The Brothers Karamazov

he Confession Of A Passionate Heart—In Verse

Alyosha remained for some time irresolute after hearing the command his
father shouted to him from the carriage. But in spite of his uneasiness
he did not stand still. That was not his way. He went at once to the
kitchen to find out what his father had been doing above. Then he set
off, trusting that on the way he would find some answer to the doubt
tormenting him. I hasten to add that his father’s shouts, commanding
him to return home “with his mattress and pillow” did not frighten him
in the least. He understood perfectly that those peremptory shouts were
merely “a flourish” to produce an effect. In the same way a tradesman
in our town who was celebrating his name‐day with a party of friends,
getting angry at being refused more vodka, smashed up his own crockery
and furniture and tore his own and his wife’s clothes, and finally
broke his windows, all for the sake of effect. Next day, of course,
when he was sober, he regretted the broken cups and saucers. Alyosha
knew that his father would let him go back to the monastery next day,
possibly even that evening. Moreover, he was fully persuaded that his
father might hurt any one else, but would not hurt him. Alyosha was
certain that no one in the whole world ever would want to hurt him,
and, what is more, he knew that no one could hurt him. This was for him
an axiom, assumed once for all without question, and he went his way
without hesitation, relying on it.

But at that moment an anxiety of a different sort disturbed him, and
worried him the more because he could not formulate it. It was the fear
of a woman, of Katerina Ivanovna, who had so urgently entreated him in
the note handed to him by Madame Hohlakov to come and see her about
something. This request and the necessity of going had at once aroused
an uneasy feeling in his heart, and this feeling had grown more and
more painful all the morning in spite of the scenes at the hermitage
and at the Father Superior’s. He was not uneasy because he did not know
what she would speak of and what he must answer. And he was not afraid
of her simply as a woman. Though he knew little of women, he had spent
his life, from early childhood till he entered the monastery, entirely
with women. He was afraid of that woman, Katerina Ivanovna. He had been
afraid of her from the first time he saw her. He had only seen her two
or three times, and had only chanced to say a few words to her. He
thought of her as a beautiful, proud, imperious girl. It was not her
beauty which troubled him, but something else. And the vagueness of his
apprehension increased the apprehension itself. The girl’s aims were of
the noblest, he knew that. She was trying to save his brother Dmitri
simply through generosity, though he had already behaved badly to her.
Yet, although Alyosha recognized and did justice to all these fine and
generous sentiments, a shiver began to run down his back as soon as he
drew near her house.

He reflected that he would not find Ivan, who was so intimate a friend,
with her, for Ivan was certainly now with his father. Dmitri he was
even more certain not to find there, and he had a foreboding of the
reason. And so his conversation would be with her alone. He had a great
longing to run and see his brother Dmitri before that fateful
interview. Without showing him the letter, he could talk to him about
it. But Dmitri lived a long way off, and he was sure to be away from
home too. Standing still for a minute, he reached a final decision.
Crossing himself with a rapid and accustomed gesture, and at once
smiling, he turned resolutely in the direction of his terrible lady.

He knew her house. If he went by the High Street and then across the
market‐place, it was a long way round. Though our town is small, it is
scattered, and the houses are far apart. And meanwhile his father was
expecting him, and perhaps had not yet forgotten his command. He might
be unreasonable, and so he had to make haste to get there and back. So
he decided to take a short cut by the back‐way, for he knew every inch
of the ground. This meant skirting fences, climbing over hurdles, and
crossing other people’s back‐yards, where every one he met knew him and
greeted him. In this way he could reach the High Street in half the
time.

He had to pass the garden adjoining his father’s, and belonging to a
little tumbledown house with four windows. The owner of this house, as
Alyosha knew, was a bedridden old woman, living with her daughter, who
had been a genteel maid‐servant in generals’ families in Petersburg.
Now she had been at home a year, looking after her sick mother. She
always dressed up in fine clothes, though her old mother and she had
sunk into such poverty that they went every day to Fyodor Pavlovitch’s
kitchen for soup and bread, which Marfa gave readily. Yet, though the
young woman came up for soup, she had never sold any of her dresses,
and one of these even had a long train—a fact which Alyosha had learned
from Rakitin, who always knew everything that was going on in the town.
He had forgotten it as soon as he heard it, but now, on reaching the
garden, he remembered the dress with the train, raised his head, which
had been bowed in thought, and came upon something quite unexpected.

Over the hurdle in the garden, Dmitri, mounted on something, was
leaning forward, gesticulating violently, beckoning to him, obviously
afraid to utter a word for fear of being overheard. Alyosha ran up to
the hurdle.

“It’s a good thing you looked up. I was nearly shouting to you,” Mitya
said in a joyful, hurried whisper. “Climb in here quickly! How splendid
that you’ve come! I was just thinking of you!”

