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- 308 CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
thought, have killed her at the first step on that revolting
path. What held her up — surely not depravity? All that infamy
had obviously only touched her mechanically, not one drop
of real depravity had penetrated to her heart; he saw that. He
saw through her as she stood before him. . . .
"There are three ways before her," he thought, "the canal,
the madhouse, or ... at last to sink into depravity which
obscures the mind and turns the heart to stone."
The last idea was the most revolting, but he was a sceptic,,
he was young, abstract, and therefore cruel, and so he could not
help believing that the last end was the most likely.
"But can that be true?" he cried to himself. "Can that crea-
ture who has still preserved the purity of her spirit be con-
sciously drawn at last into that sink of filth and iniquity?
Can the process already have begun? Can it be that she has only
been able to bear it till now, because vice has begun to be less
loathsome to her? No, no, that cannot be!" he cried, as Sonia
had just before. "No, what has kept her from the canal till now
is the idea of sin and they, the children. . . . And if she has not
gone out of her mind . . . but who says she has not gone out of
her mind? Is she in her senses? Can one talk, can one reason as
she does? How can she sit on the edge of the abyss of loathsome-
ness into which she is slipping and refuse to listen when she is
told of danger? Does she expect a miracle? No doubt she does.
Doesn't that all mean madness?"
He stayed obstinately at that thought. He liked that ex-
planation indeed better than any other. He began looking more
intently at her.
"So you pray to God a great deal, Sonia?" he asked her.
Sonia did not speak; he stood beside her waiting for an
answer.
"What should I be without God?" she whispered rapidly,
forcibly, glancing at him with suddenly flashing eyes, and
squeezing his hand.
"Ah, so that is it!" he thought.
"And what does God do for you?" he asked, probing her
further.
Sonia was silent a long while, as though she could not answw.
Her weak chest kept heaving with emotion.
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