Raskolnikoff went straight to the water-side, where Sonia was living.
The three-storied house was an old building, painted green. The young
man had some difficulty in finding the dvornik, and got from him vague
information about the quarters of the tailor Kapernasumoff. After
having discovered in a corner of the yard the foot of a steep and
gloomy staircase, he ascended to the second floor, and followed the
gallery facing the court-yard. Whilst groping in the dark, and asking
himself how Kapernasumoff's lodgings could be reached, a door opened
close to him; he seized it mechanically.
"Who is there?" asked a timid female voice.
"It is I. I am coming to see you," replied Raskolnikoff, on entering a
small ante-room. There on a wretched table stood a candle, fixed in a
candlestick of twisted metal.
"Is that you? Good heavens!" feebly replied Sonia, who seemed not to
have strength enough to move from the spot.
"Where do you live? Is it here?" And Raskolnikoff passed quickly into
the room, trying not to look the girl in the face.
A moment afterwards Sonia rejoined him with the candle, and remained
stock still before him, a prey to an indescribable agitation. This
unexpected visit had upset her--nay, even frightened her. All of a
sudden her pale face colored up, and tears came into her eyes. She
experienced extreme confusion, united with a certain gentle feeling.
Raskolnikoff turned aside with a rapid movement and sat down on a
chair, close to the table. In the twinkling of an eye he took stock of
everything in the room.
This room was large, with a very low ceiling, and was the only one let
out by the Kapernasumoffs; in the wall, on the left-hand side, was a
door giving access to theirs. On the opposite side, in the wall on the
right, there was another door, which was always locked. That was
another lodging, having another number. Sonia's room was more like an
out-house, of irregular rectangular shape, which gave it an uncommon
character. The wall, with its three windows facing the canal, cut it
obliquely, forming thus an extremely acute angle, in the back portion
of which nothing could be seen, considering the feeble light of the
candle. On the other hand, the other angle was an extremely obtuse
one. This large room contained scarcely any furniture. In the
right-hand corner was the bed; between the bed and the door, a chair;
on the same side, facing the door of the next set, stood a deal table,
covered with a blue cloth; close to the table were two rush chairs.
Against the opposite wall, near the acute angle, was placed a small
chest of drawers of unvarnished wood, which seemed out of place in
this vacant spot. This was the whole of the furniture. The yellowish
and worn paper had everywhere assumed a darkish color, probably the
effect of the damp and coal smoke. Everything in the place denoted
poverty. Even the bed had no curtains. Sonia silently considered the
visitor, who examined her room so attentively and so unceremoniously.
* * * * *
"Her lot is fixed," thought he,--"a watery grave, the mad-house, or a
brutish existence!" This latter contingency was especially repellent
to him, but skeptic as he was, he could not help believing it a
possibility. "Is it possible that such is really the case?" he asked
himself. "Is it possible that this creature, who still retains a pure
mind, should end by becoming deliberately mire-like? Has she not
already become familiar with it, and if up to the present she has been
able to bear with such a life, has it not been so because vice has
already lost its hideousness in her eyes? Impossible again!" cried he,
on his part, in the same way as Sonia had cried a moment ago. "No,
that which up to the present has prevented her from throwing herself
into the canal has been the fear of sin and its punishment. May she
not be mad after all? Who says she is not so? Is she in full
possession of all her faculties? Is it possible to speak as she does?
Do people of sound judgment reason as she reasons? Can people
anticipate future destruction with such tranquillity, turning a deaf
ear to warnings and forebodings? Does she expect a miracle? It must be
so. And does not all this seem like signs of mental derangement?"
To this idea he clung obstinately. Sonia mad! Such a prospect
displeased him less than the other ones. Once more he examined the
girl attentively. "And you--you often pray to God, Sonia?" he asked
her.
No answer. Standing by her side, he waited for a reply. "What could I
be, what should I be without God?" cried she in a low-toned but
energetic voice, and whilst casting on Raskolnikoff a rapid glance of
her brilliant eyes, she gripped his hand.
"Come, I was not mistaken!" he muttered to himself.--"And what does
God do for you?" asked he, anxious to clear his doubts yet more.
For a long time the girl remained silent, as if incapable of reply.
Emotion made her bosom heave. "Stay! Do not question me! You have no
such right!" exclaimed she, all of a sudden, with looks of anger.
"I expected as much!" was the man's thought.
"God does everything for me!" murmured the girl rapidly, and her eyes
sank.
"At last I have the explanation!" he finished mentally, whilst eagerly
looking at her.
He experienced a new, strange, almost unhealthy feeling on watching
this pale, thin, hard-featured face, these blue and soft eyes which
could yet dart such lights and give utterance to such passion; in a
word, this feeble frame, yet trembling with indignation and anger,
struck him as weird,--nay, almost fantastic. "Mad! she must be mad!"
he muttered once more. A book was lying on the chest of drawers.
Raskolnikoff had noticed it more than once whilst moving about the
room. He took it and examined it. It was a Russian translation of the
Gospels, a well-thumbed leather-bound book.
"Where does that come from?" asked he of Sonia, from the other end of
the room.
The girl still held the same position, a pace or two from the table.
"It was lent me," replied Sonia, somewhat loth, without looking at
Raskolnikoff.
"Who lent it you?"
"Elizabeth--I asked her to!"
