3.4 Confession of an Ardent Heart: In Anecdotes
For all his claims that he does not use money to assure the company of women, Dmitri only uses money to aggrandize his own personality, the “framework”, as he puts it, money is his vehicle to partake in grand and reckless gestures that may or may not bring him warmth. I don't deny he shared genuine joy with others in his recklessness from time to time. Joy and shame coexist in him side by side, but all he does is give himself in pieces, never taking the whole of himself out of the back- alley.
The virtuous and educated Katerina Ivanovna looks away from him with contempt, and his spite is roused from shame because he feels seen through by that young lady who is everything he is not. The deep irony in calling himself a fine fellow: just then, he implied his own lack of character, virtue, intelligence and education. She is superior to him in every way. By making that vulgar proposition, he addressed her as if he were a streetwalker. A spontaneous act of malice. Was the proposition enough of an offense? I believe it was. After all, what reason does Katerina have to believe him when he claims to have the money she needs?
Then, something astonishing happens. Katerina Ivanovna steps into his room, without anyone's knowing, as if she had appeared from thin air, and she’s determined to take the money for her father. The situation is completely absurd. Why would she risk being seen and expect to get 4500 rubles from Dmitri Karamazov, the man who squanders any the money he finds in his pockets, the man who is a known scoundrel, the man who would make such a proposition with no guarantee that he would keep his word? Had she sacrificed herself, had he really meant to hurt her, what consolation would have she gained when it was her who walked to his house herself? He realized immediately that she was not looking for any consolation, that her martyrdom belongs to her alone. And yet she is determined to get the money, terrified, but sincerely convinced she would get the money. Only the union between the idealism of an institute girl and deeply- rooted emotional masochism could explain why she appeared at Dmitri's door.
Both of their souls were bare. Dmitri spares none of his darkest feelings, as he confesses beyond the mere facts. In an instant, Dmitri understood all of this absurdity... And he became filled with the insects of hatred. He hated her, for making him feel that way, for expecting the very same man he sees himself as, for being so much more beautiful than he ever will be, even when she decides to walk into Sodom? Whatever it is, he almost fell madly in love, too, with that terrible "image" of Katerina. He gave her his mother's inheritance—spontaneous nobility triumphed over spontaneous malice that day. What ecstasy, what magnanimity! Perhaps he thought in his rapture that it doesn't get much better than that, while he was at the end of his own sword. For the two of them, it will not.
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