Then Nicholas got three pounds a month to coach a boy for his matriculation; we were all thriving.
CHAPTER VI
“LOVE US WHEN WE ARE DIRTY FOR EVERYONE WILL LOVE US WHEN WE ARE CLEAN!”
IN February Moscow was overrun by an epidemic of typhus. It did not spring from the frozen drains so much as from the indigestible black bread which is sold in the poorer parts of the city. On 10th February I gave up black bread for ever; I have not eaten it since—at least not Moscow black bread; Caucasian black bread is another matter. The bread diet had become too much for me. I lay in bed all one day feeling more dead than alive, and the prospect of typhus seemed very real. I recovered, and then substituted porridge and milk for the old diet. I showed Shura and Nicholas how to make this in the Scotch way, and they got very keen on it and showed other students. So I might almost claim to have introduced Scotch porridge to Moscow University. The Russian peasants and poor people in general make a porridge of buck-wheat, Kasha they call it, but I am quite sure it is less cheap, less wholesome, and less tasty than oatmeal porridge.
Moscow in winter is remarkable for its poor people, its labourers, its beggars, its students. Cab-drivers in Moscow take twopence-halfpenny a mile, and I have frequently taken a sledge from Sukareva Tower to the Vindavsky Station for fifteen copecks—4d., a distance of two miles. At the Khitry market one may often see men and women with only one cotton garment between their bodies and the cruel cold. How they live is incomprehensible; they are certainly a different order of being from anything in England. And the beggars! They say there are 50,000 of them. The city belongs to them; if the city rats own the drains, they own the streets. They are, moreover, an essential part of the city; they are in perfect harmony with it; take away the beggars and you would destroy something vital. Some are so old and weather-battered that they make the Kremlin itself look older, and those who lie at the monastery doors are so fearfully pitiable in their decrepitude that they lend power to the churches. Moscow would be a different place without the gaunt giants who hang down upon one and moan for bread; without the little cripples who squirm upon the pavement and scream their wants at the passer-by. To me, though I found them a plague at first, they were a perpetual interest. There were among them some of the strangest people one could expect to meet anywhere: worn-out, yellow-whiskered men with icicles in their beards, limbless trunks of men, abortions of men and women. I saw many nationalities; Letts, Poles, Jews, Tartars, Tatars, Bohemians, Caucasians, Chinese, Bokharese, specimens of all the peoples who exist under the Russian Eagle. Rich Russians allege that they collect five shillings a day, which is on a par with the tales of wealth amassed by organ-grinders in London. The daily task of each is to obtain twopence—a penny for a pound of black bread, a penny for a bed in a night house. They just about manage this, sometimes getting a little more, sometimes a little less. The surplus goes in vodka.
The question has to be faced by the traveller—What are you going to do with the beggars? I felt the need of a definite policy. At first, when we ourselves were near starving, I said “No” consistently, for I hadn’t any money. Then when money came I hardened my heart and said, “It is better to be a thief than a beggar: it is more manly. If I give to beggars I make it more profitable to be a beggar; I attract other people to beggary. If I withhold my money I drive some beggars to robbery, and then the police have to deal with them.” If the people were properly looked after there would be no need to rob or beg. This was a clear decision, and I held by it rigorously for a long time, till at last I came to the conclusion that it was more unpleasant to refuse some beggars than to give alms. Truly, whether an Englishman gives or gives not he feels he does wrong. Eventually I abandoned my principle and gave when I felt inclined. The Russian has no mental scruples. He is generally, providentially, ignorant of the science of economics. One fact is evident to him: the beggar is cold and hungry and it is Christian to help him. And the Socialists are too busy over bigger things to define their attitude to the poor wretch whom they deem to be a victim of tyranny. It is a common happening to see a crowd of unfortunate creatures being driven to the police-station by a couple of soldiers. To the democrat that is sufficient evidence of tyranny. Still, I have been told the beggars have nothing to fear from the authorities. The beggar is a holy institution; he keeps down the rate of wages in the factories; he is the pillar of the church, for he continually suggests charity; he is necessary to the Secret Police; where else could they hide their spies?
The beggars have the most extraordinary licence and think nothing of walking in at a back-door and staring at you for a quarter of an hour. It is this licensed insolence that makes him a terror to the nervous Russian, who always considers himself watched by spies. Nicholas appeared to be continually suspecting and dreading spies. On the second day after we arrived at the Samarkand lodging-house he discovered a spy on the same floor, so he said. Often when I was walking with him in the town he would say to me in a whisper, “Slow down and let the man behind us get past.” Once we slowed down in vain, and then put on speed in vain; we could not rid ourselves of a beggar who persisted in following us. Nicholas suddenly turned round in terror at a dark corner and clutched hold of the beggar with both hands and shook him. Then it was the beggar’s turn to have a fright, but he only asked meekly:
“Why did you do that to me, barin?”
The word “barin,” “bar,” means a master; it is interesting that the word spelt backwards, rab, means a slave. Russians say this is not merely a coincidence.
The different way in which beggars address one would make an interesting study. I remember one night a dreadful amorphous remnant of a man, lying in a currant box outside the Cathedral of St Saviour, addressed me in this fashion: