running after him, calling "Wait! wait!"

He turned round. She was at the bottom of the staircase and stopped
short a step above him. A dim light came in from the yard. Raskolnikov
could distinguish the child's thin but pretty little face, looking at
him with a bright childish smile. She had run after him with a message
which she was evidently glad to give.

"Tell me, what is your name?... and where do you live?" she said
hurriedly in a breathless voice.

He laid both hands on her shoulders and looked at her with a sort of
rapture. It was such a joy to him to look at her, he could not have said
why.

"Who sent you?"

"Sister Sonia sent me," answered the girl, smiling still more brightly.

"I knew it was sister Sonia sent you."

"Mamma sent me, too... when sister Sonia was sending me, mamma came up,
too, and said 'Run fast, Polenka.'"

"Do you love sister Sonia?"

"I love her more than anyone," Polenka answered with a peculiar
earnestness, and her smile became graver.

"And will you love me?"

By way of answer he saw the little girl's face approaching him, her full
lips naively held out to kiss him. Suddenly her arms as thin as sticks
held him tightly, her head rested on his shoulder and the little girl
wept softly, pressing her face against him.

"I am sorry for father," she said a moment later, raising her
tear-stained face and brushing away the tears with her hands. "It's
nothing but misfortunes now," she added suddenly with that peculiarly
sedate air which children try hard to assume when they want to speak
like grown-up people.

"Did your father love you?"

"He loved Lida most," she went on very seriously without a smile,
exactly like grown-up people, "he loved her because she is little and
because she is ill, too. And he always used to bring her presents. But
he taught us to read and me grammar and scripture, too," she added with
dignity. "And mother never used to say anything, but we knew that she
liked it and father knew it, too. And mother wants to teach me French,
for it's time my education began."

"And do you know your prayers?"

"Of course, we do! We knew them long ago. I say my prayers to myself
as I am a big girl now, but Kolya and Lida say them aloud with mother.
First they repeat the 'Ave Maria' and then another prayer: 'Lord,
forgive and bless sister Sonia,' and then another, 'Lord, forgive and
bless our second father.' For our elder father is dead and this is
another one, but we