t Amalia Ivanovna was turning them out of their lodging
and that Katerina Ivanovna had run off somewhere "to seek justice."

"My God!" cried Sonia, "let's go at once...."

And she snatched up her cape.

"It's everlastingly the same thing!" said Raskolnikov, irritably.
"You've no thought except for them! Stay a little with me."

"But... Katerina Ivanovna?"

"You won't lose Katerina Ivanovna, you may be sure, she'll come to you
herself since she has run out," he added peevishly. "If she doesn't find
you here, you'll be blamed for it...."

Sonia sat down in painful suspense. Raskolnikov was silent, gazing at
the floor and deliberating.

"This time Luzhin did not want to prosecute you," he began, not looking
at Sonia, "but if he had wanted to, if it had suited his plans, he would
have sent you to prison if it had not been for Lebeziatnikov and me.
Ah?"

"Yes," she assented in a faint voice. "Yes," she repeated, preoccupied
and distressed.

"But I might easily not have been there. And it was quite an accident
Lebeziatnikov's turning up."

Sonia was silent.

"And if you'd gone to prison, what then? Do you remember what I said
yesterday?"

Again she did not answer. He waited.

"I thought you would cry out again 'don't speak of it, leave off.'"
Raskolnikov gave a laugh, but rather a forced one. "What, silence
again?" he asked a minute later. "We must talk about something, you
know. It would be interesting for me to know how you would decide a
certain 'problem' as Lebeziatnikov would say." (He was beginning to lose
the thread.) "No, really, I am serious. Imagine, Sonia, that you had
known all Luzhin's intentions beforehand. Known, that is, for a fact,
that they would be the ruin of Katerina Ivanovna and the children and
yourself thrown in--since you don't count yourself for anything--Polenka
too... for she'll go the same way. Well, if suddenly it all depended on
your decision whether he or they should go on living, that is whether
Luzhin should go on living and doing wicked things, or Katerina Ivanovna
should die? How would you decide which of them was to die? I ask you?"

Sonia looked uneasily at him. There was something peculiar in this
hesitating question, which seemed approaching something in a roundabout
way.

"I felt that you were going to ask some question like that," she said,
looking inquisitively at him.

"I dare say you did. But how is it to be answered?"

"Why do you ask about what could not ha