"A Gentle Creature" (Russian: Кроткая, romanized: Krotkaya), sometimes also translated as "The Meek One", is a short story by Fyodor Dostoyevsky written in November 1876.
A first-person stream of consciousness narrative, the piece comes with the subtitle of "A Fantastic Story", and it chronicles the relationship between a pawnbroker and a girl that frequents his shop.
The narrator is the owner of a pawnshop, and one of his repeated customers was a young girl of sixteen who always pawns items to earn money to advertise as a governess in the newspaper.
A dearth of communication and disagreements about how the pawnshop should be run eventually result in arguments, though the narrator insists that they never quarreled.
Throughout the entire winter the narrator watches his wife furtively, and a watershed moment happens when she begins to sing in his presence.
The narrator is convinced that he was only five minutes too late, even though it was ultimately his narcissistic love that drove his gentle wife to suicide.
[3] The characterization of the narrator and his wife's suicide are meant as a criticism of what Dostoyevsky refers to as kosnost or spiritual stagnation that results from material pursuits.
[citation needed] In 2017, Sergei Loznitsa adapted the story into the feature film A Gentle Creature, which was selected and had its world premiere in the Official Competition at the 2017 Festival de Cannes.