The Idiot

The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, is an attempt to portray a truly beautiful soul. Here's a summary from the Bantam Classic edition:

Despite the harsh circumstances besetting his own life - abject poverty, incessant gambling, the death of his firstborn child - Dostoyevsky produced a second masterpiece, The Idiot, just two years after completing Crime and Punishment. Int it, a saintly man, Prince Myshkin, is thrust into the heart of a society more concerned with wealth, power and sexual conquest than with the ideals of Christianity. Myshkin soon finds himself at the center of a violent love triangle in which a notorious woman and a beautiful young girl become rivals for his affections. Extortion, scandal and murder follow, testing Myshkin's moral feelings as Dostoyevsky searches through the wreckage left by human misery to find "man in man." The Idiot is a quintessentially Russian novel, one that penetrates the complex psyche of the Russian people. "They call me a psychologist," wrote Dostoyevsky. "That is not true. I'm only a realist in the higher sense; that is, I portray all the depths of the human soul."

Summary and Analysis

Part One

The book opens with a particularly memorable paragraph:

Towards the end of November, during a warm spell, at around nine o’clock in the morning, a train of the Petersburg–Warsaw line was approaching Petersburg at full steam. It was so damp and foggy that dawn could barely break; ten paces to right or left of the line it was hard to make out anything at all through the carriage windows. Among the passengers there were some who were returning from abroad; but the third-class compartments were more crowded, and they were all petty business folk from not far away. Everyone was tired, as usual, everyone’s eyes had grown heavy overnight, everyone was chilled, everyone’s face was pale yellow, matching the color of the fog.

The story begins with Prince Myshkin (mysh is Russian for mouse) taking a train into Petersburg after being abroad in Switzerland for four years to be treated for epilepsy. It isn't long before he's entered into a conversation on a grim topic: capital punishment, and execution by the guillotine:

Think: if there’s torture, for instance, then there’s suffering, wounds, bodily pain, and it means that all that distracts you from inner torment, so that you only suffer from the wounds until you die. And yet the chief, the strongest pain may not be in the wounds, but in knowing for certain that in an hour, then in ten minutes, then in half a minute, then now, this second—your soul will fly out of your body and you’ll no longer be a man, and it’s for certain—the main thing is that it’s for certain.

Here there’s the sentence, and the whole torment lies in the certainty that there’s no escape, and there’s no greater torment in the world than that.

The prince is preoccupied with this topic, the moments before death. He first begins speaking with General Empachin's footman about this topic, then later, when he meets the General's wife and daughters, the same topic comes up again.

This is one of the Prince's peculiarities. Another is his ability to get easily caught up in the schemes of the people around him. He's quiet, he's a good listener, he hides no information, it's easy for people to forget he's there, he makes a good/honest/reliable messenger or note carrier.

Oh yeah. He also falls in love with beautiful women very easily.

Vagueness abounds through the novel. Take this passage, for instance:

Something peculiar took place in Ganya as he was asking this question. It was as if some new and peculiar idea lit up in his brain and glittered impatiently in his eyes. The general, who was genuinely and simple-heartedly worried, also glanced sidelong at the prince, but as if he did not expect much from his reply.

What idea is Dostoyevsky referring to? He's going to let the reader find out for themselves. What do these glittering eyes and sidelong glances actually mean? It's unclear.

Compare this to Tolstoy's narration in Anna Karenina, which clearly lays out the various states of mind of both Anna and Vronsky during their period abroad in Italy, when their desire for each other wanes, even while their love for each other grows:

One consolatory reflection upon her conduct had occurred to her at the first moment of the final rupture, and when now she recalled all the past, she remembered that one reflection. "I have inevitably made that man wretched," she thought; "but I don’t want to profit by his misery. I too am suffering, and shall suffer; I am losing what I prized above everything—I am losing my good name and my son. I have done wrong, and so I don’t want happiness, I don’t want a divorce, and shall suffer from my shame and the separation from my child." But, however sincerely Anna had meant to suffer, she was not suffering. Shame there was not. With the tact of which both had such a large share, they had succeeded in avoiding Russian ladies abroad, and so had never placed themselves in a false position, and everywhere they had met people who pretended that they perfectly understood their position, far better indeed than they did themselves. Separation from the son she loved—even that did not cause her anguish in these early days. The baby girl—his child—was so sweet, and had so won Anna’s heart, since she was all that was left her, that Anna rarely thought of her son.

...

Vronsky, meanwhile, in spite of the complete realization of what he had so long desired, was not perfectly happy. He soon felt that the realization of his desires gave him no more than a grain of sand out of the mountain of happiness he had expected. It showed him the mistake men make in picturing to themselves happiness as the realization of their desires. For a time after joining his life to hers, and putting on civilian dress, he had felt all the delight of freedom in general of which he had known nothing before, and of freedom in his love,—and he was content, but not for long. He was soon aware that there was springing up in his heart a desire for desires—ennui.

Tolstoy uses an interior dialogue, much like Dostoyevsky used for Raskolnikov's interior monologue, dipping into his stream of consciousness, in Crime and Punishment. Tolstoy fills Anna's interior monologue with her own monologue about her feelings. And Tolstoy is able to fluidly switch a paragraph later to describing Vronsky's mentality in as much detail.

We are told much about our characters from observations about their behavior, toward others around them, their behavior when they're alone, the ambiguous twinkles in their eyes or screwing up of the eyes - whatever that means...

Among other things, he had adopted a system of not rushing his daughters into marriage, that is, of not “hovering over” them and bothering them too much with his parental love’s longing for their happiness, as involuntarily and naturally happens all the time, even in the most intelligent families, where grown-up daughters accumulate.

We end up spending a lot of time in Part One on some back-stories and circumstances, because the tangle of relations in The Idiot get complicated pretty quickly.

This complex and troublesome “occurrence” (as Totsky himself put it) had begun very far back, about eighteen years ago.

Soon only one girl, Nastya, was left, the younger one having died of whooping cough. Totsky, who was living abroad, soon forgot all about them. One day, some five years later, Afanasy Ivanovich, passing by, decided to have a look at his estate and suddenly noticed in his country house, in the family of his German, a lovely child, a girl of about twelve, lively, sweet, clever, and promising to become a great beauty—in that regard Afanasy Ivanovich was an unerring connoisseur.

Nastassya begins her life in an emotional prison, and longs for freedom. This is what's driving her irrational, compulsive behavior: she longs to live a life where she is free, independent. Further anecdotes:

but all the same an extraordinary upheaval took place in Nastasya Filippovna’s life after that. She suddenly showed an extraordinary resolve and revealed a most unexpected character. Without further thought, she left her little country house and suddenly went to Petersburg, straight to Totsky, all on her own. He was amazed, tried to begin speaking; but it suddenly turned out, almost from the first phrase, that he had to change completely the style, the vocal range, the former topics of pleasant and elegant conversation, which till then had been used so successfully, the logic—everything, everything!

Valuing nothing, and least of all herself (it took great intelligence and perception to guess at that moment that she had long ceased to value herself and, skeptic and society cynic that he was, to believe in the seriousness of that feeling), Nastasya Filippovna was capable of ruining herself, irrevocably and outrageously, facing Siberia and hard labor, if only she could wreak havoc on the man for whom she felt such inhuman loathing.

This loathing that Nastassya has for Totsky is the same kind of loathing and hatred that Anna Karenina feels for her husband Karenin. Both women are imprisoned, and under the control of some powerful man.

Part Two

Whereas the entirety of Part One is spent on a single day, Part Two begins by skipping over six months in just a few paragraphs. The narrator's knowledge becomes sketchy and resorts to rumors. Myshkin departs for Moscow, Nastassya runs away from Rogozhin,

Quotes

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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight Loc. 133-35  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 12:21 AM

René Girard was right to say that the failure of the initial idea is the triumph of another more profound idea, and that this prolonged uncertainty gives the novel “an existential density that few works have.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight Loc. 136-40  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 12:21 AM

Part one of The Idiot introduces most of the characters of the novel — the three central figures, Prince Myshkin, Rogozhin, and Nastasya Filippovna; the three families of the Epanchins, the Ivolgins, and the Lebedevs — and entangles them in various complex relations. Riddles and enigmas appear from the start, surrounded by rumors, gossip, attempted explanations, analyses by different characters (reasonable but usually wrong). The narrator himself is not always sure of what has happened or is going to happen. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight Loc. 146-47  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 12:22 AM

The prince’s humility and compassion acquire a strange ambiguity, and before long, the epilepsy for which he had been treated in Switzerland returns with a violent attack that throws him headlong down the stairs. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight Loc. 151-53  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 12:23 AM

It is a first variation on one of the central themes of the novel: the difference between love and pity. The relation of the first part to the rest of the novel is one of question and answer, and the question was posed first of all for Dostoevsky himself, who did not know the answer when he started. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight Loc. 153-58  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 01:55 PM

It is essentially the same question implied in Holbein’s painting: what if Christ were not the incarnate God but, in this case, simply a “positively beautiful man,” a “moral genius,” as a number of nineteenth-century biographers of Jesus chose to portray him, and as Leo Tolstoy was about to proclaim — “a Christ more romantic than Christian,” in René Girard’s words, sublime and ideal, but with no power to redeem fallen mankind? The prince cannot tell Nastasya Filippovna that her sins are forgiven. What he tells her is that she is pure, that she is not guilty of anything. These apparently innocent words, coming at the end of part one, unleash all that follows in the novel. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight Loc. 181-85  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 01:57 PM

He says nothing of the youngest, Aglaya. The mother asks why, and he demurs: “I can’t say anything now. I’ll say it later.” When she presses him, he admits that she is “an extraordinary beauty,” adding: “Beauty is difficult to judge; I’m not prepared yet. Beauty is a riddle.” This is the prince’s first real moment of reticence in the novel. By the end he will have moved from naïve candor to an anguished silence in the face of the unspeakable. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight Loc. 203-5  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 02:00 PM

But, owing to the chasteness of his art (as opposed to its obvious scandalousness), Dostoevsky allows himself no direct statement of his idea, no symbolistic abstraction, no simple identification of the “archetypes” behind his fiction. He uses the methods and conventions of the social novel to embody an ultimate human drama. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight Loc. 225-28  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 02:02 PM

Speaking of Holbein’s Christ, he says that it shows nature as “some huge machine of the newest construction, which has senselessly seized, crushed, and swallowed up, blankly and unfeelingly, a great and priceless being.” And he wonders how Christ’s disciples, seeing a corpse like that, could believe “that this sufferer would resurrect,” and whether Christ himself, if he could have seen his own image on the eve of his execution, would have “gone to the cross and died as he did.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight Loc. 231-34  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 02:51 PM

Rogozhin, on the other hand, tells the prince that he likes looking at the Holbein painting. The prince, “under the impression of an unexpected thought,” replies: “At that painting! A man could even lose his faith from that painting!” “Lose it he does,” Rogozhin agrees. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight Loc. 174  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 02:52 PM

there is a great reticence in The Idiot. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight Loc. 246-47  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 02:58 PM

As Myshkin puts it: “now he exists and lives, and in three minutes there would be something, some person or thing — but who? and where?” The Idiot is built on that eschatological sense of time. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 3 | Loc. 292-97  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 04:18 PM

T OWARDS THE END of November, during a warm spell, at around nine o’clock in the morning, a train of the Petersburg–Warsaw line was approaching Petersburg at full steam. It was so damp and foggy that dawn could barely break; ten paces to right or left of the line it was hard to make out anything at all through the carriage windows. Among the passengers there were some who were returning from abroad; but the third-class compartments were more crowded, and they were all petty business folk from not far away. Everyone was tired, as usual, everyone’s eyes had grown heavy overnight, everyone was chilled, everyone’s face was pale yellow, matching the color of the fog. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 7 | Loc. 343-44  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 04:22 PM

“Your bundle has a certain significance all the same,” the clerk went on after they had laughed their fill (remarkably, the owner of the bundle, looking at them, finally started laughing himself, which increased their merriment), 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 7 | Loc. 344  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 04:22 PM

isaac: he laughs
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 8 | Loc. 357-59  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 04:24 PM

“Just so, his name was Nikolai Andreevich Pavlishchev,” and, having responded, the young man looked intently and inquisitively at Mr. Know-it-all. These Mr. Know-it-alls are occasionally, even quite frequently, to be met with in a certain social stratum. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 8 | Loc. 359  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 04:24 PM

mr know it all is lebedyev
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 9 | Loc. 373-76  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 04:26 PM

“I don’t mean the name, the name’s historical, it can and should be found in Karamzin’s History, 4 I mean the person, sir, there’s no Prince Myshkins to be met with anywhere, and even the rumors have died out.” “Oh, that’s certain!” the prince answered at once. “There are no Prince Myshkins at all now except me; it seems I’m the last one. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 9 | Loc. 376  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 04:26 PM

mysh russian for mouse
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 21 | Loc. 630-33  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 06:59 PM

