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