thers, as is always
the case, because I myself had done a stupid and a bad thing. My
benevolence had ended in nothing, and it ceased altogether, but the
current of thoughts and feelings which it had called up with me not only
did not come to an end, but the inward work went on with redoubled force.

CHAPTER XII.

What was its nature?

I had lived in the country, and there I was connected with the rustic
poor. Not out of humility, which is worse than pride, but for the sake
of telling the truth, which is indispensable for the understanding of the
whole course of my thoughts and sentiments, I will say that in the
country I did very little for the poor, but the demands which were made
upon me were so modest that even this little was of use to the people,
and formed around me an atmosphere of affection and union with the
people, in which it was possible to soothe the gnawing sensation of
remorse at the independence of my life. On going to the city, I had
hoped to be able to live in the same manner. But here I encountered want
of an entirely different sort. City want was both less real, and more
exacting and cruel, than country poverty. But the principal point was,
that there was so much of it in one spot, that it produced on me a
frightful impression. The impression which I experienced in the
Lyapinsky house had, at the very first, made me conscious of the
deformity of my own life. This feeling was genuine and very powerful.
But, notwithstanding its genuineness and power, I was, at that time, so
weak that I feared the alteration in my life to which this feeling
commended me, and I resorted to a compromise. I believed what everybody
told me, and everybody has said, ever since the world was made,--that
there is nothing evil in wealth and luxury, that they are given by God,
that one may continue to live as a rich man, and yet help the needy. I
believed this, and I tried to do it. I wrote an essay, in which I
summoned all rich people to my assistance. The rich people all
acknowledged themselves morally bound to agree with me, but evidently
they either did not wish to do any thing, or they could not do any thing
or give any thing to the poor. I began to visit the poor, and I beheld
what I had not in the least expected. On the one hand, I beheld in those
dens, as I called them, people whom it was not conceivable that I should
help, because they were working people, accustomed to labor and
privation, and the