Article On The Census In Moscow | Page 8

giving of money, it consists
in the loving intercourse of men. This alone is needed.)
Whatever may be the outcome of this, any thing will be better than the
present state of things.
Then let the final act of our enumerators and directors be to distribute a
hundred twenty-kopek pieces to those who have no food; and this will
be not a little, not so much because the hungry will have food, but
because the directors and enumerators will conduct themselves in a
humane manner towards a hundred poor people. How are we to
compute the possible results which will accrue to the balance of public
morality from the fact that, instead of the sentiments of irritation, anger,
and envy which we arouse by reckoning the hungry, we shall awaken in
a hundred instances a sentiment of good, which will be communicated
to a second and a third, and an endless wave which will thus be set in
motion and flow between men? And this is a great deal. Let those of
the two thousand enumerators who have never comprehended this
before, come to understand that, when going about among the poor, it
is impossible to say, "This is very interesting;" that a man should not
express himself with regard to another man's wretchedness by interest
only; and this will be a good thing. Then let assistance be rendered to
all those unfortunates, of whom there are not so many as I at first
supposed in Moscow, who can easily be helped by money alone to a
great extent. Then let those laborers who have come to Moscow and
have eaten their very clothing from their backs, and who cannot return
to the country, be despatched to their homes; let the abandoned orphans
receive supervision; let feeble old men and indigent old women, who
subsist on the charity of their companions, be released from their
half-famished and dying condition. (And this is very possible. There
are not very many of them.) And this will also be a very, very great
deal accomplished. But why not think and hope that more and yet more
will be done? Why not expect that that real task will be partially carried
out, or at least begun, which is effected, not by money, but by labor;
that weak drunkards who have lost their health, unlucky thieves, and
prostitutes who are still capable of reformation, should be saved? All

evil may not be exterminated, but there will arise some understanding
of it, and the contest with it will not be police methods, but by inward
modes,--by the brotherly intercourse of the men who perceive the evil,
with the men who do not perceive it because they are a part of it.
No matter what may be accomplished, it will be a great deal. But why
not hope that every thing will be accomplished? Why not hope that we
shall accomplish thus much, that there shall not exist in Moscow a
single person in want of clothing, a single hungry person, a single
human being sold for money, nor a single individual oppressed by the
judgment of man, who shall not know that there is fraternal aid for him?
It is not surprising that this should not be so, but it is surprising that this
should exist side by side with our superfluous leisure and wealth, and
that we can live on composedly, knowing that these things are so. Let
us forget that in great cities and in London, there is a proletariat, and let
us not say that so it must needs be. It need not be this, and it should not,
for this is contrary to our reason and our heart, and it cannot be if we
are living people. Why not hope that we shall come to understand that
there is not a single duty incumbent upon us, not to mention personal
duty, for ourselves, nor our family, nor social, nor governmental, nor
scientific, which is more weighty than this? Why not think that we shall
at last come to apprehend this? Only because to do so would be too
great a happiness. Why not hope that some the people will wake up,
and will comprehend that every thing else is a delusion, but that this is
the only work in life? And why should not this "some time" be now,
and in Moscow? Why not hope that the same thing may happen in
society and humanity which suddenly takes place in a diseased
organism, when the moment of convalescence suddenly sets in? The
organism is diseased this means, that the cells cease to perform their
mysterious functions; some die, others become infected, others still
remain in perfect condition, and work on by themselves. But all of a
sudden the moment comes when every living