Part One
Chapter V

Now Mrs. Epanchin gets to sit down with her supposed relative, Prince Myshkin. We hear about his time in Switzerland, how his illness (possibly epilepsy) had made him miserable on the drive from Russia, and then he felt better as the illness subsided. He was roused by "the braying of an ass" in the market, and it "struck him terribly" but he took an "extraordinary liking to it" which is related to the writings of Apoleius and Shakespeare's a Midsummer Night's Dream, a footnote says. I don't understand the significance, though.

Mrs. Epanchin says Prince is a "most kind young man", which Prince defers, saying that "sometimes I'm not". Mrs. Epanchin that is her only failing, because "one should not always be kind"...and that she's often angry.

Prince speaks of his dreams of Naples and all kinds of life. Adelaida says he is a "philosopher and you have to come to teach us" which the Prince agrees with, and digresses into the story about Dostoevsky's mock execution: which I quote from this translation:

...The ignorance of and loathing for this new thing that would be and would come presently were terrible; yet he said that nothing was more oppressive or him at that moment than the constant thought: 'What if I were not to die! What if life were given back to me - what infinity! And it would all be mine! Then I'd turn each minute into a whole age, I'd lose nothing, I'd reckon up every minute separately, I'd let nothing be wasted!' He said that in the end this thought turned into such anger in him that he wished they would hurry up and shoot him."

Fascinating and hauntingly beautiful. Also it seems that the Prince is strangely preoccupied with death.

They talk of execution, Prince inquires of Adelaida, what if you asked for a picture of a condemned man a minute before the guillotine stroke?
Prince says he saw a picture in Basel like that, which footnote says is probably the Beheading of St. John the Baptist by Hans Fries. Which I am trying to find online unsuccessfully.
Another long talk of D's mock execution, he impresses all the women in the room with it.