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.
