This novel is the quintessential Petersburg work. The city is an important character, as important as Raskolnikov. Outside of Petersburg, the student fallen on hard times was unthinkable; he was the creation of the new Petersburg. According to Dostoyevsky this “most fantastic city in the world” “was invented” (also Dostoyevsky’s expression) by Peter the Great and his heirs. In the same spirit the writer’s imagination had invented the delirious vision of the Petersburg superman / nihilist, stalking an old woman pawnbroker with ax concealed beneath his overcoat.
Raskolnikov’s “ugly dream” of murder for profit was also, according to Dostoyevsky, the specific emanation of the Petersburg atmosphere. In that sense Petersburg, with its historic pride as a city pretending to have conquered nature, is a co-conspirator in the ideological crime of the impoverished student, who with devilish pride breaks “natural” social boundaries. Joseph Brodsky, with a subtle feeling for the stylistics and poetics of Dostoyevsky, even maintained in our conversation that “Raskolnikov’s idea about killing the old pawnbroker is definitely a personal one,” meaning that Dostoyevsky himself had considered robbery, and even murder for gain. And Brodsky added, half in jest, “Considering what society does to an author, he has every right to think this way.”
Raskolnikov loves people and despises them; “two contradictory personalities alternate in him,” Dostoyevsky says. Parallel to his double personality, a double image of Petersburg develops in
“This is a city for the half-mad…. There are few more grim, harsh, and strange influences on a man’s soul than in Petersburg. Just think of the climatic influences!” the investigator mockingly reminds Raskolnikov, and the author the reader. The picture of Petersburg is painted with broad strokes, brief descriptions (in the style of stage directions), and a multitude of exact, concrete details.
The color yellow, which Dostoyevsky hated, dominates the picture. Yellow was associated with the capital, where many houses were traditionally painted that color. In
The book’s first sentence calls our attention to the extreme heat of those two weeks during which the novel’s action takes place. Dostoyevsky stresses the heat and humidity and unbearable stench later on—they form a counterpoint to Raskolnikov’s feverish, overheated state.
Raskolnikov lives on that “drunken” Stolyarny Alley, next to the Haymarket Square described earlier, Dostoyevsky uses the grotesque ensemble of that part of Petersburg for full effect, down to the tiniest detail: the tenements filled with pathetic renters in their coffinlike rooms; the bars, brothels, pawnshops, police offices.
In the novel thirteen steps lead to the top floor of Raskolnikov’s building, to his room; curious tourists can count them today in Petersburg. From the gate of Raskolnikov’s house to the house of the moneylender he intends to kill are 730 steps, by Dostoyevsky’s count, and that is also correct. * Even the stone under which Raskolnikov hid the stolen goods was real. Dostoyevsky once pointed it out to his wife while on a walk, and when she asked how he had ever ended up in that deserted courtyard, he replied, “For the reason that brings pedestrians to out-of-the-way spots.”
Dostoyevsky’s Petersburg is an “invented” city, which nevertheless has all the signs of reality. That is why in Germany, where Dostoyevsky’s European (and worldwide) fame began,
