Once, as I was passing through Afanasievskaya Lane, I saw a policeman
putting a ragged peasant, all swollen with dropsy, into a cab. I
inquired: "What is that for?"

The policeman answered: "For asking alms."

"Is that forbidden?"

"Of course it is forbidden," replied the policeman.

The sufferer from dropsy was driven off. I took another cab, and
followed him. I wanted to know whether it was true that begging alms
was prohibited and how it was prohibited. 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
Moscow is full of beggars. I went to the station-house whither the
beggar had been taken. At a table in the station-house sat a man
with a 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