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.