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“But what good would it do to them if we should dress in
rags and live on the edge of starvation?”
“What right have we,” she retorted, “to live better than
they?”
I made no reply, but glanced wonderingly into the eyes of
this remarkable girl, and saw there a large tear trembling;
something seemed to press on my heart and threaten to choke
me. “But how is it possible that the authorities permit such
a terrible state of things?”
“I don’t know,” was the short and significant answer.
In the evening the Count seemed quite downcast. “I feel
really ashamed of this work,” he said. “We don’t know
what real help there is in it. We are prolonging the
existence of a number of the starving peasants for some time,
but their misery will go on all the same!”
“You also help them spiritually,” I said. “You are doing
a good work.”
“I don’t preach,” he said. “I am so bad myself that I
cannot preach to others. And we do not know what is good
and what is not; when we think we do something very good,
it may be quite the reverse. The real good is in the will and
the motives of our deeds.”
Next morning I started out with Miss Kuzminsky on a visit
to two villages to arrange for the distribution of wood. The
plan adopted was as follows: It was left free at the homes of
the most destitute. Those not so badly off had to fetch it
from the railway station, and from the least needy some return
in work was expected.
We reached the first village after a rapid drive of two hours
over the snow-covered plain in a bitter cold, and stopped at the
house of the starosta. Inside we found him, his wife, four
children, the grandfather, one cow, one foal, and three sheep,
gathered in one room, lighted dimly by an opening of about
eighteen inches in diameter. A large table stood on the soft
earthen floor, and a bench ran along one side of the room; there
were no chairs. We paid some visits at individual izbas, and then
the mir was summoned to the starosta’s house. This was a work
of no great difficulty, as almost the entire population of the
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