The
Dream Of a Ridiculous Man
Fyodor
Dostoevsky
(Translated by
Constance Garnett)
III
I have mentioned that I
dropped asleep unawares and even seemed to be still reflecting on
the same subjects. I suddenly dreamt that I picked up the
revolver and aimed it straight at my heart - my heart, and not my
head; and I had determined beforehand to fire at my head, at my
right temple. After aiming at my chest I waited a second or two,
and suddenly my candle, my table, and the wall in front of me
began moving and heaving. I made haste to pull the trigger.
In dreams you sometimes fall
from a height, or are stabbed, or beaten, but you never feel pain
unless, perhaps, you really bruise yourself against the bedstead,
then you feel pain and almost always wake up from it. It was the
same in my dream. I did not feel any pain, but it seemed as
though with my shot everything within me was shaken and
everything was suddenly dimmed, and it grew horribly black around
me. I seemed to be blinded, and it benumbed, and I was lying on
something hard, stretched on my back; I saw nothing, and could
not make the slightest movement. People were walking and shouting
around me, the captain bawled, the landlady shrieked - and
suddenly another break and I was being carried in a closed
coffin. And I felt how the coffin was shaking and reflected upon
it, and for the first time the idea struck me that I was dead,
utterly dead, I knew it and had no doubt of it, I could neither
see nor move and yet I was feeling and reflecting. But I was soon
reconciled to the position, and as one usually does in a dream,
accepted the facts without disputing them.
And now I was buried in the
earth. They all went away, I was left alone, utterly alone. I did
not move. Whenever before I had imagined being buried the one
sensation I associated with the grave was that of damp and cold.
So now I felt that I was very cold, especially the tips of my
toes, but I felt nothing else.
I lay still, strange to say
I expected nothing, accepting without dispute that a dead man had
nothing to expect. But it was damp. I don't know how long a time
passed - whether an hour or several days, or many days. But all
at once a drop of water fell on my closed left eye, making its
way through the coffin lid; it was followed a minute later by a
second, then a minute later by a third - and so on, regularly
every minute. There was a sudden glow of profound indignation in
my heart, and I suddenly felt in it a pang of physical pain.
"That's my wound," I thought; "that's the bullet .
. ." And drop after drop every minute kept falling on my
closed eyelid. And all at once, not with my voice, but with my
entire being, I called upon the power that was responsible for
all that was happening to me:
"Whoever you may be, if
you exist, and if anything more rational than what is happening
here is possible, suffer it to be here now. But if you are
revenging yourself upon me for my senseless suicide by the
hideousness and absurdity of this subsequent existence, then let
me tell you that no torture could ever equal the contempt which I
shall go on dumbly feeling, though my martyrdom may last a
million years!"
I made this appeal and held
my peace. There was a full minute of unbroken silence and again
another drop fell, but I knew with infinite unshakable certainty
that everything would change immediately. And behold my grave
suddenly was rent asunder, that is, I don't know whether it was
opened or dug up, but I was caught up by some dark and unknown
being and we found ourselves in space. I suddenly regained my
sight. It was the dead of night, and never, never had there been
such darkness. We were flying through space far away from the
earth. I did not question the being who was taking me; I was
proud and waited. I assured myself that I was not afraid, and was
thrilled with ecstasy at the thought that I was not afraid. I do
not know how long we were flying, I cannot imagine; it happened
as it always does in dreams when you skip over space and time,
and the laws of thought and existence, and only pause upon the
points for which the heart yearns. I remember that I suddenly saw
in the darkness a star. "Is that Sirius?" I asked
impulsively, though I had not meant to ask questions.
"No, that is the star
you saw between the clouds when you were coming home" the
being who was carrying me replied.
I knew that it had something
like a human face. Strange to say, I did not like that being, in
fact I felt an intense aversion for it. I had expected complete
non-existence, and that was why I had put a bullet through my
heart. And here I was in the hands of a creature not human, of
course, but yet living, existing. "And so there is life
beyond the grave," I thought with the strange frivolity one
has in dreams. But in its inmost depth my heart remained
unchanged. "And if I have got to exist again," I
thought, "and live once more under the control of some
irresistible power, I won't be vanquished and humiliated."