“You’re unaccustomed to things here?” “That’s true, too. Would you believe, I marvel at myself that I haven’t forgotten how to speak Russian. Here I’m talking to you now and thinking to myself: ‘I speak well enough after all.’ That may be why I’m talking so much. Really, since yesterday all I’ve wanted to do is speak Russian.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 22 | Loc. 643-46  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:00 PM

“Hardly! It’s instantaneous. The man is laid down, and a broad knife drops, it’s a special machine called the guillotine, heavy, powerful … The head bounces off before you can blink an eye. The preparations are the bad part. When they read out the sentence, get everything ready, tie him up, lead him to the scaffold, then it’s terrible! People gather, even women, though they don’t like it when women watch.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 22 | Loc. 647  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:01 PM

prince doesnt just have preoccupation w capital punishment - he has a preoccupation with the last moments before death. like dostoevsky himself.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 23 | Loc. 659-62  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:02 PM

Think: if there’s torture, for instance, then there’s suffering, wounds, bodily pain, and it means that all that distracts you from inner torment, so that you only suffer from the wounds until you die. And yet the chief, the strongest pain may not be in the wounds, but in knowing for certain that in an hour, then in ten minutes, then in half a minute, then now, this second—your soul will fly out of your body and you’ll no longer be a man, and it’s for certain—the main thing is that it’s for certain. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 23 | Loc. 664-65  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:03 PM

To kill for killing is an immeasurably greater punishment than the crime itself. To be killed by legal sentence is immeasurably more terrible than to be killed by robbers. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 23 | Loc. 668-69  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:03 PM

here there’s the sentence, and the whole torment lies in the certainty that there’s no escape, and there’s no greater torment in the world than that. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 23 | Loc. 669  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:04 PM

zero potential. fate inescapable. loss of will and loss of power even over ones own death or struggle to live.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 24 | Loc. 687-88  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:05 PM

“When he’s alone he probably doesn’t look that way, and maybe never laughs,” the prince somehow felt. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 24 | Loc. 688  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:06 PM

myshkin doesnt have strong rational convictions. mainly subconscious. emotionally driven.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 26 | Loc. 727-38  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:08 PM

“Well, that makes it opportune that I did not and do not invite you. Excuse me, Prince, but to clarify it all at once: since you and I have just concluded that there can be no talk between us of being related—though, naturally, I’d find it very flattering—it means that …” “It means that I can get up and leave?” the prince rose slightly, laughing even somehow merrily, despite all the apparent embarrassment of his situation. “There, by God, General, though I have absolutely no practical knowledge either of local customs or of how people normally live here, things went with us just now as I thought they were certain to go. Well, maybe that’s how it should be … And you also didn’t answer my letter then … Well, good-bye and forgive me for bothering you.” The prince’s gaze was so gentle at that moment, and his smile was so free of the least shade of any concealed hostility, that the general suddenly stopped and somehow suddenly looked at his visitor in a different way; the whole change of view occurred in a single instant. “But you know, Prince,” he said in an almost totally different voice, “after all, I don’t know you, and Elizaveta Prokofyevna might want to have a look at her namesake … Perhaps you’d like to wait, if your time will keep.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 28 | Loc. 769-70  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:10 PM

The frequent attacks of his illness had made almost an idiot of him (the prince actually said “idiot”). 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 28 | Loc. 770  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:11 PM

very forthright. the whole truth.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 28 | Loc. 775  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:11 PM

The general was very surprised. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 28 | Loc. 775  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:12 PM

example of dostoevskys vagueness. surprised at what? he lets the reader infer.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 29 | Loc. 789-92  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:12 PM

“Quite possible, though I bought it here. Ganya, give the prince some paper; here are pens and paper, sit at this table, please. What’s that?” the general turned to Ganya, who meanwhile had taken a large-format photographic portrait from his portfolio and handed it to him. “Bah! Nastasya Filippovna! She sent it to you herself, she herself?” he asked Ganya with animation and great curiosity. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 29 | Loc. 792-94  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:13 PM

“She gave it to me just now, when I came to wish her a happy birthday. I’ve been asking for a long time. I don’t know, I’m not sure it’s not a hint on her part about my coming empty-handed, without a present, on such a day,” Ganya added, smiling unpleasantly. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 30 | Loc. 797  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:13 PM

“No, she hasn’t. And maybe she never will. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 30 | Loc. 797  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:14 PM

again the vagueness: like shakespeare. only dialogue. no glum expressions. no sighs or body language or eyes showing despair. only what you might see yourself if you were there.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 30 | Loc. 798-99  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:15 PM

“I remember, I remember, of course, and I’ll be there. What else, it’s her birthday, she’s twenty-five! 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 31 | Loc. 827-30  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:16 PM

“So this is Nastasya Filippovna?” he said, gazing at the portrait attentively and curiously. “Remarkably good-looking!” he warmly added at once. The portrait showed a woman of extraordinary beauty indeed. She had been photographed in a black silk dress of a very simple and graceful cut; her hair, apparently dark blond, was done simply, informally; her eyes were dark and deep, her forehead pensive; the expression of her face was passionate and as if haughty. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 31 | Loc. 834  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:18 PM

holding no information back. part of the reason he gets caught up in such intrigues. easily ensnared in schemes and plots. easily used as a messeger.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 32 | Loc. 838-39  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:18 PM

There may actually be a million sitting here and … a passion, an ugly passion, if you like, but all the same it smacks of passion, and we know what these gentlemen are capable of when they’re intoxicated!… 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 32 | Loc. 843-45  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:18 PM

Something peculiar took place in Ganya as he was asking this question. It was as if some new and peculiar idea lit up in his brain and glittered impatiently in his eyes. The general, who was genuinely and simple-heartedly worried, also glanced sidelong at the prince, but as if he did not expect much from his reply. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 32 | Loc. 845  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:19 PM

morevagueness. what idea? he waits for you to find out.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 32 | Loc. 845-47  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:19 PM

“I don’t know, how shall I put it,” replied the prince, “only it seemed to me there’s a lot of passion in him, and even some sort of sick passion. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 33 | Loc. 860-63  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:20 PM

“That is the main thing,” Ganya finished, again helping out the faltering general, and contorting his lips into a most venomous smile, which he no longer cared to hide. He fixed his inflamed gaze directly on the general’s eyes, as if he even wished to read the whole of his thought in them. The general turned purple and flared up. “Well, yes, intelligence is the main thing!” he agreed, looking sharply at Ganya. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 33 | Loc. 870-72  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:21 PM

The general had lost his temper, but now apparently regretted having gone so far. He suddenly turned to the prince, and the uneasy thought that the prince was right there and had heard them seemed to pass over his face. But he instantly felt reassured: one glance at the prince was enough for him to be fully reassured. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 33 | Loc. 872  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:22 PM

more signs he is easy to catch up into schemes. he is a good listener.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 33 | Loc. 873  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:23 PM

oh yeah. he falls n love easily too.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 35 | Loc. 905-6  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:23 PM

And for you, Prince, this is even more than a find, first, because you won’t be alone, but, so to speak, in the bosom of a family, and, as far as I can see, it’s impossible for you to take your first steps on your own in a capital like Petersburg. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 35 | Loc. 911-13  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:24 PM

True, a man also needs pocket money, at least a small amount, but you won’t be angry, Prince, if I point out to you that it would be better for you to avoid pocket money and generally carrying money in your pocket. I say it just from looking at you. But since your purse is quite empty now, allow me to offer you these twenty-five roubles to begin with. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 35 | Loc. 913  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:25 PM

theme of money. sae advice to the prince. dont carry around pocket money. a fool and his money are soon parted.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 36 | Loc. 924-26  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:25 PM

“Rogozhin? Ah, no. I’d advise you in a fatherly, or, if you prefer, a friendly way to forget about Mr. Rogozhin. And in general I’d advise you to keep to the family you’re going to be with.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 36 | Loc. 937-39  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:26 PM

“So you like such a woman, Prince?” he asked him suddenly, giving him a piercing look. And it was as if he had some exceptional intention. “An astonishing face!” replied the prince. “And I’m convinced that her fate is no ordinary one. It’s a gay face, but she has suffered terribly, eh? 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 36 | Loc. 941  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:26 PM

Ah, if only she were kind! Everything would be saved!” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 36 | Loc. 941  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:27 PM

what does that mean? so much reticence
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 37 | Loc. 952-55  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:27 PM

despite all the external deference with which her daughters received them, had in fact long lost their original and unquestionable authority among them, so much so that the harmonious conclave established by the three girls was beginning to gain the upper hand on most occasions, the general’s wife, mindful of her own dignity, found it more convenient not to argue but to yield. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 37 | Loc. 955-58  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:27 PM

True, her character quite often did not heed and obey the decisions of her good sense; with every year Lizaveta Prokofyevna was becoming more and more capricious and impatient, she was even becoming somehow eccentric, but since in any case a submissive and well-trained husband remained at hand, all superfluous and accumulated things usually poured down on his head, and then the family harmony was restored again and everything went better than ever. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 37 | Loc. 958  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:28 PM

signs of deteriorating mental condition. she breaks down at one point in the novel. high stress high anxiety family life.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 38 | Loc. 973-75  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:30 PM

Among other things, he had adopted a system of not rushing his daughters into marriage, that is, of not “hovering over” them and bothering them too much with his parental love’s longing for their happiness, as involuntarily and naturally happens all the time, even in the most intelligent families, where grown-up daughters accumulate. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 38 | Loc. 976-77  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:30 PM

but the general’s arguments were extremely weighty and based on tangible facts. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 38 | Loc. 977  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:30 PM

general epanchin is rationally driven and logical. even w r t hhis emotions and governing them.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Bookmark on Page 38 | Loc. 977  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:31 PM


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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 39 | Loc. 983-84  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:31 PM

And at almost the same time Afanasy Ivanovich Totsky, a man of high society, with high connections and extraordinary wealth, again showed his old desire to marry. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 39 | Loc. 984  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:32 PM

totsky wants to dump nastassya for oldest epanchin daughter. ddint get hat connection until now...
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 39 | Loc. 991-94  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:33 PM

but among them, in the most sincere way, they determined that Aglaya’s fate was to be not simply a fate, but the most ideal possible earthly paradise. Aglaya’s future husband would have to be endowed with all perfections and successes, to say nothing of wealth. The sisters even decided among themselves, and somehow without any special superfluous words, on the possibility, if need be, of making sacrifices on their own part in favor of Aglaya: 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 39 | Loc. 994  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:33 PM

sisters jealously guarding aglaya
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 40 | Loc. 1007  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:34 PM

we learn about characters psychology through anecdotes and circumstances. more natural way of telling story. heresay and not omniscience.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 40 | Loc. 1007-8  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:35 PM

This complex and troublesome “occurrence” (as Totsky himself put it) had begun very far back, about eighteen years ago. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 40 | Loc. 1008  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:36 PM

this is also why part i seems to start slowly. stops and tells anedotes along the way to fill out the characters.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 41 | Loc. 1019-22  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:37 PM

Soon only one girl, Nastya, was left, the younger one having died of whooping cough. Totsky, who was living abroad, soon forgot all about them. One day, some five years later, Afanasy Ivanovich, passing by, decided to have a look at his estate and suddenly noticed in his country house, in the family of his German, a lovely child, a girl of about twelve, lively, sweet, clever, and promising to become a great beauty—in that regard Afanasy Ivanovich was an unerring connoisseur. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 41 | Loc. 1022  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:38 PM

nastassya starts in difficult, inescapable circumstances. she hasnt even made choices about what led to her fall, as anna did.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 42 | Loc. 1037-41  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:39 PM

but all the same an extraordinary upheaval took place in Nastasya Filippovna’s life after that. She suddenly showed an extraordinary resolve and revealed a most unexpected character. Without further thought, she left her little country house and suddenly went to Petersburg, straight to Totsky, all on her own. He was amazed, tried to begin speaking; but it suddenly turned out, almost from the first phrase, that he had to change completely the style, the vocal range, the former topics of pleasant and elegant conversation, which till then had been used so successfully, the logic—everything, everything! 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 42 | Loc. 1043-45  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:39 PM

understood an extraordinary amount—so much that it was a cause of profound wonder where she could have acquired such information, could have developed such precise notions in herself. (Could it have been from her girls’ library?) What’s more, she even understood an exceeding amount about legal matters and had a positive knowledge, if not of the world, then at least of how certain things went in the world; 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 42 | Loc. 1045  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:40 PM

developed independently notions of how the world works. developed her own understanding of her worth, her circumstances, etc
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 42 | Loc. 1050-53  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:41 PM

This new woman announced to him that in the fullest sense it would make no difference to her if he married any woman he liked right then and there, but that she had come to prevent this marriage of his, and to prevent it out of spite, solely because she wanted it that way, and consequently it must be that way—“well, so that now I can simply laugh at you to my heart’s content, because now I, too, finally feel like laughing.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 42 | Loc. 1053  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:42 PM

her own self destructive idea of love conflates control with love. faher figure has contrlled her her entire life. now she exerts her own control over him. origin of her actions are love, though its manifestation doesnt appear that way
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 43 | Loc. 1069-71  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:43 PM

he was able to perceive that Nastasya Filippovna herself understood perfectly well how harmless she was in the legal sense, but that she had something quite different in mind and … in her flashing eyes. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 43 | Loc. 1071-74  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:43 PM

