pins all her hopes on you: she says that now you're her helper and that she'll borrow a little money somewhere and go to her town, with me, and start a boarding school for noble young ladies, and she'll take me as supervisor, and a completely new, beautiful life will begin for us, and she kisses me, embraces me, consoles me, and she believes so much! believes so much in these fantasies! Well, can you contradict her? And she herself spent the whole day today washing, cleaning, mending, she dragged the washtub into the room herself, with her weak strength, got out of breath, and just fell onto the bed; and then in the morning we went to the shops, to buy shoes for Polechka and Lena, because theirs all fell apart, only we didn't have enough money by calculation, not enough at all, and she chose such sweet little boots, because she has taste, you don't know... Right there in the shop she started crying, in front of the merchants, that there wasn't enough... Oh, how pitiful it was to watch."
"Well and it's understandable after that, that you... live this way," said Raskolnikov with a bitter smile.
"And don't you feel sorry? Don't you feel sorry?" Sonya flared up again, "after all, I know, you gave away your last yourself, without having seen anything yet. And if you had seen everything, oh Lord! And how many, how many times I've brought her to tears! Even last week! Oh, me! Only a week before his death. I acted cruelly! And how many, how many times I've done this. Oh, how painful it's been to remember all day today!"
Sonya even wrung her hands as she spoke, from the pain of the memory.
"You acted cruelly?"
"Yes, me, me! I came then," she continued, crying, "and the deceased says: 'read to me,' he says, 'Sonya, I have a headache, read to me... here's a book,' some book he had, he got it from Andrey Semyonovich, from Lebezyatnikov, he lives here, he always procured such funny books. And I say: 'I have to go,' and I didn't want to read, and I'd come to them mainly to show Katerina Ivanovna some collars; Lizaveta, the peddler woman, brought me collars and cuffs cheap, pretty ones, new and with a pattern. And Katerina Ivanovna liked them very much, she put them on and looked at herself in the mirror, and she liked them very, very much: 'give them to me as a present,' she says, 'Sonya, please.' She asked 'please,' and she wanted them so much. And where would she wear them! Just: she remembered her former, happy time! She looks at herself in the mirror, admires herself, and she hasn't had any dresses, any things, for so many years now! And she never asks anyone for anything; she's proud, she'd sooner give away her last, and here she asked, — she liked them so much! And I was sorry to give them away, 'what do you need them for,' I say, 'Katerina Ivanovna?' I said it just like that, 'what for.' I shouldn't have said that to her! She looked at me in such a way, and it became so heavy-heavy for her, that I refused, and it was so pitiful to watch... And not heavy because of the collars, but because I refused, I could see. Oh, if only I could now take it all back, redo it all, all those previous words... Oh, me... but what!.. it's all the same to you!"
"Did you know Lizaveta the peddler woman?"
"Yes... But did you know her?" Sonya asked back with some surprise.
"Katerina Ivanovna has consumption, of the malignant kind; she'll die soon," said Raskolnikov, after pausing and not answering the question.
"Oh, no, no, no!" And Sonya with an unconscious gesture seized both his hands, as if imploring that it shouldn't be so.
"But it's better if she dies."
"No, not better, not better, not better at all!" she repeated fearfully and unconsciously.
"And the children? Where will you take them then, if not to you?"
"Oh, I don't know!" Sonya cried out almost in despair and clutched her head. It was evident that this thought had already flickered many, many times in her own mind, and he had only startled this thought again.
"Well, and if you, even while Katerina Ivanovna is still alive, now, fall ill and they take you to the hospital, well what will happen then?" he insisted mercilessly.
"Oh, what are you saying, what are you saying! That can't be!" — and Sonya's face was distorted with terrible fright.
"How can it not be?" Raskolnikov continued with a harsh smile, "you're not insured, are you? What will become of them then? They'll all go out into the street in a crowd, she'll cough and beg and bang her head against a wall somewhere, like today, and the children will cry... Then she'll fall, be taken to the police station, to the hospital, die, and the children..."
"Oh, no!.. God won't allow this!" finally burst from Sonya's oppressed chest. She listened, looking at him imploringly and folding her hands in mute entreaty, as if everything depended on him.
Raskolnikov stood up and began walking about the room. A minute passed. Sonya stood with her hands and head lowered, in terrible anguish.
"And can't you save up? Put aside for a rainy day?" he asked, suddenly stopping before her.
"No," whispered Sonya.
"Of course not! And have you tried?" he added almost with mockery.
"I tried."
"And it fell through! Well, of course! Why even ask!"
And again he walked about the room. Another minute passed.
"You don't get it every day?"
Sonya became more embarrassed than before, and color rushed to her face again.
"No," she whispered with painful effort.
"With Polechka it will probably be the same," he said suddenly.
"No! No! It can't be, no!" Sonya cried out loudly like one desperate, as if she had suddenly been stabbed with a knife. "God, God won't allow such horror!.."
"He allows it to others."
"No, no! God will protect her, God!.." she repeated, beside herself.
"But perhaps there is no God at all," answered Raskolnikov with something like malice, laughed and looked at her.
Sonya's face suddenly changed terribly: convulsions ran across it. She looked at him with inexpressible reproach, wanted to say something, but could utter nothing and only suddenly began sobbing bitterly-bitterly, covering her face with her hands.
"You say Katerina Ivanovna's mind is disturbed; your own mind is disturbed," he said after some silence.
About five minutes passed. He kept walking back and forth, silently and without glancing at her. Finally he approached her; his eyes were flashing. He took her by the shoulders with both hands and looked straight into her weeping face. His gaze was dry, inflamed, sharp, his lips trembled violently... Suddenly he bent down quickly and, falling to the floor, kissed her foot. Sonya recoiled from him in horror, as from a madman. And indeed, he looked completely mad.
"What are you doing, what are you doing? Before me!" she murmured, turning pale, and her heart suddenly contracted painfully.
He rose immediately.
"I wasn't bowing to you, I was bowing to all human suffering," he pronounced somehow wildly and walked away to the window. "Listen," he added, returning to her a minute later, "I told an offender earlier that he's not worth your little finger... and that I did my sister an honor today by seating her beside you."
"Oh, why did you say that to them! And in her presence?" Sonya cried out in fright, "to sit with me! An honor! But I'm... dishonorable... I'm a great, great sinner! Oh, why did you say that!"
"It wasn't for dishonor and sin that I said this about you, but for your great suffering. That you're a great sinner, that's true," he added almost ecstatically, "but above all, you're a sinner in this, that you destroyed and betrayed yourself in vain. Isn't this horror! Isn't this horror, that you live in this filth, which you so hate, and at the same time you know yourself (you only have to open your eyes) that you're helping no one by this and saving no one from anything! Tell me finally," he said, almost in frenzy, "how such shame and such baseness can coexist in you side by side with other, opposite and holy feelings? It would be more just, a thousand times more just and reasonable to go straight into the water and end it all at once!"
"But what would become of them?" Sonya asked weakly, glancing at him with suffering, but also as if not at all surprised by his proposal. Raskolnikov looked at her strangely.
He read everything in one glance of hers. So, she really had had this thought herself. Perhaps many times, and seriously, in despair, she had thought about how to end it all at once, and so seriously that now she was almost not surprised at his proposal. She didn't even notice the cruelty of his words (the meaning of his reproaches and his particular view of her shame she, of course, also didn't notice, and this was obvious to him). But he fully understood to what monstrous pain the thought of her dishonorable and shameful position had been tormenting her, and for a long time now. What, what, he thought, could have stopped her resolve to end it all at once until now? And only then did he fully understand what these poor, little orphan children and this pitiful, half-mad Katerina Ivanovna, with her consumption and her head-banging against the wall, meant to her.
But nevertheless it was clear to him again that Sonya, with her character and the development she had received after all, could in no case remain this way. Still, the question remained for him: how could she have remained in such a position for so terribly long and not gone mad, if she wasn't strong enough to throw herself into the water? Of course, he understood that Sonya's position was an accidental phenomenon in society, though, unfortunately, far from singular or exceptional. But this very accidentalness, this certain development and her whole previous life might have, it seemed, killed her at once at the first step on this repulsive road. What sustained her? Not depravity? After all, this shame evidently touched her only mechanically; real depravity had not yet penetrated a single drop into her heart: he could see this; she stood before him in reality...
