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
Fyodor Dostoevsky children, while Dostoevsky stayed in St Petersburg to continue with his "Diary". In March 1874, Dostoevsky left "The Citizen" because of the stressful work and interference from the Russian bureaucracy. In his fifteen months with "The Citizen", he had been taken to court twice: on 11 June 1873 for citing the words of Prince Meshchersky without permission, and again on 23 March 1874. Dostoevsky offered to sell a new novel he had not yet begun to write to "The Russian Messenger", but the magazine refused. Nikolay Nekrasov suggested that he publish "A Writer's Diary" in "Notes of the Fatherland"; he