crime and punishment: part two
selected passages from dostoevsky
ChatGPT summary:
Raskolnikov spirals into paranoia and delirium following the murders. He becomes feverish and unstable, alternating between extreme guilt and moments of detached justification for his crime. His behavior grows erratic, drawing suspicion from those around him.
Soon, he is summoned to the police station—not for the murder, but over an unpaid debt. However, when he overhears a conversation about Alyona Ivanovna’s murder, he nearly faints, further arousing suspicion. As he struggles to maintain composure, he also begins interacting with key characters: his loyal friend Razumikhin, who tries to help him recover; Luzhin, his sister Dunya’s arrogant fiancé, whom he despises; and Porfiry Petrovich, the clever investigator handling the case. Porfiry subtly probes Raskolnikov’s psyche, playing mind games that unsettle him.
Meanwhile, Raskolnikov meets Marmeladov’s family again after the drunken man is fatally struck by a carriage. He impulsively gives them money, showing his lingering compassion despite his crime. As his mental state deteriorates, he starts confessing his theories about crime and morality, hinting at his own guilt. By the end of Part Two, Raskolnikov is caught in an unbearable psychological battle—both drawn to and terrified of the consequences of his actions.
chapter one
Cliffsnotes summary:
After the murder, Raskolnikov collapses into a deep sleep. Upon awakening, he is terrified; he has slept for so long that he fears that he is going mad. He remembers the items that he had stolen and his failure to hide them or to lock the door of his flat — this was madness. As he hides the items, he begins to wonder if his punishment is already beginning and after a few stirrings and attempts to hide his loot in a hole in his room, he surrendered himself to mingled sleep and delirium.
Again he awakens to Nastasya's pounding. The porter is with her and he hands Raskolnikov a summons to report to the police. Nastasya does not want him to move since he has had a fever since the day before. As he dresses, he is repulsed by the thought of wearing the bloody socks, but since he has no others, he is forced to do so. On the way to the police station, he thinks that he might just confess it all and be done with it: "I shall go in, fall on my knees, and tell the whole story."
When he reaches the police station, he is almost overwhelmed by the "sickening smell of fresh paint. . .from the newly decorated rooms." The small crowded rooms, the lack of fresh air, the confusion as to why he is there, and the intolerable waiting make him feverish. Finally, he discovers that his landlady is suing him for back rent. As Raskolnikov is told of his offense, he goes into a rather lengthy explanation of his relationship to his landlady and of his previous engagement to his landlady's daughter. The police instruct him to sign an I.O.U. and release him. As he signs the paper, he overhears the police discussing the murder of Alyona Ivanovna and Lizaveta, and he faints. When he recovers, he hurries home thinking that the police suspect him of the murder.
Highlights:
The conviction that all his faculties were failing him, even his memory and his most basic powers of reflection, began to be an insufferable torture. “Surely it isn’t beginning already? Surely it isn’t my punishment coming upon me? It is!”
This is as Raskolnikov is looking around his room, trying to ensure that there’s nothing there that can tie him to the murder. He is still caught up in the unreality of the present; can’t reason, think, or plan in this state of mind. This begins his paranoia. He also can feel that his punishment and reckoning are coming!
On the stairs he remembered that he was leaving all the things just as they were in the hole in the wall, “and, very likely, it’s on purpose to search when I’m out,” he thought, and stopped short. But he was possessed by such despair, such cynicism of misery, if that is what it could be called, that with a wave of his hand he went on. “Just to get it over with!”
This is because he’s received a summons to go to the police office. He’s fully unable to plan; no desire or ability to cover for himself. He’s already feeling the weight of what he’s done.
“I’ll go in, fall on my knees, and confess everything…” he thought as he reached the fourth floor.
He thinks this as he’s on his way to the police station. Already the burden of the awareness of what he’s done is so unbearable that he’s ready to just get it off his chest.
He was conscious of a terrible inner turmoil. He was afraid of losing his self-control; he tried to catch at something and fix his mind on it, something entirely irrelevant, but he could not succeed at all.
Hints of the psychological turmoil he’s experiencing.
To his own surprise, he too grew suddenly angry and found a certain pleasure in it.
Raskolnikov is just informed of the notice of his debt, and he responds with anger. He felt delight in the entitlement of expressing anger towards others. Wonderful description! This is so real — it does make us feel powerful.
The triumphant sense of security, of deliverance from overwhelming danger—that was what filled his whole soul that moment without thought for the future, without analysis, without suppositions or surmises, without doubts and without questioning.
The immediate escaping from consequences at the police station is such a tremendous relief that it erases every other emotion for the time being. All that consumes his mind and body is present self-preservation.
A strange idea suddenly occurred to him—to get up at once, to go up to Nikodim Fomich, and tell him everything that had happened yesterday, and then to go with him to his lodgings and to show him the things in the hole in the corner. The impulse was so strong that he got up from his seat to carry it out. “Hadn’t I better think a minute?” flashed through his mind. “No, better cast off the burden without thinking.”
There’s such a bipolarity here — Raskolnikov is simultaneously desperate to escape incrimination, but he’s unable to withstand the burden of his actions.
chapter two
Cliffsnotes summary:
Upon leaving the police station, Raskolnikov is afraid that the police have searched his room, but he soon sees that no one has entered his room. He empties all of his "loot" into his pockets and plans to hide it somewhere. After walking a long way, he finds himself in a park. He moves a huge rock aside and hides his stolen goods under the rock.
He remembers that he had promised himself that he would visit his friend Razumihkin the day after the murder and he goes to his room. Raskolnikov says that he has come to ask for lessons, but after a while he suddenly changes his mind and leaves amid Razumihkin's entreaties to know where he is going and where he is living. Raskolnikov ignores him and leaves.
Raskolnikov walks absent-mindedly toward the river and is almost run down by a coach and is actually struck with a whip by a coachman. As he stands rubbing his back, he suddenly feels someone thrust money into his hand because he looked so much like a beggar. He immediately throws the money away.
When he returns home, he dreams that the police officer Ilya Petrovitch is beating his landlady. He is awakened by Nastasya who realizes that he is sick and who goes to get him some water just as he collapses into unconsciousness.
Highlights:
Even as it was, everyone he met seemed to stare and look round, as if they had nothing to do but to watch him.
This is as Raskolnikov is wandering around the canal. Any time you intuitively feel like you’ve done something wrong, you constantly feel like you have eyes on you.
“If all this has really been done deliberately and not idiotically, if I really had a certain and definite object, how is it that I didn’t even glance into the purse and don’t know what I had there, that purse for which I have undergone these agonies and have deliberatly undertaken this base, filthy, degrading business? And here I wanted to throw into the water the purse together with all the things which I had not seen either…how’s that?”
This is his thought process → if the murder/theft was rational or deliberate, the purse + money would’ve been the objective. Except he didn’t even check! There is no conscious or pragmatic motive behind the crime. So why did he do it?
A new overwhelming sensation was gaining more and more mastery over him every moment; it was an immeasurable, almost physical repulsion for everything surrounding him, a stubborn, malignant feeling of hatred. All who met him were loathsome to him—he loathed their faces, their movements, their gestures. If anyone had addressed him, he felt that he might have spat at them or bitten them…
This happens all the time, doesn’t it? We isolate ourselves at times when we desperately need love + companionship, and that isolation takes the form of resistance + “conscious, rational hatred” towards others.
It struck him as strange and grotesque that he should have stopped at the same spot as before, as though he actually imagined he could think the same thoughts, be interested in the same theories and pictures that had interested him…so short a time ago. He felt it almost amusing, and yet it wrung his heart. Deep down, hidden far away out of sight all that seemed to him now—all his old past, his old thoughts, his old problems and theories, his old impressions and that picture and himself and all, all…He felt as though he were flying upwards, and everything were vanishing from his sight. Making an unconscious movement with his hand, he suddenly became aware of the piece of money in his fist. He opened his hand, stared at the coin, and with a sweep his arm flung it into the water; then he turned and went home. It seemed to him, he had cut himself off from every one and from everything at that moment.
