Crime and Punishment — chapter by chapter
All 41 chapters — six parts and the Siberian epilogue.
The novel is built in six parts and an epilogue. Part 1 is the murder. Parts 2 and 3 are the unraveling — fever, family, Porfiry. Part 4 brings Sonya into the room and Svidrigailov out from behind the wallpaper. Part 5 is Katerina Ivanovna's funeral dinner and Raskolnikov's confession to Sonya. Part 6 is the closing of every door. The epilogue is Siberia.
Part 1 · Chapters 1–7
The theory, the rehearsal, the axe.
Part 1 · Chapter 1
An unbearably hot evening in early July. A half-starved former student sneaks past his landlady and walks the seven hundred and thirty steps to the pawnbroker's apartment. The visit is a rehearsal — pawn a watch, study the layout, note the position of the keys, ask casually about the sister. He leaves in a wave of revulsion at his own monstrous idea, ducks down the steps of a basement tavern, gulps a glass of beer, and waits for someone to speak to him.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Alyona Ivanovna
Part 1 · Chapter 2
Marmeladov, a drunkard ex-clerk in the tavern, attaches himself to Raskolnikov and pours out his story — the consumptive wife, the three small children, the daughter Sonya who has gone on the streets to feed them. Raskolnikov walks him home and leaves a few of his last coins on the windowsill.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Marmeladov · Katerina Ivanovna · Sonya
Part 1 · Chapter 3
Raskolnikov wakes late and reads a long, devoted letter from his mother. Dunya has been forced from the Svidrigailov household; she is now engaged to Luzhin, a calculating lawyer who will save the family. Raskolnikov sees the calculation immediately. He paces the garret and swears the marriage will not happen.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Pulcheria Alexandrovna · Dunya · Nastasya
Part 1 · Chapter 4
Raskolnikov rages against the marriage as he walks. The parallel to Sonya is exact: women selling themselves to keep men afloat. On the boulevard he intervenes, briefly, to save a drunk young girl from a predator following her — then turns away in disgust at the futility of the gesture.
Appears: Raskolnikov
Part 1 · Chapter 5
Raskolnikov falls asleep in a copse and dreams himself a child watching a peasant beat a small mare to death with a crowbar while a drunken crowd cheers him on. The boy in the dream throws himself on the dead horse weeping. Raskolnikov wakes shaking. The dream is the novel's clearest argument against what he is about to do.
Appears: Raskolnikov
Part 1 · Chapter 6
Raskolnikov sews a loop inside his coat to carry an axe and wraps a wooden plank in tinfoil to look like a silver cigarette case — a pledge that will keep the old woman occupied untying it. He cannot get an axe from his landlady's kitchen. He finds one in the porter's lodge by chance and slips it inside his coat. He climbs the stairs.
Appears: Raskolnikov
Part 1 · Chapter 7
Alyona Ivanovna turns to the lamp to unwrap the pledge. Raskolnikov draws the axe and hits her on the crown with the blunt edge. She drops. He grabs items from the chest. Lizaveta walks in. He kills her with the sharp edge in a single blow. Two visitors nearly trap him at the door. He slips out through an empty apartment on the second floor.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Alyona Ivanovna · Lizaveta
Part 2 · Chapters 1–7
Fever, the police summons, the half-confession.
Part 2 · Chapter 1
A police summons arrives. Raskolnikov is convinced they have come for him. The summons is about an unpaid IOU his landlady has filed. He nearly faints anyway. On the way out he overhears the officers discussing the double murder. He hides the stolen items under a stone in a vacant lot.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Nastasya · Zametov
Part 2 · Chapter 2
Raskolnikov cannot bear his garret. He walks the streets all afternoon — back to the murder apartment to ring the bell again, then through the Hay Market, then down to the embankment where he watches the river and considers throwing himself in. He is becoming, hour by hour, his own ghost.
