@natecull Russian wikipedia's bibliography for Tolstoy (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%91%D0%B8%D0%B1%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BE%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%84%D0%B8%D1%8F_%D0%9B%D1%8C%D0%B2%D0%B0_%D0%A2%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE) references a short story titled "poor people" (1905).
@natecull That's probably why it's hard to find. Perhaps it's not treated in the english-speaking world as a Tolstoy original, but treated as "Tolstoy's translation of a Hugo poem" (and Hugo's original seems to be well described and translated in English, it's part of a decently famous collection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_L%C3%A9gende_des_si%C3%A8cles )