1.5 Everything had suddenly been finaly decided

The chapters are getting heavier and more intense as Rodion gets closer to committing the crime. And the dream about the horse's death is simply impossible to read without tears.

So, at the end of the last chapter, Raskolnikov was heading to Razumikhin. And he still doesn't appear in the novel, remaining only in Rodion's thoughts.

Raskolnikov, on the one hand, wants to visit him for some unclear reason, but he finds excuses not to. But the excuses are quite strange. It's clear that Raskolnikov needs money and work, yet he arrogantly dismisses the thought of working for a few kopecks. Why is that?

Why do you think Rodion is so worried about this possible meeting with Razumikhin? Is it the implications that wound his pride? Admitting weakness, submitting to someone’s will?

Or does this have something to do with the fact that after that meeting he might have no reason to commit the crime? Write your ideas in the comments.

Raskolnikov goes to the north of Petersburg, to its outskirts, to the islands where there used to be nature parks and places for leisure. Somewhere there in a tavern, he drinks vodka and eats a pie. And this immediately makes him sleepy. As we see, he doesn't particularly try to cope with his impulses. He wants to sleep — he lies down right there in the bushes. He becomes almost animalistic, following impulses and urges.

We visit Raskolnikov's painful dream

Dostoevsky wrote in his diaries:

"I attach great importance to dreams. My dreams are always prophetic. When I see my deceased brother Misha in my dream, and especially when I dream of my father, I know that trouble is coming my way."

Raskolnikov's dream, in which a drunken man Mikolka viciously beats his horse to death, is one of the most important episodes in the novel.

Rodion’s visit to the cemetery with his parents most likely takes place on the Parental Saturday before Trinity, on the 49th day of Easter. After the commemoration and weeping, noisy festivities with songs and dances usually began.

«They would always bring with them a rice pudding wrappedin a napkin, on a white dish, the sugary rice had raisins pressed onto it in the shape of a cross

Perhaps, like in my case, your translations do not name this dish but simply describe it. This is Kutia. A ritual dish, a porridge, which was eaten at memorial services and wakes, and has some connection to the antique tradition of grain and fruit offerings to the gods, with a prayer for the repose of the departed soul. On top of this porridge, they place raisins or dried fruits in the shape of a cross.

Raskolnikov has a very warm memory of kutia from his childhood. He remembers that the "cross" is sweet. This can say a lot about his understanding of "punishment" in the future.

And then we become witnesses to the killing of a horse, and not just any killing, but a cruel and absolutely senseless one. They kill it simply because they can, for no reason at all.

The story, reminiscent of Raskolnikov's dream, happened in Dostoevsky's childhood during his first trip to St. Petersburg: he saw a ranger who, having climbed into a troika of courier horses, began to beat the coachman, and the coachman, in turn, began to frantically whip the horses. It was a vivid illustration of the social chain of cruelty:

"This disgusting image remains in my memories to this day. I could never forget that field ranger and many disgraceful and cruel things within Russian people I since tended to vie somewhat one-sidedly…"
Dostoevsky recalled in The Writer's Diary.

This passage in the diary was laced with a critique of the Animal Protection Society which he thought didn’t live up to the moral code it espoused. He believed the treatment of animals has a direct correlation to our treatment of each other, and that humane treatment of animals makes us more human.

We can also recall two literary sources that have a connection to this dream sequence. First, there is Nekrasov's poem "Until Twilight" (До сумерек). There is no artistic translation of this poem anywhere, so this is an improvisation. The original can be read here

Under the cruel hand of man
Barely alive, hideously thin,
The crippled horse strains,
Dragging an unbearable load.
Here it wobbled and stopped.
Well! — the driver grabbed a log
(The whip seemed insufficient to him) —
And he beat it, beat it, beat it!
Spreading its legs wide,
Steaming all over, sinking backward,
The horse only sighed deeply
And looked... (just as people look,
Submitting to unjust attacks).
He again: on the back, on the sides,
And, running ahead, on the shoulders
And the crying gentle eyes!

In Dostoevsky's work, this is a very important poem, he also quotes it in "The Brothers Karamazov."

The second source is Victor Hugo's poem "Melancholia" from the collection Contemplations, where the torment of a horse by a drunken driver is also described. In some places, Dostoevsky coincides with Hugo verbatim. I will not quote the text with the terrible treatment of the horse again, but here is the original in French.

Remember the name Mikolka — he is the one who tortured the horse to death. This name will come up later.

Raskolnikov is so deeply affected by witnessing the horse's murder that he feels nauseous upon waking. Yet at the same time, he feels a sense of freedom, as if he has managed to rid himself of the obsession with murder through this dream. He seems to have felt all the bitterness, rejection and suffering of a creature being killed. Even in the dream, the horse's death had such a strong impact on him, so how could he possibly inflict pain and harm on a human being?

The boy in the dream tries to "save himself, the adult, in reality," and indeed, upon waking, Raskolnikov reimagines the crime he is about to commit:

“My God!’ he exclaimed. ‘Am I really, really going to take an axe and start beating her on the head, and split her skull open… and slip on her warm, sticky blood, and break open the lock, and steal, and tremble—and hide, all covered in blood… with the axe… Oh my God, is that really true?”

Under the influence of the dream, Raskolnikov briefly abandons his plan, and tries to pray — but to no avail. The dream remains a warning that Raskolnikov did not heed. In his drafts, Dostoevsky remarked on this dream scene: "Is there a law of nature that we do not know and that screams within us?" For him, this was a cry of human nature against murder.

It is after this dream that Dostoevsky directly tells us that the crime he planned is murder, and specifically, murder with an axe.

And here he returns home, with a feeling of relief, seemingly freed from his obsessive idea.

“Lord! Show me my path; and I renounce this accursed… dream of mine!”

A very close paraphrase of Verse 8 of Psalm 142 (7th Penitential psalm). In the context of the novel as a whole, it is extremely important that Raskolnikov unconsciously recalls this particular biblical text, in which the psalmist experiences the loss of communion with God as his own death. There will be many references to Lazarus in the text.

However, this enlightenment turns out to be short-lived, lasting only a couple of hours. As soon as Raskolnikov overhears that Lizaveta, the sister of Alyona Ivanovna with whom she lives, will not be home tomorrow at 7 PM, he completely forgets about his moment of clarity. For him, this becomes a sign that the plan must be carried out.

And it must be done tomorrow at 7 PM.

Why do you think Raskolnikov so quickly moved from the horror of a possible crime, which he experienced in a dream, to the full acceptance of the inevitability of this murder? Was this crime really inevitable?

So, the next two chapters will be very intense.