Svidrigailov's Visit — Crime and Punishment

Raskolnikov wakes from nightmare to find Svidrigailov still in the room. Can this be still a dream? He refuses belief, but the visitor is calm: he wants acquaintance and help reaching Dunya, whom he says is prejudiced against him. Rodya cuts him off. Svidrigailov will not justify persecuting a defenceless girl, yet spins passion and reason, Switzerland elopement, even sympathy for himself. Rodya answers that right or wrong, they dislike him: We show you the door. Go out. Svidrigailov laughs and stays.

He admits Marfa Petrovna's death was ruled apoplexy after dinner and wine, yet muses on two switch strokes, the German woman on the train, and women's taste for insult. Rodya almost leaves, then stays from curiosity. Svidrigailov is bored, adaptable, vulgar when useful, a former card-sharp bought out of debt by a wife who held his IOU. He talks of Petersburg clubs, balloon rides, and anatomy as if life were a menu of distractions. He asks if Rodya believes in ghosts. Marfa Petrovna is pleased to visit me, he says: after the funeral she reminded him to wind the clock; on the train she offered cards; today in green silk she mocked his bride-hunting. He tells of servant Filka's ghost and argues sick men see other worlds. Eternity, he muses, might be one little room, like a bath house in the country, black and grimy and spiders in every corner.

Rodya rejects a future life and any comfort in it; Svidrigailov's spider eternity chills him. Half an hour ago they were enemies, now abstract talk: birds of a feather. Rodya demands the real purpose. Svidrigailov names Luzhin's match and offers ten thousand roubles to help Dunya break it, claiming no self-interest. You are certainly mad, Rodya cries. Svidrigailov presses: tell her, or he will see her himself, and says he would like one more look at her face. He adds Marfa Petrovna left Dunya three thousand roubles in her will. As he leaves, he runs into Razumihin in the doorway.

The chapter is one long duet of two damaged men who recognize each other without trust. Svidrigailov offers money, ghosts, and cynicism; Rodya offers disgust and fear. Dunya and Luzhin become the practical stake, but the horror is how easily murder's aftermath can sound like this polished monologue. Rodya never names the axe, yet the visitor keeps finding the frightened man he saw pretending asleep on the sofa.