Crime and Punishment

not only that he could not help telling her, but also that he could
not put off the telling. He did not yet know why it must be so, he
only _felt_ it, and the agonising sense of his impotence before
the inevitable almost crushed him. To cut short his hesitation and
suffering, he quickly opened the door and looked at Sonia from the
doorway. She was sitting with her elbows on the table and her face in
her hands, but seeing Raskolnikov she got up at once and came to meet
him as though she were expecting him.

“What would have become of me but for you?” she said quickly, meeting
him in the middle of the room.

Evidently she was in haste to say this to him. It was what she had been
waiting for.

Raskolnikov went to the table and sat down on the chair from which she
had only just risen. She stood facing him, two steps away, just as she
had done the day before.

“Well, Sonia?” he said, and felt that his voice was trembling, “it was
all due to ‘your social position and the habits associated with it.’ Did
you understand that just now?”

Her face showed her distress.

“Only don’t talk to me as you did yesterday,” she interrupted him.
“Please don’t begin it. There is misery enough without that.”