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Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Dmitri is speeding along the road. It is a little more than twenty versts to Mokroe, and Andrey's three horses might cover it in an hour and a quarter. The swift motion revives him. The air is fresh and cool, and big stars are shining. It is the very night, and perhaps the very hour, in which Alyosha fell on the earth and swore to love it. All is confusion in Dmitri's soul, but his whole being yearns for her, his queen, to look on her for the last time. His heart does not waver. This jealous lover feels not the slightest jealousy of the new rival who seems to have sprung out of the earth. Step aside, Mitya, and make way. What is he now? The pistol in his pocket is loaded. He has already resolved how, at the first warm ray, he will meet golden-haired Phœbus. One moment he thinks of making an end without waiting for the dawn. The moment flies by like a spark. The horses gallop on, and as he draws near, the thought of her alone takes him again.
Andrey asks, after a pause, whether he may put a question. He is afraid of angering him. Fenya threw herself at Dmitri's feet and begged him not to harm her mistress, and someone else too, and it is Andrey who is taking him there. Forgive me, sir, it is my conscience. Dmitri seizes him by the shoulders. One must not crush or torment a man, or any kind of creature, for every creature is created by God. Andrey says that some drivers force a horse on with nothing to restrain them. To hell? Dmitri laughs his short laugh. Will Dmitri Fyodorovitch Karamazov go to hell, or not? Andrey does not know. It depends on him. When the Son of God was nailed on the Cross and died, He went straight down to hell and set free all the sinners that were in agony. The devil groaned, thinking he would get no more. Dmitri asks for five hours, till the first light of day, because he loves the queen of his soul and cannot help loving her.
At the inn he is in a hurry. Quicker, Andrey. Trifon Borissovitch meets him in the Russian style, a shirt buttoning down on one side, ready to be obsequious when it is in his interest. Dmitri flings him five roubles. Take me up quietly and let me first get a look at them, so that they don't see me. Where are they? In the blue room? Trifon looks at him apprehensively and obeys. He leads him into the passage and goes himself into the first large room. From the dark, Dmitri sees her. Then he walks straight in.
Not knowing often hurts longer than the truth. Mitya rides with a death note yet must see Grushenka’s room.
Before you spend another night inventing scenes, decide whether you need to look once and live with what you see.
This chapter
Andrey has to drive while his fare preaches that a driver must not run over lives, then asks to be loved even in hell for five hours. The sermon belongs to Dmitri, but the listener is trapped with it, paid to keep the cart moving toward a room the passenger may not survive. Obedience and dread sit in the same pair of hands.
Continue this thoughtDmitri Agrees to Be the InsectHe walks straight up to the table and tells them not to be afraid. Grushenka shrinks back in her chair towards Kalganov. He turns to the wall in tears, clasping the back of a chair. Champagne comes, and a childlike look comes into his face. The Poles are in the room, and one of them wears a wig.
What this chapter proves — the pattern beneath the scene
In this chapter, the lesson is The Wish That Stood Trial.
The card below names the pattern this chapter proves — carry it with you into Dostoevsky's monastery, tavern, and trial.
The Wish That Stood Trial
Mitya gallops to Mokroe the same starry hour Alyosha swears to love the earth, torn between suicide at dawn and one last look at Grushenka. He almost stops the cart to shoot himself, preaches that a driver must not run over lives, and walks straight into the blue room when he sees her with the officer.
Key Insight
He chooses one last look over suicide and calls it duty. The wish and the restraint keep trading places in the same hour, and a record will not sort them.
Chapter 51
“I Am Coming, Too!” But Dmitri Fyodorovitch was speeding along the road. It was a little more than twenty versts to Mokroe, but Andrey’s three horses galloped at such a pace that the distance might be covered in an hour and a quarter. The swift motion revived Mitya. The air was fresh and cool, there were big stars shining in the sky. It was the very night, and perhaps the very hour, in which Alyosha fell on the earth, and rapturously swore to love it for ever and ever. All was confusion, confusion, in Mitya’s soul, but although many things…
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Other theme-by-theme analyses from this book.
Sit in the tavern while Ivan returns his ticket, then hear a cardinal in Seville explain why people prefer bread to freedom.
Hear Zosima cheapen beautiful feelings, then watch Alyosha do the work at Ilyusha's stone.
Watch a sentence about God leave Ivan's mouth and become a paperweight in the old man's room.
Stand with the boys at the stone and ask whether this house can stop repeating the father.
Follow Ivan from one reptile will devour the other to a hanging and a devil who talks like a poor relation.
Deep diving the literary elements.
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