over, and that, if he had had no other way,
he would have strangled her in a minute without thinking about it!
Well, I too... left off thinking about it... murdered her, following
his example. And that's exactly how it was! Do you think it funny? Yes,
Sonia, the funniest thing of all is that perhaps that's just how it
was."

Sonia did not think it at all funny.

"You had better tell me straight out... without examples," she begged,
still more timidly and scarcely audibly.

He turned to her, looked sadly at her and took her hands.

"You are right again, Sonia. Of course that's all nonsense, it's almost
all talk! You see, you know of course that my mother has scarcely
anything, my sister happened to have a good education and was condemned
to drudge as a governess. All their hopes were centered on me. I was a
student, but I couldn't keep myself at the university and was forced
for a time to leave it. Even if I had lingered on like that, in ten
or twelve years I might (with luck) hope to be some sort of teacher or
clerk with a salary of a thousand roubles" (he repeated it as though it
were a lesson) "and by that time my mother would be worn out with grief
and anxiety and I could not succeed in keeping her in comfort while my
sister... well, my sister might well have fared worse! And it's a hard
thing to pass everything by all one's life, to turn one's back upon
everything, to forget one's mother and decorously accept the insults
inflicted on one's sister. Why should one? When one has buried them to
burden oneself with others--wife and children--and to leave them again
without a farthing? So I resolved to gain possession of the old woman's
money and to use it for my first years without worrying my mother,
to keep myself at the university and for a little while after leaving
it--and to do this all on a broad, thorough scale, so as to build up
a completely new career and enter upon a new life of independence....
Well... that's all.... Well, of course in killing the old woman I did
wrong.... Well, that's enough."

He struggled to the end of his speech in exhaustion and let his head
sink.

"Oh, that's not it, that's not it," Sonia cried in distress. "How could
one... no, that's not right, not right."

"You see yourself that it's not right. But I've spoken truly, it's the
truth."

"As though that could be the truth! Good God!"

"I've only killed a louse, Sonia, a useless, loathsome, harmful
creature."

"A human bei