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What Shall We Do?

by graf Leo Tolstoy · English · Gutenberg #38690 · 619,860 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: What Shall We Do?

Author: graf Leo Tolstoy

Editor: A. C. Fifield
        Isabella Fyvie Mayo


        
Release date: January 27, 2012 [eBook #38690]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38690

Credits: Produced by Jana Srna, Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed
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Produced by Jana Srna, Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed
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produced from images generously made available by The
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  [ Transcriber's Notes:

    Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully
    as possible, including inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation.
    Some corrections of spelling and punctuation have been made. They
    are listed at the end of the text.

    Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
    Bold text has been marked with =equals signs=.
  ]




WHAT SHALL WE DO?




=The Free Age Press= is an earnest effort to spread those deep
convictions in which the noblest spirits of every age and race have
believed--that man's true aim and happiness is "unity in reason and
love"; the realisation of the brotherhood of all men: that we must all
strive to eradicate, each from himself, those false ideas, false
feelings, and false desires--personal, social, religious,
economic--which alienate us one from another and produce nine-tenths of
all human suffering.

Of these truly Christian and universally religious aspirations the
writings of Leo Tolstoy are to-day perhaps the most definite expression,
and it is to the production of very cheap editions of his extant
religious, social and ethical works, together with much unpublished
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close touch with Tolstoy), that we are at present confining ourselves.
We earnestly trust that all who sympathise will continue to assist us by
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Orders and commercial communications should be addressed to "=The Free
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Christchurch, Hants.

    VLADIMIR TCHERTKOFF, _Editor_.

    THOMAS LAURIE, _Publisher_.




  Revised and Corrected Translation


  WHAT SHALL WE DO?

  By LEO TOLSTOY

  Edited by A.C.F.
  and I.F.M.


  NO RIGHTS RESERVED


  THE FREE AGE PRESS
  13 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON




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=What I Believe= ("MY RELIGION") By LEO TOLSTOY. Revised Translation.
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"=On Life.=" By LEO TOLSTOY. A New Translation of this little-known
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=The Kingdom of God is Within You.=

We hope eventually to issue the whole of Tolstoy's writings since 1878
in volumes uniform with this book.




WHAT SHALL WE DO?


    "And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then?

    "He answereth and said unto them, He that hath two coats, let him
    impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do
    likewise." (Luke iii. 10, 11.)

    "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust
    doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:

    "But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth
    nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor
    steal:

    "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

    "The light of the body is the eye; if, therefore, thine eye be
    single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

    "But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.
    If, therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is
    your darkness?

    "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and
    love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the
    other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

    "Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye
    shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye
    shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than
    raiment?" (Matt. vi. 19-25.)

    "Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What
    shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

    "(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek): for your
    heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

    "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and
    all these things shall be added unto you." (Matt. vi. 31-33.)

    "For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for
    a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (Luke xviii. 25.)




CHAPTER I


After having passed the greater part of my life in the country, I came
at length, in the year 1881, to reside in Moscow, where I was
immediately struck with the extreme state of pauperism in that city.
Though well acquainted with the privations of the poor in rural
districts, I had not the faintest conception of their actual condition
in towns.

In Moscow it is impossible to pass a street without meeting beggars of a
peculiar kind, quite unlike those in the country, who go about there, as
the saying is, "with a bag and the name of Christ."

The Moscow beggars neither carry a bag nor ask for alms. In most cases
when they meet you, they try to catch your eye, and then act according
to the expression of your face.

I know of one such, a bankrupt gentleman. He is an old man who advances
slowly, limping painfully with each leg. When he meets you, he limps,
and makes a bow. If you stop, he takes off his cap, ornamented with a
cockade, bows again, and begs. If you do not stop, he pretends to be
only lame, and continues limping along.

That is a specimen of a genuine Moscow beggar, an experienced one.

At first I did not know why such mendicants did not ask openly; but
afterwards I learned why, without understanding the reason.

One day I saw a policeman push a ragged peasant swollen with dropsy,
into a cab. I asked what he had been doing, and the policeman replied,--

"Begging."

"Is begging, then, forbidden?"

"So it seems," he answered. As the man was being driven away, I took
another cab, and followed. I wished to find out whether begging was
really forbidden, and if so, why? I could not at all understand how it
was possible to forbid one man asking something from another; and,
moreover, I had my doubts whether it could be illegal in a city where it
flourished to such an extent.

I entered the police-station where the pauper had been taken, and asked
an official armed with sword and pistol, and seated at a table, what he
had been arrested for.

The man looked up at me sharply, and said, "What business is that of
yours?"

However, feeling the necessity of some explanation, he added, "The
authorities order such fellows to be arrested, so I suppose it is
necessary."

I went away. The policeman who had brought the man was sitting in the
window of the ante-room, studying his note-book. I said to him,--

"Is it really true that poor people are not allowed to ask for alms in
Christ's name?"

The man started, as if waking up from a sleep, stared at me, then
relapsed again into a state of stolid indifference, and, reseating
himself on the window-sill, said,--

"The authorities require it, so you see it is necessary."

As he became again absorbed in his note-book, I went down the steps
towards my cab.

"Well! have they locked him up?" asked the cabman. He had evidently
become interested in the matter.

"They have," I answered. He shook his head.

"Is begging forbidden in Moscow, then?" I asked.

"I can't tell you," he said.

"But how can a man be locked up," I said, "for begging in the name of
Christ?"

"Nowadays things have changed, and you see it is forbidden," he
answered.

Since then, I have often seen policemen taking paupers to the
police-station and thence to the work-house. Indeed, I once met a whole
crowd of these poor creatures, about thirty, escorted before and behind
by policemen. I asked what they had been doing.

"Begging," was the reply.

It appears that, according to law, begging is forbidden in Moscow,
notwithstanding the great number of beggars one meets there in every
street, notwithstanding the rows of them near the churches during
service-time, and especially at funerals. But why are some caught and
locked up, while others are let alone? This I have not been able to find
out. Either there are lawful and unlawful beggars amongst them, or else
there are so many that it is impossible to catch them all; or, perhaps,
though some are taken up, others fill their places.

There is a great variety of such beggars in Moscow. There are those who
live by begging. There are also entirely honest destitute people who
have somehow chanced to reach Moscow and are really in extreme need.

Amongst the latter are men and women evidently from the country. I have
often met these. Some of them, who had fallen ill and afterwards
recovered and left the hospital, could now find no means, either of
feeding themselves, or of getting away from Moscow; some of them,
besides, had taken to drink (this was probably the case with the man
with dropsy whom I met); some were in good health, but had been burned
out of house and home, or else were very old, or were widowed or
deserted women with children; and some others had sound health, and were
quite capable of working.

These robust people especially interested me,--the more so, because,
since my arrival in Moscow, I had contracted the habit of going to the
Sparrow Hills for the sake of exercise, and working there with two
peasants who sawed wood. These men were exactly like the beggars whom I
often met in the streets. One, called Peter, was an ex-soldier from
Kaluga; the other, Simon, was from Vladímir. They possessed nothing save
the clothes on their backs: and they earned, by working very hard, from
forty to forty-five kopeks (8d. to 9d.) a day; out of this they both put
a little aside,--the Kaluga soldier, to buy a fur coat; the Vladímir
peasant, to get money enough to return to his home in the country.

Meeting in the streets similar men, I was therefore particularly
interested in them, and could not understand why some begged whilst
others worked.

Whenever I met a beggar of this description, I used to ask him how it
was that he had come to such a state. Once I met a strong,
healthy-looking peasant who asked alms. I questioned him as to who he
was, and whence he had come.

He told me he had come from Kaluga, in search of work. He had at first
found some, such as sawing old timber into fire-wood; but after he and
his companion had finished that job, though they had continually looked
for it, they had not found any more work, his mate had left him, and he
himself had passed a fortnight in the utmost need, and having sold all
he had to get food, now had not enough even to buy the necessary tools
for sawing.

I gave him money to get a saw, and told him where to go for work. I had
previously arranged with Peter and Simon that they should accept a new
fellow-worker, and find him a mate.

"Be sure you come! There is plenty of work to be done," I said on
parting.

"You can reckon on me," he answered. "Do you think there is any pleasure
in knocking about, begging, if I can work?"

The man solemnly promised that he would come; and he seemed honest, and
really meaning to work.

Next day, on coming to my friends, Peter and Simon, I asked them whether
the man had arrived. They said he had not; and, indeed, he never came at
all. In this way I was frequently deceived.

I have also been deceived by those who said that they only wanted a
little money to buy a ticket to return home, and whom I met in the
streets again a few days later. Many of them I came to know well, and
they knew me; though occasionally having forgotten me, they would repeat
the same false tale; but sometimes they would turn away on recognizing
me.

In this way I discovered, that, even in this class of men, there are
many rogues.

Still, these poor rogues were also very much to be pitied: they were all
ragged and hungry; they were of the sort who die of cold in the streets,
or hang themselves to escape life, as the papers frequently tell us.




CHAPTER II


When I talked to my town friends about this pauperism which surrounded
them, they always replied, "Oh! you have seen nothing yet! You should go
to the Khitrof Market, and visit the lodging-houses there, if you want
to see the genuine 'Golden Company.'"

One jovial friend of mine added, that the number of these paupers had so
increased, that they already formed not a "Golden Company," but a
"Golden Regiment."

My witty friend was right; but he would have been yet nearer the truth
had he said that these men formed, in Moscow, not a company, nor a
regiment, but a whole army,--an army, I should judge, of about fifty
thousand.

The regular townspeople, when they spoke to me about the pauperism of
the city, always seemed to feel a certain pleasure or pride in being
able to give me such precise information.

I remember I noticed, when visiting London, that the citizens there
seemed also to find a certain satisfaction in telling me about London
destitution, as though it were something to be proud of.

However, wishing to inspect this poverty about which I had heard so
much, I had turned my steps very often towards the Khitrof Market,--but
on each occasion I felt a sensation of pain and shame. "Why should you
go to look at the suffering of human beings whom you cannot help?" said
one voice within me. "If you live here, and see all that is pleasant in
town life, go and see also what is wretched," replied another.

And so, one cold, windy day in December, two years ago (1883), I went to
the Khitrof Market, the centre of the town pauperism.

It was on a week-day, about four in the afternoon. While still a good
distance off I noticed greater and greater numbers of men in strange
clothes,--evidently not originally meant for them,--and in yet stranger
foot-wear; men of a peculiar unhealthy complexion, and all apparently
showing a remarkable indifference to everything that surrounded them.

Men in the strangest, most incongruous costumes sauntered along,
evidently without the least thought as to how they might look in the
eyes of others. They were all going in the same direction. Without
asking the way, which was unknown to me, I followed them, and came to
the Khitrof Market.

There I found women likewise in ragged capes, rough cloaks, jackets,
boots, and goloshes. Perfectly free and easy in their manner,
notwithstanding the grotesque monstrosity of their attire, these women,
old and young, were sitting, bargaining, strolling about, and abusing
one another.

Market-time having evidently passed, there were not many people there;
and as most of them were going up-hill, through the market-place, and
all in the same direction, I followed them.

The farther I went, the greater became the stream of people flowing into
the one road. Having passed the market, and gone up the street, I found
that I was following two women, one old, the other young. Both were
clothed in some grey ragged stuff. They were talking, as they walked,
about some kind of business.

Every expression was unfailingly accompanied by some obscene word.
Neither was drunk, but each absorbed with her own affairs; and the
passing men, and those about them, paid not the slightest attention to
their language, which sounded so strange to me. It appeared to be the
generally accepted manner of speech in those parts. On the left we
passed some private night-lodging-houses, and some of the crowd entered
these; others continued to ascend the hill towards a large corner house.
The majority of the people walking along with me went into this house.
Before it, people all of the same sort were standing and sitting, on the
sidewalk and in the snow.

At the right of the entrance were women; at the left, men. I passed by
the men: I passed by the women (there were several hundreds in all), and
stopped where the crowd ceased.

This building was the "Liapin free night-lodging-house" ("doss-house").
The crowd was composed of night-lodgers, waiting to be let in. At five
o'clock in the evening this house is opened and the crowd admitted.
Hither came almost all the people whom I followed.

I remained standing where the file of men ended. Those nearest stared at
me till I had to look at them. The remnants of garments covering their
bodies were very various; but the one expression of the eyes of all
alike seemed to be, "Why are you, a man from another world, stopping
here with us? Who are you? Are you a self-satisfied man of wealth,
desiring to be gladdened by the sight of our need, to divert yourself in
your idleness, and to mock at us? or are you that which does not and can
not exist,--a man who pities us?"

On all their faces the same question was written. Each would look at me,
meet my eyes, and turn away again.

I wanted to speak to some of them, but for a long time I could not
summon up courage. However, eventually our mutual exchange of glances
introduced us to each other; and we felt that, however widely separated
might be our social positions in life, we were still fellow-men, and so
we ceased to be afraid of one another.

Next to me stood a peasant with a swollen face and red beard, in a
ragged jacket, with worn-out goloshes on his naked feet, though there
were eight degrees of frost.[1] For the third or fourth time our eyes
met; and I felt so drawn to him that I was no longer ashamed to address
him (to have refrained from doing so would have been the only real
shame), and I asked him where he came from.

  [1] Réaumur.

He answered eagerly, while a crowd began to collect round us, that he
had come from Smolensk in search of work, to be able to buy bread and
pay his taxes.

"There is no work to be had nowadays," he said: "the soldiers have got
hold of it all. So here am I knocking about; and God is my witness, I
have not had any thing to eat for two days."

He said this shyly, with an attempt at a smile. A seller[2] of warm
drinks, an old soldier, was standing near. I called him, and made him
pour out a glass. The peasant took the warm vessel in his hands, and,
before drinking, warmed them against the glass, trying not to lose any
of the precious heat; and whilst doing this he related to me his story.

  [2] A sbiten-seller: _sbiten_ is a hot drink made of herbs or spices
  and molasses

The adventures of these people, or at least the stories which they tell,
are almost always the same: He had had a little work; then it had
ceased: and here, in the night-lodging-house, his purse, containing his
money and passport, had been stolen from him. Now he could not leave
Moscow.

He told me that during the day he warmed himself in public-houses,
eating any stale crust of bread which might be given him. His night's
lodging here in Liapin's house cost him nothing.

He was only waiting for the round of the police-sergeant to lock him up
for being without his passport, when he would be sent on foot, with a
party of men similarly situated, to the place of his birth.

"They say the inspection will take place on Thursday, when I shall be
taken up; so I must try and keep on until then." (The prison and his
compulsory journey appeared to him as the "promised land.") While he was
speaking, two or three men in the crowd said they were also in exactly
the same situation.

A thin, pale youth, with a long nose, only a shirt upon his back, and
that torn about the shoulders, and a tattered cap on his head, edged his
way to me through the crowd. He was shivering violently all the time,
but tried, as he caught my eye, to smile scornfully at the peasant's
conversation, thinking thus to show his superiority.

I offered him some drink.

He warmed his hands on the tumbler as the other had done; but just as he
began to speak, he was shouldered aside by a big, black, hook-nosed,
bare-headed fellow, in a thin shirt and waistcoat, who also asked for
some drink.

Then a tall old man, with a thin beard, in an overcoat fastened round
the waist with a cord, and in bark shoes, had some. He was drunk.

Then came a little man, with a swollen face and wet eyes, in a coarse
brown jacket, with his knees protruding through his torn trousers and
knocking against each other with cold. He shivered so that he could not
hold the glass, and spilled the contents over his clothes: the others
began to abuse him, but he only grinned miserably, and shivered.

After him came an ugly, deformed man in rags, and with bare feet. Then
an individual of the officer type; another belonging to the church
class; then a strange-looking being without a nose,--all of them hungry,
cold, suppliant, and humble,--crowded round me, and stretched out their
hands for the glass; but the drink was exhausted. Then one man asked for
money: I gave him some. A second and a third followed, till the whole
crowd pressed on me. In the general confusion the gatekeeper of the
neighbouring house shouted to the crowd to clear the pavement before his
house, and the people submissively obeyed.

Some of them undertook to control the tumult, and took me under their
protection. They attempted to drag me out of the crush. But the crowd
that formerly had lined the pavement in a long file, had now become
condensed about me. Every one looked at me and begged; and it seemed as
if each face were more pitiful, harassed, and degraded than the other. I
distributed all the money I had,--only about twenty rubles,--and entered
the lodging-house with the crowd. The house was an enormous one, and
consisted of four parts. In the upper storeys were the men's rooms; on
the ground-floor the women's. I went first into the women's
dormitory,--a large room, filled with beds resembling the berths in a
third-class railway-carriage. They were arranged in two tiers, one above
the other.

Strange-looking women in ragged dresses, without jackets, old and young,
kept coming in and occupying places, some below, others climbing above.
Some of the elder ones crossed themselves, pronouncing the name of the
founder of the refuge. Some laughed and swore.

I went up-stairs. There, in a similar way, the men had taken their
places. Amongst them I recognized one of those to whom I had given
money. On seeing him I suddenly felt horribly ashamed, and made haste to
leave.

With a sense of having committed some crime, I returned home. There I
entered along the carpeted steps into the rug-covered hall, and, having
taken off my fur coat, sat down to a meal of five courses, served by two
footmen in livery, with white ties and white gloves. A scene of the past
came suddenly before me. Thirty years ago I saw a man's head cut off
under the guillotine in Paris before a crowd of thousands of spectators.
I was aware that the man had been a great criminal: I was acquainted
with all the arguments in justification of capital punishment for such
offences. I saw this execution carried out deliberately: but at the
moment that the head and body were severed from each other by the keen
blade, I gasped, and realized in every fibre of my being, that all the
arguments which I had hitherto heard in favour of capital punishment
were wickedly false; that, no matter how many might agree that it was a
lawful act, it was literally murder; whatever other title men might give
it, they thus had virtually committed murder, that worst of all crimes:
and there was I, both by my silence and my non-interference, an aider,
an abetter, and participator in the sin.

Similar convictions were again forced upon me when I now beheld the
misery, cold, hunger, and humiliation of thousands of my fellow-men. I
realized not only with my brain, but in every pulse of my soul, that,
whilst there were thousands of such sufferers in Moscow, I, with tens of
thousands of others, daily filled myself to repletion with luxurious
dainties of every description, took the tenderest care of my horses, and
clothed my very floors with velvet carpets!

Whatever the wise and learned of the world might say about it, however
unalterable the course of life might seem to be, the same evil was
continually being enacted, and I, by my own personal habits of luxury,
was a promoter of that evil.

The difference between the two cases was only this: that in the first,
all I could have done would have been to shout out to the murderers
standing near the guillotine, who were accomplishing the deed, that they
were committing a murder, and by every means to try to hinder
them,--while, of course, knowing that my interference would be in vain.
Whereas, in this second case, I might have given away, not only the
drink and the small sum of money I had with me, but also the coat from
off my shoulders, and all that I possessed at home. Yet I had not done
so, and therefore felt, and feel, and can never cease to feel, that I
myself am a partaker in a crime which is continually being committed, so
long as I have superfluous food whilst others have none, so long as I
have two coats whilst there exists one man without any.




