Chapter 9 The Galloping Troika. The End of the Prosecutor’s Speech

Ippolit Kirillovitch extends his historical narrative, focusing on Grushenka’s “first lover” and Dmitri Karamazov’s reaction. He argues that, after murdering Fyodor Pavlovitch, Dmitri resolved on a dramatic suicide, retrieved pledged pistols, and rushed to Mokroe to stage a final revel and farewell before killing himself, driven by romantic despair and a tortured conscience.

At Mokroe, the prosecutor claims, Dmitri discovered his rival was less formidable and then learned Grushenka chose him. This promised happiness, arriving when flight or arrest loomed, intensified Dmitri’s inner torment. Under drink, music, and hope to delay the reckoning until morning, Dmitri supposedly hid roughly half the stolen three thousand in the building for later use, revealing a calculating survival instinct amid frenzy.

Turning to the arrest, Ippolit recounts Dmitri’s confused exclamations, shifting denials, and abrupt attempt to redirect suspicion to Smerdyakov when confronted with Grigory’s testimony about the open door. He ridicules Dmitri’s “little bag” explanation as an improvised fiction collapsing under trivial but telling details (fabric, missing torn shirt, and concealment), and portrays Dmitri’s behavior as the shallow cunning of a cornered criminal.

In a fervent peroration, the prosecutor invokes Russia’s justice and the image of a “galloping troika,” warning against legitimizing parricide. He leaves the court shaken; observers debate his psychology, rhetoric, vanity, and the coming counter by Fetyukovitch. Dmitri sits silent, tense, and scornful at points concerning Grushenka. After a short adjournment filled with gossip, Fetyukovitch mounts the tribune to begin the defense.