His actions fundamentally changed him; his past is unrecognizable, and he can’t even remember what it felt like to think the thoughts that animated him so deeply earlier. Actions can change a person. The experience of carrying out the murder actually changed him.
chapter three
Cliffsnotes summary:
Raskolnikov remains in a limbo between consciousness and delirium for several days during which Nastasya and Razumihkin take care of him. When he awakens, he discovers a stranger in his room. The stranger has come to deposit with him 35 rubles that his mother has sent to him. Raskolnikov tries to refuse the money, but Razumihkin insists that he take it and still protesting, he signs an acknowledgment of the receipt of the money.
Razumihkin chides Raskolnikov because he has been so detached and distant from his landlady, who is after all, very shy and very nice. Razumihkin reveals that he has been able to cajole the landlady into being of great service to them. He tells also of the good attention by Dr. Zossimov who has been in constant attendance to him. He tells how Zametov, the police chief, has also visited him, and when Raskolnikov is upset, Razumihkin explains that Zametov only wanted to get to know him. He also tells how Raskolnikov has been almost neurotic about clutching his dirty socks while he was unconscious. Raskolnikov is bewildered by all of the attention being paid to him.
As Raskolnikov goes back to sleep, Razumihkin takes some of the money and goes out to buy new clothes for Raskolnikov, and with the help of Nastasya, they put his new clothes on him.
Highlights:
In a moment of some strange, almost animal cunning he dreamt up the idea of hiding his strength and lying low for a time, pretending if necessary that he was not yet in full possession of his faculties, and meanwhile listening to find out what was going on. Yet he could not overcome his sense of repugnance.
“animal cunning” — another scheme to try to prevent intense prodding from his friend + his caretaker…where is this coming from? The instinct for self-preservation?
chapter four
Cliffsnotes summary:
Dr. Zossimov appears to check up on his patient's progress. Razumihkin is eager to know if Raskolnikov can attend a function he is having that night for his old uncle from the provinces. Also Zametov, the chief clerk, will be there along with Porfiry Petrovitch, the examining magistrate and "a graduate of the College of Jurisprudence."
As Zossimov and Razumihkin talk of the arrest of two painters for the murder of Alyona and Lizaveta Ivanovna, unlike his usual lethargic self, Raskolnikov is intensely interested in this discussion. Razumihkin is very firm in his stand that the painters could not have committed the crime and makes an elaborate defense of their innocence. Zossimov notices that the discussion excites Raskolnikov and thinks that this interest in the crime suggests that he is regaining an interest in life.
Highlights:
He made efforts to conceal his self-importance, but it was always too obvious.
This is so funny; this is how so many people act to try to make themselves appear larger! Can’t be too obvious, but has to be noticeable enough → things must be witnessed by others for them to be valuable.
I only say he is a nice man in his own way! But if you look at men in all ways—are there many good ones left?
Oooooooooh this is so good. If you judge people by every frame of reference, people will always fail; better to find a frame of reference in which they don’t and then use that frame to learn to love + appreciate them!
You’ll never improve a man by repelling him, especially a boy. You have to be twice as careful with a boy. Oh, you tedious progressives! You don’t understand. You harm yourself running another person down…
AMAZING! The culture of punishment is self-defeating. So relevant now. No one seeks to improve others; only to reprimand and discipline.
“What’s the most offensive is not their lying—one can always forgive lying—lying is a wonderful thing, it gets you closer to the truth—what is offensive is that they lie and worship their own lying…”
The difference between deceit and delusion; deceive for long enough, you’ll believe it. The lie itself isn’t the offense; it’s the belief in its truth.
But facts aren’t everything—at least half the business lies in how you interpret them!
Yep.
“Too clever! No, my friend, you’re too clever. That beats everything.”
“But, why, why?”
“Why, because everything fits too well…it’s too melodramatic.”
This is from a discussion where they were talking about how the murders happened and how the murderer got away, and they got it exactly right! Except they dismissed it because it’s too neat. My goodness.
chapter five
Cliffsnotes summary:
Dunya's fiancé arrives at Raskolnikov's room dressed to the hilt ("starchy and pompous") and introduces himself as though everyone already knows who he is. As Luzhin makes feeble and awkward attempts to explain who he is, Raskolnikov remains sullen and silent. When Luzhin tells of the living accommodations he has made for Dunya and Pulcheria Alexandrovna, everyone immediately recognizes the apartment as "a disgusting place — filthy, stinking, and what's more, of doubtful character." Luzhin excuses this because he is also new in town and does not know his way around. Then, when Luzhin tells that he is living with Lebezyatnikov, a name that Raskolnikov had heard from Marmeladov in an unfavorable light, the trend of the conversation returns to the murder.
Razumihkin announces that the police are "examining all who have left pledges with her [Alyona]." As soon as the conversation can be turned to Luzhin's engagement, Raskolnikov accuses him of trying only to make Dunya feel indebted to him. Luzhin protests that Raskolnikov's mother has misrepresented him. At this point, Raskolnikov threatens to "send him flying downstairs" if he ever mentions his mother again and orders him to "go to hell." As Zossimov and Razumihkin notice this sudden outburst, they also notice that Raskolnikov takes an immense interest in the murder.
Highlights:
My notes in this section were focused on the exchange between Luzhin and Razumikhin. It’s a fascinating discussion on progressivism, and shockingly highly relevant. Dostoevsky makes timeless observations of the nature of the progressive movement that remain eternally true even as the movement adopts different politics and principles.
“Practicality is a difficult thing to find; it does not drop down from heaven. And for the last two hundred years we have been divorced from all practical life. Ideas, if you like, are fermenting,” he said to Peter Petrovich, “and desire for good exists, though it’s in a childish form, and honesty you may find, although there are people who hijack it. Anyway, there’s no practicality. Practicality has to have some kind of experience behind it.”
This is in reference to the politics of progressives at the time, spoken by Razumikhin. His criticism of progressivism lies not in the intentions, but in the lack of any kind of practicality behind the ideas; experience shapes ideals into a form that can be better integrated in a practical way in society, hence why progressivism is always led by youth.
“Mistakes are merely evidence of enthusiasm for the cause and of an abnormal external environment. If little has been done, then there hasn’t been the time, let alone the means. It’s my personal view, if you would like to know, that something has been accomplished already. New and valuable ideas, new and valuable works are circulating instead of our dreamy old romantic authors. Literature is taking on a more mature form, many unjust prejudices have been rooted up and turned into ridicule…In a word, we have cut ourselves off irreversibly from the past, and that, to my thinking, is a great thing…”
Peter’s response. Much to think about! I particularly liked how this dialog framed progressivism as idealizing disconnection from and rejection of the past; is this a good thing? Is the circulation of “ideas” and “works” practical and sufficient to be beneficial? I’m skeptical.
Science now tells us, love yourself above everyone else, for everything in the world relies on self-interest. You love yourself and manage your own affairs properly and your coat remains whole. Economic truth adds that the better private affairs are organized in society—the more whole coats, so to speak—the firmer its foundations and the better organized common welfare shall be. Therefore, in acquiring wealth solely and exclusively for myself, I am acquiring, so to speak, for everyone, and helping to get my neighbor a little more than a torn coat; and that is not because of my private, personal liberality, but because of a general advance. The idea is simple, but unhappily it has been a long time reaching us because we have been hindered by idealism and sentimentality. And yet very little intelligence. is needed to perceive it.
Another statement by Peter. Probably the most charitable view on capitalism and individual accumulation? But there is no explanation for why managing your own affairs properly leads to common welfare…what’s the reason? Why does Peter think it creates a better foundation?
