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

that he wished to beget them or for the preservation of his name? How can I wish well to someone I do not know, and what would it be? Is it possible to call an undefined wish, instigated by the unknown, a good?—The desire for matrimony also indicates the cause of birth. Attracted more by the spiritual goodness of your mother than the beauty of her face, I employed a reliable method in our mutual ardor—sincere love. I obtained your mother as a spouse. But what was the motive for our love? Mutual pleasure, a pleasure of the flesh and spirit. In partaking of a joy mandated by nature we did not think of you. Your birth was pleasant for us but not for you. Reproducing oneself flattered one’s vanity, your birth was a new sensual union, so to speak, a union confirming the union of hearts. It is the source of the primal passion of parents for their sons; it is strengthened by habit, by the sense of one’s power, by the reflection on the father in praise for his sons.—Your mother shared my opinion that you owed no meaningful debt for your birth. She made no show of pride before you because she bore you in her womb, demanded no recognition for nurturing you with her blood, did not demand respect in exchange for the pain of birth nor for the tediousness of nourishing you from her own teats. She attempted to give you, as she herself possessed, a worthy soul and she wished to plant there friendship but not a sense of obligation, not duty, or servile submissiveness. Fate did not permit her to see the fruits of her cultivations. She left us, and while her spirit was firm she did not wish for her end, seeing your infancy and my devotion. In becoming like her, we do not forfeit her entirely. She will live with us until we depart to join her. You know that the most pleasant conversation with you is conversing about she who bore you. That is when it seems that her soul converses with us: then she herself is present to us, then she appears in us, then she is still alive.” And speaking, he wiped drops of tears pent up in his soul.—

“For your keep, you owe me as little as you owe for your birth. When I offer hospitality to a visitor, when I feed feathered chicks, when I give food to a dog who licks my hand, do I do this for them?—In this I find my own joy, pleasure, and benefit. The same impulse brings about the feeding of children. Born into this world, you have become citizens of the society in which you live. My duty was to nourish you, since I would have been a murderer if I had allowed a premature death to affect you. If I was more thoughtful about your nourishment than many others happen to be, I followed the sensation of my heart. It was in my power to take up your nourishment or neglect it; to preserve your days or be their squanderer; to keep you alive or allow you to die prematurely: this is clear proof that you do not owe me for the fact that you are alive. Had you perished because of neglect by me, as many do, legal retribution would not have pursued me.—But it will be said that you owe me for your tuition and education.—Was it not my own advantage I sought in your being worthy? The praises accorded your good conduct, intelligence, learning, culture, in encompassing you reflected on me like solar rays from a mirror. Those praising you praise me. What would I have gained if you had given in to vice, shunned learning, were stupid in your thoughts, nasty, base, and devoid of sensibility? Not only would I have suffered with you in your crooked behavior, but I would have been a victim, perhaps, of your brutality. But now I remain calm in weaning you from myself. Your capacity to reason is upright, your heart stout, and I live in it. O my friends! Sons of my heart, by giving birth to you I had many duties in regard to you. But you owe me nothing; I seek your friendship and love. If you will grant them to me, I shall depart, blissful, to the beginning of life and when I die shall not rebel over leaving you forever, since I shall live on in your memory.

“But if I have fulfilled my duty in your education, I am obliged to tell you the reason why I raised you in this way rather than another, and wherefore I taught you this rather than something else; and, therefore, you will hear the tale of your education and learn the reason of all my actions upon you.

“From the time of your infancy you have felt no compulsion. Although in your activities you have been led by my hand, you all the same never felt its guidance. Your actions were foreknown and forestalled; I did not want the heavy hand of obedience or submission to leave the least trace upon you. And this is why your spirit, hostile to baseless orders, is pliant to the council of friendship. But if, while you were children, I found that you, compelled by a random force, were deviating from the path I had determined, I then stopped your advance; or, better yet, imperceptibly guided you back onto previous path like a stream that overflowing its embankment is returned to its banks through a skillful hand.

“Diffident tenderness was not a trait of mine when I gave the appearance of neglecting to preserve you from the hostility of the elements and the weather. I preferred your body to have been injured briefly by transient pain to its growing feeble when you were of a mature age. And this is why you often went about barefoot, your heads uncovered; in the dust,