was of use to the people, and formed around me an atmosphere of
affection and union with the people, in which it was possible to
soothe the gnawing sensation of remorse at the independence of my
life. On going to the city, I had hoped to be able to live in the
same manner. But here I encountered want of an entirely different
sort. City want was both less real, and more exacting and cruel,
than country poverty. But the principal point was, that there was so
much of it in one spot, that it produced on me a frightful
impression. The impression which I experienced in the Lyapinsky
house had, at the very first, made me conscious of the deformity of
my own life. This feeling was genuine and very powerful. But,
notwithstanding its genuineness and power, I was, at that time, so
weak that I feared the alteration in my life to which this feeling
commended me, and I resorted to a compromise. I believed what
everybody told me, and everybody has said, ever since the world was
made,--that there is nothing evil in wealth and luxury, that they are
given by God, that one may continue to live as a rich man, and yet
help the needy. I believed this, and I tried to do it. I wrote an
essay, in which I summoned all rich people to my assistance. The
rich people all acknowledged themselves morally bound to agree with
me, but evidently they either did not wish to do any thing, or they
could not do any thing or give any thing to the poor. I began to
visit the poor, and I beheld what I had not in the least expected.
On the one hand, I beheld in those dens, as I called them, people
whom it was not conceivable that I should help, because they were
working people, accustomed to labor and privation, and therefore
standing much higher and having a much firmer foothold in life than
myself; on the other hand, I saw unfortunate people whom I could not
aid because they were exactly like myself. The majority of the
unfortunates whom I saw were unhappy only because they had lost the