bow. If you stop, he takes off his cap, ornamented with a cockade, bows again, and begs. If you do not stop, he pretends to be only lame, and continues limping along.
That is a specimen of a genuine Moscow beggar, an experienced one.
At first I did not know why such mendicants did not ask openly; but afterwards I learned why, without understanding the reason.
One day I saw a policeman push a ragged peasant swollen with dropsy, into a cab. I asked what he had been doing, and the policeman replied,
"Begging."
"Is begging, then, forbidden?"
"So it seems," he answered. As the man was being driven away, I took another cab, and followed. I wished to find out whether begging was really forbidden, and if so, why? I could not at all understand how it was possible to forbid one man asking something from another; and, moreover, I had my doubts whether it could be illegal in a city where it flourished to such an extent.
I entered the police-station where the pauper had been taken, and asked an official armed with sword and pistol, and seated at a table, what he had been arrested for.
The man looked up at me sharply, and said, "What business is that of yours?"
However, feeling the necessity of some explanation, he added, " The authorities order such fellows to be arres- ted, so I suppose it is necessary."
I went away. The policeman who had brought the man was sitting in the window of the ante-room, studying his note-book. I said to him,
"Is it really true that poor people are not allowed to ask for alms in Christ's name?"
The man started, as if waking up from a sleep, stared at me, then relapsed again into a state of stolid indifference, and, reseating himself on the window-sill, said,
"The authorities require it, so you see it is necessary."
As he became again absorbed in his note-book, I went down the steps towards my cab.
"Well! have they locked him up?" asked the cabman. He had evidently become interested in the matter.
"They have," I answered. He shook his head.
"Is begging forbidden in Moscow, then?" I asked.
"I can't tell you," he said.
"But how can a man be locked up," I said, "for begging in the name of Christ?"
