The Brothers Karamazov Book 9, Chapter 5 Summary

The Third Torment

  • Parfenovich and Kirillovich then ask Dmitri about his visit to his father's. Dmitri insists that the gate to the garden was closed, while Parfenovich and Kirillovich insist that it was open.
  • Dmitri then tells his interrogators about the secret signals that only he, Smerdyakov, his father, and Grushenka knew, the signals that would announce Grushenka's arrival to Fyodor. Parfenovich suggests that Smerdyakov may have killed his father, but Dmitri rejects this possibility because he believes Smerdyakov is a weak-willed coward.
  • The interrogators keep pestering Dmitri, even asking him to demonstrate exactly how he sat on the garden wall when Grigory accosted him. Dmitri tells them about getting his pistols back from Perkhotin, his suicide plans, and even gives them the note he had shown to Perkhotin in Book 8, Chapter 5.
  • The interrogators go back to the question of the money. They estimate, given how much money they've found on Dmitri right now (around 800 roubles) and the amount he spent on the festivities, that he had roughly 1,500 roubles on him, not 3,000. Dmitri refuses to tell them how he got the money or why he had claimed previously that he had 3,000 roubles.
  • They then ask Dmitri to strip so they can search his possessions.