{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_3541/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_3541","id":"gutenberg_3541","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3541","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Sociology","Moscow (Russia) -- Social conditions","Social problems"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1887 Tomas Y. Crowell edition by David Price, email\nccx074@pglaf.org\n\n                      [Picture: Public domain cover]\n\n\n\n\n\n                               WHAT TO DO?\n                      THOUGHTS EVOKED BY THE CENSUS\n                                OF MOSCOW\n\n\n                                    BY\n                          COUNT LYOF N. TOLSTO\u00cf\n\n                      _TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN_\n                           BY ISABEL F. HAPGOOD\n\n                                 NEW YORK\n                         THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.\n                              13 ASTOR PLACE\n                                   1887\n\n                             COPYRIGHT, 1887,\n                        BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.\n\n                         ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED\n                          BY RAND AVERY COMPANY,\n                                 BOSTON.\n\n\n\n\nTRANSLATOR\u2019S NOTE.\n\n\nBooks which are prohibited by the Russian Censor are not always\ninaccessible.  An enterprising publishing-house in Geneva makes a\nspecialty of supplying the natural craving of man for forbidden fruit,\nunder which heading some of Count L. N. Tolstoi\u2019s essays belong.  These\nessays circulate in Russia in manuscript; and it is from one of these\nmanuscripts, which fell into the hands of the Geneva firm, that the first\nhalf of the present translation has been made.  It is thus that the\nCensor\u2019s omissions have been noted, even in cases where such omissions\nare in no way indicated in the twelfth volume of Count Tolstoi\u2019s\ncollected works, published in Moscow.  As an interesting detail in this\nconnection, I may mention that this twelfth volume contains all that the\ncensor allows of \u201cMy Religion,\u201d amounting to a very much abridged scrap\nof Chapter X. in the last-named volume as known to the public outside of\nRussia.  The last half of the present book has not been published by the\nGeneva house, and omissions cannot be marked.\n\n                                                         ISABEL F. HAPGOOD\n\nBOSTON, Sept. 1, 1887\n\n\n\n\nTHOUGHTS EVOKED BY THE CENSUS OF MOSCOW.  [1884\u20131885.]\n\n\n    And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then?\n\n    He answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him\n    impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do\n    likewise\u2014LUKE iii. 10. 11.\n\n    Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust\n    doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:\n\n    But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor\n    rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:\n\n    For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.\n\n    The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single,\n    thy whole body shall be full of light.\n\n    But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.\n    If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that\n    darkness!\n\n    No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and\n    love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the\n    other.  Ye cannot serve God and mammon.\n\n    Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye\n    shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye\n    shall put on.  Is not the life more than meat, and the body than\n    raiment?\u2014MATT. vi. 19\u201325.\n\n    Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall\n    we drink?  Or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?\n\n    (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly\n    Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.\n\n    But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all\n    these things shall be added unto you.\n\n    Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take\n    thought for the things of itself.  Sufficient unto the day is the\n    evil thereof.\u2014MATT. vi. 31\u201334.\n\n    For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle\u2019s eye, than for a\n    rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.\u2014MATT. xix. 24; MARK x. 25;\n    LUKE xviii. 25.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\n\nI had lived all my life out of town.  When, in 1881, I went to live in\nMoscow, the poverty of the town greatly surprised me.  I am familiar with\npoverty in the country; but city poverty was new and incomprehensible to\nme.  In Moscow it was impossible to pass along the street without\nencountering beggars, and especially beggars who are unlike those in the\ncountry.  These beggars do not go about with their pouches in the name of\nChrist, as country beggars are accustomed to do, but these beggars are\nwithout the pouch and the name of Christ.  The Moscow beggars carry no\npouches, and do not ask for alms.  Generally, when they meet or pass you,\nthey merely try to catch your eye; and, according to your look, they beg\nor refrain from it.  I know one such beggar who belongs to the gentry.\nThe old man walks slowly along, bending forward every time he sets his\nfoot down.  When he meets you, he rests on one foot and makes you a kind\nof salute.  If you stop, he pulls off his hat with its cockade, and bows\nand begs: if you do not halt, he pretends that that is merely his way of\nwalking, and he passes on, bending forward in like manner on the other\nfoot.  He is a real Moscow beggar, a cultivated man.  At first I did not\nknow why the Moscow beggars do not ask alms directly; afterwards I came\nto understand why they do not beg, but still I did not understand their\nposition.\n\nOnce, as I was passing through Afanasievskaya Lane, I saw a policeman\nputting a ragged peasant, all swollen with dropsy, into a cab.  I\ninquired: \u201cWhat is that for?\u201d\n\nThe policeman answered: \u201cFor asking alms.\u201d\n\n\u201cIs that forbidden?\u201d\n\n\u201cOf course it is forbidden,\u201d replied the policeman.\n\nThe sufferer from dropsy was driven off.  I took another cab, and\nfollowed him.  I wanted to know whether it was true that begging alms was\nprohibited and how it was prohibited.  I could in no wise understand how\none man could be forbidden to ask alms of any other man; and besides, I\ndid not believe that it was prohibited, when Moscow is full of beggars.\nI went to the station-house whither the beggar had been taken.  At a\ntable in the station-house sat a man with a sword and a pistol.  I\ninquired:\n\n\u201cFor what was this peasant arrested?\u201d\n\nThe man with the sword and pistol gazed sternly at me, and said:\n\n\u201cWhat business is it of yours?\u201d\n\nBut feeling conscious that it was necessary to offer me some explanation,\nhe added:\n\n\u201cThe authorities have ordered that all such persons are to be arrested;\nof course it had to be done.\u201d\n\nI went out.  The policeman who had brought the beggar was seated on the\nwindow-sill in the ante-chamber, staring gloomily at a note-book.  I\nasked him:\n\n\u201cIs it true that the poor are forbidden to ask alms in Christ\u2019s name?\u201d\n\nThe policeman came to himself, stared at me, then did not exactly frown,\nbut apparently fell into a doze again, and said, as he sat on the\nwindow-sill:\u2014\n\n\u201cThe authorities have so ordered, which shows that it is necessary,\u201d and\nbetook himself once more to his note-book.  I went out on the porch, to\nthe cab.\n\n\u201cWell, how did it turn out?  Have they arrested him?\u201d asked the cabman.\nThe man was evidently interested in this affair also.\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d I answered.  The cabman shook his head.  \u201cWhy is it forbidden here\nin Moscow to ask alms in Christ\u2019s name?\u201d I inquired.\n\n\u201cWho knows?\u201d said the cabman.\n\n\u201cHow is this?\u201d said I, \u201che is Christ\u2019s poor, and he is taken to the\nstation-house.\u201d\n\n\u201cA stop has been put to that now, it is not allowed,\u201d said the\ncab-driver.\n\nOn several occasions afterwards, I saw policemen conducting beggars to\nthe station house, and then to the Yusupoff house of correction.  Once I\nencountered on the Myasnitzkaya a company of these beggars, about thirty\nin number.  In front of them and behind them marched policemen.  I\ninquired: \u201cWhat for?\u201d\u2014\u201cFor asking alms.\u201d\n\nIt turned out that all these beggars, several of whom you meet with in\nevery street in Moscow, and who stand in files near every church during\nservices, and especially during funeral services, are forbidden to ask\nalms.\n\nBut why are some of them caught and locked up somewhere, while others are\nleft alone?\n\nThis I could not understand.  Either there are among them legal and\nillegal beggars, or there are so many of them that it is impossible to\napprehend them all; or do others assemble afresh when some are removed?\n\nThere are many varieties of beggars in Moscow: there are some who live by\nthis profession; there are also genuine poor people, who have chanced\nupon Moscow in some manner or other, and who are really in want.\n\nAmong these poor people, there are many simple, common peasants, and\nwomen in their peasant costume.  I often met such people.  Some of them\nhave fallen ill here, and on leaving the hospital they can neither\nsupport themselves here, nor get away from Moscow.  Some of them,\nmoreover, have indulged in dissipation (such was probably the case of the\ndropsical man); some have not been ill, but are people who have been\nburnt out of their houses, or old people, or women with children; some,\ntoo, were perfectly healthy and able to work.  These perfectly healthy\npeasants who were engaged in begging, particularly interested me.  These\nhealthy, peasant beggars, who were fit for work, also interested me,\nbecause, from the date of my arrival in Moscow, I had been in the habit\nof going to the Sparrow Hills with two peasants, and sawing wood there\nfor the sake of exercise.  These two peasants were just as poor as those\nwhom I encountered on the streets.  One was Piotr, a soldier from Kaluga;\nthe other Semyon, a peasant from Vladimir.  They possessed nothing except\nthe wages of their body and hands.  And with these hands they earned, by\ndint of very hard labor, from forty to forty-five kopeks a day, out of\nwhich each of them was laying by savings, the Kaluga man for a fur coat,\nthe Vladimir man in order to get enough to return to his village.\nTherefore, on meeting precisely such men in the streets, I took an\nespecial interest in them.\n\nWhy did these men toil, while those others begged?\n\nOn encountering a peasant of this stamp, I usually asked him how he had\ncome to that situation.  Once I met a peasant with some gray in his\nbeard, but healthy.  He begs.  I ask him who is he, whence comes he?  He\nsays that he came from Kaluga to get work.  At first he found employment\nchopping up old wood for use in stoves.  He and his comrade finished all\nthe chopping which one householder had; then they sought other work, but\nfound none; his comrade had parted from him, and for two weeks he himself\nhad been struggling along; he had spent all his money, he had no saw, and\nno axe, and no money to buy anything.  I gave him money for a saw, and\ntold him of a place where he could find work.  I had already made\narrangements with Piotr and Semyon, that they should take an assistant,\nand they looked up a mate for him.\n\n\u201cSee that you come.  There is a great deal of work there.\u201d\n\n\u201cI will come; why should I not come?  Do you suppose I like to beg?  I\ncan work.\u201d\n\nThe peasant declares that he will come, and it seems to me that he is not\ndeceiving me, and that he intents to come.\n\nOn the following day I go to my peasants, and inquire whether that man\nhas arrived.  He has not been there; and in this way several men deceived\nme.  And those also deceived me who said that they only required money\nfor a ticket in order to return home, and who chanced upon me again in\nthe street a week later.  Many of these I recognized, and they recognized\nme, and sometimes, having forgotten me, they repeated the same trick on\nme; and others, on catching sight of me, beat a retreat.  Thus I\nperceived, that in the ranks of this class also deceivers existed.  But\nthese cheats were very pitiable creatures: all of them were but\nhalf-clad, poverty-stricken, gaunt, sickly men; they were the very people\nwho really freeze to death, or hang themselves, as we learn from the\nnewspapers.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\n\nWhen I mentioned this poverty of the town to inhabitants of the town,\nthey always said to me: \u201cOh, all that you have seen is nothing.  You\nought to see the Khitroff market-place, and the lodging-houses for the\nnight there.  There you would see a regular \u2018golden company.\u2019\u201d {21a}  One\njester told me that this was no longer a company, but a _golden\nregiment_: so greatly had their numbers increased.  The jester was right,\nbut he would have been still more accurate if he had said that these\npeople now form in Moscow neither a company nor a regiment, but an entire\narmy, almost fifty thousand in number, I think.  [The old inhabitants,\nwhen they spoke to me about the poverty in town, always referred to it\nwith a certain satisfaction, as though pluming themselves over me,\nbecause they knew it.  I remember that when I was in London, the old\ninhabitants there also rather boasted when they spoke of the poverty of\nLondon.  The case is the same with us.] {21b}\n\nAnd I wanted to have a sight of this poverty of which I had been told.\nSeveral times I set out in the direction of the Khitroff market-place,\nbut on every occasion I began to feel uncomfortable and ashamed.  \u201cWhy am\nI going to gaze on the sufferings of people whom I cannot help?\u201d said one\nvoice.  \u201cNo, if you live here, and see all the charms of city life, go\nand view this also,\u201d said another voice.  In December three years ago,\ntherefore, on a cold and windy day, I betook myself to that centre of\npoverty, the Khitroff market-place.  This was at four o\u2019clock in the\nafternoon of a week-day.  As I passed through the Solyanka, I already\nbegan to see more and more people in old garments which had not\noriginally belonged to them, and in still stranger foot-gear, people with\na peculiar, unhealthy hue of countenance, and especially with a singular\nindifference to every thing around them, which was peculiar to them all.\nA man in the strangest of all possible attire, which was utterly unlike\nany thing else, walked along with perfect unconcern, evidently without a\nthought of the appearance which he must present to the eyes of others.\nAll these people were making their way towards a single point.  Without\ninquiring the way, with which I was not acquainted, I followed them, and\ncame out on the Khitroff market-place.  On the market-place, women both\nold and young, of the same description, in tattered cloaks and jackets of\nvarious shapes, in ragged shoes and overshoes, and equally unconcerned,\nnotwithstanding the hideousness of their attire, sat, bargained for\nsomething, strolled about, and scolded.  There were not many people in\nthe market itself.  Evidently market-hours were over, and the majority of\nthe people were ascending the rise beyond the market and through the\nplace, all still proceeding in one direction.  I followed them.  The\nfarther I advanced, the greater in numbers were the people of this sort\nwho flowed together on one road.  Passing through the market-place and\nproceeding along the street, I overtook two women; one was old, the other\nyoung.  Both wore something ragged and gray.  As they walked they were\ndiscussing some matter.  After every necessary word, they uttered one or\ntwo unnecessary ones, of the most improper character.  They were not\nintoxicated, but merely troubled about something; and neither the men who\nmet them, nor those who walked in front of them and behind them, paid any\nattention to the language which was so strange to me.  In these quarters,\nevidently, people always talked so.  Ascending the rise, we reached a\nlarge house on a corner.  The greater part of the people who were walking\nalong with me halted at this house.  They stood all over the sidewalk of\nthis house, and sat on the curbstone, and even the snow in the street was\nthronged with the same kind of people.  On the right side of the entrance\ndoor were the women, on the left the men.  I walked past the women, past\nthe men (there were several hundred of them in all) and halted where the\nline came to an end.  The house before which these people were waiting\nwas the Lyapinsky free lodging-house for the night.  The throng of people\nconsisted of night lodgers, who were waiting to be let in.  At five\no\u2019clock in the afternoon, the house is opened, and the people permitted\nto enter.  Hither had come nearly all the people whom I had passed on my\nway.\n\nI halted where the line of men ended.  Those nearest me began to stare at\nme, and attracted my attention to them by their glances.  The fragments\nof garments which covered these bodies were of the most varied sorts.\nBut the expression of all the glances directed towards me by these people\nwas identical.  In all eyes the question was expressed: \u201cWhy have you, a\nman from another world, halted here beside us?  Who are you?  Are you a\nself-satisfied rich man who wants to enjoy our wretchedness, to get rid\nof his tedium, and to torment us still more? or are you that thing which\ndoes not and can not exist,\u2014a man who pities us?\u201d  This query was on\nevery face.  You glance about, encounter some one\u2019s eye, and turn away.\nI wished to talk with some one of them, but for a long time I could not\nmake up my mind to it.  But our glances had drawn us together already\nwhile our tongues remained silent.  Greatly as our lives had separated\nus, after the interchange of two or three glances we felt that we were\nboth men, and we ceased to fear each other.  The nearest of all to me was\na peasant with a swollen face and a red beard, in a tattered caftan, and\npatched overshoes on his bare feet.  And the weather was eight degrees\nbelow zero. {24a}  For the third or fourth time I encountered his eyes,\nand I felt so near to him that I was no longer ashamed to accost him, but\nashamed not to say something to him.  I inquired where he came from? he\nanswered readily, and we began to talk; others approached.  He was from\nSmolensk, and had come to seek employment that he might earn his bread\nand taxes.  \u201cThere is no work,\u201d said he: \u201cthe soldiers have taken it all\naway.  So now I am loafing about; as true as I believe in God, I have had\nnothing to eat for two days.\u201d  He spoke modestly, with an effort at a\nsmile.  A _sbiten_{24b}-seller, an old soldier, stood near by.  I called\nhim up.  He poured out his _sbiten_.  The peasant took a boiling-hot\nglassful in his hands, and as he tried before drinking not to let any of\nthe heat escape in vain, and warmed his hands over it, he related his\nadventures to me.  These adventures, or the histories of them, are almost\nalways identical: the man has been a laborer, then he has changed his\nresidence, then his purse containing his money and ticket has been stolen\nfrom him in the night lodging-house; now it is impossible to get away\nfrom Moscow.  He told me that he kept himself warm by day in the\ndram-shops; that he nourished himself on the bits of bread in these\ndrinking places, when they were given to him; and when he was driven out\nof them, he came hither to the Lyapinsky house for a free lodging.  He\nwas only waiting for the police to make their rounds, when, as he had no\npassport, he would be taken to jail, and then despatched by stages to his\nplace of settlement.  \u201cThey say that the inspection will be made on\nFriday,\u201d said he, \u201cthen they will arrest me.  If I can only get along\nuntil Friday.\u201d  (The jail, and the journey by stages, represent the\nPromised Land to him.)\n\nAs he told his story, three men from among the throng corroborated his\nstatements, and said that they were in the same predicament.  A gaunt,\npale, long-nosed youth, with merely a shirt on the upper portion of his\nbody, and that torn on the shoulders, and a cap without a visor, forced\nhis way sidelong through the crowd.  He shivered violently and\nincessantly, but tried to smile disdainfully at the peasants\u2019 remarks,\nthinking by this means to adopt the proper tone with me, and he stared at\nme.  I offered him some _sbiten_; he also, on taking the glass, warmed\nhis hands over it; but no sooner had he begun to speak, than he was\nthrust aside by a big, black, hook-nosed individual, in a chintz shirt\nand waistcoat, without a hat.  The hook-nosed man asked for some _sbiten_\nalso.  Then came a tall old man, with a mass of beard, clad in a\ngreat-coat girded with a rope, and in bast shoes, who was drunk.  Then a\nsmall man with a swollen face and tearful eyes, in a brown nankeen\nround-jacket, with his bare knees protruding from the holes in his summer\ntrousers, and knocking together with cold.  He shivered so that he could\nnot hold his glass, and spilled it over himself.  The men began to\nreproach him.  He only smiled in a woe-begone way, and went on shivering.\nThen came a crooked monster in rags, with pattens on his bare feet; then\nsome sort of an officer; then something in the ecclesiastical line; then\nsomething strange and nose-less,\u2014all hungry and cold, beseeching and\nsubmissive, thronged round me, and pressed close to the _sbiten_.  They\ndrank up all the _sbiten_.  One asked for money, and I gave it.  Then\nanother asked, then a third, and the whole crowd besieged me.  Confusion\nand a press resulted.  The porter of the adjoining house shouted to the\ncrowd to clear the sidewalk in front of his house, and the crowd\nsubmissively obeyed his orders.  Some managers stepped out of the throng,\nand took me under their protection, and wanted to lead me forth out of\nthe press; but the crowd, which had at first been scattered over the\nsidewalk, now became disorderly, and hustled me.  All stared at me and\nbegged; and each face was more pitiful and suffering and humble than the\nlast.  I distributed all that I had with me.  I had not much money,\nsomething like twenty rubles; and in company with the crowd, I entered\nthe Lyapinsky lodging-house.  This house is huge.  It consists of four\nsections.  In the upper stories are the men\u2019s quarters; in the lower, the\nwomen\u2019s.  I first entered the women\u2019s place; a vast room all occupied\nwith bunks, resembling the third-class bunks on the railway.  These bunks\nwere arranged in two rows, one above the other.  The women, strange,\ntattered creatures, both old and young, wearing nothing over their\ndresses, entered and took their places, some below and some above.  Some\nof the old ones crossed themselves, and uttered a petition for the\nfounder of this refuge; some laughed and scolded.  I went up-stairs.\nThere the men had installed themselves; among them I espied one of those\nto whom I had given money.  [On catching sight of him, I all at once felt\nterribly abashed, and I made haste to leave the room.  And it was with a\nsense of absolute crime that I quitted that house and returned home.  At\nhome I entered over the carpeted stairs into the ante-room, whose floor\nwas covered with cloth; and having removed my fur coat, I sat down to a\ndinner of five courses, waited on by two lackeys in dress-coats, white\nneckties, and white gloves.\n\nThirty years ago I witnessed in Paris a man\u2019s head cut off by the\nguillotine in the presence of thousands of spectators.  I knew that the\nman was a horrible criminal.  I was acquainted with all the arguments\nwhich people have been devising for so many centuries, in order to\njustify this sort of deed.  I knew that they had done this expressly,\ndeliberately.  But at the moment when head and body were severed, and\nfell into the trough, I groaned, and apprehended, not with my mind, but\nwith my heart and my whole being, that all the arguments which I had\nheard anent the death-penalty were arrant nonsense; that, no matter how\nmany people might assemble in order to perpetrate a murder, no matter\nwhat they might call themselves, murder is murder, the vilest sin in the\nworld, and that that crime had been committed before my very eyes.  By my\npresence and non-interference, I had lent my approval to that crime, and\nhad taken part in it.  So now, at the sight of this hunger, cold, and\ndegradation of thousands of persons, I understood not with my mind, but\nwith my heart and my whole being, that the existence of tens of thousands\nof such people in Moscow, while I and other thousands dined on fillets\nand sturgeon, and covered my horses and my floors with cloth and rugs,\u2014no\nmatter what the wise ones of this world might say to me about its being a\nnecessity,\u2014was a crime, not perpetrated a single time, but one which was\nincessantly being perpetrated over and over again, and that I, in my\nluxury, was not only an accessory, but a direct accomplice in the matter.\nThe difference for me between these two impressions was this, that I\nmight have shouted to the assassins who stood around the guillotine, and\nperpetrated the murder, that they were committing a crime, and have tried\nwith all my might to prevent the murder.  But while so doing I should\nhave known that my action would not prevent the murder.  But here I might\nnot only have given _sbiten_ and the money which I had with me, but the\ncoat from my back, and every thing that was in my house.  But this I had\nnot done; and therefore I felt, I feel, and shall never cease to feel,\nmyself an accomplice in this constantly repeated crime, so long as I have\nsuperfluous food and any one else has none at all, so long as I have two\ngarments while any one else has not even one.] {28}\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\n\nThat very evening, on my return from the Lyapinsky house, I related my\nimpressions to a friend.  The friend, an inhabitant of the city, began to\ntell me, not without satisfaction, that this was the most natural\nphenomenon of town life possible, that I only saw something extraordinary\nin it because of my provincialism, that it had always been so, and always\nwould be so, and that such must be and is the inevitable condition of\ncivilization.  In London it is even worse.  Of course there is nothing\nwrong about it, and it is impossible to be displeased with it.  I began\nto reply to my friend, but with so much heat and ill-temper, that my wife\nran in from the adjoining room to inquire what had happened.  It appears\nthat, without being conscious of it myself, I had been shouting, with\ntears in my voice, and flourishing my hands at my friend.  I shouted:\n\u201cIt\u2019s impossible to live thus, impossible to live thus, impossible!\u201d\nThey made me feel ashamed of my unnecessary warmth; they told me that I\ncould not talk quietly about any thing, that I got disagreeably excited;\nand they proved to me, especially, that the existence of such\nunfortunates could not possibly furnish any excuse for imbittering the\nlives of those about me.\n\nI felt that this was perfectly just, and held my peace; but in the depths\nof my soul I was conscious that I was in the right, and I could not\nregain my composure.\n\nAnd the life of the city, which had, even before this, been so strange\nand repellent to me, now disgusted me to such a degree, that all the\npleasures of a life of luxury, which had hitherto appeared to me as\npleasures, become tortures to me.  And try as I would, to discover in my\nown soul any justification whatever for our life, I could not, without\nirritation, behold either my own or other people\u2019s drawing-rooms, nor our\ntables spread in the lordly style, nor our equipages and horses, nor\nshops, theatres, and assemblies.  I could not behold alongside these the\nhungry, cold, and down-trodden inhabitants of the Lyapinsky house.  And I\ncould not rid myself of the thought that these two things were bound up\ntogether, that the one arose from the other.  I remember, that, as this\nfeeling of my own guilt presented itself to me at the first blush, so it\npersisted in me, but to this feeling a second was speedily added which\novershadowed it.\n\nWhen I mentioned my impressions of the Lyapinsky house to my nearest\nfriends and acquaintances, they all gave me the same answer as the first\nfriend at whom I had begun to shout; but, in addition to this, they\nexpressed their approbation of my kindness of heart and my sensibility,\nand gave me to understand that this sight had so especially worked upon\nme because I, Lyof Nikolaevitch, was very kind and good.  And I willingly\nbelieved this.  And before I had time to look about me, instead of the\nfeeling of self-reproach and regret, which I had at first experienced,\nthere came a sense of satisfaction with my own kindliness, and a desire\nto exhibit it to people.\n\n\u201cIt really must be,\u201d I said to myself, \u201cthat I am not especially\nresponsible for this by the luxury of my life, but that it is the\nindispensable conditions of existence that are to blame.  In truth, a\nchange in my mode of life cannot rectify the evil which I have seen: by\naltering my manner of life, I shall only make myself and those about me\nunhappy, and the other miseries will remain the same as ever.  And\ntherefore my problem lies not in a change of my own life, as it had first\nseemed to me, but in aiding, so far as in me lies, in the amelioration of\nthe situation of those unfortunate beings who have called forth my\ncompassion.  The whole point lies here,\u2014that I am a very kind, amiable\nman, and that I wish to do good to my neighbors.\u201d  And I began to think\nout a plan of beneficent activity, in which I might exhibit my\nbenevolence.  I must confess, however, that while devising this plan of\nbeneficent activity, I felt all the time, in the depths of my soul, that\nthat was not the thing; but, as often happens, activity of judgment and\nimagination drowned that voice of conscience within me.  At that\njuncture, the census came up.  This struck me as a means for instituting\nthat benevolence in which I proposed to exhibit my charitable\ndisposition.  I knew of many charitable institutions and societies which\nwere in existence in Moscow, but all their activity seemed to me both\nwrongly directed and insignificant in comparison with what I intended to\ndo.  And I devised the following scheme: to arouse the sympathy of the\nwealthy for the poverty of the city, to collect money, to get people\ntogether who were desirous of assisting in this matter, and to visit all\nthe refuges of poverty in company with the census, and, in addition to\nthe work of the census, to enter into communion with the unfortunate, to\nlearn the particulars of their necessities, and to assist them with\nmoney, with work, by sending them away from Moscow, by placing their\nchildren in school, and the old people in hospitals and asylums.  And not\nonly that, I thought, but these people who undertake this can be formed\ninto a permanent society, which, by dividing the quarters of Moscow among\nits members, will be able to see to it that this poverty and beggary\nshall not be bred; they will incessantly annihilate it at its very\ninception; then they will fulfil their duty, not so much by healing as by\na course of hygiene for the wretchedness of the city.  