XI.

Meanwhile the whole of my property had been used up in the revolutionary movement. The little money that was still available, that we were still able to scrape together here and there, was necessarily used for party purposes. I therefore suffered the most horrible poverty--now in Warsaw, now in Lodz, Bialystok, Kiew, or Odessa. ... Most of our adherents were among the poor Jewish quarters of these towns.

My earnings consisted of occasional work and occasional theft. When there was nothing doing in either of these ways, I moved on with a few of my own kind from one of our supporters to another.... These people divided with us the little they had.

It was a voluptuous joy to me, finally, to plunge into the uttermost depths of misery which it is possible to reach.

It was an enormous victory to be able to live in such surroundings. What glorious torments I suffered, until I had overcome the disgust and loathing which the whole environment produced in me! Everywhere we were amidst horrible dirt.

Notwithstanding all the dirt and misery in which I saw these people wallowing--or, precisely, because of these things--I began to love them as hitherto I had loved no others.... When they told me of the frightful persecutions which their people had endured as no other had done, then I experienced an unnamable yearning to be one of them; then I wondered at the enormous power with which, notwithstanding all persecutions, amidst the most frightful misery which I saw around me, yet they were able to be the most ardent revolutionists.