The Theme in the Work
The novel asks about faith aloud, and the one who asks is Parfyon Semyonovich Rogozhin, before the copy of a dead Christ that he says he likes to look at (The Holbein painting). The answer of Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin is not an argument: it is four encounters from one week, a cultured atheist who seemed to be talking about something else the whole time, a peasant who crosses himself and slits his friend's throat for a watch, a soldier who sells a tin cross as silver, and a mother who crosses herself because her child smiled for the first time. From that scene comes the idea the book sustains without demonstrating: the essence of religious feeling does not fit into reasoning, or into crime, or into atheism. Against it, Part Three sets the most serious objection, that of Hippolyte Terentyev before the same painting, and Part Four has the prince speak of faith in a drawing room, against Catholicism and in favor of a Christ that Russia would have preserved, until he collapses in a fit. The book gives victory to neither side; it shows faith as something that is lost, that is sought by force, that is sold cheap and that is recognized in a mother's gesture.
In chapter IV of Part Two, before the painting, the prince's remark comes out almost as a joke, and Rogozhin confirms it.
на эту картину! Да от этой картины у иного еще вера может пропасть! — Пропадает и то, at that painting! Why, that painting could make a person lose his faith! And Rogozhin: and he does lose it.
On the stairs, after the four encounters, the prince draws the conclusion.
сущность религиозного чувства ни под какие рассуждения, ни под какие проступки и преступления и ни под какие атеизмы не подходит; тут что-то не то, и вечно будет не то, the essence of religious feeling fits into no reasoning, no fault or crime, no atheism; there is something there that is not that, and eternally will not be that.
And the answer he gives comes from the peasant woman.
такая же точно бывает и у бога радость всякий раз, когда он с неба завидит, что грешник пред ним от всего своего сердца на молитву становится, the very same joy God has every time he sees from heaven a sinner begin to pray before him with all his heart.
In chapter IV of Part Three, at the prince's birthday party, Lukyan Timofeyevich Lebedev, drunk, preaches against the century of railways and of the star Wormwood.
И осмельтесь сказать, наконец, что не ослабели, не помутились источники жизни под этою «звездой», под этою сетью, опутавшею людей [...] Богатства больше, но силы меньше; связующей мысли не стало; всё размягчилось, всё упрело и все упрели! Все, все, все мы упрели!, And dare to say, at last, that the springs of life have not weakened, have not grown turbid under this star, under this net that has entangled men. [...] There is more wealth, but less strength; the idea that united is gone; everything has gone soft, everything has rotted and everyone has rotted! All, all, all of us have rotted!
In chapter VI of Part Three, Hippolyte puts to the painting the question of the disciples.
каким образом могли они поверить, смотря на такой труп, что этот мученик воскреснет?, how could they believe, looking at such a corpse, that this martyr would rise again?
In chapter VII of Part Three, he admits eternal life and even providence, but refuses the humility asked of him.
Неужто нельзя меня просто съесть, не требуя от меня похвал тому, что меня съело?, Can they not simply devour me, without demanding of me praise for that which devoured me?
In chapter X of Part Three, Nastasya Filippovna Barashkova writes to Aglaya Ivanovna Epanchina that she came to find her perfect not by reason, but by believing.
но вы для меня — совершенство! Я вас видела, я вижу вас каждый день. Ведь я не сужу вас; я не рассудком дошла до того, что вы совершенство; я просто уверовала, but you, to me, are perfection! I have seen you, I see you every day. For I do not judge you; it was not by reason that I came to think you are perfection; I simply came to believe.
In chapter VII of Part Four, on learning that Pavlishchev converted to Catholicism at the end of his life, the prince grows exalted before the guests.
Атеизм только проповедует нуль, а католицизм идет дальше: он искаженного Христа проповедует, им же оболганного и поруганного, Христа противоположного! Он антихриста проповедует, [...] По-моему, римский католицизм даже и не вера, а решительно продолжение Западной Римской империи, Atheism only preaches zero, and Catholicism goes further: it preaches a distorted Christ, slandered and outraged by itself, a Christ in reverse! It preaches the Antichrist, [...] In my view, Roman Catholicism is not even a faith, but decidedly a continuation of the Western Roman Empire.
