Breaking with Luzhin — Crime and Punishment

Nearly eight o'clock, Raskolnikov and Razumihin hurry to Bakaleyev's lodgings before Luzhin. On the stairs Razumihin asks who passed them; Rodya names Svidrigailov and begs him to guard Dunya. He almost wonders if the visitor was an hallucination. Razumihin boasts of shaking his fist at Porfiry and deciding they should laugh at the police instead of tremble.

Luzhin arrives punctually, scented and offended, facing Dunya across the samovar while Rodya and Razumihin sit with Pulcheria Alexandrovna. He warns that Svidrigailov has come to Petersburg and tells a grim tale: a deaf girl's suicide, gossip of assault, a servant driven to death, charges hushed by Marfa Petrovna's money. Dunya refuses to hear more of him and cuts his lectures short. Rodya breaks silence: He has just been to see me; Marfa Petrovna left Dunya three thousand roubles. Luzhin bristles when Dunya insists Rodya stay for the reconciliation he demanded in his letter.

The engagement cracks open. Dunya says it must be either you or he and she will not be mistaken in her choice. She will judge whether Rodya is a brother to her and whether Luzhin is the husband she thought. Luzhin preaches that love for a husband must outweigh love for a brother, then attacks Pulcheria's letter about marrying a poor girl with trouble. Rodya accuses him of mean slander, writing that money went to the murdered man's daughter though Rodya gave it to the widow, and coarse lies about a girl Luzhin does not know. He demands one word of falsehood be pointed out; Luzhin cannot. He says Luzhin is not worth the little finger of that unfortunate girl and that he has already seated her with mother and sister.

Dounia, white with anger, orders him out at once forever. Luzhin protests expenses and reputation, sneering that he took her after gossip about her name and that he disregarded public opinion for her sake. Razumihin leaps up ready to smash his head; Rodya holds him back and tells Luzhin quietly: Kindly leave the room, and not a word more. Luzhin goes downstairs still imagining he might recover the ladies, but blames Rodya alone for everything. The chapter ends the Luzhin match and clears the room for Svidrigailov's secrets and the family's next ordeal. Dunya's choice is no longer theoretical; the man who wrote slander in the mail has shown who he is between the samovar and the door.