The Beggar Man
by
Translated From The Russian
By Isabel Hapgood
I was passing along the street when a beggar, a decrepit old man, stopped me.
Swollen, tearful eyes, blue lips, bristling rags, unclean sores…. Oh, how horribly had poverty gnawed that unhappy being!
He stretched out to me a red, bloated, dirty hand…. He moaned, he bellowed for help.
I began to rummage in all my pockets…. Neither purse, nor watch, nor even handkerchief did I find…. I had taken nothing with me.
And the beggar still waited … and extended his hand, which swayed and trembled feebly.
Bewildered, confused, I shook that dirty, tremulous hand heartily….
“Blame me not, brother; I have nothing, brother.”
The beggar man fixed his swollen eyes upon me; his blue lips smiled–and in his turn he pressed my cold fingers.
“Never mind, brother,” he mumbled. “Thanks for this also, brother.–This also is an alms, brother.”
I understood that I had received an alms from my brother.
February, 1878.