Part 6, Chap 1-4

[Thomas]

Raskolnikov is shaken by Svidrigailov's admission that he heard his confession and knows he, Raskolnikov, is guilty of the murders. Dostoevsky says that Raskolnikov is stricken with anxiety, panic fear, and "an apathy resembling the morbidly indifferent state of some dying people." Razumikhin is concerned for him, thinking he may be mad, or possibly a political conspirator about to "take some decisive step." Almost as an aside, Razumikhin tells him about Mikolka's confession, to which Raskolnikov says, essentially, "what business is it of yours?"

Raskolnikov does not believe that Porfiry believes Mikolka's confession, and while he is stewing in confusion and hatred of both Svidrigailov and Porfiry, the detective appears at his door. Porfiry wants to explain himself, and what happened with Mikolka during their last conversation. He wants real evidence, he says, not just psychology, and for a moment Raskolnikov has a strange worry: " Raskolnikov felt the influx of some new fear. The thought that Porfiry regarded him as innocent suddenly began to frighten him."

What is the source of this fear? Why would Raskolnikov worry about being found innocent?

Porfiry explains that Mikolka confessed because he wanted to "embrace suffering." He draws a distinction between this desire and the motives of the real murderer, who "considers himself an honest man, despises people, walks around like a pale angel" but who is also suffering, albeit in a different way. He then says that he knows that man is Raskolnikov.

He offers Raskolnikov a reduction (of sentence, I presume?) if he will confess, but he refuses. Porfiry tells him,

"Maybe it's just here that God has been waiting for you... I regard you as one of those men who could have their guts cut out, and would stand and look at his torturers with a smile -- provided he's found faith, or God.Well, go and find it, and you will live. First of all, you've needed a change of air for a long time."

Svidrigailov used the same words to Raskolnikov: "every man needs air, air, air! More than anything!" What does this mean in this context?

After Porfiry leaves, Raskolnikov rushes off to find Svidrigailov. What does Raskolnikov want from him? What does he gain, or lose, when he finds him?

[Tamara]

Svidrigailov comes across as a very unsavory character in this section. It sounds to me like he is some sort of pedophile.

[Tamara]

Thomas wrote: "Svidrigailov used the same words to Raskolnikov: "every man needs air, air, air! More than anything!" What does this mean in this context? .."

The atmosphere throughout has been claustrophobic. In addition to the physical spaces, frequently described as cramped, dirty hovels, the psychological spaces are equally claustrophobic. People are suffocating in their misery. There is no space--either physical or mental--to move.

R feels hemmed in by guilt and by people invading his physical and psychological spaces. He can scarcely breathe and is subject to dizzy spells. His physical and psychological spaces seem to be shrinking. He's trapped. Porfiry suggests he can get the fresh air he needs by unburdening himself of guilt through confessing to the crime. Only then can he experience freedom.

[Tamara]

Cphe wrote: "Question, can anyone pinpoint exactly when Porfiry came to the conclusion re R’s guilt?"

I don't think we're told exactly when he arrived at the conclusion that R was the murderer.

Porfiry gives us some indication of his thought process when he explains it to Raskolnikov. He explains why he no longer considers Nikolay to be the murderer. But then he proceeds to analyze the psychology of the murderer.

Well, that we grant, was through illness, but consider this: he is a murderer, but looks upon himself as an honest man, despises others, poses as injured innocence. No, that’s not the work of a Nikolay, my dear Rodion Romanovitch!”

A few sentences later, he announces he's already arrived at the conclusion and accuses R of being the murderer.

“Who is the murderer?” he repeated, as though unable to believe his ears. “Why, you, Rodion Romanovitch! You are the murderer,” he added, almost in a whisper, in a voice of genuine conviction.

We have some explanation of how he concluded it but I don't think we are told exactly when he concluded it.

[Thomas]

Tamara wrote: "He's trapped. Porfiry suggests he can get the fresh air he needs by unburdening himself of guilt through confessing to the crime. Only then can he experience freedom. "

It's very interesting that Porfiry echoes Svidrigailov here. Porfiry thinks a confession of guilt is R's road to freedom. But Svidrigailov offers the same freedom by a different route, by rejecting morality altogether. (It's very creepy how carefree Svidrigailov is, but he embodies this sense of "beyond good and evil." He has no values. That's one way of being free, I guess.)

[Thomas]

Cphe wrote: "Question, can anyone pinpoint exactly when Porfiry came to the conclusion re R’s guilt?"

Great question. He says that R ringing the bell and asking about the absence of blood when R returned to the scene of the crime was the trace of evidence he was looking for. It seems to be an accumulation of circumstantial evidence, but I'm not sure where the tipping point is exactly.

[Tamara]

Thomas wrote: "Porfiry thinks a confession of guilt is R's road to freedom. But Svidrigailov offers the same freedom by a different route, by rejecting morality altogether. .."

