In St. Petersburg, in the districts around Sennaya Square, in a July of stifling heat in the 1860s, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, a poor former student, lives in an attic cubicle and carries a theory: that certain men have the right to overstep the law in order to advance an idea. The story is driven by this theory and by the murder of the old pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna, which he commits to put the idea to the test and which pursues him afterward in every conversation and every street. The arc runs from the rehearsal in the pawnbroker's house to the double crime, passes through the siege by the examining magistrate Porfiry and the encounter with Sonia, and ends with the confession and hard labor in Siberia.
Part One: The Crime
At the start of July, Raskolnikov flees from the landlady he owes money to and goes to the pawnbroker's house to rehearse the plan he has been mulling over for a month: he pawns his father's watch, notes where the keys are kept, and asks about the pawnbroker's sister, to learn whether the old woman will be alone (chapter I). In a tavern, hungry for human company, he listens to Marmeladov recount his family's misery and Sonia's life under the yellow ticket and, moved by what he has seen, leaves coins on their windowsill (chapter II). The next day his mother's letter announces Dunya's engagement to the businessman Luzhin, and he reads it as his sister being sold to support him (chapter III). He swears to prevent the marriage, and on the boulevard he tries to protect a drunken girl from a dandy, but gives up when she gets up and walks away, with the dandy following her (chapter IV). He falls asleep on Petrovsky Island, dreams of a mare beaten to death, and wakes up ready to give up; on Sennaya, however, he hears that Lizaveta, the old woman's sister, will be out at seven the next morning, and understands that the old woman will be left alone (chapter V). He recalls the tavern conversation in which a student proposed killing the old woman, prepares the loop and a false pledge to gain time, and, when the landlady's kitchen fails him, finds an axe under the caretaker's bench (chapter VI). Shortly after seven he strikes the old woman from behind to take the keys and the money, kills Lizaveta, who arrived by surprise, so as not to be seen, and escapes the visitors coming up the stairs by hiding in an apartment under renovation (chapter VII).
Part Two: The Inquiry
Raskolnikov wakes up on the sofa, looks for blood on his clothes, hides the stolen goods behind the wallpaper and, summoned to the police station, discovers that the summons concerns a debt to his landlady; relieved, he talks too much and faints on hearing the inspector suppose that the murderer was inside the building (chapter I). He takes the jewels to throw them into the canal, gives up because of the crowds, and buries them under a stone in a blind courtyard; he looks for Razumikhin for help, accepts the work he offers and returns everything soon after, because he cannot bear anyone (chapter II). He raves for days, is cared for and dressed by Razumikhin with his mother's money, and feigns weakness to hear what the police know (chapter III). He hears from his friend and the doctor Zossimov the story of the painter Nikolai, arrested with the old woman's earrings, and sits up when he learns where Nikolai found them (chapter IV). Luzhin comes in and expounds the doctrine of self-interest; Raskolnikov confronts him with what his mother's letter reported and throws him out (chapter V). He goes out determined to end everything that day, provokes Zametov by hinting that he is the murderer, goes back to the old woman's building, rings the bell and offers to go to the police station, until he is put out on the street (chapter VI). A carriage runs over Marmeladov; Raskolnikov takes him home, gives Katerina the money he has for the funeral and, on going up to his room, finds his mother and sister and faints (chapter VII).
Part Three: The Theory
Back to himself, Raskolnikov sends his mother and sister away and demands that Dunya break off with Luzhin, because he believes she is marrying on his account; Razumikhin, drunk and charmed by Dunya, takes the two of them to the lodgings and promises to bring the doctor (chapter I). The next morning, ashamed, Razumikhin speaks with Zossimov and describes his friend to the mother, and Dunya decides that her brother will attend the eight o'clock meeting with Luzhin, despite the note in which the fiancé excludes him (chapter II). Raskolnikov receives them composed, says he gave all his money to Marmeladov's widow, repeats his ultimatum and hears from Dunya that she is marrying by her own choice; he examines Luzhin's note and promises to attend the meeting (chapter III). Sonia comes to invite him to the funeral, and he introduces her to his mother and sister, to answer Luzhin's slander; then he takes Razumikhin to Porfiry, on the pretext of recovering the pledges, to find out what the judge knows, while a stranger follows Sonia home and says he is her neighbor (chapter IV). Before Porfiry and Zametov, Raskolnikov declares the pledges and, at the judge's request, since he has read his article, sets out the theory of ordinary and extraordinary men; he refuses to say whether he himself would step over the obstacle, and escapes the question about the painters of the day of the crime by saying he did not see them, so as not to betray himself (chapter V). On the way back he explains to Razumikhin how a guilty man would defend himself and, restless, checks the hiding place in the wall; in the street a petty bourgeois tells him he is the murderer and vanishes; feverish, Raskolnikov repeats to himself that he killed a principle and not a person, sleeps, dreams that the old woman laughs at the blows, and wakes to find a stranger beside the sofa who introduces himself as Svidrigailov (chapter VI).