And he explains the thirst of the Russian who becomes a Jesuit or a fanatical atheist.
От того, что он отечество нашел, которое здесь просмотрел, и обрадовался; берег, землю нашел и бросился ее целовать! [...] „Кто почвы под собой не имеет, тот и Бога не имеет“., It is because he found the fatherland that he had overlooked here, and rejoiced; he found the shore, the land, and threw himself to kiss it! [...] "He who has no ground under him has no God either."
Those who lose their faith in the book are those who seek it hardest. Rogozhin, according to the prince himself in chapter V of Part Two, wants to recover by force the faith he has lost; Hippolyte, in chapter VII of Part Three, does not deny God, he refuses to praise him; the Russian the prince speaks of in chapter VII of Part Four throws himself to kiss the land he found. What the prince offers in exchange is a faith that cannot be demonstrated, that of the peasant mother of chapter IV of Part Two, and the book leaves it defenseless before the painting.
Who Embodies It
The peasant woman of chapter IV of Part Two, who exists only in the prince's account, and the prince himself, who cites her as one giving testimony. On the other side, Rogozhin, who on the same afternoon, according to the prince in chapter V of Part Two, looks at the painting not because he likes it, but because he needs it. And Lebedev, who has been interpreting the Apocalypse for fifteen years and prays for the soul of the Countess Du Barry; in chapter X of Part Four, already drunk, he applies a word of the Gospel to the prince.
Утаил от премудрых и разумных и открыл младенцам, я это говорил еще и прежде про него, но теперь прибавляю, что и самого младенца бог сохранил, спас от бездны, он и все святые его!, Hid from the wise and prudent and revealed to babes, I said this before about him, but now I add that God preserved the babe himself, saved him from the abyss, He and all his saints!
Where It Appears
- Part One, Chapter I: Rogozhin calls the prince a holy fool and says that God loves people like him.
- Part One, Chapter V: The prince describes the condemned man who kisses the cross greedily, without religious awareness, and sums up the picture in the cross and the head.
- Part Two, Chapter II: Lebedev says he prays for the Countess Du Barry and reads in the Apocalypse a century of measure and contract.
- Part Two, Chapter IV: Rogozhin asks whether the prince believes in God, and the prince answers with four encounters and with a mother's joy.
- Part Two, Chapter V: The prince thinks that Rogozhin looks at the painting because he needs it and wants to recover by force the faith he has lost.
- Part Two, Chapter XI: Keller tells the prince that he lost all morality for lack of faith.
- Part Three, Chapter IV: Lebedev says that the springs of life grew turbid under the star Wormwood and that the idea that united men is gone.
- Part Three, Chapter VI: Hippolyte asks how the disciples could believe in the resurrection looking at a corpse like the one in the painting.
- Part Three, Chapter VII: Hippolyte admits eternal life, but refuses to praise that which devours him.
- Part Three, Chapter X: Nastasya Filippovna describes the Christ she would paint, alone with a child, and tells Aglaya she has come to believe in her perfection.
- Part Four, Chapter VII: The prince says that Catholicism preaches a distorted Christ and that whoever has no ground under him has no God.
- Part Four, Chapter X: Lebedev says that God hid from the wise and revealed to the little ones, and that he saved the prince from the abyss.
- Part Four, Chapter XII: Aglaya ends up in the confessional of a famous priest, who takes hold of her mind.
Where the Readings Diverge
Hippolyte's question before the painting in Rogozhin's house remains unanswered in the book, and the possible answer depends on what is placed beside it. The dead Christ of the painting and the living Christ of Nastasya Filippovna's letters, in chapter X of Part Three, appear a few hours apart.
Христос его слушал, но теперь задумался [...] мысль, великая, как весь мир, покоится в его взгляде; лицо грустное, Christ was listening to him, but now has grown pensive [...] a thought, great as the whole world, rests in his gaze; the face is sad.
The speech of chapter VII of Part Four can be read as the prince's conviction finally spoken, or as the fever that announces the fit, and the book gives reasons for both: the ideas return in A Writer's Diary, and the room hears them as those of a sick man. What the scene shows for certain is that the prince's faith, when he tries to say it in public, breaks a vase and knocks it over.