The second class of unfortunates whom I also expected to assist later on,
were the dissolute women; there were a very great many of them, of all
sorts, in the Rzhanoff house--from those who were young and who resembled
women, to old ones, who were frightful and horrible, and who had lost
every semblance of humanity. The hope of being of assistance to these
women, which I had not at first entertained, occurred to me later. This
was in the middle of our rounds. We had already worked out several
mechanical tricks of procedure.
When we entered a new establishment, we immediately questioned the
landlady of the apartment; one of us sat down, clearing some sort of a
place for himself where he could write, and another penetrated the
corners, and questioned each man in all the nooks of the apartment
separately, and reported the facts to the one who did the writing.
On entering a set of rooms in the basement, a student went to hunt up the
landlady, while I began to interrogate all who remained in the place. The
apartment was thus arranged: in the centre was a room six _arshins_
square, {59} and a small oven. From the oven radiated four partitions,
forming four tiny compartments. In the first, the entrance slip, which
had four bunks, there were two persons--an old man and a woman.
Immediately adjoining this, was a rather long slip of a room; in it was
the landlord, a young fellow, dressed in a sleeveless gray woollen
jacket, a good-looking, very pale citizen. {60} On the left of the first
corner, was a third tiny chamber; there was one person asleep there,
probably a drunken peasant, and a woman in a pink blouse which was loose
in front and close-fitting behind. The fourth chamber was behind the
partition; the entrance to it was from the landlord's compartment.
The student went into the landlord's room, and I remained in the entrance
compartment, and questioned the old man and woman. The old man had been
a master-printer, but now had no means of livelihood. The woman was the
wife of a cook. I went to the third compartment, and questioned the
woman in the blouse about the sleeping man. She said that he was a
visitor. I asked the woman who she was. She replied that she was a
Moscow peasant. "What is your business?" She burst into a laugh, and
did not answer me. "What do you live on?" I repeated, thinking that she
had not understood my question. "I sit in the taverns," she said. I did
not comprehend, and again I inquired: "What is your means of livelihood?"
She made no reply and laughed. Women's voices in the fourth compartment
which we had not yet entered, joined in the laugh. The landlord emerged
from his cabin and stepped up to us. He had evidently heard my questions
and the woman's replies. He cast a stern glance at the woman and turned
to me: "She is a prostitute," said he, apparently pleased that he knew
the word in use in the language of the authorities, and that he could
pronounce it correctly. And having said this, with a respectful and
barely perceptible smile of satisfaction addressed to me, he turned to
the woman. And no sooner had he turned to her, than his whole face
altered. He said, in a peculiar, scornful, hasty tone, such as is
employed towards dogs: "What do you jabber in that careless way for? 'I
sit in the taverns.' You do sit in the taverns, and that means, to talk
business, that you are a prostitute," and again he uttered the word. "She
does not know the name for herself." This tone offended me. "It is not
our place to abuse her," said I. "If all of us lived according to the
laws of God, there would be none of these women."
"That's the very point," said the landlord, with an awkward smile.
"Therefore, we should not reproach but pity them. Are they to blame?"
I do not recollect just what I said, but I do remember that I was vexed
by the scornful tone of the landlord of these quarters which were filled
with women, whom he called prostitutes, and that I felt compassion for
this woman, and that I gave expression to both feelings. No sooner had I
spoken thus, than the boards of the bed in the next compartment, whence
the laugh had proceeded, began to creak, and above the partition, which
did not reach to the ceiling, there appeared a woman's curly and
dishevelled head, with small, swollen eyes, and a shining, red face,
followed by a second, and then by a third. They were evidently standing
on their beds, and all three were craning their necks, and holding their
breath with strained attention, and gazing silently at us.
A troubled pause ensued. The student, who had been smiling up to this
time, became serious; the landlord grew confused and dropped his eyes.
All the women held their breath, stared at me, and waited. I was more
embarrassed than any of them. I had not, in the least, anticipated that
a chance remark would produce such an effect. Like Ezekiel's field of
death, strewn with dead men's bones, there was a quiver at the touch of
the spirit, and the dead bones stirred. I had uttered an unpremeditated
word of love and sympathy, and this word had acted on all as though they
had only been waiting for this very remark, in order that they might
cease to be corpses and might live. They all stared at me, and waited
for what would come next. They waited for me to utter those words, and
to perform those actions by reason of which these bones might draw
together, clothe themselves with flesh, and spring into life. But I felt
that I had no such words, no such actions, by means of which I could
continue what I had begun; I was conscious, in the depths of my soul,
that I had lied [that I was just like them], {62} and there was nothing
further for me to say; and I began to inscribe on the cards the names and
callings of all the persons in this set of apartments.
This incident led me into a fresh dilemma, to the thought of how these
unfortunates also might be helped. In my self-delusion, I fancied that
this would be very easy. I said to myself: "Here, we will make a note of
all these women also, and _later on_ when we [I did not specify to myself
who "we" were] write every thing out, we will attend to these persons
too." I imagined that we, the very ones who have brought and have been
bringing these women to this condition for several generations, would
take thought some fine day and reform all this. But, in the mean time,
if I had only recalled my conversation with the disreputable woman who
had been rocking the baby of the fever-stricken patient, I might have
comprehended the full extent of the folly of such a supposition.
