TMoP, Chapter 17

[Lawrence Bryan]

More gnashing of teeth and Prufrockian dithering. He wants to go home  
but has no passport and no money. Thwarted by the police bureaucracy,  
by no reply from his benefactor, Maykov, and at the end of the chapter  
by a small piece of ice that catches a missile aimed at the running  
water next to it, he continues to stumble about.

The bulk of the chapter is a scene with Matryona in which he discovers  
that Nechaev has spun his web (through Pavel?) as far as the child.  
She dutifully carries out her assignment to surreptitiously provide  
poison to the Finn when the police brought her by in a previous  
chapter.  Was the small sack of poison Pavel's? Did he share the use  
of it with Matryona or did Nechaev? Did Pavel have a sack around his  
neck when he was found? If the police found it would they have  
mentioned it to Dostoevsky? If it wasn't there was it because Pavel  
didn't have one or was it because he really was murdered and by  
Nechaev or his gang and the sack was removed. Coetzee doesn't reveal  
any interest on Dostoevsky's part to find out.

Lawrence