There are a great variety of such mendicants in Moscow. There are those that make a living by begging. There are also honestly destitute people, such as have somehow chanced to reach Moscow, and are really in extreme need.
Amongst these last are men and women evidently from the country. I have often met such. Some of them who had fallen ill, and afterward recovered and left the hospital, could now find no means either of feeding themselves or of getting away from Moscow; some of them, besides, had taken to drink (such probably was the case of the man with dropsy whom I met); some were in good health, but had been burned out of house and home, or else were very old, or were widowed or deserted women with children; some others were sound as to health, and quite capable of working.
These robust fellows especially interested me,—the more so because, since my arrival in Moscow, I had, for the sake of exercise, contracted the habit of going to the Sparrow Hills, and working there with two peasants, who sawed wood. These men were exactly like the beggars whom I often met in the streets. One was called Peter, and was an ex-soldier from Kaluga; the other, Simon, from Vladimir. They possessed nothing save the clothes on their backs: and they earned, by working very hard, from forty to forty-five kopeks a day; out of this they both put a little aside,—the Kaluga soldier, in order to buy a fur coat; the Vladimir peasant, in order to get money enough to return to his home in the country.
Meeting, therefore, in the streets similar individuals, I was particularly interested in them, and failed to understand why some begged while others worked.
Whenever I met a beggar of this description, I used to ask him how it was that he had come to such a state. Once I met a strong, healthy-looking peasant: he asked alms. I questioned him as to who he was, and whence he had come.
He told me he had come from Kaluga, in search of work. He had at first found some, such as sawing old