CHAPTER III


On the same evening that I returned from Liapin's house, I imparted my
impressions to a friend: and he, a resident of the town, began to
explain to me, not without a certain satisfaction, that this was the
most natural state of things in a town; that it was only owing to my
provincialism that I found anything remarkable in it; and that it had
always been, and always would be so, such being one of the inevitable
conditions of civilization. In London it was yet worse, etc., etc.,
therefore there could be nothing wrong about it, and there was nothing
to be disturbed or troubled about.

I began to argue with my friend, but with such warmth and so angrily,
that my wife rushed in from the adjoining room to ask what had happened.
It appeared that, without being aware of it, I had shouted out in an
agonized voice, gesticulating wildly, "We should not go on living in
this way! we must not live so! we have no right!" I was rebuked for my
unnecessary excitement; I was told that I could not talk quietly upon
any question, that I was irritable; and it was pointed out to me that
the existence of such misery as I had witnessed was in no way a reason
for embittering the life of my home-circle.

I felt that this was perfectly just, and held my tongue; but in the
depth of my soul I knew that I was right, and I could not quiet my
conscience.

The town life, which had previously seemed alien and strange to me, now
became so hateful that all the indulgencies of a luxurious existence, in
which I had formerly delighted, began to torment me.

However much I tried to find some kind of excuse for my mode of life, I
could not contemplate without irritation either my own or other people's
drawing-rooms, nor a clean, richly served dinner-table, nor a carriage
with well-fed coachman and horses, nor the shops, theatres, and
entertainments. I could not help seeing, in contrast to all this, those
hungry, shivering, and degraded inhabitants of the night-lodging-house.
I could never free myself from the thought that these conditions were
inseparable--that the one proceeded from the other. I remember that the
sense of culpability which I had felt from the first moment never left
me; but with this feeling another soon mingled, which lessened the
first.

When I talked to my intimate friends and acquaintances about my
impressions in Liapin's house, they all answered in the same way, and
expressed besides their appreciation of my kindness and
tender-heartedness, and gave me to understand that the sight had
impressed me so because I, Leo Tolstoy, was kind-hearted and good. And I
willingly allowed myself to believe this.

The natural consequence of this was, that the first keen sense of
self-reproach and shame became blunted, and was replaced by a sense of
satisfaction at my own virtue, and a desire to make it known to others.
"It is, in truth," I said to myself, "probably not my connection with a
luxurious life which is at fault, but the unavoidable circumstances of
existence. Therefore a change in my particular life would not alter the
evil I had seen."

In changing my own life, I thought, I should only render myself and
those nearest and dearest to me miserable, whilst the other misery would
remain; therefore my object should be, not to alter my own way of
living, as I had at first imagined, but to try as much as was in my
power to _ameliorate_ the position of those unfortunate ones who had
excited my compassion. The whole matter, I reasoned, lies in the fact
that I, being an extremely kind and good man, wish to do good to my
fellow-men.

So I began to arrange a plan of philanthropic activity in which I might
exhibit all my virtues. I must, however, remark here, that, while
planning this charitable effort, in the depth of my heart I felt that I
was not doing the right thing; but, as too often happens, reason and
imagination stifled the voice of conscience.

About this time the census was being taken, and this seemed to me a good
opportunity for instituting that charitable organization in which I
wanted to shine.

I was acquainted with many philanthropic institutions and societies
already existing in Moscow, but all their activity seemed to me both
insignificant and wrongly directed in comparison with what I myself
wished to do.

This was what I invented to excite sympathy amongst the rich for the
poor: I began to collect money, and to enlist men who wished to help in
the work, and who would, in company with the census officers, visit all
the nests of pauperism, entering into relations with the poor, finding
out the details of their needs, aiding them with money and work, sending
them out of Moscow, placing their children in schools, and their old men
and women in homes and houses of refuge.

I thought, moreover, that from those who undertook this work a permanent
society could be formed, which, by dividing between its members the
various districts of Moscow, could take care that new cases of want and
misery should be averted, and so by degrees pauperism might be stifled
at its very beginning, not so much by cure, as by prevention.

Already I saw in the future the entire disappearance of begging and
poverty, I having been the means of its accomplishment. Then we who were
rich could go on living in all our luxury as before, dwelling in fine
houses, eating dinners of five courses, driving in our carriages to
theatres and entertainments, no longer being harassed by such sights as
I had witnessed at Liapin's house.

Having invented this plan, I wrote an article about it; and, before even
giving it to the printers, I went to those acquaintances from whom I
hoped to obtain co-operation, and expounded to all whom I visited that
day (chiefly the rich) the ideas I afterwards published in my article.

I proposed to profit by the census in order to study the state of
pauperism in Moscow, and to help exterminate it by personal effort and
money, after which we might all with a quiet conscience enjoy our usual
pleasures. Everyone listened to me attentively and seriously; but, in
every case, I remarked that the moment my hearers came to understand
what I was driving at, they seemed to become uncomfortable and somewhat
embarrassed. It was principally, I feel sure, on my own account; because
they considered all that I said to be folly. It seemed as though some
outside motive compelled my listeners to agree for the moment with my
foolishness.--"Oh, yes! Certainly. It would be delightful," they said:
"of course it is impossible not to sympathize with you. Your idea is
splendid. I myself have had the same; but ... people here are so
indifferent, that it is hardly reasonable to expect a great success.
However, as far as I am concerned, I am, of course, ready to share in
the enterprise."

Similar answers I received from all. They consented, as it appeared to
me, not because they were persuaded by my arguments, nor yet in
compliance with their own desire, but because of some exterior reason
which rendered it impossible for them to refuse.

I remarked this partly because none of those who promised me their help
in the form of money, defined the sum they meant to give; so that I had
to name the amount by asking, "May I count upon you for twenty-five, or
one hundred, or two hundred, or three hundred, rubles?" And not one of
them paid the money. I draw attention to this fact, because, when people
are going to pay for what they are anxious to have, they are generally
in haste to give it. If it is to secure a box to see Sarah Bernhardt,
the money is immediately produced; here, however, of all who agreed to
give, and expressed their sympathy, not one produced the amount, but
merely silently acquiesced in the sum I happened to name.

In the last house I visited that day there was a large party. The
mistress of the house had for some years been employed in works of
charity. Several carriages were waiting at the door. Footmen in
expensive liveries were seated in the hall. In the spacious
drawing-room, ladies, old and young, wearing rich dresses and ornaments,
were talking to some young men, and dressing up small dolls, intended
for a lottery in aid of the poor.

The sight of this drawing-room and of the people assembled there struck
me very painfully. For not only was their property worth several million
rubles; not only would the interest on the capital spent here on
dresses, laces, bronzes, jewels, carriages, horses, liveries, footmen,
exceed a hundred times the value of these ladies' work,--but even the
expenses caused by this very party of ladies and gentlemen, the gloves,
the linen, candles, tea, sugar, cakes, all this represented a sum a
hundred times greater than the value of the work done.

I saw all this, and therefore might have understood that here, at all
events, I should not find sympathy with my plan, but I had come in order
to give a proposal, and, however painful it was, I said what I wished to
say, repeating almost the words of my article.

One lady present offered me some money, adding that, owing to her
sensibilities, she did not feel strong enough to visit the poor herself,
but that she would give help in this form. How much money, and when she
would give it, she did not say. Another lady and a young man offered
their services in visiting the poor, but I did not profit by their
offer. The principal person I addressed told me that it would be
impossible to do much, because the means were not forthcoming. The means
were scarce, because all the rich men in Moscow who were known and could
be counted upon had already given all it was possible to get from them,
their charities had already been rewarded with titles, medals, and other
distinctions,--which was the only effectual way to ensure success in the
collection of money; and to obtain new honors from the authorities was
very difficult.

When I returned home I went to bed, not only with a presentiment that
nothing would result from my idea, but also with the shameful
consciousness of having been doing something vile and contemptible the
whole day. However, I did not desist.

First, the work had been begun, and false shame prevented my giving it
up; second, not only the success of the enterprise itself, but even my
part in it, afforded me the possibility of continuing to live in my
usual way; whereas the failure of this enterprise would have put me
under the constraint of giving up my present mode of life and of seeking
another. Of this, I was unconsciously afraid; and therefore I refused to
listen to my inner voice, and continued what I had begun.

Having sent my article to be printed, I read a proof-copy at a
census-meeting in the town hall, hesitatingly, and blushing till my
cheeks burned again. I felt very uncomfortable, and I saw that all my
hearers were equally uncomfortable.

On my question, whether the managers of the census would accept my
proposal that they should remain at their posts in order to form a link
between society and those in need, an awkward silence ensued.

Then two of those present made speeches, which seemed to mend the
awkwardness of my suggestions. Sympathy for me was expressed along with
their general approbation, but they pointed out the impracticability of
my scheme. Everyone immediately seemed more at ease; but afterwards,
still wishing to succeed, I asked each district manager separately,
whether during the census he was willing to investigate the needs of the
poor and afterwards remain at his post in order to form this link
between the poor and the rich, all were again confounded; it seemed as
though their looks said, "Why, we have listened to your silly
proposition out of personal regard for you; but here you come with it
again!" This was the expression of their faces, but in words they told
me that they consented; and two of them, separately, but as though they
had agreed together, said in the same words, "We regard it as our moral
duty to do so." The same impression was produced by my words upon the
students who had volunteered to act as clerks during the census, when I
told them that they might accomplish a charitable work besides their
scientific pursuits.

When we talked the matter over I noticed that they were shy of looking
me straight in the face, as one often hesitates to look into the face of
a good-natured man who is talking nonsense. The same impression was
produced upon the editor of the paper when I handed my article to him;
also upon my son, my wife, and various other people. Every one seemed
embarrassed, but all found it necessary to approve of the idea itself;
and all, immediately after this approbation, began to express their
doubts as to the success of the plan, and, for some reason or other, all
without exception took to condemning the indifference and coldness of
society and of the world, though they evidently excluded themselves.




CHAPTER IV


By my request I was appointed to make the census of the section of
Khamovnitchesky police district, near the Smolensky Market in the
Prototchni Lane between the Shore Drive and Nicolsky Lane. In this
district are the houses known under the name of Rzhanoff House or
Rzhanoff Fortress. In bygone times these houses belonged to the merchant
Rzhanoff, and are now the property of the merchants Zeemin. I had long
before heard that this was considered the lowest circle of poverty and
vice, which was the reason why I asked the officers of the census to
assign this district to me.

My desire was gratified.

Having received the appointment from the Town Council, I went alone, a
few days before the census, to inspect my district. With the help of a
plan I soon found the Rzhanoff Houses,--approached by a street which
terminated on the left-hand side of Nicolsky Lane--a gloomy building
without any apparent entrance. From the aspect of this house I guessed
it was the one I was in search of. Descending the street, I came across
some boys, from ten to fourteen years old, in short coats, who were
sliding down the frozen gutter, some on their feet, others upon a single
skate.

The boys were ragged, and, like all town boys, sharp and bold. I stopped
to look at them. An old woman in torn clothes, with hanging yellow
cheeks, came round the corner. She was going up-hill to Smolensky
Market, gasping painfully at every step, like a horse out of wind; and
when abreast of me, stopped with hoarse, choking breath. In any other
place, this old woman would have asked alms, but here she only began to
talk.

"Just look at them!" she said, pointing to the sliding boys; "always at
mischief! They will become the same Rzhanoff good-for-nothings as their
fathers." One boy, in an overcoat and cap without a peak, overhearing
her words, stopped. "You shut up!" he shouted. "You're only an old
Rzhanoff goat yourself!"

I asked the boy if he lived here. "Yes, and so does she. She stole some
boots," he called out, and, pushing himself off, slid on.

The old woman began a torrent of abuse, interrupted by coughs. During
the squabble an old white-haired man, all in rags, came down the middle
of the street, brandishing his arms, and carrying in one hand a bundle
of small rusk rings. He seemed to have just fortified himself with a
glass of liquor. He had evidently heard the old woman's abuse and took
her side.

"I'll give it you, you little devils!" he shouted, pretending to rush
after them; and, passing behind me, he stepped on the pavement. If you
saw this old man in the Artat, a fashionable street, you would be struck
with his air of decrepitude, feebleness, and poverty. Here he appeared
as a merry workman returning from his day's labor.

I followed him. He turned round the corner to the left into Prototchni, an
alley, passed the front of the house and the gate, and disappeared through
the door of an inn. Into this alley opened the doors of the latter,
a public-house, and several small eating-houses. It was the Rzhanoff
Houses. Every thing was gray, dirty, and foul-smelling,--buildings,
lodgings, courts, and people. Most of those I met here were in tattered
clothes, half naked. Some were passing along, others were running from
one door to another. Two were bargaining about some rags. I went round
the whole building, down another lane and a court, and, having returned,
stopped at the archway of the Rzhanoff Houses.

I wanted to go in and see what was going on inside, but the idea made me
feel painfully awkward. If they asked me what I had come for, what
should I say?

However after a little hesitation I went in. The moment I entered the
court I was conscious of a most revolting stench. The court was
dreadfully dirty. I turned round the corner, and at the same instant
heard steps running along the boards of the gallery and down the stairs.

First a gaunt-looking woman, with tucked-up sleeves, a faded pink dress,
and shoes on her stockingless feet, rushed out; after her, a
rough-haired man in a red shirt, and extremely wide trousers, like a
petticoat, and goloshes on his feet. The man caught her under the
stairs: "You sha'n't escape me," he said, laughing.

"Just listen to the squint-eyed devil!" began the woman, who was
evidently not averse to his attentions; but, having caught sight of me,
she exclaimed angrily, "Who are you looking for?" As I did not want
anyone in particular, I felt somewhat confused, and went away.

This little incident, though by no means remarkable in itself, suddenly
showed me the work I was about to undertake in an entirely new light,
especially after what I had seen on the other side of the
courtyard,--the scolding woman, the light-hearted old man, and the
sliding boys. I had meditated doing good to these people by the help of
the rich men of Moscow. I now realized, for the first time, that all
these poor unfortunates, whom I had been wishing to help, had, besides
the time they spent suffering from cold and hunger in waiting to get a
lodging, several hours daily to get through, and that they must somehow
fill up the rest of the twenty-four hours of every day,--a whole life,
of which I had never thought before. I realized now, for the first time,
that all these people, besides the mere effort to find food and shelter
from the cold, must live through the rest of every day of their life as
other people have to do, must get angry at times, and be dull, and try
to appear light-hearted, and be sad or merry. Now, for the first time
(however strange the confession may sound), I was fully aware that the
task which I was undertaking could not simply consist in feeding and
clothing a thousand people (just as one might feed a thousand head of
sheep, and drive them into shelter), but must develop some more
essential help. When I considered that each one of these individuals was
just another man like myself, possessing also a past history, with the
same passions, temptations, and errors, the same thoughts, the same
questions to be answered, then suddenly the work before me appeared
stupendous and I felt my own utter helplessness;--but it had begun and I
was resolved to go on.




CHAPTER V


On the appointed day, the students who were to assist me started early
in the morning; while I, the philanthropist, only joined them at twelve
o'clock. I could not come earlier, as I did not get up till ten, after
which I had to take some coffee, and then smoke for the sake of my
digestion. Twelve o'clock, then, found me at the door of the Rzhanoff
Houses. A policeman showed me a public-house to which the census-clerks
referred all those who wished to enquire for them. I entered, and found
it very dirty and unsavoury. Here, right in front of me, was a counter;
to the left a small room, furnished with tables covered with soiled
napkins; to the right a large room on pillars, containing similar little
tables placed in the windows and along the walls; with men here and
there having tea, some very ragged, others well dressed, apparently
workmen or small shopkeepers. There were also several women. In spite of
the dirt, it was easy to see, by the business air of the man in charge,
and the ready, obliging manners of the waiters, that the eating-house
was driving a good trade. I had no sooner entered than one of the
waiters was already preparing to assist me in getting off my overcoat,
anxious to take my orders, and showing that evidently the people here
were in the habit of doing their work quickly and readily.

My enquiry for the census-clerks was answered by a call for "Ványa" from
a little man dressed in foreign fashion, who was arranging something in
a cupboard behind the counter. This was the proprietor of the
public-house, a peasant from Kaluga, Iván Fedotitch by name, who also
rented half of the other houses, sub-letting the rooms to lodgers. In
answer to his call, a thin, sallow-faced, hook-nosed lad, about eighteen
years old, came forward hastily. The landlord said, "Take this gentleman
to the clerks: they have gone to the main body of the building over the
well."

The lad put down his napkin, pulled on a coat over his white shirt and
trousers, picked up a large cap with a peak, and then, with quick, short
steps, led the way by a back-door through the buildings. At the entrance
of a greasy, malodorous kitchen, we met an old woman who was carefully
carrying some putrid tripe in a rag. We descended into a court, built up
all round with wooden buildings on stone foundations. The smell was most
offensive, and seemed to be concentrated in a privy to which numbers of
people were constantly resorting. This privy was really only the place
which custom accepted as a privy. One could not avoid noticing this
place as one passed through the courtyard. One suffered in entering the
acrid atmosphere of the bad smells issuing from it.

The boy, taking care not to soil his white trousers, led me cautiously
across frozen and unfrozen filth, and approached one of the buildings.
The people crossing the yard and galleries all stopped to gaze at me. It
was evident that a cleanly-dressed man was an unusual sight in the
place.

The boy asked a woman whom we met, whether she had seen where the census
officials had entered, and three people at once answered his question:
some said that they were over the well; others said that they had been
there, but had now gone to Nikita Ivanovitch's.

An old man in the middle of the court, who had only a shirt on, said
that they were at No. 30. The boy concluded that this information was
the most probable and led me to No. 30, into the basement, where
darkness prevailed and a bad smell, different from that which filled the
court.

We continued to descend along a dark passage. As we were traversing it a
door was suddenly opened, out of which came a drunken old man in a
shirt, evidently not of the peasant class. A shrieking washerwoman with
tucked-up sleeves and soapy arms was pushing him out of the room.
"Ványa" (my guide) shoved him aside, saying, "It won't do to kick up
such a row here--and you an officer too!"

When we arrived at No. 30, Ványa pulled the door, which opened with the
sound of a wet slap; and we felt a gush of soapy steam and an odor of
bad food and tobacco, and entered in complete darkness. The windows were
on the other side; and we were in a crooked corridor, that went right
and left, with doors leading at different angles into rooms separated
from it by a partition of unevenly laid boards, roughly whitewashed.

In a dark room to the left we could see a woman washing at a trough.
Another old woman was looking out of a door at the right. Near an open
door was a hairy, red-skinned peasant in bark shoes, sitting on a couch.
His hands rested upon his knees; and he was swinging his feet and
looking sadly at his shoes.

At the end of the passage a small door led into the room where the
census officers had assembled. This was the room of the landlady of the
whole of No. 30, who rented it from Iván Fedotitch and sub-let to
ordinary or night lodgers.

In this tiny room a student sat under an image glittering with gilt
paper, and, with the air of a magistrate, was putting questions to a man
dressed in shirt and vest. This last was a friend of the landlady's, who
was answering the questions in her stead. The landlady herself,--an old
woman,--and two inquisitive lodgers, were also present.