Valuing nothing, and least of all herself (it took great intelligence and perception to guess at that moment that she had long ceased to value herself and, skeptic and society cynic that he was, to believe in the seriousness of that feeling), Nastasya Filippovna was capable of ruining herself, irrevocably and outrageously, facing Siberia and hard labor, if only she could wreak havoc on the man for whom she felt such inhuman loathing. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 44 | Loc. 1074  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:44 PM

like anna, nastassya is incapale of living without freedom and love and is willing to sacrifice herself as a result of her dire circmstance
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 44 | Loc. 1083-86  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:44 PM

However, he recalled moments, even before, when strange thoughts had come to him, for instance, while looking into those eyes: it was as if he had sensed some deep and mysterious darkness in them. Those eyes had gazed at him—and seemed to pose a riddle. During the last two years he had often been surprised by the change in Nastasya Filippovna’s color; she was growing terribly pale and—strangely—was even becoming prettier because of it. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 44 | Loc. 1086  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:45 PM

mysteries and riddles and enigmas. nothing is explained.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 45 | Loc. 1094-96  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:45 PM

He was afraid—and did not even know why—he was simply afraid of Nastasya Filippovna. For some time, during the first two years, he began to suspect that Nastasya Filippovna wanted to marry him herself, but said nothing out of her extraordinary vanity and was stubbornly waiting for him to propose. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 45 | Loc. 1096  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:46 PM

she knowshe loves aglaya. this woudprovideher with motive to disrupt aglayas plans and indeed the plans of all the emachins
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 45 | Loc. 1103-5  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:47 PM

socialists—nothing made any impression on Nastasya Filippovna, as if she had a stone in place of a heart, and her feeling had dried up and died out once and for all. She lived a largely solitary life, read, even studied, liked music. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 46 | Loc. 1116-18  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:48 PM

He revealed that he had already resolved to stop at nothing to gain his freedom; that he would not be at peace even if Nastasya Filippovna herself declared to him that henceforth she would leave him entirely alone; that words were not enough for him, and he wanted the fullest guarantees. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 48 | Loc. 1148-51  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:49 PM

At first with a sad smile, then with gay and brisk laughter, she confessed that the previous storm would in any case not be repeated; that she had long ago partly changed her view of things, and though she had not changed in her heart, she was still bound to allow for many things as accomplished facts; what was done was done, what was past was past, so that she even found it strange that Afanasy Ivanovich could go on being so frightened. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 48 | Loc. 1151  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:50 PM

we have no idea whether she is being sincere. we get no hints.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 49 | Loc. 1176-77  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:51 PM

but said insistently that she did not want to hamper herself in any way; that until the wedding itself (if the wedding took place) she reserved for herself the right to say no, even in the very last hour; 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 49 | Loc. 1181-87  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:52 PM

For instance, Totsky was supposed to have learned somewhere that Nastasya Filippovna, in secret from everyone, had entered into some sort of vague relations with the Epanchin girls—a perfectly incredible rumor. But another rumor he involuntarily believed and feared to the point of nightmare: he had heard for certain that Nastasya Filippovna was supposedly aware in the highest degree that Ganya was marrying only for money, that Ganya’s soul was dark, greedy, impatient, envious, and boundlessly vain, out of all proportion to anything; that, although Ganya had indeed tried passionately to win Nastasya Filippovna over before, now that the two friends had decided to exploit that passion, which had begun to be mutual, for their own advantage, and to buy Ganya by selling him Nastasya Filippovna as a lawful wife, he had begun to hate her like his own nightmare. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 53 | Loc. 1257-58  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:56 PM

“Hegumen Pafnuty,” the prince replied attentively and seriously. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 55 | Loc. 1288-90  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:58 PM

“It’s simply my small drawing room, where we gather when we’re by ourselves, and each of us does her own thing: Alexandra, this one, my eldest daughter, plays the piano, or reads, or sews; Adelaida paints landscapes and portraits (and never can finish anything); and Aglaya sits and does nothing. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 56 | Loc. 1305-8  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:59 PM

That was after a series of strong and painful fits of my illness, and whenever my illness worsened and I had several fits in a row, I always lapsed into a total stupor, lost my memory completely, and though my mind worked, the logical flow of thought was as if broken. I couldn’t put more than two or three ideas together coherently. So it seems to me. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 56 | Loc. 1308  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:59 PM

more candor from myshkin
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 56 | Loc. 1312-15  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 07:59 PM

“An ass? That’s strange,” observed Mrs. Epanchin. “And yet there’s nothing strange about it, some one of us may yet fall in love with an ass,” she observed, looking wrathfully at the laughing girls. “It has happened in mythology. 21 Go on, Prince.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 56 | Loc. 1320-22  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:00 PM

“I’ve seen an ass, maman,” said Adelaida. “And I’ve heard one,” Aglaya picked up. The three girls laughed again. The prince laughed with them. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 57 | Loc. 1324-26  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:00 PM

“But why?” the prince laughed. “In their place I wouldn’t have missed the chance either. But all the same I stand up for the ass: an ass is a kind and useful fellow.” “And are you kind, Prince? I ask out of curiosity,” Mrs. Epanchin asked. They all laughed again. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 57 | Loc. 1342-44  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:01 PM

“The prince spoke very interestingly about the case of his illness, and how he came to like everything because of one external push. It has always been interesting to me, how people go out of their minds and then recover again. Especially if it happens suddenly.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 60 | Loc. 1388  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:03 PM

morepreoccpatio with deah and the moent before deah
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 60 | Loc. 1388-1401  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:03 PM

I’d better tell you about another encounter I had last year with a certain man. Here there was one very strange circumstance—strange because, in fact, such chances very rarely occur. This man had once been led to a scaffold, along with others, and a sentence of death by firing squad was read out to him, for a political crime. After about twenty minutes a pardon was read out to him, and he was given a lesser degree of punishment; nevertheless, for the space between the two sentences, for twenty minutes, or a quarter of an hour at the least, he lived under the certain conviction that in a few minutes he would suddenly die. I wanted terribly much to listen when he sometimes recalled his impressions of it, and several times I began questioning him further. He remembered everything with extraordinary clarity and used to say he would never forget anything from those minutes. About twenty paces from the scaffold, around which people and soldiers were standing, three posts had been dug into the ground, since there were several criminals. The first three were led to the posts, tied to them, dressed in death robes (long white smocks), and had long white caps pulled down over their eyes so that they would not see the guns; then a squad of several soldiers lined up facing each post. My acquaintance was eighth in line, which meant he would go to the posts in the third round. A priest went up to each of them with a cross. Consequently, he had about five minutes left to live, not more. He said those five minutes seemed like an endless time to him, an enormous wealth. It seemed to him that in those five minutes he would live so many lives that there was no point yet in thinking about his last moment, so that he even made various arrangements: he reckoned up the time for bidding his comrades farewell and allotted two minutes to that, then allotted two more minutes to thinking about himself for the last time, and then to looking around for the last time. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 60 | Loc. 1401-6  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:04 PM

He remembered very well that he made precisely those three arrangements, and reckoned them up in precisely that way. He was dying at the age of twenty-seven, healthy and strong; bidding farewell to his comrades, he remembered asking one of them a rather irrelevant question and even being very interested in the answer. Then, after he had bidden his comrades farewell, the two minutes came that he had allotted to thinking about himself. He knew beforehand what he was going to think about: he kept wanting to picture to himself as quickly and vividly as possible how it could be like this: now he exists and lives, and in three minutes there would be something, some person or thing—but who? and where? He wanted to resolve it all in those two minutes! 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 61 | Loc. 1408-13  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:04 PM

The ignorance of and loathing for this new thing that would be and would come presently were terrible; yet he said that nothing was more oppressive for him at that moment than the constant thought: ‘What if I were not to die! What if life were given back to me—what infinity! And it would all be mine! Then I’d turn each minute into a whole age, I’d lose nothing, I’d reckon up every minute separately, I’d let nothing be wasted!’ He said that in the end this thought turned into such anger in him that he wished they would hurry up and shoot him.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 61 | Loc. 1417-22  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:04 PM

“You probably wanted to conclude, Prince, that there’s not a single moment that can be valued in kopecks, and that five minutes are sometimes dearer than a treasure. That is all very praiseworthy, but, forgive me, what ever happened to the friend who told you all those horrors … his punishment was changed, which means he was granted that ‘infinite life.’ Well, what did he do with so much wealth afterwards? Did he live ‘reckoning up’ every minute?” “Oh, no, he told me himself—I asked him about it—he didn’t live that way at all and lost many, many minutes.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 61 | Loc. 1421  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:05 PM

theprince tells a story that ends up with no conclusiveending. much like the princes own story. ambiguous and seemingly pointless. dark and shrouded in ambiguity.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 63 | Loc. 1464-67  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:07 PM

“Earlier, in fact,” the prince turned to her, becoming somewhat animated again (it seemed he became animated very quickly and trustingly), “in fact it occurred to me, when you asked me for a subject for a picture, to give you this subject: to portray the face of a condemned man a minute before the stroke of the guillotine, when he’s still standing on the scaffold, before he lies down on the plank.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 64 | Loc. 1473-75  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:07 PM

“It was exactly one minute before his death,” the prince began with perfect readiness, carried away by his recollection, and apparently forgetting at once about everything else, “the very moment when he had climbed the little stairway and just stepped onto the scaffold. He glanced in my direction; I looked at his face and understood everything … But how can one talk about it! 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 64 | Loc. 1475  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:08 PM

embodying experiences and existential eotions in a painting. loss of faith through a painting.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 64 | Loc. 1484-86  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:16 PM

Then three or four hours were spent on the well-known things: the priest, breakfast, for which he was given wine, coffee, and beef (now, isn’t that a mockery? You’d think it was very cruel, yet, on the other hand, by God, these innocent people do it in purity of heart and are sure of their loving kindness), 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 64 | Loc. 1487-92  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:16 PM

I think that here, too, while they’re driving him, it seems to him that he still has an endless time to live. I imagine he probably thought on the way: ‘It’s still long, there are still three streets left to live; I’ll get to the end of this one, then there’s still that one, and the one after it, with the bakery on the right … it’s still a long way to the bakery!’ People, shouting, noise all around him, ten thousand faces, ten thousand pairs of eyes—all that must be endured, and above all the thought: ‘There are ten thousand of them, and none of them is being executed, it’s me they’re executing!’ Well, that’s all the preliminaries. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 65 | Loc. 1503-4  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:19 PM

He kissed the cross greedily, hurried to kiss it, as if hurrying to grasp something extra, just in case, but he was hardly conscious of anything religious at that moment. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 67 | Loc. 1539-47  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:25 PM

They were the children of that village, a whole band, who went to school. It wasn’t I who taught them; oh, no, they had a schoolmaster there for that—Jules Thibaut; or perhaps I did teach them, but more just by being with them, and I spent all my four years that way. I didn’t need anything else. I told them everything, I didn’t hide anything from them. Their fathers and relations all got angry with me, because the children finally couldn’t do without me and kept gathering around me, and the schoolmaster finally even became my worst enemy. I acquired many enemies there, and all because of the children. Even Schneider scolded me. And what were they so afraid of? A child can be told everything—everything. I was always struck by the thought of how poorly grown-ups know children, even fathers and mothers their own children. Nothing should be concealed from children on the pretext that they’re little and it’s too early for them to know. What a sad and unfortunate idea! And how well children themselves can see that their fathers consider them too little and unable to understand anything, while they understand everything. Grown-ups don’t know that a child can give extremely important advice even in the most difficult matters. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 67 | Loc. 1550-51  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:25 PM

At first he kept shaking his head and wondering how it was that with me the children understood everything and with him almost nothing, and then he started laughing at me when I told him that neither of us would teach them anything, but they might still teach us. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 68 | Loc. 1566-75  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:27 PM

Once, before then, she suddenly began to sing over her work, and I remember that everybody was surprised and started laughing: ‘Marie’s begun to sing! What? Marie’s begun to sing!’ And she was terribly abashed and kept silent forever after. People were still nice to her then, but when she came back sick and worn out, there was no compassion for her in anyone! How cruel they are about that! What harsh notions they have of it all! Her mother was the first to greet her with spite and contempt: ‘You’ve dishonored me now.’ She was the first to hold her up to disgrace: when they heard in the village that Marie had come back, everybody ran to look at her, and nearly the whole village came running to the old woman’s cottage: old men, children, women, girls, everybody, in such a hustling, greedy crowd. Marie was lying on the floor at the old woman’s feet, hungry, ragged, weeping. When they all rushed in, she covered herself with her disheveled hair and lay facedown on the floor like that. Everybody around looked on her as if she were vermin; the old men denounced and abused her, the young ones even laughed, the women abused her, denounced her, looked at her with contempt, as at some sort of spider. Her mother allowed it all; she herself sat there nodding her head and approving. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 69 | Loc. 1590-95  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:28 PM

then the pastor—he was still a young man and his whole ambition was to become a great preacher—turned to them all and pointed at Marie. ‘Here is the one who caused this respected woman’s death’ (which wasn’t true, because she had been sick for two years), ‘here she stands before you and dares not look up, because she is marked by the finger of God; here she is, barefoot and in rags—an example to those who lose their virtue! Who is she? She is her own daughter!’ and more in the same vein. And imagine, almost everyone there liked this meanness, but … here a peculiar thing occurred; here the children stepped in, because by then the children were all on my side and had begun to love Marie. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 70 | Loc. 1595  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:29 PM

falseness of religion. sacrificing the truth for the sake of ambition.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 71 | Loc. 1613-14  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:30 PM

