groaned with shame as I fled from the kitchen.
This utterly unexpected, and, as it seemed to me, utterly undeserved
shame, made a special impression on me, because it was a long time since
I had been mortified, and because I, as an old man, had so lived, it
seemed to me, that I had not merited this shame. I was forcibly struck
by this. I told the members of my household about it, I told my
acquaintances, and they all agreed that they should have felt the same.
And I began to reflect: why had this caused me such shame? To this,
something which had happened to me in Moscow furnished me with an answer.

I meditated on that incident, and the shame which I had experienced in
the presence of the cook's wife was explained to me, and all those
sensations of mortification which I had undergone during the course of my
Moscow benevolence, and which I now feel incessantly when I have occasion
to give any one any thing except that petty alms to the poor and to
pilgrims, which I have become accustomed to bestow, and which I consider
a deed not of charity but of courtesy. If a man asks you for a light,
you must strike a match for him, if you have one. If a man asks for
three or for twenty kopeks, or even for several rubles, you must give
them if you have them. This is an act of courtesy and not of charity.]
{113}

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 hom