One July day in St. Petersburg, a poor young man slips out of his apartment and goes out. He is Rodion Romansch Raskolnikov, a former student, and he is preoccupied with something. He arrives at the apartment of Alyona Ivanovna, a pawnbroker, where he is attempting a trial of the unknown deed obsessing him. He has pawned something to this woman a month before, and now pawns an old watch for much less than he had hoped to get. As the woman gets her money, he watches and listens very carefully, storing up details in his memory.
He leaves after vaguely mentioning that he may come back soon with another pledge. Tormented, he wanders down the street, mentally at war with himself. He happens upon a tavern, where he stops to eat and drink something, and feels better after doing so. There, he meets Sem yon Zakharovich Marmeladov, a retired official and a drunkard. Marmeladov pours out his life story to Raskolnikov, telling about his consumptive wife Katerina Ivanovna, his three small children, and his oldest daughter Sofya (Sonya), who has had to prostitute herself to earn money for the family. Marmeladov himself had recently acquired a position, but almost immediately lost it through his alcoholism.
He has been away from home for five days, having stolen his salary money and spent it all on drink. Marmeladov asks Raskolnikov to take him home. Rodion does so, and witnesses how Katerina Ivanovna falls on her husband and drags him about by his hair. She kicks Raskolnikov out, assuming him to be a drinking partner of her husband’s. As he leaves, he places a handful of change on their windowsill unnoticed. Outside, he regrets this action, but knows he cannot go back to get the money.
The next day, he awakens feeling untested. Nastasya, the landlady’s servant, comes in with some tea for him, as well as leftovers from the previous day’s meal (since he is behind on his rent, the landlady has stopped sending his dinner up to him). She also tells him that he has received a letter. Agitated, he sends her to get it, and orders her out of the room so he can read it. The letter is from his mother, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, and mostly concerns his sister Avdotya Romanov na, or Dunya. Dunya had been working as a governess in the house of the Svidrigailov family, but the husband’s unfortunate attraction to her led the wife to kick Dunya out on the assumption that the girl had initiated the attraction.
Marfa Petrovna, the wife, then proceeded to sully Dunya’s reputation about town, until Svidrigailov himself came forward with evidence of Dunya’s purity and innocence. At that point, Marfa Petrovna had completely reversed herself, and gone about restoring Dunya’s honor with comic zeal. She had also arranged for a relation of hers, one Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin, to meet Dunya, and this gentleman had become engaged to Dunya. Following Luzhin, Pulcheria Alexandrovna and Dunya would be coming to Petersburg shortly, and are very much looking forward to seeing Rodion. Rodya goes out to walk around and think. Though his mother puts a positive spin on everything, it is clear that Luzhin does not love Dunya and is not worthy of her, and that Dunya knows this but has resolved to marry him to materially benefit her family.
Rodya, disgusted and angered, refuses to accept this self-sacrifice; but after resolving to stop the engagement, he immediately questions his own ‘right’ to get involved. Raskolnikov realizes that he had been automatically on his way to see Dmitri Prokofy ch Razumikhin, his only friend from university. He decides he will see Razumikhin the day after ‘that,’ i. e. the unknown deed. He wanders about and ends up falling asleep by the side of the road.
He dreams about watching a group of peasants beating an old nag viciously until the poor horse collapses and dies. He awakens in a sweat, profoundly thankful that it was only a dream. He rethinks ‘that,’ and suddenly concludes that he could never do it. Feeling better, renewed, he heads for home. However, he takes a detour through the Haymarket. There, he overhears a conversation between Lizaveta Ivanovna, the pawnbroker’s half-sister, and a couple of tradespeople.
It turns out that Lizaveta will be out on business the following evening. Raskolnikov is suddenly possessed with the fact that Alyona Ivanovna will definitely be alone at a time he knows of that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He goes home and falls into a long, strange, troubled sleep. He wakes up in the evening, and fears he may have missed his chance.
He immediately bustles about, making his preparations: the deed that has been obsessing him is the murder and robbery of the pawnbroker. He plans to retain complete control over his reason and will, and thereby commit the perfect crime, and perhaps use the fruits of it (i. e. the stolen goods) to help others. Raskolnikov makes his way to Alyona Ivanovna’s. He enters on the pretext of having a new pledge for her.
As she struggles with the deliberately difficult knots, he takes out his axe and hits her on the head with it until she dies. Nerve-wracked, he fumbles about before finally unlocking a trunk full of goods. As he is stuffing his pockets, he hears a footstep. Frozen, he realizes in panic that someone has come in. Grabbing the axe, he rushes out into the room.
