What Shall We Do?. graf Leo Tolstoy
Читать онлайн.| Название | What Shall We Do? |
|---|---|
| Автор произведения | graf Leo Tolstoy |
| Жанр | Языкознание |
| Серия | |
| Издательство | Языкознание |
| Год выпуска | 0 |
| isbn | 4057664578419 |
Leo graf Tolstoy
What Shall We Do?
Published by Good Press, 2021
EAN 4057664578419
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I
After having passed the greater part of my life in the country, I came at length, in the year 1881, to reside in Moscow, where I was immediately struck with the extreme state of pauperism in that city. Though well acquainted with the privations of the poor in rural districts, I had not the faintest conception of their actual condition in towns.
In Moscow it is impossible to pass a street without meeting beggars of a peculiar kind, quite unlike those in the country, who go about there, as the saying is, “with a bag and the name of Christ.”
The Moscow beggars neither carry a bag nor ask for alms. In most cases when they meet you, they try to catch your eye, and then act according to the expression of your face.
I know of one such, a bankrupt gentleman. He is an old man who advances slowly, limping painfully with each leg. When he meets you, he limps, and makes a bow. If you stop, he takes off his cap, ornamented with a cockade, bows again, and begs. If you do not stop, he pretends to be only lame, and continues limping along.
That is a specimen of a genuine Moscow beggar, an experienced one.
At first I did not know why such mendicants did not ask openly; but afterwards I learned why, without understanding the reason.
One day I saw a policeman push a ragged peasant swollen with dropsy, into a cab. I asked what he had been doing, and the policeman replied,—
“Begging.”
“Is begging, then, forbidden?”
“So it seems,” he answered. As the man was being driven away, I took another cab, and followed. I wished to find out whether begging was really forbidden, and if so, why? I could not at all understand how it was possible to forbid one man asking something from another; and, moreover, I had my doubts whether it could be illegal in a city where it flourished to such an extent.
I entered the police-station where the pauper had been taken, and asked an official armed with sword