That's an interesting observation.

Perhaps we can triangulate it by saying Porfiry is on one end (freedom through confession); Svidrigailov is on the other end (freedom through amorality); and R gravitates between the two. He hovers between the freedom of getting caught/confessing and the freedom that comes with being "extraordinary" and rising above "common place" morality. He's a sort of wanna be Svidrigailov and yet he can't quite make it because he is disgusted by the latter's lack of morals.

[Xan]

Svid's confession (?) to R is chilling. But is he partly doing this to get a rise out of R? One murderer confiding to another? Or is there another reason? I no longer believe Svid is R looking at a future self in a mirror.

Svid lives to defile innocence. That's why he is preoccupied with women, especially young girls. His confession is ugly yet described with the dispassionate distance of a scientist describing the mating rituals of crickets. He feels nothing for his victims. There is only his pleasure. He lacks the most important of all human traits, empathy.

[Xan]

I think R's behavior and obsession with the murder is what convinces Porfiry.

This may be another of Porfiry's ploys. Although personally convinced of R's guilt, he has precious little to arrest him on, little more than circumstance and innuendo. But he does believe guilt will force R. to confess, so he pushes him. He lies about arresting him, but is truthful about everything else. Porfiry says he's had enough of psychology, but he using it on R. He's just changed strategy. Now he's R's confider.

[Nemo]

Tamara wrote: "Svidrigailov comes across as a very unsavory character in this section. It sounds to me like he is some sort of pedophile."

A pedophile confiding in a pedocide. They do have something in common.

[Thomas]

Cphe wrote: "S offers a physical freedom - Porfiry a spiritual freedom ."

It's interesting that Raskolnikov is not a sensualist. He doesn't want that kind of freedom, the freedom of a nihilist like Svidrigailov... Raskolnikov protects children throughout the novel, while Svidrigailov preys on them. The part of Raskolnikov that is like Svidrigailov, the "extraordinary man" without conscience, is the part that he calls a louse.

Maybe through Svidrigailov he sees the horror that results from being an "extraordinary man," a man free of conscience, and this serves as a turning point for him.

[Xan]

For Svid depravity is an end in itself, a reason for living, a primal desire embedded deep within our nature.

At least there's something constant about depravity, something founded on nature and not subject to fantasy, something that's always afire in the blood, like burning coal, something which may take a very long time, even with the passing of years, to put out.

R calls this a sickness, and Svid agrees but adds that everything taken too far is a sickness.

I think what D is saying through Svid is that taking something to an extreme changes the very nature of that something -- e.g. the dispassionate distance of the rationalist whose dispassion and objectivity becomes so consuming that his dispassion becomes an oppressor, or the passionate advocate for the suffering whose passion becomes so consuming that his passion leads to murder.

And I keep wondering why Marfa went to such lengths to marry Svid? What's with Marfa?

[Xan]

Svid says he almost never lies, which is to say he sometimes does. Can we tell when he is lying? Is he lying about Dunya's interest in him or does his depravity mistakenly lead him to believe in her interest in him? I think it's the latter, and if his depravity misleads him as to the truth of things, then of what value is it to us that he honestly says he almost never lies? Isn't he so depraved that his truth cannot be a normal person's truth?

[Nemo]

Xan Shadowflutter wrote: "Is he lying about Dunya's interest in him or does his depravity mistakenly lead him to believe in her interest in him?."

What Svidrigailov says about Dunia, i.e, her desire to "save him", is very likely true, and supported partly by the letter she wrote him and by the fact that she refused to believe the rumours about him; In his later novel, Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky depicts a woman with a similar saviour complex, Katerina Ivanovna. This type of relationship can be mistaken for love, as it is in the novels, though Dostoevsky does draw a distinction between them.

Arthur Conan Doyle explores the ramifications of such saviour complex in "The Problem of the Thor Bridge".

[Sue]

Yes, I also wondered why on earth would Marfa be interested in Svid. Svid states his great tool in seduction is flattery. How was it that they even came into contact for him to work his "magic". (lol)

I too wondered why R feared (for a time) that Porfiry actually believed him to be innocent. Does he want to be found out and "suffer". It is interesting that Dostoyevsky has Porfiry describe a story to R about a convict who threw a book at a guard (purposefully missing) so to initiate greater suffering...so to "embrace the suffering" as it were and associated Pevear and Volokhonsky's footnote #6 states that such convict is described in D's "'Notes from the Dead House' (1860) , a semi fictional account of his own prison experiences". So is it that Dostoyevsky himself experienced this need to "embrace the suffering" and that such informs/is part of the basis for R's emotional perspective in this book. Perhaps more likely he saw another convict who "embraced suffering" in such a manner and he could in some degree understand it.