Crime and Punishment

It was a suffocating hot evening in July. A thin, pale student slipped out of his tiny attic room. He hoped no one would see him, especially not his landlady in the open kitchen doorway, with the steam and gossip. His name was Rodion, but everyone called him Raskolnikov. He had been hungry for too long. In his head, a thought was growing—a thought he tried to pretend was just a game, but it led him across the bridge to a house where an old pawnbroker lived. Once, he had pawned his father's old watch there. As the old woman fumbled in her chest for money, he noted everything: which keys she used, where the chest stood, how the bell in the outer door rang with a sharp, hanging jingle. He asked casually if she was alone in the evenings. She answered sourly. Raskolnikov left and almost vomited. He was so tired of his own poverty that even the smell of beer and dust made him angry. He went down to a basement tavern and drank beer for the first time in ages. There he met Marmeladov, a ragged clerk who wept and laughed by turns. Marmeladov told him about his wife Katerina, proud and ill, his starving children, and his stepdaughter Sonia, who had gone out one evening with a scarf around her head and come back with money earned from something everyone was ashamed of. 'He up there will forgive her,' cried Marmeladov, 'He forgives the children of shame.' Raskolnikov could neither go nor stay. He followed the drunk man home.

At Marmeladov's home, there was hardly room to breathe. Katerina was thin and irritable, utterly exhausted. Neighbors stood in the doorway staring. Marmeladov begged for blows as if they would comfort him. Raskolnikov felt sick from the smell, the noise, everything. As he left, he put his last coins on the windowsill without a word. Outside, he laughed bitterly at himself, but he could not have taken the money back if he had wanted to. The next morning, the maid Nastasya brought him soup and tea, and a letter from his mother. She wrote that his sister Dunya had suffered injustice from a rich man but was cleared by his wife, and now Dunya had a suitor: Luzhin, a successful gentleman who could arrange a new life for them in Petersburg. They were coming soon, his mother wrote, and would bring money. Raskolnikov lay with wet cheeks after reading. Then his mouth hardened into a tight smile. Never, he thought. Not while I live. He loved Dunya because she endured things he could never manage. He imagined she would marry out of duty: to save their mother, to help him. Sonia had sold herself for bread. Dunya might sell her freedom for security. This made him sick. He wanted to shout stop, but what could he give in return? Then an old idea rose inside him and stared him in the face.

One day on the boulevard, he stopped a well-dressed man following a half-conscious girl. Raskolnikov found a policeman, pressed a coin into his hand, and walked away. Soon he shouted over his shoulder to leave the girl alone—what was it to him? The policeman did his job anyway. Raskolnikov sat on a bench and grew cold. In his head, the sharp doorbell of the old pawnbroker's apartment rang again. He dozed on an island and dreamed he was a little boy watching a scrawny horse beaten to death by drunken men. He embraced the horse's head and wept. When he woke, he decided: No. He would not do it. But then he happened to meet Lizaveta, the meek sister of the old woman. He heard her say she would be away tomorrow at seven o'clock. Then 'no' became a time of day. His whole body seemed to lean into those seven strikes. He sewed a loop inside his coat to hide an axe head. He wrapped a block of wood in cloth to look like a pledge. He planned to take the axe from the kitchen, but Nastasya was there. Then he suddenly saw an axe handle under a bench in the porter's room. It felt as if bad luck itself was helping him. A tall hay wagon rolled in and hid him as he slipped through the gate. He climbed the stairs. He rang the bell. The old woman peered through the crack, curious and sharp. He held out his parcel. She turned her back to open it.

Before he knew it, his arm swung. He struck once. Then again. She fell silently like an empty sack. It was like doing a job he didn't think about. The blood should have shocked him, but he was just hot and sweaty. He took the keys. He fumbled in drawers and chests, finding little things of gold and silver, some trinkets tied with string. He stuffed them in his pockets. Then he heard a sound. In the doorway stood Lizaveta, a parcel under her arm, her hands raised—not to strike, only to plead. Raskolnikov let his arm fall again. It was over. He washed the axe and his hands as best he could in a dirty basin. He noticed the outer door was ajar, hooked it, and held his breath. Then the bell rang. Voices on the stairs. Two men. They went to fetch the porter. While they were away, he slipped the hook off and opened the door into an empty stairwell. He locked it, walked calmly across the landing, slipped into the apartment of the painters on the floor below, hid behind the jamb as someone pounded past shouting. Then he went down, out, put the axe back, and got home. On his bed, he felt struck by his own hand. He tore off bits of his trouser leg where blood had dried. He hid the trinkets behind a loose piece of wallpaper, but was scared of everything and everyone. A summons in green wax: to the police station. He went, pale-faced, but it was only about an old debt the landlady had sold. He nearly hugged the clerk with relief. They talked across the room about a double murder of an old woman and her sister. A small detail pricked him: the door had first been hooked from inside, but then it was suddenly open when the witnesses returned. He fainted. They asked him where he had been at seven o'clock. 'Out. Sick.' They let him go.

