Poor Folk

Makar Devushkin is an aging, impoverished clerk. Varvara Dobroselova is a young woman worn down by loss and disgrace. Living across a squalid Petersburg courtyard from each other, too poor and too proper to simply visit, they write — letter after letter, filled with small kindnesses, borrowed books, and the quiet dignity of two people refusing to let poverty erase their humanity. Dostoyevsky's deb...