 Raskolnikov immediately senses that Porfiry knows that he is the murderer.Porfiry, who has just been discussing the case with Zamyotov, adopts an ironic tone during the conversation.He expresses extreme curiosity about an article that Raskolnikov wrote some months ago called 'On Crime', in which he suggests that certain rare individuals—the benefactors and geniuses of mankind—have a right to 'step across' legal or moral boundaries if those boundaries are an obstruction to the success of their idea.