It seemed to him that he must settle the question at once at all costs, and that this question was not one that did not concern him, but was his own personal problem.He made an immense effort, repressed his despair, and, sitting on the bed, holding his head in his hands, began thinking how one could save all the women he had seen that day.The method for attacking problems of all kinds was, as he was an educated man, well known to him.And, however excited he was, he strictly adhered to that method.He recalled the history of the problem and its literature, and for a quarter of an hour he paced from one end of the room to the other trying to remember all the methods practiced at the present time for saving women.He had very many good friends and acquaintances who lived in lodgings in Petersburg....Among them were a good many honest and self-sacrificing men.Some of them had attempted to save women....
"All these not very numerous attempts," thought Vassilyev, "can be divided into three groups.Some, after buying the woman out of the brothel, took a room for her, bought her a sewing-machine, and she became a semptress.And whether he wanted to or not, after having bought her out he made her his mistress; then when he had taken his degree, he went away and handed her into the keeping of some other decent man as though she were a thing.
And the fallen woman remained a fallen woman.Others, after buying her out, took a lodging apart for her, bought the inevitable sewing-machine, and tried teaching her to read, preaching at her and giving her books.The woman lived and sewed as long as it was interesting and a novelty to her, then getting bored, began receiving men on the sly, or ran away and went back where she could sleep till three o'clock, drink coffee, and have good dinners.The third class, the most ardent and self-sacrificing, had taken a bold, resolute step.They had married them.And when the insolent and spoilt, or stupid and crushed animal became a wife, the head of a household, and afterwards a mother, it turned her whole existence and attitude to life upside down, so that it was hard to recognize the fallen woman afterwards in the wife and the mother.Yes, marriage was the best and perhaps the only means.""But it is impossible!" Vassilyev said aloud, and he sank upon his bed."I, to begin with, could not marry one! To do that one must be a saint and be unable to feel hatred or repulsion.But supposing that I, the medical student, and the artist mastered ourselves and did marry them -- suppose they were all married.
What would be the result? The result would be that while here in Moscow they were being married, some Smolensk accountant would be debauching another lot, and that lot would be streaming here to fill the vacant places, together with others from Saratov, Nizhni-Novgorod, Warsaw....And what is one to do with the hundred thousand in London? What's one to do with those in Hamburg?"The lamp in which the oil had burnt down began to smoke.
Vassilyev did not notice it.He began pacing to and fro again, still thinking.Now he put the question differently: what must be done that fallen women should not be needed? For that, it was essential that the men who buy them and do them to death should feel all the immorality of their share in enslaving them and should be horrified.One must save the men.
"One won't do anything by art and science, that is clear..."thought Vassilyev."The only way out of it is missionary work."And he began to dream how he would the next evening stand at the corner of the street and say to every passer-by: "Where are you going and what for? Have some fear of God!"He would turn to the apathetic cabmen and say to them: "Why are you staying here? Why aren't you revolted? Why aren't you indignant? I suppose you believe in God and know that it is a sin, that people go to hell for it? Why don't you speak? It is true that they are strangers to you, but you know even they have fathers, brothers like yourselves...."One of Vassilyev's friends had once said of him that he was a talented man.There are all sorts of talents -- talent for writing, talent for the stage, talent for art; but he had a peculi ar talent -- a talent for _humanity_.He possessed an extraordinarily fine delicate scent for pain in general.As a good actor reflects in himself the movements and voice of others, so Vassilyev could reflect in his soul the sufferings of others.
When he saw tears, he wept; beside a sick man, he felt sick himself and moaned; if he saw an act of violence, he felt as though he himself were the victim of it, he was frightened as a child, and in his fright ran to help.The pain of others worked on his nerves, excited him, roused him to a state of frenzy, and so on.
Whether this friend were right I don't know, but what Vassilyev experienced when he thought this question was settled was something like inspiration.He cried and laughed, spoke aloud the words that he should say next day, felt a fervent love for those who would listen to him and would stand beside him at the corner of the street to preach; he sat down to write letters, made vows to himself....
All this was like inspiration also from the fact that it did not last long.Vassilyev was soon tired.The cases in London, in Hamburg, in Warsaw, weighed upon him by their mass as a mountain weighs upon the earth; he felt dispirited, bewildered, in the face of this mass; he remembered that he had not a gift for words, that he was cowardly and timid, that indifferent people would not be willing to listen and understand him, a law student in his third year, a timid and insignificant person; that genuine missionary work included not only teaching but deeds...
