“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: