Blick ins Chaos

"Half of Europe, at least half of Eastern Europe is already on the road to chaos, moving in a drunken state in holy delusion along the abyss and singing also, singing intoxicated and hymn-like like Dmitri Karamasoff sang. The common man laughs about the songs and is offended, the saint and the prophet are listening in tears."

In the essay Hesse wrote a few paragraphs each for a number of loosely connected thoughts about the future of Europe. He contrasted European culture with the culture of Asiatic Russia as examplified by the characters in Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov.

Here you can read the two paragraphs that make up Hesse's concluding thought.

This site also has the chapter from Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov where we see the drunken and singing Dimitri Karamazov.