Many of the very people I had seen at the entrance to Lyapin House were here, but here they were distributed among many workers. And moreover, whereas I had then seen them at their most wretched time when they had eaten and drunk all they possessed: and when, cold, naked, and driven from the taverns, they were waiting, as for heavenly manna, for admission into the free Night-Lodging-House to be taken thence to the promised land of prison and sent under police escort back to their villages-here I saw them scattered among a large number of workers and at a time when one way or other they had obtained three or five kopeks1 to pay for a night’s lodging, or perhaps even had some rubles to spend on food and drink.
Strange as it may seem to say so, I did not here experience anything like the feeling I. had at Lyapin House. On the contrary, during the first round both I and the students had an almost pleasant feeling. Why do I say, ‘almost pleasant’? That is untrue-the feeling produced by intercourse with these people, strange as it seems to say so, was simply a very pleasant one.
The first impression was that the majority of those who lived here were working people, and very good-natured ones.
We found most of them at work: washerwomen at their troughs, carpenters at their benches, boot makers on their stools. The narrow lodgings were full of people, and brisk, cheery work was going on. The place smelt of workmen’s perspiration, and at the boot maker’s of leather, and at the carpenter’s of shavings. One often heard singing, or saw sinewy bare arms quickly and skillfully performing accustomed movements.
Everywhere we were greeted cheerily and kindly: almost everywhere our intrusion into the daily life of these people was far from evoking the pretension or desire to show off and reply curtly which was evoked by the Census-takers’ call at the houses of most of the wealthy families, but on the contrary these people replied to all our questions properly, without attaching any special importance to them. Our questions merely gave them occasion to make merry and joke about how the return should be filled in, who ought to count as two, and which two as one, and so forth.
1 A kopek was about a farthing.
We found many of them at dinner or tea, and every time in reply to our greeting: ‘Bread and salt’ or ‘Tea and sugar’,1 they replied ‘Please to join us’, and even moved up to make room for us. Instead of the haunt of constantly changing inhabitants we thought we should find here, it turned out that in this house there were many lodgings in which people had lived a long time. One carpenter with his workmen, and a boot maker with his assistants, had been there for ten years. At the boot maker’s it was very dirty and crowded, but all the people at work were very cheerful I tried to talk with one of the workmen, wishing to hear from him of the misery of his position and of his being in debt to his master, but the workman did not understand me and spoke very well of his master and of his own life.
In one lodging an old man lived with his old wife. They sold apples. Their room was warm, clean, and full of goods. The floor was spread with straw sacking which they got at the wholesale apple-dealers. There were trunks, cupboards, a samovar, and crockery. In the comer were many icons, with two little lamps burning before them; on the walls hung warm overcoats covered up with sheets. The old woman, who had star-shaped wrinkles, was affable, talkative, and apparently pleased at her own quiet well ordered life.
Ivan Fedotych, the landlord of the tavern and the lodgings, came from the tavern and went along with us. He jested good-humouredly with many of the lodgers, calling them all by their Christian names and patronymics,2 and gave us brief sketches of them. They were all people of ordinary types, Martin Semenoviches, Peter Petroviches, Mary Ivanovnas-people who did not consider themselves unfortunate, but considered themselves, and really were, like anyone else.
We came prepared to see nothing but horrors; and instead of horrors we were shown something good that involuntarily evoked our respect. There were so many of these good people that the tattered, fallen, idle ones, scattered here and there among them, did not destroy the general impression.
The students were not so much struck by this as I was. They had come simply to do something they considered to be of scientific value, and were incidentally making casual observations; but I was a philanthropist and came to help the unfortunate, perishing, depraved people I expected to find here. And instead of unfortunate, perishing, depraved people, I saw a majority of tranquil, contented, cheerful, kindly and very good working people.
I felt this most vividly when in these lodgings I really came on some cases of crying need such as I was prepared to help.
When I discovered such need I always found that it had already been met, and that the help I wished to render had already been given: given before I came, and by whom? By those same un-fortunate depraved creatures I was prepared to save; and given in a better way than I could have done.
In one cellar lay a lonely old man, ill of typhus. He had no connexions. A widow with a little daughter-a stranger to him but his neighbour (occupying another corner of the
1 Customary Russian folk-greetings to people having a meal.
2 This is a usual Russian practice, but indicates some amount of familiarity with the lodgers on the part of the landlord.-A. M.
room he lived in) was looking after him. She gave him tea, and bought medicine for him out of her own money. In another room lay a woman suffering from puerperal fever. A woman of the town was rocking the baby, had made it some pap wrapped in a rag to suck, and for two days had not gone out to ply her trade. A little girl who had been left an orphan had been taken into the family of a tailor who had three children of his own.
So there remained only those unfortunate idle people: officials, copyists, footmen out of places, beggars, drunkards, prostitutes, and children, whom it was impossible to help at once with money, but whom it would be necessary to get to know well, to think about, and to find places for. I looked for people unfortunate merely from poverty and whom we could help by sharing our superfluity with them; and by some peculiar mischance (as it seemed to me) I did not find any such, but found only unfortunates of a kind to whom it would be necessary to devote much time and care.
CHAPTER VII
unfortunates I had noted down seemed to me to fall naturally into three classes: first, those who had lost advantageous positions and were awaiting a return to them (there were such both from the lower and higher ranks); then dissolute women, of whom there were very many in these houses; and thirdly, children. Most of all I found and noted people of the first class, who had lost their former advantageous position and wished to return to it. People of that kind, especially from among the gentry and officials, were very numerous. In almost all the tenements to which we went with the landlord, Ivan Fedotych, he told us: ‘Here there will be no need for you to fill in the list of lodgers yourselves. There is a man here who can do all that, if only he is not drunk to-day.’
And Ivan Fedotych would call the man out by name, and he was always one of those who had fallen from a better position. At Fedotych’s call there would creep out from some dark corner a once rich gentleman or official, usually drunk and always half-undressed. If not drunk he always readily undertook the task offered him: nodding with an air of importance, knitting his brows, and introducing learned terminology into his remarks, and holding with careful tenderness the clean, printed, red card in his trembling, dirty hands, he would look round on his fellow lodgers with pride and contempt as if triumphing now, by his superior education, over those who had so often humiliated him. He was evidently glad to come into touch with the world in which red cards are printed-the world to which he once belonged. Almost always in reply to my inquiries about his life the man would begin, not only readily but with enthusiasm; to tell the story, fixed in his mind like a prayer, of the misfortunes he had endured and especially of that former position which by his education he felt ought to be his.
There are very many such people scattered in various corners of Rzhanov House. One tenement was entirely taken up by them-men and women. When we approached it Ivan Fedotych told us: ‘Now here are the gentry.’ The lodging was quite full: they were almost all (some forty persons) at home. In the whole house there were none more degraded and unhappy than these: the old shrivelled, and the young pale and haggard. I talked with some of them. The story was almost always
