Crime and Punishment is one of my all-time favourite novels. The most surprising thing about it for me is how eminently readable it is. I don’t know if you’re the same, but it often feels that classic works of literature will be intimidating. Crime and Punishment is not. Nor for that matter is The Brothers Karamazov, which I’m currently reading with . The same goes for War and Peace, which I read last year with , and Anna Karenina, which I’m reading this year with . On its surface, Crime and Punishment reads like a crime novel. But underneath there lurk hidden depths that reward multiple reads. There is as much to take from it today as there was in the 19th century.

Speaking of Dana, when it comes to leading a group through Dostoyevsky’s novels, she’s the writer to go to. Her analyses of Crime and Punishment were so helpful that I felt like a bit of an impostor with my own posts. Okay, I know it’s not a competition and that my thoughts are as valid as anyone else’s, so I should cut myself some slack. But the way Dana shared her knowledge—and accompanying artwork—really brought the novel to life. You still have time to catch up with her group reading of Karamazov if you fancy giving another Dostoyevsky classic a go—and you really should!

Crime and Punishment is a novel that places mental health front and centre, and that’s perhaps what makes it a favourite of mine. I can’t say what diagnosis Raskolnikov might be given were he to be assessed by modern science, but what I do enjoy about this novel is that Dostoyevsky explores this character’s arc and redemption through philosophy and religion. I find that incredibly helpful and is a big reason why I’m in favour of the epilogue to this novel. I’ve read that many critics consider the epilogue to be tacked on and say that it should be ignored. I don’t agree with that. For me, it’s about redemption through love. There are instances throughout the novel where Raskolnikov tries hard to avoid humanity, but we’re told by the narrator that he actually seeks human connection. I feel the same way myself, so the epilogue gives me hope that, if I keep working towards my goal of universal love, it will eventually pay off. Raskolnikov’s plan to rid the world of an evil moneylender for the good of humanity was misplaced. Universal love includes evil moneylenders as well as everybody else. His ‘punishment’ illustrates that through the whole novel and it begins long before he even commits the crime. But his confession and later his love of Sonya save his soul from its torment. He gives up fighting and just lets go, as if to be reborn.

This could well have formed the basis for a new story, but our present story has now come to an end.

Thanks for joining me on the this read-along.

Translations

It has been very interesting indeed to compare eight different translations of Crime and Punishment. Choosing a translation is always a tricky thing and, in some ways, it can come down to personal preference. There is no such thing as a perfect translation or a literal translation; something will always be lost in the process. I wrote about an ideal example to illustrate this near the beginning of this process when I discussed the various translations of Tsar Gorokh in this post.

I kept the translation comparison spreadsheet going throughout with an example from almost every chapter, so if you’re wondering which translation you might prefer, it’s a helpful resource.

Translation Comparison Spreadsheet

But if you just want to buy the one I recommend, get the Roger Cockrell translation.

Please bookmark the homepage for the read-along. Here, you’ll find links to everything you need as we read the novel together.

• Crime and Punishment homepage

• Chapter summaries and analysis

• Weekly chat thread for each chapter

• Cast of characters page

If you enjoy this content and would like to help me to keep it going, please consider a paid subscription.
Thank you. 🙏🏻

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Sorry for the break between posts. My psychology is such that if I plan dates for these posts, I end up procrastinating. I don’t know why that it is, especially given my love for this book and how much I enjoy making bookish content Psychology is hard. I don’t think I’ll find the answers I need in Crime and Punishment either, lol.

I’m going to go through three chapters today and then another post with the last three chapters, followed by one last one on the epilogue. Chapter 5 in particular was exhilarating!

This week’s characters

(I don’t include Raskolnikov in this listing as he’s in most of the chapters)

Svidrigailov • Dunya

Synopsis

Rodion leaves his room after his grilling from Porfiry. We get the sense that the gig is up. He heads off to find Svidrigailov, knowing, as he does, that Svidrigailov knows his secret after having eavesdropped on Rodion’s confession to Sonya. He finds Svidrigailov in a tavern which, apparently he’d mentioned to him while Rodion was ill. They have a fascinating conversation and it’s some of the most readable—and darkest—dialogue in the whole novel.

Rodion is concerned that Svidrigailov is going to use his secret as leverage against Dunya, and he’s right to be concerned because that’s precisely what happens. Rodion mentions Dunya’s having received a letter, but he doesn’t know from whom or what it contains. In his mind, Rodion threatens to kill Svidrigailov if he tries anything on with Dunya.

… he could only settle such questions by reaching one simple conclusion. “If that’s the case, I’ll kill him,” he thought in bleak despair.

Once a killer…

He later makes this threat directly to Svidrigailov:

Perhaps you ought to know why I've come: it is to tell you directly that, if you are still harbouring any designs on my sister and hoping to turn any information you've just acquired about me to your advantage in this connection, then I will kill you before you can put me in prison. I mean what I say, and you know I will keep my word.

And we know he’ll keep his word, too. Svidrigailov might just have met his match with Rodion. Are they similar in their neuroses? Or are the opposites?

The discussion carries on into the next chapter, where Svidrigailov goes into the whole story of his relationship with Dunya and with his late wife, Marfa Petrovna. He believes that Dunya is the type of character who will sacrifice herself to save others, and that that is what she’s doing when she enters into a relationship with Svidrigailov—she wants to fix him.

All that she craves and demands is to be tortured on behalf of someone else as quickly as possible—failing which she would very probably throw herself out of the window.

Svidrigailov’s story gets darker and darker. We don’t get details, but the allusions lead us to believe that there could be a whole underworld of crimes against minors, involving Svidrigailov, his late wife and his landlady, Madam Resslich. Svidrigailov tells Rodion that he’s to be married to a young girl who has yet to reach the age of 16. Dana writes this up well in her Substack so head over and read her insightful commentary on this.

Dostoevsky book club «Theta-Delta»

6.3-6.4 You are a Schiller, you are an idealist!

Hello, Dostoevsky enthusiast…

Read more

a year ago · 16 likes · 11 comments · Dana • Dostoevsky Bookclub

Chapter Five

This chapter is an absolute belter. Such drama!

Svidrigailov and Rodion part ways. Svidrigailov makes it look as if he’s heading to the islands in a cab, but as soon as Rodion’s back is turned, Svidrigailov hops back out the cab and starts following Rodion. Dunya walks past Rodion but he doesn’t see her.

Svidrigailov persuades Dunya to go with him to his room and, once there, he locks her in. It was indeed he who send Dunya the letter mentioned earlier. He shows her where he sat listening to Rodion’s confession to Sonya and offers to save them all if she’ll only agree to love him. This she cannot agree to. She pulls out a revolver, which apparently she’d stolen from Svidrigailov’s late wife. Why would Marfa Petrovna have had a revolver? We can only speculate, but given their ‘open relationship’ agreement, it seems unlikely that she would have had the weapon to protect her from her husband.

We get the sense that Svidrigailov’s love for Dunya is real, if indeed he’s capable of real love. But Dunya’s having none of it and she shoots, misses, shoots again and misfires. He gives her a chance to take another shot, but she drops the revolver. He asks if she could ever love him and she replies, ‘Never’. He then lets her go.

Drama!

Why would Svidrigailov let Dunya shoot him? Is it because he’s found true love for the first time and it’s unrequited? We learned in his conversation with Rodion that he fears death:

I am afraid of death, and I don’t like people talking about it.

Yet he faces death with equanimity when Dunya points the gun at him.

And there we leave it. Next time we’ll be going to the end of Part Six, which is the end of the novel before the epilogue. Nearly there, and we’re still no closer to knowing whether there’s redemption in Rodion’s future or not!

All quotations in this post are taken from Roger Cockrell’s translation of 2022, Alma Classics, © Roger Cockrell 2022

Translation Points

The word ‘hoodwinked’ stood out to me in Cockrell’s translation. Little did I know it was the Herculean pillars in the second clause that would throw up the most interesting variations!

Russian - Не будь этого, ведь этак застрелиться, пожалуй, пришлось бы.

Garnett - If I hadn’t this, I might have to shoot myself.

Coulson - If it were not for it, one might have to shoot oneself without more ado.

McDuff - If I didn't have that, I'd probably just have to shoot myself.

P&V - Without that, really, one might perhaps have to shoot oneself.

Ready - If it weren't for this, you might end up having to shoot yourself.

Pasternak Slater - If all that didn't exist, he'd probably have to shoot himself.

Katz - If it weren't for this, one might have to shoot oneself.

Cockrell - Without it, you might as well shoot yourself.

Head on over to the comparison spreadsheet to see the phrase in context, along with examples from every chapter so far in EIGHT different translations.

Translation Comparison Spreadsheet

Request a Translation Comparison

Paid subscribers may request translation comparisons for anything that jumps out in whichever translation you’re reading.

Request a Translation Comparison

Once requested, it will be added to the public translation comparison spreadsheet.

Thank you for reading

Thank you for reading with me.

If you enjoy my posts, please consider a paid subscription to support me and this work.

Or if you’d rather just buy me a coffee, I’d be very grateful!

Please bookmark the homepage for the read-along. Here, you’ll find links to everything you need as we read the novel together.

• Crime and Punishment homepage

• Chapter summaries and analysis

• Weekly chat thread for each chapter

• Reading schedule

• Cast of characters page

If you enjoy this content and would like to help me to keep it going, please consider a paid subscription.
Thank you. 🙏🏻

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This week’s characters

(I don’t include Raskolnikov in this listing as he’s in most of the chapters)

Porfiry

Synopsis

Porfiry just arrived at Raskolnikov’s room as Raskolnikov himself was just heading out. A discussion ensues, during which Porfiry tells Raskolnikov that he knows he’s the murderer and tells him that he will confess at some point soon, even if he himself doesn’t even know it the hour before the confession.

True to style, Porfiry dances around his point, going into Mikolka’s fake confession and the reasons behind it. In short, it comes down to suffering and Mikolka’s being an Old Believer.

Have you any idea, Rodion Romanych, how significant the word 'to suffer' is with these people? We're not talking about suffering for someone's sake here, but simply the need 'to suffer' - that is, to accept suffering - and if it's at the hands of the authorities, then so much the better.

It’s a clever dialogue on Porfiry’s part, the way that he toys with Raskolnikov’s emotions. He refers back to their first meeting, back in Chapter 3.5, when Raskolnikov and Razumikhin visited Porfiry and Raskolnikov made sure that he was laughing as they entered in order that he look nonchalant and relaxed. Porfiry explains how impressed he was at the way in which Raskolnikov ran rings round Zamyotov and then states that ‘psychology is a double-edged sword’. He repeats this later in the chapter too:

Besides, as I myself have several times openly acknowledged, I have said that psychology is double-edged, and that the second edge is sharper and more solid than the first—and, in any case, for the time being I have nothing to prove you did it.

It’s this through this double-edge that Porfiry feels confident that Raskolnikov will confess. He’s got the measure of the man and knows that Raskolnikov won’t run, can’t run, because if he does he’d end up being tortured by his conscience. His psychological experiment has failed and Porfiry states that Raskolnikov ‘won’t be able to survive without us’. It’s a fascinating glimpse into madness and redemption. Porfiry seems to be capable of great empathy and it’s that that allows him to do his job so well; he knows he’s legally stuck because of the paucity of evidence against Raskolnikov, but he’s able to read him and invoke a confession, even if it’s not today.

But you don't believe in your theory any more, so what would be the point in running away? Anyway, what would you do in your hideout? Life would be difficult and horrible and what you crave most of all is life and a well-defined position, with a suitable atmosphere. And you wouldn't find it there, would you? No sooner had you run away than you'd be back: you won't be able to survive without us. And if I lock you up, say for a couple of months or so, you'll suddenly recall what I've said and you'll come and confess, possibly even surprising yourself - you'll have no idea you're going to do so even an hour before you do. I'm actually convinced you'll decide to 'accept your suffering'.

And d’you know what? I think he’s right.

In her essay on this chapter, Dana looks at the number of times that air is recommended to Raskolnikov and talks about the intertextual link with Turgenev’s Fathers and Children. As I’m reading Dickens’ Bleak House (1852) right now, I was tickled to see air’s being mentioned in that book:

It is not a large world. Relatively even to this world of ours, which has its limits too (as your Highness shall find when you have made the tour of it and are come to the brink of the void beyond), it is a very little speck. There is much good in it; there are many good and true people in it; it has its appointed place. But the evil of it is that it is a world wrapped up in too much jeweller’s cotton and fine wool, and cannot hear the rushing of the larger worlds, and cannot see them as they circle round the sun. It is a deadened world, and its growth is sometimes unhealthy for want of air.