So many unscrupulous people have got hold of the progressive cause recently and have distorted it in their own interests to such an extent that the whole cause has been dragged through the mire.
Happens eternally…
“How did your lecturer in Moscow reply when he was asked why he was forging notes? ‘Everybody is getting rich one way or another, so I want to hurry up and get rich too.’ I don’t remember the exact words, but the upshot was that he wants money for nothing, without waiting or working! We’ve got used to having everything ready-made from us, from walking on crutches to chewing our food.”
What happens when money itself becomes an aim!! It’s Goodhart’s law…
It is also crazy that this was written in the 1860s. People have been saying this about humanity for literally centuries, that machination of things that required more labor in the past will turn out poorly. Yet here we are! Something tells me we’re going to continue to be okay.
chapter six
Cliffsnotes summary:
Alone, Raskolnikov immediately dresses in his new clothes, takes all the money that is left over from the purchase of his new clothes, and escapes from his room. He walks towards the Hay Market, where he encounters a 15 year old to whom he gives five kopecks. He is furthermore drawn toward a saloon in search of human fellowship. He then remembers the horror of being confined to living on a square yard of space all his life: "only to live, to live no matter how — only to live." He then resolves to live life whatever it may be.
He leaves the saloon and enters a clean restaurant where he asks for the newspapers of the last five days, beginning with the day of the murder and followed by the days of his illness. While he is reading the papers, he meets Zametov, the minor official in the police department and a friend to Razumihkin.
As the two begin a conversation, Raskolnikov begins to taunt Zametov telling him about his activities and motivations. He tells him that he came to the restaurant solely for the purpose of reading about the murder of the old pawnbroker. In fact, he confesses his extreme concern about the entire episode. When Zametov explains how the police are all wrong in the manner they are conducting the case, Raskolnikov begins to resent the implication that the crime was obviously performed by an amateur. As a result of this resentment, he offers what he thinks would be a perfect way of committing the crime and how one should go about hiding the money and the jewels. Raskolnikov's explanations and suggestion that he might be the one who murdered the old pawnbroker and her half sister disturbs Zametov who dismisses it as an aftermath to Raskolnikov's illness.
Outside, he runs into Razumihkin and he tells him of his annoyance at being followed. "I don't want your kindness. . .I may be ungrateful, perhaps I am mean and base, only leave me alone, all of you, for God's sake leave me alone!! Leave me alone!" Razumihkin is so shocked at this outburst that he allows Raskolnikov to go his own way and immediately realizes that the outburst is part of Raskolnikov's illness.
After Raskolnikov has escaped, he goes to a bridge where he is a witness to a woman's attempt to drown herself. He realizes that he was going to attempt the same thing and then becomes disgusted with himself for even thinking about it. He then returns to the scene of the crime. He is amazed to find the entire apartment being repainted. It no longer looks the same as when he was last in it. He then goes to the doorbell and begins to ring it, listening and remembering the "hideous and agonizingly fearful sensation he has felt when he was trapped after the crime." When the painters demand to know what he is doing there, he tells them to come with him to the police station and he will tell everything. At the end of the chapter, he is fully resolved to go to the police himself and confess everything.
Highlights:
He did not know and did not think where he was going; he had one thought alone, “that all this must be ended today, once and for all, immediately, that he would not return home without it, because he would not go on living like that.” How, what to put an end to? He had no idea; he did not even want to think about it. He drove away thought; thought tortured him. All he knew, all he felt was that everything must be changed “one way or another,” he repeated with desperate and immovable self-confidence and determination.
Sin requires action; it’s innate. Thought itself becomes a burden…action is needed, but it’s unclear what will bring relief. It’s as if the universe recognizes an imbalance through the crime and propels the sinner to rebalance in some way.
