Alyosha leaves his father's house in despair, unable to fit the day's fragments together. Ivan's handshake still unsettles him, but he hurries to Katerina Ivanovna with Dmitri's errand, dreading the compliments and farewell more than before because the three thousand and the beating have changed everything.
Katerina receives him with excited warmth, makes him repeat Dmitri's words exactly, and rebuilds hope from a single clue: if Dmitri insisted on compliments, perhaps he leapt away in bravado rather than resolution. Alyosha believes her for a moment. She confesses she already knew the money never reached Moscow and only wanted Dmitri to face her without shame; she weeps that he was open with Alyosha but not with her, then demands the full scene at Fyodor's house.
When Alyosha tells it, she laughs at the idea that Grushenka could steal Dmitri permanently and calls her rival an angel, summoning her from behind the curtain. Grushenka plays childlike sweetness while Katerina kisses her hand and narrates their shared plan to free Dmitri for honor. Grushenka drawls that she is changeable, may return to Mitya, and never gave the promise Katerina thought she heard.
The trap closes when Grushenka refuses to kiss Katerina's hand back, recalls how Katerina once sold beauty at dusk, and walks out asking Alyosha to escort her, admitting she staged the meeting for his eyes. Katerina shrieks that Grushenka is a creature for sale, calls her a tigress, and blames Alyosha for holding her back from violence. She condemns Dmitri for giving Grushenka the fatal day's secret, begs Alyosha to return tomorrow, and collapses while her aunts fuss. Alyosha reels into the dark street, nearly weeping, until the maid overtakes him with Madame Hohlakov's pink envelope left since dinner.
