# XXVIII explained — What Is to Be Done?

> Chapter companion for What Is to Be Done? by Nikolay Chernyshevsky.

## What happens

Lopukhóf returns to Petersburg in mid-June, stays three weeks, then leaves for Moscow on factory business. On July 21 he departs, and on July 23 a misunderstanding occurs at a hotel near the Moscow railroad station involving a stranger who does not get up, followed by a scene at the Kamennoï Ostrof dacha. The narrator hints that Lopukhóf is the one who supposedly shot himself, but suggests it is a trick.

## Character check-ins

### Dmitri Sergéitch Lopukhóf

Returns to Petersburg in mid-June, stays three weeks, leaves for Moscow on factory business, and is implied to be the one who faked his suicide.

## Key lines

> I saw long ago that it was Lopukhóf,” says the sapient reader, in triumph at his perspicacity.

The clever reader claims to have known all along that Lopukhóf was the one who shot himself.

_The narrator mocks the reader's assumption about Lopukhóf's suicide._

> There is no need of asking; it is only a trick of his, but he caught himself in a net, the rascal,” says the sapient reader.

The reader insists it is merely a trick by Lopukhóf, though he has trapped himself.

_Highlights the reader's suspicion that the suicide is a deception._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/what_is_to_be_done_se/chapters/xxviii
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/what_is_to_be_done_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/what_is_to_be_done_se/chapters