When I mentioned this poverty of the town to inhabitants of the town,
they always said to me: "Oh, all that you have seen is nothing. You
ought to see the Khitroff market-place, and the lodging-houses for
the night there. There you would see a regular 'golden company.'"
{1} One jester told me that this was no longer a company, but a
GOLDEN REGIMENT: so greatly had their numbers increased. The jester
was right, but he would have been still more accurate if he had said
that these people now form in Moscow neither a company nor a
regiment, but an entire army, almost fifty thousand in number, I
think. [The old inhabitants, when they spoke to me about the poverty
in town, always referred to it with a certain satisfaction, as though
pluming themselves over me, because they knew it. I remember that
when I was in London, the old inhabitants there also rather boasted
when they spoke of the poverty of London. The case is the same with
us.] {2}

And I wanted to have a sight of this poverty of which I had been
told. Several times I set out in the direction of the Khitroff
market-place, but on every occasion I began to feel uncomfortable and
ashamed. "Why am I going to gaze on the sufferings of people whom I
cannot help?" said one voice. "No, if you live here, and see all the
charms of city life, go and view this also," said another voice. In
December three years ago, therefore, on a cold and windy day, I
betook myself to that centre of poverty, the Khitroff market-place.
This was at four o'clock in the afternoon of a week-day. As I passed
through the Solyanka, I already began to see more and more people in
old garments which had not originally belonged to them, and in still
stranger foot-gear, people with a peculiar, unhealthy hue of
countenance, and especially with a singular indifference to every