The poem Dmitri refers to tells of the Goddess Ceres' visit to earth as she looked for her daughter. She found man instead, "sunk in vilest degradation" and displaying total "loathsomeness." In the chorus of the poem, Schiller suggests a remedy: "if man," he says, "wants to purge his soul from vileness," he must "cling forever to his ancient Mother Earth." It is to this poem that Dmitri's soul is attracted; the poem is his credo as he seeks the good and beautiful as a refuge from his periods of degradation. But Dmitri seems damned; there is no ready haven for him. He finds that "beauty is a terrible and awful thing." Beauty, for Dmitri, is especially trying when it is embodied in a woman; it evokes his most saintly emotions and simultaneously arouses his most sensual desires. He cannot reconcile this polar madness; he feels washed with purity and, at the same time, sloshed with torrents of base and vile emotions; his sanity is shielded by only a single thought: he is not totally dishonorable. And it is for this reason, to prove to Alyosha that he is honorable though at times low and base, that he narrates the story of his relations with Katerina Ivanovna.
He tempted her to his apartment when she was desperate for money. He planned to use her poverty to satisfy his own needs; he failed. A dramatic reversal occurred, and he gave her the money and made not a single demand upon her body.
