To anticipate: the thing was that he perhaps knew where to get the money, he perhaps knew where it lay. I will not go into details just now, as it will all become clear later; but what his main trouble consisted of, I will say, albeit vaguely: in order to take this money that was lying somewhere, in order to have the right to take it, it was necessary beforehand to return the three thousand to Katerina Ivanovna—otherwise, “I am a pickpocket, I am a scoundrel, and I do not want to begin a new life as a scoundrel,” Mitya decided, and therefore he decided to turn the whole world upside down, if need be, but to be sure to return the three thousand to Katerina Ivanovna at all costs and before all else. The final working out of this decision took place in him, so to speak, in the last hours of his life—that is, starting from his last meeting with Alyosha, two days before, in the evening, on the road, after Grushenka had insulted Katerina Ivanovna, and Mitya, having listened to Alyosha’s account of it, admitted that he was a scoundrel and asked that Katerina Ivanovna be told so “if it’s any comfort to her.” Right then, that night, after parting with his brother, he had felt in his frenzy that it would be better even “to kill and rob someone, but repay his debt to Katya.” “Better to stand as a murderer and a thief before that robbed and murdered man and before everyone, and go to Siberia, than that Katya should have the right to say I betrayed her and then stole money from her, and with that money ran away with Grushenka to start a virtuous life! That I cannot do!” Thus spoke Mitya, gnashing his teeth, and he might well have imagined at times that he would end up with brain fever. But meanwhile he went on struggling . . .
Strangely enough, it would seem that after such a decision nothing was left for him but despair; for how could one suddenly come up with so much money, especially such a pauper as he? Nevertheless, to the very end he kept hoping that he would get the three thousand, that the money would come to him, that it would somehow fly down to him by itself, from the sky no less. But that is precisely how things happen with people like Dmitri Fyodorovich, who all their lives know only how to spend and squander inherited money that they got without any effort, but have no idea of how money is earned. The most fantastic whirlwind arose in his head just after he had parted with Alyosha two days before, and confused all his thoughts. Thus it came about that he started with the wildest enterprise. Yes, perhaps with such people, precisely in such situations, it is the most impossible and fantastic enterprises that seem to offer the best possibilities. He suddenly decided to go to the merchant Samsonov, Grushenka’s patron, to offer him a “plan,” to obtain from him for this “plan” the entire sum he needed at once; he had not the slightest doubt about the commercial aspects of his plan, but doubted only how Samsonov himself might view his escapade if he chose to look beyond its commercial aspects. Though Mitya knew the merchant by sight, he was not acquainted with him and had never once spoken to him. But for some reason the conviction had settled in him, even much earlier, that this old profligate, now with one foot in the grave, might not be at all averse at the moment to Grushenka somehow arranging her life honorably and marrying “a trustworthy man.” And that he not only would not resist, but even wished it himself, and would further it if the occasion should arise. He also concluded, either from rumors or from something Grushenka had said, that the old man might prefer him for Grushenka over Fyodor Pavlovich. Perhaps to many readers of our story the expectation of such help and the intention of taking his fiancée from the hand of her patron, so to speak, were much too crude and unscrupulous on Dmitri Fyodorovich’s part. I can only note that Mitya thought of Grushenka’s past as definitively passed. He looked upon that past with infinite compassion, and decided with all the fire of his passion that once Grushenka told him she loved him and would marry him, a completely new Grushenka would begin at once, and together with her a completely new Dmitri Fyodorovich, with no vices now, but with virtues only: they would forgive each other and start their life quite anew. As for Kuzma Samsonov, he considered him a fatal man in Grushenka’s life, in that former, swallowed-up past, whom, however, she had never loved, and who—this above all—was now also “passed,” done with, so that he was no longer there at all. And besides, Mitya could not even regard him as a man now, because it was known to all and sundry in town that he was an ailing wreck, who maintained only fatherly relations, so to speak, with Grushenka, and not at all on the same terms as before, and that it had been so for a long time, almost a year. In any case, there was much simple-heartedness here on Mitya’s part, for with all his vices this was a very simple-hearted man. Because of his simple-heartedness, by the way, he was seriously convinced that old Kuzma, preparing to depart to another world, felt sincerely repentant for his past with Grushenka, and that she had no more faithful patron and friend than this already-harmless old man.
