the dream of a ridiculous man

7/28/2019 The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

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The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

Written by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Translated by R.E. Parrish

Cover art by Jacki Chiu

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I.

I am a ridiculous man.

Nowadays, they call me a madman. This would be an

improvement of sorts, if I didnt remain just as ridiculous as everin their eyes. But now I dont care, because now they are all dearto me, even when they laugh at me in fact, precisely then, theyare all the dearer. I would laugh with them not at myself, butout of love for them, if it werent so heartbreaking for me even tolook at them. Heartbreaking because they dont know the truth,and I do. Oh, how heavy it is to know this truth! But they dont

understand. No, not at all.

In the past, I was upset at seeming ridiculous. Or rather, notseeming, but being. I have always been ridiculous, and I knowthat, maybe, I have been since my very birth. It may have been atseven years old that I realized that I was ridiculous. Then I wentto school, and then to university and I found that the more I

studied, the more fully I comprehended my own ridiculousness. Itseemed that all of the university-level sciences existed only toexplain and prove to me, more and more as I delved further andfurther into study, that I was ridiculous.

And as it went in the sciences, so it went in life. It grew in me,every year, this concept that I was the most ridiculous gure inevery one of my relationships. Everyone always laughed at me.But they didnt know not one of them guessed that if therewas one person on this earth aware of the fact that I wasridiculous, it was myself, and what vexed me more than anythingwas that they didnt know that. But it was my own fault I was

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always so proud that I never admitted it to anyone. This pridehad grown within me over the years, and Im sure that if I hadever allowed myself to admit to anyone that I was ridiculous, Iwould have shot myself the very same evening. Oh, how I

tortured myself in my youth, thinking that I might slip up andadmit it to my classmates!

But as I grew older, despite knowing more and more about myhorrible quality, I became somehow calmer. I say somehow,because I still dont understand why. Maybe it was due to thestrange hollowness growing in my soul, and which was becoming

innitely more pervasive by the day, the realization thatabsolutely anywhere in the world, it was all the same. For a longtime, this idea had lurked in some corner of my mind, almostunseen, but last year, it suddenly and fully emerged. All of asudden, I felt that it would be the same to me if the worldcontinued to exist, or if it didnt. In fact, I began to feel thatnothing existed at all.

At rst, I gured that some things must have existed in the past,but then I supposed that there hadnt been anything then, either,and that it only seemed so to us now. Little by little, I becameconvinced that there also wouldnt be anything in the future.

Then, I stopped getting angry with people, and almost didnttake any notice of them. This was manifested in very small ways:

for example, I would knock into people as I walked through thestreets. And this wasnt because I was lost in thought what did Ihave to think about? I had simply stopped thinking altogether,because nothing mattered to me. It would have been nice if Icould have answered any of my own questions; oh, but not a

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single one was answered, and I had so very many! But to me,everything was the same, nothing mattered, and thus all of myquestions disappeared.

And then, after that, I realized the truth. I realized this truth lastNovember on the third of November, to be precise and fromthis time on, I remember every moment.

It was a gloomy evening, the gloomiest possible evening. Ireturned home at eleven oclock at night, and I rememberthinking that there couldnt possibly be a gloomier time of day.Even in a physical sense. The rain had been pouring all day, and

it was the most cold and dreary rain I had ever seen. As I recall,it could even be called formidable it seemed to have some kindof explicit hostility to mankind. But suddenly, just before theeleventh hour, the rain stopped. In crept a horrible humidity,even greyer and colder than the rain had been, and there rosesome kind of mist, from every stone on the street and from thefurthest reaches of every alley. I suddenly thought that it would

be more comforting if all the gas streetlights were extinguished,because when they were lit everything was illuminated and visiblymiserable.

I had barely eaten that day, and in the early evening, I had beensitting with a certain engineer and two other friends. I was sittingcompletely silent, and it seemed that I was boring them. They

were talking about something in a deant tone, and had seemedeven to get worked up over it. But to them, too, everything wasall the same, and I could see that they were only pretending tocare. I had suddenly said to them: Gentlemen, you dont reallycare, do you? They hadn't been offended, but had simply

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laughed at me. They did this because I had said it without anynote of reproach, because I didnt care about anything either.They could see it, and they had been amused by it.

