A harrowing tale about one man's attempt to escape the implications of a single dire act of murder. Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov known as Rodya is a handsome young student who, in an attempt to save his sister Dounia from marrying just to provide for him, kills a slovenly sixty-year old pawnbroker with a porter's axe. During the killing her sister Lizaveta enters and he murders her too, burying the spoils.