Numerology in Crime and Punishment

[Oliver Ready]

Dear Cory, and all,

The scene that probably casts most light on this question is Sonya’s famous
reading of The Raising of Lazarus (from the fourth Gospel, John: 11) to
Raskolnikov, in Part Four, Chapter Four.

During this reading Sonya ‘shakes in joyous expectation’ when she reaches
the following point: 

‘“Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was
dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time, he stinketh: for he hath been dead
four days.”
She vigorously stressed the word: *four*’. 

Commentary on this scene is given by Boris Tikhomirov in his deeply
researched book, “Lazar’! Gryadi von” (2005; “Lazarus, Come Forth”). After
noting that Dostoevsky had marked this verse (John 11: 39) in pencil in his
copy of the New Testament, Tikhomirov goes on to dispute one common line of
interpretation that has promoted a very literal application of the story of
the raising of Lazarus to Raskolnikov’s situation. This interpretation has
been based on the assumption that Sonya’s reading of the Gospel occurs on
the fourth day after Raskolnikov’s murders, but BT argues that this is in
fact the sixth day after the murders (see pp. 297-298 of his book). 

Here is a quick translation of Tikhomirov’s own suggested explanation of the
role of the number four in this chapter:

‘[The special emphasis placed on the word four represents] the actualization
(by both author and heroine) of the Gospel meaning itself, which was keenly
felt by Dostoevsky. In the Orthodox tradition, the burial of the deceased on
the *third* day is determined by the need to insure oneself against
instances of so-called “sham death” [mnimaya smert’]: burial occurs only
once there are unmistakable signs of the corpse’s decomposition. In this
way, the “four days” in the episode of the raising of Lazarus [...] are
emphatic testimony to the authentic arrival of death, thus excluding any
attempts at a “naturalistic” explanation, in the spirit of Renan, of “the
greatest of miracles”.’

In short, this seems to back up Lewis Sckolnick’s original comment: that the
number four is the number of death. But it is also, according to the
topsy-turvy logic of the Gospels introduced by Dostoevsky, the number of new
life. 

No doubt, there is a lot more to be said on this topic. Clearly, this scene,
and the long quotations from John (even longer in an earlier version of the
chapter which Dostoevsky was asked to alter), need to be understood in the
context of the novel as a whole: Marmeladov is dead, his pominki (funeral
feast) are being prepared, and his fallen daughter’s reading of the fourth
gospel at this point is necessarily haunted by Marmeladov's own
extraordinary speech to Raskolnikov, full of allusions to the Raising of
Lazarus, in Part One, Chapter Two.
 
(I have not yet had a chance to consult the article by David Matual cited by
June Farris; I may have repeated some of his findings.)

Kind regards,
Oliver Ready

Max Hayward Fellow
St Antony’s, Oxford






On Wed, 22 Dec 2010 13:07:01 -0600, Cory Davis <coryd at SPOKANESCHOOLS.ORG> wrote:

>I am currently teaching Crime and Punishment to a group of Advanced
>Placement high school seniors.  We are trying to figure out the significance of
>numbers in the book, especially the number four which he uses constantly.
>The scene in the police station shortly after the murder is inundated with the
>number four and most people live on the fourth floor.  Razuhmikhin, however,
>lives on the fifth floor.  Don't want to make too much out of it, but when
>someone of Dostoevsky's caliber emphazises a number there is most likely
>something behind it.
>
>Thanks for any input!
>
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