The mere idea of marrying one day such another man
as my father made me shudder. I don't mean that there was anyone wanting
to marry me. There was not the slightest prospect of anything of the
kind. But was it not sin enough to live on a Government salary while
half Russia was dying of hunger? The Ministry of Finances! What a
grotesque horror it is! What does the starving, ignorant people want
with a Ministry of Finances? I kissed my old folks on both cheeks, and
went away from them to live in cellars, with the proletariat. I tried
to make myself useful to the utterly hopeless. I suppose you understand
what I mean? I mean the people who have nowhere to go and nothing to
look forward to in this life. Do you understand how frightful that
is--nothing to look forward to! Sometimes I think that it is only in
Russia that there are such people and such a depth of misery can be
reached. Well, I plunged into it, and--do you know--there isn't much
that one can do in there. No, indeed--at least as long as there are
Ministries of Finances and such like grotesque horrors to stand in the
way. I suppose I would have gone mad there just trying to fight the
vermin, if it had not been for a man. It was my old friend and
teacher, the poor saintly apple-woman, who discovered him for me, quite
accidentally.
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