feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/shmoop/The Brothers Karamazov/section_53_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: The Brothers Karamazov.book 9.chapter 1
feat_summary_id: book 9, chapter 1
feat_summary: {"name": "Book 9, Chapter 1", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-9-chapter-1", "summary": "The novel picks up with Perkhotin knocking at the widow Morozov's house, where Grushenka is renting a place. Here the servant Fenya tells Perkhotin that Dmitri had arrived earlier, covered in blood, and had even confessed to killing a man. More concerned than ever, Perkhotin starts to go to Fyodor Karamazov's but decides against it because he fears causing a scandal just in case Fyodor Karamazov was not murdered. Instead, he decides to ask Madame Khokhlakov what happened. Although it's late - 11 at night - Madame Khokhlakov is finally roused from her bed to receive Perkhotin. She attests that she never lent Dmitri any money and even writes a short statement to that effect. Perkhotin and Khokhlakov experience a mutual attraction, despite the extraordinary circumstances, and Perkhotin goes on his way.", "analysis": ""}
text: Book IX. The Preliminary Investigation Chapter I. The Beginning Of Perhotin's Official Career
  
  
  Pyotr Ilyitch Perhotin, whom we left knocking at the strong locked gates
  of the widow Morozov's house, ended, of course, by making himself heard.
  Fenya, who was still excited by the fright she had had two hours before,
  and too much "upset" to go to bed, was almost frightened into hysterics on
  hearing the furious knocking at the gate. Though she had herself seen him
  drive away, she fancied that it must be Dmitri Fyodorovitch knocking
  again, no one else could knock so savagely. She ran to the house-porter,
  who had already waked up and gone out to the gate, and began imploring him
  not to open it. But having questioned Pyotr Ilyitch, and learned that he
  wanted to see Fenya on very "important business," the man made up his mind
  at last to open. Pyotr Ilyitch was admitted into Fenya's kitchen, but the
  girl begged him to allow the house-porter to be present, "because of her
  misgivings." He began questioning her and at once learnt the most vital
  fact, that is, that when Dmitri Fyodorovitch had run out to look for
  Grushenka, he had snatched up a pestle from the mortar, and that when he
  returned, the pestle was not with him and his hands were smeared with
  blood.
  
  "And the blood was simply flowing, dripping from him, dripping!" Fenya
  kept exclaiming. This horrible detail was simply the product of her
  disordered imagination. But although not "dripping," Pyotr Ilyitch had
  himself seen those hands stained with blood, and had helped to wash them.
  Moreover, the question he had to decide was not how soon the blood had
  dried, but where Dmitri Fyodorovitch had run with the pestle, or rather,
  whether it really was to Fyodor Pavlovitch's, and how he could
  satisfactorily ascertain. Pyotr Ilyitch persisted in returning to this
  point, and though he found out nothing conclusive, yet he carried away a
  conviction that Dmitri Fyodorovitch could have gone nowhere but to his
  father's house, and that therefore something must have happened there.
  
  "And when he came back," Fenya added with excitement, "I told him the
  whole story, and then I began asking him, 'Why have you got blood on your
  hands, Dmitri Fyodorovitch?' and he answered that that was human blood,
  and that he had just killed some one. He confessed it all to me, and
  suddenly ran off like a madman. I sat down and began thinking, where's he
  run off to now like a madman? He'll go to Mokroe, I thought, and kill my
  mistress there. I ran out to beg him not to kill her. I was running to his
  lodgings, but I looked at Plotnikov's shop, and saw him just setting off,
  and there was no blood on his hands then." (Fenya had noticed this and
  remembered it.) Fenya's old grandmother confirmed her evidence as far as
  she was capable. After asking some further questions, Pyotr Ilyitch left
  the house, even more upset and uneasy than he had been when he entered it.
  