When I entered, the room was quite filled up. I pushed through to the
table, shook hands with the student, and he went on extracting his
information, while I studied the inhabitants, and put questions to them
for my own ends.

It appeared, however, I could find no one here upon whom to bestow my
benevolence. The landlady of the rooms, notwithstanding their
wretchedness and filth (which especially struck me in comparison with
the mansion in which I lived), was well off, even from the point of view
of town poverty; and compared with country destitution, with which I was
well acquainted, she lived luxuriously. She had a feather-bed, a quilted
blanket, a samovár, a fur cloak, a cupboard, with dishes, plates, etc.
The landlady's friend had the same well-to-do appearance, and boasted
even a watch and chain. The lodgers were poor, but among them there was
no one requiring immediate help.

Three only applied for aid,--the woman washing linen, who said she had
been abandoned by her husband; an old widowed woman, without means of
livelihood; and the peasant in the bark shoes, who told me he had not
had anything to eat that day. But, upon gathering more precise
information, it became evident that all these people were not in extreme
want, and that, before one could really help, it would be necessary to
make their more intimate acquaintance.

When I offered the washerwoman to place her children in a "home," she
became confused, thought over it some time, then thanked me much, but
evidently did not desire it; she would rather have had some money. Her
eldest daughter helped her in the washing, and the second acted as nurse
to the little boy.

The old woman asked to be put into a refuge; but, examining her corner,
I saw she was not in extreme distress. She had a box containing some
property and a teapot, two cups, and old bon-bon boxes with tea and
sugar. She knitted stockings and gloves, and received a monthly
allowance from a lady benefactress.

The peasant was evidently more desirous of wetting his throat after his
last day's drunkenness than of food, and anything given him would have
gone to the public-house. In these rooms, therefore, there was no one
whom I could have rendered in any respect happier by helping them with
money.

There were only paupers there,--and paupers, it seemed, of a
questionable kind.

I put down the names of the old woman, the laundress, and the peasant,
and settled in my mind that it would be necessary to do something for
them, but that first I would help those other _especially_ unfortunate
ones whom I expected to come across in this house. I made up my mind
that some system was necessary in distributing the aid which we had to
give: first, we must find the most needy, and then come to such as
these.

But in the next lodging, and in the next again, I found only similar
cases, which would have to be looked into more closely before being
helped. Of those whom pecuniary aid alone would have rendered happy, I
found none.

However ashamed I feel in confessing it, I began to experience a certain
disappointment at not finding in these houses anything resembling what I
had expected. I thought to find very exceptional people; but, when I had
gone over all the lodgings, I became convinced that their inhabitants
were in no way extremely peculiar, but much like those amongst whom I
lived.

As with us, so also with them, there were some more or less good and
others more or less bad: there were some more or less happy and others
more or less unhappy. Those who were unhappy amongst them would have
been equally wretched with us, their misery being within themselves,--a
misery not to be mended by any kind of bank-note.




CHAPTER VI


The inhabitants of these houses belonged to the lowest population of the
town, which in Moscow amounts to perhaps more than a hundred thousand.
In this house, there were representative men of all kinds,--petty
employers and journeymen, shoemakers, brushmakers, joiners, hackney
coachmen, jobbers carrying on business on their own account,
washerwomen, second-hand dealers, money-lenders, day-laborers, and
others without any definite occupation; and here also lodged beggars and
unfortunate women.

Many who were like the people I had seen waiting at Liapin's house lived
here, mixed up with the working-people. But those whom I saw then were
in a most wretched condition, having eaten and drunk all they had, and,
turned out of the public-house, were waiting, as for heavenly manna,
cold and hungry, to be admitted into the free night-lodging-house,--and
longing day by day to be taken to prison, in order to be sent back to
their homes. Here I saw the same men among a greater number of
working-people, at a time when by some means or other they had got a few
farthings to pay for their night's lodging, and perhaps a ruble or two
for food and drink.

However strange it may sound, I had no such feelings here as I
experienced in Liapin's house; on the contrary, during my first
visiting-round, I and the students had a sensation which was rather
agreeable than otherwise. Why do I say "almost agreeable?" It is not
true. The sensation called forth by the companionship of these
men--strange as it may seem--was simply a very agreeable one.

The first impression was, that the majority of the lodgers here were
working people, and very kindly disposed. We found most of them at
work,--the washerwomen at their tubs, the joiners by their benches, the
bootmakers at their lasts. The tiny rooms were full of people, and the
work was going on cheerfully and with energy. There was a smell of
perspiration among the workmen, of leather at the bootmaker's, of chips
in the carpenter's shop. We often heard songs, and saw bare, sinewy arms
working briskly and skilfully.

Everywhere we were received kindly and cheerfully. Nearly everywhere our
intrusion into the daily life of these people excited no desire in them
to show us their importance, or to rate us soundly, which happens when
such visits are paid to the lodgings of well-to-do people. On the
contrary, all our questions were answered simply, without any particular
importance being attached to them,--served, indeed, only as an excuse
for merriment and for jokes about how they were to be enrolled on the
list, how such a one was as good as two, and how two others ought to be
reckoned as one.

Many we found at dinner or at tea; and each time, in answer to our
greeting, "Bread and salt," or, "Tea and sugar," they said, "You are
welcome"; and some even made room for us to sit down. Instead of the
place being the resort of an ever-shifting population, such as we
expected to find, it turned out that in this house were many rooms which
had been tenanted by the same people for long periods.

One carpenter, with his workmen, and a bootmaker, with his journeymen,
had been living here for ten years. The bootmaker's shop was very dirty
and quite choked up, but all his men were working very cheerily. I tried
to talk with one of the workmen, wishing to sound him about the miseries
of his lot, what he owed to the master, and so forth; but he did not
understand me, and spoke of his master and of his life from a very
favourable point of view.

In one lodging, there lived an old man with his old wife. They dealt in
apples. Their room was warm, clean, and filled with their belongings.
The floor was covered with straw-matting which they got from the apple
stores. There were chests, a cupboard, a samovár, and crockery. In the
corner were many holy images, before which two lamps were burning: on
the wall hung fur cloaks wrapped up in a sheet. The old woman with
wrinkled face, kind and talkative, was apparently quite delighted with
her quiet, respectable life.

Iván Fedotitch, the owner of the inn and of the lodgings, came out and
walked with us. He joked kindly with many of the lodgers, calling them
all by their names, and giving us short sketches of their characters.
They were as other men, did not consider themselves unhappy, but
believed they were like everyone else, as in reality they were. We were
prepared to see only dreadful things, and we met instead objects not
only not repulsive, but estimable. There were so many of these, compared
with the ragged, ruined, unoccupied people we met now and then among
them, that the latter did not in the least destroy the general
impression. To the students it did not appear so remarkable as it did to
me. They were merely performing an act useful to science, as they
thought; and, in passing, made casual observations: but I was a
benefactor; my object in going there was to help the unhappy, ruined,
depraved men and women whom I had expected to meet in this house.
Suddenly, instead of unhappy, ruined, depraved beings, I found the
majority to be workingmen: quiet, satisfied, cheerful, kind, and very
good.

I was still more strongly impressed when I found that in these lodgings
the crying want I wished to relieve had already been relieved before I
came. But by whom? By these same unhappy, depraved beings whom I was
prepared to save! And this help was given in a way not open to me.

In one cellar lay a lonely old man suffering from typhus-fever. He had
no connections in the world; yet a woman,--a widow with a little
girl,--quite a stranger to him, but living in the corner next to him,
nursed him, gave him tea, and bought him medicine with her own money.

In another lodging lay a woman in puerperal fever. A woman of the town
was nursing her child, and had prepared a sucking-bottle for him, and
had not gone out to ply her sad trade for two days.

An orphan girl was taken into the family of a tailor, who had three
children of his own. Thus, there remained only such miserable unoccupied
men as retired officials, clerks, men-servants out of situations,
beggars, tipsy people, prostitutes, children, whom it was not possible
to help all at once by means of money, but whose cases it was necessary
to consider carefully before assisting them. I had been seeking for men
suffering immediately from want of means, whom one might be able to help
by sharing one's superfluities with them. I had not found them. All whom
I had seen, it would have been very difficult to assist materially
without devoting time and care to their cases.




CHAPTER VII


These unfortunate necessitous ones ranged themselves in my mind under
three heads: First, those who had lost former advantageous positions,
and who were waiting to return to them (such men belonged to the lowest
as well as to the highest classes of society); Secondly, women of the
town, who are very numerous in these houses; and Thirdly, children.

The majority of those I found, and noted down, were men who had lost
former places, and were desirous of returning to them, chiefly of the
better class, and government officials. In almost all the lodgings we
entered with the landlord, we were told, "Here we need not trouble to
fill up the card ourselves: the man here is able to do it, provided he
is not tipsy."

Thus summoned by Iván Fedotitch, there would appear, from some dark
corner, the once rich nobleman or official, mostly drunk, and always
half-dressed. If he were not drunk, he willingly undertook the task: he
kept nodding his head with a sense of importance, knitted his brows,
inserted now and then learned terms in his remarks, and carefully
holding in his dirty, trembling hands the neat pink card, looked round
at his fellow-lodgers with pride and contempt, as if he were now, by the
superiority of his education, triumphing over those who had been
continually humbling him.

He was evidently pleased to have intercourse with the world which used
pink cards, with a world of which he himself had once been a member.

To my questions about his life, this kind of man not only replied
willingly, but with enthusiasm,--beginning to tell a story, fixed in his
mind like a prayer, about all kinds of misfortunes which had happened to
him, and chiefly about his former position, in which, considering his
education, he ought to have remained.

Many such people are scattered about in all the tenements of the
Rzhanoff Houses. One lodging-house was tenanted exclusively by them,
women and men. As we approached them, Iván Fedotitch said, "Now, here's
where the nobility live."

The lodging was full. Almost all the lodgers--about forty persons--were
at home. In the whole house, there were no faces so ruined and
degraded-looking as these,--if old, flabby; if young, pale and haggard.

I talked with several of them. Almost always the same story was told,
differing only in degree of development. One and all had been once rich,
or had still a rich father or brother or uncle; or either his father or
his unfortunate self had held a high office. Then came some misfortune
caused by envious enemies, or his own imprudent kindness, or some
out-of-the-way occurrence; and, having lost everything, he was obliged
to descend to these strange and hateful surroundings, among lice and
rags, in company with drunkards and loose characters, feeding upon bread
and liver, and subsisting by beggary.

All the thoughts, desires, and recollections of these men are turned
toward the past. The present appears to them as something unnatural,
hideous, and unworthy of attention. It does not exist for them. They
have only recollections of the past, and expectations of the future
which may be realized at any moment, and for the attainment of which but
very little is needed; but, unfortunately, this little is out of their
reach; it cannot be got anywhere: and so one has wasted one year,
another five, and a third thirty years.

One needs only to be dressed respectably in order to call on a
well-known person who is kindly disposed toward him; another requires
only to be dressed, have his debts paid, and go to some town or other; a
third wants to take his effects out of pawn, and get a small sum to
carry on a law-suit, which must be decided in his favour, and then all
will be well again. All say that they have need of some external
circumstance in order to regain that position which they think natural
and happy.

If I had not been blinded by my pride in being a benefactor, I should
have needed only to look a little closer into their faces, young and
old, which were generally weak, sensual, but kind, in order to
understand that their misfortunes could not be met by external means;
that they could be happy in no position while their present conception
of life remained the same; that they were by no means peculiar people in
peculiarly unhappy circumstances, but that they were like all other men,
ourselves included.

I remember well how my intercourse with men of this class was
particularly trying to me. I now understand why it was so. In them I saw
my own self as in a mirror. If I had considered carefully my own life
and the lives of people of my own class, I should have seen that between
us and these unfortunate men there existed no essential difference.

Those who live around me in expensive suites of apartments and houses of
their own in the best streets of the city, eating something better than
liver or herring with their bread, are none the less unhappy. They also
are discontented with their lot, regret the past, and desire a happier
future, precisely as did the wretched tenants of the Rzhanoff Houses.
Both wished to be worked less and to be worked for more, the difference
between them being only in degrees of idleness.

Unfortunately, I did not see this at first, nor did I understand that
such people needed to be relieved, not by my charity, but from their own
false views of the world; and that to change a man's estimate of life he
must be given one more accurate than his own, which, unhappily, not
possessing myself, I could not communicate to others.

These men were unhappy not because, to use an illustration, they were
without nourishing food, but because their stomachs were spoiled; and
they required, not nourishment, but a tonic. I did not see that in order
to help them, it was not necessary to give them food but to teach them
how to eat. Though I am anticipating, I must say that of all these
people whose names I put down I did not in reality help one,
notwithstanding that everything some of them had desired was done to
relieve them. Of these I became acquainted with three men in particular.
All three, after many failures and much assistance, are now in the same
position they were in three years ago.




CHAPTER VIII


The second class of unfortunates, whom I hoped afterwards to be able to
help, were women of the town. These women were very numerous in the
Rzhanoff Houses; and they were of every kind, from young girls still
bearing some likeness to women, to old and fearful-looking creatures
without a vestige of humanity. The hope of helping these women, whom I
had not at first in view, was aroused by the following circumstances.

When we had finished half of our tour, we had already acquired a
somewhat mechanical method. On entering a new lodging we at once asked
for the landlord. One of us sat down, clearing a space to write; and the
other went from one to another, questioning each man and woman in the
room, and reporting the information obtained to him who was writing.

On our entering one of the basement lodgings, the student went to look
for the landlord; and I began to question all who were in the place.
This place was divided thus: In the middle of the room, which was four
yards square, there stood a stove. From the stove four partitions or
screens radiated, making a similar number of small compartments. In the
first of these, which had two doors in it opposite each other, and four
pallets, were an old man and a woman. Next to this was a rather long but
narrow room, in which was the landlord, a young, pale, good-looking man
dressed in a gray woollen coat. To the left of the first division was a
third small room where a man was sleeping, seemingly tipsy, and a woman
in a pink dressing-gown. The fourth compartment was behind a partition,
access to it being through the landlord's room.

The student entered the latter, while I remained in the first,
questioning the old man and the woman. The former had been a compositor,
but now had no means of livelihood whatever.

The woman was a cook's wife.

I went into the third compartment, and asked the woman in the
dressing-gown about the man who was asleep.

She answered that he was a visitor.

I asked her who she was.

She replied that she was a peasant girl from the county of Moscow.

"What is your occupation?" She laughed, and made no answer.

"What do you do for your living?" I repeated, thinking she had not
understood the question.

"I sit in the inn," she said.

I did not understand her, and asked again,--

"What are your means of living?"

She gave me no answer, but continued to giggle. In the fourth room,
where we had not yet been, I heard the voices of women also giggling.

The landlord came out of his room, and approached us. He had evidently
heard my questions and the woman's answers. He glanced sternly at her,
and, turning to me, said, "She is a prostitute"; and it was evident that
he was pleased that he knew this word,--which is the one used in
official circles,--and at having pronounced it correctly. And having
said this with a respectful smile of satisfaction towards me, he turned
to the woman. As he did so, the expression of his face changed. In a
peculiarly contemptuous manner, and with rapid utterance as one would
speak to a dog, he said, without looking at her, "Don't be a fool!
instead of saying you sit in the inn, speak plainly, and say you are a
prostitute.--She does not even yet know her proper name," he said,
turning to me.

This manner of speaking shocked me.

"It is not for us to shame her," I said. "If we were all living
according to God's commandment, there would be no such persons."

"There are such doings," said the landlord, with an artificial smile.

"Therefore we must pity them, and not reproach them. Is it their fault?"

I do not remember exactly what I said. I remember only that I was
disgusted by the disdainful tone of this young landlord, in a lodging
filled with females whom he termed prostitutes; and I pitied the woman,
and expressed both feelings.

No sooner had I said this, than I heard from the small compartment where
the giggling had been, the noise of creaking bed-boards; and over the
partition, which did not reach to the ceiling, appeared the dishevelled
curly head of a female with small swollen eyes, and a shining red face;
a second, and then a third, head followed. They were evidently standing
on their beds; and all three were stretching their necks and holding
their breath, and looking silently at me with strained attention.

A painful silence followed.

The student, who had been smiling before this happened, now became
grave; the landlord became confused, and cast down his eyes; and the
women continued to look at me in expectation.

I felt more disconcerted than all the rest. I had certainly not expected
that a casual word would produce such an effect. It was like the field
of battle covered with dead bones seen by the prophet Ezekiel, on which,
trembling from contact with the spirit, the dead bones began to move. I
had casually uttered a word of love and pity, which produced upon all
such an effect that it seemed as if they had been only waiting for it,
to cease to be corpses, and to become alive again.

They continued to look at me, as if wondering what would come next, as
if waiting for me to say those words and do those acts by which these
dry bones would begin to come together,--be covered with flesh and
receive life.

But I felt, alas! that I had no such words or deeds to give, or to
continue as I had begun. In the depth of my soul I felt that I had told
a lie, that I myself was like them, that I had nothing more to say; and
I began to write down on the card the names and the occupations of all
the lodgers there.

This occurrence led me into a new kind of error. I began to think that
these unhappy creatures also could be helped. This, in my self
deception, it seemed to me would be very easily done. I said to myself,
"Now we shall put down the names of these women too; and afterwards,
when we (though it never occurred to me to ask who were the _we_) have
written everything down, we can occupy ourselves with their affairs." I
imagined that _we_, the very persons who, during many generations, have
been leading such women into such a condition, and still continue to do
so, could one fine morning wake up and remedy it all. And yet, if I
could have recollected my conversation with the lost woman who was
nursing the baby for the sick mother, I should have understood the folly
of such an idea.

When we first saw this woman nursing the child, we thought that it was
hers; but upon our asking her what she was, she answered us plainly that
she was a wench. She did not say "prostitute." It was left for the
proprietor of the lodgings to make use of that terrible word.

The supposition that she had a child gave me the idea of helping her out
of her present position.

"Is this child yours?" I asked.

"No: it is that woman's there."

"Why do you nurse him?"

"She asked me to. She is dying."

Though my surmise turned out to be wrong, I continued to speak with her
in the same spirit. I began to question her as to who she was, and how
she came to be in such a position. She told me her story willingly, and
very plainly. She belonged to the artisan class of Moscow, the daughter
of a factory workman. She was left an orphan, and adopted by her aunt,
from whose house she began to visit the inns. The aunt was now dead.

When I asked her whether she wished to change her course of life, my
question did not even interest her. How can a supposition about
something quite impossible awaken an interest in any one? She smiled and
said,--

"Who would take me with a yellow ticket?"[3]

  [3] The police certificate of registration as a prostitute.--Ed.

"But," said I, "if it were possible to find you a situation as a cook or
something else?" I said this because she looked like a strong woman,
with a kind, dull, round face, not unlike many cooks I had seen.

Evidently my words did not please her. She repeated, "Cook! but I do not
understand how to bake bread."

She spoke jestingly; but, by the expression of her face, I saw that she
was unwilling; that she even considered the position and rank of a cook
beneath her.

