Part One
Chapter VII

Lizaveta Prokofyevna claims her character feels very close to the Prince's: "Only you're a man and I'm a woman, and I've never been to Switzerland, that's all the difference."

Prince likens Aglaya's face to Nastasya Filippovna, and it confuses everyone. "Where did you see her?" They all ask. When the Prince leaves, Adelaida and Alexandra agree that "he's nice, but much too simple...so that he's even slightly ridiculous."

How can they say that? In their first conversation he talks of mock executions and paying alms to consumptive girls in Switzerland. He is anything but simple. I am sure they will eat their words in time.

Gavrila was embarrassed when Prince mentions Nastasya's portrait and calls him an idiot. But Ganya asks Prince a favor. He wants him to deliver a note to Aglaya and keep it a secret.

"There's so much suffering...in that face..." Prince says of Nastasya's portrait.

Sidenote: In Joseph Frank's biography, he claims Nastasya Fillipovna to be the strongest heroine in all of Dostoevsky's work. We shall see.

"Such beauty has power," Adelaida said hotly. "You can overturn the world with such beauty."

"A fool with a heart and no brains is as unhappy a fool with a heat but no brains, and you are a fool with brains but no heart; and we're both unhappy, and we both suffer." - Mrs. Epanchin to her daughter Alexandra

She inquires of Gavrila, are you getting married? Gavrila stutters and says no. Obviously lying. He gets mad at Prince, saying he blabbed, which is not true. Gavrila says in passing to Aglaya, "one word from you, and I'm saved." I guess he doesn't want her mother to know that he wants to marry her yet. But who'd want to marry Ganya? Aglaya hands the note to the Prince to read. His note says: break it all off. She says his soul is dirty, that's clear. What is going on here? Who does Aglaya plan to marry?

Ganya is pissed that Prince read it. Prince says "I'm very sorry that it makes such an unpleasant impression on you." but this doesn't soothe Ganya's countenance. He can't understand how Aglaya told Prince all the secrets, knowing him for two hours. No one can be mad at Prince for very long, though, with the way he deflects anger. He is very sweet toward his aggressor, and Ganya begs forgiveness.

Part One
Chapter VI

Adelaida requests of Prince a story of love, not death. At the end of chapter V, he says "I wasn't in love...I...was happy in a different way." We will see this in his next story.

The children at the Swiss hospital laughed at the Prince for kissing a poor, downtrodden girl named Marie (but he didn't kiss her because he was romantically interested in her, he pitied her and wanted to show he cared) She had TB and was weak, miserable, and not treated well. Marie took care of her mother who was ill but her mother was evil toward her. The children fought with the Prince but eventually convinced them to leave her alone. Soon, they treated her better and they learned to love and appreciate her. Marie was grateful and kissed the Prince's hands. They brought her treats and loved her until she died from her consumption. Her grave is still respected.

We learn that the Prince was called an idiot and childish here, 'They consider me an idiot, but I'm intelligent all the same, and they don't even suspect it..."
Prince inspects the faces of his female hosts and claims Adelaida Ivanovna has a happy face, the most sympathetic. Alexandra's is beautiful and sweet, but she has some secret sorrow, reminds him of Holbein's Madonna, which Dostoevsky saw in Dresden.

Of Lizaveta Prokofyevna's (Mrs. Epanchin) he says that he is certain she is a perfect child, in everything despite her age. How charming.

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.