  The most direct and the easiest thing for him to do would have been to go
  straight to Fyodor Pavlovitch's, to find out whether anything had happened
  there, and if so, what; and only to go to the police captain, as Pyotr
  Ilyitch firmly intended doing, when he had satisfied himself of the fact.
  But the night was dark, Fyodor Pavlovitch's gates were strong, and he
  would have to knock again. His acquaintance with Fyodor Pavlovitch was of
  the slightest, and what if, after he had been knocking, they opened to
  him, and nothing had happened? Then Fyodor Pavlovitch in his jeering way
  would go telling the story all over the town, how a stranger, called
  Perhotin, had broken in upon him at midnight to ask if any one had killed
  him. It would make a scandal. And scandal was what Pyotr Ilyitch dreaded
  more than anything in the world.
  
  Yet the feeling that possessed him was so strong, that though he stamped
  his foot angrily and swore at himself, he set off again, not to Fyodor
  Pavlovitch's but to Madame Hohlakov's. He decided that if she denied
  having just given Dmitri Fyodorovitch three thousand roubles, he would go
  straight to the police captain, but if she admitted having given him the
  money, he would go home and let the matter rest till next morning.
  
  It is, of course, perfectly evident that there was even more likelihood of
  causing scandal by going at eleven o'clock at night to a fashionable lady,
  a complete stranger, and perhaps rousing her from her bed to ask her an
  amazing question, than by going to Fyodor Pavlovitch. But that is just how
  it is, sometimes, especially in cases like the present one, with the
  decisions of the most precise and phlegmatic people. Pyotr Ilyitch was by
  no means phlegmatic at that moment. He remembered all his life how a
  haunting uneasiness gradually gained possession of him, growing more and
  more painful and driving him on, against his will. Yet he kept cursing
  himself, of course, all the way for going to this lady, but "I will get to
  the bottom of it, I will!" he repeated for the tenth time, grinding his
  teeth, and he carried out his intention.
  
  It was exactly eleven o'clock when he entered Madame Hohlakov's house. He
  was admitted into the yard pretty quickly, but, in response to his inquiry
  whether the lady was still up, the porter could give no answer, except
  that she was usually in bed by that time.
  
  "Ask at the top of the stairs. If the lady wants to receive you, she'll
  receive you. If she won't, she won't."
  
  Pyotr Ilyitch went up, but did not find things so easy here. The footman
  was unwilling to take in his name, but finally called a maid. Pyotr
  Ilyitch politely but insistently begged her to inform her lady that an
  official, living in the town, called Perhotin, had called on particular
  business, and that if it were not of the greatest importance he would not
  have ventured to come. "Tell her in those words, in those words exactly,"
  he asked the girl.
  
  She went away. He remained waiting in the entry. Madame Hohlakov herself
  was already in her bedroom, though not yet asleep. She had felt upset ever
  since Mitya's visit, and had a presentiment that she would not get through
  the night without the sick headache which always, with her, followed such
  excitement. She was surprised on hearing the announcement from the maid.
  She irritably declined to see him, however, though the unexpected visit at
  such an hour, of an "official living in the town," who was a total
  stranger, roused her feminine curiosity intensely. But this time Pyotr
  Ilyitch was as obstinate as a mule. He begged the maid most earnestly to
  take another message in these very words:
  
  "That he had come on business of the greatest importance, and that Madame
  Hohlakov might have cause to regret it later, if she refused to see him
  now."
  
  "I plunged headlong," he described it afterwards.
  
  The maid, gazing at him in amazement, went to take his message again.
  Madame Hohlakov was impressed. She thought a little, asked what he looked
  like, and learned that he was "very well dressed, young and so polite." We
  may note, parenthetically, that Pyotr Ilyitch was a rather good-looking
  young man, and well aware of the fact. Madame Hohlakov made up her mind to
  see him. She was in her dressing-gown and slippers, but she flung a black
  shawl over her shoulders. "The official" was asked to walk into the
  drawing-room, the very room in which Mitya had been received shortly
  before. The lady came to meet her visitor, with a sternly inquiring
  countenance, and, without asking him to sit down, began at once with the
  question:
  
  "What do you want?"
  
  "I have ventured to disturb you, madam, on a matter concerning our common
  acquaintance, Dmitri Fyodorovitch Karamazov," Perhotin began.
  
