Status Updates From El idiota

Dostoyevsky introduces the reader to an 'upper stratum of Russian people' (so close to the end of the story) at the soiree. Prince Myshkin speaks of them, directly, 'I have always heard so much about you that is bad, more than is good, about the pettiness and exclusiveness of your interests, about your backwardness, your poor education, your ridiculous habits - oh, I mean they write and say so much about you!'