Murderer in the Street — Crime and Punishment

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. Rodya says he weighed every word: if they had facts they would hide their game, but they have none, only a floating idea thrown with impudence. Razumihin rages on his behalf, listing every humiliation that could make a poor student faint, paint fumes, the I.O.U., talk of murder where he had just been. Rodya almost agrees, then turns cold at the thought of tomorrow's cross-examination.

Razumihin tries to refute the painters trap. Rodya explains why a clever man admits harmless external facts and bends them: Porfiry counted on hurry so he would forget the workmen could not have been there two days before. Nothing easier: the more cunning the man, the simpler the trap. Rodya shocks himself by how eagerly he explains, as if he relishes certain aspects. At Bakaleyev's door he snaps Go in alone and strides off. Razumihin, stung, swears he will squeeze Porfiry like a lemon and goes upstairs to calm the women.

Rodya races home, checks the wall hiding place, finds nothing missing, yet imagines a scrap of paper slipping into a crack as fatal evidence. Outside the gate a stooping stranger has asked the porter which student lives here; the porter pointed Rodya out. Rodya overtakes him. After a minute of silence the man says Murderer in a quiet, clear voice, then _You_ are a murderer with a smile of triumphant hatred. Rodya walks another hundred paces barely able to speak. Back in his garret he collapses, pretends sleep when Razumihin and Nastasya look in, then lies awake.

Fever replaces thought. He mocks Napoleon beside an old pawnbroker, then calls himself an aesthetic louse, certainly a louse, viler than the one he killed because he knew beforehand what he would think afterward. He hates his mother and sister now, yet whispers Sonia, gentle Sonia. He wanders into the street without remembering how, follows the same stranger through moonlit dust, up familiar stairs to Alyona's flat. In a nightmare he strikes the laughing old woman again and again while whispering grows from the bedroom; the landing fills with silent faces. He wakes. The door is open. A stout fair-bearded man watches him from a chair: Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov, allow me to introduce myself.