He realized the hiding place was stupid. Later, he found a heavy stone in a courtyard, heaved it up with all his strength, and put all the stolen goods underneath. No one would lift it. He laughed soundlessly. Raskolnikov fell ill. His friend Razumihin came storming in, scolding, cooking soup, making the bed, getting a doctor, flattering the landlady, even tearing up a debt note. Doctor Zossimov said Rodion must sleep, eat, and not read difficult books. But his body was like an animal in its den. His head was awake. He lay still and let them care for him, but inside something twisted. One evening he was unusually clear and cold. He heard that Lizaveta, too, had been killed. He stared blankly. Then came Luzhin, his sister's fiancé, neatly dressed and proud of himself. He talked at length about how smart it was to help oneself first, then everyone else would be helped. Raskolnikov asked calmly if he liked Dunya best because she was poor. Luzhin became angry and left. Out in the city, Raskolnikov met Zametov from the police. He played with him like a cat, and suddenly whispered, 'What if I did it?' Zametov went white, smiled too broadly, and Rodion left with his heart pounding. He saw a woman go over a bridge railing to jump into the river. People pulled her up. He only felt nausea. Without understanding why, he went back to the house with the sharp jingling bell. Workmen were pasting up new wallpaper. He stood there ringing three times, asking dreamily where the blood had been. They stared. Someone asked who he was. He gave his name and address and wandered away.

Suddenly there was shouting in the street. A carriage had run over a man. Raskolnikov pushed through and knelt: it was Marmeladov. He shouted for them to carry him home. He promised to pay the doctor. Everyone followed to the cramped room. Katerina gave orders and wept, holding back curious neighbors, washing the children, calling for a pillow and a priest all at once. When Sonia came, in a cheap dress with a little feather in her hat, Marmeladov raised himself to see her. He died with his forehead against her hand. Raskolnikov gave all the money he had to Katerina and whispered to the policeman to be kind to the widow. 'You are stained with blood,' said the policeman, but Rodion just left. On the bridge, he felt almost alive for the first time in ages. He laughed at having whispered to the little girl Polenka to remember his name when she prayed. Later, he went to Razumihin's, where there was tea and warmth, and told him he had given everything to the widow. Then he was suddenly sick and weak again. At home, something both light and heavy awaited: his mother and sister. They fell on him with joy and terror, and he fainted. Razumihin arranged everything for them too. The next day, when he woke, their love was so close he could hardly bear it. He asked them to leave and come back tomorrow. He unfolded one decision like a nail in the room: Dunya must break the engagement. Luzhin must go. His mother burst into tears. Razumihin almost kindly carried them out into the stairway, promising everything, even to pour two buckets of cold water over himself if he said anything foolish again.

Luzhin sent a sharp letter: he would only meet Dunya and her mother without Raskolnikov. Moreover, he 'noticed' that Rodion, 'being so ill,' had given a good amount of money to 'a certain young woman of ill repute.' Dunya said dryly that her brother must come. They went to him in the morning. He was washed and combed, almost polite. He thanked Razumihin properly, then suddenly said that perhaps one should not help the poor if one had no 'right' to do so. Dunya met this with a firm no. He blushed and withdrew it. His mother stammered that the wife of Svidrigailov—the rich man who had tormented Dunya before—had died suddenly. Raskolnikov laughed without mirth. He was sad and cold at the same time: he could no longer say anything straight out. Everything inside him lay like a wall between him and others. They decided to all meet with Luzhin that evening. Dunya said she was marrying for her own sake, not to save anyone. Raskolnikov said he would rather have one scoundrel in the family than two. Dunya held his gaze. His mother only asked softly if he would come at eight. He nodded. Then there was a soft knock at the door. Sonia stood there with a small parasol. She asked barely audibly if he would come to her father's memorial service, and perhaps eat with them afterward. She was red with shame for asking. His mother stiffened, but Dunya looked kindly. Raskolnikov promised to come and asked for her address. In the courtyard later, a well-dressed man stood listening—Svidrigailov, unnoticed by Sonia or Rodion. He smiled to himself and followed Sonia at a distance, as if measuring steps and turns.

Raskolnikov went to the examining magistrate Porfiry with Razumihin. He wanted to reclaim the small items he had pawned with the old woman, a good reason to visit the police 'voluntarily.' Porfiry was round and polite, but his eyes laughed silently. Zametov was there too. They drank tea, talked about laws, and Porfiry mentioned a short essay Raskolnikov had written earlier: that a few people in history are allowed to break rules for a great idea. 'Do you believe in resurrection too?' asked Porfiry suddenly. 'Yes,' answered Raskolnikov shortly. Porfiry asked almost playfully whether the author himself thought he was a little 'extraordinary.' 'If I were going to step over something,' replied Raskolnikov, 'I would hardly come and tell you about it.' Zametov laughed too loudly. Porfiry smiled more thinly. Finally, almost as if he had just thought of it at the door, Porfiry asked, 'By the way, did you see the painters on the second floor that evening?' Raskolnikov answered cautiously that he had seen some porters struggling with a sofa on the fourth floor, but no painters. Out on the stairs, Razumihin shouted that the painters had been there on the night of the murder. 'Oh, I always mix up days,' grinned Porfiry, slapping his forehead. Later, Raskolnikov explained sharply to Razumihin that it was in small details one gets caught. If he had said he saw the painters, the date would have trapped him. Porfiry had perhaps hoped for that very snare. In the courtyard later, a short man in a greasy cap stared at him and said lowly, almost contentedly, 'Murderer.' They walked side by side a hundred steps. 'Who is the murderer?' asked Raskolnikov. 'You are the murderer,' repeated the man and disappeared. Rodion lay on his sofa and shivered. He hated himself, and also hated the love that could expose him. He laughed bitterly at the thought he had had of 'killing an idea.' He had only killed.