Behind the Door — Crime and Punishment

Zossimov examines Raskolnikov in the sickroom while Razumihin fusses over fresh linen and a house-warming party that night. The doctor is slow, fashionable, and tedious; Raskolnikov snaps that he is perfectly well and turns to the wall. Razumihin names the guests: his uncle, the investigator Porfiry Petrovitch, students, and Zametov from the police office. Zossimov wonders what a convalescent murder suspect could want with a clerk who takes bribes, but Razumihin defends Zametov as a nice boy worth drawing in, not repelling.

Nastasya blurts that Lizaveta was murdered too. Raskolnikov whispers her name and counts petals on a dirty wall flower while his limbs feel cut off. Razumihin launches into the painter Nikolay, accused after Dushkin the dram-shop keeper brought in gold ear-rings Nikolay pawned for a rouble. The peasant's tale, Nikolay's near-hanging, and his confession that he found the box in the flat while painting sound absurd to Zossimov, but Razumihin is on fire. Officials worship their own lying, he says, yet lying is a delightful thing because it leads to truth. What offends him is petrified routine when psychology could find the real man.

Razumihin reconstructs the crime: Koch and Pestryakov at the locked door, the real murderer upstairs, ear-rings dropped behind the door when Nikolay and Dmitri ran out. Raskolnikov cries, Behind the door? Lying behind the door? and sits up in blank terror before sinking back. Zossimov thinks it a dream; Razumihin presses on about warm bodies and childish scuffling incompatible with axe murder. The chapter ends as a stranger enters, unknown to everyone present.