There stands Lizaveta, staring at the body of her half-sister. Rodya rushes at her and kills her with the axe as well. Hearing people outside, Raskolnikov hooks the door-latch and crouches behind it, listening. The visitors, suspecting something wrong, run to get help. Quietly Rodya slips out of the apartment and manages to leave the building and return home unnoticed, though he is practically collapsing. After a fitful sleep punctuated by moments of frenzied activity, Rodya is awakened by Nastasya coming in with the caretaker, who hands him a summons to go to the police station.
Panicked, he wonders why he has been summoned, and despite his clear illness, he gets up to go. His nerves are frayed, but when he gets to the station he finds that he has been called to make a payment on a promissory note he had written long ago for his landlady. Relieved, he writes a statement of his promise to pay, directed by the clerk. However, the chief of police Nikodim Fomich and his assistant Ilya Petrovich are talking about the murders, and Raskolnikov faints. He recovers to find them all looking at him strangely. Ilya Petrovich starts to ask him where he was the previous night.
Nikodim Fomich reproaches Ilya Petrovich and Raskolnikov is dismissed. Rodya returns home, where he makes sure his apartment has not been searched, and gathers up all the stolen goods from where he had hidden them. He goes out and ends up hiding them beneath a stone in a deserted courtyard. He drops in on Razumikhin, who is utterly astonished to see him. However, Raskolnikov leaves almost as soon as he has arrived, throwing Razumikhin into indignant frustration. Rodya returns home and goes to bed.
The next morning he falls unconscious, at last succumbing to an illness that had been coming on for quite some time. When he at last comes to, Razumikhin is there, having tended him through his illness, and Rodya receives 35 roubles from his mother, who has borrowed it on the security of her pension. Razumikhin, who has befriended practically everyone in Rodya’s life by this point, has recovered Rodya’s promissory note and takes some of the money to buy him new (actually second-hand) clothes. Dr. Zossimov checks on Rodya, and while he is there he and Razumikhin start talking about the murders. Razumikhin has gotten to know Zamyotov, the clerk at the police station, and they are hoping to absolve the current suspect, Nikolai Dementyev, who had been working as a painter in the house at the time of the crime.
Raskolnikov is tortured by all this. Amidst the discussion, Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin, Dunya’s fianc’e, enters. He has come to call on Rodion, but the visit ends disastrously in a quarrel, with Rodya kicking him out. Rodya orders everyone else to leave, and after he is alone he gets up and goes out.
After wandering aimlessly, he enters the Crystal Palace tavern, where he encounters Zamyotov. He engages in a mind-game with the clerk, taunting him and leading him to believe that he was the murderer before pulling him up short and accusing him of believing it. He exits, leaving Zamyotov convinced that Rodya cannot possibly be the murderer. On his way out, Rodya runs into Razumikhin, who is enraged at his irresponsible disappearance, especially as he is ill. They argue, but in the end Razumikhin invites him to a party he is having that evening. Rodya walks off.
Razumikhin, frustrated, goes in to talk to Zamyotov. Rodya wanders about, considers jumping into the river, then turns to go to the police station. On his way, however, he passes Alyona Ivanovna’s house. Inexplicably impelled, he goes in to the apartment, where workmen are renovating the place.
He scares them by asking about the blood and ringing the doorbell incessantly just to hear the sound. They all go downstairs, and there is much discussion about taking this madman to the police, which he agrees with. But in the end he is ordered off the premises. In doubt as to whether he should go, he hesitates in the street. He spots a commotion and approaches it. It turns out that Marmeladov, drunk, has been run over by a carriage.
Rodya takes charge and conveys Marmeladov to his apartment. They send for a doctor and a priest. Sonya is also sent for, and Marmeladov, after begging forgiveness, dies in her arms. Rodya gives Katerina Ivanovna all of his money, everything he has left from what his mother had sent him, for the funeral, and leaves. He feels renewed. On his way home, he stops at Razumikhin’s.
Razumikhin, who has had a lot to drink, walks him home. They open the door to find Rodya’s sister and mother there. Overcome, Rodya passes out. He recovers to demand that Dunya break off her engagement with Luzhin, and is generally rude and sullen. Razumikhin is indignant, and takes the ladies under his wing. He escorts them home and, having been immediately smitten with the beautiful Dunya, promises to return twice to report on Rodya’s state.
Despite the ladies’ doubts about his abilities, he carries out his promises to the full. The next day he is embarrassed as he recalls his drunken behavior, but when he goes to see the women they are not only kind but grateful. They ask him all sorts of questions about Rodya. They also show him a letter they had received from Luzhin that morning, requesting a meeting at 8: 00 pm, and demanding that Rodya not be present. They go to see Rodya and find him with Zossimov. Rodya is strange and somehow distant, and the meeting is tense.
Rodya.