While I was out and about, thinking about the gas streetlamps, Iglanced up at the sky. It was horribly dark, but one could clearlydistinguish a patchwork of clouds, and between the clouds werescraps of bottomless black. Suddenly, I observed a little star inone of these black spots, and began to stare at it xedly. This stargave me an idea: I resolved this night to kill myself.

Two months previously, I had decided that I would kill myself,

and even poor as I was, I had gone out and bought myself abeautiful revolver and had loaded it the very same day. But twomonths had passed, and the revolver had lain untouched in thebox. But now because it was all the same to me, I wanted to picka meaningful moment, for what reason Im not sure. And so,every night for two months, I would think on the way home,Tonight I will shoot myself . But I kept waiting for the right

moment. And now, here, this star gave me the determination toactually kill myself that night, without fail. But why this little stargave me the idea I do not know.

And here, while I was looking at the star, a little girl grabbed meby the elbow. The street was already empty, and there was no oneelse around. A little way off, a cabdriver was sleeping in his car.

The girl was about eight years old, and was wearing a littlekerchief and dress, all wet, but in particular I remember her littleworn-out, broken shoes. They caught my eye more than anythingelse. She suddenly pulled me by the elbow and shouted. Shewasnt crying, but was shouting some indistinguishable words

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she couldnt pronounce them very well, because she was shakingfrom the cold. She seemed very scared and nally crieddesperately: Mommy! Mommy!

I turned to face her, but didnt say anything, and then started toleave, but she ran up to me and pulled at me again, and in hervoice was a tone, which in frightened children indicates despair. Iknow this sound. While she didnt say anything else, I understoodthat her mother was dying somewhere, or else something equallybad was happening, and she had been trying to call someone, tond something, in order to help her mother. But I didnt go with

her, and indeed, I had an impulse to drive her off. At rst, I toldher to go nd a policeman. But in response, she folded her handsand sobbingly, chokingly, ran beside me and wouldnt leave. Atthis, I stamped my foot and yelled at her. She cried softly: Sir,sir but suddenly left my side and rushed headlong across thestreet. There was another passerby walking there, and havingseen this, she left me for him.

I walked up to the fth oor of my building. My apartment isntreally my own; I sublet a room from the real owners of theapartment. My room is poor and small, but has a semi- circularattic-window. I have an oilcloth couch, a table with books, twochairs and an armchair which is very old but still elegant. I satdown, lit a candle, and started to think.

Nearby, in the other room, behind a partition, the usual uproarcontinued. It had been going strong for the last three days. Inthat room lived a retired captain, and right now he had guestsover about six people of questionable reputation, drinkingvodka and playing poker with old cards. The previous night,

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there had been a ght, and I know that two of them had draggedeach other around by the hair for the longest time. The landladywanted to complain, but she was terribly afraid of the captain.The other tenants in our apartment were one thin lady, from the

regiment, who had three small children, who had been sicklyeven before their arrival here. And she and the children fearedthe captain to the point of fainting, and all night they wouldquake and cross themselves, and the smallest child would evenhave some kind of panic attack. This captain, I know for sure,occasionally stops passersby on Nevsky Avenue, and begs formoney. They wouldnt take him back into the service, but the

strange thing is (and this is why Im telling you about it), for thewhole month, ever since he started living with us, the captainhasnt annoyed me in the slightest. Of course, I avoided him fromthe outset, and I know Ive bored him terribly from our rstmeeting, but no matter how loudly they scream behind thatpartition, and not matter how many of them there are, it doesntfaze me. I sit up all night and dont even really hear them I

simply forget about them.

Every night, I dont get to sleep before dawn, and havent beenable to do so for a year already. All night, I sit in my armchair atthe table and dont do anything. I only read during the day. I sitand dont even think, and yet, somehow, ideas still wander in, andI shoot them down at will. The candle burns all night.

On the night in question, I sat at the table quietly, took out therevolver, and lay it in front of myself. As I lay it down, Iremember asking myself: Is that so? and then immediately andafrmatively answered: So it is. That is, I meant to shootmyself. I remember thinking that I would denitely shoot myself

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on this night, but how long until then would I sit at the table that I didnt know. And, of course, I would have certainly endedup killing myself, if it hadnt been for that little girl.

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II.

You see: even though nothing mattered to me, I could still, forexample, feel pain. If someone struck me, I would still feel it. And

it was the same in a moral respect; if something horriblehappened, I would still feel pity, just as I did back when thingsmattered. I did feel pity that evening. I should have helped thatchild. Why didnt I help that little girl?

