ve more; and I always noticed that the poor man left
me dissatisfied. But if I entered into still closer intercourse with the
poor man, then my doubts as to how much to give increased also; and, no
matter how much I gave, the poor man grew ever more sullen and
discontented. As a general rule, it always turned out thus, that if I
gave, after conversation with a poor man, three rubles or even more, I
almost always beheld gloom, displeasure, and even ill-will, on the
countenance of the poor man; and I have even known it to happen, that,
having received ten rubles, he went off without so much as saying "Thank
you," exactly as though I had insulted him.

And thereupon I felt awkward and ashamed, and almost guilty. But if I
followed up a poor man for weeks and months and years, and assisted him,
and explained my views to him, and associated with him, our relations
became a torment, and I perceived that the man despised me. And I felt
that he was in the right.

If I go out into the street, and he, standing in that street, begs of me
among the number of the other passers-by, people who walk and ride past
him, and I give him money, I then am to him a passer-by, and a good, kind
passer-by, who bestows on him that thread from which a shirt is made for
the naked man; he expects nothing more than the thread, and if I give it
he thanks me sincerely. But if I stop him, and talk with him as man with
man, I thereby show him that I desire to be something more than a mere
passer-by. If, as often happens, he weeps while relating to me his woes,
then he sees in me no longer a passer-by, but that which I desire that he
should see: a good man. But if I am a good man, my goodness cannot pause
at a twenty-kopek piece, nor at ten rubles, nor at ten thousand; it is
impossible to be a little bit of a good man. Let us suppose that I have
given him a great deal, that I have fitted him out, dressed him, set him
on his feet so that the can live without outside assistance; but for some
reason or other, though misfortune or his own weakness or vices, he is
again without that coat, that linen, and that money which I have given
him; he is again cold and hungry, and he has come again to me,--how can I
refuse him? [For if the cause of my action consisted in the attainment
of a definite, material end, on giving him so many rubles or such and
such a coat I might be at ease after having bestowed them. But the cause
of my action is not this: the cause