Nikolai Ardalionovich Ivolgin

Who They Are

Nikolai Ardalionovich Ivolgin, Kolya, is the youngest son of General Ardalion Alexandrovich Ivolgin and of Nina Alexandrovna, brother of Gavrila Ardalionovich Ivolgin and of Varvara Ardalionovna Ivolgina. He is thirteen when the novel begins, sleeps with his father in a cubbyhole next to the kitchen and watches over him (chapter VIII of Part One). He is the first in the house to grow fond of Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin, the most faithful friend of Hippolyte Terentyev and the messenger of the book: he carries notes, brings news and appears wherever he is needed. What he wants is someone to respect, and he finds no one around him: in his own brother he sees an adventurer, and in his father a liar whom he pities. What he fears is shame, the family's shame before others, which makes him cry and hide his face. What he learns over the course of the book is to tell a gesture from a speech; where he is mistaken is in his age, because he talks about the century with words he has read. In the end it is he who buries his father, who seeks help for the prince and who stays on, too thoughtful for his years (chapter XII of Part Four).

Trajectory

In chapter X of Part One, when Rogozhin bargains with Nastasya Filippovna in the room and his father protests and everyone laughs at him, Kolya weeps with shame; when Gania gives the prince the slap, he is the first to run and embrace him. In chapter XI of Part One he goes to console the prince in his room, speaks of a friend even more unhappy whom he wants to introduce, and finds it absurd that a slap can be washed away only with blood, as in Lermontov's drama Masquerade; at the end of the chapter he brings his father's note, which waits for the prince at a café.

In chapter XII of Part One he is at the captain's house, keeping company with her son Hippolyte, a consumptive. He reveals to the prince that his father never set foot in Nastasya Filippovna's house, and takes him there on foot, telling on the way what he thinks of the times:

He says his mother helps the captain's family with money and clothes, and Varya too, although the captain lends out at interest what she receives from the general. The prince answers with an example from within his own house:

Kolya accepts it for his mother and refuses it for Varya, who would do it out of vanity, and proposes that one day the three of them live together: he, the prince and Hippolyte.

In chapter I of Part Two, free from home after the prince's departure, he meets the Epanchins on his own and wins over Yelizaveta Prokofyevna Epanchina by not flattering her. At Easter he hands Aglaya Ivanovna Epanchina, alone, the note the prince had sent her:

Aglaya, suspicious that such a presumptuous boy might be the prince's only correspondent in Petersburg, reads the note he himself had received and calls him a soap bubble. Kolya, who had borrowed a brand-new green scarf from Gania for the occasion, leaves offended. In chapter V of Part Two he gives up dinner at Pavlovsk and returns to Petersburg on a hunch; he hears of an attack at the hotel, recognizes the prince and takes him to Lebedev's house. In chapter VI of Part Two he proclaims that nothing is better than the poor knight, and the family laughs; in the same chapter he corrects Aglaya on the letters of the shield, and she insists on her own. In chapter VIII of Part Two, sent by Yelizaveta Prokofyevna, he reads aloud the weekly's article against the prince, finishes, runs to a corner and hides his face in shame. In chapter XI of Part Two he brings the news that the general's wife has put Varya out of the house, and laughs: the prince is jealous.

In chapter I of Part Three he announces that Hippolyte has moved into the prince's dacha. In chapter II of Part Three, when Aglaya defends the prince before everyone, he shouts the name of the poor knight and turns the defense into a confession. At the birthday party, when the sun rises, he is one of those who hold Hippolyte back (chapter VII of Part Three). In chapter IX of Part Three, after keeping vigil over his friend all night, he is delighted by the courage of the Explanation, reveals that Hippolyte lied when he said the two of them had packed their bags together, and tells that his father woke him at six in the morning, still drunk, to warn him that with Fyerdyshchenko one must be careful about what one says. It is through him that the warning reaches the prince, and through the prince, Lebedev.

In chapter II of Part Four, when the father leaves the house after the quarrel over Captain Yeropegov, it is Kolya who carries the travel bag. In chapter IV of Part Four, in the street, he hears the general mix Gogol and Dead Souls, weep for Nina and bless him for having respect for a fallen old man; the father climbs onto a porch to tell him a secret in his ear, says only "the King of Rome" and the name of Maria Petrovna, and falls into a fit before him. In chapter V of Part Four he appears with the hedgehog he bought from a peasant, along with an axe, which Aglaya sends to the prince. In chapter VI of Part Four he sends word to the prince of his father's attack. In chapter VIII of Part Four he demands to know what they are hiding from him, and the prince tells him of his father's theft with all delicacy: perhaps what kills the old man is the horror of his own fault, of which not everyone would be capable. Kolya breaks inwardly with Gania, Varya and Ptitsyn, and offers himself to the prince as a faithful servant. In chapter X of Part Four he buries his father.

In chapter XII of Part Four, after the night at Rogozhin's house, it is he who seeks out Evgeny Pavlovich Radomsky, and through Radomsky's efforts the prince returns to Schneider's sanatorium. He draws close to his mother, who finds him too thoughtful for his age, and begins to receive Radomsky's letters after each visit to Switzerland.

Themes Embodied

Kolya is the Compassion and Charity of the novel before it becomes an idea: he weeps for the father whom everyone ridicules (chapter X of Part One), watches over the sick friend (chapter IX of Part Three) and carries the bag of the old man who curses the house (chapter II of Part Four). He has none of anyone's calculated frankness; he has the shame of someone who still feels for others. The remark about adventurers (chapter XII of Part One) is the disillusion of a boy who repeats what he reads. The answer the prince gives him, pointing to a gesture within his own house, is the method Kolya is going to learn, and the book shows it in chapter VIII of Part Four, when he breaks inwardly with the brothers who turn their backs on their father.

The father and the prince are the two figures he clings to, and his file is the passage from one to the other. The general is the man he watches and pities, who dies trying to tell him the truth (chapter IV of Part Four); the prince is the man who tells him that truth gently (chapter VIII of Part Four). In the end both are lost, and it is Kolya who acts: he looks for Radomsky, secures Switzerland for the prince and stays with his mother (chapter XII of Part Four).

Relationships

• Ardalion Alexandrovich Ivolgin, the father, whom he watches (chapter VIII of Part One), pities (chapter XII of Part One) and who falls before him trying to confess (chapter IV of Part Four).
• Gavrila Ardalionovich Ivolgin, the brother, from whom he borrows a scarf (chapter I of Part Two) and with whom he breaks inwardly (chapter VIII of Part Four).
• Varvara Ardalionovna Ivolgina, the sister, whom he thinks charitable out of vanity (chapter XII of Part One).
• Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin, the friend he hugs after the slap (chapter X of Part One), helps after the attack (chapter V of Part Two) and to whom he offers himself as a faithful servant (chapter VIII of Part Four).
• Hippolyte Terentyev, the sick friend, with whom he wants to live (chapter XII of Part One) and whose Explanation he admires (chapter IX of Part Three).
• Aglaya Ivanovna Epanchina, to whom he brings the Easter note (chapter I of Part Two) and the hedgehog (chapter V of Part Four).
• Yelizaveta Prokofyevna Epanchina, whom he wins over by not flattering her (chapter I of Part Two).
• Evgeny Pavlovich Radomsky, whom he seeks out to save the prince and who starts writing to him (chapter XII of Part Four).