In Part III, Alyosha leaves the monastery, following Zosima’s bidding to ‘sojourn the world’. Why, there are more important matters for him to deal with, right in his own family. He has wanted to talk with Dmitri, but hasn’t the chance. Apparently a little too late, for Part III tells the major incident of the book: the patriarch of the Karamazov family, Fyodor Pavlovich, is murdered.
Compared to Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky’s description of the sequence of events leading to the crime and the psychological aftermath here is not as dark and even enlivened with a dash of comedic effects. Previously in TBK, he has gone into intense debates on the existence of God, or discourse on faith and the Church, Part III offers a different style of storytelling, an intriguing murder mystery, an absorbing who dunnit.
Having said that, it must be noted that the internal conflicts of the characters, the complex emotions of passion and jealousy, guilt and the search for redemption can all be found in this mixed bag of a novel.
Here are the events leading to the crime. Dmitri, or Mitya, is totally obsessed with Grushenka, and wants desperately to find three thousand roubles which he owes Kakterina, his former fiancé, to pay her back so to redeem himself, then, he can go chase after Grushenka blamelessly and not as a scoundrel. Umm…
After trying other means to no avail, he heads to Madame Khokhlakov to urge her to lend him the three thousand, knowing that she doesn’t like him all along and doesn’t want her good friend Katerina to marry him anyway. So, she’d likely be willing to lend him three thousand to be rid of him. Here’s his rationale:
“If she is so much against my marrying Katerina Ivanovna, then why should she deny my three thousand now, when this money would precisely enable me to leave Katya and clear out of here forever?’ (383) Umm… kind of far-fetched, but Dostoevsky is like telling his reader to just humour him and read on, as this is probably the funniest chapter in the book.
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Here it is: Book Eight, Chapter 3. Madame Khokhlakov (MK) is surprisingly agreeable when Dmitri (DF) goes to her home to plead for a loan of three thousand.
MK: You need three thousand, but I will give you more, infinitely more, I will save you, Dmitri Fyodorovich, but you must do as I say!
DF: Madame, can you possibly be so kind! Oh, Lord, you’ve saved me… You are saving a man from a violent death, madame, from a bullet… My eternal gratitude…
MK: Enough, Dmitri Fyodorovich, it’s said and done… I’ve promised to save you, and I will save you. What do you think about gold mines, Dmitri Fyodorovich?
DF: Gold mines, madame! I’ve never thought anything about them.
MK: But I have thought for you! I’ve thought and thought about it! I’ve been watching you for a whole month with that in mind. I’ve looked at you a hundred times as you walked by, saying to myself: here is an energetic man who must go to the mines. I even studied your gait and decided: this man will find many mines.
Why, the title of the Chapter is, precisely, ‘Gold Mines’.
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So, Dmitri leaves Madame Khokhlakov’s place empty-handed and in a fury. He goes to Grushenka’s home and is told that she has left. Seeing Dmitri, Grushenka’s maid Fenya ‘screamed to high heaven.’
Then the thought comes to him. Driven by jealousy and passion, he dashes to Fyodor Pavlovich’s house. The old man is probably hiding Grushenka there, and he could get that three thousand from Fyodor, the money after all is his sooner or later as inheritance. In an impulsive action, he snatches a brass pestle from the mortar and shoves it into his side pocket as he runs out of Grushenka’s home.
In the dark of night, on the fence of his father’s garden, Dmitri commits a crime. The old servant Grigory is hit on the head by the pestle, lying there on the ground unconscious and bleeding profusely.
Soon, Dostoevsky the mystery writer reveals to us another crime has also been committed around that time. Foydor Pavlovich Karamazov is found ‘lying on his back, on the floor of his study, with his head smashed in.’ (461)
That night, Dmitri finds Grushenka in another town. She has gone to an inn to reunite with her former fiancé but finds him not the same man she used to know. She decides to reunite with Dmitri instead. Just as the two reignite the flame and bask in a renewed relationship, the police commissioner, the prosecutor, and the district attorney show up to arrest Dmitri for the murder of his father.
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Previously on Ripple: TBK Part I and Part II
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