ust still, in some way, live out those four and twenty hours each day,
which they must pass as well as everybody else. I comprehended that
these people must lose their tempers, and get bored, show courage, and
grieve and be merry. Strange as this may seem, when put into words, I
understood clearly for the first time, that the business which I had
undertaken could not consist alone in feeding and clothing thousands of
people, as one would feed and drive under cover a thousand sheep, but
that it must consist in doing good to them.

And then I understood that each one of those thousand people was exactly
such a man,--with precisely the same past, with the same passions,
temptations, failings, with the same thoughts, the same
perplexities,--exactly such a man as myself, and then the thing that I
had undertaken suddenly presented itself to me as so difficult that I
felt my powerlessness; but the thing had been begun, and I went on with
it.

CHAPTER V.

On the first appointed day, the student enumerators arrived in the
morning, and I, the benefactor, joined them at twelve o'clock. I could
not go earlier, because I had risen at ten o'clock, then I had drunk my
coffee and smoked, while waiting on digestion. At twelve o'clock I
reached the gates of the Rzhanoff house. A policeman pointed out to me
the tavern with a side entrance on Beregovoy Passage, where the census-
takers had ordered every one who asked for them to be directed. I
entered the tavern. It was very dark, ill-smelling, and dirty. Directly
opposite the entrance was the counter, on the left was a room with
tables, covered with soiled cloths, on the right a large apartment with
pillars, and the same sort of little tables at the windows and along the
walls. Here and there at the tables sat men both ragged and decently
clad, like laboring-men or petty tradesmen, and a few women drinking tea.
The tavern was very filthy, but it was instantly apparent that it had a
good trade.

There was a business-like expression on the face of the clerk behind the
counter, and a clever readiness about the waiters. No sooner had I
entered, than one waiter prepared to remove my coat and bring me whatever
I should order. It was evident that they had been trained to brisk and
accurate service. I inquired for the enumerators.

"Vanya!" shouted a small man, dressed in German fashion, who was engaged
in placing something in a cupboard behind the counter; this was the
la