In memories-impressions of the main character of the novel «Idiot» on the Swiss nature, the tin cross and the condition before attacks of epilepsy the mechanism of mingling past with present based on the internal logic of hero’s subconsciousness is traced. External events are only a certain external impulse activating and provoking the work of thought, connecting the events of external life with those of spiritual life, which allows to estimate past events from the point of view of the present and actually is a way of mastering the reality.