La sumisa

"Imagine a husband who has before him, on the table, his wife, who has committed suicide by throwing herself out of the window. The husband is still in a daze, he has not yet had time to concentrate. He goes back and forth through the rooms of his house making an effort to take charge of what happened, to 'fix his thoughts on one point'. In addition, he is an inveterate hypochondriac, one of those who talk to himself. Also at that moment he is talking to himself, he tells what happened, he clarifies it. Despite the apparent intertwining of his speech, he contradicts himself several times, both in terms of logic and sentiment, justifying himself, accusing her, and engaging in tangential explanations in which the vulgarity of ideas and affections joins the depth of thought. Little by little he clarifies what happened and concentrates 'thoughts in one point'. Several of the evoked memories finally lead him to the truth, which, whether he wants it or not, raises understanding and his heart. The ending changes even the tone of the story, compared to the messiness of the beginning. The unfortunate discovers the truth quite clearly and with concrete profiles, at least for himself". This is how Dostoyevsky addresses his readers to introduce them to The Submissive, published in 1876, one of the last stories to emerge from the pen of the great writer Russian, while working on what would be his last novel The Brothers Karamazov.