The dark and disturbing conclusion to The Idiot

As Richard Pevear discusses in his introduction to Fyodor Dostoevsky's "The Idiot," apparently Dostoevsky began with the concept of creating a "beautiful" character who is Christ-like; it would seem his initial intent was to have Prince Myshkin function in the novel as some kind of savior, one who rescues the sinner (Nastasya Fillipovna) and brings her to salvation - and the novel seems to be heading that way until the very last chapters. Prince Myshkin is indeed beautiful and in a sense too good for the world in which he lives, completely unable to lie or dissemble and incapable of thinking others will do so, which makes him vulnerable the plots and machinations of others in his tight little Russian social set. In the last section, when he intrudes on the meeting between the two great rivals for his love, the tempestuous but innocent Aglaya and the fallen woman, Nastasya, he rejects Aglaya and aligns himself with Nastasya because "she looks so sad" - in other words, he must save her rather than choose the woman whom he probably should marry. So what happens? The wedding with Nastasya is planned but on the day of the wedding she runs off with the wealthy Rogozhin, who has been Myshkin's antagonist from the outset. Myshkin, completely out of concern for the well-being of N., follows them to Petersburg where ultimately he finds them in Rogozhin's apartment: Rogozhin has stabbed her to death, using the same knife with which he'd once attacked Myshkin. They spend the night in the apartment, weeping, delirious. A group of friends finds them, with the dead N., the next morning. Finally, in his coda, Dostoevsky brings us up to date on all of the characters: R. sentenced to 15 years in Siberia, which he takes stoically, A. marries a bounder who claims to be a Polish wealthy emigre but turns out to be a fake, Prince Myshkin ends up back in the Swiss sanitarium, completely deranged, as his doctor calls him: an idiot, just as he was immediately before the novel began. So he is not a figure who redeems but a figure who suffers for his innocence and in a sense brings suffering rather than peace to others - a much darker novel that we (or even D?) has expected, darker than C&P or the Brothers K., with its beautiful conclusion with the young boys pledging their friendship in memory of the one among them who died. D. may be saying that there can be no human embodiment of Christ on earth - which may be the significance of his several meditations on the painting of Christ at the Tomb: what if Jesus were only human?, he asks. Would he have subjected himself to such torture? Would anyone worship one who did so? In a way, The Idiot may be an exploration of that question - what happens to one in this world who is pure and good? The answer is ugly.