THE HORRIBLE CRIME HAS been committed. Then the miserable creature is seen to struggle with the memories of the deed, as he did before when conceiving it. A new leading thought dominates the second part. The murderer’s attitude towards the world is now completely changed by the mere fact of having taken a life. Henceforth, seen through the crime, the world is given a new aspect and a new meaning, which deprives the culprit of the power of feeling and reasoning like other men, and excludes the possibility of his taking up a recognized position amongst them. The soul is entirely changed, and is completely out of harmony with life.

Dostoyevski takes good care to show us that this is not remorse as it is usually understood. His character will feel only remorse, with all its beneficent and restorative virtues, on the day of expiation. No – his is a complex and perverted sentiment, best described as a mixture of contempt for not having obtained greater advantages from such carefully made preparations, and indignation at the unexpected consequences to his conscience engendered by the act itself, as also for the feelings of shame at the discovery of his own weakness – for Raskolnikoff’s leading characteristic is pride. The only interest he has left is to dodge the police. He seeks their acquaintance and their friendship. Possessed of the same spirit which drives a man to the brink of a precipice to experience the joys of dizziness, the murderer amuses himself by constantly entertaining his friendly police officials, and carries on the play to the extreme point where a single word would ruin him. At every moment we think he is going to pronounce that word – but he disengages and gleefully continues the awful game. The magistrate, Porfir, has guessed the student’s secret; he plays with him like a tiger on the prowl, certain that his prey will be irresistibly attracted to him, and eventually Raskolnikoff knows himself found out. Several chapters are devoted to a fanciful and lengthy dialogue between these two adversaries; a double dialogue – one of the smiling lip which intentionally ignores, the other of the steady eye which sees and tells everything.

Finally, when the author has tormented us sufficiently by witnessing this acute situation, he brings forward the salutary influence which is to break the criminal’s pride and which is to reconcile him to himself through expiation. Raskolnikoff is in love with one of the unfortunate street girls. Do not for a moment suppose from the above brief sketch that Dostoyevsky has botched his work with the stupid theme which drags through our novels of the last fifty years – of a convict and such a woman acting together because they love each other. Notwithstanding the similitude of the circumstances, we are here, as will readily be seen when reading the further developments of the story, thousands of miles away from such a commonplace conception. With characteristic perspicacity he divines that in the psychologic state of mind caused by a criminal deed, the normal sentiment of love, as well as any other sentiment, undergoes a change becomes tinged with the dark colours of despair.

Sonya, a humble creature, a victim of necessity, is almost unconscious of her disgrace, to which she has succumbed as she would to any other inevitable malady. Shall I reveal the author’s innermost thought at the risk of making it impossible to believe in the existence of such mystic exaggeration? Well then, it is to Sonya an “appointed cross,” which she carries with religious resignation! She loves the one man who has not treated her with contempt, and seeing him scared by a secret of his own, she tries hard to share it with him. After many and long struggles the confession escapes him. I am wrong – he does not utter a single word that might betray him. In a dumb scene, the acme of tragic action, Sonya sees the monstrous act passing before her in the depths of her lover’s eyes. The wretched girl, for a moment overcome, quickly recovers herself. She knows the remedy. From her heart she cries: “We must suffer, and together… pray… expiate…. Let us to the convict prison!”