The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

A man who has become convinced that nothing in life matters falls asleep and dreams. In the dream he is carried to a distant world untouched by sin, a place of innocence and joy — and, without meaning to, he ruins it. He wakes with a single conviction he cannot stop preaching.

First published in A Writer's Diary in 1877, it is among the shortest and most luminous things Dostoevsky wrote, and a good way to meet his ideas in a single sitting.