{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_65159/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_65159","id":"gutenberg_65159","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65159","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Russian Literature","Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910"],"text":"Note: Images of the original pages are available through\n      Internet Archive. See\n      https://archive.org/details/rstalkswithtolst00golduoft\n\n\n\n\n\nTALKS WITH TOLSTOI\n\nby\n\nA. B. GOLDENVEIZER\n\nTranslated by\n\nS. S. Koteliansky and Virginia Woolf\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPublished by Leonard & Virginia Woolf at\nThe Hogarth Press, Paradise Road, Richmond\n1923\n\n\n\n\nTRANSLATORS\u2019 NOTE\n\n\nIn the following pages we have made a selection from vol. i. of the\ndiary of the well-known Russian musician, A. B. Goldenveizer, which\nwas published at the end of 1922 in Moscow under the title _Vblizi\nTolstovo_ (literally _Near Tolstoi_).\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY NOTE\n\n\nIn publishing the diary devoted to my friendship of nearly fifteen\nyears with Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi, I think it best to state first what\nmy aim was in making notes, and the method I pursued in doing so.\n\nI put down chiefly Tolstoi\u2019s words, and to some extent the events of\nhis private life, making no attempt to select what would be interesting\nfrom some special point of view, but adopting no method and attempting\nto supply no connection between one entry and another.\n\nMy diary, therefore, is in no sense \u201cliterature.\u201d Its aim is to be a\ndocument.\n\nUnfortunately, I did not always make notes and was far from writing\ndown everything. After 1908 my records were fuller; in 1909-1910, the\nlast year of Tolstoi\u2019s life, my reports were voluminous; but it was\nonly in 1910 that my records were as complete as they could possibly\nbe. This is the cause of a great disproportion between the parts. The\nfirst volume of my diary contains the long period from January 1896 to\nJanuary 1st, 1910, the second volume records and materials for the year\n1910 only, yet vol. ii. is considerably larger than vol. i.\n\nMy notes from 1896 to 1904 are now published for the first time. The\nnotes from 1904 to 1908 were published in _Russ. Prop._ vol. ii.,\nand the notes from the end of 1908 to January 1st, 1910, appeared\nin _Tolstoi: Pamyatniki Zhizni i Tvorchestva_. The parts of the\ndiary which have been previously published are here published in a\nconsiderably enlarged form.\n\nA. GOLDENVEIZER.\n\n\n\n\n1896\n\n\nMy first visit to the house of Leo Nikolaevich was on January 20th,\n1896. I was not then twenty-one years old. I was almost a boy. I was\ntaken to the Tolstois\u2019 by a well-known Moscow lady singer who used to\nvisit the Tolstois. She took me there in my capacity as pianist, of\ncourse. If one is so unlucky as to play some instrument, or to sing or\nrecite, one has a constant impediment in one\u2019s relations with people.\nPeople do not take to one, are not interested in one as in a person:\none is asked to play something, to sing, to recite.... Hence one feels\nso embarrassed, so awkward, in other people\u2019s society.\n\nI felt awkward then, and painfully shy. I was introduced. I went into\nthe drawing-room, where, fortunately, two or three people I knew were\nsitting. I did not yet see Tolstoi. Shortly afterwards he came in,\ndressed in a blouse, with his hands in his belt. He greeted us all. I\ndo not remember whether he spoke to me then. Then I played, and played\nbadly. Of course, out of politeness I was thanked and complimented,\nwhich made me inexpressibly ashamed. And then, when I stood in the\nmiddle of the large room, at a loss, not knowing what to do with\nmyself, not daring to raise my eyes, Leo Nikolaevich came up to me,\nand, speaking with a simplicity which was his alone, began to talk to\nme.\n\nAmong other things, talking of the piece I had played, he asked me:\n\n\u201cWhich composer do you like best?\u201d\n\n\u201cBeethoven,\u201d I replied.\n\nTolstoi looked straight into my eyes and said quietly as if doubting me:\n\n\u201cIs that so?\u201d\n\nIt seemed as if I were repeating what every one says; but I spoke the\ntruth.\n\nLeo Nikolaevich observed that he loved Chopin beyond almost all other\ncomposers.\n\nHe said to me:\n\n\u201cIn every art--this I know from my own experience too--there are two\nextremes which it is difficult to avoid: emptiness and virtuosity.\nFor instance, Mozart, whom I love so much, is at times empty, but\nafter that he soars to an extraordinary height. Schumann\u2019s defect is\nvirtuosity. Of these two faults virtuosity is the worse, if only for\nthis reason, that it is harder to get rid of it. Chopin\u2019s greatness\nconsists in the fact that, however simple he may be, he is never empty,\nand in his most complicated works he is never a mere virtuoso.\u201d\n\nI left the Tolstois\u2019 house with a vague feeling of happiness that I had\nseen Tolstoi and spoken to him, and also with a bitter sense of my own\nunworthiness.\n\nOne evening as I approached the Tolstois\u2019 house in Khamovniki I met\nLeo Nikolaevich, who was going for a walk. He asked me to come with\nhim. We walked in the Prechistenka. The street was deserted and\nquiet. The few passers-by whom we met at intervals nearly all bowed\nto Leo Nikolaevich. By degrees Leo Nikolaevich brought me to talk\nabout myself. At that time I was carried away by the philosophy of\npessimism; I raved about Schopenhauer. Probably everything I said to\nLeo Nikolaevich was na\u00efve and silly, but Leo Nikolaevich listened to me\nattentively and spoke to me seriously without making me feel my na\u00efvet\u00e9.\n\nIn passing, Leo Nikolaevich said to me:\n\n\u201cThe most complete and profound philosophy is to be found in the\nGospels.\u201d\n\nI remember that at that time it seemed to me strange. I was used to\nthinking the Gospels a book of moral teaching; and I did not understand\nthat all the wisdom of the most profound philosophy was contained in\nits simplicity and lucidity.\n\nOnce I met Leo Nikolaevich in the street. He again asked me to walk\nwith him. We were somewhere near the Novinsky Boulevard, and Leo\nNikolaevich suggested we should take the tram. We sat down and took our\ntickets.\n\nLeo Nikolaevich asked me:\n\n\u201cCan you make a Japanese cockerel?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo.\u201d\n\n\u201cLook.\u201d\n\nTolstoi took his ticket and very skilfully made it into a rather\nelaborate cockerel, which, when you pulled its tail, fluttered its\nwings.\n\nAn inspector entered the car and began checking the tickets. L. N.,\nwith a smile, held out the cockerel to him and pulled its tail. The\ncockerel fluttered its wings. But the inspector, with the stern\nexpression of a business man who has no time for trifling, took the\ncockerel, unfolded it, looked at the number, and tore it up.\n\nL. N. looked at me and said:\n\n\u201cNow our little cockerel is gone.\u201d ...\n\nI arrived at Yasnaya on July 6th after eleven o\u2019clock at night.\n\nI got up early in the morning and went to the river with L. N. to\nbathe. L. N. works every day from breakfast till lunch. He seemed to me\nto be in good spirits. In the morning at coffee he said:\n\n\u201cI feel as though I were nineteen or twenty.\u201d\n\nYasnaya then used to be crowded and gay. Nearly all the children were\nat home. All the young people played tennis and enjoyed themselves.\nOccasionally L. N. would also play tennis. In the evening all used to\ngo out for long walks in the woods. L. N. always loved to find short\ncuts, and would take us all into wonderful places in the forests. It\nmust be admitted that the \u2018short-cuts\u2019 nearly always made the walks\nlonger.\n\nOnce L. N. and myself were left far behind the others. L. N. said: \u201cLet\nus catch them up!\u201d And for half a mile or three-quarters I, twenty-one\nyears old, and he, sixty-eight, ran neck and neck. On another occasion\nhis physical vigour struck me even more. Mikhail Lvovich was doing a\nvery difficult gymnastic exercise which he could not bring off. L. N.\nlooked and looked, could not stand it any longer, and said: \u201cLet me\ntry,\u201d and to the surprise of all present he at once did the exercise\nbetter than his son.\n\nWhen I was leaving Yasnaya and my carriage was waiting for me, L. N.\ntook my arm, led me aside, and said:\n\n\u201cI have been meaning all this time to tell you, and now as you are\ngoing I shall tell you: however great a gift for music you may have,\nand however much time and power you may spend on it, do remember that,\nabove all, the most important of all is to be a man. It is always\nnecessary to remember that art is not everything.... In your relations\nwith people it is necessary to try to give them as much as possible and\nto take from them as little as possible. Forgive me for saying this,\nbut I did not want to say good-bye to you without having told you what\nI think.\u201d\n\nAnother of L. N.\u2019s sayings at this time was: \u201cThe ego is the temporary\nthing that limits our immortal essence. Belief in personal immortality\nalways seems to me a misunderstanding.\u201d\n\n\u201cMaterialism is the most mystical of all doctrines: it makes a belief\nin some mythical matter, which creates everything out of itself, the\nfoundation of everything. It is sillier than a belief in the Trinity!\u201d\n\n\n\n\n1897\n\n\n_Moscow, January 6th._ To-day I spent the evening at the Tolstois\u2019. L.