Between tortured souls

Last night I bought a copy of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment to participate in this book club. (The Brothers Karamazov is sitting on my shelf, as yet unread.) I’m not sure how I feel about this - but I am guessing, and rather hoping, that this will be a somewhat light-hearted approach :) - which may be the only way I make it. The last Dostoevsky I read was A Gentle Spirit. That’s a terrible piece of writing (but a great work of literature all the same). It says on the back “A man lays bare his tortured soul”, after his wife commits suicide, and that about covers it. Here's how it ends:

Inertia ... Oh, nature! People are alone upon earth – that’s the terrible truth! ‘Is there anyone alive upon the plain?’ shouts the Russian epic hero. I too am shouting, but I am no epic hero, and no one replies. They say that the sun gives life to the universe. The sun will rise and, when it does, look at it – what is it but a corpse? Everything’s dead, and everywhere there are corpses. Only people are alive, and around them is silence – that’s the earth! ‘People, love one another’ – who said that? Whose teaching is that? The pendulum’s ticking heartlessly, repulsively. It’s two o’clock in the morning. Her shoes are on the floor by her little bed, as if they were waiting for her ... No, seriously though: when they come to take her away tomorrow, what will I do?

Someone tell me Crime and Punishment has a slightly happier ending!