Summary of the part
Part Six closes the three threads that Part Five: The Confession left open: the siege by Porfiry Petrovich, the threat of Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov to Dunya, and the confession to Sonia. The eight chapters move in three blocks, the last meeting with Porfiry (I-II), the final arc of Svidrigailov up to his suicide (III-VI), and Raskolnikov's surrender (VII-VIII), which ends in the confession at the police office, a direct bridge to the Epilogue: The Resurrection. Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov arrives at the police office without believing in the theory that led him to the crime, nor in the suffering that Porfiry and Sonia propose to him, and the novel leaves open whether what drives him is pride, shame, or weariness.
Analysis
On April 4, 1866, while the novel was appearing in serial form, Dmitry Karakozov shot at Tsar Alexander II.
Chapter I: The Drift
Chapter summary
After the death of Katerina Ivanovna Marmeladova, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov lives through days of fog, in which consciousness fails and panic alternates with apathy. What holds him is Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov: after his words in Sonia's house, at the moment Katerina Ivanovna was dying, Raskolnikov knows he must settle accounts with him and cannot bring himself to seek him out. Svidrigailov takes care of the burial and has already placed the three orphans in institutions, with the money he set aside for them; when he runs into Raskolnikov on the stairs, he says every man needs air. Raskolnikov attends the requiem mass at the house of Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladova, who holds both his hands and rests her head on his shoulder, without any repugnance; he reads in the gesture an endless self-abasement on her part. Then he flees solitude without being able to bear company: he goes from tavern to tavern, listens to singing in one of them until a remorse without an object makes him run out, and thinks he would prefer a fight to this fog:
Analysis
Нет, уж лучше бы какая борьба! Лучше бы опять Порфирий… или Свидригайлов… Поскорей бы опять какой-нибудь вызов, чье-нибудь нападение… Да! да!
, No, rather some struggle! Better Porfiry again… or Svidrigailov… If only some challenge would come again soon, someone's attack… Yes! yes!
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Chapter II: Porfiry's Explanation
Chapter summary
Porfiry Petrovich smokes, complains about the habit, and announces that he has come to explain himself: the last scene was unworthy of gentlemen, and the appearance of the painter Nikolai, nicknamed Mikolka, saved them from going further. He reconstructs, without hiding anything, the psychological trap that led him to Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov: the rumors and chance events, the scene at the police office, the article, Raskolnikov's remark to Zametov in the tavern, the slip of Dmitry Prokofich Razumikhin that he himself provoked, the stone, the bells in the empty apartment, and he admits that he searched the room while the other was ill. He says that all this psychology cuts both ways and sets Nikolai aside, an impressionable young man who wants to suffer. He describes the true author without naming him, and when Raskolnikov asks who killed, he says it was he. Raskolnikov murmurs that it was not, like a child caught in fault. Porfiry says there are no witnesses and proposes voluntary surrender, with the sentence reduced. Raskolnikov refuses the reduction. Porfiry asks him not to despise life, to seek God, and to accept suffering, and gives him a day and a half or two, certain he will not flee, because Raskolnikov no longer believes in his own theory. Raskolnikov declares that he has confessed nothing. Porfiry takes his leave and asks that, if he thinks of killing himself, he leave two lines about the stone.
Analysis
Chapter III: The Meeting in the Tavern
Chapter summary
Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov runs to meet Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov, not knowing what to expect from him, knowing only that the man has power over him. He fears above all that Svidrigailov will use the secret against Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikova: he would have to tell her everything. Exhausted by a whole month, he resolves that, if that happens, he will kill him. Standing in the street, he sees Svidrigailov at the window of a tavern, who makes as if to hide, bursts out laughing, and calls to him. Raskolnikov says he was looking for him, and Svidrigailov replies that it was he who gave him the place. Raskolnikov warns that, if he keeps his purpose regarding his sister, he will kill him before being arrested. Svidrigailov says he sought him out out of curiosity and because he is Dunya's brother. When Raskolnikov asks whether he could kill himself, he confesses that he is afraid of death and is somewhat mystical. Raskolnikov gets up to leave, and Svidrigailov holds him back, offering to tell how a woman tried to save him: his sister.
Analysis
Chapter IV: Svidrigailov's Story
Chapter summary
Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov tells of the verbal contract that Marfa Petrovna imposed on him after paying the debts that had landed him in prison: never to leave her, to have no fixed mistress, and to warn her if a serious passion came to visit him. When Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikova arrived as governess, Marfa Petrovna told her everything about her husband; Dunya, pitying the lost man, wanted to save him, and he feigned being moved and flattered her. The fire in his eyes frightened her and drove her away; furious, he proposed that she flee with him to Petersburg with thirty thousand rubles, ready to do anything she asked, even to kill Marfa Petrovna. Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov asks about the rumors, the death of a child of which Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin accused him, and the servant who filled his pipe after he was dead, and Svidrigailov pushes them aside. Raskolnikov says he came to Petersburg because of Dunya; Svidrigailov betrays himself and announces that he will marry a daughter of a poor family whom the landlady, Resslich, introduced to him, and who turns sixteen in a month. He also says he wanted to pay for the education of a thirteen-year-old girl humiliated at a ball. Raskolnikov calls him a vile man; Svidrigailov laughs and leaves, and Raskolnikov decides to follow him.
