He was saved by some passers-by: a coachman was taking an old merchant over the back road. When they drew up with him, Mitya asked the way, and it turned out that they, too, were going to Volovya. After some negotiating, they agreed to take Mitya along. They arrived three hours later. At Volovya station Mitya immediately ordered post horses to town, and suddenly realized that he was impossibly hungry. While the horses were being harnessed, some fried eggs were fixed for him. He ate them instantly, ate a whole big hunk of bread, ate some sausage that turned up, and drank three glasses of vodka. Having refreshed himself, he cheered up and his soul brightened again. He flew down the road, urging the coachman on, and suddenly arrived at a new, and this time “immutable,” plan for obtaining “that accursed money” before evening. “And to think that a man’s fate should be ruined because of a worthless three thousand roubles!”heexclaimed contemptuously. “I’ll have done with it today!” And had it not been for ceaselessly thinking of Grushenka and whether anything had happened with her, he would perhaps have become quite happy again. But the thought of her stabbed his soul every moment like a sharp knife. They arrived at last, and Mitya ran at once to Grushenka.
Chapter 3:
This was precisely the visit from Mitya of which Grushenka had told Rakitin with such fear. She was then expecting her “messenger,” and was very glad that Mitya had not come either the day before or that day, hoping that perchance, God willing, he would not come before her departure, when suddenly he descended upon her. The rest we know: in order to get him off her hands, she persuaded him at once to take her to Kuzma Samsonov’s, where she said it was terribly necessary for her to go to “count the money,” and when Mitya promptly took her, she made him promise, as she said good-bye to him at Kuzma’s gate, to come for her after eleven and take her home again. Mitya was also pleased with this order: “If she’s sitting at Kuzma’s, she won’t go to Fyodor Pavlovich ... if only she’s not lying,” he added at once. But from what he could see, she was not lying. His jealousy was precisely of such a sort that, separated from the beloved woman, he at once invented all kinds of horrors about what was happening with her, and how she had gone and “betrayed” him; but, running back to her, shaken, crushed, convinced irretrievably that she had managed to betray him, with the first look at her face, at the gay, laughing, tender face of this woman, his spirits would at once revive, he would at once lose all suspicion, and with joyful shame reproach himself for his jealousy. Having accompanied Grushenka, he rushed home. Oh, he still somehow had to do so much that day! But at least he felt relieved. “Only I must find out quickly from Smerdyakov whether anything happened last night, whether, God forbid, she went to Fyodor Pavlovich!” raced through his head. And so, in just the time it took him to run home, jealousy had already begun stirring again in his restless heart.
