Here, the Gentleman, who is actually Satan, appears to Ivan and speaks to him. The Gentleman flatters Ivan by mirroring his ideas and maintaining good manners, as Ivan would in a conversation. This mirroring makes Ivan, who is suffering from brain fever, hyperaware of his relationship with sin and evil, concepts that he would have previously spurned because they have, in his view, little to do with the real world. In keeping with Ivan’s view of himself as a man with “a Euclidean mind,” the Gentleman describes himself as a “man” in “nature” (as opposed to a supernatural being). Ironically…