 The main peasant, Mikolka, feels that he has the right to kill the horse, linking his actions to Raskolnikov's theory of a 'right to crime' for a select group of extraordinary men.The cruel slaughter of the old mare in the dream points to the brutality of Raskolnikov's criminal idea, something that he tries to rationalize away with his dehumanizing characterization of the old woman as a "louse.