  But he had hardly uttered the name, when the lady's face showed signs of
  acute irritation. She almost shrieked, and interrupted him in a fury:
  
  "How much longer am I to be worried by that awful man?" she cried
  hysterically. "How dare you, sir, how could you venture to disturb a lady
  who is a stranger to you, in her own house at such an hour!... And to
  force yourself upon her to talk of a man who came here, to this very
  drawing-room, only three hours ago, to murder me, and went stamping out of
  the room, as no one would go out of a decent house. Let me tell you, sir,
  that I shall lodge a complaint against you, that I will not let it pass.
  Kindly leave me at once.... I am a mother.... I ... I--"
  
  "Murder! then he tried to murder you, too?"
  
  "Why, has he killed somebody else?" Madame Hohlakov asked impulsively.
  
  "If you would kindly listen, madam, for half a moment, I'll explain it all
  in a couple of words," answered Perhotin, firmly. "At five o'clock this
  afternoon Dmitri Fyodorovitch borrowed ten roubles from me, and I know for
  a fact he had no money. Yet at nine o'clock, he came to see me with a
  bundle of hundred-rouble notes in his hand, about two or three thousand
  roubles. His hands and face were all covered with blood, and he looked
  like a madman. When I asked him where he had got so much money, he
  answered that he had just received it from you, that you had given him a
  sum of three thousand to go to the gold-mines...."
  
  Madame Hohlakov's face assumed an expression of intense and painful
  excitement.
  
  "Good God! He must have killed his old father!" she cried, clasping her
  hands. "I have never given him money, never! Oh, run, run!... Don't say
  another word! Save the old man ... run to his father ... run!"
  
  "Excuse me, madam, then you did not give him money? You remember for a
  fact that you did not give him any money?"
  
  "No, I didn't, I didn't! I refused to give it him, for he could not
  appreciate it. He ran out in a fury, stamping. He rushed at me, but I
  slipped away.... And let me tell you, as I wish to hide nothing from you
  now, that he positively spat at me. Can you fancy that! But why are we
  standing? Ah, sit down."
  
  "Excuse me, I...."
  
  "Or better run, run, you must run and save the poor old man from an awful
  death!"
  
  "But if he has killed him already?"
  
  "Ah, good heavens, yes! Then what are we to do now? What do you think we
  must do now?"
  
  Meantime she had made Pyotr Ilyitch sit down and sat down herself, facing
  him. Briefly, but fairly clearly, Pyotr Ilyitch told her the history of
  the affair, that part of it at least which he had himself witnessed. He
  described, too, his visit to Fenya, and told her about the pestle. All
  these details produced an overwhelming effect on the distracted lady, who
  kept uttering shrieks, and covering her face with her hands....
  
  "Would you believe it, I foresaw all this! I have that special faculty,
  whatever I imagine comes to pass. And how often I've looked at that awful
  man and always thought, that man will end by murdering me. And now it's
  happened ... that is, if he hasn't murdered me, but only his own father,
  it's only because the finger of God preserved me, and what's more, he was
  ashamed to murder me because, in this very place, I put the holy ikon from
  the relics of the holy martyr, Saint Varvara, on his neck.... And to think
  how near I was to death at that minute, I went close up to him and he
  stretched out his neck to me!... Do you know, Pyotr Ilyitch (I think you
  said your name was Pyotr Ilyitch), I don't believe in miracles, but that
  ikon and this unmistakable miracle with me now--that shakes me, and I'm
  ready to believe in anything you like. Have you heard about Father
  Zossima?... But I don't know what I'm saying ... and only fancy, with the
  ikon on his neck he spat at me.... He only spat, it's true, he didn't
  murder me and ... he dashed away! But what shall we do, what must we do
  now? What do you think?"
  
  Pyotr Ilyitch got up, and announced that he was going straight to the
  police captain, to tell him all about it, and leave him to do what he
  thought fit.
  
  "Oh, he's an excellent man, excellent! Mihail Makarovitch, I know him. Of
  course, he's the person to go to. How practical you are, Pyotr Ilyitch!
  How well you've thought of everything! I should never have thought of it
  in your place!"
  