\nN. was talkative. The conversation was on various topics, beginning\nwith the peasants and ending with the latest \u201cdecadent\u201d movement in art.\n\nL. N. read aloud certain passages of Maeterlinck\u2019s new play _Aglavaine\net S\u00e9lysette_. His attitude to it is one of complete indifference.\n\nL. N. reads aloud most wonderfully; very simply and at the same time\nwith remarkable expression. Wonderful also is his capacity of telling\nin a few words the contents of a story. There is nothing superfluous,\nand a clear, definite picture is given.\n\n\n_April 22nd._ At the Tolstois\u2019.\n\nSpeaking of modern art, L. N. said:\n\n\u201cIf an impressionist was asked to draw a hoop, he would draw a\nstraight line ----; a child would draw a circle like this O\u201d (L. N.\nmade the circle with his finger on the table). \u201cAnd the child is more\nin the right, because he na\u00efvely represents what he sees, and the\nimpressionist represents what may be a hoop or a stick or anything you\nlike; in a word, he does not represent the characteristic properties\nof the thing, but only a symbol of it, a part, and that not always the\nmost characteristic one.\n\n\u201cA really remarkable and powerful mind can look for a method of\nexpressing his idea, and if the idea is strong he will find new methods\nof expressing it. But modern artists invent a technical method and then\nare on the look-out for an idea, which they arbitrarily squeeze into\ntheir method.\n\n\u201cThe great mistake is that people have introduced into art the vague\nconception of \u2018beauty,\u2019 which obscures and confuses everything.... Art\nconsists in this--when some one sees or feels something, and expresses\nit in such a form that he who listens, reads, or sees his work feels,\nsees, and hears the same thing in the same way as the artist. Therefore\nart can be of the highest quality, or indifferent, or, finally, simply\nhateful, but still it is art. The most immoral picture if it achieves\nits end is art, although it serves low ends.\n\n\u201cIf I yawn, cry, or laugh, and infect another person by the same\nthing, that is not art, for I produce the impression by the fact\nitself; but, if a beggar, for instance, seeing that his tears affected\nyou and you gave him money, should on the following day pretend to cry\nand should arouse pity in you, then that is art.\u201d\n\n\n_August 2nd_, 4 P.M. I have just had a long talk with L. N. on art. He\nwas repeating the contents of his article on art which he is writing,\nand which he goes on working over and rewriting. In the course of it L.\nN. said:\n\n\u201cWhen art became the inheritance of a small circle of rich people, and\nleft its main course, it entered the cul-de-sac in which we see it now.\n\n\u201cArt is the expression of feeling, and the higher it is the greater\nthe public which it can draw to itself. Therefore the highest art must\nreflect those states of mind which are religious in the best sense\nof the word, as they are the most universal and typical of all human\nbeings.\n\n\u201cThe majority of so-called works of art consist in a more or less\nskilful combination of four elements: (1) borrowing--for instance,\nthe working out of some legend in a poem, of a song in music, etc.\nOr unconscious borrowing--that is, an imitation now of one thing,\nnow of another, not intended by the author. (2) Embellishments:\npretty metaphors which cover up insignificant ideas, flourishes in\nmusic, ornament in architecture, etc. (3) Effects: violent colours in\npainting, accumulated dissonances, sharp crescendos in music, and so\non. Finally, (4) the interest--that is, the desire to surprise by the\nnovelty of the method, by the new combination of colours, etc. Modern\nworks of art are usually distinguished by these four qualities.\n\n\u201cThe following are the chief obstacles which hinder even\nvery remarkable men from creating true works of art: first,\nprofessionalism--that is, a man ceases to be a man, but becomes a poet,\na painter, and does nothing but write books, compose music, or paint\npictures; wastes his gift on trifles and loses the power of judging\nhis work critically. The second, also a very serious obstacle, is the\nschool. You can\u2019t teach art, as you cannot teach a man to be a saint.\nTrue art is always original and new, and has no need of preconceived\nmodels. The third obstacle, finally, is criticism, which, as some one\nhas justly said, is made up of fools\u2019 ideas about wise men.\n\n\u201cI know that my article will be received by most people as a series of\nparadoxes, but I am convinced that I am right.\u201d\n\nL. N. is evidently much carried away by his work.\n\n\n_August 9th._ This evening I am going to leave Yasnaya Polyana, where I\nhave spent nearly a fortnight. The whole time passed wonderfully well.\nThe days were spent more or less in this way: After breakfast every one\ngoes to his work. L. N. takes his barley-coffee in a little kettle, and\nwith the kettle in one hand and a few little pieces of bread in the\nother he goes to his room to work there, and does not come out till\nlunch.\n\n\n_A Note without a Date._ In the summer of 1897 the famous Lombroso came\nto Yasnaya. I was not at Yasnaya at the time, but from what L. N. and\nothers told me I can say that Lombroso, whose writings L. N. regarded\nwithout enthusiasm, had made no particular impression personally.\nI will give one example to show how superficially and inaccurately\nLombroso related what he saw in Yasnaya. There was a round patch on one\nof L. N.\u2019s boots, which came off, and L. N., while waiting to send the\nboot to be repaired, wore it with the hole in it. At that time Sophie\nAndreevna, I believe, took a snapshot of L. N., and the little hole on\nthe boot was clearly seen in the photograph. I have that snapshot.\nLombroso, in describing his visit to Yasnaya in the Press and in\nnumerous interviews, said that L. N. pretended the \u2018simple life,\u2019 and,\nwanting to show that he wore torn boots, had made a round hole in one\nof them, evidently cut on purpose.\n\n\n\n\n1899\n\n\n_May 11th._ The conversation turned upon Katkov. L. N. expressed the\nopinion that Katkov was not clever. Sophie Andreevna became annoyed and\nsaid:\n\n\u201cAny one who disagrees with us must be a fool.\u201d\n\nTo which L. N. said:\n\n\u201cThe mark of foolish people is: when you say anything to them they\nnever answer your words, but keep on repeating their own. That was\nalways Katkov\u2019s way. That is why I say that Katkov was a stupid man.\nNow, there is something of the same sort in Chicherin, yet can they be\nput even approximately on the same level?\n\n\u201cThough,\u201d L. N. added, \u201cone has to respect every one. Among the virtues\nthe Chinese place respect first. Simply, without any relation to\nanything definite. Respect for the individual and for the opinion of\nevery man.\u201d\n\nThe conversation turned upon ancient languages and classical education.\nL. N. said:\n\n\u201cWhen I studied and read a great deal of Greek, I could easily\nunderstand almost any Greek book. I used to be at the examinations\nin the Lyceum, and saw that nearly always the pupil only understood\nwhat he had learnt beforehand. He did not understand new passages.\nAnd, indeed, at school for every fifty words that were learnt at least\nsixty-five rules were taught. In such a way one can\u2019t learn anything.\n\n\u201cI am always surprised how firmly all sorts of superstitions possess\npeople. Superstitions, such as the Church, the Tsar, the army, etc.,\nlive for centuries, and people have got so accustomed to them that they\nare not now thought to be strange. But the superstition of classical\neducation arose with us in Russia before my very eyes. Above all, not\none of the most zealous partisans of classical education can give a\nsingle sensible argument in favour of the system.\u201d Then L. N. added:\n\n\u201cThere is also the superstition of the possibility of a \u2018school\u2019 in\nart. Hence all institutes and academies. The abnormal form which\nart takes now, however, is not the root of the evil, but one of its\nsymptoms. When the religious conception of life changes, then art,\ntoo, will find its true methods.\u201d\n\nL. N. returned to the Chinese virtue of \u2018respect,\u2019 and said:\n\n\u201cOften remarkable men suffer from the lack of that Chinese \u2018respect.\u2019\nFor instance, in Henry George\u2019s _Progress and Poverty_ Marx\u2019s name is\nnot mentioned at all; and in his recently published posthumous work\nhardly eight lines refer to Marx, and those speak of the obscurity,\ncomplexity, and emptiness of Marx\u2019s works.\n\n\u201cApropos of obscurity and complexity, they are nearly always a proof of\nthe absence of true meaning. But there is one great exception--Kant,\nwho wrote horribly, and yet he makes an epoch in the development of\nmankind. In many respects he discovered perfectly new horizons.\u201d\n\nTo-day after lunch L. N. went on horseback to Sokolniki and came back\nlate in the evening. Nevertheless, when Mme. M. A. Maklakov and myself\nbegan to say good-bye, he said he would come with us. On the way Mme.\nMaklakov kept saying all the time how much she would like to live in\nthe country. L. N. interrupted her:\n\n\u201cHow it annoys me when people abuse the town with such exaggeration and\nsay: To the country, to the country! All depends on the person,--in\ntown, too, one can be with Nature. Don\u2019t you remember,\u201d L. N. asked\nher, \u201cwe had an old gatekeeper, Vasili? He lived all his life in\ntown; in the summer he used to get up at 3 o\u2019clock in the morning,\nand enjoyed his intercourse with Nature in our garden much more than\ncountry gentlemen do, who spend their evenings in the country playing\ncards. Besides, compared with the enormously important question of how\nto live one\u2019s life in the best and most moral way, the question of town\nor country has no value at all.