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

of carriage. But I had to live in the country. So much the better. There they were unaware for a whole year that I could not write. But one of the in-laws of the gentleman in whose house I lived gave my secret away to him, and they sent me back to Moscow. Unable to find another such fool and unable to practice my skill as a hairdresser because of my broken fingers, afraid to die of hunger, I sold myself for two hundred rubles. They registered me as a peasant and now are sending me off as a recruit. I hope,” he said with an air of importance, “that as soon as there is a war I will rise to the rank of general. And if there is no war, I will line my pockets as much as I can manage to do, and, crowned with laurels, will retire to my fatherland.”

I shrugged my shoulders more than once while listening to this tramp; and with a pained heart lay down in my cart, set off on my journey.

* It is forbidden to make and complete bills for the sale of peasants at the time of conscription.

* thirty-six pounds—Trans.

ZAVIDOVO

The horses were already harnessed to the cart, and I was preparing to depart when suddenly a great commotion arose outside. People began running from one end of the village to the other. Outside I saw a military man in a grenadier hat who proudly strutted about and, holding a raised whip, shouted: “Quickly, horses! Where is the elder? His Excellency will be here in a minute. Present the elder to me now….” Doffing his hat at a hundred paces, the elder ran at top speed in response to the summons. “Quickly, horses.” “Right away, little father. An order for post horses please.” “Take it. And hurry up, or else …” he was saying, raising the whip over the head of the trembling elder. This unfinished speech was as full of expression as Aeolus’s speech to the winds “Or else …”117 in Virgil’s Aeneid. And cowed by the sight of the scourge of the all-powerful grenadier, the elder felt the might of the threatening warrior’s hand as vividly as the mutinous winds felt over them the power of Aeolus’s forceful trident. Surrendering the order for post horses to the latter day Polkan,118 the elder said: “His Excellency and his honorable family require fifty horses, and we only have thirty on hand, others are out.”119 “Make them, old devil. And if there are no horses, I will disfigure you.” “But where can I get them, if they are nowhere to be had?” “He’s still talking…. But I will have these horses….” And he grabbed the old man’s beard and began mercilessly beating him on the shoulders with the whip. “Have you had enough? Well there are three fresh ones,” said the judge, a stickler of the post station, pointing to the horses harnessed to my cart. “Unharness them for us.” “If the master will give them up.” “How can he not give them up? He’ll get the same from me that you’ve had. And who is he?” “Don’t know, some….” What honorific he gave me, I do not know.

Meanwhile I walked outside and stopped the brave precursor of His Excellency from fulfilling his intention to force me to spend the night in the post station by unharnessing my horses.

My spat with the Polkan of the guards was interrupted by the arrival of His Excellency. Even from afar one could hear the shouts of drivers and clatter of horses galloping with all their might. The rapid beating of hooves and the rotation of wheels invisible to the eye so thickened the air with a cloud of dust that His Excellency’s chariot was concealed by an impenetrable cloud from the gazes of the coachmen awaiting him as if he were a thundercloud. Don Quixote, for sure, would have seen something miraculous here, since the dust cloud that swirled under the eminent person of His Excellency suddenly stopped and parted, and he appeared before us gray-faced from dust looking like progeny born looking black at birth.

Between my arrival at the post station and the time when horses were again harnessed to my cart at least an entire hour passed. But the carts of His Excellency were hitched up in no more than a quarter of an hour … and away they galloped on the wings of the wind. Still, my nags, even though they looked superior to the ones privileged to carry the person of His Excellency, ran at a moderate trot since they did not fear the grenadier’s knout.

Blessed are the grandees of autocratic governments. Blessed are those decorated by ranks and sashes. All nature obeys them. Even senseless beasts cater to their desires and, lest they grow bored of yawning while on the way, gallop without sparing their legs or their lungs and often die of the effort. Blessed are—I will repeat—those whose appearance draws everyone to reverence. Among those who tremble when menaced by the lash, how many know that the one in whose name they threaten him is in the court grammar labeled “without voice”? That in all his life he could say neither A … nor O …?*120 That he is indebted for his prominence to someone whom he is ashamed to name? That in his heart he is the basest creature? That deception, perfidy, treachery, fornication, poisoning, thievery, robbery, murder cost him no more than drinking a glass of water? That his cheeks never reddened out of shame, perhaps only out of rage or from a slap? That he is a friend to every court stoker and the slave of anyone barely cutting a figure at court? But he is a sneering overlord to everyone ignorant of his baseness and obsequiousness. Eminence without true merit resembles village sorcerers. All peasants respect and fear them, thinking that they are masters of the supernatural. These impostors rule over them,