"An Honest Thief"

More questions than answers. (But that's a good thing.)

You all did such a stupefyingly good job with “An Honest Thief.” Thank you for that. It’s always inspiring and rejuvenating to see the high level of discussion here.

Our collective discussion seemed to have revealed two loose ends that might be fun to discuss.

First: as raised by Merrie originally, I think: Why does the frame story not close?

And, raised by several of you: Is it possible that Astafy and Agrafena were in on the theft of the coat?

At one level, just the fact that we’re asking these questions is telling: by writing the story just exactly as he did, Dostoevsky “got” those concerns into our minds.  They’re part of the experience of reading the story.

But, like some of you, I feel, maybe, a slight sense of dissatisfaction with that ending.  Or, a sense of unexplored potential, maybe.

So, let’s look into these questions, remembering that we’re not proposing that Dostoevsky should have done anything differently.  It’s an amazing, enlightening, story.  Instead, we’re using this w…