Alyosha was delighted too, but he did not know how to get over the
hurdle. Mitya put his powerful hand under his elbow to help him jump.
Tucking up his cassock, Alyosha leapt over the hurdle with the agility
of a bare‐ legged street urchin.

“Well done! Now come along,” said Mitya in an enthusiastic whisper.

“Where?” whispered Alyosha, looking about him and finding himself in a
deserted garden with no one near but themselves. The garden was small,
but the house was at least fifty paces away.

“There’s no one here. Why do you whisper?” asked Alyosha.

“Why do I whisper? Deuce take it!” cried Dmitri at the top of his
voice. “You see what silly tricks nature plays one. I am here in
secret, and on the watch. I’ll explain later on, but, knowing it’s a
secret, I began whispering like a fool, when there’s no need. Let us
go. Over there. Till then be quiet. I want to kiss you.

Glory to God in the world,
Glory to God in me ...

I was just repeating that, sitting here, before you came.”

The garden was about three acres in extent, and planted with trees only
along the fence at the four sides. There were apple‐trees, maples,
limes and birch‐trees. The middle of the garden was an empty grass
space, from which several hundredweight of hay was carried in the
summer. The garden was let out for a few roubles for the summer. There
were also plantations of raspberries and currants and gooseberries laid
out along the sides; a kitchen garden had been planted lately near the
house.

Dmitri led his brother to the most secluded corner of the garden.
There, in a thicket of lime‐trees and old bushes of black currant,
elder, snowball‐tree, and lilac, there stood a tumble‐down green
summer‐house, blackened with age. Its walls were of lattice‐work, but
there was still a roof which could give shelter. God knows when this
summer‐house was built. There was a tradition that it had been put up
some fifty years before by a retired colonel called von Schmidt, who
owned the house at that time. It was all in decay, the floor was
rotting, the planks were loose, the woodwork smelled musty. In the
summer‐house there was a green wooden table fixed in the ground, and
round it were some green benches upon which it was still possible to
sit. Alyosha had at once observed his brother’s exhilarated condition,
and on entering the arbor he saw half a bottle of brandy and a
wineglass on the table.

“That’s brandy,” Mitya laughed. “I see your look: ‘He’s drinking
again!’ Distrust the apparition.

Distrust the worthless, lying crowd,
And lay aside thy doubts.

I’m not drinking, I’m only ‘indulging,’ as that pig, your Rakitin,
says. He’ll be a civil councilor one day, but he’ll 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 world—in reality—in
re‐al‐ i‐ty—(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 doesn’t 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 I’ll sit beside you and look at you, and go
on talking. You shall keep quiet and I’ll go on talking, for the time
has come. But on reflection, you know, I’d better speak quietly, for
here—here—you 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? (It’s five days since I’ve cast anchor here.) Because it’s
only to you I can tell everything; because I must, because I need you,
because to‐morrow I shall fly from the clouds, because to‐morrow life
is ending and beginning. Have you ever felt, have you ever dreamt of
falling down a precipice into a pit? That’s just how I’m falling, but
not in a dream. And I’m not afraid, and don’t you be afraid. At least,
I am afraid, but I enjoy it. It’s not enjoyment though, but ecstasy.
Damn it all, whatever it is! A strong spirit, a weak spirit, a womanish
spirit—whatever it is! Let us praise nature: you see what sunshine, how
clear the sky is, the leaves are all green, it’s still summer; four
o’clock in the afternoon and the stillness! Where were you going?”

“I was going to father’s, but I meant to go to Katerina Ivanovna’s
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. Don’t be sorry, and don’t cry.”

Dmitri stood up, thought a moment, and put his finger to his forehead.

“She’s asked you, written to you a letter or something, that’s why
you’re going to her? You wouldn’t 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 back‐way! Oh, gods, I thank you for sending him
by the back‐way, 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 I’ve 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 that’s 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 me’—some favor never asked before
that could only be asked on one’s deathbed—would 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! H’m!... Don’t be in a hurry, Alyosha, you hurry and worry
yourself. There’s no need to hurry now. Now the world has taken a new
turning. Ah, Alyosha, what a pity you can’t understand ecstasy. But
what am I saying to him? As though you didn’t 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, “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:

Silenus with his rosy phiz
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:

“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 altar‐fires,
And where’er the grieving goddess
Turns her melancholy gaze,
Sunk in vilest degradation
Man his loathsomeness 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.

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
don’t kiss her. I don’t cleave to 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.

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 sage’s sight.
At bounteous Nature’s 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 angels—vision of God’s throne,
To insects—sensual lust.

But enough poetry! I am in tears; let me cry. It may be foolishness
that every one would laugh at. But you won’t laugh. Your eyes are
shining, too. Enough poetry. I want to tell you now about the insects
to whom God gave “sensual lust.”

To insects—sensual 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 tempest—worse 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 I’ve thought a lot about
this. It’s 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 can’t 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. What’s 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. I’d 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.”