What It Is
A new garden knife, with a deer-horn handle, lies on the table of Parfyon Semyonovich Rogozhin, beside a book, in the house on Gorokhovaya Street. Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin picks it up twice without noticing, Rogozhin tears it out of his hand, and that same night something flashes in Rogozhin's raised hand on the hotel staircase. It is with this same knife that Rogozhin kills Nastasya Filippovna Barashkova on the last night of the book. Before it exists as an object, it exists as a word: the verb for killing with a knife appears in the prince's mouth as early as the third chapter, and beside it the novel places the razor wrapped in silk from a crime read about in the newspaper, which Nastasya Filippovna cites twice.
Where It Appears
In ch. III of Part One, in front of the portrait, Gavrila Ardalionovich Ivolgin asks the prince whether Rogozhin would marry her, and he answers in a low voice, as a deduction from the passion he saw on the train.
Да что же, жениться, я думаю, и завтра же можно; женился бы, а чрез неделю, пожалуй, и зарезал бы ее, well, marry, I think he could even do it tomorrow; he would marry her, and a week later, who knows, he would knife her to death.
In ch. XV of Part One, at the birthday party, Nastasya Filippovna tells Ganya that a man like him would kill for money, wrap silk around a razor, and cut the throat of a friend from behind, as she read in a newspaper.
In ch. III of Part Two, at Rogozhin's house, the prince says that Rogozhin's love is not distinguishable from anger, and Rogozhin completes the sentence with the word the prince was avoiding, that he is going to cut her throat. The prince looks for a reason for her choice.
Кто сознательно в воду или под нож идет?, Who knowingly goes into the water or under the knife?
Still in ch. III of Part Two, in great agitation, the prince absentmindedly picks up, twice, the knife that is beside the book; Rogozhin tears it out of his hand both times, shoves it into the book, and throws the book onto the other table, shouting that he can very well buy a new knife.
In ch. IV of Part Two, after the exchange of crosses, Rogozhin refuses the prince's embrace with the story he has just heard, that of the peasant who prayed and then cut his friend's throat over a watch.
Небось! Я хоть и взял твой крест, а за часы не зарежу!, Don't be afraid! I took your cross, but I won't cut your throat over a watch!
In ch. V of Part Two, the prince catches himself looking for something around him, walks five hundred paces back to a cutler's shop window, and finds again the object he had valued at sixty kopecks, with a deer-horn handle. That night, in the niche of the stone staircase of the hotel, he sees Rogozhin's right hand raised and something shining in it.
Парфен, не верю!, Parfen, I don't believe it!
In ch. III of Part Three, near midnight, on the park bench, the prince tells Rogozhin that he only remembers the one he exchanged crosses with, not the one who raised the knife, and he takes half of the guilt upon himself.
Мы тогда в одно слово почувствовали. Не подыми ты руку тогда на меня (которую бог отвел), чем бы я теперь пред тобой оказался? Ведь я ж тебя всё равно в этом подозревал, один наш грех, в одно слово!, That day we felt the same thing, in one word. If you had not raised your hand against me (the hand God turned aside), what would I be now before you? For I suspected you of it too, one sin, ours, in one word!
In ch. X of Part Three, in the last letter to Aglaya Ivanovna Epanchina, Nastasya Filippovna says she knows the secret of the eyes that watch her.
но я знаю их тайну [...] Я уверена, что у него в ящике спрятана бритва, обмотанная шелком, как и у того московского убийцы [...] Я бы его убила со страху… Но он меня убьет прежде…, but I know their secret. [...] I am certain that he has a razor hidden in his drawer, wrapped in silk, just like that Moscow murderer. [...] I would kill him out of fear... But he will kill me first...
In ch. X of Part Four, five days before the wedding, Nastasya Filippovna screams that Rogozhin is hiding in the garden and will cut her throat at night; the captain says he was in Petersburg at that hour. In the same chapter, Hippolyte Terentyev frightens the prince by saying that Rogozhin, having lost his bride, may kill Aglaya out of revenge.
In ch. XI of Part Four, in the house on Gorokhovaya Street, the prince asks whether it was done with the knife, with the same one, and Rogozhin says it was with the same one, that he took it out of the drawer that dawn and does not know whether he wanted to kill her already at the church door. What astonishes him is how little blood there was.
совсем нож как бы на полтора… али даже на два вершка прошел… под самую левую грудь… а крови всего этак с пол-ложки столовой на рубашку вытекло; больше не было…, the knife went in a vershok and a half... or even two vershoks... right under the left breast... and only about half a tablespoon of blood ran out onto the shirt; there was no more...
What It Means
The knife is what Rogozhin's passion becomes when it finds no other way out, and the book keeps it in view for the prince from the start: he foresees death on the first day, picks up the object from the table without knowing why, recognizes it in a shop window, and sees it raised on the staircase. Nastasya Filippovna knows it too; she writes that he keeps a razor in his drawer, and she sets the wedding with him all the same. The novel shows a death that everyone announces and no one prevents.
The knife always stays close to the cross. In ch. III of Part Two it lies on the table of the man who, in ch. IV of Part Two, exchanges crosses with the prince and takes him to his mother's blessing; on the staircase in ch. V of Part Two the prince sees it in the hand of the man wearing Rogozhin's cross on his chest; on the bench in ch. III of Part Three he forgives the knife in the name of the cross and asks whether Rogozhin took him to his old mother to hold his own hand. There are two readings. In one, the exchange of crosses was an attempt by Rogozhin to contain the gesture, and the knife proves it was not enough; in the other, the brotherhood and the knife are the same intimacy, and that is why, in ch. XI of Part Four, the two men spend the night together beside the body.
Relationships
- Default themes: Death, Compassion and charity.
- Themes in the novel: Death, Compassion and charity.
- Characters: Parfyon Semyonovich Rogozhin, Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin, Nastasya Filippovna Barashkova, Gavrila Ardalionovich Ivolgin, Aglaya Ivanovna Epanchina, Hippolyte Terentyev.
- Related symbols: the exchange of crosses, sealed on the same day the knife appears on the table and on the staircase, and the fly, which buzzes over the body on the last night.