'Nechaev, Kulishov had denounced Nechaev . . The police enter and capture [presumably Nechaev].' Dostoevsky also

Demons

sketches a romantic rivalry between a Prince, 'a pathetic figure', and a Schoolteacher, obviously a moral exemplar; both are competing for the affections of a young girl called the Ward (Darya Shatov), who has been raised by the Prince's mother (Mme Stavrogin).When the Prince seduces the Ward, the mother wants to marry her off to the Schoolteacher with a dowry; but he refuses the dowry and becomes her friend instead. This plot intrigue, provisonally entitled Envy, ends with the Prince marrying the Ward because he wishes to emulate the superior moral qualities of the Teacher. There are also some other features of these early notes that foreshadow the final text. The locale of the action is set in a populous provincial society ('a large group gathered in the rural countryside'), and this somnolent and lethargic world has become infiltrated and undermined by Nihilist ideas. Nihilist ideas are being spread by 'a neighbor .. very wealthy, and with students'; even the morally positive Teacher is 'a Nihilist up to a point, does not believe'. One may see him as a protoype of the later Shatov, also a figure of sterling moral purity and wrestling with the problem of religious faith. Just how these two themes - the romantic and the political - will be interwoven is by no means clear; but the way forward is indicated by another note: 'Proclamations. Fugitive appearance of Nechaev, to kill the Teacher(?).' Dostoevsky's question mark indicates his uncertainty as yet, but he has introduced a political murder that intersects with the sentimental intrigue of Envy, and this is the path that he will continue to follow, interweaving the private and the political ever more closely as he goes along. His next task is to integrate this plot structure with the ideological conflict-of-generations theme that will provide his novel with so much of its satirical bite. An important aid in this task was a review article that N. N. Strakhov had written the year before about a recent biography of T. N. Granovsky, a liberal historian who had enjoyed a brief moment of fame in the 1840s. Strakhov had defined him as 'a pure Westernizer', who had sympathized with everything that was 'sublime and beautiful' in European culture, but who, like all the others of the same stripe, had nonetheless been one of the forefathers of the Russian Nihilism that the surviving members of this generation had since been denouncing. Indeed, the detestation was reciprocal, 'and the Nihilist children themselves have now taken to renouncing their fathers'. Whether Dostoevsky recalled this article, or had it at hand, it certainly inspired a note labelled ' T. M Granovsky . . a pure and idealistic Westernizer,' whose 'aimlessness and lack of firmness in his views .. which . . used to cause him suffering before ... have now become his second nature (his son makes fun of this tendency).' (italics in text) Dostoevsky wrote to Strakhov asking him to dispatch a copy of the book about Granovsky as quickly as possible, and in a later letter explains: 'I wish to speak out about several matters even though my artistry goes smash. What attracts me is what has piled up in my mind and heart; let it give only a pamphlet, but I shall speak out.'

Once Granovsky had become the prototype of the character representing the 1840s,

Dostoevsky could imagine him very clearly and concretely. 'Places himself unconsciously on a pedestal, in the style of relics to be worshipped by pilgrims, and loves it ... Shuns Nihilism and does not understand it .. "Leave me God and art, and I will let you have Christ" ..