The sufferer from dropsy was driven off. I took another cab, and followed him. I wanted to know whether it was true that begging alms was prohibited and how it was prohibited. I could in no wise understand how one man could be forbidden to ask alms of any other man; and besides, I did not believe that it was prohibited, when Moscow is full of beggars. I went to the station-house whither the beggar had been taken. At a table in the station-house sat a man with a sword and a pistol. I inquired:
“For what was this peasant arrested?”
The man with the sword and pistol gazed sternly at me, and said:
“What business is it of yours?”
But feeling conscious that it was necessary to offer me some explanation, he added:
“The authorities have ordered that all such persons are to be arrested; of course it had to be done.”
I went out. The policeman who had brought the beggar was seated on the window-sill in the ante-chamber, staring gloomily at a note-book. I asked him:
“Is it true that the poor are forbidden to ask alms in Christ’s name?”
The policeman came to himself, stared at me, then did not exactly frown, but apparently fell into a doze again, and said, as he sat on the window-sill:—
“The authorities have so ordered, which shows that it is necessary,” and betook himself once more to his note-book. I went out on the porch, to the cab.