The Gambler and Other Stories (Penguin ed.)

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  ‘And are such repetitions in the universe really possible, can that really be nature’s law? … And if that is the earth there, then can it really be the same earth as ours … absolutely the same, unfortunate, poor, but dear and eternally beloved, as ours, which gives birth to the same agonizing love in even the most ungrateful of its children?’ I cried out, trembling with irrepressible, ecstatic love for that former native earth, which I had abandoned. The image of the poor little girl, whom I had treated badly, flashed before me.

  ‘You’ll see everything,’ my companion responded, and a certain sadness could be heard in his words.

  But we were quickly approaching the planet. It was growing before my eyes; I could already make out the ocean, the outlines of Europe, and suddenly a strange feeling of some sort of great, holy jealousy flared up in my heart: ‘How can there be a repetition like this and for what purpose? I love, I can love only that earth which I left behind, which I left spattered with my blood, when I, ingrate that I am, extinguished my life with a bullet to the heart. But never, never have I stopped loving that earth, and even on that night, as I was leaving it, I perhaps loved it even more agonizingly than I had ever done before. Is there suffering on this new earth? On our earth we can truly love only with suffering and only through suffering! Otherwise, we don’t know how to love and we know no other kind of love. I want suffering in order to love. I want, I thirst this very minute to kiss, with tears pouring down my face, only that one and the same earth that I left behind, and I don’t want, I won’t accept life on any other! …’

  But my companion had already left me. Suddenly, caught quite unawares, as it were, I found myself standing on this other earth in the bright light of a sunny day, as lovely as paradise. I believe I was standing on one of those islands that on our earth is part of the Greek archipelago,8 or somewhere on the mainland coast bordering on that archipelago. Oh, everything was exactly like it was with us, but everywhere seemed to be radiant with some festival and with a great, holy victory that had been achieved at long last. The gentle emerald-green sea quietly plashed on the shore and kissed it with a love that was palpable, visible, almost conscious. Tall, beautiful trees stood in full luxuriant flower, and their innumerable leaves, I am convinced, greeted me with their soft, tender stirring and seemed to be speaking some words of love. The grass shone with bright, fragrant flowers. Flocks of birds flew through the air and, unafraid of me, landed on my shoulders and arms and joyfully thumped me with their dear, fluttering little wings. And at last I saw and came to know the people of this happy earth. They came to me themselves, they surrounded me, they kissed me. Children of the sun, children of their own sun – oh, how beautiful they were! Never had I seen on our earth such beauty in a human being. Perhaps only in our children, in the very first years of their life, could one have seen a distant though faint reflection of this beauty. The eyes of these happy people twinkled with a bright light. Their faces shone with reason and a consciousness brimming over with serenity, but their faces were cheerful; a childlike joy sounded in the words and voices of these people. Oh, I at once, at the first glance at their faces, understood everything, everything! This was the earth undefiled by the Fall, here lived people who had not sinned; they lived in just such a paradise as did our fallen forebears according to the legends of all mankind, the only difference being that the entire earth here was everywhere one and the same paradise. These people, laughing joyfully, crowded round me and caressed me; they led me away to their homes and each and every one of them wanted to set my mind at rest. Oh, they didn’t question me about anything, but it was as if they already knew everything, so it seemed to me, and they wished to drive away the suffering from my face as quickly as possible.

