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

Would you not prefer to strangle your little son than let him be in service? Is your heart not pained that your sonny-boy, a grand boyar gentleman, despises the merits and qualities that move slowly along the path to promotion because they do not want to be crafty? You will weep, won’t you, to see your dear son, wearing a charming smile, confiscate property, honor; to see him poison and slaughter people not always with his own gentlemanly hands but by means of his minions’ paws.

The gentleman from Kresttsy was, I thought, about fifty years old. Scant streaks of gray scarcely appeared in his blond head of hair. His regular facial features signified the tranquility of a soul immune to passions. A gentle smile of unflappable satisfaction, born from kindness, burrowed in his cheeks the dimples that are so fetching on women; when I entered the room where he was seated his gaze was fixed on his two sons. His eyes, the eyes of benevolent reason, seemed draped in a light veil of sorrow; but the veil was shot through with flashes of firmness and hope. Before him stood two youths, nearly equal in age; they differed from one another by one year in time of birth but not in the progress of their mind and heart. For in the younger, the zeal of the father had hastened the opening up of his mind, and brotherly love had tempered the elder’s success in learning. They understood matters equally, they knew the rules of life equally, but nature had planted in each a different sharpness of mind and responsiveness of the heart. The gaze of the elder was strong, the features of face were steady, they exhibited the beginnings of a decisive soul and a steadfastness in undertakings. The gaze of the younger was sharp, his face was mobile and changeable. But their smooth motion was the infallible sign of his father’s good guidance.—They looked upon their father with a timidity uncharacteristic for them that arose from grief over their pending separation rather than from a sense of power or control over them.—Sparse teardrops flowed from their eyes. “My friends!” said the father, “today we will part,” and hugging them as they sobbed, he clasped them to his breast. I had already been witnessing this scene standing still by the doors for several minutes when the father turned to me: “Be a witness, sensitive traveler, be a witness before the world to how heavily it weighs on my heart to satisfy the powerful force of custom. In removing my children from the vigilant paternal eye, the only incentive I have in this regard is that they acquire experience, that they understand man from his actions, and that, once they have grown tired of the clatter of worldly life, they might happily leave it behind. But may they have respite from persecution and daily bread in hardship. This is why I remain in my own cultivated field. Do not allow, Lord Almighty! do not allow them to roam after the charity of grandees and acquire in them a comforter! May their heart be their consoler; may their reason be creator of benefit for them.—Sit down and pay heed to my speech as something that ought to remain in the depth of your souls.—I repeat to you again: today we shall part.—It is with ineffable joy that I behold the tears that sprinkle your cheeks. May the agitation of your soul cause my advice to penetrate to its inner sanctum so that in recalling me it will be shaken—and so that even when absent, I shall be to you as a bulwark from evils and griefs.

“Since taking you into my embrace even from the maternal womb, I never wanted anyone else as your guardian to execute things concerning you. Never did a hired caretaker touch your body and never did a hired tutor touch your heart and reason. The vigilant eye of my zeal kept watch over you day and night lest injury draw close to you; and I call myself a blessed man because I led you to the point of separation from me. But do not imagine that I would wish to wrench from your lips gratitude for the care I showed you or acknowledgment, however weak, of what had been done for you by me. Led by the stimulus of self-interest, what was undertaken for your benefit always kept in view my own delight. And so banish from your thoughts that you both are under my power. You are in no way obligated to me. Not in reason, and even less in law, do I wish to locate the strengths of our bond. It is founded in your heart. Woe unto you if you should forget it! My image, pursuing the destroyer of the union of our friendship, will follow him in his hiding and inflict on him unbearable punishment until he returns to our bond. I repeat again to you: you are in no way obligated to me. Consider me as though I were a vagrant and stranger, and if your heart should feel some tender inclination for me, then let us live in friendship, in that greatest prosperity to be found on earth.—If it should be without any sensation—then let us be oblivious of one another as if we had never been born. All-merciful God, grant that I never see this and that I return to your bosom before it happens. You owe me nothing for your feeding, education, and least of all for your birth.—For birth?—Were you participants in it? Were you asked whether to be born? Whether being born was for your good or ill? In giving birth to their son, do a father and mother know whether in life he will be blessed or miserable? Who can say that in entering into matrimony he thought about lineage and descendants; and if he had such an intention, whether it was for the welfare of the children