fools, fools," she cried, addressing the whole room,
"you don't know, you don't know what a heart she has, what a girl she
is! She take it, she? She'd sell her last rag, she'd go barefoot to help
you if you needed it, that's what she is! She has the yellow passport
because my children were starving, she sold herself for us! Ah, husband,
husband! Do you see? Do you see? What a memorial dinner for you!
Merciful heavens! Defend her, why are you all standing still? Rodion
Romanovitch, why don't you stand up for her? Do you believe it, too? You
are not worth her little finger, all of you together! Good God! Defend
her now, at least!"

The wail of the poor, consumptive, helpless woman seemed to produce a
great effect on her audience. The agonised, wasted, consumptive face,
the parched blood-stained lips, the hoarse voice, the tears unrestrained
as a child's, the trustful, childish and yet despairing prayer for help
were so piteous that everyone seemed to feel for her. Pyotr Petrovitch
at any rate was at once moved to _compassion_.

"Madam, madam, this incident does not reflect upon you!" he cried
impressively, "no one would take upon himself to accuse you of being an
instigator or even an accomplice in it, especially as you have proved
her guilt by turning out her pockets, showing that you had no previous
idea of it. I am most ready, most ready to show compassion, if poverty,
so to speak, drove Sofya Semyonovna to it, but why did you refuse to
confess, mademoiselle? Were you afraid of the disgrace? The first step?
You lost your head, perhaps? One can quite understand it.... But how
could you have lowered yourself to such an action? Gentlemen," he
addressed the whole company, "gentlemen! Compassionate and, so to say,
commiserating these people, I am ready to overlook it even now in spite
of the personal insult lavished upon me! And may this disgrace be a
lesson to you for the future," he said, addressing Sonia, "and I will
carry the matter no further. Enough!"

Pyotr Petrovitch stole a glance at Raskolnikov. Their eyes met, and the
fire in Raskolnikov's seemed ready to reduce him to ashes. Meanwhile
Katerina Ivanovna apparently heard nothing. She was kissing and hugging
Sonia like a madwoman. The children, too, were embracing Sonia on
all sides, and Polenka--though she did not fully understand what was
wrong--was drowned in tears and shaking with sobs, as she hid her pretty
little face, swollen with weeping, on Sonia's shou