“Ah, the devils!” We seemed to have galloped a mile and a half, and still it was the village street and there seemed no end to it.  When we caught up the doctor and drove more quietly, he asked for matches and said: 

“Now try and feed that street!  And, you know, there are five streets like that, sir.  Stay, stay,” he shouted.  “Turn in at the tavern!  We must get warm and let the horses rest.”

They stopped at the tavern.

“I have more than one village like that in my district,” said the doctor, opening a heavy door with a squeaky block, and ushering me in front of him.  “If you look in broad daylight you can’t see to the end of the street, and there are side-streets, too, and one can do nothing but scratch one’s head.  It’s hard to do anything.”

We went into the best room where there was a strong smell of table-cloths, and at our entrance a sleepy peasant in a waistcoat and a shirt worn outside his trousers jumped up from a bench.  Sobol asked for some beer and I asked for tea.

“It’s hard to do anything,” said Sobol.  “Your wife has faith; I respect her and have the greatest reverence for her, but I have no great faith myself.  As long as our relations to the people continue to have the character of ordinary philanthropy, as shown in orphan asylums and almshouses, so long we shall only be shuffling, shamming, and deceiving ourselves, and nothing more.  Our relations ought to be businesslike, founded on calculation, knowledge, and justice.  My Vaska has been working for me all his life; his crops have failed, he is sick and starving.  If I give him fifteen kopecks a day, by so doing I try to restore him to his former condition as a workman; that is, I am first and foremost looking after my own interests, and yet for some reason I call that fifteen kopecks relief, charity, good works.  Now let us put it like this.  On the most modest computation, reckoning seven kopecks a soul and five souls a family, one needs three hundred and fifty roubles a day to feed a thousand families.  That sum is fixed by our practical duty to a thousand families.  Meanwhile we give not three hundred and fifty a day, but only ten, and say that that is relief, charity, that that makes your wife and all of us exceptionally good people and hurrah for our humaneness.  That is it, my dear soul!  Ah! if we would talk less of being humane and calculated more, reasoned, and took a conscientious attitude to our duties!  How many such humane, sensitive people there are among us who tear about in all good faith with subscription lists, but don’t pay their tailors or their cooks.  There is no logic in our life; that’s what it is!  No logic!”

We were silent for a while.  I was making a mental calculation and said: 

“I will feed a thousand families for two hundred days.  Come and see me tomorrow to talk it over.”

I was pleased that this was said quite simply, and was glad that Sobol answered me still more simply: