What Is to Be Done?

cost fifty rubles; and whoever had no umbrella would lose more than two rubles by the destruction of clothes. But they live together; no one of them leaves the house unless she pleases, and so it happens that in stormy weather only a few go out. So they found that five umbrellas were enough. These umbrellas are nice silk ones; they cost five rubles apiece. All the cost of umbrellas is twenty-five rubles, or a ruble apiece for each girl. You see that each one of them is using a good one instead of a bad one, and at the same time has only a half of the expense. And so it is with a good many trifles which amount to a good deal in the long run. Just as it is with their rent, so it is with the table. For instance, this dinner which I told you about cost five rubles and fifty kopeks, or five rubles and seventy-five kopeks, with bread, but without tea and coffee. At the table were thirty-seven people besides me and Viéra Pavlovna. Of course several children were included in that number. Five rubles and seventy-five kopeks for thirty-seven people makes less than sixteen kopeks103 apiece, less than five rubles a month. And Viéra Pavlovna says that if a person dines by himself, he can have scarcely anything for this money except bread and such wretched stuff as you find at small stores. At a restaurant, a dinner like this, only not so nicely served, would cost forty kopeks, according to Viéra Pavlovna. For thirty kopeks it would be much worse. This difference can be appreciated; a restaurant keeper, while preparing a dinner for twenty people or less, must support himself on this money, must have a house, and have a servant. But here these extra expenses are entirely done away with, or are greatly diminished. The wages of two old women, who are relations of two of the sewing girls, and that is the whole expense of the kitchen stuff. Now you render the calculation which Kirsánof made for me by way of example, when I called upon them for the first time. After he wrote it, he said:⁠—

“Of course I can’t give exact figures, as it would be hard to get at them, because you know each mercantile enterprise, each selling shop, each sewing shop, has its own income and expense account, just as each family has its own degree of economy in incurring expenses with special proportions between their various expenditures. I am giving you the figures only by way of example; but to make the account more impressive, I shall make the figures less than the real profits of our concern, in comparison with the real expenses of almost every commercial enterprise and almost every poor family.

“The receipts of a commercial enterprise from the sale of goods,” continued Kirsánof, “is divided into three main portions: one goes for the salary of the employees; the second for the other expenses of the concern, say the rent of the building, lights, materials for works; the third makes the khozyáïn’s income. Let us suppose that the receipts are divided in this proportion: for the wages of the employees, half of the receipts; for the other expenses, one-fourth; the last quarter is profit. This means that if the employees receive one hundred rubles, then the other expenses rate fifty rubles; the khozyáïn has also fifty rubles. Now let us see what the employees receive according to our system.” Kirsánof began to read his scale of figures:⁠—

They receive their salary⁠ ⁠…	100 rubles
They are themselves employers, and thus they receive the income of the khozyáïn⁠ ⁠…	50 rubles
Their working rooms are joined to their own private rooms, and so they get them at a cheaper rate; they are careful about materials; in this way the saving is greatly increased, I think a full half, but let us say a third part: from the 60 rubles which would go towards this expense they save for their income⁠ ⁠…	16 rubles,	67 kopeks
	166 rubles,	67 kopeks

“Here we have already,” continued Kirsánof, “brought it about that our working people receive one hundred and sixty-six rubles and sixty-seven kopeks, when, according to the other order of things, they would have only a hundred rubles. But they gain still more: working for their own benefit, they work more industriously, and therefore more successfully, quicker. Let us suppose that in an ordinary, uninspired work they would succeed in making five things⁠—in our trade, five dresses; now they succeed in making six. This proportion is too small; but let us adopt it. Then, at a time when an ordinary enterprise is earning five rubles, ours earns six:⁠—

From the rapidity of energetic work the receipts and the income are increased one-fifth part of 166 rubles, 67 kopeks, thus⁠ ⁠…	33 rubles,	33 kopeks
Plus the former⁠ ⁠…	166 rubles,	67 kopeks
	200 rubles

“Therefore ours have larger profits than others,” continued Kirsánof. “Now, as to the use of this profit. Having double as much means, we can use them to much better advantage. Here is a double profit, as you know. In the first place, from the fact that everything is bought wholesale, let us suppose that from this a third part is gained. Things which at retail and on credit would cost three rubles now cost two. In reality the profit is greater. Let us take, for example, the house: if these rooms were rented singly,104 there would live in these seventeen rooms⁠—each with its two windows, three and four persons⁠—a total (say) of fifty-five; in two rooms with three windows, six persons each; and in the two with four windows, nine persons each. Twelve and eighteen make thirty, and fifty-five in the little rooms; thus the whole apartment would contain eighty-five people. Each of them would pay three and a half rubles a month, which makes forty-two rubles a year. And so these petty landlords, who make a business of renting out ‘corners,’ take for