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} ]

CHAPTER IX.

Still more remarkable were my relations to the children. In my _role_ of
benefactor, I turned my attention to the children also, being desirous to
save these innocent beings from perishing in that lair of vice, and
noting them down in order to attend to them _afterwards_.

Among the children, I was especially struck with a twelve-year-old lad
named Serozha. I was heartily sorry for this bold, intelligent lad, who
had lived with a cobbler, and who had been left without a shelter because
his master had been put in jail, and I wanted to do good to him.

I will here relate the upshot of my benevolence in his case, because my
experience with this child is best adapted to show my false position in
the _role_ of benefactor. I took the boy home with me and put him in the
kitchen. It was impossible, was it not, to take a child who had lived in
a den of iniquity in among my own children? And I considered myself very
kind and good, because he was a care, not to me, but to the servants in
the kitchen, and because not I but the c