Finished the section on Mitya's interrogation today. There's a part at the end of the second to last chapter of the section that I absolutely love. Mitya falls asleep after a long and stressful night and has a rather peculiar dream. In it, riding in a horse-drawn carriage helmed by a peasant, he passes through a ruined village. The villagers are emaciated and disheveled, and Mitya's eyes focus on a woman and baby that look particularly pitiful. Mitya asks his coachman why these villagers look so wretched. The coachman offers the usual reasons: that they are poor and unfortunate. But that's not what Mitya is asking. He wants to know why they are poor and unfortunate, why they remain so with no one coming to help them, why such misfortune must even exist in the first place. The narrator says that this dream stirs within him such strong feelings; that Mitya feels the urge to help these people by any and all means necessary. It can be thought that dreams stem from one's subconscious, that they are a window into the soul. I found it so profound that someone seemingly guilty of a horrendous crime can have such compassionate feelings within. I think that's so human. These feelings do not go unrecognized. First, when Mitya wakes up from the dream, he finds that someone has placed a pillow under his head as he slept. Second, when Mitya is being taken away to prison, Kalganov, a minor character in the story, runs up to him and shakes his hand goodbye. While simple, I think these gestures mean so much. Mitya feels as though he doesn't belong among people anymore. He's a criminal now: someone of lower standing that deserves derision. These gestures show him he still has a place, that he still is afforded basic courtesies, that there are those that will still forgive him. They take his outsretched hand and rescue him from the clutches of the sea. If we believe that Mitya represents man, I really do think this is such a powerful section of the book.
I went to work today and worked out with my friend after. I enjoyed the food I ate today. I finished one of the daily games I have open on chess.com and watched a few episodes of Frieren. It was a good day today.