125 8 Loving Villains: Virtue in Response to Wrongdoing Kamila Pacovská It is an interesting fact about Dostoevsky’s novels that the most villainous characters are loved only by the most saintly ones. In Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov, who brutally murdered two old women, confesses his crime to Sonia, who is deeply shocked but swears to follow him to jail. To quote another example, father Karamazov seems to repre- sent a character without any redeeming quality in the novel The Brothers Karamazov. He is a completely selfish person who indulges in the most base pleasures and who never did good to anyone. There is only one person who is able to show any affection for him, and that is his youngest son Alyosha, who contemplates joining the monastery. Both Sonia and Alyosha are depicted as saintly characters, and this saintliness is revealed in their ability to love unconditionally, yet without any blindness. Whereas in Dostoevsky love for the most villainous reveals a degree of saintliness, it is quite the other way around in the work of Jane Austen, whom many consider almost a scholar in the field of love. There, love for a dishonest and morally corrupt person betrays moral insensitivity or at least dangerous naiveté. In Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the main character, Elizabeth, is a prominent example of a person who accepts and rejects people for moral reasons. The disclosure of Wickham’s unscrupulous and dissolute character produces a quick sobering of her affection for him. Darcy, on the other hand, whose reputation is thereby cleared, gains moral respect and gradually love. Elizabeth’s deep moral concern can be contrasted with that of her foolish younger sister Lydia who elopes with Wickham. The message in Jane Austen is clear: it is right to keep our distance from villains, and keeping them close means overlooking and condoning the wrongs they have done. 1 The difference between the two approaches is striking and disqui- eting. Is the fact that someone loves a morally flawed person, or even