funny books. And I said, 'I
can't stay,' as I didn't want to read, and I'd gone in chiefly to show
Katerina Ivanovna some collars. Lizaveta, the pedlar, sold me some
collars and cuffs cheap, pretty, new, embroidered ones. Katerina
Ivanovna liked them very much; she put them on and looked at herself
in the glass and was delighted with them. 'Make me a present of them,
Sonia,' she said, 'please do.' '_Please do_,' she said, she wanted them
so much. And when could she wear them? They just reminded her of her old
happy days. She looked at herself in the glass, admired herself, and she
has no clothes at all, no things of her own, hasn't had all these years!
And she never asks anyone for anything; she is proud, she'd sooner give
away everything. And these she asked for, she liked them so much. And I
was sorry to give them. 'What use are they to you, Katerina Ivanovna?' I
said. I spoke like that to her, I ought not to have said that! She gave
me such a look. And she was so grieved, so grieved at my refusing her.
And it was so sad to see.... And she was not grieved for the collars,
but for my refusing, I saw that. Ah, if only I could bring it all back,
change it, take back those words! Ah, if I... but it's nothing to you!"

"Did you know Lizaveta, the pedlar?"

"Yes.... Did you know her?" Sonia asked with some surprise.

"Katerina Ivanovna is in consumption, rapid consumption; she will soon
die," said Raskolnikov after a pause, without answering her question.

"Oh, no, no, no!"

And Sonia unconsciously clutched both his hands, as though imploring
that she should not.

"But it will be better if she does die."

"No, not better, not at all better!" Sonia unconsciously repeated in
dismay.

"And the children? What can you do except take them to live with you?"

"Oh, I don't know," cried Sonia, almost in despair, and she put her
hands to her head.

It was evident that that idea had very often occurred to her before and
he had only roused it again.

"And, what, if even now, while Katerina Ivanovna is alive, you get ill
and are taken to the hospital, what will happen then?" he persisted
pitilessly.

"How can you? That cannot be!"

And Sonia's face worked with awful terror.

"Cannot be?" Raskolnikov went on with a harsh smile. "You are not
insured against it, are you? What will happen to them then? They will
be in the street, all of them, she will cough and beg and knock her head
against some wall, as she did to-day, a