Thats brandy, Mitya laughed. I see your look: Hes drinking again! Distrust the apparition.
Distrust the worthless, lying crowd,
And lay aside thy doubts.
Im not drinking, Im only indulging, as that pig, your Rakitin, says. Hell be a civil councilor one day, but hell always talk about indulging. Sit down. I could take you in my arms, Alyosha, and press you to my bosom till I crush you, for in the whole worldin realityin reality(can you take it in?) I love no one but you!
He uttered the last words in a sort of exaltation.
No one but you and one jade I have fallen in love with, to my ruin. But being in love doesnt mean loving. You may be in love with a woman and yet hate her. Remember that! I can talk about it gayly still. Sit down here by the table and Ill sit beside you and look at you, and go on talking. You shall keep quiet and Ill go on talking, for the time has come. But on reflection, you know, Id better speak quietly, for herehereyou can never tell what ears are listening. I will explain everything; as they say, the story will be continued. Why have I been longing for you? Why have I been thirsting for you all these days, and just now? (Its five days since Ive cast anchor here.) Because its only to you I can tell everything; because I must, because I need you, because tomorrow I shall fly from the clouds, because tomorrow life is ending and beginning. Have you ever felt, have you ever dreamt of falling down a precipice into a pit? Thats just how Im falling, but not in a dream. And Im not afraid, and dont you be afraid. At least, I am afraid, but I enjoy it. Its not enjoyment though, but ecstasy. Damn it all, whatever it is! A strong spirit, a weak spirit, a womanish spiritwhatever it is! Let us praise nature: you see what sunshine, how clear the sky is, the leaves are all green, its still summer; four oclock in the afternoon and the stillness! Where were you going?
I was going to fathers, but I meant to go to Katerina Ivanovnas first.
To her, and to father! Oo! what a coincidence! Why was I waiting for you? Hungering and thirsting for you in every cranny of my soul and even in my ribs? Why, to send you to father and to her, Katerina Ivanovna, so as to have done with her and with father. To send an angel. I might have sent any one, but I wanted to send an angel. And here you are on your way to see father and her.
Did you really mean to send me? cried Alyosha with a distressed expression.
Stay! You knew it! And I see you understand it all at once. But be quiet, be quiet for a time. Dont be sorry, and dont cry.
Dmitri stood up, thought a moment, and put his finger to his forehead.
Shes asked you, written to you a letter or something, thats why youre going to her? You wouldnt be going except for that?
Here is her note. Alyosha took it out of his pocket. Mitya looked through it quickly.
And you were going the backway! Oh, gods, I thank you for sending him by the backway, and he came to me like the golden fish to the silly old fishermen in the fable! Listen, Alyosha, listen, brother! Now I mean to tell you everything, for I must tell some one. An angel in heaven Ive told already; but I want to tell an angel on earth. You are an angel on earth. You will hear and judge and forgive. And thats what I need, that some one above me should forgive. Listen! If two people break away from everything on earth and fly off into the unknown, or at least one of them, and before flying off or going to ruin he comes to some one else and says, Do this for mesome favor never asked before that could only be asked on ones deathbedwould that other refuse, if he were a friend or a brother?
I will do it, but tell me what it is, and make haste, said Alyosha.
Make haste! Hm!Dont be in a hurry, Alyosha, you hurry and worry yourself. Theres no need to hurry now. Now the world has taken a new turning. Ah, Alyosha, what a pity you cant understand ecstasy. But what am I saying to him? As though you didnt understand it. What an ass I am! What am I saying? Be noble, O man!who says that?
Alyosha made up his mind to wait. He felt that, perhaps, indeed, his work lay here. Mitya sank into thought for a moment, with his elbow on the table and his head in his hand. Both were silent.
Alyosha, said Mitya, youre the only one who wont laugh. I should like to beginmy confessionwith Schillers Hymn to Joy, An die Freude! I dont know German, I only know its called that. Dont think Im talking nonsense because Im drunk. Im not a bit drunk. Brandys all very well, but I need two bottles to make me drunk:
Silenus with his rosy phiz
Upon his stumbling ass.
But Ive not drunk a quarter of a bottle, and Im not Silenus. Im not Silenus, though I am strong,[1] for Ive made a decision once for all. Forgive me the pun; youll have to forgive me a lot more than puns today. Dont be uneasy. Im not spinning it out. Im talking sense, and Ill come to the point in a minute. I wont keep you in suspense. Stay, how does it go?
He raised his head, thought a minute, and began with enthusiasm:
Wild and fearful in his cavern
Hid the naked troglodyte,
And the homeless nomad wandered
Laying waste the fertile plain.
Menacing with spear and arrow
In the woods the hunter strayed.
Woe to all poor wretches stranded
On those cruel and hostile shores!
From the peak of high Olympus
Came the mother Ceres down,
Seeking in those savage regions
Her lost daughter Proserpine.
But the Goddess found no refuge,
Found no kindly welcome there,
And no temple bearing witness
To the worship of the gods.
From the fields and from the vineyards
Came no fruits to deck the feasts,
Only flesh of bloodstained victims
Smoldered on the altarfires,
And whereer the grieving goddess
Turns her melancholy gaze,
Sunk in vilest degradation
Man his loathsomeness displays.
Mitya broke into sobs and seized Alyoshas hand.
Mitya broke into sobs and seized Alyoshas hand.
