The Insulted and Humiliated

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

In this novel we see a young man madly in love with a girl from a moderately poor family. This girl falls in love with a very aristocratic prince-- a man without principles, but charming in his childish egotism-- extremely attractive by his sincerity, and with a full capacity for quite unconsciously committing the worst crimes toward those with whom life brings him into contact. The psychology of both the girl and the young aristocrat is very good, but where Dostoyevsky appears at his best is in representing how the other young man, rejected by the girl, devotes the whole existence to being her humble servant and again his own will become instrumental in throwing her into the hands of the aristocrat.