This woman, who, in the most simple manner, like the widow in the
gospel, had sacrificed all that she had for a sick person, at the same
time, like other women of the same profession, considered the position
of a workman or workwoman low and despicable. She had been educated to
live without work,--a life which all her friends considered quite
natural. This was her misfortune. And by this she came into her present
position, and is kept in it. This brought her to the inns. Who of us men
and women will cure her of this false view of life? Are there among us
any men convinced that a laborious life is more respectable than an idle
one, and who are living according to this conviction, and who make this
the test of their esteem and respect?

If I had thought about it I should have understood that neither I nor
anybody else I know, was able to cure a person of this disease.

I should have understood that those wondering and awakened faces that
looked over the partition expressed merely astonishment at the pity
shown to them, but no wish to reform their lives. They did not see the
immorality. They knew that they were despised and condemned, but the
reason for this they could not understand. They had lived in this manner
from their infancy among women like themselves, who, they know very
well, have always existed, do exist, and are necessary to society, that
there are officials deputed by government to see that they conform to
regulations.

Besides, they know that they have power over men, and subdue them, and
often influence them more than any other women. They see that their
position in society, notwithstanding the fact that they are always
blamed, is recognised by men as well as by women and by the government;
and therefore they cannot even understand of what they have to repent,
and wherein they should reform.

During one of our tours the student told me that in one of the lodgings
there was a woman who sends out her daughter, thirteen years old, to
walk the streets. Wishing to save this little girl I went on purpose to
their lodging.

Mother and daughter were living in great poverty. The mother, a small,
dark-complexioned prostitute of forty years of age, was not simply ugly,
but disagreeably ugly. The daughter was also bad-looking. To all my
indirect questions about their mode of life, the mother replied curtly,
with a look of suspicion and animosity, apparently feeling that I was an
enemy with bad intentions: the daughter said nothing without looking
first at the mother, in whom she evidently had entire confidence.

They did not awaken pity in my heart, but rather disgust. Still I
decided that it was necessary to save the daughter, to awaken an
interest in ladies who might sympathize with the miserable condition of
these women and might so be brought here.

Yet if I had thought about the antecedents of the mother, how she had
given birth to her daughter, how she had fed and brought her up,
certainly without any outside help, and with great sacrifices to
herself; if I had thought of the view of life which had formed itself in
her mind,--I should have understood, that, in the mother's conduct,
there was nothing at all bad or immoral, seeing she had been doing for
her daughter all she could; i.e., what she considered best for herself.

It was possible to take this girl away from her mother by force; but to
convince her that she was doing wrong in selling her daughter was not
possible. It would first be necessary to save this woman--this
mother--from a condition of life approved by every one, and according to
which a woman may live without marrying and without working, serving
exclusively as a gratification to the passions. If I had thought about
this, I should have understood that the majority of those ladies whom I
wished to send here for saving this girl were not only themselves
avoiding family duties, and leading idle and sensuous lives, but were
consciously educating their daughters for this very same mode of
existence. One mother leads her daughter to the inn, and another to
court and to balls. Both the views of the world held by both mothers are
the same; viz., that a woman must gratify the passions of men, and for
that she must be fed, dressed, and taken care of.

How, then, are our ladies to reform this woman and her daughter?




CHAPTER IX


Still more strange were my dealings with the children. In my _rôle_ as
benefactor I paid attention to the children too, wishing to save
innocent beings from going to ruin in this den; and I wrote down their
names in order to attend to them myself _afterwards_.

Among these children my attention was particularly drawn to Serozha, a
boy twelve years old. I sincerely pitied this clever, intelligent lad,
who had been living with a bootmaker, and who was left without any place
of refuge when his master was put into prison. I wished to do something
for him.

I will now give the result of my benevolence in his case, because this
boy's story will show my false position as a benefactor better than
anything else.

I took the boy into my house, and lodged him in the kitchen. Could I
possibly bring a lousy boy out of a den of depravity to my children? I
considered that I had been very kind in having put him where he was,
amongst my servants. I thought myself a great benefactor for having
given him some of my old clothes and fed him; though it was properly my
cook who did it, not I. The boy remained in my house about a week.

During this week I saw him twice, and, passing him, spoke some words to
him, and, when out walking, called on a bootmaker whom I knew and
proposed the boy as an apprentice. A peasant who was on a visit at my
house invited him to go to his village and work in a family. The boy
refused to accept it and disappeared within a week.

I went to Rzhanoff's house to enquire after him. He had returned there;
but when I called, he was not at home. He had already been two days in a
menagerie in Presnem Ponds, where he hired himself for 6d. a day to
appear in a procession of savages in costume, leading an elephant. There
was some public show on at the time.

I went to see him again, but he was so ungrateful, he evidently avoided
me. Had I reflected upon the life of this boy and on my own, I should
have understood that the boy had been spoiled by the fact of his having
tasted the sweets of a merry and idle life, and that he had lost the
habit of working. And I, in order to confer on him a benefit and reform
him, took him into my own house. And what did he see there? He saw my
children, some older than he, some younger, and some of the same age,
who not only never did anything for themselves, but gave as much work to
others as they could. They dirtied and spoiled everything about them,
surfeited themselves with all sorts of dainties, broke the china, upset
and threw to the dogs food which would have been a treat to him. If I
took him out of a den and brought him to a respectable place, he could
not but assimilate the views of life which existed there; and, according
to these views, he understood that in a respectable position one must
live without working, eat and drink well, and lead a merry life.

True, he did not know that my children had much labour in learning the
exceptions in Latin and Greek grammars; nor would he have been able to
understand the object of such work. But one cannot help seeing that even
had he understood it the influence upon him of the example of my
children would have been still stronger. He would have then understood
that they were being educated in such a way, that, not working now, they
might afterwards also work as little as possible, and enjoy the good
things of life by virtue of their diplomas.

But what he did understand of it made him go, not to the peasant to take
care of cattle and feed on potatoes and kvas,[4] but to the menagerie in
the costume of a savage to lead an elephant for 6d. a day. I ought to
have understood how foolish it was of one who was educating his own
children in complete idleness and luxury to try to reform other men and
their children, and save them from going to ruin and idleness in what I
called the _dens_ in Rzhanoff's house; where, however, three-fourths of
the men were working for themselves and for others. But then I
understood nothing of all this.

  [4] An unfermented home-made liquor used by Russian peasants.--Ed.

In Rzhanoff's house there were a great many children in the most
miserable condition. There were children of prostitutes, orphans, and
children carried about the streets by beggars. They were all very
wretched. But my experience with Serozha showed me that so long as I
continued living the life I did I was not able to help them.

While the boy was living with us I remember I took pains to hide from
him our way of life, particularly that of my children. I felt that all
my endeavours to lead him to a good and laborious life were frustrated
by my example and that of my children. It is very easy to take away a
child from a prostitute or a beggar. It is very easy, when one has
money, to wash him, dress him in new clothes, feed him well, and even
teach him different accomplishments; but to teach him how to earn his
living, is, for us who have not been earning ours but doing just the
contrary, not only difficult but quite impossible, because by our
example and by the very improvements of his mode of life effected by us
without any cost on our part, we teach him the very opposite.

You may take a puppy, pet him, feed him, teach him to carry things after
you, and be pleased with looking at him: but it is not enough to feed a
man, dress him, and teach him Greek; you must teach him how to live;
i.e., how to take less from others and give them more in return: and yet
through our own mode of life we cannot help teaching him the very
opposite whether we take him into our house or put him into a home to
bring up.




CHAPTER X


I have never since experienced such a feeling of compassion towards men
and of aversion towards myself, as I felt in Liapin's house. I was now
filled with the desire to carry out the scheme I had already begun and
to do good to the men whom I had met.

And, strange to say, though it might seem that to do good and to give
money to those in want of it was a good deed, and ought to dispose men
to universal love, it turned out quite the reverse; calling up in me
bitter feelings and disposition to censure them. Even during our first
tour a scene occurred similar to that in Liapin's house; but it failed
to produce again the same effect and created a very different
impression.

It began with my finding in one of the lodgings a miserable person who
required immediate help,--a woman who had not eaten food for two days.

It happened thus: In one very large and almost empty night-lodging, I
asked an old woman whether there were any poor people who had nothing to
eat. She hesitated a moment and then named two; then suddenly, as if
recollecting herself, she said, "Yes, there lies one of them," pointing
to a pallet. "This one," she added, "indeed, has nothing to eat."

"You don't say so! Who is she?"

"She has been a lost woman; but as nobody takes her now, she can't earn
anything. The landlady has had pity on her, but now she wants to turn
her out.--Agafia! I say, Agafia!" cried the old woman.

We went a little nearer, and saw something rise from the pallet. This
was a grey-haired, dishevelled woman, thin as a skeleton, in a dirty,
torn chemise, and with peculiarly glittering, immovable eyes. She looked
fixedly beyond us, tried to snatch up her jacket behind her in order to
cover her bony chest, and growled out like a dog, "What? what?"

I asked her how she managed to live. For some time she was unable to see
the drift of my words and said, "I don't know myself; they are going to
turn me out."

I asked again; and oh, how ashamed of myself I feel! my hand can
scarcely write it! I asked her whether it was true that she was
starving. She replied in the same feverish, excited manner, "I had
nothing to eat yesterday; I have had nothing to eat to-day."

The miserable aspect of this woman impressed me deeply, but quite
differently from those in Liapin's house: there, out of pity for them, I
felt embarrassed and ashamed of myself; but here, I rejoiced that I had
at last found what I had been looking for,--a hungry being.

I gave her a ruble and I remember how glad I felt that the others had
seen it.

The old woman forthwith asked me also for money. It was so pleasant to
me to give that I handed her some also, without thinking whether it was
necessary or not. She accompanied me to the door, and those who were in
the corridor heard how she thanked me. Probably my questions about the
poor provoked expectations, for some of the inmates began to follow us
wherever we went.

Among those that begged, there were evidently drunkards, who gave me a
most disagreeable impression; but having once given to the old woman I
thought I had no right to refuse them, and I began to give away more.
This only increased the number of applicants, and there was a stir
throughout the whole lodging-house.

On the stairs and in the galleries, people appeared dogging my steps.
When I came out of the yard, a boy ran quickly down the stairs, pushing
through the people. He did not notice me and said hurriedly,--

"He gave a ruble to Agafia!"

Having reached the ground, he, too, joined the crowd that was following
me. I came out into the street. All sorts of people crowded round
begging for money. Having given away all I had in coppers, I entered a
shop and asked the proprietor to give me change for ten rubles.

Here occurred a scene similar to that which took place in Liapin's
house. A dreadful confusion ensued. Old women, seedy gentlefolk,
peasants, children, all crowded about the shop, stretching out their
hands; I gave, and asked some of them about their position and means,
and entered all in my note-book. The shopkeeper, having turned up the
fur collar of his great-coat, was sitting like a statue, glancing now
and then at the crowd, and again staring beyond it. He apparently felt
like everyone else, that all this was very foolish, but he dared not say
so.

In Liapin's house the misery and humiliation of the people had
overwhelmed me; and I felt myself to blame for it, and also the desire
and the possibility of becoming a better man. But though the scene here
was similar, it produced quite a different effect. In the first place, I
felt angry with many of those who assailed me, and then anxious as to
what the shopmen and the dvorniks might think of me. I returned home
that day with a weight on my mind. I knew that what I had done was
foolish and inconsistent; but, as usual when my conscience was troubled,
I talked the more about my projected plan, as if I had no doubt whatever
as to its success.

The next day I went alone to those whom I had noted down, and who seemed
the most miserable, thinking they could be more easily helped than
others.

As I have already mentioned, I was not really able to help any of these
people. It turned out that to do so was more difficult than I had
imagined: in short, I only tormented these men and helped no one.

Before the last visiting-tour I went several times to Rzhanoff's house,
and each time the same thing occurred: I was assailed by a crowd of men
and women in the midst of whom I utterly lost my presence of mind.

I felt the impossibility of doing anything because there were so many of
them; besides, each of them, taken separately, did not awaken any
sympathy in me. I felt that every one lied, or at least prevaricated,
and regarded me only as a purse out of which money could be drawn. It
often seemed to me that the very money extorted from me did not improve
their position but only made it worse.

The oftener I went to these houses, the closer the intercourse which I
had with the inmates, the more apparent became the impossibility of
doing anything; but notwithstanding this, I did not give up my plan
until after the last night tour with the census-takers.

I feel more ashamed of this visit than of any other. Formerly I had gone
alone, but now twenty of us went together. At seven o'clock all who
wished to take part in this last tour began to assemble in my house.
They were almost all strangers to me. Some students, an officer, and two
of my fashionable acquaintances, who, after having repeated the usual
phrase, "C'est très intéressant!" asked me to put them into the number
of the census-takers.

These fashionable friends of mine had dressed themselves in
shooting-jackets and tall travelling boots, which they thought more
suited to the visit than their ordinary clothes. They carried with them
peculiar pocket-books and extraordinary-looking pencils. They were in
that agitated state of mind which one experiences just before going to a
hunt, or to a duel, or into a battle. The falseness and foolishness of
our enterprise was now more apparent to me in looking at them; but were
we not all in the same ridiculous position?

Before starting we had a conference, somewhat like a council of war, as
to what we should begin with, how to divide ourselves, and so on. This
conference was just like all other official councils, meetings, and
committees: each spoke, not because he had anything to say, or to ask,
but because every one tried to find something to say in order not to be
behind the rest. But during the conversation no one alluded to the acts
of benevolence to which I had so many times referred; and however much
ashamed I felt, I found it was needful to remind them that we must carry
out our charitable intentions by writing down, during the visiting-tour,
the names of all whom we should find in a destitute condition.

I had always felt ashamed to speak about these matters; but here, in the
midst of our hurried preparations for the expedition, I could scarcely
utter a word about them. All listened to me and seemed touched, all
agreed with me in words; but it was evident that each of them knew that
it was folly, and that it would lead to nothing, and so they began at
once to talk about other subjects, and continued doing so until it was
time for us to start.

We came to the dark tavern, aroused the waiters, and began to sort out
papers. When we were told that the people, having heard about this
visiting-tour, had begun to leave their lodgings, we asked the landlord
to shut the gate, and we ourselves went to the yard to persuade those to
remain who wanted to escape, assuring them that no one would ask to see
their passports.

I remember the strange and painful impression produced upon me by these
frightened night-lodgers. Ragged and half-dressed, they all appeared
tall by the light of the lantern in the dark court-yard. Frightened and
horrible in their terror, they stood in a small knot round the
pestilential out-house, listening to our persuasions, but not believing
us; and, evidently, like hunted animals, prepared to do anything to
escape from us.

Gentlemen of all kinds, town and country policemen, public coroner and
judges, had, all their lives, been hunting them in towns and villages,
on the roads and in the streets, in the taverns and in the
lodging-houses, and suddenly these gentlemen had come at night and shut
the gate, only, forsooth, in order to count them! They found this as
difficult to believe as it would be for hares to believe that the dogs
had come out not to catch but to count them.

But the gates were shut, and the frightened night-lodgers returned to
their places; and we, having separated into groups, began our visit.
With me were my fashionable acquaintances and two students. Ványa, with
a lantern, went before us in a great-coat and white trousers, and we
followed. We entered lodgings well known to me. The place was familiar,
some of the persons also; but the majority were new to me, and the
spectacle was also a new and dreadful one,--still more dreadful than
that which I had seen at Liapin's house. All the lodgings were filled,
all the pallets occupied, and not only by one, but often by two persons.
The sight was dreadful, because of the closeness with which these people
were huddled together, and because of the indiscriminate commingling of
men and women. Such of the latter as were not dead-drunk were sleeping
with men. Many women with children slept with strange men on narrow
beds.

The spectacle was dreadful, owing to the misery, dirt, raggedness, and
terror of these people; and chiefly because there were so many of them.
One lodging, then another, then a third, a tenth, a twentieth, and so
on, without end. And everywhere the same fearful stench, the same
suffocating exhalation, the same confusion of sexes, men and women,
drunk, or in a state of insensibility; the same terror, submissiveness,
and guilt stamped on all faces, so that I felt deeply ashamed and
grieved, as I had before at Liapin's. At last I understood that what I
was about to do was disgusting, foolish, and therefore impossible; so I
left off writing down their names and questioning them, knowing now that
nothing would come of it.

I felt deeply hurt.

At Liapin's I had been like a man who sees a horrible wound on the body
of another. He feels sorry for the man, ashamed of not having relieved
him before, yet he can still hope to help the sufferer; but now I was
like a doctor who comes with his own medicines to the patient, uncovers
his wound only to mangle it, and to confess to himself that all he has
done has been done in vain, and that his remedy is ineffectual.




CHAPTER XI


This visit gave the last blow to my self-deception. It became very
evident to me that my aim was not only foolish, but even productive of
evil. Yet, though I knew this, it seemed my duty to continue the project
a little longer: first, because of the article I had written and by my
visits I had raised the expectations of the poor; secondly, because what
I had said and written had awakened the sympathy of some benefactors,
many of whom had promised to assist me personally and with money. And I
was expecting to be applied to by both, and hoped to satisfy them as
well as I was able.

As regards the applications made to me by those who were in need, the
following details may be given: I received more than a hundred letters,
which came exclusively from the "rich poor," if I may so express myself.
Some of them I visited, and some I left unanswered. In no instance did I
succeed in doing any good. All the applications made to me were from
persons who were once in a privileged position (I call such persons
privileged who receive more from others than they give in return), had
lost that position, and were desirous of regaining it. One wanted two
hundred rubles in order to keep his business from going to ruin, and to
enable him to finish the education of his children; another wanted to
have a photographic establishment; a third wanted money to pay his
debts, and take his best clothes out of pawn; a fourth was in need of a
piano, in order to perfect himself and to earn money to support his
family by giving lessons. The majority did not name any particular sum
of money: they simply asked for help; but when I began to investigate
what was necessary, it turned out that their wants increased in
proportion to the help offered, and nothing satisfactorily resulted. I
repeat again, the fault may have been in my want of understanding; but
in any case I helped no one, notwithstanding the fact that I made every
effort to do so.

As for the philanthropists who were to co-operate with me, something
very strange and quite unexpected occurred: of all who promised to
assist with money, and even stated the amount they would give, not one
contributed anything for distribution among the poor.

The promises of pecuniary assistance amounted to about three thousand
rubles; but of all these people, not one recollected his agreement, or
gave me a single kopek. The students alone gave the money which they
received as payment for visiting, about twelve rubles; so that my
scheme, which was to have collected tens of thousands of rubles from the
rich, and to have saved hundreds and thousands of people from misery and
vice, ended in my distributing at random some few rubles offered by the
students, with twenty-five more sent me by the town-council for my
labour as manager, which I positively did not know what to do with.

So ended the affair.

Then, before leaving Moscow for the country, on the Sunday before the
Carnival, I went to the Rzhanoff house in the morning in order to
distribute the thirty-seven rubles among the poor. I visited all whom I
knew in the lodgings, but found only one invalid, to whom I gave
something,--five rubles, I think. There was nobody else to give to. Of
course, many began to beg; but, as I did not know them, I made up my
mind to take the advice of Iván Fedotitch, the tavern-keeper, respecting
the distribution of the remaining thirty-two rubles.

