Manuscript Found …

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