friends were exactly like him! They knew, perhaps, before
Gogol told them, that their friends were like Podkoleosin, The Idiot
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but they did not know what name to give them. In real
life, young fellows seldom jump out of the window just
before their weddings, because such a feat, not to speak of
its other aspects, must be a decidedly unpleasant mode of
escape; and yet there are plenty of bridegrooms, intelligent
fellows too, who would be ready to confess themselves
Podkoleosins in the depths of their consciousness, just
before marriage. Nor does every husband feel bound to
repeat at every step, ‘Tu l’as voulu, Georges Dandin!’ like
another typical personage; and yet how many millions and
billions of Georges Dandins there are in real life who feel
inclined to utter this soul-drawn cry after their
honeymoon, if not the day after the wedding! Therefore,
without entering into any more serious examination of the
question, I will content myself with remarking that in real
life typical characters are ‘watered down,’ so to speak; and
all these Dandins and Podkoleosins actually exist among us
every day, but in a diluted form. I will just add, however,
that Georges Dandin might have existed exactly as
Moliere presented him, and probably does exist now and
then, though rarely; and so I will end this scientific
examination, which is beginning to look like a newspaper
criticism. But for all this, the question remains,— what are
the novelists to do with commonplace people, and how The Idiot
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are they to be presented to the reader in such a form as to
be in the least degree interesting? They cannot be left out
altogether, for commonplace people meet one at every
turn of life, and to leave them out would be to destroy the
whole reality and probability of the story. To fill a novel
with typical characters only, or with merely strange and
uncommon people, would render the book unreal and
improbable, and would very likely destroy the interest. In
my opinion, the duty of the novelist is to seek out points
of interest and instruction even in the characters of
commonplace people.
For instance, when the whole essence of an ordinary
person’s nature lies in his perpetual and unchangeable
commonplaceness; and when in spite of all his endeavours
to do something out of the common, this person ends,
eventually, by remaining in his unbroken line of routine—
. I think such an individual really does become a type of
his own—a type of commonplaceness which will not for
the world, if it can help it, be contented, but strains and
yearns to be something original and independent, without
the slightest possibility of being so. To this class of
commonplace people belong several characters in this
novel;— characters which—I admit—I have not drawn
very vividly up to now for my reader’s benefit. The Idiot
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Such were, for instance, Varvara Ardalionovna Ptitsin,
her husband, and her brother, Gania.
There is nothing so annoying as to be fairly rich, of a
fairly good family, pleasing presence, average education, to
be ‘not stupid,’ kind-hearted, and yet to have no talent at
all, no originality, not a single idea of one’s own—to be,
in fact, ‘just like everyone else.’
Of such people there are countless numbers in this
world—far more even than appear. They can be divided
into two classes as all men can—that is, those of limited
intellect, and those who are much cleverer. The former of
these classes is the happier.
To a commonplace man of limited intellect, for
instance, nothing is simpler than to imagine himself an
original character, and to revel in that belief without the
slightest misgiving.
Many of our young women have thought fit to cut
their hair short, put on blue spectacles, and call themselves
Nihilists. By doing this they have been able to persuade
themselves, without further trouble, that they have
acquired new convictions of their own. Some men have
but felt some little qualm of kindness towards their fellow-
men, and the fact has been quite enough to persuade them
that they stand alone in the van of enlightenment and that The Idiot
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no one has such humanitarian feelings as they. Others have
but to read an idea of somebody else’s, and they can
immediately assimilate it and believe that it was a child of
their own brain. The ‘impudence of ignorance,’ if I may
use the expression, is developed to a wonderful extent in
such cases;—unlikely as it appears, it is met with at every
turn.
This confidence of a stupid man in his own talents has
been wonderfully depicted by Gogol in the amazing
character of Pirogoff. Pirogoff has not the slightest doubt
of his own genius,—nay, of his SUPERIORITY of
genius,—so certain is he of it that he never questions it.
How many Pirogoffs have there not been among our
writers—scholars—propagandists? I say ‘have been,’ but
indeed there are plenty of them at this very day.
Our friend, Gania, belonged to the other class—to the
‘much cleverer’ persons, though he was from head to foot
permeated and saturated with the longing to be original.
This class, as I have said above, is far less happy. For the
‘clever commonplace’ person, though he may possibly
imagine himself a man of genius and originality, none the
less has within his heart the deathless worm of suspicion
and doubt; and this doubt sometimes brings a clever man
to despair. (As a rule, however, nothing tragic happens;—The Idiot
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his liver becomes a little damaged in the course of time,
nothing more serious. Such men do not give up their
aspirations after originality without a severe struggle,—and
there have been men who, though good fellows in
themselves, and even benefactors to humanity, have sunk
to the level of base criminals for the sake of originality.
Gania was a beginner, as it were, upon this road. A
deep and unchangeable consciousness of his own lack of
talent, combined with a vast longing to be able to
persuade himself that he was original, had rankled in his
heart, even from childhood.
He seemed to have been born with overwrought
nerves, and in his passionate desire to excel, he was often
led to the brink of some rash step; and yet, having resolved
upon such a step, when the moment arrived, he invariably
proved too sensible to take it. He was ready, in the same
way, to do a base action in order to obtain his wished-for
object; and yet, when the moment came to do it, he
found that he was too honest for any great baseness. (Not
that he objected to acts of petty meanness—he was always
ready for THEM.) He looked with hate and loathing on
the poverty and downfall of his family, and treated his
mother with haughty contempt, although he knew that his
whole future depended on her character and reputation. The Idiot
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Aglaya had simply frightened him; yet he did not give
up all thoughts of her—though he never seriously hoped
that she would condescend to him. At the time of his
‘adventure’ with Nastasia Philipovna he had come to the
conclusion that money was his only hope—money should
do all for him.
