Crime and Punishment Chapter 6 Summary

Summary

Raskolnikov wakes from a spell of delirium, dresses in new clothes Razumikhin brought, pockets twenty-five roubles and slips out while the landlady’s helper is occupied. He walks through the Hay Market and the crowded streets in a state of intense, shifting moods: savage energy, detachment, fleeting compassion, and an obsessive conviction that "everything must be ended to-day" though he has no clear plan. He gives a girl money, listens at noisy saloons, and drifts into a restaurant where he reads papers obsessively for news of the pawnbroker’s murder.

There he meets the clerk Zametov and engages in a tense, provocative conversation that swings from mockery to intimate whispers about how one would commit such crimes and hide the proceeds; Raskolnikov suddenly blurts, “And what if it was I who murdered the old woman and Lizaveta?” He storms out shaken, meets Razumikhin who tries to bring him home, refuses, and collapses into the mood swings again at the canal where he witnesses a drunken woman’s attempted suicide and rescue. Overcome by compulsion, he returns to the very tenement where the murders occurred, finds the flat being papered and stripped of its old traces, rings the bell obsessively, and claims to be Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov when challenged; porters fling him into the street. The chapter ends with him moving toward a crowd and a carriage, having resolved (and yet suspended) some decision about going to the police station.

Key events

1. Raskolnikov dresses in new clothes, takes Razumikhin’s money and leaves the lodging.
2. Wanders Hay Market and drunken quarters, gives money to a street girl and listens to noisy saloons.
3. Reads newspapers in a restaurant, meets Zametov and discusses murders and hypothetical concealment.
4. Blurts out an accusation about himself murdering the pawnbroker and Lizaveta, then leaves in agitation.
5. Meets Razumikhin, rejects his help, stands on a bridge and sees a woman attempt suicide.
6. Returns compulsively to the pawnbroker’s tenement, finds it being renovated, rings the bell and is turned away.

Analysis

This chapter consolidates Raskolnikov’s psychological instability and advances the novel’s investigation of guilt, alienation, and self-justification without revealing later outcomes. The sudden calm and decisive movements at the opening mask a turbulent inner life: his resolve to "make an end" sits alongside trivial acts (giving coins, reading papers) and morbid curiosity. The restaurant scene with Zametov functions as both provocation and confession: Raskolnikov theorizes about crime and concealment in detached, almost clinical terms, then impulsively proposes the possibility that he himself is the murderer. That utterance acts as a dramatic turning point in the chapter—an outburst that forces both reader and interlocutor to confront him anew.

Symbolically, the renovated pawnbroker’s flat (new paper covering the old bloodstains) represents the city's attempt to whitewash or forget violent acts, provoking Raskolnikov’s compulsion to revisit a scene he cannot tolerate being changed. The canal suicide episode interrupts and echoes his thoughts about death and living; the rescued woman’s obvious drunkenness contrasts with Raskolnikov’s intellectualized, theatrical approach to life-and-death decisions. Narratively, Dostoevsky uses close third-person focalization to render sensory detail, sudden mood shifts, and Raskolnikov’s internal contradictions, building tension by alternating public scenes (crowds, taverns, the bridge) with intimate confrontations (Zametov, Razumikhin). The chapter tightens the psychological noose around Raskolnikov while widening the social field in which his behavior will be judged.

Important quotes

““To-day, to-day,” he muttered to himself.”

NarratorEarly in the chapter, Raskolnikov experiences a sudden, fierce calm and repeats this as his driving, urgent thought.

““And what if it was I who murdered the old woman and Lizaveta?””

RaskolnikovA dramatic, impulsive confession whispered to Zametov that shocks his listener and intensifies the chapter’s moral tension.

““I am Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, formerly a student, I live in Shil’s house, not far from here, flat Number 14, ask the porter, he knows me.””

RaskolnikovRaskolnikov asserts his identity in a weary, dreamy voice when confronted by porters in the tenement where the murders occurred.

Characters in Chapter 6

• Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov
• Dmitri Prokofych Razumikhin
• Nastasya Petrovna
• Zametov
• Duclida
• Alyoshka (younger workman)
• Tit Vassilitch (elder workman)
• Porters
• A peasant woman (crowd member)
• A man in a long coat (spectator)
• A drunken soldier (street),
• The drowning woman (Afrosinya)