Underneath the coarse and obscene
profession, underneath the foulest oaths--about one's mother--
underneath the drunken, hideous exterior--Sonechka Marmeladova
still lives! The fate of the Russian prostitute--oh, what a
tragic, piteous, bloody, ludicrous and stupid path it is! Here
everything has been juxtaposed: the Russian God, Russian breadth
and unconcern, Russian despair in a fall, Russian lack of culture,
Russian naivete, Russian patience, Russian shamelessness. Why, all
of them, whom you take into bedrooms,--look upon them, look upon
them well,--why, they are all children; why, each of them is but
eleven years old. Fate has thrust them upon prostitution and since
then they live in some sort of a strange, fairy-like, toy
existence, without developing, without being enriched by
experience, naive, trusting, capricious, not knowing what they
will say and do half an hour later--altogether like children. This
radiant and ludicrous childishness I have seen in the very oldest
wenches, fallen as low as low can be, broken-winded and crippled
like a cabby's nags.
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