The Charm of Falsehood

 

The Dream of a Ridiculous Man is a short story by Dostoevsky. The narrator-protagonist is a total misfit in the human world. “Oh, how hard it is to be the only one who knows the truth!” He reflects. The truth he knows makes him a ridiculous man first and later a mad man.

He knows that human life is absurd. That is the truth he knows. He is incapable of loving that life. He cannot accept the normal human jealousies, greed, mendacity, and so on. He is utterly frustrated and wants to kill himself. He buys a revolver and wants to fire the bullet right into his brain.

One day, while walking towards home in the night contemplating suicide, a little girl of eight tugs at his elbow frantically. The girl’s mother is in some danger and wants urgent help. The girl looks absolutely miserable wearing tattered clothes and torn shoes. The protagonist does not feel any sympathy for the girl. He pushes the girl away and walks off.

At home, the girl rises in his consciousness. He wonders why he did not feel pity for that helpless little creature. Why was he not even able to feel shame at his behaviour? Thinking about the wretchedness of human life, he falls asleep. He has a dream.

In the dream he picks up his revolver and shoots at his heart. Heart, not the brain as he had planned originally, he reassures us. When the coffin shakes on the shoulders of its carriers to the grave, our protagonist who is lying in that coffin realises without any doubt that he is dead. He is buried now.

Lying in his grave, he challenges the supernatural power, if there is any, saying that he would not surrender to its tyranny. After a while, he is carried to the space by a mysterious creature to a world that looks similar to the earth and yet is entirely different.

There are men and women in that world. But they are innocent. They are like children in their gaiety and playfulness. They sing songs and eat fruits and honey. There is no jealousy or quarrel of any sort among them. On the contrary, they appreciate one another for what they do. There is hardly any illness among them. Death is a peaceful affair like sleep. They have no temples or idols. Yet they have a sense of spirituality, a sense of oneness with the whole universe. Theirs is a utopia, the protagonist realises. Is it heaven?

The protagonist teaches those people to lie. To utter falsehood. Just for fun. It doesn't ever occur to him that the “fun” he introduces in that utopia will turn it into a dystopia so quickly. The heaven becomes a hell sooner than anyone could imagine. The people enjoy telling lies. They love “the charm of falsehood”. They deceive each other. They begin to view things as “mine and thine”. They divide themselves into us and them. Temples and idols come up soon for the different factions among them. A few become the custodians of knowledge and knowledge gains precedence over tender emotions. Slavery becomes a virtue. Those who talk of love and harmony are ridiculed and even tortured. Soon enough, wars start in the erstwhile utopia. All because of the frivolous falsehood that our protagonist introduced for fun.

The protagonist tries his best to make them understand that their earlier world was far, far superior. But they refuse to listen to him. He asks them to crucify him for his sin of corrupting them. They think he is mad. They conspire to throw him in a madhouse.

The protagonist wakes up from his dream. He is now a transformed person. He has seen both heaven and hell. He has seen how a heaven can be converted into a hell easily. Falsehood is a catastrophe. Falsehood enchants too. The protagonist wants to teach his new knowledge to people. He starts preaching. He preaches that we can be “beautiful and happy” easily.  

People don’t believe him, however. They scoff him for being a dreamer. They think he is under a hallucination.

The story ends with our protagonist finding out that little girl who had approached him that other night for help.

He won’t need his revolver anymore. Better still, he will live a happy life because he has learnt the secret of genuine happiness. He has seen the border between truth and falsehood. He has learnt that the charms of falsehood are delusions.

PS. You can download Dostoevsky’s story here: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

PPS. Praful Khoda Patel’s Lakshadweep reminded me of this story.