The Theme in the Work
Compassion is the word with which Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin defines himself and the thing the novel most puts to the test. He practices it before naming it, with Marie in the Swiss village, whose story he tells in Part One; he names it before Parfyon Semyonovich Rogozhin, when he says he loves Nastasya Filippovna Barashkova not with love, but with pity; and he makes it, alone in Petersburg, the main law of human existence. The book shows what that law does to whoever receives it, and it is almost never what the prince expects. Marie dies almost happy, but considering herself guilty to the end; Nastasya Filippovna refuses his pity as haughtiness and runs away; Hippolyte Terentyev weeps in the lap of someone who feels compassion and, out of shame, turns the tear into hatred; General Ardalion Alexandrovich Ivolgin breaks with the prince because he does not accept signs of compassion that humiliate him. Charity with money turns out even worse: the ten thousand rubles offered in public to Burdovsky are received as alms and refused in the name of a right.
In Part One, ch. VI, the prince tells the Epanchin women the story of Marie, the seduced and abandoned girl whom the whole village despised, and what the children did for her after he told them the truth.
Через них, уверяю вас, она умерла почти счастливая. Через них она забыла свою черную беду, как бы прощение от них приняла, потому что до самого конца считала себя великою преступницей, thanks to them, I assure you, she died almost happy. Thanks to them she forgot her black misfortune, as if she had received forgiveness from them, because to the very end she considered herself a great criminal.
In Part One, ch. XV, at the party, the prince asks Nastasya Filippovna to marry him and founds her honor on what she suffered.
Я ничто, а вы страдали и из такого ада чистая вышли, а это много., I am nothing, and you suffered and came out pure from such a hell, and that is a great deal.
In Part Two, ch. III, at Rogozhin's house, he gives the feeling the name that will follow him to the end.
я ее «не любовью люблю, а жалостью», I love her not with love, but with pity.
Rogozhin, in the same chapter, defines himself by the opposite.
Никакой такой во мне нет к ней жалости. Да и ненавидит она меня пуще всего, There is no such pity for her in me. And she hates me more than anything.
In Part Two, ch. V, hours later, blaming himself for having suspected his cross-brother, the prince reaches his maxim.
Сострадание есть главнейший и, может быть, единственный закон бытия всего человечества, Compassion is the chief and perhaps the only law of existence for all humankind.
In Part Two, ch. VIII, after offering ten thousand rubles to Burdovsky out loud and saying before everyone that he is sick, as he himself once was, the prince judges himself.
Да, я идиот, истинный идиот!, Yes, I am an idiot, a true idiot!
In Part Two, ch. X, Hippolyte weeps in the lap of Yelizaveta Prokofyevna Epanchina and touches her tear.
Ипполит остановился почти пораженный, поднял руку, боязливо протянул ее и дотронулся до этой слезинки. Он улыбнулся какою-то детскою улыбкой, Hippolyte stopped, almost stunned, raised his hand, timidly stretched it out and touched that little tear. He smiled a childlike smile.
A few minutes later, in the same chapter, he turns against the prince.
если я кого-нибудь здесь ненавижу, [...] но вас, вас, иезуитская, паточная душонка, идиот, миллионер-благодетель, вас более всех и всего на свете! [...] Это вы теперь всё подвели! Это вы меня довели до припадка!, if I hate anyone here, [...] it is you, you, Jesuitical, treacly little soul, idiot, millionaire benefactor, you more than everyone and everything in the world! [...] It was you who set all this up! It was you who drove me to this fit!
In Part Three, ch. II, seeing Nastasya Filippovna at the vauxhall after more than three months, the prince feels what he has always felt before that face.
лицо это еще с портрета вызывало из его сердца целое страдание жалости; это впечатление сострадания и даже страдания за это существо не оставляло никогда его сердца, не оставило и теперь, this face, from the very portrait, had already drawn from his heart a whole suffering of pity; this impression of compassion, and even of suffering for this being, never left his heart, and did not leave it now.
In Part Three, ch. VIII, on the green bench, he explains to Aglaya Ivanovna Epanchina why Nastasya Filippovna runs away from him.
Эта несчастная женщина глубоко убеждена, что она самое павшее, самое порочное существо из всех на свете [...] что она сама, первая, не верит себе и что она всею совестью своею верит, напротив, что она… сама виновна, This unhappy woman is deeply convinced that she is the most fallen, the most depraved being of all in the world [...] that she is the first not to believe in herself, and that with all her conscience she believes, on the contrary, that she... that she herself is guilty.
And with reticence he says what Nastasya Filippovna guessed.
Что мне только жаль ее, а что я… уже не люблю ее, That I only pity her, and that I... no longer love her.
In Part Four, ch. X, the narrator explains what the prince feels for her on the eve of the wedding.
и в любви его к ней заключалось действительно как бы влечение к какому-то жалкому и больному ребенку, которого трудно и даже невозможно оставить на свою волю., and in his love for her there was indeed something like an attraction to a pitiful and sick child, whom it is difficult and even impossible to leave to their own devices.
In Part Four, ch. XI, on the last night, compassion no longer has words.