"She has three roads," he thought: "to throw herself into the canal, to end up in a madhouse, or... or, finally, to plunge into depravity that stupefies the mind and petrifies the heart." The last thought was most repulsive to him; but he was already a skeptic, he was young, abstract and, consequently, cruel, and therefore he could not help believing that the last way out, that is depravity, was the most probable.
"But can this really be true," he exclaimed to himself, "can this creature, who has still preserved purity of spirit, consciously be drawn finally into this vile, stinking pit? Can this drawing in have already begun, and can it be that only because vice no longer seems so repulsive to her could she have endured until now? No, no, it cannot be!" he exclaimed, as Sonya had earlier, "no, the thought of sin and they, those... have kept her from the canal until now. And if she hasn't gone mad yet... But who said she hasn't gone mad already? Is she in her right mind? Can one talk as she does? Can one reason as she does in one's right mind? Can one sit over one's own ruin, right over a stinking pit into which one is already being drawn, and wave one's hands and stop one's ears when told of the danger? What, is she waiting for a miracle? And surely so. Isn't all this a sign of madness?"
He stubbornly dwelt on this thought. He even liked this outcome better than any other. He began looking at her more intently.
"So you pray to God a lot, Sonya?" he asked her.
Sonya was silent, he stood beside her and waited for an answer.
"What would I be without God?" she quickly, energetically whispered, glancing up at him for a moment with suddenly flashing eyes, and firmly squeezed his hand with hers.
"So that's it!" he thought.
"And what does God do for you in return?" he asked, probing further.
Sonya was silent for a long time, as if unable to answer. Her weak chest heaved with agitation.
"Be quiet! Don't ask! You're not worthy!.." she suddenly cried, looking at him sternly and angrily.
"That's it! That's it!" he repeated insistently to himself.
"Everything!" she whispered quickly, lowering her eyes again.
"There's the way out! There's the explanation of the way out!" he decided to himself, examining her with greedy curiosity.
With a new, strange, almost painful feeling he peered at this pale, thin and irregularly angular little face, at these gentle blue eyes that could flash with such fire, such stern energetic feeling, at this little body still trembling with indignation and anger, and it all seemed to him more and more strange, almost impossible. "A holy fool! A holy fool!" he kept repeating to himself.
A book lay on the chest of drawers. Each time as he walked back and forth he noticed it; now he picked it up and looked. It was the New Testament in Russian translation. The book was old, used, in a leather binding.
"Where did this come from?" he called out to her across the room. She still stood in the same place, three steps from the table.
"Someone brought it to me," she answered, as if reluctantly and not looking at him.
"Who brought it?"
"Lizaveta brought it, I asked her."
"Lizaveta! Strange!" he thought. Everything about Sonya was becoming somehow stranger and more wondrous to him with every minute. He carried the book to the candle and began leafing through it.
"Where is the story of Lazarus?" he asked suddenly.
Sonya stubbornly looked at the ground and did not answer. She stood slightly sideways to the table.
"You're not looking in the right place... it's in the fourth gospel..." she whispered sternly, not moving toward him.
"Find it and read it to me," he said, sat down, leaned on the table, propped his head in his hand and stared gloomily to the side, preparing to listen.
"In three weeks, on the seventh verst, you're welcome! I think I'll be there myself, if things don't get even worse," he muttered to himself.
Sonya stepped hesitantly to the table, listening with distrust to Raskolnikov's strange wish. However, she took the book.
"Haven't you read it?" she asked, glancing at him across the table, from under her brows. Her voice was becoming more and more stern.
"Long ago... When I was at school. Read!"
"And you haven't heard it in church?"
"I... didn't go. And do you go often?"
"N-no," whispered Sonya.
Raskolnikov smiled.
"I understand... And you won't go to bury your father tomorrow, then?"
"I will. I went last week too... I had a memorial service."
"For whom?"
"For Lizaveta. She was killed with an axe."
His nerves were becoming more and more irritated. His head began to spin.
"Were you friends with Lizaveta?"
"Yes... She was just... she came... rarely... it wasn't possible. We used to read together and... talk. She will see God."
