Mitya prepares to kill himself

Mitya prepares to kill himself in a moment when despair becomes practical: he loads a pistol, studies its bullet, and writes a note declaring lifelong self-punishment. Yet the plan does not bring peace or hold firm. As he travels toward Mokroe, he again imagines using the loaded weapon, but the impulse passes; the episode makes his suicidal resolve a recurring possibility rather than a completed act.

The Plan Takes Material Form

At half-past eight, only ten minutes after his sudden departure, Mitya goes to Pyotr Ilyitch Perhotin, the young official with whom he had pawned his pistols. The visit brings him face to face with the man who can see the intended instrument of his despair. Mitya tells him that he is loading a pistol and actually opens the powder horn. When Perhotin asks why he is looking at the bullet, Mitya answers that it is a fancy, then turns the question into a hypothetical about putting the bullet in his brain. The exchange makes the danger explicit without establishing that he has fired or made a final attempt.

The preparations are deliberate. Mitya asks for a clean sheet of writing-paper, takes a pen from the table, rapidly writes two lines, folds the paper in four, and puts it in his waistcoat pocket. He then puts the pistols in their case, locks it, and keeps the case in his hand. The folded note is not merely an explanation offered afterward: carried beside the loaded weapon, it records a verdict he has pronounced on himself while keeping the possibility of action close at hand.

A Sentence Against Himself

When Mitya later unfolds the paper to show Perhotin, its large, distinct handwriting declares: “I punish myself for my whole life; my whole life I punish!” The sentence gives his contemplated suicide a moral frame. He describes punishment not as a single act but as a sentence extending across his entire life, turning the note into a compact statement of self-condemnation.

The paper also becomes a recurring object in his thoughts. Later, Mitya remembers having written what he calls his own sentence of death; the note remains in his pocket, and the pistol is loaded. In that recollection, the written declaration and the physical means of carrying it out stand together, so that an earlier burst of resolve continues to exert pressure even when he is no longer at Perhotin’s table.

Resolve Without Peace

The preparation does not settle Mitya’s inner conflict. His resolution leaves him in confusion rather than granting peace, and the past continues to torment him. The note’s force lies partly in this mismatch: it sounds final, yet its author remains divided and unable to be quit of what he has left behind. His expressed intention is serious, but the narrative shows that intention fluctuating instead of proceeding in a straight line toward death.

As Mitya rides in a cart with Andrey, he briefly feels an impulse to stop him, jump out, draw the loaded pistol, and end everything before dawn. The possibility returns in the midst of the journey, but lasts only a moment and passes like a spark. The horses gallop onward, carrying Mitya toward his goal. The episode ends not with a shot or a completed suicide attempt, but with movement continuing after the danger has surfaced again.

The Episode’s Significance

The weapon, the note, and the passing impulse mark distinct stages of the same crisis: Mitya handles the means, writes a lasting judgment against himself, and later encounters the urge again without acting on it. Their recurrence prevents the written sentence from functioning as a simple conclusion. It remains evidence of how far his despair has advanced, while the brief return of the impulse on the road shows that the crisis is not resolved merely because he continues toward Mokroe.

The scene’s tension comes from the contrast between the note’s sweeping claim of lifelong punishment and the unstable present in which Mitya makes it. A sentence on folded paper can announce a verdict, but it cannot make that verdict final. The loaded pistol gives the declaration immediate physical weight; the impulse’s quick disappearance, followed by the horses’ continued gallop, leaves the threatened outcome suspended.