The Power of Moral Blackmail — The Brothers Karamazov

Dmitri keeps confessing in the summer-house, insisting his father's tales of buying innocence are lies while he admits he loved vice, cruelty, and the moral back-alleys where power hides. Alyosha shocks him by saying they climb the same ladder of temptation; Dmitri is higher on the rungs, not a different species.

The anecdote turns to the garrison town: a proud Katerina Ivanovna dismisses him, a colonel's missing funds create panic, and Dmitri plants the story of a 4,500-rouble deficit so Katya will come to his room herself. She arrives breathless, demanding the money to save her father; he feels the centipede of cruelty bite and almost plays the shopman who offers two hundred instead of four thousand.

He gives her five thousand, bows deep, and she bows to the floor at his feet. Dmitri nearly stabs himself from delight, then calls the tale his Karamazov adventure. Ivan already knows; Alyosha is the first to hear the full trap and the mercy that followed it.