he
rich? they all grew uneasy again. They seemed to say to me with their
glances: "Why, we have just condoned your folly out of respect to you,
and here you are beginning it again!" Such was the expression of their
faces, but they assured me in words that they agreed; and two of them
said in the very same words, as though they had entered into a compact
together: "We consider ourselves _morally bound_ to do this." The same
impression was produced by my communication to the student-census-takers,
when I said to them, that while taking our statistics, we should follow
up, in addition to the objects of the census, the object of benevolence.
When we discussed this, I observed that they were ashamed to look the
kind-hearted man, who was talking nonsense, in the eye. My article
produced the same impression on the editor of the newspaper, when I
handed it to him; on my son, on my wife, on the most widely different
persons. All felt awkward, for some reason or other; but all regarded it
as indispensable to applaud the idea itself, and all, immediately after
this expression of approbation, began to express their doubts as to its
success, and began for some reason (and all of them, too, without
exception) to condemn the indifference and coldness of our society and of
every one, apparently, except themselves.

In the depths of my own soul, I still continued to feel that all this was
not at all what was needed, and that nothing would come of it; but the
article was printed, and I prepared to take part in the census; I had
contrived the matter, and now it was already carrying me a way with it.

CHAPTER IV.

At my request, there had been assigned to me for the census, a portion of
the Khamovnitchesky quarter, at the Smolensk market, along the Prototchny
cross-street, between Beregovoy Passage and Nikolsky Alley. In this
quarter are situated the houses generally called the Rzhanoff Houses, or
the Rzhanoff fortress. These houses once belonged to a merchant named
Rzhanoff, but now belong to the Zimins. I had long before heard of this
place as a haunt of the most terrible poverty and vice, and I had
accordingly requested the directors of the census to assign me to this
quarter. My desire was granted.

On receiving the instructions of the City Council, I went alone, a few
days previous to the beginning of the census, to reconnoitre my section.
I found the Rzhanoff fortress at once, from the plan with which I had
been fu