"No," stammered Sonia.
Raskolnikoff smiled. "I understand, then, you won't go tomorrow to your father's funeral service?"
"Oh, yes! I was at church last week. I was present at a requiem mass."
"Whose was that?"
"Elizabeth's. She was assassinated by means of an axe."
Raskolnikoff's nervous system became more and more irritated. He was getting giddy. "Were you friends with her?"
"Yes. She was straightforward. She used to come and see me—but not often. She was not able. We used to read and chat. She sees God."
Raskolnikoff became thoughtful. "What," asked he himself, "could be the meaning of the mysterious interviews of two such idiots as Sonia and Elizabeth? Why, I should go mad here myself!" thought he. "Madness seems to be in the atmosphere of the place!—Read!" he cried all of a sudden, irritably.
Sonia kept hesitating. Her heart beat loud. She seemed afraid to read. He considered "this poor demented creature" with an almost sad expression. "How can that interest you, since you do not believe?" she muttered in a choking voice.
"Read! I insist upon it! Used you not to read to Elizabeth?"