At the moment when he lost Aglaya, and after the
scene with Nastasia, he had felt so low in his own eyes
that he actually brought the money back to the prince. Of
this returning of the money given to him by a madwoman
who had received it from a madman, he had often
repented since—though he never ceased to be proud of
his action. During the short time that Muishkin remained
in Petersburg Gania had had time to come to hate him for
his sympathy, though the prince told him that it was ‘not
everyone who would have acted so nobly’ as to return the
money. He had long pondered, too, over his relations
with Aglaya, and had persuaded himself that with such a
strange, childish, innocent character as hers, things might
have ended very differently. Remorse then seized him; he
threw up his post, and buried himself in self-torment and
reproach.
He lived at Ptitsin’s, and openly showed contempt for
the latter, though he always listened to his advice, and was The Idiot
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sensible enough to ask for it when he wanted it. Gavrila
Ardalionovitch was angry with Ptitsin because the latter
did not care to become a Rothschild. ‘If you are to be a
Jew,’ he said, ‘do it properly— squeeze people right and
left, show some character; be the King of the Jews while
you are about it.’
Ptitsin was quiet and not easily offended—he only
laughed. But on one occasion he explained seriously to
Gania that he was no Jew, that he did nothing dishonest,
that he could not help the market price of money, that,
thanks to his accurate habits, he had already a good footing
and was respected, and that his business was flourishing.
‘I shan’t ever be a Rothschild, and there is no reason
why I should,’ he added, smiling; ‘but I shall have a house
in the Liteynaya, perhaps two, and that will be enough for
me.’ ‘Who knows but what I may have three!’ he
concluded to himself; but this dream, cherished inwardly,
he never confided to a soul.
Nature loves and favours such people. Ptitsin will
certainly have his reward, not three houses, but four,
precisely because from childhood up he had realized that
he would never be a Rothschild. That will be the limit of
Ptitsin’s fortune, and, come what may, he will never have
more than four houses. The Idiot
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Varvara Ardalionovna was not like her brother. She
too, had passionate desires, but they were persistent rather
than impetuous. Her plans were as wise as her methods of
carrying them out. No doubt she also belonged to the
category of ordinary people who dream of being original,
but she soon discovered that she had not a grain of true
originality, and she did not let it trouble her too much.
Perhaps a certain kind of pride came to her help. She
made her first concession to the demands of practical life
with great resolution when she consented to marry Ptitsin.
However, when she married she did not say to herself,
‘Never mind a mean action if it leads to the end in view,’
as her brother would certainly have said in such a case; it is
quite probable that he may have said it when he expressed
his elder-brotherly satisfaction at her decision. Far from
this; Varvara Ardalionovna did not marry until she felt
convinced that her future husband was unassuming,
agreeable, almost cultured, and that nothing on earth
would tempt him to a really dishonourable deed. As to
small meannesses, such trifles did not trouble her. Indeed,
who is free from them? It is absurd to expect the ideal!
Besides, she knew that her marriage would provide a
refuge for all her family. Seeing Gania unhappy, she was
anxious to help him, in spite of their former disputes and The Idiot
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misunderstandings. Ptitsin, in a friendly way, would press
his brother-in-law to enter the army. ‘You know,’ he said
sometimes, jokingly, ‘you despise generals and
generaldom, but you will see that ‘they’ will all end by
being generals in their turn. You will see it if you live long
enough!’
‘But why should they suppose that I despise generals?’
Gania thought sarcastically to himself.
To serve her brother’s interests, Varvara Ardalionovna
was constantly at the Epanchins’ house, helped by the fact
that in childhood she and Gania had played with General
Ivan Fedorovitch’s daughters. It would have been
inconsistent with her character if in these visits she had
been pursuing a chimera; her project was not chimerical at
all; she was building on a firm basis—on her knowledge of
the character of the Epanchin family, especially Aglaya,
whom she studied closely. All Varvara’s efforts were
directed towards bringing Aglaya and Gania together.
Perhaps she achieved some result; perhaps, also, she made
the mistake of depending too much upon her brother, and
expecting more from him than he would ever be capable
of giving. However this may be, her manoeuvres were
skilful enough. For weeks at a time she would never
mention Gania. Her attitude was modest but dignified, The Idiot
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and she was always extremely truthful and sincere.
Examining the depths of her conscience, she found
nothing to reproach herself with, and this still further
strengthened her in her designs. But Varvara Ardalionovna
sometimes remarked that she felt spiteful; that there was a
good deal of vanity in her, perhaps even of wounded
vanity. She noticed this at certain times more than at
others, and especially after her visits to the Epanchins.
Today, as I have said, she returned from their house
with a heavy feeling of dejection. There was a sensation of
bitterness, a sort of mocking contempt, mingled with it.
Arrived at her own house, Varia heard a considerable
commotion going on in the upper storey, and
distinguished the voices of her father and brother. On
entering the salon she found Gania pacing up and down at
frantic speed, pale with rage and almost tearing his hair.
She frowned, and subsided on to the sofa with a tired air,
and without taking the trouble to remove her hat. She
very well knew that if she kept quiet and asked her
brother nothing about his reason for tearing up and down
the room, his wrath would fall upon her head. So she
hastened to put the question:
‘The old story, eh?’ The Idiot
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‘Old story? No! Heaven knows what’s up now—I
don’t! Father has simply gone mad; mother’s in floods of
tears. Upon my word, Varia, I must kick him out of the
house; or else go myself,’ he added, probably
remembering that he could not well turn people out of a
house which was not his own.
‘You must make allowances,’ murmured Varia.
‘Make allowances? For whom? Him—the old