Perhaps there’s no connection here at all, but it still tickled me that I’m reading two novels published in the Victorian era that refer to the lack of air as a motif for a kind of psychological depression. In the previous chapter, Svidrigailov prescribes air, and in this, it’s Porfiry who makes the prescription.

Firstly, what you need, and have needed for a long time, is a change of air. […] All you need is fresh air—fresh air, that’s all!

Yeah, the fresh air of confession, of a clean soul.

All quotations in this post are taken from Roger Cockrell’s translation of 2022, Alma Classics, © Roger Cockrell 2022

Translation Points

The word ‘hoodwinked’ stood out to me in Cockrell’s translation. Little did I know it was the Herculean pillars in the second clause that would throw up the most interesting variations!

Russian - По крайней мере, долго себя не морочил, разом до последних столбов дошел.

Garnett - At least you didn’t deceive yourself for long, you went straight to the furthest point at one bound.

Coulson - At least, you did not deceive yourself for long, but in one leap reached the farthest extremity.

McDuff - At any rate, you haven't fooled yourself for long, you've reached the pillars of Hercules in one go.

P&V - At least you didn't addle your brain for long, you went all at once to the outermost pillars.

Ready - At least you didn't agonize about it for long - you made straight for the final pillars.

Pasternak Slater - At least you didn't go deceiving yourself for long-you went straight to the very limit.

Katz - At least you didn't deceive yourself for long; you headed straight for the final posts.

Cockrell - At least you didn't hoodwink yourself for long: you reached the pillars of Hercules at one bound.

Head on over to the comparison spreadsheet to see the phrase in context, along with examples from every chapter so far in EIGHT different translations.

Translation Comparison Spreadsheet

Request a Translation Comparison

Paid subscribers may request translation comparisons for anything that jumps out in whichever translation you’re reading.

Request a Translation Comparison

Once requested, it will be added to the public translation comparison spreadsheet.

Thank you for reading

Thank you for reading with me.

If you enjoy my posts, please consider a paid subscription to support me and this work.

Or if you’d rather just buy me a coffee, I’d be very grateful!

Please bookmark the homepage for the read-along. Here, you’ll find links to everything you need as we read the novel together.

• Crime and Punishment homepage

• Chapter summaries and analysis

• Weekly chat thread for each chapter

• Reading schedule

• Cast of characters page

If you enjoy this content and would like to help me to keep it going, please consider a paid subscription.
Thank you. 🙏🏻

Subscribe now

This week’s characters

(I don’t include Raskolnikov in this listing as he’s in most of the chapters)

Svidrigailov • Sonya • Razumikhin • Porfiry

Synopsis

Every so often he had been gripped by an almost pathological and agonizing feeling of anxiety, a feeling that had actually turned into absolute panic.

The revelation at the end of the previous chapter, when Svidrigailov revealed that he ‘knew’, has put Raskolnikov into a bit of a psychological panic. We’re told that he’s vacillating between panic and apathy, a ‘strange period’ to be sure. Imagine knowing that there’s someone else out there that knows about your crime and wondering what he’s going to do about it. It’s written extremely well, with Raskolnikov sitting in taverns or wandering outside of the city and sleeping in bushes. We’re told that he meets Svidrigailov a few times—always near Sonya’s flat—but that they had done little more than pass pleasantries and completely avoid the ‘issue’.

There’s a funeral service for Katerina Ivanovna. Svidrigailov has arranged this to happen twice a day. Raskolnikov attends a service and, at the end, Sonya approaches him and rests her head on his shoulder, with no sign of revulsion or disgust. This makes Raskolnikov feel depressed, and we’re told that he would consider himself happy if from then on he were able to remain in complete solitude. And, even though he is on his own more often than not, he still feels beleaguered by a presence. Is it his guilt? It sounds very much like the ‘hypochondria’ he suffered from earlier in the book, that ‘strange period’ where he’s just waiting for the axe to fall—pun wholly intended!

Razumikhin comes by to see if Raskolnikov is ill. He’s been round to visit him with Dunya and his mother and everyone is worried about Rodion. Razumikhin is of the opinion that Rodion is insane. Just as Razumikhin is leaving, Rodion tells him that he’s had a word with Dunya about him and believes that they would make a good match:

"Wherever I go, whatever happens to me, you will always remain their guardian angel. I am, so to speak, handing them over to you, Razumikhin. I say that because I know for sure that you love her, and I am convinced of the purity of your heart. And I am also certain she will love you - perhaps already does, in fact. So now you can decide for yourself, better than anyone, whether to go off on a binge or not."

It feels very much like someone making farewell plans.

Rodion then talks of how Svidrigailov had said to him at a recent meeting that what a man needs is fresh air; this is what Rodion is now seeking—a clear metaphor for a cleansing, redemption, a clearing of the conscience.

It’s after this that Razumikhin informs Rodion that Porfiry has got Mikolka for the murders—he confessed. We already knew this, but now it seems that it’s all been processed and that Rodion is off the hook. Or is he?

Razumikhin leaves—seeing Rodion for the last time, although we don’t know this yet—and we’re treated to some inner monologue from him as he goes down the stairs, indicating that he did indeed suspect Rodion of the murders before Porfiry told him otherwise. That’s followed up by some inner monologue from Rodion. He’s feeling relieved, obviously, and feels now that he could quite easily have murdered Svidrigailov or Porfiry for what they’ve put him through. Is this the Napoleon complex again, or an indication that, having ‘stepped over’ and become a murderer, his thoughts now go there more readily? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

He decides to go and have a head-to-head with Svidrigailov, sort things out once and for all, but as he’s leaving, who should be waiting at the door, but Porfiry. He comes in for a cigarette.

All quotations in this post are taken from Roger Cockrell’s translation of 2022, Alma Classics, © Roger Cockrell 2022

Translation Points

I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel with today’s translation comparison! 😀

Russian - Последки, подонки выскребывались!

Garnett - The last moment had come, the last drops had to be drained!

Coulson - This was the final encounter, the last trial of strength.

McDuff - The leavings, the dregs were being scraped out!

P&V - The dregs, the leavings, were being scraped out!

Ready - The leftovers and dregs were being scraped!

Pasternak Slater - The last drops, the very dregs were now to be drained!

Katz - The leftovers and dregs were being scraped up!

Cockrell - He was scraping the very last bits from the barrel!

Head on over to the comparison spreadsheet to see the phrase in context, along with examples from every chapter so far in EIGHT different translations.

Translation Comparison Spreadsheet

Request a Translation Comparison

Paid subscribers may request translation comparisons for anything that jumps out in whichever translation you’re reading.

Request a Translation Comparison

Once requested, it will be added to the public translation comparison spreadsheet.

Thank you for reading

Thank you for reading with me.

If you enjoy my posts, please consider a paid subscription to support me and this work.

Or if you’d rather just buy me a coffee, I’d be very grateful!

Welcome to Week 31 of my slow-read of Crime and Punishment. This week’s chapter is Part Five, Chapter 5.

Please bookmark the homepage for the read-along. Here, you’ll find links to everything you need as we read the novel together.

• Crime and Punishment homepage

• Chapter summaries and analysis

• Weekly chat thread for each chapter

• Reading schedule

• Cast of characters page

If you enjoy this content and would like to help me to keep it going, please consider a paid subscription.
Thank you. 🙏🏻

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This week’s characters

(I don’t include Raskolnikov in this listing as he’s in most of the chapters)

Lebezyatnikov • Sonya • Katerina Ivanovna • Svidrigailov

Synopsis

Lebzyatnikov had a worried look. He explains to Rodion about Katerina Ivanovna, how she’s gone to see her late husband’s boss, asking for an audience. She’s teaching her children to sing and dance so they can beg on the streets. Sonya grabs her coat and dashes off.

The chapter moves quickly from here and … spoiler… ends with Katerina Ivanovna’s death. We go through some troubling scenes of her trying to get her children to dance as if in an organ grinder’s performance. Dana has written this up really well on her Substack, so head on over there and read what she’s written about the dances and the history of some of the songs that they’re singing.

Dostoevsky book club «Theta-Delta»

5.5 The poor nag’s been driven to death!… I’m done for!

Hello, Dostoevsky enthusiast…

Read more

a year ago · 14 likes · 11 comments · Dana • Dostoevsky Bookclub

Svidrigailov says he’ll pay for the funeral for Katerina and an orphanage for the kids. He’ll also help out Sonya to ‘take her out of that cesspit’. When Rodion asks him why, he says, “So why not simply accept I’m doing it out of the goodness of my heart? After all, she wasn’t ‘a louse.’” This sends a shudder down Rodion’s spine—and ours too. This was the word that Rodion used in the previous chapter in his confession to Sonya, so it’s clear that Svidrigailov was listening.

There’s a call-back to Rodion’s dream about the horse’s being beaten in Part One, Chapter 5, when Katerina shouts:

“Enough!… It’s time… Farewell, you unhappy wretch!… They’ve driven the poor nag to her death.”

There’s a footnote to accompany this passage in the Cockrell translation:

They've driven the poor nag to her death: A clear echo of Raskolnikov's earlier terrible dream. Taken together, this dream and the graphic description of Katerina's death illustrate Dostoevsky's growing conviction that it was atheism, the propensity to "live without God in one's heart", that led directly to man's violent and callous behaviour, whether on a personal or a public level.

Do you agree that these two incidents indicate atheism?

Nietzsche’s famous quote of 1882 that ‘God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.’ was partly influenced by Dostoyevsky. This idea follows on from the Enlightenment, after which God starts to be replaced by science and philosophy and rationalism. It leaves a vacuum that gives rise to nihilism, as represented by Rodion Raskolnikov. But was there not violent and callous behaviour in the before times? Are these behaviours not sometimes carried out in service of religion? I’m just thinking out loud here. Or does that just show man’s flawed understanding of God?

I recently read an interesting article by about how the tide seems to be turning with regard to the intellectual classes and how some are turning to faith to fill the God-shaped hole.

The Free Press

How Intellectuals Found God

In the beginning, Matthew Crawford believed in nothing…

Read more

a year ago · 1263 likes · 995 comments · Peter Savodnik

Is this the path that Rodion is on, his road to Damascus? And if so, is redemption available to him?

All quotations in this post are taken from Roger Cockrell’s translation of 2022, Alma Classics, © Roger Cockrell 2022

Translation Points

There’s a Russian idiom here that’s dealt with in numerous different ways. Which do you prefer? A literal translation would be something like ‘tambourines sound better beyond the mountains’.

Russian - Славны бубны за горами!

Garnett - A castle in the air

Coulson - The far-away hills are blue!

McDuff - Green grows the grass far yonder!

P&V - An institute, ha, ha, ha! Castles in Spain!

Ready - That would be nice!

Pasternak Slater - That'll be the day!

Katz - The grass is always greener!

Cockrell - A boarding school, ha, ha, ha! Sheer fantasy!

Head on over to the comparison spreadsheet to see the phrase in context, along with examples from every chapter so far in EIGHT different translations.

Translation Comparison Spreadsheet

Request a Translation Comparison

Paid subscribers may request translation comparisons for anything that jumps out in whichever translation you’re reading.

Request a Translation Comparison

Once requested, it will be added to the public translation comparison spreadsheet.

Thank you for reading

Thank you for reading with me.

If you enjoy my posts, please consider a paid subscription to support me and this work.

Or if you’d rather just buy me a coffee, I’d be very grateful!

Welcome to Week 30 of my slow-read of Crime and Punishment. This week’s chapter is Part Five, Chapter 4.

Please bookmark the homepage for the read-along. Here, you’ll find links to everything you need as we read the novel together.

• Crime and Punishment homepage

• Chapter summaries and analysis

• Weekly chat thread for each chapter

• Reading schedule

• Cast of characters page

If you enjoy this content and would like to help me to keep it going, please consider a paid subscription.
Thank you. 🙏🏻

Subscribe now

This week’s characters

(I don’t include Raskolnikov in this listing as he’s in most of the chapters)

Sonya

This is the most gripping chapter after the murder. Set entirely in Sonya’s room, it’s Rodion’s confession. And boy, does it hit hard! Look out for some philosophy!

Synopsis

Rodion was glad of having had the opportunity of defending Sonya in the previous chapter.

He was actually glad of the opportunity to escape from preoccupations that had become intolerable.

He’s convinced that he must confess to Sonya and that it can’t wait. He enters Sonya’s room and reminds her of that phrase uttered by Luzhin, that the whole business was because of her ‘position in society and its associated behaviour.’ She agrees and then begs him not to start going on as he had done during his last visit, when he had her read the bible to him and was on the verge of a confession.

