---
layer: reference
lastUpdated: 2026-05-26
tags: [research, biryukov, doukhobors]
lang: en
source: tolstoy-lit.ru
volume: 3
chapter: 13
---

# Volume III, Chapter 13. The Beginning of the Work Among the Famine-Stricken

**Source:** https://tolstoy-lit.ru/tolstoy/bio/biryukov/biografiya-biryukov-3-13.htm

**Text:** P. I. Biryukov (1860–1931), *Biography of L. N. Tolstoy*, Volume III. Public domain.
**Translation:** English translation for the tolstoy.life research platform (2026-05-26), from the continuous Russian capture in [`../ru/chapter-13.md`](../ru/chapter-13.md).

---

## Part III. 1891–1895. The Famine. The Kingdom of God


In the second half of September L. N. made a journey through some of the districts that had suffered from the crop failure.

In his notebook of that time there are notes which apparently relate to this journey.

> "We set out at 7 o'clock. In Bogoroditsk district we called at the village of Panarino, on the village elder. The young fellow began to reckon up: 60 households, how much rye, oats, potatoes each had, how many mouths to feed. All of it without a stop, without a stumble. Of the 60 households, 30 are poor: on the average 5 measures of rye, 5 quarters of oats, about 18 quarters of potatoes. All together, chiefly the potatoes, makes it possible to subsist for half a year, that is, until March. Bread with goosefoot is dreadful. This year's goosefoot is green. Neither dog, nor pig, nor hen will eat it. If people eat it on an empty stomach, they fall ill with vomiting."

On the road L. N. called on some of the landowners. Here are his impressions:

> "At B.'s a family is housed. The lady, full-bosomed, going grey, in a corset, with a little bow in her chignon; the mistress settles up with the day-labourers, regales them with coffee, and cream, and cutlets, and grieves that there is no income — only 100 quarters of oats for sale, while 1,500 rubles are needed for the children. For one boy at the cadet corps, 400; for a boy at the gymnasium-boarding-school, 500; for a girl… When you say that this is not needed, especially for the daughter, she agrees, but what is to be done? At table vodka and liqueur were served, and we were pressed to smoke and to gorge ourselves.
>
> We came to S.'s. He was out hunting. A magnificent house, a stable-yard, a distillery, a dovecote… The interests at B.'s, and here, and at NN's: income, hunting, dogs, the children's examinations, horses…
>
> I do not know whether anything will come of my journey. I want to do it not for myself. Help me, Father!
>
> There was talk of the Grand Duke's hunt. How badly the dogs run. Have the young ones grown? Are they swift? S., in a *chekmen*, with a studded belt, goes galloping…
>
> Each leads his own life…"

This journey gave L. N. the material for his large article "On the Famine," known under various titles: "On Aid to the Hungry," "Letters on the Famine," and others. L. N. began to write this article in September, but it could not appear in good time on account of censorship conditions, and appeared in print only in January 1892. We shall return to it again when we come to the description of that time.

This journey, or rather these journeys — for L. N. made two journeys in different directions — did not yet settle the question of what L. N. was to do, since even after them he still has his doubts.

In October L. N. wrote to me thus:

> "I can say that I have finished my article (on military conscription). I shall still make corrections, but even if I were to die, it would, even in its present form, have a complete sense. I have now been delayed in this work by the article on the famine, which I have begun and which has greatly occupied me. I drove, with Tanya and Masha separately, into the very hungriest places of our province, and wished to write about what came into my head on this occasion. You rightly guess that our sin is the disunion from our brothers — the caste of the intelligentsia; and the further I write, the more needful seems what I am writing, and the less passable by the censorship. The plan with the girls was this: that, instead of going to Moscow, we should settle in Yepifan district, in the very midst of the hungry, and do there what God commands: feed, distribute, if there be anything. And S. A. at first consented. I was glad for the girls, but afterwards everything fell through, and we are hardly likely to go. But I promised to come to Moscow for at least 2 or 3 months. 'Not as I will, but as He wills.'"

Ivan Ivanovich Raevsky, an old friend of L. N.'s, a landowner of Ryazan province — who had already come to L. N. in the summer and had told L. N. with fervour of the disaster that was coming — on learning that L. N. was interested in this matter, hastened to invite him to come and stay with him, at his estate by the village of Begichevka in Dankov district, Ryazan province, near the border with Yepifan district, Tula province. L. N. readily accepted this invitation.

But this decision was preceded by great waverings, which are vividly expressed in the diary of his daughter T. L.

With her permission we give several extracts from it:

> "26 October 1891. Yasnaya Polyana. We are on the eve of our departure for the Don. Our journey does not gladden me, and I have no energy at all. This is because I find papa's actions inconsistent, and that it is unseemly for him to manage money, to accept donations, and to take money from mama, to whom he has only just given it back. I think that he will see this himself. He says and writes — and I think so too — that the whole calamity of the people comes about because they have been robbed and brought to this condition by us, the landowners, and that the whole matter consists in ceasing to rob the people. This, of course, is just, and papa has done what he says — he has ceased to rob. In my opinion he has nothing more to do. But to take these stolen monies from others and to manage them, in my opinion, he ought not to do. Here, it seems to me, there is an unconscious feeling of fear before being scolded for indifference and for an unwillingness to do something more positive for the hungry than to renounce property himself. I do not condemn him in the least, and it may be that I shall change my opinion; but for the present I am sad, because I see that he is doing something of which, it seems to me, he will repent, and I am a partaker in it. I understand that he wishes to live among the hungry, but it seems to me that his task would be only that which he is doing — to see and to learn all that he can, to write and to speak about it, to commune with the people as far as possible.
>
> It also saddens me that mama in Moscow is very anxious and nervous and has been left alone with the little ones. Lyova at the present moment is here and is going at the same time as we to Samara. And another thing that grieves me: papa says that if money should be needed, he will write something for a journal and take money. I do not tell him what I think, because perhaps I am wrong; and if he does not arrive at it himself, he will not agree with me. He is too much in the public eye — everyone judges him too strictly — for him to be able to choose the *second best*, especially when he already has the *first best*. Were I acting alone, with what energy I should set about the *second best*, having no *first best*; but together with him I do not wish to do that which does not harmonize with him. I am glad that I have no feeling of condemnation or of hostility toward him for this, but only perplexity and fear lest he be mistaken. But perhaps it is I? That is far more probable."

