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"Well, that's too much," one of the women observed, shaking her

head at Duclida. "I don't know how you can ask like that. I

believe I should drop with shame...."

Raskolnikov looked curiously at the speaker. She was a

pock-marked wench of thirty, covered with bruises, with her upper

lip swollen. She made her criticism quietly and earnestly. "Where

is it," thought Raskolnikov. "Where is it I've read that someone

condemned to death says or thinks, an hour before his death, that

if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that

he'd only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness,

everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had

to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a

thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die

at once! Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may

be!... How true it is! Good God, how true! Man is a vile

creature!... And vile is he who calls him vile for that," he

added a moment later.