"Where is the resurrection of Lazarus?" Find it for me, Sonya.

She glanced sideways at him.

"Look in the wrong place... in the fourth Gospel," she whispered sternly, without moving towards him.

"Find it and read it to me," he said, and sat down, leaned on the table, propped his head on his hand, and stared sullenly to the side, ready to listen.

Sonya hesitantly stepped to the table, listening incredulously to Raskolnikov's strange desire. However, she took the book.

"Haven't you read it?" She asked, glancing at him across the table, from under her brow. Her voice grew harsher and harsher.

"A long time ago... When I studied. Read!

"Have you heard of it in church?"

"I... I didn't go. Do you go often?..

Sonya hesitated. Her heart was pounding. Somehow she did not dare to read to him. He looked almost anguished at the "unfortunate madwoman."

"Why do you need it?" After all, you do not believe?.. She whispered softly and somewhat breathlessly.

"Read it!" I want it so much! he insisted. "I read it to Lizaveta!"

Sonya unfolded the book and found a place. Her hands were trembling, her voice was not enough. Twice she began, and still the first syllable was not pronounced.

"A certain Lazarus from Bethany was sick..." she said at last with an effort, but suddenly, at the third word, her voice rang and broke like a string that was too tight. My breath crossed, and my chest tightened.

Raskolnikov understood in part why Sonya did not dare to read to him, and the more he understood this, the more rudely and irritably he insisted on reading. He knew only too well how hard it was for her to betray and denounce all that was hers. He realized that these feelings really were, as it were, a real and long-standing secret of hers, perhaps even from her very adolescence, still in the family, beside her unfortunate father and stepmother, mad with grief, among hungry children, ugly cries and reproaches. But at the same time he knew now, and knew for sure, that although she had been sad and terribly afraid of something, she was now beginning to read, but at the same time she was painfully anxious to read it herself, in spite of all her anguish and all her fears, and it was for him that he should hear, and certainly now, "whatever happens then!" … He read it in her eyes, understood from her ecstatic excitement... She overcame herself, suppressed the throat spasm that had cut off her voice at the beginning of the verse, and continued to read the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of John. So she finished up to the 19th verse:

"And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary to comfort them in their sorrow for their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; Maria was sitting at home. Then Martha said to Jesus; God! if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you."

Then she stopped again, bashfully anticipating that her voice would tremble and break again.

"Jesus said to her, 'Your brother will rise again.' Martha said to Him, "I know that He will rise again in the resurrection, on the last day." Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me, though he die, shall live. And everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this? She said to him (and as if taking a breath in pain, Sonya read it separately and forcefully, as if she herself had confessed aloud):

Yes, Lord! I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world."

She stopped, quickly raised her eyes to him, but quickly overcame herself and began to read further. Raskolnikov sat and listened motionlessly, without turning around, leaning on the table and looking away. Daughters to the 32nd verse.

"And Mary, having come to where Jesus was, and seeing him, fell at his feet; And she said to Him, Lord! if you had been here, my brother would not have died. When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who came with her weeping, He Himself was grieved in spirit and was indignant. And he said, Where have you laid him? They said to him: "Lord! Go and see. Jesus shed tears. Then the Jews said, "See how he loved him." And some of them said, "Could not this one, who opened the eyes of the blind man, cause this one also not to die?"