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.