I fancied that\nthere would be no more simply needy, not to mention abjectly poor\npersons, in the town, and that all of us wealthy individuals would\nthereafter be able to sit in our drawing-rooms, and eat our five-course\ndinners, and ride in our carriages to theatres and assemblies, and be no\nlonger annoyed with such sights as I had seen at the Lyapinsky house.\n\nHaving concocted this plan, I wrote an article on the subject; and before\nsending it to the printer, I went to some acquaintances, from whom I\nhoped for sympathy.  I said the same thing to every one whom I met that\nday (and I applied chiefly to the rich), and nearly the same that I\nafterwards printed in my memoir; proposed to take advantage of the census\nto inquire into the wretchedness of Moscow, and to succor it, both by\ndeeds and money, and to do it in such a manner that there should be no\npoor people in Moscow, and so that we rich ones might be able, with a\nquiet conscience, to enjoy the blessings of life to which we were\naccustomed.  All listened to me attentively and seriously, but\nnevertheless the same identical thing happened with every one of them\nwithout exception.  No sooner did my hearers comprehend the question,\nthan they seemed to feel awkward and somewhat mortified.  They seemed to\nbe ashamed, and principally on my account, because I was talking\nnonsense, and nonsense which it was impossible to openly characterize as\nsuch.  Some external cause appeared to compel my hearers to be forbearing\nwith this nonsense of mine.\n\n\u201cAh, yes! of course.  That would be very good,\u201d they said to me.  \u201cIt is\na self-understood thing that it is impossible not to sympathize with\nthis.  Yes, your idea is a capital one.  I have thought of that myself,\nbut . . . we are so indifferent, as a rule, that you can hardly count on\nmuch success . . . however, so far as I am concerned, I am, of course,\nready to assist.\u201d\n\nThey all said something of this sort to me.  They all agreed, but agreed,\nso it seemed to me, not in consequence of my convictions, and not in\nconsequence of their own wish, but as the result of some outward cause,\nwhich did not permit them not to agree.  I had already noticed this, and,\nsince not one of them stated the sum which he was willing to contribute,\nI was obliged to fix it myself, and to ask: \u201cSo I may count on you for\nthree hundred, or two hundred, or one hundred, or twenty-five rubles?\u201d\nAnd not one of them gave me any money.  I mention this because, when\npeople give money for that which they themselves desire, they generally\nmake haste to give it.  For a box to see Sarah Bernhardt, they will\ninstantly place the money in your hand, to clinch the bargain.  Here,\nhowever, out of all those who agreed to contribute, and who expressed\ntheir sympathy, not one of them proposed to give me the money on the\nspot, but they merely assented in silence to the sum which I suggested.\nIn the last house which I visited on that day, in the evening, I\naccidentally came upon a large company.  The mistress of the house had\nbusied herself with charity for several years.  Numerous carriages stood\nat the door, several lackeys in rich liveries were sitting in the\nante-chamber.  In the vast drawing-room, around two tables and lamps, sat\nladies and young girls, in costly garments, dressing small dolls; and\nthere were several young men there also, hovering about the ladies.  The\ndolls prepared by these ladies were to be drawn in a lottery for the\npoor.\n\nThe sight of this drawing-room, and of the people assembled in it, struck\nme very unpleasantly.  Not to mention the fact that the property of the\npersons there congregated amounted to many millions, not to mention the\nfact that the mere income from the capital here expended on dresses,\nlaces, bronzes, brooches, carriages, horses, liveries, and lackeys, was a\nhundred-fold greater than all that these ladies could earn; not to\nmention the outlay, the trip hither of all these ladies and gentlemen;\nthe gloves, linen, extra time, the candles, the tea, the sugar, and the\ncakes had cost the hostess a hundred times more than what they were\nengaged in making here.  I saw all this, and therefore I could\nunderstand, that precisely here I should find no sympathy with my\nmission: but I had come in order to make my proposition, and, difficult\nas this was for me, I said what I intended.  (I said very nearly the same\nthing that is contained in my printed article.)\n\nOut of all the persons there present, one individual offered me money,\nsaying that she did not feel equal to going among the poor herself on\naccount of her sensibility, but that she would give money; how much money\nshe would give, and when, she did not say.  Another individual and a\nyoung man offered their services in going about among the poor, but I did\nnot avail myself of their offer.  The principal person to whom I\nappealed, told me that it would be impossible to do much because means\nwere lacking.  Means were lacking because all the rich people in Moscow\nwere already on the lists, and all of them were asked for all that they\ncould possibly give; because on all these benefactors rank, medals, and\nother dignities were bestowed; because in order to secure financial\nsuccess, some new dignities must be secured from the authorities, and\nthat this was the only practical means, but this was extremely difficult.\n\nOn my return home that night, I lay down to sleep not only with a\npresentment that my idea would come to nothing, but with shame and a\nconsciousness that all day long I had been engaged in a very repulsive\nand disgraceful business.  But I did not give up this undertaking.  In\nthe first place, the matter had been begun, and false shame would have\nprevented my abandoning it; in the second place, not only the success of\nthis scheme, but the very fact that I was busying myself with it,\nafforded me the possibility of continuing to live in the conditions under\nwhich I was then living; failure entailed upon me the necessity of\nrenouncing my present existence and of seeking new paths of life.  And\nthis I unconsciously dreaded, and I could not believe the inward voice,\nand I went on with what I had begun.\n\nHaving sent my article to the printer, I read the proof of it to the City\nCouncil (_Dum_).  I read it, stumbling, and blushing even to tears, I\nfelt so awkward.  And I saw that it was equally awkward for all my\nhearers.  In answer to my question at the conclusion of my reading, as to\nwhether the superintendents of the census would accept my proposition to\nretain their places with the object of becoming mediators between society\nand the needy, an awkward silence ensued.  Then two orators made\nspeeches.  These speeches in some measure corrected the awkwardness of my\nproposal; sympathy for me was expressed, but the impracticability of my\nproposition, which all had approved, was demonstrated.  Everybody\nbreathed more freely.  But when, still desirous of gaining my object, I\nafterwards asked the superintendents separately: Were they willing, while\ntaking the census, to inquire into the needs of the poor, and to retain\ntheir posts, in order to serve as go-betweens between the poor and the\nrich? they all grew uneasy again.  They seemed to say to me with their\nglances: \u201cWhy, we have just condoned your folly out of respect to you,\nand here you are beginning it again!\u201d  Such was the expression of their\nfaces, but they assured me in words that they agreed; and two of them\nsaid in the very same words, as though they had entered into a compact\ntogether: \u201cWe consider ourselves _morally bound_ to do this.\u201d  The same\nimpression was produced by my communication to the student-census-takers,\nwhen I said to them, that while taking our statistics, we should follow\nup, in addition to the objects of the census, the object of benevolence.\nWhen we discussed this, I observed that they were ashamed to look the\nkind-hearted man, who was talking nonsense, in the eye.  My article\nproduced the same impression on the editor of the newspaper, when I\nhanded it to him; on my son, on my wife, on the most widely different\npersons.  All felt awkward, for some reason or other; but all regarded it\nas indispensable to applaud the idea itself, and all, immediately after\nthis expression of approbation, began to express their doubts as to its\nsuccess, and began for some reason (and all of them, too, without\nexception) to condemn the indifference and coldness of our society and of\nevery one, apparently, except themselves.\n\nIn the depths of my own soul, I still continued to feel that all this was\nnot at all what was needed, and that nothing would come of it; but the\narticle was printed, and I prepared to take part in the census; I had\ncontrived the matter, and now it was already carrying me a way with it.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\n\nAt my request, there had been assigned to me for the census, a portion of\nthe Khamovnitchesky quarter, at the Smolensk market, along the Prototchny\ncross-street, between Beregovoy Passage and Nikolsky Alley.  In this\nquarter are situated the houses generally called the Rzhanoff Houses, or\nthe Rzhanoff fortress.  These houses once belonged to a merchant named\nRzhanoff, but now belong to the Zimins.  I had long before heard of this\nplace as a haunt of the most terrible poverty and vice, and I had\naccordingly requested the directors of the census to assign me to this\nquarter.  My desire was granted.\n\nOn receiving the instructions of the City Council, I went alone, a few\ndays previous to the beginning of the census, to reconnoitre my section.\nI found the Rzhanoff fortress at once, from the plan with which I had\nbeen furnished.\n\nI approached from Nikolsky Alley.  Nikolsky Alley ends on the left in a\ngloomy house, without any gates on that side; I divined from its\nappearance that this was the Rzhanoff fortress.\n\nPassing down Nikolsky Street, I overtook some lads of from ten to\nfourteen years of age, clad in little caftans and great-coats, who were\nsliding down hill, some on their feet, and some on one skate, along the\nicy slope beside this house.  The boys were ragged, and, like all city\nlads, bold and impudent.  I stopped to watch them.  A ragged old woman,\nwith yellow, pendent cheeks, came round the corner.  She was going to\ntown, to the Smolensk market, and she groaned terribly at every step,\nlike a foundered horse.  As she came alongside me, she halted and drew a\nhoarse sigh.  In any other locality, this old woman would have asked\nmoney of me, but here she merely addressed me.\n\n\u201cLook there,\u201d said she, pointing at the boys who were sliding, \u201call they\ndo is to play their pranks!  They\u2019ll turn out just such Rzhanoff fellows\nas their fathers.\u201d\n\nOne of the boys clad in a great-coat and a visorless cap, heard her words\nand halted: \u201cWhat are you scolding about?\u201d he shouted to the old woman.\n\u201cYou\u2019re an old Rzhanoff nanny-goat yourself!\u201d\n\nI asked the boy:\n\n\u201cAnd do you live here?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, and so does she.  She stole boot-legs,\u201d shouted the boy; and\nraising his foot in front, he slid away.\n\nThe old woman burst forth into injurious words, interrupted by a cough.\nAt that moment, an old man, all clad in rags, and as white as snow, came\ndown the hill in the middle of the street, flourishing his hands [in one\nof them he held a bundle with one little _kalatch_ and _baranki_ {39}].\nThis old man bore the appearance of a person who had just strengthened\nhimself with a dram.  He had evidently heard the old woman\u2019s insulting\nwords, and he took her part.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ll give it to you, you imps, that I will!\u201d he screamed at the boys,\nseeming to direct his course towards them, and taking a circuit round me,\nhe stepped on to the sidewalk.  This old man creates surprise on the\nArbata by his great age, his weakness, and his indigence.  Here he was a\ncheery laboring-man returning from his daily toil.\n\nI followed the old man.  He turned the corner to the left, into\nPrototchny Alley, and passing by the whole length of the house and the\ngate, he disappeared through the door of the tavern.\n\nTwo gates and several doors open on Prototchny Alley: those belonging to\na tavern, a dram-shop, and several eating and other shops.  This is the\nRzhanoff fortress itself.  Every thing here is gray, dirty, and\nmalodorous\u2014both buildings and locality, and court-yards and people.  The\nmajority of the people whom I met here were ragged and half-clad.  Some\nwere passing through, others were running from door to door.  Two were\nhaggling over some rags.  I made the circuit of the entire building from\nPrototchny Alley and Beregovoy Passage, and returning I halted at the\ngate of one of these houses.  I wished to enter, and see what was going\non inside, but I felt that it would be awkward.  What should I say when I\nwas asked what I wanted there?  I hesitated, but went in nevertheless.\nAs soon as I entered the court-yard, I became conscious of a disgusting\nodor.  The yard was frightfully dirty.  I turned a corner, and at the\nsame instant I heard to my left and overhead, on the wooden balcony, the\ntramp of footsteps of people running, at first along the planks of the\nbalcony, and then on the steps of the staircase.  There emerged, first a\ngaunt woman, with her sleeves rolled up, in a faded pink gown, and little\nboots on her stockingless feet.  After her came a tattered man in a red\nshirt and very full trousers, like a petticoat, and with overshoes.  The\nman caught the woman at the bottom of the steps.\n\n\u201cYou shall not escape,\u201d he said laughing.\n\n\u201cSee here, you cock-eyed devil,\u201d began the woman, evidently flattered by\nthis pursuit; but catching sight of me, she shrieked viciously, \u201cWhat do\nyou want?\u201d\n\nAs I wanted nothing, I became confused and beat a retreat.  There was\nnothing remarkable about the place; but this incident, after what I had\nwitnessed on the other side of the yard, the cursing old woman, the jolly\nold man, and the lads sliding, suddenly presented the business which I\nhad concocted from a totally different point of view.  I then\ncomprehended for the first time, that all these unfortunates to whom I\nwas desirous of playing the part of benefactor, besides the time, when,\nsuffering from cold and hunger, they awaited admission into the house,\nhad still other time, which they employed to some other purpose, that\nthere were four and twenty hours in every day, that there was a whole\nlife of which I had never thought, up to that moment.  Here, for the\nfirst time, I understood, that all those people, in addition to their\ndesire to shelter themselves from the cold and to obtain a good meal,\nmust still, in some way, live out those four and twenty hours each day,\nwhich they must pass as well as everybody else.  I comprehended that\nthese people must lose their tempers, and get bored, show courage, and\ngrieve and be merry.  Strange as this may seem, when put into words, I\nunderstood clearly for the first time, that the business which I had\nundertaken could not consist alone in feeding and clothing thousands of\npeople, as one would feed and drive under cover a thousand sheep, but\nthat it must consist in doing good to them.\n\nAnd then I understood that each one of those thousand people was exactly\nsuch a man,\u2014with precisely the same past, with the same passions,\ntemptations, failings, with the same thoughts, the same\nperplexities,\u2014exactly such a man as myself, and then the thing that I had\nundertaken suddenly presented itself to me as so difficult that I felt my\npowerlessness; but the thing had been begun, and I went on with it.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\n\nOn the first appointed day, the student enumerators arrived in the\nmorning, and I, the benefactor, joined them at twelve o\u2019clock.  I could\nnot go earlier, because I had risen at ten o\u2019clock, then I had drunk my\ncoffee and smoked, while waiting on digestion.  At twelve o\u2019clock I\nreached the gates of the Rzhanoff house.  A policeman pointed out to me\nthe tavern with a side entrance on Beregovoy Passage, where the\ncensus-takers had ordered every one who asked for them to be directed.  I\nentered the tavern.  It was very dark, ill-smelling, and dirty.  Directly\nopposite the entrance was the counter, on the left was a room with\ntables, covered with soiled cloths, on the right a large apartment with\npillars, and the same sort of little tables at the windows and along the\nwalls.  Here and there at the tables sat men both ragged and decently\nclad, like laboring-men or petty tradesmen, and a few women drinking tea.\nThe tavern was very filthy, but it was instantly apparent that it had a\ngood trade.\n\nThere was a business-like expression on the face of the clerk behind the\ncounter, and a clever readiness about the waiters.  No sooner had I\nentered, than one waiter prepared to remove my coat and bring me whatever\nI should order.  It was evident that they had been trained to brisk and\naccurate service.  I inquired for the enumerators.\n\n\u201cVanya!\u201d shouted a small man, dressed in German fashion, who was engaged\nin placing something in a cupboard behind the counter; this was the\nlandlord of the tavern, a Kaluga peasant, Ivan Fedotitch, who hired\none-half of the Zimins\u2019 houses and sublet them to lodgers.  The waiter, a\nthin, hooked-nosed young fellow of eighteen, with a yellow complexion,\nhastened up.\n\n\u201cConduct this gentleman to the census-takers; they went into the main\nbuilding over the well.\u201d  The young fellow threw down his napkin, and\ndonned a coat over his white jacket and white trousers, and a cap with a\nlarge visor, and, tripping quickly along with his white feet, he led me\nthrough the swinging door in the rear.  In the dirty, malodorous kitchen,\nin the out-building, we encountered an old woman who was carefully\ncarrying some very bad-smelling tripe, wrapped in a rag, off somewhere.\nFrom the out-building we descended into a sloping court-yard, all\nencumbered with small wooden buildings on lower stories of stone.  The\nodor in this whole yard was extremely powerful.  The centre of this odor\nwas an out-house, round which people were thronging whenever I passed it.\nIt merely indicated the spot, but was not altogether used itself.  It was\nimpossible, when passing through the yard, not to take note of this spot;\none always felt oppressed when one entered the penetrating atmosphere\nwhich was emitted by this foul smell.\n\nThe waiter, carefully guarding his white trousers, led me cautiously past\nthis place of frozen and unfrozen uncleanness to one of the buildings.\nThe people who were passing through the yard and along the balconies all\nstopped to stare at me.  It was evident that a respectably dressed man\nwas a curiosity in these localities.\n\nThe young man asked a woman \u201cwhether she had seen the census-takers?\u201d\nAnd three men simultaneously answered his question: some said that they\nwere over the well, but others said that they had been there, but had\ncome out and gone to Nikita Ivanovitch.  An old man dressed only in his\nshirt, who was wandering about the centre of the yard, said that they\nwere in No. 30.  The young man decided that this was the most probable\nreport, and conducted me to No. 30 through the basement entrance, and\ndarkness and bad smells, different from that which existed outside.  We\nwent down-stairs, and proceeded along the earthen floor of a dark\ncorridor.  As we were passing along the corridor, a door flew open\nabruptly, and an old drunken man, in his shirt, probably not of the\npeasant class, thrust himself out.  A washerwoman, wringing her soapy\nhands, was pursuing and hustling the old man with piercing screams.\nVanya, my guide, pushed the old man aside, and reproved him.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s not proper to make such a row,\u201d said me, \u201cand you an officer, too!\u201d\nand we went on to the door of No. 30.\n\nVanya gave it a little pull.  The door gave way with a smack, opened, and\nwe smelled soapy steam, and a sharp odor of spoilt food and tobacco, and\nwe entered into total darkness.  The windows were on the opposite side;\nbut the corridors ran to right and left between board partitions, and\nsmall doors opened, at various angles, into the rooms made of uneven\nwhitewashed boards.  In a dark room, on the left, a woman could be seen\nwashing in a tub.  An old woman was peeping from one of these small doors\non the right.  Through another open door we could see a red-faced, hairy\npeasant, in bast shoes, sitting on his wooden bunk; his hands rested on\nhis knees, and he was swinging his feet, shod in bast shoes, and gazing\ngloomily at them.\n\nAt the end of the corridor was a little door leading to the apartment\nwhere the census-takers were.  This was the chamber of the mistress of\nthe whole of No. 30; she rented the entire apartment from Ivan\nFeodovitch, and let it out again to lodgers and as night-quarters.  In\nher tiny room, under the tinsel images, sat the student census-taker with\nhis charts; and, in his quality of investigator, he had just thoroughly\ninterrogated a peasant wearing a shirt and a vest.  This latter was a\nfriend of the landlady, and had been answering questions for her.  The\nlandlady herself, an elderly woman, was there also, and two of her\ncurious tenants.  When I entered, the room was already packed full.  I\npushed my way to the table.  I exchanged greetings with the student, and\nhe proceeded with his inquiries.  And I began to look about me, and to\ninterrogate the inhabitants of these quarters for my own purpose.\n\nIt turned out, that in this first set of lodgings, I found not a single\nperson upon whom I could pour out my benevolence.  The landlady, in spite\nof the fact that the poverty, smallness and dirt of these quarters struck\nme after the palatial house in which I dwell, lived in comfort, compared\nwith many of the poor inhabitants of the city, and in comparison with the\npoverty in the country, with which I was thoroughly familiar, she lived\nluxuriously.  She had a feather-bed, a quilted coverlet, a samovar, a fur\ncloak, and a dresser with crockery.  The landlady\u2019s friend had the same\ncomfortable appearance.  He had a watch and a chain.  Her lodgers were\nnot so well off, but there was not one of them who was in need of\nimmediate assistance: the woman who was washing linen in a tub, and who\nhad been abandoned by her husband and had children, an aged widow without\nany means of livelihood, as she said, and that peasant in bast shoes, who\ntold me that he had nothing to eat that day.  But on questioning them, it\nappeared that none of these people were in special want, and that, in\norder to help them, it would be necessary to become well acquainted with\nthem.\n\nWhen I proposed to the woman whose husband had abandoned her, to place\nher children in an asylum, she became confused, fell into thought,\nthanked me effusively, but evidently did not wish to do so; she would\nhave preferred pecuniary assistance.  The eldest girl helped her in her\nwashing, and the younger took care of the little boy.  The old woman\nbegged earnestly to be taken to the hospital, but on examining her nook I\nfound that the old woman was not particularly poor.  She had a chest full\nof effects, a teapot with a tin spout, two cups, and caramel boxes filled\nwith tea and sugar.  She knitted stockings and gloves, and received\nmonthly aid from some benevolent lady.  And it was evident that what the\npeasant needed was not so much food as drink, and that whatever might be\ngiven him would find its way to the dram-shop.  In these quarters,\ntherefore, there were none of the sort of people whom I could render\nhappy by a present of money.  But there were poor people who appeared to\nme to be of a doubtful character.  I noted down the old woman, the woman\nwith the children, and the peasant, and decided that they must be seen\nto; but later on, as I was occupied with the peculiarly unfortunate whom\nI expected to find in this house, I made up my mind that there must be\nsome order in the aid which we should bestow; first came the most\nwretched, and then this kind.  But in the next quarters, and in the next\nafter that, it was the same story, all the people had to be narrowly\ninvestigated before they could be helped.  But unfortunates of the sort\nwhom a gift of money would convert from unfortunate into fortunate\npeople, there were none.  Mortifying as it is to me to avow this, I began\nto get disenchanted, because I did not find among these people any thing\nof the sort which I had expected.  I had expected to find peculiar people\nhere; but, after making the round of all the apartments, I was convinced\nthat the inhabitants of these houses were not peculiar people at all, but\nprecisely such persons as those among whom I lived.  As there are among\nus, just so among them; there were here those who were more or less good,\nmore or less stupid, happy and unhappy.  The unhappy were exactly such\nunhappy beings as exist among us, that is, unhappy people whose\nunhappiness lies not in their external conditions, but in themselves, a\nsort of unhappiness which it is impossible to right by any sort of\nbank-note whatever.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\n\nThe inhabitants of these houses constitute the lower class of the city,\nwhich numbers in Moscow, probably, one hundred thousand.  There, in that\nhouse, are representatives of every description of this class.  There are\npetty employers, and master-artisans, bootmakers, brush-makers,\ncabinet-makers, turners, shoemakers, tailors, blacksmiths; there are\ncab-drivers, young women living alone, and female pedlers, laundresses,\nold-clothes dealers, money-lenders, day-laborers, and people without any\ndefinite employment; and also beggars and dissolute women.\n\nHere were many of the very people whom I had seen at the entrance to the\nLyapinsky house; but here these people were scattered about among the\nworking-people.  And moreover, I had seen these people at their most\nunfortunate time, when they had eaten and drunk up every thing, and when,\ncold, hungry, and driven forth from the taverns, they were awaiting\nadmission into the free night lodging-house, and thence into the promised\nprison for despatch to their places of residence, like heavenly manna;\nbut here I beheld them and a majority of workers, and at a time, when by\none means or another, they had procured three or five kopeks for a\nlodging for the night, and sometimes a ruble for food and drink.\n\nAnd strange as the statement may seem, I here experienced nothing\nresembling that sensation which I had felt in the Lyapinsky house; but,\non the contrary, during the first round, both I and the students\nexperienced an almost agreeable feeling,\u2014yes, but why do I say \u201calmost\nagreeable\u201d?  This is not true; the feeling called forth by intercourse\nwith these people, strange as it may sound, was a distinctly agreeable\none.\n\nOur first impression was, that the greater part of the dwellers here were\nworking people and very good people at that.\n\nWe found more than half the inhabitants at work: laundresses bending over\ntheir tubs, cabinet-makers at their lathes, cobblers on their benches.\nThe narrow rooms were full of people, and cheerful and energetic labor\nwas in progress.  There was an odor of toilsome sweat and leather at the\ncobbler\u2019s, of shavings at the cabinet-maker\u2019s; songs were often to be\nheard, and glimpses could be had of brawny arms with sleeves roiled high,\nquickly and skilfully making their accustomed movements.  Everywhere we\nwere received cheerfully and politely: hardly anywhere did our intrusion\ninto the every-day life of these people call forth that ambition, and\ndesire to exhibit their importance and to put us down, which the\nappearance of the enumerators in the quarters of well-to-do people\nevoked.  It not only did not arouse this, but, on the contrary, they\nanswered all other questions properly, and without attributing any\nspecial significance to them.  Our questions merely served them as a\nsubject of mirth and jesting as to how such and such a one was to be set\ndown in the list, when he was to be reckoned as two, and when two were to\nbe reckoned as one, and so forth.\n\nWe found many of them at dinner, or tea; and on every occasion to our\ngreeting: \u201cbread and salt,\u201d or \u201ctea and sugar,\u201d they replied: \u201cwe beg\nthat you will partake,\u201d and even stepped aside to make room for us.\nInstead of the den with a constantly changing population, which we had\nexpected to find here, it turned out, that there were a great many\napartments in the house where people had been living for a long time.\nOne cabinet-maker with his men, and a boot-maker with his journeymen, had\nlived there for ten years.  The boot-maker\u2019s quarters were very dirty and\nconfined, but all the people at work were very cheerful.  I tried to\nenter into conversation with one of the workmen, being desirous of\ninquiring into the wretchedness of his situation and his debt to his\nmaster, but the man did not understand me and spoke of his master and his\nlife from the best point of view.\n\nIn one apartment lived an old man and his old woman.  They peddled\napples.  Their little chamber was warm, clean, and full of goods.  On the\nfloor were spread straw mats: they had got them at the apple-warehouse.\nThey had chests, a cupboard, a samovar, and crockery.  In the corner\nthere were numerous images, and two lamps were burning before them; on\nthe wall hung fur coats covered with sheets.  The old woman, who had\nstar-shaped wrinkles, and who was polite and talkative, evidently\ndelighted in her quiet, comfortable, existence.\n\nIvan Fedotitch, the landlord of the tavern and of these quarters, left\nhis establishment and came with us.  He jested in a friendly manner with\nmany of the landlords of apartments, addressing them all by their\nChristian names and patronymics, and he gave us brief sketches of them.\nAll were ordinary people, like everybody else,\u2014Martin Semyonovitches,\nPiotr Piotrovitches, Marya Ivanovnas,\u2014people who did not consider\nthemselves unhappy, but who regarded themselves, and who actually were,\njust like the rest of mankind.\n\nWe had been prepared to witness nothing except what was terrible.  And,\nall of a sudden, there was presented to us, not only nothing that was\nterrible, but what was good,\u2014things which involuntarily compelled our\nrespect.  And there were so many of these good people, that the tattered,\ncorrupt, idle people whom we came across now and then among them, did not\ndestroy the principal impression.\n\nThis was not so much of a surprise to the students as to me.  They simply\nwent to fulfil a useful task, as they thought, in the interests of\nscience, and, at the same time, they made their own chance observations;\nbut I was a benefactor, I went for the purpose of aiding the unfortunate,\nthe corrupt, vicious people, whom I supposed that I should meet with in\nthis house.  And, behold, instead of unfortunate, corrupt, and vicious\npeople, I saw that the majority were laborious, industrious, peaceable,\nsatisfied, contented, cheerful, polite, and very good folk indeed.\n\nI felt particularly conscious of this when, in these quarters, I\nencountered that same crying want which I had undertaken to alleviate.\n\nWhen I encountered this want, I always found that it had already been\nrelieved, that the assistance which I had intended to render had already\nbeen given.  This assistance had been rendered before my advent, and\nrendered by whom?  