This feeling of compassion for people, and of disgust with myself, which
I had experienced in the Lyapinsky house, I experienced no longer. I was
completely absorbed in the desire to carry out the scheme which I had
concocted,--to do good to those people whom I should meet here. And,
strange to say, it would appear, that, to do good--to give money to the
needy--is a very good deed, and one that should dispose me to love for
the people, but it turned out the reverse: this act produced in me ill-
will and an inclination to condemn people. But during our first evening
tour, a scene occurred exactly like that in the Lyapinsky house, and it
called forth a wholly different sentiment.
It began by my finding in one set of apartments an unfortunate
individual, of precisely the sort who require immediate aid. I found a
hungry woman who had had nothing to eat for two days.
It came about thus: in one very large and almost empty night-lodging, I
asked an old woman whether there were many poor people who had nothing to
eat? The old woman reflected, and then told me of two; and then, as
though she had just recollected, "Why, here is one of them," said she,
glancing at one of the occupied bunks. "I think that woman has had no
food."
"Really? Who is she?"
"She was a dissolute woman: no one wants any thing to do with her now, so
she has no way of getting any thing. The landlady has had compassion on
her, but now she means to turn her out . . . Agafya, hey there, Agafya!"
cried the woman.
We approached, and something rose up in the bunk. It was a woman haggard
and dishevelled, whose hair was half gray, and who was as thin as a
skeleton, dressed in a ragged and dirty chemise, and with particularly
brilliant and staring eyes. She looked past us with her staring eyes,
clutched at her jacket with one thin hand, in order to cover her bony
breast which was disclosed by her tattered chemise, and oppressed, she
cried, "What is it? what is it?" I asked her about her means of
livelihood. For a long time she did not understand, and said, "I don't
know myself; they persecute me." I asked her,--it puts me to shame, my
hand refuses to write it,--I asked her whether it was true that she had
nothing to eat? She answered in the same hurried, feverish tone, staring
at me the while,--"No, I had nothing yesterday, and I have had nothing to-
day."
The sight of this woman touched me, but not at all as had been the case
in the Lyapinsky house; there, my pity for these people made me instantly
feel ashamed of myself: but here, I rejoiced because I had at last found
what I had been seeking,--a hungry person.
I gave her a ruble, and I recollect being very glad that others saw it.
The old woman, on seeing this, immediately begged money of me also. It
afforded me such pleasure to give, that, without finding out whether it
was necessary to give or not, I gave something to the old woman too. The
old woman accompanied me to the door, and the people standing in the
corridor heard her blessing me. Probably the questions which I had put
with regard to poverty, had aroused expectation, and several persons
followed us. In the corridor also, they began to ask me for money. Among
those who begged were some drunken men, who aroused an unpleasant feeling
in me; but, having once given to the old woman, I had no might to refuse
these people, and I began to give. As long as I continued to give,
people kept coming up; and excitement ran through all the lodgings.
People made them appearance on the stairs and galleries, and followed me.
As I emerged into the court-yard, a little boy ran swiftly down one of
the staircases thrusting the people aside. He did not see me, and
exclaimed hastily: "He gave Agashka a ruble!" When he reached the
ground, the boy joined the crowd which was following me. I went out into
the street: various descriptions of people followed me, and asked for
money. I distributed all my small change, and entered an open shop with
the request that the shopkeeper would change a ten-ruble bill for me. And
then the same thing happened as at the Lyapinsky house. A terrible
confusion ensued. Old women, noblemen, peasants, and children crowded
into the shop with outstretched hands; I gave, and interrogated some of
them as to their lives, and took notes. The shopkeeper, turning up the
furred points of the collar of his coat, sat like a stuffed creature,
glancing at the crowd occasionally, and then fixing his eyes beyond them
again. He evidently, like every one else, felt that this was foolish,
but he could not say so.
The poverty and beggary in the Lyapinsky house had horrified me, and I
felt myself guilty of it; I felt the desire and the possibility of
improvement. But now, precisely the same scene produced on me an
entirely different effect; I experienced, in the first place, a
malevolent feeling towards many of those who were besieging me; and in
the second place, uneasiness as to what the shopkeepers and porters would
think of me.
On my return home that day, I was troubled in my soul. I felt that what
I had done was foolish and immoral. But, as is always the result of
inward confusion, I talked a great deal about the plan which I had
undertaken, as though I entertained not the slightest doubt of my
success.
On the following day, I went to such of the people whom I had inscribed
on my list, as seemed to me the most wretched of all, and those who, as
it seemed to me, would be the easiest to help. As I have already said, I
did not help any of these people. It proved to be more difficult to help
them than I had thought. And either because I did not know how, or
because it was impossible, I merely imitated these people, and did not
help any one. I visited the Rzhanoff house several times before the
final tour, and on every occasion the very same thing occurred: I was
beset by a throng of beggars in whose mass I was completely lost. I felt
the impossibility of doing any thing, because there were too many of
them, and because I felt ill-disposed towards them because there were so
many of them; and in addition to this, each one separately did not
incline me in his favor. I was conscious that every one of them was
telling me an untruth, or less than the whole truth, and that he saw in
me merely a purse from which money might be drawn. And it very
frequently seemed to me, that the very money which they squeezed out of
me, rendered their condition worse instead of improving it. The oftener
I went to that house, the more I entered into intercourse with the people
there, the more apparent became to me the impossibility of doing any
thing; but still I did not give up any scheme until the last night tour.
