The Idiot: Part One, Chapter Fourteen Summary & Analysis

Ferdyshchenko declares that he thinks that the number of immoral people in the world probably outweighs those who are moral, and that everyone has stolen something in their lives. A debate ensues, until Nastasya tells Ferdyshchenko to hurry up with his turn. He tells a story about how he stole three roubles from the daughter of an acquaintance, let the maid take the blame for it, and then spent the money on alcohol. The maid was dismissed the next day and Ferdyshchenko said nothing about it. The guests are largely unimpressed by this story, and this infuriates Ferdyshchenko. Ptitsyn is next, but he refuses to participate. 

General Epanchin is next, and says that the story they are about to hear has troubled him for 35 years. When it happened, he had just been made lieutenant. He had an orderly named Nikifor who was extremely honest and dutiful. He lived with the elderly widow of a lieutenant who had died 45 years earlier. An argument erupted between Epanchin and the old lady regarding a stolen rooster, and he and Nikifor moved away. However, he then learned that the old woman kept his bowl when he moved as a kind of punishment, and went back to yell at her. She didn’t respond, and later Epanchin learned that she actually died while he stood there shouting at her.

Epanchin was greatly disturbed by the incident, and even though much time has passed, it still troubles him today. He only began to feel better after he started paying for places for two sick old women in the almshouse, something he began doing 15 years ago and wishes to continue even after his death. Next up is Totsky, who shares something that happened 20 years previously. It was during a time when the popularity of Dumas’s La Dame aux camélias made camellias extremely sought-after in Russian high society. A man Totsky knew called Petya Vorkhovskoy was desperately in love with a young woman named Anfisa Alexeevna. Vorkhovskoy tried his best to get Anfisa camellias but failed, whereas Totsky succeeded.

Distraught, Vorkhovskoy ended up sending himself to the Caucasus and dying in the Crimean War. While telling the story, Totsky mentions several good deeds he did, such as donating 100 roubles to a hospital. Nastasya dryly comments that the game is becoming boring, and that after she tells her story they will stop playing. Suddenly, she turns to Myshkin and asks him if she should marry Ganya. There is a long pause, before Myshkin stammers that she shouldn’t. Nastasya says that in that case she won’t, and the other guests begin protesting this decision. They are confused about why she has let the prince decide for her, but she asserts: “He believed in me from the first glance, and I trust him.” 

Humiliated, Ganya sarcastically thanks Nastasya for the way she has treated him. Nastasya replies that she knows he is upset about losing the 75,000 roubles, which she tells Totsky he can keep. She also tells General Epanchin that he can take the pearls he gave her and give them to his wife instead, and that as of the next day, she will leave her apartment. Everyone cries out in shock, and at that moment the doorbell rings.