\u201d\n\nBefore this L. N. said with a smile:\n\n\u201cI once said, but you must not talk about it, and I tell it you in\nsecret: woman is generally so bad that the difference between a good\nand a bad woman scarcely exists.\u201d\n\n\n_Yasnaya Polyana, July 31st._ I am working with N. N. Ge on the\nproofs of _Resurrection_. The corrections are to be inserted in the\nproof-sheets from L. N.\u2019s draft copy, and two copies of the same are\nmade. The draft copy remains here, and the fair copies are sent, one to\nMarx for the weekly _Niva_, and the other to Chertkov in England for\nthe English edition.\n\nIt is an interesting, but worrying and difficult work. Throughout,\ninstead of the one printed proof-sheet, one has to copy out afresh\nthree or four long pages. Often L. N.\u2019s corrections are written so\nclosely that a magnifying glass has to be used to read them. Unless\none has seen L. N.\u2019s incredible work, the numerous passages that are\nrewritten, the additions and alterations, the same incident being\nsometimes written dozens of times over, one can have not the remotest\nidea of this labour.\n\n\n_August 2nd._ I have been here from July 27th (in Yasnaya Polyana).\n\nA queer young man, K., came to L. N., and, on my asking him what he was\ndoing, he said that \u201che was the free son of air.\u201d K. told L. N. that he\nwanted to settle down in the country among the people.\n\nL. N. in recounting it said:\n\n\u201cOf course, I did not advise him to do it. Usually nothing comes from\nsuch attempts. For instance, some very nice people, the N. N.\u2019s, bought\na small plot of land and settled like that in the country. A peasant\ncut down one of their trees; they did not want to take action in the\ncourt against him, and soon, when the peasants learnt about it, they\ncut down the whole woods. The peasant boys stole their peas; they were\nnot beaten nor driven away, and then nearly the whole village came and\nstole all the peas, etc., etc.\n\n\u201cOne should not, _above all_, look for new ways of life, for usually,\nin doing so, one\u2019s whole energy is spent on the external arrangement of\nlife. And when all the external arrangement is over, one begins to feel\nbored and does nothing. Let every one first do his own work, if only it\ndoes not clash sharply with his convictions, and let him try to become\nbetter and better in his own situation, and then he will find new ways\nof life into the bargain. For the most part, all the external side of\nlife must be neglected; one should not bother about it. Do your own\nwork.\u201d\n\nTo-day L. N. said of some one:\n\n\u201cHe is a Tolstoian--that is, a man with convictions utterly opposed to\nmine.\u201d\n\nYesterday L. N. spoke of the process of creative work:\n\n\u201cI can\u2019t understand how any one can write without rewriting everything\nover and over again. I scarcely ever re-read my published writings, but\nif by chance I come across a page, it always strikes me: All this must\nbe rewritten; this is how I should have written it....\n\n\u201cI am always interested to trace the moment, which comes quite early,\nwhen the public is satisfied; and the artist thinks: They say it is\ngood; but it is just at this point that the real work begins!\u201d\n\nTo-day L. N. was not well. I went to him; he was lying on the little\nsofa in the drawing-room. He told me of S. G. Verus\u2019s book on the\nGospels.\n\n\u201cHis final conclusion is the denial of Christ as a historical person.\nIn the earliest written parts of the New Testament--in Paul\u2019s\nmessages--there is not a single biographical fact about Christ. All the\nGospels that have come down to us were composed between the second and\nfourth century A.D. Of the writers who were Christ\u2019s contemporaries\n(Tacitus, Suetonius, Philo, J. Flavius) not a single one of them\nmentions Christ; so that his personality is not historical, but\nlegendary.\n\n\u201cAll this is very interesting and even valuable, for it makes it\nunnecessary to quarrel any more over refuting the authenticity of\nthe Gospel stories about the miracles; and it proves the teaching of\nthe Gospels to be not the words of one superman, but the sum of the\nwisdom of all the best moral teaching expressed by many people and at\ndifferent times.\u201d\n\nL. N. also said this to me:\n\n\u201cPerhaps it is because I am unwell, but at moments to-day I am simply\ndriven to despair by everything that is going on in the world: the new\nform of oath, the revolting proclamation about enlisting university\nstudents in the army, the Dreyfus affair, the situation in Serbia,\nthe horrors of the diseases and deaths in the Auerbach quicksilver\nworks.... I can\u2019t make out how mankind can go on living like this, with\nthe sight of all this horror round them!\n\n\u201cIt always strikes me how little man is valued, even in the simplest\nway as a valuable and useful animal. We value a horse which can carry,\nbut man can also make boots, work in a factory, play the piano! And\n50 per cent are dying! When I used to breed merino sheep and their\ndeath-rate reached 5 per cent, I was indignant and thought the shepherd\nvery bad. And 50 per cent of the people are dying!\u201d\n\nI read L. N.\u2019s most wonderful _Father Sergius_.\n\n\n_Moscow, August 9th._ I returned from Yasnaya in the evening of the\n6th. This is what I find I have written down.\n\nThe talk turned upon the woman question. The conversation was carried\non in a half-jocular tone.\n\nL. N. said:\n\n\u201cWoman, as a Christian, has a right to equality. Woman, as member\nof the modern and perfectly pagan family, must not struggle for an\nimpossible equality. The modern family is like a tiny little boat\nsailing in a storm on the vast ocean. It can keep afloat if it is ruled\nby _one_ will. But when those in the boat begin struggling, the boat\nis upset, and the result is what we see now in most families. The man,\nhowever bad, is in the majority of cases the more sensible of the two.\nWoman is nearly always in opposition to any progress. When man wants\nto break with the old life and to go ahead, he nearly always meets\nwith energetic resistance from the woman. The wife catches hold of his\ncoat-tails and will not allow him. In woman a great evil is terribly\nhighly developed--family egotism. It is a dreadful egotism, for it\ncommits the greatest cruelties in the name of love; as if to say, let\nthe whole world perish so that my Serge may be happy!...\u201d\n\nThen L. N. recalled scenes which he had observed in Moscow:\n\n\u201cThere issues from Minangua\u2019s a gentleman in a beaver coat, with a sad\nface, and after him his lady, and the porter carries boxes and helps\nthe lady into the sledge.\n\n\u201cI love at times to stand near the colonnade by the great theatre and\nwatch the ladies driving up to stop at Meriliz\u2019s. I only know of two\nsimilar sights: (1) when peasant women go to Zaseka to pick up nuts the\nwatchmen catch them, so that sometimes they give birth out of fright,\nand yet they go on doing it; and (2) so it is with ladies shopping at\nsales.\n\n\u201cAnd their coachmen wait in the bitter cold and talk among themselves:\n\u2018My lady must have spent five thousand to-day!\u2019\n\n\u201cI shall one day write about women. When I am quite old, and my\ndigestion is completely out of order, and I am still looking out into\nthe world through one eye, then I shall pop my head out and tell them:\nThat\u2019s what you are! and disappear completely, or they would peck me to\ndeath.\u201d ...\n\nDoctor E. N. Maliutin was in Yasnaya. L. N. said to him:\n\n\u201cI can\u2019t understand the usual attitude that a doctor always serves a\ngood cause. There is no profession that is good in itself. One may be\na cobbler and be better and nicer than a doctor. Why is restoring some\none to health good? At times it is quite the opposite. Man\u2019s deeds are\ngood, not in themselves, but because of the feelings which inspire\nhim. That\u2019s why I do not understand the desire of women to be doctors,\ntrained nurses, midwives, as though by becoming a midwife everything is\nsettled for the best.\u201d\n\nOn some occasion L. N. said:\n\n\u201cWhen you are told about a complicated and difficult affair, for the\nmost part about some one\u2019s disgusting behaviour, reply to it: Did _you_\nmake the jam? or: Won\u2019t you like to have tea?--and that\u2019s all. Much\nharm comes from the so-called attempt to understand circumstances and\nrelations.\u201d\n\n\n_October 1st._ I came to Yasnaya Polyana yesterday. It is very nice\nhere now the weather is mild, almost bright, but rather cold. There are\nno strangers. I am copying _Resurrection_ again, on which L. N. is hard\nat work. Now I am doing the first chapters of Part III.\n\nThere is little joy in the Tolstois\u2019 family life, and to an intimate\nfriend this is extremely marked.\n\n\n_Moscow, November 26th._ I am much distressed by L. N.\u2019s serious\nillness, which at the bottom of my mind I consider hopeless. I called\non Wednesday to inquire after his health, and the news was very\nunfavourable.\n\n\n_December 7th._ When Tolstoi was ill (he is much better now) and I was\nfor the first time in his room, he seemed glad to see me, which was a\ngreat delight to me. On his table was the volume of Tyutchev\u2019s poems.\nIn his hand he had an English book, _Empire and Freedom_ (I don\u2019t\nremember by whom). As is always his way, Tolstoi at once spoke of what\nhe was reading.