Consider, first of all, the cases of multiple attachments he puts before us. Prince Myshkin is divided between Aglaïa Epantchin and Nastasya Filippovna. “I love her with my whole heart,” he says, referring to Nastasya. “And at the same time you have declared your love for Aglaïa Ivanovna?” “Oh, yes, yes.” “How so? Then you must want to love both of them?” “Oh, yes, yes.” “Upon my word, Prince, think what you are saying.... Do you know what, the most likely thing is that you have never loved either of them! And how can you love two at once? That’s interesting!”[79] And each of the two heroines is likewise torn between two loves. Think too of Dmitri Karamazov between Grushenka and Natasya Ivanovna, and do not forget Versilov. Many another instance I could quote! You may think one of their loves was of the flesh, the other of the spirit. Much too obvious a solution, I consider. Besides, on this score, Dostoevsky is never perfectly straightforward. He leads us on to numerous suppositions, then leaves us in the lurch. It was not until I was reading _The Idiot_ for the fourth time that I became conscious of a fact now plain as daylight: all the whims and moods in Madame Epantchin’s attitude towards Prince Myshkin, all the hesitancy of Aglaïa, her daughter and the Prince’s betrothed, might well be due to the intuition these two women had (the mother in particular, of course) of some mystery in his character, and to their uncertainty whether he could prove an effectual husband. Dostoevsky lays stress several times on Prince Myshkin’s chastity, and doubtless this very chastity filled Madame Epantchin, his future mother-in-law, with uneasiness. “There is no doubt that the mere fact he could come and see Aglaïa without hindrance, that he was allowed to talk to her, sit with her, walk with her, was the utmost bliss to him; and who knows, perhaps he would have been satisfied with that for the rest of his life. It was just this contentment that Lizaveta Prokofyevna (Madame Epantchin) secretly dreaded. She understood him; she dreaded many a thing in secret, which she could not have put into words herself.”[80] And note what to me seems most important: in this instance, as indeed frequently, the less physical love is the stronger. I have no wish to force Dostoevsky’s idea. I do not suggest that divided love and absence of jealousy open up the way to complaisant community of possession, at least not always, no, nor necessarily: they lead rather to renunciation. But, as I reminded you, Dostoevsky is not over frank on this subject.... The question of jealousy preoccupied Dostoevsky unceasingly. In one of his first books, _Another Man’s Wife_, we find this paradox: Othello must not be looked upon as a typical example of real jealousy. Perhaps it behoved us to see in this contention nothing more than an urgent desire to go against current opinion.