Plot Summary
Raskolnikov hurries through the streets of Petersburg to find Svidrigailov, driven by a compulsive need he cannot fully explain. On the way, he agonizes over whether Svidrigailov has visited Porfiry and whether Svidrigailov might use knowledge of Raskolnikov's crime to blackmail him or harm his sister Dounia. Raskolnikov resolves that if Svidrigailov threatens Dounia, he will kill him. Wandering into X. Prospect near the Hay Market, Raskolnikov spots Svidrigailov sitting in a tavern window. Each man catches the other watching, and Svidrigailov invites Raskolnikov inside with a laugh.
In a squalid back room furnished with champagne and a street singer named Katia, the two men begin a tense conversation. Svidrigailov reveals that he previously told Raskolnikov the tavern's address, suggesting that Raskolnikov came there unconsciously rather than by coincidence. He describes watching Raskolnikov walk the streets talking to himself, a dangerous habit that could attract police attention. Raskolnikov delivers a direct threat: he will kill Svidrigailov if the man pursues Dounia, then demands to know what Svidrigailov wants from him.
Character Development
This chapter deepens the psychological parallel between Raskolnikov and Svidrigailov. Raskolnikov is exhausted and desperate, conscious of "immense moral fatigue," yet his mind works with unusual clarity. He acknowledges that Svidrigailov holds a hidden power over him and wonders what they could possibly have in common, since "their very evil-doing could not be of the same kind." Svidrigailov, meanwhile, presents himself as a bored hedonist, candidly admitting he came to Petersburg for women and describing vice as "something permanent, founded indeed upon nature." Yet his charm conceals something sinister: his face is "like a mask," handsome but deeply unsettling. When Raskolnikov raises the topic of suicide, Svidrigailov recoils with genuine fear, revealing a crack in his otherwise unflappable exterior that foreshadows his eventual self-destruction.
Themes and Motifs
The chapter explores fate versus free will through the seemingly miraculous coincidence of Raskolnikov finding Svidrigailov. Svidrigailov debunks the miracle by revealing he told Raskolnikov the address earlier, suggesting that unconscious memory, not destiny, guided Raskolnikov's steps. The theme of moral exhaustion and nihilism pervades the conversation: Raskolnikov questions whether anything is worth the effort of concealment, while Svidrigailov embraces a life of sensual indulgence as his only defense against shooting himself. The concept of the double is central, as Dostoevsky positions Svidrigailov as a dark mirror of Raskolnikov -- both men are intelligent transgressors, but where Raskolnikov tortures himself with guilt, Svidrigailov has made peace with his depravity. Petersburg itself functions as a thematic presence, described by Svidrigailov as a city of "gloomy, strong and queer influences on the soul of man."
Literary Devices
Dostoevsky employs dramatic irony when Svidrigailov warns Raskolnikov about talking to himself in the streets, since Svidrigailov himself holds the secret that would doom Raskolnikov. The tavern setting functions as a symbolic landscape -- dirty, wretched, filled with desperate music and drinking -- mirroring the moral degradation of both characters. Foreshadowing appears in Svidrigailov's visceral reaction to the topic of suicide: his admission that he fears death and is "to a certain extent a mystic" anticipates his later suicide. The description of Svidrigailov's face as "like a mask" uses imagery to suggest the gap between his charming surface and corrupt interior. The chapter also relies on psychological realism, as Dostoevsky meticulously traces the contradictions in Raskolnikov's thought process -- his simultaneous attraction to and repulsion from Svidrigailov.