Reading The Brothers Karamazov: Part Six – Dimitri's Path of Suffering

A scan from my 1981 paperback.

When Dmitry is arrested for the murder of his father he is at a wild party (“almost an orgy”) with Grushenka.  He has been psychologically erratic for several chapters now, since Dostoevsky placed him at the site of the murder before it occurred and he made his bloody escape by battering Gregory over the head with a brass pestle.  He enters a state of delirium as he hunts down Grushenka, passionately desiring to be with her.  Their kissing and embraces reach a fevered pitch just as the police and prosecutors arrive.  (How they located him so easily is a bit of a mystery to the reader, but you have to go with it.)

He passes through three “ordeals” of questioning about the murder.  It seems obvious that he committed the crime.  He was ready to kill his father, he has blood (Gregory's actually, but there is no way in the 1870's to test whose) on his shirt, and he seems to implicate himself through his delirious ramblings.  At one point he dismisses the possibility that Smerdyakov could have committed the horrid crime.  Then he changes his mind and declares it had to be him.  

This is the behavior of a confused and tormented mind.  He has spent most of novel in a rage against his father over his “rightful” inheritance and, of course, over the old man's relationship with Grushenka.  But now she is his and he is drunk on champagne and passion and lust for the “loose woman.”  Earlier he even publicly declares that he will kill his father.  It seems to be an open and shut case.

Yet, he protests and declares his innocence in the face of the overwhelming evidence.  The psychological tension builds inside of him almost to a breaking point when, at last, he falls asleep, almost immediately entering a dream.  This is another opportunity for Dostoevsky's writing prowess to shine and it leads to a transformation in the oldest Karamazov brother that is distinctive from the ones experienced by Ivan and Alyosha.

In the “peculiar dream, completely inappropriate to the circumstances” Dimitry is riding in a cart across the steppe where he had served in the military in his youth.  He comes to a small village and meets a peasant woman who appears much older than she actually is, holding a baby in her arms.  The baby is bawling from hunger, the mother's breasts have no milk.

The baby is crying and reaching out with its small fists as if in protest against the cold November day.  Dimitry asks the coachman why the baby is crying but is dissatisfied with his answers.  The “babe” (as peasants informally refer to infants) is hungry and cold.  The mother is poor.  Dimitry rambles out questions in his dream, desperate to understand the situation.

“I want you to explain to me...why there have to be poor people, why the poor babe must suffer, why the steppe is so barren, why people don't embrace and kiss one another, why they don't sing joyful songs...” (page 611)  The questions are metaphysical nonsense, of course, and Mitya (Dimitry's informal name) knows he is “stupid” for asking them.  Then suddenly...

“He also felt a new, unknown fervor welling up in his heart; he felt like weeping; he longed to do something to stop the baby and its blackened, dried-up mother from crying, to stop all tears forever and ever, and he wanted to do it now, right now, without delay, regardless of everything;  he wanted it with all the unrestrained passion of a Karamazov.” (page 611)

He hears Grushenka's voice entering his dream, promising never to leave him, “full of deep emotion.  And his heart caught fire and turned toward a light; he wanted to live now, to live and to walk on and on toward that unknown light that was beckoning him; he had to start quickly, quickly, right away!” (page 611)

He awakens from the dream a changed man.  He is still the same passionate Dimitry but now he suddenly sees the world in a new light.  “It was as if Mitya's whole soul was shaken by sobs.  He got up and walked over to the table and told them he would sign anything they wanted...His face looked changed – it was radiant with joy.” (page 612)

Whereas before the dream he protested against the charge of murder and was combative in the face of all the incriminating evidence and the testimony of other witnesses, now he surrenders to the situation.  A great weight is lifted from his mind and he is strangely at peace.  He accepts that suffering is his lot and it is through suffering that he will find his redemption.

As they take him away to prison he offers a final proclamation, a changed person.  Dostoevsky gives us a marvelous passage.   “'Gentlemen, we are all cruel.  We are monsters.  We force people to shed tears, mothers and infants,' he said with uncontrollable fervor. 'But let it be known once and for all that, of all the people in the world, I am the most despicable, the lowest creature.  So be it!  Every day if my life I have beaten my breast and promised myself to change, but then every day I have done the same vile things again.  I understand now that men like me must be struck down by life; they must be caught as in a lasso and bound by an outside force.  Without that, I would never have risen by myself!  But lightning has struck and I accept the ordeal of the accusation and my public disgrace; I want to suffer and to cleanse myself by suffering!  For I may be cleansed some day, may I not, gentlemen?  But I want to tell you for the last time: I am not guilty of my father's murder!  I accept punishment, not because I killed him, but because I wanted to kill him, and because perhaps I might have killed him if...I intend, however, to fight you – I warn you of that – and I shall fight you to the bitter end; after that it will be up to God.” (page 613)

Of all the brothers, Dimitry, the oldest and the one born by Fyodor's first wife, is most like his father.  He is selfish, recklessly passionate and intensely hedonistic. Throughout the novel, he behaves erratically and throws himself completely into whatever he his doing.  He harbors grunges, feels entitled, and allows his feelings to fester inside himself with no resolution whatsoever.  

