“In spite of the terror which I detected in her myself, Katerina Nikolaevna has always from the first cherished a certain reverence and admiration for the nobility of Andrey Petrovitch’s principles and the loftiness of his mind.... In his letter he gave her the most solemn and chivalrous promises that she should have nothing to fear--she responding with the same heroic feelings. There may have been a sort of chivalrous rivalry on both sides.”[59] “There is nothing in it to fret your vanity,” said Elizabeth to Stavrogin: “The day before yesterday when I ‘insulted’ you before everyone and you answered me so chivalrously, I went home and guessed at once that you were running away from me because you were married, and not from contempt for me, which, as a fashionable young lady, I dreaded more than anything,” adding by way of conclusion, “Anyhow, it eases our vanity.”[60] His women, even more so than his characters of the other sex, are ever moved and determined by considerations of pride. Look at Raskolnikov’s sister, Nastasya Filippovna and Aglaïa Epantchin in _The Idiot_, Elizabeth Nikolaïevna in _The Possessed_, and Katerina Ivanovna in _The Karamazovs_! But, by an inversion which I make bold to describe as inspired by the New Testament, the most abject characters are nearer the Kingdom of Heaven than the noblest. To such a degree is Dostoevsky’s work dominated by these profound truths. “_God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble._”--“_For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost._” On the one hand, denial and surrender of the self; on the other, affirmation of the personality, the _will to power_, an exaggerated loftiness of sentiment. And take due note of this fact; in Dostoevsky’s novels, the _will to power_ leads inevitably to ruin. M. Souday recently accused me of sacrificing, indeed, of immolating Balzac to Dostoevsky. Need I protest? My admiration of Dostoevsky is certainly fervent, but I do not think I am blinded by it. I readily agree that Balzac’s creations surpass the Russian novelist’s in their diversity, and that his _Comédie Humaine_ is the more varied. Dostoevsky certainly goes deeper and touches more important points than any other author, but we can admit that his characters are one and all cut from the same cloth. Pride and humility! these hidden reagents never change, although by graduating the doses of them, we obtain reactions that are infinitely rich and minutely varied in colour.