“And you were going the back way! Oh, gods! I thank you that you sent him the back way and he got caught, like the golden fish in the tale who gets caught by an old fool of a fisherman.[81] Listen, Alyosha, listen, brother! Now I’m going to tell you everything. For I surely must tell at least somebody. I’ve already told it to an angel in heaven, but I must also tell it to an angel on earth. You are the angel on earth. You will listen, you will judge, and you will forgive ... And that is what I need, that someone higher forgive me. Listen: if two beings suddenly break away from everything earthly and fly off into the extraordinary, or at least one of them does, and before that, as he flies off or perishes, he comes to someone else and says: do this or that for me, something that one would never ask of anybody except on one’s deathbed—can that person refuse to do it ... if he’s a friend, a brother?”
“I’ll do it, but tell me what it is, and quickly,” said Alyosha.
“Quickly ... Hm. Don’t be in a hurry, Alyosha: you hurry and worry. There’s no rush now. Now the world has come out onto a new street. Hey, Alyosha, it’s a pity you never hit on ecstasy! But what am I saying? As if you hadn’t hit on it! What a babbler I am:
= man, be noble!
Whose line is that?”[82]
Alyosha decided to wait. He realized that all his business was now, indeed, perhaps only here. Mitya thought for a moment, leaning his elbow on the table and resting his head in his hand. Both were silent.
“Lyosha,” said Mitya, “you alone will not laugh. I wanted to begin ... my confession ... with Schiller’s hymn to joy.
And a ruddy-mugged Silenus Riding a stumbling ass—[84]
and I haven’t drunk even a quarter of a bottle, and I’m not Silenus. Not Silenus, but not silent either, because I’m telling you I’ve made a decision forever. Forgive the pun; you’ll have to forgive me a lot more than puns today. Don’t worry, I’m not losing the point, I’m talking business, and I’ll get to business at once. I won’t leave you hanging. Wait, how does it go ... ?”
He raised his head, thought for a moment, and suddenly began ecstatically:
Darkly hid in cave and cleft
Shy, the troglodyte abode; Earth a waste was found and left
Where the wandering nomad strode: Deadly with the spear and shaft,
Prowled the hunter through the land; Woe to the stranger waves may waft
On an ever-fatal strand!
Thus was all to Ceres, when Searching for her ravish’d child
(No green culture smiling then),
O’er the drear coast bleak and wild,
Never shelter did she gain,
Never friendly threshold trod;
All unbuilded then the fane,
All unheeded then the god!
Not with golden corn-ears strew’d
Were the ghastly altar stones; Bleaching there, and gore-imbued,
Lay unhallow’d human bones! Wide and far, where’er she roved,
Still reign’d Misery over all; And her mighty soul was moved At man’s universal fall.[85]
Sobs suddenly burst from Mitya’s breast. He seized Alyosha’s hand. “My friend, my friend, still fallen, still fallen even now. There’s so terribly much suffering for man on earth, so terribly much grief for him! Don’t think I’m just a brute of an officer who drinks cognac and goes whoring. No, brother, I hardly think of anything else, of anything but that fallen man, if only I’m not lying now. God keep me from lying, and from praising myself! I think about that man, because I myself am such a man.
That men to man again may soar,
Let man and Earth with one another Make a compact evermore—
Man the son, and Earth the mother ...[86]
There’s just one thing: how can I make a compact with the earth evermore? I don’t kiss the earth, I don’t tear open her bosom; what should I do, become a peasant or a shepherd? I keep going, and I don’t know: have I gotten into stench and shame, or into light and joy? That’s the whole trouble, because everything on earth is a riddle. And whenever I happened to sink into the deepest, the very deepest shame of depravity (and that’s all I ever happened to do), I always read that poem about Ceres and man. Did it set me right? Never! Because I’m a Karamazov. Because when I fall into the abyss, I go straight into it, head down and heels up, and I’m even pleased that I’m falling in just such a humiliating position, and for me I find it beautiful. And so in that very shame I suddenly begin a hymn. Let me be cursed, let me be base and vile, but let me also kiss the hem of that garment in which my God is clothed; let me be following the devil at the same time, but still I am also your son, Lord, and I love you, and I feel a joy without which the world cannot stand and be.
Joy is the mainspring of the whole
Of endless Nature’s calm rotation; Joy moves the dazzling wheels that roll
Within the great heart of creation; Joy breathes on buds, and flowers they are;
