Page:Tolstoy - Demands of Love and Reason.djvu/13

10 and themselves, since one must sleep, share it with him.

But even this is not all; a man comes who is a drunkard and a debauchee, whom they have helped several times, and who has always drunk whatever they 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. They say they have only eight shillings, which they 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 yourself—and you will be further 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 has 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