And with such people, from whom I had to draw back and cease giving and thereby renounce kindliness, I experienced a tormenting sense of shame.
What was that shame? I felt it at Lyapin House, and before and after that in the village whenever I happened to give money or other things to the poor, and during my visits to the town poor.
One recent instance of this shame vividly reminded me of it and supplied me with an explanation of the shame I experienced when giving money to the poor.
It occurred in the country. I wanted twenty kopeks to give to a pilgrim, and sent my son to borrow them from someone; he brought the pilgrim the money and told me he had got it from our man-cook. A few days later some more pilgrims came and I again wanted twenty kopeks. I had a ruble, and remembering that lowed money to the cook, I went to the kitchen hoping to get change. I said: ‘I borrowed twenty kopeks of yours, here’s a ruble…’ Before I had finished speaking he called his wife from the next room and said: ‘Take it, Parasha.’ Thinking she understood what I wanted, I handed her the ruble.
I must mention that the cook had been with us only a week and though I had seen his wife I had never spoken to her. Just as I was going to ask her for the change, she quickly bent over my hand and wished to kiss it,1 evidently supposing that I was giving her the ruble. I muttered something, and left the kitchen. I felt ashamed more painfully ashamed than I had done for years. I even writhed and was conscious of making grimaces, and I groaned with shame as I ran out of the kitchen. This shame, which seemed to me quite undeserved and unexpected, startled me, especially as it was long since I had experienced such a feeling, and because it seemed to me that I, as an old man, was living in a way that did not deserve such shame.
It struck me very much. I mentioned the occurrence to my family and to some acquaintances, and they all agreed that they would have felt as I did. And I began to ask myself why it had made me feel ashamed. An incident that had happened to me previously in Moscow supplied me with the answer.
1 A common way of expressing gratitude in Russia.-A. M.
I pondered on that incident, and the shame I had felt with the cook’s wife became intelligible, and all the feelings of shame experienced during my period of Moscow charity, and which I now constantly experience when I happen to give people anything more than such petty contributions to mendicants and pilgrims as I am accustomed to give and consider not as charity but as decency and politeness. If a man asks you for a light, you must light a match for him if you have one. If a man asks for three or twenty kopeks, or even for a few rubles, you must give it if you have it. It is a matter of politeness and not of charity.
The incident was this: I have already mentioned two peasants with whom, two years ago, I used to saw wood. One Saturday evening, in the dusk, I was walking with them to town. They were going to their master to get their wages. Near the Dragomilov Bridge we met an old man. He asked for alms and I gave him twenty kopeks. As I gave it I thought that my charity would have a good effect on Semen, with whom we had been talking of divine things. Semen was that Vladimir peasant who had a wife and two children in Moscow.
He also stopped, turned up the skirt of his long coat, drew out his purse, and rummaging in it, took out a three-kopek piece which he gave to the old man, asking for two kopeks change. The old man showed that he had two three-kopek pieces and a one-kopek. Semen looked at these, and was on the point of taking the one kopek, but changed his mind, took off his cap, made the sign of the cross, and went on, leaving the old man the three kopeks. I knew Semen’s position. He had no house and no property. His earnings up to the day when he gave those three kopeks amounted to six rubles and fifty kopeks. So that six rubles and fifty kopeks represented his total savings.
My savings equalled about six hundred thousand rubles. I had a wife and children and so had Semen. He was younger than I and had fewer children; but his children were young while I had two already old enough to work, so that apart from our savings our positions were alike; perhaps mine was even somewhat the better. He gave three kopeks, I gave twenty. What had he and what had I given? What ought I to have given to match his gift? He had six hundred kopeks: he gave one of them, and then two more. I had six hundred thousand rubles.
To do what he did, I should have given three thousand rubles and asked for two thousand rubles change, and if there was no change I should have left those two thousand rubles also, made the sign of the cross, and gone on my way; quietly talking of how factory hands live and of the price of liver on the Smolensk market. I thought of this at the time, but only much later was I able to draw from that instance the conclusion inevitably flowing from it. That conclusion seems so unusual and strange that despite its mathematical certainty one needs time to grow accustomed to it. It always seems as if there must be some mistake about it, but there is none. There is only the terrible tog of delusion in which we live.
That deduction, when I reached it and recognized its certainty, explained to me my feeling of shame with the cook’s wife and with all the poor people to whom I gave, or give, money.
What indeed is this money I give to the poor, and which the cook’s wife thought I was giving to her? In most cases it is such a small fraction of my property that it cannot be expressed in figures intelligible to Semen or to the cook’s wife; it is generally about a one-millionth part.
I give so little that for me it is not and cannot be a deprivation; it is only a diversion indulged in when and as I please. And that was how the cook’s wife understood me. H I give a ruble or a twenty kopek piece to a man from the street, why should I not give her a ruble? To give away money like that is in her eyes the same as for gentlefolk to throw gingerbreads among a crowd to be scrambled for; it is an amusement for those who possess much ‘mad money’. I was ashamed because the mistake she made showed me plainly how she, and all poor people, must regard me: ‘He throws mad (that is, unearned) money about.’
What indeed is my money, and where has it come from? Part of it I have got from the land I inherited from my father. A peasant sells his last sheep or cow to pay it to me. The other part of my money I have got for my writings, for books. If my books are harmful I only place temptation in the path of those who buy them and the money I receive is ill-gotten; but if my books are of use the case is still worse. I do not give them to people, but say, ‘Give me seventeen rubles,1 and then I will let you have them.’ And as in the former case the peasant sold his last sheep, so here a poor student, a teacher, or any poor man, deprives himself of things he needs, to give me that money.
And I have thus got together much money, and what do I do with it? I bring it to town and give some of it to the poor if they also come to town and obey my whims and clean the pavement and my lamps and boots, and work for me in factories. For this money I get all I can out of them: that is, I try to give them as little, and to take as much, as possible. And quite unexpectedly, without any particular reason, I suddenly begin giving away this same money to those same poor people; not to all of them, but to some whom I select. How can each of them help thinking that perhaps he may have the luck to be one of those with whom I shall amuse myself when I distribute my mad money?
That is how they all regard me, and how the cook’s
