Crime and Punishment; Part 2, Chapters 1 - 7

Part 2; Chapter 1:

Raskolnikov, shuddering with chills, realizes that he has forgotten to bolt the door to his hovel. In a state of paranoia (and not trusting his own mind) Raskolnikov takes off his clothes and minutely examines them three times for blood. He discovers that the old woman’s purse is still in his pocket, and pulling it out,  he stuffs it inside a hole in the wall, but the contents bulge through the wallpaper. He begins to panic more, convinced that he is covered in blood but that his mind is gone and he cannot see it.

He throws himself back on his couch, covering himself with his coat, shuddering with delirium. He is jolted back to lucidity by a loud knock at the door - it is Nastasya, the maid, and the porter with a summons for him from the police. Nastasya keeps her eye on him with concern. Raskolnikov is horrified to realize that he still has his bloody sock in his hand, which Nastasya notices and laughs at. “Look, he has spent the whole night with his sock in his hand.”

Raksolnikov is shaking with fever and a bad headache. He overcomes a desire to pray and leaves his wretched little apartment, and shakily navigates the filthy, hot streets of St. Petersburg to the police station.

Entering the police station, Raskolnikov is assailed by the sickly smells of new paint mixed with rancid oils (Fresh paint – even if it is mixed with rancid oil -  is a recurring motif in CRIME and PUNISHMENT which symbolizes change or the start of something new).   The police station is crowded with peasants and bureaucrats who pay no attention to him, which irritates him greatly. There is a large German woman who is defending herself against a complaint of disturbing the peace. It is a comic turn but shows Dostoevsky’s anti-German immigrant prejudice. Raskolnikov gets in a shouting match with the assistant to the police captain, a lieutenant, for not showing proper obsequiousness. The summons is for the back rent on Raskolnikov’s apartment, which he vigorously denies. A year ago, Raskolnikov agreed to marry the landlady’s daughter and for that he received free rent, but when the daughter died, Raskolnikov continued to not pay rent. Now the landlady is charging him for all the back rent he did not pay.

(pages 84 - 85) There is a comic interlude where the lieutenant berates the German woman who uses as her defense the ill behavior of a guest in her house, a little drunken swine, a writer! There are continuing jokes about the degenerate nature of writers.

Nikodim Fomich enters, the police chief, an affable man who teases the lieutenant, Ilya Petrovich. The cops begin discussing the murders of the old woman and her sister, and Koch’s alibi. Hearing Nikodim correctly figure out that the murderer was in the apartment at the time Koch was knocking at the door, Raskolnikov faints. When he comes to he is given a tumbler of dirty, yellow water (at that time, St. Petersburg did not have a sewage system nor a municipal water system; the citizens got their water from rivers and streams.) When he comes to, Fomich begins asking him questions: How long has he been ill? Did he go out yesterday when he was sick? The tone in the room changes. Nikodim is about to ask Raskolnikov another question but the chief clerk is staring at Fomich fixedly. A silence descends on the room. When Raskolnikov leaves, he can hear raised voices rapidly talking, with Fomich’s voice rising above them. Raskolnikov is convinced that he will be detained.

Chapter 2 (pages 90 - 99) Raskolnikov returns to his little hovel and is horrified at how he tried to hide the jewelry - shoved into a torn hole in the wallpaper. He takes the purse and the cases, and with the intention of throwing them in the water - a decision he made last night during his delirium - he leaves his tiny apartment and wanders toward the canal. He stumbles around for a while aimlessly and then decides to hide the stolen goods under a wheel in a courtyard. He then realizes he’s never even examined the contents of the purse so he doesn’t even know how much he has gained from the murder of the old pawnbroker. After he disposes of the stolen goods he drifts to the tenement apartment of his friend and fellow student, Razumikin (Roo zu mee kin) whom he has not seen for four months. Razumikhin is concerned about his friend’s tattered clothes and obviously feverish state. He attempts to give Raskolnikov work translating silly pamphlets from German into Russian (Is Woman a Human Being?) but after taking the translation and the money and leaving, Raskolnikov changes his mind, returns, silently puts the money and translation back on Razumikhin’s table, and leaves again, without a word - which proves too much for Razumikhin, who follows him out screaming, but is frustrated when Raskolnikov ignores him and continues out into the street.    

