A Trusting Nature

The Idiot 

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Parts III & IV, "A Beautiful Man"

“What matters," said the prince at last, "is that you have a child's trusting nature and extraordinary truthfulness. Do you know that a great deal can be forgiven you for that alone?”   ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot





On January 12, 1868 Dostoevsky wrote in a letter to his good friend, the poet A. N. Maikov, that he was "inventing a new novel."  This novel would focus on an idea that excited Dostoevsky: "to portray a perfectly good man".(Selected Letters, p 262)  It would be a novel in four parts that was published later that year.  It is in the final two parts of the novel that the four "heroes" lives stand out and their interaction, along with a few key supporting characters, leads to the denouement of the story.  

I would like to focus briefly on these four heroes and, without giving away the exciting conclusion of the novel, discuss their relationships.  Of course Prince Myshkin, the young blue-eyed epileptic, remains at the center of the story.  His is the life of an outsider in both the obvious physical sense, but also in a spiritual sense.  He is friendly with both leading ladies;  the younger Aglaya and the older Nastasya Fillipovna.  His friendship is born of innocence and as such he is frequently, perhaps always, misunderstood by both the ladies and others.  Aglaya recognizes his "beautiful heart" but is conflicted by her feelings for Ganya and the presence of Nastasya.  It is Nastasya's presence that unnerves the sensitive Myshkin.  "For him there was something tormenting in the very face of this woman;" (p 349) 

Other characters intrude on the relations of the heroes bringing with them discussions of ideas that seem to be important to the narrator and thus to the story.  In particular, the consumptive Ippolit who is dying throughout the story presents a confessional pronouncement  titled "My Necessary Explanation: Apres moi le deluge" (p 387).  This is a blackly comic demonstration of nihilism of the sort that Dostoevsky had first introduced in his short novel, Notes from Underground.  Here it is presented as an adjunct to the activities of the fourth Hero, Rogozhin, whose actions mirror the thoughts of Ippolit in many respects.  

The result of both the fantastic characters and the plot, such as it is in its meandering ways, gives this novel an originality among Dostoevsky's final period of great novels.  The theme of nihilism will be central to his next novel, The Demons, and the exploration of the nature of spiritual goodness will reach its height in the character of Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov.  However it is The Idiot that bridges the gap between the Victorian novels of Balzac and Dickens and the uniquely Russian themes that emanate from the Slavophilic pen of Dostoevsky.  Thus this is a novel worthy of the Russian master who more than any of his peers looked forward toward the next century.

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky.  Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky, trans. Everymans Library, New York. 2002 (1868)

Selected Letters of Fyodor Dostoyevsky.  Joseph Frank & David I. Goldstein, eds. Andrew MacAndrew, trans. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick. 1987