By the very unfortunate, depraved creatures whom I had\nundertaken to reclaim, and rendered in such a manner as I could not\ncompass.\n\nIn one basement lay a solitary old man, ill with the typhus fever.  There\nwas no one with the old man.  A widow and her little daughter, strangers\nto him, but his neighbors round the corner, looked after him, gave him\ntea and purchased medicine for him out of their own means.  In another\nlodging lay a woman in puerperal fever.  A woman who lived by vice was\nrocking the baby, and giving her her bottle; and for two days, she had\nbeen unremitting in her attention.  The baby girl, on being left an\norphan, was adopted into the family of a tailor, who had three children\nof his own.  So there remained those unfortunate idle people, officials,\nclerks, lackeys out of place, beggars, drunkards, dissolute women, and\nchildren, who cannot be helped on the spot with money, but whom it is\nnecessary to know thoroughly, to be planned and arranged for.  I had\nsimply sought unfortunate people, the unfortunates of poverty, those who\ncould be helped by sharing with them our superfluity, and, as it seemed\nto me, through some signal ill-luck, none such were to be found; but I\nhit upon unfortunates to whom I should be obliged to devote my time and\ncare.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\n\nThe unfortunates whom I noted down, divided themselves, according to my\nideas, into three sections, namely: people who had lost their former\nadvantageous position, and who were awaiting a return to it (there were\npeople of this sort from both the lower and the higher class); next,\ndissolute women, of whom there are a great many in these houses; and a\nthird division, children.  More than all the rest, I found and noted down\npeople of the first division, who had forfeited their former advantageous\nposition, and who hoped to regain it.  Of such persons, especially from\nthe governmental and official world, there are a very great number in\nthese houses.  In almost all the lodgings which we entered, with the\nlandlord, Ivan Fedotitch, he said to us: \u201cHere you need not write down\nthe lodger\u2019s card yourself; there is a man here who can do it, if he only\nhappens not to be intoxicated to-day.\u201d\n\nAnd Ivan Fedotitch called by name and patronymic this man, who was always\none of those persons who had fallen from a lofty position.  At Ivan\nFedotitch\u2019s call, there crawled forth from some dark corner, a former\nwealthy member of the noble or official class, generally intoxicated and\nalways undressed.  If he was not drunk, he always readily acceded to the\ntask proposed to him, nodded significantly, frowned, set down his remarks\nin learned phraseology, held the card neatly printed on red paper in his\ndirty, trembling hands, and glanced round at his fellow-lodgers with\npride and contempt, as though now triumphing in his education over those\nwho had so often humiliated him.  He evidently enjoyed intercourse with\nthat world in which cards are printed on red paper, and with that world\nof which he had once formed a part.  Nearly always, in answer to my\ninquiries about his life, the man began, not only willingly, but eagerly,\nto relate the story of the misfortunes which he had undergone,\u2014which he\nhad learned by rote like a prayer,\u2014and particularly of his former\nposition, in which he ought still to be by right of his education.\n\nA great many such people were scattered over all the corners of the\nRzhanoff house.  But one lodging was densely occupied by them alone\u2014both\nmen and women.  After we had already entered, Ivan Fedotitch said to us:\n\u201cNow, here are some of the nobility.\u201d  The lodging was perfectly crammed;\nnearly all of the people, forty in number, were at home.  More\ndemoralized countenances, unhappy, aged, and swollen, young, pallid, and\ndistracted, were not to be seen in the whole building.  I conversed with\nseveral of them.  The story was nearly identical in all cases, only in\nvarious stages of development.  Every one of them had been rich, or his\nfather, his brother or his uncle was still wealthy, or his father or he\nhimself had had a very fine position.  Then misfortune had overtaken him,\nthe blame for which rested either on envious people, or on his own\nkind-heartedness, or some special chance, and so he had lost every thing,\nand had been forced to condescend to these surroundings to which he was\nnot accustomed, and which were hateful to him\u2014among lice, rags, among\ndrunkards and corrupt persons, and to nourish himself on bread and liver,\nand to extend his hand in beggary.  All the thoughts, desires, memories\nof these people were directed exclusively to the past.  The present\nappeared to them something unreal, repulsive, and not worthy of\nattention.  Not one of them had any present.  They had only memories of\nthe past, and expectations from the future, which might be realized at\nany moment, and for the realization of which only a very little was\nrequired; but this little they did not possess, it was nowhere to be\nobtained, and this had been ruining their whole future life in vain, in\nthe case of one man, for a year, of a second for five years, and of a\nthird for thirty years.  All one needed was merely to dress respectably,\nso that he could present himself to a certain personage, who was\nwell-disposed towards him another only needed to be able to dress, pay\noff his debts, and get to Orel; a third required to redeem a small\nproperty which was mortgaged, for the continuation of a law-suit, which\nmust be decided in his favor, and then all would be well once more.  They\nall declare that they merely require something external, in order to\nstand once more in the position which they regard as natural and happy in\ntheir own case.\n\nHad my mind not been obscured by my pride as a benefactor, a glance at\ntheir faces, both old and young, which were mostly weak and sensitive,\nbut amiable, would have given me to understand that their misfortunes\nwere irreparable by any external means, that they could not be happy in\nany position whatever, if their views of life were to remain unchanged,\nthat they were in no wise remarkable people, in remarkably unfortunate\ncircumstances, but that they were the same people who surround us on all\nsides, and just like ourselves.  I remember that intercourse with this\nsort of unfortunates was peculiarly difficult for me.  I now understand\nwhy this was so; in them I beheld myself, as in a mirror.  If I had\nreflected on my own life and on the life of the people in our circle, I\nshould have seen that no real difference existed between them.\n\nIf those about me dwell in spacious quarters, and in their own houses on\nthe Sivtzevy Vrazhok and on the Dimitrovka, and not in the Rzhanoff\nhouse, and still eat and drink dainties, and not liver and herrings with\nbread, that does not prevent them from being exactly as unhappy.  They\nare just as dissatisfied with their own positions, they mourn over the\npast, and pine for better things, and the improved position for which\nthey long is precisely the same as that which the inhabitants of the\nRzhanoff house long for; that is to say, one in which they may do as\nlittle work as possible themselves, and derive the utmost advantage from\nthe labors of others.  The difference is merely one of degrees and time.\nIf I had reflected at that time, I should have understood this; but I did\nnot reflect, and I questioned these people, and wrote them down,\nsupposing, that, having learned all the particulars of their various\nconditions and necessities, I could aid them _later on_.  I did not\nunderstand that such a man can only be helped by changing his views of\nthe world.  But in order to change the views of another, one must needs\nhave better views himself, and live in conformity with them; but mine\nwere precisely the same as theirs, and I lived in accordance with those\nviews, which must undergo a change, in order that these people might\ncease to be unhappy.\n\nI did not see that these people were unhappy, not because they had not,\nso to speak, nourishing food, but because their stomachs had been\nspoiled, and because their appetites demanded not nourishing but\nirritating viands; and I did not perceive that, in order to help them, it\nwas not necessary to give them food, but that it was necessary to heal\ntheir disordered stomachs.  Although I am anticipating by so doing, I\nwill mention here, that, out of all these persons whom I noted down, I\nreally did not help a single one, in spite of the fact that for some of\nthem, that was done which they desired, and that which, apparently, might\nhave raised them.  Three of their number were particularly well known to\nme.  All three, after repeated rises and falls, are now in precisely the\nsame situation in which they were three years ago.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\n\nThe second class of unfortunates whom I also expected to assist later on,\nwere the dissolute women; there were a very great many of them, of all\nsorts, in the Rzhanoff house\u2014from those who were young and who resembled\nwomen, to old ones, who were frightful and horrible, and who had lost\nevery semblance of humanity.  The hope of being of assistance to these\nwomen, which I had not at first entertained, occurred to me later.  This\nwas in the middle of our rounds.  We had already worked out several\nmechanical tricks of procedure.\n\nWhen we entered a new establishment, we immediately questioned the\nlandlady of the apartment; one of us sat down, clearing some sort of a\nplace for himself where he could write, and another penetrated the\ncorners, and questioned each man in all the nooks of the apartment\nseparately, and reported the facts to the one who did the writing.\n\nOn entering a set of rooms in the basement, a student went to hunt up the\nlandlady, while I began to interrogate all who remained in the place.\nThe apartment was thus arranged: in the centre was a room six _arshins_\nsquare, {59} and a small oven.  From the oven radiated four partitions,\nforming four tiny compartments.  In the first, the entrance slip, which\nhad four bunks, there were two persons\u2014an old man and a woman.\nImmediately adjoining this, was a rather long slip of a room; in it was\nthe landlord, a young fellow, dressed in a sleeveless gray woollen\njacket, a good-looking, very pale citizen. {60}  On the left of the first\ncorner, was a third tiny chamber; there was one person asleep there,\nprobably a drunken peasant, and a woman in a pink blouse which was loose\nin front and close-fitting behind.  The fourth chamber was behind the\npartition; the entrance to it was from the landlord\u2019s compartment.\n\nThe student went into the landlord\u2019s room, and I remained in the entrance\ncompartment, and questioned the old man and woman.  The old man had been\na master-printer, but now had no means of livelihood.  The woman was the\nwife of a cook.  I went to the third compartment, and questioned the\nwoman in the blouse about the sleeping man.  She said that he was a\nvisitor.  I asked the woman who she was.  She replied that she was a\nMoscow peasant.  \u201cWhat is your business?\u201d  She burst into a laugh, and\ndid not answer me.  \u201cWhat do you live on?\u201d I repeated, thinking that she\nhad not understood my question.  \u201cI sit in the taverns,\u201d she said.  I did\nnot comprehend, and again I inquired: \u201cWhat is your means of livelihood?\u201d\nShe made no reply and laughed.  Women\u2019s voices in the fourth compartment\nwhich we had not yet entered, joined in the laugh.  The landlord emerged\nfrom his cabin and stepped up to us.  He had evidently heard my questions\nand the woman\u2019s replies.  He cast a stern glance at the woman and turned\nto me: \u201cShe is a prostitute,\u201d said he, apparently pleased that he knew\nthe word in use in the language of the authorities, and that he could\npronounce it correctly.  And having said this, with a respectful and\nbarely perceptible smile of satisfaction addressed to me, he turned to\nthe woman.  And no sooner had he turned to her, than his whole face\naltered.  He said, in a peculiar, scornful, hasty tone, such as is\nemployed towards dogs: \u201cWhat do you jabber in that careless way for?  \u2018I\nsit in the taverns.\u2019  You do sit in the taverns, and that means, to talk\nbusiness, that you are a prostitute,\u201d and again he uttered the word.\n\u201cShe does not know the name for herself.\u201d  This tone offended me.  \u201cIt is\nnot our place to abuse her,\u201d said I.  \u201cIf all of us lived according to\nthe laws of God, there would be none of these women.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s the very point,\u201d said the landlord, with an awkward smile.\n\n\u201cTherefore, we should not reproach but pity them.  Are they to blame?\u201d\n\nI do not recollect just what I said, but I do remember that I was vexed\nby the scornful tone of the landlord of these quarters which were filled\nwith women, whom he called prostitutes, and that I felt compassion for\nthis woman, and that I gave expression to both feelings.  No sooner had I\nspoken thus, than the boards of the bed in the next compartment, whence\nthe laugh had proceeded, began to creak, and above the partition, which\ndid not reach to the ceiling, there appeared a woman\u2019s curly and\ndishevelled head, with small, swollen eyes, and a shining, red face,\nfollowed by a second, and then by a third.  They were evidently standing\non their beds, and all three were craning their necks, and holding their\nbreath with strained attention, and gazing silently at us.\n\nA troubled pause ensued.  The student, who had been smiling up to this\ntime, became serious; the landlord grew confused and dropped his eyes.\nAll the women held their breath, stared at me, and waited.  I was more\nembarrassed than any of them.  I had not, in the least, anticipated that\na chance remark would produce such an effect.  Like Ezekiel\u2019s field of\ndeath, strewn with dead men\u2019s bones, there was a quiver at the touch of\nthe spirit, and the dead bones stirred.  I had uttered an unpremeditated\nword of love and sympathy, and this word had acted on all as though they\nhad only been waiting for this very remark, in order that they might\ncease to be corpses and might live.  They all stared at me, and waited\nfor what would come next.  They waited for me to utter those words, and\nto perform those actions by reason of which these bones might draw\ntogether, clothe themselves with flesh, and spring into life.  But I felt\nthat I had no such words, no such actions, by means of which I could\ncontinue what I had begun; I was conscious, in the depths of my soul,\nthat I had lied [that I was just like them], {62} and there was nothing\nfurther for me to say; and I began to inscribe on the cards the names and\ncallings of all the persons in this set of apartments.\n\nThis incident led me into a fresh dilemma, to the thought of how these\nunfortunates also might be helped.  In my self-delusion, I fancied that\nthis would be very easy.  I said to myself: \u201cHere, we will make a note of\nall these women also, and _later on_ when we [I did not specify to myself\nwho \u201cwe\u201d were] write every thing out, we will attend to these persons\ntoo.\u201d  I imagined that we, the very ones who have brought and have been\nbringing these women to this condition for several generations, would\ntake thought some fine day and reform all this.  But, in the mean time,\nif I had only recalled my conversation with the disreputable woman who\nhad been rocking the baby of the fever-stricken patient, I might have\ncomprehended the full extent of the folly of such a supposition.\n\nWhen we saw this woman with the baby, we thought that it was her child.\nTo the question, \u201cWho was she?\u201d she had replied in a straightforward way\nthat she was unmarried.  She did not say\u2014a prostitute.  Only the master\nof the apartment made use of that frightful word.  The supposition that\nshe had a child suggested to me the idea of removing her from her\nposition.  I inquired:\n\n\u201cIs this your child?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, it belongs to that woman yonder.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy are you taking care of it?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause she asked me; she is dying.\u201d\n\nAlthough my supposition proved to be erroneous, I continued my\nconversation with her in the same spirit.  I began to question her as to\nwho she was, and how she had come to such a state.  She related her\nhistory very readily and simply.  She was a Moscow _myeshchanka_, the\ndaughter of a factory hand.  She had been left an orphan, and had been\nadopted by an aunt.  From her aunt\u2019s she had begun to frequent the\ntaverns.  The aunt was now dead.  When I asked her whether she did not\nwish to alter her mode of life, my question, evidently, did not even\narouse her interest.  How can one take an interest in the proposition of\na man, in regard to something absolutely impossible?  She laughed, and\nsaid: \u201cAnd who would take me in with my yellow ticket?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, but if a place could be found somewhere as cook?\u201d said I.\n\nThis thought occurred to me because she was a stout, ruddy woman, with a\nkindly, round, and rather stupid face.  Cooks are often like that.  My\nwords evidently did not please her.  She repeated:\n\n\u201cA cook\u2014but I don\u2019t know how to make bread,\u201d said she, and she laughed.\nShe said that she did not know how; but I saw from the expression of her\ncountenance that she did not wish to become a cook, that she regarded the\nposition and calling of a cook as low.\n\nThis woman, who in the simplest possible manner was sacrificing every\nthing that she had for the sick woman, like the widow in the Gospels, at\nthe same time, like many of her companions, regarded the position of a\nperson who works as low and deserving of scorn.  She had been brought up\nto live not by work, but by this life which was considered the natural\none for her by those about her.  In that lay her misfortune.  And she\nfell in with this misfortune and clung to her position.  This led her to\nfrequent the taverns.  Which of us\u2014man or woman\u2014will correct her false\nview of life?  Where among us are the people to be found who are\nconvinced that every laborious life is more worthy of respect than an\nidle life,\u2014who are convinced of this, and who live in conformity with\nthis belief, and who in conformity with this conviction value and respect\npeople?  If I had thought of this, I might have understood that neither\nI, nor any other person among my acquaintances, could heal this\ncomplaint.\n\nI might have understood that these amazed and affected heads thrust over\nthe partition indicated only surprise at the sympathy expressed for them,\nbut not in the least a hope of reclamation from their dissolute life.\nThey do not perceive the immorality of their life.  They see that they\nare despised and cursed, but for what they are thus despised they cannot\ncomprehend.  Their life, from childhood, has been spent among just such\nwomen, who, as they very well know, always have existed, and are\nindispensable to society, and so indispensable that there are\ngovernmental officials to attend to their legal existence.  Moreover,\nthey know that they have power over men, and can bring them into\nsubjection, and rule them often more than other women.  They see that\ntheir position in society is recognized by women and men and the\nauthorities, in spite of their continual curses, and therefore, they\ncannot understand why they should reform.\n\nIn the course of one of the tours, one of the students told me that in a\ncertain lodging, there was a woman who was bargaining for her\nthirteen-year-old daughter.  Being desirous of rescuing this girl, I made\na trip to that lodging expressly.  Mother and daughter were living in the\ngreatest poverty.  The mother, a small, dark-complexioned, dissolute\nwoman of forty, was not only homely, but repulsively homely.  The\ndaughter was equally disagreeable.  To all my pointed questions about\ntheir life, the mother responded curtly, suspiciously, and in a hostile\nway, evidently feeling that I was an enemy, with evil intentions; the\ndaughter made no reply, did not look at her mother, and evidently trusted\nthe latter fully.  They inspired me with no sincere pity, but rather with\ndisgust.  But I made up my mind that the daughter must be rescued, and\nthat I would interest ladies who pitied the sad condition of these women,\nand send them hither.  But if I had reflected on the mother\u2019s long life\nin the past, of how she had given birth to, nursed and reared this\ndaughter in her situation, assuredly without the slightest assistance\nfrom outsiders, and with heavy sacrifices\u2014if I had reflected on the view\nof life which this woman had formed, I should have understood that there\nwas, decidedly, nothing bad or immoral in the mother\u2019s act: she had done\nand was doing for her daughter all that she could, that is to say, what\nshe considered the best for herself.  This daughter could be forcibly\nremoved from her mother; but it would be impossible to convince the\nmother that she was doing wrong, in selling her daughter.  If any one was\nto be saved, then it must be this woman\u2014the mother ought to have been\nsaved; [and that long before, from that view of life which is approved by\nevery one, according to which a woman may live unmarried, that is,\nwithout bearing children and without work, and simply for the\nsatisfaction of the passions.  If I had thought of this, I should have\nunderstood that the majority of the ladies whom I intended to send\nthither for the salvation of that little girl, not only live without\nbearing children and without working, and serving only passion, but that\nthey deliberately rear their daughters for the same life; one mother\ntakes her daughter to the taverns, another takes hers to balls.  But both\nmothers hold the same view of the world, namely, that a woman must\nsatisfy man\u2019s passions, and that for this she must be fed, dressed, and\ncared for.  Then how are our ladies to reform this woman and her\ndaughter? {66} ]\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\n\nStill more remarkable were my relations to the children.  In my _r\u00f4le_ of\nbenefactor, I turned my attention to the children also, being desirous to\nsave these innocent beings from perishing in that lair of vice, and\nnoting them down in order to attend to them _afterwards_.\n\nAmong the children, I was especially struck with a twelve-year-old lad\nnamed Serozha.  I was heartily sorry for this bold, intelligent lad, who\nhad lived with a cobbler, and who had been left without a shelter because\nhis master had been put in jail, and I wanted to do good to him.\n\nI will here relate the upshot of my benevolence in his case, because my\nexperience with this child is best adapted to show my false position in\nthe _r\u00f4le_ of benefactor.  I took the boy home with me and put him in the\nkitchen.  It was impossible, was it not, to take a child who had lived in\na den of iniquity in among my own children?  And I considered myself very\nkind and good, because he was a care, not to me, but to the servants in\nthe kitchen, and because not I but the cook fed him, and because I gave\nhim some cast-off clothing to wear.  The boy staid a week.  During that\nweek I said a few words to him as I passed on two occasions and in the\ncourse of my strolls, I went to a shoemaker of my acquaintance, and\nproposed that he should take the lad as an apprentice.  A peasant who was\nvisiting me, invited him to go to the country, into his family, as a\nlaborer; the boy refused, and at the end of the week he disappeared.  I\nwent to the Rzhanoff house to inquire after him.  He had returned there,\nbut was not at home when I went thither.  For two days already, he had\nbeen going to the Pryesnensky ponds, where he had hired himself out at\nthirty kopeks a day in some procession of savages in costume, who led\nabout elephants.  Something was being presented to the public there.  I\nwent a second time, but he was so ungrateful that he evidently avoided\nme.  Had I then reflected on the life of that boy and on my own, I should\nhave understood that this boy was spoiled because he had discovered the\npossibility of a merry life without labor, and that he had grown unused\nto work.  And I, with the object of benefiting and reclaiming him, had\ntaken him to my house, where he saw\u2014what?  My children,\u2014both older and\nyounger than himself, and of the same age,\u2014who not only never did any\nwork for themselves, but who made work for others by every means in their\npower, who soiled and spoiled every thing about them, who ate rich,\ndainty, and sweet viands, broke china, and flung to the dogs food which\nwould have been a tidbit to this lad.  If I had rescued him from the\n_abyss_, and had taken him to that nice place, then he must acquire those\nviews which prevailed in the life of that nice place; but by these views,\nhe understood that in that fine place he must so live that he should not\ntoil, but eat and drink luxuriously, and lead a joyous life.  It is true\nthat he did not know that my children bore heavy burdens in the\nacquisition of the declensions of Latin and Greek grammar, and that he\ncould not have understood the object of these labors.  But it is\nimpossible not to see that if he had understood this, the influence of my\nchildren\u2019s example on him would have been even stronger.  He would then\nhave comprehended that my children were being educated in this manner, so\nthat, while doing no work now, they might be in a position hereafter,\nalso profiting by their diplomas, to work as little as possible, and to\nenjoy the pleasures of life to as great an extent as possible.  He did\nunderstand this, and he would not go with the peasant to tend cattle, and\nto eat potatoes and _kvas_ with him, but he went to the zo\u00f6logical garden\nin the costume of a savage, to lead the elephant at thirty kopeks a day.\n\nI might have understood how clumsy I was, when I was rearing my children\nin the most utter idleness and luxury, to reform other people and their\nchildren, who were perishing from idleness in what I called the den of\nthe Rzhanoff house, where, nevertheless, three-fourths of the people toil\nfor themselves and for others.  But I understood nothing of this.\n\nThere were a great many children in the Rzhanoff house, who were in the\nsame pitiable plight; there were the children of dissolute women, there\nwere orphans, there were children who had been picked up in the streets\nby beggars.  They were all very wretched.  But my experience with Serozha\nshowed me that I, living the life I did, was not in a position to help\nthem.\n\nWhile Serozha was living with us, I noticed in myself an effort to hide\nour life from him, in particular the life of our children.  I felt that\nall my efforts to direct him towards a good, industrious life, were\ncounteracted by the examples of our lives and by that of our children.\nIt is very easy to take a child away from a disreputable woman, or from a\nbeggar.  It is very easy, when one has the money, to wash, clean and\ndress him in neat clothing, to support him, and even to teach him various\nsciences; but it is not only difficult for us, who do not earn our own\nbread, but quite the reverse, to teach him to work for his bread, but it\nis impossible, because we, by our example, and even by those material and\nvalueless improvements of his life, inculcate the contrary.  A puppy can\nbe taken, tended, fed, and taught to fetch and carry, and one may take\npleasure in him: but it is not enough to tend a man, to feed and teach\nhim Greek; we must teach the man how to live,\u2014that is, to take as little\nas possible from others, and to give as much as possible; and we cannot\nhelp teaching him to do the contrary, if we take him into our houses, or\ninto an institution founded for this purpose.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\n\nThis feeling of compassion for people, and of disgust with myself, which\nI had experienced in the Lyapinsky house, I experienced no longer.  I was\ncompletely absorbed in the desire to carry out the scheme which I had\nconcocted,\u2014to do good to those people whom I should meet here.  And,\nstrange to say, it would appear, that, to do good\u2014to give money to the\nneedy\u2014is a very good deed, and one that should dispose me to love for the\npeople, but it turned out the reverse: this act produced in me ill-will\nand an inclination to condemn people.  But during our first evening tour,\na scene occurred exactly like that in the Lyapinsky house, and it called\nforth a wholly different sentiment.\n\nIt began by my finding in one set of apartments an unfortunate\nindividual, of precisely the sort who require immediate aid.  I found a\nhungry woman who had had nothing to eat for two days.\n\nIt came about thus: in one very large and almost empty night-lodging, I\nasked an old woman whether there were many poor people who had nothing to\neat?  The old woman reflected, and then told me of two; and then, as\nthough she had just recollected, \u201cWhy, here is one of them,\u201d said she,\nglancing at one of the occupied bunks.  \u201cI think that woman has had no\nfood.\u201d\n\n\u201cReally?  Who is she?\u201d\n\n\u201cShe was a dissolute woman: no one wants any thing to do with her now, so\nshe has no way of getting any thing.  The landlady has had compassion on\nher, but now she means to turn her out . . . Agafya, hey there, Agafya!\u201d\ncried the woman.\n\nWe approached, and something rose up in the bunk.  It was a woman haggard\nand dishevelled, whose hair was half gray, and who was as thin as a\nskeleton, dressed in a ragged and dirty chemise, and with particularly\nbrilliant and staring eyes.  She looked past us with her staring eyes,\nclutched at her jacket with one thin hand, in order to cover her bony\nbreast which was disclosed by her tattered chemise, and oppressed, she\ncried, \u201cWhat is it? what is it?\u201d  I asked her about her means of\nlivelihood.  For a long time she did not understand, and said, \u201cI don\u2019t\nknow myself; they persecute me.\u201d  I asked her,\u2014it puts me to shame, my\nhand refuses to write it,\u2014I asked her whether it was true that she had\nnothing to eat?  She answered in the same hurried, feverish tone, staring\nat me the while,\u2014\u201cNo, I had nothing yesterday, and I have had nothing\nto-day.\u201d\n\nThe sight of this woman touched me, but not at all as had been the case\nin the Lyapinsky house; there, my pity for these people made me instantly\nfeel ashamed of myself: but here, I rejoiced because I had at last found\nwhat I had been seeking,\u2014a hungry person.\n\nI gave her a ruble, and I recollect being very glad that others saw it.\nThe old woman, on seeing this, immediately begged money of me also.  It\nafforded me such pleasure to give, that, without finding out whether it\nwas necessary to give or not, I gave something to the old woman too.  The\nold woman accompanied me to the door, and the people standing in the\ncorridor heard her blessing me.  Probably the questions which I had put\nwith regard to poverty, had aroused expectation, and several persons\nfollowed us.  In the corridor also, they began to ask me for money.\nAmong those who begged were some drunken men, who aroused an unpleasant\nfeeling in me; but, having once given to the old woman, I had no might to\nrefuse these people, and I began to give.  As long as I continued to\ngive, people kept coming up; and excitement ran through all the lodgings.\nPeople made them appearance on the stairs and galleries, and followed me.