severity; then he was directed to write something by way of explanation; then they refused to take what he had written, and ordered him to file a petition — in short, he had been driven from pillar to post for the last five months, and had spent his last farthing. His wife’s last rags were in pawn, and now there was a new baby, and, and . . . ‘to-day a final refusal of my petition, and I’ve hardly bread — nothing — my wife just confined. I… I…’
“He jumped up from his chair and turned away. His wife was crying in the corner, the baby began squealing again. I took out my notebook and began writing in it. When I had finished and stood up, he was standing before me, looking at me with timid curiosity.
‘“I have put down your name,’ I said, ‘and all the rest of it: the place where you served, the name of the governor, the day of the month. I have a comrade, an old schoolfellow called Bahmutov, and his uncle, Pyotr Matvyeitch Bahmutov, is an actual state councillor and director…’
‘“Pyotr Matvyeitch Bahmutov!’ exclaimed my doctor, almost trembling. ‘Why, it almost entirely depends upon him!’
“Everything about my doctor’s story and its successful conclusion, which I chanced to assist in bringing about, fell out and fitted in as though by design, exactly as in a novel. I told these poor people that they must try not to build any hopes on me; that I was a poor schoolboy myself. (I intentionally exaggerated my powerlessness; I finished my studies long ago and am not a schoolboy.) I told them that it was no good for them to know my name, but that I’d go at once to Vassilyevsky Island to my schoolfellow Bahmutov; and as I knew for a fact that his uncle, the actual state councillor, being a bachelor without children, positively worshipped his nephew, loving him passionately as the last representative of the family, ‘My comrade may perhaps be able to do something for you, and for me, with his uncle, of course.’
‘“If only they would allow me an explanation with his excellency! If only they would vouchsafe me the honour of a personal explanation!’ he exclaimed, with glittering eyes, shivering as though he were in a fever.
“That was what he said, ‘vouchsafe.’ Repeating once more that it would be sure to come to nothing, I added that if I didn’t come to see them next morninq,
it would mean that everything was over and they had nothing to expect. They showed me out with bows; they were almost beside themselves. I shall never forget the expression of their faces. I took a cab and at once set off for Vassilyevsky Island.
“At school I had been for years on bad terms with Bahmutov. He was considered an aristocrat among us, or I at least used to call him one. He was very well dressed and drove his own horses, but was not a bit stuck-up. He was always a good comrade, and exceptionally good-humoured, sometimes even witty. He hadn’t a very far-reaching intelligence, though he was always top of the class. I was never top in anything. All his schoolfellows liked him, except me. He had several times made overtures to me during those years, but I had always turned away from him with sullen ill-humour. Now I had not seen him for a year; he was at the university. When towards nine o’clock I went in to him, I was announced with great ceremony. He met me at first with amazement, and far from affably, but he soon brightened up and, looking at me, burst out laughing.
‘“What possessed you to come and see me,
Terentyev?’ he cried with his invariable good-natured ease, which was sometimes impudent but never offensive, which I liked so much in him and for which I hated him so much. ‘But how’s this?’ he exclaimed with dismay. ‘You’re very ill!’
“My cough racked me again. I dropped into a chair and could scarcely get my breath.
‘“Don’t trouble. I’m in consumption,’ I said. ‘I’ve come to you with a request.’
“He sat down, wondering, and I told him at once the whole story of the doctor, and explained that, having an influence over his uncle, he might be able to do something.
‘“I’ll do it. Certainly I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘I’ll attack my uncle to-morrow. And indeed I’m glad to do it; and you’ve told it all so well. . . . But what put it into your head, Terentyev, to come to me?’
‘“So much depends upon your uncle in this case. And since we were always enemies, Bahmutov, and as you’re an honourable man, I thought you wouldn’t refuse an enemy,’ I added with irony.
‘“As Napoleon appealed to England!’ he cried, laughing. ‘I’ll do it! I’ll do it! I’ll go at once if I can,’ he added hastily, seeing that I was gravely and sternly getting up from my chair.
“And indeed the affair was unexpectedly arranged among us in the most successful way. Within six weeks our doctor was appointed to a post in another province, and had received help in money, as well as his travelling expenses. I suspect that Bahmutov, who had taken to visiting the doctor pretty often (I purposely did not do so, and even received the doctor coolly when he came to see me), I suspect that Bahmutov had induced the doctor to accept a loan from him. I saw Bahmutov about twice in the course of the six weeks, and we met for the third time when we saw the last of the doctor. Bahmutov got up a dinnerwith champagne for him at parting, at which the doctor’s wife too was present, though she left early to go home to her baby. It was at the beginning of May. It was a fine evening. The huge ball of the sun was sinking on the water. Bahmutov saw me home; we went by the Nikolaevsky Bridge; we were both a little drunk. Bahmutov spoke of his delight at the successful conclusion of the business, thanked me for something, said how happy he felt after a good deed, declared that the credit of it all was mine, and that people were wrong in preaching and maintaining, as many do now, that individual benevolence was of no use. I had a great longing to speak too.
‘“Anyone who attacks individual charity,’ I began, ‘attacks human nature and casts contempt on personal dignity. But the organisation of “public charity” and the problem of individual freedom are two distinct questions, and not mutually exclusive. Individual kindness will always remain, because it’s an individual impulse, the living impulse of one personality to exert a direct influence upon another. There was an old fellow at Moscow, a “General” — that is, an actual state councillor, with a German name. He spent his whole life visiting prisons and prisoners; every party of exiles to Siberia knew beforehand that the “old General” would visit them on the Sparrow Hills. He carried out this good work with the greatest earnestness and devotion. He would turn up, walk through the rows of prisoners, who surrounded him, stop before each, questioning each as to his needs, calling each of them “my dear,” and hardly ever preaching to anyone. He used to give them money, send them the most necessary articles — leq-wrappers, under qarments, linen, and sometimes took them books of devotion, which he distributed among those who could read, firmly persuaded that they would read them on the way, and that those who could read would read them to those who could not. He rarely asked a prisoner about his crime; he simply listened if the criminal began speaking of it. All the criminals were on an equal footing with him, he made no distinction between them. He talked to them as though they were brothers, and they came in the end to look on him as a father. If he saw a woman with a baby among the prisoners, he would go up, fondle the child, and snap his fingers to make it laugh. He visited the prisoners like this for many years, up to the time of his death, so much so that he was known all over Russia and Siberia — that is, by all the criminals. A man who had been in Siberia told me that he had seen himself how the most hardened criminals remembered the general; yet the latter could rarely give more than twenty farthings to each prisoner on his visits. It’s true they spoke of him without any great warmth, or even earnestness. Some one of these “unhappy” creatures, a man who had murdered a dozen people and slaughtered six children solely for his own pleasure (for there are such men, I am told), would suddenly, once in twenty years, apropos of nothing, heave a sigh and say:
“‘ “What about that old general, is he still alive, I wonder?”
‘“Perhaps he smiles as he says it. And that’s all. But how can you tell what seed may have been dropped in his soul for ever by that old general, whom he hasn’t forgotten for twenty years? How can you tell, Bahmutov, what significance such an association of one personality with another may have on the destiny of those associated? . . . You know it’s a matter of a whole lifetime, an infinite multitude of ramifications hidden from us. The most skilful chess-player, the cleverest of them, can only look a few moves ahead; a French player who could reckon out ten