Dmitri squanders three thousand roubles at Mokroye

Dmitri squanders three thousand roubles at Mokroye during a drunken revel with Grushenka, spending money that Katerina Ivanovna had secretly entrusted to him for a different purpose. The episode binds impulsive desire to a concrete breach of trust: Dmitri does not merely lose money in a spree, but leaves an obligation unpaid and conceals that failure behind a false claim that he has sent the funds. Recounted in his own anguished account, the spending becomes both an admission of wrongdoing and a question about whether one shameful act makes him a thief.

The Money and Its Intended Destination

Just before Dmitri went to see Grushenka, Katerina Ivanovna summoned him and, in strict secrecy, asked him to travel to the provincial capital and send three thousand roubles to Agafya Ivanovna in Moscow. Dmitri says he does not know why Katerina required secrecy, only that she had some reason. The errand gave the money a specific destination and a clear purpose: it was not his to spend, and it was meant to leave the town without drawing attention.

The timing makes the violation especially stark. Dmitri had the three thousand roubles in his pocket when he set out to see Grushenka, and the money intended for the remittance became the money carried into the revel. His account does not present the spending as a mistaken transfer or an unavoidable expense. He identifies the entrusted sum itself as the cash used at Mokroye.

The Revel at Mokroye

Dmitri drove with Grushenka to Mokroye, which he places twenty-five versts from the town. There he hired Gypsies, bought champagne, and made the peasants, women, and girls drink. He describes the money as sent flying: the sum was consumed in a public, extravagant celebration rather than delivered to Moscow. Within three days he was stripped of his money, though he could still describe himself as a hero; the revel’s scale and theatricality stand in sharp contrast to the quiet, practical errand he had undertaken for Katerina.

The spending also coincides with Dmitri’s declaration that he had gone to beat Grushenka but stayed, overwhelmed by what he calls a storm. He says that he remains struck down by it and believes that everything is over for him. The money’s disappearance is therefore set inside a scene of passion and self-destruction: he carries an entrusted obligation into an uncontrolled encounter, and emerges with neither the money nor the means to repair the breach immediately.

The Concealment and the Admission

After returning from Mokroye, Dmitri pretended that he had gone to the provincial town. He told Katerina that he had sent the money, but did not produce the post-office receipt; he claimed that he would bring it later and then failed to do so. In his account, he has forgotten the receipt, but the crucial fact is not the missing paper: no remittance was made. The excuse allowed him to maintain the appearance that he had fulfilled his duty while the money remained spent.

When he recounts the episode, Dmitri anticipates the question that will expose the lie. If Alyosha goes to Grushenka, Dmitri imagines, she may ask what has happened to the money. He sketches an explanation in which he is condemned as a degraded sensualist, a low creature ruled by uncontrolled passions, because he failed to send the funds and wasted them. But he then distinguishes that moral confession from the label of thief: he imagines being able to return the three thousand and have Grushenka send it herself to Agafya. As he speaks, however, the money is gone, so this imagined repayment cannot undo the actual breach.

Guilt, Identity, and Consequence

The episode turns on Dmitri’s struggle to name what he has done. He insists that Dmitri Karamazov can never be a thief and then reverses himself, declaring that he is a thief and a pickpocket. The contradiction does not erase the facts he has disclosed: he spent money entrusted for another person, falsely claimed to have sent it, and left the promised receipt undelivered. His self-accusation registers the seriousness of the act, while his resistance to the identity of thief shows how urgently he separates his worst conduct from what he believes himself to be.

In the scene’s immediate conversation, Alyosha answers that Dmitri is unhappy, but not as unhappy as he thinks, and urges him not to worry himself to death with despair. That response does not make the money reappear or settle the obligation to Agafya. It places the confession within a relationship of care: Dmitri exposes the act and its shame to his brother, and Alyosha responds without treating despair as the only possible conclusion. The spent three thousand thus carries more than financial consequence. It becomes a test of honesty, responsibility, and whether acknowledgment can begin where concealment has failed.