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 that are to blame. In truth, a
change in my mode of life cannot rectify the evil which I have seen:
by altering my manner of life, I shall only make myself and those
about me unhappy, and the other miseries will remain the same as
ever. And therefore my problem lies not in a change of my own life,
as it had first seemed to me, but in aiding, so far as in me lies, in