Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 09 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/492

4 In Moscow it is impossible to pass a street without meeting beggars of a peculiar kind quite unlike those in the country, who go about there, as the saying is, "with a bag and the name of Christ."

In Moscow beggars neither carry a bag nor ask for alms. In most cases, when they meet you, they only try to catch your eye, and act according to the expression of your face.

I know of one such, a bankrupt gentleman. He is an old man, who advances slowly, limping painfully on each leg. When he meets you, he limps, and makes a bow. If you stop, he takes off his cap, furnished with a cockade, bows again, and begs. If you do not stop, he pretends only to be lame, and continues limping along.

That is a specimen of a genuine Moscow beggar, and an experienced one.

At first I did not know why such mendicants did not ask openly; but afterward I learned why, without understanding the reason.

One day I saw a policeman push a ragged peasant, all swollen from dropsy, into a cab. I asked what he had been doing, and the policeman replied:

"Begging."

"Is begging, then, forbidden?"

"So it seems," he answered. As the man was being driven away, I took another cab, and followed. I wished to find out whether mendicancy was really forbidden, and if so, why it was. I could not at all understand how it was possible to forbid one man asking something from another; and, moreover, I had my doubts whether it was illegal in a city where it flourished to such an extent.

I entered the police station where the pauper had been taken, and asked an official armed with sword and pistol, and seated at a table, what he had been arrested for.

The man looked up at me sharply, and said, "What business is that of yours?"

However, feeling the necessity of some explanation,