Further on, in the same diary, Tatyana Lvovna describes her journey and her arrival at Begichevka:

> "29 October. Begichevka. Two days ago we arrived at Klekotki station, and as there was a snowstorm we passed the night there at the coaching inn. In the evening a terrible anguish came over me — anxiety for mama and pity for her, and anxiety for papa. He had a cough, he had a cold in the head, and from the heat of the railway carriage he had grown quite torpid, and was also dejected and gloomy. I wrote a letter to mama and went to the station to post it, and the dark night, the wind that flung open and tore my fur coat from my shoulders, brought still more anguish upon me. And the surroundings had an oppressive effect on me — vile oleographs on the walls, hideous furniture and wallpaper, stupid books. I thought, with a sinking heart, that there is, after all, a Repin in the world, that I shall live again in such a way that everything new and interesting — all of it papa and we shall see, shall make use of, and, what is more, all of it will be explained to us and, as it were, served up to papa on a tray. In the morning I was consoled by its being warm and still, and papa had cheered up. At 9 o'clock we set out: papa, Iv. Iv., and an old woman whom they were giving a lift, in one sledge, and we four — Masha, Vera, and I, and Mar. Kir. — in another, the Samarins' troika. There is barely any snow, and what there is the wind has swept entirely into the hollows."

All the same, that very same day they safely reached the hospitable house of the Raevskys. Tatyana Lvovna continues in her diary her description of the first evening and the first day:

> "Our horses were dreadfully worn out, and we were tired from the jolting and the heat, because we had dressed like Samoyeds, so that on that day we did nothing. In the evening Mordvinov came, and we all talked together about what to do. Papa put me up to the idea of starting up work for the peasant women, of which I spoke with them today. I had had this thought long ago, without any famine; and perhaps, having begun this matter here, I shall do the same at Yasnaya and in the neighbouring villages. Then Iv. Iv. entrusted us with the school. This winter the peasants are unable to keep a teacher, and so, while we are here, we shall teach. I do not take this seriously — if there is time, then I shall occupy myself with it — it will be a means of coming closer to the people and of learning the truth about the famine. Iv. Iv. showed us the records of those dining-halls, or 'orphan-relief stations,' as they are called here, which he has opened. From them it is evident that to feed a person — feeding him twice a day — costs from 95 kopecks to 1 ruble 30 kopecks a month. From 15 to 30 persons attend these dining-halls."

This account of the journey is well supplemented by a letter of L. N.'s to Sofya Andreyevna of the same date:

> "We all set out in fine weather in big sledge-coaches: Lyova, Popov, and the five of us with M. K. At the station, as everywhere, there was an abyss of common folk going off to find work and returning after fruitless searches. With our third-class tickets we were placed in the second class. Here Kern turned up, and afterwards Bogoyavlensky. The heat was frightful, and we all grew torpid from it. At Klekotki we took leave of Lyova and Popov and found two troikas in sledges waiting for us. We decided it was impossible to drive on, because snow was falling with a wind, and we passed a not-bad night at a poor, but not very dirty, inn. The girls so wait upon me, packed everything so, are so attentive, that one can only wish for a lessening, and not an increase, of cares. All this is your care, acting through them, and I value it, though I have no need of it — or so it seems to me.
>
> We got up early in the morning, but set out at 10. We drove well, it was warm. I once put on a sheepskin coat, and we arrived at two. The house warm, heated — everything beautifully prepared. Ivan Ivanovich gave up to me his magnificent study. The girls have two rooms with a separate entrance. A large common room for *repas*. He himself has settled in the little room of Alexei Mitr., next to his Fedot. Today I insisted that he should go into the study, and I into his place. And I have just moved over, and it is splendid for me — warm, and snug, and behind the partition Fedot sleeps. The dinner is plain, clean, filling; milk in plenty.
>
> After dinner I fell asleep. Our things arrived, the girls got settled in; in the evening Mordvinov came, Ivan Ivanovich's son-in-law, a *zemstvo* chief, entirely absorbed in cares for the people. When he had left, at 9 o'clock we parted, and I sat down to write the article about how it is dreadful not to know whether there will be enough or not enough bread in Russia for sustenance, and I wrote until 11 o'clock. Then I slept splendidly. In the morning I continued the article. Among other things, I had a talk with Iv. Iv., and the activity of the girls became more defined: I strongly advise Tanya to take up the matter of spinning and weaving — that is, of organizing this means of earning. Masha will be at the dining-halls and the bakery. I have just been in three villages, in two of which I found a place for dining-halls, in both of them for about 50 persons. To describe even slightly the destitution and the down-trodden state of these people is impossible. But it is good, it is wholesome, to see them, if only one can serve them in however small a degree — and I think one can."

Thus began the work of L. N. and his daughters in feeding the hungry.

This work was begun very modestly. At the beginning of November he wrote to me:

> "A week ago — today is 3 November — we, that is, I, Tanya, Masha, and Vera Kuzm., left, with the consent, hard won, of S. A., with 500 rubles, for Dankov district, on the border of Yepifan — a very hungry locality — and we are living there with Raevsky. All are busy and it is good. Dining-halls for the very poorest, and the girls have besides a school and the wish, and attempts, to help in every kind of way. I am very glad for them. The time is very interesting, the situation tense and dangerous. I have written one article — a hasty one, and therefore not good — for Grot's journal. They have detained it, and it is hardly likely to pass; and I have sent another to *Russkiye Vedomosti* — I do not know whether they will pass it. They probably will. The article is not important, but it is needful, raising the question of whether we have enough bread."

The article which L. N. mentions in the letter to me and in the letter to S. A. he entitled "A Dreadful Question." This article is well known to the reading public, and we give from it only the most characteristic extracts, indicating the course of L. N.'s thought in his care for aid to the hungry.

