The Brothers Karamazov Book 1, Chapter 2 Summary

The First Son Sent Packing

  • After his mother's death, Dmitri was ignored by his father and sent to live with Grigory, the trusty family servant.
  • His mother's cousin, Pyotr Alexandrovic Miusov, happened to return from Paris a year later and rescued Dmitri. But then Pyotr abandoned Dmitri to go to Paris, pawning him off onto his mother's cousin, who then died and passed Dmitri on to one of her daughters.
  • Dmitri grew up, led an unruly life, went into the military, and spent way more money than he had.
  • He came back to Fyodor's to see what he could get of his inheritance left to him by his mother. Fyodor started off by giving Dmitri some money from time to time over the course of four years. By the end of this time, Dmitri was impatient for the rest of his inheritance, but Fyodor informed him there was no money left. Dmitri wasn't satisfied with this explanation and suspected a scam.