At that moment Polenka, who had run to fetch her sister, squeezed quickly through the crowd in the entryway. She came in, almost breathless from running hard, took off her kerchief, sought out her mother with her eyes, went to her, and said: “She's coming! I met her in the street!” Her mother pulled her down and made her kneel beside her. Timidly and inaudibly, a girl came in, squeezing through the crowd, and her sudden appearance was strange in that room, in the midst of poverty, rags, death, and despair. She, too, was in rags, a two-penny costume, but adorned in street fashion, to suit the taste and rules established in that special world, with a clearly and shamefully explicit purpose. Sonya stood in the entryway, just at the threshold but not crossing it, with a lost look, unconscious, as it seemed, of everything, forgetting her gaudy silk dress with its long and absurd train, bought at fourth hand and so unseemly here, and her boundless crinoline that blocked the entire doorway, and her light-colored shoes, and the little parasol, useless at night, which she still carried with her, and her absurd round straw hat with its flame-colored feather. From under this hat, cocked at a boyish angle, peered a thin, pale, and frightened little face, mouth open and eyes fixed in terror. Sonya was of small stature, about eighteen years old, thin but quite pretty, blond, and with remarkable blue eyes. She stared at the bed, at the priest; she, too, was breathless from walking quickly. Finally, certain whispered words from the crowd probably reached her. She looked down, took a step over the threshold, and stood in the room, though still just by the door.

Confession and communion were over. Katerina Ivanovna again went up to her husband's bed. The priest withdrew and, as he was leaving, tried to address a few words of admonition and comfort to Katerina Ivanovna.

“And what am I to do with these?” she interrupted sharply and irritably, pointing to the little ones.

“God is merciful; hope for help from the Almighty,” the priest began.

“Ehh! Merciful, but not to us!”

“That is sinful, madam, sinful,” the priest observed, shaking his head.

“And is this not sinful?” cried Katerina Ivanovna, pointing to the dying man.

“Perhaps those who were the inadvertent cause will agree to compensate you, at least for the loss of income...”

“You don't understand!” Katerina Ivanovna cried irritably, waving her hand. “What is there to compensate? He was drunk; he went and got under the horses himself! And what income? There wasn't any income from him, there was only torment. The drunkard drank up everything. He stole from us, and took it to the pot-house; he wasted their lives and mine in the pot-house! Thank God he's dying! We'll have fewer losses!”

“You would do better to forgive him in the hour of death. Such feelings are a sin, madam, a great sin!”

Katerina Ivanovna was bustling around the sick man, giving him water, wiping the sweat and blood from his head, straightening his pillow, as she talked with the priest, and only turned to him from time to time while doing other things. But now she suddenly fell upon him almost in a frenzy.

“Eh, father! Words, nothing but words! Forgive him! And what if he didn't get run over? He'd come home drunk, wearing his only shirt, all dirty and ragged, and flop down and snore, and I'd be sloshing in the water till dawn, washing his and the children's rags, and then I'd hang them out the window to dry, and as soon as it was dawn, I'd sit down right away to mend them—that's my night! ... So what's all this talk about forgiveness! As if I hadn't forgiven him!”

Deep, terrible coughing interrupted her words. She spat into her handkerchief and thrust it out for the priest to see, holding her other hand to her chest in pain. The handkerchief was all bloody . . .

The priest hung his head and said nothing.

Marmeladov was in his final agony; he would not take his eyes from the face of Katerina Ivanovna, who again bent over him. He kept wanting to say something to her; he tried to begin, moving his tongue with effort and uttering unintelligible words, but Katerina Ivanovna, understanding that he wanted to ask her forgiveness, at once shouted at him peremptorily:

“Be quiet! Don't! ... I know what you want to say! . . .” And the sick man fell silent; but at that same moment his wandering eyes rested on the doorway, and he saw Sonya . . .

He had not noticed her until then: she was standing in the corner, in the shadows.

“Who's there? Who's there?” he said suddenly, in a hoarse, breathless voice, all alarmed, in horror motioning with his eyes towards the doorway where his daughter stood, and making an effort to raise himself.

“Lie down! Lie do-o-own!” cried Katerina Ivanovna.

But with an unnatural effort he managed to prop himself on one arm. He gazed wildly and fixedly at his daughter for some time, as though he did not recognize her. And indeed he had never seen her in such attire. All at once he recognized her—humiliated, crushed, bedizened, and ashamed, humbly waiting her turn to take leave of her dying father. Infinite suffering showed in his face.

“Sonya! Daughter! Forgive me!” he cried, and tried to hold out his hand to her, but without its support he slipped from the sofa and went crashing face down on the floor; they rushed to pick him up, laid him out again, but by then he was almost gone. Sonya cried out weakly, ran and embraced him, and remained so in that embrace. He died in her arms.

“So he got it!” Katerina Ivanovna cried, looking at her husband's corpse. “Well, what now? How am I going to bury him! And how am I going to feed them tomorrow, all of them?”

Raskolnikov went up to Katerina Ivanovna.

“Katerina Ivanovna,” he began, “last week your deceased husband told me all about his life and his circumstances...You may be sure that he spoke of you with rapturous respect. Since that evening, when I learned how devoted he was to all of you, and how he respected and loved you especially, Katerina Ivanovna, in spite of his unfortunate weakness, since that evening we became friends...Permit me now...to assist...to pay what is due to my deceased friend. Here are...twenty roubles, I think—and if this can serve to help you, then...I...in short, I'll come again—I'll be sure to come...maybe even tomorrow...Good-bye!”

And he quickly left the room, hastening to squeeze through the crowd and reach the stairs; but in the crowd he suddenly ran into Nikodim Fomich, who had learned of the accident and wished to take a personal hand in the arrangements. They had not seen each other since that scene in the office, but Nikodim Fomich recognized him instantly.

“Ah, it's you?” he asked.

“He's dead,” Raskolnikov answered. “The doctor was here, a priest was here, everything's in order. Don't trouble the poor woman too much, she's consumptive as it is. Cheer her up with something, if you can...You're a kind man, I know . ..” he added with a smirk, looking him straight in the eye.

“But, really, you're all soaked with blood,” Nikodim Fomich remarked, making out by the light of the lantern several fresh spots of blood on Raskolnikov's waistcoat.

“Soaked, yes...I've got blood all over me!” Raskolnikov said, with some peculiar look; then he smiled, nodded his head, and went down the stairs.

He went down slowly, unhurriedly, all in a fever, and filled, though he was not aware of it, with the new, boundless sensation of a sudden influx of full and powerful life. This sensation might be likened to the sensation of a man condemned to death who is suddenly and unexpectedly granted a pardon.^[68] Halfway down he was overtaken by the priest on his way home. Raskolnikov silently let him pass, exchanging wordless bows with him. But as he was going down the last few steps, he suddenly heard hurried footsteps behind him. Someone was running after him. It was Polenka; she was running after him and calling: “Listen! Listen!”