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

water as they fell from the tips of the oars. My poetic imagination was transporting me to the lovely pastures of Paphos and Amathus.20 Suddenly the sharp whistle of a wind arising from afar drove sleep away, and my drowsy eyes met the sight of densely packed clouds whose dark mass, it seemed, drove them toward our heads and threatened to crash down on us. The glassy patina of the water began to ripple, and calm gave way to an incipient splashing of the swells. I was glad about this sight as well; while I observed the magnificent features of nature, I can say without boastful arrogance that what had begun to terrify others gladdened me. From time to time, like Vernet, I exclaimed, “Oh, how pleasing!”21 But the wind, as it gradually strengthened, compelled me to think about reaching the shore. The sky became completely dark from the thickening of somber clouds. The strong surge of the waves crippled control of the helm, and the gusty wind, now forcing us upward onto wet ridges, now plunging us into the clifflike ruts of watery swells, sapped the rowers’ forward-moving force. Involuntarily going with the flow of the wind we were borne along randomly. That was when we began to dread even the shore; and then what might have comforted us on a successful voyage began to drive us into despair. Nature at that hour looked mean to us, and we now grew angry with her for not displaying her awesome majesty by flashing lightning bolts and disturbing our hearing with peals of thunder. But hope, which accompanies man into extremes, fortified us, and we bucked one another up as best we could.

“Borne by the waves, our vessel suddenly stopped, immobile. All our joint efforts were insufficient to shift us from the spot where it stood. While essaying to dislodge our vessel from what we thought was a shoal, we did not notice that, meanwhile, the wind had almost completely died down. Bit by bit the sky was cleared of the clouds obscuring the deep blue. But incipient dawn, instead of bringing us joy, revealed our dismal position. We perceived clearly that our sloop was located not on a shoal but rather wedged between two large rocks, and that no amount of effort would suffice for its rescue from there undamaged. Imagine, my friend, our situation. No matter what I can say, it would pale by comparison with my feeling. And even if I were able to give sufficient outline of each movement of my soul, it would still be too feeble to reproduce in you sensations similar to the ones that arose and crowded in my soul at that moment. Our vessel stood in the middle of a stone ridge encircling the bay and extending to S… We were positioned about one and a half versts* from the shore. The water had begun to enter our vessel from all sides and threatened to submerge us completely. In the final hour, when the light begins to depart from us and eternity yawns, then all distinctions erected between people by convention fall away. Man becomes simply man: hence, as we saw our end approaching, each of us forgot his status, and each thought about our salvation as we bailed out water, as handily as each could. But what was the use of that? As much water accumulated again as was sluiced by our combined efforts. To our most heartfelt distress, there was no passing vessel in sight either nearby or far off. Even had one appeared to bring joy to our stares, it would have intensified our despair on distancing itself from us in order to avoid the same fate as our own. In the end, our captain was more accustomed than the rest to the hazards of marine accidents because he had, perhaps unwillingly, coldly stared at death during various naval battles in the last Turkish War in the Archipelago.22 For that reason, he resolved either to save us by saving himself or to perish in this virtuous attempt. By staying put, we were certain to perish. He left the boat, and, stepping from stone to stone, aimed his advance toward the shore, attended by our heartfelt prayers. Initially, he progressed quite confidently, hopping from stone to stone, wading through the water in the shallows or swimming across when it got deeper. Our eyes never left him. At length, we saw that his strength had begun to give out, since he traversed the stones more slowly, frequently stopping and sitting down on a rock to rest. It seemed to us that he was sometimes deliberating and uncertain about the continuation of his way. This roused one of his companions to follow him to give him aid should he see that he was exhausted in trying to reach the shore; or to reach it himself if the captain failed. Our gaze was trained now on one, now on the other, and our prayer for their safety was unfeigned. At length, the second of these imitators of Moses in the crossing of depths of sea on foot without a miracle halted on a rock, while we lost the first from view altogether.

“Each one’s agitations, until now hidden and trapped as it were by terror, became overt with the disappearance of hope. Meanwhile, the water level in the vessel rose, and our increasing labors to evacuate it began noticeably to exhaust our strength. A person of a violent and impatient constitution tore at his hair, bit his fingers, cursed the very hour of his departure. A person of meek spirit who had long felt, perhaps, the impact of stultifying slavery, sobbed, dousing with his tears the bench on which he lay prostrate. Another, in remembering his home, children, and wife, sat as if petrified, considering not his own but their destruction, since they were fed by the fruits of his labor. Since, my friend, you know me reasonably well, you can divine the state