The Idiot

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Chapter 3.3, Myshkin said this himself in the iconique dark park scene with rogozhin: ‘You know, a woman can torture a man with her cruelty and mockery without feeling the slightest twinge of conscience, because every time she looks at you she thinks to herself: “Now I’m going to torment him to death, but I will make it up to him later with my love …”’ i was right in saying that he was talking about aglaya there; now, he’s aware he’s in love.

He was full of talk, and that hadn’t happened since the morning six months ago when he had first met the Yepanchins;

:((( being worldly really exhausts the soul (that and you know, nastasya). the fact that he loved aglaya so much to looking ‘revived’ when he had her love is so sad.

he had let slip to Prince S, within everyone’s earshot, that he had no right to degrade an idea by uttering it himself.

Chapter 3.2, Page 505

‘I told you my general knowledge is poor.’ ‘What have you got if you haven’t got that?

i feel like this is subtextually saying something about their relationship but idk how. she loves him, partly because though he is an idiot in some regards, she still thinks ‘half of his brain is superior to all the others’ (3.8, i think), but does she still want and expect from him at least some more ‘worldly’ knowledge? at this point, i think he’s learned a lot from their lot. but her wording is interesting, ‘if not that, then what do you have?’ it makes sense for her to value ‘worldly’ knowledge, because she (and the rest of the cast) is a materialist.

‘she certainly had no intention as yet of taking the place of anyone’s mistress’.

bc she’s her own mistress

They’re undermining you, Prince, unmercifully, and … it’s really pitiful to see you so unconcerned.

Plot brewing

‘Better to be unhappy and know than happy and live … in a fool’s paradise.

This was the quote lol. It's A fair quote.

That becomes steadily clearer to me as time goes by.

of COURSE ippolit’s ‘explanation’ becomes more clearly noble to our Prince in time. he’s gradually falling to earth after all, until he crashes awfully and goes back to the sickly ‘idiot’ he was before we even met him. as another point though, i do know that myshkin is very much compassionate and even empathetic to suffering, and perhaps even more so to ippolit’s sufferings — they aare parallels and incredibly similar, after all.

Unaccountably, he felt terribly keen to see Rogozhin,

Oh no he's sick.

there is a great difference between an innocent and most honourable general’s daughter and … a camellia, sir),

the camellia is obv nastasya lol

the letter was from a ‘person’ beginning with the letter A …’ ‘How can that be? To Nastasya Filippovna?

oh. oh. she’s writing to nastasya because she and myshkin are getting married. oh. ‘she’ll do away with herself after our wedding!’ aglaya said in chapter 3.8. um.

slyly purloined it and taken it to Lizaveta Prokofievna for reasons of his own.

the letter aglaya gave to ganya is 4.1. he must have hopes of still getting into the yepanchin family somehow.

Aglaya was greatly troubled, and in deep uncertainty and mental anguish for some reason (jealousy, the prince whispered to himself).

Lzmao he was right about jealousy

Of course, in that inexperienced but impulsive and proud young head, all sorts of special plans were brewing, perhaps disastrous and … and extravagantly foolish.

plot brewing?

he trusted her; it was something else about the letter which made him uneasy—he could not trust Ganya.

plot

she had often run secret errands for Rogozhin and Aglaya Ivanovna;

more plot. the whole ivolgin family aside from maybe kolya is now a curious case

For the first time in his life he was seeing a small corner of what bore the dread name of ‘society’.

‘For the first time in his life,’ and ‘which bore the dread name of “society”’ — i love the narrator’s foreboding words especially now that it’s part 4 :))). society is absolutely a factor that ruins him as well.

many of their good points were simply a veneer, something they were not responsible for, since it had been acquired unconsciously through inheritance.

fuck, it’s the theme of inheritance. myshkin’s legacy of not just a good name, money, and place in society, but is most importantly his legacy of human weakness. ‘something they were not responsibly for, since it had been acquired subconsciously through inheritence,’ is a very witty comment by mr. narrator especially after he gave us those speeches about practical men vs geniuses in Chapter 3.1, ‘real’ people with original ideas in Chapter 4.1.

on the whole she seemed extremely anxious.

oh no

He began speaking quite by chance, also in reply to a question, and seemingly without any special intent.

oh NO

he had suddenly become so wrought-up and gone into such rapturous emotion for no apparent reason,

He's sick :(

the abbé … the abbé …

Fuck it's this chapter…the catholicism discussion

those … sly rogues

As a catholic im gonna find this discussion ironic (dostoyevsky brought me back to the catholic faith after years of being an atheist)

they know how to put the fear of God into people.

Well true

you gave up your post that time and ran away from Vienna to Paris with the beautiful Countess Levitskaya, not to escape the Jesuits’, put in Belokonskaya suddenly.

Love the sassy old women

Catholicism is the same as an unchristian religion!’

Oh! I’m not gonna make any arguments about what Myshkin says against Catholicism here. Not because I don’t want to defend my Church, but just because I’m not confident in my ability to and it’s not the biggest point of what he’s saying anyway. The main thing is still that heaven on earth is impossible, even Antichristic. And that’s what Myshkin’s entire character is serving; it’s kind of ironic in that case, because he preaches himself that putting heaven on earth is unchristian.

Such is the thirst we have!

Well he’s aware of all the ‘Russian passions’ that’s been around him, and even in himself, all throughout this novel

they cannot imagine us as other than barbarians. That is how it has been up till now, and as time goes on, the more it will be so!