“Where is it I’ve read that someone condemned to death says or thinks, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he’d only got room to stand, with the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live like that than to die at once! Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!…How true it is! Good God, how true! Man is a vile creature!…And vile is he who calls man vile for that”
No one clutches harder to life than a dying man, no matter how provisional of a life it may be…
Raskolnikov’s set and earnest face was suddenly transformed, and he suddenly went off into the same nervous laugh as before, as though utterly unable to restrain himself. And in a flash he recalled with extraordinary vividness of sensation a moment in the recent past, that moment when he stood with the axe behind the door, while the latch trembled and the men outside swore and shook it, and he had a sudden desire to shout at them, to swear at them, to put out his tongue at them, to mock them, to laugh, and laugh, and laugh!
The hubris! The level of self-delight, the level of self-elevation…he feels so above others for getting away with something, for knowing something they don’t…this is so real
“Well, let us suppose that these simpletons succeed and each makes a million, and what follows for the rest of their lives? Each is dependent on the others for the rest of his life! Better hang yourself at once!”
When discussing a thought experiment where 50 people conspired to embezzle money, they concluded that it was doomed from the start because even if the scheme were to succeed, it would rely on each of their secrecy, so they’d be in a different kind of prison, forever unsettled, because all it will take is one person’s failure to bring the whole scheme down. “better hang yourself at once” → that line points to the futility of crime, where even success puts you in a different cage.
He bent down as close as possible to Zametov, and his lips began to move without uttering a word. This lasted for half a minute; he knew what he was doing, but could not restraing himself. The terrible word trembled on his lips, like the latch on that door; in another moment it will break out, in another moment he will let it go, he will speak out.
“And what if it was I who murdered the old woman and Lizaveta?” he said suddenly and—realized what he had done.
He couldn’t help himself! He was so desperate to share, to get it off his chest, that he did it without thinking, even if he did it as a hypothetical. I struggled to understand why he did this in my initial read. Was it hubris? Was it a desire for recognition? I think that’s what it was, mixed in with Zametov’s insinuation that the murder was committed by a novice. He didn’t go through everything he did to be called a novice, especially when his rationale for committing the murder is that he uniquely had the right to commit such an action.
He went out, trembling all over from a sort of wild hysterical sensation, in which there was an element of unbearable ecstasy. Yet he was gloomy and horribly tired. His face was twisted as if he had just had a fit. His fatigue increased rapidly. Any shock, any irritating sensation stimulated and revived his energy at once, but his strength failed just as quickly when the stimulus was removed.
The thrill of confession, but absent the immediate feelings, depression. This is also just a great phenomenological description of addiction.
“A strange desire you have to shower benefits on a man who…curses them, hwo feels them to be a burden, in fact! Why did you seek me out at the beginning of my illness? Maybe I was very happy to die. Didn’t I tell you plainly enough today that you were torturing me, that I was…sick of you! You seem to want to torture people! I assure you that all of this is seriously hindering my recovery, because it’s continually irritating me. You saw Zossimov went away just now to avoid irritating me. You leave me alone too, for goodness’ sake! What right do you have to keep me by force? Can’t you see that I am in possession of all my faculties now? How can I persuade you not to persecute me with your kindness? I may be ungrateful, I may be mean, but just let me be, for God’s sake, let me be! Let me be, let me be!”
Goodness, what a dialogue. How we so easily reject help when we most need it but are unable to see it…such a vivid rejection of paternalism and a desire for independence or isolation…or perhaps the love getting received from others is such a contrast to the inner self-loathing or feeling that you don’t deserve it that you can’t bear to be in the company of loved ones…
“Listen to me. Let me tell you, that you are all a set of babbling, posing idiots! If you’ve got any little trouble you brood over it like a hen over an egg. And you are plagiarists even in that! There isn’t a sign of independent life in you! You’re made of spermaceti ointment and you’ve got lymph in your veins instead of blood. I don’t trust any of you! When anything happens the first thing all of you do is fail to behave like human beings! Stop!”
