Part 4, Chapter 4 — Sonya's room; the reading of Lazarus
Raskolnikov goes to Sonya's room. He asks her to read him the story of Lazarus. She reads. He has come to a person he has not yet damaged.
Summary
Raskolnikov goes from Bakaleyev's lodgings directly to Sonya's. Her room is in an old three-storey green tenement on the canal embankment. The room is one of the most carefully described spaces in the novel: long, irregular, almost trapezoidal, with three low windows looking over the canal. A chest of drawers, a small table, a bed pushed against the wall, two chairs, a small icon in the corner. The room is poorer than his garret.
He sits across from her without speaking. Then he begins to ask questions. About her stepmother's health. About the children. He asks, with deliberate cruelty, what will happen to Polenka if Katerina Ivanovna dies of consumption — will Polenka go on the streets, like her sister, when she is twelve? Sonya, white-faced, says she does not know; God will not allow it. Raskolnikov says: God may allow many things, why not this. She begins to weep. He notices the New Testament on the chest of drawers. He asks where it came from. Sonya says, simply, that Lizaveta gave it to her. The mention of Lizaveta lands in him like a blow. He picks up the book and asks her to read where Lazarus is raised from the dead.
She reads slowly, with a voice that grows steadier as she goes. "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." She reaches the moment of the call: "Lazarus, come forth." She closes the book. The room is quiet. Raskolnikov, looking at her, says he will come back tomorrow and tell her something. He says: I have chosen you. She does not know what he means. He leaves. She sits at the table with the closed book and weeps quietly.
- Part 1 · Chapter 1An unbearably hot evening in early July. A half-starved former student sneaks past his landlady and walks the seven hundred and...
- Part 1 · Chapter 2Marmeladov, a drunkard ex-clerk in the tavern, attaches himself to Raskolnikov and pours out his story — the consumptive wife, the...
- Part 1 · Chapter 3Raskolnikov wakes late and reads a long, devoted letter from his mother. Dunya has been forced from the Svidrigailov household...
- Part 1 · Chapter 4Raskolnikov rages against the marriage as he walks. The parallel to Sonya is exact: women selling themselves to keep men afloat....
- Part 1 · Chapter 5Raskolnikov falls asleep in a copse and dreams himself a child watching a peasant beat a small mare to death with a crowbar while...
- Part 1 · Chapter 6Raskolnikov sews a loop inside his coat to carry an axe and wraps a wooden plank in tinfoil to look like a silver cigarette case...
- Part 1 · Chapter 7Alyona Ivanovna turns to the lamp to unwrap the pledge. Raskolnikov draws the axe and hits her on the crown with the blunt edge....
- Part 2 · Chapter 1A police summons arrives. Raskolnikov is convinced they have come for him. The summons is about an unpaid IOU his landlady has...
- Part 2 · Chapter 2Raskolnikov cannot bear his garret. He walks the streets all afternoon — back to the murder apartment to ring the bell again, then...
- Part 2 · Chapter 3Raskolnikov collapses into four days of brain fever. Nastasya feeds him soup. Razumikhin, who has tracked him down, takes charge...
- Part 2 · Chapter 4Razumikhin has gathered Zossimov the doctor and Zametov the police clerk at Raskolnikov's bedside. The conversation drifts to the...
- Part 2 · Chapter 5Luzhin walks into the garret to introduce himself, expecting gratitude. He delivers a lecture on rational self-interest — love...
- Part 2 · Chapter 6Raskolnikov gets up and walks. He finds Zametov in a tavern and sits down. He plays at the murder — describing how it must have...
- Part 2 · Chapter 7A carriage runs over Marmeladov on the street. Raskolnikov pays to have him carried home. Katerina Ivanovna sends for Sonya, who...
- Part 3 · Chapter 1Raskolnikov comes home to find his mother and sister in the garret weeping over him. He cannot bear it. He pushes them away, says...
- Part 3 · Chapter 2Razumikhin wakes hung over and unaccountably miserable. He realizes, by mid-morning, that he is in love with Dunya. He shaves...
