My Dear Paulina⁠— + 

I have been so delighted with an absolute novelty which I have lately discovered, and to which I am now devoting all my energies, that I want to describe it to you. I am sure that you too will become interested in it. But the main thing is, you yourself may find it possible to undertake something of the same sort. It is so delightful, my dear. + 

The thing which I am going to describe to you is a sewing shop, or rather two shops, both arranged on one plan by a woman with whom I became acquainted only two weeks ago, and who is already a real friend. I am now helping her, on condition that she should help me by and by to arrange a similar shop. This Madame Viéra Pavlovna Kirsánova is still young, gay, kind, and⁠—entirely to my taste; that is, she is more like you, Paulina, than your Kátya, who is such a queer soul⁠—is an openhearted, lively lady. After I heard accidentally about her sewing shop, I was told only about one of them. I went directly to her without any introduction or subterfuges, and simply said that I had become interested in her shop. We were drawn to each other from the very first; all the more, because Kirsánof, her husband, I found the very same Doctor Kirsánof who, five years ago, did me, you remember, such magnificent service. + 

After we talked half an hour, and she saw that I really sympathized with such things, Viéra Pavlovna took me over her shop, the one in which she has an active part (the first one which she established was taken in charge by one of her acquaintances, a very nice young married lady), and I am going to tell you the impressions of my first visit. They were so new and striking, that I took them down at that time in my diary, though I had long before ceased to keep it, but which I have begun again for a special reason, which maybe I will tell you about at some other time. I am very, very glad that I put these impressions on paper, for by this time I should have forgotten a good many impressions which surprised me then; and today, only two weeks after, it seems to me the most ordinary thing in the world⁠—indeed, as though it could not be otherwise. But the more commonplace this thing becomes to me, the more I get attached to it, because it is a very good thing. And so, Paulina, I shall begin the quotation from my diary, adding such particulars as I have since learned. + 

A sewing shop⁠—what do you think that I saw there? We stopped at the main entrance. Viéra Pavlovna led me up a very nice flight of stairs, such stairs as you often find decorated with Switzers. We went in on the third floor; Viéra Pavlovna rang the bell, and I found myself in a great parlor with a grand piano and handsome furniture⁠—in a word, the parlor seemed like that of a private family spending for their living four or five thousand rubles a year. Is that the shop? Is this one of the rooms occupied by the seamstresses? “Yes. This is the reception room and parlor for evening gatherings; let us go to those rooms where the seamstresses live. They are now in the working rooms, and we shall disturb no one.” Here is what I saw as I went from room to room, and Viéra Pavlovna explained to me. + 

The whole establishment of the shop is composed of three apartments, which open upon one landing and which was made into one apartment after the doors which led between them were taken away. These apartments used to be rented for seven hundred, five hundred and fifty, and four hundred and twenty-five rubles a year, a total of one thousand six hundred and seventy-five rubles. But when they were rented all together on a five years’ lease, the landlord agreed to let them have it for twelve hundred and fifty. All in all, there are twenty-one rooms in the shop, two of which are very large, having four windows; one is the reception room, the other the dining-room; in two others, also large ones, the work is carried on. They use the rest for living-rooms. We went through six or seven rooms, in which the girls were living. (I am still referring to my first visit.) These rooms are nicely furnished in mahogany or walnut. Some of them have tall mirrors; in others there are very handsome pier glasses; a good many well-made chairs and sofas. The furniture in each room varies, nearly all of it at bargains for low prices. These rooms in which they live are like the apartments such as middle-class tchinovniks occupy, the families of old natcholniks of departments or young office natcholniks who are on the road to becoming natcholniks of departments. The larger rooms are occupied by three girls; in one, live as many as four, but in the other, only two. + 

We went into the working rooms, and the girls busy there seemed to be dressed like the daughters, sisters, or young wives of tchinovniks; some wore silk dresses of simple stuffs; some barège, some of muslin. The faces had that softness and freshness which are developed only by comfort. You can imagine how all this surprised me. We stayed quite a while in the working rooms, and I got acquainted here with some of the girls. Viéra Pavlovna told them why I called. The degree of their accomplishments was unequal. Some of them spoke with the language of cultured society, were acquainted with literature like our baruishnas, had a good idea of history and about foreign lands, and about all sorts of things which go to make up the ordinary run of ideas among the young ladies of our society. Two of them were really well read. Some of them who entered the shop recently were less developed, but still you could speak with each of them as with a girl of some culture. As a general thing the degree of development was proportionate to the time the girl had been in the shop. + 