> "Is there in Russia enough bread to subsist on until the new harvest? Some say there is, others say there is not, but no one knows this for certain. Yet it must be known, and known for certain, now, before the beginning of winter — just as it must be known to people setting out on a long voyage whether or not there is on board a sufficient quantity of fresh water and food.
>
> It is dreadful to think what will become of the crew and passengers of a ship when, in the middle of the ocean, it turns out that all the stores have run out. It is still more dreadful to think what will become of us, if we believe those who assert that we have bread enough for all the hungry, and it should turn out before the spring that those who asserted this were mistaken.
>
> It is dreadful to think of the consequences of such a mistake. The consequences of such a mistake will be something terrible: the death of millions of the hungry, and — worst of all calamities — the embitterment, the ferocity of people. It is well enough to forewarn the Petersburgers by cannon-shots that the water is rising, because nothing more, after all, can be done. No one knows, or can know, the degree to which the water will rise: whether it will stop at where it was last year, or reach what it was in the year '24, or rise still higher.
>
> But this year's famine, besides being a calamity incomparably greater than the calamity of a flood, and incomparably more general (it threatens the whole of Russia), is a calamity the degree of which can and must not only be foreseen, but can and must be foreseen and forestalled."

Then, enumerating the various signs that pointed to a shortage of bread in Russia, L. N. said:

> "All these signs point to there being a great probability that the bread needful for Russia is not in it. But, besides these signs, there is yet another phenomenon, which ought to compel us to take all measures within our power to forestall the calamity that threatens us. This phenomenon is the panic that has seized society — that is, the indefinite, vague fear of an expected calamity, a fear with which people infect one another, a fear that deprives people of the capacity to act purposefully. This panic shows itself both in the prohibition, first, of the export of rye, then of the other grains, except, for some reason, wheat; and in the measures of, on the one hand, allocating large sums for the hungry, and, on the other hand, the local authorities' collecting taxes from those who are able to pay — as though the extraction of money from the village were not a direct intensification of the village's need. (The poor man's crops are mortgaged to the rich peasant. The latter would have waited — but taxes are being squeezed out of him, so he squeezes them out and ruins the poor man.)
>
> This panic is strikingly noticeable also in the discords now flaring up between the various local departments. There is repeated what always happens in a panic terror: some pull in one direction, others in another.
>
> This panic shows itself also in the mood and in the activity of the people. I will give one example: the movement of the people in search of work.
>
> At the end of October this year the people are setting off to seek work in Moscow, in Petersburg. At the very time when all the work for the winter has been settled, when provisions are three times dearer than usual and every master lets go as many surplus hands as he can; at the very time when everywhere there is a mass of workers left without a place — people who never had a place in the towns are going to seek these places. Is it not evident to everyone that, under such conditions, there is more probability of every holder of a prize-bond winning 200 thousand than of a peasant who has come from the village to Moscow finding a place; and that the whole journey, however cheap, with the expenses entailed by it — including drink — is only an extra burden which will fall upon the hungry man? It would seem that this ought to be evident — yet all of them go, go back, and go again. Is this not a sign of the utter madness that seizes the crowd in a panic?"

Lev Nikolaevich demands this knowledge of the stock of grain, because uncertainty as to its availability paralyzes activity. One must look the truth in the face — only then can one help in a calamity, when one sees and recognizes it. And he concludes his article with the following words:

> "If we were now to learn that we are short of bread — let the shortage be 50, 100, even 200 million poods of bread — none of this would be dreadful. We should at once buy this bread in America, and we should always settle accounts with her by means of state, public, or popular funds.
>
> People who work must know that their work has a meaning and will not perish in vain.
>
> Without this consciousness the hands fall idle. And in order to know this — for the work with which the vast majority of Russian people are now occupied — we must know now, at once, within two or three weeks: have we enough bread for the present year, and if not, then whence can we obtain what we lack?"

There turned out to be enough bread. But the ardent word spoken by L. N. stirred up the whole of Russian society. The influence of this article was enormous.

One *zemstvo* doctor wrote to L. N.:

> "…Is your appeal to society to be regarded as a battle-summons, which the deed itself will follow, or did you wish to leave the initiative in this matter to other people? But there is in Russia now no spiritual leader but you. There are representatives of various views, of various tendencies of thought, but a leader whom people would follow, who would act upon the crowd not only morally but also practically, carrying it along with him — such a leader, apart from you, there is none. Many already follow you, and when you begin a great work, the majority will follow you; those who have despaired of themselves, and those who have grown weak, will rise up too. For this it is not necessary to be a fellow-believer in your theories — moral might is felt apart from it; and now precisely what is before us is not a theory but a deed, one which Christian and pagan, your follower and your opponent, can alike take up; but a leader is needed, and you alone can be that leader. An organization is needed, and you must give it."

Ilya Yefimovich Repin wrote from Petersburg to Tolstoy's daughter:

> "L. N.'s article 'A Dreadful Question' in *Russkiye Vedomosti* I read the moment the newspaper arrived here. I came to P.'s at the very right time; we read it together and marvelled at the powerful framing of the question. Indeed, how much has been and is being written on this matter! Everywhere they are talking of this article and writing much about it. At NN's there was a whole literary gathering on this account."

Tatyana Lvovna wrote to Repin her reflections and impressions about the work that had been begun, and communicated brief information about the very manner of conducting it. This letter also produced a strong impression upon the Petersburg public. Here is what Repin writes on this account to Tatyana Lvovna:

> "Your letter is so significant, so vitally and absorbingly interesting, that I was even sorry to read it alone. I would carry it at once to any newspaper; it would now be read by everyone. In the evening I shall take it to the Stasovs; we shall delight ourselves — dreadful to say — in human misfortune. No, not in that, but in the fact that the world is not without good people, that faith in the true God has not yet run dry; that strong people are strong to the end: they give an example to the weak, withered little souls, they stir them up… That the young, healthy, beautiful, full of life — not in words, not on paper, in their study, but directly in the deed, with sleeves rolled up — act, save from death these remote, unhappy people, beaten down by fate and by distance. For now, to them, a meeting with you is just like, in former times, the meeting of a woman condemned to capital punishment with the Tsaritsa — life was granted to them… And now you are saving many from certain destruction — great is your service!.."

