Raskolnikov turned and looked at her anxiously: yes, that was it! She was already trembling in a real, true fever. He had expected that. She was approaching the word about the greatest, the unheard-of miracle, and a feeling of great triumph took hold of her. There was an iron ring to her voice; joy and triumph sounded in it and strengthened it. The lines became confused on the page before her, because her sight was dimmed, 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 had lowered her voice, conveying ardently and passionately the doubt, reproach, and reviling of the blind, unbelieving Jews, who in another moment, as if thunderstruck, would fall down, weep, and believe...”And he, he who is also blinded and unbelieving, he, too, will now hear, he, too, will believe—yes, yes! right now, this minute,” she dreamed, and she was trembling 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 strongly emphasized 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 rapturously, 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. ‘“

Beyond that she did not and could not read; she closed the book and got up quickly from her chair.

“That's all about the raising of Lazarus,” she whispered abruptly and sternly, and stood motionless, turned away, not daring and as if ashamed to raise her eyes to him. Her feverish trembling continued. The candle-end had long been burning out in the bent candlestick, casting a dim light in this destitute room upon the murderer and the harlot strangely come together over the reading of the eternal book. Five minutes or more passed.

“I came to talk about business,” Raskolnikov suddenly spoke loudly, and, frowning, he rose and went to Sonya. She looked up at him silently. His face was especially stern, and some wild resolution was expressed in it.

“I left my family today,” he said, “my mother and sister. I won't go to them now. I've broken with everything there.”

“Why?” Sonya asked, as if stunned. Her meeting earlier with his mother and sister had left an extraordinary impression on her, though one not yet clear to herself. She heard the news of the break almost with horror.

“I have only you now,” he added. “Let's go together...I've come to you. We're cursed together, so let's go together!”

His eyes were flashing. “He's crazy,” Sonya thought in her turn.

“Go where?” she asked in fear, and involuntarily stepped back.

“How do I know? I only know that it's on the same path, I know it for certain—that's all. One goal!”

She went on looking at him, understanding nothing. She understood only that he was terribly, infinitely unhappy.

“None of them will understand anything, if you start talking with them,” he continued, “but I understand. I need you, and so I've come to you.”

“I don't understand . . .” Sonya whispered.

“You'll understand later...Haven't you done the same thing? You, too, have stepped over...were able to step over. You laid hands on yourself, you destroyed a life...your own (it's all the same!). You might have lived by the spirit and reason, but you'll end up on the Haymarket... But you can't endure it, and if you remain alone, you'll lose your mind, like me. You're nearly crazy already; so we must go together, on the same path! Let's go!”

“Why? Why do you say that?” Sonya said, strangely and rebelliously stirred by his words.

“Why? Because it's impossible to remain like this—that's why! It's necessary finally to reason seriously and directly, and not weep and cry like a child that God will not allow it! What if you are indeed taken to the hospital tomorrow? That woman is out of her mind and consumptive, she'll die soon, and the children? Won't Polechka be destroyed? Haven't you seen children here on the street corners, sent out by their mothers to beg? I've learned where these mothers live, and in what circumstances. Children cannot 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.'^[99] He taught us to honor and love them, they are the future mankind . . .”

“But what, what can be done, then?” Sonya repeated, weeping hysterically and wringing her hands.

“What can be done? Smash what needs to be smashed, once and for all, and that's it—and take the suffering upon ourselves! What? You don't understand? You'll understand later...Freedom and power, but above all, power! Over all trembling creatures, over the whole ant-heap! ... That is the goal! Remember it! This is my parting word to you! I may be talking 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 sometime later, years later, as life goes on, maybe you'll understand what they meant. But if I come tomorrow, I'll tell you who killed Lizaveta. Good-bye!”

Sonya shuddered all over with fear.

“You mean you know who killed her?” she asked, frozen in horror and looking at him wildly.

“I know and I'll tell...you, you alone! I've chosen you. I won't come asking forgiveness, I'll simply tell you. I chose you long ago to tell it to, back when your father was talking about you and Lizaveta was still alive, I thought of it then. Good-bye. Don't give me your hand. Tomorrow!”

He went out. Sonya looked at him as at a madman; but she herself was as if insane, and she felt it. Her head was spinning. “Lord! How does he know who killed Lizaveta? What did those words mean? It's frightening!” But at the same time the thought would not enter her mind. No, no, it would not! ... ”Oh, he must be terribly unhappy! ... He's left his mother and sister. Why? What happened? And what are his intentions? What was it he had said to her? He had kissed her foot and said...said (yes, he had said it clearly) that he now could not live without her...Oh, Lord!”

Sonya spent the whole night in fever and delirium. She jumped up every now and then, wept, wrung her hands, then dropped into feverish sleep again, and dreamed of Polechka, of Katerina Ivanovna, of Lizaveta, of reading the Gospel, and of him...him, with his pale face, his burning eyes...He was kissing her feet, weeping...Oh, Lord!

Beyond the door to the right, the door that separated Sonya's apartment from the apartment of Gertrude Karlovna Resslich, there was an intervening room, long empty, which belonged to Mrs. Resslich's apartment and was up for rent, as signs on the gates and notices pasted to the windows facing the canal announced. Sonya had long been used to considering this room uninhabited. And meanwhile, all that time, Mr. Svidrigailov had been standing by the door in the empty room and stealthily listening. When Raskolnikov left, he stood for a while, thought, then went on tiptoe into his room, adjacent to the empty room, took a chair, and inaudibly brought it close to the door leading to Sonya's room. He had found the conversation amusing and bemusing, and he had liked it very, very much—so much that he even brought a chair, in order not to be subjected again in the future, tomorrow, for instance, to the unpleasantness of standing on his feet for a whole hour, but to settle himself more comfortably and thus treat himself to a pleasure that was full in all respects.