Summary: Chapter VI
Svidrigailov wanders aimlessly around St. Petersburg,
soaking himself in the rain. In the evening, he visits Sonya. He
assures her that her siblings will be provided for and offers her
a three-thousand-ruble bond. He tells her that she is to use the
money to accompany Raskolnikov to Siberia. He himself is going off
to America. After leaving Sonya, Svidrigailov visits his fiancée’s
family, informs them that he will be going away for some time, and
presents them with fifteen thousand rubles. He then proceeds to
a hotel, where he has feverish dreams, imagining that he has found
a five-year-old girl in a corner of the hotel, whimpering from the
cold. He lovingly puts her in her bed and wraps a blanket around
her, but she turns to him with a depraved, seductive look on her
face. He also dreams that rain is flooding St. Petersburg. He wakes
just before dawn in a daze and goes out, taking Dunya’s revolver
with him. He finds a soldier keeping watch, puts the revolver to
his head, and, before killing himself, tells the soldier to tell
anyone who asks that he has gone to America.
Summary: Chapter VII
Raskolnikov goes to see Pulcheria Alexandrovna. She says
that she has read his article and was impressed by it, though she
could not understand it all. Raskolnikov looks at the article with
disgust. His mother has apparently convinced herself that her son
is a genius destined for great things and that his eccentricities
are all attributable to this fact. She is tearfully overjoyed to
see him. Raskolnikov shocks her by asking if she will always love
him no matter what. He tells her that he will always love her but
that he must leave her. She tearfully tries to make him stay with
her, but he leaves and returns to his apartment, where he finds
Dunya waiting for him. He confesses to her that he contemplated
suicide but could not go through with it. He tells her that he will
confess, and she urges him to do so, arguing that it will help atone
for his crime. But Raskolnikov becomes indignant. He argues that
he only killed a “louse,” and that if he had succeeded in profiting
from his crime and doing some good by it, he would have nothing
of which to be ashamed. Dunya is shocked at his response. Looking
into her distraught face, he realizes how much pain he has brought
to his family. The two go out, stopping to take one last look at
each other as they walk in opposite directions.
Summary: Chapter VIII
Raskolnikov goes to Sonya’s lodging. The narrator tells
us that Sonya and Dunya had become good friends during their visit
the previous day, when Dunya discovered that Raskolnikov was guilty of
the murders. Raskolnikov tells Sonya that he has come to pick up his
cross. Sonya has him say a prayer before he leaves.
Raskolnikov starts walking toward the
police station, dreading the public humiliation of a confession.
He takes a detour to the Haymarket, remembering Sonya’s suggestion
that he declare his guilt at the crossroads. Along the way, he carefully
observes every detail of the city around him, aware that he is taking
his last look as a free man. At the Haymarket, he kisses the ground,
but his action meets with jeers from the onlookers and he loses
his nerve and decides not to confess publicly. But he then notices Sonya
following him at a distance and feels renewed conviction. At the police
station, he has a friendly chat with Ilya Petrovich, who apologizes for
harboring suspicions about him. Ilya mentions Svidrigailov’s suicide
in passing, and Raskolnikov is so stunned that he leaves without
confessing. But when he gets outside, he sees Sonya waiting for
him, and he turns back into the police station and offers his confession
to the shocked Ilya.
Analysis: Chapters VI–VIII
Svidrigailov’s suicide sheds light on Raskolnikov’s
apparent inability to kill himself. Raskolnikov’s disdain for humanity
makes him think that suicide is a vulgar act reserved for common
people (he earlier observes a suicide attempt with disgust). But
though he is convinced, at times, that such an act is beneath him,
it becomes clear that he lacks the moral strength to end his insidious
life. Svidrigailov, on the other hand, is a realist; seeing his
dreams fractured, he ends his life in a spree of utilitarian action—giving
away money and removing a source of pain (himself) from Dunya’s
life. Raskolnikov hangs on to his idealism, unable to understand
that killing himself would have been much more utilitarian than
killing Alyona Ivanovna.
The climax of the Svidrigailov subplot occurs
in Chapter VI, and the suspense surrounding Svidrigailov’s true
intentions builds in urgency until the last sentence of the chapter.
Before he kills himself, Svidrigailov manages to tie up an important
loose end in the plot, resolving the question of how Sonya can possibly
act as Raskolnikov’s companion when she has to support her younger
siblings. Svidrigailov thus plays a critical practical role in the
narrative. But even in the last minutes of his life, he is of great
interest in his own right—a clearly cynical and depraved but also
generous and enigmatic figure.
