The Meek One

"I could see that she was still terribly afraid, but I didn't soften anything; instead, seeing that she was afraid, I deliberately intensified it."

Bewertet: Buch (Taschenbuch)

In short, the story revolves around a man who falls in love with a young, impoverished woman who has endured nothing but hardship in her life. He persuades her to marry him, only to subject her to constant emotional abuse, ultimately driving her to suicide. He liked her “inequality” of age. The writing is magnificent, just as one would expect from Dostoevsky. However, I personally found it difficult to feel any sympathy for the pawnbroker protagonist in his forties. That said, despite the book’s short length, I often struggled to fully grasp what was happening. After reading other reviews, however, I get the sense that this might be more of a personal issue than a flaw in the book itself.