Chapter 1
It was on the Trans-Siberian railway that the ghost train occasionally appeared. Here Dostoevsky and Tolstoy met for the first time. They were sitting in the same cabin, facing each other. Dostoevsky was the one to speak first. ‘You were a better man than me. I was a gambler and womanizer driven by lust’, he said. Tolstoy responded, ‘I would look at my own wife lustfully, which was even worse. So, I am no better than you. I suppose, that is why both of us are on this train’.
They continued discussing their life experience, relationships, successes and disappointments. ‘I wanted to understand life from bottom up, that is why I started in the underground facing all the vileness of humanity’, Dostoevsky exclaimed. ‘Then I realised I was an idiot, so I tried to look at life from top to bottom, seeking goodness in humanity’, he whispered quietly. ‘Then looking at the same time at the bottom and the top, I became perplexed, and I went to play roulette for the very last time in my life. But, I could not decide whether to place my bet on red or black… so I put it in between. But the croupier could not accept my stake’. ‘Sir…’, he told me, ‘you have to decide where you want to place your bet.’ ‘I left all of my money on the table, turned around and walked away.’
‘Yes… I could not decide whether to place my bet on the vileness or on the goodness of humanity. Even worse, I could not choose whether to place my stakes on the goodness or on the vileness of God… Yes, I suppose, as you said my comrade that is why I find myself on this train. I invented the Karamazov family attempting to defend the Heavenly Father from above, while in the same breath I attempted to kill him from below… through the hands of his own children… by presenting him as a despicable father who does not care for his children… So, yes, you are a better man than me,’ he told Tolstoy. ‘Anyway… I wish I knew where this train is taking us’, Dostoevsky sighed.
‘No, my comrade’, Tolstoy responded with conviction in his voice. ’I also began by living life from below, and I embraced the corruption of our society and especially of those like me who were privileged. My comrade, if I had to live without money like you, I would have probably turned out much worse. Later, I denounced it all, and tried to live life from above. So I turned to the poor and the unprivileged and I tried to create a perfect society, a perfect community for them… though it was really for my own sake, because I placed all my bets on becoming perfect, but in the end… I knew I died as an imperfect man. And I find myself on this train… so my comrade, I am no better then you.
Suddenly a crazed man in an old ripped and worn shirt started looking frantically at everyone in the cabin whispering, ‘my cloak, my precious… where is my cloak…’ He then charged at someone trying to pull their coat off. ‘Get of… you lunatic! You monstrous creation… you and your damn overcoat…’. Tolstoy looked at the other man and said, ‘isn’t that Gogol?... why… he is also here with us.’ He then turned to Dostoevsky and said with perplexity, ’My comrade, where on earth is this train taking us?’
