Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow Irina Reyfman (snow like ashes .TXT) 📖

11. Lynn Hunt, The Family Romance of the French Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992).

12. Radishchev’s interest in Trediakovsky as a stylistic rule giver was genuine, informing his Monument to a Dactylic-Trochaic Knight (Pamiatnik daktilokhoreicheskomu vitiaziu, 1801). A formally heterogeneous work, part dialogue, part treatise, concerning aspects of versification and earlier influential writers such as Trediakovsky and Lomonosov, it can be read as an extension of the exploration of norms of Russian prosody versus prosody adapted from European models to which the chapter in the Journey “Tver” is dedicated.

NOTE ON THE TEXT

Our source for this translation is the text published in A. N. Radishchev, Puteshestvie iz Peterburga v Moskvu. Vol’nost’, ed. V. A. Zapadov (St. Petersburg: Nauka, 1992). While we have followed this edition’s paragraphing and punctuation, we have departed from its tendency to print certain words (usually religious in meaning, such as “God” and related pronouns) in lowercase and normalized according to standard English practice. In this regard, the first edition as printed by Radishchev has been of somewhat limited use because the book, like many eighteenth-century editions, is typographically inconsistent, although in most instances these words appear in uppercase. While we have also consulted the edition published by Andrei Kostin, generally based on Zapadov’s text, and taken note of his more liberal use of uppercase, we have preferred to follow the usage in the original 1992 publication.

All notes in the backmatter are by the translators. The footnotes in the text are of two kinds: simple translation glosses, indicated by “—Trans.,” and Radishchev’s own footnotes, some of which include lengthy passages from his source documents. The transliteration of Russian words in English follows house style and in most instances omits the soft-sign and other diacritics. Chapters are not numbered in Radishchev’s original; that numbering is added for the readers’ convenience.

A monster stout, wicked, huge, with a hundred maws, and barking.

Tilemakhida, vol. II, book XVIII, verse 514

A.M.K.

To my dearest friend

Whatever my heart and mind should wish to create, O! you who share all my feelings, may it be dedicated to you! While our opinions differ in many respects, your heart beats in tune with my own—and therefore you are my friend.

I glanced about myself: my soul became lacerated by the sufferings of humanity. I directed my gaze to my inner being and beheld that the woes of man come from man, and often only because we do not inspect closely what surrounds us. Can nature treat its children so meanly, I said to myself, that it has hidden truth forever from a person who strays innocently from the right path? Can it be that this fearsome stepmother has created us to feel woes alone and never bliss? My reason flinched at this idea, and my heart thrust it far away. I found man’s consoler inside himself. “Tear away the veil from the eyes of natural feeling—and I shall be gratified.” This voice of nature reverberated loudly through my constitution. I rose up from the desolation into which empathy and the capacity to feel had cast me. I felt within myself strength enough to resist error; and—unspeakable joy!—I sensed that everyone has the ability to participate in doing good for his equal.—This thought prompted me to write what you are about to read. But if, I told myself, I find someone who approves my intention, who for the sake of this good goal will not fault the unfortunate representation of my thought, who will suffer together with me over the woes of his brethren, who will fortify me in my progress—will not, then, the fruit of the work I have undertaken be greater? … Why, why indeed should I seek far for such a person? My friend! Near my heart do you dwell, and may your name illuminate this beginning.

DEPARTURE

After supping with my friends, I settled in the carriage. As was his habit, the coachman drove the horses at full pelt, and within a few minutes I was already outside the city. Parting from one who has become essential to every minute of our existence is difficult, even for a short time. Parting is difficult. But blessed is he who is able to take his leave without smiling: love or friendship secure his comfort. As you pronounce “farewell,” you weep. But remember that you will return and let your tears at this imagining vanish like dew before the face of the sun. Blessed is he who weeps while hoping for a consoler;1 blessed is he who sometimes lives in the future; blessed is he who lives in a reverie. His being is enriched, his joys multiply, and tranquility preempts the gloom of sadness by placing images of rejoicing in the mirrors of the imagination.—I lie in the carriage. At last the din of the postal carriage’s bell, grown wearisome to my ears, summoned beneficent Morpheus. The sorrow of my departure, pursuing me into my deathlike state, represented me to my imagination on my own. I beheld myself in an expansive valley that had lost all pleasantness and variety of greenery owing to the heat of the sun. No source of freshness could be found here, there were no shady trees for the alleviation of the heat. Alone, abandoned, a hermit in the middle of nature! I shuddered. “Wretch,” I cried, “where are you? Where has everything that used to entice you vanished? Where is that which made your life pleasant? Could it be that the enjoyments of which you partook were a dream and fancy?” When the carriage hit the rut that happened to be in the road and woke me up it was a lucky stroke.—The carriage stopped. I lifted my head a bit. I see: in a deserted place stands a house of three stories. “What have we here?” I asked my driver. “The postal station.” “Where then are we?” “In Sofia.” He was meanwhile unharnessing the horses.

SOFIA

Silence