  IV

  Well, you see, and what’s more: well, even if it was only a dream! But the sensation of love of these innocent and beautiful people has remained with me forever, and I feel that their love washes over me from there even now. I saw them myself, I got to know them and was won over, I loved them, later I suffered for them. Oh, I at once understood, even then, that there would be a lot I wouldn’t understand about them at all; for me, a modern Russian progressive and vile Petersburger, it seemed inexplicable that, for example, they who know so much, don’t possess our science. But I soon understood that their knowledge was imbued with and nurtured by other convictions than is the case with us on earth, and that their aspirations were quite different as well. They desired nothing and were at peace; they did not aspire to an understanding of life like we do, because their lives were full. But their knowledge was deeper and loftier than our science; for our science seeks to explain what life is, it aspires to understand it in order to teach others how to live; while they, even without science knew how they should live, and I understood that, but I could not understand their knowledge. They pointed out their trees for me and I couldn’t understand the degree of love with which they looked at them: it was as if they were talking with beings like themselves. And do you know, maybe I wouldn’t be mistaken if I were to say that they were talking with them! Yes, they had found their language, and I’m convinced that the trees understood them. That was how they regarded all of nature – the animals who lived peaceably with them, who didn’t attack them and loved them, mastered by their love. They pointed out the stars to me and talked to me about them, and though I could not understand I am convinced that they were somehow in contact with the heavenly stars, not only by means of their thoughts but also in some vital way. Oh, these people did not try to get me to understand them; they loved me even without that, and yet I knew that they would never understand me, and that was why I seldom spoke to them of our earth. I merely kissed in their presence the earth on which they lived and wordlessly worshipped them, and they saw this and let themselves be worshipped, unashamed that I was worshipping them, because they themselves loved so very much. They did not suffer for me when I, in tears, would sometimes kiss their feet, joyfully knowing in their own hearts with what force they would return my love. At times I would ask myself in amazement: How is it that during all this time they have not offended such a one as I, nor aroused in such a one as I feelings of jealousy or envy? Many times I asked myself how is it that I, a braggart and a liar, did not speak to them about my knowledge (about which, of course, they had no idea), nor wish to astonish them with it, or simply out of my love for them if for no other reason? They were as playful and cheerful as children. They wandered about their beautiful groves and forests, they sang their beautiful songs, they nourished themselves on light food, the fruits of their trees, the honey of their forests and the milk of the animals who loved them. For food and clothing they laboured only a little and lightly. They knew love and children were born, but I never observed in them the outbursts of that cruel sensuality that befalls almost everyone on our earth, one and all, and which is the single source of almost all the sins of our mankind. They rejoiced in their children as new partakers in their bliss. There were no quarrels or jealousy among them, and they didn’t even understand what that meant. Their children were everybody’s children, because they all comprised one family. They were almost without illness, though there was death; but the old people died quietly, as if falling asleep, surrounded by people who had come to bid them farewell, bless them, smile at them and receive in return radiant smiles of farewell. Moreover, I saw neither sorrow nor tears, but only love that was multiplied, as it were, to the point of rapture, but a rapture that was calm, contented, contemplative. One might think that they were in contact with their dead even after death and that this earthly union was not dissolved by death. They could barely understand me when I asked them about eternal life, but were apparently so convinced of it instinctively that it did not amount to a question for them. They had no temples, but they did have some sort of urgent, vital and constant union with the Whole of the universe; they had no religious faith, but instead they had a firm knowledge that when their earthly joy had reached the limits of earthly nature, then an even more extensi
ve contact with the Whole of the universe would commence for them, both the living and the dead. They waited for this moment with joy, but without haste, without longing, but as if they already possessed it in their hearts’ presentiments, which they communicated to one another. In the evenings, before going to sleep, they liked to sing in graceful and harmonious chorus. In these songs they expressed all the sensations that the waning day had given them, they praised it and bade it farewell. They praised nature, the earth, the sea, the forests. They liked to compose songs about one another and praised one another like children; these were the simplest songs, but they came from the heart and they pierced the heart. And not in their songs alone, but it seemed that they spent their whole lives in mutual admiration. This was a love for one another that was complete and universal. Of their other songs, solemn and rapturous, I understood almost nothing. While I understood the words, I never could entirely fathom their meaning. It remained beyond my comprehension, as it were, and yet my heart instinctively came to be filled with it more and more. I often told them that long ago I had a presentiment of all this, that all this joy and glory had already proclaimed itself to me when I was still on our earth as a call of anguish that sometimes reached the point of unendurable sorrow; that I had had a presentiment of every one of them and of their glory in the dreams of my heart and in the daydreams of my mind, so that I often could not look, on our earth, at the setting sun without tears … That my hatred for people of our earth always involved anguish: Why can’t I hate them without loving them? Why can’t I forgive them, and why is there anguish in my love for them? Why can’t I love them without hating them? They listened to me and I saw that they could not imagine what I was saying, but I didn’t regret that I had talked to them about it: I knew that they understood the depths of my anguish for those whom I had abandoned. Yes, when they would gaze at me with their dear eyes full of love, when I felt that in their presence my heart, too, had become as innocent and just as their hearts, then I did not regret that I did not understand them. Sensing the fullness of life took my breath away, and I worshipped them in silence.