In L. N.'s personal life, in the very first days of his work, grief befell him — the death of his friend and companion of youth, Dmitry Alexeyevich Dyakov. Once this man had been very close to L. N., and the traits of this friendship and of Dyakov's personal character were reflected in the artistic portrayal of the type of Nekhlyudov in the novel *Youth*. We ourselves have had occasion to hear from L. N. that Dyakov had had a very good influence upon him in his youth, and that although the paths of their lives diverged, their meetings were always very cordial.

L. N. mentions this death in one of his letters to S. A.:

> "It is a pity that I did not manage to see Dyakov before his death. Nothing so reminds one of one's own nearness to death as the death of such close ones as he was to me. And this reminder always has an encouraging effect upon me."

Soon the work begun by L. N. so modestly drew upon itself the attention of the whole world.

Sofya Andreyevna, who was living with the younger children in Moscow, could not remain indifferent to the work of her husband and elder children. The elder daughters were with L. N., the two elder sons were active in Tula province, and the third, Lev — in Samara.

S. A. wished, by her own personal participation, as far as lay in her power, to join in this work, and she published in *Russkiye Vedomosti* on 5 November a notice about L. N.'s work.

> "Compelled to remain in Moscow with four young children," declared S. A., "I can assist the work of my family only by material means. But these are needed in such great quantity. Separate individuals are powerless in so great a need. And meanwhile every day that one passes in a warm house, and every morsel that one eats, serves as an involuntary reproach, that at this very minute someone is dying of hunger. Can we all, who live here in luxury and cannot even bear the sight of the slightest suffering of our own children — can we calmly bear the appalling sight of dulled or worn-out mothers gazing at their children dying of hunger and frozen with cold, or of old men without any food at all? But all this my family has now seen. Here is what my daughter writes to me, among other things, from Dankov district about the establishment by the local landowners, with the means donated by them, of dining-halls:
>
> "I was in two of them. In one, which is housed in a tiny, smoke-blackened hut, a widow cooks for 25 persons. When I came in, there was at the table a mass of children, who, holding their bread decorously under their spoons, were supping cabbage soup. They are given cabbage soup, gruel, and sometimes cold beetroot soup. Several old women were standing there too, waiting their turn. I got into talk with one, and as soon as she began to tell of her life, she fell to weeping, and all the old women wept. They, poor things, are alive only by this dining-hall — at home they have nothing, and until dinner they go hungry. They are given food twice a day, and this costs, together with the fuel, from 95 kopecks to 1 ruble 30 kopecks a month per person…"
>
> Consequently, for 13 rubles one can save a person from starvation until the new bread. But there are many of them, and the means of help needed are endlessly many. But let us not be halted by this. If we, each of us, feed one, two, ten, a hundred persons — as many as each is able — already our conscience will be more at peace. And so I too resolve to turn to all those who wish, and are able, to help, with a request to assist materially the work of my family. All donations will go directly, immediately, to the feeding of the children and the old in the dining-halls being set up by my husband and my children."

S. A.'s appeal met with a lively response. It was reprinted in all the Russian newspapers and in many foreign ones of Europe and America. From 4 to 17 November, in the course of only 2 weeks, she received about five and a half thousand in Moscow itself, about 3 thousand was donated by unknown persons, and about four and a half thousand was sent from the provinces. In all there came in 13,000 rubles 82 kopecks, and a fair number of various articles — linen, clothing, rusks, and the like. Among those who sent donations to S. A. was the well-known Father John of Kronstadt, who forwarded 200 rubles.

Nor did the appeal remain unheard abroad, especially in England, where the movement in favour of collecting donations for the hungry in Russia quickly assumed extensive dimensions: besides the subscriptions opened for this purpose by the editorial office of the *Nineteenth Century*, by Madame Novikova, by the novelist Hesba Stretton, and by the Quakers — who sent their representatives to the places of famine in Russia — a fund was established for rendering aid to Russia (the Russian Relief Fund), in which such well-known personages as the Duke of Westminster, Lord Aberdare, Lord Coleridge, and others took part.

In printing their appeal to benefactors, the founders of this fund, Lord Maxwell and Gilbert Coleridge, declared that a part of the money collected would be distributed on the spot by the delegates of the Quakers, and another part sent to Count Lev Tolstoy, whose letter to them had been printed in all the newspapers.

This letter of L. N.'s to the English was itself called forth, in turn, by a letter from the English, who, having read Sofya Andreyevna's appeal, had turned to her for advice as to how and where it would be best to direct the donations being collected in England. At S. A.'s request, L. N. answered them thus:

> "Dear Sir, I am exceedingly touched by the sympathy which the English people expresses toward the calamity that has now befallen Russia. It is a great joy to me to see that the brotherhood of men is not an empty word, but a fact. My answer to the practical side of your question is the following: the institutions which work best of all in the struggle with this year's famine are, without doubt, the *zemstvos*, and therefore any aid that may be forwarded to them will be put to good use and quite purposefully. I am now living on the border of two provinces, Tula and Ryazan, and with all my powers I am striving to help the peasantry of this district, and I am in the closest relations with the *zemstvos* of both provinces. One of my sons is labouring for this same purpose in the eastern provinces, of which Samara is in the very worst condition. If the money that may be collected in England does not exceed the sum that is needful for the provinces in which my son and I are now working, then I can undertake, with the help of the *zemstvos*, to use it in the best possible manner that lies in my power. But if the sum collected in England should exceed these dimensions, then I shall be very glad to direct your aid to such leaders of the *zemstvos* of other provinces as may prove to be persons deserving of full confidence, and who will be quite ready to give a public account of such moneys. The method of aid which I have chosen — though it by no means excludes other methods — is the organization of dinners for the peasant population. I hope to write an article concerning the details of our work — an article which, being translated into English, will give your society an idea of the state of affairs and of the means employed for the struggle with this year's calamity. Devotedly yours, Lev Tolstoy."

