Crime and Punishment — Part V — Chapter IV

Raskolnikov arrives at Sonia’s room shaken by the need to confess. After circling moral hypotheticals and stumbling through apologies, he finally reveals he knows who killed Lizaveta and forces Sonia to grasp the truth: he murdered Alyona and, accidentally, Lizaveta. Sonia is horrified, then embraces him in compassion.

Pressed by Sonia’s questions, Raskolnikov rejects hunger or filial motives and lays out his true drivers: contempt for limits, a “Napoleon” ideal, and a need to test whether he is a man set above others or merely a “louse.” He insists the devil led him, that he destroyed himself more than the victim, and that he took and hid no usable loot.

Sonia urges redemption: go to the crossroads, bow to the earth, confess publicly, and accept suffering. Raskolnikov refuses immediate surrender, railing at society and claiming he will fight the case since evidence is weak, though he expects arrest. He asks Sonia not to visit him in prison, then wavers.

Sonia offers her wooden cross, keeping Lizaveta’s for herself; Raskolnikov delays putting it on until he goes to “meet his suffering,” and she promises to pray and go with him. Their fraught moment is abruptly broken by a knock: Lebeziatnikov politely asks to enter.