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

property had to be sold first and the payment of the debt had to be financed through that sale before resorting to other means, and that I had not hidden my social position since I bought the house when already a nobleman. All this was rejected, the sale of the home was annulled, for a fraudulent deed I was condemned to be stripped of my rank. ‘And they are now demanding that,’ said the narrator, ‘our host be brought to court so that he be placed under arrest until the case has been concluded.’

“While narrating the last part, the storyteller raised his voice. As soon as my wife heard this, she embraced me, cried out: ‘No, my friend, I am going with you.’ She was unable to speak any more. Her limbs went all weak and she fell senseless into my arms. I lifted her from the chair, carried her into the bedroom, and have no idea how supper ended.

“On reviving after a bit of time, she began to feel pains auguring the approaching birth of the fruit of our passion. No matter their severity, the thought that I would be under arrest caused her such alarm that she just said over and over: ‘I too will go with you.’ This unhappy event hastened the birth of the baby by an entire month, and all the efforts of the midwife and doctor summoned to help were in vain and could not prevent my wife from giving birth the next day. Far from calming down with the birth of the child, the movements of her soul greatly intensified and caused her a fever.—Why should I carry on in this narration? On the third day after delivery my wife died. You will well believe that seeing her suffering I did not leave her for a minute. In my grief, I altogether forgot my legal case and condemnation. The day before the death of my darling, the unripe fruit of our passion also died. The illness of the mother had completely absorbed me and this loss was at the time not great to me. Imagine,” said my storyteller, clutching at his hair with both hands, “imagine my situation when I saw that my beloved was parting from me forever.—Forever!” he cried in a wild voice. “But why do I flee? Let them put me in prison. I am already insensate; let them torture me, let them deprive me of life.—O barbarians, tigers, fierce serpents, gnaw at this heart, release into it your excruciating poison.—Forgive my frenzy, I think that I shall soon lose my mind. As soon as I imagine the minute when my darling was leaving me I become oblivious to everything and the light in my eyes goes dark. But I shall complete my tale. When I was prostrate in such dire grief over the lifeless body of my beloved, one of my sincere friends ran to me: ‘They have come to take you into custody, the police are in the courtyard. Flee from here, a carriage is ready at the back gates, be on your way to Moscow or another place of your choosing and live there until it becomes possible to alleviate your lot.’ I didn’t heed what he was saying but he overcame me by force and took and carried me out with the help of his servants and placed me in the carriage; and remembering then that I needed money gave me a purse in which there were only fifty rubles. He went into my study to find money there and bring it out to me; but on discovering an officer in my bedroom he had time only to send word to me to leave. I do not recall how I was driven the distance to the first station. My friend’s servant, having told me all that had happened, took his leave, and at present I am travelling wherever my eyes lead, as the saying goes.”

The tale of my fellow traveler moved me ineffably. Is it possible, I said to myself, that under a government as lenient as our present one, such acts of cruelty could have been committed? Is it possible that there were judges mad enough that for the enrichment of the Treasury (which is what in reality one could call every unfair confiscation of property for the satisfaction of the Treasury’s need) they deprived people of their property, honor, life? I considered the way in which such an occurrence might reach the ears of the supreme power. For I thought justly that in an absolute government only the very top can be dispassionate in relation to everyone else.—But can I not assume myself his defense? I will compose an official petition to the highest level of government. I shall give a detailed account of the incident and shall present the miscarriage of justice of those who judged and the innocence of the victim.—But they will not accept a petition from me. They will ask what right I have to do it, will require of me power of attorney.—What right do I have? The right of suffering humanity. The right of a man deprived of his property, honor, deprived of half of his life who is in voluntary exile in order to avoid shameful incarceration. And for this one needs power of attorney? From whom? Is it insufficient that my fellow citizen suffers?—There is no need even for that. He is a human being: there is my right, my power of attorney.—O God-Man! Why did You write Your law for barbarians? Even while they cross themselves in Your name, they make bloody sacrifices to malice. Why were You so clement to them? Instead of a promise of future punishment, You should have exacerbated their current punishment; and by inflaming conscience commensurate with their evildoing You would have given them no peace day and night until through their suffering they expunged the evil they committed.—Such thoughts so exhausted my body that I fell into a deep