It was because of an idea that arose then, when she was pullingand calling at me I suddenly was confronted with a questionthat I couldnt answer. The question itself wasnt an important

one, but I was vexed nonetheless. I was vexed because, havingsettled on killing myself that night, nothing should have matteredto me. Why, then, was it not all the same to me why did I feelpity for the girl? I remember pitying her very much, and in fact,even felt some kind of strange pain, which was altogetherincredible for someone in my situation. I dont know how I couldbetter describe this eeting feeling, but it persisted until I got

home and was sitting at the table, and I was irritated a feelingId not felt in a long time. Reection followed reection. I nallyconcluded with clarity, that as long as I was a human being andas long as I was alive and existed, I could suffer, I could get angry,and I could feel shame for my behavior.

Well, so be it. If I were to kill myself in, say, two hours, what

would the little girl be to me, what of shame, or anything else? Iwould become nothing, absolutely nothing. And knowing this,that I will cease to exist, and that subsequently everything elsewill cease to exist, how could I feel the slightest bit of pity for thegirl, or shame at my cruel action? Because I stamped my foot and

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shouted in a wild voice at that unfortunate child, as if to say Notonly do I not feel pity, but even if I behave with inhumanecruelty, Im allowed, because two hours from now, all will beextinguished.

Do you believe thats why I shouted? I am now almost completelyconvinced of it. It seemed clear that life and the world itself nowdepended on me. It could almost be said that the world seemedto exist for only me; if I shot myself, the world would cease to be,at least for me. Im not saying that there wouldnt be anything oranyone after myself, but perhaps, once I extinguished my own

consciousness, the whole world would also be extinguished andbecome as a ghost, as a mere accessory of my own consciousness,because, maybe, all of this world and all of these people are onlyme myself.

I remember, as I was sitting and deliberating, turning over all ofthese questions that swarmed in, one after another, I thought ofsomething altogether new. A strange thought occurred to me

that if previously I had lived on the moon or on Mars, and whilethere had committed the most revolting and disgraceful deed,and had been despised and dishonored for it, to such an extremedegree that is only experienced in dreams (or rather, nightmares).If after all of this, I found myself on Earth, retaining my memoryof the deed and also knowing that I would never return to theplanet, then, looking from the earth to the moon would it even

matter? Should I feel shame for my action or not?

These questions were idle and inconsequential, for the revolverwas already lying in front of me, and I knew with all of my beingthat it would happen, but the questions still nagged at me, and for

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that, I was livid. I felt that I couldnt die without resolving thisproblem. Essentially, the little girl had saved me, because Idelayed my own shooting with these questions.

In the captains room, things were settling down: they hadnished playing cards and were heading off to sleep, but weremeanwhile grumbling and idly nishing the nights arguments.

It was then that I suddenly fell asleep at the table in my armchair,which is completely out of character for me. That is to say, Inodded off unawares.

Dreams, as it is known, are a very strange thing. Some arepresented to the dreamer with appalling clarity, the detailsglimmering with the nish of ne jewelry, and others thedreamer jumps right through, almost without noticing them, as if,for instance, they were traveling through space and time. Dreams,it seems, are born not from reason, but from desire not fromthe head, but from the heart, but in dreams, what cunning tricks

are played on the mind! What completely marvelous things canhappen in dreams! For example, my brother died ve years ago.Yet I sometimes see him in dreams; he participates in my affairs,and we are very invested, but in the dream, I am still cognizantof the fact that he is dead and buried. How then am I notsurprised that he isnt dead and instead is here with me, alive andbusy? Why does my mind perfectly accept all of this?

But enough. I will proceed to my dream. Yes, I dreamt thisdream, my dream of the third of November. They tease me now,and tell me that it was only a dream. But does it matter whether itwas a dream or reality, when it is what made me aware of the

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Truth? Once you see the truth, you know it is the truth, and youknow that there is not and could never be another truth,regardless of whether you had been awake or asleep when youlearned it.

Fine, let it be a dream. But this reality, which you hold in suchhigh esteem, I had wanted to extinguish by my own suicide butmy dream, my dream oh, it showed me a new, grand, powerfullife!

Listen.

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III.

