Man­u­script Found in a Dead Man’s Pocket 

 

I, Rodi­on Romanovich Raskol­nikov, a des­ti­tute stu­dent in St. Peters­burg, dreamt about a pitch-dark stair­way that descend­ed to the bow­els of the earth, I dreamt of thou­sands of spi­ders spin­ning their cob­web in aban­doned ware­hous­es, I saw myself stand­ing in front of a dis­tort­ed mir­ror, the ax sus­pend­ed in mid-air for an instant, sav­age­ly strik­ing the old tree trunk and the old lady’s blood­shot eyes flash­ing in the dark. This world can­not be made in God’s image, com­pas­sion will nev­er exist, and all human­i­ty is noth­ing more or less than a grue­some dance of demons.

 

 

Trans­lat­ed from Greek by Richard Pierce

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