\nAs I emerged into the court-yard, a little boy ran swiftly down one of\nthe staircases thrusting the people aside.  He did not see me, and\nexclaimed hastily: \u201cHe gave Agashka a ruble!\u201d  When he reached the\nground, the boy joined the crowd which was following me.  I went out into\nthe street: various descriptions of people followed me, and asked for\nmoney.  I distributed all my small change, and entered an open shop with\nthe request that the shopkeeper would change a ten-ruble bill for me.\nAnd then the same thing happened as at the Lyapinsky house.  A terrible\nconfusion ensued.  Old women, noblemen, peasants, and children crowded\ninto the shop with outstretched hands; I gave, and interrogated some of\nthem as to their lives, and took notes.  The shopkeeper, turning up the\nfurred points of the collar of his coat, sat like a stuffed creature,\nglancing at the crowd occasionally, and then fixing his eyes beyond them\nagain.  He evidently, like every one else, felt that this was foolish,\nbut he could not say so.\n\nThe poverty and beggary in the Lyapinsky house had horrified me, and I\nfelt myself guilty of it; I felt the desire and the possibility of\nimprovement.  But now, precisely the same scene produced on me an\nentirely different effect; I experienced, in the first place, a\nmalevolent feeling towards many of those who were besieging me; and in\nthe second place, uneasiness as to what the shopkeepers and porters would\nthink of me.\n\nOn my return home that day, I was troubled in my soul.  I felt that what\nI had done was foolish and immoral.  But, as is always the result of\ninward confusion, I talked a great deal about the plan which I had\nundertaken, as though I entertained not the slightest doubt of my\nsuccess.\n\nOn the following day, I went to such of the people whom I had inscribed\non my list, as seemed to me the most wretched of all, and those who, as\nit seemed to me, would be the easiest to help.  As I have already said, I\ndid not help any of these people.  It proved to be more difficult to help\nthem than I had thought.  And either because I did not know how, or\nbecause it was impossible, I merely imitated these people, and did not\nhelp any one.  I visited the Rzhanoff house several times before the\nfinal tour, and on every occasion the very same thing occurred: I was\nbeset by a throng of beggars in whose mass I was completely lost.  I felt\nthe impossibility of doing any thing, because there were too many of\nthem, and because I felt ill-disposed towards them because there were so\nmany of them; and in addition to this, each one separately did not\nincline me in his favor.  I was conscious that every one of them was\ntelling me an untruth, or less than the whole truth, and that he saw in\nme merely a purse from which money might be drawn.  And it very\nfrequently seemed to me, that the very money which they squeezed out of\nme, rendered their condition worse instead of improving it.  The oftener\nI went to that house, the more I entered into intercourse with the people\nthere, the more apparent became to me the impossibility of doing any\nthing; but still I did not give up any scheme until the last night tour.\n\nThe remembrance of that last tour is particularly mortifying to me.  On\nother occasions I had gone thither alone, but twenty of us went there on\nthis occasion.  At seven o\u2019clock, all who wished to take part in this\nfinal night round, began to assemble at my house.  Nearly all of them\nwere strangers to me,\u2014students, one officer, and two of my society\nacquaintances, who, uttering the usual, \u201c_C\u2019est tr\u00e8s int\u00e8ressant_!\u201d had\nasked me to include them in the number of the census-takers.\n\nMy worldly acquaintances had dressed up especially for this, in some sort\nof hunting-jacket, and tall, travelling boots, in a costume in which they\nrode and went hunting, and which, in their opinion, was appropriate for\nan excursion to a night-lodging-house.  They took with them special\nnote-books and remarkable pencils.  They were in that peculiarly excited\nstate of mind in which men set off on a hunt, to a duel, or to the wars.\nThe most apparent thing about them was their folly and the falseness of\nour position, but all the rest of us were in the same false position.\nBefore we set out, we held a consultation, after the fashion of a council\nof war, as to how we should begin, how divide our party, and so on.\n\nThis consultation was exactly such as takes place in councils,\nassemblages, committees; that is to say, each person spoke, not because\nhe had any thing to say or to ask, but because each one cudgelled his\nbrain for something that he could say, so that he might not fall short of\nthe rest.  But, among all these discussions, no one alluded to that\nbeneficence of which I had so often spoken to them all.  Mortifying as\nthis was to me, I felt that it was indispensable that I should once more\nremind them of benevolence, that is, of the point, that we were to\nobserve and take notes of all those in destitute circumstances whom we\nshould encounter in the course of our rounds.  I had always felt ashamed\nto speak of this; but now, in the midst of all our excited preparations\nfor our expedition, I could hardly utter the words.  All listened to me,\nas it seemed to me, with sorrow, and, at the same time, all agreed in\nwords; but it was evident that they all knew that it was folly, and that\nnothing would come of it, and all immediately began again to talk about\nsomething else.  This went on until the time arrived for us to set out,\nand we started.\n\nWe reached the tavern, roused the waiters, and began to sort our papers.\nWhen we were informed that the people had heard about this round, and\nwere leaving their quarters, we asked the landlord to lock the gates; and\nwe went ourselves into the yard to reason with the fleeing people,\nassuring them that no one would demand their tickets.  I remember the\nstrange and painful impression produced on me by these alarmed\nnight-lodgers: ragged, half-dressed, they all seemed tall to me by the\nlight of the lantern and the gloom of the court-yard.  Frightened and\nterrifying in their alarm, they stood in a group around the foul-smelling\nout-house, and listened to our assurances, but they did not believe us,\nand were evidently prepared for any thing, like hunted wild beasts,\nprovided only that they could escape from us.  Gentlemen in divers\nshapes\u2014as policemen, both city and rural, and as examining judges, and\njudges\u2014hunt them all their lives, in town and country, on the highway and\nin the streets, and in the taverns, and in night-lodging houses; and now,\nall of a sudden, these gentlemen had come and locked the gates, merely in\norder to count them: it was as difficult for them to believe this, as for\nhares to believe that dogs have come, not to chase but to count them.\nBut the gates were locked, and the startled lodgers returned: and we,\nbreaking up into groups, entered also.  With me were the two society men\nand two students.  In front of us, in the dark, went Vanya, in his coat\nand white trousers, with a lantern, and we followed.  We went to quarters\nwith which I was familiar.  I knew all the establishments, and some of\nthe people; but the majority of the people were new, and the spectacle\nwas new, and more dreadful than the one which I had witnessed in the\nLyapinsky house.  All the lodgings were full, all the bunks were\noccupied, not by one person only, but often by two.  The sight was\nterrible in that narrow space into which the people were huddled, and men\nand women were mixed together.  All the women who were not dead drunk\nslept with men; and women with two children did the same.  The sight was\nterrible, on account of the poverty, dirt, rags, and terror of the\npeople.  And it was chiefly dreadful on account of the vast numbers of\npeople who were in this situation.  One lodging, and then a second like\nit, and a third, and a tenth, and a twentieth, and still there was no end\nto them.  And everywhere there was the same foul odor, the same close\natmosphere, the same crowding, the same mingling of the sexes, the same\nmen and women intoxicated to stupidity, and the same terror, submission\nand guilt on all faces; and again I was overwhelmed with shame and pain,\nas in the Lyapinsky house, and I understood that what I had undertaken\nwas abominable and foolish and therefore impracticable.  And I no longer\ntook notes of anybody, and I asked no questions, knowing that nothing\nwould come of this.\n\nI was deeply pained.  In the Lyapinsky house I had been like a man who\nhas seen a fearful wound, by chance, on the body of another man.  He is\nsorry for the other man, he is ashamed that he has not pitied the man\nbefore, and he can still rise to the succor of the sufferer.  But now I\nwas like a physician, who has come with his medicine to the sick man, has\nuncovered his sore, and examined it, and who must confess to himself that\nevery thing that he has done has been in vain, and that his remedy is\ngood for nothing.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\n\nThis visit dealt the final blow to my self-delusion.  It now appeared\nindisputable to me, that what I had undertaken was not only foolish but\nloathsome.\n\nBut, in spite of the fact that I was aware of this, it seemed to me that\nI could not abandon the whole thing on the spot.  It seemed to me that I\nwas bound to carry out this enterprise, in the first place, because by my\narticle, by my visits and promises, I had aroused the expectations of the\npoor; in the second, because by my article also, and by my talk, I had\naroused the sympathies of benevolent persons, many of whom had promised\nme their co-operation both in personal labor and in money.  And I\nexpected that both sets of people would turn to me for an answer to this.\n\nWhat happened to me, so far as the appeal of the needy to me is\nconcerned, was as follows: By letter and personal application I received\nmore than a hundred; these applications were all from the wealthy-poor,\nif I may so express myself.  I went to see some of them, and some of them\nreceived no answer.  Nowhere did I succeed in doing any thing.  All\napplications to me were from persons who had once occupied privileged\npositions (I thus designate those in which people receive more from\nothers than they give), who had lost them, and who wished to occupy them\nagain.  To one, two hundred rubles were indispensable, in order that he\nmight prop up a failing business, and complete the education of his\nchildren which had been begun; another wanted a photographic outfit; a\nthird wanted his debts paid, and respectable clothing purchased for him;\na fourth needed a piano, in order to perfect himself and support his\nfamily by giving lessons.  But the majority did not stipulate for any\ngiven sum of money, and simply asked for assistance; and when I came to\nexamine into what was required, it turned out that their demands grew in\nproportion to the aid, and that there was not and could not be any way of\nsatisfying them.  I repeat, that it is very possible that this arose from\nthe fact that I did not understand how; but I did not help any one,\nalthough I sometimes endeavored to do so.\n\nA very strange and unexpected thing happened to me as regards the\nco-operation of the benevolently disposed.  Out of all the persons who\nhad promised me financial aid, and who had even stated the number of\nrubles, not a single one handed to me for distribution among the poor one\nsolitary ruble.  But according to the pledges which had been given me, I\ncould reckon on about three thousand rubles; and out of all these people,\nnot one remembered our former discussions, or gave me a single kopek.\nOnly the students gave the money which had been assigned to them for\ntheir work on the census, twelve rubles, I think.  So my whole scheme,\nwhich was to have been expressed by tens of thousands of rubles\ncontributed by the wealthy, for hundreds and thousands of poor people who\nwere to be rescued from poverty and vice, dwindled down to this, that I\ngave away, haphazard, a few scores of rubles to those people who asked me\nfor them, and that there remained in my hands twelve rubies contributed\nby the students, and twenty-five sent to me by the City Council for my\nlabor as a superintendent, and I absolutely did not know to whom to give\nthem.\n\nThe whole matter came to an end.  And then, before my departure for the\ncountry, on the Sunday before carnival, I went to the Rzhanoff house in\nthe morning, in order to get rid of those thirty-seven rubles before I\nshould leave Moscow, and to distribute them to the poor.  I made the\nround of the quarters with which I was familiar, and in them found only\none sick man, to whom I gave five rubles.  There was no one else there to\ngive any to.  Of course many began to beg of me.  But as I had not known\nthem at first, so I did not know them now, and I made up my mind to take\ncounsel with Ivan Fedotitch, the landlord of the tavern, as to the\npersons upon whom it would be proper to bestow the remaining thirty-two\nrubies.\n\nIt was the first day of the carnival.  Everybody was dressed up, and\neverybody was full-fed, and many were already intoxicated.  In the\ncourt-yard, close to the house, stood an old man, a rag-picker, in a\ntattered smock and bast shoes, sorting over the booty in his basket,\ntossing out leather, iron, and other stuff in piles, and breaking into a\nmerry song, with a fine, powerful voice.  I entered into conversation\nwith him.  He was seventy years old, he was alone in the world, and\nsupported himself by his calling of a rag-picker; and not only did he\nutter no complaints, but he said that he had plenty to eat and drink.  I\ninquired of him as to especially needy persons.  He flew into a rage, and\nsaid plainly that there were no needy people, except drunkards and lazy\nmen; but, on learning my object, he asked me for a five-kopek piece to\nbuy a drink, and ran off to the tavern.  I too entered the tavern to see\nIvan Fedotitch, and commission him to distribute the money which I had\nleft.  The tavern was full; gayly-dressed, intoxicated girls were\nflitting in and out; all the tables were occupied; there were already a\ngreat many drunken people, and in the small room the harmonium was being\nplayed, and two persons were dancing.  Out of respect to me, Ivan\nFedotitch ordered that the dance should be stopped, and seated himself\nwith me at a vacant table.  I said to him, that, as he knew his tenants,\nwould not he point out to me the most needy among them; that I had been\nentrusted with the distribution of a little money, and, therefore, would\nhe indicate the proper persons?  Good-natured Ivan Fedotitch (he died a\nyear later), although he was pressed with business, broke away from it\nfor a time, in order to serve me.  He meditated, and was evidently\nundecided.  An elderly waiter heard us, and joined the conference.\n\nThey began to discuss the claims of persons, some of whom I knew, but\nstill they could not come to any agreement.  \u201cThe Paramonovna,\u201d suggested\nthe waiter.  \u201cYes, that would do.  Sometimes she has nothing to eat.\nYes, but then she tipples.\u201d\u2014\u201cWell, what of that?  That makes no\ndifference.\u201d\u2014\u201cWell, Sidoron Ivanovitch has children.  He would do.\u201d  But\nIvan Fedotitch had his doubts about Sidoron Ivanovitch also.  \u201cAkulina\nshall have some.  There, now, give something to the blind.\u201d  To this I\nresponded.  I saw him at once.  He was a blind old man of eighty years,\nwithout kith or kin.  It seemed as though no condition could be more\npainful, and I went immediately to see him.  He was lying on a\nfeather-bed, on a high bedstead, drunk; and, as he did not see me, he was\nscolding his comparatively youthful female companion in a frightful bass\nvoice, and in the very worst kind of language.  They also summoned an\narmless boy and his mother.  I saw that Ivan Fedotitch was in great\nstraits, on account of his conscientiousness, for me knew that whatever\nwas given would immediately pass to his tavern.  But I had to get rid of\nmy thirty-two rubles, so I insisted; and in one way and another, and half\nwrongfully to boot, we assigned and distributed them.  Those who received\nthem were mostly well dressed, and we had not far to go to find them, as\nthey were there in the tavern.  The armless boy appeared in wrinkled\nboots, and a red shirt and vest.  With this my charitable career came to\nan end, and I went off to the country; irritated at others, as is always\nthe case, because I myself had done a stupid and a bad thing.  My\nbenevolence had ended in nothing, and it ceased altogether, but the\ncurrent of thoughts and feelings which it had called up with me not only\ndid not come to an end, but the inward work went on with redoubled force.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\n\nWhat was its nature?\n\nI had lived in the country, and there I was connected with the rustic\npoor.  Not out of humility, which is worse than pride, but for the sake\nof telling the truth, which is indispensable for the understanding of the\nwhole course of my thoughts and sentiments, I will say that in the\ncountry I did very little for the poor, but the demands which were made\nupon me were so modest that even this little was of use to the people,\nand formed around me an atmosphere of affection and union with the\npeople, in which it was possible to soothe the gnawing sensation of\nremorse at the independence of my life.  On going to the city, I had\nhoped to be able to live in the same manner.  But here I encountered want\nof an entirely different sort.  City want was both less real, and more\nexacting and cruel, than country poverty.  But the principal point was,\nthat there was so much of it in one spot, that it produced on me a\nfrightful impression.  The impression which I experienced in the\nLyapinsky house had, at the very first, made me conscious of the\ndeformity of my own life.  This feeling was genuine and very powerful.\nBut, notwithstanding its genuineness and power, I was, at that time, so\nweak that I feared the alteration in my life to which this feeling\ncommended me, and I resorted to a compromise.  I believed what everybody\ntold me, and everybody has said, ever since the world was made,\u2014that\nthere is nothing evil in wealth and luxury, that they are given by God,\nthat one may continue to live as a rich man, and yet help the needy.  I\nbelieved this, and I tried to do it.  I wrote an essay, in which I\nsummoned all rich people to my assistance.  The rich people all\nacknowledged themselves morally bound to agree with me, but evidently\nthey either did not wish to do any thing, or they could not do any thing\nor give any thing to the poor.  I began to visit the poor, and I beheld\nwhat I had not in the least expected.  On the one hand, I beheld in those\ndens, as I called them, people whom it was not conceivable that I should\nhelp, because they were working people, accustomed to labor and\nprivation, and therefore standing much higher and having a much firmer\nfoothold in life than myself; on the other hand, I saw unfortunate people\nwhom I could not aid because they were exactly like myself.  The majority\nof the unfortunates whom I saw were unhappy only because they had lost\nthe capacity, desire, and habit of earning their own bread; that is to\nsay, their unhappiness consisted in the fact that they were precisely\nsuch persons as myself.\n\nI found no unfortunates who were sick, hungry, or cold, to whom I could\nrender immediate assistance, with the solitary exception of hungry\nAgafya.  And I became convinced, that, on account of my remoteness from\nthe lives of those people whom I desired to help, it would be almost\nimpossible to find any such unfortunates, because all actual wants had\nalready been supplied by the very people among whom these unfortunates\nlive; and, most of all, I was convinced that money cannot effect any\nchange in the life led by these unhappy people.\n\nI was convinced of all this, but out of false shame at abandoning what I\nhad once undertaken, because of my self-delusion as a benefactor, I went\non with this matter for a tolerably long time,\u2014and would have gone on\nwith it until it came to nothing of itself,\u2014so that it was with the\ngreatest difficulty that, with the help of Ivan Fedotitch, I got rid,\nafter a fashion, as well as I could, in the tavern of the Rzhanoff house,\nof the thirty-seven rubles which I did not regard as belonging to me.\n\nOf course I might have gone on with this business, and have made out of\nit a semblance of benevolence; by urging the people who had promised me\nmoney, I might have collected more, I might have distributed this money,\nand consoled myself with my charity; but I perceived, on the one hand,\nthat we rich people neither wish nor are able to share a portion of our a\nsuperfluity with the poor (we have so many wants of our own), and that\nmoney should not be given to any one, if the object really be to do good\nand not to give money itself at haphazard, as I had done in the Rzhanoff\ntavern.  And I gave up the whole thing, and went off to the country with\ndespair in my heart.\n\nIn the country I tried to write an essay about all this that I had\nexperienced, and to tell why my undertaking had not succeeded.  I wanted\nto justify myself against the reproaches which had been made to me on the\nscore of my article on the census; I wanted to convict society of its in\ndifference, and to state the causes in which this city poverty has its\nbirth, and the necessity of combating it, and the means of doing so which\nI saw.\n\nI began this essay at once, and it seemed to me that in it I was saying a\nvery great deal that was important.  But toil as I would over it, and in\nspite of the abundance of materials, in spite of the superfluity of them\neven, I could not get though that essay; and so I did not finish it until\nthe present year, because of the irritation under the influence of which\nI wrote, because I had not gone through all that was requisite in order\nto bear myself properly in relation to this essay, because I did not\nsimply and clearly acknowledge the cause of all this,\u2014a very simple\ncause, which had its root in myself.\n\nIn the domain of morals, one very remarkable and too little noted\nphenomenon presents itself.\n\nIf I tell a man who knows nothing about it, what I know about geology,\nastronomy, history, physics, and mathematics, that man receives entirely\nnew information, and he never says to me: \u201cWell, what is there new in\nthat?  Everybody knows that, and I have known it this long while.\u201d  But\ntell that same man the most lofty truth, expressed in the clearest, most\nconcise manner, as it has never before been expressed, and every ordinary\nindividual, especially one who takes no particular interest in moral\nquestions, or, even more, one to whom the moral truth stated by you is\ndispleasing, will infallibly say to you: \u201cWell, who does not know that?\nThat was known and said long ago.\u201d  It really seems to him that this has\nbeen said long ago and in just this way.  Only those to whom moral truths\nare dear and important know how important and precious they are, and with\nwhat prolonged labor the elucidation, the simplification, of moral\ntruths, their transit from the state of a misty, indefinitely recognized\nsupposition, and desire, from indistinct, incoherent expressions, to a\nfirm and definite expression, unavoidably demanding corresponding\nconcessions, are attained.\n\nWe have all become accustomed to think that moral instruction is a most\nabsurd and tiresome thing, in which there can be nothing new or\ninteresting; and yet all human life, together with all the varied and\ncomplicated activities, apparently independent, of morality, both\ngovernmental and scientific, and artistic and commercial, has no other\naim than the greater and greater elucidation, confirmation,\nsimplification, and accessibility of moral truth.\n\nI remember that I was once walking along the street in Moscow, and in\nfront of me I saw a man come out and gaze attentively at the stones of\nthe sidewalk, after which he selected one stone, seated himself on it,\nand began to plane (as it seemed to me) or to rub it with the greatest\ndiligence and force.  \u201cWhat is he doing to the sidewalk?\u201d I said to\nmyself.  On going close to him, I saw what the man was doing.  He was a\nyoung fellow from a meat-shop; he was whetting his knife on the stone of\nthe pavement.  He was not thinking at all of the stones when he\nscrutinized them, still less was he thinking of them when he was\naccomplishing his task: he was whetting his knife.  He was obliged to\nwhet his knife so that he could cut the meat; but to me it seemed as\nthough he were doing something to the stones of the sidewalk.  Just so it\nappears as though humanity were occupied with commerce, conventions,\nwars, sciences, arts; but only one business is of importance to it, and\nwith only one business is it occupied: it is elucidating to itself those\nmoral laws by which it lives.  The moral laws are already in existence;\nhumanity is only elucidating them, and this elucidation seems unimportant\nand imperceptible for any one who has no need of moral laws, who does not\nwish to live by them.  But this elucidation of the moral law is not only\nweighty, but the only real business of all humanity.  This elucidation is\nimperceptible just as the difference between the dull and the sharp knife\nis imperceptible.  The knife is a knife all the same, and for a person\nwho is not obliged to cut any thing with this knife, the difference\nbetween the dull and the sharp one is imperceptible.  For the man who has\ncome to an understanding that his whole life depends on the greater or\nless degree of sharpness in the knife,\u2014for such a man, every whetting of\nit is weighty, and that man knows that the knife is a knife only when it\nis sharp, when it cuts that which needs cutting.\n\nThis is what happened to me, when I began to write my essay.  It seemed\nto me that I knew all about it, that I understood every thing connected\nwith those questions which had produced on me the impressions of the\nLyapinsky house, and the census; but when I attempted to take account of\nthem and to demonstrate them, it turned out that the knife would not cut,\nand that it must be whetted.  And it is only now, after the lapse of\nthree years, that I have felt that my knife is sufficiently sharp, so\nthat I can cut what I choose.  I have learned very little that is new.\nMy thoughts are all exactly the same, but they were duller then, and they\nall scattered and would not unite on any thing; there was no edge to\nthem; they would not concentrate on one point, on the simplest and\nclearest decision, as they have now concentrated themselves.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\n\nI remember that during the entire period of my unsuccessful efforts at\nhelping the inhabitants of the city, I presented to myself the aspect of\na man who should attempt to drag another man out of a swamp while he\nhimself was standing on the same unstable ground.  Every attempt of mine\nhad made me conscious of the untrustworthy character of the soil on which\nI stood.  I felt that I was in the swamp myself, but this consciousness\ndid not cause me to look more narrowly at my own feet, in order to learn\nupon what I was standing; I kept on seeking some external means, outside\nmyself, of helping the existing evil.\n\nI then felt that my life was bad, and that it was impossible to live in\nthat manner.  But from the fact that my life was bad, and that it was\nimpossible to live in that manner, I did not draw the very simple and\nclear deduction that it was necessary to amend my life and to live\nbetter, but I knew the terrible deduction that in order to live well\nmyself, I must needs reform the lives of others; and so I began to reform\nthe lives of others.  I lived in the city, and I wished to reform the\nlives of those who lived in the city; but I soon became convinced that\nthis I could not by any possibility accomplish, and I began to meditate\non the inherent characteristics of city life and city poverty.\n\n\u201cWhat are city life and city poverty?  Why, when I am living in the city,\ncannot I help the city poor?\u201d\n\nI asked myself.  I answered myself that I could not do any thing for\nthem, in the first place, because there were too many of them here in one\nspot; in the second place, because all the poor people here were entirely\ndifferent from the country poor.  Why were there so many of them here?\nand in what did their peculiarity, as opposed to the country poor,\nconsist?  There was one and the same answer to both questions.  There\nwere a great many of them here, because here all those people who have no\nmeans of subsistence in the country collect around the rich; and their\npeculiarity lies in this, that they are not people who have come from the\ncountry to support themselves in the city (if there are any city paupers,\nthose who have been born here, and whose fathers and grandfathers were\nborn here, then those fathers and grandfathers came hither for the\npurpose of earning their livelihood).  What is the meaning of this: _to\nearn one\u2019s livelihood in the city_?  In the words \u201cto earn one\u2019s\nlivelihood in the city,\u201d there is something strange, resembling a jest,\nwhen you reflect on their significance.  How is it that people go from\nthe country,\u2014that is to say, from the places where there are forests,\nmeadows, grain, and cattle, where all the wealth of the earth lies,\u2014to\nearn their livelihood in a place where there are neither trees, nor\ngrass, nor even land, and only stones and dust?  What is the significance\nof the words \u201cto earn a livelihood in the city,\u201d which are in such\nconstant use, both by those who earn the livelihood, and by those who\nfurnish it, as though it were something perfectly clear and\ncomprehensible?\n\nI recall the hundreds and thousands of city people, both those who live\nwell and the needy, with whom I have conversed on the reason why they\ncame hither: and all without exception said, that they had come from the\ncountry to earn their living; that in Moscow, where people neither sow\nnor reap,\u2014that in Moscow there is plenty of every thing, and that,\ntherefore, it is only in Moscow that they can earn the money which they\nrequire in the country for bread and a cottage and a horse, and articles\nof prime necessity.  But assuredly, in the country lies the source of all\nriches; there only is real wealth,\u2014bread, and forests, and horses, and\nevery thing.  And why, above all, take away from the country that which\ndwellers in the country need,\u2014flour, oats, horses, and cattle?\n\nHundreds of times did I discuss this matter with peasants living in town;\nand from my discussions with them, and from my observations, it has been\nmade apparent to me, that the congregation of country people in the city\nis partly indispensable because they cannot otherwise support themselves,\npartly voluntary, and that they are attracted to the city by the\ntemptations of the city.\n\nIt is true, that the position of the peasant is such that, for the\nsatisfaction of his demands made on him in the country, he cannot\nextricate himself otherwise than by selling the grain and the cattle\nwhich he knows will be indispensable to him; and he is forced, whether he\nwill or no, to go to the city in order there to win back his bread.  But\nit is also true, that the luxury of city life, and the comparative ease\nwith which money is there to be earned, attract him thither; and under\nthe pretext of gaining his living in the town, he betakes himself thither\nin order that he may have lighter work, better food, and drink tea three\ntimes a day, and dress well, and even lead a drunken and dissolute life.