Rodion tells her that the family has been evicted and that Katerina Ivanovna has gone off to ‘look for justice’. He explains that Luzhin would have had her sent to prison were it not for the fortune of having both Rodion AND Lebezyatnikov in the room, neither of which was guaranteed or even expected.

He goes on to ask her a philosophical question about how she might have chosen which of the party were to die for the good of Katerina Ivanonvna and Polechka. Should it be Luzhin or Katerina Ivanovna that should die? To which Sonya gives this response:

"But how am I meant to know what divine Providence has in mind? And why are you asking things that should never be asked? What's the point of such useless questions? How could I ever be in a position to decide matters like that? And who gave me the power to judge who should live and who shouldn't?"

They pass five minutes in silence, then Rodion admits he’s actually seeking forgiveness for himself. There’s a beautiful scene where he puts his head in his hands and looks up only to feel a sense of loathing towards Sonya. She looks back at him and he sees the love she holds for him in her eyes and his loathing vanished. It’s a real standout passage for me of unbelievable beauty:

And suddenly his heart was gripped by a strange, unexpected feeling of bitter loathing for Sonya. As if astonished and alarmed by such a feeling himself, he suddenly raised his head and looked directly at her, only to see her looking back at him with a worried, unbearably anxious expression in her eyes. He could see her love for him in those eyes, and his hatred towards her vanished, like a phantom. That hadn't been real: he had confused one feeling for another - it simply meant that the moment had come.

I imagine that look from Sonya and I can feel its transformative power. Rodion’s loathing is at himself, not at Sonya. Her look makes him feel that redemption is an option; and perhaps more than just an option—it’s inevitable.

If anything, the scene becomes even more powerful as they sit quietly on the bed. Sonya’s heart is skipping beats and Rodion feels that same feeling he’d experienced when he was standing over the old pawnbroker with his axe that the moment was NOW.

“Have you guessed?” he whispered at last.

The penny drops. Then we get one of those weird future things, when the narrator tells us how Sonya will feel when she looks back at this moment.

Later, whenever she looked back on this moment, she thought it was very strange…

This happens a few times throughout the novel.

Sonya throws herself at Rodion’s feet. “What have you done to yourself! … You must be the unhappiest person in the whole world!” She weeps for him and says that she’ll never leave him, wherever he may go. “I’ll go to Siberia together with you.”

Then Rodion’s ego fires back up and wakes him from this place of vulnerability. “Maybe, Sonya, I won’t fancy the idea of going to Siberia.” At this, Sonya wakes too and becomes suddenly aware that she’s in the presence of a murderer. She tries to work out why he might have done it. Was it the money? Oh no, not that. Don’t tell me it was that money that you gave to Katerina Ivanovna? He assures her that it wasn’t about the money. He tells her that he’d be happy if it were as simple as having murdered out of hunger or desperation. He now knows why he’s come to her—it’s because he wants Sonya to be with him. Is this like a yin and yang thing? A ‘you complete me’ me thing? Does Sonya’s goodness cancel out Rodion’s anomie?

Rodion explains his Napoleon complex. Sonya doesn’t understand, so he changes tack and explains that it was all done for the sake of his family, both his maternal family and any future wife and children he may have. He would use the money to pay his way through university and then move into a good career. She doesn’t believe him, and neither does he. But then his brain kicks into gear and we get this little Nietzschean monologue:

Yes, Sonya, that is how things are! It's a law of nature... a law of nature, Sonya! That's how it is! And I know now, Sonya, that the person who is strong mentally and spiritually will have power over them! So he who dares becomes right in their eyes. He who spits at everything will become the lawgiver. And he who can dare more than anyone else will be the one most in the right! That's the way it has always been, and always will be! Only a blind man wouldn't be able to see that!

Or, as Del Boy was wont to say, “He who dares wins.”

Nietzsche’s main theory was that the exemplary human being must craft his/her own identity through self-realization and do so without relying on anything transcending that life—such as God or a soul.

So, here’s Rodion, trying to craft his own identity and failing miserably. This is what I love about this novel, the way that a grand idea is presented as being utterly false, but that redemption is possible. Was Napoleon redeemed? Tolstoy had something to say about that in War and Peace, as Napoleon is retreating from Moscow—the once great man, reduced by fate or by history to the ranks of mortal men.

“I wanted to dare, and I killed… I simply wanted to dare, Sonya… there was no other reason!”

Rodion continues to pour out his soul to Sonya and it’s so good. He questions whether his asking whether he had the right to such power automatically precluded him from having it, in much the same way that Marcus Aurelius became a good leader by dint of his not wanting to be emperor. The people who want power are the very people who ought not to have it.

And Sonya’s not having it.

“Oh, stop it, that’s enough! … You have turned away from God, and God has struck you down and given you over to the Devil!”

It sounds like she’s just what Rodion needs to hear.

Once his confession is spent, Sonya urges him to prostrate himself at the crossroads and shout out to the world that he is a murderer. The mood in the room has become calm after Rodion has used up his energy. He’s bereft. She says she’ll come and visit him in prison and she gives him her cross to wear, which he goes to take and then stops himself, saying that he’ll take it later. She’s got Lizaveta’s cross to wear in stead of her own.

And then there’s a knock at the door. It’s Lebezyatnikov.

Dostoyevsky likes to end his chapters like this, as a cliffhanger. Did Lebezyatnikov overhear the whole conversation? Find out next week!

Q:

All quotations in this post are taken from Roger Cockrell’s translation of 2022, Alma Classics, © Roger Cockrell 2022

Translation Points

I started out thinking that the ‘clutching at straws’ idiom would be interesting, but it really wasn’t. Instead, what I found was the phrase immediately preceding it; it shows much more variation from translator to translator. Which one do you feel sounds the most natural in English? I personally love Ready’s Sonya was all ears, but I acknowledge that it might be a little too far on the modern side.

Russian - Соня из всех сил слушала.

-- Ну, так зачем же... как же вы сказали: чтоб ограбить, а сами ничего не взяли? -- быстро спросила она, хватаясь за соломинку.

Garnett - Sonia strained every nerve to listen.

“Then why... why, you said you did it to rob, but you took nothing?” she asked quickly, catching at a straw.

Coulson - Sonya listened with strained attention.

"But why then... why did you say just now 'I wanted the money', when you didn't actually take any?" she asked quickly, clutching at straws.

McDuff - With her whole attention, Sonya listened.

'Well, but then why... why did you say you did it in order to rob her, if you didn't take anything?" she asked quickly, clutching at a straw.

P&V - Sonya was listening as hard as she could.

"Well, then why... how can you say it was for the sake of robbery, if you didn't take anything?" she said quickly, grasping at a straw.

Ready - Sonya was all ears.

'In that case, why... if you say you did it to steal, did you not take anything?' she hurriedly asked, clutching at a straw.’

Pasternak Slater - Sonia listened intently to all he said.

'Well then, why... how could you say you did it to rob someone, seeing you took nothing for yourself?" she asked quickly, clutching at a straw.’

Katz - Sonya listened attentively.

"Well, then why... how did you say: to rob her, but you didn't take anything?" she asked quickly, grasping at straws.

Cockrell - Sonya listened with strained attention.

"But why then... why did you say just now 'I wanted the money', when you didn't actually take any?" she asked quickly, clutching at straws.

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This week’s characters

(I don’t include Raskolnikov in this listing as he’s in most of the chapters)

Luzhin • Lebezyatnikov • Sonya • Amalia Lippewechsel • Katerina Ivanovna

That Luzhin is some guy.

Synopsis

Luzhin enters. Katerina Ivanovna entreats him to help her and he refuses, stating that he will not get involved in her spat with Amalia and that he’s come on business and wishes to speak to Sonya. He commences with his speech in which he accuses Sonya of having stolen a one-hundred rouble note from Lebezyatnikov’s apartment. So that was his game when he invited her round and magnanimously gave her ten roubles. This phrase shows just what a despicable man he is: ‘… and finally taking into account your position in society and its associated behaviour…’. Ugh.

Katerina explodes in Sonya’s defence and throws the crumpled-up ten-rouble note back at Luzhin, hitting him in the eye. She declares that she’ll go to the Tsar himself to seek retribution and invites Luzhin to search Sonya in front of everyone. This he does and—surprise, surprise—a folded-up one-hundred-rouble note falls out of her pocket. Obviously Sonya is both mystified and mortified. Katerina denounces Luzhin as a slanderer and entreats Rodion to speak up on Sonya’s behalf. Luzhin explains that, though he is outraged at the theft, he’s willing to let it slide. At this point, Lebezyatnikov speaks up, calling Luzhin a blackguard and remonstrates with him for inviting Lebezyatnikov to speak up as witness.

"I'm perfectly sane... but you... you're an absolute blackguard! Oh, that was such a low trick on your part! I stood there listening to everything you said, deliberately waiting so that I could understand it all, since, I must confess, it doesn't make perfect sense even now... But what impelled you to do it, I have no idea."

"But do what, for Heaven's sake? Stop talking in nonsensical riddles like this! Or maybe it's because you've had too much to drink?"

"You're the one, you vile man, who's maybe had too much to drink, not me! I never drink vodka at all, since it's against my principles! Can you believe it: it was him all along! He was the one who gave Sofya Semyonovna that hundred-rouble note with his own hands - I saw it, with my own eyes.

I will swear to it! It was him, it was him!" Lebezyatnikov insisted, turning to each and every person in the room.

Lebezyatnikov then goes on to explain how he’d seen Luzhin’s depositing the one-hundred-rouble note in Sonya’s pocket and how he’d wondered what his reason could be. There seems no doubt that he’s telling the truth. In fact, the reason he’d called round in the first place was that he was worried that Sonya—not knowing that it was in her pocket—might lose the banknote and he wanted to whisper in her ear that it was there in order to prevent that from happening.

Of course Luzhin tries to deny everything that Lebezyatnikov has levelled against him, but no one in the room is buying it. Rodion steps in with an explanation. In his opinion, it was done to drive a wedge between Rodion and his mother and sister, to prove to the women that Rodion was frittering away the money they’d given him on Sonya, a young woman of the oldest profession.

By the way, here is Rodion, the man who a few chapters earlier was positively ill with nervous tension, giving a clear, calm and eloquent explanation. Is this because he’s employing virtue ethics to defend a defenceless woman? Yes, I’m reading Aristotle right now, which is why this scene stands out to me in philosophical terms. When Rodion’s worrying about what he’s done and being caught, he’s weak and ill, but when he steps out of himself and uses his intellect to help someone, he becomes hale and hearty. Just a thought.

His decisive tone, convinced manner and stern expression had made an extraordinary impression on everybody.

Luzhin senses that the gig is up and leaves, denouncing Lebezyatnikov as an idiot and telling them all that they haven’t heard the last of it. Sonya left in shame just after him. A drunk side-character throws a glass at Luzhin as he departs, but misses and instead hits Amalia. She reacts by giving Katerina Ivanovna her marching orders from the apartment. Katerina is distraught and claims that she’s going to find justice:

"What! As if that godless slander weren't enough - now this vile creature's attacking me! I'm being kicked out of my apartment on the day of my husband's funeral... After all my hospitality, I'm being turned out onto the street with my orphans! But where shall I go?" the poor woman howled, sobbing and gasping for breath. "Good Lord," she cried, her eyes flashing, "is there no justice? Who would you want to protect, if not us orphans? But we'll see! There is justice and truth in this world - there is, and I will find it! This instant, just you wait, you godless creature! Polechka, stay here with the children, I'll be right back. Wait for me, on the street, if you have to! We'll see if there's justice in this world!"

Q: Why do you think Raskolnikov seems so strong in this chapter?

All quotations in this post are taken from Roger Cockrell’s translation of 2022, Alma Classics, © Roger Cockrell 2022

Translation Points

I loved the phrase out of tune in Cockrell’s translation for the Russian verb не гармонировал. It’s literal and musical. I was intrigued to see how the others had dealt with it. Let’s take a look.

The full phrase whence this sentence is lifted is available to read on the comparison spreadsheet.

I feel like any translator using a variant of the word harmony is being a bit too literal. Ready’s utterly out of place is a nice rendering too, as in fact is Garnett’s slightly incongruous. It just shows you how even such a simple verb can be played around with.

Russian - Кроме того, что этот "деловой и серьезный" человек слишком уж резко не гармонировал со всею компанией

Garnett - Not only was this “serious business man” strikingly incongruous

Coulson - Besides the fact that this 'solid citizen' was sharply out of harmony

McDuff - For in addition to the fact that this 'serious and businesslike' man all too plainly failed to harmonize

P&V - Besides the fact that this "businesslike and serious" man was so sharply out of harmony

Ready - Leaving aside the fact that this 'business-like and serious' man looked utterly out of place

Pasternak Slater - Not only was this 'businesslike and serious' person quite out of keeping

Katz - Besides, this "businesslike and earnest" man seemed in such disharmony

Cockrell - Apart from the fact that this "serious and businesslike" man seemed strikingly out of tune with everyone else in the room

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This week’s characters

(I don’t include Raskolnikov in this listing as he’s in most of the chapters)

Amalia Lippewechsel • Katerina Ivanovna • Sonya • Luzhin

Marmeladov’s funeral feast. Katerina Ivanovna and Amalia Lippewechsel try to outdo each other.

Synopsis

This chapter would work well on the stage, as indeed was the case with the preceding chapter.

Katerina Ivanovna spends ten of the twenty roubles that Raskolnikov gave her on the funeral feast. The most powerful influence here was ‘poor man’s pride’, basically to show off to the guests. She’s worn out from her illness too, and so while not perhaps insane, she’s definitely ‘not in her right mind’, as Sonya describes her. There’s plenty of booze and a decent spread of food for everyone. She gets some assistance from her landlady Amalia Ivanovna, with the latter’s having prepared the food in her kitchen and set out the spread while Katerina Ivanovna was at the cemetery. Katerina’s a bit annoyed at this display of magnanimity, so it feels like there’s some competitiveness going on here. Katerina’s not one for accepting charity, oh no, not she, the daughter of a colonel who was once very nearly a governor. She feels that she’s somehow above her landlady in social status and will tell her so just as soon as the feast is over.

But it turns out that she can’t wait that long.

We go through a list of absentees from the feast. Why is Luzhin not there? And what about Lebezyatnikov? He’d been invited only as a favour and yet has had the audacity not even to show up.

“Don’t blame me if your silver spoons are stolen.”

The whole scene breaks down into a pantomime between Katerina and Amalia. Raskolnikov shows up and Katerina immediately places him on her left, while Amalia is on her right. Katerina fawns over Raskolnikov who, as everybody knows, “was in line for a chair at the local university in two years’ time.”

But we’re told that it’s not pride on Katerina’s part that makes her fawn over people:

We should note at this point that, if ever Katerina Ivanovna started praising someone's wealth or connections, it was never with any ulterior motive or personal calculation: she did it in a completely disinterested way, out of the fullness of her heart, so to speak, simply for the pleasure of being able to praise someone and holding them in even greater esteem.

I’m not quite sure what that explanation is all about, as in the very next scene she does on to trash talk “that contemptible little man”, Lebezyatnikov.

Her cough gets worse as her emotions grow in their intensity and she gets red blotches on her cheeks. Her illness is clearly deteriorating. She calls Amalia a cuckoo at one point, and then soon after that, an old screech owl.

"It's all that cuckoo's fault - you know who I mean: I mean her, her!" Katerina Ivanovna said, indicating the landlady. "Just look at her, goggling away, sensing we're probably talking about her, but unable to grasp what it is. Pouf, what an idiot! Ha-ha-ha!... Cough-cough-cough! And look at her flaunting her bonnet like that! Cough-cough-cough.”

[…]

"Once again she hasn't the faintest idea what I'm on about - not the faintest! Sitting there with her mouth open... just like an owl, a veritable owl, a screech owl with new ribbons, ha-ha-ha!"

See Dana’s excellent artwork for this chapter in which Amalia is drawn with owl feathers. 👇🏻

Dostoevsky book club «Theta-Delta»

5.1-5.2 “And might I a-a-ask you just what you meant, madam”

Hello, Dostoevsky enthusiast…

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2 years ago · 13 likes · 12 comments · Dana • Dostoevsky Bookclub

The chapter ends with Luzhin’s appearing at the door.

The whole chapter feels like like a pantomime or a farce. Katerina Ivanovna is suffering from her reduced circumstances of illness and poverty but does all that she can to keep her head up in spite of all that’s happening around her.

1. Is that something you admire?

2. How else might she have acted?

3. What’s Amalia’s deal?

All quotations in this post are taken from Roger Cockrell’s translation of 2022, Alma Classics, © Roger Cockrell 2022

Translation Points

I picked a phrase pertaining to Katerina’s state of mind.

Russian - Сверх того Сонечка весьма основательно про нее говорила, что у ней ум мешается.

Garnett - Moreover Sonia had said with good reason that her mind was unhinged.

Coulson - Besides, Sonechka had good grounds for saying that her mind was disturbed.

McDuff - Then again, Sonya had with good reason said of her that her mind was growing confused.

P&V - Moreover, Sonechka had quite good grounds for saying of her that her mind was becoming deranged.

Ready - Sonechka, moreover, had every reason to say that Katerina Ivanovna was unhinged.

Pasternak Slater - Furthermore, Sonechka had quite rightly said of her that her mind was becoming deranged.

Katz - In addition, Sonechka had solid grounds for saying that her mind was deranged.

Cockrell - When, moreover, Sonya said she wasn’t quite right in the head, she had every reason for saying so.

Translation Comparison Spreadsheet

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Or if you’d rather just buy me a coffee, I’d be very grateful!

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This week’s characters

(I don’t include Raskolnikov in this listing as he’s in most of the chapters)

Luzhin • Lebezyatnikov • Sonya

A whole chapter set in Luzhin and Lebezyatnikov’s apartment, in which they have a long play-like discourse about progressive ideas. Luzhin was once Lebezyatnikov’s mentor. It feels a bit like a discussion between a present-day conservative and a liberal, which just goes to show that it was ever thus.

Synopsis

Luzhin is annoyed. He made the mistake of telling Lebezyatnikov, with whom he was sharing lodgings, all about the meeting of the previous night. The landlord of the apartment he’d rented and decorated for Dunya charges him the full penalty for breaking the lease, and the furniture supplier keeps his deposit. He’s under the illusion that his mistake was not being generous to Dunya and her mother. He wishes he’d showered them with gifts and money so that they would, in the end, not be able to refuse him. What a manipulative man he is.

He has an invitation to Marmeladov’s wake, but so too do Lebezyatnikov and Raskolnikov. While Luzhin is not at all fond of him, he had heard that Lebezyatnikov was one of the leading progressives in St Petersburg and so might be of use; Luzhin felt himself to be out of touch in that regard.

The two men have a conversation about the impending wake for Marmeladov. Luzhin brings up the alleged assault of Katerina Ivanovna by Lebezyatnikov (mentioned in Part One, Chapter 2), to which Lebezyatnikov responds that he was simply defending himself. He then goes on to espouse some of the progressive ideas of the day, of equality between the sexes and against violence of any form. He exclaims that he won’t be attending the feast, but if he were it would be only to laugh at it all.

“Yet it’s a shame there won’t be any priests… I would definitely go if there were.”

There’s a long discussion regarding Sonya and her profession. Lebezyatnikov denies the allegation that he’d made sexual advances towards Sonya and he sounds pretty convincing. He goes on to discuss some of the progressive ideas of the day, for example the kissing of a woman’s hand, or whether ‘a member of the commune has the right to enter the room of another member, whether belonging to a man or a woman, at any time… and it was decided that he or she does have that right…’ A footnote here explains that Dostoyevsky has taken this idea from Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s novel of 1863, What Is to Be Done? This was a progressive novel that Lenin read numerous times as a teenager and was influenced by. Dana points out in her essay on this chapter that the progressive ideas of the 1850s would have been quite shocking to Dostoyevsky after having spent ten years in exile and in the armed forces. Imagine going into exile in 2010 and coming back out in time for the culture wars and the pandemic? Ideas can move quickly!

Dostoevsky book club «Theta-Delta»

5.1-5.2 “And might I a-a-ask you just what you meant, madam”

Hello, Dostoevsky enthusiast…

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2 years ago · 12 likes · 10 comments · Dana • Dostoevsky Bookclub

There’s an interesting point in the discussion where Lebezyatnikov is going through his philosophy and talks of being useful or doing honourable work such as cleaning out a cesspool.

Anyway, can you please tell me what you find so shameful and disgusting about a cesspool, for example? I would be quite ready and willing to be the first to clean out any cesspool you want! It's not a question at all of self-sacrifice! It's honourable work, something that needs to be done for the benefit of society as a whole, as valuable as anything else, and certainly much more so than the activity of some Raphael or Pushkin, because it is more useful!"

Maybe Raphael and Puskhin did clean cesspools at some point in their career, but I’m sure glad they engaged in their artistic endeavours as well!

Luzhin asks Lebezyatnikov to go and fetch Sonya, which he does. He gives her a ten rouble note to help the family and asks her not to tell Katerina Ivanovna where it came from. I’m not quite sure what he’s up to here. I suspect all will be revealed in the next couple of chapters.

Q: What’s Luzhin’s game with the secret donation to Sonya?

All quotations in this post are taken from Roger Cockrell’s translation of 2022, Alma Classics, © Roger Cockrell 2022

Translation Points

I’ve chosen a phrase that has some interesting choices of vocabulary for three words. The first in the original Russian (неудачи) literally means ill-luck or bad luck. Have a look at how the seven different translations have dealt with it. It’s followed by two words, which Cockrell has translated as tetchy and annoying. In the Russian, one of these words is an adjective (злы) and the other is a reflexive verb (привязываетесь).

The full phrase whence this sentence is lifted is available to read on the comparison spreadsheet.

Russian - Это вы от вчерашней вашей неудачи так злы и привязываетесь

Garnett - “It’s your ill-luck yesterday that makes you so ill-humoured and annoying

Coulson - 'It's because things went badly for you yesterday that you are so captious and spiteful,'

McDuff - 'You're simply aggressive and in a bad temper because of the rebuff you received yesterday,

P&V - "It's because of your failure yesterday that you're so angry and carping

Ready - 'You're still cross about yesterday's setback - that's why you're so tetchy,'

Pasternak Slater - 'You're just getting so angry and spiteful because things went wrong for you yesterday,

Katz - It's because of your bad luck yesterday that you're so mean and you're pestering me

Cockrell - "You're so tetchy and annoying because of what happened yesterday, aren't you?"

It’s remarkable to note quite how different these translations are. Which is your favourite?

Translation Comparison Spreadsheet

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Thank you for reading

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If you enjoy my posts, please consider a paid subscription to support me and this work.

Or if you’d rather just buy me a coffee, I’d be very grateful!

Please bookmark the homepage for the read-along. Here, you’ll find links to everything you need as we read the novel together.

• Crime and Punishment homepage

• Chapter summaries and analysis

• Weekly chat thread for each chapter

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If you enjoy this content and would like to help me to keep it going, please consider a paid subscription.
Thank you. 🙏🏻

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This week’s characters

(I don’t include Raskolnikov in this listing as he’s in most of the chapters)

Porfiry Petrovich • Nikolai

Surprise!

Synopsis

After much kerfuffle, Nikolai bursts into the room where we left Raskolnikov and Porfiry at the end of the previous chapter. He gets down on his knees and confesses to the murder of both women… with an axe. It all seems staged, although Porfiry does seem to be genuinely surprised, as if his plan has gone awry.

You may recall that Nikolai was one of the two decorators who were working in the empty apartment where Raskolnikov took refuge on the night of the murder. He and the other decorator, Mitka, had run off down the stairs, leaving the apartment empty, and were fighting each other in a playful manner out in the courtyard.

Porfiry accuses Nikolai of having had words put in his mouth after his confession, a comment which does not go unnoticed by Raskolnikov. Porfiry dismisses Raskolnikov at this point, but lets him know that he’ll need to talk with him again at a later date. Raskolnikov is feeling more level-headed now and apologises for his previous outburst; then goes on to declare that he considers Porfiry’s profession to be comical. We then get another reference to Gogol.

"Tee-hee! Very witty sir, very witty indeed... you don't miss a thing, do you? Such a lively mind! And you're always quick to see the funny side of things... tee-hee! Wasn't it Gogol, of all writers, who was apparently most adept at that?"

“Yes, it was.”

“So there we are… Gogol it was… looking forward to our next meeting my dear sir.”

Raskolnikov goes straight home and finds himself in a bit of a bewildered state. He’s aware that he almost gave the game away in response to Porfiry’s questioning. He has to use this reprieve to dig himself out of the hole. And he’s wondering what Porfiry’s purported ‘surprise’ was all about? Was it still to come?

