As explained in the previous article, Prince Myshkin has conquered the Epanchin ladies, but at what cost: he has angered Gania and this one is so angry that the Prince Myshkin almost refuses to go with him to his house - showing that, even though he is meek and soft, he does not accept to be mistreated:

Of course your anger is excusable, considering the treatment you have just experienced; but I must remind you that you have twice abused me rather rudely. I do not like this sort of thing, and especially so at the first time of meeting a man, and, therefore, as we happen to be at this moment standing at a crossroad, don’t you think we had better part, you to the left, homewards, and I to the right, here?

Aware that it would put him in a dangerous situation vis-a-vis the General, his employer, Gania apologies an they go to his lodging: a six-seven-rooms apartment for his family and some lodgers, but Dostoyevsky leaves no doubt about the fact that Gania is “the tyrant of the family”. His ambitions and his greed make him lament his affairs: he feels he deserves better.

Prince Myshkin is welcomed quite politely by Gania’s mother and sister and brother, but it’s two other people who make a deep impression on him so far: Ferdishenko, a useless lodger, who warns him not to lend him any money, but especially the (retired) General Ivolgin himself, who seem to know Prince Myshkin, going as far as to state:

“I carried you in my arms as a baby,” he observed.

However, the souvenirs of the General are quite blurry: he confuses the patronym of Myshkin’s father and his regiment name. Is he inventing or has he memory issues? It turns out that the General Ivolgin is the real idiot of the book, maybe, and he loses no time to let the Prince into the family’s secrets and his opposition to the wedding programmed between Gania and Nastasia:

They wish to bring this woman into the house where my wife and daughter reside, but while I live and breathe she shall never enter my doors. I shall lie at the threshold, and she shall trample me underfoot if she does. I hardly talk to Gania now, and avoid him as much as I can.

And once again Prince Myshkin is in the crossfire because Gania’s sister has found Nastasia’s portrait in her brother’s affairs and they understand that the wedding is almost decided. When Gania discovers what they are talking about, he immediately accuses the Prince once again of meddling into his affairs:

I see, you are here, that explains it! Is it a disease, or what, that you can’t hold your tongue?

The things get so heated that Prince Myshkin prepares to leave the place and go to his room. However, fate has it that he passes by the door when a visitor wants to enter and he is there to open the door to none other than … Nastasia herself! I confess I was really delighted and shocked to see such an important character appear so suddenly and unceremoniously at the end of that chapter. Dostoyevsky has taken great care to set the stage for her entrance and here she appears at the door.

She is instantly quite rude and haughty, but has lost not her charm on Myshkin, who remains mute and flabbergasted by her appearance (like we are).

Of course, the shock she produces on Myshkin is nothing compared with the shock she produces on the whole family when she enters:

Gania was motionless with horror. Nastasia’s arrival was a most unexpected and overwhelming event to all parties. In the first place, she had never been before. Up to now she had been so haughty that she had never even asked Gania to introduce her to his parents.

It is obvious that Gania is the main character of this chapter. He is full of shame and confusion. He had not intended this scene to happen (at least not so soon and not before the wedding) and feels trapped between the two forces of his life: his family and his (probable) future wife. He is acutely aware that both hate and despise each other and feels like he is getting crushed between them:

He was experiencing a last humiliation, the bitterest of all, at this moment—the humiliation of blushing for his own kindred in his own house.

The worst happens when the General, Gania’s father, appears at the door and is introduced to Nastasia. In contrast with what he said earlier to Myshking, the General does not try to stop and throw the woman out: he can’t help but be as obsequious and ridiculous as possible, for Gania’s shame, and the worse is that Nastasia is encouraging him, and the scene culminates with the “poodle story”: a quite funny story about what happened in a train carriage long ago.
However, the problem is the General cannot be trusted, and Nastasia loses no time in ruining his moment of glory:

“But wait,” said Nastasia. “How is it that, five or six days since, I read exactly the same story in the paper, as happening between a Frenchman and an English girl? The cigar was snatched away exactly as you describe, and the poodle was chucked out of the window after it. The slapping came off, too, as in your case; and the girl’s dress was light blue!”

But before the scene can go further, the General’s pride and Gania’s soul are saved by an unexpected noise at the door: some new people are coming in! And spoiler alert: it’s not the end of the humiliation for Gania nor the end of the problems for the poor Prince Myshkin!

At the end of chapter 8, the unexpected appearance of Nastasia to the poor Prince Myshkin is so startling that I gasped myself:

The prince took down the chain and opened the door. He started back in amazement—for there stood Nastasia Philipovna. He knew her at once from her photograph. Her eyes blazed with anger as she looked at him. She quickly pushed by him into the hall, shouldering him out of her way, and said, furiously, as she threw off her fur cloak:“If you are too lazy to mend your bell, you should at least wait in the hall to let people in when they rattle the bell handle. There, now, you’ve dropped my fur cloak—dummy!”

I think I would have felt exactly the same as the Prince at that moment.

Also, I really enjoyed the two stories told by the General Ivolgin. If Prince Myshkin told the stories in the previous chapters, it’s now the turn of the general to entertain the gallery with two quite interesting stories: the story of the soldier Kolpakoff who was taken as dead even if he was not (a strange case of doppelganger maybe) and the story of the poodle thrown out of the train!

In the Ivolgin family the gloves are off between Gania and his brother, sister, father and mother. It contrasts quite strongly with the (outward) calm and luxury of the Epanchin family. It’s interesting to note that Myshkin seems to be welcomed just as much in both families. Myshkin is a man who has no problem finding his ground wherever he goes, that’s for sure, even if he blunders badly sometimes due to his honesty and naivety. Myshkin has really a talent also to be at the wrong place at the wrong time… I confess that I didn’t expect Nastasia to appear so soon in the story, nor in such a domestic scene. She is even more obnoxious as I everyone said she would be. You kind of feel for poor Gania, but somehow, seeing how he treats his family and the Prince, you just think that he deserves it somehow.