They said Marie burst into tears and now they loved her very much. Soon they all began to love her, and at the same time they began to love me as well. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 71 | Loc. 1614  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:31 PM

children are very impressionable before they meet marie. once they get to know her for themselves they treat her honestly.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 71 | Loc. 1615-18  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:31 PM

And later I studied and read everything only so as to tell them afterwards, and for three years after that I told them all sorts of things. When everybody accused me afterwards—Schneider, too—of talking to them like grown-ups, without hiding anything, I replied that it was shameful to lie to them, they knew everything anyway, no matter how you hid it, and might learn it in a bad way, while from me it wouldn’t be in a bad way. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 71 | Loc. 1620-23  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:32 PM

I told them about it at once and explained the pastor’s action; they all became angry with him, some so much that they sent stones through the pastor’s windows. I stopped them, because that was a bad thing; but everyone in the village learned all about it at once, and here they began to accuse me of having corrupted the children. Then they found out that the children loved Marie and became terribly frightened; but Marie was happy now. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 72 | Loc. 1630-33  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:33 PM

It seemed to me that my love for Marie delighted them terribly, and that was the one thing, during all my life there, in which I deceived them. I didn’t disappoint them by confessing that I did not love Marie at all—that is, was not in love with her—but only pitied her; everything told me that they preferred it the way they had imagined and decided it among themselves, and so I said nothing and pretended they had guessed right. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 72 | Loc. 1643-45  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:34 PM

She was like a crazy person, in terrible agitation and rapture. Sometimes the children came with me. On those occasions, they usually stood not far away and set about guarding us from something or someone, and they were extraordinarily pleased with that. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 73 | Loc. 1653-55  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:34 PM

Because of them, I can assure you, she died almost happy. Because of them, she forgot her black woe, as if she had received forgiveness from them, because till the very end she considered herself a great criminal. Like little birds, they fluttered with their wings against her window and called to her every morning: ‘Nous t’aimons, Marie.’ 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 74 | Loc. 1667-69  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:36 PM

He told me he was fully convinced that I was a perfect child myself, that is, fully a child, that I resembled an adult only in size and looks, but in development, soul, character, and perhaps even mind, I was not an adult, and I would stay that way even if I lived to be sixty. I laughed very much: he wasn’t right, of course, because what’s little about me? 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 74 | Loc. 1669-71  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:36 PM

But one thing is true, that I really don’t like being with adults, with people, with grown-ups—and I noticed that long ago—I don’t like it because I don’t know how. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 74 | Loc. 1671  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:37 PM

honesty and good nature creates a source of anxiety. disrupts normal social structures
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 74 | Loc. 1682-84  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:38 PM

Maybe my fate will change completely, but that’s all not it and not the main thing. The main thing is that my whole life has changed already. I left a lot there, too much. It’s all vanished. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 75 | Loc. 1684  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:39 PM

what makes a life? what in our lives is independent of place/location?
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 76 | Loc. 1710-12  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:41 PM

But about your face, Lizaveta Prokofyevna,” he suddenly turned to Mrs. Epanchin, “about your face I not only think but I’m certain that you are a perfect child, in everything, in everything, in everything good and in everything bad, despite your age. You’re not angry that I say it? 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 76 | Loc. 1720-21  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:41 PM

I think your character is completely identical to mine, and I’m very glad; like two drops of water. Only you’re a man and I’m a woman, and I’ve never been to Switzerland, that’s all the difference.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 77 | Loc. 1724-33  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:42 PM

“Don’t tease him, my dears, he may be cleverer than all three of you put together. You’ll see. Only why have you said nothing about Aglaya, Prince? Aglaya’s waiting, and I am, too.” “I can’t say anything now. I’ll say it later.” “Why? She’s noticeable, I believe?” “Oh, yes, she’s noticeable. You’re an extraordinary beauty, Aglaya Ivanovna. You’re so good-looking that one is afraid to look at you.” “That’s all? And her qualities?” Mrs. Epanchin persisted. “Beauty is difficult to judge; I’m not prepared yet. Beauty is a riddle.” “That means you’ve set Aglaya a riddle,” said Adelaida. “Solve it, Aglaya. But she is good-looking, isn’t she, Prince?” “Extremely!” the prince replied warmly, with an enthusiastic glance at Aglaya. “Almost like Nastasya Filippovna, though her face is quite different …” They all exchanged astonished looks. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 77 | Loc. 1740-43  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:43 PM

“He’s nice, but much too simple,” said Adelaida, when the prince had gone. “Yes, much too much,” agreed Alexandra, “so that he’s even slightly ridiculous.” It was as if neither had spoken her whole mind. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 78 | Loc. 1746  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:43 PM

“I don’t think he’s so simple.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 78 | Loc. 1749-51  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:43 PM

“Of course, it was bad of me to let on about the portrait,” the prince reflected to himself on his way to the office, feeling some remorse. “But … maybe it’s a good thing I let on …” A strange idea was beginning to flash in his head, though not a very clear one as yet. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 78 | Loc. 1762-68  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:44 PM

“Prince,” he began again, “right now they’re … owing to a completely strange circumstance … ridiculous … and for which I’m not to blame … well, in short, it’s irrelevant—they’re a bit angry with me in there, it seems, so for the time being I’d rather not go there without being sent for. I need terribly to talk with Aglaya Ivanovna now. I’ve written a few words just in case” (a small, folded note appeared in his hand), “and I don’t know how to deliver it. Would you take it upon yourself, Prince, to deliver it to Aglaya Ivanovna, right now, but only to Aglaya Ivanovna, that is, so that nobody sees—understand? It’s not such a great secret, God knows, there’s nothing to it, but … will you do it?” “It’s not altogether pleasant for me,” said the prince. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 79 | Loc. 1768  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:44 PM

he makes for a convenient messenger
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 80 | Loc. 1792-94  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:46 PM

With her look Aglaya seemed to demand an accounting from him—in what way had he ended up in this affair together with Ganya?—and to demand it calmly and haughtily. For two or three moments they stood facing each other; finally something mocking barely showed in her face; she smiled slightly and walked past him. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 80 | Loc. 1806-8  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:46 PM

“Such beauty has power,” Adelaida said hotly. “You can overturn the world with such beauty.” She went pensively to her easel. Aglaya gave the portrait only a fleeting look, narrowed her eyes, thrust out her lower lip, and sat down to one side, her arms folded. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 81 | Loc. 1810-12  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:47 PM

“I want to say a couple of words to him—and enough!” Mrs. Epanchin snapped quickly, stopping the objection. She was visibly irritated. “You see, Prince, we now have all these secrets here. All these secrets! 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 81 | Loc. 1819-20  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:47 PM

I am a fool with a heart but no brains, and you are a fool with brains but no heart; and we’re both unhappy, and we both suffer.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 82 | Loc. 1846-52  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:49 PM

“It was you,” Ganya rasped, suddenly falling upon the prince once everyone had gone, “you blabbed to them that I’m getting married!” he muttered in a quick half whisper, with a furious face, flashing his eyes spitefully. “You shameless babbler!” “I assure you that you are mistaken,” the prince replied calmly and politely, “I didn’t even know you were getting married.” “You heard Ivan Fyodorovich say earlier that everything would be decided tonight at Nastasya Filippovna’s, and you told it to them! You’re lying! How could they have found out? Devil take it, who could have told them besides you? Didn’t the old lady hint to me?” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 83 | Loc. 1859-63  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:49 PM

“One word, only one word from you—and I’m saved.” The prince turned quickly and looked at the two. There was genuine despair in Ganya’s face; it seemed he had uttered these words somehow without thinking, as if headlong. Aglaya looked at him for a few seconds with exactly the same calm astonishment as she had looked at the prince earlier, and it seemed that this calm astonishment of hers, this perplexity, as if she totally failed to understand what had been said to her, was more terrible for Ganya at that moment than the strongest contempt. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 84 | Loc. 1885-86  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:51 PM

But his soul is dirty: he knows and yet hesitates; he knows and still asks for a guarantee. He’s unable to make a decision on faith. Instead of a hundred thousand, he wants me to give him hope in me. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 86 | Loc. 1910-20  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:53 PM

“That can’t be! She couldn’t have told you to read it. You’re lying! You read it yourself!” “I’m telling you the truth,” the prince replied in the same completely imperturbable tone, “and, believe me, I’m very sorry that it makes such an unpleasant impression on you.” “But, you wretch, did she at least say anything as she did it? Did she respond in any way?” “Yes, of course.” “Speak then, speak—ah, the devil!…” And Ganya stamped his right foot, shod in a galosh, twice on the sidewalk. “As soon as I finished reading it, she told me that you were trying to trap her; that you wished to compromise her, in order to obtain some hope from her and then, on the basis of that hope, to break without losses from the other hope for a hundred thousand. That if you had done it without negotiating with her, had broken it off by yourself without asking her for a guarantee beforehand, she might perhaps have become your friend. That’s all, I think. Ah, one more thing: when I had already taken the note and asked what the reply would be, she said that no reply would be the best reply—I think that was it; forgive me if I’ve forgotten her exact expression, but I’m conveying it as I understood it myself.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 86 | Loc. 1920  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:53 PM

incapable of filtering information...
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 88 | Loc. 1950-53  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:55 PM

Once he began to swear and met no resistance, Ganya gradually lost all restraint, as always happens with certain people. A little more and he might have started spitting, so enraged he was. But, precisely because of that rage, he was blind; otherwise he would long since have paid attention to the fact that this “idiot,” whom he mistreated so, was sometimes capable of understanding everything all too quickly and subtly, and of giving an extremely satisfactory account of it. But suddenly something unexpected happened. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 88 | Loc. 1953-58  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:55 PM

“I must point out to you, Gavrila Ardalionovich,” the prince suddenly said, “that formerly I was indeed unwell, so that in fact I was almost an idiot; but I have been well for a long time now, and therefore I find it somewhat unpleasant when I’m called an idiot to my face. Though you might be excused, considering your misfortunes, in your vexation you have even abused me a couple of times. I dislike that very much, especially the way you do it, suddenly, from the start. And since we’re now standing at an intersection, it might be better if we parted: you go home to the right, and I’ll go left. I have twenty-five roubles, and I’m sure I’ll find furnished rooms.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 88 | Loc. 1958  | Added on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 08:56 PM

he takes abuse but only a certain kind and only to a certain point. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 89 | Loc. 1978-81  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 12:41 AM

started right from the front hall. On one side of the corridor were the three rooms that were to be let to “specially recommended” tenants; besides that, on the same side of the corridor, at the very end of it, near the kitchen, was a fourth room, smaller than the others, which housed the retired General Ivolgin himself, the father of the family, who slept on a wide couch and was obliged to go in and out of the apartment through the kitchen and the back door. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 89 | Loc. 1981  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 12:42 AM

most descriptions describing wherepeople are situated... no descriptions of petersburg
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 90 | Loc. 1988-89  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 12:43 AM

Ganya only gritted his teeth to himself; though he may have wished to be respectful to his mother, it was evident the moment one stepped into the place that he was the great tyrant of the family. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 91 | Loc. 2009-10  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 12:44 AM

Kolya was a boy with a merry and rather sweet face, and a trustful and simple-hearted manner. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 92 | Loc. 2027-32  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 12:45 AM

“A couple of words, Prince, I forgot to tell you, what with all these … doings. A request: do me a favor—if it’s not too much of a strain for you—don’t babble here about what just went on between me and Aglaya, or there about what you find here; because there’s also enough ugliness here. To hell with it, though … But control yourself, at least for today.” “I assure you that I babbled much less than you think,” said the prince, somewhat annoyed at Ganya’s reproaches. Their relations were obviously becoming worse and worse. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 92 | Loc. 2032  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 12:46 AM

even the good natured beautiful soul can be annoyed.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 93 | Loc. 2049-57  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 12:47 AM

“Do you have any money?” he asked suddenly, turning to the prince. “A little.” “How much, precisely?” “Twenty-five roubles.” “Show me.” The prince took a twenty-five-rouble note from his waistcoat pocket and handed it to Ferdyshchenko. The man unfolded it, looked at it, turned it over, then held it up to the light. “Quite strange,” he said, as if pondering. “Why do they turn brown? These twenty-fivers sometimes get terribly brown, while others, on the contrary, fade completely. Take it.” The prince took the note from him. Ferdyshchenko got up from the chair. “I came to warn you: first of all, don’t lend me any money, because I’m sure to ask.” “Very well.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 95 | Loc. 2089-90  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 12:49 AM

