1 About a penny.
me by the Town Duma for my work as organizer: which amounts I positively did not know what to do with.
The whole affair was at an end. On the Sunday of Carnival week, before leaving Moscow and going to the country. I went in the morning to Rzhanov House to get rid of those thirty-seven rubles by distributing them to the poor. I went to see those I knew in the tenements, and found only one sick man, to whom I gave something, five rubles I think. There was no one else there to give to. Of course many began begging. But I did not know them now any better than I had known them at first, and I decided to consult Ivan Fedotych, the owner of the tavern as to the disposal of the remaining thirty-two rubles.
It was the first day of Carnival. Everyone was dressed in his best, all had eaten enough and many were tipsy. In the yard, by a corner of the house, in a torn peasant coat and bast-shoes, stood an old but still active rag-and-bone man sorting the booty in his basket, throwing the leather, iron, and other things, into different heaps, and trolling a merry song in a strong and excellent voice. I had a chat with him. He was seventy, lived by himself by his trade as rag-and bone dealer, and not only did not complain, but said he had enough to eat and get drunk on. I asked him if there were any who were specially in need. He seemed vexed, and said plainly that none were in need except drunkards and lazybones, but on hearing of my aim, he asked me for five kopeks1 to get a drink with, and ran off to the tavern.
I also went into the tavern to Ivan Fedotych, to entrust him with the distribution of the remaining money. The tavern was full; gaudy and tipsy girls were going from door to door, all the tables were occupied many were already drunk, and in a small room someone was playing a concertina and two people were dancing. Ivan Fedotych out of respect for me ordered the dancing to cease, and sat down with me at a vacant table. I said that as he knew his lodgers and I was commissioned to distribute a little money, would he not point out to me those most in need? Good-natured Ivan Fedotych (he died a year later), though busy with his trade, left it for a while to help me. He considered, and evidently felt puzzled. An elderly waiter heard what we were talking about and joined in our conference.
They began to go over the lodgers, some of whom I knew; but they could not agree. ‘Paramonovna,’ suggested the waiter. ‘Yes, she goes hungry sometimes. But then she goes on the spree.’ ‘Well, what of that? All the same … ‘ ‘And Spiridon Ivanovich, he has children?’ But Ivan Fedotych had his doubts about Spiridon Ivanovich. ‘Akuhna? But she receives an allowance. How about the blind man?’ To him I objected. I had just seen him. He was a blind man of eighty, without kith or kin.
One would suppose no condition could be worse; but I had just seen him-he was lying drunk on a high featherbed and, not seeing me, he was abusing, in the filthiest language and in a terrible bass voice, the comparatively young woman with whom he cohabited. They then suggested a one-armed boy who lived with his mother. I noticed that Ivan Fedotych was embarrassed owing to his conscientiousness, for he knew that at Carnival time whatever was given would all come back to him at the tavern. But I had to get rid of my thirty-two rubles, and I insisted, and somehow, well or ill, the money was at last disposed of. Those who received it were for the most part well dressed, and we had not to go far for them for they were there in the tavern. The one-armed boy appeared in high boots, a red shirt, and a waistcoat.
1 About 25 shillings.
So ended my charitable activity, and I departed for the country, vexed with others-as is always the case-because I had myself done something stupid and bad. My charity came to nothing and quite ceased, but the flow of thoughts and feelings in me did not cease but went on with redoubled force.
CHAPTER XII
WHAT did it all mean?
I had lived in the country and had there been in touch with village poverty. Not out of humility which is more like pride, but to tell the truth which is necessary to make the whole trend of my thoughts and feelings comprehensible, I will mention that in the country I did very little for the poor, but the demands made on me there were so modest that even the little I did was of use to the people and created an atmosphere of love and satisfaction around me, amid which it was possible to soothe the gnawing consciousness of the wrongfulness of my way of life. When we moved to town I hoped to live in just the same way. But there I met poverty of quite a different kind. Town poverty was less truthful and more exacting and more cruel than village poverty.
Above all, there was so much of it in one place that it produced a terrible impression on me. What I saw at Lyapin House made me at once realize the odiousness of my life. That feeling was sincere and very strong. But despite its sincerity and strength I was at first weak enough to fear the revolution it demanded in my life, and I compromised. I believed what everyone told me and what all have been saying since the world began, that there is nothing wrong in riches and luxury, which are God’s gifts, and that one can help the needy without ceasing to be luxurious. I believed this and wished to do so. And I wrote the article in which I called on the rich for help.
The rich all acknowledged themselves morally bound to agree with me, but evidently either did not wish or were unable to do anything, or give anything, for the poor. I began to visit the poor and saw what I had not at all expected. On the one hand in those dens-as I called them-I found people whom it was out of the question for me to help, for they were workers accustomed to work and to endure, and therefore possessed a far firmer hold on life than my own. On the other hand I saw unfortunates whom I could not help because they were just like myself. The majority of the unfortunates I saw were unfortunate only because they had lost the capacity, the wish, and the habit, of working for their bread. That is to say their misfortune consisted in being like me.
I could not find any unfortunates-sick, cold, or hungry-whom one could help at once, except the one starving woman Agafya. And I became convinced that cut off as I was from the life of the people I wished to help, it would be almost impossible for me to find such unfortunates, for every case of real want was met by the very people among whom these unfortunates live, and above all, I became convinced that money would not enable me to alter the wretched life these people lead. I became convinced of all this, but from false shame at abandoning what I had begun, from self-deception as to my own beneficence, I continued for some time to go on with it till of itself it came to nothing, so that with much difficulty I managed somehow, with Ivan Fedotych’s aid, in the tavern in Rzhanov House, to get rid of those thirty-seven rubles which I did not consider belonged to me.
Of course I could have continued the affair and made of it a semblance of philanthropy. I could by persistency with those who had promised me money have obliged them to hand it over to me and could have collected still more and could have distributed that money and consoled myself with my benevolent activity; but I saw on the one hand, that we rich people neither wish, nor are able, to set aside for the poor a part of our abundance (we have so many needs of our own), and that there is no one to give money to, If we wish only to do good and not merely to give away haphazard as I had done in the Rzhanov tavern. And I threw up the whole thing and with a feeling of despair left for the country.
There I wished to write an article about my experience and to explain why my undertaking had not succeeded. I wished to justify myself against the reproaches addressed to me concerning my article on the Census, and to indict society for its indifference and to state the causes which produce this urban poverty, and the need to counteract it, and also the means I saw for doing so.
I then began the article and thought it would contain much of value.
But try as I would, in spite of an abundance and superabundance of material since I wrote under the influence of irritation, and had then not yet got rid of all that hindered my seeing the matter in a right light, and above all because I was not yet
