Part 6, Chapter 4 — Svidrigailov continues
A second tavern. Svidrigailov keeps talking. He has overheard Raskolnikov's confession to Sonya through the wall.
Summary
Svidrigailov has stood up to leave the first tavern; Raskolnikov, holding him by the sleeve, asks for one more half-hour. They walk together into a second tavern, smaller and dingier, on a side-street near the canal. Svidrigailov, settling in across from Raskolnikov with a fresh glass, tells him plainly what has been hinted. He has been living, since arriving in Petersburg, in a furnished room in the same building as Sonya's. The wall between his room and hers is a thin partition of plaster and lath. The plaster carries voices.
He had heard, on the evening Raskolnikov came to Sonya's, every word of the confession of the murders. He repeats two phrases verbatim, to prove it. He has the means to put Raskolnikov on the gallows or in the mines with one short letter to Porfiry. He says he will not write the letter. He has decided not to. He has no use for Raskolnikov's life. What he wants is Dunya. He wants her to come to him of her own accord, on the terms of the letter; he says he has not decided what he will do if she comes; he will not seek her out if she does not.
Raskolnikov has understood throughout that Svidrigailov is telling him the truth and that the truth is a problem. Dunya, with the letter in her possession, will come — Raskolnikov knows his sister; she will not let her brother's life rest on a stranger's good will. The interview must be intercepted. The chapter ends with Svidrigailov rising, paying his bill, and leaving. Raskolnikov, after a moment, leaves too. He follows Svidrigailov at a distance through the streets toward the room where the meeting will happen.
- 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....