embitterment which will bring them to commit some crime, followed by repentance the very next instant after it has been done. In _Downtrodden and Offended_ we see a young man madly in love with a girl from a moderately poor family. This girl falls in love with a very aristocratic prince--a man without principles, but charming in his childish egotism--extremely attractive by his sincerity, and with a full capacity for quite unconsciously committing the worst crimes towards those with whom life brings him into contact. The psychology of both the girl and the young aristocrat is very good, but where Dostoyévskiy appears at his best is in representing how the other young man, rejected by the girl, devotes the whole of his existence to being the humble servant of that girl, and against his own will becomes instrumental in throwing her into the hands of the young aristocrat. All this is quite possible, all this exists in life, and it is all told by Dostoyévskiy so as to make one feel the deepest commiseration with the poor and the down-trodden; but even in this novel the pleasure which the author finds in representing the unfathomable submission and servitude of his heroes, and the pleasure they find in the very sufferings and the ill-treatment that has been inflicted upon them--is repulsive to a sound mind. The next great novel of Dostoyévskiy, _Crime and Punishment_, produced quite a sensation. Its hero is a young student, Raskólnikoff, who deeply loves his mother and his sister--both extremely poor, like himself--and who, haunted by the desire of finding some money in order to finish his studies and to become a support to his dear ones, comes to the idea of killing an old woman--a private money-lender whom he knows and who is said to possess a few thousand roubles. A series of more or less fortuitous circumstances confirms him in this idea and pushes him this way. Thus, his sister, who sees no escape from their poverty, is going at last to sacrifice herself for her family, and to marry a certain despicable, elderly man with much money, and Raskólnikoff is firmly decided to prevent this marriage. At the same time he meets with an old man--a small civil service clerk and a drunkard who has a most sympathetic daughter from the first marriage, Sónya. The family are at the lowest imaginable depths of destitution--such as can only be found in a large city like St. Petersburg, and Raskólnikoff is brought to take interest in them. Owing to all these circumstances, while he himself sinks deeper and deeper into the darkest misery, and realises the depths of hopeless poverty and misery which surround him, the idea of killing the old money-lending woman takes a firm hold of him. He accomplishes the crime and, of course, as might have been foreseen, does not take advantage of the money: he even does not find it in his excitement; and, after having lived for a few days haunted by remorse and shame--again under