\nThe cause of both is identical,\u2014the transfer of the riches of the\nproducers into the hands of non-producers, and the accumulation of wealth\nin the cities.  And, in point of fact, when autumn has come, all wealth\nis collected in the country.  And instantly there arise demands for\ntaxes, recruits, the temptations of vodka, weddings, festivals; petty\npedlers make their rounds through the villages, and all sorts of other\ntemptations crop up; and by this road, or, if not, by some other, wealth\nof the most varied description\u2014vegetables, calves, cows, horses, pigs,\nchickens, eggs, butter, hemp, flax, rye, oats, buckwheat, pease,\nhempseed, and flaxseed\u2014all passes into the hands of strangers, is carried\noff to the towns, and thence to the capitals.  The countryman is obliged\nto surrender all this to satisfy the demands that are made upon him, and\ntemptations; and, having parted with his wealth, he is left with an\ninsufficiency, and he is forced to go whither his wealth has been carried\nand there he tries, in part, to obtain the money which he requires for\nhis first needs in the country, and in part, being himself led away by\nthe blandishments of the city, he enjoys, in company with others, the\nwealth that has there accumulated.  Everywhere, throughout the whole of\nRussia,\u2014yes, and not in Russia alone, I think, but throughout the whole\nworld,\u2014the same thing goes on.  The wealth of the rustic producers passes\ninto the hands of traders, landed proprietors, officials, and\nfactory-owners; and the people who receive this wealth wish to enjoy it.\nBut it is only in the city that they can derive full enjoyment from this\nwealth.  In the country, in the first place, it is difficult to satisfy\nall the requirements of rich people, on account of the sparseness of the\npopulation; banks, shops, hotels, every sort of artisan, and all sorts of\nsocial diversions, do not exist there.  In the second place, one of the\nchief pleasures procured by wealth\u2014vanity, the desire to astonish and\noutshine other people\u2014is difficult to satisfy in the country; and this,\nagain, on account of the lack of inhabitants.  In the country, there is\nno one to appreciate elegance, no one to be astonished.  Whatever\nadornments in the way of pictures and bronzes the dweller in the country\nmay procure for his house, whatever equipages and toilets he may provide,\nthere is no one to see them and envy them, and the peasants cannot judge\nof them.  [And, in the third place, luxury is even disagreeable and\ndangerous in the country for the man possessed of a conscience and fear.\nIt is an awkward and delicate matter, in the country, to have baths of\nmilk, or to feed your puppies on it, when directly beside you there are\nchildren who have no milk; it is an awkward and delicate matter to build\npavilions and gardens in the midst of people who live in cots banked up\nwith dung, which they have no means of warming.  In the country there is\nno one to keep the stupid peasants in order, and in their lack of\ncultivation they might disarrange all this.] {94}\n\nAnd accordingly rich people congregate, and join themselves to other rich\npeople with similar requirements, in the city, where the gratification of\nevery luxurious taste is carefully protected by a numerous police force.\nWell-rooted inhabitants of the city of this sort, are the governmental\nofficials; every description of artisan and professional man has sprung\nup around them, and with them the wealthy join their forces.  All that a\nrich man has to do there is to take a fancy to a thing, and he can get\nit.  It is also more agreeable for a rich man to live there, because\nthere he can gratify his vanity; there is some one with whom he can vie\nin luxury; there is some one to astonish, and there is some one to\noutshine.  But the principal reason why it is more comfortable in the\ncity for a rich man is that formerly, in the country, his luxury made him\nawkward and uneasy; while now, on the contrary, it would be awkward for\nhim not to live luxuriously, not to live like all his peers around him.\nThat which seemed dreadful and awkward in the country, here appears to be\njust as it should be.  [Rich people congregate in the city; and there,\nunder the protection of the authorities, they calmly demand every thing\nthat is brought thither from the country.  And the countryman is, in some\nmeasure, compelled to go thither, where this uninterrupted festival of\nthe wealthy which demands all that is taken from him is in progress, in\norder to feed upon the crumbs which fall from the tables of the rich; and\npartly, also, because, when he beholds the care-free, luxurious life,\napproved and protected by everybody, he himself becomes desirous of\nregulating his life in such a way as to work as little as possible, and\nto make as much use as possible of the labors of others.\n\nAnd so he betakes himself to the city, and finds employment about the\nwealthy, endeavoring, by every means in his power, to entice from them\nthat which he is in need of, and conforming to all those conditions which\nthe wealthy impose upon him, he assists in the gratification of all their\nwhims; he serves the rich man in the bath and in the inn, and as\ncab-driver and prostitute, and he makes for him equipages, toys, and\nfashions; and he gradually learns from the rich man to live in the same\nmanner as the latter, not by labor, but by divers tricks, getting away\nfrom others the wealth which they have heaped together; and he becomes\ncorrupt, and goes to destruction.  And this colony, demoralized by city\nwealth, constitutes that city pauperism which I desired to aid and could\nnot.\n\nAll that is necessary, in fact, is for us to reflect on the condition of\nthese inhabitants of the country, who have removed to the city in order\nto earn their bread or their taxes,\u2014when they behold, everywhere around\nthem, thousands squandered madly, and hundreds won by the easiest\npossible means; when they themselves are forced by heavy toil to earn\nkopeks,\u2014and we shall be amazed that all these people should remain\nworking people, and that they do not all of them take to an easier method\nof getting gain,\u2014by trading, peddling, acting as middlemen, begging,\nvice, rascality, and even robbery.  Why, we, the participants in that\nnever-ceasing orgy which goes on in town, can become so accustomed to our\nlife, that it seems to us perfectly natural to dwell alone in five huge\napartments, heated by a quantity of beech logs sufficient to cook the\nfood for and to warm twenty families; to drive half a verst with two\ntrotters and two men-servants; to cover the polished wood floor with\nrugs; and to spend, I will not say, on a ball, five or ten thousand\nrubles, and twenty-five thousand on a Christmas-tree.  But a man who is\nin need of ten rubles to buy bread for his family, or whose last sheep\nhas been seized for a tax-debt of seven rubles, and who cannot raise\nthose rubles by hard labor, cannot grow accustomed to this.  We think\nthat all this appears natural to poor people there are even some\ningenuous persons who say in all seriousness, that the poor are very\ngrateful to us for supporting them by this luxury.] {96}\n\nBut poor people are not devoid of human understanding simply because they\nare poor, and they judge precisely as we do.  As the first thought that\noccurs to us on hearing that such and such a man has gambled away or\nsquandered ten or twenty thousand rubles, is: \u201cWhat a foolish and\nworthless fellow he is to uselessly squander so much money! and what a\ngood use I could have made of that money in a building which I have long\nbeen in need of, for the improvement of my estate, and so forth!\u201d\u2014just so\ndo the poor judge when they behold the wealth which they need, not for\ncaprices, but for the satisfaction of their actual necessities, of which\nthey are frequently deprived, flung madly away before their eyes.  We\nmake a very great mistake when we think that the poor can judge thus,\nreason thus, and look on indifferently at the luxury which surrounds\nthem.\n\nThey never have acknowledged, and they never will acknowledge, that it\ncan be just for some people to live always in idleness, and for other\npeople to fast and toil incessantly; but at first they are amazed and\ninsulted by this; then they scrutinize it more attentively, and, seeing\nthat these arrangements are recognized as legitimate, they endeavor to\nfree themselves from toil, and to take part in the idleness.  Some\nsucceed in this, and they become just such carousers themselves; others\ngradually prepare themselves for this state; others still fail, and do\nnot attain their goal, and, having lost the habit of work, they fill up\nthe disorderly houses and the night-lodging houses.\n\nTwo years ago, we took from the country a peasant boy to wait on table.\nFor some reason, he did not get on well with the footman, and he was sent\naway: he entered the service of a merchant, won the favor of his master,\nand now he goes about with a vest and a watch-chain, and dandified boots.\nIn his place, we took another peasant, a married man: he became a\ndrunkard, and lost money.  We took a third: he took to drunk, and, having\ndrank up every thing he had, he suffered for a long while from poverty in\nthe night-lodging house.  An old man, the cook, took to drink and fell\nsick.  Last year a footman who had formerly been a hard drinker, but who\nhad refrained from liquor for five years in the country, while living in\nMoscow without his wife who encouraged him, took to drink again, and\nruined his whole life.  A young lad from our village lives with my\nbrother as a table-servant.  His grandfather, a blind old man, came to me\nduring my sojourn in the country, and asked me to remind this grandson\nthat he was to send ten rubies for the taxes, otherwise it would be\nnecessary for him to sell his cow.  \u201cHe keeps saying, I must dress\ndecently,\u201d said the old man: \u201cwell, he has had some shoes made, and\nthat\u2019s all right; but what does he want to set up a watch for?\u201d said the\ngrandfather, expressing in these words the most senseless supposition\nthat it was possible to originate.  The supposition really was senseless,\nif we take into consideration that the old man throughout Lent had eaten\nno butter, and that he had no split wood because he could not possibly\npay one ruble and twenty kopeks for it; but it turned out that the old\nman\u2019s senseless jest was an actual fact.  The young fellow came to see me\nin a fine black coat, and shoes for which he had paid eight rubles.  He\nhad recently borrowed ten rubles from my brother, and had spent them on\nthese shoes.  And my children, who have known the lad from childhood,\ntold me that he really considers it indispensable to fit himself out with\na watch.  He is a very good boy, but he thinks that people will laugh at\nhim so long as he has no watch; and a watch is necessary.  During the\npresent year, a chambermaid, a girl of eighteen, entered into a\nconnection with the coachman in our house.  She was discharged.  An old\nwoman, the nurse, with whom I spoke in regard to the unfortunate girl,\nreminded me of a girl whom I had forgotten.  She too, ten yeans ago,\nduring a brief stay of ours in Moscow, had become connected with a\nfootman.  She too had been discharged, and she had ended in a disorderly\nhouse, and had died in the hospital before reaching the age of twenty.\nIt is only necessary to glance about one, to be struck with terror at the\npest which we disseminate directly by our luxurious life among the people\nwhom we afterwards wish to help, not to mention the factories and\nestablishments which serve our luxurious tastes.\n\n[And thus, having penetrated into the peculiar character of city poverty,\nwhich I was unable to remedy, I perceived that its prime cause is this,\nthat I take absolute necessaries from the dwellers in the country, and\ncarry them all to the city.  The second cause is this, that by making use\nhere, in the city, of what I have collected in the country, I tempt and\nlead astray, by my senseless luxury, those country people who come hither\nbecause of me, in order in some way to get back what they have been\ndeprived of in the country.] {99}\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\n\nI reached the same conclusion from a totally different point.  On\nrecalling all my relations with the city poor during that time, I saw\nthat one of the reasons why I could not help the city poor was, that the\npoor were disingenuous and untruthful with me.  They all looked upon me,\nnot as a man, but as means.  I could not get near them, and I thought\nthat perhaps I did not understand how to do it; but without uprightness,\nno help was possible.  How can one help a man who does not disclose his\nwhole condition?  At first I blamed them for this (it is so natural to\nblame some one else); but a remark from an observing man named Siutaeff,\nwho was visiting me at the time, explained this matter to me, and showed\nme where the cause of my want of success lay.  I remember that Siutaeff\u2019s\nremark struck me very forcibly at the time; but I only understood its\nfull significance later on.  It was at the height of my self-delusion.  I\nwas sitting with my sister, and Siutaeff was there also at her house; and\nmy sister was questioning me about my undertaking.  I told her about it,\nand, as always happens when you have no faith in your course, I talked to\nher with great enthusiasm and warmth, and at great length, of what I had\ndone, and of what might possibly come of it.  I told her every thing,\u2014how\nwe were going to keep track of pauperism in Moscow, how we were going to\nkeep an eye on the orphans and old people, how we were going to send away\nall country people who had grown poor here, how we were going to smooth\nthe pathway to reform for the depraved; how, if only the matter could be\nmanaged, there would not be a man left in Moscow, who could not obtain\nassistance.  My sister sympathized with me, and we discussed it.  In the\nmiddle of our conversation, I glanced at Siutaeff.  As I was acquainted\nwith his Christian life, and with the significance which he attached to\ncharity, I expected his sympathy, and spoke so that he understood this; I\ntalked to my sister, but directed my remarks more at him.  He sat\nimmovable in his dark tanned sheepskin jacket,\u2014which he wore, like all\npeasants, both out of doors and in the house,\u2014and as though he did not\nhear us, but were thinking of his own affairs.  His small eyes did not\ntwinkle, and seemed to be turned inwards.  Having finished what I had to\nsay, I turned to him with a query as to what he thought of it.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s all a foolish business,\u201d said he.\n\n\u201cWhy?\u201d\n\n\u201cYour whole society is foolish, and nothing good can come out of it,\u201d he\nrepeated with conviction.\n\n\u201cWhy not?  Why is it a stupid business to help thousands, at any rate\nhundreds, of unfortunate beings?  Is it a bad thing, according to the\nGospel, to clothe the naked, and feed the hungry?\u201d\n\n\u201cI know, I know, but that is not what you are doing.  Is it necessary to\nrender assistance in that way?  You are walking along, and a man asks you\nfor twenty kopeks.  You give them to him.  Is that alms?  Do you give\nspiritual alms,\u2014teach him.  But what is it that you have given?  It was\nonly for the sake of getting rid of him.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo; and, besides, that is not what we are talking about.  We want to\nknow about this need, and then to help by both money and deeds; and to\nfind work.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou can do nothing with those people in that way.\u201d\n\n\u201cSo they are to be allowed to die of hunger and cold?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy should they die?  Are there many of them there?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat, many of them?\u201d said I, thinking that he looked at the matter so\nlightly because he was not aware how vast was the number of these people.\n\n\u201cWhy, do you know,\u201d said I, \u201cI believe that there are twenty thousand of\nthese cold and hungry people in Moscow.  And how about Petersburg and the\nother cities?\u201d\n\nHe smiled.\n\n\u201cTwenty thousand!  And how many households are there in Russia alone, do\nyou think?  Are there a million?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, what then?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat then?\u201d and his eyes flashed, and he grew animated.  \u201cCome, let us\ndivide them among ourselves.  I am not rich, I will take two persons on\nthe spot.  There is the lad whom you took into your kitchen; I invited\nhim to come to my house, and he did not come.  Were there ten times as\nmany, let us divide them among us.  Do you take some, and I will take\nsome.  We will work together.  He will see how I work, and he will learn.\nHe will see how I live, and we will sit down at the same table together,\nand he will hear my words and yours.  This charity society of yours is\nnonsense.\u201d\n\nThese simple words impressed me.  I could not but admit their justice;\nbut it seemed to me at that time, that, in spite of their truth, still\nthat which I had planned might possibly prove of service.  But the\nfurther I carried this business, the more I associated with the poor, the\nmore frequently did this remark recur to my mind, and the greater was the\nsignificance which it acquired for me.\n\nI arrive in a costly fur coat, or with my horses; or the man who lacks\nshoes sees my two-thousand-ruble apartments.  He sees how, a little while\nago, I gave five rubles without begrudging them, merely because I took a\nwhim to do so.  He surely knows that if I give away rubles in that\nmanner, it is only because I have hoarded up so many of them, that I have\na great many superfluous ones, which I not only have not given away, but\nwhich I have easily taken from other people.  [What else could he see in\nme but one of those persons who have got possession of what belongs to\nhim?  And what other feeling can he cherish towards me, than a desire to\nobtain from me as many of those rubles, which have been stolen from him\nand from others, as possible?  I wish to get close to him, and I complain\nthat he is not frank; and here I am, afraid to sit down on his bed for\nfear of getting lice, or catching something infectious; and I am afraid\nto admit him to my room, and he, coming to me naked, waits, generally in\nthe vestibule, or, if very fortunate, in the ante-chamber.  And yet I\ndeclare that he is to blame because I cannot enter into intimate\nrelations with him, and because me is not frank.\n\nLet the sternest man try the experiment of eating a dinner of five\ncourses in the midst of people who have had very little or nothing but\nblack bread to eat.  Not a man will have the spirit to eat, and to watch\nhow the hungry lick their chops around him.  Hence, then, in order to eat\ndaintily amid the famishing, the first indispensable requisite is to hide\nfrom them, in order that they may not see it.  This is the very thing,\nand the first thing, that we do.\n\nAnd I took a simpler view of our life, and perceived that an approach to\nthe poor is not difficult to us through accidental causes, but that we\ndeliberately arrange our lives in such a fashion so that this approach\nmay be rendered difficult.\n\nNot only this; but, on taking a survey of our life, of the life of the\nwealthy, I saw that every thing which is considered desirable in that\nlife consists in, or is inseparably bound up with, the idea of getting as\nfar away from the poor as possible.  In fact, all the efforts of our\nwell-endowed life, beginning with our food, dress, houses, our\ncleanliness, and even down to our education,\u2014every thing has for its\nchief object, the separation of ourselves from the poor.  In procuring\nthis seclusion of ourselves by impassable barriers, we spend, to put it\nmildly, nine-tenths of our wealth.  The first thing that a man who was\ngrown wealthy does is to stop eating out of one bowl, and he sets up\ncrockery, and fits himself out with a kitchen and servants.  And he feeds\nhis servants high, too, so that their mouths may not water over his\ndainty viands; and he eats alone; and as eating in solitude is wearisome,\nhe plans how he may improve his food and deck his table; and the very\nmanner of taking his food (dinner) becomes a matter for pride and vain\nglory with him, and his manner of taking his food becomes for him a means\nof sequestering himself from other men.  A rich man cannot think of such\na thing as inviting a poor man to his table.  A man must know how to\nconduct ladies to table, how to bow, to sit down, to eat, to rinse out\nthe mouth; and only rich people know all these things.  The same thing\noccurs in the matter of clothing.  If a rich man were to wear ordinary\nclothing, simply for the purpose of protecting his body from the cold,\u2014a\nshort jacket, a coat, felt and leather boots, an under-jacket, trousers,\nshirt,\u2014he would require but very little, and he would not be unable, when\nhe had two coats, to give one of them to a man who had none.  But the\nrich man begins by procuring for himself clothing which consists entirely\nof separate pieces, and which is fit only for separate occasions, and\nwhich is, therefore, unsuited to the poor man.  He has frock-coats,\nvests, pea-jackets, lacquered boots, cloaks, shoes with French heels,\ngarments that are chopped up into bits to conform with the fashion,\nhunting-coats, travelling-coats, and so on, which can only be used under\nconditions of existence far removed from poverty.  And his clothing also\nfurnishes him with a means of keeping at a distance from the poor.  The\nsame is the case, and even more clearly, with his dwelling.  In order\nthat one may live alone in ten rooms, it is indispensable that those who\nlive ten in one room should not see it.  The richer a man is, the more\ndifficult is he of access; the more porters there are between him and\npeople who are not rich, the more impossible is it to conduct a poor man\nover rugs, and seat him in a satin chair.\n\nThe case is the same with the means of locomotion.  The peasant driving\nin a cart, or a sledge, must be a very ill-tempered man when he will not\ngive a pedestrian a lift; and there is both room for this and a\npossibility of doing it.  But the richer the equipage, the farther is a\nman from all possibility of giving a seat to any person whatsoever.  It\nis even said plainly, that the most stylish equipages are those meant to\nhold only one person.\n\nIt is precisely the same thing with the manner of life which is expressed\nby the word cleanliness.\n\nCleanliness!  Who is there that does not know people, especially women,\nwho reckon this cleanliness in themselves as a great virtue? and who is\nnot acquainted with the devices of this cleanliness, which know no\nbounds, when it can command the labor of others?  Which of the people who\nhave become rich has not experienced in his own case, with what\ndifficulty he carefully trained himself to this cleanliness, which only\nconfirms the proverb, \u201cLittle white hands love other people\u2019s work\u201d?\n\nTo-day cleanliness consists in changing your shirt once a day; to-morrow,\nin changing it twice a day.  To-day it means washing the face, and neck,\nand hands daily; to-morrow, the feet; and day after to-morrow, washing\nthe whole body every day, and, in addition and in particular, a\nrubbing-down.  To-day the table-cloth is to serve for two days, to-morrow\nthere must be one each day, then two a day.  To-day the footman\u2019s hands\nmust be clean; to-morrow he must wear gloves, and in his clean gloves he\nmust present a letter on a clean salver.  And there are no limits to this\ncleanliness, which is useless to everybody, and objectless, except for\nthe purpose of separating oneself from others, and of rendering\nimpossible all intercourse with them, when this cleanliness is attained\nby the labors of others.\n\nMoreover, when I studied the subject, I because convinced that even that\nwhich is commonly called education is the very same thing.\n\nThe tongue does not deceive; it calls by its real name that which men\nunderstand under this name.  What the people call culture is fashionable\nclothing, political conversation, clean hands,\u2014a certain sort of\ncleanliness.  Of such a man, it is said, in contradistinction to others,\nthat he is an educated man.  In a little higher circle, what they call\neducation means the same thing as with the people; only to the conditions\nof education are added playing on the pianoforte, a knowledge of French,\nthe writing of Russian without orthographical errors, and a still greater\ndegree of external cleanliness.  In a still more elevated sphere,\neducation means all this with the addition of the English language, and a\ndiploma from the highest educational institution.  But education is\nprecisely the same thing in the first, the second, and the third case.\nEducation consists of those forms and acquirements which are calculated\nto separate a man from his fellows.  And its object is identical with\nthat of cleanliness,\u2014to seclude us from the herd of poor, in order that\nthey, the poor, may not see how we feast.  But it is impossible to hide\nourselves, and they do see us.\n\nAnd accordingly I have become convinced that the cause of the inability\nof us rich people to help the poor of the city lies in the impossibility\nof our establishing intercourse with them; and that this impossibility of\nintercourse is caused by ourselves, by the whole course of our lives, by\nall the uses which we make of our wealth.  I have become convinced that\nbetween us, the rich and the poor, there rises a wall, reared by\nourselves out of that very cleanliness and education, and constructed of\nour wealth; and that in order to be in a condition to help the poor, we\nmust needs, first of all, destroy this wall; and that in order to do\nthis, confrontation after Siutaeff\u2019s method should be rendered possible,\nand the poor distributed among us.  And from another starting-point also\nI came to the same conclusion to which the current of my discussions as\nto the causes of the poverty in towns had led me: the cause was our\nwealth.] {108}\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\n\nI began to examine the matter from a third and wholly personal point of\nview.  Among the phenomena which particularly impressed me, during the\nperiod of my charitable activity, there was yet another, and a very\nstrange one, for which I could for a long time find no explanation.  It\nwas this: every time that I chanced, either on the street on in the\nhouse, to give some small coin to a poor man, without saying any thing to\nhim, I saw, or thought that I saw, contentment and gratitude on the\ncountenance of the poor man, and I myself experienced in this form of\nbenevolence an agreeable sensation.  I saw that I had done what the man\nwished and expected from me.  But if I stopped the poor man, and\nsympathetically questioned him about his former and his present life, I\nfelt that it was no longer possible to give three or twenty kopeks, and I\nbegan to fumble in my purse for money, in doubt as to how much I ought to\ngive, and I always gave more; and I always noticed that the poor man left\nme dissatisfied.  But if I entered into still closer intercourse with the\npoor man, then my doubts as to how much to give increased also; and, no\nmatter how much I gave, the poor man grew ever more sullen and\ndiscontented.  As a general rule, it always turned out thus, that if I\ngave, after conversation with a poor man, three rubles or even more, I\nalmost always beheld gloom, displeasure, and even ill-will, on the\ncountenance of the poor man; and I have even known it to happen, that,\nhaving received ten rubles, he went off without so much as saying \u201cThank\nyou,\u201d exactly as though I had insulted him.\n\nAnd thereupon I felt awkward and ashamed, and almost guilty.  But if I\nfollowed up a poor man for weeks and months and years, and assisted him,\nand explained my views to him, and associated with him, our relations\nbecame a torment, and I perceived that the man despised me.  And I felt\nthat he was in the right.\n\nIf I go out into the street, and he, standing in that street, begs of me\namong the number of the other passers-by, people who walk and ride past\nhim, and I give him money, I then am to him a passer-by, and a good, kind\npasser-by, who bestows on him that thread from which a shirt is made for\nthe naked man; he expects nothing more than the thread, and if I give it\nhe thanks me sincerely.  But if I stop him, and talk with him as man with\nman, I thereby show him that I desire to be something more than a mere\npasser-by.  If, as often happens, he weeps while relating to me his woes,\nthen he sees in me no longer a passer-by, but that which I desire that he\nshould see: a good man.  But if I am a good man, my goodness cannot pause\nat a twenty-kopek piece, nor at ten rubles, nor at ten thousand; it is\nimpossible to be a little bit of a good man.  Let us suppose that I have\ngiven him a great deal, that I have fitted him out, dressed him, set him\non his feet so that the can live without outside assistance; but for some\nreason or other, though misfortune or his own weakness or vices, he is\nagain without that coat, that linen, and that money which I have given\nhim; he is again cold and hungry, and he has come again to me,\u2014how can I\nrefuse him?  [For if the cause of my action consisted in the attainment\nof a definite, material end, on giving him so many rubles or such and\nsuch a coat I might be at ease after having bestowed them.  But the cause\nof my action is not this: the cause is, that I want to be a good man,\nthat is to say, I want to see myself in every other man.  Every man\nunderstands goodness thus, and in no other manner.] {111}  And therefore,\nif he should drink away every thing that you had given him twenty times,\nand if he should again be cold and hungry, you cannot do otherwise than\ngive him more, if you are a good man; you can never cease giving to him,\nif you have more than he has.  And if you draw back, you will thereby\nshow that every thing that you have done, you have done not because you\nare a good man, but because you wished to appear a good man in his sight,\nand in the sight of men.\n\nAnd thus in the case with the men from whom I chanced to recede, to whom\nI ceased to give, and, by this action, denied good, I experienced a\ntorturing sense of shame.\n\nWhat sort of shame was this?  This shame I had experienced in the\nLyapinsky house, and both before and after that in the country, when I\nhappened to give money or any thing else to the poor, and in my\nexpeditions among the city poor.\n\nA mortifying incident that occurred to me not long ago vividly reminded\nme of that shame, and led me to an explanation of that shame which I had\nfelt when bestowing money on the poor.\n\n[This happened in the country.  I wanted twenty kopeks to give to a poor\npilgrim; I sent my son to borrow them from some one; he brought the\npilgrim a twenty-kopek piece, and told me that he had borrowed it from\nthe cook.  A few days afterwards some more pilgrims arrived, and again I\nwas in want of a twenty-kopek piece.  I had a ruble; I recollected that I\nwas in debt to the cook, and I went to the kitchen, hoping to get some\nmore small change from the cook.  I said: \u201cI borrowed a twenty-kopek\npiece from you, so here is a ruble.\u201d  I had not finished speaking, when\nthe cook called in his wife from another room: \u201cTake it, Parasha,\u201d said\nhe.  I, supposing that she understood what I wanted, handed her the\nruble.  