The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales: Including Stories by Feodor Mikhailovitch Dostoyevsky, Jörgen Wilhelm

In Short

This eighteen-volume collection brings together continental European tales of crime, madness, and psychological dread. Across Russian, Danish, and Hungarian narratives, characters wrestle with ruinous desires, spiritual guilt, and tragic misunderstandings. A cold-hearted officer attempts to force a deadly secret from an elderly countess; a desperate student calculates the murder of a pawnbroker only to find himself undone by conscience; a well-meaning magistrate sends an innocent pastor to the gallows; and aristocrats fall victim to elaborate scams and generational curses. It endures as a landmark anthology of early European mystery, demonstrating how human weakness and moral failure create their own inescapable traps.

The Story

The volume opens in Russia with the story of Hermann, an economical young officer who attends high-stakes card parties merely to watch. Intrigued by a legend surrounding the elderly Countess Anna Fedorovna—who allegedly possesses a secret three-card sequence guaranteed to win at gambling—Hermann becomes consumed by a desire to obtain her secret. He manipulates the Countess’s young ward, Lizaveta, to gain access to the house late at night. Confronting the old woman with an unloaded pistol, Hermann demands her secret, but the shock kills her. Though he feels no explicit remorse, a guilty conscience and superstitious dread drive him to attend her funeral. Soon after, visions and dark coincidences overtake him, converting his meticulous discipline into madness.

In another Russian urban nightmare, the impoverished student Raskolnikoff obsessively plots the murder of a sharp-nosed old pawnbroker, Alena Ivanovna. Armed with a hidden hatchet, he visits her apartment under the guise of pawning a silver cigarette case. After striking her down, he is plunged into a feverish panic that worsens when he is summoned to the police bureau on an unrelated matter. Suspected by the sharp examining magistrate, Porphyrius Petrovitch, Raskolnikoff engages in a harrowing game of psychological cat-and-mouse. Porphyrius sees through the student's erratic behavior and quietly cornering him, urges him to confess rather than suffer the torment of his own guilt. Elsewhere in St. Petersburg, criminal plots run rampant: high-society swindlers led by Baroness von Döring lure wealthy bureaucratic "pigeons" into rigged card games and carry out cold-blooded robberies along dark, subterranean canals, while grieving widows and corrupt servants quietly poison or plunder dying aristocrats.

The collection shifts to Denmark in a tale of tragic judicial error. A countryside pastor, Sören Quist of Veilbye, gets into a heated quarrel with his insolent servant, Niels Bruus. After striking the man with a spade, the pastor watches him flee into the woods. When Niels disappears entirely, malicious rumors spread that the pastor killed him and buried the body. Twisted by guilt, false testimonies, and his own frayed imagination, the pastor comes to believe he might actually have committed the crime while sleepwalking, ultimately suffering execution for a murder that never occurred. Years later, the true, broken Niels returns to reveal he had merely been bribed to flee, causing the magistrate who sentenced the pastor to die of a sudden stroke upon realizing his horrific mistake.

Finally, Hungarian stories explore romantic revenge, bloody border clashes, and fatalistic family legacies. A young hussar named Imre navigates the ravages of war, burning castles, and mountain ambushes in a desperate search for his lost love, Jolanka, relying on the honor of a enemy commander named Numa. In another tale, Balint, the last descendant of the cursed Orzo family, reflects on his father's suicide and resolves to let his lineage die with him, refusing to pass along his family's existential poison to another generation.

How It Unfolds

A night at the green cloth Hermann sits up until dawn watching his fellow Russian officers gamble away fortunes, fascinated by the play yet firmly refusing to risk his own money until he hears the legend of the old Countess’s secret.

The lethal confrontation Hermann slips into the Countess’s home through a secret staircase with the help of Lizaveta, only to terrify the elderly woman into a fatal heart attack when he demands her card secret at gunpoint.

A stroke of the hatchet Overcome by poverty and cold calculation, the student Raskolnikoff enters the gloom of Alena Ivanovna’s apartment, takes out a hidden axe, and strikes the old pawnbroker dead.

The magistrate’s trap Porphyrius Petrovitch corners Raskolnikoff in his office, explicitly telling the trembling student that he knows he is the murderer and advising him to confess to save his own mind.

Ambush beneath the cathedral Count Kallash is taken on a night time boat ride through the pitch-black underground canals of St. Petersburg by Baroness von Döring, where he is struck unconscious and robbed by her accomplice.