These bookish words sounded strange to him, and again something new: some mysterious meetings with Lizaveta, and both — holy fools.
"You'll become a holy fool yourself here! It's contagious!" he thought. "Read!" he suddenly exclaimed insistently and irritably.
Sonya still hesitated. Her heart was pounding. She somehow dared not read to him. Almost with anguish he looked at the "unfortunate madwoman."
"Why do you need it? After all, you don't believe?..." she whispered quietly and as if breathlessly.
"Read! I want it so!" he insisted, "you read to Lizaveta!"
Sonya opened the book and found the place. Her hands trembled, her voice failed. Twice she began, and each time couldn't get out the first syllable.
"'Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany...'" she finally pronounced with effort, but suddenly, at the third word, her voice rang out and broke like an overstretched string. Her breath caught, and her chest tightened.
Raskolnikov understood in part why Sonya could not bring herself to read to him, and the more he understood this, the more roughly and irritably he insisted on the reading. He understood only too well how hard it was for her now to betray and expose all that was her own. He understood that these feelings really constituted, as it were, her real and long-standing secret, perhaps from her very adolescence, still in the family, beside her unfortunate father and stepmother mad with grief, among starving children, ugly shouts and reproaches. But at the same time he learned now, and learned for certain, that although she grieved and feared something terribly as she began to read now, she also had a torturing desire herself to read, despite all the grief and all the fears, and precisely to him, so that he would hear, and certainly now — "whatever might come of it afterward!..." He read this in her eyes, understood it from her ecstatic agitation... She overcame herself, suppressed the spasm in her throat that had cut off her voice at the beginning of the verse, and continued reading the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of John. She read thus to the 19th verse:
"'And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother. Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house. Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.'"
Here she stopped again, anticipating with shame that her voice would tremble and break again...
"'Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? She saith unto him'"
(and as if with pain catching her breath, Sonya read distinctly and forcefully, as if she herself were confessing aloud for all to hear):
"'Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.'"
She was about to stop, quickly about to raise her eyes to him, but hastily forced herself and continued reading. Raskolnikov sat and listened motionless, not turning, leaning on the table and looking to the side. They read to the 32nd verse.
"'Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled. And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?'"
Raskolnikov turned to her and looked at her with emotion: yes, that's how it was! She was already trembling all over in a real, genuine fever. He expected this. She was approaching the words about the greatest and unheard-of miracle, and a feeling of great triumph seized her. Her voice became resonant as metal; triumph and joy sounded in it and strengthened it. The lines blurred before her, because her eyes were growing dark, but she knew by heart what she was reading. At the last verse: "'Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind...'" — she, lowering her voice, hotly and passionately conveyed the doubt, reproach and blasphemy of the unbelieving, blind Jews, who in a moment, as if struck by thunder, would fall, weep and believe... "And he, he too — blinded and unbelieving, — he too will hear now, he too will believe, yes, yes! right now, this very moment," she dreamed, and she trembled with joyful expectation.
"'Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.'"
She emphatically stressed the word: four.
"'Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth,'"
(she read loudly and ecstatically, trembling and growing cold, as if she were seeing it with her own eyes):
"'bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go. Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him.'"
She read no further and could not read, closed the book and quickly rose from the chair.
"That's all about the resurrection of Lazarus," she whispered abruptly and sternly and stood motionless, turned to the side, not daring and as if ashamed to raise her eyes to him. Her feverish trembling continued. The candle stub had long since been guttering in the crooked candlestick, dimly lighting in this destitute room the murderer and the harlot who had so strangely come together over the reading of the eternal book. Five minutes or more passed.
"I came to talk about a matter," Raskolnikov suddenly said loudly and frowning, stood up and approached Sonya. She silently raised her eyes to him. His gaze was especially severe, and a kind of wild determination was expressed in it.
"I abandoned my family today," he said, "my mother and sister. I won't go to them now. I severed everything there."
"Why?" Sonya asked as if stunned. The earlier meeting with his mother and sister had left an extraordinary impression on her, though it was unclear even to herself. She heard the news of the break almost with horror.
"I have only you now," he added. "Let's go together... I came to you. We're both accursed, let's go together!"
