The ridiculous dream

But, you know, alas, it was only a dream! But the feeling of the hospitality of these pure and beautiful people has always remained in my heart, and I feel that it is still rubbing off on me. I see them, I know them and I believe them. I liked them, and I suffered for them afterwards. Ah, I knew at once, even then, that in many ways I did not fully understand them; As a contemporary Russian progressive and humble Petersburg, I don't seem to have solved the problem that they know so many things without our education. But it soon became clear to me that their enrichment and absorption of knowledge took place in a different way from our own on Earth, and that their pursuit was entirely different. They are aloof from the world, indifferent to fame and fortune. They do not strive to find a life, as we do, because they live to the full. But their knowledge is much deeper than ours, for our knowledge seeks to explain what life is, to know it, in order to teach it to others; They know how to live without studying science. I understand that, but I don't understand their knowledge. They showed me their trees, but I could not appreciate the way they looked at them: they seemed to have a kinship with each other. You know, if I said they could talk to trees, I was probably right! Yes, they have found the language of the trees, and I am sure the trees understand their words. That's how they see nature as a whole, including animals. The animals lived at peace with them and did not attack them, but liked them and were tamed by their love. They showed me the stars, and talked to me about them. I could not understand them, but I believed that they seemed to have some way of communicating with them, not just in thought, but in a lively way. Oh, these people don't try to make me understand them, and I don't understand them, and they love me, but I know they'll never understand me, and that's why I hardly talk to them about our Earth. In their presence I merely kissed frequently the land where they lived in silent reverence. And when they saw it, they let me go and shew it, and were not ashamed of my reverence, for they themselves were exalted. I sometimes kiss their feet with tears on my face, and they are not sad for me. How excited I am to know how passionate their love will be in return! I wonder, sometimes, how it is that they do not bully people like me, and do not once arouse jealousy and jealousy in people like me. I asked myself many a time: how could I, a boastful liar, not tell them what I knew, of which, of course, they knew nothing, and not want to shock them, or even to admire them? They were all as merry and cheerful as children. They roamed their beautiful gardens and woods, singing their beautiful songs, eating digestible food, fruit from their own trees, honey from their own forests, and the milk of animals that loved them. They can easily feed and clothe themselves with light labor. They loved each other and had children, but I never found them greedy or immoral. Almost all human beings on our planet are doomed to lust. Lust is the root of all human evil. They are overjoyed at the arrival of a new life, a new person in their happy land. They didn't quarrel with each other, they didn't envy each other, they didn't even know what a quarrel was with jealousy. Their children are everyone's, because everyone is a family. They were almost entirely free of disease, though there was death; Their old man died peacefully, as if he were asleep. People gathered around him to see him off. He smiled and blessed them, and they smiled and said goodbye. I did not see sorrow or tears, but a double rapture of love, but a calm, full, quiet rapture. It can be argued that they are still in contact with the deceased even after his death, and that death cuts off the earthly connection between them. When I asked them about eternal life, they barely understood what I meant, but it was clear that they believed it, and it was not a problem for them. They have no temples here, but they have a vital, vibrant, indissoluble connection with the whole universe; They were not religious, but they were sure that when earthly pleasures reached their earthly limits, then for them, the living and the dead, a wider communion with the whole universe would come. They were looking forward to the moment with great interest, unhurried and carefree, as if they were already ready to exchange information. Every night before they go to bed, they like to sing a harmonious song together. They use these songs to express the feelings of the day, to eulogize and bid farewell to the passing day. They praise nature, the earth, the sea and the forest. They liked to write songs about each other and praise each other like children; These are unpretentious songs, but they come from the heart and move the heart. Not only in their songs, but seemingly throughout their lives, they admired each other. It was an all-encompassing, common kind of adoration. Other songs were so solemn that I could hardly understand them at all. I know the lyrics, but I can't get the full meaning. My brain seemed difficult to understand, but my heart seemed to be more and more understanding unconsciously. I have often said to them that I had a premonition of all this before, that all these joys and hymns are to me on our earth an immense sorrow, and sometimes an unbearable pain; I had a premonition of these people, and their hymns, when my heart was in dreams, and visions came into my head; On our earth, the setting sun often starts me with tears... I hate the people of our earth, but there is always bitterness in hate: why can I hate them without loving them? Why should I not forgive them? I love them, but in love there is always bitterness: why should I love them and hate them at the same time? I could see that the people here did not understand what I was saying, but I was not sorry that I had spoken to them, because I knew that they understood how much I missed those I had left. Yes, when they look at me with their kind eyes full of caresses, when I feel my soul becoming as pure and honest as theirs in their presence, I no longer regret not understanding them. Life is so full, full. Excited by the experience of being there, I silently blessed them.

Oh, all the people now laugh in my face, and insist that nothing in a dream could be so detailed as the one I now describe, that what I saw or felt in a dream was only a vision of a dream, and that I made up the details myself when I woke. And when I confessed to them that it might in fact be so -- my God, how they laughed in my face, how happy they were! Yes, it was true. I was completely intoxicated by the dreamlike sensation, and only this sensation remained intact in my traumatized heart: Dream true form, though, and true form, namely dream actually see the image, plump so harmonious, so beautiful, so vivid, so that my we wake up to natural can't use our poor language to express, they in my mind inevitably become indifference, so in the later, maybe I really don't consciously invent some details, Especially in the urgent under want to spit out, false things natural unavoidable. But how could I not believe that it was real? Could the truth be a thousand times more perfect, clear, and interesting than I say? Even if this is a dream, however, all this cannot be without. Let me tell you a secret: perhaps all this was not a dream after all! For what had happened was so astonishingly real that it could not have been conceived in a dream. Let it be said that my mind had conceived the dream; but could my mind have invented such a thrilling truth as it later encountered? How could I have imagined or imagined that truth in my own mind? How can my small heart and empty, changeable mind reach that inspiration of truth! Well, judge for yourself. I have kept it a secret till now, but now I will tell the truth. The problem is that I... You've taught them all wrong!