The prince began listening with a certain mistrust. “I was passionately in love with your mother while she was still a fiancée—my friend’s fiancée. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 95 | Loc. 2091-96  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 12:50 AM

He takes two pistols from his pocket. Across a handkerchief. † Without witnesses. Why witnesses, if we’ll be sending each other into eternity in five minutes? We loaded the pistols, stretched out the handkerchief, put the pistols to each other’s hearts, and looked into each other’s faces. Suddenly tears burst from our eyes, our hands trembled. Both of us, both of us, at once! Well, naturally, then came embraces and a contest in mutual magnanimity. The prince cries: ‘She’s yours!’ I cry: ‘She’s yours!’ In short … in short 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 95 | Loc. 2096  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 12:50 AM

more on this certain doom theme
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 99 | Loc. 2168-71  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 12:54 AM

“Today what?” Ganya gave a start and suddenly fell upon the prince. “Ah, I understand, you’re into it here, too!… What is it with you, some sort of illness or something? Can’t help yourself? But understand, finally, Your Highness …” “I’m to blame here, Ganya, and nobody else,” Ptitsyn interrupted. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 100 | Loc. 2190-92  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 12:55 AM

how could she give you her consent and even present you with her portrait, when you don’t love her? Can it be that she, being so … so …” “Experienced, you mean?” “That’s not how I wanted to put it. Can it be that you could blind her eyes to such a degree?” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 101 | Loc. 2211-17  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 12:57 AM

The prince lifted the bar, opened the door, and—stepped back in amazement, even shuddered all over: before him stood Nastasya Filippovna. He recognized her at once from the portrait. Her eyes flashed with a burst of vexation when she saw him; she quickly came into the front hall, pushed him aside with her shoulder, and said wrathfully, flinging off her fur coat: “If you’re too lazy to fix the doorbell, you should at least be sitting in the front hall when people knock. Well, there, now he’s dropped my coat, the oaf!” The coat was indeed lying on the floor; Nastasya Filippovna, not waiting for the prince to help her out of it, had flung it off into his arms without looking, but the prince had not managed to catch it. “You ought to be dismissed. Go and announce me.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 101 | Loc. 2221-26  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 12:57 AM

“Ah, what an idiot!” Nastasya Filippovna cried indignantly, stamping her foot at him. “Well, what are you doing? Who are you going to announce?” “Nastasya Filippovna,” murmured the prince. “How do you know me?” she asked quickly. “I’ve never seen you before! Go and announce … What’s that shouting?” “They’re quarreling,” the prince replied and went to the drawing room. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 104 | Loc. 2264-71  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 01:00 AM

“Drink some water,” he whispered to Ganya, “and don’t stare like that …” It was evident that he had said it without any calculation, without any particular design, just so, on the first impulse; but his words produced an extraordinary effect. It seemed that all of Ganya’s spite suddenly poured out on the prince; he seized him by the shoulder and looked at him silently, vengefully, and hatefully, as if unable to utter a word. There was general agitation. Nina Alexandrovna even gave a little cry. Ptitsyn took a step forward in alarm, Kolya and Ferdyshchenko appeared in the doorway and stopped in amazement, Varya alone watched as sullenly as before, but observed attentively. She did not sit down, but stood to one side, next to her mother, her arms folded on her breast. But Ganya came to his senses at once, almost at the moment of his reaction, and laughed nervously. He recovered completely. “What are you, Prince, a doctor or something?” he cried as gaily and simple-heartedly as he could. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 106 | Loc. 2310-11  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 01:02 AM

opposites—he now had to drink this terrible cup as well and, above all, at such a moment! 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 110 | Loc. 2399-2405  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 01:06 AM

“But, excuse me, how it it possible?” Nastasya Filippovna suddenly asked. “Five or six days ago in the Indépendence—I always read the Indépendence—I read exactly the same story! But decidedly exactly the same! It happened on one of the Rhine railways, in a passenger car, between a Frenchman and an Englishwoman: the cigar was snatched in exactly the same way, the lapdog was tossed out the window in exactly the same way, and, finally, it ended in exactly the same way as with you. The dress was even light blue!” The general blushed terribly; Kolya also blushed and clutched his head with his hands; Ptitsyn quickly turned away. Ferdyshchenko was the only one who went on laughing. There is no need to mention Ganya: he stood all the while enduring mute and unbearable torment. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 112 | Loc. 2425-27  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 01:38 AM

They all seemed to need each other in order to come in; not one of them had courage enough by himself, but they all urged each other on, as it were. Even Rogozhin stepped warily at the head of the crowd, but he had some sort of intention, and he looked gloomily and irritably preoccupied. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 113 | Loc. 2455-59  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 01:40 AM

You don’t know me? Ptitsyn is my witness! If I was to show you three roubles, to take them out of my pocket right now, you’d crawl after them on all fours to Vassilievsky Island—that’s how you are! That’s how your soul is! I’ve come now to buy you out for money, never mind that I’m wearing these boots, I’ve got a lot of money, brother, I’ll buy you out with all you’ve got here … if I want, I’ll buy you all! Everything!” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 115 | Loc. 2483-86  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 01:42 AM

“Forty thousand then, forty, not eighteen!” cried Rogozhin. “Vanka Ptitsyn and Biskup promised to produce forty thousand by seven o’clock. Forty thousand! All on the table.” The scene was becoming extremely ugly, but Nastasya Filippovna went on laughing and did not go away, as if she were intentionally drawing it out. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 116 | Loc. 2508-19  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 01:43 AM

Ganya’s eyes went dim and, forgetting himself entirely, he swung at his sister with all his might. The blow would certainly have landed on her face. But suddenly another hand stopped his arm in midair. The prince stepped between him and his sister. “Enough, no more of that!” he said insistently, but also trembling all over, as if from an extremely strong shock. “What, are you always going to stand in my way!” Ganya bellowed, dropping Varya’s hand, and, having freed his arm, in the utmost degree of rage, he swung roundly and slapped the prince in the face. “Ah!” Kolya clasped his hands, “ah, my God!” There were exclamations on all sides. The prince turned pale. With a strange and reproachful gaze, he looked straight into Ganya’s eyes; his lips trembled and attempted to say something; they were twisted by a strange and completely inappropriate smile. “Well, let that be for me … but her … I still won’t let you!…” he said quietly at last; but suddenly unable to control himself, he left Ganya, covered his face with his hands, went to the corner, stood facing the wall, and said in a faltering voice: “Oh, how ashamed you’ll be of what you’ve done!” Ganya indeed stood as if annihilated. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 117 | Loc. 2522-24  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 01:44 AM

“He’ll be sorry!” shouted Rogozhin. “You’ll be ashamed, Ganka, to have offended such a … sheep!” (He was unable to find any other word.) “Prince, my dear soul, drop them all, spit on them, and let’s go! You’ll learn how Rogozhin loves!” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 119 | Loc. 2564-67  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 01:46 AM

I’ve come to thank you once again, Prince, and to ask you: did you know Nastasya Filippovna before?” “No, I didn’t.” “Then what made you tell her to her face that she was ‘not like that’? And it seems you guessed right. It appears that she may indeed not be like that. However, I can’t make her out! 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 122 | Loc. 2641-44  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 01:50 AM

“I’ll never consider you a scoundrel now,” said the prince. “Earlier I took you altogether for a villain, and suddenly you overjoyed me so—it’s a real lesson: not to judge without experience. Now I see that you not only cannot be considered a villain, but that you haven’t even gone all that bad. To my mind, you’re simply the most ordinary man that could be, only very weak and not the least bit original.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 124 | Loc. 2672-73  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 01:52 AM

Having made money, be it known to you—I’ll become an original man in the highest degree. The meanest and most hateful thing about money is that it even gives one talent. And so it will be till the world ends. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 126 | Loc. 2705-13  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:51 AM

“Besides, I have something to ask you, General. Have you ever been to Nastasya Filippovna’s?” “I? Have I ever been? You say this to me? Several times, my dear, several times!” the general cried in a fit of self-satisfied and triumphant irony. “But I finally stopped it myself, because I did not wish to encourage an improper union. You saw it yourself, you were a witness this afternoon: I’ve done everything a father could do—but a meek and indulgent father; now a father of a different sort will come onstage, and then—we shall see whether the honored old soldier will gain the upper hand in this intrigue, or a shameless adventuress will get into the noblest of families.” “But I precisely wanted to ask you whether, as an acquaintance, you might not get me into Nastasya Filippovna’s this evening? I absolutely must be there tonight; I have business; but I have no idea how to get in. I was introduced to her today, but all the same I wasn’t invited: she’s giving a party this evening. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 126 | Loc. 2713  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:51 AM

the genral as usual lying his ass off
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 127 | Loc. 2727-30  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:52 AM

The prince was in despair. He could not understand how he could have been so foolishly trusting. In fact, he had never trusted the general; he had counted on him only so as to get into Nastasya Filippovna’s somehow, even if with a certain scandal, but he had not counted on an excessive scandal: the general turned out to be decidedly drunk, extremely eloquent, and talked nonstop, with feeling, with a tear in his soul. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 131 | Loc. 2808-19  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:57 AM

the prince, still innocently laughing it off. But it was not all right. As soon as they went through the dark and low front hall into the narrow drawing room, furnished with a half-dozen wicker chairs and two card tables, the hostess immediately started carrying on as if by rote in a sort of lamenting and habitual voice: “And aren’t you ashamed, aren’t you ashamed of yourself, barbarian and tyrant of my family, barbarian and fiend! He’s robbed me clean, sucked me dry, and he’s still not content! How long will I put up with you, you shameless and worthless man!” “Marfa Borisovna, Marfa Borisovna! This … is Prince Myshkin. General Ivolgin and Prince Myshkin,” the general murmured, trembling and at a loss. “Would you believe,” the captain’s widow suddenly turned to the prince, “would you believe that this shameless man hasn’t spared my orphaned children! He’s stolen everything, filched everything, sold and pawned everything, left nothing. What am I to do with your promissory notes, you cunning and shameless man? Answer, you sly fox, answer me, you insatiable heart: with what, with what am I to feed my orphaned children? Here he shows up drunk, can’t stand on his feet … How have I angered the Lord God, you vile and outrageous villain, answer me?” But the general had other things on his mind. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 132 | Loc. 2834-35  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:58 AM

“I wanted to introduce you to Ippolit,” said Kolya. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 132 | Loc. 2835  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:58 AM

ippolit is the central axis of the novel
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 132 | Loc. 2844-51  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 05:00 AM

So it means that Nastasya Filippovna invited you to her place straight off?” “The thing is that she didn’t.” “How can you be going, then?” Kolya exclaimed and even stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “And … and dressed like that, and to a formal party?” “By God, I really don’t know how I’m going to get in. If they receive me—good; if not—then my business is lost. And as for my clothes, what can I do about that?” “You have business there? Or is it just so, pour passer le temps b in ‘noble society’?” “No, essentially I … that is, I do have business … it’s hard for me to explain it, but …” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 133 | Loc. 2851-54  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 05:00 AM

“Well, as for what precisely, that can be as you like, but the main thing for me is that you’re not simply inviting yourself to a party, to be in the charming company of loose women, generals, and usurers. If that were so, excuse me, Prince, but I’d laugh at you and start despising you. There are terribly few honest people here, so that there’s nobody at all to respect. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 133 | Loc. 2854  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 05:01 AM

these are the sharks surrounding myshkin
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 135 | Loc. 2891-97  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 05:03 AM

Nastasya Filippovna occupied a not very large but indeed magnificently decorated apartment. There had been a time, at the beginning of those five years of her Petersburg life, when Afanasy Ivanovich had been particularly unstinting of money for her; he was then still counting on her love and thought he could seduce her mainly by comfort and luxury, knowing how easily the habits of luxury take root and how hard it is to give them up later, when luxury has gradually turned into necessity. In this case Totsky remained true to the good old traditions, changing nothing in them, and showing a boundless respect for the invincible power of sensual influences. Nastasya Filippovna did not reject the luxury, even liked it, but—and this seemed extremely strange—never succumbed to it, as if she could always do without it; she even tried several times to declare as much, which always struck Totsky unpleasantly. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Bookmark on Page 136 | Loc. 2916  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 02:19 PM


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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 221 | Loc. 4555-81  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 02:32 PM

