Mitya’s dueling pistols

Mitya’s dueling pistols are more than a possession: first they are the one valuable thing he cannot bear to pawn, then the means he prepares for a possible death by his own hand, and finally an object he promises to cast away as he heads toward another confrontation. Their changing purpose follows the instability of his choices, while the pistols themselves remain stubbornly present—in their case, loaded, held, and never shown discarded.

Identity and First Use

The pistols are a brace of fine dueling weapons kept in a case. Mitya has not pawned them before because he prizes them above all his possessions. That attachment gives their first appearance a practical as well as personal weight: he needs money urgently, but the pistols are not an ordinary surplus item he can surrender without resistance.

After spending nearly all the nine roubles available to him on his expedition, Mitya reasons that he cannot take another step without money. He knows of a wealthy young official he met at the Metropolis tavern, a collector passionately fond of weapons and proud of his knowledge of revolver mechanisms. Mitya goes straight to him and offers the pistols as security for a ten-rouble loan. The collector tries to persuade him to sell them outright, but Mitya refuses. The official lends him the ten roubles without interest, and the two part on friendly terms. The exchange secures immediate cash without severing Mitya’s claim to the weapons: he has pawned them, not consented to give them up.

Loading the Weapon

Later, the pistols return in a scene of acute danger. At Pyotr Ilyitch’s lodging, Mitya says that he is drunk in spirit, and Pyotr notices him loading a pistol. Mitya confirms that he is doing so. He opens the pistol case, takes out the powder horn, carefully pours and rams in the charge, then holds the bullet between two fingers in front of the candle before inserting it. The measured sequence turns the pistol from a valued possession into a prepared instrument; the deliberate handling makes the possibility of self-destruction concrete rather than abstract.

Mitya then asks for clean writing paper. He rapidly writes two lines, folds the sheet into four, and thrusts it into his waistcoat pocket. He puts the pistols back in their case, locks it, and keeps the case in his hand. The brief note and the secured weapon remain together in the scene, but the evidence does not identify the note’s contents or establish that he fires the pistol. Instead, the passage ends with Mitya looking at Pyotr with a slow, thoughtful smile and proposing that they go. The weapon is ready; his next action is departure.

The Pistols on the Road

As Mitya’s intentions alarm Pyotr, Pyotr calls on him to hand over the pistols if he means to behave like a man. Mitya does not surrender them. He replies that he will throw them into a pool on the road, then tells Fenya not to kneel to him and insists that he will not hurt anyone. The promise to discard the weapons is thus made at a moment when another person is openly afraid of what Mitya may do.

The pistols’ trajectory holds together opposed impulses. Mitya has already refused to sell them outright, carefully loaded one, and carried the locked case away in his hand; now he speaks of throwing them aside. That announced disposal is not confirmed in the evidence, and the pistols’ final fate remains unknown. Their significance lies in this unresolved movement between attachment, preparation, and promised relinquishment: they register the danger surrounding Mitya without reducing his intentions to a single settled act.

Narrative Significance

The case gives the pistols a recurring physical presence across changes in circumstance. At first, they are valuable enough that Mitya will risk a temporary pledge but not an outright sale; later, the act of loading them makes a lethal possibility immediate; finally, Pyotr’s demand and Mitya’s answer make their possession a public sign of perceived danger. Each appearance changes the pressure attached to the object, while the pair itself remains intact and close at hand.

That recurrence also keeps uncertainty alive. The weapon is neither fired nor shown discarded in these moments. Mitya’s careful preparation and his assurance to Fenya coexist with Pyotr’s urgent demand that he give up the pistols. Their unresolved status leaves the scene balanced between a declared intention to cast them away and the continuing fact that he holds the case as he sets off.