When we saw this woman with the baby, we thought that it was her child.
To the question, "Who was she?" she had replied in a straightforward way
that she was unmarried. She did not say--a prostitute. Only the master
of the apartment made use of that frightful word. The supposition that
she had a child suggested to me the idea of removing her from her
position. I inquired:
"Is this your child?"
"No, it belongs to that woman yonder."
"Why are you taking care of it?"
"Because she asked me; she is dying."
Although my supposition proved to be erroneous, I continued my
conversation with her in the same spirit. I began to question her as to
who she was, and how she had come to such a state. She related her
history very readily and simply. She was a Moscow _myeshchanka_, the
daughter of a factory hand. She had been left an orphan, and had been
adopted by an aunt. From her aunt's she had begun to frequent the
taverns. The aunt was now dead. When I asked her whether she did not
wish to alter her mode of life, my question, evidently, did not even
arouse her interest. How can one take an interest in the proposition of
a man, in regard to something absolutely impossible? She laughed, and
said: "And who would take me in with my yellow ticket?"
"Well, but if a place could be found somewhere as cook?" said I.
This thought occurred to me because she was a stout, ruddy woman, with a
kindly, round, and rather stupid face. Cooks are often like that. My
words evidently did not please her. She repeated:
"A cook--but I don't know how to make bread," said she, and she laughed.
She said that she did not know how; but I saw from the expression of her
countenance that she did not wish to become a cook, that she regarded the
position and calling of a cook as low.
This woman, who in the simplest possible manner was sacrificing every
thing that she had for the sick woman, like the widow in the Gospels, at
the same time, like many of her companions, regarded the position of a
person who works as low and deserving of scorn. She had been brought up
to live not by work, but by this life which was considered the natural
one for her by those about her. In that lay her misfortune. And she
fell in with this misfortune and clung to her position. This led her to
frequent the taverns. Which of us--man or woman--will correct her false
view of life? Where among us are the people to be found who are
convinced that every laborious life is more worthy of respect than an
idle life,--who are convinced of this, and who live in conformity with
this belief, and who in conformity with this conviction value and respect
people? If I had thought of this, I might have understood that neither
I, nor any other person among my acquaintances, could heal this
complaint.
I might have understood that these amazed and affected heads thrust over
the partition indicated only surprise at the sympathy expressed for them,
but not in the least a hope of reclamation from their dissolute life.
They do not perceive the immorality of their life. They see that they
are despised and cursed, but for what they are thus despised they cannot
comprehend. Their life, from childhood, has been spent among just such
women, who, as they very well know, always have existed, and are
indispensable to society, and so indispensable that there are
governmental officials to attend to their legal existence. Moreover,
they know that they have power over men, and can bring them into
subjection, and rule them often more than other women. They see that
their position in society is recognized by women and men and the
authorities, in spite of their continual curses, and therefore, they
cannot understand why they should reform.
In the course of one of the tours, one of the students told me that in a
certain lodging, there was a woman who was bargaining for her thirteen-
year-old daughter. Being desirous of rescuing this girl, I made a trip
to that lodging expressly. Mother and daughter were living in the
greatest poverty. The mother, a small, dark-complexioned, dissolute
woman of forty, was not only homely, but repulsively homely. The
daughter was equally disagreeable. To all my pointed questions about
their life, the mother responded curtly, suspiciously, and in a hostile
way, evidently feeling that I was an enemy, with evil intentions; the
daughter made no reply, did not look at her mother, and evidently trusted
the latter fully. They inspired me with no sincere pity, but rather with
disgust. But I made up my mind that the daughter must be rescued, and
that I would interest ladies who pitied the sad condition of these women,
and send them hither. But if I had reflected on the mother's long life
in the past, of how she had given birth to, nursed and reared this
daughter in her situation, assuredly without the slightest assistance
from outsiders, and with heavy sacrifices--if I had reflected on the view
of life which this woman had formed, I should have understood that there
was, decidedly, nothing bad or immoral in the mother's act: she had done
and was doing for her daughter all that she could, that is to say, what
she considered the best for herself. This daughter could be forcibly
removed from her mother; but it would be impossible to convince the
mother that she was doing wrong, in selling her daughter. If any one was
to be saved, then it must be this woman--the mother ought to have been
saved; [and that long before, from that view of life which is approved by
every one, according to which a woman may live unmarried, that is,
without bearing children and without work, and simply for the
satisfaction of the passions. If I had thought of this, I should have
understood that the majority of the ladies whom I intended to send
thither for the salvation of that little girl, not only live without
bearing children and without working, and serving only passion, but that
they deliberately rear their daughters for the same life; one mother
takes her daughter to the taverns, another takes hers to balls. But both
mothers hold the same view of the world, namely, that a woman must
satisfy man's passions, and that for this she must be fed, dressed, and
cared for. Then how are our ladies to reform this woman and her
daughter? {66} ]