sonya’s Reviews > The Idiot > Status Update

II, VIII
this is the last summary i'll do on here bc i need to speedrun this book atp. so. there was a libellous article written of the prince, which mr. keller of the burdovsky group wrote. they wanted wanted money on the grounds that burdovsky is pavlischev's son, and therefore the prince has a debt to him. lev says that burdovsky isn't even p's son, and next chapter will be dedicated to proving that.

II.VII
Aglaya read the Pushkin poem about the poor knight; Myshkin perceived it was with malicious intent, as in to mock him, but Aglaya was seemingly perfectly serious in her recitation. She changed the original initials of AMD (Ave Mater Dei) to NFB (Nastasya Filippovna Barashkova). Anyway the Nihilists™️ arrive.

II.VI
The whole cast is with Myshkin in his Pavlosk villa. the Yepanchin women dominate the conversation this chapter; Kolya mentions ‘the poor knight’ (Don Quixote), and Aglaya talks more abt that. ‘The poor knight’ is quite obviously Myshkin. At the end, General Yepanchin and ‘another man’ arrive at the villa.

II.V (morer)
when lev returns to his hotel (The Scales), he meets parfion on the stairwell (confirming that he's been following and watching him), and the vivid epileptic-fit-avoided-murder-attempt scene happened (parfion was gonna stab lev, directly contradicting his previous words to the prince). anyway, kolya finds him and brings him to lebyedev to recover; three days later, they leave to pavlosk.

II.V (more)
several paragraphs dedicated to describing the psyche of our dear prince. he's in a mess rn. he got a premonition to go to nastasya's house bc he was very worried that rogozhin was off to murder her after their previous talk, only to find that nastasya has gone off to pavlosk. he saw rogozhin's eyes again in nastasya's house. lev went to return to his hotel, wanting to embrace rogozhin and 'end it all.'

II.V
Myshkin’s illness is getting worse and he can tell he’s in the “preliminary stage.” He’s gettingvery scatter-brained. Also, the sense of beinf watched wasn’t from his imagination: Rogozhin was watching him and he found himself in the same area where he first caught Rogozhin (after he came off the train from Moscow to SPG)

I.IV
Lev is on the way to leaving but sees the copy of Holbein’s portrait of the dead Christ. Parfion asks Lev if he believes in God and Lev talks about his encounters of Christ just last week: the atheist man whose devout friend slit his throat for his watch; and buying a silver cross from a drunkard, whose wife he met an hour later. Rogozhin tells Lev he won’t murder him for his watch and that Nastasya is his.

II.III
We see Lev visiting Parfion for the first time. They’re friends now; became close in Moscow. We learn a little bit of what happens in Moscow: Parfion and Nastasya’s engagement is messy—she fled from the altar twice; fled to Lev, no less. Parfion says Nastasya is in love with Lev. In conversation as well, Lev says he loves Nastasya out of compassion and not passion (love).

II.I (morer)
Kolya is 15; Ippolit and he are still friends. Meanwhile, he's now staying with the Yepanchins a lot. He had a brief correspondance with the prince and Lev asked him to deliver a note to Aglaya, wherein he said repeatedly and emphasisedly that he needed *her.* He also asked her if she was happy and that he only wants her to be happy. Aglaya treats Kolya with disapproval and suspicion and this offends him

II.I (more)
Nastya disappeared from Moscow, around the same time Myshkin also disappeared from Moscow. But Nastya did resurface and promised to marry Rogohzin. There's not much to be said about the prince. Aboout the Ivolgins: Ganya fell ill and stopped working; they lost their lodgers as Ptitsyn married Varya (he lives away) and Ferdischenko vanished. Gen. I. was imprisoned for debt; they're fucked.