It was already morning, that is, not light yet, but it was about six o’clock. I came to my senses in the same armchair, my candle had burned all the way down, everyone was asleep at the captain’s, and around me was a silence rare in our apartment. First of all, I jumped up extremely surprised; nothing like that had ever happened to me, even down to trifling little details: for instance, never before had I fallen asleep in my armchair like that. Here suddenly, while I was standing and coming to my senses—suddenly my revolver flashed before me, ready, loaded—but I instantly pushed it away from me! Oh, life, life now! I lifted up my arms and called out to the eternal truth; did not call out, but wept; rapture, boundless rapture, elevated my whole being. Yes, life and—preaching! I decided on preaching that same moment, and, of course, for the rest of my life! I’m going out to preach, I want to preach—what? The truth, for I saw it, saw it with my own eyes, saw all its glory!
And so, since then I’ve been preaching! What’s more—I love those who laugh at me more than all the rest. Why that’s so I don’t know and can’t explain, but let it be so. They say I’m already getting confused now, that is, if I’m already so confused now, how will it be later? The veritable truth: I’m getting confused now, and maybe it will be worse later. And of course I’m going to get confused a few times before I discover how to preach, that is, in what words and in what deeds, because it’s very hard to do. I see it clear as day even now, but listen: is there anyone who doesn’t get confused? And yet everyone goes toward one and the same thing, at least everyone strives for one and the same thing, from the sage to the last robber, only by different paths. This is an old truth, but what is new here is this: I cannot get very confused. Because I saw the truth, I saw and I know that people can be beautiful and happy without losing the ability to live on earth. I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of people. And they all laugh merely at this belief of mine. But how can I not believe: I saw the truth—it’s not that my mind invented it, but I saw it, I saw it, and its living image filled my soul for all time. I saw it in such fulfilled wholeness that I cannot believe it is impossible for people to have it. And so, how could I get confused? I’ll wander off, of course, even several times, and will maybe even speak in other people’s words, but not for long: the living image of what I saw will always be with me and will always correct and direct me. Oh, I’m hale, I’m fresh, I’m going, going, even if it’s for a thousand years. You know, I even wanted to conceal, at first, that I corrupted them all, but that was a mistake—already the first mistake! But truth whispered to me that I was lying, and guarded and directed me. But how to set up paradise—I don’t know, because I’m unable to put it into words. After my dream, I lost words. At least all the main words, the most necessary ones. But so be it: I’ll go and I’ll keep talking, tirelessly, because after all I saw it with my own eyes, though I can’t recount what I saw. But that is what the scoffers don’t understand: “He had a dream,” they say, “a delirium, a hallucination.” Eh! As if that’s so clever? And how proud they are! A dream? what is a dream? And is our life not a dream? I’ll say more: let it never, let it never come true, and let there be no paradise (that I can understand!)—well, but I will preach all the same. And yet it’s so simple: in one day, in one hour—it could all be set up at once! The main thing is—love others as yourself, that’s the main thing, and it’s everything, there’s no need for anything else at alclass="underline" it will immediately be discovered how to set things up. And yet this is merely an old truth, repeated and read a billion times, but still it has never taken root! “The consciousness of life is higher than life, the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness”—that is what must be fought! And I will. If only everyone wants it, everything can be set up at once.
And I found that little girl… And I’ll go! I’ll go!
NOTES
A NASTY ANECDOTE (1862)
1. The Neva River divides into three main branches as it flows into the Gulf of Finland, marking out the three main areas of the city of St. Petersburg. On the left bank of the Neva is the city center, between the Neva and the Little Neva is Vasilievsky Island, and between the Little Neva and the Nevka is the so-called “Petersburg side,” which is thus some distance from the center.
2. These three gentlemen are all in the civil service, not the military. But civil service ranks had military equivalents, which were sometimes used in social address. The following is a list of the fourteen civil service ranks from highest to lowest, with their approximate military equivalents:
1. Chancellor
Field Marshal
2. Actual Privy Councillor
General
3. Actual State Councillor
Major General
5. State Councillor
Colonel
6. Collegiate Councillor
Lieutenant Colonel
7. Court Councillor
Major
8. Collegiate Assessor
Captain
9. Titular Councillor
Staff Captain
10. Collegiate Secretary
Lieutenant
11. Secretary of Naval Constructions
12. Government Secretary
Sub-lieutenant
13. Provincial Secretary
14. Collegiate Registrar
The rank of titular councillor conferred personal nobility; the rank of actual state councillor made it hereditary. Wives of officials shared their husbands’ rank and were entitled to the same mode of address—“Your Honor,” “Your Excellency,” “Your Supreme Excellency.” Mention of an official’s rank automatically indicates the amount of deference he must be shown, and by whom.
3. The star was the decoration of a number of orders, among them the Polish-Russian Order of St. Stanislas (or Stanislav) and the Swedish Order of the North Star.
4. Certain Russian decorations had two degrees, being worn either on the breast or on a ribbon around the neck.
5. “Botched existence” or “failed life” (French).
6. “Talker” and “phrase-maker” (French).
7. A tax-farmer was a private person authorized by the government to collect taxes in exchange for a fixed fee. The practice was open to abuse, and tax-farmers could become extremely rich, though never quite respectable. Tax-farming was eventually abolished by the economic reforms of the emperor Alexander II in the 1860s, to which reference is made here.