Notice that Razumikhin is as wretchedly poor as Raskolnikov, but has not resorted to esoteric theories of justified murder. He too is too poor at the moment to attend school, but has an amazing ability to eke out a living by various clever enterprises - translating silly pamphlets being one such enterprise, which he is willing to share with his good friend. Unlike Raskolnikov, who is in a state of chronic irritability and isolation, Razumikhin is very social, usually cheerful - sometimes too much so, and has an expansive generosity to all - particularly to those he loves - and he loves quite often and deeply.  

Raskolnikov wanders into the street and  in front of a carriage, where he is beaten on the back by an irate carriage driver who accuses him of running a well known scam of pretending to be hurt in an accident and then suing. A well-dressed woman, with her daughter, witnesses the incident, and taking pity on Raskonikov,  gives him money and blesses him in Christ’s name. Raskolnikov has become an object of both suspicion and pity. He then stops and gazes at the magnificent view of a beautiful church which has always aroused in him confusion and awe - which it does now, but this time he realizes that he is a different man gazing at the cathedral than he was the times before.  

(This echoes an actual event in Dostoyevsky's own life when he was standing shivering in the cold, awaiting his own execution, and he notices the sun light on a beautiful church in the distance, and he realizes that will be the last thing he sees before he dies. Of course, the Czar stayed the execution at the last minute and he and the other revolutionaries were sentenced to hard labor in Siberia.)

Raskolnikov realizes he is clutching the money the woman has given him and angered, he throws the money into the canal. He stumbles home, falls into a delirium and dreams that Ilya Petrovich is here and beating the landlady. A group of people are on the landing yelling, screaming, arguing watching the beating. He wakes up and finds Nastasya there in his room. He asks her why Petrovich was beating the landlady and she says, “It’s because of the blood.” A cool bit of irony there. Nastasya explains that the blood becomes clotted, causing one to have visions. She doesn’t realize how close to the truth she is. She gets cool water to calm Raskolnikov’s fever, and he falls back into a tortured sleep.

Chapter lll (pages 99 - 111):

Raskolnikov awakens to find Nastasya standing near his bed; also in his room is an unfamiliar young man in a caftan.  Before he can make sense of why these people are in his room, Razumikhin enters, talking a mile a minute, telling him that he’s hardly eaten anything for days, except for a spoonful of tea fed by him, Razumikhin, and he brought Zosimov (a doctor) who examined him twice while he was passed out, and that Zosimov concluded he was getting a little queer headed and nervous by not getting enough beer and horse radish in his diet. When Razumikhin finally stops talking, the young man in the caftan tells Raskolnikov he has money - 35 rubles - for Raskolnikov from his mother.

Nastasya brings food for Raskolnikov and in a comic turn, Razumikhin (Ra-zu-mee-khin) encircles his head with his arm like a bear and tries to spoon feed him. Razumikhin shamelessly flirts with Nastasya. Razumikhin informs of the following news: That the landlady had sold Raskolnikov’s i.o.u. to a businessman because she knew that the i.o.u. was good because Raskolnikov’s mother would pay for his back rent. Razumikhin bought the i.o.u. from the business man and gave it to Raskolnikov for $10 rubles out of the $35 he received from his mother. too. After Razumikhin leaves, Raskolnikov becomes agitated, drinks some more beer, falls into a more restful sleep and sleeps for six hours. When he awakes Razumikhin is back with new clothes for him. Another funny comic turn with Razumikhin showing him the new clothes he has bought him in a very complicated mathematical formula - with Raskolnikov’s own money which has been sent to him from his mother. At the end of the scene Zosimov has entered the apartment.

