Thoughts Evoked By The Census Of Moscow | Page 9

thousands of such people in Moscow, while I and other thousands
dined on fillets and sturgeon, and covered my horses and my floors
with cloth and rugs,--no matter what the wise ones of this world might
say to me about its being a necessity,--was a crime, not perpetrated a
single time, but one which was incessantly being perpetrated over and
over again, and that I, in my luxury, was not only an accessory, but a
direct accomplice in the matter. The difference for me between these
two impressions was this, that I might have shouted to the assassins
who stood around the guillotine, and perpetrated the murder, that they
were committing a crime, and have tried with all my might to prevent
the murder. But while so doing I should have known that my action
would not prevent the murder. But here I might not only have given
sbiten and the money which I had with me, but the coat from my back,
and every thing that was in my house. But this I had not done; and
therefore I felt, I feel, and shall never cease to feel, myself an
accomplice in this constantly repeated crime, so long as I have
superfluous food and any one else has none at all, so long as I have two
garments while any one else has not even one.] {5}

CHAPTER III
.

That very evening, on my return from the Lyapinsky house, I related
my impressions to a friend. The friend, an inhabitant of the city, began
to tell me, not without satisfaction, that this was the most natural
phenomenon of town life possible, that I only saw something
extraordinary in it because of my provincialism, that it had always been
so, and always would be so, and that such must be and is the inevitable
condition of civilization. In London it is even worse. Of course there is
nothing wrong about it, and it is impossible to be displeased with it. I
began to reply to my friend, but with so much heat and ill-temper, that
my wife ran in from the adjoining room to inquire what had happened.
It appears that, without being conscious of it myself, I had been
shouting, with tears in my voice, and flourishing my hands at my friend.
I shouted: "It's impossible to live thus, impossible to live thus,
impossible!" They made me feel ashamed of my unnecessary warmth;
they told me that I could not talk quietly about any thing, that I got
disagreeably excited; and they proved to me, especially, that the
existence of such unfortunates could not possibly furnish any excuse
for imbittering the lives of those about me.
I felt that this was perfectly just, and held my peace; but in the depths
of my soul I was conscious that I was in the right, and I could not
regain my composure.
And the life of the city, which had, even before this, been so strange
and repellent to me, now disgusted me to such a degree, that all the
pleasures of a life of luxury, which had hitherto appeared to me as
pleasures, become tortures to me. And try as I would, to discover in my
own soul any justification whatever for our life, I could not, without
irritation, behold either my own or other people's drawing-rooms, nor
our tables spread in the lordly style, nor our equipages and horses, nor
shops, theatres, and assemblies. I could not behold alongside these the
hungry, cold, and down-trodden inhabitants of the Lyapinsky house.
And I could not rid myself of the thought that these two things were
bound up together, that the one arose from the other. I remember, that,
as this feeling of my own guilt presented itself to me at the first blush,
so it persisted in me, but to this feeling a second was speedily added
which overshadowed it.
When I mentioned my impressions of the Lyapinsky house to my

nearest friends and acquaintances, they all gave me the same answer as
the first friend at whom I had begun to shout; but, in addition to this,
they expressed their approbation of my kindness of heart and my
sensibility, and gave me to understand that this sight had so especially
worked upon me because I, Lyof Nikolaevitch, was very kind and good.
And I willingly believed this. And before I had time to look about me,
instead of the feeling of self-reproach and regret, which I had at first
experienced, there came a sense of satisfaction with my own kindliness,
and a desire to exhibit it to people.
"It really must be," I said to myself, "that I am not especially
responsible for this by the luxury of my life, but that it is the
indispensable conditions of existence