school-children, and is giving everything to that. As education and horses
are incommensurables, V. A. promised me the co-operation of the committee
if we would start centres for feeding the school-children and send detailed
information about it. I felt it awkward to ask her for money on the spot,
for people beg and beg of her and fleece her like a fox. I only asked her
when she had any committees and board meetings not to forget us, and she
promised she would not....

If any roubles or half-roubles come in I will send them on to you without
delay. Dispose of me and believe me that it would be a real happiness to me
to do at least something, for so far I have done absolutely nothing for the
famine-stricken peasants and for those who are helping them.




TO A. I. SMAGIN.

MOSCOW,
December 11, 1891.


... Well, now I have something to tell you, my good sir. I am sitting at
home in Moscow, but meantime my enterprise in the Nizhni Novgorod province
is in full swing already! Together with my friend the Zemsky Natchalnik, an
excellent man, we are hatching a little scheme, on which we expect to spend
a hundred thousand or so, in the most remote section of the province, where
there are no landowners nor doctors, nor even well-educated young ladies
who are now to be found in numbers even in hell. Apart from famine relief
of all sorts, we are making it our chief object to save the crops of next