streets, and in the taverns, and in night-lodging houses; and
now, all of a sudden, these gentlemen had come and locked the gates,
merely in order to count them: it was as difficult for them to believe
this, as for hares to believe that dogs have come, not to chase but to
count them. But the gates were locked, and the startled lodgers
returned: and we, breaking up into groups, entered also. With me were
the two society men and two students. In front of us, in the dark, went
Vanya, in his coat and white trousers, with a lantern, and we followed.
We went to quarters with which I was familiar. I knew all the
establishments, and some of the people; but the majority of the people
were new, and the spectacle was new, and more dreadful than the one which
I had witnessed in the Lyapinsky house. All the lodgings were full, all
the bunks were occupied, not by one person only, but often by two. The
sight was terrible in that narrow space into which the people were
huddled, and men and women were mixed together. All the women who were
not dead drunk slept with men; and women with two children did the same.
The sight was terrible, on account of the poverty, dirt, rags, and terror
of the people. And it was chiefly dreadful on account of the vast
numbers of people who were in this situation. One lodging, and then a
second like it, and a third, and a tenth, and a twentieth, and still
there was no end to them. And everywhere there was the same foul odor,
the same close atmosphere, the same crowding, the same mingling of the
sexes, the same men and women intoxicated to stupidity, and the same
terror, submission and guilt on all faces; and again I was overwhelmed
with shame and pain, as in the Lyapinsky house, and I understood that
what I had undertaken was abominable and foolish and therefore
impracticable. And I no longer took notes of anybody, and I asked no
questions, knowing that nothing would come of this.

I was deeply pained. In the Lyapinsky house I had been like a man who
has seen a fearful wound, by chance, on the body of another man. He is
sorry for the other man, he is ashamed that he has not pitied the man
before, and he can still rise to the succor of the sufferer. But now I
was like a physician, who has come with his medicine to the sick man, has
uncovered his sore, and examined it, and who must confess to himself that
every thing that he has done has been in vain, and that his remedy is
good for nothing.