Can a human live without the color? The hero of Dostoevsky's story "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" has no woman and no friends. He is completely alone and sees no purpose in his existence. All this makes him cruel not only towards those around him (he refuses to help an orphan girl in need), but also to himself. He decides to kill himself. Late at night, in a cold little apartment somewhere in St. Petersburg, he shoots himself in the heart. And the road, which started in the grave, turns into a cosmic journey to a planet inhabited by people who know no pain, no deceit, no suffering. They are as happy as children and live in peace. But the hero brings a piece of our world with him: first he teaches people innocent humor, then deception, and then they themselves invent murder and betrayal. Having fallen into debauchery, the inhabitants of this world decide to create Science in order to find the lost pillar of their lives. But they fail. The hero wakes up a different man. Once he sees with his own eyes that people can truly live in peace with each other, after beholding the Truth, he doesn't just refuse to commit suicide. He changes his life dramatically and does everything he can to bring our life at least a little closer to the Truth. In the end, he returns to the orphan girl and becomes a father to her.
lyrics
I learnt the truth last November,
on the third of November, to be precise,
and I remember every instant since.
I decided to kill myself that night.
But yet, I do not really care anymore,
for in another hour ot two everything will be extinguished.
I shall turn into nothing,
absolutely nothing.
And yet, life and the world depended upon me now,
if I shot myself the world would cease to be at least for me.
I was thinking back then,
What if I had lived before on the moon or on Mars
and there had committed to some dishonourable action,
should I care from here or not?
At that point, I suddenly fell asleep.
Perhaps it was not a dream at all,
hitherto I have concealed it,
but now I will tell the truth.
The fact is that I . . .
corrupted them all!
We may be deceitful, wicked and unjust, we know it!
But we have science,
and by the 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.
A dream, my dear, is a delusion, a hallucination.
credits
from Can Death Be Sleep,
released April 5, 2022
Featuring:
Stringed instruments – Elena Lyubimova
Drums – Oleg Shuntsov
Double bass - Anatoly Kozhaev
Accordion - Roman Sachkov
Guru – Evgenii Borodachev
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