“Lev Nikolaevich!” Parfyon cried from above, when the prince had reached the first landing. “That cross you bought from the soldier, are you wearing it?” “Yes.” And the prince stopped again. “Show me.” Again a new oddity! The prince thought a little, went back up, and showed him the cross without taking it from his neck. “Give it to me,” said Rogozhin. “Why? Or do you …” The prince seemed unwilling to part with this cross. “I’ll wear it, and you can wear mine, I’ll give it to you.” “You want to exchange crosses? Very well, Parfyon, if so, I’m glad; we’ll be brothers!” 21 The prince took off his tin cross, Parfyon his gold one, and they exchanged them. Parfyon was silent. With painful astonishment the prince noticed that the former mistrust, the former bitter and almost derisive smile still did not seem to leave the face of his adopted brother—at least it showed very strongly at moments. Finally Rogozhin silently took the prince’s hand and stood for a while, as if undecided about something; in the end he suddenly drew the prince after him, saying in a barely audible voice: “Come on.” They crossed the first-floor landing and rang at the door facing the one they had just come out of. It was promptly opened. An old woman, all bent over and dressed in black, a kerchief on her head, bowed silently and deeply to Rogozhin. He quickly asked her something and, not waiting for an answer, led the prince further through the rooms. Again there were dark rooms, of some extraordinary, cold cleanness, coldly and severely furnished with old furniture in clean white covers. Without announcing himself, Rogozhin led the prince into a small room that looked like a drawing room, divided by a gleaming mahogany partition with doors at either end, behind which there was probably a bedroom. In the corner of the drawing room, near the stove, in an armchair, sat a little old woman, who did not really look so very old, even had a quite healthy, pleasant, and round face, but was already completely gray-haired and (one could tell at first sight) had fallen into complete senility. She was wearing a black woolen dress, a big black kerchief around her neck, and a clean white cap with black ribbons. Her feet rested on a footstool. Next to her was another clean little old woman, a bit older, also in mourning and also in a white cap, apparently some companion, who was silently knitting a stocking. The two looked as if they were always silent. The first old woman, seeing Rogozhin and the prince, smiled at them and inclined her head affectionately several times as a sign of pleasure. “Mama,” said Rogozhin, kissing her hand, “this is my great friend, Prince Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin; he and I have exchanged crosses; he was like a brother to me in Moscow for a time, and did a lot for me. Bless him, mama, as you would your own son. Wait, old girl, like this, let me put your hand the right way …” But before Parfyon had time to do anything, the old woman raised her right hand, put three fingers together, and piously crossed the prince three times. Then once more she nodded her head gently and tenderly. “Well, let’s go, Lev Nikolaevich,” said Parfyon, “I only brought you for that …” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 138 | Loc. 2947-48  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:26 PM

I asked permission to speak the truth, since everybody knows that only those who are not witty speak the truth. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 139 | Loc. 2974-76  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:28 PM

Saying this, she peered intently at the prince, trying at least somehow to interpret his action to herself. The prince might have made some reply to her amiable words, but he was so dazzled and struck that he could not even get a word out. Nastasya Filippovna noticed it with pleasure. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 139 | Loc. 2981-83  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:28 PM

So you consider me perfection, do you?” “I do.” “Though you’re a master at guessing, you’re nevertheless mistaken. I’ll remind you of it tonight …” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 141 | Loc. 3022-27  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:30 PM

“I know an excellent and new petit jeu,” Ferdyshchenko picked up, “at least one that happened only once in the world, and even then it didn’t succeed.” “What was it?” the sprightly lady asked. “A company of us got together once, and we drank a bit, it’s true, and suddenly somebody suggested that each of us, without leaving the table, tell something about himself, but something that he himself, in good conscience, considered the worst of all the bad things he’d done in the course of his whole life; and that it should be frank, above all, that it should be frank, no lying!” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 143 | Loc. 3058-60  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:32 PM

Just think, ladies and gentlemen,” Ferdyshchenko suddenly exclaimed in some sort of inspiration, “just think with what eyes we’ll look at each other later, tomorrow, for instance, after our stories!” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 143 | Loc. 3060-62  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:32 PM

“But is this possible? Can this indeed be serious, Nastasya Filippovna?” Totsky asked with dignity. “He who fears wolves should stay out of the forest!” Nastasya Filippovna observed with a little smile. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 146 | Loc. 3108-16  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:34 PM

I passed through the corner room, there was a green three-rouble note lying on Marya Ivanovna’s worktable: she had taken it out to pay some household expenses. Not a living soul in the room. I took the note and put it in my pocket, why—I don’t know. I don’t understand what came over me. Only I quickly went back and sat down at the table. I sat and waited in rather great excitement; I talked nonstop, told jokes, laughed; then I went to sit with the ladies. About half an hour later they found it missing and began questioning the maidservants. Suspicion fell on the maid Darya. I showed extraordinary curiosity and concern, and I even remember that, when Darya was completely at a loss, I began persuading her to confess her guilt, betting my life on Marya Ivanovna’s kindness—and that aloud, in front of everybody. Everybody was looking, and I felt an extraordinary pleasure precisely because I was preaching while the note was in my pocket. I drank up those three roubles in a restaurant that same evening. I went in and asked for a bottle of Lafite; never before had I asked for a bottle just like that, with nothing; I wanted to spend it quickly. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 147 | Loc. 3143-86  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:38 PM

“It has happened to me, ladies and gentlemen, as to everyone, to do certain not entirely elegant deeds in my life,” the general began, “but the strangest thing of all is that I consider the short anecdote I’m about to tell you the nastiest anecdote in my whole life. Meanwhile some thirty-five years have passed; but I have never been able, in recalling it, to break free of a certain, so to speak, gnawing impression in my heart. The affair itself, however, was extremely stupid: at that time I had just been made a lieutenant and was pulling my load in the army. Well, everybody knows what a lieutenant is: blood boiling and just pennies to live on. I had an orderly then, Nikifor, who was terribly solicitous of my livelihood: he saved, mended, cleaned and scrubbed, and even pilfered everywhere, whatever he could to add to the household. He was a most trustworthy and honest man. I, of course, was strict but fair. At some point we were stationed in a little town. I was quartered on the outskirts, with a retired lieutenant’s wife, and a widow at that. The old hag was eighty or thereabouts. Her little house was decrepit, wretched, wooden, and she didn’t even have a serving woman, so poor she was. But the main thing about her was that she had once had the most numerous family and relations; but some had died in the course of her life, others had gone away, still others had forgotten the old woman, and her husband she had buried forty-five years earlier. A few years before then her niece had lived with her, hunchbacked and wicked as a witch, people said, and once she had even bitten the old woman’s finger, but she had died, too, so that for some three years the old woman had been getting along all by herself. My life with her was terribly boring, and she herself was so empty I couldn’t get anywhere with her. In the end she stole a rooster from me. The affair has remained cloudy to this day, but no one else could have done it. We quarreled over that rooster, and considerably, but here it so happened that, at my first request, I was transferred to other quarters on the opposite side of town, with the numerous family of a merchant with a great big beard—I remember him as if it were yesterday. Nikifor and I are joyfully moving out, we’re indignantly leaving the old woman. About three days go by, I come back from drill, Nikifor tells me, ‘You shouldn’t have left our bowl with the former landlady, Your Honor, we have nothing to serve soup in.’ I, naturally, am amazed: ‘How’s that? Why would our bowl have stayed with the landlady?’ The astonished Nikifor goes on to report that the landlady hadn’t given him our bowl when we were moving because, since I had broken a pot of hers, she was keeping our bowl in exchange for her pot, and I had supposedly suggested doing it that way. Such baseness on her part naturally drove me beyond the final limits; my blood boiled, I jumped up and flew to her. By the time I reach the old woman I’m, so to speak, already beside myself; I see her sitting all alone in the corner of the front hall, as if hiding from the sun, resting her cheek on her hand. I immediately loosed a whole thunderstorm on her: ‘You’re this,’ I said, ‘and you’re that!’—you know, in the best Russian way. Only I see something strange is happening: she sits, her face is turned to me, her eyes are popping out, and she says not a word in reply, and she looks at me so strangely, strangely, as if she’s swaying back and forth. I finally calm down, look closely at her, ask her something—not a word in reply. I stand there irresolutely; flies are buzzing, the sun is setting, silence; completely bewildered, I finally leave. Before I reached home I was summoned to the major’s, then I had to pass by my company, so that I got home quite late. Nikifor’s first words: ‘You know, Your Honor, our landlady died.’ ‘When?’ ‘This evening, an hour and a half ago.’ Which meant that, just at the time when I was abusing her, she was departing. I was so struck, I must tell you, that I had a hard time recovering. It even made its way into my thoughts, you know, even into my dreams at night. I, of course, have no prejudices, but on the third day I went to church for the funeral. In short, the more time passed, the more I thought about her. Nothing special, only I pictured it occasionally and felt rather bad. The main thing is, how did I reason in the end? First, the woman was, so to speak, a personal being, what’s known in our time as a human; she lived, lived a long time, too long finally. She once had children, a husband, a family, relations, everything around her was at the boil, there were all these smiles, so to speak, and suddenly—total zero, everything’s gone smash, she’s left alone, like … some sort of fly bearing a curse from time immemorial. And then, finally, God brings her to an end. At sunset, on a quiet summer evening, my old woman also flies away—of course, this is not without its moralizing idea; and at that very moment, instead of, so to speak, a farewell tear, this desperate young lieutenant, jaunty and arms akimbo, sees her off the face of the earth with the Russian element of riotous abuse over a lost bowl! No doubt I was at fault, and though, owing to the distance in time and to changes in my character, I’ve long regarded my deed as someone else’s, I nevertheless continue to regret it. So that, I repeat, I find it strange, the more so as, even if I am at fault, it’s not so completely: why did she decide to die precisely at that moment? Naturally, there’s some excuse here—that the deed was in a certain sense psychological—but all the same I never felt at peace until I began, about fifteen years ago, to keep two permanent sick old women at my expense in the almshouse, with the purpose of easing their last days of earthly life by decent maintenance. I intend to leave capital for it in perpetuity. Well, sirs, that’s all. I repeat that I may be to blame for many things in life, but I consider this occasion, in all conscience, the nastiest deed of my whole life.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 153 | Loc. 3248-50  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:42 PM

Afanasy Ivanovich fell silent with the same solid dignity with which he had embarked on his story. It was noticed that Nastasya Filippovna’s eyes flashed somehow peculiarly and her lips even twitched when Afanasy Ivanovich finished. Everyone glanced with curiosity at them both. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 153 | Loc. 3255-65  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:42 PM

“But the promised anecdote before all!” the general warmly approved. “Prince,” Nastasya Filippovna suddenly addressed him sharply and unexpectedly, “these old friends of mine, the general and Afanasy Ivanovich, keep wanting to get me married. Tell me what you think: should I get married or not? I’ll do as you say.” Afanasy Ivanovich turned pale, the general was dumbfounded; everyone stared and thrust their heads forward. Ganya froze in his place. “To … to whom?” asked the prince in a sinking voice. “To Gavrila Ardalionovich Ivolgin,” Nastasya Filippovna went on as sharply, firmly, and distinctly as before. Several moments passed in silence; the prince seemed to be trying hard but could not utter a word, as if a terrible weight were pressing on his chest. “N-no … don’t!” he whispered at last and tensely drew his breath. “And so it will be! Gavrila Ardalionovich!” she addressed him imperiously and as if solemnly, “did you hear what the prince decided? Well, so that is my answer; and let this business be concluded once and for all!” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 155 | Loc. 3283-86  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:43 PM

“Is trying to get at the seventy-five thousand, is that it?” Nastasya Filippovna suddenly cut him off. “Is that what you wanted to say? Don’t deny it, you certainly wanted to say that! Afanasy Ivanovich, I forgot to add: you can keep the seventy-five thousand for yourself and know that I’ve set you free gratis. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 155 | Loc. 3286-88  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:43 PM

Enough! You, too, need to breathe! Nine years and three months! Tomorrow—all anew, but today is my birthday and I’m on my own for the first time in my whole life! General, you can also take your pearls and give them to your wife—here they are; and tomorrow I’ll vacate this apartment entirely. And there will be no more evenings, ladies and gentlemen!” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 155 | Loc. 3288  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:45 PM

like anna, nastassya wants freedom. she avoids the existential anxiety agony of choosing to be free by forcing her choice on myshkin
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 156 | Loc. 3305-7  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:46 PM

The guests went on being amazed, whispering and exchanging glances, but it became perfectly clear that it had all been calculated and arranged beforehand, and that now Nastasya Filippovna—though she was, of course, out of her mind—would not be thrown off. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 157 | Loc. 3337-40  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:48 PM

was totally unknown to any of Rogozhin’s people, but who had been picked up in the street, on the sunny side of Nevsky Prospect, where he was stopping passersby and asking, in Marlinsky’s style, f for financial assistance, under the perfidious pretext that “in his time he himself used to give petitioners fifteen roubles.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 157 | Loc. 3340  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:49 PM

the all seem to recycle expressions and chaacteristics. not sure which one is keller. thye all sund like keller...
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 158 | Loc. 3346-49  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:49 PM

At the word “boxing,” the fist gentleman merely smiled scornfully and touchily, and without condescending, for his part, to an obvious debate with his rival, displayed now and then, silently, as if accidentally, or, better to say, exposed to view now and then, a perfectly national thing—a huge fist, sinewy, gnarled, overgrown with a sort of reddish fuzz—and everyone could see clearly that if this profoundly national thing were aptly brought down on some object, there would be nothing left but a wet spot. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 159 | Loc. 3372-78  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:51 PM