Appears: Raskolnikov
Part 2 · Chapter 3
Raskolnikov collapses into four days of brain fever. Nastasya feeds him soup. Razumikhin, who has tracked him down, takes charge — finds the doctor Zossimov, fetches new clothes, manages the room. Raskolnikov drifts in and out, raving in his sleep, retaining almost nothing of the days that pass.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Razumikhin · Nastasya
Part 2 · Chapter 4
Razumikhin has gathered Zossimov the doctor and Zametov the police clerk at Raskolnikov's bedside. The conversation drifts to the double murder. Zametov gives the latest from the bureau — the painters arrested, Mikolka half-confessing. Razumikhin objects. Raskolnikov listens silently, taking in every detail.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Razumikhin · Zametov
Part 2 · Chapter 5
Luzhin walks into the garret to introduce himself, expecting gratitude. He delivers a lecture on rational self-interest — love yourself first, the rest follows. Raskolnikov listens, then says aloud: on your theory, it is permissible to murder. Luzhin leaves furious. The marriage to Dunya is, from this moment, doomed.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Razumikhin · Luzhin
Part 2 · Chapter 6
Raskolnikov gets up and walks. He finds Zametov in a tavern and sits down. He plays at the murder — describing how it must have been done — then says, looking Zametov in the eye: what if I had killed them? The moment hangs. He laughs, takes it back, walks out. Zametov is left badly shaken.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Zametov · Marmeladov
Part 2 · Chapter 7
A carriage runs over Marmeladov on the street. Raskolnikov pays to have him carried home. Katerina Ivanovna sends for Sonya, who arrives in the cheap finery of the streets. Marmeladov dies in his daughter's arms. Raskolnikov gives the family his last twenty roubles. On the stairs, Marmeladov's small daughter Polenka runs after him asking his name.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Marmeladov · Katerina Ivanovna · Sonya
Part 3 · Chapters 1–6
Mother and sister arrive; Porfiry begins.
Part 3 · Chapter 1
Raskolnikov comes home to find his mother and sister in the garret weeping over him. He cannot bear it. He pushes them away, says he has not slept, asks them to leave for the night. Razumikhin — already half in love with Dunya — takes them off to lodgings he has arranged.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Pulcheria Alexandrovna · Dunya · Razumikhin
Part 3 · Chapter 2
Razumikhin wakes hung over and unaccountably miserable. He realizes, by mid-morning, that he is in love with Dunya. He shaves, brushes his coat, and walks to the women's lodgings to escort them to Raskolnikov, where Pulcheria Alexandrovna treats him as a hero.
Appears: Razumikhin · Pulcheria Alexandrovna · Dunya
Part 3 · Chapter 3
The household visits Porfiry Petrovich, the investigating magistrate, ostensibly about the pawned watch and ring. Porfiry has read Raskolnikov's article on extraordinary men. He engages with it cheerfully, professionally, treating it as a serious idea. The conversation is the novel's first long Porfiry interview, and Raskolnikov leaves badly shaken.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Razumikhin · Porfiry Petrovich
Part 3 · Chapter 4
Sonya knocks at the garret door in plain mourning clothes to invite Raskolnikov to her father's funeral. Raskolnikov's mother and sister are present. He introduces her formally. The two worlds touch. Sonya, intensely embarrassed, bows herself out; Raskolnikov walks her down and says he will come.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Sonya · Pulcheria Alexandrovna · Dunya · Razumikhin
Part 3 · Chapter 5
Late that night a small tradesman from the murder building appears at Raskolnikov's door. He says one word: "Murderer." Then turns and walks down the stairs. Raskolnikov falls into a half-dream of hitting Alyona Ivanovna with the axe over and over while she laughs at him. He wakes shouting.
Appears: Raskolnikov
Part 3 · Chapter 6
Svidrigailov sits in the garret and talks freely — about his dead wife who appears to him, about Dunya, about his desire to see her one more time. He offers her ten thousand roubles with no strings attached. Raskolnikov listens with growing horror. Here is his theory, embodied in a man who never had to argue for it.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Svidrigailov
Part 4 · Chapters 1–6
Svidrigailov; Sonya; the second interview.