My dear, my dear, in degradation, in degradation now, too. Theres a terrible amount of suffering for man on earth, a terrible lot of trouble. Dont think Im only a brute in an officers uniform, wallowing in dirt and drink. I hardly think of anything but of that degraded manif only Im not lying. I pray God Im not lying and showing off. I think about that man because I am that man myself.
Would he purge his soul from vileness
And attain to light and worth,
He must turn and cling for ever
To his ancient Mother Earth.
But the difficulty is how am I to cling for ever to Mother Earth. I dont kiss her. I dont cleave to her bosom. Am I to become a peasant or a shepherd? I go on and I dont know whether Im going to shame or to light and joy. Thats the trouble, for everything in the world is a riddle! And whenever Ive happened to sink into the vilest degradation (and its always been happening) I always read that poem about Ceres and man. Has it reformed me? Never! For Im a Karamazov. For when I do leap into the pit, I go headlong with my heels up, and am pleased to be falling in that degrading attitude, and pride myself upon it. And in the very depths of that degradation I begin a hymn of praise. Let me be accursed. Let me be vile and base, only let me kiss the hem of the veil in which my God is shrouded. Though I may be following the devil, I am Thy son, O Lord, and I love Thee, and I feel the joy without which the world cannot stand.
Joy everlasting fostereth
The soul of all creation,
It is her secret ferment fires
The cup of life with flame.
Tis at her beck the grass hath turned
Each blade towards the light
And solar systems have evolved
From chaos and dark night,
Filling the realms of boundless space
Beyond the sages sight.
At bounteous Natures kindly breast,
All things that breathe drink Joy,
And birds and beasts and creeping things
All follow where She leads.
Her gifts to man are friends in need,
The wreath, the foaming must,
To angelsvision of Gods throne,
To insectssensual lust.
But enough poetry! I am in tears; let me cry. It may be foolishness that every one would laugh at. But you wont laugh. Your eyes are shining, too. Enough poetry. I want to tell you now about the insects to whom God gave sensual lust.
To insectssensual lust.
I am that insect, brother, and it is said of me specially. All we Karamazovs are such insects, and, angel as you are, that insect lives in you, too, and will stir up a tempest in your blood. Tempests, because sensual lust is a tempestworse than a tempest! Beauty is a terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been fathomed and never can be fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles. Here the boundaries meet and all contradictions exist side by side. I am not a cultivated man, brother, but Ive thought a lot about this. Its terrible what mysteries there are! Too many riddles weigh men down on earth. We must solve them as we can, and try to keep a dry skin in the water. Beauty! I cant endure the thought that a man of lofty mind and heart begins with the ideal of the Madonna and ends with the ideal of Sodom. Whats still more awful is that a man with the ideal of Sodom in his soul does not renounce the ideal of the Madonna, and his heart may be on fire with that ideal, genuinely on fire, just as in his days of youth and innocence. Yes, man is broad, too broad, indeed. Id have him narrower. The devil only knows what to make of it! What to the mind is shameful is beauty and nothing else to the heart. Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe me, that for the immense mass of mankind beauty is found in Sodom. Did you know that secret? The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man. But a man always talks of his own ache. Listen, now to come to facts.
[1] In Russian, silen.
Chapter IV.
The Confession of a Passionate Heartin Anecdote
I was leading a wild life then. Father said just now that I spent several thousand roubles in seducing young girls. Thats a swinish invention, and there was nothing of the sort. And if there was, I didnt need money simply for that. With me money is an accessory, the overflow of my heart, the framework. Today she would be my lady, tomorrow a wench out of the streets in her place. I entertained them both. I threw away money by the handful on music, rioting, and gypsies. Sometimes I gave it to the ladies, too, for theyll take it greedily, that must be admitted, and be pleased and thankful for it. Ladies used to be fond of me: not all of them, but it happened, it happened. But I always liked sidepaths, little dark backalleys behind the main roadthere one finds adventures and surprises, and precious metal in the dirt. I am speaking figuratively, brother. In the town I was in, there were no such backalleys in the literal sense, but morally there were. If you were like me, youd know what that means. I loved vice, I loved the ignominy of vice. I loved cruelty; am I not a bug, am I not a noxious insect? In fact a Karamazov! Once we went, a whole lot of us, for a picnic, in seven sledges. It was dark, it was winter, and I began squeezing a girls hand, and forced her to kiss me. She was the daughter of an official, a sweet, gentle, submissive creature. She allowed me, she allowed me much in the dark. She thought, poor thing, that I should come next day to make her an offer (I was looked upon as a good match, too). But I didnt say a word to her for five months. I used to see her in a corner at dances (we were always having dances), her eyes watching me. I saw how they glowed with firea fire of gentle indignation. This game only tickled that insect lust I cherished in my soul. Five months later she married an official and left the town, still angry, and still, perhaps, in love with me. Now they live happily. Observe that I told no one. I didnt boast of it. Though Im full of low desires, and love whats low, Im not dishonorable. Youre blushing; your eyes flashed. Enough of this filth with you. And all this was nothing muchwayside blossoms à la Paul de Kockthough the cruel insect had already grown strong in my soul. Ive a perfect album of reminiscences, brother. God bless them, the darlings. I tried to break it off without quarreling. And I never gave them away. I never bragged of one of them. But thats enough. You cant suppose I brought you here simply to talk of such nonsense. No, Im going to tell you something more curious; and dont be surprised that Im glad to tell you, instead of being ashamed.