Laura Occasionally Blogs

1.1 Raskolnikov awkwardly questioned a pawnbroker.
1.2 Raskolnikov drank with a clerk named Marmeladov, whose daughter Sonia is a prostitute.
1.3 Raskolnikov recieved a letter from his mother, giving him some money, and explaining that his sister, Dunia, is engaged to a wealthy businessman named Luzhin.
1.4 Raskolnikov mused peevishly about life. "Bitter is the ascent to Golgotha!" etc. etc.
1.5 Raskolnikov fell asleep in a bush.
1.6 Raskolnikov alternately sleeps feverishly and looks for an axe to borrow.
1.7 Raskolnikov killed the old pawnbroker woman for obscure reasons. Then he killed her mentally challenged sister for crime-going-horribly-wrong-ack-ack reasons. This one was messier and he was disgusted and feverish and confused. He looted the apartment half-assedly and left.
2.1 Raskolnikov responded to a police summons but fainted while waiting to be questioned.
2.2 Raskolnikov buried his loot under a rock and went to see his friend from university, Razumihin, who is awesome. Razumihin tried to press some German translation on him, but Raskolnikov refused.
2.3 Raskolnikov drifted in out of fever-dreams and finally woke up with Razumihin nursing him back to health in his apartment. Razumihin also buys him a new outfit.
2.4 Razumihin and the doctor, Zossimov, chatted about the murder.
2.5 Luzhin stopped by to introduce himself to his betrothed's brother. Raskolnikov did not make a great first impression.
2.6 Raskolnikov posed a "what if I were the murderer" type hypothetical to a police officer in a diner because he is a jerk.
2.7 On his way to the police station to turn himself in, Raskolnikov witnessed the accidental death of Marmeladov. He gave all his money to the widow and, with a weirdly new lease on life, headed to Razumihin's party. Razumihin was sweet to him and helped him return to his apartment, where he found his mother and sister waiting for him.

A Note on the Translation
Previously I blamed Constance Garnett for the clunky translation. I take it back. I have a new copy of the book also based on Garnett's 1915 translation, but it has NOT been heavily revised to make it closer to the Russian original. It is better. (Sorry, Dostoevsky.)

I feel like I've already done part three but I can't find it. Man.

3.1
In muddled half-sentences, Raskolnikov urges his family to leave him alone, but his mother refuses. Razumihin volunteers to look after Raskolnikov on their behalf. He will, you guys. You don't need to worry. Razumihin will give him all the mother's love a boy could want. For some reason.

Raskolnikov becomes more coherent as he orders Dunia to break off her engagement with Luzhin, saying, "It's him or me." Razumihin yells at him, calling him, "Despot!" Pulcheria asks Razumihin to take Dunia home so that she can look after her son, but Razumihin points out in a harsh whisper that Dunia won't be safe in the terrible lodgings "that blackguard" Luzhin found them. He immediately apologizes for swearing, saying the wine has gone to his head, even though the narrator already insisted that he was fine, FINE. He tells them to leave if they don't want Rodya to go into a "frenzy,"

and at almost every word he uttered, probably to emphasize his arguments, he squeezed their hands as painfully as a vice. He stared at Avdotia Romanovna without the least revard for good manners. They sometimes pulled their hands out of his huge bony paws, but far from noticing what was the matter he drew them all closer to him.

Maybe people who live in frenzies shouldn't throw stones.

In spite of his eccentricity, it's clear to Pulcheria and Dina that Razumihin really cares about Rodya and has been taking good care of him until now, so they allow him to walk them back to their lodgings.

Of course, Razumihin absolutely loves Dunia at first sight, you guys. "In face, she resembled her brother." Oh God. I hope there's nothing in here about a bat's squeak of sexuality.

On the way, Razumihin expounds at length on the nature of truth and life, and attempts to kiss Dunia's hands, which embarrasses the women (although Dunia covers it up by laughing at him). He tells them that Luzhim seems like a jerk, and that Zametov thinks Raskolnikov might be going mad. So, you know, everything he knows about everything.