As Ive said, I fell asleep completely unawares, and evencontinued to reason with myself about these matters. Suddenly, I

dreamt that I picked up my revolver and pointed it straight at myheart at my heart, and not at my head, even though Idpreviously specically decided to shoot myself in the righttemple. Guiding the gun to my chest, I waited a second or two.My candle, my table, and the wall before me suddenly began toshudder and sway. Quickly, I shot.

In dreams, sometimes you fall from a great height, or you get cut

or beaten, but you never really feel pain (unless youve actuallymanaged to physically hurt yourself in bed, and then you usuallywake up from it). Thus, in my dream: I didnt feel pain, but Iimagined that with the gunshot, everything shook violently, andall light faded, and everything around me was horribly black. Asif blind and dumb, I lay on something solid, stretched out,supine. I was completely unable to see or do even the slightest

thing. People walked around my body and shouted; the captainsboom, the landladys shriek, and after a short respite, I foundmyself in a closed cofn. I felt the trembling of the cofn wallsaround me and for the rst time it really struck me that I wasdead, completely dead, and I knew this and did not doubt it. Ididnt see and I didnt move but I felt and I thought. So I quietlyendured this situation, just as a dreamer must accept his

surroundings as reality without quibbling.

And then I was buried in the earth. They all left and I was alone,

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perfectly alone. I didnt move. When I had been alive and hadpondered what it would be like to be buried in a grave, I hadalways imagined it to be very damp and cold. And now I did feelit the coldness, especially in the tips of my toes, but I felt

nothing else.

I lay unmoving, and strangely, didnt expect anything. I acceptedwithout protest that the dead have nothing to await. But it wasdamp. I dont know how much time passed an hour, a few days,or week. But suddenly a drop of water fell from the ceiling of my

grave onto my closed left eyelid. After a minute, a second dropfell, and after another minute, a third. A deep resentment beganto burn in my heart, and I felt a jolt of physical pain. Its mywound, I realized, where I was shot And water keptdripping onto my face, minute after minute, right onto my closedeye. And I suddenly cried out, not with my voice, but with myentire being, to the master of all that was happening to me:

Whoever you might be, if you do exist, if there is somethingmore rational and fair than what is happening to me right now,please make it so! If you are punishing me for my senselesssuicide with the disgrace and absurdity of my current existence,then know this there will never be any kind of grief worse thanthe contempt which I will silently bear for myself, even through a

million years of martyrdom!

I made my plea and fell quiet. For nearly a minute there was adeep silence, broken only by one drop falling, but I knew at thatmoment with inviolable certainty that everything was about to

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change. And then! My grave was opened I dont know how but it was the work of some dark and unknown being, andsuddenly I found that we were in outer space.

I could see again. It was the deep of night, and never before hadthere been such darkness! We ew through space, already farfrom earth. I didnt ask where I was being taken, my pride mademe wait. I assured myself that I was not afraid, and thrilledmyself with this assurance. I dont know how long we wereying I cant even imagine. It was like a dream, where you canjump arbitrarily through space and time with no regard to rules

or reason, and you can linger unnaturally on the parts that yourheart yearns for.

I remember suddenly noticing a star.

Is that Sirius? I asked, forgetting that Id resolved not to askquestions.

No, this is the very star that you saw between those clouds backon earth, answered the being that was carrying me.

I could tell that it had something resembling a human face.Strangely, I wasnt fond of this being, and in fact, I felt aprofound aversion to it.

I had expected complete nothingness after death, which is why I

had shot myself, and yet now, here I was, in the hands of acreature that wasnt human, of course, but that was still livingand sentient.

And so, there is life beyond the grave! I thought with the strangesyrupy giddiness of dreams. But deep in my heart, I remained

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my old life, like I hadnt since Id been in the grave.

But if this sun is exactly the same as our sun, I cried, thenwhere is the earth?

And my companion indicated a star, sparkling in the dark with anemerald shine. We ew straight towards it.

And if such repetitions are possible in the universe, is that a lawof nature? And if that is an earth there, is it possible that it is justlike our earth exactly the same, just as unhappy and poor asours but very dear and beloved with such a painful love by even

its most ungrateful children, like ours is? I cried, shaking with anuncontrollable, exuberant love for my native planet, which I hadleft. The image of that poor girl whom I had offended ashedbefore my eyes.

Soon you will see everything, answered my companion, his

words tinged with what might have been sadness.

But we were fast approaching the planet. It began to expand inmy eld of vision. I could already distinguish an ocean, the shapeof Europe and suddenly I felt a great and holy jealousy ickerto life in my heart.

