Fyodor Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment

PART IV 4. CHAPTER IV (continued)

"I understand. . . . And you won't go to your father's funeral to-morrow?"

"Yes, I shall. I was at church last week, too . . . I had a requiem service."

"For whom?"

"For Lizaveta. She was killed with an axe."

His nerves were more and more strained. His head began to go round.

"Were you friends with Lizaveta?"

"Yes. . . . She was good . . . she used to come . . . not often . . . she couldn't. . . . We used to read together and . . . talk. She will see God."

The last phrase sounded strange in his ears. And here was something new again: the mysterious meetings with Lizaveta and both of them-- religious maniacs.

"I shall be a religious maniac myself soon! It's infectious!"

"Read!" he cried irritably and insistently.

Sonia still hesitated. Her heart was throbbing. She hardly dared to read to him. He looked almost with exasperation at the "unhappy lunatic."

"What for? You don't believe? . . ." she whispered softly and as it were breathlessly.

"Read! I want you to," he persisted. "You used to read to Lizaveta."

Sonia opened the book and found the place. Her hands were shaking, her voice failed her. Twice she tried to begin and could not bring out the first syllable.

"Now a certain man was sick named Lazarus of Bethany . . ." she forced herself at last to read, but at the third word her voice broke like an overstrained string. There was a catch in her breath.