At the beginning of the chapter, Raskolnikov is suspicious that Svidrigailov still has plans to seduce Dunya and resolves to follow him. Ironically, he is completely right. Svidrigailov knows this, but he is also shrewd enough to know that Raskolnikov can't stomach his vulgar talk. True to form, Raskolnikov suddenly is repulsed and disgusted with the man's depravity and cannot stand to be in his presence any longer.
The scene with Dunya is the most crucial in Svidrigailov's life. Prior to this scene, Svidrigailov had functioned as a man completely self-sufficient, needing no one. Like Raskolnikov, he thought that his aims and desires were above those of the ordinary man. Likewise, in the past, whenever Svidrigailov wanted something, he simply took it and defied all consequences. He lived with the idea that he needed no one and that he could withstand all things. Now he finds that he not only wants Dunya, but also, and more importantly, he wants Dunya to want him. Here then, is the total failure of the Ubermensch — that is, the total impossibility of man's being able to exist completely alone.
If it were only the sensual pleasure derived from seducing Dunya, Svidrigailov could have easily raped her. If it were a matter of simply asserting his self-will and power, he could have easily done that. Previously, Svidrigailov had dared to face life alone — that is, to measure his will against all things. In doing this he has been utterly alone — in complete solitude as Raskolnikov was. He has committed evil so that he might know whether some power beyond him could punish him, and he has not been punished. So there is nothing for his unconquerable will to will any more. His is a loneliness that is more than he can bear. He then turns to Dunya knowing that she dislikes him, yet hoping there may be a spark of love behind all the loathing that would show him he is not alone. Twice she fires at him. He remains and allows her to fire so as to see if he can be punished. But before she fires a third time, she drops the pistol. The one last hope for himself is aroused. "A weight seemed to have rolled from his heart. . .it was the deliverance from another feeling, darker and more bitter, which he could not himself define." This feeling is the hope that Dunya's dropping of the gun means that she can give freely of herself to him; he asks if she loves him or can ever love him. Never. That hope is destroyed, and he is again completely alone. He has crossed the bounds of all human experience in his desire to find whether the burden of life rests on his will alone or whether there is something beyond, and he has found nothing. Death then is the only thing that he has left untried — the only thing he has not yet willed. It is for him to finally will his own death.