How can this repetition exist, and why should it? I love I can

love only the earth that I left, which is stained with my blood,when I ungratefully shot myself in the heart. But I never, everstopped loving this earth and even on this night when I wasparted from it, I love it more than ever. Is there torment here onthis new earth? On our earth, we may truly love only with

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torment and through suffering! We cannot love otherwise, and weknow no other kind of love. I crave torment, in order to love. Iyearn, I thirst to kiss the earth that I left with my own tears, and Idont want no, I wont accept life anywhere else!

But my companion had already left me. I was suddenly andunexpectedly on the solid ground of this other earth, in thebright light of its sun, and it was as beautiful as paradise.

I stood, it seemed, on one of the islands in what was analogous toour earths Greek archipelago. Oh, it was exactly like ours, onlyeverything seemed more festive, with the air of a celebration of a

long-awaited triumph. The gentle emerald sea lapped at theshore, seeming to kiss it with love, a visible love that seemedalmost conscious. Tall, beautiful trees stood in luxurious blossom,and their countless little leaves welcomed me, rustling tenderlywith affection. The grass shone bright with owers. Flocks ofbirds criss-crossed the air and, not fearing me, perched on myshoulders and hands, apping their wings merrily.

And at last, I saw and I knew the people of this joyful earth.They came to me unguardedly, they surrounded me, they kissedme. The children of the sun, the children of theirsun oh howthey were lovely! Never on our earth had I seen such beauty inhuman beings. Only perhaps in our children, in their earlychildhood, could this be even remotely found, but only as a weak,

watery reection of this beauty. The eyes of this happy peopleshone with clarity. Their faces showed a complete and calmunderstanding of their world, but those same faces were sohappy; in their words and expressions was a simple, childlike joy.

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Oh, immediately upon seeing these faces, I understood it all! Thiswas an earth before the Fall, and these people were completelypure. They were living, right there and right then, in the land oflegends, the paradise in which our ancestors supposedly lived

before sin.

These people, smiling blissfully, crowded around me caressed me.They brought me home with them and they all reassured me.Oh, they didn't ask me any questions, for they seemed to knoweverything already, and instead devoted all of their energies tocoaxing the signs of my previous unhappiness from my face.

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IV.

Well, dont you see? Well, yes, it was only a dream. But the love ofthese innocent people has remained with me even still, and I feel

their love still owing into me from wherever they are. I saw themmyself, I knew them, I loved them, I suffered for them. Oh, Iimmediately knew, even then, that I would barely understandthem at all.

As a modern Russian progressive and a vile Petersburger, itseemed impossible to me that, these people who knew so muchhad no science like ours. But I quickly gured out that they

gained and cultivated knowledge differently than we do on earth,and that their aspirations were also completely different fromours. They didnt desire anything and thus were at peace. Theydidnt seek complete knowledge of life like we do, because theirlives were already full. But their knowledge was deeper andbroader than ours, because while our science seeks to fully dissectand explain life in order to teach others how to live, these people

simply knew how to live already. I understood this, but I couldnot understand their knowledge itself. They showed me theirtrees, but I could not grasp the degree of love they showed forthem when they looked at the trees, it was as if they weretalking to other sentient creatures. And you know, maybe itwouldn't even be wrong to say they truly were talking with thetrees! Yes, they had found the language of the trees and I am

convinced that the trees understood them. They looked at all ofnature in such a way at the animals who cohabitated peacefullywith them, conquered only by their love. They pointed to thestars and told me something about them which I couldn'tunderstand, but it seemed to me that they even had some kind of

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connection with those heavenly points of light.

Oh, these people did not try to make me understand them, theyloved me even without that, but I knew that they, in turn, would

also never understand me, and so I hardly ever told themanything about my earth. I merely kissed the ground on whichthese people lived and quietly worshipped them. They didn'tobject to this, and allowed me to adore them without anyembarrassment, for they too loved much. They were notdistressed when I tearfully kissed their feet with a erce joy in myheart, upon learning that my love for them was reciprocated. I

sometimes wondered how such perfect creatures did not offendsomeone as imperfect as myself - how did they not inspirejealousy or envy within me? Moreover, I wondered why (being abraggart and a liar) I did not try to impress them with my ownknowledge, which they knew nothing of not even to try andimprove their lives!

The people of this earth were as happy and frisky as children.

