"And I keep wondering how they will preserve themselves in that foul den," Arina Petrovna continued. "You know how it is in these things—once you stumble, you can't get your maiden honor back! Go hunt for it!"
"Much they need it!" Yudushka snarled back.
"Still, you know. Honor is a girl's best treasure, one may say. Who will marry a girl without it?"
"Nowadays, mother dear, unmarried people live like married ones. Nowadays they laugh at the precepts of religion. They get married without benefit of clergy, like heathens. They call it civil marriage."
Yudushka suddenly recollected that he, too, was living in sinful relationship with a daughter of the clergy.
"Of course, sometimes you can't help it," he hastened to add. "If a man, let us say, is in full vigor and a widower—in an emergency the law itself is often modified."
"Yes, of course. When hard pressed a snipe sings like a nightingale. Even saints sin when sorely tried, let alone us mortals."
"Yes, that's just it. Do you know what I would do if I were you?"
"Yes, tell me, please tell me."
"I would insist that they make Pogorelka over to you in full legal fashion."