Chapter lV (pages 112 - 121)

Razumikhin is discussing a house warming party he is throwing and mentions that Porfiry Petrovich will be there. Razumikhin starts discussing the arrest of the painter in the murder of the pawnbroker, Alyona. Koch and Pestryakov (the two men at the door when Raskolnikov was locked inside the apartment) had been detained for questioning. Razumikhin mentions Raskolnikov fainting in Porfiry’s office in passing. Razumikhin plays all the parts of the actors in this scene, but he figures out the sequence of events of the crime which he recounts. The painters are being held as suspects in the murders because they have Alyona’s jewelry but Razumikhin uses human psychology to determine that they are not the murderers. Five minutes after the murders the painters, Dimitri and Nikolay, run down the stairs screaming with laughter and play fighting so much that they fall in a heap laughing and hitting each other right in the gate, blocking the way for eight or ten people from entering the court yard. The porter and his wife and several others yell at them to get out of the way. Later, when Dimitri comes back to the flat to straighten up he finds the box of jewels behind the door. Both of them go on a bender and when Mikolay finds out the news about the murder of the pawnbroker, he attempts suicide because he is convinced he will be accused of the crime. A woman spying on him stops him in time.

Luzhin, like the devil,  suddenly appears.

Chapter V

Pages 121 - 131:

Luzhin is a very well dressed, well groomed man of about 45 years of age. He reveals himself to be Dounia’s fiance and that he has made arrangements for Dounia and her mother to stay in a hotel which Razumikhin identifies as wretched, and crime and roach infested. Luzhin reveals that Lebezyatnikov (the tenant who insulted and beat Katerina)  was his ward when he was a minor. Luzhin begins spouting views that curiously presage the “trickle-down theory” of Reagan’s in the 80’s. Luzhin is an advocate of the “self interested humanitarianism”, which is: If I take care of myself and prosper then that prosperity will spill out and benefit my neighbor. Razumikhin becomes enraged with his theories and shouts and insults him into silence.

Razumikhin then mentions that Porfiry is interviewing the clients of the pawnbroker. Rasumikhin seems to be defending the murderer by saying that the crime was clearly done by a noncriminal - someone who had never committed a crime before because the whole crime was so badly bungled from start to finish. The murderer did not check the drawers in which a large amount of money was stashed, but fumbled instead with a trunk in which a few paltry items were hidden. He got away not by skill but by sheer luck.

Luzhin again brings up the rise in crime among even the upper, well educated classes which Razumikhin points out proves the flaw in his “self-interested humanitarianism” or rising water causes all boats to rise. The logical conclusion to this theory is that everyone will be slitting everyone else’s throat. Raskolnikov rouses himself and accuses Luzhin of marrying his sister because she is poor and therefore grateful to him for raising her up. Luzhin thoroughly denies it and storms out.

Razumikhim and Zosimov also leave but both notice that Raskolnikov only gets upset when the murders are brought up. Razumikhin mentions that he fainted in the police station when they began discussing the murders. Both men are concerned. It seems that Razumikhin knows or at least strongly suspects.

Pages 132 - 149:

Raskolnikov taunts Zametov in the tavern; Raskolnikov sees Lizaveta’s double commit suicide by jumping into the river.

Raskolnikov waits until everyone leaves and then quickly puts on clothes brought by Razumikhin which he bought with Raskolnikov’s money. Raskolnikov leaves the hot, squalid apartment and goes into the St. Peterburg street where it is still hot at 8 pm. He is in a state of confusion, wanders around, listens to buskers performing - Dostoevsky makes a point to show that regardless of how angelic the voice or pure the emotion, it is a cynical act designed for personal gain: for example, the handsome young organ grinder accompanying a young girl with a lovely voice; as soon as Raskolnikov gives them money for their singing, the girl breaks off on the highest, most tender note and in a rough coarse voice tells her companion, “That will do”, and they trudge off to the next shop.

Raskolnikov is acting strangely, babbling and saying bizarre things to strangers: “I like to hear street singing on cold, damp days....” He goes to where he last saw the dealer and his wife talk to Lizaveta, and asks an unpleasant fellow about them, but the man is very defensive and rude. Raskolnikov is filled with the desire to speak and be social (not very ubermensche-like) and he jostles along the streets surrounded by noisy peasants who pay no attention to him. He notices a group of women of various ages - some over 40 and some as young as 17 but he notices that almost all of them have black eyes which suggests male violence. They are listening to a man strumming the guitar. Everywhere the women are battered, pockmarked. An attractive young woman asks him for money for drink which he gives her. Another woman criticizes her for her forwardness. Raskolnikov walks away remembering a thought - that it would be better to be on a tiny ledge in darkness, in isolation for an eternity than to be dead within the hour.