  Oh, everybody laughs in my face now and assures me that even in dreams you can’t see such details as I’m relating now, that in my dream I saw or felt merely a sensation that was brought to life by my delirious heart, and that the details were made up by me after waking up. And when I revealed to them that perhaps that was what really had happened – my God! How they laughed in my face! How they did rejoice! Oh, yes, of course, I was overcome merely by the sensation of that dream, and it alone had survived in my bloody and wounded heart: and yet the real images and forms of my dream, that is, those which I really did see at the time when I was dreaming, were executed with such harmony, were so charming and beautiful, and so very true, that of course after I woke up I was unable to embody them in our feeble words so that they must have become erased from my mind, as it were, and, consequently, perhaps I really was unconsciously compelled to compose the details afterwards and, of course, distorted them, particularly considering my passionate desire to convey at least something of them as quickly as possible. But then how can I not believe that this all really happened? And that perhaps it was a thousand times better, brighter and more joyful than how I have told it? Even if it was a dream, all this could not but have taken place. Do you know, I’ll tell you a secret: all this might not have been a dream at all! For something happened here, something so horribly true that it couldn’t have been dreamed up. Even if my heart gave birth to my dream, could my heart alone have given birth to that horrible truth that happened to me afterwards? How could I alone have invented or dreamed it up with my heart? Is it possible that my petty heart and my capricious, worthless mind could be elevated to such a revelation of truth? Oh, judge for yourselves: I’ve been concealing it all this time, but now I’ll tell the whole truth. The fact of the matter is that I … I corrupted them all!

