Summary of the book
The Epilogue deals with what the sentence leaves unresolved. Five days after the verdict, Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov burns with fever in the house of Katerina Ivanovna, Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov waits in the hospital for the hour of his deportation, and Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov goes from one house to the other with the task of reconciling. The plan is one of escape, and Mitya, who in Book XI accepted the cross, discovers that he cannot bear it; Alyosha tells him that it is not meant for him. Katerina and Mitya share an hour of honesty that promises nothing lasting, and the visit ends with the meeting of the two women. In the third chapter, twelve boys, the broken captain and Alyosha bury Ilyusha Snegiryov, and beside the stone the novel speaks its last word, which is neither of justice nor of reason but of remembrance. The question the book leaves is what a good day lived together can do for someone who will later turn bad.
Chapter I: The Escape Plan
Chapter summary
Five days after the trial, past eight in the morning, Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov goes to the house of Katerina Ivanovna to arrange with her an important matter for both of them and to give her a message. She receives him in the room where she had received Grushenka, and in the next room Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov lies in fever and unconscious: right after the courtroom scene she had him brought to her home, defying the gossip, and she keeps vigil night and day. Varvinsky and Herzenstube are treating him; the Moscow doctor has returned to the capital, refusing to make a prognosis. Katerina, pale and feverish, guesses what Alyosha has come to ask and gets ahead of him: he need not worry about the decision of Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov, he will escape. The plan is Ivan's and will probably be carried out at the third stage of the journey of the deportees to Siberia; Ivan has already spoken with the chief of that stage. She reveals to Alyosha what he did not know, the quarrel they had on the night he found them on the stairs. It had been over the plan: when Ivan told her that Mitya, if convicted, would flee abroad with the "creature," she flew into a rage without knowing why, and he assumed it was jealousy, that she still loved Mitya. Three days later Ivan brought her a sealed envelope, to be opened if anything happened to him, with the details of the escape and almost ten thousand rubles, the same sum the prosecutor had mentioned. She wanted to fall at his feet, but thought he would read in that the joy of saving Mitya, and she made another scene. It was out of resentment that, seeing him come in with Alyosha, she shouted that it was he who had convinced her of Mitya's guilt, when it had been she:
Analysis
О, всему, всему причиною мое бешенство! Это я, я и приготовила эту проклятую сцену в суде! [...] Я всему причиною, я одна виновата!
, oh, my fury is the cause of everything! It was I, I myself who prepared that accursed scene in court! [...] I am the cause of everything, I alone am to blame!
Katerina tells Alyosha what she has told no one, that the courtroom scene was the work of her fury. She retraces the chain in order: the quarrel with Ivan, the jealousy of the "creature," the slander spoken to wound him, and the scene she takes authorship of. Her tone is that of someone who accuses herself out loud so as to have someone beside her who will absolve her. The text supports two readings: true remorse, or another form of pride that punishes itself.
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Chapter II: The Cross and Forgiveness
Chapter summary
Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov rushes to the hospital, where Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov has been since the second day after the sentence, with a nervous fever. Doctor Varvinsky, at the request of Alyosha and others, has put him alone in the room where Smerdyakov stayed, with a sentry in the corridor and a barred window, and allows visits: only Alyosha and Grushenka have come, and Mitya forbade the entry of Rakitin, who tried twice. He is in a hospital dressing gown, his head wrapped in a towel soaked in water and vinegar, silent, absorbed since the trial. He speaks of the innkeeper Trifon, who, the guard says, is tearing the inn apart looking for the fifteen hundred rubles the prosecutor said were hidden. Alyosha tells him that Katerina Ivanovna will come, without knowing when. Mitya has already told Grushenka about Katerina's plan; she fell silent and said only "so be it." He speaks of Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov, who will recover, and Alyosha says Katerina hardly doubts it; Mitya concludes, on the contrary, that she is convinced he is going to die. Then, in a trembling voice full of tears, he confesses that he loves Grushenka terribly and says what weighs on him: if they beat him on the way, he will not let himself be taken, he will kill and be shot; here the guards already address him with the familiar "thou"; he spent the night judging himself, and is not ready, he wanted to sing the "hymn" and cannot bear the guards' familiar "thou." Alyosha smiles and answers:
Analysis
Chapter III: Ilyusha's Funeral
Chapter summary
Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov arrives late: they were already about to carry the little flower-decked coffin to the church without him. It is that of Ilyusha Snegiryov, who died two days after the sentence of Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov. At the gate, some twelve boys wait for him impatiently, all with satchels slung over their shoulders, because Ilyusha, as he was dying, had asked them to:
Analysis
Reading of the book
Analysis