TO E. P. YEGOROV.

MOSCOW,
December 11, 1891.


HONOURED EVGRAF PETROVITCH,

I write to explain why my journey to you did not come off. I was intending
to come to you not as a special correspondent, but on a commission from, or
more correctly by agreement with, a small circle of people who want to do
something for the famine-stricken peasants. The point is that the public
does not trust the administration and so is deterred from subscribing.
There are a thousand legends and fables about the waste, the shameless
theft, and so on. People hold aloof from the Episcopal department and are
indignant with the Red Cross. The owner of our beloved Babkino, the Zemsky
Natchalnik, rapped out to me, bluntly and definitely: "The Red Cross in
Moscow are thieves." Such being the state of feeling, the government can
scarcely expect serious help from the public. And yet the public wants to
help and its conscience is uneasy. In September the educated and wealthy
classes of Moscow formed themselves into circles, thought, talked, and
applied for advice to leading persons; everyone was talking of how to get
round the government and organize independently. They decided to send to
the famine-stricken provinces their own agents, who should make
acquaintance with the position on the spot, open feeding centres, and so
on. Some of the leaders of these circles, persons of weight, went to
Durnovo to ask permission, and Durnovo refused it, declaring that the