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that! Sonia, as you may well fancy, has had no education. I did make an
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effort four years ago to give her a course of geography and universal
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history, but as I was not very well up in those subjects myself and we
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had no suitable books, and what books we had... hm, anyway we have not
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even those now, so all our instruction came to an end. We stopped at
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Cyrus of Persia. Since she has attained years of maturity, she has read
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other books of romantic tendency and of late she had read with great
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interest a book she got through Mr. Lebeziatnikov, Lewes’ Physiology--do
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you know it?--and even recounted extracts from it to us: and that’s the
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whole of her education. And now may I venture to address you, honoured
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sir, on my own account with a private question. Do you suppose that
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a respectable poor girl can earn much by honest work? Not fifteen
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farthings a day can she earn, if she is respectable and has no special
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talent and that without putting her work down for an instant! And what’s
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more, Ivan Ivanitch Klopstock the civil counsellor--have you heard of
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him?--has not to this day paid her for the half-dozen linen shirts she
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made him and drove her roughly away, stamping and reviling her, on the
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pretext that the shirt collars were not made like the pattern and were
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put in askew. And there are the little ones hungry.... And Katerina
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Ivanovna walking up and down and wringing her hands, her cheeks flushed
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red, as they always are in that disease: ‘Here you live with us,’ says
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she, ‘you eat and drink and are kept warm and you do nothing to help.’
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And much she gets to eat and drink when there is not a crust for the
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little ones for three days! I was lying at the time... well, what of
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it! I was lying drunk and I heard my Sonia speaking (she is a gentle
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creature with a soft little voice... fair hair and such a pale, thin
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little face). She said: ‘Katerina Ivanovna, am I really to do a thing
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like that?’ And Darya Frantsovna, a woman of evil character and very
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well known to the police, had two or three times tried to get at her
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through the landlady. ‘And why not?’ said Katerina Ivanovna with a jeer,
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‘you are something mighty precious to be so careful of!’ But don’t blame
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her, don’t blame her, honoured sir, don’t blame her! She was not herself
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when she spoke, but driven to distraction by her illness and the crying
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of the hungry children; and it was said more to wound her than anything
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else.... For that’s Katerina Ivanovna’s character, and when children
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cry, even from hunger, she falls to beating them at once. At six o’clock
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I saw Sonia get up, put on her kerchief and her cape, and go out of the
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room and about nine o’clock she came back. She walked straight up to
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Katerina Ivanovna and she laid thirty roubles on the table before her
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in silence. She did not utter a word, she did not even look at her, she
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simply picked up our big green _drap de dames_ shawl (we have a shawl,
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made of _drap de dames_), put it over her head and face and lay down
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on the bed with her face to the wall; only her little shoulders and her
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body kept shuddering.... And I went on lying there, just as before....
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And then I saw, young man, I saw Katerina Ivanovna, in the same silence
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go up to Sonia’s little bed; she was on her knees all the evening
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kissing Sonia’s feet, and would not get up, and then they both fell
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asleep in each other’s arms... together, together... yes... and I... lay
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drunk.”
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Marmeladov stopped short, as though his voice had failed him. Then he
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hurriedly filled his glass, drank, and cleared his throat.
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“Since then, sir,” he went on after a brief pause--“Since then, owing
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to an unfortunate occurrence and through information given by
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evil-intentioned persons--in all which Darya Frantsovna took a
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leading part on the pretext that she had been treated with want of
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respect--since then my daughter Sofya Semyonovna has been forced to take
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a yellow ticket, and owing to that she is unable to go on living with
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us. For our landlady, Amalia Fyodorovna would not hear of it (though
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she had backed up Darya Frantsovna before) and Mr. Lebeziatnikov too...
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hm.... All the trouble between him and Katerina Ivanovna was on Sonia’s
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account. At first he was for making up to Sonia himself and then all of
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a sudden he stood on his dignity: ‘how,’ said he, ‘can a highly educated
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man like me live in the same rooms with a girl like that?’ And Katerina
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Ivanovna would not let it pass, she stood up for her... and so that’s
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how it happened. And Sonia comes to us now, mostly after dark; she
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comforts Katerina Ivanovna and gives her all she can.... She has a room
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at the Kapernaumovs’ the tailors, she lodges with them; Kapernaumov is
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a lame man with a cleft palate and all of his numerous family have cleft
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palates too. And his wife, too, has a cleft palate. They all live in one
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room, but Sonia has her own, partitioned off.... Hm... yes... very poor
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people and all with cleft palates... yes. Then I got up in the morning,
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and put on my rags, lifted up my hands to heaven and set off to his
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excellency Ivan Afanasyvitch. His excellency Ivan Afanasyvitch, do you
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know him? No? Well, then, it’s a man of God you don’t know. He is wax...
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wax before the face of the Lord; even as wax melteth!... His eyes were
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dim when he heard my story. ‘Marmeladov, once already you have
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deceived my expectations... I’ll take you once more on my own
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responsibility’--that’s what he said, ‘remember,’ he said, ‘and now you
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can go.’ I kissed the dust at his feet--in thought only, for in reality
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he would not have allowed me to do it, being a statesman and a man of
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modern political and enlightened ideas. I returned home, and when I
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announced that I’d been taken back into the service and should receive a
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salary, heavens, what a to-do there was!...”
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Marmeladov stopped again in violent excitement. At that moment a whole
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party of revellers already drunk came in from the street, and the sounds
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of a hired concertina and the cracked piping voice of a child of seven
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singing “The Hamlet” were heard in the entry. The room was filled with
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noise. The tavern-keeper and the boys were busy with the new-comers.
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Marmeladov paying no attention to the new arrivals continued his story.
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He appeared by now to be extremely weak, but as he became more and more
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drunk, he became more and more talkative. The recollection of his
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recent success in getting the situation seemed to revive him, and was
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positively reflected in a sort of radiance on his face. Raskolnikov
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listened attentively.
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“That was five weeks ago, sir. Yes.... As soon as Katerina Ivanovna
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and Sonia heard of it, mercy on us, it was as though I stepped into the
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