The doubts as to whether L. N. had done well in taking money and going to feed the hungry — doubts expressed in Tatyana Lvovna's diary — were soon not slow to be justified, and found an echo in Lev Nikolaevich himself.

Thus, already on 9 November he writes, among other things, to his friends the Ges — inquiring of them (in Chernigov province) about the price of peas:

> "We are living here and setting up dining-halls, in which the hungry are fed. Do not reproach me, friend. There is much here that is not as it ought to be — here is money from S. A. and donated money, here is the relation of the feeders to the fed, here there is no end of sin; but I cannot live at home, writing. And I know that I am doing the wrong thing, but I cannot do the right thing, and I cannot do nothing. I am afraid of human glory, and every hour I ask myself whether I am not sinning by this, and I try to judge myself strictly and to act before God and for God. I have written one article for *Voprosy Filosofii* — I do not know whether they will pass it. Another for *Russkiye Vedomosti*. This one you will probably read. Now I am writing yet another. And I do not want to write about this; I want to finish the large article, which is already nearing its end. It seems to me that with this famine something important is being accomplished — is ending, or is beginning."

In the same spirit he writes the next day to Chertkov:

> "We are living here well. We are setting up dining-halls here. Much is touching, and much is dreadful. The one dreadful thing — that which is always dreadful to me — is the abyss that divides us from our brothers. The donations were called forth by S. A.'s letter, and we have about 2 thousand rubles, and, it seems, the receipts from *The Fruits of Enlightenment* will come to us. I am afraid of an abundance of money. As it is, with little money there is much sin. And the matter has not yet got settled. There is confusion from the aid given out by the *zemstvo*, and the wish, the demand, of the peasants that distribution be made equally to all. We do little, badly, but we do it, and we feel, as it were, that one cannot but do it."

But meanwhile the work was growing and becoming more complicated. The coming immensity of it often disturbed the workers, and the consciousness of its insufficiency for real help paralyzed their energy. We give here a little page from the diary of Tatyana Lvovna, well depicting the moods of their working family and undoubtedly reflecting in itself the thoughts of L. N. too.

> "There is so much work here that I am beginning to fall into despondency — all are in need, all are unhappy, and to help is impossible. To set everyone on their feet would take hundreds of rubles for every household, and even then many, through idleness and drunkenness, would again come to the same pass. There is much need here not from this year's harvest, but from the same cause from which our Kostyushka is poor — from a dislike of physical work, from a kind of carelessness and idleness. Here it is utterly senseless to help with money. All of this is so complicated. Perhaps Kostyushka might have been a writer, a poet, perhaps an actor, some sort of official or scholar; but because he is placed in those conditions in which he cannot earn his bread otherwise than by physical labour, and physical labour he hates, he therefore lies with a book on the stove, philosophizes with a passing wanderer, while his homestead meanwhile falls to pieces, the field is unploughed, and his womenfolk, seeing his carelessness, also do nothing and grow fat on the bread which they beg, borrow, and even steal from the neighbours. To give such people money is only to encourage them in such a life. The whole matter, as papa says, is that there exists such a vast division between the peasants and the gentry, and the gentry hold the peasants in such slavery, that they have no scope at all in their actions. I think that such a state of affairs as the present one will not long remain such, and the present year may well turn the matter sharply.
>
> Here one often hears murmuring against the gentry, against the *zemstvo*, and even against the 'Emperor,' as one peasant said yesterday, declaring that he cares nothing for us, even if we all croak of hunger. Iv. Iv. brought yet another piece of news of this kind. He was told that several peasants from a village near Pisarev's collected 20 rubles and went to Moscow to complain to Serg. Alex. They say they were locked up for this. And then there has come out this idiotic circular of the Minister's, which the Governor is distributing to all, to the effect that the *zemstvo* should help only those peasants who deserve it, and deprive of help those who refuse any work whatsoever that may be offered. So that, if a peasant is hired to drive from here to Klekotki (30 versts) for a twenty-kopeck piece, and he reckons this unprofitable, then he is to be deprived of all help and left to die of hunger. It is dreadful, the things that these people, sitting in their studies, devise. And, after all, these measures are applied to peasants who are a hundred times cleverer than all the NN's and MM's, and who are treated like little children, with deliberations as to whether they deserve a sweetmeat or not.
>
> Today there is a snowstorm, but all the same I shall have to go to Yekaterininskoye to open a dining-hall. How many pitiful people there are! A rare day passes without Masha or Vera bawling, and even I, though I am the harder of them, am sometimes brought to it. The other day I went into a peasant's hut — a mass of children, absolutely nothing to eat. That day they had eaten nothing since morning. They had heated the walls of the hut, instead of which the peasant had built a daub-and-wattle one. — How many children have you? — Six. — What have you eaten today, then? — We have eaten nothing since morning; the boy has gone out begging, and we are waiting for him. — How is it you do not pity the children? — It is for them that the grief is, my dove. — The peasant turned away and wept."

Between Sofya Andreyevna, who was living in Moscow and collecting donations, and Lev Nikolaevich, who was living with his daughters in Begichevka, an active correspondence went on. The letters of L. N. and his daughters to Sofya Andreyevna admirably depict the first steps of their work. We give here several extracts from these letters.

From T. L.'s letter of 2 November:

> "…We go about the villages and somehow or other open dining-halls. The children everywhere are especially pitiful; almost all of them have that grave expression of face which children have who have seen much want. And they are all dreadfully clad: some have rags from the very elbow, and the whole skirt is the same. The peasant women tell us that the children, at first, would not believe, when they were given goosefoot bread, that it was bread, and wept, saying that it was earth, and threw it away."

4 November.

> "…We have set up bakeries, in which they try baking loaves with various substitutes. On the advice of Professor Erismann they tried baking bread with the refuse of sugar-beet, which is sold at the sugar factories for 2 kopecks a pood and in which, according to Professor Erismann, there is a great deal that is nourishing. The first trial was not a success; the bread sank and came out somehow damp; but today a baker has arrived who will make this experiment again. So far the best of all comes out the bread with potato — it is very tasty and costs 78 kopecks a pood.
>
> Here too they try baking bread with oil-cake — not with sunflower, but with flax-seed and various others. The whole trouble is that there is no bread."

