Sonia did not speak

　　He stayed obstinately at that thought. He liked that explanationindeed better than any other. He began looking more intently at her.

　　"So you pray to God a great deal, Sonia?" he asked her.

　　Sonia did not speak; he stood beside her waiting for an answer.

　　"What should I be without God?" she whispered rapidly, forcibly,glancing at him with suddenly flashing eyes, and squeezing his hand.

　　"Ah, so that is it!" he thought.

　　"And what does God do for you?" he asked, probing her further.

　　Sonia was silent a long while, as though she could not answer. Herweak chest kept heaving with emotion.

　　"Be silent! Don't ask! You don't deserve!" she cried suddenly,looking sternly and wrathfully at him.

　　"That's it, that's it," he repeated to himself.

　　"He does everything," she whispered quickly, looking down again.

　　"That's the way out! That's the explanation," he decided,scrutinising her with eager curiosity, with a new, strange, almostmorbid feeling. He gazed at that pale, thin, irregular, angular littleface, those soft blue eyes, which could flash with such fire, suchstern energy, that little body still shaking with indignation andanger- and it all seemed to him more and more strange, almostimpossible. "She is a religious maniac!" he repeated to himself.

　　There was a book lying on the chest of drawers. He had noticed itevery time he paced up and down the room. Now he took it up and lookedat it. It was the New Testament in the Russian translation. It wasbound in leather, old and worn.

　　"Where did you get that?" he called to her across the room.

　　She was still standing in the same place, three steps from thetable.

　　"It was brought me," she answered, as it were unwillingly, notlooking at him.