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

parents over children seemed incontestable to me. Even if in a well-policed society the young must respect the old, and the inexperienced must respect perfection, there is no apparent necessity for parental power to be unlimited. If the bond between father and son is not established on tender sentiments of the heart, it is of course not firm, and it will remain not firm despite all the legislation. If the father sees in his son his slave and searches the legislation for power, if the son respects the father for the sake of an inheritance, what good is this to society? Either just another slave in addition to many others, or a serpent at one’s breast…. A father is obliged to nourish and educate a son and ought to be punished for the son’s misdeeds until he has entered his maturity, and a son should find his duties in his heart. If he doesn’t feel anything, then the father is guilty because he has not planted anything in him. The son has truly the right to demand a helping hand from the father for as long as he is helpless and immature, but once of age this inherent and natural link lapses. The chick does not seek the aid of the birds who produced it once it begins to find food on its own. The male and female forget their chicks when these have become mature. This is the law of nature. If the civil laws become estranged from it they always produce a freak. The child loves his father, mother, or teacher for as long as his love has not turned to another object. May your heart not be insulted by this, child-loving father, nature requires this. The sole comfort you will have lies in remembering that even your son’s son will love his father only to a mature age. Whereupon it will be up to you to attract his zeal to yourself. If you succeed in this, you will be blessed and deserving of respect.—These were my thoughts as I arrived at the post station.

YAZHELBITSY

It was determined by fate that this day was to be a test for me. I am a father, I have a tender heart toward my children. This was why the speech of the nobleman from Kresttsy so moved me. But while it shook me to my inner being, it poured out some soothing hopeful sensation that our bliss on account of our children depends in large part on ourselves. But in Yazhelbitsy it was my lot to be a witness of a spectacle that planted in my soul a deep root of sadness, and there is no hope it will be uprooted. O youth! Listen to my tale, learn your error, refrain from a voluntary disaster, and block the way to future repentance.

I was riding past a cemetery. The extraordinary wail of a man who was tearing out his hair compelled me to stop. Getting closer, I saw that a funeral was taking place there. The moment had already come to lower the coffin into the grave. The man I had seen from afar tearing his hair out threw himself onto the coffin and by clutching at it with considerable strength hindered its descent into the earth. It was with great difficulty that he was deflected from the coffin, and they hastily lowered it into the grave and buried it. At that moment the sufferer addressed those present: “Why have you deprived me of him, why did you not bury me alive with him and not put an end to my sorrow and remorse? Know, know that I am the murderer of my beloved son, the dead one you consigned to the ground. Feel no surprise at this. I shortened his life neither by sword nor poison. No, I did worse. His death I had prepared before his birth by giving to him a life already poisoned. I am a murderer—there are many such—but I am a far crueler murderer than the others. A murderer of a son, my son, before his birth. I, I alone shortened his days by pouring insidious poison into his inception. It prevented his body from growing strong. During his entire lifetime not for a single day did he enjoy health; the diffusion of the poison interrupted the course of life of one who was dwindling in vitality. Nobody, nobody will punish me for my evil deed!” Despair was emblazoned on his face and he was carried from the spot practically lifeless.—

A startling chill poured through my veins. I froze. I thought I had heard my condemnation. I recollected the dissolute days of my youth. I brought to mind all the instances when, thrown into tumult by feelings, my soul pursued their satisfaction, considering the mercenary partner in my amorous pleasure as a true object of ardor. I recollected that the lack of restraint in fornication visited a fetid disease on my body. Oh, if only its root had not penetrated so deeply! Oh, if only the satisfaction of fornication had put an end to it! Receiving this poison in our merriment not only we do incubate it in our loins, but we bequeath it as an inheritance to our descendants.—O my dear friends, O children of my soul! You do not know how badly I have sinned before you. Your pale brow is my condemnation. I dread informing you about the sickness you sometimes feel. You will, perhaps, hate me and you will be justified in your hatred. Who can reassure us, you and myself, that you do not bear in your blood the hidden sting destined to prematurely end your life span? Having contracted this fetid poison in my body at a mature age, the firmness of my limbs has resisted its spread and fights with its lethalness. But you, having contracted it at birth, carry it within you as integral part of your organism: how will you resist its destructive combustion? All your