Suhoy Possyolok is the forest settlement to which Dmitri travels in pursuit of Lyagavy, hoping the man can help him raise money. Instead of providing a way out of Dmitri’s financial crisis, the remote destination becomes an ordeal of wasted time, physical danger, and mounting doubt. Its forester’s cottage is the setting for a night in which the hoped-for intermediary proves useless and Dmitri wakes to find himself at risk of suffocation.

A Remote Destination

When Dmitri arrives at the priest’s house, it is almost dark. The priest tells him that Lyagavy, who had been staying there earlier, has gone to Suhoy Possyolok to spend the night in the forester’s cottage; Lyagavy is buying timber there as well. Dmitri urgently asks the priest to take him to Lyagavy at once, saying that the journey will, so to speak, save him. Though the priest hesitates, he agrees to conduct him there, his curiosity plainly stirred by the urgency of the request.

The distance proves greater than Dmitri expects. Only after reaching Suhoy Possyolok does he realize that they have come at least three versts, not one or one and a half. The unexpected length of the journey annoys him, though he keeps his irritation in check. The settlement is encountered through the narrow purpose of this trip: it is where Lyagavy has gone to lodge while buying timber, and where Dmitri pins his immediate hopes on a meeting.

The Forester’s Cottage

The forester’s hut is divided between its resident and Lyagavy. The forester occupies one half, while Lyagavy lodges in the other, in the better room across the passage. Dmitri and the priest enter that room and light a tallow candle. The close, overheated interior contains a samovar gone out, a tray with cups, and an empty rum vessel—small signs of a stay that has offered neither the comfort nor the practical assistance Dmitri needs.

The cottage’s isolation becomes dangerous when Dmitri wakes after losing consciousness to sleep. The room is full of charcoal fumes from the stove, and he realizes that he might suffocate; the peasant beside him is still snoring. As the candle gutters toward extinction, Dmitri cries out and staggers into action. The episode makes the cottage more than a disappointing stopping place: the shelter he has reached in pursuit of help has itself become a threat to his survival.

A Failed Search

Dmitri’s journey has already consumed nearly a day in anxious effort around Lyagavy. When he understands that the man is drunk—so drunk that he expects him to continue drinking for a week—he sees no point in waiting. The failure prompts a sharper suspicion: perhaps Samsonov sent him to Suhoy Possyolok deliberately, and perhaps the situation with Grushenka has also gone wrong. His questions come as a rush of fear and self-reproach, not as settled conclusions; the scene leaves the suspected deception unresolved.

By the time Dmitri finally wakes, it is dreadfully late, somewhere around nine in the morning. Sunlight shines through the hut’s two little windows, while the curly-headed peasant sits on the bench with his coat on. The bright morning marks the time lost, but it does not bring the help Dmitri came seeking. Lyagavy’s drunkenness has made the search futile, and Dmitri must abandon the purpose that brought him there.

Departure into the Forest

Dmitri leaves without a word. Finding no one in the forester’s half of the hut, he puts fifty copecks in small change on the table to cover his night’s lodging, the candle, and the trouble he caused. The careful payment stands in contrast to the aimlessness of his exit: he has discharged the immediate debt he incurred, but he has no guide and no clear direction.

Outside, forest surrounds the cottage. Dmitri does not know whether to turn right or left; in the evening rush to reach Suhoy Possyolok with the priest, he had not taken notice of the road. He sets off along a narrow forest path without knowing where it leads. His departure is also a change in his state of mind: despite his suspicion that Samsonov may have sent him there on purpose, Dmitri feels no desire for revenge, even against Samsonov. Suhoy Possyolok thus closes this failed episode not with an answer or a rescue, but with Dmitri alone, physically spent and moving blindly onward.