About this story
You have rehearsed seven hundred and thirty paces to a pawnbroker's door; at seven o'clock you take the caretaker's axe up the stairs, and Lizaveta comes home to it as well. Thirty-eight chapters carry you through Porfiry's cat-and-mouse interviews and Sonya's reading of Lazarus, to eight years on a Siberian river and the first page of a new story.
Who you’ll meet
Sonya Marmeladova, the clerk's daughter whose name is the last thing you hear, standing at the foot of the tenement stair, with Alyona Ivanovna the pawnbroker four flights above her behind a chained door.
How it opens
NastasyaThis July heat has cooked the sense out of your narrow garret.
NastasyaThe landlady waits one flight below, and her door remembers your debt.
NastasyaRodion Romanovich, she knows you are awake and still owe her money.
NastasyaI did not climb these stairs expecting payment or gratitude.
Tell her I shall speak when I have something useful to say.
NastasyaHunger has already made you useful to every foolish idea you meet.