Page 678 - the-idiot

I

WEEK had elapsed since the rendezvous of our two
A friends on the green bench in the park, when, one fine
morning at about halfpast ten o’clock, Varvara Ardalionov-
na, otherwise Mrs. Ptitsin, who had been out to visit a
friend, returned home in a state of considerable mental de-
pression.
There are certain people of whom it is difficult to say
anything which will at once throw them into relief—in
other words, describe them graphically in their typical
characteristics. These are they who are generally known as
‘commonplace people,’ and this class comprises, of course,
the immense majority of mankind. Authors, as a rule, at-
tempt to select and portray types rarely met with in their
entirety, but these types are nevertheless more real than
real life itself.
‘Podkoleosin’ [A character in Gogol’s comedy, The Wed-
ding.] was perhaps an exaggeration, but he was by no means
a non-existent character; on the contrary, how many intel-
ligent people, after hearing of this Podkoleosin from Gogol,
immediately began to find that scores of their friends were
exactly like him! They knew, perhaps, before Gogol told
them, that their friends were like Podkoleosin, but they did
not know what name to give them. In real life, young fellows
seldom jump out of the window just before their weddings,