Timidly and like a lost man he gazed at Nastasya Filippovna for several seconds, not taking his eyes off her. Suddenly, as if he had lost all reason and nearly staggering, he went up to the table; on his way he bumped into Ptitsyn’s chair and stepped with his huge, dirty boots on the lace trimming of the silent German beauty’s magnificent light blue dress; he did not apologize and did not notice. Having gone up to the table, he placed on it a strange object, with which he had also entered the drawing room, holding it out in front of him with both hands. It was a big stack of paper, about five inches high and seven inches long, wrapped firmly and closely in The Stock Market Gazette, and tied very tightly on all sides and twice crisscross with the kind of string used for tying sugar loaves. Then he stood without saying a word, his arms hanging down, as if awaiting his sentence. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 160 | Loc. 3378  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:52 PM

fate. the condemned mans fate.rogozhin  sacrificng his freedom to certain doom fate with nastassya.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 161 | Loc. 3405-7  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:53 PM

Ganechka, I see you’re still angry with me? Did you really want to take me into your family? Me, Rogozhin’s kind of woman! What was it the prince said earlier?” “I did not say you were Rogozhin’s kind of woman, you’re not Rogozhin’s kind!” the prince uttered in a trembling voice. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 162 | Loc. 3418-19  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:54 PM

Can it be true what Rogozhin said about you, that for three roubles you’d crawl on all fours to Vassilievsky Island?” “He would,” Rogozhin suddenly said quietly but with a look of great conviction. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 162 | Loc. 3431-39  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:56 PM

“Well, then, why did I torment him for a whole five years and not let him leave me? As if he was worth it! He’s simply the way he has to be … He’s still going to consider me guilty before him: he brought me up, he kept me like a countess, money, so much money, went on me, he found me an honest husband there, and Ganechka here, and what do you think: I didn’t live with him for five years, but I took his money and thought I was right! I really got myself quite confused! Now you say take the hundred thousand and throw him out, if it’s so loathsome. It’s true that it’s loathsome … I could have married long ago, and not just some Ganechka, only that’s also pretty loathsome. Why did I waste my five years in this spite! But, would you believe it, some four years ago I had moments when I thought: shouldn’t I really marry my Afanasy Ivanovich? I thought it then out of spite; all sorts of things came into my head then; but I could have made him do it! He asked for it himself, can you believe that? True, he was lying, but he’s so susceptible, he can’t control himself. And then, thank God, I thought: as if he’s worth such spite! 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 163 | Loc. 3441-43  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:56 PM

No, it’s better in the street where I belong! Either carouse with Rogozhin or go tomorrow and become a washerwoman! Because nothing on me is my own; if I leave, I’ll abandon everything to him, I’ll leave every last rag, and who will take me without anything? Ask Ganya here, will he? Even Ferdyshchenko won’t take me!…” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 163 | Loc. 3453-56  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:57 PM

How are you going to live, if you’re so in love that you’ll take Rogozhin’s kind of woman—you, a prince?…” “I’ll take you as an honest woman, Nastasya Filippovna, not as Rogozhin’s kind,” said the prince. “Me, an honest woman?” “You.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 164 | Loc. 3459-64  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:57 PM

“I don’t know anything, Nastasya Filippovna, I haven’t seen anything, you’re right, but I … I will consider that you are doing me an honor, and not I you. I am nothing, but you have suffered and have emerged pure from such a hell, and that is a lot. Why do you feel ashamed and want to go with Rogozhin? It’s your fever … You’ve given Mr. Totsky back his seventy thousand and say you will abandon everything you have here, which no one else here would do. I … love you … Nastasya Filippovna. I will die for you, Nastasya Filippovna. I won’t let anyone say a bad word about you, Nastasya Filippovna … If we’re poor, I’ll work, Nastasya Filippovna …” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 166 | Loc. 3503-7  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 04:59 PM

Everyone asserted afterwards that it was also from this moment that Nastasya Filippovna went crazy. She sat there and for some time looked around at them all with a sort of strange, astonished gaze, as if she could not understand and was trying to figure something out. Then she suddenly turned to the prince and, with a menacing scowl, studied him intently; but this lasted only a moment; perhaps it had suddenly occurred to her that it might all be a joke, a mockery; but the prince’s look reassured her at once. She became pensive, then smiled again, as if not clearly realizing why … 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 167 | Loc. 3521-26  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 05:00 PM

“No, General! I’m a princess myself now, you heard it—the prince won’t let anyone offend me! Afanasy Ivanovich, congratulate me; now I’ll be able to sit next to your wife anywhere; it’s useful to have such a husband, don’t you think? A million and a half, and a prince, and, they say, an idiot to boot, what could be better? Only now does real life begin! You’re too late, Rogozhin! Take your packet away, I’m marrying the prince, and I’m richer than you are!” But Rogozhin grasped what was going on. Inexpressible suffering was reflected in his face. He clasped his hands and a groan burst from his breast. “Give her up!” he cried to the prince. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 168 | Loc. 3546-47  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 05:01 PM

You’d get yourself hired as a washerwoman tomorrow and not stay with Rogozhin. You’re proud, Nastasya Filippovna, but you may be so unhappy that you actually consider yourself guilty. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 168 | Loc. 3550-52  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 05:01 PM

Ptitsyn even bowed his head out of chastity and looked at the ground. Totsky thought to himself: “He’s an idiot, but he knows that flattery succeeds best: it’s second nature!” The prince also noticed Ganya’s eyes flashing from the corner, as if he wanted to reduce him to ashes. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 169 | Loc. 3562-66  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 05:02 PM

“And you thought it could really be?” Nastasya Filippovna jumped up from the sofa with a loud laugh. “That I could ruin such a baby? That’s just the right thing for Afanasy Ivanych: he’s the one who loves babies! Let’s go, Rogozhin! Get your packet ready! Never mind that you want to marry me, give me the money anyway. Maybe I still won’t marry you. You thought, since you want to marry me, you’d get to keep the packet? Ah, no! I’m shameless myself! I was Totsky’s concubine … Prince! you need Aglaya Epanchin now, not Nastasya Filippovna—otherwise Ferdyshchenko will point the finger at you! 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 169 | Loc. 3566  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 05:02 PM

early mention of aglaya. didnt notice this on my fist rea through.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 169 | Loc. 3566  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 05:03 PM

 the 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 169 | Loc. 3566  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 05:04 PM

 nastassya doesnt want to ruin the prince who is helplessly in love with her the way tha totsky ruined her
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 169 | Loc. 3568-70  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 05:04 PM

And you, Ganechka, you’ve missed Aglaya Epanchin; did you know that? If you hadn’t bargained with her, she would certainly have married you! That’s how you all are: keep company with dishonorable women, or with honorable women—there’s only one choice! Otherwise you’re sure to get confused … Hah, look at the general staring openmouthed 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 169 | Loc. 3576-80  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 05:05 PM

Keep the seventy-five thousand, Afanasy Ivanych (you didn’t even get up to a hundred, Rogozhin outdid you!); as for Ganechka, I’ll comfort him myself, I’ve got an idea. And now I want to carouse, I’m a streetwalker! I sat in prison for ten years, now comes happiness! What’s wrong, Rogozhin? Get ready, let’s go!” “Let’s go!” bellowed Rogozhin, nearly beside himself with joy. “Hey, you … whoever … wine! Ohh!…” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 170 | Loc. 3581-89  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 05:05 PM

“There will, there will! Keep away!” Rogozhin screamed in frenzy, seeing Darya Alexeevna approaching Nastasya Filippovna. “She’s mine! It’s all mine! A queen! The end!” He was breathless with joy; he circled around Nastasya Filippovna and cried out to everyone: “Keep away!” His whole company had already crowded into the drawing room. Some were drinking, others were shouting and guffawing, they were all in a most excited and uninhibited state. Ferdyshchenko began trying to sidle up to them. The general and Totsky made another move to disappear quickly. Ganya also had his hat in his hand, but he stood silently and still seemed unable to tear himself away from the picture that was developing before him. “Keep away!” cried Rogozhin. “What are you yelling for?” Nastasya Filippovna laughed loudly at him. “I’m still the mistress here; if I want, I can have you thrown out. I haven’t taken your money yet, it’s right there; give it to me, the whole packet! 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 170 | Loc. 3597-3604  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 05:06 PM

No, better let’s part nicely, because I’m a dreamer myself, there’d be no use! As if I haven’t dreamed of you myself? You’re right about that, I dreamed for a long time, still in the country, where he kept me for five years, completely alone, I used to think and think, dream and dream—and I kept imagining someone like you, kind, honest, good, and as silly as you are, who would suddenly come and say, ‘You’re not guilty, Nastasya Filippovna, and I adore you!’ And I sometimes dreamed so much that I’d go out of my mind … And then this one would come: he’d stay for two months a year, dishonor me, offend me, inflame me, debauch me, leave me—a thousand times I wanted to drown myself in the pond, but I was base, I had no courage—well, but now … Rogozhin, are you ready?” “Ready! Keep away!” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 171 | Loc. 3606-15  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 05:07 PM

“Ganka, I’ve got an idea: I want to reward you, because why should you lose everything? Rogozhin, will he crawl to Vassilievsky Island for three roubles?” “He will!” “Well, then listen, Ganya, I want to look at your soul for the last time; you’ve been tormenting me for three long months; now it’s my turn. Do you see this packet? There’s a hundred thousand in it! I’m now going to throw it into the fireplace, onto the fire, before everyone, all these witnesses! As soon as it catches fire all over, go into the fireplace, only without gloves, with your bare hands, with your sleeves rolled up, and pull the packet out of the fire! If you pull it out, it’s yours, the whole hundred thousand is yours! You’ll only burn your fingers a little—but it’s a hundred thousand, just think! It won’t take long to snatch it out! And I’ll admire your soul as you go into the fire after my money. They’re all witnesses that the packet will be yours! And if you don’t get it out, it will burn; I won’t let anyone else touch it. Stand back! Everybody! It’s my money! I got it for a night with Rogozhin. Is it my money, Rogozhin?” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 171 | Loc. 3614  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 05:07 PM

she sees herself as a street walker and aharlot. reference to rogozhins money
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 172 | Loc. 3623-28  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 05:08 PM

“She’s mad, isn’t she? Isn’t she mad?” the general pestered Totsky. “I told you she was a colorful woman,” murmured Afanasy Ivanovich, also gone somewhat pale. “But, after all, it’s a hundred thousand!…” “Lord, Lord!” was heard on all sides. Everyone crowded around the fireplace, everyone pushed in order to see, everyone exclaimed … Some even climbed onto chairs to look over the heads. Darya Alexeevna ran to the other room and exchanged frightened whispers with Katya and Pasha about something. The German beauty fled. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 172 | Loc. 3628-42  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 05:08 PM

“Dearest lady! Queen! Almighty one!” Lebedev screamed, crawling on his knees before Nastasya Filippovna and reaching out towards the fireplace. “A hundred thousand! A hundred thousand! I saw it myself, I was there when they wrapped it! Dearest lady! Merciful one! Order me into the fireplace: I’ll go all the way in, I’ll put my whole gray head into the fire!… A crippled wife, thirteen children—all orphaned, I buried my father last week, he sits there starving, Nastasya Filippovna!!” and, having screamed, he began crawling into the fireplace. “Away!” cried Nastasya Filippovna, pushing him aside. “Step back, everybody! Ganya, what are you standing there for? Don’t be ashamed! Go in! It’s your lucky chance!” But Ganya had already endured too much that day and that evening, and was not prepared for this last unexpected trial. The crowd parted into two halves before him, and he was left face to face with Nastasya Filippovna, three steps away from her. She stood right by the fireplace and waited, not tearing her burning, intent gaze from him. Ganya, in a tailcoat, his hat and gloves in his hand, stood silent and unresponding before her, his arms crossed, looking at the fire. An insane smile wandered over his face, which was pale as a sheet. True, he could not take his eyes off the fire, off the smoldering packet; but it seemed something new had arisen in his soul; it was as if he had sworn to endure the torture; he did not budge from the spot; in a few moments it became clear to everyone that he would not go after the packet, that he did not want to. “Hey, it’ll burn up, and they’ll shame you,” Nastasya Filippovna cried to him, “you’ll hang yourself afterwards, I’m not joking!” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 173 | Loc. 3642-49  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 05:08 PM

The fire that had flared up in the beginning between the two smoldering logs went out at first, when the packet fell on it and smothered it. But a small blue flame still clung from below to one corner of the lower log. Finally, a long, thin tongue of fire licked at the packet, the fire caught and raced along the edges of the paper, and suddenly the whole packet blazed in the fireplace and the bright flame shot upwards. Everyone gasped. “Dearest lady!” Lebedev kept screaming, straining forward once more, but Rogozhin dragged him back and pushed him aside again. Rogozhin himself had turned into one fixed gaze. He could not turn it from Nastasya Filippovna, he was reveling, he was in seventh heaven. “There’s a queen for you!” he repeated every moment, turning around to whoever was there. “That’s the way to do it!” he cried out, forgetting himself. “Who among you rogues would pull such a stunt, eh?” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 174 | Loc. 3663-65  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 05:09 PM