The door to his apartment then swings open and in steps a stranger. It’s a tradesman, one who was at the bottom of the stairs when Raskolnikov had gone back to the apartment after the murder in a delirious state, demanding to see the blood. The tradesman had reported to Porfiry about having seen Raskolnikov at the apartment that night, whereupon Porfiry had seized the opportunity and set up a sting, hiding the tradesman behind a partition and having him poised to appear at a certain moment of the interview, thus entrapping Raskolnikov. Only Nikolai’s entrance spoiled the whole plan and then the tradesman was dismissed from the police station just after Raskolnikov. So the tradesman goes round to Raskolnikov’s to seek forgiveness for his part in the pantomime. Raskolnikov informs him that God will forgive him. He leaves, and then Raskolnikov states, ‘Now we can put up a fight,’ as he leaves his apartment to head to Marmeladov’s wake.

It’s rather a farcical chapter. The interview scene was a set-up on Porfiry’s part and it didn’t go to plan. Had it done so, the story might well have ended here with a confession from Raskolnikov. But he got away when the plan went wrong and is now out there wondering what to do with himself. You can bet your bottom dollar that that interview won’t be the last time that he and Porfiry cross swords. But what will happen before that?

All quotations in this post are taken from Roger Cockrell’s translation of 2022, Alma Classics, © Roger Cockrell 2022

Translation Points

I’ve chosen the idiom from Cockrell’s translation ‘throw caution to the wind’ as it struck me as particularly elegant within the context.

The full sentence from which this idiom is lifted is available on the Translation Comparison spreadsheet, along with examples from all the chapters of the book up to this point.

Russian - Порфирий действовал хотя слишком решительно, но почти наверное.

Garnett - Porfiry, though playing a bold game

Coulson - though perhaps he had pursued it too vigorously

McDuff - Porfiry had acted, if somewhat too vigorously

P&V - Porfiry had acted almost unerringly, albeit too resolutely.

Ready - Porfiry had taken excessively drastic, but almost unerring steps.

Pasternak Slater - though overly decisive

Katz - Porfiry's strategy now, though overly decisive

Cockrell - Porfiry might have thrown caution to the wind

Translation Comparison Spreadsheet

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This week’s characters

(I don’t include Raskolnikov in this listing as he’s in most of the chapters)

Porfiry Petrovich

A long chapter set in the police station, with a lot of dialogue between Rodion and Porfiry Petrovich, the lead investigator of the double murder.

Synopsis

Rodion goes to see Porfiry Petrovich. He brings an application to have his pawned watch returned to him. I can relate to how he’s overthinking every little phrase, as if wondering what an innocent man would sound like and trying to sound like that.

Rodion goes off on a bit of a rant, asking Porfiry to get on with the questioning or let him go in peace because he’s busy and has stuff to do, such as go to Marmeladov’s funeral.

Porfiry explains that the ‘formal techniques’ that Rodion mentioned in his rant about how interrogations are conducted have their place, but that there is more to be gained from informal conversations. He points out that, when intelligent, thinking men like he and Rodion get together, it can often be awkward to get a conversation going.

It then gets very interesting, as Porfiry explains that no case is ever a textbook case; they all have their own peculiarities. Sometimes he may have firm evidence against a suspect but still allows the suspect to think he’s free so that he ends up hanging himself with his own rope. No, bad analogy, let’s go with the analogy Porfiry used, which is to say that the suspect is like a moth, unable to resist natural law, flying around a candle flame. It feels very much like he knows that Rodion is the murderer, not only to us the readers, but also to Rodion. He turns white and tries to compose himself, all the while feeling caught.

Human nature is like a mirror, sir, the clearest of mirrors! Look into it and admire what you see!

Porfiry continues in this vein until he provokes a response from Rodion, which he gets and then some. Rodion shouts at him to be quiet. If he believes him to be guilty of the double murder, then he should arrest him and get on with it, otherwise he should shut up.

Porfiry goes on to say that Razumikhin and he had had dinner the previous night and that Porfiry knows all about Rodion’s exploits, including that he’d gone to enquire about renting the apartment where the murders took place and questioned the workmen about the blood.

We leave the chapter as Rodion is about to walk out, after reacting pretty badly to Porfiry’s ranting, whereupon Porfiry announces that he has a surprise for Rodion.

And in walks…

See you in the next chapter!

All quotations in this post are taken from Roger Cockrell’s translation of 2022, Alma Classics, © Roger Cockrell 2022

Translation Points

This week I’ve chosen the idiom ‘in our neck of the woods’ from this paragraph on p314 of Cockrell:

“Ah, my dear fellow! So you’ve come to see us… in our neck of the woods…” Porfiry began, holding out both hands to him.

Russian - в наших краях

Garnett - in our domain

Coulson - in our territory

McDuff - in our neck of the woods

P&V - in our parts

Ready - in our neck of the woods

Pasternak Slater - in our part of town

Katz - in our territory

Cockrell - in our neck of the woods

Translation Comparison Spreadsheet

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Thank you for reading

Thank you for reading with me.

This book group is entirely funded by its readers. If you enjoy my posts, please consider a paid subscription to support me and this work.

Or if you’d rather just buy me a coffee, I’d be very grateful!

Please bookmark the homepage for the read-along. Here, you’ll find links to everything you need as we read the novel together.

• Crime and Punishment homepage

• Chapter summaries and analysis

• Weekly chat thread for each chapter

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This week’s characters

(I don’t include Raskolnikov in this listing as he’s in most of the chapters)

Sonya • Svidrigailov

This is one of the key chapters in the novel. It’s full of biblical imagery and quotations, including excerpts from the fourth gospel concerning the raising of Lazarus.

Synopsis

Raskolnikov heads to Sonya’s apartment at the Kapernaumov’s, where she’s renting a rather strangely-shaped room. He says that it will be the last time that he calls on her and that he has something to tell her. Sonya responds to his questions by claiming that she loves Katerina Ivanovna and that she’s a good woman who endures for the sake of her children. She tells Rodion of the collars and cuffs that she’d got from Lizaveta, and how Katerina Ivanovna had begged her to make a present of them to her. She refused, asking Katerina Ivanovna what use they would be to her. She scolds herself for her cruelty towards Katerina Ivanovna.

Rodion explains to her that Katerina Ivanovna is very ill and is not, he feels, long for this world. He asks Sonya what would happen to the children, something she’s clearly thought about before, especially if Sonya were to become ill. Sonya claims that ‘God won’t allow that to happen.’ And the same when Rodion puts it to her that little Polechka will end up selling herself on the streets as Sonya does. Rodions suggests that there might not be a God after all and then bends down to kiss Sonya’s foot.

I was bowing down not to you, but to the suffering of all mankind.

He asks her whether she realises that all of her sacrifices have been for nothing and wonders why she hasn’t just thrown herself in the river. She doesn’t seem surprised by the question, leading the narrator to suggest that she’s thought about that very thing.

What was it, then, that kept her going? … He could see that her heart remained totally untouched by the depravity.

Rodion asks Sonya to read to him the passage from scripture about the raising of Lazarus and this she does.

He thinks of Sonya as a Holy Fool, someone who falls back on religion in an irrational way. She believes in God and he doesn’t, so why is he asking her to read from scripture?

Rodion: “But what has God ever done for you?”

Sonya: “He does everything for me!”

Towards the end of the chapter, Rodion tells Sonya that, on his return, he will tell her who killed Lizaveta.

It’s a powerful chapter with the murderer and the prostitute coming together. feebly illuminated by candlelight.

"The candle stub in its bent candleholder had long since started to gutter, and was now, in this wretched room, feebly illuminating the murderer and the prostitute, who had so strangely come together for a reading of the holy scripture. Five or more minutes passed.

In fact, if you head on over to Dana’s post on this chapter, you’ll see her amazing artwork depicting this scene.

Dostoevsky book club «Theta-Delta»

4.4 …the murderer and the harlot, who had so strangely come together to read the eternal book

Hello, Dostoevsky enthusiast…

Read more

2 years ago · 19 likes · 16 comments · Dana • Dostoevsky Bookclub

Dana also talks about the significance in this chapter of the number four. This is the fourth chapter of Part Four of the novel and I had picked up on some of the uses of the numeral four throughout, all the more so as Dostoyevsky (or his publisher) has chosen to italicise it when used. Sonya at one point lays ‘particular stress on the word “four”’ upon reading the portion of scripture pertaining to the four days between Lazarus’ death and his resurrection., We also have the four gospels of scripture—with a fascinating observation by Dana that the first three gospels collectively are known as the Synoptic gospels, while the fourth, the gospel of St John, the only one that has the story of Lazarus, stands apart. I hadn’t heard of the term Synoptic gospels before and it’s really quite fascinating. She goes on to point out that Sonya is the fourth child Katerina Ivanonva’s charges, the first three being her maternal children while Sonya is her adopted daughter.

If there’s one thing that Dostoyevsky knew, it was his bible. It was the only literature he had during his four-years of penal servitude. (Yes—four years!)

It’s interesting to note that Rodion told Sonya that he would, on his return, tell her who killed Lizaveta—not the pawnbroker, his intended victim, but Lizaveta, his accidental victim. This could be simply because it’s been established that Sonya was acquainted with Lizaveta and, indeed, read from the very bible that Lizaveta had given her. How does she take this news? She’s chilled with horror, but we’re old that she doesn’t once think that it’s Rodion who’s about to confess. Or at least that’s how I’m reading this line:

Yet, at the same time, the idea never crossed her mind. Never, never once!

All quotations in this post are taken from Roger Cockrell’s translation of 2022, Alma Classics, © Roger Cockrell 2022

Translation Points

The flickering candle scene was the one that stood out to me the most in this chapter, so let’s go with that for the translation comparison this week.

Russian - Огарок уже давно погасал в кривом подсвечнике, тускло освещая в этой нищенской комнате убийцу и блудницу, странно сошедшихся за чтением вечной книги.

Garnett - The candle-end was flickering out in the battered candlestick, dimly lighting up in the poverty-stricken room the murderer and the harlot who had so strangely been reading together the eternal book.

Coulson - The candle-end had long since burned low in the twisted candlestick, dimly lighting the poverty-stricken room and the murderer and the harlot who had come together so strangely to read the eternal book.

McDuff - The stub of candle had long been guttering in its crooked candlestick within that wretched room, shedding its dim light on the murderer and the prostitute who had so strangely encountered each other in the reading of the eternal book.

P&V - The candle-end had long been burning out in the bent candlestick, casting a dim light in this destitute room upon the murderer and the harlot strangely come together over the reading of the eternal book.

Ready - The candle-end had been guttering for some time in the crooked holder, shedding a dull light, in this beggarly room, on the murderer and the harlot, who'd come together so strangely to read the eternal book.

Pasternak Slater - The candle stub in the crooked candlestick had been guttering for some time, casting a dim light through the poverty-stricken room, on the murderer and the harlot, who had so strangely come together to read the eternal book.

Katz - The candle stub had long since burned down in the twisted candleholder, dimly illuminating in this impoverished room the murderer and the prostitute, strangely united for the reading of the eternal book.

Cockrell - The candle stub in its bent candleholder had long since started to gutter, and was now, in this wretched room, feebly illuminating the murderer and the prostitute, who had so strangely come together for a reading of the holy scripture.

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Or if you’d rather just buy me a coffee, I’d be very grateful!

Please bookmark the homepage for the read-along. Here, you’ll find links to everything you need as we read the novel together.

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This week’s characters

(I don’t include Raskolnikov in this listing as he’s in most of the chapters)

Luzhin • Dunya • Pulkheria • Razumikhin

A short chapter that moves the plot along only slightly, but with a moment that will stay with Razumikhin for the rest of his life.

We get a description of how Luzhin is narcissistic and truly believes in his goodness is ‘taking on’ Dunya despite her lowly station. Dunya has become essential to him and he’s not about to give her up. We’re told that he loves her ‘in his own way’, which is to say that he loves himself and what Dunya can do for him in the eyes of society as he raises himself up. She’s an accessory and nothing more.

There’s a scene in which Luzhin is seen admiring his own face in the mirror, exactly as Narcissus did in the pool of water. In her chapter analysis of this chapter, Dana pointed out the literary allusion here to Chichikov, the main character in Gogol’s novel, Dead Souls. None of my translations have picked up on this in the footnotes, so I thank Dana for the valuable observation. It’s not the first time that Gogol has been called to mind in this novel. Remember the chair-smashing scene in Part Three, Chapter 5?

Incidentally, I studied Gogol back in my university days and would dearly love to revisit his works now. Perhaps next year. I have a lovely old hard cover edition of Dead Souls.

Anyway, back to Crime and Punishment.

