“Yes, I prayed for you, and I pray for you every day. But please do not speak lightly of that.”
Lavretsky began to assure Lisa that the idea of doing so had never entered his head, that he had the deepest reverence for every conviction; then he went off into a discourse upon religion, its significance in the history of mankind, the significance of Christianity.
“One must be a Christian,” observed Lisa, not without some effort, “not so as to know the divine... and the... earthly, but because every man has to die.”
Lavretsky raised his eyes in involuntary astonishment upon Lisa and met her gaze.
“What a strange saying you have just uttered!” he said.
“It is not my saying,” she replied.
“Not yours.... But what made you speak of death?”
“I don’t know. I often think of it.”
“Often?”
“Yes.”