From L. N.'s letter of 9 November.

> "Yesterday I drove with M. on one little horse to our dining-halls at T., five versts away, while Tanya walked to her nearest dining-hall. We now have an upheaval going on, ever since the villages began to receive flour from the *zemstvo*. Before, there were the definitely and undoubtedly needy, but now, with the issue, doubt arises; and, one would think, the number of those attending the dining-halls ought to decrease, yet it has increased. Time goes on, the stores are exhausted, those who were not needy become so…
>
> …With your money, 1,100 rubles, we have decided to buy firewood, which has been found in the neighbourhood. This was the most needful and the most difficult thing to obtain. Bread in our locality, judging by what has now been bought up by the *zemstvo*, ought to suffice at least by half, but of fuel there is none at all. This firewood, on the other hand, is near and cheap, at 18 rubles a *sazhen*. It will go to the dining-halls and directly to the help of the needy."

From T. L.'s letter of 11 November.

> "The condition of the people grows worse every day, and one has to open a second dining-hall in every village. I think that even to open three would not be too many. Yesterday we went to supper at our dining-hall. The mistress is very deft, cooks excellently, and is affectionate with the children. The little ones sit there, their mothers bring them and feed them, themselves not eating, all of them merry and content. It is a joy to watch these dinners and suppers; those who give money for this would be rewarded for it, could they but see how the donated money goes directly to appeasing the hunger of people. It would be at least a small reward for those who, if only sometimes and out of their surplus, give for others."

From L. N.'s letter of 19 November.

> "The situation is becoming more and more strained: the last means are being eaten up, and the number of the wholly destitute is ever increasing. The chief thing is the fuel and the idleness of the men and women. Today I am writing to V. to send us bast for the work of making bast shoes. The flax will arrive one of these days.
>
> By the last post we received notices for 3,300 rubles. Your donations, that is, those received by you, are very good. Astonishing are the 1,500 arshins of cloth and the quantity of vermicelli. The latter will have to be given out on the great holidays. The cloth, too, is astonishingly needful. Today I saw a widow with children positively naked. Only one boy is able to go out. I have never yet seen such poverty."

From L. N.'s letter of 25 November.

> "…The dining-halls are spreading like a rash. There are now more than 30 of them, and they are going well. Yesterday evening I visited two. It is touching to see how the children come running in a crowd with their spoons. A little beggar-boy from another village turned up. They invited him and fed him and put him to bed in the dining-hall."

Seeing the success of the dining-halls, L. N. resolved to share his experience with those Russian people who wished to help the hungry, and wrote the article "On the Means of Aiding the Population That Has Suffered from the Crop Failure"; this article was finished on 26 November and at once printed both in periodical publications, and in collections, and in separate pamphlets.

The somewhat long title of this article is explained by the requirements of the censorship. The Emperor Alexander III, in one company, in answer to a question put to him about the famine in Russia, replied: "There is no famine in Russia, but there are localities that have suffered from the crop failure." These words were taken up by the dignitaries, and an order was issued not to permit in print the words "famine" and "the hungry," but to replace them by the expression "those who have suffered from the crop failure."

In this article L. N. poses the question of aid thus:

> "Aid to the population that has suffered from the crop failure may have two aims: the maintenance of the peasant economy, and the deliverance of people from the danger of falling ill, and even of dying, from the insufficiency and the poor quality of food."

And further on L. N. subjects to severe criticism the *zemstvo* "issue" of bread, then practised, finding that it did not satisfy its purpose. And at once he asks himself the question:

> "But if what is being done now is not good, then what is good? What, then, must be done?"

And he answers thus:

> "Two things, in my opinion, are needful — not, indeed, for the maintenance of the peasant economy, but for the counteraction of its final ruin: the establishment of work for all the population capable of working, and the setting up, in all the villages of the hungry localities, of free dining-halls for the small, the old, the weak, and the sick.
>
> The establishment of work must be such that this work should be accessible, familiar, and habitual to the population — not such as the people never engaged in, or even never saw, and not such that those members of the families who never went away should have to leave home, which, owing to family and other conditions (such as the lack of clothing), it is often impossible to do. The work must be such that, besides the out-of-home work, which all the workers accustomed and able to go in search of earnings will take up, the whole population of the hungry localities — men, women, hale old folk, and growing children — may be occupied.
>
> For the attainment of the second aim — the saving of people from illness and death in consequence of bad food and the insufficiency of it — the sole indubitable means, in my opinion, is the setting up in every village of a free dining-hall, in which every person could eat his fill, if he is hungry.
>
> The setting up of such dining-halls was begun by us more than a month ago and is being carried on to this day with a success that has surpassed our expectations."

And then L. N. gives the most detailed instructions as to how to realize this method of aid; he even gives a model of the account-book for those in charge of the dining-halls, by means of which they receive their provisions.

At the end of the article L. N. speaks of yet another kind of essential aid, which had been proposed and realized by a certain public figure of Kaluga. He had proposed to take 80 horses from the hungry locality in order to feed them through the five winter months. In this proposal both landowners and peasants of Kaluga province took part.

Drawing attention to this brotherly aid, L. N. concludes his article thus:

> "If but a hundredth part of such a living brotherly consciousness, of such a merging of people in the name of the God of love, were in all people, how easily — nay, not only easily, but joyfully — should we bear this famine, and indeed all possible material calamities."

The work of aid kept on growing. New helpers and new kinds of aid appeared.

Interesting were the conversations at Begichevka of an evening, when all — L. N. and his fellow-workers — returned from work, when newcomers appeared, an exchange of opinions struck up, and all present eagerly caught L. N.'s words as to what he thought about the further fate of the long-suffering Russian people.