The remembrance of that last tour is particularly mortifying to me. On
other occasions I had gone thither alone, but twenty of us went there on
this occasion. At seven o'clock, all who wished to take part in this
final night round, began to assemble at my house. Nearly all of them
were strangers to me,--students, one officer, and two of my society
acquaintances, who, uttering the usual, "_C'est tres interessant_!" had
asked me to include them in the number of the census-takers.
My worldly acquaintances had dressed up especially for this, in some sort
of hunting-jacket, and tall, travelling boots, in a costume in which they
rode and went hunting, and which, in their opinion, was appropriate for
an excursion to a night-lodging-house. They took with them special note-
books and remarkable pencils. They were in that peculiarly excited state
of mind in which men set off on a hunt, to a duel, or to the wars. The
most apparent thing about them was their folly and the falseness of our
position, but all the rest of us were in the same false position. Before
we set out, we held a consultation, after the fashion of a council of
war, as to how we should begin, how divide our party, and so on.
This consultation was exactly such as takes place in councils,
assemblages, committees; that is to say, each person spoke, not because
he had any thing to say or to ask, but because each one cudgelled his
brain for something that he could say, so that he might not fall short of
the rest. But, among all these discussions, no one alluded to that
beneficence of which I had so often spoken to them all. Mortifying as
this was to me, I felt that it was indispensable that I should once more
remind them of benevolence, that is, of the point, that we were to
observe and take notes of all those in destitute circumstances whom we
should encounter in the course of our rounds. I had always felt ashamed
to speak of this; but now, in the midst of all our excited preparations
for our expedition, I could hardly utter the words. All listened to me,
as it seemed to me, with sorrow, and, at the same time, all agreed in
words; but it was evident that they all knew that it was folly, and that
nothing would come of it, and all immediately began again to talk about
something else. This went on until the time arrived for us to set out,
and we started.
We reached the tavern, roused the waiters, and began to sort our papers.
When we were informed that the people had heard about this round, and
were leaving their quarters, we asked the landlord to lock the gates; and
we went ourselves into the yard to reason with the fleeing people,
assuring them that no one would demand their tickets. I remember the
strange and painful impression produced on me by these alarmed
night-lodgers: ragged, half-dressed, they all seemed tall to me by the
light of the lantern and the gloom of the court-yard. Frightened and
terrifying in their alarm, they stood in a group around the foul-smelling
out-house, and listened to our assurances, but they did not believe us,
and were evidently prepared for any thing, like hunted wild beasts,
provided only that they could escape from us. Gentlemen in divers
shapes--as policemen, both city and rural, and as examining judges, and
judges--hunt them all their lives, in town and country, on the highway
and in the streets, and in the taverns, and in night-lodging houses; and
now, all of a sudden, these gentlemen had come and locked the gates,
merely in order to count them: it was as difficult for them to believe
this, as for hares to believe that dogs have come, not to chase but to
count them. But the gates were locked, and the startled lodgers
returned: and we, breaking up into groups, entered also. With me were
the two society men and two students. In front of us, in the dark, went
Vanya, in his coat and white trousers, with a lantern, and we followed.
We went to quarters with which I was familiar. I knew all the
establishments, and some of the people; but the majority of the people
were new, and the spectacle was new, and more dreadful than the one which
I had witnessed in the Lyapinsky house. All the lodgings were full, all
the bunks were occupied, not by one person only, but often by two. The
sight was terrible in that narrow space into which the people were
huddled, and men and women were mixed together. All the women who were
not dead drunk slept with men; and women with two children did the same.
The sight was terrible, on account of the poverty, dirt, rags, and terror
of the people. And it was chiefly dreadful on account of the vast
numbers of people who were in this situation. One lodging, and then a
second like it, and a third, and a tenth, and a twentieth, and still
there was no end to them. And everywhere there was the same foul odor,
the same close atmosphere, the same crowding, the same mingling of the
sexes, the same men and women intoxicated to stupidity, and the same
terror, submission and guilt on all faces; and again I was overwhelmed
with shame and pain, as in the Lyapinsky house, and I understood that
what I had undertaken was abominable and foolish and therefore
impracticable. And I no longer took notes of anybody, and I asked no
questions, knowing that nothing would come of this.
I was deeply pained. In the Lyapinsky house I had been like a man who
has seen a fearful wound, by chance, on the body of another man. He is
sorry for the other man, he is ashamed that he has not pitied the man
before, and he can still rise to the succor of the sufferer. But now I
was like a physician, who has come with his medicine to the sick man, has
uncovered his sore, and examined it, and who must confess to himself that
every thing that he has done has been in vain, and that his remedy is
good for nothing.