The Dream of a Ridiculous Man Page #3

"The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" is a short story by Fyodor Dostoevsky that explores themes of existentialism, morality, and the nature of happiness. The narrative follows a disillusioned and cynical man who contemplates suicide but has a transformative dream. In this dream, he encounters a utopian world where he witnesses the profound interconnectedness of humanity and the possibility of a pure, compassionate existence. Through his encounters, he grapples with questions of purpose, redemption, and the potential for change, ultimately leading to a profound epiphany about love and the value of life. The story serves as a reflection on the human condition and a critique of nihilism, emphasizing the importance of hope and empathy.

• Novel

								

languidly winding up their quarrels. At that point I suddenly fell asleep
in my chair at the table--a thing which had never happened to me before. I
dropped asleep quite unawares.

Dreams, as we all know, are very queer things: some parts are presented
with appalling vividness, with details worked up with the elaborate finish
of jewellery, while others one gallops through, as it were, without
noticing them at all, as, for instance, through space and time. Dreams seem
to be spurred on not by reason but by desire, not by the head but by the
heart, and yet what complicated tricks my reason has played sometimes in
dreams, what utterly incomprehensible things happen to it! My brother died
five years ago, for instance. I sometimes dream of him; he takes part in my
affairs, we are very much interested, and yet all through my dream I quite
know and remember that my brother is dead and buried. How is it that I am
not surprised that, though he is dead, he is here beside me and working
with me? Why is it that my reason fully accepts it? But enough. I will
begin about my dream. Yes, I dreamed a dream, my dream of the third of
November. They tease me now, telling me it was only a dream. But does it
matter whether it was a dream or reality, if the dream made known to me the
truth? If once one has recognised the truth and seen it, you know that it
is the truth and that there is no other and there cannot be, whether you
are asleep or awake. Let it be a dream, so be it, but that real life of
which you make so much I had meant to extinguish by suicide, and my dream,
my dream--oh, it revealed to me a different life, renewed, grand and full
of power!

Listen.

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 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
a 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 whole 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 any 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
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