capacity, desire, and habit of earning their own bread; that is to
say, their unhappiness consisted in the fact that they were precisely
such persons as myself.

I found no unfortunates who were sick, hungry, or cold, to whom I
could render immediate assistance, with the solitary exception of
hungry Agafya. And I became convinced, that, on account of my
remoteness from the lives of those people whom I desired to help, it
would be almost impossible to find any such unfortunates, because all
actual wants had already been supplied by the very people among whom
these unfortunates live; and, most of all, I was convinced that money
cannot effect any change in the life led by these unhappy people.

I was convinced of all this, but out of false shame at abandoning
what I had once undertaken, because of my self-delusion as a
benefactor, I went on with this matter for a tolerably long time,--
and would have gone on with it until it came to nothing of itself,--
so that it was with the greatest difficulty that, with the help of
Ivan Fedotitch, I got rid, after a fashion, as well as I could, in
the tavern of the Rzhanoff house, of the thirty-seven rubles which I
did not regard as belonging to me.

Of course I might have gone on with this business, and have made out
of it a semblance of benevolence; by urging the people who had
promised me money, I might have collected more, I might have
distributed this money, and consoled myself with my charity; but I
perceived, on the one hand, that we rich people neither wish nor are
able to share a portion of our a superfluity with the poor (we have
so many wants of our own), and that money should not be given to any
one, if the object really be to do good and not to give money itself