  "Especially as I know the police captain very well, too," observed Pyotr
  Ilyitch, who still continued to stand, and was obviously anxious to escape
  as quickly as possible from the impulsive lady, who would not let him say
  good-by and go away.
  
  "And be sure, be sure," she prattled on, "to come back and tell me what
  you see there, and what you find out ... what comes to light ... how
  they'll try him ... and what he's condemned to.... Tell me, we have no
  capital punishment, have we? But be sure to come, even if it's at three
  o'clock at night, at four, at half-past four.... Tell them to wake me, to
  wake me, to shake me, if I don't get up.... But, good heavens, I shan't
  sleep! But wait, hadn't I better come with you?"
  
  "N--no. But if you would write three lines with your own hand, stating that
  you did not give Dmitri Fyodorovitch money, it might, perhaps, be of use
  ... in case it's needed...."
  
  "To be sure!" Madame Hohlakov skipped, delighted, to her bureau. "And you
  know I'm simply struck, amazed at your resourcefulness, your good sense in
  such affairs. Are you in the service here? I'm delighted to think that
  you're in the service here!"
  
  And still speaking, she scribbled on half a sheet of notepaper the
  following lines:
  
  
      I've never in my life lent to that unhappy man, Dmitri
      Fyodorovitch Karamazov (for, in spite of all, he is unhappy),
      three thousand roubles to-day. I've never given him money, never:
      That I swear by all that's holy!
  
      K. HOHLAKOV.
  
  
  "Here's the note!" she turned quickly to Pyotr Ilyitch. "Go, save him.
  It's a noble deed on your part!"
  
  And she made the sign of the cross three times over him. She ran out to
  accompany him to the passage.
  
  "How grateful I am to you! You can't think how grateful I am to you for
  having come to me, first. How is it I haven't met you before? I shall feel
  flattered at seeing you at my house in the future. How delightful it is
  that you are living here!... Such precision! Such practical ability!...
  They must appreciate you, they must understand you. If there's anything I
  can do, believe me ... oh, I love young people! I'm in love with young
  people! The younger generation are the one prop of our suffering country.
  Her one hope.... Oh, go, go!..."
  
  But Pyotr Ilyitch had already run away or she would not have let him go so
  soon. Yet Madame Hohlakov had made a rather agreeable impression on him,
  which had somewhat softened his anxiety at being drawn into such an
  unpleasant affair. Tastes differ, as we all know. "She's by no means so
  elderly," he thought, feeling pleased, "on the contrary I should have
  taken her for her daughter."
  
  As for Madame Hohlakov, she was simply enchanted by the young man. "Such
  sense! such exactness! in so young a man! in our day! and all that with
  such manners and appearance! People say the young people of to-day are no
  good for anything, but here's an example!" etc. So she simply forgot this
  "dreadful affair," and it was only as she was getting into bed, that,
  suddenly recalling "how near death she had been," she exclaimed: "Ah, it
  is awful, awful!"
  
  But she fell at once into a sound, sweet sleep.
  
  I would not, however, have dwelt on such trivial and irrelevant details,
  if this eccentric meeting of the young official with the by no means
  elderly widow had not subsequently turned out to be the foundation of the
  whole career of that practical and precise young man. His story is
  remembered to this day with amazement in our town, and I shall perhaps
  have something to say about it, when I have finished my long history of
  the Brothers Karamazov.
  
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Book 9, Chapter 1
target: The novel picks up with Perkhotin knocking at the widow Morozov's house, where Grushenka is renting a place. Here the servant Fenya tells Perkhotin that Dmitri had arrived earlier, covered in blood, and had even confessed to killing a man. More concerned than ever, Perkhotin starts to go to Fyodor Karamazov's but decides against it because he fears causing a scandal just in case Fyodor Karamazov was not murdered. Instead, he decides to ask Madame Khokhlakov what happened. Although it's late - 11 at night - Madame Khokhlakov is finally roused from her bed to receive Perkhotin. She attests that she never lent Dmitri any money and even writes a short statement to that effect. Perkhotin and Khokhlakov experience a mutual attraction, despite the extraordinary circumstances, and Perkhotin goes on his way.