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and yours; they have no luxuries, and live on as little as
possible.”
“I should not answer your jest,” returned Kudrin, “if it did
not seem to many people a real argument. It is not true that
these people are ‘happy’ in their misery. It is true that many
have become so degraded that they are incapable of desiring
to get out of these wretched conditions, but that is a so much
stronger indictment against the present social order that
creates and fosters such boundless misery. Can we blame
these men who receive such small return for their labour that
they are driven to live in hovels where a decent farmer would
not house his pigs? Even in wealthy France the great majority
lack the dwellings, food, and clothing needful for the health of
the body. As for Tolstoi, his work most certainly does not
prove that he considers the condition of the peasants normal
and ‘happy.’ Is it not his life’s aim to lift them out of their
material and spiritual misery, though to be sure it is with far
other means than that of luxury that he is trying to rouse them
from their stupor.”
Here the conversation was interrupted by the entrance of
a peasant, who came in the middle of the night, crying bitterly,
and entreated the doctor to come to his wife, who was dying of
typhus. When the doctor had gone I asked Kudrin if he
thought there were any prospects of this social regeneration
of which he had spoken. He answered:—
“In Russian society there is a remarkable phenomenon to be
seen at present, which is not found to any great extent in other
nations. I mean the ‘going to the people’ (khoshdjenije
v’narode). This does not date from yesterday; it is now
almost half a century old. People of intelligence, men and
women, young and middle-aged, go into the country among
the peasants, devoting all their time and powers to helping
them, in the endeavour to raise them from their
degradation. The means they have used are of various kinds,
and some have been attended with but slight apparent
success, but this cannot hinder the growth of the movement.
When these men and women find new methods they go and
put them into practice. The ‘progressive intelligence’ of the
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