In Russian, падучая (paduchaya), from падать, "to fall," is the popular name for epilepsy. It is the word the narrator uses for what some guess in Myshkin's gaze, and the prince, describing his nervous illness to his carriage neighbors, says it is something of the kind of epilepsy. The seizure appears on the hotel staircase, when Rogozhin raises the knife, and at the solemn gathering; in both, the narrator describes the instant of light that precedes it.
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