It was determined by fate that this day was to be a test for me. I am a father, I have a tender heart toward my children. This was why the speech of the nobleman from Kresttsy so moved me. But while it shook me to my inner being, it poured out some soothing hopeful sensation that our bliss on account of our children depends in large part on ourselves. But in Yazhelbitsy it was my lot to be a witness of a spectacle that planted in my soul a deep root of sadness, and there is no hope it will be uprooted. O youth! Listen to my tale, learn your error, refrain from a voluntary disaster, and block the way to future repentance.
I was riding past a cemetery. The extraordinary wail of a man who was tearing out his hair compelled me to stop. Getting closer, I saw that a funeral was taking place there. The moment had already come to lower the coffin into the grave. The man I had seen from afar tearing his hair out threw himself onto the coffin and by clutching at it with considerable strength hindered its descent into the earth. It was with great difficulty that he was deflected from the coffin, and they hastily lowered it into the grave and buried it. At that moment the sufferer addressed those present: “Why have you deprived me of him, why did you not bury me alive with him and not put an end to my sorrow and remorse? Know, know that I am the murderer of my beloved son, the dead one you consigned to the ground. Feel no surprise at this. I shortened his life neither by sword nor poison. No, I did worse. His death I had prepared before his birth by giving to him a life already poisoned. I am a murderer—there are many such—but I am a far crueler murderer than the others. A murderer of a son, my son, before his birth. I, I alone shortened his days by pouring insidious poison into his inception. It prevented his body from growing strong. During his entire lifetime not for a single day did he enjoy health; the diffusion of the poison interrupted the course of life of one who was dwindling in vitality. Nobody, nobody will punish me for my evil deed!” Despair was emblazoned on his face and he was carried from the spot practically lifeless.—
A startling chill poured through my veins. I froze. I thought I had heard my condemnation. I recollected the dissolute days of my youth. I brought to mind all the instances when, thrown into tumult by feelings, my soul pursued their satisfaction, considering the mercenary partner in my amorous pleasure as a true object of ardor. I recollected that the lack of restraint in fornication visited a fetid disease on my body. Oh, if only its root had not penetrated so deeply! Oh, if only the satisfaction of fornication had put an end to it! Receiving this poison in our merriment not only we do incubate it in our loins, but we bequeath it as an inheritance to our descendants.—O my dear friends, O children of my soul! You do not know how badly I have sinned before you. Your pale brow is my condemnation. I dread informing you about the sickness you sometimes feel. You will, perhaps, hate me and you will be justified in your hatred. Who can reassure us, you and myself, that you do not bear in your blood the hidden sting destined to prematurely end your life span? Having contracted this fetid poison in my body at a mature age, the firmness of my limbs has resisted its spread and fights with its lethalness. But you, having contracted it at birth, carry it within you as integral part of your organism: how will you resist its destructive combustion? All your maladies are the results of this toxicity. O my dear ones! Weep over the error of my youth, invoke in aid the art of medicine, and, if you can, do not hate me.
But it is now that the full extent of this voluptuous crime opens before my eyes. I sinned before myself by incurring when still youthful an untimely old age and decrepitude. I sinned before you by having poisoned your life juices before you were born and thereby predetermined your feeble health and, perhaps, a premature death. I sinned—and may this be a punishment to me—I sinned in my amorous ardor when I took your mother in marriage. Who can guarantee to me that I was not the cause of her extinction? A death-dealing poison, diffused in pleasure, was transferred to her chaste body and corrupted her innocent limbs. Its lethalness was all the greater by being more hidden. A false primness had prevented me from warning her; however, she was not wary of her poisoner in her passion for him. The inflammation that beset her was, perhaps, the fruit of the poison that I had given her…. O my dear ones, how greatly you must hate me!
But who is the reason that this fetid illness produces in all kingdoms such devastation, mowing down not only the current generation but also shortening the span of future generations? Who is the cause if not the government? By sanctioning remunerated debauchery, it not only opens up the path to many vices but poisons the life of citizens. Public women find defenders, and in some countries come under the protection of the authorities. If the release of amorous passion for pay were prohibited then, some maintain, the shocks felt not infrequently in society would be powerful. Amorous passion would be the cause of not infrequent abductions, rapes, and murder. They might even shake the very foundations of societies.—And you would rather have quiet and the fatigue and sorrow that go with it than the health and bravery that go with disquiet. Keep silent, revolting teachers, you who are the mercenaries of tyranny, which, by always preaching peace and quiet, ensnares in chains those who have been lulled by flattery. Tyranny fears even peripheral disturbance. It would prefer thought to agree with it everywhere so that it can be reliably cossetted in grandeur and wallow in fornication…. I am not surprised by your words. It is proper that slaves want to see everyone in chains. A uniformity of fates eases their lot, while anyone’s superiority oppresses their reason and spirit.