"You know that I am
afraid of you and despise me for that," I said suddenly to
my companion, unable to refrain from the humiliating question
which implied a confession, and feeling my humiliation stab my
heart as with a pin. He did not answer my question, but all at
once I felt that he was not even despising me, but was laughing
at me and had no compassion for me, and that our journey had an
unknown and mysterious object that concerned me only. Fear was
growing in my heart. Something was mutely and painfully
communicated to me from my silent companion, and permeated my
whole being. We were flying through dark, unknown space. I had
for some time lost sight of the constellations familiar to my
eyes. I knew that there were stars in the heavenly spaces the
light of which took thousands or millions of years to reach the
earth. Perhaps we were already flying through those spaces. I
expected something with a terrible anguish that tortured my
heart. And suddenly I was thrilled by a familiar feeling that
stirred me to the depths: I suddenly caught sight of our sun! I
knew that it could not be our sun, that gave life to our earth,
and that we were an infinite distance from our sun, but for some
reason I knew in my whole being that it was a sun exactly like
ours, a duplicate of it. A sweet, thrilling feeling resounded
with ecstasy in my heart: the kindred power of the same light
which had given me light stirred an echo in my heart and awakened
it, and I had a sensation of life, the old life of the past for
the first time since I had been in the grave.
"But if that is the
sun, if that is exactly the same as our sun," I cried,
"where is the earth?"
And my companion pointed to
a star twinkling in the distance with an emerald light. We were
flying straight towards it.
"And are such
repetitions possible in the universe? Can that be the law of
Nature? . . . And if that is an earth there, can it be just the
same earth as ours . . . just the same, as poor, as unhappy, but
precious and beloved for ever, arousing in the most ungrateful of
her children the same poignant love for her that we feel for our
earth?" I cried out, shaken by irresistible, ecstatic love
for the old familiar earth which I had left. The image of the
poor child whom I had repulsed flashed through my mind.
"You shall see it
all," answered my companion, and there was a note of sorrow
in his voice.
But we were rapidly
approaching the planet. It was growing before my eyes; I could
already distinguish the ocean, the outline of Europe; and
suddenly a feeling of a great and holy jealousy glowed in my
heart.
"How can it be repeated
and what for? I love and can love only that earth which I have
left, stained with my blood, when, in my ingratitude, I quenched
my life with a bullet in my heart. But I have never, never ceased
to love that earth, and perhaps on the very night I parted from
it I loved it more than ever. Is there suffering upon this new
earth? On our earth we can only love with suffering and through
suffering. We cannot love otherwise, and we know of no other sort
of love. I want suffering in order to love. I long, I thirst,
this very instant, to kiss with tears the earth that I have left,
and I don't want, I won't accept life on any other!"
But my companion had already
left me. I suddenly, quite without noticing how, found myself on
this other earth, in the bright light of a sunny day, fair as
paradise. I believe I was standing on one of the islands that
make up on our globe the Greek archipelago, or on the coast of
the mainland facing that archipelago. Oh, everything was exactly
as it is with us, only everything seemed to have a festive
radiance, the splendour of some great, holy triumph attained at
last. The caressing sea, green as emerald, splashed softly upon
the shore and kissed it with manifest, almost conscious love. The
tall, lovely trees stood in all the glory of their blossom, and
their innumerable leaves greeted me, I am certain, with their
soft, caressing rustle and seemed to articulate words of love.
The grass glowed with bright and fragrant flowers. Birds were
flying in flocks in the air, and perched fearlessly on my
shoulders and arms and joyfully struck me with their darling,
fluttering wings. And at last I saw and knew the people of this
happy land. That came to me of themselves, they surrounded me,
kissed me. The children of the sun, the children of their sun -
oh, how beautiful they were! Never had I seen on our own earth
such beauty in mankind. Only perhaps in our children, in their
earliest years, one might find, some remote faint reflection of
this beauty. The eyes of these happy people shone with a clear
brightness. Their faces were radiant with the light of reason and
fullness of a serenity that comes of perfect understanding, but
those faces were gay; in their words and voices there was a note
of childlike joy. Oh, from the first moment, from the first
glance at them, I understood it all! It was the earth untarnished
by the Fall; on it lived people who had not sinned. They lived
just in such a paradise as that in which, according to all the
legends of mankind, our first parents lived before they sinned;
the only difference was that all this earth was the same
paradise. These people, laughing joyfully, thronged round me and
caressed me; they took me home with them, and each of them tried
to reassure me. Oh, they asked me no questions, but they seemed,
I fancied, to know everything without asking, and they wanted to
make haste to smoothe away the signs of suffering from my face.
II
IV