John T. Noonan Jr. the reflections of Prince Myshkin, is "the most important, perhaps the sole law of human existence." Feodor Dostoevsky, "The Idiot", 292 (Alan Myers, trans.) (1991). In the vernacular, compassion is trumps. No one can read the accounts of the sufferings of the deceased plaintiffs supplied by their declarations, or the accounts of the sufferings of their patients supplied by the physicians, without being moved by them. No one would inflict such sufferings on another or want them inflicted on himself; and since the horrors recounted are those that could attend the end of life anyone who reads of them must
Prince Myshkin the train to Petersburg in the opening scene of the book, Rogozhin labels him a "yurodivy" (holy fool). In the Eastern Orthodox tradition the "yurodivy" was usually a greatly respected figure. According to Frank, "though the gentlemanly and educated Prince bears no external resemblance to these eccentric figures, he does possess their traditional gift of spiritual insight." Rogozhin, sensing the Prince's unique qualities, immediately makes him his confidant and tells him the story of his obsession with Nastasya Filippovna. Later in the novel when, out of jealousy, Rogozhin has developed a hatred for him, Myshkin continues to treat Rogozhin as