Once he wrote:
There is much about it that is not what it ought to be; there
is S. A.'s money [22] and the subscriptions; there is the relation
of those who feed and those who are fed. THERE IS SIN WITHOUT
END, but I cannot stay at home and write. I feel the necessity
of taking part in it, of doing something.
[22] His wife's.
Six years later I worked again at the same job with my father
in Tchornski and Mtsenski districts.
After the bad crops of the two preceding years it became clear
by the beginning of the winter of 1898 that a new famine was
approaching in our neighborhood, and that charitable assistance to
the peasantry would be needed. I turned to my father for help. By
the spring he had managed to collect some money, and at the
beginning of April he came himself to see me.
I must say that my father, who was very economical by nature,
was extraordinarily cautious and, I may say, even parsimonious in
charitable matters. It is of course easy to understand, if one
considers the unlimited confidence which he enjoyed among the
subscribers and the great moral responsibility which he could not
but feel toward them. So that before undertaking anything he had
himself to be fully convinced of the necessity of giving aid.
The day after his arrival, we saddled a couple of horses and
rode out.
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