1. The romantic realists: Realism, pure and romantic -- Balzac: the heightening of substance -- Dickens: realism, subjunctive and indicative -- Gogol: the apotheosis of the grotesque -- 2. The inheritor: Dostoevsky: The most fantastic city: approaches to a myth -- Evolution of the myth: from Poor folk to Notes from underground -- Apogee: Crime and punishment -- Poetics of the city.