Part 4 · Chapter 1
Svidrigailov's visit drags on, with strange asides about eternity as a smoky room with spiders. He leaves. Raskolnikov walks with Razumikhin to the women's lodgings. The plan is set: tonight, in front of mother and sister, the engagement to Luzhin will be broken.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Svidrigailov · Razumikhin
Part 4 · Chapter 2
Luzhin walks in expecting deference and gets a confrontation. He demands Raskolnikov be sent away; Dunya refuses. He lectures her on what he has done for the family. Dunya, calm and proud, returns the ring and tells him to leave. He walks out swearing revenge. Pulcheria Alexandrovna weeps with relief and terror at once.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Pulcheria Alexandrovna · Dunya · Luzhin · Razumikhin
Part 4 · Chapter 3
Raskolnikov tells his mother and sister he must be alone. He embraces them with a finality that frightens Dunya. Razumikhin catches him on the stairs and understands, in a single look, everything he is not being told. He stops asking questions and turns back to look after the women.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Pulcheria Alexandrovna · Dunya · Razumikhin · Luzhin
Part 4 · Chapter 4
Raskolnikov goes to Sonya's room — an irregular, almost empty space on the canal. He asks her cruel questions about her family's future. He notices her New Testament on the dresser. It was given to her by Lizaveta. He asks her to read him the chapter on the raising of Lazarus. She reads it.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Sonya
Part 4 · Chapter 5
The second Porfiry interview. Porfiry plays for nearly an hour — wandering, anecdotal, indirect, pushing Raskolnikov toward the edge. Then a peasant named Mikolka is shown in and throws himself on the floor confessing to the murder. Porfiry is visibly thrown. Raskolnikov walks out half-stunned.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Porfiry Petrovich
Part 4 · Chapter 6
Raskolnikov walks out of Porfiry's and remembers the rest of the day afterwards as a single fugue. The workman who had called him "Murderer" appears at the bureau and bows to him as if apologizing — Porfiry's game from a different angle. He walks the city, sees his mother briefly, sees Sonya briefly, sits on a bench by the canal as evening falls.
Appears: Raskolnikov
Part 5 · Chapters 1–5
Luzhin's frame-up; the funeral dinner; the confession to Sonya.
Part 5 · Chapter 1
Luzhin sits in his rooms the morning after, planning revenge. He will discredit Raskolnikov by ruining Sonya — frame her for theft of a hundred-rouble note in front of witnesses, and invite Pulcheria Alexandrovna to learn whom her son has been associating with. He invites Sonya to call on him this morning.
Appears: Luzhin · Lebezyatnikov · Sonya
Part 5 · Chapter 2
Katerina Ivanovna has spent nearly all the funeral money on a "respectable" dinner to prove to her landlady that she is still a gentlewoman. Half the guests do not come. Katerina Ivanovna picks fights with everyone. Sonya arrives upset from Luzhin's. Raskolnikov sits in a corner and waits.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Katerina Ivanovna · Sonya · Luzhin · Lebezyatnikov
Part 5 · Chapter 3
Luzhin walks in and accuses Sonya of stealing a hundred-rouble note. The note is found in her pocket. The room turns on her. Lebezyatnikov, who saw Luzhin plant it, calmly says so. Raskolnikov supplies the motive. The frame collapses publicly. Luzhin walks out. Katerina Ivanovna, ruined, takes the children into the street.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Sonya · Katerina Ivanovna · Luzhin · Lebezyatnikov
Part 5 · Chapter 4
Raskolnikov goes with Sonya to her room. He tells her he killed both women. She, after the shock, falls on his neck weeping. She does not condemn him. She tells him to go to the crossroads, kiss the earth he has defiled, bow down to the people, say aloud: I have killed. Then to accept his suffering. She offers to follow him to Siberia.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Sonya
Part 5 · Chapter 5
Lebezyatnikov bursts in. Katerina Ivanovna, evicted, has dressed the children in scraps of costume and is dragging them from corner to corner trying to make them sing for kopecks. Raskolnikov and Sonya find her on the embankment, hemorrhaging. She dies on the floor of Sonya's room. Svidrigailov, watching, quietly takes responsibility for the children's schooling.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Sonya · Katerina Ivanovna · Svidrigailov · Lebezyatnikov
Part 6 · Chapters 1–8
Porfiry's last visit; Svidrigailov's end; the police office.
