Produced by Jana Srna, Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
[ 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religious, social and ethical works, together with much unpublished
matter and his new writings, to which we have special access (being in
close touch with Tolstoy), that we are at present confining ourselves.
We earnestly trust that all who sympathise will continue to assist us by
every means in their power, and help to make the publications yet more
widely known. It is Tolstoy's desire that his books shall not be
copyrighted, and as we share this view, all =Free Age Press=
translations and editions (with one, as yet unavoidable exception), are
and will be issued free of copyright and may be reprinted by anyone. We
have already commenced to collect all Tolstoy's essays into more
permanent cloth-bound volumes.
Suggestions, inquiries, offers of help and co-operation will be
gratefully welcomed. For the hundreds of sympathetic letters and the
practical help in making known and circulating the books which we have
received already, we are very grateful, and tender our hearty thanks.
Orders and commercial communications should be addressed to "=The Free
Age Press=" _English Branch_, 13, Paternoster Row, London, E.C. All
other communications to the "Editor of the Free Age Press,"
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
Uniform with this Volume.--
"=What is Religion?=" An entirely New Book just completed. By LEO
TOLSTOY. With several new and recent Letters, Articles, and Appeals.
Paper, 6d. nett.; post free, 7½d. Flexible cloth, gilt, gilt top, 1s.
nett.; post free, 1s. 2d. Leather, gilt, gilt top, 2s. nett.; post free,
2s. 2d.
=What I Believe= ("MY RELIGION") By LEO TOLSTOY. Revised Translation.
224 pages. Same prices as _What is Religion?_
"=On Life.=" By LEO TOLSTOY. A New Translation of this little-known
book--"a book which is of especial value as a key to Tolstoy's method
and belief" (Mr. H. W. Massingham). Same prices.
=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.