His eyes flashed. "Like a madman!" Sonya thought in her turn.
"Where to go?" she asked in fear and involuntarily stepped back.
"How should I know? I only know it's on the same road, I know that for certain — and only that. One goal!"
She looked at him and understood nothing. She understood only that he was terribly, infinitely unhappy.
"None of them will understand anything if you talk to them," he continued, "but I understood. You're necessary to me, that's why I came to you."
"I don't understand..." whispered Sonya.
"You'll understand later. Haven't you done the same? You too transgressed... were able to transgress. You laid hands on yourself, you destroyed your life... your own (it's all the same!). You could have lived in spirit and reason, but you'll end up on the Haymarket... But you can't endure, and if you remain alone, you'll go mad, like me. You're already like a madwoman; so we must go together, on the same road! Let's go!"
"Why? Why are you saying this!" said Sonya, strangely and rebelliously agitated by his words.
"Why? Because you can't stay like this — that's why! You must finally reason seriously and directly, and not cry like a child and shout that God won't allow it! What will happen if you really are taken to the hospital tomorrow? She's not in her right mind and consumptive, she'll die soon, and the children? Won't Polechka perish? Haven't you seen children here, on corners, whose mothers send them out to beg for alms? I've found out where those mothers live and in what circumstances. Children can't remain children there. There a seven-year-old is depraved and a thief. But children are the image of Christ: 'Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' He commanded us to honor and love them, they are the future of humanity..."
"What then, what then must we do?" Sonya repeated hysterically, crying and wringing her hands.
"What to do? Break what must be broken, once and for all, that's all: and take the suffering upon yourself! What? Don't you understand? You'll understand later... Freedom and power, but mainly power! Over all trembling creatures and over the whole anthill!.. That's the goal! Remember this! This is my parting word to you! Perhaps I'm speaking to you for the last time. If I don't come tomorrow, you'll hear about everything yourself, and then remember these present words. And someday later, after years, with life, perhaps you'll even understand what they meant. If I do come tomorrow, then I'll tell you who killed Lizaveta. Farewell!"
Sonya started with fright.
"Do you really know who killed her?" she asked, freezing with horror and looking at him wildly.
"I know and will tell... You, you alone! I chose you. I'm not coming to ask your forgiveness, I'll simply tell. I chose you long ago to tell you this, even then, when your father was talking about you and when Lizaveta was alive, I thought of it. Farewell. Don't give me your hand. Tomorrow!"
He left. Sonya looked at him as at a madman; but she herself was like one insane and felt it. Her head was spinning. "Good Lord! How does he know who killed Lizaveta? What did those words mean? This is terrible!" But at the same time the thought didn't enter her head. Not at all! Not at all!.. "Oh, he must be terribly unhappy!.. He abandoned his mother and sister. Why? What happened? And what are his intentions? What was he telling her? He kissed her foot and said... said (yes, he said it clearly) that he couldn't live without her... Oh, Lord!"
Sonya spent the whole night in fever and delirium. She would sometimes jump up, cry, wring her hands, then sink back into feverish sleep again, and she dreamed of Polechka, Katerina Ivanovna, Lizaveta, the reading of the Gospel and him... him, with his pale face, with burning eyes... He kisses her feet, weeps... Oh, Lord!
Beyond the door on the right, beyond that very door that separated Sonya's apartment from the apartment of Gertruda Karlovna Resslich, was an intermediate room, long empty, belonging to Mrs. Resslich's apartment and rented out by her, about which notices were posted on the gates and papers pasted on the windows that looked out onto the canal. Sonya had long been accustomed to considering this room uninhabited. But all this time, at the door to the empty room, had stood Mr. Svidrigailov, hidden, eavesdropping. When Raskolnikov went out, he stood there, thought, tiptoed into his own room, adjoining the empty room, brought a chair and silently carried it right up to the door leading to Sonya's room. The conversation had seemed to him interesting and significant, and he liked it very, very much — liked it so much that he even brought the chair over, so that in the future, tomorrow for example, he wouldn't have to endure the unpleasantness again of standing a whole hour on his feet, but could arrange himself more comfortably, so as to obtain complete satisfaction in all respects.