After a quick paragraph of scene-setting, Dostoevsky gets the narrative of The Idiot running with the second sentence of the second paragraph: "Если б они оба знали один про другого, чем они особенно в эту минуту замечательны, то, конечно, подивились бы, что случай так странно посадил их друг против друга в третьеклассном вагоне петербургско-варшавского поезда." ... "If they had known what was so remarkable about each other at that moment, they would certainly have marvelled at the chance that had strangely seated them facing each other in the third-class carriage of the Warsaw-St Petersburg train."
What is it, we want to know, that is so "замечательны", so "remarkable" or "wonderful" about these figures. Surely we too shall shortly "marvel." We read on.
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