罪与罚 第1章(2/2)

rdoned and he was able to return to a civilian status. There followed the succession of novels which have made him known everywhere. In spite of his position as a man of letters, he suffered the worst hardships of economic insecurity. In addition, frequent attacks of epilepsy and the effects of his years in prison left him a crushed man. His last years were darkened by brooding sorrow. He withdrew from literary circles, became reactionary and embittered. Yet his popularity was then at its Zenith. His death was the occasion for national mourning, and in the years that followed he became almost a legendary hero to the Russian masses as the poet of their sufferings and aspirations. A revolutionary generation may look upon Dostoevsky as “defeatist,” but it ungrudgingly proclaims him one of the titans of the world’s literature.