***

Then we’re back in the room with the Raskolnikovs for the aftermath. Rodion explains that Svidrigailov wishes to give Dunya ten thousand roubles. Dunya’s sure that Svidrigailov has something appalling in mind. Razumikhin declares that he’ll look out for Dunya and keep tabs on Svidrigailov. He proposes that the Raskolnikovs stay together in Petersburg and go into partnership with him in a publishing business. Dunya’s taken with the idea, but then Rodion announces that he’s got urgent business to attend to and he suggests that they should all go their separate ways. He then gets up and leaves, wishing them well but acting really weird, saying things like, ‘this might be the last time I see you’. As he leaves, Razumikhin follows him. Rodion tells him to leave him along and to look after the women. There’s a moment when they look at each other out in the dark corridor and I read it at first that Razumikhin was finally made to understand that Rodion was the murderer. But on reading Dana’s analysis, I could very well have missed the psychological themes that Dostoyevsky is playing with here. Rodion’s burning gaze penetrates into the depths of Razumikhin’s body and soul and causes him to shudder in horror. It’s some powerful imagery and I urge you to head on over to Dana’s analysis to get her view and see her excellent artwork that accompanies this scene.

All quotations in this post are taken from Roger Cockrell’s translation of 2022, Alma Classics, © Roger Cockrell 2022

Translation Points

There are a few interesting idioms in this chapter. Luzhin refers to Rodion as an ‘arrogant young whipersnapper’. On describing what happened with Luzhin, Razumikhin is described as being in ‘seventh heaven’. And later on Svidrigailov is described as having been ‘a little muddle-headed.’ Let’s see how these are rendered in the other translations. I’ll give you the whippersnapper variants here. To see the other idioms, head on over to the comparison spreadsheet by clicking the button below.

Russian - этого заносчивого молокососа

Garnett - conceited milksop

Coulson - insolent young puppy

McDuff - arrogant milksop

P&V - presumptuous brat

Ready - arrogant mummy’s boy

Pasternak Slater - conceited milksop

Katz - insolent youth

Cockrell - arrogant young whippersnapper

You can see the other idioms over on the spreadsheet.

Translation Comparison Spreadsheet

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Thank you for reading

Thank you for reading with me.

This book group is entirely funded by its readers. If you enjoy my posts, please consider a paid subscription to support me and this work.

Or if you’d rather just buy me a coffee, I’d be very grateful!

Please bookmark the homepage for the read-along. Here, you’ll find links to everything you need as we read the novel together.

• Crime and Punishment homepage

• Chapter summaries and analysis

• Weekly chat thread for each chapter

• Reading schedule

• Cast of characters page

If you enjoy this content and would like to help me to keep it going, please consider a paid subscription.
Thank you. 🙏🏻

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This week’s characters

(I don’t include Raskolnikov in this listing as he’s in most of the chapters)

Razumikhin • Luzhin • Pulkheria • Dunya

This is an excellent chapter that’s very dialogue heavy. I could see it as a play. It’s nice to see the women playing a strong role here in shaping their future. Here’s how it plays out.

Rodion explains to Razumikhin who Svidrigailov is and says that he needs to protect Dunya from him.

Rodion questions his own sanity, an interesting point to note.

Razumikhin relates how he’d gone the night before to visit Porfiry and found himself unable to express himself properly. He ends up threatening Porfiry, though I know not about what. We’re not given the details.

They arrive at Bakaleyev’s building where Pulkheria and Dunya are staying at the same time as Luzhin, bang on 8 p.m. There’s an awkward meeting, where we’re informed that Luzhin had actually considered simply leaving upon having seen Rodion, but decided not to as he wished to know why he had ignored the request to keep away. They discuss Marfa Petrovna’s death and how Svidrigailov’s intention is to come straight to St Petersburg after the funeral. I’m guessing that it’s only the two Rs that have seen him. Luzhin goes on to explain that Svidrigailov had had dealings with Madame Resslich, a lady of foreign extraction who lent money with interest. There was a rumour that Svidrigailov had abused Madame Resslich’s ward, a young deaf mute girl no older than 15 who had hanged herself. There was also a rumour that he had been the cause of one of his servants’ hanging himself. Luzhin seems to want to go to great lengths to paint Svidrigailov in an unfavourable light. Dunya counters this by saying that, when she was a governess in his home, he had always treated the servants well.

Rodion tells everyone that Svidrigailov had come to visit him earlier that day. He informs Dunya about having been left three thousand roubles and that he had a proposition to make to Dunya, which Rodion would pass on to her later.

Luzhin makes to leave. Dunya persuades him to stay, which he does, but then goes on to say that he is not about to discuss what he came to say while Rodion refuses to share Svidrigailov’s proposition and in light of Rodion’s flagrant non-compliance with Luzhin’s wish that he not attend the meeting. Dunya tells him to get off his high horse and that this schism needed to be resolved TODAY.

Luzhin is offended and states that a wife’s love for her husband should take precedence over her love for her brother. He goes on to quiz Pulkheria about what she meant in her letter to Rodion when she had written about Luzhin’s idea that it was better to marry a woman of modest means than one who had hitherto known comfort.

So, first of all, he’s disrespecting his fiancée and her brother, and next, her mother. What kind of an arsehole is this guy?

Rodion explains some of the mean things that Luzhin wrote in his letter, about how he had given money to a prostitute and stuff like that. Rodion surprises him by stating that he already has had Sonya in his mother and sister’s company. This is the last straw for Luzhin and he states quite simply that, in that case, a reconciliation is out of the question and that he will take his leave while they discuss their secrets. He calls Pulkheria out for having shared the content of a letter that was addressed only to her. The women are incensed. And rightly so, it would seem. Dunya blows up at him and basically kicks him out and instructs him not to come back.

“What insufferable insolence!” Dunya exclaimed, quickly rising from her chair. “I wouldn’t want you to return in any case!”

After more arguing ensues, Razumikhin finally jumps in Rodion has to hold him back. Rodion tells him to leave, and he does.

All quotations in this post are taken from Roger Cockrell’s translation of 2022, Alma Classics, © Roger Cockrell 2022

So, yes, Luzhin’s out of there. ‘Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, fella!’

So where does this leave our characters? Dunya’s better off to the tune of three thousand roubles and has got out of marrying a man she doesn’t love. The only allusion we’ve had to Rodya’s crime was the scene with Razumikhin round at Porfiry’s. Emotions are high, but the family unit of Rodya, his mum and sister seems to have come together to defeat the demon. Or is it Svidrigailov that’s the demon? Or both?

Translation Points

I always enjoy when a translator makes good use of idiom. This passage in Cockrell jumped out at me as being excellent.

“Oh for goodness' sake, Pyotr Petrovich, stop getting on your high horse," Dunya interrupted with passion, "and start being the sensible and considerate man I have always regarded and would like to continue to regard you to be.”

Others rendered it as follows:

• Original - Ах, оставьте всю эту обидчивость

• Garnett - Ah, don’t be so ready to take offence

• Coulson - Oh, don't be so quick to take offence

• McDuff - Oh, stop being so touchy

• P&V - Ah, don’t be so ready to take offence

• Ready - Oh, enough of all this touchiness

• Pasternak Slater - Ah, stop being so touchy

• Katz - Ah, drop all this touchiness

You can see the full passage over on the spreadsheet.

Translation Comparison Spreadsheet

I find Cockrell’s high horse to fit very well here. It’s a good example of non-literal translation that conveys the meaning for the modern reader. If I were going to pick a literal translation, I’d have to go with Coulson I think.

How about you?

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Thank you for reading

Thank you for reading with me.

This book group is entirely funded by its readers. If you enjoy my posts, please consider a paid subscription to support me and this work.

Or if you’d rather just buy me a coffee, I’d be very grateful!

Please bookmark the homepage for the read-along. Here, you’ll find links to everything you need as we read the novel together.

• Crime and Punishment homepage

• Chapter summaries and analysis

• Weekly chat thread for each chapter

• Reading schedule

• Cast of characters page

If you enjoy this content and would like to help me to keep it going, please consider a paid subscription.
Thank you. 🙏🏻

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This week’s characters

(I don’t include Raskolnikov in this listing as he’s in most of the chapters)

Svidrigailov

This is an interesting chapter that is wholly a discussion between Svidrigailov and Raskolnikov in Rodion’s room. It’s the first time the two men have met each other and the first time Svidrigailov has appeared as an active character.

So who is Svidrigailov? He was the rogue who had made advances towards Dunya while she was employed at his home as a housemaid. We learned all about that incident in chapter 1.3 in Pulkheria’s letter to her son.

Svidrigailov’s wife, Marfa Petrovna, died suddenly of a stroke. The circumstances were suspicious, but Dostoyevsky leaves it to the reader to decide whether Svidrigailov had anything to do with it.

He’s also the unnamed man who appeared at the end of chapter 3.4 when he follows Sonya home. They’ve never met, but they are neighbours. It seems too much of a coincidence that Svidrigailov would have rented a room next door, doesn’t it?

See Dana’s excellent post for a discussion on the background of the name Svidrigailov

Dostoevsky book club «Theta-Delta»

4.1-4.2 Incidentally, do you believe in ghosts?

Hello, Dostoevsky enthusiast…

Read more

2 years ago · 9 likes · 27 comments · Dana • Dostoevsky Bookclub

Svidrigailov’s rant here is a bit troubling. He says that everyone loves being insulted, women in particular. And he used the whip on Marfa Petrovna only twice in seven years. Well that’s alright then!

He then tells the story of how he and his wife first got together. She paid off a debt to get him out of debtors’ prison but held the debt over him just in case. She eventually presents him with the papers she’s holding over him, setting him free. We don’t know what compelled her to do that. She’s older and more well-to-do than her husband. What did she see in his indebted man? It’s not made clear, but we can’t help but feel that there’s some manipulation going on on Svidrigailov’s part.

Svidrigailov then asks Raskolnikov whether he believes in ghosts. He claims that Marfa Petrovna has visited him three times since she died, and each time he was wide awake. He believes that ghosts appear only to those who are ill, I suppose pointing out that he himself is not particularly well. And when he asks Raskolnikov if he believes in an afterlife, he goes on to describe his own idea of eternity as being a small room, like the village bathhouse, with spiders in every corner, and says that if he were creating an afterlife, he’d create exactly that. It’s a pretty dark vision to be sure and it makes Raskolnikov shudder. I’ve used this descriptive passage as the text for my translation comparison this week. See below.

Svidrigailov soon gets to the point of his visit, which is to offer ten thousand roubles to Dunya and to inform her that Marfa Petrovna has left her three thousand roubles in her will. There are to be no strings attached, other than that he would like to see her and make the offer to her in person. The offer is on the condition that Dunya will reject Luzhin’s proposal of marriage; with the money, she will be no worse off than if she were to accept it. Svidrigailov notes that Dunya agreed to the marriage as a financial sacrifice for her family, which, of course, is exactly what Raskolnikov himself believes.

He wants to get all this in order before he goes ‘on a journey’. Sounds a bit cryptic. Where d’you think he’s going? When Raskolnikov asks him to clarify, he replies that it’s complicated and then jokes that he might actually stay and get married. He then picks up his hat and coat and leaves, asking Raskolnikov to pass on his message to Dunya.

All quotations in this post are taken from Roger Cockrell’s translation of 2022, Alma Classics, © Roger Cockrell 2022

What are we to make of Svidrigailov? The Russian reader of the day would have picked up on the nuance of his character from the name Dostoyevsky chose for him. The text doesn’t explicitly call him out as a bad guy, but what kind of decent man would imagine eternity as a grimy, spider-ridden bathhouse?

Translation Points

Let’s take a look at Svidrigailov’s idea of the afterlife, filled, as it is, with spiders.

‘People persist in representing eternity as an idea, as something beyond our comprehension, something enormous, absolutely vast! But why does it always have to be something vast? What if, instead, you were to imagine a little room, something like a village bathhouse blackened with smoke, with spiders in every corner, and there you'd have your eternity. That's the way I sometimes picture it, at any rate.’
— Cockrell, p273

Visit the translation comparison spreadsheet to see the other seven translations I have, as well as the original Russian.

Translation Comparison Spreadsheet

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Thank you for reading

Thank you for reading with me.

This book group is entirely funded by its readers. If you enjoy my posts, please consider a paid subscription to support me and this work.

Or if you’d rather just buy me a coffee, I’d be very grateful!

Welcome to Week 20 of my slow-read of Crime and Punishment. This week’s chapter is Part Three, Chapter 6.

Please bookmark the homepage for the read-along. Here, you’ll find links to everything you need as we read the novel together.