“It’s all his! The whole packet is his! Do you hear, gentlemen?” Nastasya Filippovna proclaimed, placing the packet beside Ganya. “He didn’t go in after it, he held out! So his vanity is still greater than his lust for money. Never mind, he’ll come to! Otherwise he might have killed me 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 175 | Loc. 3684-88  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 05:10 PM

“You know, Afanasy Ivanovich, they say something of the sort exists among the Japanese,” Ivan Petrovich Ptitsyn was saying. “An offended man there supposedly goes to the offender and says to him: ‘You have offended me, for that I have come to rip my belly open before your eyes,’ and with those words he actually rips his belly open before his offender’s eyes, no doubt feeling an extreme satisfaction, as if he had indeed revenged himself. There are strange characters in the world, Afanasy Ivanovich!” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 179 | Loc. 3707-11  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 05:59 PM

It was said then that there might have been other reasons for such a hasty departure; but of that, as well as of the prince’s adventures in Moscow and generally in the course of his absence from Petersburg, we can supply very little information. The prince was away for exactly six months, and even those who had certain reasons to be interested in his fate could find out very little about him during all that time. True, some sort of rumors reached some of them, though very rarely, but these were mostly strange and almost always contradicted each other. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 180 | Loc. 3721-23  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:00 PM

They were proud girls, arrogant, and sometimes bashful even among themselves, but nevertheless they understood each other not only from the first word but even from the first glance, so that sometimes there was no need to say much. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 180 | Loc. 3723  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:01 PM

which means us readers wont learn much...
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 180 | Loc. 3723-25  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:01 PM

An outside observer, if there had happened to be one, could have come to only one conclusion: that, judging by all the aforementioned facts, few as they were, the prince had managed in any case to leave a certain impression in the Epanchins’ house, though he had appeared there only once, and that fleetingly. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 180 | Loc. 3726-27  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:01 PM

Gradually the rumors that had begun to spread around town also managed to be shrouded in the darkness of ignorance. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 180 | Loc. 3732-36  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:02 PM

For instance, Rogozhin’s entire company, many of whom could have told a thing or two, set off in its whole bulk, with Rogozhin himself at its head, for Moscow, almost exactly a week after a terrible orgy in the Ekaterinhof vauxhall, 1 at which Nastasya Filippovna had also been present. Some people, the very few who were interested, learned from other rumors that Nastasya Filippovna had fled the day after Ekaterinhof, had vanished, and had finally been traced, having gone off to Moscow; so that Rogozhin’s departure for Moscow came out as being somewhat coincident with this rumor. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 180 | Loc. 3736  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:03 PM

only rumors. no clear chronology or accounting for when or what happens in moscow
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 181 | Loc. 3757-58  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:05 PM

But though Varvara Ardalionovna for some reason found it necessary to become so close with the Epanchins, she surely would not have talked with them about her brother. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Bookmark on Page 183 | Loc. 3778  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:07 PM


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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 183 | Loc. 3777-80  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:07 PM

Mrs. Epanchin concluded, adding that through “the old woman” the prince was now received in two or three good houses. “It’s good that he doesn’t sit in his corner feeling bashful like a fool.” The girls, to whom all this was imparted, noticed at once that their dear mama had concealed a great deal of her letter from them. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 184 | Loc. 3802-4  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:09 PM

In conclusion to all this the general noticed that his wife was as concerned for the prince as if he were her own son and that she had also begun to be terribly affectionate to Aglaya; seeing which, Ivan Fyodorovich assumed a very businesslike air for a time. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 184 | Loc. 3806-12  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:09 PM

The thing was that just two weeks earlier he had received undercover information, brief and therefore not quite clear, but reliable, that Nastasya Filippovna, who had first disappeared in Moscow, had then been found in Moscow by Rogozhin, had then disappeared again somewhere and had again been found by him, had finally given him an almost certain promise that she would marry him. And now, only two weeks later, his excellency had suddenly received information that Nastasya Filippovna had run away for a third time, almost from the foot of the altar, and this time had disappeared somewhere in the provinces, and meanwhile Prince Myshkin had also vanished from Moscow, leaving Salazkin in charge of all his affairs, “together with her, or simply rushing after her, no one knows, but there’s something in it,” the general concluded. Lizaveta Prokofyevna, for her part, also received some unpleasant information. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 184 | Loc. 3812  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:10 PM

imperfect information and reports. not clear what has actually hapened or how the characters are interacting. geograhy as a limiting aspect. narrator doesnt know what happens outside of petersburg
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 185 | Loc. 3821-25  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:11 PM

Here it would be appropriate to mention that the intended marriage between Afanasy Ivanovich Totsky and the eldest Epanchin girl broke up altogether, and no formal proposal ever took place. It happened somehow by itself, without long discussions and without any family struggles. Since the time of the prince’s departure, everything had suddenly quieted down on both sides. This circumstance was one of the causes of the then heavy mood in the Epanchin family, though Mrs. Epanchin said at the time that she would gladly “cross herself with both hands.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 186 | Loc. 3842-44  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:12 PM

Adelaida Ivanovna, the middle sister, made a very strong impression on him. By spring the prince had proposed. Adelaida liked him very much, and so did Lizaveta Prokofyevna. The general was very glad. Needless to say, the trip was postponed. A spring wedding was planned. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 187 | Loc. 3857-58  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:13 PM

And yet we still have one more fact to report, and with that we shall end our introduction. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 188 | Loc. 3882-84  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:15 PM

the Ivolgin family heard that Kolya had suddenly become acquainted with the Epanchins and was received very nicely by the girls. Varya soon learned of it; Kolya, incidentally, had become acquainted not through Varya but “on his own.” The Epanchins gradually grew to love him. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 188 | Loc. 3884-86  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:15 PM

At first the general’s wife was very displeased with him, but soon she began to treat him kindly “for his candor and for the fact that he doesn’t flatter.” That Kolya did not flatter was perfectly right; he managed to put himself on a completely equal and independent footing with them, though he did sometimes read books or newspapers to Mrs. Epanchin—but he had always been obliging. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 189 | Loc. 3894-95  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:16 PM

How is it that I am writing to you? I do not know; but I have an irrepressible desire to remind you of myself, and you precisely. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 189 | Loc. 3903-4  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:17 PM

Aglaya laughed terribly—no one knew why. Nor did anyone know whether she showed her acquisition to any of her sisters. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 190 | Loc. 3919-22  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:18 PM

No one met him at the station; but as he was getting off the train, the prince suddenly thought he caught the gaze of two strange, burning eyes in the crowd surrounding the arriving people. When he looked more attentively, he could no longer see them. Of course, he had only imagined it; but it left an unpleasant impression. Besides, the prince was sad and pensive to begin with and seemed preoccupied with something. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 192 | Loc. 3960-62  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:20 PM

“He never drinks much in the mornings; if you’ve come on business, talk to him now. It’s the right time. When he comes home in the evening, he’s drunk; and now he mostly weeps at night and reads aloud to us from the Holy Scriptures, because our mother died five weeks ago.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 194 | Loc. 3995-97  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:22 PM

You’re Prince Myshkin, I believe? Kolya told me about you. He says he’s never met anyone in the world more intelligent than you …” “And there is no one! No one! No one more intelligent in the world!” Lebedev picked up at once. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 195 | Loc. 4011-14  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:23 PM

But the worst thing is that I knew he was a blackguard, a scoundrel, and a petty thief, and I still sat down to play with him, and that, as I bet my last rouble (we were playing cribbage), I thought to myself: I’ll lose, go to Uncle Lukyan, bow to him—he won’t refuse. That was meanness, that was real meanness! That was conscious baseness!” “Yes, there you have conscious baseness!” repeated Lebedev. 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 196 | Loc. 4037-44  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:24 PM

“I’ve been lying here for three days, and the things I’ve seen!” the young man went on shouting without listening. “Imagine, he suspects this angel, this young girl, now an orphan, my cousin, his own daughter; every night he searches for her sweethearts! He comes here on the sly and also searches for something under my sofa. He’s gone crazy from suspiciousness; he sees thieves in every corner. All night he keeps popping out of bed to see whether the windows are well latched, to check the doors, to peek into the stove, as much as seven times a night. He defends swindlers in court, and he gets up three times in the night to pray, here in the living room, on his knees, pounding his head on the floor for half an hour, and who doesn’t he pray for, what doesn’t he pray for, the drunken mumbler! He prayed for the repose of the soul of the countess Du Barry, 9 I heard it with my own ears; Kolya also heard it: he’s gone quite crazy!” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 197 | Loc. 4057-70  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:26 PM

“The way she died was that, after such honors, this former ruling lady was dragged guiltless to the guillotine by the executioner Samson, for the amusement of the Parisian fishwives, and she was so frightened that she didn’t understand what was happening to her. She saw that he was bending her neck down under the knife and kicking her from behind—with the rest all laughing—and she began to cry out: ‘Encore un moment, monsieur le bourreau, encore un moment!’ Which means: ‘Wait one more little minute, mister boorow, just one!’ And maybe the Lord will forgive her for that little minute, because it’s impossible to imagine a human soul in worse mizair than that. Do you know what the word mizair means? Well, this is that same mizair. When I read about this countess’s cry of one little moment, it was as if my heart was in pincers. And what do you care, worm, if I decided on going to bed at night to remember her, a great sinner, in my prayers? Maybe I remembered her precisely because, as long as this world has stood, probably nobody has ever crossed his forehead for her, or even thought of it. And so, she’ll feel good in the other world that another sinner like her has been found, who has prayed for her at least once on earth. What are you laughing at? You don’t believe, you atheist. But how do you know? And you also lied, if you did eavesdrop on me; I didn’t pray only for the countess Du Barry; what I prayed was: ‘Give rest, O Lord, to the soul of the great sinner, the countess Du Barry, and all those like her’—and that’s a very different thing; for there are many such great women sinners and examples of the change of fortune, who suffered, and who now find no peace there, and groan, and wait; and I also prayed then for you and those like you, of your kind, impudent offenders, since you decided to eavesdrop on my prayers …” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 199 | Loc. 4107-10  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:27 PM

Well, leave off, don’t deceive me. Leave off serving two masters. Rogozhin has been here for three weeks now, I know everything. Did you manage to sell her to him like the other time, or not? Tell me the truth.” “The monster found out himself, himself.” “Don’t abuse him. Of course, he treated you badly …” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 200 | Loc. 4112-15  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:28 PM

“You take me for a little boy, Lebedev. Tell me, did she seriously abandon him this time, in Moscow?” “Seriously, seriously, again right at the foot of the altar. The man was already counting the minutes, and she dashed off here to Petersburg and straight to me: ‘Save me, protect me, Lukyan, and don’t tell the prince …’ She’s afraid of you, Prince, even more than of him, and that’s—most wise!” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 200 | Loc. 4117-20  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:28 PM

“Well, enough, I’ll find everything out myself. Only tell me, where is she now? At his place?” “Oh, no! Never! She’s still on her own. I’m free, she says, and, you know, Prince, she stands firm on it, she says, I’m still completely free! She’s still on the Petersburg side, at my sister-in-law’s, as I wrote to you.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 200 | Loc. 4130-34  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:28 PM

“As if she was searching all over for something, as if she’d lost something. Even the thought of the forthcoming marriage is loathsome to her, and she takes offense at it. Of him she thinks as much as of an orange peel, not more, or else more, but with fear and horror, she even forbids all mention of him, and they see each other only by necessity … and he feels it all too well! But there’s no avoiding it, sir!… She’s restless, sarcastic, double-tongued, explosive …” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 201 | Loc. 4137-45  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:29 PM

“I was reading the Apocalypse. A lady with a restless imagination, heh, heh! And, besides, I’ve come to the conclusion that she’s much inclined towards serious topics, even unrelated ones. She likes them, likes them, and even takes it as a sign of special respect for her. Yes, sir. And I’m strong on interpreting the Apocalypse and have been doing it for fifteen years. She agreed with me that we live in the time of the third horse, the black one, and the rider with a balance in his hand, because in our time everything is in balances and contracts, and people are all only seeking their rights: ‘A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny …’ And with all that they want to preserve a free spirit, and a pure heart, and a healthy body, and all of God’s gifts. But they can’t do it with rights alone, and there will follow a pale horse and him whose name is Death, and after him Hell 12 … We get together and interpret it and—she’s strongly affected.” 
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Note on Page 201 | Loc. 4145  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:29 PM

money reference. nastassya and eschatology.
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The Idiot (Vintage Classics) (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
- Highlight on Page 203 | Loc. 4179-83  | Added on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 06:31 PM

“Darya Alexeevna also has a little dacha in Pavlovsk, sir.” “Well?” “And a certain person is friends with her and apparently intends to visit her often in Pavlovsk. With a purpose.” “Well?” “Aglaya Ivanovna …” “Ah, enough, Lebedev!” the prince interrupted with some unpleasant feeling, as if he had been touched on his sore spot. “It’s all … not like that. 
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