No answer. Standing by her side, he waited for a reply. "What could I be, what should I be without God?" cried she in a low-toned but energetic voice, and whilst casting on Raskolnikoff a rapid glance of her brilliant eyes, she gripped his hand.
"Come, I was not mistaken!" he muttered to himself.—"And what does God do for you?" asked he, anxious to clear his doubts yet more.
For a long time the girl remained silent, as if incapable of reply. Emotion made her bosom heave. "Stay! Do not question me! You have no such right!" exclaimed she, all of a sudden, with looks of anger.
"I expected as much!" was the man's thought.
"God does everything for me!" murmured the girl rapidly, and her eyes sank.
"At last I have the explanation!" he finished mentally, whilst eagerly looking at her.
He experienced a new, strange, almost unhealthy feeling on watching this pale, thin, hard-featured face, these blue and soft eyes which could yet dart such lights and give utterance to such passion; in a word, this feeble frame, yet trembling with indignation and anger, struck him as weird,—nay, almost fantastic. "Mad! she must be mad!" he muttered once more. A book was lying on the chest of drawers. Raskolnikoff had noticed it more than once whilst moving about the room. He took it and examined it. It was a Russian translation of the Gospels, a well-thumbed leather-bound book.
"Where does that come from?" asked he of Sonia, from the other end of the room.
The girl still held the same position, a pace or two from the table. "It was lent me," replied Sonia, somewhat loth, without looking at Raskolnikoff.
"Who lent it you?"