They wandered through their beautiful groves and forests, sangtheir beautiful songs, and ate tender meats, fruits from their trees,with honey from their forests and milk from their belovedanimals. The work they did for food and clothing was brief andnot taxing. They loved children and begat them, but I never sawin them the impulses of sinful voluptuousness that is the root ofalmost all of the problems on our earth. They rejoiced in the

arrival of new children as new participants in their shared bliss.There was no strife or jealousy between them, and in fact, theycouldn't even understand these concepts. Their children were thechildren of all, because their society functioned as one family.

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There were almost no diseases, but there was death. Their elderlypassed away peacefully, as if falling gently asleep, giving smilesand blessings to their loved ones, smiling serene good-byes. Atthese times, I never saw grief or tears, only an ecstatic love... but

this ecstasy was somehow calm, contemplative. It seemed almostas if the living were still in contact with the deceased and thatdeath itself could not disrupt the bond between them. Theydidn't seem to understand me when I asked them about eternallife, but it seemed that they wholeheartedly believed in it, somuch that its existence wasn't even a question. They had notemples, but they had some sort of vital, living, and

uninterrupted unity with the whole universe; they didn't havefaith, they had knowledge that when their earthly joy reached itslimit, then there would come for them both for the living andthe dead an even more complete contact with the universeitself. They awaited this moment with joy, but not impatiently, notpining for it, but with a happy anticipation that they discussedwith each other.

In the evenings before going to sleep, they loved to sing in sweetand harmonious chorus. In these songs, they expressed all of theemotion of the past day, praised it, and bid it farewell. In song,they celebrated nature, the earth, the sea, the forest. They lovedto write songs about each other and they praised one another likechildren; the songs were simple but came straight from their

hearts and touched the heart of the listener. Not only their songs,but their entire lives, it seemed, were devoted to expressing lovefor one another. It was as if they were all in love with each other,but with a love that was wholesome and all-consuming.

Some of their songs, solemn and ecstatic, I barely understood at

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all. I understood the words themselves but I could not fathomtheir importance. My mind couldn't grasp it, but the feeling ofthese songs was imbued in my heart more and more as timepassed. I often told them that I must have has a presentiment of

them back on my earth, an idea of this joy and glory which hadmanifested as a yearning anguish which would sometimesdevolve into an intolerable grief, that I had felt them and theirglory in the dreams of my heart and the visions of my mind, thatI often could not look at a sunset on our earth without crying,that in my hatred of the people of our earth, I could not but endin misery why could I not hate them without loving them? Why

did I always forgive them? In my love for them was agony: why,too, could I not love them without also hating them? Theylistened to me, but I saw that they could not comprehend what Iwas saying. But I didn't regret telling them about it; I could seethat they did understand my sorrow over those I had left behind.Yes, when they looked at me with their faces full of love, I felt myown heart becoming innocent and honest just like theirs, and I

didn't worry about not understanding them. A feeling ofcompleteness and bliss enveloped my soul, and I worshippedthem in silence.

Oh, now they all laugh in my face and claim that I could notpossibly have had such a detailed dream, that I simply dreamed avague feeling and, when I awoke, created all of the details in a

delirium. And when I said that maybe it really had happened god, how they laughed at me, what a joke I was to them! Oh yes,of course I was completely overcome by the mere feeling of thatdream, and the feeling itself was the only thing that survived inmy wounded heart: but the real imagery, the forms in my dream,

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that is, were lled with such harmony, and were so charming andbeautiful and true , that upon waking, of course I wasn't able totruly convey them into our weak human words... so maybe theydid become a bit fuzzy in my mind, and in my passionate need to

convey what I had seen to my fellow man, maybe the overallstory did become a bit distorted. But even still, how could I notbelieve that it was real and true? That world was a thousandtimes brighter and more joyful than I can possibly express. Let'ssay that it was a dream, and yet... well, how could it have been?

You know, I will tell you a secret... there is something that proves

that it wasn't a dream! And the reason is that something sohorrible happened, something horrible but true... it could not bea dream. You say that it was a dream created by my own heart,and I counter with this: could my heart really be capable ofdreaming up the atrocities that happened next? How could Ipossibly have invented that?

Oh, judge for yourself! The truth that I've hidden from you until

now is this: I corrupted them all.

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V.

