Petersburg
My dear!
Recently a marriage has taken place here between a seventy-eight-year-old young chap and a sixty-two-year-old missy. The reason for so antique a coupling will be a tad hard to guess if I don’t tell it. Open your ears, my friend, and you shall hear.—Mrs. Sh …, sixty-two years old, widowed from the age of twenty-five, is a hero of a kind and not the least of them. She was married to a merchant who had not been a success in business. She had a pretty face. Left a poor orphan after the death of her husband, and well aware of how hard-hearted her husband’s mates were, she declined to have recourse to asking for charity from the haughty but deemed it proper to feed herself through her own efforts. As long as the beauty of youth stayed on her face, she 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! Would you not prefer to strangle your little son than let him be in service? Is your heart not pained that your sonny-boy, a grand boyar gentleman, despises the merits and qualities that move slowly along the path to promotion because they do not want to be crafty? You will weep, won’t you, to see your dear son, wearing a charming smile, confiscate property, honor; to see him poison and slaughter people not always with his own gentlemanly hands but by means of his minions’ paws.
The gentleman from Kresttsy was, I thought, about fifty years old. Scant streaks of gray scarcely appeared in his blond head of hair. His regular facial features signified the tranquility of a soul immune to passions. A gentle smile of unflappable satisfaction, born from kindness, burrowed in his cheeks the dimples that are so fetching on women; when I entered the room where he was seated his gaze was fixed on his two sons. His eyes, the eyes of benevolent reason, seemed draped in a light veil of sorrow; but the veil was shot through with flashes of firmness and hope. Before him stood two youths, nearly equal in age; they differed from one another by one year in time of birth but not in the progress of their mind and heart. For in the younger, the zeal of the father had hastened the opening up of his mind, and brotherly love had tempered the elder’s success in learning. They understood matters equally, they knew the rules of life equally, but nature had planted in each a different sharpness of mind and responsiveness of the heart. The gaze of the elder was strong, the features of face were steady, they exhibited the beginnings of a decisive soul and a steadfastness in undertakings. The gaze of the younger was sharp, his face was mobile and changeable. But their smooth motion was the infallible sign of his father’s good guidance.—They looked upon their father with a timidi
ty uncharacteristic for them that arose from grief over their pending separation rather than from a sense of power or control over them.—Sparse teardrops flowed from their eyes. “My friends!” said the father, “today we will part,” and hugging them as they sobbed, he clasped them to his breast. I had already been witnessing this scene standing still by the doors for several minutes when the father turned to me: “Be a witness, sensitive traveler, be a witness before the world to how heavily it weighs on my heart to satisfy the powerful force of custom. In removing my children from the vigilant paternal eye, the only incentive I have in this regard is that they acquire experience, that they understand man from his actions, and that, once they have grown tired of the clatter of worldly life, they might happily leave it behind. But may they have respite from persecution and daily bread in hardship. This is why I remain in my own cultivated field. Do not allow, Lord Almighty! do not allow them to roam after the charity of grandees and acquire in them a comforter! May their heart be their consoler; may their reason be creator of benefit for them.—Sit down and pay heed to my speech as something that ought to remain in the depth of your souls.—I repeat to you again: today we shall part.—It is with ineffable joy that I behold the tears that sprinkle your cheeks. May the agitation of your soul cause my advice to penetrate to its inner sanctum so that in recalling me it will be shaken—and so that even when absent, I shall be to you as a bulwark from evils and griefs.
