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112 The Gospel in Dostoyevskylvanovna, knocking her head against the wall in her consumption,meant to Sonia.Nevertheless, it was clear to him again that considering hercharacter and the amount of education she had after all received,she could not stay as she was in any case. He was still confrontedby the question, how could she have remained so long in thatposition without going out of her mind, since she could not bringherself to jump into the water? Of course he knew that Sonia’s lotwas an unusual one, though unhappily not unique. Yet that veryexceptional nature of her previous life with a tinge of educationmight, one would have thought, have killed her at the first stepon that revolting path. What held her up – surely not depravity?All that infamy had obviously only touched her mechanically,not one drop of real depravity had penetrated to her heart; hesaw that. He saw through her as she stood before him…“There are three choices before her,” he thought, “the canal,the madhouse, or…at last to sink into the depravity that obscuresthe mind and turns the heart to stone.”The last idea was the most revolting, but he was a sceptic, hewas young, abstract, and therefore cruel, and so he could nothelp believing that the last end was the most likely.“But can that be true?” he cried to himself. “Can that creaturewho has still preserved the purity of her spirit be consciouslydrawn at last into that sink of filth and iniquity? Can the processalready have begun? Can it be that she has only been able to bearit till now because vice has begun to be less loathsome to her? No,no, that cannot be!” he cried, as Sonia had just before. “No, whathas 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 whosays she has not gone out of her mind? Is she in her senses? Can