I must state that the cook had only lived with me a week, and,\nthough I had seen his wife, I had never spoken to her.  I was just on the\npoint of saying to her that she was to give me some small coins, when she\nbent swiftly down to my hand, and tried to kiss it, evidently imaging\nthat I had given her the ruble.  I muttered something, and quitted the\nkitchen.  I was ashamed, ashamed to the verge of torture, as I had not\nbeen for a long time.  I shrank together; I was conscious that I was\nmaking grimaces, and I groaned with shame as I fled from the kitchen.\nThis utterly unexpected, and, as it seemed to me, utterly undeserved\nshame, made a special impression on me, because it was a long time since\nI had been mortified, and because I, as an old man, had so lived, it\nseemed to me, that I had not merited this shame.  I was forcibly struck\nby this.  I told the members of my household about it, I told my\nacquaintances, and they all agreed that they should have felt the same.\nAnd I began to reflect: why had this caused me such shame?  To this,\nsomething which had happened to me in Moscow furnished me with an answer.\n\nI meditated on that incident, and the shame which I had experienced in\nthe presence of the cook\u2019s wife was explained to me, and all those\nsensations of mortification which I had undergone during the course of my\nMoscow benevolence, and which I now feel incessantly when I have occasion\nto give any one any thing except that petty alms to the poor and to\npilgrims, which I have become accustomed to bestow, and which I consider\na deed not of charity but of courtesy.  If a man asks you for a light,\nyou must strike a match for him, if you have one.  If a man asks for\nthree or for twenty kopeks, or even for several rubles, you must give\nthem if you have them.  This is an act of courtesy and not of charity.]\n{113}\n\nThis was the case in question: I have already mentioned the two peasants\nwith whom I was in the habit of sawing wood three yeans ago.  One\nSaturday evening at dusk, I was returning to the city in their company.\nThey were going to their employer to receive their wages.  As we were\ncrossing the Dragomilovsky bridge, we met an old man.  He asked alms, and\nI gave him twenty kopeks.  I gave, and reflected on the good effect which\nmy charity would have on Semyon, with whom I had been conversing on\nreligious topics.  Semyon, the Vladimir peasant, who had a wife and two\nchildren in Moscow, halted also, pulled round the skirt of his kaftan,\nand got out his purse, and from this slender purse he extracted, after\nsome fumbling, three kopeks, handed it to the old man, and asked for two\nkopeks in change.  The old man exhibited in his hand two three-kopek\npieces and one kopek.  Semyon looked at them, was about to take the\nkopek, but thought better of it, pulled off his hat, crossed himself, and\nwalked on, leaving the old man the three-kopek piece.\n\nI was fully acquainted with Semyon\u2019s financial condition.  He had no\nproperty at home at all.  The money which he had laid by on the day when\nhe gave three kopeks amounted to six rubles and fifty kopeks.\nAccordingly, six rubles and twenty kopeks was the sum of his savings.  My\nreserve fund was in the neighborhood of six hundred thousand.  I had a\nwife and children, Semyon had a wife and children.  He was younger than\nI, and his children were fewer in number than mine; but his children were\nsmall, and two of mine were of an age to work, so that our position, with\nthe exception of the savings, was on an equality; mine was somewhat the\nmore favorable, if any thing.  He gave three kopeks, I gave twenty.  What\ndid he really give, and what did I really give?  What ought I to have\ngiven, in order to do what Semyon had done? he had six hundred kopeks;\nout of this he gave one, and afterwards two.  I had six hundred thousand\nrubles.  In order to give what Semyon had given, I should have been\nobliged to give three thousand rubles, and ask for two thousand in\nchange, and then leave the two thousand with the old man, cross myself,\nand go my way, calmly conversing about life in the factories, and the\ncost of liver in the Smolensk market.\n\nI thought of this at the time; but it was only long afterwards that I was\nin a condition to draw from this incident that deduction which inevitably\nresults from it.  This deduction is so uncommon and so singular,\napparently, that, in spite of its mathematical infallibility, one\nrequires time to grow used to it.  It does seem as though there must be\nsome mistake, but mistake there is none.  There is merely the fearful\nmist of error in which we live.\n\n[This deduction, when I arrived at it, and when I recognized its\nundoubted truth, furnished me with an explanation of my shame in the\npresence of the cook\u2019s wife, and of all the poor people to whom I had\ngiven and to whom I still give money.\n\nWhat, in point of fact, is that money which I give to the poor, and which\nthe cook\u2019s wife thought I was giving to her?  In the majority of cases,\nit is that portion of my substance which it is impossible even to express\nin figures to Semyon and the cook\u2019s wife,\u2014it is generally one millionth\npart or about that.  I give so little that the bestowal of any money is\nnot and cannot be a deprivation to me; it is only a pleasure in which I\namuse myself when the whim seizes me.  And it was thus that the cook\u2019s\nwife understood it.  If I give to a man who steps in from the street one\nruble or twenty kopeks, why should not I give her a ruble also?  In the\nopinion of the cook\u2019s wife, such a bestowal of money is precisely the\nsame as the flinging of honey-cakes to the people by gentlemen; it\nfurnishes the people who have a great deal of superfluous cash with\namusement.  I was mortified because the mistake made by the cook\u2019s wife\ndemonstrated to me distinctly the view which she, and all people who are\nnot rich, must take of me: \u201cHe is flinging away his folly, i.e., his\nunearned money.\u201d\n\nAs a matter of fact, what is my money, and whence did it come into my\npossession?  A portion of it I accumulated from the land which I received\nfrom my father.  A peasant sold his last sheep or cow in order to give\nthe money to me.  Another portion of my money is the money which I have\nreceived for my writings, for my books.  If my books are hurtful, I only\nlead astray those who purchase them, and the money which I receive for\nthem is ill-earned money; but if my books are useful to people, then the\nissue is still more disastrous.  I do not give them to people: I say,\n\u201cGive me seventeen rubles, and I will give them to you.\u201d  And as the\npeasant sells his last sheep, in this case the poor student or teacher,\nor any other poor man, deprives himself of necessaries in order to give\nme this money.  And so I have accumulated a great deal of money in that\nway, and what do I do with it?  I take that money to the city, and bestow\nit on the poor, only when they fulfil my caprices, and come hither to the\ncity to clean my sidewalk, lamps, and shoes; to work for me in factories.\nAnd in return for this money, I force from them every thing that I can;\nthat is to say, I try to give them as little as possible, and to receive\nas much as possible from them.  And all at once I begin, quite\nunexpectedly, to bestow this money as a simple gift, on these same poor\npersons, not on all, but on those to whom I take a fancy.  Why should not\nevery poor person expect that it is quite possible that the luck may fall\nto him of being one of those with whom I shall amuse myself by\ndistributing my superfluous money?  And so all look upon me as the cook\u2019s\nwife did.\n\nAnd I had gone so far astray that this taking of thousands from the poor\nwith one hand, and this flinging of kopeks with the other, to those to\nwhom the whim moved me to give, I called good.  No wonder that I felt\nashamed.] {116}\n\nYes, before doing good it was needful for me to stand outside of evil, in\nsuch conditions that I might cease to do evil.  But my whole life is\nevil.  I may give away a hundred thousand rubles, and still I shall not\nbe in a position to do good because I shall still have five hundred\nthousand left.  Only when I have nothing shall I be in a position to do\nthe least particle of good, even as much as the prostitute did which she\nnursed the sick women and her child for three days.  And that seemed so\nlittle to me!  And I dared to think of good myself!  That which, on the\nfirst occasion, told me, at the sight of the cold and hungry in the\nLyapinsky house, that I was to blame for this, and that to live as I live\nis impossible, and impossible, and impossible,\u2014that alone was true.\n\nWhat, then, was I to do?\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\n\nIt was hard for me to come to this confession, but when I had come to it\nI was shocked at the error in which I had been living.  I stood up to my\nears in the mud, and yet I wanted to drag others out of this mud.\n\nWhat is it that I wish in reality?  I wish to do good to others.  I wish\nto do it so that other people may not be cold and hungry, so that others\nmay live as it is natural for people to live.\n\n[I wish this, and I see that in consequence of the violence, extortions,\nand various tricks in which I take part, people who toil are deprived of\nnecessaries, and people who do not toil, in whose ranks I also belong,\nenjoy in superabundance the toil of other people.\n\nI see that this enjoyment of the labors of others is so arranged, that\nthe more rascally and complicated the trickery which is employed by the\nman himself, or which has been employed by the person from whom he\nobtained his inheritance, the more does he enjoy of the labors of others,\nand the less does he contribute of his own labor.\n\nFirst come the Shtiglitzy, Dervizy, Morozovy, the Demidoffs, the\nYusapoffs; then great bankers, merchants, officials, landed proprietors,\namong whom I also belong; then the poor\u2014very small traders,\ndramshop-keepers, usurers, district judges, overseers, teachers,\nsacristans, clerks; then house-porters, lackeys, coachmen,\nwatch-carriers, cab-drivers, peddlers; and last of all, the laboring\nclasses\u2014factory-hands and peasants, whose numbers bear the relation to\nthe first named of ten to one.  I see that the life of nine-tenths of the\nworking classes demands, by reason of its nature, application and toil,\nas does every natural life; but that, in consequence of the sharp\npractices which take from these people what is indispensable, and place\nthem in such oppressive conditions, this life becomes more difficult\nevery year, and more filled with deprivations; but our life, the life of\nthe non-laboring classes, thanks to the co-operation of the arts and\nsciences which are directed to this object, becomes more filled with\nsuperfluities, more attractive and careful, with every year.  I see,\nthat, in our day, the life of the workingman, and, in particular, the\nlife of old men, of women, and of children of the working population, is\nperishing directly from their food, which is utterly inadequate to their\nfatiguing labor; and that this life of theirs is not free from care as to\nits very first requirements; and that, alongside of this, the life of the\nnon-laboring classes, to which I belong, is filled more and more, every\nyear, with superfluities and luxury, and becomes more and more free from\nanxiety, and has finally reached such a point of freedom from care, in\nthe case of its fortunate members, of whom I am one, as was only dreamed\nof in olden times in fairy-tales,\u2014the state of the owner of the purse\nwith the inexhaustible ruble, that is, a condition in which a man is not\nonly utterly released from the law of labor, but in which he possesses\nthe possibility of enjoying, without toil, all the blessings of life, and\nof transferring to his children, or to any one whom he may see fit, this\npurse with the inexhaustible ruble.\n\nI see that the products of the people\u2019s toil are more and more\ntransformed from the mass of the working classes to those who do not\nwork; that the pyramid of the social edifice seems to be reconstructed in\nsuch fashion that the foundation stones are carried to the apex, and the\nswiftness of this transfer is increasing in a sort of geometrical ratio.\nI see that the result of this is something like that which would take\nplace in an ant-heap if the community of ants were to lose their sense of\nthe common law, if some ants were to begin to draw the products of labor\nfrom the bottom to the top of the heap, and should constantly contract\nthe foundations and broaden the apex, and should thereby also force the\nremaining ants to betake themselves from the bottom to the summit.\n\nI see that the ideal of the Fortunatus\u2019 purse has made its way among the\npeople, in the place of the ideal of a toilsome life.  Rich people,\nmyself among the number, get possession of the inexhaustible ruble by\nvarious devices, and for the purpose of enjoying it we go to the city, to\nthe place where nothing is produced and where every thing is swallowed\nup.\n\nThe industrious poor man, who is robbed in order that the rich may\npossess this inexhaustible ruble, yearns for the city in his train; and\nthere he also takes to sharp practices, and either acquires for himself a\nposition in which he can work little and receive much, thereby rendering\nstill more oppressive the situation of the laboring classes, or, not\nhaving attained to such a position, he goes to ruin, and falls into the\nranks of those cold and hungry inhabitants of the night-lodging houses,\nwhich are being swelled with such remarkable rapidity.\n\nI belong to the class of those people, who, by divers tricks, take from\nthe toiling masses the necessaries of life, and who have acquired for\nthemselves these inexhaustible rubles, and who lead these unfortunates\nastray.  I desire to aid people, and therefore it is clear that, first of\nall, I must cease to rob them as I am doing.  But I, by the most\ncomplicated, and cunning, and evil practices, which have been heaped up\nfor centuries, have acquired for myself the position of an owner of the\ninexhaustible ruble, that is to say, one in which, never working myself,\nI can make hundreds and thousands of people toil for me\u2014which also I do;\nand I imagine that I pity people, and I wish to assist them.  I sit on a\nman\u2019s neck, I weigh him down, and I demand that he shall carry me; and\nwithout descending from his shoulders I assure myself and others that I\nam very sorry for him, and that I desire to ameliorate his condition by\nall possible means, only not by getting off of him.\n\nSurely this is simple enough.  If I want to help the poor, that is, to\nmake the poor no longer poor, I must not produce poor people.  And I\ngive, at my own selection, to poor men who have gone astray from the path\nof life, a ruble, or ten rubles, or a hundred; and I grasp hundreds from\npeople who have not yet left the path, and thereby I render them poor\nalso, and demoralize them to boot.\n\nThis is very simple; but it was horribly hard for me to understand this\nfully without compromises and reservations, which might serve to justify\nmy position; but it sufficed for me to confess my guilt, and every thing\nwhich had before seemed to me strange and complicated, and lacking in\ncleanness, became perfectly comprehensible and simple.  But the chief\npoint was, that my way of life, arising from this interpretation, became\nsimple, clear and pleasant, instead of perplexed, inexplicable and full\nof torture as before.] {122a}\n\nWho am I, that I should desire to help others?  I desire to help people;\nand I, rising at twelve o\u2019clock after a game of _vint_ {122b} with four\ncandles, weak, exhausted, demanding the aid of hundreds of people,\u2014I go\nto the aid of whom?  Of people who rise at five o\u2019clock, who sleep on\nplanks, who nourish themselves on bread and cabbage, who know how to\nplough, to reap, to wield the axe, to chop, to harness, to sew,\u2014of people\nwho in strength and endurance, and skill and abstemiousness, are a\nhundred times superior to me,\u2014and I go to their succor!  What except\nshame could I feel, when I entered into communion with these people?  The\nvery weakest of them, a drunkard, an inhabitant of the Rzhanoff house,\nthe one whom they call \u201cthe idler,\u201d is a hundred-fold more industrious\nthan I; [his balance, so to speak, that is to say, the relation of what\nhe takes from people and that which they give him, stands on a thousand\ntimes better footing than my balance, if I take into consideration what I\ntake from people and what I give to them.] {122c}\n\nAnd these are the people to whose assistance I go.  I go to help the\npoor.  But who is the poor man?  There is no one poorer than myself.  I\nam a thoroughly enervated, good-for-nothing parasite, who can only exist\nunder the most special conditions, who can only exist when thousands of\npeople toil at the preservation of this life which is utterly useless to\nevery one.  And I, that plant-louse, which devours the foliage of trees,\nwish to help the tree in its growth and health, and I wish to heal it.\n\nI have passed my whole life in this manner: I eat, I talk and I listen; I\neat, I write or read, that is to say, I talk and listen again; I eat, I\nplay, I eat, again I talk and listen, I eat, and again I go to bed; and\nso each day I can do nothing else, and I understand how to do nothing\nelse.  And in order that I may be able to do this, it is necessary that\nthe porter, the peasant, the cook, male or female, the footman, the\ncoachman, and the laundress, should toil from morning till night; I will\nnot refer to the labors of the people which are necessary in order that\ncoachman, cooks, male and female, footman, and the rest should have those\nimplements and articles with which, and over which, they toil for my\nsake; axes, tubs, brushes, household utensils, furniture, wax, blacking,\nkerosene, hay, wood, and beef.  And all these people work hard all day\nlong and every day, so that I may be able to talk and eat and sleep.  And\nI, this cripple of a man, have imagined that I could help others, and\nthose the very people who support me!\n\nIt is not remarkable that I could not help any one, and that I felt\nashamed; but the remarkable point is that such an absurd idea could have\noccurred to me.  The woman who served the sick old man, helped him; the\nmistress of the house, who cut a slice from the bread which she had won\nfrom the soil, helped the beggar; Semyon, who gave three kopeks which he\nhad earned, helped the beggar, because those three kopeks actually\nrepresented his labor: but I served no one, I toiled for no one, and I\nwas well aware that my money did not represent my labor.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII. {124}\n\n\nInto the delusion that I could help others I was led by the fact that I\nfancied that my money was of the same sort as Semyon\u2019s.  But this was not\nthe case.\n\nA general idea prevails, that money represents wealth; but wealth is the\nproduct of labor; and, therefore, money represents labor.  But this idea\nis as just as that every governmental regulation is the result of a\ncompact (_contrat social_).\n\nEvery one likes to think that money is only a medium of exchange for\nlabor.  I have made shoes, you have raised grain, he has reared sheep:\nhere, in order that we may the more readily effect an exchange, we will\ninstitute money, which represents a corresponding quantity of labor, and,\nby means of it, we will barter our shoes for a breast of lamb and ten\npounds of flour.  We will exchange our products through the medium of\nmoney, and the money of each one of us represents our labor.\n\nThis is perfectly true, but true only so long as, in the community where\nthis exchange is effected, the violence of one man over the rest has not\nmade its appearance; not only violence over the labors of others, as\nhappens in wars and slavery, but where he exercises no violence for the\nprotection of the products of their labor from others.  This will be true\nonly in a community whose members fully carry out the Christian law, in a\ncommunity where men give to him who asks, and where he who takes is not\nasked to make restitution.  But just so soon as any violence whatever is\nused in the community, the significance of money for its possessor loses\nits significance as a representative of labor, and acquires the\nsignificance of a right founded, not on labor, but on violence.\n\nAs soon as there is war, and one man has taken any thing from any other\nman, money can no longer be always the representative of labor; money\nreceived by a warrior for the spoils of war, which he sells, even if he\nis the commander of the warriors, is in no way a product of labor, and\npossesses an entirely different meaning from money received for work on\nshoes.  As soon as there are slave-owners and slaves, as there always\nhave been throughout the whole world, it is utterly impossible to say\nthat money represents labor.\n\nWomen have woven linen, sold it, and received money; serfs have woven for\ntheir master, and the master has sold them and received the money.  The\nmoney is identical in both cases; but in the one case it is the product\nof labor, in the other the product of violence.  In exactly the same way,\na stranger or my own father has given me money; and my father, when he\ngave me that money, knew, and I know, and everybody knows, that no one\ncan take this money away from me; but if it should occur to any one to\ntake it away from me, or even not to hand it over at the date when it was\npromised, the law would intervene on my behalf, and would compel the\ndelivery to me of the money; and, again, it is evident that this money\ncan in no wise be called the equivalent of labor, on a level with the\nmoney received by Semyon for chopping wood.  So that in any community\nwhere there is any thing that in any manner whatever controls the labor\nof others, or where violence hedges in, by means of money, its\npossessions from others, there money is no longer invariably the\nrepresentative of labor.  In such a community, it is sometimes the\nrepresentative of labor, and sometimes of violence.\n\nThus it would be where only one act of violence from one man against\nothers, in the midst of perfectly free relations, should have made its\nappearance; but now, when centuries of the most varied deeds of violence\nhave passed for accumulations of money, when these deeds of violence are\nincessant, and merely alter their forms; when, as every one admits, money\naccumulated itself represents violence; when money, as a representative\nof direct labor, forms but a very small portion of the money which is\nderived from every sort of violence,\u2014to say nowadays that money\nrepresents the labor of the person who possesses it, is a self-evident\nerror or a deliberate lie.\n\nIt may be said, that thus it should be; it may be said, that this is\ndesirable; but by no means can it be said, that thus it is.\n\nMoney represents labor.  Yes.  Money does represent labor; but whose?  In\nour society only in the very rarest, rarest of instances, does money\nrepresent the labor of its possessor, but it nearly always represents the\nlabor of other people, the past or future labor of men; it is a\nrepresentative of the obligation of others to labor, which has been\nestablished by force.\n\nMoney, in its most accurate and at the same the simple application, is\nthe conventional stamp which confers a right, or, more correctly, a\npossibility, of taking advantage of the labors of other people.  In its\nideal significance, money should confer this right, or this possibility,\nonly when it serves as the equivalent of labor, and such money might be\nin a community in which no violence existed.  But just as soon as\nviolence, that is to say, the possibility of profiting by the labors of\nothers without toil of one\u2019s own, exists in a community, then that\nprofiting by the labors of other men is also expressed by money, without\nany distinction of the persons on whom that violence is exercised.\n\nThe landed proprietor has imposed upon his serfs natural debts, a certain\nquantity of linen, grain, and cattle, or a corresponding amount of money.\nOne household has procured the cattle, but has paid money in lieu of\nlinen.  The proprietor takes the money to a certain amount only, because\nhe knows that for that money they will make him the same quantity of\nlinen, (generally he takes a little more, in order to be sure that they\nwill make it for the same amount); and this money, evidently, represents\nfor the proprietor the obligation of other people to toil.\n\nThe peasant gives the money as an obligation, to he knows not whom, but\nto people, and there are many of them, who undertake for this money to\nmake so much linen.  But the people who undertake to make the linen, do\nso because they have not succeeded in raising sheep, and in place of the\nsheep, they must pay money; but the peasant who takes money for his sheep\ntakes it because he must pay for grain which did not bear well this year.\nThe same thing goes on throughout this realm, and throughout the whole\nworld.\n\nA man sells the product of his labor, past, present or to come, sometimes\nhis food, and generally not because money constitutes for him a\nconvenient means of exchange.  He could have effected the barter without\nmoney, but he does so because money is exacted from him by violence as a\nlien on his labor.\n\nWhen the sovereign of Egypt exacted labor from his slaves, the slaves\ngave all their labor, but only their past and present labor, their future\nlabor they could not give.  But with the dissemination of money tokens,\nand the credit which had its rise in them, it became possible to sell\none\u2019s future toil for money.  Money, with co-existent violence in the\ncommunity, only represents the possibility of a new form of impersonal\nslavery, which has taken the place of personal slavery.  The slave-owner\nhas a right to the labor of Piotr, Ivan, and Sidor.  But the owner of\nmoney, in a place where money is demanded from all, has a right to the\ntoil of all those nameless people who are in need of money.  Money has\nset aside all the oppressive features of slavery, under which an owner\nknows his right to Ivan, and with them it has set aside all humane\nrelations between the owner and the slave, which mitigated the burden of\npersonal thraldom.\n\nI will not allude to the fact, that such a condition of things is,\npossibly, necessary for the development of mankind, for progress, and so\nforth,\u2014that I do not contest.  I have merely tried to elucidate to myself\nthe idea of money, and that universal error into which I fell when I\naccepted money as the representative of labor.  I became convinced, after\nexperience, that money is not the representative of labor, but, in the\nmajority of cases, the representative of violence, or of especially\ncomplicated sharp practices founded on violence.\n\nMoney, in our day, has completely lost that significance which it is very\ndesirable that it should possess, as the representative of one\u2019s own\nlabor; such a significance it has only as an exception, but, as a general\nrule, it has been converted into a right or a possibility of profiting by\nthe toil of others.\n\nThe dissemination of money, of credit, and of all sorts of money tokens,\nconfirms this significance of money ever more and more.  Money is a new\nform of slavery, which differs from the old form of slavery only in its\nimpersonality, its annihilation of all humane relations with the slave.\n\nMoney\u2014money, is a value which is always equal to itself, and is always\nconsidered legal and righteous, and whose use is regarded as not immoral,\njust as the right of slavery was regarded.\n\nIn my young days, the game of loto was introduced into the clubs.\nEverybody rushed to play it, and, as it was said, many ruined themselves,\nrendered their families miserable, lost other people\u2019s money, and\ngovernment funds, and committed suicide; and the game was prohibited, and\nit remains prohibited to this day.\n\nI remember to have seen old and unsentimental gamblers, who told me that\nthis game was particularly pleasing because you did not see from whom you\nwere winning, as is the case in other games; a lackey brought, not money,\nbut chips; each man lost a little stake, and his disappointment was not\nvisible . . .  It is the same with roulette, which is everywhere\nprohibited, and not without reason.\n\nIt is the same with money.  I possess a magic, inexhaustible ruble; I cut\noff my coupons, and have retired from all the business of the world.\nWhom do I injure,\u2014I, the most inoffensive and kindest of men?  But this\nis nothing more than playing at loto or roulette, where I do not see the\nman who shoots himself, because of his losses, after procuring for me\nthose coupons which I cut off from the bonds so accurately with a\nstrictly right-angled corner.\n\nI have done nothing, I do nothing, and I shall do nothing, except cut off\nthose coupons; and I firmly believe that money is the representative of\nlabor!  Surely, this is amazing!  And people talk of madmen, after that!\nWhy, what degree of lunacy can be more frightful than this?  A sensible,\neducated, in all other respects sane man lives in a senseless manner, and\nsoothes himself for not uttering the word which it is indispensably\nnecessary that he should utter, with the idea that there is some sense in\nhis conclusions, and he considers himself a just man.  Coupons\u2014the\nrepresentatives of toil!  Toil!  Yes, but of whose toil?  Evidently not\nof the man who owns them, but of him who labors.\n\nSlavery is far from being suppressed.  It has been suppressed in Rome and\nin America, and among us: but only certain laws have been abrogated; only\nthe word, not the thing, has been put down.  Slavery is the freeing of\nourselves alone from the toil which is necessary for the satisfaction of\nour demands, by the transfer of this toil to others; and wherever there\nexists a man who does not work, not because others work lovingly for him,\nbut where he possesses the power of not working, and forces others to\nwork for him, there slavery exists.  There too, where, as in all European\nsocieties, there are people who make use of the labor of thousands of\nmen, and regard this as their right,\u2014there slavery exists in its broadest\nmeasure.\n\nAnd money is the same thing as slavery.  Its object and its consequences\nare the same.  Its object is\u2014that one may rid one\u2019s self of the first\nborn of all laws, as a profoundly thoughtful writer from the ranks of the\npeople has expressed it; from the natural law of life, as we have called\nit; from the law of personal labor for the satisfaction of our own wants.\nAnd the results of money are the same as the results of slavery, for the\nproprietor; the creation, the invention of new and ever new and\nnever-ending demands, which can never be satisfied; the enervation of\npoverty, vice, and for the slaves, the persecution of man and their\ndegradation to the level of the beasts.\n\nMoney is a new and terrible form of slavery, and equally demoralizing\nwith the ancient form of slavery for both slave and slave-owner; only\nmuch worse, because it frees the slave and the slave-owner from their\npersonal, humane relations.]\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII.\n\n\nI am always surprised by the oft-repeated words: \u201cYes, this is so in\ntheory, but how is it in practice?\u201d  Just as though theory were fine\nwords, requisite for conversation, but not for the purpose of having all\npractice, that is, all activity, indispensably founded on them.  There\nmust be a fearful number of stupid theories current in the world, that\nsuch an extraordinary idea should have become prevalent.  