Society of Jesus

The Jesuits appear briefly in Golyadkin’s inner argument as a borrowed moral precedent, not as participants in the action. Their supposed rule that any means are justified if the end is attained helps him imagine that he can evade the social boundary of Olsufy Ivanovitch’s ball; when he finally enters, however, the principle offers no protection from the attention and embarrassment he feared.

The Principle as Private Justification

While hiding on the back stair landing, Golyadkin turns his long wait into an argument about timing and means. He recalls a maxim about patience, then invokes what he takes to be the Jesuits’ rule: that any means are justified so long as the end is achieved. The reference gives an abstract moral formula a practical purpose. He applies it to the immediate problem of getting into the rooms, imagining that he can move from the refreshment room through the tea room and card room and into the ballroom without being noticed.

The setting makes the reasoning concrete and uneasy. Golyadkin has spent nearly three hours concealed in the cold, among a cupboard, an old screen, and miscellaneous rubbish, while waiting for an opening. He tells himself that the refreshment-room door, which opens onto the passage where he is hiding, will provide his chance. The Jesuits’ supposed maxim does not lead him to weigh the rightness of his aim; it lets him treat the desired outcome as sufficient reason to cross the threshold.

From Concealment to Exposure

Golyadkin’s plan depends on secrecy: he expects to slip through the rooms and reach the ball without being noticed. Instead, after abruptly dashing in, removing his overcoat and hat, and passing between excited card players, he finds himself facing Klara Olsufyevna. He has jostled a councillor, stepped on an elderly woman’s dress and torn it, and collided with a servant carrying a tray on the way. The very passage he imagined as a covert route makes his unauthorized arrival increasingly conspicuous.

The crowd falls silent and gathers around him. Golyadkin stammers through his congratulations and good wishes, blushes, and fixes an imploring look on Andrey Filippovitch, whose response deepens his humiliation. The Jesuits are mentioned again as Golyadkin struggles to persist, but the allusion has shifted from a confident rationale to an ironic counterpoint: invoking a rule about means and ends cannot make his entry socially successful or control how others respond.

Narrative Function

The episode makes the Jesuits’ maxim part of Golyadkin’s self-persuasion rather than an independently established statement about Jesuit practice. He draws on historical and literary references to steady himself, but those references cannot bridge the gap between his imagined plan and the scene unfolding around him. The contrast is sharpened by the narrator’s account of his hidden, hesitant position and his sudden forward rush: an elaborate justification culminates not in an achieved end but in exposure before the assembled company.

The allusion therefore helps frame the ball’s central reversal. Golyadkin treats entry as a problem of tactics, imagining that a justified end will validate whatever route he takes; the actual consequence is that his passage into the gathering draws attention to him and intensifies his shame. The Jesuits remain a brief point of reference, but their alleged principle marks the distance between the outcome he reasons himself toward and the outcome he encounters.