Frank McCourt

There was a book in the ship’s library, Crime and Punishment, and 
I thought it might be a good murder mystery even if it was filled with 
confusing Russian names. I tried to read it in a deck chair but the 
story made me feel strange, a story about a Russian student, Raskol- 
nikov, who kills an old woman, a moneylender, and then tries to 
convince himself he’s entitled to the money because she’s useless to 
the world and her money would pay for his university expenses so 
that he could become a lawyer and go round defending people like 
himself who kill old women for their money. It made me feel strange 
because of the time in Limerick when I had a job writing threatening 
letters for an old woman moneylender, Mrs Finucane, and when she 
died in a chair I took some of her money to help me pay my fare to 
America. I knew I didn’t kill Mrs Finucane but I took her money 
and that made me almost as bad as Raskolnikov and if I died this 
minute he’d be the first one I’d run into in hell. I could save my soul 
by confessing to the priest and even though he’s supposed to forget 
your sins the minute he gives you absolution he’d have power over 
me and he’d give me strange looks and tell me go charm the rich 
Protestants from Kentucky. 

I fell asleep reading the book and a sailor, a deckhand, woke me 
to tell me, Your book is getting wet in the rain, sir. Frank McCourt