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Crime and Punishment Week 30: Part Five, Chapter 4
Welcome to Week 30 of my slow-read of Crime and Punishment. This week’s chapter is Part Five, Chapter 4.
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This week’s characters
(I don’t include Raskolnikov in this listing as he’s in most of the chapters)
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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Excellent article. Since everything with the chapters got mixed up in my head, I even thought it was Svidrigailov eavesdropping at the end, but that wasn't the time 😅. This time it's Lebeziatnikov: but his strange ideas would hardly have allowed him to eavesdrop, he wouldn't have stood there listening. After all, he supports the idea of common rooms and communes, and would have simply walked in and stood there, openly listening, if they had continued.
And the choice of example for translation is, as always, interesting.