"— And do you know, my interlocutor suddenly said to me—apparently long ago and deeply struck by his idea—do you know that no matter what you write, no matter what you bring forth, no matter what you point out in a work of art—never will you outdo reality. Whatever you depict—everything will come out weaker than in reality. You think you achieved in the piece the most comedic thing in a well-known phenomenon of life and caught its ugliest side—nothing of the sort! Reality will immediately present you with, in the same kind, such a phase that you hadn’t even proposed yet—exceeding everything that your own observation and imagination could possibly create!…"
F.M. Dostoevsky
Contents:
Two Suicides
The Little Hero
A Weak Heart
The Landlady
Bobok
The Crocodile
Polzunkov
Mr. Prokharchin
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man
A Novel in Nine Letters