\n\n\u201cHere is a remarkable book!\u201d said Tolstoi. \u201cHe (the author) is\nAmerican, therefore an Anglo-Saxon; nevertheless, he denies the\nso-called civilizing influence of the Anglo-Saxon race. I can\u2019t\nunderstand how people can stick to such superstitions! I understand a\nMuhammad preaching his doctrine,--medi\u00e6val Christianity, the Crusades.\nWhatever the convictions of those people may have been, they did it in\nthe belief that they knew the truth and were giving that knowledge to\nothers. But now there is nothing! Everything is done for the sake of\nprofit!\u201d\n\nThen Tolstoi began to talk about a French pamphlet on the workers\u2019\nco-operative societies which he had read.\n\n\u201cWhy not introduce in the villages here such co-operative societies?\nThat is a vital thing! You, instead of doing nothing,\u201d he turned to\nIlya Lvovich, who sat there, \u201cought to do it here in the village.\n\n\u201cSocialist ideas have become a truism. Who can now seriously dispute\nthe idea that every one should have the right to enjoy the result of\nhis labour?\u201d\n\nThen the conversation turned upon the _obschina_.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cEverything is taken away from the peasants; they are overtaxed,\noppressed in all ways. The only good thing left is the _obschina_.\nAnd then every one criticizes it and makes it responsible for all the\nmiseries of the peasants, in their wish to take away from the peasants\ntheir last good thing. They make out that the mutual responsibility\nof the members is one of the evils of the _obschina_. But mutual\nresponsibility is only one of the principles of the _obschina_ with\nregard to fiscal purposes. If I use a good thing for an evil end, that\ndoes not prove that the thing is in itself bad.\u201d\n\nThen the conversation turned upon Tyutchev. The other day Tolstoi saw\nin the _Novoe Vremya_ his poem \u201cTwilight.\u201d He therefore took down all\nTyutchev\u2019s poems and read them during his illness.\n\nTolstoi said to me:\n\n\u201cI am always saying that a work of art is either so good that there is\nno standard by which to define its qualities--that is real art,--or\nit is quite bad. Now, I am happy to have found a real work of art. I\ncannot read it without tears. I know it by heart. Listen, I\u2019ll read it\nto you.\u201d\n\nTolstoi began in a voice broken with tears:\n\n\u201cThe dove-coloured shadows melted together....\u201d\n\nWhen I am on my death-bed I shall not forget the impression then\nproduced on me by Tolstoi. He lay on his back, convulsively twisting\nthe edge of his blanket with his fingers and trying in vain to restrain\nthe tears that choked him. He broke down several times and began again.\nBut at last, when he read the end of the stanza, \u201cEverything is in me,\nand I in everything,\u201d his voice gave way. The entrance of A. N. Dunaev\nstopped him. He grew calmer.\n\n\u201cWhat a pity that I spoilt the poem for you!\u201d he said to me later.\n\nThen I played the piano.\n\nTolstoi asked me not to play Chopin, saying: \u201cI am afraid I might burst\ninto tears.\u201d\n\nTolstoi asked for something by Mozart or Haydn.\n\nHe asked: \u201cWhy do pianists never play Haydn? You ought to. How good it\nis--beside a modern complicated, artificial work--to play something of\nMozart or Haydn!\u201d\n\n\n\n\n1900\n\n\n_Moscow, January 29th._ Tolstoi had a conversation with V. E. Den when\nChalyapin was here. Tolstoi is working now on the article on the labour\nquestion, \u201cNew Slavery,\u201d and the conversation turned upon labour.\n\nTolstoi said: \u201cWe are going through a new stage in the evolution of\nslavery: the slavery of the working men suffering under the yoke of the\nwell-to-do classes.\n\n\u201cSlavery will never cease at the bottom first, exclusively from the\nmovement of the slaves themselves. We saw it in America, and here\nduring the serfdom of the peasants. So must it happen now again. It is\nonly when we realize that it is a shame to have slaves, that we shall\ncease to be slave-drivers, and shall voluntarily give up exploiting the\nworking classes.\n\n\u201cFreedom cannot come from the slaves. Individual slaves who have rid\nthemselves of the yoke of slavery become in the majority of cases\nparticularly harsh oppressors and tyrants over their late brothers.\nNor can it be otherwise. How can you expect from them--harassed and\ntortured--anything else? It is only when we voluntarily give up the\nshameful use of the labour of the slaves, our brothers, that slavery\nwill come to an end.\n\n\u201cScience, in so far as it describes and clarifies the real state of\nthings, does a useful and necessary work. But as soon as it starts\nlaying down programmes for the future, it becomes useless. All these\nideas about an eight-hour working day, etc., only increase and legalize\nthe evil. Labour must be free, not slavish, and that is all.\n\n\u201cWhen a peasant gets up before sunrise and works all day long in the\nfield, he is not a slave. He has intercourse with nature, he does a\nuseful work. But when he stands by a piece of machinery in a Morosov\u2019s\nfactory all his life long, manufacturing textiles which he will never\nsee, and neither himself nor any one of his people will ever use, then\nhe is a slave and perishes in slavery.\n\n\u201cRailways, telephones, and the other accessories of the civilized\nworld--all that is useful and good. But if one had to choose either\nthe whole of this civilization, for which not hundreds of thousands of\nruined lives are required, but only the certain destruction of one\nsingle existence, or, on the other hand, no civilization at all, then\nno thank you for this civilization with its railways and telephones, if\na necessary condition of them is the destruction of human life.\u201d\n\n\n_February 24th._ On the 18th and 20th I was at the Tolstois\u2019. On\nthe 18th Tolstoi went to the \u201cPod Deviche\u201d playhouse and afterwards\nto a dirty public-house, where there is an extraordinary amount of\ndrunkenness and debauchery, to make observations.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cTwenty years ago I saw at the \u2018Pod Deviche,\u2019 _Churkin_, a play\ncomposed by a drunken tramp, and this time I saw _Stenka Rasin_--and it\nis all the same thing. Murder and violence are represented as heroic\nand are acclaimed by the crowd. And it is remarkable that whilst every\nword in a book which may enlighten the minds of the people is carefully\nstruck out by the censorship, such performances are readily allowed,\nunder the police inspector\u2019s censorship. During the last twenty years\nprobably over a million people have seen these _Churkins_ and _Rasins_.\u201d\n\nIn telling this, Tolstoi recollected how he was once in a workhouse\nwhere the priest explained the Gospels:\n\n\u201cThe passage was read where Christ says: \u2018It is said: thou shalt not\nkill; but I say unto you, do not be angry without cause.\u2019 The priest\nbegan to explain that one must not be angry without cause, but, if\nthe authorities become angry, that is right and as it should be. \u2018Do\nnot kill\u2019 also does not mean that one should never kill. In war or\nat an execution, killing is necessary and is not a sin. This is the\nonly chance that an illiterate person has to understand the meaning of\nthe Gospels, for in church all the chapters are either indistinctly\nread by the sexton, or shouted so loud that they are perfectly\nunintelligible--and this is the way in which the Gospels are explained\nto the people!\u201d\n\nA long talk about the Boers and the English took place.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cI always consider that moral motives are effective and decisive\nhistorically. And now, when the universal dislike of the English is\nso clearly pronounced--I shall not live to see it, but it seems to me\nthat the power of England will be much shaken. And I say this not out\nof an unconscious Russian patriotism. If Poland or Finland rose against\nRussia and success were on their side, my sympathy would be on their\nside as the oppressed.\n\n\u201cThe Russian people, speaking impartially, is perhaps the most\nChristian of all in its moral character. It is partly to be explained\nby the fact that the Gospels have been read by the Russian people for\nnine hundred years; Catholics don\u2019t know the Gospels even now, and\nother races came to know the Gospel only after the Reformation.\n\n\u201cI was struck when I saw in the streets of London a criminal escorted\nby the police, and the police had to protect him energetically from\nthe crowd, which threatened to tear him to pieces. With us it is just\nthe opposite: police have to drive away by force the people who try to\ngive the criminal money and bread. With us, criminals and prisoners are\n\u2018little unhappy ones.\u2019 But now, unfortunately, there is a change for\nthe worse, and our abominable Government tries with all its might and\nmain to rouse hatred against the condemned. In Siberia, even prizes are\ngiven to any one who kills an escaped prisoner.\u201d\n\n\n_April 29th._ The conversation was on Shakespeare. Tolstoi is not very\nfond of him. Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cThree times in my life I have read through Shakespeare and Goethe from\nend to end, and I could never make out in what their charm consisted.\u201d\n\nAccording to Tolstoi, Goethe is cold. Among his (Goethe\u2019s) works he\nlikes many of the lyrics and _Hermann and Dorothea_. He does not like\nGoethe\u2019s dramatic works, and his novels he considers quite weak.\nTolstoi did not speak about _Faust_.