The Idiot, Chapter 4: Zusammenfassung

Was geschieht

1. General Epanchin joins his family for lunch, uneasy about his wife’s suspicious expression.
2. The narrator explains Totski’s proposed marriage to Alexandra and the family’s special hopes for Aglaya.
3. Totski raises the orphaned Nastasia, establishes her in a country house, and becomes afraid when she disrupts an earlier marriage plan.
4. Totski and the general propose marriage to Gania and a gift of seventy-five thousand roubles; Nastasia refuses blame for her past.
5. Nastasia keeps the right to refuse, Gania’s family opposes the match, and she sets her birthday evening for an answer.
6. The general’s pearl gift arouses his wife’s suspicions, and he welcomes the prince’s arrival as a distraction.

In diesem chapter

Worauf Sie achten sollten

Nastasia makes dignity a condition of marriage. She refuses to treat the harm done to her as a fault requiring forgiveness.

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