A reflection of these conversations we find in the diary of Tatyana Lvovna, whence we again borrow a new little page:

> "17 November. Yesterday evening papa, Vl-ov, Bogoyavlensky, Chistyakov, and I talked much about what awaits Russia; and although papa says that, however much we may strive, there is a collapse ahead, this does not throw me into despondency. And although, listening to the others and reasoning it out for myself, I cannot agree with this, yet still there is some kind of hope that, if more people will exert themselves to the utmost to do something, then there will be found yet others who will follow their example, and perhaps the collapse will pass us by. What frightens me is that this poverty and famine is for very many a means of enslaving people to themselves, and that it will end either in there again being slaves worse than the serfs, or in there being a rising — which, in my opinion, by the spirit of the times, is the more probable. Vl-ov says that if he knew that, because 100 thousand were to die of hunger, a million would rise up and would be better off, he would consent to this; but he thinks that, if there is a rising, it will be still worse. But I think that none of us can foresee what will be, and has no right to let 100 thousand die of hunger if there is a possibility of preventing it, and ought not to trouble about general questions, but each ought to put forth all his powers to do, around himself, what he can. After such conversations about general questions, the needs of various Kabanovs, Mironovs, and so on sometimes seem to me petty, and I think to myself — is it worth taking trouble over whether they need an extra issue or not, why too much firewood was used up in a dining-hall, and so on? But then I say to myself that this is the only thing one ought to do, because this is the only thing I can do.
>
> …Papa has taken to saying often, and writes in his letters, that the work he is doing is not the right thing, but that it is a concession. I am glad of this — it means I was not mistaken…
>
> 19 November 1891. Begichevka. This morning there was a conversation between papa and Chistyakov, toward the end of which I came in. But from this end I understood what they had been talking about. Chistyakov was asking papa how he explains his now accepting donations and managing money, and whether he considers this consistent with his views. Chistyakov spoke too sharply, and although without the least shade of vexation and with great love for papa, I saw that all the same it was painful to papa, even to tears. He said: 'Thank you for telling me this; how good that is, how good!' — but it was painful to him. He himself was perfectly aware, and had reached the point of realizing, that it was not the right thing, and there was no need to tell him so. Chistyakov says that from papa's present activity it is not at all far to charity-theatricals and to the activity of Father John; that he has no right to lead people into error, since many follow him and await directions from him, and that for his present work all will praise him, whereas it is not a good one. Papa said: 'Yes, it is like that sage who, when they began to applaud him during his speech, stopped and asked himself: did I not say some stupidity?'"

And further on in her diary T. L. admirably depicts the whole complexity of the work in which L. N. was engaged. How much spiritual strength was needed to continue it briskly, without letting the hands fall.

> "20 November 1891. Begichevka. 3 o'clock in the afternoon. By chance some free time has fallen to me, and I want to set down all that we are living through during this time. In the first place, we have come to have so much work that there is no time to think, nor to read, nor to talk (of which, however, I am no great lover), and there is not even time to consider properly what is needful for the work. Papa, too, gets very tired, and it is a pity and a fright to me to look at him. I notice this in him and in myself: we begin to answer something we are asked, and suddenly remember something else and answer the wrong thing, and with a great effort return to the first thought. This is because one has to remember too many different things. Now they come to ask to be entered in a dining-hall; now in a dining-hall there is not bread enough; now we have run out of beetroot, and one must send to Lebedev; now one must introduce new changes into the dining-halls, such as millet, peas, and the like; now a beggar has come; now it is 'please, the little book'; now one must sort the flax; now they are going to Klekotki, and one must write to mama; now the candles and soap have run out — one must get them from somewhere; now one must send the certificate of the Red Cross for free carriage; now one must send for bast, and as it is they are filching it; now one must order dinner, send for cabbage, and so without end, without end — one thing you finish, another demand appears; and there is, besides, the entering of the donations received, the answering of many of them, the counting over of the money (which is always a difficulty for me). Yesterday I sat until 1 o'clock comparing the expenditure with the income, and now I was 10 thousand short, now 500 rubles over; and from this I have come to reckon so badly that suddenly, in the middle of the calculation, I remembered that tomorrow one must send Pisarev's letters or something of the kind, and everything gets muddled for me; and over and above this one must constantly remember that no Lenten gruel, sour cabbage, or anything of the kind should turn up under papa's hand, and there is the anxiety lest he catch cold or fall through the ice into the Don. It is now 4 o'clock, a heavy snowstorm and about 15 degrees of frost. Masha has gone to Tatishchevo to try to establish order there, for they say that the mistress of the dining-hall takes from her charges, in vodka, sheepskins, and bribes of all sorts; Koshnin and Chernyaeva have gone to Yekaterinovka to open a dining-hall there, Gastev has gone to Prudki for the same purpose, Novoselov is laid up with toothache, and Leontyev, besides, who came here today, has gone with papa to Yekaterininskoye to look at the dining-halls."

A strange fate took from L. N. his best friend and helper in the work of feeding the hungry, and the master of the house in which he was living, Ivan Ivanovich Raevsky. On one of his business journeys he caught a chill, fell ill, and a few days later, on 26 November, died. This death produced upon Lev Nikolaevich a strong, profound impression, drew him still closer to the family of the deceased, and made him live through many touching moments of spiritual union both with the one passing into eternity and with the people who remained around him. This impression from Raevsky's death L. N. repeatedly expresses in his letters of that time.

In a letter to V. G. Ch. he writes thus of Raevsky's illness:

> "Besides all this that takes up time, here it is already the fifth day that our host and my friend has been ill — one whom I always loved, and now especially have come to appreciate and to love — Iv. Iv. Raevsky. This is a man of 56, of an uncommonly pure life, and an unconscious Christian with a certain *pudeur* about expressing and manifesting his Christian feelings. He was always occupied with the people's affairs, and now of late was especially warmly, passionately occupied with the provisioning. To him the dining-halls owe their form, and he is the chief point of support. He is both practical, and experienced, and remarkably simple in his ways, and kind — and now he has fallen ill. The doctor says it is influenza, but it seems to me that he is dying. His wife, also a fine woman, is here; she came yesterday from Tula, and we sit days and nights partly in the sick man's room, awaiting the end, as always deceiving ourselves and hoping against all hope."