The day after his conversation with Alyosha in the fields, following which he had hardly slept the whole night, Mitya appeared at Samsonov’s house at about ten o’clock in the morning and asked to be announced. The house was old, gloomy, spacious, two-storied, with outbuildings and a cottage in the yard. On the ground floor lived Samsonov’s two married sons with their families, his elderly sister, and one unmarried daughter. The cottage housed his two clerks, one of whom also had a large family. Both his children and his clerks were cramped in their quarters, but the old man occupied the upper floor by himself and would not share it even with his daughter, who looked after him and at regular hours or at his irregular summons had each time to run up to him from downstairs, despite her chronic shortness of breath. This “upstairs” consisted of a number of large formal rooms, furnished in the merchant style of old, with long, dull rows of clumsy mahogany armchairs and sidechairs along the walls, with crystal chandeliers in dust covers, and sullen mirrors between the windows. All these rooms stood completely empty and uninhabited, because the sick old man huddled himself in one little room, his remote and tiny bedroom, where he was waited on by an old woman in a kerchief and a “lad” who resided on a bench in the front hall. Because of his swollen legs, the old man was almost entirely unable to walk, and only rarely got up from his leather chair, when the old woman, holding him under the arms, would take him once or twice around the room. He was severe and taciturn even with this old woman. When the arrival of “the captain” was announced to him, he at once gave orders not to admit him. But Mitya insisted and asked to be announced a second time. Kuzma Kuzmich questioned the lad in detaiclass="underline" how did he look, was he drunk, was he making trouble? The answer was “sober, but won’t go away.” The old man again refused to admit him. Then Mitya, who had foreseen as much, and therefore had purposely brought paper and pencil with him, wrote clearly on the piece of paper the words: “On most important business closely concerning Agrafena Alexandrovna,” and sent it to the old man. Having thought a little, the old man told the lad to show the visitor to the drawing room, and sent the old woman downstairs with an order for his younger son to report upstairs at once. This younger son, a man over six feet tall and of enormous strength, who shaved his beard and dressed in German fashion (Samsonov himself wore a caftan and had a beard), came immediately and without a word. They all trembled before their father. The father sent for this stalwart not so much from fear of the captain (he was no coward) as simply to have him there, just in case, if he should need a witness. Accompanied by his son, who supported him under the arm, and by the lad, he finally came sailing into the drawing room. One may suppose he felt a certain rather strong curiosity. This drawing room where Mitya was waiting was a huge, dreary, killingly depressing room, with windows on both sides, a gallery, “marbled” walls, and three huge crystal chandeliers in dust covers. Mitya was sitting on a little chair by the entrance, awaiting his fate with nervous impatience. When the old man appeared at the opposite door, about twenty yards away from Mitya’s chair, he jumped up suddenly and went to meet him with his long, firm, military stride. Mitya was respectably dressed in a buttoned frock coat, was holding a round hat, and wearing black leather gloves, exactly as three days before in the monastery, at the elder’s, at the family meeting with Fyodor Pavlovich and his brothers. The old man stood solemnly and sternly waiting for him, and Mitya felt at once that he was examining him thoroughly as he approached. Mitya was also struck by the face of Kuzma Kuzmich, which had become extremely swollen recently: his lower lip, which had always been thick, now looked like a kind of drooping pancake. He bowed solemnly and silently to his guest, motioned him to an armchair near the sofa, and, leaning on his son’s arm, with painful groans began slowly lowering himself onto the sofa facing Mitya, who, seeing his painful exertions, immediately felt remorse in his heart, sensible of his present insignificance before this so solemn personage whom he had ventured to disturb.