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Raskolnikov saw in part why Sonia could not bring herself to read

to him and the more he saw this, the more roughly and irritably

he insisted on her doing so. He understood only too well how

painful it was for her to betray and unveil all that was her own.

He understood that these feelings really were her secret

treasure, which she had kept perhaps for years, perhaps from

childhood, while she lived with an unhappy father and a

distracted stepmother crazed by grief, in the midst of starving

children and unseemly abuse and reproaches. But at the same time

he knew now and knew for certain that, although it filled her

with dread and suffering, yet she had a tormenting desire to read

and to read to him that he might hear it, and to read now

whatever might come of it!... He read this in her eyes, he could

see it in her intense emotion. She mastered herself, controlled

the spasm in her throat and went on reading the eleventh chapter

of St. John. She went on to the nineteenth verse: