At the end of Chapter 6, Raskolnikov was determined to go to the police and confess. On the way, when he witnesses the death of a human being run over by a carriage, he is automatically reminded of the previous episode when he was hit by a carriage and brutally treated. Therefore, his indignation causes him to respond to the wounded man, who turns out to be Marmeladov. In this incident, his intellectual desire to confess is overruled by his emotional and humanitarian responses. His intellectual side is always deliberate while his emotional responses are spontaneous.
In Marmeladov's apartment, the reader is exposed to the cry of "Do you know what it means to have no place to go." Raskolnikov is therefore affected by the poverty and squalor of the place and constantly volunteers to pay for any expenses. At the end, Raskolnikov's compassion causes him to give his last 20 rubles to Katerina to help. This is the money that he has just received from his mother — money that she could hardly spare and not for him to squander on some poor family. Again, even though Raskolnikov can rationalize a murder, he cannot stand the sight of human suffering, indicating the tremendous poles of his existence.
Raskolnikov's first sight of Sonya reveals her as a person of great suffering and shame. He will later say that Sonya represents the great sufferings of all humanity. Here he is equally aware of the contrast between the absurd finery and gaudy dress required by prostitution as seen against her demure and humiliated self. He is immediately attracted to her, not for sexual reasons, but because of her great suffering.