• Crime and Punishment homepage

• Chapter summaries and analysis

• Weekly chat thread for each chapter

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Thank you. 🙏🏻

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This week’s characters

(I don’t include Raskolnikov in this listing as he’s in most of the chapters)

Razumikhin • Svidrigailov

A conversation, a freak-out and a new character.

Part Three, Chapter 6 Synopsis

Razumikhin and Raskolnikov leave Porfiry’s and head to Bakaleyev’s house, where Dunya and Pulkheria are staying. On the way they discuss the meeting they’ve just had with Porfiry. Just at they arrive at Bakaleyev’s house, Raskolnikov announces that he has an errand to run and heads home on his own for a wee freak. He had a notion that he’d left some evidence behind in the hole in the wall. Next thing, the caretaker is pointing our Raskolnikov to a stranger. Raskolnikov’s like WTF? The stranger leaves and Raskolnikov goes after him to see what’s going on. When he catches up with him, the stranger calls him out as a murderer and then walks off. Raskolnikov’s legs turn to jelly. He makes his way back to his room to carry on with his freak out. Razumikhin eventually calls on him and he pretends to be asleep.

Raskolnikov’s mind is working overtime and he ends up wondering just what it was that possessed him to think he could go through with this crime.

"I should have known," he thought with a bitter smile. "How on earth did I have the nerve to do that, knowing what sort of a person I am, sensing beforehand what sort of a person I am - how could I have taken an axe and covered myself in blood like that? I should have known beforehand... Oh, but I did know beforehand!" he whispered in despair

He goes over and over his motives and finds them to be flawed. He couldn’t step over the line. “I sensed in advance I would say this to myself after I had done it!” He finds himself thinking of Lizaveta and Sonya, “poor gentle creatures with such gentle eyes… Dear, sweet women!”

He falls back asleep and, when he awakes, he’s on the street with no idea how he got there. He sees the stranger beckoning to him. He follows and is led to the building where he committed the crime, although he doesn’t recognise it straight away. It soon becomes apparent to us that he’s dreaming, going over the murder again but in a warped, dreamlike way. He wakes up sweating and sees the stranger standing in his doorway. The stranger steps into the room and introduces himself: Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov.

It’s spooky season as I write this and I spent the weekend watching some of the Halloween movies. If you want to see a soulless killer, that’s your franchise. The bogeyman from those movies, Michael Myers, is certainly not having delirious, guilt-ridden dreams after his killing sprees. Although he’s also not killing for any philosophical reasons that we’re aware of. I mean, he might be, but it seems unlikely. What about Napoleon? Do great leaders have dark nights of the soul before campaigns of war? How about business leaders who have to lay off workers or watch business deals go south? I’m personally facing some leadership challenges right now and have been using various tools to deal with it. Don’t worry—there’s no murder involved, but there has been some sleeplessness. Reading literature helps.

What made Raskolnikov think that he could step over? That’s what I find curious. The novel doesn’t really give us an answer to that. Raskolnikov himself is now acknowledging that he doesn’t have what it takes. Why did he think he did? It’s been clear to us since the beginning of the novel that he’d never manage to overcome the guilt.

All quotations in this post are taken from Roger Cockrell’s translation of 2022, Alma Classics, © Roger Cockrell 2022

Translation Points

“Smoke and mirrors” - that stood out to me in Cockrell’s translation as being a particularly apt English idiom, so I thought I’d see what the others did.

I like Katz’ ‘passing fancy’ over the floating/fleeting idea. ‘It cuts two ways’ is also pretty decent. It just shows you how many ways there are to skin a cat. Ha ha.

• Original - всё мираж, всё о двух концах, одна идея летучая

• Garnett - It is all mirage—all ambiguous. Simply a floating idea.

• Coulson - it is all ambiguous and illusory, a will-o'-the-wisp

• McDuff - it's all a mirage, a conjecture, just a fleeting idea

• P&V - it's all a mirage, all double-ended, just a fleeting idea

• Ready - it's all a mirage, all double-edged, an idea plucked from the air

• Pasternak Slater - it's all fanciful and double-edged; and as soon as they have a fleeting idea

• Katz - it's all a mirage, it cuts two ways, merely a passing fancy

• Cockrell - it's all smoke and mirrors, all double-edged, just a floating idea

The full paragraph that this is lifted from is included in the comparison spreadsheet. See the link below for that.

Request a Translation Comparison

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Welcome to Week 19 of my slow-read of Crime and Punishment. This week’s chapter is Part Three, Chapter 5.

Please bookmark the homepage for the read-along. Here, you’ll find links to everything you need as we read the novel together.

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This week’s characters

Characters in this week’s chapter:

Razumikhin • Porfiry Petrovich • Zamyotov

In this chapter we meet Porfiry Petrovich for the first time and we get into a philosophical discussion based on an article that Raskolnikov wrote with the title, “‘On Crime’, or something like that.” It was published in the Periodical Review, something that Raskolnikov himself didn’t even know.

Part Three, Chapter 5 Synopsis

There’s an interesting scene when Porfiry Petrovich is introduced. As our two visitors enter, Razumikhin upsets an empty glass on a table and it falls and smashes to the ground. Porfiry responds with a line lifted right out of Act 1, Scene 1 of the Government Inspector by Gogol:

Why start smashing chairs, gentlemen? They cost the government money to replace.

I talk about it in this wee video.

I’m not sure of the relevance of the reference. Maybe a case of the author’s being influenced by another? I mean I will sometimes drop in a song lyric or something like that when I’m writing because it comes to mind during the creative process. It’s very cool to think of that on Dostoyevsky’s part.

Raskolnikov has gone to talk to the lead investigator, Porfiry Petrovich, about the items he’d pledged with the old pawnbroker and puts on an air of nonchalance as he enters the room with Razumikhin. He hopes to redeem his items, given his current state of impoverishment. He perceives a wink from Porfiry, which immediately makes him think, ‘he knows'!’ Remember how he felt that way when he was delirious in his room, or when he visited the police station after he was summoned.

The premise of Raskolnikov’s article is that humanity can basically be divided into two classifications:

1. The ordinary – those who solely provide the material, so to speak, for the propagation of others of their own kind;

2. The extraordinary – those who possess the gift or talent to say something new.

This is the premise of the whole novel and it’s discussed in detail in this chapter, as well as in a couple of excellent footnotes that I’ve mentioned below.

There’s a footnote in the Oxford Classics edition of Pasternak-Slater’s translation that gives some more detail on the concept of extraordinary as discussed in other of Dostoyevsky’s works. It is attached to the quotation I have used below for the translation comparison.

People are somehow all subdivided... extraordinary: the narrator of Notes from Underground refers to social reorganization as an 'anthill'. However, Raskolnikov's idea of the 'great man' represents the first full elaboration of Dostoevsky's 'anthill theory' of slavery for the masses and freedom for the chosen few. Further conceptions of the 'anthill' are found in Shigalev's theory of ultimate slavery and social levelling in Devils and in Ivan Karamazov's 'poem' 'The Grand Inquisitor', in which the eponymous inquisitor replaces the misery of free will with 'miracle, mystery, and authority' to endow enslaved mankind with happiness.
— Oxford World Classics, 2017, p498

See also this footnote from the same quotation in the Oliver Ready translation:

“All because they are extraordinary”: The originality of Raskolnikov's argument about the moral rights of extraordinary men continues to exercise scholars; Tikhomirov calls it 'the Russian version of a certain pan-European archetype'. In his epic biography Joseph Frank mentions numerous literary precursors - including Schiller, Byron, Balzac and Pushkin - but gives pride of place to the radical critic Dmitry Pisarev's interpretation of Ivan Turgenev's nihilist hero Bazarov in Fathers and Sons (1862). Where others saw Bazarov in a satirical light, Pisarev exalted him as a solitary figure who rises above the mass of humanity and the fetters of his own conscience: 'Neither above him, nor outside him, nor inside him does he recognize any regulator, any moral law, any principle.' Dostoyevsky's colleague and friend Nikolai Strakhov (1828-96) observed (in Frank's words) 'that Pisarev had gone farther than other radicals along the path of total negation' and Dostoyevsky appeared to share this view. See Derek Offord, 'Crime and Punishment and Contemporary Radical Thought' in Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment: A Casebook; Joseph Frank, Dostoevsky: The Miraculous Years, 1865-1871 (London: Robson Books, 1995), pp. 70-75; and Introduction. A more immediate source of Raskolnikov's emphasis on 'extraordinary' people appears to have been Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte's Histoire de Jules César, translated into Russian in 1865 and interpreted as a defence of Napoleon more than of Caesar. Perhaps this is the 'book' to which Raskolnikov's 'article' putatively responded. Ideas about rare individuals were in any case already in the air: twenty-five years earlier Thomas Carlyle's On Heroes, HeroWorship and the Heroic in History (1841) had greatly impressed Russian educated society (Boris Tikhomirov, S.V. Belov).

— Oliver Ready, Penguin Books, 2014, p538

---

So this philosophical concept was in the zeitgeist around the time that Dostoyevsky was writing. He himself added a lot to the discussion, not just in Crime and Punishment but also in his other works.

In Raskolnikov’s mind, the extraordinary have a right to commit crime to further their goals. Such people, however, are exceedingly rare. He breaks it down into numbers:

• One out of a thousand individuals possess at least a modicum of independence.

• One in ten thousand will possess a greater degree of independence.

• One in a hundred thousand will have greater independence still.

• Geniuses will be one out of millions.

• The greatest geniuses of all, the pinnacle of humanity, will only arise after many billions of people have lived their lives on this earth.

What’s shocking to Razumikhin is that Raskolnikov allows for the shedding of blood as something that can be sanctioned by conscience. Porfiry agrees. Raskolnikov goes on to elucidate that ‘those with a conscience will suffer, if they acknowledge that what they’ve done is wrong. That will be their punishment – apart from a spell in prison, of course.’ We can take from that that Raskolnikov does acknowledge that what he has done is wrong—he’s been suffering since before he committed the crime. In fact, he wrote in his article that illness often accompanies the committing of a crime. That idea certainly came home to roost with Raskolnikov himself! I get the impression that he meant physical illness, rather than mental illness, although who can say?

The question Porfiry then goes on to ask him—in true Columbo style—is whether Raskolnikov considers himself to be one of those ‘extraordinary’ people. He replies: ‘You may well be right… If I were to overstep an obstacle in that way, I certainly wouldn’t tell you about it.’

Again with the overstepping.

We know that Raskolnikov does indeed think of himself in that way. We also know that he really isn’t. The question is: does Porfiry know?

Later on, Porfiry lays a trap in his questioning when he asks Raskolnikov whether he remembers seeing an open apartment with two decorators inside when he called at the pawnbroker’s apartment with his pledge. Raskolnikov spots and deftly avoids the trap and Razumikhin goes on to call it out as a ridiculous line of questioning, because, as we know, the decorators were there on the day of the murder, not the day that Raskolnikov called by with his pledge.

Raskolnikov 1 | Porfiry 0

Next week we’ll be looking at the final chapter in Part Three, bringing us roughly to the half-way point in the novel. How are you enjoying it so far? Are you finding it easier to read than you expected? Is it bringing to mind anything else that you’ve read? Let me know in the comments!

All quotations in this post are taken from Roger Cockrell’s translation of 2022, Alma Classics, © Roger Cockrell 2022

Translation Points

Let’s take a look at Porfiry’s explanation of how he understands Raskolnikov’s thesis about ordinary and extraordinary people:

"No, that's not quite it," Porfiry answered. "The whole point is that we are all divided into two categories: the ‘ordinary’ and the ‘extraordinary’. The ordinary must live in obedience to the law and do not have the right to transgress it, because, you see, they are ordinary – while the extraordinary have the right to commit all kinds of crimes and violations of the law precisely because they are extraordinary. I think that's what you're saying, if I'm not mistaken?"

This is the quotation that yielded the two explanations in the footnotes I copied above. If you would like to see how the translators rendered this text, head over the to the comparison spreadsheet by clicking the button below.

Translation Comparison

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Welcome to Week 18 of my slow-read of Crime and Punishment. This week’s chapter is Part Three, Chapter 4.

Please bookmark the homepage for the read-along. Here, you’ll find links to everything you need as we read the novel together.

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This week’s characters

Characters in this week’s chapter:

Nastasya • Pulkheria Alexandrovna • Dunya • Razumikhin • Sonya

I’m trying something different this week and recording my thoughts about this chapter onto video. I found myself floundering with the written content and thought a different format would remove the creative blockage I was feeling. Ironically, it actually takes more time to do that, but it might just work for me for reasons that I discuss in the introduction of my video.

