{"id":"01KFE0GJHFNERCGFEHS8K9BS57","cid":"bafkreicio6pfdiu2zn3rtdn2xkio5vp7h2wtp33fmmc4x33pmdzq4gnuzi","type":"file","properties":{"cid":"bafkreia4dd6ou3tjfldm2j3ebzak5rzyes56g4ftu3tckdnihcqopmr4cm","content_type":"image/jpeg","filename":"crimepunishment00dostiala_page_0518.jpg","key":"pdf-page-1768923089181-znug4jodmx","label":"crimepunishment00dostiala_page_0518.jpg","page_number":518,"pdf_type":"born_digital","size":208850,"text":"510 CRIME AND PUNISHMENT\ncourse, the letter of the law was broken and blood was shed.\nWell, punish me for the letter of the law . . , and that's enough.\nOf course, in that case many of the benefactors of mankind\nwho snatched power for themselves instead of inheriting it\nought to have been punished at their first steps. But those men\nsucceeded and so they were right, and I didn't, and so I had no\nright to have taken that step.\"\nIt was only in that that he recognised his criminality, only\nin the fact that he had been unsuccessful and had confessed it.\nHe suffered too from the question: why had he not killed\nhimself? Why had he stood looking at the river and preferred to\nconfess? Was the desire to live so strong and was it so hard to\novercome it? Had not Svidrigailov overcome it, although he\nwas afraid of death?\nIn misery he asked himself this question, and could not under-\nstand that, at the very time he had been standing looking into\nthe river, he had perhaps been dimly conscious of the funda-\nmental falsity in himself and his convictions. He didn't under-\nstand that that consciousness might be the promise of a future\ncrisis, of a new view of life and of his future resurrection.\nHe preferred to attribute it to the dead weight of instinct\nwhich he could not step over, again through weakness and mean-\nness. He looked at his fellow prisoners and was amazed to see\nhow they all loved life, and prized it. It seemed to him that they\nloved and valued life more in prison than in freedom. What\nterrible agonies and privations some of them, the tramps for\ninstance, had endured! Could they care so much for a ray of\nsvmshine, for the primeval forest, the cold spring hidden away in\nsome unseen spot, which the tramp had marked three years be-\nfore, and longed to see again, as he might to see his sweetheart,\ndreaming of the green grass round it and the bird singing in the\nbush? As he went on he saw still more inexplicable examples.\nIn prison, of course, there was a great deal he did not see and\ndid not want to see; he lived as it were with downcast eyes. It\nwas loathsome and unbearable for him to look. But in the end\nthere was much that surprised him and he began, as it were\ninvoluntarily, to notice much that he had not suspected before.\nWhat surprised him most of all was the terrible impossible gulf\nthat lay between him and all the rest. They seemed to be a\ndifferent species, and he looked at them and they at him with","text_extracted_at":"2026-01-20T15:31:29.181Z","text_extracted_by":"pdf-processor","text_has_content":true,"text_source":"born_digital","uploaded":true},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFCZZ05FKVDDMJJV3YE9Q4WH","peer_label":"crimepunishment00dostiala.pdf","peer_type":"file","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KESYJX0Z6XE0HWTS5N3SDG0B","peer_label":"The Classics","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-20T15:31:29.543Z","ts":"2026-01-20T15:31:30.614Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFCZWTBNJH4WFMS8354919KY"}}