75 pages 2 hours read

Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Brothers Karamazov

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1879

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Part 3, Book 9Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 3, Book 9 Summary: “The Preliminary Investigation”

This section covers the following chapters: “The Start of the Official Perkhotin’s Career,” “The Alarm,” “The Soul’s Journey Through Torments. The First Torment,” “The Second Torment,” “The Third Torment,” “The Prosecutor Catches Mitya,” “Mitya’s Great Secret. Met with Hisses,” “The Evidence of the Witnesses. The Wee One,” and “Mitya Is Taken Away.”

Perkhotin goes to Madame Khokhlakov’s home and asks her if she gave Dmitri the 3,000 roubles. She emphatically states that she did not. Madame Khokhlakov tells him to go straight to the police commissioner Mikhail Makarovich’s home.

Perkhotin arrives at the district police commissioner’s home to find everyone is already there: the doctor, Varvinsky; the deputy prosecutor, Ippolit Kirillovich; and the district attorney, Nikolai Parfenovich Nelyudov. Marfa Ignatievna sends her neighbor to tell the police that Fyodor Karamazov was murdered. At the scene, Grigory was discovered wounded but not seriously harmed, Smerdyakov was experiencing a terrible seizure due to his “falling sickness,” and Fyodor was dead, murdered by a fatal blow to the head.

Dmitri is taken to a separate room where Kirillovich and Parfenovich begin asking him questions. They tell Dmitri that Grigory is alive, and Dmitri states, “I am resurrected” (460), as he no longer is worried that he might have accidentally killed Grigory.

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