\n\nTolstoi is very fond of Schiller, and said: \u201cHe is a genuine man!\u201d\nHe loves almost all his works, particularly _The Robbers_ and _Don\nCarlos_, also _Mary Stuart_, _William Tell_, and _Wallenstein_.\n\nThen A. M. Sukhotin, a man over seventy, read aloud Turgenev\u2019s _Old\nPortraits_ superbly. Tolstoi did not remember the story, and was in\ngreat delight over it. He said:\n\n\u201cIt is only after reading all these moderns that one really appreciates\nTurgenev.\u201d\n\nTolstoi remembered Turgenev with great love. He said, in passing:\n\n\u201cWhen Turgenev died I wanted to read a paper about him. I wanted\nespecially, in view of the misunderstandings that there had been\nbetween us, to remember and relate all the good that was so abundant\nin him, and to tell what I loved in him. The lecture was not given.\nDolgorukov did not allow it.\u201d\n\nThe conversation turned on Chekhov and Gorky. Tolstoi as usual praised\nChekhov\u2019s artistic gift very highly. The lack of a definite world\nconception grieves him in Chekhov; and in this respect Tolstoi prefers\nGorky. Of Gorky Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cYou know what he is from his works. Gorky\u2019s great and very serious\nessential defect is a poorly developed sense of proportion, and this\nis extremely important. I pointed out this defect to Gorky himself,\nand as an instance I drew his attention to his misuse of the method\nof animating inanimate things. Then Gorky said that in his opinion it\nwas a good method, and gave an instance of it in his story _Malva_,\nwhere it says: \u2018the sea laughed.\u2019 I replied to him that, if on certain\noccasions the method might be very successful, nevertheless one ought\nnot to abuse it.\u201d\n\nYesterday Ushakov asked Tolstoi about Gromeka. Tolstoi and Tatyana\nLvovna spoke a great deal about him.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cHe was a sympathetic, passionate, and gifted man. He shot himself when\nstill a young man, it was said because he was mentally deranged.\u201d\n\nTatyana Lvovna says, by the way, that Gromeka was her first admirer\nand proposed to her when she was sixteen.\n\nTolstoi values Gromeka\u2019s criticism very much. He said:\n\n\u201cIt was a pleasure to me that a man who sympathized with me could see\n_even_ in _War and Peace_ and in _Anna Karenin_ a great deal of what I\nwas afterwards to say and write.\u201d\n\nTolstoi also said:\n\n\u201cWhen I wrote the story _What Men Live by_, Fet said, \u2018Well, what do\npeople live by? By money, of course.\u2019\u201d\n\nI observed that Fet had probably said it in joke. Tolstoi replied:\n\n\u201cNo, it was his conviction. And, as often happens, what people try very\nstubbornly to get, they do get. Fet all his life long wanted to become\nrich, and he became rich. His brothers and sisters, it seems, went out\nof their minds, and all their fortunes came to him.\u201d\n\nFet wrote in Tatyana Lvovna\u2019s album that the unhappiest day of his life\nwas the one when he saw that he was going to be ruined.\n\nI talked a good deal with Tolstoi to-day. Tolstoi said about current\nevents:\n\n\u201cI am not so much horrified at these murders in the Transvaal, and now\nin China, as by the open declaration of immoral motives. They used at\nleast to cloak themselves hypocritically in good motives, but now that\nthis is no longer possible they express all their immoral and cruel\nintentions and claims openly.\u201d\n\nWe spoke about the abolition of deportation. Tolstoi considers it worse\nthan the other method. He said:\n\n\u201cInstead of making it possible for a man to order his life in a new\nplace, he is put into prison. The Government has already voted six and\na half millions for the enlargement of prisons. And this money will\nagain be flayed off the peasants, for there is nowhere else to take it\nfrom.\u201d\n\nOf our courts of justice Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cHow absurd our courts are can be seen at each stage. For example, take\nthe case of the Tula priest. How was it that the Tula court acquitted\nhim, and then after the acquittal the Oriol court sentenced him to hard\nlabour for twenty years? If such uncertainty is possible, what are\nthose verdicts worth? Indeed, it depends on a thousand accidents: the\ntemper of the jurymen, the behaviour of the prisoner at the bar--the\nprisoner bursts into tears, and the impression produced secures his\nacquittal. It is merely a game of heads and tails! It would be simpler\nand easier to say: Heads or tails, and to give sentence accordingly.\nIt simply baffles me how decent people can be judges!\u201d\n\nOf the case of S. I. Mamontov, Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cOne is certainly very sorry for him: he is an old, unhappy man; but,\non the other hand, you have to remember that the man has squandered\ntwelve millions, or whatever it may be; he certainly spent between one\nand two hundred thousand roubles per annum, and is then acquitted,\nwhile another wretched man steals a trifle and is condemned for it. And\nin his case, too, money was spent on expensive lawyers. This reminds\nme of the anecdote I read in the papers. A cashier who embezzled\ntwenty-five thousand roubles came to a lawyer to ask him to undertake\nhis defence. The lawyer asked him: \u2018Is there any more money left?\u2019\nThe cashier said that there was another twenty-five thousand. Then\nthe lawyer said: \u2018Take the rest and give it to me, and then I will\nundertake your case.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd why should the jury be able to pardon? Only the plaintiff can\npardon; but the jury whom he has not hurt have nothing to pardon him\nfor.\n\n\u201cI once talked to N. V. Davidov, and said to him that all punishment\nmay be dispensed with, yet an enquiry ought to be made; and when the\ncrime is proved, they should go to the criminal and accuse him in the\npresence of all of his crime, and should bring forward the proof of\nhis guilt. It is quite likely that the man will say: \u2018Be damned to\nyou, it is none of your business!\u2019 But still I think that this method\nwould more often give positive results than the existing system of\npunishment.\u201d\n\nSpeaking of the Government, Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cI wonder why they have not put me into prison yet? Particularly now,\nafter my article on \u2018Patriotism.\u2019 Perhaps they have not read it yet? It\nought to be sent to them.\u201d\n\nTolstoi spoke again of his indifference to modern complicated music:\n\n\u201cI tried to accustom myself to modern dissonances, but these are all a\nperversion of taste. A modern composer takes a musical idea, now and\nthen even a lovely one, and twists it round and round without end or\nmeasure, combines it with other themes, and, when at last he manages to\nexpress something simple, one is ready to heave a sigh of relief and\nsay: Thank God!\u201d\n\n\n_July 4th._ Yesterday Tolstoi said to me:\n\n\u201cBuddha says that happiness consists in doing as much good as possible\nto others. However strange this may seem on the face of it, yet it is\ntrue without a doubt: happiness is only possible when the struggle for\npersonal happiness is renounced.\u201d\n\nThen Tolstoi smiled and said:\n\n\u201cAnd yet you play the piano! But certainly that is better than many\nother things. At any rate you need not pass sentence on any one, or\ncommit murder.\u201d\n\nTolstoi said of newspapers:\n\n\u201cAt present the newspaper infection has reached its ultimate limits.\nAll the questions of the day are artificially puffed up by the\nnewspapers. The worst danger is that the newspapers present everything\nready made, without making people stop to think about anything. A\nliberal Kuzminsky, or even a Koni, takes his fresh newspaper with his\nmorning coffee, reads it, goes to his court, where he meets others who\nhave just read the very same newspaper, and the contagion is spread!\u201d\n\nTolstoi went on to say:\n\n\u201cIt has suddenly become perfectly clear to me that the evil lies in\nregulations, _i.e._ the chief thing is not that people do wrong, but\nthat some force others to do a wrong which is considered to be right.\nHitherto not a single one even of the most extreme socialist doctrines\nhas dispensed with compulsion. But slavery will only cease when every\none is free to choose his work and the time needed for it.\n\n\u201cPeople always put an end to things by asking: \u2018Well; let us suppose\nthat we have liberated the slave, what will follow next? How is it\ngoing to be done?\u2019 I do not know how it is going to be done, but I do\nknow that the existing order is the greatest evil, and therefore I\nmust try to take as little part as possible in keeping it going. But\nwhat will come in place of that evil--I do not and must not know. For\nwhat reason did we, the well-to-do classes, take upon ourselves the\nr\u00f4le of the controllers of life? Let the freed slaves arrange things\nfor themselves. I know only this, that it is bad to be a slave and\nworse still to own slaves, and therefore I must rid myself of the evil.\nThat\u2019s all.\u201d\n\nTolstoi wanted to take for the motto of his new book, _The Slavery of\nour Times_, Marx\u2019s saying that since the capitalists made themselves\nmasters of the working classes the European governments lost all shame.\n\nTolstoi praised Elzbacher\u2019s book on anarchy, in which the doctrines\nof seven anarchists are expounded: of Godwin, Proudhon, Max Stirner,\nBakunin, Kropotkin, B. P. Tucker, and Tolstoi himself.