e apartments, I was convinced
that the inhabitants of these houses were not peculiar people at all, but
precisely such persons as those among whom I lived. As there are among
us, just so among them; there were here those who were more or less good,
more or less stupid, happy and unhappy. The unhappy were exactly such
unhappy beings as exist among us, that is, unhappy people whose
unhappiness lies not in their external conditions, but in themselves, a
sort of unhappiness which it is impossible to right by any sort of bank-
note whatever.

CHAPTER VI.

The inhabitants of these houses constitute the lower class of the city,
which numbers in Moscow, probably, one hundred thousand. There, in that
house, are representatives of every description of this class. There are
petty employers, and master-artisans, bootmakers, brush-makers, cabinet-
makers, turners, shoemakers, tailors, blacksmiths; there are cab-drivers,
young women living alone, and female pedlers, laundresses, old-clothes
dealers, money-lenders, day-laborers, and people without any definite
employment; and also beggars and dissolute women.

Here were many of the very people whom I had seen at the entrance to the
Lyapinsky house; but here these people were scattered about among the
working-people. And moreover, I had seen these people at their most
unfortunate time, when they had eaten and drunk up every thing, and when,
cold, hungry, and driven forth from the taverns, they were awaiting
admission into the free night lodging-house, and thence into the promised
prison for despatch to their places of residence, like heavenly manna;
but here I beheld them and a majority of workers, and at a time, when by
one means or another, they had procured three or five kopeks for a
lodging for the night, and sometimes a ruble for food and drink.

And strange as the statement may seem, I here experienced nothing
resembling that sensation which I had felt in the Lyapinsky house; but,
on the contrary, during the first round, both I and the students
experienced an almost agreeable feeling,--yes, but why do I say "almost
agreeable"? This is not true; the feeling called forth by intercourse
with these people, strange as it may sound, was a distinctly agreeable
one.

Our first impression was, that the greater part of the dwellers here were
working people and very good people at that.

We found more than half the inhabitants at work: laundresses bending over
their tubs,