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- 390 CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
"Then why . . . why, you said you did it to rob, but you
took nothing?" she asked quickly, catching at a straw.
"I don't know. ... I haven't yet decided whether to take
that money or not," he said, musing again; and, seeming to wake
up with a start, he gave a brief ironical smile. "Ach, what silly
stuff I am talking, eh?"
The thought flashed through Soma's mind, wasn't he mad?
But she dismissed it at once. "No, it was something else." She
could make nothing of it, nothing.
"Do you know, Sonia," he said suddenly with conviction,
"let me tell you: if I'd simply killed because I was hungry,"
laying stress on every word and looking enigmatically but sin-
cerely ather, "I should be happy now. You must believe that!
What would it matter to you," he cried a moment later with
a sort of despair, "what would it matter to you if I were to con-
fess that I did wrong! What do you gain by such a stupid
triumph over me? Ah, Sonia, was it for that I've come to you
to-day?"
*Again Sonia tried to say something, but did not speak.
"I asked you to go with me yesterday because you are all
I have left."
"Go where?" asked Sonia timidly.
"Not to steal and not to murder, don't be anxious," he smiled
bitterly. "We are so different. . . . And you know, Sonia, It's
only now, only this moment that I understand where I asked you
to go with me yesterday! Yesterday when I said it I did not
know where. I asked you for one thing, I came to you for one
thing — not to leave me. You won't leave me, Sonia?"
She squeezed his hand.
"And why, why did I tell her? Why did I let her know?"
he cried a minute later in despair, looking with infinite anguish
at her. "Here you expect an explanation from me, Sonia; you
are sitting and waiting for it, I see that. But what can I tell
you? You won't understand and will only suffer misery . . .
on my account! Well, you are crying and embracing me again.
Why do you do it? Because I couldn't bear my burden and
have come to throw it on another: you suffer too, and I shall
feel better! And can you love such a mean wretch?"
"But aren't you suffering, too?" cried Sonia.
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