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cI myself can remember at the beginning of the socialist movement in\nRussia that the word \u2018socialist\u2019 was only spoken in a whisper; but when\nProfessor Ivanyukov in the first years of the eighties openly wrote his\nbook on socialism, it was already a widely spread doctrine in Western\nEurope. It is in the same way that the public now regard anarchism,\noften crudely identifying this doctrine with the throwing of bombs.\u201d\n\nOf Elzbacher\u2019s book Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cAt the end of the book is an alphabetical index of the words used by\nthe seven anarchists. It appears that the word _Zwang_, compulsion,\nviolence, is absent only in the exposition of my views.\u201d\n\nSergeenko was telling Tolstoi about Volinsky\u2019s book on Leonardo da\nVinci, and said it was a fine book.\n\nTolstoi remarked:\n\n\u201cYes, it seems to be one of those books which are good in that it is\nnot necessary to read them.\u201d\n\nTolstoi said yesterday about doctors and science generally:\n\n\u201cHow trivial and unnecessary are all our sciences! It is true that\nexact sciences--mathematics and chemistry, although quite unimportant\nfor the improvement of moral life, are at any rate exact and positive.\nBut, although medical science has a great deal of knowledge, that\namount is nothing in proportion to what is needed in order actually to\nknow anything. And what is the good of it?\u201d\n\nI replied to Tolstoi that, although in theory it may be so, yet in\npractice, when some one is ill, one always wants to help them.\n\nTo this Tolstoi replied:\n\n\u201cIt often happens that if some one is seriously ill, those around him,\nat the bottom of their hearts, want him to die, in order to be rid of\nhim--he is in their way.\u201d\n\nTolstoi said to Sophie Andreevna:\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s time for us to die,\u201d and he quoted Pushkin\u2019s lines:\n\n\u201cAnd then our heir in a lucky moment will crush us down with a heavy\nmonument.\u201d\n\n\n_July 5th._ Tolstoi went for a walk to-day with myself and P. A.\nSergeenko. We passed through the splendid young fir-tree forest on the\nleft of the road to Kozlovka.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cI am trying to like and appreciate the modern writers, but it\nis so difficult. Dostoevsky often wrote so badly, so weakly and\nincompetently, from the point of view of technique; but what a lot he\nalways has to say! Taine said that for one page of Dostoevsky\u2019s he\nwould give all French novels.\n\n\u201cAnd technique has now reached a wonderful perfection. A Mme. Lukhmanov\nor Mme. D. writes quite wonderfully. What are Turgenev or myself\ncompared with her! She could give us forty points\u2019 start of her!\u201d\n\nTolstoi has recently re-read all Chekhov\u2019s short stories. To-day he\nsaid of Chekhov:\n\n\u201cHis mastery is of the highest order. I have been re-reading his\nstories with the greatest pleasure. Some, as, for instance, \u2018Children,\u2019\n\u2018Sleepy,\u2019 \u2018In Court,\u2019 are real masterpieces. I really read one story\nafter another with great pleasure. And yet it is all a mosaic; there is\nno connecting inner link.\n\n\u201cThe most important thing in a work of art is that it should have a\nkind of focus, _i.e._ there should be some place where all the rays\nmeet or from which they issue. And this focus must not be able to be\ncompletely explained in words. This indeed is one of the significant\nfacts about a true work of art--that its content in its entirety can be\nexpressed only by itself.\u201d\n\nTolstoi finds a great likeness between the talents of Chekhov and\nMaupassant. He prefers Maupassant for his greater joy in life. But, on\nthe other hand, Chekhov\u2019s gift is a purer gift then Maupassant\u2019s.\n\nSergeenko, I don\u2019t remember in what connection, recalled a poem by\nLermontov.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cHe had indeed a permanent and powerful seeking after truth! Pushkin\nhas not that moral significance, but the sense of beauty is developed\nin him more highly than in any one else. In Chekhov, and in modern\nwriters generally, there is an extraordinary development of the\ntechnique of realism. In Chekhov everything is real to the verge of\nillusion. His stories give the impression of a stereoscope. He throws\nwords about in apparent disorder, and, like an impressionist painter,\nhe achieves wonderful results by his touches.\u201d\n\nTolstoi likes M. Gorky very much as a man. He begins, however, to be\ndisappointed with his work.\n\nTolstoi said of him:\n\n\u201cGorky lacks a sense of proportion. He has a familiar style which is\nunpleasant.\u201d\n\nTolstoi wrote a short preface to Von Polenz\u2019s novel _Der B\u00fcttnerbauer_.\n\nOn that occasion he said:\n\n\u201cAs I read the novel, I kept saying to myself: \u2018Why did not you, you\nfool, write this novel?\u2019--indeed, I know this world; and how very\nimportant it is to point out the poetry of peasant life! Men with their\ncivilization will cut down this lime tree here, this forest; they will\nlay pavements and make houses with tall chimneys, and they will destroy\nthe boundless beauty of natural life.\u201d\n\nOn my asking him whether he had ever tried to write such a novel,\nTolstoi said that he had done so several times long ago.\n\nTolstoi said of Grigorovich:\n\n\u201cHe is now old-fashioned and seems feeble, but he is an important and\nremarkable writer, and God grant that Chekhov may be a tenth part as\nimportant as Grigorovich was. He belonged to the number of the best\nmen who found an important movement. He has also many artistic merits.\nFor instance, in the beginning of his _Anton Goremika_, when the old\npeasant comes home and gives his son or grandson a twig, it is a moving\nincident which depicts the old peasant as well as the simplicity and\nartlessness of his life.\u201d\n\nOf Turgenev, Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cHe was a typical representative of the men of the \u2019fifties--a radical\nin the best sense of the word. His struggle against serfdom is\nremarkable, and also his love for what he describes; for instance, the\nway he describes the old man in _Old Portraits_. And then there is his\nsensitiveness to the beauties of nature.\u201d\n\nSpeaking of the province of criticism, Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cThe value of criticism consists in pointing out all the good that\nthere is in this or that work of art, and in thus directing the opinion\nof the public, whose tastes are mostly crude and the majority of whom\nhave no feeling for beauty. Just as it is difficult to be a really good\ncritic, so it is easy for the most stupid and limited man to become\na critic; and as good critics are needed, so bad critics are merely\nharmful. It is a particularly absurd and cheap habit of critics to\nexpress, in talking of other people\u2019s work, all sorts of personal ideas\nwhich have nothing to do with the book they are criticizing. This is\nthe most useless gossip.\u201d\n\n\n_July 7th._ Tolstoi said that all human vices can be reduced to three\nclasses: (1) anger, malevolence; (2) vanity; and (3) lust--in the\nwidest sense of the word. The last is the most powerful.\n\nIn the morning, at coffee, Tolstoi sighed and said:\n\n\u201cYes, it is hard, it is hard.... It is hard because falsehood and\narrogance prevail in the higher ranks of society, and because there\nis much darkness among the people. The other day two sectarians of\nthe priestless sect came to me from Tula: one a young one, evidently\nof little understanding, and the other an old man, who, while we\ntalked, kept putting on his spectacles. The old man turned out to be\nunderstanding, wise, and said many things to the point, as though he\nagreed with my religious views; and yet when I offered them tea they\nrefused because they had not brought their tea things with them.\u201d\n\nOn the occasion of the Boxer rising Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cIt is terrible that it should happen in such an awful way. But,\nalthough it is difficult to foresee, yet it is to be expected that\nafter the war a greater understanding will take place between Europeans\nand the Chinese; and I think that the Chinese are bound to have a most\nbeneficial influence on us, if only because of their extraordinary\ncapacity for work and of their ability to grow more on a small plot\nof land and obtain better results than we do on a space a dozen times\nlarger.\u201d\n\nTolstoi compares the present state of Europe with the end of the Roman\nEmpire. The Chinese, in his opinion, play the part of the \u201cbarbarians.\u201d\n\n\nTolstoi said to-day:\n\n\u201cAll our actions are divided into those which have a value, and those\nwhich have no value at all, in the face of death. If I were told that I\nhad to die to-morrow, I should not go out for a ride on horseback; but\nif I were about to die this moment, and Levochka here\u201d (Leo Lvovich\u2019s\nson, who passed across the terrace at that moment with his nurse) \u201cfell\nand burst into tears, I should run to him and pick him up. We are all\nin the position of passengers from a ship which has reached an island.\nWe have gone on shore, we walk about and gather shells, but we must\nalways remember that, when the whistle sounds, all the little shells\nwill have to be thrown away and we must run to the boat.\u201d\n\nSophie Andreevna, who was present during some of the talks, argued all\nthe time, and answered Tolstoi in a very feminine way. When Sophie\nAndreevna on a walk said that a woman, while her husband writes novels\nand philosophical articles, has to bear, to give birth to, and to rear\nher children, and how difficult all this is, Tolstoi became indignant\nand exclaimed with a bitterness that was rare in him:\n\n\u201cWhat terrible things you are saying, Sonechka! A woman who is annoyed\nat having children and does not desire them is not a woman, but a\nwhore!