I imagined that we (those very people who have for several generations led, and are still leading, these women into that condition) could one fine day take it into our heads suddenly to rectify it all. Yet had I but remembered my talk with the loose woman who was rocking the child whose mother was ill, I might have understood how insensate such an undertaking was.
When we saw that woman with the child we thought it was her own. In reply to the question, Who are you? she said simply that she was a wench. She did not say, ‘A prostitute’. Only the landlord of the lodging used that terrible word. The supposition that she had a child of her own suggested to me the thought of extricating her from her position. So I asked:
‘Is that your child?’
‘No, it’s this woman’s.’
‘How is it you are rocking it?’ ‘She asked me to. She is dying.’
Though my supposition had proved erroneous, I continued to speak to her in the same sense. I began to ask her who she was and how she came to be in such a position. She told me her story willingly and very simply. She was of Moscow birth, the daughter of a factory workman. She had been left an orphan, and an aunt (now dead) had taken charge of her. From her aunt’s she began to frequent the taverns. When I asked whether she would not like to change her way of life, my question evidently did not even interest her. How can the suggestion of anything quite impossible interest anybody? She giggled and said: ‘Who would take me with a yellow ticket?’1
‘Well, but suppose we found you a place as cook somewhere?’ said I.
That idea suggested itself to me because she was a strong, flaxen-haired woman with a kindly, round face. There are cooks like that. My words obviously did not please her. She said:
‘A cook! But I can’t bake bread!’ and she laughed. She said she could not, but I saw by the expression of her face that she did not wish to be a cook and despised that position and calling.
This woman, who like the widow in the Gospels had quite simply sacrificed her all for a sick neighbour, considered, as her companions did, that the position of a worker was degrading, and she despised it. She had been brought up to live without working and in the way that was considered natural by those around her. Therein lay her misfortune: this misfortune had led her into her present position and kept her there. That was what led her to sit in taverns. And which of us-man or woman-can cure her of that false view of life? Where among us are people who are convinced that an industrious life is always more to be respected than an idle one-people convinced of this and who live accordingly: valuing and respecting others on the basis of that conviction? Had I thought of this, I might have understood that neither I nor any one of those I knew could cure this disease.
I should have understood that those surprised and attentive faces that peered over the partition showed merely surprise at hearing sympathy expressed for them, but certainly not any hope of being cured of their immorality. They do not see the immorality of their lives. They know they are despised and abused, but cannot understand why. They have lived from childhood among other such women, who they know very well have always existed and do exist, and are necessary for society: so necessary that Government officials are appointed to see that they exist properly.2
They know moreover that they have power over men and can often influence them more than other women can. They see that their position in society, though they are always abused, is recognized both by women and men and by the Government, and so they cannot even understand what there is for them to repent of and wherein they ought to amend. During one of our rounds a student told me of a woman in one of the lodgings who traded in her thirteen year-old daughter. Wishing to save the girl, I purposely went to that lodging. The mother and
1 The passport issued to a prostitute by the police.-A. M.
2 This is a reference to the licensing, inspection, and medical examination of brothels that was regularly carried on in Russia.-A. M.
daughter were living in great poverty. The mother, a small, dark, forty-year-old prostitute, was not merely ugly but unpleasantly ugly. The daughter was equally unpleasant. To all my indirect questions about their way of life the mother replied curtly and with hostile distrust, evidently regarding me as an enemy. The daughter never answered me without first glancing at her mother, and evidently trusted her completely.
They did not evoke in me cordial pity rather repulsion; but yet I decided that it was necessary to save the daughter, and that I would speak to some ladies who take an interest in the wretched position of such women, and would send them here. Had I but thought of the long past life of that mother: of how she bore, nursed, and reared that daughter-in her position assuredly without the least help from others, and with heavy sacrifices-had I thought of the view that had been formed in her mind, I should have understood that in her action there was absolutely nothing bad or immoral: she had done and was doing all she could for her daughter-that is to say, just what she herself considered best.
One might take the daughter from the mother by force, but one could not convince the mother that it was wrong of her to sell her daughter. To save her one ought long ago to have saved her mother-saved her from the view of life approved by everybody, which allows a woman to live without marriage, that is without bearing children and without working, serving only as a satisfaction for sensuality.
Had I thought of that I should have understood that the majority of the ladies I wished to send here to save that girl themselves live without bearing children and without work, serving merely to satisfy sensuality and deliberately educate their daughters for such a life. One mother leads her daughter to the taverns, another takes hers to Court or to balls, but both share the same view of life: namely, that a woman should satisfy a man’s lusts and that for that service she should be fed, clothed, and cared for. How then can our ladies save that woman or her daughter?
CHAPTER IX
STILL stranger was my relation towards the children. In my role of benefactor I noticed them too. I wished to save innocent beings from perishing in that den of depravity, and I wrote them down intending to occupy myself with them ‘afterwards’ .
Among them I was particularly struck by a twelve-year-old boy, Serezha. He was a sharp, clever lad who had been living at a boot maker’s and was left homeless when his master was sent to prison. I was very sorry for the lad and wished to be of use to him.
I will tell how the help I gave him ended, for the story shows most clearly how false my position as a benefactor was. I took the boy home and put him in our kitchen. Was it possible to put a lousy boy taken from a den of depravity, among our own children? I considered myself very kind and good to let him inconvenience not me but our servants, and because we (not I but the cook) fed him, and because I gave him some cast-off clothes to wear. The boy stayed about a week. During that time I twice spoke a few words to him in passing, and while out for a walk called on a boot maker I know and mentioned the boy to him as a possible apprentice. A peasant1 who was staying with me invited the boy to live with him in the village as a labourer. The boy declined, and a week
1 Sutaev, of whom there is an account in my Life of Tolstoy. — A. M.
later disappeared. I went to Rzhimov House to inquire for him. He had been there, but was not at home when I called. That day and the day before he had gone to the Zoological Gardens, where he was hired for thirty kopeks a day to take part in a procession of costumed savages, who led an elephant about in some show they had on.
I returned another day, but he was so ungrateful that he evidently avoided me. Had I then reflected on that boy’s life and my own,
