e Mitya might have
killed the fool in a fury, but now he felt as weak as a child. He went
quietly to the bench, took up his overcoat, put it on without a word, and
went out of the hut. He did not find the forester in the next room; there
was no one there. He took fifty kopecks in small change out of his pocket
and put them on the table for his night's lodging, the candle, and the
trouble he had given. Coming out of the hut he saw nothing but forest all
round. He walked at hazard, not knowing which way to turn out of the hut,
to the right or to the left. Hurrying there the evening before with the
priest, he had not noticed the road. He had no revengeful feeling for
anybody, even for Samsonov, in his heart. He strode along a narrow forest
path, aimless, dazed, without heeding where he was going. A child could
have knocked him down, so weak was he in body and soul. He got out of the
forest somehow, however, and a vista of fields, bare after the harvest,
stretched as far as the eye could see.

"What despair! What death all round!" he repeated, striding on and on.

He was saved by meeting an old merchant who was being driven across
country in a hired trap. When he overtook him, Mitya asked the way, and it
turned out that the old merchant, too, was going to Volovya. After some
discussion Mitya got into the trap. Three hours later they arrived. At
Volovya, Mitya at once ordered posting-horses to drive to the town, and
suddenly realized that he was appallingly hungry. While the horses were
being harnessed, an omelette was prepared for him. He ate it all in an
instant, ate a huge hunk of bread, ate a sausage, and swallowed three
glasses of vodka. After eating, his spirits and his heart grew lighter. He
flew towards the town, urged on the driver, and suddenly made a new and
"unalterable" plan to procure that "accursed money" before evening. "And
to think, only to think that a man's life should be ruined for the sake of
that paltry three thousand!" he cried, contemptuously. "I'll settle it
to-day." And if it had not been for the thought of Grushenka and of what
might have happened to her, which never left him, he would perhaps have
become quite cheerful again.... But the thought of her was stabbing him to
the heart every moment, like a sharp knife.

At last they arrived, and Mitya at once ran to Grushenka.

Chapter III. Gold-Mines

This was the visit of Mitya of which Grushenka had spoken to Rakitin with
such horror. She