Part 6 · Chapter 1
A drifting chapter. Raskolnikov spends days in a fog, seeing no one. Razumikhin comes to confront him — Dunya has had a strange letter that has shaken her. Raskolnikov refuses to explain. Razumikhin, hurt, leaves. The letter is from Svidrigailov.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Razumikhin
Part 6 · Chapter 2
Porfiry drops the game. He tells Raskolnikov plainly: I know it was you. Mikolka's confession is false. I have collected the signs for weeks. I cannot arrest, but I can wait. He gives Raskolnikov forty-eight hours to come of his own accord. He says it almost gently. He says it will halve the sentence.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Porfiry Petrovich
Part 6 · Chapter 3
Raskolnikov finds Svidrigailov at the back of a tavern. The conversation runs long. Svidrigailov talks about debts, prison, Marfa Petrovna's ghost, the country estate, the small children he is now putting in boarding school, a fourteen-year-old fiancée he has acquired. He admits he has written Dunya asking for a final meeting. He says he will not insist on her coming.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Svidrigailov
Part 6 · Chapter 4
Svidrigailov keeps talking. He says plainly what he has hinted: he has been living in the room next to Sonya's. The wall is thin. He overheard the entire confession. He has Raskolnikov's life in his hands. He says he has no intention of using it. He is more interested, he says, in Dunya. He gets up and leaves. Raskolnikov follows.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Svidrigailov
Part 6 · Chapter 5
Dunya goes to Svidrigailov's lodgings with the letter and a small revolver hidden in her coat. He locks the door. He proposes the deal: come with me to America, your brother's life is safe. Dunya draws the revolver. She fires once and grazes his head. She fires again; the gun misfires. He says: shoot. She lowers the gun and drops it. She walks out. He stands at the window watching her go.
Appears: Svidrigailov · Dunya
Part 6 · Chapter 6
Svidrigailov walks the city after Dunya leaves. He gives three thousand roubles to Sonya for the children. He gives fifteen thousand to his fourteen-year-old fiancée's family. He takes a cheap room near a fire-tower. He dreams of Marfa Petrovna and of a small girl in a corridor whose face changes. He wakes. He walks out at dawn and shoots himself in the head in front of a guard.
Appears: Svidrigailov · Sonya
Part 6 · Chapter 7
Raskolnikov goes to his mother's lodgings and kneels at her feet. He asks her to bless him whatever happens. He embraces her without telling her. He goes to Dunya, who has heard everything from Sonya. They talk for an hour. She does not condemn him. She tells him to confess. He agrees. He walks out toward Sonya's.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Pulcheria Alexandrovna · Dunya
Part 6 · Chapter 8
Raskolnikov goes to Sonya. She gives him the wooden cross. He kneels in Hay Square and kisses the earth but cannot say the words. He walks to the bureau. He hears of Svidrigailov's suicide on the staircase and almost turns back. He sees Sonya through the window standing by the gate. He climbs the stairs again. He says it: "It was I who killed."
Appears: Raskolnikov · Sonya
Epilogue · Chapters 1–2
Siberia. Sonya. The New Testament under the pillow.
Epilogue · Chapter 1
Eight months between confession and trial. Raskolnikov pleads guilty; the court, citing mitigating factors brought by Razumikhin, sentences him to eight years in Siberia. Pulcheria Alexandrovna, never told, declines and dies. Dunya marries Razumikhin. Sonya follows Raskolnikov to Siberia and finds work as a seamstress near the prison.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Sonya · Dunya · Razumikhin · Pulcheria Alexandrovna
Epilogue · Chapter 2
Easter week. Raskolnikov falls ill and dreams of a plague that turns thinking men against each other until the world is destroyed. He recovers. On the riverbank one morning Sonya appears beside him. He looks at her hand. He weeps. He kneels and embraces her knees. He is resurrected. Under his pillow is the New Testament. He has not yet opened it.
Appears: Raskolnikov · Sonya
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