Sonia Marmeladova

“ Sonia, during that same time, was shut within her room, thinking as intensely as he. She had been able, by dint of enormous will-power, to control herself in all other points while indulging herself in one. She had said to herself during those crucial minutes in the cab, while she consciously threw open the windows of her soul to this man in that clear and unrestricted gaze, that she would neither speak nor stir, though the effort should kill her. ”

“ And if even the average woman cannot attain to the full consciousness of her womanhood without man, how much less can the woman of genius, in whom sex is the actual root of her being, and the source from whence she derives her talent and her ego. If her womanhood remains unawakened, then however promising the beginning may be, her life will be nothing more than a gradual decay, and the stronger her vitality, the more terrible will the death-struggle be.
That was Sonia’s life. No man took her in his arms and awoke the whole harmony of her being. ”

“ He longed only to help and comfort her. He could not speak, but at least he could let her know that he was near; and then it was that he had made the sound which Sonia had heard.
That sound was followed by silence. Was she perhaps indignant, he asked himself, that he should dare to make this demand upon her attention? She would have a right to be; for he could make no pretense that he had not deliberately intended to do this. Yet she was alone there, sad and troubled, and he was close at hand, with a heart that ached to comfort her. ”

“ I was often reminded of a chorus girl I once saw in undergraduate days at a Covent Garden Ball, whirling through the night—like Sonia—from one till three, and at four o'clock lying asleep in a box with her cheek on her arm, oblivious and—I hope—happy; in any case too weary to dream what the future might hold. Looking back on the four years of carnival that ended with the war, I seem to find in Sonia the embodiment of the age's spirit.
"You know how that sort of thing ends, I suppose?" I took occasion to ask.
"Oh, don't be heavy, George!" she exclaimed impatiently. "We can only die once." ”

“ I refuse to take from you a smaller thing. It is easier to give you up than to face that thought.”
“But Sonia! Darling! You have got that love! I tell you it is just the same!”
She shook her head.
“It cannot be,” she said. “You would feel that what had been once might be again. You could never feel secure for even one moment. I could not bear it. You must remember what I felt in that one embrace. Oh, Harold, I want you to remember that! ”

“ To compare Fru Leffler to Sonia is like comparing a nine days’ wonder to an eternal phenomenon. One is an ordinary woman with a carefully cultivated talent, while the other is one of those mysteries who, from time to time, make their appearance in the world, in whom nature seems to have overstepped her boundaries, and who are created to live lonely lives, to suffer and to die without having ever attained the full possession of their own being. ”

“ Extraordinary though it may seem, Sonia was on this occasion, as on many other occasions in later life, a woman who experienced desire without being in the least aware of it. She was like a virgin mother who had borne a child without knowing man’s love. ”

“ He was interested in Sonia, as much as he was capable of being interested in any one, because she was a compatriot to be proud of, and he also liked her because she was good company, but Sonia never acquired all the power over him which she should have had. He was not like a susceptible young man who is influenced by the first woman who has really given him the full passion of her love. ”

“ One of those great rushes of passionate tenderness which the sight of the man she loves can sometimes bring to a woman’s heart came over me. At that moment the photographer got the instantaneous impression. I don’t know why I should tell you all this, except that you saw it all there. To other people there never seemed any special significance in the picture.”
She reached out her hand to take back the photographs, but Martha handed her only the first.
“Oh, Sonia, let me keep this!” she begged. “It is such delight to me to look at it!” ”

“ No, no, that cannot be!” he cried, as Sonia had just before. “No, what has kept her from the canal till now is the idea of sin and they, the children.... And if she has not gone out of her mind... but who says she has not gone out of her mind? Is she in her senses? Can one talk, can one reason as she does? How can she sit on the edge of the abyss of loathsomeness into which she is slipping and refuse to listen when she is told of danger? Does she expect a miracle? No doubt she does. ”

“ If Sonia failed to please,—she whose personal charm was so great, whose vivacity was so prepossessing, as all who knew her declared that it was; if she failed where so many lesser women have succeeded, her failure was entirely due to her ignorance of the art of flirtation,—an art which is as old as sex, and to which men have been accustomed since the world began. Even the most refined, the most highly-developed men, are not geniuses in this matter, where everything has always been most carefully arranged for them. ”

“ Sometimes she would look quite happy for an instant, as if a thought of joy had forced its way uppermost. Then again deep pain would come into her face, and shadows of doubt, perplexity, and hopelessness.
She sat so for a long time. Inkling had had a deep and peaceful sleep on the soft folds of her gown, from which he was startled by a knock at the door. His mistress sprang up suddenly, rolling him over, and he began to bark furiously, while Sonia, with an attitude of studious absorption, took her place at the easel, and seized her bit of charcoal. ”

“ I shall never own the picture as long as I live; and I have the solemn pledge of both you and Etienne not to betray me. You know it was against my will that I consented to exhibit it, and I could not endure to have it known that a melodramatic thing like that (for that is what it will be called) had been painted and exhibited by me. Did your brother laugh at it? Tell me the truth. If he laughed at it, I wish to know it.”
She had raised herself in the bed, and sat upright, looking at Martha with commanding eyes.
“Laugh at it, Sonia? Could any one laugh at that picture—least of all Harold? ”

“ It was a wilful, impatient little face, exacting and rather obstinate, without very much depth of character, but amazingly mobile and young, capable of a child's ecstatic abandonment to happiness and of a melting tenderness when she looked at her husband's unseeing eyes and whimsical, self-protective smile.
"In some ways it's extraordinarily like some of his omnium-gatherum parties at Oxford, Sonia," murmured George, as the tireless fingers at the piano passed from waltz to march and from march to Scandinavian boating-song half as old as time.
Mrs. O'Rane's big eyes swam. ”

