Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/199

Rh lie down to sleep. It is autumn. Rain is falling, mixed with snow. Some one knocks at the door. Should they open it? A man enters wet and feverish. What must they do? Let him have the dry straw? There is no more dry, so either they must drive away the sick man, or let him, wet as he is, lie on the floor, or give him the straw, and themselves (since one must sleep) share it with him.

But this is still not all: a man comes who is a drunkard and a debauchee, whom you have helped several times, and who has always drunk whatever you gave him.

He comes now, his jaw trembling, and asks for six shillings to replace money he has stolen and drunk, for which he will be imprisoned, if he does not replace it. You say you only have eight shillings, which you want for a payment due to-morrow. Then the man says: "Yes, I see, you talk, but when it comes to acts, you're like the rest; you let the man you call a 'brother' perish, rather than suffer yourselves!"

How is one to act in such cases? Let the fever-stricken man have the damp floor and lie in the dry place oneself,—and you will be farther from sleep than the other way. If you put him on your straw and lie near him, you will get lice and typhus. If you give the beggar six of your last shillings, you will be left without bread to-morrow; but to refuse means, as he said, to turn from that for the sake of which one lives.

If you can stop here, why could you not stop sooner? Why need you help people? Why give up your property and leave the town? Where can one draw the line? If there is a limit to the work you are doing, then it all has no meaning, or it has only the horrible meaning of hypocrisy.

How is one to act? What is one to do? Not to draw back means to lose one's life, to be eaten by lice, to starve, to die, and—apparently—uselessly. To stop is to repudiate that for the sake of which one has acted, for which one has done whatever of good one has accomplished. And one cannot repudiate it, for it is no