This was the case in question: I have already mentioned the two
peasants with whom I was in the habit of sawing wood three yeans ago.
One Saturday evening at dusk, I was returning to the city in their
company. They were going to their employer to receive their wages.
As we were crossing the Dragomilovsky bridge, we met an old man. He
asked alms, and I gave him twenty kopeks. I gave, and reflected on
the good effect which my charity would have on Semyon, with whom I
had been conversing on religious topics. Semyon, the Vladimir
peasant, who had a wife and two children in Moscow, halted also,
pulled round the skirt of his kaftan, and got out his purse, and from
this slender purse he extracted, after some fumbling, three kopeks,
handed it to the old man, and asked for two kopeks in change. The
old man exhibited in his hand two three-kopek pieces and one kopek.
Semyon looked at them, was about to take the kopek, but thought
better of it, pulled off his hat, crossed himself, and walked on,
leaving the old man the three-kopek piece.

I was fully acquainted with Semyon's financial condition. He had no
property at home at all. The money which he had laid by on the day
when he gave three kopeks amounted to six rubles and fifty kopeks.
Accordingly, six rubles and twenty kopeks was the sum of his savings.
My reserve fund was in the neighborhood of six hundred thousand. I
had a wife and children, Semyon had a wife and children. He was
younger than I, and his children were fewer in number than mine; but
his children were small, and two of mine were of an age to work, so
that our position, with the exception of the savings, was on an
equality; mine was somewhat the more favorable, if any thing. He
gave three kopeks, I gave twenty. What did he really give, and what
did I really give? What ought I to have given, in order to do what