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RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD 93
with one question — the family discord between the
old and the young. Ask about whatever noble family
you would at that time, you always heard one and the
same thing — the parents had quarreled with the
children. And the quarrels had not arisen from any
substantial, material causes, but simply upon questions of
a purely theoretical, abstract character. " They could
not agree about their convictions !" It was only that,
but this " ouly" sufficed to make children abandon
their parents and parents disown their children.
An epidemic seemed to seize upon the children,—
especially the girls,— an epidemic of fleeing from
the parental roof. In our immediate neighborhood,
through God’s mercy, all was well so far; but rumors
reached us from other places: the daughter, now of
this, now of that landed proprietor had run away; this
one abroad, the other to Petersburg to the "nihilists."
The principal bugaboo of all parents and instructors
in the Palibino district was a certain mythical
community, which, rumor asserted, had been established
somewhere in Petersburg. In it, at least so it was
believed, they enlisted all young girls who wished to
leave their home. There the young people of both
sexes lived in full communism. There were no
servants, and nobly born young ladies of the aristocracy
washed the floors and cleaned the samovars with their
own hands. As a matter of course, none of the
people who spread these reports had ever been in this
community themselves. "Where it was situated, and how
it could possibly exist in St. Petersburg, under the
verv nose of the police, no one knew exactly, yet no
one had the slightest doubt that such a community
did exist.
Signs of the times soon began to manifest
themselves in our immediate vicinity.
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