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The meticulous satirically celebrated bureaucracy is the central theme of Dostoyevsky’s unfinished fantasy The Crocodile. The dreamlike setting on the verge of becoming a nightmare, does not sink into its multiple abysses thanks to the humorous tone and the inconsistent and vulgar qualities of the protagonists. The story entitled Lazarus can, as if it were a personal fact, change our conception of the world, offer a reflection of Andreev’s painful fate in its crystal. Dostoyevsky experienced poverty first hand and was close to commiting suicide; his literary success was overshadowed by political persecution. He died in poverty, stripped like Lazarus, his protagonist, his alter ego, of all hope. It would not be an overstatement to say that the last story in the selection, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, by Lev Tolstoy, is one of the most notable in the history of literature. In theological terms, it would be appropriate to say that its key theme is salvation by grace, not by works. But this abstract definition may desecrate the certitude and unexpected splendour of the final pages.