He enters a tavern, orders a drink and newspapers to read about the old pawnbroker’s murder. Zametov, the police chief’s clerk, who was in the police station yesterday is sitting at another table drinking with some men, winds his way to Raskolnikov’s table and sits down next to him. Raskolnikov begins to bait and taunt him with tantalizing bits of clues about the murder. Raskolnikov brings up Mitka the painter and his pal playing around; he reveals that he has been reading about Alyona’s murder; he states that he would like to “confess” but no, rather to “make a statement”, and then he brings his face close to Zametov and stares at him without a word for about a minute. He whispers and then laughs and then grows quiet and staring. Zametov thinks Raskolnikov is still delirious from the fever.

Zametov brings up a case about a huge group of counterfeiters who were busted for passing bad notes. Raskolnikov ridicules their bad planning and says of course they got busted because one of the crooks would give himself away by his trembling hands. Raskolnikov boasts that would never happen to him and he explains how he would run the scheme by counting the money over and over again in front of the teller and then demanding that several of the bank notes be exchanged for better notes because he suspects they are counterfeit. Zametov scoffs at that and brings up the old pawnbroker’s murder as proof that the murderer was also a scared novice who lost his nerve. Does Zametov suspect Raskolnikov? Raskolnikov brings up that the first thing killer-robbers do is start spending money that they didn’t have before. Zametov points out they go into pubs and order drinks - which is where they are now. Raskolnikov tells Zametov how he would have committed the murders and what he would have done with the money: find a market garden with a wheel propped up in the yard and plant the money in the depression made in the ground by the wheel - which is exactly what he did do.

Raskolnikov leans his face close to Zametov; his lips are moving but no sound is coming out. His lips are like the door with the latch rattling in the lock right after the pawnbroker’s murder - the truth is about to pop out and the words pour out - “Yes, I did it!” - like the men and the porters and the police pouring through the door, discovering the old woman’s dead body. “Now, now, the bolt will give way; now, now, the word will slip out...” He pulls out fistfuls of money, and comments on how much money he has and the nice clothes he is now wearing, pays for the drinks and then in a fit of hysteria, unendurable pleasure, despair and fatigue, he exits leaving Zametov in a state of confusion.

Missing pages: 145 - 152

Pages 152 - 165:

Death of Marmeladov:

Raskolnikov sees a huge crowd ahead. There is an gentleman’s elegant carriage and horses stopped in the middle of the street. The carriage driver was quickly coming up with excuses and defenses as to why it wasn’t his fault that the man had fallen under his carriage and was trampled by the horses. It is obvious that the carriage driver works for a rich, powerful man and is not too concerned about his responsibility for the man crushed under his wheels - the police are also quick to expedite the matter: carry the man to the police station and then to the hospital. Raskolnikov recognizes the man - it is Marmeladov. He is horrified and offers the police a bribe to carry Marmeladov to his apartment which is only thirty paces away.

Katerina is pacing the floor coughing from the tobacco smoke wafting through their apartment from the neighbors next door. Polenka, the ten year old daughter, is trying to be a good girl helping her mother undress her little brother. The youngest daughter is dressed in absolute rags waiting her turn to be undressed. She is fretting because she must wash the children’s only clothes that night. Katerina is reminiscing about her youth, about how respected and important her father was, how she danced the shawl dance for the governor, how a rich dashing man had asked for her hand in marriage but how she turned him down to marry the children’s father - now dead. Raskolnikov comes bursting in with a crowd bearing Marmeladov’s mutilated body. Katerina springs into action and begins to care the dying man. She sends her daugher, Palenka, to fetch her half sister, Sonia.

