You're a seasoned translator of Dostoevsky, has your translation process changed from project to project? Did translating The Idiot differ from other Dostoevsky novels you've tackled?

My translation process has remained the same throughout my career as a translator. I generate a rough draft, relying mostly on the Russian original, but I glance at previous translations only if I get stuck. I move chapter by chapter through the text and read every chapter through after I finish the first draft; I make numerous corrections and improvements. When my rough draft Is complete, I deliver it to my native-speaker assistant, who checks my draft against the original. After I receive my draft back from her, I review my work and make another set of corrections. Then when the entire draft Is ready, it goes to the copy editor, who makes another set of corrections and suggestions. Finally, I reread the whole draft and make a last set of changes.

At the end of November, during a warm spell, at about nine o’clock in the morning, the Petersburg–Warsaw train was approaching Petersburg at full speed. It was so damp and foggy that dawn was barely breaking; at ten paces, to the right and left of the railway tracks, it was difficult to distinguish almost anything from the train window. Among the passengers there were some who were returning from abroad. The third-class compartment was the most crowded of all: most of the passengers were average folks and those traveling on business who were not coming from very far away. Everyone was tired, as usual; they all looked weary after a night’s voyage; all were chilled and their faces were pale yellow, the color of the fog.

In one of the third-class cars, since daybreak, two passengers had found themselves sitting opposite each other next to the window—both were young, both were traveling light, unfashionably dressed, with rather remarkable features; and, in the end, both were eager to strike up a conversation with the other. If each had known at that moment what made them particularly remarkable, then of course they would have been surprised that chance had seated them opposite each other in a third-class railway car on the Petersburg–Warsaw train. One of them was of average height, about twenty-seven years old, with curly, almost black hair and small, but fiery gray eyes. His nose was broad and flattened and he had high cheekbones; his thin lips were constantly curled in some sort of insolent, sarcastic, even wicked grin; but his forehead was high and well shaped, and it did a great deal to make up for the ignobly developed lower part of his face.

A deathly pallor was especially noticeable in his appearance, imparting to the young man’s entire physiognomy an emaciated appearance, in spite of his rather sturdy build, as well as something passionate to the point of suffering, which seemed not to correspond to his insolent, impolite grin and his harsh, self-satisfied look. He was warmly dressed, wearing a wide black lambskin overcoat, and he hadn’t felt the cold at night, while his fellow passenger had experienced all the delights of a damp Russian November night, for which he was obviously unprepared. He was wearing a rather large, thick cloak with an enormous hood, exactly the same as travelers often wear during the winter months in distant foreign lands, in Switzerland, for example, or in northern Italy, not counting on such long stretches of railway as between Eydkuhnen and Petersburg.

But what was appropriate and in every way satisfactory in Italy turned out not to be so suitable in Russia. The owner of the cloak with the hood also happened to be a young man, some twenty-six or twenty-seven years old, of slightly above-average height, with very thick, fair hair, hollow cheeks, and a sparse, pointed, almost completely white little beard. His eyes were large, blue, and piercing; there was something gentle but serious in his look, something full of that strange expression that makes one guess at first glance that the subject is suffering from epilepsy. The young man’s face, however, was pleasant, refined, and drawn, though colorless and, at this very moment, blue from the cold. A small bundle of old, faded silk dangled from his hands; it apparently contained all his travel belongings. He wore thick-soled shoes and gaiters—all distinctly un-Russian. The black-haired fellow in the lambskin coat noticed it all, in part from having nothing else to do, and at last asked him, with a tactless smile, the sort that people sometimes put on casually and unceremoniously to express their pleasure at the misfortune of others:

“Cold, isn’t it?”