way, and went on shivering.
Then came a crooked monster in rags, with pattens on his bare feet; then
some sort of an officer; then something in the ecclesiastical line; then
something strange and nose-less,--all hungry and cold, beseeching and
submissive, thronged round me, and pressed close to the _sbiten_. They
drank up all the _sbiten_. One asked for money, and I gave it. Then
another asked, then a third, and the whole crowd besieged me. Confusion
and a press resulted. The porter of the adjoining house shouted to the
crowd to clear the sidewalk in front of his house, and the crowd
submissively obeyed his orders. Some managers stepped out of the throng,
and took me under their protection, and wanted to lead me forth out of
the press; but the crowd, which had at first been scattered over the
sidewalk, now became disorderly, and hustled me. All stared at me and
begged; and each face was more pitiful and suffering and humble than the
last. I distributed all that I had with me. I had not much money,
something like twenty rubles; and in company with the crowd, I entered
the Lyapinsky lodging-house. This house is huge. It consists of four
sections. In the upper stories are the men's quarters; in the lower, the
women's. I first entered the women's place; a vast room all occupied
with bunks, resembling the third-class bunks on the railway. These bunks
were arranged in two rows, one above the other. The women, strange,
tattered creatures, both old and young, wearing nothing over their
dresses, entered and took their places, some below and some above. Some
of the old ones crossed themselves, and uttered a petition for the
founder of this refuge; some laughed and scolded. I went up-stairs.
There the men had installed themselves; among them I espied one of those
to whom I had given money. [On catching sight of him, I all at once felt
terribly abashed, and I made haste to leave the room. And it was with a
sense of absolute crime that I quitted that house and returned home. At
home I entered over the carpeted stairs into the ante-room, whose floor
was covered with cloth; and having removed my fur coat, I sat down to a
dinner of five courses, waited on by two lackeys in dress-coats, white
neckties, and white gloves.

Thirty years ago I witnessed in Paris a man's head cut off by the
guillotine in the presence of thousands of spectators. I knew that the
man was a horrible criminal. I was acquainted with all the a