Part Three, Chapter 4 Synopsis

All quotations in this post are taken from Roger Cockrell’s translation of 2022, Alma Classics, © Roger Cockrell 2022

Translation Points

It’s the ‘glowing eyes’ this week. It made me think of a horror film and took me out of the story a bit. Here’s how it went down in the various translations.

• Russian - Бледное лицо Раскольникова вспыхнуло; его как будто всего передернуло; глаза загорелись.

• Garnett - Raskolnikov’s pale face flushed, a shudder passed over him, his eyes glowed.

• Coulson - Raskolnikov's pale face flushed; he shuddered violently and his eyes burned.

• McDuff - Raskolnikov's pale face flushed; he seemed to convulse all over; his eyes caught fire.

• P&V - Raskolnikov's pale face became flushed; he cringed all over, as it were; his eyes lit up.

• Ready - Raskolnikov's pale face suddenly flushed; his whole body seemed to convulse; his eyes caught fire.

• Pasternak Slater - A flush covered Raskolnikov's pale face, and he seemed to shudder all over. His eyes burned.

• Katz - Raskolnikov's pale face flushed; he seemed to shudder all over; his eyes flashed.

• Cockrell - Raskolnikov's pale face flushed. His whole body seemed to shake, and eyes started to glow.

I think my favourite here is ‘lit up’. It sounds like something that someone would actually say. Your eyes would glow in the firelight maybe. As for burning, has he been sprayed with pepper spray? Although now that I think of it, ‘lit up’ sort of conjures up the idea of something positive, so perhaps that’s not quite right either. How about ‘his eyes went all bloodshot’? It’s a tricky one so it is.

How would YOU render it?

Translation Comparison

Request a Translation Comparison

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Thank you for reading

Thank you for reading with me.

This book group is entirely funded by its readers. If you enjoy my posts, please consider a paid subscription to support me and this work.

Or if you’d rather just buy me a coffee, I’d be very grateful!

Please bookmark the homepage for the read-along. Here, you’ll find links to everything you need as we read the novel together.

• Crime and Punishment homepage

• Chapter summaries and analysis

• Weekly chat thread for each chapter

• Reading schedule

• Cast of characters page

If you enjoy this content and would like to help me to keep it going, please consider a paid subscription.
Thank you. 🙏🏻

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This week’s characters

Characters in this week’s chapter in the order that they are mentioned:

Zosimov • Nastasya • Pulkheria Alexandrovna • Dunya • Razumikhin

There’s a lot in this chapter, mostly dialogue between Raskolnikov and his family. Doctor Zosimov is there and sounds a bit like Jordan Peterson in some of what he says, alluding to the fact that meaning and purpose are required to stave off mental illness. Some of the translations use the word deranged or crazy in Zosimov’s speech. It’s a powerful idea that resonates with me and is a good example of why this book is as relevant today as it ever was. You can almost hear JBP in the background telling Rodion to clean his damn room. Dunya gives back as good as she gets, too and Razumikhin gets caught in the middle. It’s such an interesting chapter. Let’s take a look.

Part Three, Chapter 3 Synopsis

All quotations in this post are taken from Roger Cockrell’s translation of 2022, Alma Classics, © Roger Cockrell 2022

Raskolnikov is up in bed, face washed, hair combed. When his mother and sister enter the room, Zosimov notices in him not joy but a weary resignation at having to endure the visit. He looks tormented. Zosimov goes on to discuss the fundamental causes that have led to Raskolnikov’s pathological condition.

"I'll tell you why I'm saying that," Zosimov continued, warming to his theme. "It's because your chances of full recovery now depend on yourself, and largely on yourself alone. Now that I'm able to talk to you, I would like to impress upon you the need to eliminate the original, so to speak, fundamental causes that have largely led to your pathological condition, and once you do that you will have been fully restored to health - otherwise it will get worse."

So now we’re getting somewhere. We already touched upon the idea that Raskolnikov may be carrying unaddressed trauma. I’ve mentioned Professor Yuri Corrigan’s thoughts on how Dostoyevsky writes about trauma in three posts already (Poverty Is Not a Crime / Mr Luzhin Can Go to Hell / The Murder). Zosimov in his speech goes on to say that Raskolnikov’s ‘derangement coincided partly with your leaving the university.’ He recommends that Raskolnikov (and, by extension, ALL of us) find ‘something to engage your mind and body […] and therefore work and having a firm aim on which to focus, I feel, would be of immense benefit to you.’

In a recent post, fellow Dostoyevsky analyst posited that Raskolnikov might be suffering mentally from the death of his fiancée, Natalya Yegorovna Zarnitsyna, his landlady’s daughter. That would have been around the time he quit his studies. So far we don’t know much about his his fiancée other than the role she played in the whole issue with the IOU that led to Raskolnikov’s almost being evicted. So was Raskolnikov in love and is now in mourning? Is that the fundamental cause of his pathological condition? Was the murder of Alyona Ivanovna brought about by this condition in an attempt to heal? Or was the murder the result of a temporary loss of wits?

Later, Raskolnikov asks his mother whether she remembers how in love he was. We learned in the last chapter that his mother was not in favour of this match. He feels that he was in love with her out of pity. In fact he says that had she been a hunchback or lame, he might have loved her even more. What’s this all about? Is he going out of his way to love pitiable women? Is it a self-esteem thing? Grandiosity?

There’s a lot of subtext in the conversation that ensues. Pulkheria Alexandrovna has a whole inner monologue about how wonderful Raskolnikov is after he reaches for Dunya’s hand. He goes on about his mood and his illness; Dunya seems to see through it but doesn’t mention her doubts. He states that he remembers everything from the night before, down to the smallest detail, despite having been in a delirious state. Zosimov confirms that this is a common occurrence, ‘rather like a dream’, and goes on to claim that, out of perhaps even hundreds of thousands of people, you may come across only one well-balanced person and, even then, ‘perhaps not a very good specimen.’ What does this mean? That everyone has a cross to bear? That’s certainly how the old saying goes.

The last line that jumped out at me in this chapter was when Raskolnikov was having a go at Dunya, and he says:

Bah! You’ve got … ideals too, I see! […] if you reach a line that you can’t cross, you’ll be sorry — and if you do cross it, you’ll perhaps be even more sorry…

We discussed the crossing of lines in the post on the previous chapter; it’s the central premise of the novel, stepping over the line. But what does he mean for Dunya? Does he mean that her marrying Dunya would be crossing a line? And is the ‘you’ll be more sorry’ referring to how he feels after having committed the murders? That’s what I think anyway.

Luzhin’s Letter

We talked about Luzhin’s letter in the last chapter and asked how we thought Raskolnikov might respond. If you guessed that he would attend the meeting against Luzhin’s express wishes, you’d be right. In fact, Dunya absolutely insists on it. That should make for an interesting encounter!

Translation Points

I’m back with the stepping over, the overstepping. It’s such a vital concept for understanding the novel.

To Dunya: … if you reach a line that you can’t cross, you’ll be sorry — and if you do cross it, you’ll perhaps be even more sorry… (p215)

• Russian - перешагнуть / pere-shagnut’ (lit. over-step)

• Garnett - overstep

• Coulson - overstep

• McDuff - go on

• P&V - cross

• Ready - step over

• Pasternak Slater - cross

• Katz - overstep

• Cockrell - cross

Head over to the Translation Comparison spreadsheet to see all eight translations of the full paragraph.

Translation Comparison

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Thank you for reading

Thank you for reading with me.

This book group is entirely funded by its readers. If you enjoy my posts, please consider a paid subscription to support me and this work.

Or if you’d rather just buy me a coffee, I’d be very grateful!

Please bookmark the homepage for the read-along. Here, you’ll find links to everything you need as we read the novel together.

• Crime and Punishment homepage

• Chapter summaries and analysis

• Weekly chat thread for each chapter

• Reading schedule

• Cast of characters page

If you enjoy this content and would like to help me to keep it going, please consider a paid subscription.
Thank you. 🙏🏻

Subscribed

This week’s characters

Characters in this week’s chapter in the order that they are mentioned:

Razumikhin • Zosimov • Pulkheria Alexandrovna • Dunya

This is a chapter that doesn’t really go anywhere in terms of plot development. All we really get is a bit more about what kind of character Luzhin, with his instructions to keep Raskolnikov away during his impending visit. It’s not entirely surprising behaviour under the circumstances, but if I were wooing a young lady and her brother had been mean to me, I would be trying to figure out what went wrong and make amends.

I’m at a bit of a loss about what else I can say about this chapter, and that fact led to my procrastinating on it and then publishing a week late. Sorry about that. I’m looking forward to reading what says about this bit of the novel.

Part Three, Chapter 2 Synopsis

All quotations in this post are taken from Roger Cockrell’s translation of 2022, Alma Classics, © Roger Cockrell 2022

Razumikhin wakes up feeling regret for having been drunk and for verbally attacking Luzhin to Dunya. He’s not feeling good about himself at all, particularly at having ‘blabbed a whole load of drunken nonsense to him … about various things … including that you [Zosimov] were afraid … something to the effect he might be inclined to insanity …’.

Zosimov talks of Zamyotov and the things that he had said to him and to the lead investigator, Porfiry. We’ve yet to meet Porfiry, but he has been mentioned before, when Razumikhin told Raskolnikov that Porfiry wanted to see him. Zosimov takes his leave of Razumikhin after explaining that Praskovya Pavlovna had made tea for him in the samovar but that he’d not had the pleasure of a face to face meeting with her. Razumikhin heads off to Bakaleyev’s house where Dunya and Pulkheria Alexandrovna are staying. He’s surprised to receive a warm reception.

Pulkheria Alexandrovna grills Razumikhin about Raskolnikov’s health and disposition, whereupon Razumikhin goes into a a long explanation of just how dislikeable and neurotic Raskolnikov really is. He paints rather a bleak picture of him. Pulkheria Alexandrovna responds by saying what a capricious child he was and goes on to talk about how she felt when he had announced his engagement to his landlady’s daughter.

"And do you think," Pulkheria Alexandrovna continued heatedly, "do you think that my tears, my pleading, my illness, my death perhaps from grief, our poverty, would have stopped him? No, he would have stepped over all obstacles without a care in the world. And yet... and yet, he can't really not love us, can he?"

This is an interesting paragraph as it uses the phrasal verb ‘stepped over’. I’ll look at this below in the Translation Points section.

Razumikhin explains to Pulkheria Alexandrovna that Raskolnikov’s fiancée was no catch and that her own mother was against the match. No one can understand what the relationship was about. They then go on to discuss Raskolnikov’s behaviour when he threw Luzhin out. Pulkheria Alexandrovna explains that Luzhin had arranged to come round that morning, but instead had sent a letter. It begins with an apology at not meeting them at the station on their arrival, and again for not coming round this morning. He declares that he will come to visit the following day and that on no account is Raskolnikov to be present. He goes on to discuss the Marmeladov affair and mentions Raskolnikov’s giving 25 roubles to Sonya, a woman of ill repute.

Dunya is of a mind to ensure that Raskolnikov be there come what may. They head off to Raskolnikov’s apartment and as they go up the stairs they clock two beady eyes peering through a crack on the landing, an obvious call back to the old pawnbroker’s eyes when Raskolnikov called round to her apartment.

There’s a bit here where Pulkheria Alexandrovna talks of having dreamed of Marfa Petrovna and goes on to explain to Razumikhin that Marfa Petrovna had died. She was the wife of Svidrigailov and the former employer of Dunya. I’m not sure what the point of that reference is. She died. Razumikhin has no idea who she was. Is it an example of what Pulkheria Alexandrovna then goes on to describe herself as ‘rather scatty’?

Translation Points

Okay, the paragraph I’ve selected has the phrasal verb to step over. The Russian has the verb перешагнуть / pereshagnut’. It literally means to cross; to step over. This is the basic premise of Raskolnikov’s modus operandi, to transcend moral boundaries, to step over, to cross to the other side. His mother uses that verb to describe his personality. Has he always believed that he’s special?

The eight translations have used different verbs as follows:

1. Disregard (Garnett)

2. Trample over (Coulson)

3. Step over (McDuff, P&V, Ready, Cockrell)

4. Walk over (Pasternak Slater)

5. Overstep (Katz)

Head over to the Translation Comparison spreadsheet to see all eight translations of the full paragraph.

Translation Comparison

Request a Translation Comparison

Paid subscribers may request translation comparisons for anything that jumps out in whichever translation you’re reading.

Request a Translation Comparison

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Thank you for reading

Thank you for reading with me.

This book group is entirely funded by its readers. If you enjoy my posts, please consider a paid subscription to support me and this work.

Or if you’d rather just buy me a coffee, I’d be very grateful!