CHAPTER X.



This feeling of compassion for people, and of disgust with myself,
which I had experienced in the Lyapinsky house, I experienced no
longer. I was completely absorbed in the desire to carry out the
scheme which I had concocted,--to do good to those people whom I
should meet here. And, strange to say, it would appear, that, to do
good--to give money to the needy--is a very good deed, and one that
should dispose me to love for the people, but it turned out the
reverse: this act produced in me ill-will and an inclination to
condemn people. But during our first evening tour, a scene occurred
exactly like that in the Lyapinsky house, and it called forth a
wholly different sentiment.

It began by my finding in one set of apartments an unfortunate
individual, of precisely the sort who require immediate aid. I found
a hungry woman who had had nothing to eat for two days.

It came about thus: in one very large and almost empty night-
lodging, I asked an old woman whether there were many poor people who
had nothing to eat? The old woman reflected, and then told me of
two; and then, as though she had just recollected, "Why, here is one
of them," said she, glancing at one of the occupied bunks. "I think
that woman has had no food."

"Really? Who is she?"