"Raskolnikov went straight to. . .where Sonya lived." His appearance there agitates and frightens Sonya. Rodya is stunned at how her apartment reeks of poverty and at how thin she is. As they sit together, Rodya questions her about her landlord Kapernaumov, about her profession, and then about her relationship to Katerina Ivanovna. Even though Sonya was ashamed and embarrassed with his questions, she answers with simplicity and innocence.
He then paints a horrible, depressing future life for Katerina and the children. He taunts her with the thought that Katerina will soon die — she is coughing up blood now — and the children will be left without anything. He taunts her with her inability to save any money. He taunts her with the thought that Polenka will probably have to enter also into a life of prostitution. To all of these taunts, Sonya responds with despair and dismay, and maintains that "God will not allow it to be so." To Raskolnikov's taunt that perhaps there is no God, Sonya's suffering increases because she cannot conceive of life without God.
At this point, Raskolnikov suddenly bows down to Sonya and kisses her foot, and says "I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of humanity." And he shocks Sonya by telling her that he did his sister honor by seating her next to his sister, "not because of your dishonor and your sin but because of your great suffering." He asks her to explain how "such shame and such baseness can exist in you side by side with other feelings, so different and so holy?" Rodya then realizes that there are only three options open to her: suicide, the madhouse, or abandonment into total debauchery.
