Marmeladov fell silent, as though his voice had failed him. Then suddenly he poured a quick glass, drank it, and grunted.
“Since then, my dear sir,” he went on after some silence, “since then, owing to an unfortunate occurrence and reports made by ill-meaning persons—which Darya Frantsevna especially abetted, on the pretext that she had not been shown due respect—since then my daughter, Sofya Semyonovna, has been obliged to carry a yellow pass, and under such circumstances could no longer remain with us. For the landlady, Amalia Fyodorovna, would not allow it (though she herself had abetted Darya Frantsevna before), and Mr. Lebezyatnikov also...hm...It was because of Sonya that this story happened between him and Katerina Ivanovna. First he sought after Sonya himself, but then he suddenly got puffed up: 'What?' he said. 'Is such an enlightened man as myself to live in the same apartment with such a woman?' And Katerina Ivanovna would not let that pass, she interfered...well, so it happened...And now Sonechka comes to us mostly at dusk, and helps Katerina Ivanovna, and brings whatever means she can...But she lives at the tailor Kapernaumov's, she rents a room from him, and Kapernaumov is lame and tongue-tied, and the whole of his extremely numerous family is also tongue-tied. And his wife, too, is tongue-tied...They occupy one room, and Sonya has her own, separately, with a partition...Hm, yes...The poorest people, and all of them tongue-tied...yes...So I got up that next morning, sir, put my rags on, lifted up my hands to heaven, and went to see his excellency, Ivan Afanasyevich. Do you know his excellency, Ivan Afanasyevich? No? Then you have missed knowing a man of God! He is wax...wax before the face of the Lord; as the wax melteth! [13] ...He even shed a tear when he heard it all. 'Well, Marmeladov,' he said, 'you have deceived my expectations once already....I am taking you one more time, on my personal responsibility'—that's just what he said. 'Remember that,' he said, 'and now go!' I kissed the dust at his feet—mentally, because in reality he would not have allowed it, being a dignitary, and a man of the new political and educated thinking; I went home again, and when I announced that I had been taken back into the service and would have a salary, Lord, what went on then! . . .”
13
See Psalm 68:2: "as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God."