In the Madhouse

The novella “In the Hospital for the Insane” is a continuation of “The Diary of a Provincial in Petersburg.” As a consequence of the “variety of Petersburg life,” the provincial ends up in a madhouse. There he meets his great-cousin, the cornet Vanya Potseluev, who plays a very prominent role in the society of the insane—thanks to the stubbornness and integrity of his very strange beliefs. Vanya has “ideals” and “dreams.” He dreams of the Spanish Queen Isabella, about horses, about an international circus. He could live with these dreams for his whole life, while still in his right mind and firm memory.
“But the time of reforms came and at once brought down that powerful organism, bringing up all the nonsense that had hitherto lain at the bottom of the soul.”

The brilliant Russian satirist M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, using vivid images of the heroes of his novella, showed that madness in itself is, above all, an exposure of those human ideals that, in normal conditions, a person does not dare to show. The whole difference between a healthy person and a madman is that the first assumes a certain boundary between ideals and reality, while the second recognizes no such difference in this sense.