“Alyosha,” said Mitya, “you’re the only one who won’t laugh. I should like to begin—my confession—with Schiller’s ‘Hymn to Joy,’ An die Freude! I don’t know German, I only know it’s called that. Don’t think I’m talking nonsense because I’m drunk. I’m not a bit drunk. Brandy’s all very well, but I need two bottles to make me drunk:
Upon his stumbling ass.
But I’ve not drunk a quarter of a bottle, and I’m not Silenus. I’m not Silenus, though I am strong,1
for I’ve made a decision once for all. Forgive me the pun; you’ll have to forgive me a lot more than puns to- day. Don’t be uneasy. I’m not spinning it out. I’m talking sense, and I’ll come to the point in a minute. I won’t keep you in suspense. Stay, how does it go?”He raised his head, thought a minute, and began with enthusiasm:
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!
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.
Came no fruits to deck the feats,
Only flesh of blood-stained victims
Smouldered on the altar-fires,
And where’er the grieving goddess
Turns her melancholy gaze,
Sunk in vilest degradation
Man his loathesomeness displays.”
Mitya broke into sobs and seized Alyosha’s hand.
“My dear, my dear, in degradation, in degradation now, too. There’s a terrible amount of suffering for man on earth, a terrible lot of trouble. Don’t think I’m only a brute in an officer’s uniform, wallowing in dirt and drink. I hardly think of anything but of that degraded man—if only I’m not lying. I pray God I’m not lying and showing off. I think about that man because I am that man myself.
And attain to light and worth,
He must turn and cling forever
To his ancient Mother Earth.
But the difficulty is how am I to cling for ever to Mother Earth. I don’t kiss her. I don’t cleave her bosom. Am I to become a peasant or a shepherd? I go on and I don’t know whether I’m going to shame or to light and joy. That’s the trouble, for everything in the world is a riddle! And whenever I’ve happened to sink into the vilest degradation (and it’s always been happening) I always read that poem about Ceres and man. Has it reformed me? Never! For I’m 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.
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 sage’s sight.
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 angels—vision of God’s throne,
To insects—sensual lust.
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