Sentence No. 68 · 3 June 2026
It seemed as if there could be no resisting it; as though I should act like a bug, like a venomous spider, without a spark of pity
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoevsky — The Brothers Karamazov (1880) · Read it at Project Gutenberg
What holds this sentence together
The semicolon here links two parallel "as if / as though" clauses that both complete the same opening idea. Whenever you see that pairing, the second clause belongs after the semicolon — never before "It seemed."
How it appears in Sentle
On Sentle this sentence arrives in 8 pieces, shuffled, with the lines that lead up to it for context. A young man recalls a moment of cruel calculation as a desperate woman stands before him. Putting it back in the author’s order is the puzzle — and the order is rarely arbitrary, which is what the note above is about.
A new sentence from a great book, every day.
Play today’s sentenceFree, no account. Or play this one — it will give the answer away.