Yes, yes, that's how it ended, with me corrupting every last one ofthem! How exactly it came to pass, I'm not sure, I don't

remember it clearly. My dream spanned millennia and only leftme with one giant impression. The only thing I know for sure isthat I was the reason for their fall. Like a malignant parasite, likean atom of plague that fells an entire kingdom, I infected thisworld that was so pure and sinless before my arrival.

They learned how to lie, and fell in love with lying, and came toknow beauty in lies. Oh it may have started innocently, with

jokes, coquetry, romantic games, just like a little germ, but thisgerm of lying penetrated their hearts and it pleased them. Soonafter, sensuality arose, and sensuality gave rise to jealousy,jealousy gave rise to cruelty... oh, I don't know, I don't understandhow, but quickly, so very quickly, the rst blood was spilled. Theywere surprised and horried and split into factions over it. Theyformed unions, but only ever against one another. So began the

reproaches and violent lessons to one another. They discoveredshame, and shame brought them to virtue. The concept of honorwas born, and every union raised their ag in the name of honor.They began to torture animals, and the animals ed into theforests and became hostile. They started to ght for separation,for isolation, for individuality between me and you. They startedto speak in different languages. They discovered sorrow and took

joy in it, they thirsted for agony and preached that truth couldonly be attained through suffering. Then science appeared.When they became hateful, that's when they started to speak ofbrotherhood and humanity, and to understand those ideals.When they became criminal, they invented justice and wrote

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entire law codes in order to preserve justice. And to ensure thatthe laws were minded, they set up a guillotine.

They could just barely remember what they had lost they didn't

want to believe that there had been a time when they had allbeen innocent and happy. They went so far as to laugh at themere possibility of such happiness in the past and even called it adream. They could not imagine this happiness in any deniteforms or images, but this is the most strange and marvelousthing: although they had lost all faith in their own previousinnocence and called it a fairy-tale, they also wanted it

desperately. Like children, they fell to their knees before the idea.They deied it; they set up temples in honor of this desire,prayed to it their desire - but at the same time they hadcomplete faith in the notion that it was impossible and unfeasible,and yet they adored and worshipped it with tears. Nevertheless,although I know that they could have returned to their previousand happy state which they had lost, if someone suddenly

showed it to them and asked them if they wanted it back, theywould certainly have refused.

They answered me: We may be false, hateful, and unjust. Weknow this, and we cry about it, and we agonize over it and punishourselves for it, maybe even worse than that merciful judge whowill ultimately pass judgement on all of us and whose name weknow not. But we have science and with it we will nd this truth

once again, and this time we will arrive at it consciously.Knowledge exists above feeling, and consciousness of life existsabove life itself. Science grants us wisdom and wisdom allows usto create laws. For knowledge of the laws of happiness is moreimportant than happiness itself.

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After that, every one of them began to love themselves more thananyone or anything else, and soon they knew no other way. Theywere so proud and protective of their own individualities thatthey tried to degrade and belittle each other, and made it the

main pursuit of their lives.

There appeared slavery, even voluntary slavery; the weakwillingly obeyed the strong, and helped oppress those evenweaker than themselves.

There appeared saints who came to people with tears and talkedto them about pride, about the old lost harmony, about their loss

of shame. They were mocked and pelted with rocks. Holy bloodgushed over the agstones of churches.

There appeared men who began to seriously consider how bestto unify people, so that everyone, still loving themselves above allelse, might live in something like an agreeable society and notinterfere in each others' lives. Whole wars arose over this idea.

Simultaneously and on each side, everyone ghting rmlybelieved that a reasonable society could be founded on science,wisdom, and a natural desire for self-preservation, but in order tospeed up the realization of such a thing, the wise should rstexterminate all of the unwise, who weren't capable ofunderstanding this idea anyway and who would be a hindranceto its ultimate triumph. But this so-called natural desire for self-

preservation grew weaker, and there emerged proud men andsensualists who demanded all or nothing and in order to obtainit, they resorted to crime... and if that didn't pan out, to suicide.

There appeared religions built around the cult of nothingness

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and self-destruction, that preached the value of attainingperpetual calm in one's insignicance.

At last, these people grew weary of their meaningless work, and

suffering started to show in their faces, and these peopleproclaimed that suffering was beauty because only suffering hadany meaning. They praised suffering in their songs.

