As for Grushenka, she turns out to be far more interesting than gossip suggests. She may or may not be waiting for a scoundrel who deserted her five years earlier. His return, incidentally, precipitates the pivotal action of the novel. Grushenka's mercurial qualities are quite thorough; she is whimsical and mischievous and does seem as though she might be, as Dmitri laughingly tags her, a "she-devil." She is more than a tease, however, and immediately after the murder she realizes that she, in large part, is to blame for keeping both Dmitri and his father in suspense as to what she actually intends for them.
Dmitri's confession of baseness to Alyosha is in reference to his retention of the 1,500 rubles that he saved from the night of the Grushenka orgy; this money he has not yet returned to Katerina. And his keeping it burdens his scheme of values with far greater dishonor than the fact that he spent the other half of the sum. Later, this anguish of Dmitri's over the money he did not spend convinces many people that such a man could not commit a murder.
At the monastery, Alyosha still does not know why Zossima has ordered him to go into the world. "Here was peace. Here was holiness"; one can easily lose one's way in the world, Alyosha realizes, and go astray. It is exactly for these reasons, though, that the elder has asked him to go into the world. Alyosha is the one person who will be able to walk through confusion and darkness and not lose his footing. At this moment, his father, Katerina, Lise, Dmitri, and Grushenka are all waiting to talk with him again; his life's work is among the people of the world, who need his quiet example of love and respect.
