Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow Irina Reyfman (snow like ashes .TXT) đź“–
- Author: Irina Reyfman
Book online «Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow Irina Reyfman (snow like ashes .TXT) 📖». Author Irina Reyfman
“For your keep, you owe me as little as you owe for your birth. When I offer hospitality to a visitor, when I feed feathered chicks, when I give food to a dog who licks my hand, do I do this for them?—In this I find my own joy, pleasure, and benefit. The same impulse brings about the feeding of children. Born into this world, you have become citizens of the society in which you live. My duty was to nourish you, since I would have been a murderer if I had allowed a premature death to affect you. If I was more thoughtful about your nourishment than many others happen to be, I followed the sensation of my heart. It was in my power to take up your nourishment or neglect it; to preserve your days or be their squanderer; to keep you alive or allow you to die prematurely: this is clear proof that you do not owe me for the fact that you are alive. Had you perished because of neglect by me, as many do, legal retribution would not have pursued me.—But it will be said that you owe me for your tuition and education.—Was it not my own advantage I sought in your being worthy? The praises accorded your good conduct, intelligence, learning, culture, in encompassing you reflected on me like solar rays from a mirror. Those praising you praise me. What would I have gained if you had given in to vice, shunned learning, were stupid in your thoughts, nasty, base, and devoid of sensibility? Not only would I have suffered with you in your crooked behavior, but I would have been a victim, perhaps, of your brutality. But now I remain calm in weaning you from myself. Your capacity to reason is upright, your heart stout, and I live in it. O my friends! Sons of my heart, by giving birth to you I had many duties in regard to you. But you owe me nothing; I seek your friendship and love. If you will grant them to me, I shall depart, blissful, to the beginning of life and when I die shall not rebel over leaving you forever, since I shall live on in your memory.
“But if I have fulfilled my duty in your education, I am obliged to tell you the reason why I raised you in this way rather than another, and wherefore I taught you this rather than something else; and, therefore, you will hear the tale of your education and learn the reason of all my actions upon you.
“From the time of your infancy you have felt no compulsion. Although in your activities you have been led by my hand, you all the same never felt its guidance. Your actions were foreknown and forestalled; I did not want the heavy hand of obedience or submission to leave the least trace upon you. And this is why your spirit, hostile to baseless orders, is pliant to the council of friendship. But if, while you were children, I found that you, compelled by a random force, were deviating from the path I had determined, I then stopped your advance; or, better yet, imperceptibly guided you back onto previous path like a stream that overflowing its embankment is returned to its banks through a skillful hand.
“Diffident tenderness was not a trait of mine when I gave the appearance of neglecting to preserve you from the hostility of the elements and the weather. I preferred your body to have been injured briefly by transient pain to its growing feeble when you were of a mature age. And this is why you often went about barefoot, your heads uncovered; in the dust,
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