The Brothers Karamazov: Part 1: Book 2, Chapter 7 Summary & Analysis

After his visit with the Karamazovs, Alexei takes the elder Zosima to a little bedroom to rest. Zosima encourages him to go to the Father Superior’s so that he can serve at the table. The monk also says that, when he dies, Alexei should leave the monastery for good. He encourages Alexei to travel and to marry. Alexei leaves the hermitage to get to the monastery for dinner with the Superior. He feels anguished. He hurries through the woods that separate the hermitage from the monastery and there notices Rakitin. Rakitin asserts that the elder smells a crime that stinks in Alexei’s family. Rakitin gets Alexei to admit that, while watching his brother and his father, he “thought about a crime.”

Rakitin thinks that, eventually, the Karamazovs will bring each other to ruin. He says that Dmitri is a sensualist like his father and that, in the Karamazov clan, “sensuality is carried to the point of fever.” Alexei believes that Dmitri “despises” Grushenka, while Rakitin says that Alexei can’t understand why Dmitri loves Grushenka, as he can’t understand yet how a man falls in love with a woman’s body. He tells Alexei that Dmitri may despise Grushenka, but he remains unable to tear himself away from her.

Rakitin surmises that Alexei, a virgin, is both a sensualist like his father and a “holy fool” like his mother. He talks about how Dmitri has “lost his mind over Grushenka,” though Rakitin insists that Grushenka is merely deciding on who, between father and son, is the more profitable. He thinks that Dmitri will drop Katerina, his fiancée, for Grushenka. Meanwhile, Ivan hopes to acquire Katerina as a result, and will, at the same time, get “her dowry of sixty thousand roubles.” Rakitin then condemns Ivan’s article as “ridiculous and absurd.” He says that Ivan is merely a “show-off.”

Alexei finds it hard to believe that Rakitin would have been at Katerina’s while Ivan was talking about him. Rakitin confirms that he wasn’t, but that Dmitri was, and he heard it from Dmitri because he was sitting in Grushenka’s bedroom and eavesdropping. Alexei then remembers that Grushenka is Rakitin’s relative, which the latter denies. Rakitin is offended by the association. He insists that he has his reasons for visiting her, which are no one’s business. Rakitin then shifts his attention—Dmitri and Ivan are leaving quickly from the Father Superior’s.