I walked among them, wringing my hands and weeping. But Iloved them still, maybe even more than I did before, when theirfaces had not been full of suffering and when they had beeninnocent and so very beautiful. I loved the earth that they had

deled even more than the paradise it had been before, if onlybecause it now contained sorrow. Alas, I had always loved sorrow,but only my own sorrow, only ever my own... and seeing themsuffer, I cried, I felt pity for them, I stretched out my hands tothem and in my despair I accused and despised myself for whathad happened. I told them that I was the one responsible for itall, that I alone had brought them debauchery, infection, and lies!

I pleaded with them, begged them to crucify me, I even taughtthem how to make a cross. I didn't have the strength to killmyself, but I wanted to take their pain from them, I thirsted foragony, I thirsted for every last drop of my own blood to be spilledin agony.

But they only smiled at me and considered me a fool.

They justied their situation to me and said that they had onlyreceived what they themselves had wanted, and there could nothave been any other outcome. Then they suddenly announced tome that I had become dangerous to them and that they would

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throw me in a mad house if I didnt shut up. Then such a sorrowentered my soul that I felt like my heart was being gripped and Ithought I would die, and then... then I awoke.

It was morning. There was no daylight, it must have been aroundsix oclock. I woke in the same chair, my candle melted down to a

hard puddle. Everyone in the captains was asleep and everything

was completely silent, which was rare in our building. At rst, I

jumped to my feet in utter surprise: nothing like this had ever

happened to me before, not in the slightest! While I stood and

arranged my thoughts, I caught sight of my revolver, still loaded -

but I quickly pushed it away from myself. Oh, now there was life,

life! I raised my hands and cried out to eternal truth; not with

speech, but with tears - delight, immeasurable delight rose up

through my entire being. Yes, life and... I had to preach! Oh, I

decided in that same minute to devote myself to preaching for

the rest of my life! I'll go and preach, I want to preach - what?

The truth! Because I saw it, saw it with my own eyes, in all its

glory!

And since then I have been preaching. Additionally, I love

everyone who laughs at me, more than anyone else. Why this is, I

do not know and I cant explain, but so be it. They say that I am

confused, and if I am this way now, how will I be later on?

Maybe its the truth, maybe I am confused and maybe it will get

worse over time. And of course I will make many mistakes while

learning to preach - what to do, how to phrase things... it is not

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an easy task. I see this clearly, but who doesnt make mistakes?

But aside from that, I can see that we are all striving toward the

same goal, from the wisest sage to the lowest burglar, but all

through different paths. This is an old truth, but here is what is

new: I cannot go too far wrong. Because I saw the truth, I saw it

and I know that people can be beautiful and happy, and still be

able to live on our earth. I refuse to believe that evil is the natural

human state.

They laugh at this faith that I have. But how could I not believe

in it? I have seen the truth - I didnt make all this up by myself. I

saw, I saw it and its living image will ll my soul forevermore. I

have seen it in such complete perfection that I can not believe

that it could be impossible for mankind. So how could I go

wrong? I might slip, of course, maybe multiple times, and maybe

speak about it in imperfect language, but not for long: the living

image that I have seen will stay with me and correct me and

guide me. Oh, I am cheerful, I am fresh of heart, and I will go on

and on, even for a thousand years. You know, I was going to hide

that I had corrupted them all, but that was a mistake - already

my rst mistake! But the truth whispered to me that I was lying

and it protected me and guided me.

But how will this paradise be realized? Im not sure because I

dont yet know how to express exactly what it was in words. After

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my dream, it seems, I lost my words. All of the important ones,

anyway. But nonetheless I will keep talking, untiringly, because I

have seen it with my own eyes, even if I cant properly express

what I saw. But the scoffers dont understand. They say it was a

dream, a delirium, a hallucination! Eh! Surely thats wisdom!

They are so full of pride. A dream? Whats a dream, anyway?

Isnt our life just a dream?

I will say more: Lets say this paradise never comes to pass (and I

understand it may not). I will still go on preaching about it. And

it is so simple: in only one day, in one hour, it could be arranged!

Generally, love others as you do yourself, thats the main thing,

and thats it - nothing else is necessary, and you will discover

paradise at once. This is an old truth that has been repeated and

read a billion times, and yet we do not practice it! Consciousness

of life above life, knowledge of how to be happy over being

happy - that is what I have to ght. And I will! If only we really

wanted it, it would be ours.

And I found that little girl. And I will go on, and I will go on.

the dream of a ridiculous man

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