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

remained in constant work, and received handsome remuneration from her admirers. But as soon as she got a first inkling that her beauty was beginning to fade, and that amorous dalliances were yielding their place to tedious isolation, she gathered her wits and, not finding any more buyers for her faded charms, she began to trade in the charms of others which, while not always possessed of the distinction of beauty, nonetheless had the merit of novelty. This way she amassed several thousands, honorably detached herself from the society of despicable procuresses, and engaged in usury, lending capital accumulated through her own (and others’) shamelessness. In the fullness of time, her previous occupation was forgotten, and the former procuress became an indispensable creature in the company of spendthrifts. Having lived sixty-two years in peace, an evil spirit induced her to wed. All her acquaintances are amazed by this. Her close friend N … came to see her. “There is a rumor going around, my soul,” she says to the hoary bride, “that you are planning to get married. I think this must be false. Some sort of joker has invented a fable.”

Sh. “It is the complete truth. Tomorrow will be the engagement party, do come join our celebration.”

N. “You are out of your mind. Is it possible that old blood is playing up? Is it possible that some sort of frisky youth has contrived to be taken under your wing?”

Sh. “Oy, mamma! Do you really take me for some young airhead? The husband I am taking is someone suitable….”

N. “Well, yes, I know he is suitable. But recall that they cannot love us anymore unless it be for money.”

Sh. “I am not taking the kind who can be unfaithful to me. My groom is older than I am by sixteen years.”

N. “You jest!”

Sh. “Honest truth. Baron Duryndin.”

N. “This cannot be happening.”

Sh. “Come tomorrow evening and see for yourself that I do not like to lie.”

N. “Well, even so, still, it is not you he is marrying but rather your money.”

Sh. “And who will give that to him? I shall not get so carried away on the first night as to give away my entire estate. The time for that sort of thing is long past. There’s the gold snuff-box, silver buckles, and other rubbish that had been pawned and couldn’t be dumped. This is all the gain to which my little groomling is entitled. And if he is a noisy sleeper, then I’ll banish him from the bed.”

N. “At least a snuffbox could come his way, but what is in it for you?”

Sh. “What do you mean, mamma? Leaving aside the fact that in our times it is no bad thing to possess a good rank, so they will call me Your High Ancestry and, if someone is a bit stupider, Your Excellency,59 and this way there will be someone with whom to play a game of pickup sticks in those long winter evenings. But right now it’s sit, and sit some more on my own. At present I haven’t even got the pleasure when I sneeze that someone says ‘Bless you.’ If one has one’s own husband then no matter how severe a cold I have, I shall always hear, ‘God bless, my light, God bless, my little soul….’”

H. “Good-bye, little mother.”

Sh. “Tomorrow is the engagement party and the wedding will be in a week.”

N. leaves

Sh. Sneezes. “Looks like she’ll not be coming back. How much better to have a husband!”

Do not be surprised, my friend, for it is on a wheel that everything in this world goes round. Today intelligence is in fashion, tomorrow stupidity. I hope that you, too, will see your fair share of Duryndins. If they don’t differentiate themselves by marriage then it’s by something else. Yet without these Duryndins the world would not last three days.

* thirty-two pounds—Trans.

KRESTTSY

At Kresttsy, I was witness to a parting between father and children that touched me all the more emotionally because I am myself a father and soon, perhaps, shall part from my children. An unfortunate prejudice in the noble rank compels them to enter service. The name alone of service produces an uncommon disturbance in my blood! It is possible to maintain a thousand to one that out of a hundred young squires entering service ninety-eight will become rakes, while two when near old age—or to put it more accurately when they are in their decrepit, if not exactly old, years—will become good people. The rest progress through the ranks, squander or amass an estate and so on….—When I sometimes look upon my older son and think that soon he will enter service or, to put it in other words, that the bird will fly the coop, my hairs stand on end. Not because service in itself corrupts morals, but because it would be fitting for one to begin service with a mature character.—Someone will say, “But who is giving it in the neck to these milquetoasts?” Who? I will follow the general example. A staff officer is seventeen years of age; the colonel is twenty; the general twenty; the chamberlain, senator, governor, commander of the forces. What father would not wish his children, although still in their youth, to be in the distinguished ranks which wealth, honor, and reason follow in due course.—In looking upon my son I imagine: he has begun to serve, made the acquaintance of flibbertigibbets, the debauched, gamblers, fops. He has learned how to dress impeccably, to play cards, to maintain himself by card playing, to talk about everything thoughtlessly, to frequent whores, or to tell nonsensical lies to gentlewomen. Fortune, spinning on its chicken leg, has somehow favored him; and my little, still beardless son has become a distinguished boyar.60 He has conceived a fancy that he is smarter than everyone else in the world. What good could one possibly expect from such a commander or town governor?—Tell me in truth, child-loving father, tell me, O authentic citizen!