> "I have a great grief," L. N. writes a few days after Raevsky's death to Alexandra Andr. Tolstaya — "my friend has died, one of the best people I have known; he died in my arms in a week, of influenza. He and I worked together and came to love one another more than before."

In a letter to Sofya Andreyevna he expresses his feelings thus:

> "I am dreadfully sorry for him. I loved him very, very much. And I cannot forgive myself for having so failed to understand him before. But, to make up for it, how joyfully, youthfully, rapturously we were often able, of late, to be together and to work."

Understandable are the anxieties of Sofya Andreyevna, who was living through, in Moscow, in a separation from Lev Nikolaevich rare for its length, all these agitations; and she insistently called him to Moscow.

L. N. answered this call gently and tenderly:

> "We are all perfectly well and should wish to stay several days after the funeral, so that people may not get the impression that the whole work has broken off and ended with the death of Iv. Iv. I say I should wish, but everything will depend on your courage. I understand that you are terribly uneasy, but at the same time I cannot but see that there are no grounds whatever for anxiety. Everything will settle itself. One thing I know — that I love you with all my soul and long to see you and to set you at rest."

After this letter L. N. did indeed go to Moscow and stayed there a week. From Moscow he writes to his friend Alexandra Andreyevna Tolstaya:

> "Our work is going as well as I had never dreamed, and draws me in further and further. The calamity is great, but it is a joy to see that the sympathy too is great. I have now seen this in Moscow — not by the Moscow residents, but by those residents of the province who have connections with Moscow. It is dreadful to think what would be, if the activity of society were suddenly to cease. They say that in Petersburg they do not believe in the seriousness of the situation. This is a sin. I met at Raevsky's the naval officer Protopopov, with whom I was together 35 years ago at the Yazonovsky redoubt in Sevastopol. He is a very dear man, now the chairman of the board, busying himself, buying bread. He said to me very truly that he experiences a feeling like that which used to be at Sevastopol. 'One is calm — that is, one ceases to be uneasy — only when one is doing something for the struggle with the calamity.' Whether there will be success, one does not know; but one must work, otherwise one cannot live. Why do they not make a census of all the bread in Russia?"

But now he is again in Begichevka and again wholly immersed in the practice of his complicated, enormous work.

On 14 December he writes, among other things, to Chertkov:

> "I write in haste, as, unfortunately, I always am now in haste. I know that this is not good, but it cannot be otherwise. But I hurry more in the outward side. In my soul, thank God, I feel calm. Even tonight I thought much about myself and our work. Wonderfully wisely is everything arranged. How many times have I had to think how disadvantageous for the soul is the activity in which we are engaged, by the fact that we are praised. I even seriously doubted its worth precisely on this account; but now it turns out that we are abused and called names, and that I am reckoned an antichrist. 'And if they have called Me Beelzebub, so will they call you,' it is said. And that which at the first minute was distressing has become joyful."

The very essence of the work in which he was engaged did not cease to disturb him, and he now justifies it, now repents of it. Characteristic in this respect is his letter to Nik. Nik. Ge. In December he writes to him, among other things:

> "We were in Moscow, and have returned here again. Rejoice for me: in this work, which in itself is not good, is full of sin, I have come together, as I never came together before, with my wife. Yes, one must deal carefully with people.
>
> Novoselov and Gastev are living with us. There is much both bad and good here. But to live as I lived, calmly at home, I could not."

His anxiety at being a participant in a large money matter, repugnant to his conscience, expressed itself especially sharply in his letter to Feinerman. Here is what he writes to him in December of that year:

> "I am living vilely. I myself do not know how I was drawn into this work of feeding the hungry, so burdensome to me. It is not for me, who feed upon them, to feed them. But I was so drawn in that I have found myself the distributor of that vomit which the rich men vomit up.
>
> I feel that this is vile and repugnant, but I cannot withdraw: it is not that I do not consider it necessary — I consider that I ought to withdraw — but I lack the strength. I began by writing an article on the occasion of the famine, in which I expressed the chief thought — namely, that everything came about from our sin, the separating of ourselves from our brothers, and that there is only one salvation and remedy for the matter: repentance, that is, a change of life, the destruction of the wall between us and the people, and a drawing-near, a merging, with them, involuntary, in consequence of renouncing our privileges. With this article, which I gave to *Voprosy Psikhologii*, Grot has been struggling for a month and is struggling still. They both softened it, and passed it, and did not pass it, and it ended in there being still no sign of it. But the thoughts called forth by the article compelled me to settle among the hungry; and here my wife printed a letter that called forth donations, and I myself did not notice how I came to find myself in the position of a distributor of others' vomit, and at the same time entered into certain obligatory relations with the people here. The calamity here is great and keeps growing, while the aid increases in a lesser progression than the calamity, and therefore, once having fallen into this position, it is already impossible — I simply cannot — withdraw."

At last L. N. again makes ready to go to Moscow for a more prolonged time, and begins to prepare his affairs for his departure. On 25 December he writes, among other things, to Sofya Andreyevna:

> "Today I rode far about the dining-halls on horseback. One must ride round them all before leaving. Everything is going well; everything, independently of our will, is expanding. The day before yesterday I was in a village where there is one cow to nine households; today I was in a village where almost all are paupers. I say paupers in the sense that these are all people who are no longer able to live by their own means and require help — who no longer keep themselves on the water, but clutch at others. Such there are more and more."

On 30 December he sets out for Moscow, and on the road, from the station, writes to Chertkov:

> "I am very dissatisfied with myself, and from this I am sad. The temptation of human glory does not overcome me, but it niggles at me — and does overcome me too. And therefore the information you communicated is very useful to me. At first it is painful, but afterwards one feels that it is for one's good."

The information communicated to L. N. by Chertkov concerned, evidently, the disapproval of his activity by one part of Russian society. These disapproving rumours, although L. N. received them with gratitude and humility, greatly hindered the right course of the work, and once even threatened with its complete cessation. Especially vividly did this hostility of the dark forces express itself at the beginning of 1892.