HOW DID HE PREDICT THAT????

moved his shoulder somehow—and … there was a sudden cry from all present!

Fuck. I'm actually scared to read on

… but the moment passed. Thank God, it wasn’t that!

i honestly feel like it wouldve been less embarassing for him to have a seizure here but i understand that we need to hurry up the plot

he liked the old man’s face so much.

His thing for faces has returned.

often the words he uttered were possibly not those he wished to say.

That wording is HAUNTINGGG

Aglaya alone seemed cast down, though her face was still flushed, perhaps with indignation.

SHE REALLY WANTED HIM TO BE EMBARASSED.

a man who is … dead,

Pavlischev. He stuggles to call him a 'dead man.'

you can’t start off with perfection! To attain perfection you have to start off by being ignorant of many things!

In this way, he acknowledged his mistake in calling Nastasya ‘perfection’ all those chapters ago.

Ah, what are my grief and misfortune to me, if I have the capacity to be happy?

This paragraph is really beautiful though it’s a clear indication of his illness.

Aglaya swiftly ran to him and managed to catch him in her arms, and, horror-stricken, her face distorted with pain, heard the wild cry of ‘the spirit that cast down and racked’* the wretched man.

Oh so yea he did have a seizure. Honestly I blame Aglaya for this, since she was the one who’s been ‘tormenting’ him, honestly not even since yesterday but since the start of Part IV. She told him all about his future failures in this situation, about the Chinese vase, and he really did go and embarrass himself and knock over the Chinese vase. That, and the memory of Nastasya. He probably knows the ‘fateful moment’ of choosing between the two women is close, and it’s been harrowing on his soul.

I’d have turned everybody out who was there last night apart from him, that’s the kind of man he is! …’

Love u Lizaveta Prokofievna.

Everything was settled by now in Aglaya’s mind; she too was awaiting the hour which must decide everything, and any hint, any incautious touch, wounded her to the heart.

This must’ve been when she was planning the meetup with Nastasya. She claims in that chapter that she knows Myshkin loves her, and hates Nastya, but look at how nervous she is: she really suspects that Myshkin loves Nastasya more and can’t take it.

‘Oh, don’t do that, don’t!’ she cried out in alarm, swiftly withdrawing her hand.

She knows he’s in a scandal about ‘that woman’ and Aglaya and overreacts about him kissing her hand out of gratitude.

everybody was prophesying disaster, they had all drawn their conclusions; everyone was looking as if they knew something he didn’t; Lebedev was interrogating him, Kolya was making blunt hints, and Vera was crying.

Probably it's because they suspect his liaison with Nastasya. It was mentioned earlier that one of the princes from last chapter was even intent on interrogating him about it.

‘It’s my accursed morbid imagination’,

Every time he doubts himself about his suspicions and reprimands himself, he’s always actually right

In the invitation to visit ‘as before’ and the words ‘mine at least’ there was an ominous ring.

Is it ominous bc the narrator is telling us it may not ever happen again? Bc he’ll be with Nastasya? I have no idea

Her face had been paler than usual, as if she had slept badly.

Aglaya, as I’ve already said, is not actually confident about her own meeting-up with Nastasya

I’m going there, and this time, I do believe, it’s certain.

Meyer's wall? Nastasya? Rogozhin? WHERE?

And do you know what those two, brother and sister, are reckoning on?

WHAT direction???? Marriage with Aglaya??? I suppose Vera & Ganya have renewed hopes since a lot is being said about Myshkin & Nastya rn.

I had come to have a talk with Aglaya Ivanovna about arranging a meeting with Nastasya Filippovna!’

dreamed last night that somebody had smothered me with a wet rag … a certain person … well, I’ll tell you who: just imagine—Rogozhin!

I still don’t understand Rogozhin’s involvement with Ippollit btw <3 Actually, I do have an interpretation but it may be far-fetched: Ippolit and Rogozhin are both directly symbolically bound to Myshkin through their loves and in some other way. Rogozhin has been paralleled as Myshkin’s complete opposite since the very beginning — in the train, asking him if he was cold and letting him know about his inheritance of a large sum; in Part 2, when Myshkin was wandering around Petersburg feeling like ‘Rogozhin’s eyes’ were omnipresent; in Part 3 when Rogozhin showed up in the darkened park out of nowhere to talk about Nastasya. These two are bound not just as complete opposite, but in their love for Nastasya. Ippolit is more like a foil. He and Myshkin have much in common, but Ippolit went in a completely different path from Myshkin. Myshkin went to one extreme — believing that paradise on earth is possible, and Ippolit to another — complete atheism and scorn against God. And these two are both in love with Aglaya. I’m that way, Rogozhin ‘haunting’ Ippolit enough to warrant him to reach his ‘final conclusion’ (3.5), and now having a dream with a wet rag, not to mention even having a correspondence or association with Rogozhin, makes sends knowing that they are both comnected to the central character is some significant way — the central character who is about to break, in some thanks to them both tormenting him in some form throughout the novel.

there’s to be a meeting today between Aglaya Ivanovna and Nastasya Filippovna—who has been specially summoned from Petersburg, through Rogozhin, at Aglaya’s invitation and by my own efforts?

‘By my own efforts’ are important words for me to be able to validate my previous annotation and analysis — that Ippolit has been tormenting him as well as Rogozhin :P Even so, I still see Ippolit’s ‘Explanation’ during Myshkin’s bday as some sort of torment for the Prince — that and all his insultings of Nastasya at times.

I dedicated my confession to her (you didn’t know that?). And if you only knew how she received it!