Prince Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin Character Analysis

“And are you a great fancier of the female sex, Prince? Tell me beforehand!”

“N -n-no! I ’m . . . Maybe you don’t know, but because of my inborn illness, I don’t know women at all.”

“Well, in that case,” Rogozhin exclaimed, “you come out as a holy fool, Prince, and God loves your kind!”

“He told me he was fully convinced that I was a perfect child myself, that is, fully a child, that I resembled an adult only in size and looks, but in development, soul, character, and perhaps even mind, I was not an adult, and I would stay that way even if I lived to be sixty. I laughed very much: he wasn’t right, of course, because what’s little about me? But one thing is true, that I really don’t like being with adults, with people, with grown-ups—and I noticed that long ago—I don’t like it because I don’t know how.”

“Maybe I’ll be considered a child here, too—so be it! Everybody also considers me an idiot for some reason, and in fact I was once so ill that I was like an idiot; but what sort of idiot am I now, when I myself understand that I’m considered an idiot? I come in and think: ‘They consider me an idiot, but I’m intelligent all the same, and they don’t even suspect it . . .’ I often have that thought.”

“Yes, Prince, you must be given credit, you’re so good at exploiting your . . . hm, sickness (to put it decently); you managed to offer your friendship and money in such a clever form that it is now quite impossible for a noble man to accept them. It’s either all too innocent, or all too clever . . . you, however, know which.”

“Well, see how you throw a man into a final flummox! For pity’s sake, Prince: first such simple-heartedness, such innocence as even the golden age never heard of, then suddenly at the same time you pierce a man through like an arrow with this deepest psychology of observation. But excuse me, Prince, this calls for an explanation, because I . . . I’m simply confounded! Naturally, in the final end my aim was to borrow money, but you asked me about money as if you don’t find anything reprehensible in it, as if that’s how it should be?”

He is either a doctor or indeed of an extraordinary intelligence and able to guess a great many things. (But that he is ultimately an “idiot” there can be no doubt at all.)

“I want to be brave and not afraid of anything. I don’t want to go to their balls, I want to be useful. I wanted to leave long ago. They’ve kept me bottled up for twenty years, and they all want to get me married. When I was fourteen I already thought of running away, though I was a fool. Now I have it all worked out and was waiting for you, to ask you all about life abroad.”

How did she dare write to her, he asked, wandering alone in the evening (sometimes not even remembering himself where he was walking). How could she write about that, and how could such an insane dream have been born in her head?

“The pope seized land, an earthly throne, and took up the sword; since then everything has gone on that way, only to the sword they added lies, trickery, deceit, fanaticism, superstition, villainy; they played upon the most holy, truthful, simple-hearted, ardent feelings of the people; they traded everything, everything, for money, for base earthly power. Isn’t that the teaching of the Antichrist?! How could atheism not come out of them? Atheism came out of them, out of Roman Catholicism itself! Atheism began, before all else, with them themselves: could they believe in themselves?”

“And are you a great fancier of the female sex, Prince? Tell me beforehand!”

“N -n-no! I ’m . . . Maybe you don’t know, but because of my inborn illness, I don’t know women at all.”

“Well, in that case,” Rogozhin exclaimed, “you come out as a holy fool, Prince, and God loves your kind!”

“He told me he was fully convinced that I was a perfect child myself, that is, fully a child, that I resembled an adult only in size and looks, but in development, soul, character, and perhaps even mind, I was not an adult, and I would stay that way even if I lived to be sixty. I laughed very much: he wasn’t right, of course, because what’s little about me? But one thing is true, that I really don’t like being with adults, with people, with grown-ups—and I noticed that long ago—I don’t like it because I don’t know how.”

“Maybe I’ll be considered a child here, too—so be it! Everybody also considers me an idiot for some reason, and in fact I was once so ill that I was like an idiot; but what sort of idiot am I now, when I myself understand that I’m considered an idiot? I come in and think: ‘They consider me an idiot, but I’m intelligent all the same, and they don’t even suspect it . . .’ I often have that thought.”

“Yes, Prince, you must be given credit, you’re so good at exploiting your . . . hm, sickness (to put it decently); you managed to offer your friendship and money in such a clever form that it is now quite impossible for a noble man to accept them. It’s either all too innocent, or all too clever . . . you, however, know which.”

“Well, see how you throw a man into a final flummox! For pity’s sake, Prince: first such simple-heartedness, such innocence as even the golden age never heard of, then suddenly at the same time you pierce a man through like an arrow with this deepest psychology of observation. But excuse me, Prince, this calls for an explanation, because I . . . I’m simply confounded! Naturally, in the final end my aim was to borrow money, but you asked me about money as if you don’t find anything reprehensible in it, as if that’s how it should be?”

He is either a doctor or indeed of an extraordinary intelligence and able to guess a great many things. (But that he is ultimately an “idiot” there can be no doubt at all.)

“I want to be brave and not afraid of anything. I don’t want to go to their balls, I want to be useful. I wanted to leave long ago. They’ve kept me bottled up for twenty years, and they all want to get me married. When I was fourteen I already thought of running away, though I was a fool. Now I have it all worked out and was waiting for you, to ask you all about life abroad.”

How did she dare write to her, he asked, wandering alone in the evening (sometimes not even remembering himself where he was walking). How could she write about that, and how could such an insane dream have been born in her head?

“The pope seized land, an earthly throne, and took up the sword; since then everything has gone on that way, only to the sword they added lies, trickery, deceit, fanaticism, superstition, villainy; they played upon the most holy, truthful, simple-hearted, ardent feelings of the people; they traded everything, everything, for money, for base earthly power. Isn’t that the teaching of the Antichrist?! How could atheism not come out of them? Atheism came out of them, out of Roman Catholicism itself! Atheism began, before all else, with them themselves: could they believe in themselves?”