- Part 3 · Chapter 3The household visits Porfiry Petrovich, the investigating magistrate, ostensibly about the pawned watch and ring. Porfiry has read...
- Part 3 · Chapter 4Sonya knocks at the garret door in plain mourning clothes to invite Raskolnikov to her father's funeral. Raskolnikov's mother and...
- Part 3 · Chapter 5Late that night a small tradesman from the murder building appears at Raskolnikov's door. He says one word: "Murderer." Then turns...
- Part 3 · Chapter 6Svidrigailov sits in the garret and talks freely — about his dead wife who appears to him, about Dunya, about his desire to see...
- Part 4 · Chapter 1Svidrigailov's visit drags on, with strange asides about eternity as a smoky room with spiders. He leaves. Raskolnikov walks with...
- Part 4 · Chapter 2Luzhin walks in expecting deference and gets a confrontation. He demands Raskolnikov be sent away; Dunya refuses. He lectures her...
- Part 4 · Chapter 3Raskolnikov tells his mother and sister he must be alone. He embraces them with a finality that frightens Dunya. Razumikhin...
- Part 4 · Chapter 4Raskolnikov goes to Sonya's room — an irregular, almost empty space on the canal. He asks her cruel questions about her family's...
- Part 4 · Chapter 5The second Porfiry interview. Porfiry plays for nearly an hour — wandering, anecdotal, indirect, pushing Raskolnikov toward the...
- Part 4 · Chapter 6Raskolnikov walks out of Porfiry's and remembers the rest of the day afterwards as a single fugue. The workman who had called him...
- Part 5 · Chapter 1Luzhin sits in his rooms the morning after, planning revenge. He will discredit Raskolnikov by ruining Sonya — frame her for theft...
- Part 5 · Chapter 2Katerina Ivanovna has spent nearly all the funeral money on a "respectable" dinner to prove to her landlady that she is still a...
- Part 5 · Chapter 3Luzhin walks in and accuses Sonya of stealing a hundred-rouble note. The note is found in her pocket. The room turns on her....
- Part 5 · Chapter 4Raskolnikov goes with Sonya to her room. He tells her he killed both women. She, after the shock, falls on his neck weeping. She...
- Part 5 · Chapter 5Lebezyatnikov bursts in. Katerina Ivanovna, evicted, has dressed the children in scraps of costume and is dragging them from...
- Part 6 · Chapter 1A drifting chapter. Raskolnikov spends days in a fog, seeing no one. Razumikhin comes to confront him — Dunya has had a strange...
- Part 6 · Chapter 2Porfiry drops the game. He tells Raskolnikov plainly: I know it was you. Mikolka's confession is false. I have collected the signs...
- Part 6 · Chapter 3Raskolnikov finds Svidrigailov at the back of a tavern. The conversation runs long. Svidrigailov talks about debts, prison, Marfa...
- Part 6 · Chapter 4Svidrigailov keeps talking. He says plainly what he has hinted: he has been living in the room next to Sonya's. The wall is thin....
- Part 6 · Chapter 5Dunya goes to Svidrigailov's lodgings with the letter and a small revolver hidden in her coat. He locks the door. He proposes the...
- Part 6 · Chapter 6Svidrigailov walks the city after Dunya leaves. He gives three thousand roubles to Sonya for the children. He gives fifteen...
- Part 6 · Chapter 7Raskolnikov goes to his mother's lodgings and kneels at her feet. He asks her to bless him whatever happens. He embraces her...
- Part 6 · Chapter 8Raskolnikov goes to Sonya. She gives him the wooden cross. He kneels in Hay Square and kisses the earth but cannot say the words....
- Epilogue · Chapter 1Eight months between confession and trial. Raskolnikov pleads guilty; the court, citing mitigating factors brought by Razumikhin...
- Epilogue · Chapter 2Easter week. Raskolnikov falls ill and dreams of a plague that turns thinking men against each other until the world is destroyed....