The neighbors begin crowding in along with the landlady, a German woman - which allows Dostoevsky to take an anti-immigrant poke at the Germans. The neighbors’ crudeness and vulgarity deeply offend katerina and she flies into a rage, driving them out of the apartment. The landlady bulldozes her way in and Katerina begins to dress her down, referring to her by her German name and not allowing her to forget that katerina is her social superior. Outside a man’s voice can be heard laughing, “They’re at it again!” The neighbors are filled with schaudenfraude.

The doctor arrives but it is too late. His chest is crushed and his head has sustained significant injury. He will be dead in five or ten minutes the doctor predicts. Soon the priest arrives to give last rites but Marmeladov is too far gone to understand what he is saying. Katerina takes the children to the corner where they kneel and pray; meanwhile the neighbors and crowd return and they are pressing at the door watching. Suddenly, a young, pale and thin girl appears through the crowd. She is dressed in the cheap and gaudy finery of a prostitute. Whispers from the crowd begin to fly and embarrassed, the girl lowers her eyes.

The priest approaches Katerina and tells her that God is merciful and to put her faith in him. Katerina bitterly replies that he is merciful to everyone but to her. The priest admonishes her that that sentiment is a sin. Katerina bitterly asks what can she do with this - pointing to her husband. The priest tells her that she may be able to get compensation from the wealthy owner of the carriage, but Katerina cannot afford to be unrealistic and paints the truth of the situation - that he was a drunk and it was his fault and nobody else’s that he was trampled, that if he hadn’t gotten trampled he would have come home, drunk and dirty and she would have been forced to stay up all night - like every other night - washing and mending his clothes. And that is the tragic truth of the matter. Her tirade is cut short by a deep seated cough. She spits into a handkerchief, turning it bright red with her blood. The priest’s words are empty next to the terrible loss in Katerina’s life.

Marmeladov lies dying on the couch; his eyes dumbly searching the room until they fall on the pitiful sight of Sonia, humiliated, embarrassed, dressed in her cheap prostitute costume, waiting to say her final farewells to him. He has never seen her dressed like that; realizing for the first time what his drinking has done to this family Marmeladov raises himself from his couch and begs her forgiveness. He falls to the floor, Sonia runs to him, takes him in her arms where he dies. Katerina begins to fret how she is going to bury him and how is she going to feed her children. Raskolnikov steps forward and offers to pay for the funeral. He tells her he knew her husband and that he has told Raskolnikov all about their lives. He offers her twenty rubles to pay for the burial. As he leaves he runs into Nikodim Fomich who has been informed of the accident. Fomich comments that he is covered in blood (dramatic irony) to which Raskolnikove responds with a strange smile and agrees.

He leaves, and is in a feverish yet renewed state of boundless power - much like a condemned man who has been unexpectedly reprieved (story of Dostoevsky’s life). Polenka chases after Raskolnikov to find out his name and address which he tells her and he makes her promise to pray for him. He departs from the little girl and winds up on the exact spot where earlier in the day he saw the woman attempt suicide yet he is filled with an expansive sense of power and strength. He says, “Life is!” and to the pawnbroker he says, “May she rest in peace - but her time as come!”

Although he is ill and feverish, he turns his steps to Razumikhin’s house warming party. He declines to go inside the apartment but talks briefly to Razumikhin outside. Razumikhin insists that he will walk his sick, feverish friend home. Zosimov, the doctor, scurries over to Raskolnikov with a strange look and gives him some sleeping potion. Razumikhin whispers to him that the doctor told him to keep him talking on the walk home to “find out things”. Razumikhin tells him that Zosimov has an idea about him and that although, he is a surgeon, he is obsessed with mental illness. Razumikhin tells him that Zametov, the police clerk who drank with him in the tavern, told him all about the strange encounter and that he too has an idea bout Raskolnikov. But Razumikhin is loyal and drunk and informs Raskolnikov that he is much smarter then those two, that he has defended him against Zametov and Ilya Petrovich took unfair advantage over him when he fainted in the police precinct, and besides, the house painter has been arrested for the pawnbroker’s murder.

Razumikhin escorts him home to his apartment where they see from the street that the lights are on in his room. They go upstairs and discover Raskolnikov’s mother and sister sitting and waiting for him in a state of anxiety and fear.