The Limits of Time
The czar had them all arrested. And then one morning they were awakened at dawn and told they were to be executed. As Dostoyevsky rode to the execution with his friends in an open wagon, a strange sensation began to overcome him. He felt a spacious, oceanic sense of time. He felt as if the limits of time had opened wide. In a few minutes he would die, but he felt as if he had all the time in the world to do what he needed to do. What he needed to do, he now realised, was to say goodbye to his comrades for the final time. He did this in a full and leisurely way, the great love he bore for his companions welling up to the bursting point. And then he decided to spend his last moments on earth looking around at the world for the last time. As he did so, he found himself gazing at the tin roof of a nearby barn. A brilliant morning sun was shining, and a great burst of sunlight shone off the tin roof. Suddenly he knew for certain that this was what he would become. In a few minutes he would die, and he would become this blazing, radiant light. This knowledge filled him with an ecstasy so intense he thought that if it went on for even another minute, he wouldn’t be able to bear it.
…Dostoyevksy was changed forever by this experience. It showed him what he really was. It took him to the core of his being, and he was a different man for the rest of his life.