“ Mallory had stationed a taxicab at the corner, and into this he helped Sonia, whose mind and body were queerly numb. This kindly handsome man would be kind to her so long as he wanted her; so nothing mattered. But oh, the dreams, the dreams that had vanished forever!
“Whether that man is your uncle or not, we can't say; but he shall never lay eyes upon you again,” said Mallory. “The dog! I understand everything, Sonia. A woman like you, unless she comes well armed and protected, generally goes through a variety of hells. But that's over with. The war spoiled one of my hands, Sonia. ”

“ Though Raskolnikov looked at Sonia as he said this, he no longer cared whether she understood or not. The fever had complete hold of him; he was in a sort of gloomy ecstasy (he certainly had been too long without talking to anyone) . Sonia felt that his gloomy creed had become his faith and code.
“I divined then, Sonia,” he went on eagerly, “that power is only vouchsafed to the man who dares to stoop and pick it up. There is only one thing, one thing needful: one has only to dare! ”

“ She did not return to the lounge, but sat upright on a stiff sofa which admitted of no lounging. Martha, glowing with pleasure at her heroine’s praise of her hero, was determined to follow up her advantage.
“Oh, you will take back what you said, and let me bring him to see you—won’t you, Sonia?” she said ardently. “We are going to have the apartment to ourselves for weeks, Harold and I; and we three could have such{96} ideal times—such little dinners and jaunts to the play! As things are with you both, I think there is all the more reason for you to know each other. You could be such friends! ”

“ The two who loved him were not yet really worried by his disappearance, since they had his significant letter. In time their confidence would give place to anxiety, and heaven [101] and earth would be moved to uncover his hiding-place. This loving notice was a trap set by Sonia. On the road which led from Mulberry Street to Cambridge, from the home of Anne Dillon to the home of Lois Endicott, Sonia's detective lay in wait for the returning steps of the lost husband, and Sonia's eyes devoured the shadows, her ears drank in every sound. He laughed, he grew warm with the feeling of triumph. ”

“ Sonia could see the very expressions of their faces as they would look up for direction to the sisters as they passed, lifting their meek and timid glances with an air of solemnity{169} which in some instances struggled with a sense of pride in their unwonted paraphernalia. Somehow, the sight of so much ignorance, trust, and innocence, and the thought that each one of them possessed a woman’s heart, with all its capacity for suffering, for hoping, for loving, for regretting, absolutely overcame her. ”

“ But Sonia had seen nothing; her eyes were getting dim, and she was on the point of giving it up when Natacha's exclamation had stopped her; she did not want to disappoint them; but there is nothing so tiring as sitting motionless. [Pg 99] She did not know why she had called out and hidden her face.
"Did you see him?" asked Natacha.
"Yes; stop a minute. I saw him," said Sonia, not quite sure whether "him" was to mean Nicolas or Prince André. "Why not make them believe that I saw something?" she thought. "A great many people have done so before, and no one can prove the contrary. ”

“ The women whose intellectual abilities are above the average are often those who lay themselves open to the reproach that they have abandoned their sex; and yet, strange to say, some of them have attained to mature womanhood at an exceedingly early age. Sonia, who was par préférence the woman of genius of this century, was only nine years old when she flew into a passion of jealousy, caused by a little girl who was sitting on the knees of her handsome young uncle. ”

“ Even so friendly and intelligent an exponent as Ellen Key, her second biographer, does not seem to be aware of the fact that, although Sonia is a typical woman of her time,—typical of the more earnest upholders of women’s rights, and the representative of the highest intellectual accomplishments to which women have attained,—she is also typical of that which the woman of this century loses in the struggle, and of that in which the woman of the future will be the gainer. ”

“ He ran whimpering from one to the other; and when they took no notice of him, he sprang upon the lap of his mistress, and, uttering the most expressive plaints and beseechings, tried to lick her face. Sonia, in a fit of irritation very characteristic of her, gave him a hard little slap, which sent him out of her lap, whining, and running to Harold for pity. He was not really hurt; and she felt cross with the clever little brute for posing as a victim so successfully.
“Don’t touch him!” she cried imperatively to Harold. “He’s only pretending to get your pity. ”

“ Repulsed, dissatisfied, and saddened, Sonia went to Paris.
She wished to stand alone, and the only way in which this was possible was to turn her studies to account and to work for her own bread. She had given up the wish to be a learned woman; she [38] wanted to be a wife, to be loved and made happy; she had done her best, but it had turned out a failure. It was just about this time that she received an invitation through Professor Mittag-Leffler to be teacher under him in the new high school at Stockholm. He was Fru Leffler’s brother, and a pupil of Weierstrass’s. ”

“ Why does she weep? Why is she looking after me, like my mother or Dounia? She'll be my nurse."
"Cross yourself, say at least one prayer," Sonia begged in a timid broken voice.
"Oh certainly, as much as you like! And sincerely, Sonia, sincerely. . . ."
But he wanted to say something quite different.
He crossed himself several times. Sonia took up her shawl and put it over her head. It was the green drap de dames shawl of which Marmeladov had spoken, "the family shawl." Raskolnikov thought of that looking at it, but he did not ask. ”

“ Sonia Kovalevsky’s girlhood was spent in Russia, during those years of feverish excitement when the outbreaks of the Nihilists bore witness to the working of a subterranean volcano, and the hearts and intellects of the young glowed with an enthusiasm which led to the self-annihilating deeds of fanaticism. A few winter months spent at St. Petersburg decided the fate of Sonia and her elder sister, Anjuta. The strict, old-fashioned notions of their family allowed them very little liberty, and they longed for independence. ”