Nikolay Speshnev chapter of "Demons" when, in the midst of confessing to a terrible crime, he formulates the guiding idea of his life: "that I neither know nor feel good and evil and that I have not only lost any sense of it, but that there is neither good nor evil (which pleased me), and that it is just a prejudice." It is speculated that Dostoevsky also refers to Speshnev on one occasion in "The Idiot". The central character, Prince Myshkin, recounts a long conversation with "a certain S—", an erudite and well-bred man, on the subject of atheism. Nikolay Speshnev Nikolay
Prince Myshkin Nastasya Filippovna persistently reasserts the negative voice of her guilt in her words and actions, Myshkin remains in her consciousness as the voice of her innocence. Near the end of the novel, when Aglaya Ivanovna (with whom the Prince is in love) has become Nastasya Filippovna's accuser, Myshkin again defends her, telling Aglaya that the accusations are unjust. According to the narrator, Nastasya Filippovna "—though she sometimes behaved with such cynicism and impudence—was really far more modest, soft, and trustful than might have been believed... Myshkin understood this." —Parfyón Semyónovich Rogózhin (pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform ) After meeting Myshkin on