What To Do?

rty was new and incomprehensible to me. In Moscow it was impossible to pass along the street without encountering beggars, and especially beggars who are unlike those in the countr

bending forward every time he sets his foot down. When he meets you, he rests on one foot and makes you a kind of salute. If you stop, he pulls off his hat with its cockade, and bows and begs: if you do not halt, he pretends that that is merely his way of walking, and he pa

saw a policeman putting a ragged peasant, all swollen

answered: "For

at for

forbidden," repli

rohibited. I could in no wise understand how one man could be forbidden to ask alms of any other man; and besides, I did not believe that it was prohibited, when Mos

s this peasa

d and pistol gazed st

ness is it

it was necessary to offer m

t all such persons are to be arre

gar was seated on the window-sill in the ante-cha

or are forbidden to ask

did not exactly frown, but apparently fell into a

it is necessary," and betook himself once more to

ested him?" asked the cabman. The man was

ead. "Why is it forbidden here in Moscow

s?" said

is Christ's poor, and he is

that now, it is not allo

usupoff house of correction. Once I encountered on the Myasnitzkaya a company of these beggars, about thirt

ery street in Moscow, and who stand in files near every church during ser

ght and locked up somewhere,

legal beggars, or there are so many of them that it is impossible to

e by this profession; there are also genuine poor people, who have ch

n; some, too, were perfectly healthy and able to work. These perfectly healthy peasants who were engaged in begging, particularly interested me. These healthy, peasant beggars, who were fit for work, also interested me, because, from the date of my arrival in Moscow, I had been in the habit of going to the Sparrow Hills with two peasants, and sawing wood there for the sake of exercise. These two peasants were just as poor as those whom I encountered on the streets. One was

n toil, while th

mployment chopping up old wood for use in stoves. He and his comrade finished all the chopping which one householder had; then they sought other work, but found none; his comrade had parted from him, and for two weeks he himself had been struggling along; he had spent al

There is a great d

not come? Do you suppose

, and it seems to me that he is not de

hanced upon me again in the street a week later. Many of these I recognized, and they recognized me, and sometimes, having forgotten me, they repeated the same trick on me; and others, on catching sight of me, beat a retreat. Thus I perceived, that in the ranks