What to Do? Thoughts Evoked by the Census of Moscow Part 17

{152a} "Into a worse state," in the authorized edition.

{152b} Omitted in the authorized edition.

{154} Omitted in the authorized edition.

{155} Reaumur.

{158} In the Moscow edition (authorized by the Censor), the concluding paragraph is replaced by the following:--"They say: The action of a single man is but a drop in the sea. A drop in the sea!

"There is an Indian legend relating how a man dropped a pearl into the sea, and in order to recover it he took a bucket, and began to bail out, and to pour the water on the sh.o.r.e. Thus he toiled without intermission, and on the seventh day the spirit of the sea grew alarmed lest the man should dip the sea dry, and so he brought him his pearl. If our social evil of persecuting man were the sea, then that pearl which we have lost is equivalent to devoting our lives to bailing out the sea of that evil.

The prince of this world will take fright, he will succ.u.mb more promptly than did the spirit of the sea; but this social evil is not the sea, but a foul cesspool, which we a.s.siduously fill with our own uncleanness. All that is required is for us to come to our senses, and to comprehend what we are doing; to fall out of love with our own uncleanness,--in order that that imaginary sea should dry away, and that we should come into possession of that priceless pearl,--fraternal, humane life."

{161a} An ars.h.i.+n is twenty-eight inches.

{161b} The fast extends from the 5th to the 30th of June, O.S. (June 27 to July 12, N.S.)

{165} A pood is thirty-six pounds.

{167} Robinson Crusoe.

{168} Here something has been omitted by the Censor, which I am unable to supply.--TRANS.

{169} An omission by the censor, which I am unable to supply. TRANS.

{178} We designate as organisms the elephant and the bacterian, only because we a.s.sume by a.n.a.logy in those creatures the same conjunction of feeling and consciousness that we know to exist in ourselves. But in human societies and in humanity, this actual sign is absent; and therefore, however many other signs we may discover in humanity and in organism, without this substantial token the recognition of humanity as an organism is incorrect.

{238} _v prikusku_, when a lump of sugar is held in the teeth instead or being put into the tea.

{252} In English in the text.

{256} An excellent translation of Kriloff's Fables, by Mr. W. R. S.

Ralston, is published in London.

{260} _Burlak_, pl. _burlaki_, is a boatman on the River Volga.