When my uncle took me to his house, he made me promise I would never attempt suicide again. That was the only condition oh which he would consent to let me live with him. "All right," I said; "if we really exist, then I won't make any further attempt to hang myself."
Why do you want to know whether you exist or not? There is the sky. Look, how beautiful it is. There are the swallows and the sweet-scented grass. It's fine! _(To the Friar)_ Fine, isn't it, Vassya?
Mr. Savva, do you like to tear up ant-hills?
It's a long time since I tried to. I used to like it very much.
SPERANSKY _(patiently awaiting the end of their conversation)_
Swallows! What good is their flying to me? Anyhow, maybe swallows don't exist either, and it's all a dream.
Suppose it is a dream. Dreams are very beautiful sometimes, you know.
I should like to wake up, but I can't. I wander around and wander around until I am weary and feeble, and when I rouse myself I find I am here, in the very same place. There is the monastery and the belfry, and the clock strikes the hour. And it's all like a dream, a fantasy. You close your eyes, and it does not exist. You open them, and it's there again. Sometimes I go out into the fields at night and close my eyes, and then it seems to me there is nothing at all existing. Suddenly the quail begin to call, and a wagon rolls down the road. Again a dream. For if you stopped up your ears, you wouldn't hear those sounds. When I die, everything will grow silent, and then it will be true. Only the dead know the truth, Mr. Savva.
FRIAR _(smiling, cautiously waving his hands at a bird; in a whisper)_ It's time to go to bed, time to go to bed.
What dead? Listen, my dear sir. I have a plain, simple, peasant mind, and I don't understand those subtleties. What dead are you talking about?
About all the dead, every one without exception. That's why the faces of the dead are so serene. Whatever agonies a man may have suffered before his death, the moment he dies his face becomes serene. That's because he has learned the truth. I always come here to attend the funerals. It's astonishing. There was a woman buried here. She had died of grief because her husband was crushed under a locomotive. You can imagine what must have been going on in her mind before her death. It's too horrible to think of. Yet she lay there, in the coffin, absolutely serene and calm. That's because she had come to know that her grief was nothing but a dream, a mere phantom. I like the dead, Mr. Savva. I think the dead really exist.