Marie

Marie is a poor, consumptive Swiss peasant girl whose tragic story forms the emotional core of Prince Muishkin's recollections of his years in Switzerland. She embodies the prince's defining trait—a boundless, active compassion that seeks out the most wretched and abandoned—and serves as the bridge through which he wins the love of the village children, a relationship he cherishes above all others.

Identity and Background

Marie was the daughter of an old, ill widow who sold string, thread, soap, and tobacco from the window of their little house, living on the pittance this trade brought in. The girl herself was about twenty years old, weak, thin, and consumptive, but she performed heavy work at the houses around the village day by day. She had never been pretty even before her ruin, but her eyes were quiet, innocent, and kind. A commercial traveler betrayed and carried her off, then deserted her after a week. She returned home dirty, draggled, and shoeless, having walked for a whole week without shoes, slept in the fields, caught a terrible cold, and torn and scratched her hands all over. Her mother was the first to cast her into ignominy, receiving her wrathfully and with contempt, saying, "You have disgraced me." The entire village crowded into the little cottage—old men, children, women, girls—to stare at her as she lay on the floor at the old woman's feet, hungry, torn, draggled, crying, and miserable. Everyone looked at her as though she were a piece of dirt off the road; the old men scolded and condemned, the young ones laughed at her, and the women condemned her too, looking at her contemptuously as though she were some loathsome insect. Her mother allowed all this to go on, nodding her head and encouraging them, and though she was dying, she never forgave her daughter, making her sleep on straw in a shed and hardly giving her food enough to support life. Marie bore all this quietly, thinking herself the lowest and meanest of creatures.

The Prince's Intervention and the Kiss

Prince Muishkin, who had no money of his own at the time, sold a little diamond pin to a traveling pedlar for eight francs—it was worth at least forty—and long sought to meet Marie alone. He finally found her on the hillside beyond the village. He gave her the eight francs and asked her to take care of the money because he could get no more; then he kissed her and said that she was not to suppose he kissed her with any evil motives or because he was in love with her, for he did so solely out of pity for her, and because from the first he had not accounted her as guilty so much as unfortunate. He longed to console and encourage her somehow, and to assure her that she was not the low, base thing which she and others strove to make out. She stood before him, dreadfully ashamed of herself, and with downcast eyes; when he had finished she kissed his hand. He would have kissed hers, but she drew it away. Just at this moment the whole troop of children saw them—they had long kept a watch upon him—and they all began whistling and clapping their hands, and laughing at them. Marie ran away at once, and when the prince tried to talk to the children, they threw stones at him. All the village heard of it the same day, and Marie's position became worse than ever; the children would not let her pass now in the streets, but annoyed her and threw dirt at her more than before, running after her while she raced away with her poor feeble lungs panting and gasping.

The Children's Transformation

After the prince had to interfere by force, he took to speaking to the children every day and whenever he could. He told them how unhappy Marie was, and after a while they stopped their abuse of her and let her go by silently. Little by little they began to converse together, the children and the prince, and he concealed nothing from them. At last some of them took to saying "Good-morning" to her kindly when they met her. Once two little girls got hold of some food and took it to her, and came back and told the prince that she had burst into tears and that they loved her very much now. Very soon after that they all became fond of Marie, and at the same time they began to develop the greatest affection for the prince himself. The children, believing that the prince was in love with Marie—a point on which he did not undeceive them, for they got such enjoyment out of it—actually clubbed together, somehow, and bought her shoes and stockings, some linen, and even a dress. When the clergyman preached a sermon holding Marie up to public derision and shame at her mother's funeral, the children were so angry that some of them went and broke his windows with stones, though the prince stopped them. The children were forbidden to meet Marie, but they used to run out of the village to the herd and take her food and things, and sometimes just ran off there and kissed her, saying, "Je vous aime, Marie!" and then trotted back again.

Illness, Death, and Legacy

Marie had become very ill and could hardly walk. She still went with the herd, but could not help the herdsman any longer; she used to sit on a stone near, and wait there almost motionless all day, till the herd went home. Her consumption was so advanced, and she was so weak, that she used to sit with closed eyes, breathing heavily, her face as thin as a skeleton's, and sweat standing on her white brow in large drops. The prince used to come up quietly to look at her; Marie would hear him, open her eyes, and tremble violently as she kissed his hands. He did not take his hand away because it made her happy to have it, and so she would sit and cry quietly. Sometimes she tried to speak, but it was very difficult to understand her; she was almost like a madwoman, with excitement and ecstasy, whenever he came. One day she could not go out at all, and remained at home all alone in the empty hut, but the children very soon became aware of the fact, and nearly all of them visited her that day as she lay alone and helpless in her miserable bed. For two days the children looked after her, and then, when the village people got to know that Marie was really dying, some of the old women came and took it in turns to sit by her and look after her a bit. Marie lay in a state of uncomfortable delirium the whole while, coughing dreadfully. The old women would not let the children stay in the room, but they all collected outside the window each morning, if only for a moment, and shouted "Bon jour, notre bonne Marie!" and Marie no sooner caught sight of or heard them than she became quite animated at once, and, in spite of the old women, would try to sit up and nod her head and smile at them, and thank them. The little ones used to bring her nice things and sweets to eat, but she could hardly touch anything. Thanks to them, the prince later reflected, the girl died almost perfectly happy, almost forgetting her misery, and accepting their love as a sort of symbol of pardon for her offence, though she never ceased to consider herself a dreadful sinner. They used to flutter at her window just like little birds, calling out, "Nous t'aimons, Marie!" She died very soon; the prince had thought she would live much longer. The day before her death he went to see her for the last time, just before sunset, and she pressed his hand. Next morning they came and told him that Marie was dead. The children could not be restrained now; they went and covered her coffin with flowers, and put a wreath of lovely blossoms on her head. The pastor did not throw any more shameful words at the poor dead woman, but there were very few people at the funeral. However, when it came to carrying the coffin, all the children rushed up, to carry it themselves. Of course they could not do it alone, but they insisted on helping, and walked alongside and behind, crying. They have planted roses all round her grave, and every year they look after the flowers and make Marie's resting-place as beautiful as they can.

Thematic Significance

Marie's story is the most complete example within the novel of Prince Muishkin's philosophy of active, non-judgmental compassion. It demonstrates his belief that children understand everything and that one can tell a child anything, and it is through his openness with the children about Marie that he wins their love. The episode also serves as a contrast to the adult world of St. Petersburg, where the prince's similar attempts at compassion—toward Nastasia Philipovna, for instance—are met with suspicion, scandal, and tragedy. Marie, in her utter passivity and acceptance of her own guilt, is the pure object of pity, and the prince's love for her is entirely free of the passion and jealousy that complicate his relationships in Russia. Schneider, the prince's doctor, later said that the prince did the children great harm by his pernicious "system" concerning Marie, and that he believed the prince was a child himself—"You have the form and face of an adult, but as regards soul, and character, and perhaps even intelligence, you are a child in the completest sense of the word, and always will be, if you live to be sixty." The prince laughed very much, for of course that is nonsense, but the judgment underscores how Marie's story crystallizes the prince's essential, childlike nature.