[There’s a small laugh. He’d always maintained Poe was a fool for believing in him, hoping for better...but maybe Gogol was an even greater one for thinking he had no reason to.

At the apology, he smiles. It’s a mixture of sad and forgiving. To be apologetic for his fate was a level of compassion he shouldn’t really be afforded, but there was a comfort in it all the same.]

I’m not sure what I deserve at this point.

[He’s had a lot of time to think, but he hasn’t gotten far with it. He always thought his time alive was his sentence for his sins, and that, eventually, his deserved freedom would be in death. Now, after all this, it’s starting to feel a little backwards.]

But I’d like to make a request. The folder Edgar gave me before... [Before all this.] Is there a way to get a hold of it here?

[To think Dostoevsky would only use him felt blasphemous. But...in some part of him, his faith has faltered, ever so slightly.]