Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/222

 But if we fear him, then it is necessary for us before all to know his strength. It is impossible for us to remain in this ignorance in which we find ourselves.

Let us admit that Russian society, the people that live outside the famine-stricken localities, find their solidarity both spiritual and material with the unfortunate people, and undergo actual serious sacrifices for the help of the starving. Let us admit that the activity of these people, who live now amid the starving, laboring for them, according to the measure of their ability, will continue till the end, and that the numbers of these people will increase; let us admit that the people themselves are not down-hearted, and will fight with poverty, as they are now fighting with it, by all negative and positive means—in other words restraining themselves and increasing their energy and inventiveness for the attainment of the means of life; let us admit that all this has been done and will be done for a month, two, three, six months—then suddenly the price goes up, goes up, just as it has been going up, from forty-five kopeks to one ruble seventy kopeks, regularly from bazaar to bazaar, and in a few weeks reaches two or three rubles a pud, and it transpires that there is no grain, and that all the sacrifices endured, both by those that gave money and by those that have been living and laboring amid the sufferers, were wasted expenditures of means and forces, and chiefly that all the energy of the people was expended in vain, and in spite of all their efforts they, that is a part of them, would nevertheless have to die of starvation, then how could we know and prevent it?

It is impossible, impossible, and again impossible to remain in this uncertainty, impossible for us, wise, learned people to remain so. The muzhik whom I saw yesterday was doing about all that he could. He had procured money, and had gone to seek for grain. He had been to Mikhaïl Vasilyef's, he had been to the mill, he had been to Chernavo—nowhere could he obtain meal. After he had gone to all the places where meal might possibly be, he knew that he had done his best; and if