It was the first day of the carnival. Everybody was smartly dressed, all
had had food, and many were drunk. In the yard near the corner of the
house stood an old-clothes man, dressed in a ragged peasant's coat and
bark shoes. He was still hale and hearty. Sorting his purchases, he was
putting them into different heaps,--leather, iron, and other
things,--and was singing a merry song at the top of his voice.

I began to talk with him. He was seventy years of age; had no relatives;
earned his living by dealing in old clothes, and not only did not
complain, but said he had enough to eat, drink, and to spare. I asked
him who in the place were particularly in want. He became cross, and
said plainly that there was no one in want but drunkards and idlers; but
on learning my object in asking, he begged me five kopeks for drink, and
ran to the tavern for it.

I also went to the tavern to see Iván Fedotitch, to ask him to
distribute the money for me. It was full; gayly-dressed tipsy
prostitutes were walking to and fro; all the tables were occupied; many
people were already drunk; and in the small room someone was playing a
harmonium, and two people were dancing. Iván Fedotitch, out of respect
for me, ordered them to leave off, and sat down next me at a vacant
table. I asked him, as he knew his lodgers well, to point out those most
in want, as I was intrusted with a little money for distribution, and
wished him to direct me. The kind-hearted man (he died a year after)
gave me his attention for a time in order to oblige me, although he had
to wait on his customers. He began to think it over, and was evidently
puzzled. One old waiter had overheard us, and took his part in the
conference.

They began to go over his lodgers, some of whom were known to me, but
they could not agree. "Paramonovna," suggested the waiter.

"Well; yes, she does go hungry sometimes; but she drinks."

"What difference does that make?"

"Well, Spiridon Ivanovitch, he has children; that's the man for you."

But Iván Fedotitch had doubts about Spiridon too.

"Akulina, but she has a pension. Ah, but there is the blind man!"

To him I myself objected: I had just seen him. This was an old man of
eighty years of age, without any relatives. One could scarcely imagine
any condition to be worse; and yet I had just seen him lying drunk on a
feather bed, cursing at his comparatively young mistress in the most
filthy language.

They then named a one-armed boy and his mother. I saw that Iván
Fedotitch was in great difficulty owing to his conscientiousness, for he
knew that every thing given away by me would be spent at his tavern. But
as I had to get rid of my thirty-two rubles, I insisted, and we managed
somehow or other to distribute the money. Those who received it were
mostly well-dressed, and we had not far to go to find them: they were
all in the tavern. The one-armed boy came in top-boots and a red shirt
and waistcoat.

Thus ended all my benevolent enterprises; and I left for the country
vexed with everyone, as it always happens when one does something
foolish and harmful. Nothing came of it all, except the train of
thoughts and feelings which it called forth in me, which not only did
not cease, but doubly agitated my mind.




CHAPTER XII


What did it all mean?

I had lived in the country and had entered into relations with the
country-poor. It is not out of false modesty, but that I may state the
truth, which is necessary in order to understand the run of all my
thoughts and feelings, that I must say that in the country I had done
perhaps but little for the poor, the help which had been required of me
was so small; but even the little I had done had been useful, and had
formed round me an atmosphere of love and sympathy with my
fellow-creatures, in the midst of whom it might yet be possible for me
to quiet the gnawing of my conscience as to the unlawfulness of my life
of luxury.

On going to the city I had hoped for the same happy relations with the
poor, but here things were upon quite another footing. In the city,
poverty was at once less truthful, more exacting, and more bitter, than
in the country. It was chiefly because there was so much more of it
accumulated together, that it produced upon me a most harrowing
impression. What I experienced at Liapin's house made my own luxurious
life seem monstrously evil. I could not doubt the sincerity and strength
of this conviction; yet, notwithstanding this, I was quite incapable of
carrying out a revolution which demanded an entire change in my mode of
life: I was frightened at the prospect, and so I resorted to
compromises. I accepted what I was told by everyone, and what has been
said by everybody since the world began,--that riches and luxury are in
themselves no evil, that they are given by God, and that whilst
continuing to live luxuriously it is possible to help those in need. I
believed this and wanted to do so. And I wrote an article in which I
called upon all rich people to help. These all admitted themselves
morally obliged to agree with me, but evidently did not wish to do or
give anything for the poor, or could not do so.

I then began visiting, and discovered what I had in no way expected to
see. On the one hand, I saw in these dens (as I had at first called
them) men whom it was impossible for me to help, because they were
working-men, accustomed to labour and privation, and therefore having a
much firmer hold on life than I had. On the other hand, I saw miserable
men whom I could not aid because they were just such as I was myself.
The majority of the poor whom I saw were wretched, merely because they
had lost the capacity, desire, and habit of earning their bread; in
other words, their misery consisted in the fact that they were just like
myself. Whereas, of poor people to whom it was possible to give
immediate assistance--those suffering from illness, cold, and hunger,--I
found none, except the starving Agafia; and I became persuaded that,
being so far removed from the life of those whom I wished to succour, it
was almost impossible to find such need as I sought, because all real
need was attended to by those amongst whom these unhappy creatures
lived: and my principal conviction now was, that, with money, I could
never reform that life of misery which these people led.

I was persuaded of this: yet a feeling of shame to leave off all I had
begun, and self-deception as to my own virtues, made me continue my plan
for some time longer till it died a natural death; thus, only with great
difficulty and the help of Iván Fedotitch, I managed to distribute in
the tavern at Rzhanoff's house the thirty-seven rubles which I
considered were not my own.

Of course I might have continued this style of thing and have
transformed it into a kind of charity; and, by importuning those who
promised to give me money, I might have obtained and distributed more,
thus comforting myself with the idea of my own excellence: but I became
convinced on the one hand that we rich people do not wish,--and are also
unable,--to distribute to the poor a portion of our superfluities (we
have so many wants ourselves), and that money should not be given to any
one if we really wish to do good, instead of merely distributing it at
random as I had done in the Rzhanoff tavern. So I dropped the affair
entirely and in despair quitted Moscow for my own village.

I intended on returning home to write a pamphlet on my experience, and
to state why my project had not succeeded. I wanted to justify myself
from the imputations which resulted from my article on the census; I
wanted also to denounce society and its heartless indifference; and I
desired to point out the causes of this town misery, and the necessity
for endeavouring to remedy it, as well as the means which I thought were
requisite for this purpose. I began even then to write, and fancied I
had many very important facts to communicate. But in vain did I rack my
brain: I could not manage it, notwithstanding the super-abundance of
material at my command, because of the irritation under which I wrote,
and because I had not yet learned by experience what was necessary to
grasp the question rightly; still more because I had not become fully
conscious of the cause of it all,--a very simple cause, deep-rooted in
myself. So the pamphlet was not finished at the commencement of the
present year (1884-1885).

In the matter of moral law we witness a strange phenomenon to which men
pay too little attention. If I speak to an unlearned man about geology,
astronomy, history, natural philosophy, or mathematics, he receives the
information as quite new to him, and never says to me, "There is nothing
new in what you tell me; every one knows it, and I have known it for a
long time." But tell a man one of the highest moral truths in the
simplest manner, in such a way as it has never been before formulated,
and every ordinary man, particularly one who does not take any interest
in moral questions, and, above all, one who dislikes them, is sure to
say, "Who does not know that? It has been always known and expressed."
And he really believes this. Only those who can appreciate moral truths
know how to value their elucidation and simplification by a long and
laborious process, or can prize the transition from a proposition or
desire at first vaguely understood to a firm and determined expression
calling for a corresponding change of conduct.

We are all accustomed to consider moral doctrine to be a very insipid
and dull affair in which there can be nothing new or interesting;
whereas, in reality, human life, with all its complicated and varied
actions which seem to have no connection with morals,--political
activity, activity in the sciences, in the arts, and in commerce,--has
no other object than to elucidate moral truths more and more, and to
confirm, simplify, and make them accessible to all.

I recollect once while walking in a street in Moscow I saw a man come
out and examine the flag-stones attentively; then, choosing one of them,
he sat down by it and began to scrape and rub it vigorously.

"What is he doing with the pavement?" I wondered; and, having come up
close to him, I discovered he was a young man from a butcher's shop, and
was sharpening his knife on the flag-stone. He was not thinking about
the stones when examining them, and still less while doing his work; he
was merely sharpening his knife. It was necessary for him to do so in
order to cut the meat, but to me it seemed that he was doing something
to the pavement.

In the same way mankind seems to be occupied with commerce, treaties,
wars, sciences, arts; and yet for them one thing only is important, and
they do only that,--they are elucidating those moral laws by which they
live.

Moral laws are already in existence, and mankind has been and is merely
re-discovering them: this elucidation appears to be unimportant and
imperceptible to one who has no need of moral law, and who does not
desire to live by it. Yet this is not only the chief but is the sole
business of all men. The elucidation is imperceptible in the same way as
the difference between a sharp knife and a blunt one is imperceptible. A
knife remains a knife; and one who has not to cut anything with it will
not notice its edge: but for one who understands that all his life
depends more or less upon whether his knife is blunt or sharp, every
improvement in sharpening it is important; and such a man knows that
there must be no limit to this improvement, and that the knife is only
really a knife when it is sharp, and when it cuts what it has to cut.

The conviction of this truth flashed upon me when I began to write my
pamphlet. Previously it seemed to me that I knew everything about my
subject, that I had a thorough understanding of everything connected
with those questions which had been awakened in me by the impressions
made in Liapin's house and during the census; but when I tried to sum
them up, and to put them on paper, it turned out that the knife would
not cut, and had to be sharpened: so it is only now after three years
that I feel my knife is sharp enough for me to cut out what I want. It
is not that I have learned new things: my thoughts are still the same;
but they were blunt formerly; they kept diverging in every direction;
there was no edge to them; nor was anything brought, as it is now, to
one central point, to one most simple and plain conclusion.




CHAPTER XIII


I recollect that during the whole time of my unsuccessful endeavours to
help the unfortunate inhabitants of Moscow, I felt I was like a man
trying to help others out of a bog, who was all the time stuck fast in
it himself. Every effort made me feel the instability of the ground upon
which I was standing. I felt that I myself was in this bog, but the
acknowledgement did not help me to look more closely under my feet to
find out the nature of the ground on which I stood: I kept looking for
some external means to remedy the evil.

I felt my life was a bad one, and that people ought not to live so; yet
I did not come to the most natural and obvious conclusion: that I must
first reform my own mode of life before I could have any conception of
how to reform others. And so I began at the wrong end, as it were. I was
living in town, and wished to improve the lives of the men there; but I
soon became convinced that I had no power to do so; and then I began to
ponder over the _nature_ of town life and town misery.

I said to myself over and over again, "What is this town life and town
misery? And why, while living in town, am I unable to help the town
poor?" The only reply I found was, that I was powerless to do anything
for them, First, because there were too many collected together in one
place; Secondly, because none of them were at all like those in the
country. And again I asked myself, "Why are there so many here, and in
what do they differ from the country poor?"

To both these questions the answer was the same. The poor are numerous
in towns because all who have nothing to subsist on in the country are
collected there round the rich; and their peculiarity is due to the fact
that they have all come into the towns from the country to get a living.
(If there are any town poor born there, whose fathers and grandfathers
were town born, these in their turn originally came there to get a
living.) But what are we to understand by the expression, "getting a
living in town"? There is something strange in the expression; it sounds
like a joke when we reflect on its meaning. How is it that from the
country,--i.e., from places where there are woods, meadows, corn and
cattle, where the earth yields the treasures of fertility--men come
away, to get a living in a place where there are none of these
advantages, but only stones and dust? What then, do the words, "getting
a living in town," mean?

Such a phrase is constantly used, both by the employed and their
employers, as if it were quite clear and intelligible. I remember now
all the hundreds and thousands of town people living well or ill with
whom I had spoken about their object in coming here; and all of them,
without exception, told me they had quitted their villages "to get a
living"; that "Moscow neither sows nor reaps, yet lives in wealth"; that
in Moscow there is abundance of everything; and that, therefore, in
Moscow one may get the money which is needed in the country for corn,
cottages, horses, and the other essentials of life.

But, in fact, the country is the source of all wealth; there, only, are
real riches,--corn, woods, horses, and everything necessary. Why go to
towns, then, to get what is to be had in the country? And why should
people carry away from the country into the towns the things that are
necessary for country people,--flour, oats, horses, and cattle?

Hundreds of times I have spoken thus with peasants who live in towns;
and from my talks with them, and from my own observations, it became
clear to me that the accumulation of country people in our cities is
partly _necessary_, because they could not otherwise earn their
livelihood, and partly voluntary, because they are attracted by the
temptations of a town life.

It is true that the circumstances of a peasant are such, that, in order
to satisfy the pecuniary demands made on him in his village, he cannot
do otherwise than sell that corn and cattle which he knows very well
will be necessary for himself; and he is compelled, whether he will or
not, to go to town to earn back what was his own. But it is also true
that he is attracted to town by the charms of a comparatively easy way
of getting money, and by the luxury of life there; and, under the
pretext of earning his living, he goes there in order to have easier
work and better food, to drink tea three times a day, to dress himself
smartly, and even to get drunk and lead a dissolute life.

The cause is a simple one; for property passing from the hands of the
agriculturalists into those of non-agriculturalists accumulates in
towns. Observe towards autumn how much wealth is gathered together in
the villages. Then come the demands of taxes, rents, recruiting; then
the temptations of vodka, marriages, feasts, peddlers, and all sorts of
other snares; so that in one way or other, this property, all in its
various forms (sheep, calves, cows, horses, pigs, poultry, eggs, butter,
hemp, flax, rye, oats, buckwheat, peas, hemp-seed, and flax-seed),
passes into the hands of strangers, and is taken first to provincial
towns, and thence to the capitals. A villager is compelled to dispose of
all these things in order to satisfy the demands made upon him and the
temptations offered him; and, having thus parted with his goods, he is
left in want, and must follow where his wealth has been taken; and there
he tries to earn back the money which is necessary for his most urgent
needs at home; and so, being partly carried away by these temptations,
he himself, along with others, makes use of the accumulated wealth.

Everywhere throughout Russia, and, I think, not only in Russia but all
over the world, the same thing happens. The wealth of the country people
who produce it passes into the hands of tradespeople, landowners,
government officials, manufacturers. The men who receive this wealth
want to enjoy it, and to enjoy it fully they must be in town.

In the country, in the first place, it is difficult for the rich to
gratify all their desires, owing to the inhabitants being scattered: you
do not find there the shops, banks, restaurants, theatres, and various
kinds of public amusements.

Secondly, another of the chief pleasures procured by wealth,--vanity,
the desire to astonish, to make a display before others,--cannot be
gratified in the country for the same reason: its inhabitants being too
scattered. There is no one in the country to appreciate luxury; there is
no one to astonish. There you may have what you like to embellish your
dwelling,--pictures, bronze statues, all sorts of carriages, and fine
toilets,--but there is nobody to look at them or to envy you. The
peasants do not understand the value of all this, and cannot make head
or tail of it. Thirdly, luxury in the country is even disagreeable to a
man who has a conscience, and is an anxiety to a timid person. One feels
uneasy or ashamed at taking a milk bath, or in feeding puppies with
milk, when there are children close by needing it; one feels the same in
building pavilions and gardens among a people who live in cottages
covered with stable litter, and who have no wood to burn.

There is no one in the village to prevent the stupid, uneducated
peasants from spoiling our comforts.

Therefore, rich people gather together in towns, and settle near those
who, in similar positions, have similar desires. In towns, the enjoyment
of luxuries is carefully protected by a numerous police. The principal
inhabitants of towns are government officials, round whom all the rich
people, master-workmen, and artisans have settled. There, a rich man has
only to think about a thing, and he can get it. It is also more
agreeable for him to live there, because he can gratify his vanity;
there are people with whom he may try to compete in luxury, whom he may
astonish or eclipse. But it is especially pleasant for a wealthy man to
live in town, because, where his country life was uncomfortable, and
even somewhat incongruous because of his luxury, in town, on the
contrary, it would be uncomfortable for him _not_ to live splendidly, as
his equals in wealth do. What seemed out of place there, appears
indispensable here.

Rich people collect together in towns, and, under the protection of the
authorities, enjoy peacefully all that has been brought there by the
villagers. A countryman often cannot help going to town, where a
ceaseless round of feasting is going on, where what has been procured
from the peasants is being spent. He comes into the town to feed on
those crumbs which fall from the tables of the rich; and partly by
observing the careless, luxurious, and generally approved mode of living
of these men, he begins to desire to order his own affairs in such a
manner that he, too, may be able to work less and avail himself more of
the labour of others. At last he decides to settle down in the
neighbourhood of the wealthy, trying by every means in his power to get
back from them what is necessary for him, and submitting to all the
conditions which the rich enforce. These country people assist in
gratifying all the fancies of the wealthy: they serve them in public
baths, in taverns, as coachmen, and as prostitutes. They manufacture
carriages, make toys and dresses, and little by little learn from their
wealthy neighbours how to live like them, not by real labour, but by all
sorts of tricks, squeezing out from others the money they have
collected,--and so they become depraved, and are ruined.

It is then this same population, depraved by the wealth of towns, which
forms that city misery which I wished to relieve, but could not.

Indeed, if one only reflects on the condition of these country folk
coming to town to earn money to buy bread or to pay taxes, and who see
everywhere thousands of rubles squandered foolishly, and hundreds very
easily earned while they have to earn their pence by the hardest of
labour, one cannot but be astonished that there are still many such
people at work, and that they do not all have recourse to a more easy
way of getting money,--trading, begging, vice, cheating, and even
robbery.

It is only we who join in the ceaseless orgie going on in the towns who
can get so accustomed to our own mode of life that it seems quite
natural to us that one fine gentleman should occupy five large rooms
heated with sufficient firewood to enable twenty families to warm their
homes and cook their food with. To drive a short distance, we employ two
thoroughbreds and two men; we cover our inlaid floors with carpets, and
spend five or ten thousand rubles on a ball, or even twenty-five for a
Christmas-tree, and so on. Yet a man who needs ten rubles to buy bread
for his family, or from whom his last sheep has been taken to meet a tax
of seven rubles which he cannot save by the hardest of labour, cannot
get accustomed to all this which we imagine must seem quite natural to
the poor. There are even people _naïve_ enough to say that the poor are
thankful to us because we feed them by living so luxuriously!

But poor people do not lose their reasoning powers because they are
poor: they reason quite in the same manner as we do. When we have heard
that some one has lost a fortune at cards, or squandered ten or twenty
thousand rubles, the first thought that comes into our minds is: "How
stupid and bad this man must be to have parted with such a large sum
without any equivalent; and how well _I_ could have employed this money
for some building I have long wanted to get done, or for the improvement
of my estate," and so on.

The poor reason in the same way on seeing how foolishly we waste our
wealth; all the more forcibly, because this money is needed, not to
satisfy their _whims_, but for the chief necessaries of life, of which
they are in want. We are greatly mistaken in thinking that the poor,
while able to reason thus, still look on unconcernedly at the luxury
around them.

