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because such a feat, not to speak of its other aspects, must
be a decidedly unpleasant mode of escape; and yet there are
plenty of bridegrooms, intelligent fellows too, who would
be ready to confess themselves Podkoleosins in the depths
of their consciousness, just before marriage. Nor does every
husband feel bound to repeat at every step, ‘Tu l’as voulu,
Georges Dandin!’ like another typical personage; and yet
how many millions and billions of Georges Dandins there
are in real life who feel inclined to utter this soul-drawn
cry after their honeymoon, if not the day after the wedding!
Therefore, without entering into any more serious examina-
tion of the question, I will content myself with remarking
that in real life typical characters are ‘watered down,’ so
to speak; and all these Dandins and Podkoleosins actual-
ly exist among us every day, but in a diluted form. I will
just add, however, that Georges Dandin might have existed
exactly as Moliere presented him, and probably does exist
now and then, though rarely; and so I will end this scientific
examination, which is beginning to look like a newspaper
criticism. But for all this, the question remains,— what are
the novelists to do with commonplace people, and how are
they to be presented to the reader in such a form as to be
in the least degree interesting? They cannot be left out al-
together, for commonplace people meet one at every turn
of life, and to leave them out would be to destroy the whole
reality and probability of the story. To fill a novel with typi-
cal characters only, or with merely strange and uncommon
people, would render the book unreal and improbable, and
would very likely destroy the interest. In my opinion, the

The Idiot