What To Do?

Nikolsky Alley. In this quarter are situated the houses generally called the Rzhanoff Houses, or the Rzhanoff fortress. These houses once belonged to a merchant named Rzhanoff, but now belong

re was

previous to the beginning of the census, to reconnoitre my section. I found

left in a gloomy house, without any gates on that side; I div

e this house. The boys were ragged, and, like all city lads, bold and impudent. I stopped to watch them. A ragged old woman, with yellow, pendent cheeks, came round the corner. She was going to town, to the Smolensk market, a

sliding, "all they do is to play their pranks! They'll

her words and halted: "What are you scolding about?" he shoute

ed th

you li

ot-legs," shouted the boy; and rais

e hill in the middle of the street, flourishing his hands [in one of them he held a bundle with one little kalatch and baranki" [39]]. This old man bore

m, and taking a circuit round me, he stepped on to the sidewalk. This old man creates surprise on the Arbata by

Prototchny Alley, and passing by the whole length of the hous

f the entire building from Prototchny Alley and Beregovoy Passage, and returning I halted at the gate of one of these houses. I wished to enter, and see what was going on inside, but I felt that it would be awkward. What should I say when I was asked what I wanted there? I hesitated, but went in nevertheless. As soon as I entered the court-yard, I became conscious of a disgusting odor. The yard was frightfully dirty. I turned a corner, and at the same instant I

t escape," he

idently flattered by this pursuit; but catching sigh

e, when, suffering from cold and hunger, they awaited admission into the house, had still other time, which they employed to some other purpose, that there were four and twenty hours in every day, that there was a whole life of which I had never thought, up to that moment. Here, for the first time, I understood, that all those people, in addition to their desire to shelter themselves from the cold and to obtain a good meal, must still, in some way, live out those four and twen

s, temptations, failings, with the same thoughts, the same perplexities,-exactly such a man as myself, and then the thing that I had und