I’m choked up thinking of the way Dostoevsky writes about Alexei in his introductory chapter. Writing the life back into a lost child must be quite the emotional experience. I have to assume the great lengths the narrator goes to extol Alexei’s many virtues is rooted deeply in the grief Dostoevsky felt over the loss of his two children and his wish to give them the adulthood they’d never see.
“Indeed everyone loved this young man wherever he appeared”
I’m sure that was entirely true 😭














