Plot Summary
Part II, Chapter II opens with Raskolnikov rushing back to his room to retrieve the stolen items he had hidden after murdering the pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna. He fills his pockets with eight articles—jewelry boxes, leather cases, a chain, and a purse—and sets out to dispose of them before anyone can issue orders for his pursuit. He initially plans to throw everything into the Ekaterininsky Canal, but finds the banks too crowded with washerwomen, rafts, and onlookers. He considers the Neva and then the Islands, but ultimately discovers a deserted courtyard where he hides the stolen goods beneath a large stone, pressing earth around the edges to conceal any disturbance.
Feeling momentary relief, Raskolnikov wanders through St. Petersburg and eventually arrives, almost involuntarily, at the lodgings of his university friend Razumihin. Razumihin is shocked by Raskolnikov’s haggard appearance and offers him translation work—a German pamphlet titled Is Woman a Human Being?—along with three roubles in advance. Raskolnikov accepts the work and money, then immediately returns them without a word and leaves, bewildering his friend.
On the Nikolaevsky Bridge, a coachman lashes Raskolnikov with a whip for walking in the middle of traffic. An elderly woman, mistaking him for a beggar, presses twenty copecks into his hand. Standing at the railing overlooking the Neva, Raskolnikov recalls how this view once stirred mysterious emotion in him during his student days, but now feels nothing. He flings the coin into the water—a symbolic gesture of severing himself from all human connection—and returns home.
That evening, Raskolnikov is awakened by what he believes is a terrifying scene: Ilya Petrovitch, the police assistant superintendent, beating his landlady on the stairs. When Nastasya arrives with soup, she tells him no such thing occurred. She attributes his hallucination to “the blood crying in your ears,” and Raskolnikov collapses into feverish unconsciousness.
Character Development
This chapter marks a critical turning point in Raskolnikov’s psychological deterioration. His inability to examine the stolen goods reveals that the murder was never truly motivated by financial need or utilitarian philosophy. His erratic behavior with Razumihin—seeking help then violently rejecting it—demonstrates the war between his desire for human connection and his compulsion to isolate himself. The hallucination of Ilya Petrovitch beating the landlady exposes how deeply guilt and paranoia have penetrated his psyche, blurring the line between reality and delusion.
Razumihin emerges as a foil to Raskolnikov: generous, practical, and socially engaged despite his own poverty. His willingness to share his meager translation income highlights the human warmth that Raskolnikov is systematically destroying in himself.
Themes and Motifs
Alienation and isolation dominate the chapter. Raskolnikov’s journey through St. Petersburg is one of increasing separation from humanity—he loathes everyone he encounters, nearly spits at passersby, and ultimately flings away the charitable coin as a final act of self-imposed exile. The psychological punishment for his crime has already begun: his guilt manifests not as remorse but as paranoia, physical illness, and hallucinatory terror. The motif of burial recurs symbolically—just as Raskolnikov buries the stolen goods under a stone, he attempts to bury his conscience beneath layers of rationalization and denial.
Literary Devices
Dostoevsky employs dramatic irony when Raskolnikov realizes he never examined the purse’s contents, undermining his own theory that the murder served a rational purpose. The hallucination scene functions as psychological realism, externalizing Raskolnikov’s guilt as a visceral sensory experience. Symbolism pervades the chapter: the stone concealing the stolen goods represents the weight of suppressed conscience, the coin thrown into the Neva signifies Raskolnikov’s rejection of human compassion, and the bridge itself—a place of transition—underscores his passage from one psychological state to another. Nastasya’s haunting phrase, “It’s the blood,” operates as both folk wisdom and literary foreshadowing, connecting Raskolnikov’s physical symptoms to his moral crime.