Crime and Punishment — Part III — Chapter VI

Walking from Porfiry’s, Raskolnikov debates with Razumihin about the investigators’ tactics. He asserts they lack facts and rely on psychological traps, then abruptly breaks away, agitated by a new fear.

Back at his room, Raskolnikov frantically checks his hiding place, then wanders outside where a stooped stranger seeks him and, when confronted, quietly calls him “murderer.” Shaken, Raskolnikov returns home in dread and lies in a daze as fragments of memory and feverish thoughts drift by. Razumihin and Nastasya peek in and let him rest.

Alone, Raskolnikov spirals into self-analysis, oscillating between grandiose “extraordinary man” theories and loathing, branding himself a “louse.” He fixates on the moral failure of his act, his hatred for the pawnbroker, and pity for Lizaveta and Sonia, revealing his fractured motives and remorse.

At dusk he wanders outside, seemingly beckoned by the same stranger, and finds himself at the crime flat. In a moonlit nightmare he “kills” the old woman again as she laughs, while silent onlookers crowd the stairs; he tries to scream and wakes.

His door opens in reality: a stout, fair-bearded man enters, waits, and then introduces himself as Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov, confronting Raskolnikov at a moment of maximum vulnerability and hinting at new dangers.