his moral life, the
latter is on the threshold, and both of them are "astray," because
the one has not found the road on which to travel through life, and
the other is just beginning to look for it. The entire existence of
Chekanhov is dominated by the idea that it is _his duty to serve the
people_, which was the basis of the activity of the "narodnikis."
According to him, the "intellectuals," who represent a small and
privileged fraction of the population, are the debtors of the people
and ought to pay their debt by giving the people knowledge and
comfort. This theory is burned into his very soul; it is the leading
thought that directs all of his actions. At this epoch, few men
showed such absolute devotion. From 1880 to 1890, after the cruel
suppression of the movement of the "narodnikis," there was a stop in
this revolutionary activity. Unaware of this pacification, Chekanhov
makes great exertions; as a doctor, he combats disease and saves
several people. But how exhaust the source of this evil, this
misery, which is increased by a despotic social order? Chekanhov
spends his energy in vain; where else shall he apply his strength?

The famine of 1891! Dr. Chekanhov speaks only of his despair: "A
terrible malady beats down on one after another of the inhabitants;
it is an epidemic of typhoid caused by the privations which left us
numb and weak." In 1892 an epidemic of cholera broke out. In spite
of the prayers of his parents, the young man rushes off to the most
infected district. One day, he penetrates into an infected hovel.
The children are sprawling everywhere, the mother is foolish and
stupid, and the father, weakened by prison labor, has come down with
cholera. The wife forbids the doctor, whom she accuses of poisoning
the sick, to approach her husband. Scorning the danger, in order to
encourage the sick man, the doctor drinks out of the very cup which
the invalid has used. Nothing counts with him as long as he can
inspire confidence and save people from death.

"What good is there in love between good and strong people," adds
Chekanhov, after having noted down this cure in his "Journal,"
"since it results only in miserable abortions? And why are the
people held down to work which is so rough and unpleasant? What
motive supports them in their painful labor? Is it the desire to
preserve their infected hovels?"

At the end of these reflections could not Chekanhov, absolutely in
despair, have abandoned his task