  V

  Yes, yes, it all ended in my corrupting them all! How this could have happened – I don’t know, I don’t remember clearly. The dream flew through thousands of years and left in me merely a sense of the whole. I know only that I was the cause of their fall. Like a nasty trichina,9 like an atom of the plague infecting entire nations, I infected with myself this earth that until my appearance had been happy and without sin. They learned how to lie and they grew to love lies and came to know the beauty of lies. Oh, perhaps it began innocently enough, with a joke, flirting or a game for lovers, perhaps it really did begin with an atom, but this atom of a lie penetrated their hearts and they liked it. Then sensuality was quickly born, sensuality begat jealousy, and jealousy – cruelty … Oh, I don’t know, I don’t remember, but soon, very soon the first blood was shed: they were surprised and horrified and they began to part company, to go their separate ways. Alliances made their appearance, but it was one against the other now. Reproaches and reproofs commenced. They learned what shame was and held it up as a virtue. The concept of honour was born and each alliance raised aloft its own banner. They started torturing animals, and the animals beat a hasty retreat from them to the forests and became their enemies. A struggle began for separation, for isolation, for individuality, for yours and mine. They started to speak in different languages. They became acquainted with sorrow and came to love sorrow; they thirsted for suffering and said that Truth could only be attained through suffering. Then science made its appearance among them. When they became wicked, they started to talk about brotherhood and humaneness and understood these ideas. When they became criminals, they invented justice and lay down complete codes of law to maintain it, and to secure these codes they erected a guillotine. They remembered only a tiny bit of what they had lost; they didn’t even want to believe that they had once been innocent and happy. They even laughed at the possibility of this former happiness of theirs and called it a dream. They couldn’t even imagine its forms and images, but the strange and wonderful thing of it was that though they had lost all faith in their former happiness, and called it a fairy tale, they so wanted to be innocent and happy anew, once again, that they fell down before their heart’s desire, like children; they idolized this desire, they built temples and began to pray to this idea of theirs, to this ‘desire’, while at the same time recognizing full well its unrealizability and impracticability, even as they tearfully worshipped it and bowed down before it. And yet, if it had happened that they could have returned to that innocent and happy state, which they had lost, and if somebody suddenly were to show it to them once again and ask them whether they wished to return to it – they would certainly have refused. They would answer me: ‘Yes, we’re deceitful, wicked and unjust, we know that and we shed tears over it, and torment ourselves on account of that, and torture ourselves and punish ourselves perhaps even more than that merciful Judge who will judge us and whose name we do not know. But we have science and with it we once again will find the truth, but now we will adopt it consciously. Knowledge is higher than feeling, consciousness of life is higher than life. Science will give us wisdom, wisdom will reveal the laws and knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness.’ That’s what they said to me, and after such words each one loved himself more than anyone else and they could not have done otherwise. Each one became so jealous of his own personality that he would try with all his might to humiliate and belittle it in others, and that was reckoned to be the purpose of one’s life. Slavery appeared, even voluntary slavery: the weak readily submitted to the strong, provided that the latter helped them crush those who were weaker still. Righteous men appeared who would come to these people in tears and talk to them about their pride, about the collapse of proportion and harmony, about their loss of shame. They were laughed at or stoned. The thresholds of the temples were awash in holy blood. But then people began to appear who started to work out a plan for everyone to become united again, so that everyone, without ceasing to love himself more than all others, at the same time would not hinder any other person, and thus they would live
all together, as it were, in a harmonious society. Whole wars were waged over this idea. All the warring parties at the same time firmly believed that science, wisdom and a sense of self-preservation in the end would force mankind to come together in a harmonious and rational society, and therefore, to hasten matters, the ‘wise ones’ sought to exterminate as quickly as possible all the ‘unwise’ and those who did not understand their idea, so that they would not hinder its triumph. But the sense of self-preservation quickly began to weaken, and proud men and sensualists appeared who demanded outright everything or nothing. In order to take possession of everything, they resorted to villainy, and if that did not succeed – to suicide. Religions appeared with the cult of non-existence and self-destruction for the sake of eternal peace in nothingness. In the end, these people grew tired of their meaningless labours and suffering appeared on their faces, and these people proclaimed that suffering was beauty, for only in suffering is there thought. They sang of suffering in their songs. I walked among them, wringing my hands, and wept over them, but I loved them, perhaps even more than I had before, when suffering had not yet marked their faces and when they were innocent and so beautiful. I loved their defiled earth even more than when it had been paradise, if for no other reason than that sorrow had appeared on it. Alas, I have always loved sorrow and grief, but only for myself, for myself, but for them I wept, pitying them. I held out my hands to them, in despair, accusing, cursing and despising myself. I told them that I had done all this, I alone, that I had brought them debauchery, contagion and lying! I implored them to crucify me on a cross; I taught them how to make a cross. I could not, I did not have the strength to kill myself, but I wanted to assume their anguish; I craved anguish, I craved that every last drop of my blood be shed over this anguish. But they merely laughed at me and towards the end began to regard me as a holy fool.10 They excused me, they said that they had merely got what they themselves wanted and that everything as it was now could not be otherwise. In the end, they informed me that I was becoming dangerous for them and that they would put me in a madhouse if I didn’t hold my tongue. Then sorrow entered my soul with such force that it wrung my heart, and I felt as though I were dying, and that was when … well, that was when I woke up.