The dream does not transform him, rather it inspires him toward transformation.  For that reason the change that comes upon Dimitry is one of determination to become a different person.  Yet, he is not a different person at the moment his trial begins.  He simply knows that it is only through suffering that he can become transformed, whatever the consequences of the trial may be.

The way of suffering is not the way of Alyosha's ecstasy or of Ivan's breakdown.  It does not remake Dimitry in the manner that his younger brothers are remolded.  He is still subject to his old habits because he has not endured the suffering yet.  He only sees it as his only path forward with the weight of the world working against him.

His evolving state of mind is revealed at the start of his trial.  First, it is surprisingly announced that Smerdyakov has committed suicide.  The old Dimitry shows himself by uncontrollably leaping to his feet and shouting to the courtroom “A dog's death for a dog!”  His defense attorney grabs him and the presiding judge admonishes him threatening to take “appropriate measures” if he cannot restrain himself.  He promises it will not happen again but he does not regret his behavior.  That is the same old Dimitry.  But when it comes time to enter his plea, he reveals the beginnings of his change.  He casts judgment upon himself and in doing so we see the nature of the weight he is burdened with, a weight that suffering will address.  

“'I plead guilty to drunkenness and disorderly behavior,' he said, again in an unexpectedly excited, almost frantic tone.  'I plead guilty to laziness and debauchery.  But I had resolved to become a decent man for the rest of my life when I was struck down by this blow of fate...And I am not guilty of the death of the old man who was my enemy and my father, no, I am not guilty of that!  And I am not guilty of robbing him – no, no, how could I be guilty of that?  Dimitry Karamazov is a despicable scoundrel, but he is not a thief!'”  (page 796)

So we see the old and the new Dimitry juxtaposed as he offers his plea.  He sits down trembling as the judge once more warns him against “frenzied and irrelevant exclamations.”  But how he now sees himself is clear enough, as is the transformative power at work within him since the dream.  He admits to living a life of intoxication, chaos, laziness and indecency.  But even though he hated his father and wished him dead he claims not to have robbed and murdered him.  Though expressly impassioned, the nature of the plea is, nevertheless, the first time in the entire novel Dimitry is being completely honest with himself.

After his conviction at the conclusion of his often circus-like trial, Dimitry is transferred to the prison ward of a hospital for “nervous fever.” Dostoevsky understood how existential stress and change can manifest physically in a person.  For the first time in the novel, he is not a wild extrovert like his father.  He becomes introspective.  For extended time he simply sits quietly and stares “absentmindedly.”  

By the time Alyosha visits Dimitry a plan has been hatched to help his older brother escape from prison and travel to the American west.  Though Dimitry is still committed to his path of suffering, he agrees to go along with the plan so that he can run away and live elsewhere with Grenshenka.  Alyosha, displaying the wisdom of Zosima, understands Dimitry's state of mind but wishes to remind his brother that the path of existential suffering is a state of mind, especially in the case of being convicted for a crime he did not commit.  Moreover, his escape actually ensures that he will carry that weight of his suffering with him into his future.

“If you had killed father, I would be sad to see you evade your cross.  But you are innocent, and that cross would be too much for you.  You want to regenerate yourself and become a new man through suffering.  But I think it will be enough for you to remember all your life that new man you want to be, wherever you are after you have escaped from here.  And indeed, by escaping the great ordeal, you will become even more acutely aware of your debt, for the rest of your life, and that will help your regeneration perhaps even more than if you went there.” (Page 921)

In reply, Dimitry states that he condemns himself for the way he has lived his life but promises to “keep praying that my sins be forgiven me!”  As Alyosha insightfully points out, Dimitry seeks “regeneration” through suffering.  This is his path toward becoming a “new man” and he chooses to remain on that path even though he will escape prison.  Oddly, by escaping prison Alyosha believes Dimitry might become more committed to his path because the “debt” can never be repaid (“you will become even more acutely aware of your debt”).  Without a prison sentence to endure (“your cross”), he will carry it with him for the rest of his life.  And this is how the path of regeneration through suffering should be.  It is a journey not a destination.  A journey that began for Dimitry with a dream of a crying babe, hungry and lashing out with its fists at the cold November steppe.

Note: While reading Dostoevsky in these 40-year-old paperbacks and also researching a bit, I have become aware that my translations are from the World War One era.  They are one of the first English translations.  More recent translations allegedly bring out Dostoevsky's prose more vividly.  I will explore other translations in the future.  As for now, Dimitry is spelled in an antiquated way throughout this series of essays.  The modern spelling is Dimitri, no “y”.  I used the modern spelling in the title but that is not the way it appears in my present translation of the novel.