He must drive at full speed, and he has not the money for horses. He has forty kopecks, all that is left after so many years of prosperity. At home there is an old silver watch which has long ceased to go. He snatches it up and carries it to a watchmaker in the market-place, who gives him six roubles. He did not expect that. He runs home and borrows three roubles from the people of the house, who love him enough to lend. Then he is on the road to Volovya, and from there to the priest at Ilyinskoe.
The journey goes wrong. The station turns out to be eighteen versts instead of twelve. He does not find the priest at home at Ilyinskoe. The priest has gone off to a neighbouring village, and Dmitri sets off after him. When he finds him, the priest explains, with some surprise, why Samsonov called the peasant-trader Gorstkin by the name Lyagavy. The man's name really is Lyagavy, but he is never called so, because he would be grievously offended. Call him Gorstkin, or you will do nothing with him. He will not even listen. Dmitri is surprised for a moment, and says that Samsonov called him that. The priest drops the subject. In the hut he finds the man asleep, and decides that he is drunk. Terribly impatient, he begins pulling him by the arms, by the shoulders, trying to wake him. The place is thick with charcoal fumes. He waits. He nearly suffocates.
When the peasant is awake enough to hear, Dmitri tells him he is Lieutenant Dmitri Karamazov, the son of the old Karamazov whose copse he is buying. That's a lie, says the peasant, calmly and confidently. He does not know any Fyodor Pavlovitch. Wake up, Dmitri gasps. Father Pavel of Ilyinskoe brought me here. You wrote to Samsonov, and he has sent me to you. I have an offer, an advantageous offer, concerning the copse. You're a painter, the peasant says, and strokes his beard. Dmitri understands nothing.
He gets out of the forest at last, so weak in body and soul that he can hardly walk. A vista of fields, bare after the harvest, stretches as far as the eye can see. What despair. What death all round. He is saved by an old merchant being driven across country in a hired trap. He asks to be taken on. The paltry three thousand, he cries, contemptuously. He will settle it today. He is going back to town with empty hands, and the day is already lost.
Coming Up in Chapter 48
He bursts in on Grushenka, who had hoped he would not come until she was gone. To get him off her hands she walks with him to Samsonov's gate, and makes him promise to come at twelve o'clock to take her home. He pawns his pistols, then goes to Madame Hohlakov, sure she will lend him three thousand.