Part Four: The Siege
Svidrigailov defends what he did to Dunya in his house, speaks of visits from his dead wife, Marfa Petrovna, offers ten thousand rubles to break the engagement with Luzhin and announces the three thousand that Marfa left Dunya in her will; Raskolnikov refuses to carry the proposal (chapter I). Raskolnikov runs with Razumikhin to the lodgings to arrive before Luzhin; at the meeting, Dunya demands that Luzhin and her brother come to an understanding so that she can choose, Raskolnikov defends Sonia against Luzhin's letter, and Dunya, hearing the fiancé's threats, orders him out (chapter II). Luzhin broods on the stairs over what he has lost; Raskolnikov tells of his conversation with Svidrigailov, Razumikhin proposes a publishing venture with Dunya's money and offers an apartment in his own house, and Raskolnikov, to spare them, announces that he wants to be left alone and asks Razumikhin to stay in his place (chapter III). Raskolnikov goes to Sonia's house, presses her about her hope in God, kisses her foot in the name of human suffering, asks for the reading of the resurrection of Lazarus, says that they are cursed together and promises to tell her the next day who killed Lizaveta, while Svidrigailov listens from the neighboring room (chapter IV). At the police station, Raskolnikov provokes Porfiry, who describes the method of surrounding a suspect as a moth circling a candle; Raskolnikov loses his composure and demands to be charged or released, and Porfiry speaks of a surprise kept behind the partition (chapter V). The painter Nikolai bursts in and declares himself the murderer; Porfiry notices the rehearsed words and dismisses Raskolnikov, who, on leaving, meets the petty bourgeois from the street, now asking forgiveness and explaining that he denounced him out of offense, and returns in high spirits (chapter VI).
Part Five: The Confession
Luzhin, humiliated by the rupture and blaming Raskolnikov, receives Sonia in the room he shares with Lebezyatnikov, hands her ten rubles for the Marmeladovs and, without revealing his plan, prepares what he will do next (chapter I). Katerina spends the funeral money on a wake to prove the family's standing; the distinguished guests do not come, and she ends up quarreling with the landlady, Amalia Ivanovna, when Luzhin appears (chapter II). Luzhin accuses Sonia of having taken a hundred-ruble note; Katerina turns her stepdaughter's pockets inside out and the note falls out; Lebezyatnikov says he saw Luzhin put it there, Raskolnikov explains Luzhin's revenge, and Luzhin leaves; Amalia throws Katerina out, and she runs off in search of justice (chapter III). Raskolnikov goes to Sonia's room, still excited by his victory, tests the idea of the louse on her, confesses the murder first in the third person and then openly, gives reasons that he himself refutes, asks her not to leave him, and refuses what she asks of him: to bow down and say aloud that he killed (chapter IV). Lebezyatnikov brings the news that Katerina has gone mad; Dunya visits Raskolnikov and he says goodbye to her; Katerina, in the street with her children, collapses with blood on her chest, refuses the priest and dies, and Svidrigailov pays for everything and reveals that he lives on the other side of the wall (chapter V).
Part Six: The Surrender
Raskolnikov spends days in a fog, unable to bear either solitude or company, and prefers a fight; Razumikhin comes to find out whether he has gone mad and hears that Raskolnikov is handing over his mother and sister, and Porfiry arrives at the door (chapter I). Porfiry explains that the painter is innocent, describes the author of the crime and tells him that it was he; he suggests that he give himself up of his own will, with a reduced sentence, and Raskolnikov refuses the reduction (chapter II). Raskolnikov rushes to Svidrigailov, to prevent him from using the secret against Dunya, and thinks of killing him if necessary; he finds him in a tavern (chapter III). Svidrigailov tells how Dunya tried to save him and how he pursued her, and speaks of a fiancée of nearly sixteen; Raskolnikov follows him when he leaves, suspecting that he still has Dunya in mind (chapter IV). Svidrigailov takes Dunya to an apartment, repeats to her the confession he heard and locks the door; she fires, throws away the revolver, and he lets her go (chapter V). On his last night, Svidrigailov gives Sonia money for the orphans and for Raskolnikov, leaves fifteen thousand rubles to his fiancée, sleeps poorly in a hotel and, at dawn, shoots himself in front of a sentry (chapter VI). Raskolnikov visits his mother, asks her to go on loving him and kisses her feet; he tells Dunya that he thought of killing himself, and when she says that whoever goes toward suffering washes away half of the crime, he denies that there is any crime to wash away, but goes on (chapter VII). At Sonia's house he accepts the cypress cross; in the square, recalling her instruction, he kisses the earth and sees Sonia behind a stall; at the police station, he hears from Ilya Petrovich the news of Svidrigailov's death and confesses the crime (chapter VIII).
Epilogue: The Resurrection
Given his confession, his illness and his past, Raskolnikov receives eight years of hard labor of the second category; his mother, deceived by the family about his whereabouts, falls ill and dies, Dunya marries Razumikhin, and Sonia follows the convoy and writes letters every month (chapter I). In the Siberian prison, Raskolnikov falls ill from wounded pride, without repenting of the crime, is shunned by the prisoners, who love Sonia, and dreams of a plague of ideas (chapter II). On leaving the hospital, he falls weeping at Sonia's feet by the river, and the two decide to wait the seven years that remain. That night he takes the Gospel he asked Sonia for, which he keeps under his pillow, but does not open it; the narrator says that here another story begins, that of his gradual renewal, which this book does not tell (chapter II).