Theory is what\na man thinks on a subject, but its practice is what he does.  How can a\nman think it necessary to do so and so, and then do the contrary?  If the\ntheory of baking bread is, that it must first be mixed, and then set to\nrise, no one except a lunatic, knowing this theory, would do the reverse.\nBut it has become the fashion with us to say, that \u201cthis is so in theory,\nbut how about the practice?\u201d\n\nIn the matter which interests me now, that has been confirmed which I\nhave always thought,\u2014that practice infallibly flows from theory, and not\nthat it justifies it, but it cannot possibly be otherwise, for if I have\nunderstood the thing of which I have been thinking, then I cannot carry\nout this thing otherwise than as I have understood it.\n\nI wanted to help the unfortunate only because I had money, and I shared\nthe general belief that money was the representative of labor, or, on the\nwhole, something legal and good.  But, having begun to give away this\nmoney, I saw, when I gave the bills which I had accumulated from poor\npeople, that I was doing precisely that which was done by some landed\nproprietors who made some of their serfs wait on others.  I saw that\nevery use of money, whether for making purchases, or for giving away\nwithout an equivalent to another, is handing over a note for extortion\nfrom the poor, or its transfer to another man for extortion from the\npoor.  I saw that money in itself was not only not good, but evidently\nevil, and that it deprives us of our highest good,\u2014labor, and thereby of\nthe enjoyment of our labor, and that that blessing I was not in a\nposition to confer on any one, because I was myself deprived of it: I do\nnot work, and I take no pleasure in making use of the labor of others.\n\nIt would appear that there is something peculiar in this abstract\nargument as to the nature of money.  But this argument which I have made\nnot for the sake of argument, but for the solution of the problem of my\nlife, of my sufferings, was for me an answer to my question: What is to\nbe done?\n\nAs soon as I grasped the meaning of riches, and of money, it not only\nbecame clear and indisputable to me, what I ought to do, but also clear\nand indisputable what others ought to do, because they would infallibly\ndo it.  I had only actually come to understand what I had known for a\nlong time previously, the theory which was given to men from the very\nearliest times, both by Buddha, and Isaiah, and Lao-Tze, and Socrates,\nand in a peculiarly clear and indisputable manner by Jesus Christ and his\nforerunner, John the Baptist.  John the Baptist, in answer to the\nquestion of the people,\u2014What were they to do? replied simply, briefly,\nand clearly: \u201cHe that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath\nnone; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise\u201d (Luke iii. 10, 11).  In\na similar manner, but with even greater clearness, and on many occasions,\nChrist spoke.  He said: \u201cBlessed are the poor, and woe to the rich.\u201d  He\nsaid that it is impossible to serve God and mammon.  He forbade his\ndisciples to take not only money, but also two garments.  He said to the\nrich young man, that he could not enter into the kingdom of heaven\nbecause he was rich, and that it was easier for a camel to go through the\neye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.  He\nsaid that he who should not leave every thing, houses and children and\nlands, and follow him, could not be his disciple.  He told the parable of\nthe rich man who did nothing bad, like our own rich men, but who only\narrayed himself in costly garments, and ate and drank daintily, and who\nlost his soul thereby; and of poor Lazarus, who had done nothing good,\nbut who was saved merely because he was poor.\n\nThis theory was sufficiently familiar to me, but the false teachings of\nthe world had so obscured it that it had become for me a theory in the\nsense which people are fond of attributing to that term, that is to say,\nempty words.  But as soon as I had succeeded in destroying in my\nconsciousness the sophisms of worldly teaching, theory conformed to\npractice, and the truth with regard to my life and to the life of the\npeople about me became its conclusion.\n\nI understood that man, besides life for his own personal good, is\nunavoidably bound to serve the good of others also; that, if we take an\nillustration from the animal kingdom,\u2014as some people are fond of doing,\ndefending violence and conflict by the conflict for existence in the\nanimal kingdom,\u2014the illustration must be taken from gregarious animals,\nlike bees; that consequently man, not to mention the love to his neighbor\nincumbent on him, is called upon, both by reason and by his nature, to\nserve other people and the common good of humanity.  I comprehended that\nthe natural law of man is that according to which only he can fulfil\ndestiny, and therefore be happy.  I understood that this law has been and\nis broken hereby,\u2014that people get rid of labor by force (like the robber\nbees), make use of the toil of others, directing this toil, not to the\ncommon weal, but to the private satisfaction of swift-growing desires;\nand, precisely as in the case of the robber bees, they perish in\nconsequence.  [I understood that the original form of this disinclination\nfor the law is the brutal violence against weaker individuals, against\nwomen, wars and imprisonments, whose sequel is slavery, and also the\npresent reign of money.  I understood that money is the impersonal and\nconcealed enslavement of the poor.  And, once having perceived the\nsignificance of money as slavery, I could not but hate it, nor refrain\nfrom doing all in my power to free myself from it.] {135}\n\nWhen I was a slave-owner, and comprehended the immorality of my position,\nI tried to escape from it.  My escape consisted in this, that I,\nregarding it as immoral, tried to exercise my rights as slave-owner as\nlittle as possible, but to live, and to allow other people to live, as\nthough that right did not exist.  And I cannot refrain from doing the\nsame thing now in reference to the present form of slavery,\u2014exercising my\nright to the labor of others as little as possible, i.e., hiring and\npurchasing as little as possible.\n\nThe root of every slavery is the use of the labor of others; and hence,\nthe compelling others to it is founded indifferently on my right to the\nslave, or on my possession of money which is indispensable to him.  If I\nreally do not approve, and if I regard as an evil, the employment of the\nlabor of others, then I shall use neither my right nor my money for that\npurpose; I shall not compel others to toil for me, but I shall endeavor\nto free them from the labor which they have performed for me, as far as\npossible, either by doing without this labor or by performing it for\nmyself.\n\nAnd this very simple and unavoidable deduction enters into all the\ndetails of my life, effects a total change in it, and at one blow\nreleases me from those moral sufferings which I have undergone at the\nsight of the sufferings and the vice of the people, and instantly\nannihilates all three causes of my inability to aid the poor, which I had\nencountered while seeking the cause of my lack of success.\n\nThe first cause was the herding of the people in towns, and the\nabsorption there of the wealth of the country.  All that a man needs is\nto understand how every hiring or purchase is a handle to extortion from\nthe poor, and that therefore he must abstain from them, and must try to\nfulfil his own requirements; and not a single man will then quit the\ncountry, where all wants can be satisfied without money, for the city,\nwhere it is necessary to buy every thing: and in the country he will be\nin a position to help the needy, as has been my own experience and the\nexperience of every one else.\n\nThe second cause is the estrangement of the rich from the poor.  A man\nneeds but to refrain from buying, from hiring, and, disdaining no sort of\nwork, to satisfy his requirements himself, and the former estrangement\nwill immediately be annihilated, and the man, having rejected luxury and\nthe services of others, will amalgamate with the mass of the working\npeople, and, standing shoulder to shoulder with the working people, he\ncan help them.\n\nThe third cause was shame, founded on a consciousness of immorality in my\nowning that money with which I desired to help people.  All that is\nrequired is: to understand the significance of money as impersonal\nslavery, which it has acquired among us, in order to escape for the\nfuture from falling into the error according to which money, though evil\nin itself, can be an instrument of good, and in order to refrain from\nacquiring money; and to rid one\u2019s self of it in order to be in a position\nto do good to people, that is, to bestow on them one\u2019s labor, and not the\nlabor of another.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX.\n\n\n[I saw that money is the cause of suffering and vice among the people,\nand that, if I desired to help people, the first thing that was required\nof me was not to create those unfortunates whom I wished to assist.\n\nI came to the conclusion that the man who does not love vice and the\nsuffering of the people should not make use of money, thus presenting an\ninducement to extortion from the poor, by forcing them to work for him;\nand that, in order not to make use of the toil of others, he must demand\nas little from others as possible, and work as much as possible himself.]\n{138}\n\nBy dint of a long course of reasoning, I came to this inevitable\nconclusion, which was drawn thousands of years ago by the Chinese in the\nsaying, \u201cIf there is one idle man, there is another dying with hunger to\noffset him.\u201d\n\n[Then what are we to do?  John the Baptist gave the answer to this very\nquestion two thousand years ago.  And when the people asked him, \u201cWhat\nare we to do?\u201d he said, \u201cLet him that hath two garments impart to him\nthat hath none, and let him that hath meat do the same.\u201d  What is the\nmeaning of giving away one garment out of two, and half of one\u2019s food?\nIt means giving to others every superfluity, and thenceforth taking\nnothing superfluous from people.\n\nThis expedient, which furnishes such perfect satisfaction to the moral\nfeelings, kept my eyes fast bound, and binds all our eyes; and we do not\nsee it, but gaze aside.\n\nThis is precisely like a personage on the stage, who had entered a long\ntime since, and all the spectators see him, and it is obvious that the\nactors cannot help seeing him, but the point on the stage lies in the\nacting characters pretending not to see him, and in suffering from his\nabsence.] {139}\n\nThus we, in our efforts to recover from our social diseases, search in\nall quarters, governmental and anti-governmental, and in scientific and\nin philanthropic superstitions; and we do not see what is perfectly\nvisible to every eye.\n\nFor the man who really suffers from the sufferings of the people who\nsurround us, there exists the very plainest, simplest, and easiest means;\nthe only possible one for the cure of the evil about us, and for the\nacquisition of a consciousness of the legitimacy of his life; the one\ngiven by John the Baptist, and confirmed by Christ: not to have more than\none garment, and not to have money.  And not to have any money, means,\nnot to employ the labor of others, and hence, first of all, to do with\nour own hands every thing that we can possibly do.\n\nThis is so clear and simple!  But it is clear and simple when the\nrequirements are simple.  I live in the country.  I lie on the oven, and\nI order my debtor, my neighbor, to chop wood and light my fire.  It is\nvery clear that I am lazy, and that I tear my neighbor away from his\naffairs, and I shall feel mortified, and I shall find it tiresome to lie\nstill all the time; and I shall go and split my wood for myself.\n\nBut the delusion of slavery of all descriptions lies so far back, so much\nof artificial exaction has sprung up upon it, so many people, accustomed\nin different degrees to these habits, are interwoven with each other,\nenervated people, spoiled for generations, and such complicated delusions\nand justifications for their luxury and idleness have been devised by\npeople, that it is far from being so easy for a man who stands at the\nsummit of the ladder of idle people to understand his sin, as it is for\nthe peasant who has made his neighbor build his fire.\n\nIt is terribly difficult for people at the top of this ladder to\nunderstand what is required of them.  [Their heads are turned by the\nheight of this ladder of lies, upon which they find themselves when a\nplace on the ground is offered to them, to which they must descend in\norder to begin to live, not yet well, but no longer cruelly, inhumanly;\nfor this reason, this clear and simple truth appears strange to these\npeople.  For the man with ten servants, liveries, coachmen, cooks,\npictures, pianofortes, that will infallibly appear strange, and even\nridiculous, which is the simplest, the first act of\u2014I will not say every\ngood man\u2014but of every man who is not wicked: to cut his own wood with\nwhich his food is cooked, and with which he warms himself; to himself\nclean those boots with which he has heedlessly stepped in the mire; to\nhimself fetch that water with which he preserves his cleanliness, and to\ncarry out that dirty water in which he has washed himself.] {140}\n\nBut, besides the remoteness of people from the truth, there is another\ncause which prevents people from seeing the obligation for them of the\nsimplest and most natural personal, physical labor for themselves: this\nis the complication, the inextricability of the conditions, the advantage\nof all the people who are bound together among themselves by money, in\nwhich the rich man lives: \u201cMy luxurious life feeds people.  What would\nbecome of my old valet if I were to discharge him?  What! we must all do\nevery thing necessary,\u2014make our clothes and hew wood? . . .  And how\nabout the division of labor?\u201d\n\n[This morning I stepped out into the corridor where the fires were being\nbuilt.  A peasant was making a fire in the stove which warms my son\u2019s\nroom.  I went in; the latter was asleep.  It was eleven o\u2019clock in the\nmorning.  To-day is a holiday: there is some excuse, there are no\nlessons.\n\nThe smooth-skinned, eighteen-year-old youth, with a beard, who had eaten\nhis fill on the preceding evening, sleeps until eleven o\u2019clock.  But the\npeasant of his age had been up at dawn, and had got through a quantity of\nwork, and was attending to his tenth stove, while the former slept.  \u201cThe\npeasant shall not make the fire in his stove to warm that smooth, lazy\nbody of his!\u201d I thought.  But I immediately recollected that this stove\nalso warmed the room of the housekeeper, a woman forty years of age, who,\non the evening before, had been making preparations up to three o\u2019clock\nin the morning for the supper which my son had eaten, and that she had\ncleared the table, and risen at seven, nevertheless.  The peasant was\nbuilding the fire for her also.  And under her name the lazybones was\nwarming himself.\n\nIt is true that the interests of all are interwoven; but, even without\nany prolonged reckoning, the conscience of each man will say on whose\nside lies labor, and on whose idleness.  But although conscience says\nthis, the account-book, the cash-book, says it still more clearly.  The\nmore money any one spends, the more idle he is, that is to say, the more\nhe makes others work for him.  The less he spends, the more he works.]\n{142a}  But trade, but public undertakings, and, finally, the most\nterrible of words, culture, the development of sciences, and the\narts,\u2014what of them?\n\n[If I live I will make answer to those points, and in detail; and until\nsuch answer I will narrate the following.] {142b}\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX.\n\n\nLIFE IN THE CITY.\n\n\nLast year, in March, I was returning home late at night.  As I turned\nfrom the Zubova into Khamovnitchesky Lane, I saw some black spots on the\nsnow of the Dyevitchy Pole (field).  Something was moving about in one\nplace.  I should not have paid any attention to this, if the policeman\nwho was standing at the end of the street had not shouted in the\ndirection of the black spots,\u2014\n\n\u201cVasily! why don\u2019t you bring her in?\u201d\n\n\u201cShe won\u2019t come!\u201d answered a voice, and then the spot moved towards the\npoliceman.\n\nI halted and asked the police-officer, \u201cWhat is it?\u201d\n\nHe said,\u2014\u201cThey are taking a girl from the Rzhanoff house to the\nstation-house; and she is hanging back, she won\u2019t walk.\u201d  A house-porter\nin a sheepskin coat was leading her.  She was walking forward, and he was\npushing her from behind.  All of us, I and the porter and the policeman,\nwere dressed in winter clothes, but she had nothing on over her dress.\nIn the darkness I could make out only her brown dress, and the kerchiefs\non her head and neck.  She was short in stature, as is often the case\nwith the prematurely born, with small feet, and a comparatively broad and\nawkward figure.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019re waiting for you, you carrion.  Get along, what do you mean by it?\nI\u2019ll give it to you!\u201d shouted the policeman.  He was evidently tired, and\nhe had had too much of her.  She advanced a few paces, and again halted.\n\nThe little old porter, a good-natured fellow (I know him), tugged at her\nhand.  \u201cHere, I\u2019ll teach you to stop!  On with you!\u201d he repeated, as\nthough in anger.  She staggered, and began to talk in a discordant voice.\nAt every sound there was a false note, both hoarse and whining.\n\n\u201cCome now, you\u2019re shoving again.  I\u2019ll get there some time!\u201d\n\nShe stopped and then went on.  I followed them.\n\n\u201cYou\u2019ll freeze,\u201d said the porters\n\n\u201cThe likes of us don\u2019t freeze: I\u2019m hot.\u201d\n\nShe tried to jest, but her words sounded like scolding.  She halted again\nunder the lantern which stands not far from our house, and leaned\nagainst, almost hung over, the fence, and began to fumble for something\namong her skirts, with benumbed and awkward hands.  Again they shouted at\nher, but she muttered something and did something.  In one hand she held\na cigarette bent into a bow, in the other a match.  I paused behind her;\nI was ashamed to pass her, and I was ashamed to stand and look on.  But I\nmade up my mind, and stepped forward.  Her shoulder was lying against the\nfence, and against the fence it was that she vainly struck the match and\nflung it away.  I looked in her face.  She was really a person\nprematurely born; but, as it seemed to me, already an old woman.  I\ncredited her with thirty years.  A dirty hue of face; small, dull, tipsy\neyes; a button-like nose; curved moist lips with drooping corners, and a\nshort wisp of harsh hair escaping from beneath her kerchief; a long flat\nfigure, stumpy hands and feet.  I paused opposite her.  She stared at me,\nand burst into a laugh, as though she knew all that was going on in my\nmind.\n\nI felt that it was necessary to say something to her.  I wanted to show\nher that I pitied her.\n\n\u201cAre your parents alive?\u201d I inquired.\n\nShe laughed hoarsely, with an expression which said, \u201che\u2019s making up\nqueer things to ask.\u201d\n\n\u201cMy mother is,\u201d said she.  \u201cBut what do you want?\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd how old are you?\u201d\n\n\u201cSixteen,\u201d said she, answering promptly to a question which was evidently\ncustomary.\n\n\u201cCome, march, you\u2019ll freeze, you\u2019ll perish entirely,\u201d shouted the\npoliceman; and she swayed away from the fence, and, staggering along, she\nwent down Khamovnitchesky Lane to the police-station; and I turned to the\nwicket, and entered the house, and inquired whether my daughters had\nreturned.  I was told that they had been to an evening party, had had a\nvery merry time, had come home, and were in bed.\n\nNext morning I wanted to go to the station-house to learn what had been\ndone with this unfortunate woman, and I was preparing to go out very\nearly, when there came to see me one of those unlucky noblemen, who,\nthrough weakness, have dropped from the gentlemanly life to which they\nare accustomed, and who alternately rise and fall.  I had been acquainted\nwith this man for three years.  In the course of those three years, this\nman had several times made way with every thing that he had, and even\nwith all his clothes; the same thing had just happened again, and he was\npassing the nights temporarily in the Rzhanoff house, in the\nnight-lodging section, and he had come to me for the day.  He met me as I\nwas going out, at the entrance, and without listening to me he began to\ntell me what had taken place in the Rzhanoff house the night before.  He\nbegan his narrative, and did not half finish it; all at once (he is an\nold man who has seen men under all sorts of aspects) he burst out\nsobbing, and flooded has countenance with tears, and when he had become\nsilent, turned has face to the wall.  This is what he told me.  Every\nthing that he related to me was absolutely true.  I authenticated his\nstory on the spot, and learned fresh particulars which I will relate\nseparately.\n\nIn that night-lodging house, on the lower floor, in No. 32, in which my\nfriend had spent the night, among the various, ever-changing lodgers, men\nand women, who came together there for five kopeks, there was a\nlaundress, a woman thirty years of age, light-haired, peaceable and\npretty, but sickly.  The mistress of the quarters had a boatman lover.\nIn the summer her lover kept a boat, and in the winter they lived by\nletting accommodations to night-lodgers: three kopeks without a pillow,\nfive kopeks with a pillow.\n\nThe laundress had lived there for several months, and was a quiet woman;\nbut latterly they had not liked her, because she coughed and prevented\nthe women from sleeping.  An old half-crazy woman eighty years old, in\nparticular, also a regular lodger in these quarters, hated the laundress,\nand imbittered the latter\u2019s life because she prevented her sleeping, and\ncleared her throat all night like a sheep.  The laundress held her peace;\nshe was in debt for her lodgings, and was conscious of her guilt, and\ntherefore she was bound to be quiet.  She began to go more and more\nrarely to her work, as her strength failed her, and therefore she could\nnot pay her landlady; and for the last week she had not been out to work\nat all, and had only poisoned the existence of every one, especially of\nthe old woman, who also did not go out, with her cough.  Four days before\nthis, the landlady had given the laundress notice to leave the quarters:\nthe latter was already sixty kopeks in debt, and she neither paid them,\nnor did the landlady foresee any possibility of getting them; and all the\nbunks were occupied, and the women all complained of the laundress\u2019s\ncough.\n\nWhen the landlady gave the laundress notice, and told her that she must\nleave the lodgings if she did not pay up, the old woman rejoiced and\nthrust the laundress out of doors.  The laundress departed, but returned\nin an hour, and the landlady had not the heart to put her out again.  And\nthe second and the third day, she did not turn her out.  \u201cWhere am I to\ngo?\u201d said the laundress.  But on the third day, the landlady\u2019s lover, a\nMoscow man, who knew the regulations and how to manage, sent for the\npolice.  A policeman with sword and pistol on a red cord came to the\nlodgings, and with courteous words he led the laundress into the street.\n\nIt was a clear, sunny, but freezing March day.  The gutters were flowing,\nthe house-porters were picking at the ice.  The cabman\u2019s sleigh jolted\nover the icy snow, and screeched over the stones.  The laundress walked\nup the street on the sunny side, went to the church, and seated herself\nat the entrance, still on the sunny side.  But when the sun began to sink\nbehind the houses, the puddles began to be skimmed over with a glass of\nfrost, and the laundress grew cold and wretched.  She rose, and dragged\nherself . . . whither?  Home, to the only home where she had lived so\nlong.  While she was on her way, resting at times, dusk descended.  She\napproached the gates, turned in, slipped, groaned and fell.\n\nOne man came up, and then another.  \u201cShe must be drunk.\u201d  Another man\ncame up, and stumbled over the laundress, and said to the potter: \u201cWhat\ndrunken woman is this wallowing at your gate?  I came near breaking my\nhead over her; take her away, won\u2019t you?\u201d\n\nThe porter came.  The laundress was dead.  This is what my friend told\nme.  It may be thought that I have wilfully mixed up facts,\u2014I encounter a\nprostitute of fifteen, and the story of this laundress.  But let no one\nimagine this; it is exactly what happened in the course of one night\n(only I do not remember which) in March, 1884.  And so, after hearing my\nfriend\u2019s tale, I went to the station-house, with the intention of\nproceeding thence to the Rzhanoff house to inquire more minutely into the\nhistory of the laundress.  The weather was very beautiful and sunny; and\nagain, through the stars of the night-frost, water was to be seen\ntrickling in the shade, and in the glare of the sun on Khamovnitchesky\nsquare every thing was melting, and the water was streaming.  The river\nemitted a humming noise.  The trees of the Neskutchny garden looked blue\nacross the river; the reddish-brown sparrows, invisible in winter,\nattracted attention by their sprightliness; people also seemed desirous\nof being merry, but all of them had too many cares.  The sound of the\nbells was audible, and at the foundation of these mingling sounds, the\nsounds of shots could be heard from the barracks, the whistle of\nrifle-balls and their crack against the target.\n\nI entered the station-house.  In the station some armed policemen\nconducted me to their chief.  He was similarly armed with sword and\npistol, and he was engaged in taking some measures with regard to a\ntattered, trembling old man, who was standing before him, and who could\nnot answer the questions put to him, on account of his feebleness.\nHaving finished his business with the old man, he turned to me.  I\ninquired about the girl of the night before.  At first he listened to me\nattentively, but afterwards he began to smile, at my ignorance of the\nregulations, in consequence of which she had been taken to the\nstation-house; and particularly at my surprise at her youth.\n\n\u201cWhy, there are plenty of them of twelve, thirteen, or fourteen years of\nage,\u201d he said cheerfully.\n\nBut in answer to my question about the girl whom I had seen on the\npreceding evening, he explained to me that she must have been sent to the\ncommittee (so it appeared).  To my question where she had passed the\nnight, he replied in an undecided manner.  He did not recall the one to\nwhom I referred.  There were so many of them every day.\n\nIn No. 32 of the Rzhanoff house I found the sacristan already reading\nprayers over the dead woman.  They had taken her to the bunk which she\nhad formerly occupied; and the lodgers, all miserable beings, had\ncollected money for the masses for her soul, a coffin and a shroud, and\nthe old women had dressed her and laid her out.  The sacristan was\nreading something in the gloom; a woman in a long wadded cloak was\nstanding there with a wax candle; and a man (a gentleman, I must state)\nin a clean coat with a lamb\u2019s-skin collar, polished overshoes, and a\nstarched shirt, was holding one like it.  This was her brother.  They had\nhunted him up.\n\nI went past the dead woman to the landlady\u2019s nook, and questioned her\nabout the whole business.\n\nShe was alarmed at my queries; she was evidently afraid that she would be\nblamed for something; but afterwards she began to talk freely, and told\nme every thing.  As I passed back, I glanced at the dead woman.  All dead\npeople are handsome, but this dead woman was particularly beautiful and\ntouching in her coffin; her pure, pale face, with closed swollen eyes,\nsunken cheeks, and soft reddish hair above the lofty brow,\u2014a weary and\nkind and not a sad but a surprised face.  And in fact, if the living do\nnot see, the dead are surprised.\n\nOn the same day that I wrote the above, there was a great ball in Moscow.\n\nThat night I left the house at nine o\u2019clock.  I live in a locality which\nis surrounded by factories, and I left the house after the\nfactory-whistles had sounded, releasing the people for a day of freedom\nafter a week of unremitting toil.\n\nFactory-hands overtook me, and I overtook others of them, directing their\nsteps to the drinking-shops and taverns.  Many were already intoxicated,\nmany were women.  Every morning at five o\u2019clock we can hear one whistle,\na second, a third, a tenth, and so forth, and so forth.  That means that\nthe toil of women, children, and of old men has begun.  At eight o\u2019clock\nanother whistle, which signifies a breathing-spell of half an hour.  At\ntwelve, a third: this means an hour for dinner.  And a fourth at eight,\nwhich denotes the end of the day.\n\nBy an odd coincidence, all three of the factories which are situated near\nme produce only articles which are in demand for balls.\n\nIn one factory, the nearest, only stockings are made; in another\nopposite, silken fabrics; in the third, perfumes and pomades.\n\nIt is possible to listen to these whistles, and connect no other idea\nwith them than as denoting the time: \u201cThere\u2019s the whistle already, it is\ntime to go to walk.\u201d  But one can also connect with those whistles that\nwhich they signify in reality; that first whistle, at five o\u2019clock, means\nthat people, often all without exception, both men and women, sleeping in\na damp cellar, must rise, and hasten to that building buzzing with\nmachines, and must take their places at their work, whose end and use for\nthemselves they do not see, and thus toil, often in heat and a stifling\natmosphere, in the midst of dirt, and with the very briefest\nbreathing-spells, an hour, two hours, three hours, twelve, and even more\nhours in succession.  They fall into a doze, and again they rise.  And\nthis, for them, senseless work, to which they are driven only by\nnecessity, is continued over and over again.\n\nAnd thus one week succeeds another with the breaks of holidays; and I see\nthese work-people released on one of these holidays.  They emerge into\nthe street.  Everywhere there are drinking-shops, taverns, and loose\ngirls.  And they, in their drunken state, drag by the hand each other,\nand girls like the one whom I saw taken to the station-house; they drag\nwith them cabmen, and they ride and they walk from one tavern to another;\nand they curse and stagger, and say they themselves know not what.  I had\npreviously seen such unsteady gait on the part of factory-hands, and had\nturned aside in disgust, and had been on the point of rebuking them; but\never since I have been in the habit of hearing those whistles every day,\nand understand their meaning, I am only amazed that they, all the men, do\nnot come to the condition of the \u201cgolden squad,\u201d of which Moscow is full,\n{152a} [and the women to the state of the one whom I had seen near my\nhouse]. {152b}\n\nThus I walked along, and scrutinized these factory-hands, as long as they\nroamed the streets, which was until eleven o\u2019clock.  Then their movements\nbegan to calm down.  Some drunken men remained here and there, and here\nand there I encountered men who were being taken to the station-house.