Thoughts Evoked By The Census Of Moscow | Page 5

sword and a pistol. I inquired:
"For what was this peasant arrested?"

The man with the sword and pistol gazed sternly at me, and said:
"What business is it of yours?"
But feeling conscious that it was necessary to offer me some
explanation, he added:
"The authorities have ordered that all such persons are to be arrested; of
course it had to be done."
I went out. The policeman who had brought the beggar was seated on
the window-sill in the ante-chamber, staring gloomily at a note-book. I
asked him:
"Is it true that the poor are forbidden to ask alms in Christ's name?"
The policeman came to himself, stared at me, then did not exactly
frown, but apparently fell into a doze again, and said, as he sat on the
window-sill:-
"The authorities have so ordered, which shows that it is necessary," and
betook himself once more to his note-book. I went out on the porch, to
the cab.
"Well, how did it turn out? Have they arrested him?" asked the cabman.
The man was evidently interested in this affair also.
"Yes," I answered. The cabman shook his head. "Why is it forbidden
here in Moscow to ask alms in Christ's name?" I inquired.
"Who knows?" said the cabman.
"How is this?" said I, "he is Christ's poor, and he is taken to the
station-house."
"A stop has been put to that now, it is not allowed," said the cab-
driver.
On several occasions afterwards, I saw policemen conducting beggars
to the station house, and then to the Yusupoff house of correction. Once
I encountered on the Myasnitzkaya a company of these beggars, about
thirty in number. In front of them and behind them marched policemen.
I inquired: "What for?"--"For asking alms."
It turned out that all these beggars, several of whom you meet with in
every street in Moscow, and who stand in files near every church
during services, and especially during funeral services, are forbidden to
ask alms.
But why are some of them caught and locked up somewhere, while
others are left alone?
This I could not understand. Either there are among them legal and

illegal beggars, or there are so many of them that it is impossible to
apprehend them all; or do others assemble afresh when some are
removed?
There are many varieties of beggars in Moscow: there are some who
live by this profession; there are also genuine poor people, who have
chanced upon Moscow in some manner or other, and who are really in
want.
Among these poor people, there are many simple, common peasants,
and women in their peasant costume. I often met such people. Some of
them have fallen ill here, and on leaving the hospital they can neither
support themselves here, nor get away from Moscow. Some of them,
moreover, have indulged in dissipation (such was probably the case of
the dropsical man); some have not been ill, but are people who have
been burnt out of their houses, or old people, or women with children;
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 Piotr,
a soldier from Kaluga; the other Semyon, a peasant from Vladimir.
They possessed nothing except the wages of their body and hands. And
with these hands they earned, by dint of very hard labor, from forty to
forty-five kopeks a day, out of which each of them was laying by
savings, the Kaluga man for a fur coat, the Vladimir man in order to get
enough to return to his village. Therefore, on meeting precisely such
men in the streets, I took an especial interest in them.
Why did these men toil, while those others begged?
On encountering a peasant of this stamp, I usually asked him how he
had come to that situation. Once I met a peasant with some gray in his
beard, but healthy. He begs. I ask him who is he, whence comes he? He
says that he came from Kaluga to get work. At first he found
employment 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 all his money, he had no saw, and no axe, and no