The Brothers Karamazov: Part 1: Book 3, Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

Alexei asks if Dmitri is still Katerina Ivanovna’s fiancé. Dmitri says that he became her fiancé three months after the events that he just recounted. The day after her visit, Katerina’s maid came and handed him an envelope containing the change from the five-thousand-rouble bank note. He went on a spree with the money, leading him to be reprimanded by the new major. The old colonel returned the missing government funds, then lay sick in bed for three weeks before getting “a softening of the brain” and dying in five days.

Ten days later, Katerina Ivanovna, Agafya Ivanovna, and her aunt left for Moscow. There, Katerina was welcomed by an old widow who lost both of her nieces—her closest heirs—to smallpox in the same week. The woman took Katerina in as though she were her own daughter and gave her a dowry of eighty thousand roubles to spend however she’d like. So, Dmitri suddenly received forty-five hundred roubles in the mail. He was struck dumb, then received another letter three days later. In it, Katerina declared her love for Dmitri and asked him to marry her. She promised to be his “furniture” and a “rug” for him to walk on, only to save him from himself.

Dmitri responded and said that he was only a poor boor, while Katerina Ivanovna was now rich. Dmitri then wrote to Ivan in Moscow and explained everything in a six-page letter. He then sent Ivan to Katerina, and Ivan fell in love with her, and Katerina “reveres” Ivan. Alexei thinks that Katerina still loves Dmitri, but Dmitri thinks that she only loves her own virtue. Dmitri wants Katerina to marry Ivan while he, the “unworthy” man, will disappear down “his dirty back lane”—that is, back to Grushenka.

Dmitri says that, once he started seeing Grushenka, he stopped being a fiancé and an honest man. However, he found out about her getting the promissory note from Captain Snegiryov, so he set out to give her a beating. Dmitri knows about how money-hungry Grushenka is, and about the old merchant, Samsonov, who’ll leave her a nice sum when he dies. He tells Alexei how three thousand roubles turned up, which he spent in Mokroye.

Grushenka agreed to marry Dmitri. Alexei asks if Dmitri really wants to marry her, and Dmitri says he will “at once.” Dmitri regards himself as a “thief” and a “pilferer” for taking three thousand roubles that Katerina Ivanovna entrusted him to send to her sister Agafya Ivanovna, who was in Moscow. He pretended to go to the provincial capital, from where he would’ve needed to send the money. Instead, he went to Mokroye with Grushenka. He wants Alexei to tell Katerina that he’s a “base sensualist” who spent her money. Alexei suggests that he can give her the money. He already has two thousand and Ivan will give another thousand, but Dmitri isn’t so sure that he can acquire the full sum. He implores Alexei to go to Katerina today, “with the money or without it,” and “make that bow to her.”

Dmitri then says that Alexei should go to their father and ask him for the money, but Alexei is sure that the old man won’t give it. Dmitri insists that Fyodor owes him something for making a hundred thousand out of his mother’s twenty-eight thousand dowry. He says that if Fyodor gives him three thousand roubles, he’ll never have to hear from his eldest son again. Alexei insists that their father will not give him the sum and Dmitri admits that he knows the same. Fyodor surely won’t give him the money that he’ll need to marry Grushenka, since Fyodor has “lost his mind over her.” Five days before, Fyodor “withdrew three thousand roubles in hundred-rouble notes and packed them into a big envelope, sealed with five seals and tied crisscross with a red ribbon.” The money is for Grushenka. Dmitri says that no one, other than Smerdyakov, “whose honesty [Fyodor] trusts like himself,” knows that he has the money.

Fyodor has sent word to Grushenka to come to him. Dmitri is currently staying in “a closet” that a former fellow soldier, Foma, rents out in a brothel. Smerdyakov knows that Dmitri is staying in the brothel and will tell him if Grushenka goes to Fyodor for the money. It was also Smerdyakov who told Dmitri about the three thousand roubles. Dmitri says that even Ivan doesn’t know about the money, and Fyodor is sending Ivan to Chermashnya to see about someone who might want to buy their woodlot. It’s really just an excuse for Fyodor to have Ivan out of the way during Grushenka’s possible visit. Currently, Fyodor is drinking with Ivan, which makes this a good time for Alexei to go ask him for the money.

Alexei asks what they’ll do if Grushenka shows up today. Dmitri says that he’ll see her, burst in, and stop it. He says that he would kill Fyodor, which shocks Alexei. Dmitri then becomes unsure about the prospect of killing his father, but he can’t help but think about how much he hates his father’s face. Alexei, deep in thought, then leaves to visit his father.