They have never acknowledged, and never will, that it is right for one
man to be always idling, and for another to be continually working. At
first they are astonished and offended; then, looking closer into the
question, they see that this state of things is acknowledged to be
legal, and they themselves try to get rid of work, and to take part in
the feasting. Some succeed in so doing, and acquire similar wanton
habits; others, little by little, approach such a condition; others
break down before they reach their object, and, having lost the habit of
working, fill the night-houses and the haunts of vice.

The year before last we took from the village a young peasant to be our
butler's assistant. He could not agree with the footman, and was sent
away; he entered the service of a merchant, pleased his masters, and now
wears a watch and chain, and has smart boots.

In his place we took another peasant, a married man. He turned out a
drunkard, and lost money. We took a third: he began to drink, and,
having drunk all he had, was for a long time in distress in a
night-lodging-house. Our old cook took to drinking in the town, and fell
ill. Last year a footman who used formerly to have fits of drunkenness,
but who, while living in the village kept himself from it for five
years, came to live in Moscow without his wife (who used to keep him in
order), began again to drink, and ruined himself. A young boy of our
village is living as butler's assistant at my brother's. His
grandfather, a blind old man, came to me while I was living in the
country, and asked me to persuade this grandson to send ten rubles for
taxes, because, unless this were done, the cow would have to be sold.

"He keeps telling me that he has to dress himself respectably," said the
old man. "He got himself long boots, and that ought to be enough; but I
actually believe he would like to buy a watch!"

In these words the grandfather expressed what he felt was the utmost
degree of extravagance. And this was really so; for the old man could
not afford a drop of oil for his food during the whole of Lent, and his
wood was spoilt because he had not the ruble and a quarter necessary for
cutting it up. But the old man's irony turned out to be reality. His
grandson came to me dressed in a fine black overcoat, and in long boots
for which he had paid eight rubles. Recently he had got ten rubles from
my brother, and spent them on his boots. And my children, who have known
the boy from his infancy, told me that he really considers it necessary
to buy a watch. He is a very good boy, but he considers that he will be
laughed at for not having one.

This year a housemaid, eighteen years of age, formed an intimacy with
the coachman, and was sent away. Our old nurse, to whom I related the
case, reminded me of a girl whom I had quite forgotten. Ten years ago,
during a short stay in Moscow, she formed an intimacy with a footman.
She also was sent away, and drifted at last into a house of ill-fame,
and died in a hospital before she was twenty years of age.

We have only to look around us to become alarmed by the infection which
(to say nothing of manufactories and workshops existing only to gratify
our luxury) we directly, by our luxurious town life, spread among those
very people whom we desire afterwards to help.

Thus, having got at the root of that town misery which I was not able to
alleviate, I saw that its first cause is in our taking from the
villagers their necessaries and carrying them to town. The second cause
is, that in those towns we avail ourselves of what we have gathered from
the country, and, by our foolish luxury, tempt and deprave the peasants
who follow us there in order to get back something of what we have taken
from them in the country.




CHAPTER XIV


From another point of view than the one stated, I also came to the same
conclusion. Recollecting my connection with the town-poor during this
period, I saw that one cause which prevented me from helping them was
their insincerity and falseness. They all considered me, not as an
individual but merely as a means to an end. I felt I could not become
intimate with them; I thought I did not perhaps understand how to do so;
but without truthfulness, no help was possible. How can one help a man
who does not tell all his circumstances? Formerly I accused the poor of
this (it is so natural to accuse others), but one word spoken by a
remarkable man, Sutaief, who was then on a visit at my house, cleared up
the difficulty, and showed me wherein lay the cause of my failure.

I remember that even then what he said made a deep impression on me; but
I did not understand its full meaning until afterwards. It happened that
while in the full ardour of my self-deception I was at my sister's
house, Sutaief being also there; and my sister was questioning me about
my work.

I was relating it to her; and, as is always the case when one does not
fully believe in one's own enterprises, I related with great enthusiasm,
ardour, and at full length, all I had been doing, and all the possible
results. I was telling her how we should keep our eyes open to what went
on in Moscow; how we should take care of orphans and old people; how we
should afford means for impoverished villagers to return to their homes,
and pave the way to reform the depraved. I explained, that, if we
succeeded in our undertaking, there would not be in Moscow a single poor
man who could not find help.

My sister sympathized with me; and while speaking, I kept looking now
and then at Sutaief; knowing his Christian life, and the importance
attached by him to works of charity, I expected sympathy from him, and I
spoke so that he might understand me; for, though I was addressing my
sister, yet my conversation was really more directed to him.

He sat immovable, dressed in his black-tanned-sheepskin coat, which he,
like other peasants, wore in-doors as well as out. It seemed that he was
not listening to us, but was thinking about something else. His small
eyes gave no responding gleam, but seemed to be turned inwards. Having
spoken out to my own satisfaction, I turned to him and asked him what he
thought about it.

"The whole thing is worthless," he replied.

"Why?"

"The plan is an empty one, and no good will come of it," he repeated
with conviction.

"But why will nothing come of it? Why is it a useless business, if we
help thousands, or even hundreds, of unhappy ones? Is it a bad thing,
according to the gospel, to clothe the naked, or to feed the hungry?"

"I know, I know; but what you are doing is not that. Is it possible to
help thus? You are walking in the street; somebody asks you for a few
kopeks; you give them to him. Is that charity? Do him some spiritual
good; teach him. What you give him merely says, 'Leave me alone.'"

"No; but that is not what we were speaking of: we wish to become
acquainted with the wants, and then to help by money and by deeds. We
will try to find for the poor people some work to do."

"That would be no way of helping them."

"How then? must they be left to die of starvation and cold?"

"Why left to die? How many are there of them?"

"How many?" said I, thinking that he took the matter so lightly from not
knowing the great number of these men; "you are not aware, I dare say,
that there are in Moscow about twenty thousand cold and hungry. And
then, think of those in St. Petersburg and other towns!"

He smiled.

"Twenty thousand! And how many households are there in Russia alone?
Would they amount to a million?"

"Well; but what of that?"

"What of that?" said he, with animation, and his eyes sparkled. "Let us
unite them with ourselves; I am not rich myself, but will at once take
two of them. Here is a fellow you settled in your kitchen; I asked him
to go with me, but he refused. If there were ten times as many, we
should take them all into our families. You one, I another. We shall
work together; he will see how I work; he will learn how to live, and we
shall eat out of one bowl, at one table; and they will hear a good word
from me, and from you also. That is charity; but all this plan of yours
is no good."

These plain words made an impression upon me. I could not help
recognizing that they were true. But it seemed to me then, that,
notwithstanding the justice of what he said, my proposed plan might
perhaps be useful also.

But the longer I was occupied with this affair; and the closer my
intercourse with the poor, the oftener I recollected these words and the
greater meaning I found in them.

I, indeed, go in an expensive fur coat, or drive in my own carriage to a
man who is in want of boots: he sees my house which costs two hundred
rubles a month, or he notices that I give away, without thinking, five
rubles, only because of a caprice; he is then aware that if I give away
rubles in such a manner, it is because I have accumulated so many that I
have a lot to spare which I am not only never in the habit of giving to
any one, but which I have taken away from others without compunction.
What can he see in me but one of those persons who have become possessed
of something which should belong to him? And what other feelings can he
have towards me than the desire to get back as many as possible of these
rubles which were taken by me from him and from others?

I should like to become intimate with him, and complain that he is not
sincere. But I am afraid to sit down upon his bed for fear of lice or
some infectious disease; I am also afraid to let him come into my room;
and when he comes to me half-dressed, he has to wait, if fortunate, in
the entrance-hall, but oftener in the cold porch. And then I say that it
is all his fault that I cannot become intimate with him, and that he is
not sincere.

Let the most hard-hearted man sit down to dine upon five courses among
hungry people who have little or nothing to eat except dry bread, and no
one could have the heart to eat while these hungry people are around him
licking their lips.

Therefore, before one can eat well when living among half-starved men,
the first thing necessary is to hide ourselves from them, and to eat so
that they may not see us. This is the very thing we do in the first
place.

I looked into our own mode of life without prejudice, and became aware
that it was not by chance that closer intercourse with the poor is
difficult for us, but that we ourselves are intentionally ordering our
lives in such a way as to make this intercourse impossible. And not only
this; but, on looking at our lives, or at the lives of rich people from
without, I saw that all that is considered as the _happiness_ of these
lives consists in being separated as much as possible from the poor, or
is in some way or other connected with this desired separation.

In fact, the entire aim of our lives, beginning with food, dress,
dwelling and cleanliness, and ending with our education, consists in
placing a gulf between us and them. And we spend nine-tenths of our
wealth to erect impassable barriers in order to establish this
distinction and separation.

The first thing a man who has grown rich does is to leave off eating
with others out of one bowl. He arranges plates for himself and his
family, and separates himself from the kitchen and the servants. He
feeds his servants well so that their mouths may not water, and he dines
alone. But eating alone is dull. He invents whatever he can to improve
his food, embellish his table; and the very manner of taking food, as at
dinner-parties, becomes a matter of vanity and pride. His manner of
eating his food is a means of separating himself from other people. For
a rich man it is out of the question to invite a poor person to his
table. One must know how to hand a lady to table, how to bow, how to
sit, to eat, to use a finger-bowl, all of which the rich alone know how
to do.

The same holds good with dress.

If a rich man wore ordinary dress,--a jacket, a fur coat, felt shoes,
leather boots, an undercoat, trousers, a shirt,--he would require very
little to cover his body and protect it from cold; and, having two fur
coats, he could not help giving one away to somebody who had none. But
the wealthy man begins with wearing clothes which consist of many
separate parts, of use only on particular occasions, and therefore of no
use to a poor man. The man of fashion must have evening dress-coats,
waistcoats, frock-coats, patent-leather shoes; his wife must have
bodices, and dresses which, according to fashion, are made of many
parts, high-heeled shoes, hunting and travelling jackets, and so on. All
these articles can be useful only to people in a condition far removed
from poverty.

And thus dressing also becomes a means of isolation. Fashions make their
appearance, and are among the chief things which separate the rich man
from the poor one.

The same thing shows itself more plainly still in our dwellings. In
order that one person may occupy ten rooms we must manage so that he may
not be seen by the people who are living by tens in one room.

The richer a man is, the more difficult it is to get at him; the more
footmen there are between him and people not rich, the more impossible
it is for him to receive a poor guest, to let him walk on his carpets
and sit on his satin-covered chairs.

The same thing happens in travelling. A peasant who drives in a cart or
on a carrier's sledge must be very hard-hearted if he refuses to give a
pedestrian a lift; he has enough room, and can do it. But the richer the
carriage is, the more impossible it is to put any one in it besides the
owner. Some of the most elegant carriages are so narrow as to be termed
"_egotists_."

The same thing applies to all the modes of living expressed by the word
"cleanliness." Cleanliness! Who does not know human beings, especially
women, who make a great virtue of cleanliness? Who does not know the
various phrases of this cleanliness, which have no limit whatever when
it is procured by the labour of others? Who among self-made men has not
experienced in his own person the pains with which he carefully
accustomed himself to this cleanliness, which illustrates the saying,
"White hands are fond of another's labour"?

To-day cleanliness consists in changing one's shirt daily; to-morrow it
will be changed twice a day. At first, one has to wash one's hands and
neck every day, then one will have to wash one's feet every day, and
afterwards it will be the whole body, and in peculiar methods. A clean
table-cloth serves for two days, then it is changed every day, and
afterwards two table-cloths a day are used. To-day the footman is
required to have clean hands; to-morrow he must wear gloves, and clean
gloves, and he must hand the letters on a clean tray.

There are no limits to this cleanliness, which is of no other use to
anyone except to separate us, and to make our intercourse with others
impossible while the cleanliness is obtained through the labour of
others.

Not only so, but when I had deeply reflected upon this, I came to the
conclusion that what we term education is a similar thing. Language
cannot deceive: it gives the right name to everything. The common people
call education fashionable dress, smart conversation, white hands, and a
certain degree of cleanliness. Of such a man they say, when
distinguishing him from others, that he is an educated man.

In a little higher circle men denote by education the same things, but
add playing on the piano, the knowledge of French, good Russian
spelling, and still greater cleanliness.

In the still higher circle education consists of all this, with the
addition of English, and a diploma from a high educational
establishment, and a still greater degree of cleanliness. But in all
these shades, education is in substance quite the same.

It consists in those forms and various kinds of information which
separate a man from his fellow-creatures. Its object is the same as that
of cleanliness: to separate us from the crowd, in order that they,
hungry and cold, may not see how we feast. But it is impossible to hide
ourselves, and our efforts are seen through.

Thus I became aware that the reason why it was impossible for us rich
men to help the town poor was nothing more or less than the
impossibility of our having closer intercourse with them, and that this
barrier we ourselves create by our whole life and by all the uses we
make of our wealth. I became persuaded that between us rich men and the
poor there stood, erected by ourselves, a barrier of cleanliness and
education which arose out of our wealth; and that, in order to be able
to help them, we have first to break down this barrier and to render
possible the realization of the means suggested by Sutaief: to take the
poor into our respective homes. And so, as I have already said at the
beginning of this chapter, I came to the same conclusion from a
different point of view from that to which the train of thought about
town misery had led me; viz., the cause of it all lay in our wealth.




CHAPTER XV


I began again to analyze the matter from a third and purely personal
point of view. Among the phenomena which particularly impressed me
during my benevolent activity, there was one,--a very strange
one,--which I could not understand for a long time.

Whenever I happened, in the street or at home, to give a poor person a
trifling sum without entering into conversation with him, I saw on his
face, or imagined I saw, an expression of pleasure and gratitude, and I
myself experienced an agreeable feeling at this form of charity. I saw
that I had done what was expected of me. But when I stopped and began to
question the man about his past and present life, entering more or less
into particulars, I felt it was impossible to give him 3 or 20 kopeks;
and I always began to finger the money in my purse, and, not knowing how
much to give, I always gave more under these circumstances; but,
nevertheless, I saw that the poor man went away from me dissatisfied.
When I entered into still closer intercourse with him, my doubts as to
how much I should give increased; and, no matter what I gave, the
recipient seemed more and more gloomy and dissatisfied.

As a general rule, it always happens that if, upon nearer acquaintance
with the poor man I gave him three rubles or even more, I always saw
gloominess, dissatisfaction, even anger depicted on his face; and
sometimes, after having received from me ten rubles, he has left me
without even thanking me, as if I had offended him.

In such cases I was always uncomfortable and ashamed, and felt myself
guilty. When I watched the poor person during weeks, months, or years,
helped him, expressed my views, and became intimate with him, then our
intercourse became a torment, and I saw that the man despised me. And I
felt that he was right in doing so. When in the street a beggar asks me,
along with other passers-by, for three kopeks, and I give it him, then,
in his estimation, I am a kind and good man who gives "one of the
threads which go to make the shirt of a naked one": he expects nothing
more than a thread, and, if I give it, he sincerely blesses me.

But if I stop and speak to him as man to man, show him that I wish to be
more than a mere passer-by, and, if, as it often happened, he shed tears
in relating his misfortune, then he sees in me not merely a chance
helper, but that which I wish him to see,--a kind man. If I am a kind
man, my kindness cannot stop at twenty kopeks, or at ten rubles, or ten
thousand. One cannot be a slightly kind man. Let us suppose that I give
him much; that I put him straight, dress him, and set him on his legs so
that he can help himself; but, from some reason or other, either from an
accident or his own weakness, he again loses the great-coat and clothing
and money I gave him, he is again hungry and cold, and he again comes to
me, why should I refuse him assistance? For if the cause of my
benevolent activity was merely the attainment of some definite, material
object, such as giving him so many rubles or a certain great-coat, then,
having given them I could be easy in my mind; but the cause of my
activity was not this: the cause of it was my desire to be a kind
man--i.e., to see myself in everybody else. Everyone understands
kindness in this way, and not otherwise.

Therefore if such a man should spend in drink all you gave him twenty
times over, and be again hungry and cold, then, if you are a benevolent
man, you cannot help giving him more money, you can never leave off
doing so while you have more than he has; but if you draw back, you show
that all you did before was done not because you are benevolent, but
because you wish to appear so to others and to him. And it was because I
had to back out of such cases, and to cease to give, and thus to disown
the good, that I felt a painful sense of shame.

What was this feeling, then?

I had experienced it in Liapin's house and in the country, and when I
happened to give money or anything else to the poor, and in my
adventures among the town people. One case which occurred lately
reminded me of it forcibly, and led me to discover its cause.

It happened in the country. I wanted twenty kopeks to give to a pilgrim.
I sent my son to borrow it from somebody. He brought it to the man, and
told me that he had borrowed it from the cook. Some days after, other
pilgrims came, and I was again in need of twenty kopeks. I had a ruble.
I recollected what I owed the cook, went into the kitchen, hoping that
he would have some more coppers. I said,--

"I owe you twenty kopeks: here is a ruble."

I had not yet done speaking when the cook called to his wife from the
adjoining room: "Parasha, take it," he said.

Thinking she had understood what I wanted, I gave her the ruble. I must
tell you that the cook had been living at our house about a week, and I
had seen his wife, but had never spoken to her. I merely wished to tell
her to give me the change, when she briskly bowed herself over my hand
and was about to kiss it, evidently thinking I was giving her the ruble.
I stammered out something and left the kitchen. I felt ashamed,
painfully ashamed, as I had not felt for a long time. I actually
trembled, and felt that I was making a wry face; and, groaning with
shame, I ran away from the kitchen.

This feeling, which I fancied I had not deserved, and which came over me
quite unexpectedly, impressed me particularly, because it was so long
since I had felt anything like it and also because I fancied that I, an
old man, had been living in a way I had no reason to be ashamed of.

This surprised me greatly. I related the case to my family, to my
acquaintances, and they all agreed that they also would have felt the
same. And I began to reflect: Why is it that I felt so?

The answer came from a case which had formerly occurred to me in Moscow.
I reflected upon this case, and I understood the shame which I felt
concerning the incident with the cook's wife, and all the sensations of
shame I had experienced during my charitable activity in Moscow, and
which I always feel when I happen to give anything beyond trifling alms
to beggars and pilgrims, which I am accustomed to give, and which I
consider not as charity, but as politeness and good breeding. If a man
asks you for a light, you must light a match if you have it. If a man
begs for three or twenty kopeks, or a few rubles, you must give if you
have them. It is a question of politeness, not of charity.

The following is the case I referred to. I have already spoken about the
two peasants with whom I sawed wood three years ago. One Saturday
evening, in the twilight, I was walking with them back to town. They
were going to their master to receive their wages. On crossing the
Dragomilor bridge we met an old man. He begged, and I gave him twenty
kopeks. I gave, thinking what a good impression my alms would make upon
Simon, with whom I had been speaking on religious questions.

Simon, the peasant from Vladímir, who had a wife and two children in
Moscow, also stopped, turned up the lappet of his kaftan, and took out
his purse; and, after having looked over his money, he picked out a
three-kopek piece, gave it to the old man, and asked for two kopeks
back. The old man showed him in his hand two three-kopek pieces and a
single kopek. Simon looked at it, was about to take one kopek, but,
changing his mind, took off his cap, crossed himself, and went away,
leaving the old man the three-kopek piece.

