Tolstoy visits the city’s poorest districts and realizes that everything he thought he knew about society was only a polished surface concealing unbearable inequality. Witnessing hunger, sickness, and despair on the streets, he feels both a desire to help and a painful awareness of his own helplessness. He begins to understand how charity can easily turn into self-satisfaction, prompting him to question what “doing good” truly means. Surrounded by systemic injustice, he sees how human dignity can erode under poverty’s weight and senses a growing moral responsibility. These experiences shake the foundations of his former worldview and awaken in him a profound need to redefine the meaning of genuine moral action.