A fateful quarrel In Denmark, the hot-tempered Rector Sören Quist strikes his lazy servant Niels Bruus with a garden spade, sending the servant running off into the woods and sparking disastrous local gossip.

An innocent man condemned Goaded by malicious witnesses and his own confused, credulous imagination, the pastor accepts execution for murder, only for the real Niels to reappear decades later and expose the court’s monstrous error.

A vow in the mountains The hussar Imre discards his uniform to search the wilderness for Jolanka, swearing to rescue her from a band of mountain outlaws after discovering his ancestral home in ashes.

The end of a bloodline Balint Orzo recounts his father's tragic suicide to a friend, declaring that he will never marry or father a child, ensuring his family's dark legacy dies out forever.

The People

• Hermann: A disciplined, economical German engineer living in Russia. His absolute control over his passions gives way to an obsessive greed for an old Countess's gambling secret, leading him to commit indirect murder and descent into madness.
• Countess Anna Fedorovna: An elderly, petrified aristocrat who holds a mysterious, legendary secret for winning at cards. Her sudden death under Hermann's threats initiates his psychological collapse.
• Rodion Raskolnikoff: An impoverished, proud student living in St. Petersburg. He commits a horrific, calculated murder with an axe, but his fragile nerves and overwhelming guilt turn his life into a feverish ordeal.
• Porphyrius Petrovitch: A cunning, highly observant examining magistrate. He uses keen psychological insight and sharp banter to corner Raskolnikoff into admitting his guilt without needing physical evidence right away.
• Baroness von Döring: A glamorous, cunning ringleader of a gang of high-society sharpers. She uses her luxurious salon and charm to lure wealthy men into rigged games and dark traps.
• Sören Quist: A strong, deeply religious Danish pastor with a fierce temper. His quick outburst against an uncooperative servant leads to a tragic misunderstanding that causes him to accept a death sentence for a crime he did not commit.
• Niels Bruus: An insolent, stubborn servant whose sudden disappearance after a fight sparks the rumors that destroy Pastor Quist.
• Imre: A brave young hussar who travels across war-torn landscapes and mountain passes in search of his missing love, Jolanka.
• Balint Orzo: The haunted survivor of a noble lineage who chooses isolation over perpetuating his family's inherited curse.

In Its Own Voice

"He has never had a card in his hand in his life, he has never in his life laid a wager; and yet he sits here till five o'clock in the morning watching our play."

An officer at Naroumoff’s card party expresses his amazement at Hermann’s complete refusal to gamble despite his deep fascination with the game.

"He pulled out the hatchet, raised it with both hands, and let it descend without force, almost mechanically, on the old woman's head."

Raskolnikoff stands in the closed, hot room of the old pawnbroker, striking the lethal blow that shatters his life.

"Oh, what is man that he shall dare to sit in judgment over his fellows! God alone is the Judge. He who gives life may alone give death!"

A Danish observer reflects on the terrible fallibility of human courts after learning that an innocent pastor was executed for murder.

What It's Really About

The collection digs into the fragility of human reason when confronted with greed, guilt, and pride. Across its varying settings, the stories ask whether a person can ever truly commit a cold, calculated act without being destroyed from within. Characters like Hermann and Raskolnikoff believe they can master their circumstances through intellect alone, only to find that conscience and superstition act as forces beyond their control. Similarly, the Danish and Hungarian tales illustrate how human judgment is routinely blinded by prejudice, malice, or existential despair. Ultimately, the collection argues that true punishment is rarely delivered by external laws alone; it is generated from within by the terrible weight of one's own actions and legacy.

Why Read It Today

This collection offers an exceptional look at nineteenth-century continental suspense, long before the modern detective story became standardized. Readers who enjoy psychological dread, moral complexity, and dark historical atmospheres will find plenty to absorb. The prose moves fluidly between the aristocratic card rooms of St. Petersburg, cramped student garrets, misty Scandinavian villages, and remote Hungarian forests.

It does, however, demand some patience. Readers must navigate period-specific attitudes, melodrama, and dense descriptions of social etiquette or legal procedures that reflect their time. Some of the narrative turns rely on uncanny coincidences or dramatic, romantic speeches that feel distinctly nineteenth-century. Yet these elements are far outweighed by the book’s sharp characterizations and tense atmospheric pacing. It remains a fascinating read for anyone interested in seeing how Russian psychological realism, Nordic gothic drama, and Eastern European romance intersected to shape early mystery literature.