I was acquainted with all Simon's pecuniary circumstances. He had
neither house nor other property. When he gave the old man the three
kopeks, he possessed six rubles and fifty kopeks, which he had been
saving up, and this was all the capital he had.

My property amounted to about six hundred thousand rubles. I had a wife
and children, so also had Simon. He was younger than I, and had not so
many children; but his children were young, and two of mine were
grown-up men, old enough to work, so that our circumstances,
independently of our property, were alike, though even in this respect I
was better off than he.

He gave three kopeks, I gave twenty. What was, then, the difference in
our gifts? What should I have given in order to do as he had done? He
had six hundred kopeks; out of these he gave one, and then another two.
I had six hundred thousand rubles. In order to give as much as Simon
gave, I ought to have given three thousand rubles, and asked the man to
give me back two thousand; and, in the event of his not having change,
to leave him these two also, cross myself, and go away calmly,
conversing about how people live in the manufactories, and what is the
price of liver in the Smolensk market.

I thought about it at the time, but it was long before I was able to
draw from this case the conclusion which inevitably follows from it.
This conclusion appears to be so uncommon and strange, notwithstanding
its mathematical accuracy, that it requires time to get accustomed to
it. One is inclined to think there is some mistake, but there is none.
It is only the terrible darkness of prejudice in which we live.

This conclusion, when I arrived at it and recognized its inevitableness,
explained to me the nature of my feelings of shame in the presence of
the cook's wife, and before all the poor to whom I gave and still give
money. Indeed, what is that money which I give to the poor, and which
the cook's wife thought I was giving her? In the majority of cases it
forms such a minute part of my income that it cannot be expressed in a
fraction comprehensible to Simon or to a cook's wife,--it is in most
cases a millionth part or thereabout. I give so little that my gift is
not, and cannot be, a sacrifice to me: it is only a something with which
I amuse myself when and how it pleases me. And this was indeed how my
cook's wife had understood me. If I gave a stranger in the street a
ruble or twenty kopeks, why should I not give her also a ruble? To her,
such a distribution of money is the same thing as a gentleman throwing
gingerbread nuts into a crowd. It is the amusement of people who possess
much "fool's money." I was ashamed, because the mistake of the cook's
wife showed me plainly what ideas she and all poor people must have of
me. "He is throwing away 'fool's money'"; that is, money not earned by
him.

And, indeed, what is my money, and how did I come by it? One part of it
I collected in the shape of rent for my land, which I had inherited from
my father. The peasant sold his last sheep or cow in order to pay it.

Another part of my money I received from the books I had written. If my
books are harmful, and yet sell, they can only do so by some seductive
attraction, and the money which I receive for them is badly earned
money; but if my books are useful, the thing is still worse. I do not
give them to people, but say, "Give me so many rubles, and I will sell
them to you."

As in the former case a peasant sells his last sheep, here a poor
student or a teacher does it: each poor person who buys denies himself
some necessary thing in order to give me this money. And now that I have
gathered much of such money what am I to do with it? I take it to town,
give it to the poor only when they satisfy all my fancies and come to
town to clean pavements, lamps, or boots, to work for me in the
factories, and so on. And with this money I draw from them all I can. I
try to give them as little as I can and take from them as much as
possible.

Now, quite unexpectedly, I begin to share all this said money with these
same poor persons for nothing; but not with everyone, only as fancy
prompts me. And why should not every poor man expect that his turn might
come to-day to be one of those with whom I amuse myself by giving them
my "fool's money"?

So everyone regards me as the cook's wife did. And I had gone about with
the notion that this was charity,--this taking away thousands with one
hand, and with the other throwing kopeks to those I select!

No wonder I was ashamed. But before I can begin to do good I must leave
off the evil and put myself in a position in which I should cease to
cause it. But all my course of life is evil. If I were to give away a
hundred thousand, I should not yet have put myself in a condition in
which I could do good, because I have still five hundred thousand left.

It is only when I possess nothing at all that I shall be able to do a
little good; such as, for instance, the poor prostitute did who nursed a
sick woman and her child for three days. Yet this seemed to me to be but
so little! And _I_ ventured to think of doing good! One thing only was
true, which I at first felt on seeing the hungry and cold people outside
Liapin's house,--that _I_ was guilty of that; and that to live as I did
was impossible, utterly impossible. What shall we do then? If somebody
still needs an answer to this question, I will, by God's permission,
give one, in detail.




CHAPTER XVI


It was hard for me to own this; but when I had got so far I was
terrified at the delusion in which I had been living. I had been head
over ears in the mud myself, and yet I had been trying to drag others
out of it.

What is it that I really want? I want to do good; I want to contrive so
that no human beings shall be hungry and cold, and that men may live as
it is proper for them to live. I desire this; and I see that in
consequence of all sorts of violence, extortions, and various expedients
in which I too take part, the working people are deprived of the
necessary things, and the non-working community, to whom I also belong,
monopolize the labour of others. I see that this use of other people's
labour is distributed thus: That the more cunning and complicated the
devices employed by the man himself (or by those from whom he has
inherited his property), the more largely he employs the labours of
other people, and the less he works himself.

First come the millionaires; then the wealthy bankers, merchants,
land-owners, government officials; then the smaller bankers, merchants,
government officials and land-owners, to whom I belong too; then
shopmen, publicans, usurers, police sergeants and inspectors, teachers,
sacristans, clerks; then, again, house-porters, footmen, coachmen,
water-carters, cabmen, pedlers; and then, last of all, the workmen,
factory hands and peasants, the number of this class in proportion to
the former being as ten to one.

I see that the lives of nine-tenths of the working people essentially
require exertion and labour, like every other natural mode of living;
but that, in consequence of the devices by which the necessaries of life
are taken away from these people, their lives become every year more
difficult, and more beset with privations; and our lives, the lives of
the non-labouring community, owing to the co-operation of sciences and
arts which have this very end in view, become every year more sumptuous,
more attractive and secure.

I see that in our days the life of a labouring man, and especially the
lives of the old people, women, and children of the working-classes, are
quite worn away by increased labour out of proportion to their
nourishment, and that even the very first necessaries of life are not
secured for them. I see that side by side with these the lives of the
non-labouring class, to which I belong, are each year more and more
filled up with superfluities and luxury, and are becoming continually
more secure. The lives of the wealthy have reached that degree of
security of which in olden times men only dreamed in fairy-tales, to the
condition of the owner of the magic purse with the "inexhaustible
ruble"; to a state where a man not only is entirely free from the law of
labour for the sustenance of his life, but has the possibility of
enjoying all the goods of this life without working, and of bequeathing
to his children, or to anyone he chooses, this purse with the
"inexhaustible ruble."

I see that the results of the labour of men pass over more than ever
from the masses of labourers to those of the non-labourers; that the
pyramid of the social structure is, as it were, being rebuilt, so that
the stones of the foundation pass to the top, and the rapidity of this
passage increases in a kind of geometric progression.

I see that there is going on something like what would take place in an
ant-hill if the society of ants should lose the sense of the general
law, and some of them were to take the results of labour out of the
foundations and carry them to the top of the hill, making the foundation
narrower and narrower and thus enlarging the top, and so by that means
cause their fellows to pass also from the foundation to the top.

I see that instead of the ideal of a laborious life, men have created
the ideal of the purse with the "inexhaustible ruble." The rich, I among
their number, arrange this ruble for themselves by various devices; and
in order to enjoy it we locate ourselves in towns, in a place where
nothing is produced but everything is swallowed up.

The poor labouring man, swindled so that the rich may have this magic
ruble, follows them to town; and there he also has recourse to tricks,
either arranging matters so that he may work little and enjoy much (thus
making the condition of other workingmen still more heavy), or, not
having attained this state, he ruins himself and drifts into the
continually and rapidly increasing number of cold and hungry tenants of
doss-houses.

I belong to the class of those men who by means of these various devices
take away from the working people the necessaries of life, and who thus,
as it were, create for themselves the inexhaustible fairy ruble which
tempts in turn these unfortunate ones.

I wish to help men; and therefore it is clear that first of all I ought
on the one side to cease to plunder them as I am doing now, and on the
other to leave off tempting them. But by means of most complicated,
cunning, and wicked contrivances practised for centuries, I have made
myself the owner of this ruble; that is, have got into a condition
where, never doing anything myself, I can compel hundreds and thousands
of people to work for me, and I am really availing myself of this
privileged monopoly notwithstanding that all the time I imagine I pity
these men and wish to help them.

I sit on the neck of a man, and having quite crushed him down compel him
to carry me and will not alight from off his shoulders, though I assure
myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his
condition by every means in my power--except by getting off his back.

Surely this is plain. If I wish to help the poor, that is, to make the
poor cease to be poor, I ought not to create the poor. Yet I give money
capriciously to those who have gone astray, and take away tens of rubles
from men who have not yet become bad, thereby making them poor and at
the same time depraved.

This is very clear; but it was exceedingly difficult for me to
understand at first, without some modification or reserve which would
justify my position. However as soon as I come to see my own error, all
that formerly appeared strange, complicated, clouded, and inexplicable,
became quite simple and intelligible; but the important matter was, that
the direction of my life indicated by this explanation, became at once,
simple, clear, and agreeable, instead of being, as formerly, intricate,
incomprehensible, and painful.

Who am I, I thought, that desire to better men's condition? I say I
desire this, and yet I do not get up till noon, after having played
cards in a brilliantly lighted saloon all night,--I, an enfeebled and
effeminate man requiring the help and services of hundreds of people, I
come to help them! to help these men who rise at five, sleep on boards,
feed on cabbage and bread, understand how to plough, to reap, to put a
handle to an axe, to hew, to harness horses, to sew; men who, by their
strength and perseverance and skill and self-restraint are a hundred
times stronger than I who come to help them.

What _could_ I experience in my intercourse with these people but shame?
The weakest of them, a drunkard, an inhabitant of Rzhanoff's house, he
whom they call "the sluggard," is a hundred times more laborious than I;
his balance, so to say,--in other words the relation between what he
takes from men and what he gives to them,--is a thousand times more to
his credit than mine when I count what I receive from others and what I
give them in return. And such men I go to assist!

I go to help the poor. But of the two who is the poorer? No one is
poorer than myself. I am a weak, good-for-nothing parasite who can only
exist under very peculiar conditions, can live only when thousands of
people labour to support this life which is not useful to anyone. And I,
this very caterpillar which eats up the leaves of a tree, I wish to help
the growth and the health of the tree and to cure it!

All my life is spent thus: I eat, talk, and listen; then I eat, write,
or read, which are only talking and listening in another form; I eat
again, and play; then eat, talk, and listen, and finally eat and go to
sleep: and thus every day is spent; I neither do anything else nor
understand how to do it. And in order that I may enjoy this life it is
necessary that from morning till night house-porters, dvorniks, cooks
(male and female), footmen, coachmen, and laundresses, should work; to
say nothing of the manual labour necessary so that the coachmen, cooks,
footmen, and others may have the instruments and articles by which and
upon which they work for me,--axes, casks, brushes, dishes, furniture,
glasses, shoe-black, kerosene, hay, wood, and food. All these men and
women work hard all the day and every day in order that I may talk, eat,
and sleep. And I, this useless man, imagined I was able to benefit the
very people who were serving me! That I did not benefit any one and that
I was ashamed of myself, is not so strange as the fact that such a
foolish idea ever came into my mind.

The woman who nursed the sick old man helped him; the peasant's wife,
who cut a slice of her bread earned by herself, from the very sowing of
the corn that made it, helped the hungry one; Simon, who gave three
kopeks which he had earned, assisted the pilgrim, because these three
kopeks really represented his labour; but I had served nobody, worked
for no one, and knew very well that my money did not represent my
labour.

And so I felt that in money, or in money's worth, and in the possession
of it, there was something wrong and evil; that the money itself, and
the fact of my having it, was one of the chief causes of those evils
which I had seen before me; and I asked myself, What is money?




CHAPTER XVII


Money! Then what is money?

It is answered, money represents labour. I meet educated people who even
assert that money represents labour performed by those who possess it. I
confess that I myself formerly shared this opinion, although I did not
very clearly understand it. But now it became necessary for me to learn
thoroughly what money is.

In order to do so, I addressed myself to science. Science says that
money in itself is neither unjust nor pernicious; that money is the
natural result of the conditions of social life, and is indispensable,
first, for convenience of exchange; secondly, as a measure of value;
thirdly, for saving; and fourthly, for payments.

The fact that when I have in my pocket three rubles to spare, which I am
not in need of, I have only to whistle and in every civilized town I can
obtain a hundred people ready for these three rubles to do the worst,
most disgusting, and humiliating act I require, it is said, comes not
from money, but from the very complicated conditions of the economical
life of nations!

The dominion of one man over others does not come from money, but from
the circumstance that a workingman does not receive the full value of
his labour; and the fact that he does not get the full value of his
labour depends upon the nature of capital, rent, and wages, and upon
complicated connections between the distribution and consumption of
wealth.

In plain language, it means that people who have money may twist round
their finger those who have none. But science says that this is an
illusion; that in every kind of production three factors take
part,--land, savings of labour (capital), and labour, and that the
dominion of the few over the many proceeds from the various connections
between these factors of production, because the two first factors, land
and capital, are not in the hands of working people; and from this fact
and from the various combinations which result from it this domination
proceeds.

Whence comes the great power of money, which strikes us all with a sense
of its injustice and cruelty? Why is one man, by the means of money, to
have dominion over others? Science says, "It comes from the division of
the factors of production, and from the consequent combinations which
oppress the worker."

This answer has always appeared to me to be strange, not only because it
leaves one part of the question unnoticed (namely, the significance of
money), but also because of the division of the factors of production,
which to an unprejudiced man will always appear artificial and out of
touch with reality. Science asserts that in every production three
agents come into operation,--land, capital and labour; and along with
this division it is understood that property (or its value in money) is
naturally divided among those who possess one of these agents; thus,
rent (the value of the ground) belongs to the land-owner; interest
belongs to the capitalist; and wages to the worker.

Is this really so?

First, is it true that in every production only three agencies operate?
Now, while I am writing proceeds the production of hay around me. Of
what is this production composed? I am told of the land which produces
the grass; of capital (scythes, rakes, pitch-forks, carts which are
necessary for the housing of the hay); and of labour. But I see that
this is not true. Besides the land, there is the sun and rain; and, in
addition, social order, which has been keeping these meadows from any
damage which might be caused by letting stray cattle graze upon them,
the skill of workmen, their knowledge of language, and many other
agencies of production,--which, for some unknown reason, are not taken
into consideration by political economy.

The power of the sun is as necessary as the land, even more. I may
mention the instances when men (in a town, for example), assume the
right to keep out the sun from others by means of walls or trees. Why,
then, is the sun not included among the factors of production?

Rain is another means as necessary as the ground itself. The air too. I
can imagine men without water and pure air because other men had assumed
to themselves the right to monopolise these essential necessaries of
all. Public security is likewise a necessary element. Food and dress for
workmen are similar factors in production; this is even recognized by
some economists. Education, the knowledge of language which creates the
possibility to apply work, is likewise an agent. I could fill a volume
by enumerating such combinations, not mentioned by science.

Why, then, are three only to be chosen, and laid as a foundation for the
science of political economy? Sunshine and water equally with the earth
are factors in production, so with the food and clothes of the workers,
and the transmission of knowledge. All may be taken as distinct factors
in production. Simply because the right of men to enjoy the rays of the
sun, rain, food, language, and audience, are challenged only on rare
occasions; but the use of land and of the instruments of labour are
constantly challenged in society.

This is the true foundation; and the division of the factors of
production into three, is quite arbitrary, and is not involved in the
nature of things. But it may perhaps be urged that this division is so
suitable to man, that wherever economic relationships are formed these
three factors appear at once and alone.

Let us see whether this is really so.

First of all, I look at what is around me,--at Russian colonists, of
whom millions have for ages existed. They come to a land, settle
themselves on it, and begin to work; and it does not enter the mind of
any of them that a man who does not use the land can have any claim to
it,--and the land does not assert any rights of its own. On the
contrary, the colonists conscientiously recognize the communism of the
land and the right of every one of them to plough and to mow wherever he
likes.

For cultivation, for gardening, for building houses, the colonists
obtain various implements of labour: nor does it enter the mind of any
of them that these instruments of labour may be allowed to bring profit
in themselves, and the capital does not assert any rights of its own. On
the contrary, the colonists consciously recognize among themselves that
all interest for tools, or borrowed corn or capital, is unjust.

They work upon a free land, labour with their own tools, or with those
borrowed without interest, each for himself, or all together, for common
business; and in such a community, it is impossible to prove either the
existence of rent, interest accruing from capital, or remuneration for
labour.

In referring to such a community I am not indulging my fancy but
describing what has always taken place, not only among Russian
colonists, but everywhere, as long as human nature is not sinned
against.

I am describing what appears to everyone to be natural and rational. Men
settle on land, and each member undertakes the business which suits him,
and, having procured the necessary tools, does his own work.

If these men find it more convenient to work together, they form a
workmen's association. But neither in separate households, nor in
associations, will separate agents of production appear till men
artificially and forcibly divide them. There will be simply labour and
the necessary conditions of labour,--the sun which warms all, the air
which they breathe, water which they drink, land on which they labour,
clothes on the body, food in the stomach, stakes, shovels, ploughs,
machines with which they work. And it is evident that neither the rays
of the sun, nor the clothes on the body, nor the stakes, nor the spade,
nor the plough, with which each man works, nor the machines with which
they labour in the workmen's association, can belong to anyone else than
those who enjoy the rays of the sun, breathe the air, drink the water,
eat the bread, clothe their bodies, and labour with the spade or with
the machines, because all these are necessary only for those who use
them. And when men act thus, we see they act rationally.

Therefore, observing all the economic conditions created among men, I do
not see that division into three is natural. I see, on the contrary,
that it is neither natural nor rational.

But perhaps the setting apart of these three does not occur in primitive
societies, only when the population increases and cultivation begins to
develop it is unavoidable. And we cannot but recognise the fact that
this division has occurred in European society.

Let us see whether it is really so.

We are told that in European society this division of agencies has been;
that is, that one man possesses land, another accomplished the
instruments of labour, and the third is without land and instruments.

We have grown so accustomed to this assertion that we are no longer
struck by the strangeness of it. But in this assertion lies an inner
contradiction. The conception of a labouring man, includes the land on
which he lives and the tools with which he works. If he did not live on
the land and had no tools he would not be a labourer. A workman deprived
of land and tools never existed and never can exist. There cannot be a
bootmaker without a house for his work built on land, without water,
air, and tools to work with.

If the peasant has no land, horse, water or scythe; if the bootmaker is
without a house, water, or awl, then that means that some one has driven
him from the ground, or taken it from him, and has cheated him out of
his scythe, cart, horse, or awl; but it does not in any way mean that
there can be country labourers without scythes or bootmakers without
tools.

