“Here, here, to my place!” Sonya begged. “I live right here! ... This house, the second one down...To my place, quickly, quickly! . . .” She was rushing from one person to another. “Send for a doctor...Oh, Lord!”

Through the efforts of the official the matter was settled; the policeman even helped to transport Katerina Ivanovna. She was brought to Sonya's room in an almost dead faint and laid on the bed. The bleeding continued, but she seemed to begin to come to her senses. Along with Sonya, Raskolnikov, and Lebezyatnikov, the official and the policeman also entered the room, the latter after dispersing the crowd, some of whom had accompanied them right to the door. Polechka brought Kolya and Lenya in, holding them by their hands; they were trembling and crying. The Kapernaumovs also came from their room: the man himself, lame and one-eyed, of odd appearance, his bristling hair and side-whiskers standing on end; his wife, who somehow looked forever frightened; and several children, with faces frozen in permanent surprise and open mouths. Amidst all this public, Svidrigailov also suddenly appeared. Raskolnikov looked at him in surprise, not understanding where he had come from and not remembering having seen him in the crowd.

There was talk of a doctor and a priest. The official, though he whispered to Raskolnikov that a doctor now seemed superfluous, still ordered one to be sent for. Kapernaumov ran himself.

Meanwhile Katerina Ivanovna recovered her breath, and the bleeding stopped for a while. She looked with pained but intent and penetrating eyes at the pale and trembling Sonya, who was wiping the drops of sweat from her forehead with a handkerchief; finally, she asked to sit up. With help, she sat up on the bed, supported on both sides.

“Where are the children?” she asked, in a weak voice. “Did you bring them, Polya? Oh, you stupid ones! ... Why did you run away...ahh!”

Her withered lips were still all bloody. She moved her eyes, looking around.

“So this is how you live, Sonya! I've never even been here...now is my chance...”

She looked at her with suffering.

“We've sucked you dry, Sonya...Polya, Lenya, Kolya, come here...Well, Sonya, here they all are, take them...I'm handing them over to you...I've had enough! ... The ball is over! Gh-a! ... Lay me back; at least let me die in peace . . .”

They laid her back again on the pillow.

“What? A priest?...No need...Where's your spare rouble?...There are no sins on me! ... God should forgive me anyway...He knows how I've suffered! ... And if He doesn't, He doesn't! . . .”

A restless delirium was taking hold of her more and more. From time to time she gave a start, moved her eyes around, recognized everyone for a moment, but her consciousness would immediately give way to delirium again. Her breathing was hoarse and labored, and it was as if something were gurgling in her throat.

“I said to him, 'Your Excellency! . . .' “ she exclaimed, drawing a breath after each word, “ 'this Amalia Ludwigovna'...ah! Lenya, Kolya! Hands on your hips, quickly, quickly, glissez, glissez, pas de Basque!^[128] Tap your feet...Be a graceful child.

'Du hast Diamanten und Perlen '. . .

How does it go? I wish we could sing . . .

'Du hast die schonsten Augen, Madchen, was willst du mehr?'^[129]

Well, really, I must say! Was willst du mehr—what's he thinking of, the blockhead! ... Ah, yes, here's another:

'In the noonday heat, in a vale of Daghestan' . . .^[130]

Ah, how I loved...I loved that song to the point of adoration, Polechka! ... You know, your father...used to sing it when he was still my fiancé...Oh, those days! ... If only, if only we could sing it! How, how does it go now...I've forgotten...remind me how it goes!” She was extremely agitated and was making an effort to raise herself. Finally, in a terrible, hoarse, straining voice, she began to sing, crying out and choking at every word, with a look of some mounting fear:

“‘In the noonday heat! ... in a vale! ... of Daghestan! ... With a bullet in my breast!' . . .

Your Excellency!” she suddenly screamed in a rending scream, dissolving in tears. “Protect the orphans! Having known the bread and salt of the late Semyon Zakharych! ... One might even say, aristocratic! ... Gh-a!” She gave a sudden start, came to herself, and looked around in some sort of horror, but immediately recognized Sonya. “Sonya, Sonya!” she said meekly and tenderly, as if surprised to see her there in front of her. “Sonya, dear, you're here, too?”

They raised her up again.

“Enough! ... It's time! ... Farewell, hapless girl! ... The nag's been overdriven! ... Too much stra-a-ain!” she cried desperately and hatefully, and her head fell back on the pillow.

She became oblivious again, but this last oblivion did not continue long. Her pale yellow, withered face turned up, her mouth opened, her legs straightened convulsively. She drew a very deep breath and died.

Sonya fell on her corpse, put her arms around her, and lay motionless, her head resting on the deceased woman's withered breast. Polechka fell down at her mother's feet and kissed them, sobbing. Kolya and Lenya, not yet understanding what had happened, but sensing something very awful, seized each other's shoulders and, staring into each other's eyes, suddenly, together, at the same time, opened their mouths and began howling. They were both still in their costumes: he in the turban, she in the nightcap with an ostrich feather.

And how had that “certificate of merit” suddenly turned up on the bed, near Katerina Ivanovna? It was lying right there by the pillow; Raskolnikov saw it.

He walked over to the window. Lebezyatnikov ran up to him.

“She's dead!” Lebezyatnikov said.

“Rodion Romanovich, I have a couple of necessary words for you,” Svidrigailov approached. Lebezyatnikov yielded his place at once and delicately effaced himself. Svidrigailov drew the surprised Raskolnikov still further into the corner.

“All this bother—that is, the funeral and the rest of it—I will take upon myself. It's a matter of money, you know, and, as I told you, I have some to spare. I'll place these two younglings and Polechka in some orphanage, of the better sort, and settle fifteen hundred roubles on each of them, for their coming of age, so that Sofya Semyonovna can be completely at ease. And I'll get her out of the quagmire, because she's a nice girl, isn't she? So, sir, you can tell Avdotya Romanovna that that is how I used her ten thousand.”

“What's the purpose of all this philanthropizing?” asked Raskolnikov.

“Ehh! Such a mistrustful man!” laughed Svidrigailov. “I did tell you I had this money to spare. Well, and simply, humanly speaking, can you not allow it? She wasn't some sort of 'louse,' was she” (he jabbed his finger towards the corner where the deceased woman lay), “like some little old money-lender? Well, you'll agree, well, 'is it, indeed, for Luzhin to live and commit abominations, or for her to die?' And if it weren't for my help, then 'Polechka, for example, will go there, too, the same way . . .’”

He said this with the look of some winking, merry slyness, not taking his eyes off Raskolnikov. Raskolnikov turned pale and cold, hearing the very phrases he had spoken to Sonya. He quickly recoiled and looked wildly at Svidrigailov.

“How d-do you...know?” he whispered, scarcely breathing.

“But I'm staying here, just the other side of the wall, at Madame Resslich's. Kapernaumov is here, and there—Madame Resslich, an ancient and most faithful friend. I'm a neighbor, sir.”

“You?”