\nAnd then carriages began to make their appearance on all sides, directing\ntheir course toward one point.\n\nOn the box sits a coachman, sometimes in a sheepskin coat; and a footman,\na dandy, with a cockade.  Well-fed horses in saddle-cloths fly through\nthe frost at the rate of twenty versts an hour; in the carriages sit\nladies muffled in round cloaks, and carefully tending their flowers and\nhead-dresses.  Every thing from the horse-trappings, the carriages, the\ngutta-percha wheels, the cloth of the coachman\u2019s coat, to the stockings,\nshoes, flowers, velvet, gloves, and perfumes,\u2014every thing is made by\nthose people, some of whom often roll drunk into their dens or\nsleeping-rooms, and some stay with disreputable women in the\nnight-lodging houses, while still others are put in jail.  Thus past them\nin all their work, and over them all, ride the frequenters of balls; and\nit never enters their heads, that there is any connection between these\nballs to which they make ready to go, and these drunkards at whom their\ncoachman shouts so roughly.\n\nThese people enjoy themselves at the ball with the utmost composure of\nspirit, and assurance that they are doing nothing wrong, but something\nvery good.  Enjoy themselves!  Enjoy themselves from eleven o\u2019clock until\nsix in the morning, in the very dead of night, at the very hour when\npeople are tossing and turning with empty stomachs in the night-lodging\nhouses, and while some are dying, as did the laundress.\n\nTheir enjoyment consists in this,\u2014that the women and young girls, having\nbared their necks and arms, and applied bustles behind, place themselves\nin a situation in which no uncorrupted woman or maiden would care to\ndisplay herself to a man, on any consideration in the world; and in this\nhalf-naked condition, with their uncovered bosoms exposed to view, with\narms bare to the shoulder, with a bustle behind and tightly swathed hips,\nunder the most brilliant light, women and maidens, whose chief virtue has\nalways been modesty, exhibit themselves in the midst of strange men, who\nare also clad in improperly tight-fitting garments; and to the sound of\nmaddening music, they embrace and whirl.  Old women, often as naked as\nthe young ones, sit and look on, and eat and drink savory things; old men\ndo the same.  It is not to be wondered at that this should take place at\nnight, when all the common people are asleep, so that no one may see\nthem.  But this is not done with the object of concealment: it seems to\nthem that there is nothing to conceal; that it is a very good thing; that\nby this merry-making, in which the labor of thousands of toiling people\nis destroyed, they not only do not injure any one, but that by this very\nact they furnish the poor with the means of subsistence.  Possibly it is\nvery merry at balls.  But how does this come about?  When we see that\nthere is a man in the community, in our midst, who has had no food, or\nwho is freezing, we regret our mirth, and we cannot be cheerful until he\nis fed and warmed, not to mention the impossibility of imagining people\nwho can indulge in such mirth as causes suffering to others.  The mirth\nof wicked little boys, who pitch a dog\u2019s tail in a split stick, and make\nmerry over it, is repulsive and incomprehensible to us.\n\nIn the same manner here, in these diversions of ours, blindness has\nfallen upon us, and we do not see the split stick with which we have\npitched all those people who suffer for our amusement.\n\n[We live as though there were no connection between the dying laundress,\nthe prostitute of fourteen, and our own life; and yet the connection\nbetween them strikes us in the face.\n\nWe may say: \u201cBut we personally have not pinched any tail in a stick;\u201d but\nwe have no right, to deny that had the tail not been pitched, our\nmerry-making would not have taken place.  We do not see what connection\nexists between the laundress and our luxury; but that is not because no\nsuch connection does exist, but because we have placed a screen in front\nof us, so that we may not see.\n\nIf there were no screen, we should see that which it is impossible not to\nsee.] {154}\n\nSurely all the women who attended that ball in dresses worth a hundred\nand fifty rubles each were born not in a ballroom, or at Madame\nMinanguoit\u2019s; but they have lived in the country, and have seen the\npeasants; they know their own nurse and maid, whose father and brother\nare poor, for whom the earning of a hundred and fifty rubles for a\ncottage is the object of a long, laborious life.  Each woman knows this.\nHow could she enjoy herself, when she knew that she wore on her bared\nbody at that ball the cottage which is the dream of her good maid\u2019s\nfather and brother?  But let us suppose that she could not make this\nreflection; but since velvet and silk and flowers and lace and dresses do\nnot grow of themselves, but are made by people, it would seem that she\ncould not help knowing what sort of people make all these things, and\nunder what conditions, and why they do it.  She cannot fail to know that\nthe seamstress, with whom she has already quarrelled, did not make her\ndress in the least out of love for her; therefore, she cannot help\nknowing that all these things were made for her as a matter of necessity,\nthat her laces, flowers, and velvet have been made in the same way as her\ndress.\n\nBut possibly they are in such darkness that they do not consider this.\nOne thing she cannot fail to know,\u2014that five or six elderly and\nrespectable, often sick, lackeys and maids have had no sleep, and have\nbeen put to trouble on her account.  She has seen their weary, gloomy\nfaces.  She could not help knowing this also, that the cold that night\nreached twenty-eight degrees below zero, {155} and that the old coachman\nsat all night long in that temperature on his box.  But I know that they\nreally do not see this.  And if they, these young women and girls, do not\nsee this, on account of the hypnotic state superinduced in them by balls,\nit is impossible to condemn them.  They, poor things, have done what is\nconsidered right by their elders; but how are their elders to explain\naway this their cruelty to the people?\n\nThe elders always offer the explanation: \u201cI compel no one.  I purchase my\nthings; I hire my men, my maid-servants, and my coachman.  There is\nnothing wrong in buying and hiring.  I force no one\u2019s inclination: I\nhire, and what harm is there in that?\u201d\n\nI recently went to see an acquaintance.  As I passed through one of the\nrooms, I was surprised to see two women seated at a table, as I knew that\nmy friend was a bachelor.  A thin, yellow, old-fashioned woman, thirty\nyears of age, in a dress that had been carelessly thrown on, was doing\nsomething with her hands and fingers on the table, with great speed,\ntrembling nervously the while, as though in a fit.  Opposite her sat a\nyoung girl, who was also engaged in something, and who trembled in the\nsame manner.  Both women appeared to be afflicted with St. Vitus\u2019 dance.\nI stepped nearer to them, and looked to see what they were doing.  They\nraised their eyes to me, but went on with their work with the same\nintentness.  In front of them lay scattered tobacco and paper cases.\nThey were making cigarettes.  The woman rubbed the tobacco between her\nhands, pushed it into the machine, slipped on the cover, thrust the\ntobacco through, then tossed it to the girl.  The girl twisted the paper,\nand, making it fast, threw it aside, and took up another.  All thus was\ndone with such swiftness, with such intentness, as it is impossible to\ndescribe to a man who has never seen it done.  I expressed my surprise at\ntheir quickness.\n\n\u201cI have been doing nothing else for fourteen years,\u201d said the woman.\n\n\u201cIs it hard?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes: it pains my chest, and makes my breathing hard.\u201d\n\nIt was not necessary for her to add this, however.  A look at the girl\nsufficed.  She had worked at this for three years, but any one who had\nnot seen her at this occupation would have said that here was a strong\norganism which was beginning to break down.\n\nMy friend, a kind and liberal man, hires these women to fill his\ncigarettes at two rubles fifty kopeks the thousand.  He has money, and he\nspends it for work.  What harm is there in that?  My friend rises at\ntwelve o\u2019clock.  He passes the evening, from six until two, at cards, or\nat the piano.  He eats and drinks savory things; others do all his work\nfor him.  He has devised a new source of pleasure,\u2014smoking.  He has taken\nup smoking within my memory.\n\nHere is a woman, and here is a girl, who can barely support themselves by\nturning themselves into machines, and they pass their whole lives\ninhaling tobacco, and thereby running their health.  He has money which\nhe never earned, and he prefers to play at whist to making his own\ncigarettes.  He gives these women money on condition that they shall\ncontinue to live in the same wretched manner in which they are now\nliving, that is to say, by making his cigarettes.\n\nI love cleanliness, and I give money only on the condition that the\nlaundress shall wash the shirt which I change twice a day; and that shirt\nhas destroyed the laundress\u2019s last remaining strength, and she has died.\nWhat is there wrong about that?  People who buy and hire will continue to\nforce other people to make velvet and confections, and will purchase\nthem, without me; and no matter what I may do, they will hire cigarettes\nmade and shirts washed.  Then why should I deprive myself of velvet and\nconfections and cigarettes and clean shirts, if things are definitively\nsettled thus?  This is the argument which I often, almost always, hear.\nThis is the very argument which makes the mob which is destroying\nsomething, lose its senses.  This is the very argument by which dogs are\nguided when one of them has flung himself on another dog, and overthrown\nhim, and the rest of the pack rush up also, and tear their comrade in\npieces.  Other people have begun it, and have wrought mischief; then why\nshould not I take advantage of it?  Well, what will happen if I wear a\nsoiled shirt, and make my own cigarettes?  Will that make it easier for\nanybody else? ask people who would like to justify their course.  If it\nwere not so far from the truth, it would be a shame to answer such a\nquestion, but we have become so entangled that this question seems very\nnatural to us; and hence, although it is a shame, it is necessary to\nreply to it.\n\nWhat difference will it make if I wear one shirt a week, and make may own\ncigarettes, or do not smoke at all?  This difference, that some laundress\nand some cigarette-maker will exert their strength less, and that what I\nhave spent for washing and for the making of cigarettes I can give to\nthat very laundress, or even to other laundresses and toilers who are\nworn out with their labor, and who, instead of laboring beyond their\nstrength, will then be able to rest, and drink tea.  But to this I hear\nan objection.  (It is so mortifying to rich and luxurious people to\nunderstand their position.)  To this they say: \u201cIf I go about in a dirty\nshirt, and give up smoking, and hand over this money to the poor, the\npoor will still be deprived of every thing, and that drop in the sea of\nyours will help not at all.\u201d\n\nSuch an objection it is a shame to answer.  It is such a common retort.\n{158}\n\nIf I had gone among savages, and they had regaled me with cutlets which\nstruck me as savory, and if I should learn on the following day that\nthese savory cutlets had been made from a prisoner whom they had slain\nfor the sake of the savory cutlets, if I do not admit that it is a good\nthing to eat men, then, no matter how dainty the cutlets, no matter how\nuniversal the practice of eating men may be among my fellows, however\ninsignificant the advantage to prisoners, prepared for consumption, may\nbe my refusal to eat of the cutlets, I will not and I can not eat any\nmore of them.  I may, possibly, eat human flesh, when hunger compels me\nto it; but I will not make a feast, and I will not take part in feasts,\nof human flesh, and I will not seek out such feasts, and pride myself on\nmy share in them.\n\n\nLIFE IN THE COUNTRY.\n\n\nBut what is to be done?  Surely it is not we who have done this?  And if\nnot we, who then?\n\nWe say: \u201cWe have not done this, this has done itself;\u201d as the children\nsay, when they break any thing, that it broke itself.  We say, that, so\nlong as there is a city already in existence, we, by living in it,\nsupport the people, by purchasing their labor and services.  But this is\nnot so.  And this is why.  We only need to look ourselves, at the way we\nhave in the country, and at the manner in which we support people there.\n\nThe winter passes in town.  Easter Week passes.  On the boulevards, in\nthe gardens in the parks, on the river, there is music.  There are\ntheatres, water-trips, walks, all sorts of illuminations and fireworks.\nBut in the country there is something even better,\u2014there are better air,\ntrees and meadows, and the flowers are fresher.  One should go thither\nwhere all these things have unfolded and blossomed forth.  And the\nmajority of wealthy people do go to the country to breathe the superior\nair, to survey these superior forests and meadows.  And there the wealthy\nsettle down in the country, and the gray peasants, who nourish themselves\non bread and onions, who toil eighteen hours a day, who get no sound\nsleep by night, and who are clad in blouses.  Here no one has led these\npeople astray.  There have been no factories nor industrial\nestablishments, and there are none of those idle hands, of which there\nare so many in the city.  Here the whole population never succeeds, all\nsummer long, in completing all their tasks in season; and not only are\nthere no idle hands, but a vast quantity of property is ruined for the\nlack of hands, and a throng of people, children, old men, and women, will\nperish through overstraining their powers in work which is beyond their\nstrength.  How do the rich order their lives there?  In this fashion:\u2014\n\nIf there is an old-fashioned house, built under the serf _r\u00e9gime_, that\nhouse is repaired and embellished; if there is none, then a new one is\nerected, of two or three stories.  The rooms, of which there are from\ntwelve to twenty, and even more, are all six arshins in height. {161a}\nWood floors are laid down.  The windows consist of one sheet of glass.\nThere are rich rugs and costly furniture.  The roads around the house are\nmacadamized, the ground is levelled, flower-beds are laid out,\ncroquet-grounds are prepared, swinging-rings for gymnastics are erected,\nreflecting globes, often orangeries, and hotbeds, and lofty stables\nalways with complicated scroll-work on the gables and ridges.\n\nAnd here, in the country, an honest educated official, or noble family\ndwells.  All the members of the family and their guests have assembled in\nthe middle of June, because up to June, that is to say, up to the\nbeginning of mowing-time, they have been studying and undergoing\nexaminations; and they live there until September, that is to say, until\nharvest and sowing-time.  The members of this family (as is the case with\nnearly every one in that circle) have lived in the country from the\nbeginning of the press of work, the suffering time, not until the end of\nthe season of toil (for in September sowing is still in progress, as well\nas the digging of potatoes), but until the strain of work has relaxed a\nlittle.  During the whole of their residence in the country, all around\nthem and beside them, that summer toil of the peasantry has been going\non, of whose fatigues, no matter how much we may have heard, no matter\nhow much we may have heard about it, no matter how much we may have gazed\nupon it, we can form no idea, unless we have had personal experience of\nit.  And the members of this family, about ten in number, live exactly as\nthey do in the city.\n\nAt St. Peter\u2019s Day, {161b} a strict fast, when the people\u2019s food consists\nof kvas, bread, and onions, the mowing begins.\n\nThe business which is effected in mowing is one of the most important in\nthe commune.  Nearly every year, through the lack of hands and time, the\nhay crop may be lost by rain; and more or less strain of toil decides the\nquestion, as to whether twenty or more per cent of hay is to be added to\nthe wealth of the people, or whether it is to rot or die where it stands.\nAnd additional hay means additional meat for the old, and additional milk\nfor the children.  Thus, in general and in particular, the question of\nbread for each one of the mowers, and of milk for himself and his\nchildren, in the ensuing winter, is then decided.  Every one of the\ntoilers, both male and female, knows this; even the children know that\nthis is an important matter, and that it is necessary to strain every\nnerve to carry the jug of kvas to their father in the meadow at his\nmowing, and, shifting the heavy pitcher from hand to hand, to run\nbarefooted as rapidly as possible, two versts from the village, in order\nto get there in season for dinner, and so that their fathers may not\nscold them.\n\nEvery one knows, that, from the mowing season until the hay is got in,\nthere will be no break in the work, and that there will be no time to\nbreathe.  And there is not the mowing alone.  Every one of them has other\naffairs to attend to besides the mowing: the ground must be turned up and\nharrowed; and the women have linen and bread and washing to attend to;\nand the peasants have to go to the mill, and to town, and there are\ncommunal matters to attend to, and legal matters before the judge and the\ncommissary of police; and the wagons to see to, and the horses to feed at\nnight: and all, old and young, and sickly, labor to the last extent of\ntheir powers.  The peasants toil so, that on every occasion, the mowers,\nbefore the end of the third stint, whether weak, young, or old, can\nhardly walk as they totter past the last rows, and only with difficulty\nare they able to rise after the breathing-spell; and the women, often\npregnant, or nursing infants, work in the same way.  The toil is intense\nand incessant.  All work to the extreme bounds of their strength, and\nexpend in this toil, not only the entire stock of their scanty\nnourishment, but all their previous stock.  All of them\u2014and they are not\nfat to begin with\u2014grow gaunt after the \u201csuffering\u201d season.\n\nHere a little association is working at the mowing; three peasants,\u2014one\nan old man, the second his nephew, a young married man, and a shoemaker,\na thin, sinewy man.  This hay-harvest will decide the fate of all of them\nfor the winter.  They have been laboring incessantly for two weeks,\nwithout rest.  The rain has delayed their work.  After the rain, when the\nhay has dried, they have decided to stack it, and, in order to accomplish\nthis as speedily as possible, that two women for each of them shall\nfollow their scythes.  On the part of the old man go his wife, a woman of\nfifty, who has become unfit for work, having borne eleven children, who\nis deaf, but still a tolerably stout worker; and a thirteen-year-old\ndaughter, who is short of stature, but a strong and clever girl.  On the\npart of his nephew go his wife, a woman as strong and well-grown as a\nsturdy peasant, and his daughter-in-law, a soldier\u2019s wife, who is about\nto become a mother.  On the part of the shoemaker go his wife, a stout\nlaborer, and her aged mother, who has reached her eightieth year, and who\ngenerally goes begging.  They all stand in line, and labor from morning\ntill night, in the full fervor of the June sun.  It is steaming hot, and\nrain threatens.  Every hour of work is precious.  It is a pity to tear\none\u2019s self from work to fetch water or kvas.  A tiny boy, the old woman\u2019s\ngrandson, brings them water.  The old woman, evidently only anxious lest\nshe shall be driven away from her work, will not let the rake out of her\nhand, though it is evident that she can barely move, and only with\ndifficulty.  The little boy, all bent over, and stepping gently, with his\ntiny bare feet, drags along a jug of water, shifting it from hand to\nhand, for it is heavier than he.  The young girl flings over her shoulder\na load of hay which is also heavier than herself, advances a few steps,\nhalts, and drops it, without the strength to carry it.  The old woman of\nfifty rakes away without stopping, and with her kerchief awry she drags\nthe hay, breathing heavily and tottering.  The old woman of eighty only\nrakes the hay, but even this is beyond her strength; she slowly drags\nalong her feet, shod with bast shoes, and, frowning, she gazes gloomily\nbefore her, like a seriously ill or dying person.  The old man has\nintentionally sent her farther away than the rest, to rake near the cocks\nof hay, so that she may not keep in line with the others; but she does\nnot fall in with this arrangement, and she toils on as long as the others\ndo, with the same death-like, gloomy countenance.  The sun is already\nsetting behind the forest; but the cocks are not yet all heaped together,\nand much still remains to do.  All feel that it is time to stop, but no\none speaks, waiting until the others shall say it.  Finally the\nshoemaker, conscious that his strength is exhausted, proposes to the old\nman, to leave the cocks until the morrow; and the old man consents, and\nthe women instantly run for the garments, jugs, pitchforks; and the old\nwoman immediately sits down just where she has been standings and then\nlies back with the same death-like look, staring straight in front of\nher.  But the women are going; and she rises with a groan, and drags\nherself after them.  And this will go on in July also, when the peasants,\nwithout obtaining sufficient sleep, reap the oats by night, lest it\nshould fall, and the women rise gloomily to thresh out the straw for the\nbands to tie the sheaves; when this old woman, already utterly cramped by\nthe labor of mowing, and the woman with child, and the young children,\ninjure themselves overworking and over-drinking; and when neither hands,\nnor horses, nor carts will suffice to bring to the ricks that grain with\nwhich all men are nourished, and millions of poods {165} of which are\ndaily required in Russia to keep people from perishing.\n\nAnd we live as though there were no connection between the dying\nlaundress, the prostitute of fourteen years, the toilsome manufacture of\ncigarettes by women, the strained, intolerable, insufficiently fed toil\nof old women and children around us; we live as though there were no\nconnection between this and our own lives.\n\nIt seems to us, that suffering stands apart by itself, and our life apart\nby itself.  We read the description of the life of the Romans, and we\nmarvel at the inhumanity of those soulless Luculli, who satiated\nthemselves on viands and wines while the populace were dying with hunger.\nWe shake our heads, and we marvel at the savagery of our grandfathers,\nwho were serf-owners, supporters of household orchestras and theatres,\nand of whole villages devoted to the care of their gardens; and we\nwonder, from the heights of our grandeur, at their inhumanity.  We read\nthe words of Isa. v. 8: \u201cWoe unto them that join house to house, that lay\nfield to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in\nthe midst of the earth!  (11.) Woe unto them that rise up early in the\nmorning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night,\ntill wine inflame them!  (12.) And the harp and the viol, and tabret and\npipe, and wine are in their feasts; but they regard not the work of the\nLord, neither consider the operation of his hands.  (18.) Woe unto them\nthat draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a\ncart-rope.  (20.) Woe unto then that call evil good, and good evil; that\nput darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for\nsweet, and sweet for bitter! (21.) Woe unto them that are wise in their\nown eyes, and prudent in their own sight\u2014(22.) Woe unto them that are\nmighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink.\u201d\n\nWe read these words, and it seems to us that this has no reference to us.\nWe read in the Gospels (Matt. iii. 10): \u201cAnd now also the axe is laid\nunto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth\ngood fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.\u201d\n\nAnd we are fully convinced that the good tree which bringeth forth good\nfruit is ourselves; and that these words are not spoken to us, but to\nsome other and wicked people.\n\nWe read the words of Isa. vi. 10: \u201cMake the heart of this people fat, and\nmake their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their\neyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and\nconvert and be healed.  (11.) Then said I: Lord, how long?  And he\nanswered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses\nwithout man, and the land be utterly desolate.\u201d\n\nWe read, and are fully convinced that this marvellous deed is not\nperformed on us, but on some other people.  And because we see nothing it\nis, that this marvellous deed is performed, and has been performed, on\nus.  We hear not, we see not, and we understand not with our heart.  How\nhas this happened?\n\nWhether that God, or that natural law by virtue of which men exist in the\nworld, has acted well or ill, yet the position of men in the world, ever\nsince we have known it, has been such, that naked people, without any\nhair on their bodies, without lairs in which they could shelter\nthemselves, without food which they could find in the fields,\u2014like\nRobinson {167} on his island,\u2014have all been reduced to the necessity of\nconstantly and unweariedly contending with nature in order to cover their\nbodies, to make themselves clothing, to construct a roof over their\nheads, and to earn their bread, that two or three times a day they may\nsatisfy their hunger and the hunger of their helpless children and of\ntheir old people who cannot work.\n\nWherever, at whatever time, in whatever numbers we may have observed\npeople, whether in Europe, in America, in China, or in Russia, whether we\nregard all humanity, or any small portion of it, in ancient times, in a\nnomad state, or in our own times, with steam-engines and sewing-machines,\nperfected agriculture, and electric lighting, we behold always one and\nthe same thing,\u2014that man, toiling intensely and incessantly, is not able\nto earn for himself and his little ones and his old people clothing,\nshelter, and food; and that a considerable portion of mankind, as in\nformer times, so at the present day, perish through insufficiency of the\nnecessaries of life, and intolerable toil in the effort to obtain them.\n\nWherever we have, if we draw a circle round us of a hundred thousand, a\nthousand, or ten versts, or of one verst, and examine into the lives of\nthe people comprehended within the limits of our circle, we shall see\nwithin that circle prematurely-born children, old men, old women, women\nin labor, sick and weak persons, who toil beyond their strength, and who\nhave not sufficient food and rest for life, and who therefore die before\ntheir time.  We shall see people in the flower of their age actually\nslain by dangerous and injurious work.\n\nWe see that people have been struggling, ever since the world has\nendured, with fearful effort, privation, and suffering, against this\nuniversal want, and that they cannot overcome it . . . {168}\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n\n{21a}  The fine, tall members of a regiment, selected and placed together\nto form a showy squad.\n\n{21b}  [] Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition printed in\nRussia, in the set of Count Tolsto\u00ef\u2019s works.\n\n{24a}  R\u00e9aumur.\n\n{24b}  A drink made of water, honey, and laurel or salvia leaves, which\nis drunk as tea, especially by the poorer classes.\n\n{28}  [] Omitted by the censor from the authorized edition published in\nRussia in the set of count Tolstoi\u2019s works.  The omission is indicated\nthus . . .\n\n{39}  _Kalatch_, a kind of roll: _baranki_, cracknels of fine flour.\n\n{59}  An _arshin_ is twenty-eight inches.\n\n{60}  A _myeshchanin_, or citizen, who pays only poll-tax and not a guild\ntax.\n\n{62}  Omitted in authorized edition.\n\n{66}  Omitted by the censor in the authorized edition.\n\n{94}  Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.\n\n{96}  Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.\n\n{99}  Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.\n\n{108}  Omitted by the Censor from the authorized edition.\n\n{111}  Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.\n\n{113}  Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition\n\n{116}  Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.\n\n{122a}  Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.\n\n{122b}  A very complicated sort of whist.\n\n{122c}  Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.\n\n{124}  The whole of this chapter is omitted by the Censor in the\nauthorized edition, and is there represented by the following sentence:\n\u201cAnd I felt that in money, in money itself, in the possession of it,\nthere was something immoral; and I asked myself, What is money?\u201d\n\n{135}  Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.\n\n{138}  Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.\n\n{139}  The above passage is omitted in the authorized edition, and the\nfollowing is added: \u201cI came to the simple and natural conclusion, that,\nif I pity the tortured horse upon which I am riding, the first thing for\nme to do is to alight, and to walk on my own feet.\u201d\n\n{140}  Omitted in the authorized edition.\n\n{142a}  Omitted in the authorized edition.\n\n{142b}  Omitted in the authorized edition.\n\n{152a}  \u201cInto a worse state,\u201d in the authorized edition.\n\n{152b}  Omitted in the authorized edition.\n\n{154}  Omitted in the authorized edition.\n\n{155}  R\u00e9aumur.\n\n{158}  In the Moscow edition (authorized by the Censor), the concluding\nparagraph is replaced by the following:\u2014\u201cThey say: The action of a single\nman is but a drop in the sea.  A drop in the sea!\n\n\u201cThere is an Indian legend relating how a man dropped a pearl into the\nsea, and in order to recover it he took a bucket, and began to bail out,\nand to pour the water on the shore.  Thus he toiled without intermission,\nand on the seventh day the spirit of the sea grew alarmed lest the man\nshould dip the sea dry, and so he brought him his pearl.  If our social\nevil of persecuting man were the sea, then that pearl which we have lost\nis equivalent to devoting our lives to bailing out the sea of that evil.\nThe prince of this world will take fright, he will succumb more promptly\nthan did the spirit of the sea; but this social evil is not the sea, but\na foul cesspool, which we assiduously fill with our own uncleanness.  All\nthat is required is for us to come to our senses, and to comprehend what\nwe are doing; to fall out of love with our own uncleanness,\u2014in order that\nthat imaginary sea should dry away, and that we should come into\npossession of that priceless pearl,\u2014fraternal, humane life.\u201d\n\n{161a}  An arshin is twenty-eight inches.\n\n{161b}  The fast extends from the 5th to the 30th of June, O.S.  (June 27\nto July 12, N.S.)\n\n{165}  A pood is thirty-six pounds.\n\n{167}  Robinson Crusoe.\n\n{168}  Here something has been omitted by the Censor, which I am unable\nto supply.\u2014TRANS.","title":"What to Do? Thoughts Evoked By the Census of Moscow","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":44946}