As you cannot think of a fisherman on dry land without fishing
implements, unless you imagine him driven away from the water by some
one who has taken his fishing implements from him; so also you cannot
picture a workman without land on which to live, and without tools for
his trade, unless somebody has driven him from the former, or robbed him
of the latter.

There may be men who are hunted from one place to another, and who,
having been robbed, are compelled perforce to work for another man and
make things necessary for themselves, but this does not mean that such
is the nature of production. It means only that in such case, the
natural conditions of production are violated.

But if we are to consider as factors of production all of which a
workman may be deprived by force, why not count among these the claim on
the person of a slave? Why not count claims on the rain and the rays of
the sun?

One man might build a wall and so keep the sun from his neighbour;
another might come who would turn the course of a river through his own
pond and so contaminate its water; or claim a fellow-being as his own
property. But none of these claims, although enforced by violence, can
be recognised as a basis. It is therefore as wrong to accept the
artificial rights to land and tools as separate factors in production,
as to recognise as such the invented rights to use sunshine, air, water,
or the person of another.

There may be men who claim the land and the tools of a workman, as there
were men who claimed the persons of others, and as there may be men who
assert their rights to the exclusive use of the rays of the sun, or of
water and air. There may be men who drive away a workman from place to
place, taking from him by force the products of his labour as they are
produced, and the very instruments of its production, who compel him to
work, not for himself, but for his master, as in the factories;--all
this is possible; but the conception of a workman without land and tools
is still an impossibility, as much as that a man can willingly become
the property of another, notwithstanding men have claimed other men for
many generations.

And as the claim of property in the person of another cannot deprive a
slave of his innate right to seek his own welfare and not that of his
master; so, too, the claim to the exclusive possession of land and the
tools of others cannot deprive the labourer of his inherent rights as a
man to live on the land and to work with his own tools, or with communal
tools, as he thinks most useful for himself.

All that science can say in examining the present economic question, is
this: that in Europe certain claims to the land and the tools of workmen
are made, in consequence of which, for some of these workmen (but by no
means for all of them), the proper conditions of production are
violated, so that they are deprived of land and implements of labour and
compelled to work with the tools of others. But it is certainly not
established that this accidental violation of the law of production is
the fundamental law itself.

In saying that this separate consideration of the factors is the
fundamental law of production, the economist is doing the very thing a
zoölogist would do, if on seeing a great many siskins with their wings
cut, and kept in little cages, he should assert that this was the
essential condition of the life of birds, and that their life is
composed of such conditions.

However many siskins there may be, kept in paste-board houses, with
their wings cut, a zoölogist cannot say that these, and a tiny pail of
water running up rails, are the conditions of the birds' lives. And
however great the number of workpeople there may be, driven from place
to place, and deprived of their productions as well as their tools, the
natural right of man to live on the land, and to work with his own
tools, is essential to him, and so it will remain forever.

Of course there are some who lay claim to the land and to the tools of
workmen, just as in former ages there were some who laid claim to the
persons of others; but there can be no real division of men into lords
and slaves--as they wanted to establish in the ancient world--any more
than there can be any real division in the agents of production (land
and capital, etc.), as the economists are trying to establish.

These unlawful claims on the liberty of other men, science calls "the
natural conditions of production." Instead of taking its fundamental
principles from the natural properties of human societies, science took
them from a special case; and desiring to justify this case, it
recognized the right of some men to the land on which other men earn
their living, and to the tools with which others again work; in other
words, it recognized as a right something which had never existed, and
cannot exist, and which is in itself a contradiction, because the claim
of the man to the land on which he does not labour, is in essence
nothing else than the right to use the land which he does not use; the
claim on the tools of others is nothing else than the assumption of a
right to work with implements with which a man does not work.

Science, by dividing the factors of production, declares that the
natural condition of a workman--that is, of a man in the true sense of
the word--is the unnatural condition in which he lives at present, just
as in ancient times, by the division of men into citizens and slaves, it
was asserted that the unnatural condition of slavery was the natural
condition of life.

This very division, which science has accepted only for the purpose of
justifying the existing injustice, and the recognition of this division
as the foundation of all its inquiries, is responsible for the fact that
science vainly tries to explain existing phenomena and, denying the
clearest and plainest answers to the questions that arise, gives answers
which have absolutely no meaning in them.

The question of economic science is this: What is the cause of the fact
that some men, by means of money, acquire an imaginary right to land and
capital, and may make slaves of those who have no money? The answer
which presents itself to common sense is, that it is the result of
money, the nature of which is to enslave men.

But economic science denies this, and says: This arises, not from the
nature of money, but from the fact that some men have land and capital,
and others have neither.

We ask: Why do persons who possess land and capital oppress those who
possess neither? And we are answered: Because they possess land and
capital.

But this is just what we are inquiring about. Is not deprivation of land
and tools enforced slavery? And the answer is like saying, "A remedy is
narcotic because its effects are narcotic." Life does not cease to put
this essential question, and even science herself notices and tries to
answer it, but does not succeed, because, starting from her own
fundamental principles, she only turns herself round in a vicious
circle.

In order to give itself a satisfactory answer to the question, science
must first of all deny that wrong division of the agents of production,
and cease to acknowledge the result of the phenomena as being their
cause; and she must seek, first the more obvious, and then the remoter,
causes of those phenomena which constitute the matter questioned.

Science must answer the question, Why are some men deprived of land and
tools while others possess both? or, Why is it that lands and tools are
taken from the people who labour on the land and work with the tools?

And as soon as economic science puts this question to herself she will
get new ideas which will transform all the previous ideas of sham
science,--which has been moving in an unalterable circle of
propositions,--that the miserable condition of the workers proceeds from
the fact that they are miserable.

To simple-minded persons it must seem unquestionable that the obvious
reason of the oppression of some men by others is money. But science,
denying this, says that money is only a medium of exchange, which has no
connection with slavery of men.

Let us see whether it is so or not.




CHAPTER XVIII


What is the origin of money? What are the conditions under which nations
always have money, and under what circumstances need nations not use
money?

There are small tribes in Africa, and one in Australia, who live as the
Sknepies and the Drevlyans lived in olden times. These tribes lived by
breeding cattle and cultivating gardens. We become acquainted with them
at the dawn of history, and history begins by recording the fact that
some invaders appear on the scene. And invaders always do the same
thing: they take away from the aborigines everything they can
take,--cattle, corn, and cloth; they even make prisoners, male and
female, and carry them away.

In a few years the invaders appear again, but the people have not yet
got over the consequences of their first misfortunes, and there is
scarcely anything to take from them; so the invaders invent new and
better means of making use of their victims.

These methods are very simple, and present themselves naturally to the
mind of all men. The _first_ is personal slavery. There is a drawback to
this, because the invaders must take over the entire control and
administration of the tribe, and feed all the slaves; hence, naturally,
there appears the _second_. The people are left on their own land, but
this becomes the recognized property of the invaders, who portion it out
among the leading military men, by whose means the labour of the tribe
is utilized and transferred to the conquerors.

But this, too, has its drawback. It is inconvenient to have to oversee
all the production of the conquered people, and thus the _third_ means
is introduced, as primitive as the two former; this is, the levying of a
certain obligatory tax to be paid by the conquered at stated periods.

The object of conquest is to take from the conquered the greatest
possible amount of the product of their labour. It is evident, that, in
order to do this, the conquerors must take the articles which are the
most valuable to the conquered, and which at the same time are not
cumbersome, and are convenient for keeping,--skins of animals, and gold.

So the conquerors lay upon the family or the tribe a tax in these skins
or gold, to be paid at fixed times; and thus, by means of this tribute,
they utilize the labour of the conquered people in the most convenient
way.

When the skins and the gold have been taken from the original owners,
they are compelled to sell all they have amongst themselves to obtain
more gold and skins for their masters; that is, they have to sell their
property and their labour.

So it was in ancient times, in the Middle Ages, and so it occurs now. In
the ancient world, where the subjugation of one people by another was
frequent, personal slavery was the most widespread method of
subjugation, and the centre of gravity in this compulsion, owing to the
non-recognition of the equality of men. In the Middle Ages,
feudalism--land-ownership and the servitude connected with it--partly
takes the place of personal slavery, and the centre of compulsion is
transferred from persons to land. In modern times, since the discovery
of America, the development of commerce, and the influx of gold (which
is accepted as a universal medium of exchange), the money tribute has
become, with the increase of state power, the chief instrument for
enslaving men, and upon this all economic relations are now based.

In "The Literary Miscellany" there is an article by Professor Yanjoul in
which he describes the recent history of the Fiji Islands. If I were
trying to find the most pointed illustration of how in our day the
compulsory money payment became the chief instrument in enslaving some
men by others, I could not imagine anything more striking and convincing
than this trustworthy history,--history based upon documents of facts
which are of recent occurrence.

In the South-Sea Islands, in Polynesia, lives a race called the Fiji.
The group on which they live, says Professor Yanjoul, is composed of
small islands, which altogether comprise about forty thousand square
miles. Only half of these islands are inhabited, by a hundred and fifty
thousand natives and fifteen hundred white men. The natives were
reclaimed from savagery a long time ago, and were distinguished among
the other natives of Polynesia by their intellectual capacities. They
appear to be capable of labour and development, which they proved by the
fact that within a short period they became good workmen and cattle
breeders.

The inhabitants were well-to-do, but in the year 1859 the condition of
their state became desperate: the nation and its representative, Kakabo,
were in need of money. This money, forty-five thousand dollars, was
wanted as compensation or indemnification demanded of them by the United
States of America for violence said to have been done by Fijis to some
citizens of the American Republic.

To collect this, the Americans sent a squadron, which unexpectedly
seized some of the best islands under the pretext of guaranty, and
threatened to bombard and ruin the towns if the indemnification were not
paid over on a certain date to the representatives of America.

The Americans were among the first colonists who came to the Fiji
Islands with the missionaries. They chose and (under one pretext or
another) took possession of the best pieces of land on the islands, and
established there cotton and coffee plantations. They hired whole crowds
of natives, binding them by contracts unknown to this half-civilized
race, or they acted through special contractors and dealers of human
merchandise.

Misunderstandings between these master planters and the natives, whom
they considered almost as slaves, were unavoidable, and it was some of
these quarrels which served as a pretext for the American
indemnification.

Notwithstanding their prosperity the Fijis had preserved almost up to
that time the forms of the so-called natural economy which existed in
Europe during the Middle Ages: money was scarcely in circulation among
them, and their trade was almost exclusively on the barter basis,--one
merchandise being exchanged for another, and the few social taxes and
those of the state being paid in rural products. What could the Fijis
and their King Kakabo do, when the Americans demanded forty-five
thousand dollars under terrible threats in the event of nonpayment? To
the Fijis the very figures seemed inconceivable, to say nothing of the
money itself, which they had never seen in such large quantities. After
deliberating with other chiefs, Kakabo made up his mind to apply to the
Queen of England, at first merely asking her to take the islands under
her protection, but afterwards requesting definite annexation.

But the English regarded this request cautiously, and were in no hurry
to assist the half-savage monarch out of his difficulty. Instead of
giving a direct answer, they sent special commissioners to make
inquiries about the Fiji Islands in 1860, in order to be able to decide
whether it was worth while to annex them to the British Possessions, and
to lay out money to satisfy the American claims.

Meanwhile the American Government continued to insist upon payment, and
as a pledge held in their _de facto_ dominion some of the best parts,
and, having looked closely into the national wealth, raised their former
claim to ninety thousand dollars, threatening to increase it still more
if Kakabo did not pay at once.

Being thus pushed on every side, and knowing nothing of European means
of credit accommodation, the poor king, acting on the advice of European
colonists, began to try to raise money in Melbourne among the merchants,
cost what it might, if even he should be obliged to yield his kingdom
into private hands.

So in consequence of his application a commercial society was formed in
Melbourne. This joint-stock company, which took the name of the
"Polynesian Company," formed a treaty with the chiefs of the
Fiji-Islanders on the most advantageous terms. It took over the debt to
the American Government, pledging itself to pay it by several
instalments; and for this the company received, according to the first
treaty, one, and then two hundred thousand acres of the best land,
selected by itself; perpetual immunity from all taxes and dues for all
its factories, operations, and colonies, and the exclusive right for a
long period to establish banks in the Fiji Islands, with the privilege
of issuing unlimited notes.

This treaty was definitely concluded in the year 1868, and there has
appeared in the Fiji Islands, side by side with the local government, of
which Kakabo is the head, another powerful authority,--a commercial
organization, with large estates over all the islands, exercising a
powerful influence upon the government.

Up to this time the wants of the government of Kakabo had been satisfied
with a payment in local products, and a small custom tax on goods
imported. But with the conclusion of the treaty and the formation of the
influential "Polynesian Company," the king's financial circumstances had
changed.

A considerable part of the best land in his dominion having passed into
the hands of the company, his income from the land had therefore
diminished; on the other hand the income from the custom taxes also
diminished, because the company had obtained for itself the right to
import and export all kinds of goods free of duties.

The natives--ninety-nine per cent. of the population--had never paid
much in custom duties, as they bought scarcely any of the European
productions except some stuffs and hardware; and now, from the freeing
of custom duties of many well-to-do Europeans along with the Polynesian
Company, the income of King Kakabo was reduced to _nil_, and he was
obliged to take steps to resuscitate it if possible.

He began to consult his white friends as to the best way to remedy the
trouble, and they advised him to create the first direct tax in the
country; and, in order, I suppose, to have less trouble about it, to
make it in money. The tax was established in the form of a general
poll-tax, amounting to one pound for every man, and to four shillings
for every woman, throughout the islands.

As I have already said, there still exists on the Fiji Islands a natural
economy and a trade by barter. Very few natives possess money. Their
wealth consists chiefly of raw products and cattle; whilst the new tax
required the possession of considerable sums of money at fixed times.

Up to that date a native had not been accustomed to any individual
burden in the interests of his government, except personal obligations;
all the taxes which had to be paid, were paid by the community or
village to which he belonged, and from the common fields from which he
received his principal income.

One alternative was left to him,--to try to raise money from the
European colonists; that is, to address himself either to the merchant
or to the planter.

To the first he was obliged to sell his productions on the merchant's
own terms (because the tax-collector required money at a certain fixed
date), or even to raise money by the sale of his expected harvest, which
enabled the merchant to take iniquitous interest. Or he had to address
himself to the planter, and sell him his labour; that is, to become his
workman: but the wages on the Fiji Islands were very low (owing, I
suppose, to the exceptionally great supply of labour); not exceeding a
shilling a week for a grown-up man, or two pounds twelve shillings a
year; and therefore, merely to be able to get the money necessary to pay
his own tax, to say nothing of his family, a Fiji had to leave his
house, his family, and his own land, often to go far away to another
island, and enslave himself to the planter for at least half a year;
even then there was the payment for his family, which he must provide by
some other means.

We can understand the result of such a state of affairs. From his
hundred and fifty thousand subjects, Kakabo collected only six thousand
pounds; and so there began a forcible extortion of taxes, unknown till
then, and a whole series of coercive measures.

The local administration, formerly incorruptible, soon made common cause
with the European planters, who began to have their own way with the
country. For nonpayment of the taxes the Fijis were summoned to the
court, and sentenced not only to pay the expenses but also to
imprisonment for not less than six months. The prison really meant the
plantations of the first white man who chose to pay the tax-money and
the legal expenses of the offender. Thus the white settlers received
cheap labour to any amount.

At first this compulsory labour was fixed for not longer than half a
year; but afterwards the bribed judges found it possible to pass
sentence for eighteen months, and even then to renew the sentence.

Very quickly, in the course of a few years, the picture of the social
condition of the inhabitants of Fiji was quite changed.

Whole districts, formerly flourishing, lost half of their population,
and were greatly impoverished. All the male population, except the old
and infirm, worked far away from their homes for European planters, to
get money necessary for the taxes, or in consequence of the law court.
The women on the Fiji Islands had scarcely ever worked in the fields, so
that in the absence of the men, all the local farming was neglected and
went to ruin. And in the course of a few years, half the population of
Fiji had become the slaves of the colonists.

To relieve their position the Fiji-Islanders again appealed to England.
A new petition was got up, subscribed by many eminent persons and
chiefs, praying to be annexed to England; and this was handed to the
British consul. Meanwhile, England, thanks to her scientific
expeditions, had time not only to investigate the affairs of the
islands, but even to survey them, and duly to appreciate the natural
riches of this fine corner of the globe.

Owing to all these circumstances, the negotiations this time were
crowned with full success; and in 1874, to the great dissatisfaction of
the American planters, England officially took possession of the Fiji
Islands, and added them to its colonies. Kakabo died, his heirs had a
small pension assigned to them, and the administration of the islands
was intrusted to Sir Hercules Robinson, the Governor of New South Wales.
In the first year of its annexation the Fiji-Islanders had no
self-government, but were under the direction of Sir Hercules Robinson,
who appointed an administrator.

Taking the islands into their hands, the English Government had to
undertake the difficult task of gratifying various expectations raised
by them. The natives, of course, first of all expected the abolition of
the hated poll-tax; one part of the white colonists (the Americans)
looked with suspicion upon the British rule; and another part (those of
English origin) expected all kinds of confirmations of their power over
the natives,--permission to enclose the land, and so on. The English
Government, however, proved itself equal to the task; and its first act
was to abolish for ever the poll-tax, which had created the slavery of
the natives in the interest of a few colonists.

But here Sir Hercules Robinson had at once to face a difficult dilemma.
It was necessary to abolish the poll-tax, which had made the Fijis seek
the help of the English Government; but, at the same time, according to
English colonial policy, the colonies had to support themselves; they
had to find their own means for covering the expenses of the government.
With the abolition of the poll-tax, all the incomes of the Fijis (from
custom duties) did not amount to more than six thousand pounds, while
the government expenses required at least seventy thousand a year.

Having abolished the money tax, Sir Hercules Robinson now thought of a
labour tax; but this did not yield the sum necessary to feed him and his
assistants. Matters did not mend until a new governor had been
appointed,--Gordon,--who, to get out of the inhabitants the money
necessary to keep him and his officials, resolved not to demand money
until it had come sufficiently into general circulation on the islands,
but to take from the natives their products, and to sell them himself.

This tragical episode in the lives of the Fijis is the clearest and best
proof of the nature and true meaning of money in our time.

In this illustration every essential is represented. The first
fundamental condition of slavery,--the guns, threats, murders, and
plunder,--and lastly, money, the means of subjugation which has
supplanted all the others. That which in an historical sketch of
economical development, has to be investigated during centuries, we have
here, where all the forms of monetary violence have fully developed
themselves, concentrated in a space of ten years.

The drama begins thus: the American Government sends ships with loaded
guns to the shores of the islands, whose inhabitants they want to
enslave. The pretext of this threat is monetary; but the beginning of
the tragedy is the levelling of guns against all the inhabitants,--women,
children, old people, and men,--though innocent of any crime.
"Your money or your life,"--forty-five thousand dollars, then
ninety thousand or slaughter. But the ninety thousand are not to be had.
So now begins the second act: it is the postponement of a measure which
would be bloody, terrible, and concentrated in a short period; and the
substitution of a suffer

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