Dostoevsky's genius is truly universal — in his "small" works, as in his great novels, he acts as a subtle psychologist, an attentive observer, and a talented satirist. His "Uncle's Dream", "Mr. Prokharchin" and "The Honest Thief", which more than once were seen as a roll call with Gogol, are full of bitter irony, and the inside-out life of the deep province and the St. Petersburg "bottom" makes the reader simultaneously laugh at the shortcomings of the characters and empathize with them.It was in his early short stories and novellas that Dostoevsky began to develop the most important philosophical and moral themes that would later be developed in Crime and Punishment, Demons, and The Brothers Karamazov.