Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow by Irina Reyfman (top 10 novels of all time .txt) 📕

a registrar in the Service Archive6 and had occasion to use my position for my own advantage. To the best of my modest ability, I compiled genealogies of many Russian lineages, based on clear deductions. I can prove their princely or noble lineage for several hundreds of years. I can restore practically any person’s princely standing, having traced his origin from Vladimir Monomakh or Rurik himself.7 Kind Sir!,” he continued, pointing to his papers, “the entire nobility of Great Russia ought to purchase my work, and pay for it sums not paid for any merchandise. But if your Excellency, your Honor, or Most Honorable—I do not know what your honorific is—will allow, these people do not know what they need. You are aware just how much the pious Tsar Fyodor Alexeyevich of blessed memory offended the Russian nobility when he abolished mestnichestvo. This strict law placed many distinguished princely and royal clans on equal footing with the nobility of Novgorod.8 But then our pious ruler, the Emperor Peter the Great, brought about their total eclipse with his Table of Ranks.9 He opened the path for everyone to the acquisition of a noble title through military and civil service and trampled in the dirt, so to speak, the ancestral nobility. Our Reigning Most Gracious Mother, ruling most kindly, confirmed these earlier ordinances with a supreme regulation on the nobility, that alarmed just about all our lineal nobles since ancient families were ranked lower than all the rest in the register of nobles.10 But a rumor is going round that soon an additional decree will be published and that those families whose noble origins can be proven for either two hundred or three hundred years will be awarded the title Marquess or some other eminence, and that they will enjoy before other families a certain distinction. For this reason, kind Sir, my work ought to be thoroughly agreeable to the entire ancestral nobility. But everyone has his detractors.

“In Moscow I found myself in the company of some young whippersnapper lordlings and offered them my work in order to recoup, thanks to their generous attention, the paper and ink I had wasted, if nothing else. But instead of a favorable reception I met with mockery and, having out of grief left behind this capital city, I embarked on the road to Piter11 where, as we know, there is much more enlightenment.” Having said this, he bowed deeply from the waist,12 drew himself up and stood before me in an attitude of great reverence. I understood his meaning, got … out of my wallet … and once I’d given that money to him, advised him that when he came to Petersburg he should sell his paper by the weight as wrapping to peddlers, since many would have their heads turned by the imaginary title of Marquess, and he would be the reason for the rebirth in Russia of an evil that had been abolished—bragging of an ancient pedigree.

LYUBANI

It is all the same to you, I think, whether I was traveling in the summer or winter. Perhaps it was both winter and summer. This happens not infrequently with travelers: they go out on a sleigh and come back in a cart.—It is summer.—The road paved with logs wore out my sides; I got out of the carriage and continued on foot. While I was lying in the carriage, my thoughts were turned toward the immeasurability of the world. Detaching myself spiritually from earth seemed to alleviate the bumps of the carriage.—But spiritual exercises do not always distract us from corporeality; and for the preservation of my sides I went on foot.—At a distance of several paces from the road I saw a peasant plowing a field. It was hot out. I looked at my watch.—Forty minutes past noon.—I set out on Saturday.—Today is a day of rest.—The peasant at the plow surely belongs to a landowner who does not take quitrent from him.13—The peasant plows with great diligence.—The field is evidently not the landlord’s.—He turns the plow with unbelievable ease. “Godspeed,” I said as I approached the plowman who, without stopping, completed the furrow that had been started. “Godspeed,” I repeated. “Thank you, Master,” said the plowman, shaking out the plowshare and moving the plow over to a new strip. “You must be a Schismatic if you plow on Sundays.”14 “No, Master, I make the sign of the cross in the straight fashion,” he said, showing me three fingers held together.15 “But God is merciful, when one has strength and family, He does not will one to die of hunger.” “But can it be that during the entire week you have no time to work so that you cannot skip Sundays, not even during the hottest period?” “In the week, as it happens, Master, there are six days, and six times a week we go to work for the master;16 and toward evening we bring the hay left in the forest to the landowner’s courtyard if weather permits; and on holidays the womenfolk and gals go for walks into the forest for mushrooms and berries. May God grant (making the sign of the cross) some rain this evening. Master, if you, too, have peasants then they are praying for the same thing from the Lord.” “I have no peasants, my friend, and that is why no one curses me. Is your family large?” “Three sons and three daughters. Going on ten years is the eldest little one.” “How do you manage to provide their bread if you are free only on holidays?” “Not only the holidays are ours, since the night is ours too. If the likes of me are not lazy, then we will not die of hunger. Do you not see that one horse is resting, and when this one grows tired, I will then take the other; this way the work goes smoothly.” “Do you work this way for your owner?” “No, Master, it would be sinful to work the