Raskolnikov enters Porfiry Petrovitch's flat still laughing from the staircase, Razumihin red and crashing a tea-glass while Porfiry quotes gaily about a loss to the Crown. The performance buys a moment: Rodya claims business about pawned pledges, a ring and his father's silver watch, feigning poverty and family feeling. Porfiry's eyes never leave him. I have been expecting you here for some time lands like ice. He knows the date on the pledge paper and that Rodya is the only holder who had not come forward. Zametov watches from the corner. Razumihin blurts delirium, the twenty-five roubles to the widow, and last night's wanderings. Rodya snaps, then plays insolent wit while his mind screams cat and mouse.
When Porfiry steps out for tea, Rodya's inner monologue lists every wink, every tone, and every glance as proof they hunt him in concert. Back in the room Razumihin battles socialist pamphlets on environment and crime while Porfiry toys with both sides, even defending environment for a crime against a child to bait him. Then the turn: Porfiry read Rodya's article in the Periodical Review, the piece on crime psychology and ordinary versus extraordinary men. He states the idea flatly: extraordinary men have a right to commit any crime and to transgress the law. Rodya, almost pleased, elaborates Newton, Napoleon, Lycurgus, blood waded through for a new word, masses who hang then worship. Razumihin is horrified at bloodshed in the name of conscience. Porfiry agrees it is more terrible than legal execution.
The duel sharpens. Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence, Rodya says dreamily. Porfiry asks if he fancied himself an extraordinary man, then whether need could drive him to rob and murder, winking. If I did I certainly should not tell you. Perhaps it was one of these future Napoleons who did for Alyona Ivanovna last week, Zametov blurts; gloomy silence. Rodya denies he is Napoleon and turns to go. On the way out Porfiry feigns confusion about painters at the flat between seven and eight. Rodya answers slowly: no painters, but porters with a sofa on the fourth storey opposite Alyona's. Razumihin suddenly sees the trap on the murder day. Porfiry apologizes and sees them out with excessive politeness.
They leave gloomy and sullen. No arrest yet: encirclement through article, theory, and the stairwell timeline, with conscience as the bet. Rodya thinks he beat the painter question; Razumihin knows the visit was disaster. The mother's arrival last night gave Porfiry a clock on Rodya's life. Every witty line was also a file note. The chapter is the first open duel between his published pride and the law's quiet net closing, and neither side has shown its final card.
Coming Up in Chapter 20
Walking back toward his family, Raskolnikov will parse every word with Razumihin, then face a stranger in the street who whispers murderer, and a visitor waiting in his room Walking back from Porfiry's, Razumihin refuses to believe the police really suspect Rodya. For the first time they speak openly about it on the way to Bakaleyev's, where his mother and sister wait..
