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

harm one another. Given the disparity in years, is it possible to keep the terms of such an agreement? If the husband is ten years old and the wife twenty-five, as often happens among the peasantry; or the husband is fifty and the wife is fifteen or twenty, as happens among the nobility, can there be any reciprocal pleasure of the senses? You tell me, oldster husbands, but speak in conscience, do you deserve the name of a husband? You are only able to ignite an amorous fire but not to extinguish it. One of the primary laws of nature is violated by the inequality of years. Can, then, a fundamental law be secure if it does not have a basis in nature? Let us be clear: it does not even exist.—To cultivate the fruits of mutual passion.—But can there be reciprocity in this instance when, on the one hand, you have a flame and, on the other, insensateness? Can there be a fruit here if the tree that has been planted is deprived of the benefit of rain and nourishing moisture? And if a fruit should result then it will be scrawny, ugly, and doomed to speedy decay.—Not to harm one another.—This rule is eternal and reliable: if the feelings of the couple are equally satisfied through a felicitous sympathy, then the marital union will be fortunate; small domestic tribulations soon quiet down at the onset of joy. And when the chill of old age will shroud erotic joy in an unbreachable carapace, then the recollection of former joys will calm a sullen antiquity of years.—Only one condition of the marital contract can be fulfilled in inequality: to live together.—But will it have reciprocity?—One will be a despotic ruler, holding power in his hands, the other will be a weak subject and a complete slave, able only to fulfill the bidding of the lord.—These, Anyuta, are the good thoughts you inspired in me. Farewell, my dear Anyutushka, your lessons will forever be engraved in my heart and the sons of my sons will inherit them.

The Khotilov postal station was already visible yet I continued to reflect on the Edrovo wench and in a burst of ecstasy exclaimed loudly from my spirit: “O Anyuta! Anyuta!” The road was not smooth, the horses advanced at a walk; the coach driver listened in to my speech turning round: “It is clear, Master,” he said to me with a smile and righting his hat, “that you have taken a fancy to our Anyutka. That’s some girl! You are not the only one she’s run rings round…. She’s got it all…. There are lots of fetching girls at our postal station but by comparison with her the rest are nothing to speak of. What a mistress she is of dancing! She will outdo everyone, no matter who…. And when she goes out to harvest in the field … what a fine spectacle. Well … my brother Vanka is happy.” “Ivan is your brother?” “My cousin. There’s a fellow! Three lads began to court Anyutka. Ivan sent them all packing. They pleaded this and that, but she was having none of it. And Vanyukha immediately reeled her in…. (We were already driving through the village gate….) That’s the way it is, Master. Anyone can dance—but not everyone can dance like a juggler.” And he drove up to the station courtyard.

“Anyone can dance—but not everyone can dance like a juggler,” I repeated as I got down from the carriage…. “Anyone can dance—but not everyone can dance like a juggler,” I repeated, bending down and, after picking up, unfolding….

* nine or ten inches—Trans.

† five inches—Trans.

‡ twenty-one inches—Trans.

KHOTILOV

Project for the Future

By having gradually led our beloved fatherland to the flourishing state which it presently enjoys, we see the sciences, arts, and crafts elevated to the highest level of perfection that man is permitted to achieve; we see in our lands that human reason, freely extending its wings, everywhere rises unchecked and unerringly to greatness and has now become the reliable guardian of the laws of society. Under its mighty aegis, our heart is also able to say freely and with ineffable joy in prayers wafted to the Supreme Creator that our fatherland is a pleasant abode for the divinity, since its constitution is based not on prejudices and superstitions, but on our interior sensation of the munificence of the Father of All. The enmities that so often divide people because of their confession are unknown to us, just as coercion of conscience therein is unknown to us. Born into this freedom, we genuinely consider one another as brothers, belonging to one family, having one Father, God.

The beacon of knowledge overseeing our law code now distinguishes it from that of many of the world’s other legal systems. A balance of powers, equality of property ownership, cuts off at the root civic disputes. Moderation in punishments obliges one to respect the laws of the higher powers and is like the instructions of tender parents to their offspring, preempting even unpremeditated crimes. The clarity of rules about the acquisition and preservation of estates prevents family feuds from recurring. The boundaries separating a citizen on his domain from his neighbor are clear, obvious to all, and respected by all as sacred. Private offenses between us are rare and get resolved amicably. Public education has made it a concern that we should be mild-tempered, that we should be peaceful as citizens, and above all, that we should be human beings.

As we revel in our domestic peace, having no enemies, taking society to the higher blessing of citizenly cohabitation, could we possibly remain such strangers to a feeling of humanity, strangers to feelings of pity, strangers to the tenderness of noble hearts, strangers to fraternal love, and abandon to our eternal discredit, to the disapproval of furthest posterity, an entire third of our fellows, our equal citizens, our brothers adored in nature, placed in the heavy shackles of slavery and captivity