ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the infinite alternation between the desire to seize upon the present moment and the impossibility of seizing it. It demonstrates the heroes are compelled to return to the traumatic side of their life, hoping to make sense of and even master it. The chapter suggests that the epileptic existence demands that Dostoevsky's heroes live in infinite postponement. It illuminates the point about postponement by looking at Maurice Blanchot's The Instant of My Death. The point about postponement in The Instant of My Death can be seen as a commentary on Dostoevsky's post-execution, post-Siberian, and posthumous novels. Both the Prince and Ippolit are fascinated by the instant of death; they are anxious to reflect on it and hope to understand it. However, death and epilepsy — appearing in the form of 'sudden death' — always elude these desires, causing them to be infinitely missed and postponed.
