At Maria Kondratievna’s (next door to Fyodor Pavlovich) the news awaited him of Smerdyakov’s illness, which struck and dismayed him greatly. He listened to the story of the fall into the cellar, then of the falling fit, the doctor’s visit, Fyodor Pavlovich’s concern; he was also interested to learn that his brother Ivan Fyodorovich had gone off to Moscow that morning. “He must have passed through Volovya ahead of me,” Dmitri Fyodorovich thought, but Smerdyakov troubled him terribly: “What now? Who will keep watch? Who will bring me word?” Greedily he began inquiring of the women whether they had noticed anything the previous evening. They knew very well what he was trying to find out and reassured him completely: no one had come, Ivan Fyodorovich had spent the night there, “everything was in perfect order.” Mitya began to think. Undoubtedly he had to be on watch today, too, but where— here, or at Samsonov’s gate? Both here and there, he decided, depending on the situation, but meanwhile, meanwhile ... What faced him now was that morning’s “plan,” the new and this time certain plan, which he had thought up in the wagon, the carrying out of which could not be put off any longer. Mitya decided to sacrifice an hour to it: “In an hour I’ll settle everything, find out everything, and then—then first of all to Samsonov’s house, to see whether Grushenka is there, then immediately back here, stay here till eleven, then again to Samsonov’s to take her home.” That was what he decided.
He flew home, washed, combed his hair, brushed his clothes, got dressed, and went to see Madame Khokhlakov. Alas, his “plan” lay there. He had made up his mind to borrow the three thousand from this lady. Moreover, suddenly, somehow unexpectedly, he had acquired a remarkable certainty that she would not refuse him. It may be wondered why, given such certainty, he had not gone there first, to his own society, so to speak, but had gone instead to Samsonov, a man of alien caste, with whom he did not even know how to speak. But the thing was that for the past month he had almost broken off relations with Madame Khokhlakov, and even before then had been only slightly acquainted with her, and, moreover, he knew very well that she could not stand him. The lady had detested him from the beginning, simply because he was Katerina Ivanovna’s fiancé, whereas she, for some reason, suddenly wanted Katerina Ivanovna to drop him and marry “the dear, chivalrously educated Ivan Fyodorovich, who has such beautiful manners.” Mitya’s manners she detested. Mitya even laughed at her and had said of her once that this lady “is as bold and lively as she is uneducated.” And so that morning, in the wagon, he had been illumined by a most brilliant idea: “If she is so much against my marrying Katerina Ivanovna, and against it to such a degree” (he knew it was almost to the point of hysterics), “then why should she deny me the three thousand now, when this money would precisely enable me to leave Katya and clear out of here forever? These spoiled high-up ladies, if they take it into their heads to want something, will spare nothing to get their way. Besides, she’s so rich,” Mitya reasoned. As for the “plan” itself, it was all the same as before, that is, the offer of his rights to Chermashnya, but now with no commercial purpose, as with Samsonov the day before, not trying to tempt this lady, like Samsonov the day before, with the prospect of picking up twice the sum, about six or seven thousand, but merely as an honorable pledge for the borrowed money. Mitya went into ecstasies developing his new idea, but that is what always happened to him in all his undertakings, all his sudden decisions. He gave himself passionately to every new idea. Nevertheless, as he stepped onto the porch of Madame Khokhlakov’s house, he suddenly felt a chill of horror run down his spine: only at that second did he realize fully and now with mathematical clarity that this was his last hope, that if this should fall through, there was nothing left in the world but “to kill and rob someone for the three thousand, and that’s all . . “It was half past seven when he rang the bell.
At first things seemed to smile on him: he was received at once, with remarkable promptness, as soon as he was announced. “Just as if she were expecting me,” flashed through Mitya’s mind, and then suddenly, as soon as he was shown into the drawing room, the hostess all but ran in and declared directly that she had been expecting him . . .
“I was expecting you, expecting you! I could not even think you would come to me, you must agree, and yet I was expecting you—just marvel at my instinct, Dmitri Fyodorovich, all morning I felt certain you would come today.”
“That is indeed amazing, madame,” Mitya uttered, sitting down clumsily, “but ... I’ve come on extremely important business ... the most important business, for me, that is, madame, for me alone, and I am in a hurry...”