Viéra Pavlovna attended to various things; occasionally she came back to me, and I talked with the girls, and thus we spent the time till dinner. Dinner every day is composed of three courses. On that day they had rice soup, boiled fish, and veal. After dinner, tea and coffee were brought on. The dinner was so good that I ate with real appetite, and I should consider it no deprivation if I had to eat such dinners always. + 

But you know that my father even now has a good cook. This was the general impression of my first visit. I was told and I knew that I was going to a shop occupied by sewing girls, that I should see sewing girls, that I should be shown the room of sewing girls, that I should eat dinner with sewing girls; instead of that I saw the apartments of people of moderate means, living together in one establishment; I saw girls of the middle class of tchinovniks, or of the low ranks of the nobility; I ate dinner, not a very grand one, to be sure, but satisfying to me⁠—what about it? How is it possible? + 

After we got back to Viéra Pavlovna’s house, she and her husband explained to me that there was nothing wonderful at all about it. By the way, Kirsánof wrote me as an example a little account of the experiment which has remained between the leaves of my diary. I am going to copy it for you; but first I want to say a few words more. + 

Instead of poverty, comfort; instead of filth, not only cleanliness, but even some luxury; instead of rudeness, is considerable culture. All this is the result of two causes. On the one hand, the number of the sewing girls is increasing; on the other, a great economy in expenditure. + 

You see why they get more income; they are working on their own account; they are their own mistresses; and therefore they receive that part which would be kept as profit by the head of the shop. But this is not all; while working for their own benefit and on their own account, they are much more careful in using what they are working upon, and of their time; the work is done more rapidly, and there are less expenses in it. + 

Naturally there is also a great deal of economy in regard to their living expenses. They buy all things in large quantities; they pay ready cash for everything, and so they get things cheaper than if they bought on credit and at retail. The things are carefully selected because they understand their business; and so everything is bought not only cheaper but also better than poor people generally have a chance to buy. + 

Besides this, many of their expenses are greatly diminished, or become entirely unnecessary. Think, for instance, to go every day two or three visits to the shop, how much wear and tear comes on the shoes and clothes! I shall give you one little example which can be applied in everything of this sort. Not to have an umbrella means to spoil a dress from the rain. Now listen to what Viéra Pavlovna told me. A simple linen umbrella costs, let us suppose, two rubles. There are twenty-five sewing girls who live in the shop. An umbrella for each would 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 kopeks 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, 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 such an establishment forty-two multiplied by eighty-five⁠—3,570 rubles. Our members have this same establishment for 1,250 rubles, almost three times as cheap. So it is in a good many things, almost all, everything. Probably I should not reach the true proportion, if I estimated the saving at one-half; but I shall place it also at a third. And this is not all. With such a mode of life they are freed from the necessity of incurring many expenses, or, rather, they need many less things.” + 

Viérotchka here offered, as an example, shoes and dresses. Let us suppose that from this the quantity of things bought is diminished by one-fourth; instead of four pairs of shoes, three are sufficient, or three dresses are worn as long as four used to be. This proportion is also too small; but see what results these proportions give:⁠— + 

The cheapness of the things purchased is reckoned as causing a saving of one-third part; that is, suppose that for three things two rubles are spent instead of three; but, according to our system, these three things satisfy as many necessities as in the old system would have been satisfied by not less than four: that is equivalent to saying that for our 200 rubles our seamstresses have as many things as, according to the old system, they got for 300 rubles; and that these things, according to our system, afford them as many comforts as in the old system would have been afforded by a sum of⁠ ⁠… + 

400 + 

rubles + 

“Compare the life of a family spending 1,000 rubles a year with the life of a family spending 4,000 rubles a year. Isn’t it true that you would find a great difference?” continued Kirsánof. “According to our system, there is just this proportion, if not even larger. With this system there are double receipts, and the profits are used to twice as great advantage. Is it surprising that you found the life of our sewing girls quite different from what seamstresses had according to the old system?” + 

Here is the marvel which I saw, my dear Paulina, and this is its simple explanation. I am so used to it now that it seems strange to me how it ever did seem strange to me that I did never expect to find such a state of things as I found. Write me, if ever you have the chance of devoting yourself to what I am getting ready to do; that is, the establishment of a sewing shop, or another shop on the same system. + 

It is so delightful, Paulina! + 