A Fevered Mind in St. Petersburg
On a suffocatingly hot July afternoon, a destitute young man named Raskolnikoff slips out of his cramped garret in St. Petersburg, carefully avoiding his landlady to whom he owes a significant debt. Suffering from extreme poverty and a severe nervous, hypochondriacal condition, he has isolated himself from society. As he walks through the filthy, crowded streets, he experiences an intense internal conflict. He is consumed by a "daring coup" he has been planning for a month, though he repeatedly dismisses the idea as a mere fantasy. Obsessed with the minutiae of his plan, he feels deeply anxious that his ridiculous, ruined top hat will attract unwanted attention and compromise his scheme.
Raskolnikoff walks exactly seven hundred paces to a massive apartment building next to the canal. He climbs the dark staircase to the fourth floor to perform a "rehearsal" of his plan, noting with satisfaction that a nearby apartment is temporarily vacant. He rings the tinny bell of Alena Ivanovna, an elderly, suspicious moneylender. Despite her intense distrust, she lets him inside her spotlessly clean, yellow-papered flat. Raskolnikoff carefully memorises the layout of the rooms as he offers her an old silver watch to pawn.
The transaction is tense. Alena Ivanovna treats him coldly, demanding high interest and deducting her fees upfront. While she fetches his meagre payment of one rouble and fifteen kopecks from an adjacent room, Raskolnikoff listens intently, deducing that she keeps her keys on a steel ring in her right pocket and suspects she has a hidden iron strongbox. Before leaving, he awkwardly inquires about her sister to gather intelligence, hinting that he will return soon with a silver cigarette case.
Upon leaving, Raskolnikoff is overcome by an intense wave of self-loathing, physical weakness, and horror at the monstrosity of his thoughts. Wandering aimlessly like a drunkard, he seeks refuge in a dark, dirty tavern, despite having never entered one before. He drinks a glass of beer, which momentarily relieves his physical exhaustion and clears his mind, leading him to dismiss his earlier moral panic as mere physical weakness. Feeling temporarily comforted, he sits in the quiet tavern, observing a few eccentric patrons and an anxious, former government official.