A Dream of Armageddon by H. G. Wells. Short summary

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The traveling companion tells the author that in the dream he lived in another century, in another country, and he was a different man. By day he was in Liverpool, and by night he was the great man of the country in the North.

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A fellow traveler on the train told the author that in a dream that lasted every night, he had lived a whole life. But it was in a different time and country, and his name was not Cooper, but Gedon. He fell asleep in Liverpool, at the very beginning of the twentieth century, and when he opened his eyes in a dream, he was a great man of the north country in the future.

The author raises the problem of the private and the public. Gedon met the girl of his dreams and abandoned his people. He poisoned himself with his beloved in Capri. (Cooper himself had never been there, but the author, who vacationed on the island, recognizes from his description of the cliffs and terrain.)

Gedon is approached by a man sent for him. The country he has left is in turmoil. It is on the brink of disaster and war. But Gedon says, «It does not concern me.»

However, the war that began in his country quickly became a world war. The people went mad and praised the dictator Evesham. In the course of the war, both Gedon’s sweetheart and himself were killed. And Cooper now considers himself and all the people in the present as pale shadows.