In Russian, князь (knyaz) is the hereditary title of the old Russian nobility, which translates as "prince," and it is the word with which almost everyone addresses Myshkin. The title comes with nothing else: he belongs to an old princely family that has fallen into decline, without money, office, or house. Nastasya uses it as a bid when she tells the maids that she is going to marry a prince worth a million and a half.
Where It Appears
Quotes
well, if that is so [...] then you, Prince, turn out to be a complete holy fool, and people like you are loved by God!
Part One: The Arrival, Rogozhin
I was Totsky's mistress... Prince! Now what you need is Aglaya Epanchina, not Nastasya Filippovna [...] That's how all of you are: either you deal with the dishonored women or with the honorable ones, it is only one choice!
Part One: The Arrival, Nastasya
Is it true, Prince, that you once said that beauty will save the world? [...] And I maintain that he has these playful ideas because he is now in love.
Part Three: The Explanation, Hippolyte
Aglaya Ivanovna loved as a woman, as a human being, and not as... an abstract spirit. Do you know what, my poor prince? The most likely thing is that you never loved either one!
Part Four: The Denouement, Radomsky
At the foot of the bed some lace had been bunched into a ball, and on the white lace, peeking out from under the sheet, the tip of a bare foot could be made out; it looked as if carved from marble and was terribly still. The prince looked and felt that the more he looked, the deader and quieter the room became. Suddenly a fly that had woken buzzed, flew over the bed, and went quiet at the headboard.
Part Four: The Denouement, the narrator
the prince then reached out to him with a trembling hand and lightly touched his head, his hair, smoothing it, and smoothed his cheeks... he could do nothing more!
Part Four: The Denouement, the narrator
And if Schneider himself came now from Switzerland to see his former pupil and patient, he too, remembering the state the prince sometimes fell into during the first year of treatment in Switzerland, would now make a gesture of dismay and say, as he did back then: "Idiot!"