Anquish (Novel)

Ivan Myshkin had lost his closest person in his life - his wife Varya. He went to St. Petersburg where he celebrated his fortieth birthday alone in "The Literary Cafe".
When he returned to the apartment on Gorohovaja Street where he rented a room from a good-natured old woman, he suddenly knew that she died. Left alone in the apartment he pours out his soul in front of her dead body. Ivan reads for her his diary and in detail recalls his a past life. At dawn, he permanently leaves the apartment and moved to another apartment which is located in the Grafskiy alley.
The loneliness begins to crush and destroy his soul. More and more he loses the meaning of life.
In one day, he saw a very realistic dream where he met on the Fontanka river his wife Varya which was sitting in "The gazebo on the embankment" and singing familiar song. At first, he did not recognize her and from the unbearable tension falls into a trance, and when he wakes up, he actually sees in front of him his wife Varya. He learns from her that they will meet very soon and it will happen here in "The gazebo on the embankment!".
Flushed with joy of the meeting, he woke up and realized that it was just a dream. "The gazebo on the embankment!" does not exists. It is just a figment of his imagination. But in the painful dreams Varya began to come to Ivan very often.
After that, Myshkin starts to really live only in a dream. From this moment life's meaning was lost and he plunged deeply in the world of his illusions which turns into reality in "The gazebo on the embankment!"