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Updated: June 29, 2025
But the reader must first be told where the first half came from. Akakiy Akakievitch had a habit of putting, for every ruble he spent, a groschen into a small box, fastened with a lock and key, and with a slit in the top for the reception of money. At the end of every half-year he counted over the heap of coppers, and changed it for silver.
Out of all the persons who had promised me financial aid, and who had even stated the number of rubles, not a single one handed to me for distribution among the poor one solitary ruble. But according to the pledges which had been given me, I could reckon on about three thousand rubles; and out of all these people, not one remembered our former discussions, or gave me a single kopek.
The work of the gardening was chiefly done by the Aleuts, who were paid a ruble a day for their services. The Russian Captain Lutke came to Sitka about this time and he tells us that there were many pigs and chickens raised by the inhabitants, and that a pig might be had for 5 to 7 rubles, a hen for 4 to 5 rubles, and eggs at from 3-1/2 to 10 rubles per dozen.
I see, that, in our day, the life of the workingman, and, in particular, the life of old men, of women, and of children of the working population, is perishing directly from their food, which is utterly inadequate to their fatiguing labor; and that this life of theirs is not free from care as to its very first requirements; and that, alongside of this, the life of the non-laboring classes, to which I belong, is filled more and more, every year, with superfluities and luxury, and becomes more and more free from anxiety, and has finally reached such a point of freedom from care, in the case of its fortunate members, of whom I am one, as was only dreamed of in olden times in fairy-tales, the state of the owner of the purse with the inexhaustible ruble, that is, a condition in which a man is not only utterly released from the law of labor, but in which he possesses the possibility of enjoying, without toil, all the blessings of life, and of transferring to his children, or to any one whom he may see fit, this purse with the inexhaustible ruble.
A few days afterwards some more pilgrims arrived, and again I was in want of a twenty-kopek piece. I had a ruble; I recollected that I was in debt to the cook, and I went to the kitchen, hoping to get some more small change from the cook. I said: "I borrowed a twenty-kopek piece from you, so here is a ruble."
With possession, his value for it ceased, and the dear purchase was generally consigned to the fire a few minutes after it was bought. However varied his freaks might be in detail, in spirit they were ever essentially the same; they ever consisted in making some worthless piece of lumber an excuse for lightening his purse of a ruble or two.
The industrious poor man, who is robbed in order that the rich may possess this inexhaustible ruble, yearns for the city in his train; and there he also takes to sharp practices, and either acquires for himself a position in which he can work little and receive much, thereby rendering still more oppressive the situation of the laboring classes, or, not having attained to such a position, he goes to ruin, and falls into the ranks of those cold and hungry inhabitants of the night-lodging houses, which are being swelled with such remarkable rapidity.
When she brought it to us at the house, a couple of hours later, modestly concealed under her apron, and with sister's blessing, she demanded half a ruble more, because we had not beaten her down, and perhaps also as an equivalent for sister's consent. She showed us her cottage, which was luxurious, since it had a brick half for winter use, exactly corresponding to the summer half of logs.
I give so little that the bestowal of any money is not and cannot be a deprivation to me; it is only a pleasure in which I amuse myself when the whim seizes me. And it was thus that the cook's wife understood it. If I give to a man who steps in from the street one ruble or twenty kopeks, why should not I give her a ruble also?
The industrial production diminished more and more; numerous factories and shops closed their doors and thousands of workmen found themselves on the streets. One ruble fifty copecks for a pound of potatoes, six rubles a pound of meat, etc. The transportation of products to Petrograd had almost ceased. The city was on the eve of famine.
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