How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
At times Lizabeta Prokofievna spoke to her husband in the threatening tone of one who demands an immediate answer. Ivan Fedorovitch would frown, shrug his shoulders, and at last give his opinion […]. "God forbid that he should share your ideas, Ivan Fedorovitch!" his wife flashed back. "Or that he should be as gross and churlish as you!"
The general promptly made his escape, and Lizabeta Prokofievna after a while grew calm again after her explosion. That evening, of course, she would be unusually attentive, gentle, and respectful to her "gross and churlish" husband, her "dear, kind Ivan Fedorovitch," for she had never left off loving him. She was even still "in love" with him. He knew it well, and for which he held her in the greatest esteem. (3.1.9-11)
There might really be a whole essay's worth of material in trying to dissect the Epanchins' marriage, and how they accommodate each other's foibles—she's a loudmouth who speaks before she thinks, he's a guy who's buying jewelry for other women. Still, they seem not to have lost much of their affection for each other. It seems like an unusual match, no?
Quote #8
If anyone had come up at this moment and told [Myshkin] that he was in love, passionately in love, he would have rejected the idea with astonishment, and, perhaps, with irritation. And if anyone had added that Aglaya's note was a love-letter, and that it contained an appointment to a lover's rendezvous, he would have blushed with shame for the speaker, and, probably, have challenged him to a duel.
All this would have been perfectly sincere on his part. He had never for a moment entertained the idea of the possibility of this girl loving him, or even of such a thing as himself falling in love with her. The possibility of being loved himself, "a man like me," as he put it, he ranked among ridiculous suppositions. […] His whole thoughts were now as to next morning early; he would see her; he would sit by her on that little green bench, and listen to how pistols were loaded, and look at her. He wanted nothing more. (3.3.96-99)
Three things here. One, does the prince believe that romantic love is a possible emotion? Even when he lays his feelings for Aglaya on the table, it somehow doesn't quite feel real. Two, note how he's the guy who wrote her that letter that she misread as a love letter, and now she is sending him what is clearly a love letter and he refuses to admit as much. And finally, what's all this stuff about "a man like me" not being able to be loved? Doesn't that kind of self-denigration sound like everyone's favorite self-flagellator Nastasya? Does he feel so much pity for her because he sees a little bit of himself in her?
Quote #9
Farther on, in another place, [Nastasya] wrote: "Do not consider my words as the sickly ecstasies of a diseased mind, but you are, in my opinion—perfection! I have seen you—I see you every day. I do not judge you; I have not weighed you in the scales of Reason and found you Perfection—it is simply an article of faith. But I must confess one sin against you—I love you. One should not love perfection. One should only look on it as perfection—yet I am in love with you. Though love equalizes, do not fear. I have not lowered you to my level, even in my most secret thoughts. I have written 'Do not fear,' as if you could fear. I would kiss your footprints if I could; but, oh! I am not putting myself on a level with you!—Look at the signature—quick, look at the signature!"
"However, observe" (she wrote in another of the letters), "that although I couple you with him, yet I have not once asked you whether you love him. He fell in love with you, though he saw you but once. He spoke of you as of 'the light.' These are his own words—I heard him use them. But I understood without his saying it that you were all that light is to him. I lived near him for a whole month, and I understood then that you, too, must love him. I think of you and him as one." (3.10.8-9)
What does it mean that Nastasya claims to be in love with Aglaya? And just how manipulative are these letters in the first place? Nastasya claims that the point of the letters is to get Myshkin and Aglaya together. But is this true, or is the real method to their madness to try to get inside Aglaya's head and stir up all her jealousy by constantly pointing out how close she and Myshkin used to be. (All those details like "I lived near him for a month," "I heard him use those words"?)