tellectuality, wild, foolish, trashy. Between these two parties, the prince, alone, exposed to the fire of both, regarded with equal distrust by both. And how does the situation end? Myshkin, in spite of small mistakes, due to his agitation, reveals his sweet, tender, childlike nature. He smilingly accepts affront and insult, answers the most shameless with a Christlike selflessness, is ready to accept all the fault, to take upon himself all the blame and exactly in such a way as to incur the full weight of odium, displeasure, and contempt from both sides—not from one side or the other, but from both. All turn away from him, for he has trodden on the toes of all. One moment more and the extremest social antagonisms, differences in ages and opinions are wiped out. All are completely united in a common resentment against the single clean one amongst them.
Upon what turns the impracticability of a being such as the Idiot in this world? Why does no one understand this man whom almost all somehow or other love, whose tenderness is so sympathetic to all as to lead to a sort of transfiguration? What separates this magical creature from ordinary men? Why are they right when they turn aside from him? Why must they necessarily do so? Why must he be like Christ who was deserted not only by the world, but even by His own disciples?
It is because the Idiot thinks other thoughts than the rest of the world. It is not because his thinking is less logical or more childlike than theirs. His thinking is that which I call "magical." This compassionate Idiot denies the whole of Life, all thinking and feeling, all that the world and reality mean to others. For him Reality is something entirely different than for them. Their Reality is for him a shadow. For that reason, because he sees and offers a new Reality, he becomes the enemy.
The difference is not that they esteem highly such values as power and wealth, family and state, and that he does not. It is not that he stands for the Spirit while they stand for the Material or what-every way one likes to put it. That is not the reason. For the Idiot, too, material concerns matter, he invariably recognizes the significance of such things even though he does not consider them of prime importance. His gospel is not an ascetic-Indian ideal, a dying to the world of apparent reality to make the joy of the immortal soul which alone shall know Truth.
No, Myshkin would readily come to an understanding with other
