called the den of the Rzhanoff house, where, nevertheless, three-
fourths of the people toil for themselves and for others. But I
understood nothing of this.

There were a great many children in the Rzhanoff house, who were in
the same pitiable plight; there were the children of dissolute women,
there were orphans, there were children who had been picked up in the
streets by beggars. They were all very wretched. But my experience
with Serozha showed me that I, living the life I did, was not in a
position to help them.

While Serozha was living with us, I noticed in myself an effort to
hide our life from him, in particular the life of our children. I
felt that all my efforts to direct him towards a good, industrious
life, were counteracted by the examples of our lives and by that of
our children. It is very easy to take a child away from a
disreputable woman, or from a beggar. It is very easy, when one has
the money, to wash, clean and dress him in neat clothing, to support
him, and even to teach him various sciences; but it is not only
difficult for us, who do not earn our own bread, but quite the
reverse, to teach him to work for his bread, but it is impossible,
because we, by our example, and even by those material and valueless
improvements of his life, inculcate the contrary. A puppy can be
taken, tended, fed, and taught to fetch and carry, and one may take
pleasure in him: but it is not enough to tend a man, to feed and
teach him Greek; we must teach the man how to live,--that is, to take
as little as possible from others, and to give as much as possible;
and we cannot help teaching him to do the contrary, if we take him
into our houses, or into an institution founded for this purpose.