Crime and Punishment

and more than once she has felt for me but... such is my fate and I am a
beast by nature!”

“Rather!” assented the innkeeper yawning. Marmeladov struck his fist
resolutely on the table.

“Such is my fate! Do you know, sir, do you know, I have sold her very
stockings for drink? Not her shoes--that would be more or less in the
order of things, but her stockings, her stockings I have sold for drink!
Her mohair shawl I sold for drink, a present to her long ago, her own
property, not mine; and we live in a cold room and she caught cold this
winter and has begun coughing and spitting blood too. We have three
little children and Katerina Ivanovna is at work from morning till
night; she is scrubbing and cleaning and washing the children, for she’s
been used to cleanliness from a child. But her chest is weak and she has
a tendency to consumption and I feel it! Do you suppose I don’t feel it?
And the more I drink the more I feel it. That’s why I drink too. I try
to find sympathy and feeling in drink.... I drink so that I may suffer
twice as much!” And as though in despair he laid his head down on the
table.

“Young man,” he went on, raising his head again, “in your face I seem to