Myshkin meets Rogozhin on the train to Saint Petersburg and hears about Rogozhin's obsessive love for Nastasya.

Myshkin visits the Epanchin family, impresses General Epanchin, and secures a job and lodging at Ganya's apartment.

Nastasya arrives uninvited at Ganya's apartment and is followed shortly after by a drunken crowd led by Rogozhin.

Ganya swings his fist at his sister Varya during a confrontation but accidentally strikes Myshkin in the face.

Myshkin attends Nastasya's birthday party uninvited and is warmly welcomed by Nastasya herself.

Nastasya asks Myshkin's opinion on her proposed marriage to Ganya, and he advises her to refuse.

Nastasya seizes Rogozhin's packet of 100,000 rubles and throws the money into the burning fireplace.

Nastasya declines Myshkin's marriage proposal and chooses to leave the birthday party with Rogozhin.

Myshkin and Rogozhin exchange crosses in a gesture that makes them sworn brothers.

Rogozhin ambushes Myshkin with a knife, but a sudden epileptic seizure saves Myshkin's life.

The Epanchin family hosts a grand dinner party to formally introduce Myshkin to Saint Petersburg high society.

Myshkin delivers a passionate speech about religion, accidentally breaks Madame Epanchin's Chinese vase, and collapses in an epileptic fit.

Nastasya and Aglaya meet and force Myshkin to choose between them; his brief hesitation breaks Aglaya's heart.

Nastasya spots Rogozhin in the wedding crowd and abandons Myshkin at the altar to elope with Rogozhin.

Rogozhin stabs Nastasya and lays her body on his bed; discovering this, Myshkin loses his mind completely.

Prince Myshkin arrives in Saint Petersburg as a penniless but charming young man, quickly becoming entangled in the turbulent world surrounding the beautiful Nastasya Filippovna. At Nastasya's birthday party, he advises her against a loveless marriage, proposes to her himself, and watches as she dramatically burns Rogozhin's fortune before leaving with him. After Myshkin returns from Moscow, he and Rogozhin exchange crosses as brothers before Rogozhin attempts to murder him with a knife, only for Myshkin to be saved by an epileptic seizure. Welcomed into the Epanchin social circle, Myshkin pursues a complicated romance with Aglaya, culminating in a formal dinner party where he accidentally shatters an expensive vase and collapses in a fit. A confrontation between Aglaya and Nastasya forces Myshkin to choose between them, and his hesitation is enough to drive Aglaya away forever. Nastasya ultimately abandons Myshkin at the altar to elope with Rogozhin, who murders her, leaving Myshkin mentally broken and confined to a Swiss sanitarium.

The headline events of Myshkin's doomed attempt to save Nastasya.

Myshkin tells the Epanchin daughters about Marie, a Swiss girl he pitied after her village cruelly ostracized her.

Ganya privately admits to Myshkin that he plans to marry Nastasya solely for Totsky's promised financial reward.

A drunken General Ivolgin leads Myshkin on a long pointless journey around the city that ends at his secret mistress's house.

Ferdyshchenko proposes a party game in which each guest must confess the worst thing they have ever done.

Totsky confesses to secretly sabotaging a friend's romance with a bouquet of flowers, indirectly causing the friend's death in battle.

Nastasya publicly announces she is releasing Totsky from all financial obligations and will leave the apartment he pays for.

Myshkin proposes to Nastasya at the party and reveals he has recently inherited a large sum of money.

Nastasya pulls Rogozhin's money from the flames and leaves the entire sum behind for Ganya before departing.

Myshkin returns to Saint Petersburg after six months in Moscow, where false debt claims have greatly reduced his inheritance.

Nastasya abandons Rogozhin on the day they had planned to marry, fleeing from him before reaching the altar.

Myshkin recovers from an epileptic attack at Lebedev's dacha while the Epanchin family arrives to pay him a visit.

Burdovsky claims to be Pavlishchev's illegitimate son; Ganya presents evidence that decisively disproves the fraudulent claim.

Nastasya whips a man who publicly insults her, and Myshkin steps between them to prevent retaliation.

Ippolit reads his manifesto aloud to Myshkin's birthday guests and announces his plan to shoot himself at sunrise.

General Ivolgin suffers a second fatal stroke after a major quarrel with his son Ganya.

These events develop the cynical, self-interested world of Saint Petersburg that surrounds Myshkin at every turn. Myshkin's story about the pitied Swiss girl Marie reveals his capacity for empathy, while Ganya's private admission that he is marrying for money exposes the hollowness of the society around him. The birthday party's confession game strips several characters bare, and Nastasya's dramatic declaration of independence from Totsky sets the central conflict fully in motion. After six months in Moscow, Myshkin returns to find that Nastasya has already jilted Rogozhin once at the altar, and that the Pavlovsk dachas are thick with intrigue, fraudulent claims, and social rivalry. The nihilists' dishonest demand, a public altercation in the park, Ippolit's theatrical manifesto, and General Ivolgin's fatal stroke all accumulate around Myshkin as the novel drives toward its tragic conclusion.

The supporting scenes and social maneuvers that shape the novel's moral world.

Myshkin studies a portrait of Nastasya and is struck by her beauty but also detects deep tragedy in her face.

The novel reveals that Totsky sexually abused the orphaned Nastasya while she was entrusted to his care as a young girl.

Aglaya hands Ganya's note back to Myshkin, declaring Ganya a weak coward whose soul is dirty.

Rogozhin confesses to Myshkin that he once violently beat Nastasya, leaving her covered in bruises.

Myshkin and Rogozhin discuss a painting of the dead Christ and Rogozhin implies he has lost his faith in God.

Aglaya recites a poem about a poor knight and pointedly substitutes Nastasya's initials into the verse to mock Myshkin.

Ippolit attempts to shoot himself in front of the assembled party guests, but the pistol fails to fire.

Aglaya wakes Myshkin in the park, reveals she wants to run away from home, and asks for his help.

Myshkin reads letters in which Nastasya urges Aglaya to marry Myshkin, revealing Nastasya's painful self-denial.

Nastasya unexpectedly drops to her knees in the park and kisses Myshkin's hands before leaving with Rogozhin.

Aglaya demands Myshkin confirm directly whether he is proposing to her; he confesses his love and asks her to marry him.

Lebedev confesses to Myshkin that he secretly wrote the anonymous letter exposing Aglaya's correspondence with Nastasya.

As Myshkin tries to follow the fleeing Aglaya, Nastasya faints into his arms and prevents him from leaving.

Rogozhin confesses to murdering Nastasya, is tried, and is sentenced to fifteen years in a Siberian prison camp.

Aglaya elopes with a man she believes to be a Polish count and discovers he has fabricated his title and wealth.

These events trace the hidden emotional currents and pivotal discoveries that drive the novel's tragedy beneath the surface of its social drama. From Myshkin's earliest instinct that Nastasya's beauty conceals deep suffering to the revelation of Totsky's abuse, the emotional stakes of the story are established long before the action erupts. Rogozhin's confessions about violence and lost faith, the discussion of the dead Christ painting, and Aglaya's pointed recitation of the poor knight poem gradually expose the fractures in every relationship. Ippolit's failed suicide attempt, Nastasya's self-sacrificing letters to Aglaya, and Lebedev's confession about the anonymous letter each deepen the sense of inevitable ruin closing in around Myshkin. The final turning points — his proposal to Aglaya, Nastasya's farewell kiss in the park, and her fainting to prevent Myshkin from leaving — seal the outcome, which ends with Rogozhin imprisoned in Siberia and Aglaya abandoned by a fraudulent husband.

The private revelations and emotional turning points driving the novel's tragedy.