Chapter 5
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19041904

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Author : Leo Tolstoy

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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 inquire for them. I entered, and found it
very dirty and unsavory. 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 inquiry 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 among 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 among 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.


     From : Gutenberg.org

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     Chapter 5 -- Publication : November 30, 1903

     Chapter 5 -- Added : February 18, 2017

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