"Elizabeth. How strange!" he thought. Everything with Sonia assumed to
his mind an increasingly extraordinary aspect. He took the book to the
light, and turned it over. "Where is mention made of Lazarus?" asked
he abruptly.
Sonia, looking hard on the ground, preserved silence, whilst moving
somewhat from the table.
"Where is mention made of the resurrection of Lazarus? Find me the
passage, Sonia."
The latter looked askance at her interlocutor. "That is not the
place--it is the Fourth Gospel," said she dryly, without moving from
the spot.
"Find me the passage and read it out!" he repeated, and sitting down
again rested his elbow on the table, his head on his hand, and
glancing sideways with gloomy look, prepared to listen.
Sonia at first hesitated to draw nearer to the table. The singular
wish uttered by Raskolnikoff scarcely seemed sincere. Nevertheless she
took the book. "Have you ever read the passage?" she asked him,
looking at him from out the corners of her eyes. Her voice was getting
harder and harder.
"Once upon a time. In my childhood. Read!"
"Have you never heard it in church?"
"I--I never go there. Do you go often yourself?"
"No," stammered Sonia.
Raskolnikoff smiled. "I understand, then, you won't go tomorrow to
your father's funeral service?"
"Oh, yes! I was at church last week. I was present at a requiem mass."
"Whose was that?"
"Elizabeth's. She was assassinated by means of an axe."
Raskolnikoff's nervous system became more and more irritated. He was
getting giddy. "Were you friends with her?"
"Yes. She was straightforward. She used to come and see me--but not
often. She was not able. We used to read and chat. She sees God."
Raskolnikoff became thoughtful. "What," asked he himself, "could be
the meaning of the mysterious interviews of two such idiots as Sonia
and Elizabeth? Why, I should go mad here myself!" thought he. "Madness
seems to be in the atmosphere of the place!--Read!" he cried all of a
sudden, irritably.
Sonia kept hesitating. Her heart beat loud. She seemed afraid to read.
He considered "this poor demented creature" with an almost sad
expression. "How can that interest you, since you do not believe?" she
muttered in a choking voice.
"Read! I insist upon it! Used you not to read to Elizabeth?"
Sonia opened the book and looked for the passage. Her hands trembled.
The words stuck in her throat. Twice did she try to read without being
able to utter the first syllable.
"Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany," she read, at
last, with an effort; but suddenly, at the third word, her voice grew
wheezy, and gave way like an overstretched chord. Breath was deficient
in her oppressed bosom. Raskolnikoff partly explained to himself
Sonia's hesitation to obey him; and in proportion as he understood her
better, he insisted still more imperiously on her reading. He felt
what it must cost the girl to lay bare to him, to some extent, her
heart of hearts. She evidently could not, without difficulty, make up
her mind to confide to a stranger the sentiments which probably since
her teens had been her support, her _viaticum_--when, what with a
sottish father and a stepmother demented by misfortune, to say nothing
of starving children, she heard nothing but reproach and offensive
clamor. He saw all this, but he likewise saw that notwithstanding this
repugnance, she was most anxious to read,--to read to him, and that
now,--let the consequences be what they may! The girl's look, the
agitation to which she was a prey, told him as much, and by a violent
effort over herself Sonia conquered the spasm which parched her
throat, and continued to read the eleventh chapter of the Gospel
according to St. John. She thus reached the nineteenth 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 paused, to overcome the emotion which once more caused her
voice to tremble.
"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 although she had difficulty in breathing, Sonia raised her voice,
as if in reading the words of Martha she was making her own confession
of faith:--
"Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of
God, which should come into the world."
She stopped, raised her eyes rapidly on him, but cast them down on her
book, and continued to read. Raskolnikoff listened without stirring,
without turning toward her, his elbows resting on the table, looking
aside. Thus the reading continued till the thirty-second 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?"
Raskolnikoff turned towards her and looked at her with agitation. His
suspicion was a correct one. She was trembling in all her limbs, a
prey to fever. He had expected this. She was getting to the miraculous
story, and a feeling of triumph was taking possession of her. Her
voice, strengthened by joy, had a metallic ring. The lines became
misty to her troubled eyes, but fortunately she knew the passage by
heart. At the last line, "Could not this man, which opened the eyes of
the blind--" she lowered her voice, emphasizing passionately the
doubt, the blame, the reproach of these unbelieving and blind Jews,
who a moment after fell as if struck by lightning on their knees, to
sob and to believe. "Yes," thought she, deeply affected by this
joyful hope, "yes, he--he who is blind, who dares not believe--he also
will hear--will believe in an instant, immediately, now, this very
moment!"
"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 strongly emphasized the word _four_.
"Jesus saith unto her. Said I not unto thee, that if thou
wouldst believe, thou shouldst 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,_"--
(on reading these words Sonia shuddered, as if she herself had been
witness to the miracle)
"bound hand and foot with grave-clothes; 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 more,--such a thing would have been impossible to
her,--closed the book, and briskly rising, said in a low-toned and
choking voice, without turning toward the man she was talking to, "So
much for the resurrection of Lazarus." She seemed afraid to raise her
eyes on Raskolnikoff, whilst her feverish trembling continued. The
dying piece of candle dimly lit up this low-ceiled room, in which an
assassin and a harlot had just read the Book of books.