1 In a Russian peasant family it is usual for all to eat out of one common family bowl, each with his own wooden spoon.-AM.
only the rich know how to do all that. The same occurs with clothes. If a rich man wore simple clothes merely to protect his body from the cold: an overcoat, a sheepskin, felt and leather boots, a peasant coat, trousers, and shirt-he would need very little, and he could not, if he had two sheepskins, refuse to give one to a man who had none; but a rich man begins by having apparel made for him which consists of several articles and is only suitable for special occasions and therefore will not do for a poor man. He has dress-coats, vests, pea-jackets, patent leather shoes, capes, shoes with French heels, fashionable clothes composed of small pieces, hunting dress, travelling jackets, and so forth, which are suitable only in conditions remote from poverty.
Thus clothes also become a means of separation from the poor. Fashion makes its appearance, which is just what separates the rich from the poor. It is the same, even more clearly, with our dwelling places. In order to live alone in ten rooms it is necessary that this should not be seen by those who are living ten in a room. The richer a man is the more difficult it is to make one’s way to him-the more porters there are between him and the poor, and the less possible is it to take a poor man over his carpets and seat him in a satin chair. It is the same with means of conveyance. A peasant driving in a cart or on a carrier’s sledge must be very harsh not to give a lift to a traveller on foot-there is room and opportunity for him to do so. But the finer the carriage the more remote the possibility of giving a lift to anyone. Some of the smartest vehicles are even named ‘sulkys’.
The same is true of the whole manner of life expressed by the word cleanliness.
Cleanliness! Who does not know people, especially women, who make a great virtue of this cleanliness? And who does not know the devices of this cleanliness, which are endless when obtained by the labour of others? Who among those who have become rich does not know by experience with what difficulty and trouble he accustomed himself to this cleanliness, which only confirms the proverb, ‘White hands love other people’s work’?
To-day cleanliness consists in changing one’s shirt every day; to-morrow in changing twice a day. To-day in washing one’s neck and hands every day; to-morrow one’s feet also, after tomorrow one’s whole body each day and with some special friction besides. To-day one has a table-cloth for two days; to-morrow a fresh one every day; and then two a day. To-day the footman’s hands must be clean; to-morrow he must wear clean gloves and in clean gloves must bring in a letter on a clean tray. And there are no limits to this cleanliness when it is obtained by other people’s labour-and which is of no use to anyone except as a means of separating oneself from others and making intercourse with them impossible.
More than that, when I looked into the matter I became convinced that the same thing is true of what is generally called education.
Language does not deceive; it calls by its true name what people understand by that name. What the common folk call ‘education’ is, fashionable dress, refined conversation, clean hands, and a particular kind of cleanliness.
Of such a man in contradistinction to others, they say that he is an ‘educated man’. In a rather higher circle they mean by ‘education’ the same that is meant among the people, but to the conditions of ‘education’ are added piano-playing, a knowledge of French, ability to write a Russian letter without mistakes in spelling, and yet more external cleanliness. In a still higher circle by ‘education’ is meant all this, with the addition of a knowledge of English, and a diploma from one of the higher educational institutions, and a yet higher degree of cleanliness.
But the first, the second, and the third kind of education are essentially one and the same. ‘Education.’ consists of those forms and that knowledge which will separate a man from others. It’s object is the same as that of cleanliness-to separate us from the mass of the poor, in order that those cold and hungry people may not see how we make holiday. But to hide oneself is impossible, and they do see.
And thus I became convinced that the reason it was impossible for us, the rich, to help the town poor, lay also in the impossibility of coming into close touch with them, and that this impossibility we ourselves create by our whole life and by the whole use we make of our wealth. I became convinced that between us-the rich-and the poor there stands a wall of cleanliness and education that we have erected and reared by our wealth, and to be able to aid the poor we have first of all to destroy that wall, so that we might apply Sutaev’s method of distributing the poor among us. And from this side, too, I reached the same conclusion to which the course of my reflections on town poverty had brought me: that the cause of that poverty is our wealth.
CHAPTER XV
I BEGAN to examine the matter from yet another side-the purely personal one. Among the things which particularly struck me during the time of my philanthropic activity there was a very strange one for which I was long unable to find an explanation. It was this: every time it chanced, in the street or at home, that I gave some small coin to a pauper without talking to him, I saw, or it seemed to me that I saw, pleasure and gratitude on his face and I myself experienced a pleasant sensation at such times.
I saw that I had done what the man wanted and expected of me. But if I stopped to speak to the man, and questioned him sympathetically about his former and his present life, entering more or less into detail, I felt that I could not give him three or twenty kopeks, and I began rummaging in my purse, doubting how much to give, and always gave him more, and always saw that the man went away dissatisfied. If I entered into still closer communication with him my doubts as to how much to give increased still more, and no matter what I gave the man became yet more gloomy and more dissatisfied.
As a general rule it turned out that if after closer contact with a poor man I gave him three rubles or more, I nearly always saw gloom, dissatisfaction, and even resentment on his face, and it even happened that when I had given ten rubles he went away without even saying thank you, as though I had offended him. And on such occasions I always felt ill at ease, ashamed of myself, and guilty. If I kept in touch with a poor man for weeks, months, and years, and helped him, told him my views, and came into close touch with him, my relations with him became a torment and I saw that the poor man despised me. And I felt that he was right to do so.
If I go along the street and he, standing there, begs three kopeks of me among others walking or driving past, and I give it him, I am for him a passer-by and a good, kindly passer-by-one who gives a thread towards making a shirt for the naked. He expects nothing more than a thread, and if I give it he blesses me sincerely. But if I stop with him, talk to him as to a fellow man, and show that I wish to be more than a passer-by to him; if as often happens he weeps while telling me his woe, he no longer regards me merely as a passer-by, but sees what I want him to see in me-a kindly man. But if I am a kindly man my kindness cannot stop at twenty kopeks, or at ten rubles, or at ten thousand. It is impossible to be good-natured only a little.
Suppose I have given him much-set him up, clothed him, put him on his feet so that he may live without depending on others, but for some reason-misfortune or his own weakness and viciousness-he again lacks the overcoat, linen, and money which I gave him-is again hungry and cold and has again come to me-why should I refuse him? If the reason of my activity is to attain a certain material result: to give him so many rubles or such and such an overcoat, I might, once I had given them, be at rest; but the reason of my activity is not that, its reason is that I wish