\u201d\n\nIn the evening we sat on the balcony: Tolstoi, Sergeenko, and myself.\n\nTolstoi wondered at the illogicality of women, and turning to me said:\n\n\u201cPeter Alexeevich and myself have a right to speak about women, but you\nhave none. One must have a wife and daughters to do this. Daughters are\nperhaps the more important of the two. Daughters are the only women who\nare not \u2018women\u2019 at all to a man, and who can be known fully from the\nbeginning. With sisters such a relation is impossible, for one grows up\nside by side with them; a certain rivalry enters into the relation, and\none cannot know one\u2019s sister, entirely, as a whole.\u201d\n\nSergeenko asked Tolstoi\u2019s advice as to how to educate his son sexually.\n\nTolstoi said to him:\n\n\u201cThese questions are so dangerous that it is better that parents should\nnot speak of them at all to their children. It is only necessary to\nwatch the influence of surroundings. At times a vicious boy, or one who\nis not vicious at all, but spoilt in this sense, can corrupt a whole\ncircle of boys. It is best of all that a growing boy should be as much\nas possible among young girls. But there are among modern girls some\nthat are worse than young men. If a feeling of romance is felt for any\ngirl, this is the best protection against immorality....\u201d\n\n\n_July 12th._ Yesterday I returned home. On the day of my departure\nduring our walk Sophie Andreevna was talking about the sale of the\nSamara estate, which she has completed for four hundred and fifty\nthousand roubles (Tolstoi originally bought the estate cheap), and\nby the sale of which Andrey, Michael, and Alexandra will get 150,000\nroubles each. This money was the topic of conversation during the last\nfew days, and how the sons meant to buy this or some other estate. At\nthe end of the walk Tolstoi and myself found ourselves ahead of the\nothers. Suddenly he gave a heavy sigh.\n\nI asked him: \u201cWhy do you sigh, Leo Nikolaevich?\u201d\n\n\u201cIf you knew how painful it is to me to hear it all! I have it always\non my conscience that I, with my wish to renounce property, once bought\nestates. It is funny to think that it seems now as if I had wished\nto make provision for my children, and in doing so I did them the\ngreatest injury. Look at my Andryusha. He is completely incapable of\ndoing anything, and lives on the people whom I once robbed and whom my\nchildren keep on robbing. How terrible it is to listen to all this talk\nnow, to watch it all going on! It is so opposed to my ideas and desires\nand to everything I live by.... Oh! that they would spare me!...\u201d\n\nTolstoi was silent for a time, and then said:\n\n\u201cWhy did I suddenly begin complaining?\u201d\n\nAt that moment Tatyana Lvovna came up, and our conversation turned on\nother subjects.\n\n\nTolstoi talked about poetry.\n\n\u201cWhen a poem deals with love, flowers, etc., it is a comparatively\ninnocent occupation until the age of sixteen. But to express in verse\nan important and serious idea without distorting the idea is almost\nimpossible. How very difficult it is to express one\u2019s thoughts by words\nonly, so that every one understands just what you want to express! How\nmuch more difficult, then, it is when the writer is bound by metre and\nrhyme! Only the very great poets have succeeded in doing it, and rarely\ntoo. Perfectly false ideas are often hidden behind verses.\u201d\n\nAn undergraduate who had written an article upon Tolstoi in reply to\nNordau\u2019s criticism came, and turned out to be a foolish young man.\nTolstoi had been unwell for the last few days and in a bad temper, so\nthat he came to us quite upset and said:\n\n\u201cNo, it is time, it is time for me to die! They stick to some single\nidea, which they arbitrarily choose from the rest, and go on and on\nrepeating: Non-resistance! non-resistance! How am I to blame for it?\u201d\n\nSophie Andreevna said to me:\n\n\u201cThe private life of famous men is always distorted in their\nbiographies. They are sure to make me out a Xantippe. You must take my\nside, Alexander Borisovich!\u201d ...\n\nDuring our walk Sophie Andreevna showed me the spot which is called\n\u201cthe apiary,\u201d and said:\n\n\u201cThere actually was an apiary here once. Leo N. was at one time mad\nabout bees, and used to spend whole days in the apiary. We often drove\nhere, taking a samovar and having tea here. Once Fet came here, and we\nwent to join Leo N. at the apiary. It was a wonderful evening; we sat\nhere for a long time; and there were many glow-worms in the grass. Leo\nN. said to me: \u2018Now, Sonia, you always wanted emerald earrings; take\ntwo glow-worms for earrings.\u2019 Thereupon Fet wrote a poem in which were\nthese lines:\n\n\n     In my hand is thy hand--what a marvel!\n     On the ground are two glow-worms, two emeralds.\u201d\n\n\nAt another point Sophie Andreevna showed me the field where Tolstoi and\nTurgenev once stood when shooting, and she was with them.\n\nSophie Andreevna said:\n\n\u201cIt was the last time Turgenev stayed at Yasnaya, not long before his\ndeath. I asked him: \u2018Ivan Sergeevich, why don\u2019t you write now?\u2019 He\nanswered: \u2018In order to write I had always to be a little in love. Now I\nam old, I can\u2019t fall in love any more, and that is why I have stopped\nwriting.\u2019\u201d\n\n\n_December 27th._ Last night I was at the Tolstois\u2019. There were Tolstoi,\nIlya, and Andrey (Tolstoi\u2019s sons). A message arrived that Tatyana\nLvovna had given birth prematurely to a stillborn child; a day before,\nnews reached Yasnaya Polyana that the son of Leo Lvovich, a boy of\nabout two, was dead. Sophie Andreevna left for Yasnaya. There was an\natmosphere of depression.\n\nTolstoi played chess with me. Later P. S. Usov came, who also played a\ngame of chess with Tolstoi. We began to talk. Tolstoi became animated.\nThe post arrived. There were three letters from Chertkov. In one of\nthem there were many pages of closely written manuscript.\n\nTolstoi glanced at it and said:\n\n\u201cIt is probably a woman\u2019s writing. How nice it would be if one need not\nread it!\u201d\n\nThe manuscript, however, turned out not to be from a woman, so that\nTolstoi put it aside to read it.\n\nReferring to his daughter\u2019s misfortune, Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cI am not sorry that my daughters have no children; I cannot be glad\nthat I have grandchildren. I know that they will inevitably grow up\nto be idlers. My daughters are certainly anxious that this should not\nbe so, but considering the surroundings in which they will have to be\nbrought up, it is very difficult to avoid it. All my life long I have\nhad these surroundings, and, however much I struggle, I can do nothing.\nNow, during the Christmas season I can\u2019t bear to look at this mad\nextravagance; these visits. What a terrible absurdity it is!\u201d\n\nUsov was saying in what circumstances a doctor has the right to bring\non birth artificially, thereby killing the baby.\n\nTolstoi replied:\n\n\u201cIt is always immoral. For the most part, when there are various ways\nof relieving the patient, oxygen, etc., it is difficult to abstain\nfrom using them; but it would be better if they did not exist. We shall\nall die without fail, and the doctors\u2019 activity is directed towards\nfighting death. But to die--in ten days or in ten years--is all the\nsame. How terrible it is that it is always concealed from the patient\nthat he is dying! We are none of us accustomed to look death in the\nface!\u201d\n\nUsov defended the activity of doctors, considering it a useful one.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cIt is for this reason that I consider the activity of doctors harmful:\npeople are crowded in towns; they are infected with syphilis and\nconsumption; they are kept in terrible conditions, and then millions\nare spent on the establishment of hospitals and clinics. But why\nnot spend that energy, not in curing people, but in improving the\nconditions of their lives? While numbers of healthy, useful peasants\nare infected with all sorts of diseases, and are worn out by work\nbeyond their strength, so that they die at thirty instead of seventy,\nsome useless old woman who is quite incurable has spent upon her all\nthe treatment that medicine can supply.\n\n\u201cAll modern sciences do the very opposite of what they set out to do.\nTheology hides moral truths, jurisprudence obscures in every possible\nway the conception of justice, the natural sciences teach materialism,\nand history distorts the true life of the people. Darwin\u2019s theory is in\nagreement with the crude fable of Moses. All discussions on Darwinism\nare polemics against Moses.\n\n\u201cEvery young man growing up in Russia passes through a terrible\ncontagion, a sort of moral syphilis; in the first place, the Orthodox\nChurch, and then, when he frees himself from that, the doctrines of\nmaterialism. The best physiologists, like Krafft-Ebing or Claude\nBernard, openly admit that, however carefully we investigate even a\nsimple cell, there is always some _x_ in its composition which we do\nnot understand. Consequently the complex of organisms and the social\nconditions of life are an _x_ raised to the _x_ degree. And if we\ncannot investigate a cell completely, then how can we realize the laws\nwhich govern the life of human societies? Yet some blockhead like B.