The Dream of a Ridiculous Man Page #6

"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.

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all!

V

Yes, yes, it ended in my corrupting them all! How it could come to pass I
do not know, but I remember it clearly. The dream embraced thousands of
years and left in me only a sense of the whole. I only know that I was the
cause of their sin and downfall. Like a vile trichina, like a germ of the
plague infecting whole kingdoms, so I contaminated all this earth, so happy
and sinless before my coming. They learnt to lie, grew fond of lying, and
discovered the charm of falsehood. Oh, at first perhaps it began
innocently, with a jest, coquetry, with amorous play, perhaps indeed with a
germ, but that germ of falsity made its way into their hearts and pleased
them. Then sensuality was soon begotten, sensuality begot jealousy,
jealousy--cruelty.... Oh, I don't know, I don't remember; but soon, very
soon the first blood was shed. They marvelled and were horrified, and began
to be split up and divided. They formed into unions, but it was against one
another. Reproaches, upbraidings followed. They came to know shame, and
shame brought them to virtue. The conception of honour sprang up, and every
union began waving its flags. They began torturing animals, and the animals
withdrew from them into the forests and became hostile to them. They began
to struggle for separation, for isolation, for individuality, for mine and
thine. They began to talk in different languages. They became acquainted
with sorrow and loved sorrow; they thirsted for suffering, and said that
truth could only be attained through suffering. Then science appeared. As
they became wicked they began talking of brotherhood and humanitarianism,
and understood those ideas. As they became criminal, they invented justice
and drew up whole legal codes in order to observe it, and to ensure their
being kept, set up a guillotine. They hardly remembered what they had lost,
in fact refused to believe that they had ever been happy and innocent. They
even laughed at the possibility of this happiness in the past, and called
it a dream. They could not even imagine it in definite form and shape, but,
strange and wonderful to relate, though they lost all faith in their past
happiness and called it a legend, they so longed to be happy and innocent
once more that they succumbed to this desire like children, made an idol of
it, set up temples and worshipped their own idea, their own desire; though
at the same time they fully believed that it was unattainable and could not
be realised, yet they bowed down to it and adored it with tears!
Nevertheless, if it could have happened that they had returned to the
innocent and happy condition which they had lost, and if some one had shown
it to them again and had asked them whether they wanted to go back to it,
they would certainly have refused. They answered me:

"We may be deceitful, wicked and unjust, we know it and weep over it, we
grieve over it; we torment and punish ourselves more perhaps than that
merciful Judge Who will judge us and whose Name we know not. But we have
science, and by means of it we shall find the truth and we shall arrive at
it consciously. Knowledge is higher than feeling, the consciousness of life
is higher than life. Science will give us wisdom, wisdom will reveal the
laws, and the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness."

That is what they said, and after saying such things every one began to
love himself better than any one else, and indeed they could not do
otherwise. All became so jealous of the rights of their own personality
that they did their very utmost to curtail and destroy them in others, and
made that the chief thing in their lives. Slavery followed, even voluntary
slavery; the weak eagerly submitted to the strong, on condition that the
latter aided them to subdue the still weaker. Then there were saints who
came to these people, weeping, and talked to them of their pride, of their
loss of harmony and due proportion, of their loss of shame. They were
laughed at or pelted with stones. Holy blood was shed on the threshold of
the temples. Then there arose men who began to think how to bring all
people together again, so that everybody, while still loving himself best
of all, might not interfere with others, and all might live together in
something like a harmonious society. Regular wars sprang up over this idea.
All the combatants at the same time firmly believed that science, wisdom
and the instinct of self-preservation would force men at last to unite into
a harmonious and rational society; and so, meanwhile, to hasten matters,
"the wise" endeavoured to exterminate as rapidly as possible all who were
"not wise" and did not understand their idea, that the latter might not
hinder its triumph. But the instinct of self-preservation grew rapidly
weaker; there arose men, haughty and sensual, who demanded all or nothing.
In order to obtain everything they resorted to crime, and if they did not
succeed--to suicide. There arose religions with a cult of non-existence and
self-destruction for the sake of the everlasting peace of annihilation. At
last these people grew weary of their meaningless toil, and signs of
suffering came into their faces, and then they proclaimed that suffering
was a beauty, for in suffering alone was there meaning. They glorified
suffering in their songs. I moved about among them, wringing my hands and
weeping over them, but I loved them perhaps more than in old days when
there was no suffering in their faces and when they were innocent and so
lovely. I loved the earth they had polluted even more than when it had been
a paradise, if only because sorrow had come to it. Alas! I always loved
sorrow and tribulation, but only for myself, for myself; but I wept over
them, pitying them. I stretched out my hands to them in despair, blaming,
cursing and despising myself. I told them that all this was my doing, mine
alone; that it was I had brought them corruption, contamination and
falsity. I besought them to crucify me, I taught them how to make a cross.
I could not kill myself, I had not the strength, but I wanted to suffer at
their hands. I yearned for suffering, I longed that my blood should be
drained to the last drop in these agonies. But they only laughed at me, and
began at last to look upon me as crazy. They justified me, they declared
that they had only got what they wanted themselves, and that all that now
was could not have been otherwise. At last they declared to me that I was
becoming dangerous and that they should lock me up in a madhouse if I did
not hold my tongue. Then such grief took possession of my soul that my
heart was wrung, and I felt as though I were dying; and then ... then I
awoke.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was morning, that is, it was not yet daylight, but about six o'clock. I
woke up in the same arm-chair; my candle had burnt out; every one was
asleep in the captain's room, and there was a stillness all round, rare in
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