“Since taking you into my embrace even from the maternal womb, I never wanted anyone else as your guardian to execute things concerning you. Never did a hired caretaker touch your body and never did a hired tutor touch your heart and reason. The vigilant eye of my zeal kept watch over you day and night lest injury draw close to you; and I call myself a blessed man because I led you to the point of separation from me. But do not imagine that I would wish to wrench from your lips gratitude for the care I showed you or acknowledgment, however weak, of what had been done for you by me. Led by the stimulus of self-interest, what was undertaken for your benefit always kept in view my own delight. And so banish from your thoughts that you both are under my power. You are in no way obligated to me. Not in reason, and even less in law, do I wish to locate the strengths of our bond. It is founded in your heart. Woe unto you if you should forget it! My image, pursuing the destroyer of the union of our friendship, will follow him in his hiding and inflict on him unbearable punishment until he returns to our bond. I repeat again to you: you are in no way obligated to me. Consider me as though I were a vagrant and stranger, and if your heart should feel some tender inclination for me, then let us live in friendship, in that greatest prosperity to be found on earth.—If it should be without any sensation—then let us be oblivious of one another as if we had never been born. All-merciful God, grant that I never see this and that I return to your bosom before it happens. You owe me nothing for your feeding, education, and least of all for your birth.—For birth?—Were you participants in it? Were you asked whether to be born? Whether being born was for your good or ill? In giving birth to their son, do a father and mother know whether in life he will be blessed or miserable? Who can say that in entering into matrimony he thought about lineage and descendants; and if he had such an intention, whether it was for the welfare of the children that he wished to beget them or for the preservation of his name? How can I wish well to someone I do not know, and what would it be? Is it possible to call an undefined wish, instigated by the unknown, a good?—The desire for matrimony also indicates the cause of birth. Attracted more by the spiritual goodness of your mother than the beauty of her face, I employed a reliable method in our mutual ardor—sincere love. I obtained your mother as a spouse. But what was the motive for our love? Mutual pleasure, a pleasure of the flesh and spirit. In partaking of a joy mandated by nature we did not think of you. Your birth was pleasant for us but not for you. Reproducing oneself flattered one’s vanity, your birth was a new sensual union, so to speak, a union confirming the union of hearts. It is the source of the primal passion of parents for their sons; it is strengthened by habit, by the sense of one’s power, by the reflection on the father in praise for his sons.—Your mother shared my opinion that you owed no meaningful debt for your birth. She made no show of pride before you because she bore you in her womb, demanded no recognition for nurturing you with her blood, did not demand respect in exchange for the pain of birth nor for the tediousness of nourishing you from her own teats. She attempted to give you, as she herself possessed, a worthy soul and she wished to plant there friendship but not a sense of obligation, not duty, or servile submissiveness. Fate did not permit her to see the fruits of her cultivations. She left us, and while her spirit was firm she did not wish for her end, seeing your infancy and my devotion. In becoming like her, we do not forfeit her entirely. She will live with us until we depart to join her. You know that the most pleasant conversation with you is conversing about she who bore you. That is when it seems that her soul converses with us: then she herself is present to us, then she appears in us, then she is still alive.” And speaking, he wiped drops of tears pent up in his soul.—
“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 bee
n 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, in the dirt you stretched out to rest, on benches or on rocks. I made no less an effort to keep you from harmful food or drink. Our efforts were the best spice in our midday meal. Remember the pleasure we took in dining in an unfamiliar village after we lost our way home. How delicious we then found the rye bread and village kvass!
“Do not begrudge me if you sometimes find yourselves mocked because you lack a comely gait, because your posture stands comfortably rather than as custom or fashion dictate; that you dress tastelessly, that your hair is curled by the hand of nature rather than a hairdresser. Do not begrudge me if you are overlooked at assemblies, and particularly by women, because you do not know how to praise their beauty. Recall, however, that you run quickly, that you swim tirelessly, that you can lift weights without strain, that you are able to use a plow, dig a furrow, can use a scythe and axe, a plane and chisel, are able to ride horseback, to shoot. Do not feel sad because you are not able to leap like jugglers. Know that the best dancing contains nothing majestic; and if you should be moved by its appearance, the root of it will be salaciousness, everything else is ancillary to this. But you are able to draw animals and nature morte, to draw the features of the king of nature, man. In painting, you shall find genuine satisfaction not only of the senses but of reason as well.—I taught you music so that a string quivering in harmony with your nerves would arouse your slumbering heart; for music, by setting inwardness into motion, makes a habit of tenderheartedness in us.—I taught you the barbaric art of fencing, too. But may this art remain dormant in you until self-preservation requires it. It will not, I reckon, make you arrogant; since you are firm of spirit and will not take offence if an ass kicks you with its hoof or a pig grazes you with its stinking snout.—Do not fear telling anyone that you are able to milk a cow, that you can braise cabbage and porridge, or that a piece of meat roasted by you will be tasty. A person who is able to do something himself will be in a position to make another do it and will be forgiving of mistakes because he knows all the difficulties of performance.
Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow Page 11