князь протягивал к нему тогда свою дрожащую руку и тихо дотрогивался до его головы, до его волос, гладил их и гладил его щеки… больше он ничего не мог сделать!, the prince then held out to him his trembling hand and gently touched his head, his hair, stroking them and stroking his cheeks... he could do nothing more!
The prince's compassion gets the diagnosis right and fails the cure. He sees that Marie, Nastasya Filippovna and Hippolyte consider themselves guilty or excluded, and offers them the opposite judgment. What none of the three manages is to accept a judgment that comes from someone who does not suffer the same way. Marie, in Part One, ch. VI, dies almost happy and still considering herself a criminal; Nastasya Filippovna, in Part Three, ch. VIII, refuses his compassion as haughtiness; Hippolyte, in Part Two, ch. X, hates the one who foresaw his shame. The book does not say that compassion is useless: it says that it does not save those who do not believe they deserve it.
Who Embodies It
The prince, more than anyone, and almost always in the presence of those who humiliate him. In Part One, ch. X, Gavrila Ardalionovich Ivolgin slaps him because he seized the hand that was about to strike Varvara Ardalionovna Ivolgina, and he turns his face to the wall.
О, как вы будете стыдиться своего поступка!, Oh, how you will be ashamed of what you did!
Lizaveta Prokofyevna is compassion ashamed of itself. In Part Two, ch. IX, she explodes against the young men who refuse gratitude and live on her charity, and in Part Two, ch. X it is she who holds Hippolyte's head against her breast. In Part Four, ch. XII, in Switzerland, before the prince who does not recognize her, she weeps with all her heart.
Nina Alexandrovna, Ganya's mother, is the one who forgives without knowing what. In Part Four, ch. VI, facing Lukyan Timofeyevich Lebedev, who weeps beside the sick general and accuses himself without saying of what:
ну, бог с вами, ну, не плачьте, ну, бог вас простит!, Well, God be with you, well, don't cry, well, God will forgive you!
Where It Appears
- Part One, ch. VI: The prince tells how he kissed Marie out of pity and not out of love, and how the children, after hearing the truth, came to love her until she died almost happy.
- Part One, ch. VII: Before the portrait, the prince notices that the pride and innocence of that face awaken compassion, and tells the general's wife that there is much suffering in it.
- Part One, ch. X: The prince takes hold of Ganya's hand, receives the slap meant for Varya, and tells Ganya that he will be ashamed of what he has done.
- Part One, ch. XV: The prince tells Nastasya Filippovna that she suffered and came out pure from a hell, and asks her to marry him.
- Part Two, ch. III: The prince tells Rogozhin that he loves the woman they both want with pity, not with love, and Rogozhin replies that he has no pity at all.
- Part Two, ch. V: Blaming himself for suspecting Rogozhin, the prince concludes that compassion is the main law of human existence.
- Part Two, ch. VIII: The prince offers ten thousand rubles to Burdovsky before witnesses and calls himself an idiot for having done charity in public.
- Part Two, ch. X: Hippolyte weeps in the lap of Lizaveta Prokofyevna, touches her tear and, minutes later, shouts that he hates the prince.
- Part Three, ch. II: Seeing Nastasya Filippovna again at the vauxhall, the prince feels his usual pity and, with it, the horror of seeing her mad.
- Part Three, ch. VIII: The prince tells Aglaya that Nastasya Filippovna believes herself guilty, that she refused his compassion as haughtiness, and that for her he feels only pity.
- Part Four, ch. IV: General Ivolgin tells the prince that he sometimes pities him and, at night, breaks with him for not accepting signs of compassion that humiliate.
- Part Four, ch. VIII: Before the two women, the prince asks Aglaya for pity for a sick woman and stays with Nastasya Filippovna, stroking her head as one would a child's.
- Part Four, ch. IX: The prince tells Evgeny Pavlovich that he is not marrying out of happiness, but because, without him, Nastasya Filippovna would die.
- Part Four, ch. X: The narrator says that the prince's love for her is like an attraction to a sick child who cannot be left to their own devices.
- Part Four, ch. XI: At dawn, beside the body, the prince strokes Rogozhin's hair, and can do nothing more.
Where the Readings Diverge
The prince's compassion is read as holiness or as an incapacity to love, and the book gives voice to both. In Part Four, ch. IX, Evgeny Pavlovich Radomsky concludes that he never loved either of the two women, and the prince does not contest it.
Аглая Ивановна любила как женщина, как человек, а не как… отвлеченный дух. Знаете ли что, бедный мой князь: вернее всего, что вы ни ту, ни другую никогда не любили!, Aglaya Ivanovna loved as a woman, as a human being, and not as... an abstract spirit. Do you know what, my poor prince? Most likely you never loved either one of them!
The gesture that ends Part Four, ch. XI, the hand on the murderer's head, is the same as in Part Four, ch. VIII, the hand on Nastasya Filippovna's head after Aglaya leaves. The prince's compassion does not choose between victim and executioner, and that is what makes it seem holiness to some and defeats others: it stays with whoever suffers most at that moment, without asking what that person did.