This is said by Razumikhin in response. He recognizes the lack of humanity in Raskolnikov, and points out how his suffering and drama aren’t even original! How deep of a cut it is that it hits at Raskolnikov’s core vulnerability; his core desire to showcase his original thinking makes him worthy of being elevated over others. “And you are plagiarists even in that!” What a line, and cuts through Raskolnikov’s victim-esque “woe-is-me” act.
Also shows how the ones who love you the most know how to hurt you the most…hit you right where it hurts
Thousands of times I’ve fought tooth and nail with people and run back to them afterwards…You feel ashamed to go back to them!
Happens to all of us!
Even his depression had passed, there was not a trace now of the energy with which he had set out “to make an end of it all.” Complete apathy had succeeded it.
He doesn’t even care to end it, there’s no difference in life or death for him; his humanity has deserted him.
chapter seven
Cliffsnotes summary:
On his way to the police station, Raskolnikov witnesses a terrible accident — a drunken man stumbles and falls under a carriage and is crushed. Amid great confusion, Raskolnikov recognizes the wounded man as Marmeladov, and he immediately takes charge and offers money to anyone who will help get him home.
When they arrive, Katerina Ivanovna becomes hysterical and cannot control her grief and anxiety — the children are hungry, they have no money for a burial, and she has no one to turn to. Raskolnikov offers consolation and again offers to pay for a doctor and other expenses. A priest is sent for, and Katerina Ivanovna also sends young Polenka to tell Sonya.
When the doctor arrives, he announces that Marmeladov will die immediately. He receives the funeral rites, and Polenka returns saying that Sonya is coming immediately. Marmeladov tries to make some apology to Katerina and to Sonya who has just arrived, dressed in the gaudy, cheap finery worn by prostitutes: "She seemed forgetful of her garish fourth-hand silk dress, indecently out of place here with its ridiculous long train and immense crinoline."
When Raskolnikov first sees Sonya, he "recognized her crushed and ashamed in her humiliation. . .meekly awaiting her turn to say goodby to her dying father." The father had never seen his daughter in her professional costume; infinite shame possessed both father and daughter.
As Raskolnikov leaves, he gives his money to Katerina Ivanovna and outside he meets Nikodim Fomitch, the police official who exclaims that Raskolnikov is splattered with blood. At Sonya's request, Polenka follows Raskolnikov to find out his name, where he lives, and to thank him. In their meeting, Raskolnikov shows great compassion for young Polenka and asks her to pray for him. He then resolves that life is still before him and he rejects any thoughts of confessing to his crime. With this thought, he goes to Razumihkin and apologizes for his bad temper. Razumihkin walks home with him and tells him of Zossimov's suspicion that perhaps Raskolnikov is going insane. When they reach Raskolnikov's place, they find his mother and sister waiting for him. Instead of returning their enthusiastic embraces, he faints.
Highlights:
“Enough", he pronounced resolutely and triumphantly. “I’ve done with imaginary terrors and phantoms! Life is real! Haven’t I lived just now? My life has not yet died with that old woman! The Kingdom of Heaven to her—and now leave me in peace! Now for the reign of reason and light…and of will, and of strength…and now we will see! We will try our strength!” he added defiantly, as though challenging some power of darkness. “And I was ready to consent to live in a square of space!”
This is after he helped the family whose father died and he gave his money to them…his capacity to help others and do things for others helped him rediscover his humanity, the life within him; he couldn’t understand how he could consent to confession knowing he could still do good or experience something good.
“Strength, strength is what you need, you can get nothing without it, and strength must be won by strength: that’s what they don’t know,” he added proudly and self-confidently as he walked with flagging footsteps from the bridge. Pride and self-confidence grew continually stronger in him; he was becoming a different man every minute. What had worked this revolution inside him? He did not know himself; like a man clutching at straws, he suddenly felt that he, too, “could live, that there was still life for him, that his life had not died with the old woman.” Perhaps he hurried his conclusion too much, but he did not think of that.
He thinks self-belief is all that’s necessary for him to carry on and to ease the burden of his sin…let’s see if that’s enough.