Analysis
Chapter V: The Key
Chapter summary
Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov does not let go of Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov, because he has concluded that he has not abandoned his purpose regarding his sister. Svidrigailov takes him to the house where he lives, next to the room of Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladova, and replies that if he finds it unworthy to listen behind doors but not to kill old women with an axe, the best thing is to flee to America or to kill himself. Raskolnikov goes back without noticing that Svidrigailov dismisses the carriage a few steps further on.
On the bridge, Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikova sees her brother pass without noticing her, and sees Svidrigailov, who makes signs for her to follow him. She goes, with her brother's secret in his hands. Svidrigailov leads her through two empty rooms, shows her the locked door and the chair from which he heard Raskolnikov tell everything to Sonia, and repeats the confession to her. Dunya protests that it is a lie. He sets out the young man's theory and promises to get him out of the country; he says everything depends on her and that he loves her. When she demands the key, he answers that he has lost it and speaks of violence. Dunya draws Marfa Petrovna's revolver. The first bullet grazes his temple; the second misfires. She throws the gun away, and he asks whether he cannot love him; she answers never. He puts the key on the table and tells her to leave quickly. Dunya flees. Svidrigailov, at the window, wipes the blood from his face, picks up the revolver, and leaves.
Analysis
Chapter VI: The Last Night
Chapter summary
Svidrigailov spends the night in taverns and in a pleasure garden, drinking nothing; at ten, under the storm, he goes home, takes the money, and leaves. He goes to the house of Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladova, says he may leave for America, and hands her the receipts for the three orphans and three securities that total three thousand rubles, so that she keeps them just for herself and hides them from everyone, and suggests that later she entrust them to Dmitry Prokofich Razumikhin. He justifies the money by the fate he foresees for Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov: either a bullet in the forehead or Vladimirka. At eleven twenty, at the house of the bride's parents, he leaves her fifteen thousand rubles and kisses her. He rents a room under the stairs at the Adrianopol hotel and, feverish, recalls with regret the face of Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikova after the first shot. He dreams of the coffin of a fourteen-year-old girl, drowned because of an insult, and then finds in the corridor a five-year-old girl, soaking wet, who had hidden from a beating mother; he takes her to his room and wraps her up, and her face suddenly seems to him awakened and obscene; he shouts and wakes. At five he checks the revolver and leaves. In the fog, by a fire tower, he tells the sentry that he is going to America and shoots himself in the right temple.
Analysis
Chapter VII: The Farewell
Chapter summary
At nightfall, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, dirty and soaked from the night, arrives at the house of Pulcheria Alexandrovna Raskolnikova. She receives him in tears of joy, without asking him to account for anything. He asks whether she will keep loving him, whatever happens, says he is going far away, kneels, and kisses her feet. She blesses him and does not ask. In her room he finds Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikova, who has spent the day with Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladova and already knows everything. He says he walked near the Neva at night thinking of killing himself, and he calls himself a vile man; Dunya replies that he is vile, but willing to suffer. He says he is going now, but when he hears that whoever suffers washes away half the crime, he explodes: he killed a harmful louse, that is not a crime, and he does not intend to wash it away. Seeing his sister's suffering, he asks forgiveness and that she stay with their mother. They leave; Dunya, after fifty steps, turns around, and he answers with an impatient gesture, of which he soon feels ashamed.
Analysis
Chapter VIII: The Square
Chapter summary
At dusk, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov arrives at the house of Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladova, who had spent the day waiting for him with Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikova, fearing that he would kill himself. He enters in a forced tone, says he came for her crosses, and that he will go to the police office, to Ilya Petrovich, not to Porfiry. Sonia places the cypress cross on his chest and keeps the copper one, which she exchanged with Lizaveta Ivanovna. He leaves without saying goodbye, and in the street he understands that the visit had no other purpose: he needed her tears. In the square, he remembers Sonia's instruction, kneels, and kisses the filthy earth. The crowd laughs and takes him for a drunk, and the words that were perhaps about to come out freeze in him. At the police office, Ilya Petrovich receives him with loquacity and talks of suicides, until he mentions the gentleman who killed himself that morning: Svidrigailov. Raskolnikov goes out, crosses paths with a pale Sonia in the courtyard, smiles in a lost way, and climbs back up. Before Ilya Petrovich, he says that it was he who killed the old woman and Lizaveta with an axe, and robbed them. People gather, and he repeats the statement.
Analysis
Reading of the Part
Analysis