couraged him, took to drink again, and
ruined his whole life. A young lad from our village lives with my
brother as a table-servant. His grandfather, a blind old man, came to me
during my sojourn in the country, and asked me to remind this grandson
that he was to send ten rubies for the taxes, otherwise it would be
necessary for him to sell his cow. "He keeps saying, I must dress
decently," said the old man: "well, he has had some shoes made, and
that's all right; but what does he want to set up a watch for?" said the
grandfather, expressing in these words the most senseless supposition
that it was possible to originate. The supposition really was senseless,
if we take into consideration that the old man throughout Lent had eaten
no butter, and that he had no split wood because he could not possibly
pay one ruble and twenty kopeks for it; but it turned out that the old
man's senseless jest was an actual fact. The young fellow came to see me
in a fine black coat, and shoes for which he had paid eight rubles. He
had recently borrowed ten rubles from my brother, and had spent them on
these shoes. And my children, who have known the lad from childhood,
told me that he really considers it indispensable to fit himself out with
a watch. He is a very good boy, but he thinks that people will laugh at
him so long as he has no watch; and a watch is necessary. During the
present year, a chambermaid, a girl of eighteen, entered into a
connection with the coachman in our house. She was discharged. An old
woman, the nurse, with whom I spoke in regard to the unfortunate girl,
reminded me of a girl whom I had forgotten. She too, ten yeans ago,
during a brief stay of ours in Moscow, had become connected with a
footman. She too had been discharged, and she had ended in a disorderly
house, and had died in the hospital before reaching the age of twenty. It
is only necessary to glance about one, to be struck with terror at the
pest which we disseminate directly by our luxurious life among the people
whom we afterwards wish to help, not to mention the factories and
establishments which serve our luxurious tastes.

[And thus, having penetrated into the peculiar character of city poverty,
which I was unable to remedy, I perceived that its prime cause is this,
that I take absolute necessaries from the dwellers in the country, and
carry them all to the city. The second cause is this, that by making use
here, in the city, of what I h