n increasing the poverty of the people.

In the autumn of 1890 my father thought of writing an article on the
famine, which had then spread over nearly all Russia.

Although from the newspapers and from the accounts brought by those who
came from the famine-stricken parts he already knew about the extent of
the peasantry's disaster, nevertheless, when his old friend Ivanovitch
Rayovsky called on him at Yasnaya Polyana and proposed that he should
drive through to the Dankovski District with him in order to see the
state of things in the villages for himself, he readily agreed, and went
with him to his property at Begitchovka.

He went there with the intention of staying only for a day or two; but
when he saw what a call there was for immediate measures, he at once set
to work to help Rayovsky, who had already instituted several kitchens in
the villages, in relieving the distress of the peasantry, at first on
a small scale, and then, when big subscriptions began to pour in from
every side, on a continually increasing one. The upshot of it was that
he devoted two whole years of his life to the work.

It is wrong to think that my father showed any inconsistency in this
matter. He did not delude himself for a moment into thinking he was
engaged on a virtuous and momentous task, but when he saw the sufferings
of the people, he simply could not bear to go on living comfortably at
Yasnaya or in Moscow any longer, but had to go out and help in order to
relieve his own feelings. Once he wrote:

There is much about it that is not what it ought to be; there is S. A.'s
money [22] and the subscriptions; there is the relation of those who
feed and those who are fed. THERE IS SIN WITHOUT END, but I cannot stay
at home and write. I feel the necessity of taking part in it, of doing
something.

Six years later I worked again at the same job with my father in
Tchornski and Mtsenski districts.

After the bad crops of the two preceding years it became clear by the
beginning of the winter of 1898 that a new famine was approaching in our
neighborhood, and that charitable assistance to the peasantry would be
needed. I turned to my father for help. By the spring he had managed to
collect some money, and at the beginning of April he came himself to see
me.

I must say that my father, who was very economical by nature, was
extraordinarily cautious and, I may say, even parsimonious in charitable
matters. It is of course easy to understan