Razumihin runs back and forth all night, fetching the doctor, reporting to the family on Raskolnikov's angelic sleeping, etc. Zossimov remarks that Dunia is cute, and Razumihin tries to strangle him. He then seems to try to convince Zossimov to flirt with the landlady. I forget whether or not it was mentioned before that Razumihin seems to have some kind of an "arrangement" with the landlady that he would apparently now like to get out of.

This is a weird book.

3.2
When he wakes up the next morning, Razumihin is filled with self-loathing. He hates that he abused Dunia's fiance in front of her, and decides it's unforgivable and he should just forget about Dunai's good opinion and "do my duty in silence." But the women are delighted to see him when he comes to fetch them and bring them back to Raskolnikov's, and Pulcheria immediately gets on a "Dmitri Prokofich" basis with him.

Pulcheria is upset that Rodya has changed so much since she saw him last, and Razumihim tries to comfort her by telling her that, though he has no mother, his only relation, an uncle, barely recognizes him when he sees him, either (awwww poor baby). He also gives an honest account of Raskolnikov, as he knows him.

"...I have known Rodion for a year and a half; he is morose, gloomy, proud, and haughty, and of late--and perhaps a long time before--he has been suspicious and fanciful. He has a noble nature and a kind heart. He does not like showing his feelings and would rather do a cruel thing than open his heart freely. Sometimes, though, he is not at all morbid but simply cold and inhumanly callous; it's as though he were alternating between two characters. Sometimes he is fearfully reserved! He says he is so busy that everything is a hindrance, yet he lies in bed doing nothing. He doesn't jeer at things, not because he hasn't the wit, but as though he hadn't time to waste on such trifles. He never listens to what is said of him. He is never interested in what interests other people at any given moment. He thinks very highly of himself, and perhaps he is right."

Yup, that's about right.

Dunia thanks him for his honesty, which surprises her, because she though he was "uncritically devoted to him." If you know what I mean. "I think you are right that he need's a woman's care." "I didn't say that," says Razumihin. Ha ha ha ha ha.

"He loves no one and perhaps he never will," Razumihin declared decisively.

"You mean he is not capable of love?"

"Do you know, Avdotia Romanova, you are awfully like your brother, in everything, indeed!"

HA. HA. HA.

Pulcheria thinks that Rodya does love them, but he's always been "capricious"--"I could never depend on what he would do when he was fifteen." But that's called being fifteen, I think. She brings up Rodya's engagement, which I'm not sure if we've heard that much about before. About a year and a half ago, Raskolnikov was engaged to the landlady's daughter, but she died before the wedding. Razumihin doesn't know much about it--"He has never spoken a word of that affair to me"--but from what he gathered from the landlady (whom, you'll remember, he seems to have had ample opportunity to chat with), the girl was a strange, ugly invalid, who didn't even seem to like Raskolnikov that much, and who didn't have any money or anything, not that Razumihin thinks Raskolnikov would even marry for money. So it's really inexplicable.

Pulcheria asks Razumihin about the quarrel between Raskolnikov and Luzhin, and Razumihin believes that Raskolnikov's illness had nothing to do with it--he would have done the same if he had been well--but politely refuses to comment on Luzhin's character himself, which surprises the women, since he was pretty open about his distaste the night before. Pulcheria admits she's getting a little weirded out by Luzhin. She shows Razumihin a letter in which Luzhin coldly apologizes for not meeting them at the station himself (he sent a servant), firmly requests that Raskolnikov not be present at any of their meetings in the city, and informs them that the supposedly ill Raskolnikov certainly appeared well when Luzhin saw him in the street two hours later giving a hooker money on the pretext of her father's funeral. Ha ha ha, what an ass. Razumihin's advice is to do whatever Dunia thinks is right, and Dunia has decided to invite them both over at the same time to work out their differences.

Pulcheria worries as they approach Raskolnikov's room. Razumihin assures her it will be okay.

I think I like this book a tiny bit better when Raskolnikov isn't in it.

Raskolnikov Like-O-Meter: 7
Razumihin Like-O-Meter: 68 Million