“Poor girl!” he said, looking at the empty corner where she had sat⁠—“She will come to herself and weep, and then her mother will find out.⁠ ⁠… She will give her a beating, a horrible, shameful beating and then maybe, turn her out of doors.⁠ ⁠… And even if she does not, the Darya Frantsovnas will get wind of it, and the girl will soon be slipping out on the sly here and there. Then there will be the hospital directly (that’s always the luck of those girls with respectable mothers, who go wrong on the sly) and then⁠ ⁠… again the hospital⁠ ⁠… drink⁠ ⁠… the taverns⁠ ⁠… and more hospital, in two or three years⁠—a wreck, and her life over at eighteen or nineteen.⁠ ⁠… Have not I seen cases like that? And how have they been brought to it? Why, they’ve all come to it like that. Ugh! But what does it matter? That’s as it should be, they tell us. A certain percentage, they tell us, must every year go⁠ ⁠… that way⁠ ⁠… to the devil, I suppose, so that the rest may remain chaste, and not be interfered with. A percentage! What splendid words they have; they are so scientific, so consolatory.⁠ ⁠… Once you’ve said ‘percentage’ there’s nothing more to worry about. If we had any other word⁠ ⁠… maybe we might feel more uneasy.⁠ ⁠… But what if Dounia were one of the percentage! Of another one if not that one?