\nassures us that it is all very simple, and the science of history can\ndeduce immutable laws by which human life is shaped.\n\n\u201cLook at all our historians: what dull, stupid men they are! For\ninstance, Solovev. He was an incredibly dull man. And when some one\ngifted appears among them--a Granovsky, Kostomarov, Kudryavzev--and\nyou ask, \u2018What after all have they done?\u2019 it turns out that they have\ndone nothing of any importance or value. Take Kluchevsky, for instance:\nwhat has he done? He talks brilliantly, toys with the liberal point of\nview about Catherine the Great, and says that she was a whore--well, we\nknew that without him. Or take the man who dances the mazurka in the\nMoscovskya Vedomsti, Ilovaisky--he is an historian too!\n\n\u201cWhat should be taught at school? Long ago, when I was interested in\neducation, I came to the conclusion that school teaching ought to\nconsist of two branches only, of languages and mathematics. This is the\nonly positive knowledge that one can give a pupil. There is no humbug\nabout this. Either you know it or you don\u2019t know it. Besides, from\nthis fundamental knowledge all science can develop. From mathematics\ncome astronomy, physics, natural sciences. From languages, history,\ngeography, and so on. But with us, who is taught and what are they\ntaught? To-day I walked in the street. Drunken men were going about,\nswearing obscenely, dragging women after them. Who has ever said a\nsingle word to these men about their moral needs? What did we teach\nthem?\n\n\u201cThe other evening I was coming home from the Turkish bath and walked\nnear the theatres. Policemen on horseback were lounging about; coachmen\nwith buttocks like this\u201d (Tolstoi illustrated it with his hands) \u201cand\nrows of buttons on their backs sit on the boxes. And in the illuminated\ntheatres, crowded with people, a divine service is performed: a silly\nand distorted story _Sadko_ (an opera) is acted, or \u2018When we dead\nawaken\u2019 is played. It\u2019s sheer madness!\u201d\n\n\n\n\n1901\n\n\n_Moscow, February 1st._ Tolstoi began about a couple of months ago to\nlearn Dutch, and now he reads quite easily, at the age of seventy-three!\n\nHe has an original way of learning languages: he gets the New Testament\nin the language he wants to know, and whilst reading it through he\nlearns the language.\n\nTolstoi said to me recently about modern art:\n\n\u201cThe sense of shame is lost. I cannot call it anything else--the sense\nof \u00e6sthetic shame. I wonder if you know the feeling? I feel it most\nstrongly when I read something that is artistically false, and I can\ncall it nothing else but shame.\u201d\n\nWith regard to his play, _The Corpse_, Tolstoi said to me:\n\n\u201cThe son of the wife of the man I described came to me, and then the\nman himself. The son on behalf of his mother asked me not to publish\nthe play,[1] because it would be very painful to her, and also because\nshe was afraid of the consequences. I of course promised.\n\n\u201cTheir visit was very interesting and useful to me. Once more, as so\nmany times before, I was convinced how much feebler and more unreal are\nthe psychological motives which one invents oneself in order to explain\nactions. The actions of one\u2019s imaginary characters are then the motives\nwhich guided those people in real life. After talking to these people I\ncooled to my work.\u201d\n\nOn another occasion, in the dining-room downstairs, animated\nconversation was going on among the younger people. Tolstoi, who\nwas resting in the next room in the dark, afterwards came into the\ndining-room and said to me:\n\n\u201cI lay there and listened to your talk. It interested me from two\npoints of view: it was interesting simply to hear young people talking,\nand then it was also interesting from the dramatic point of view. I\nlistened and said to myself: This is how one ought to write for the\nstage. It is not one speaking and the others listening. It is never\nlike that. It is necessary that all should speak, and the art of the\nwriter consists in making what he wants run through it like a beautiful\nthread.\u201d\n\n\n_March 8th._ Yesterday Tolstoi was in good form. At tea he laughed and\njoked. The conversation was about luxury.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cHow much more money people spend nowadays than they used! When Sophie\nAndreevna and I lived in Yasnaya, our income from the Nikolsky estate\nwas about five thousand roubles and we lived superbly. I remember when\nSophie Andreevna bought little mats to lay by the beds, it seemed\nto me a useless and incredible luxury. And now my sons--I seem to\nhave about twenty of them--squander money right and left, buy dogs,\nhorses, gramophones. I asked myself then, why buy carpets when we have\nslippers? Certainly we did not go barefoot, but, behold, Riepin painted\nme _d\u00e9collet\u00e9_, barefooted, in a shirt! I have to thank him for not\nhaving taken off my nether garments! And he never asked me, if I liked\nit! But I have long since got used to being treated as if I were dead.\nThere, in the Peredvizhni exhibition, you will see the Devil (Riepin\u2019s\n\u2018Temptation of Christ\u2019), and you\u2019ll also see the man possessed by the\nDevil!\u201d\n\n\nOn February 25th Tolstoi\u2019s excommunication was announced. That day\nTolstoi and A. N. Dunaev went on some business to a doctor and came\ninto the Lubiansky Square. In the square, by the fountain, the crowd\nrecognized Tolstoi. At first, as Dunaev relates, an ironical voice was\nheard: \u201cHere\u2019s the Devil in the likeness of a man!\u201d This served for a\nsignal. The crowd threw themselves like one man on Tolstoi. All shouted\nand threw up their hats. Tolstoi was confused; he didn\u2019t know what to\ndo and walked away almost at a run. The crowd followed him. With great\ndifficulty Tolstoi and Dunaev managed to get a sledge at the corner of\nNeglinny. The crowd wanted to stop the cabman and many held on to the\nsledge. At that moment a troop of mounted police appeared, let the cab\nthrough, and immediately made a ring and cut off the crowd.\n\nOn the occasion of his excommunication Tolstoi received, and is still\nreceiving, a number of addresses, letters of sympathy, etc. One lady\nsent him a piece of holy bread and a letter in which she said that she\nhad just received the Sacrament and took the Host for his benefit.\nShe ends her letter: \u201cEat it in health and pay no heed to these stupid\npriests.\u201d\n\n\n_August 9th._ I was the other day in Yasnaya Polyana. Tolstoi is hale\nand hearty. I have not seen him like that for a long time.\n\nThe conversation was about Russian writers.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cI was fond of Turgenev as a man. As a writer, I do not attribute\nparticular importance to him or to Goncharov. Their subjects, the\nnumber of ordinary characters and love scenes, have too ephemeral an\nimportance. If I were asked which of the Russian writers I consider the\nmost important, I would say: Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Hertzen, whom\nour Liberals have forgotten, and Dostoevsky, whom they do not read at\nall. Well, and then: Griboedov, Ostrovsky, Tyutchev.\u201d\n\nOf Gogol\u2019s works Tolstoi does not like _Taras Bulba_ at all. He far\nprefers _The Revisor_ (_Inspector General_), _Dead Souls_, _Shinel_,\n_Koliaska_ (\u201cit\u2019s a masterpiece in miniature\u201d), _Nevsky Prospect_. Of\nPushkin\u2019s works, he considers _Boris Godunov_ a failure.\n\nIt is characteristic that in making his selection Tolstoi said:\n\n\n     \u201cI do not speak of myself; it\u2019s not for me, but for others, to\n     judge of my importance.\u201d\n\n\nThat evening in his study Tolstoi said to me:\n\n\u201cAlexander Borisovich, an image comes before me. Rays spread out\nfrom a centre. The centre is the spiritual essence; the rays are the\nperpetually growing needs of the body. A time comes when a spiritual\nlife begins to exist inside these rays. They spread out at an ever\ndiminishing angle, become parallel, and at last draw together and\nfinally unite in the one infinitely small and entirely spiritual\ncentre--death.\u201d\n\n\n_Gaspra, Crimea, September 12th._ Chekhov was here yesterday. He\ndoes not look well; he looks old and coughs perpetually. He speaks\nlittle, in short sentences, but they are always to the point. He gave\na touching account of his life with his mother in the winter at Yalta.\nTolstoi was very glad to see him.\n\n\n_Gaspra, Crimea, September 16th._ Life here goes on very quietly.\n\nAfter dinner I or N. L. Obolensky, or both in turn, read Chekhov\u2019s\nstories aloud, which Tolstoi greatly enjoys. The other day I read\n_The Tedious Story_. Tolstoi was in constant raptures over Chekhov\u2019s\nunderstanding. He also liked, for the originality of the idea and the\nmastery of the writing, _The Bet_, and particularly _The Steppe_.\n\nOf Chekhov Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cHe is a strange writer: he throws words about as if at random,\nand yet everything is alive. And what understanding! He never has\nany superfluous details; every one of them is either necessary or\nbeautiful.\u201d\n\n\n_September 20th._ I told Tolstoi about the article in the _Moscow\nCourier_ where Maeterlinck\u2019s is quoted as saying that _Power of\nDarkness_ is in his opinion almost the greatest play.\n\nTolstoi laughed and said:\n\n\u201cWhy doesn\u2019t he imitate it, then?\u201d\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[1] The theme of _The Corpse_ became known to the newspapers through\nTolstoi\u2019s copyist, Alexander Petrovich, who, in a drunken bout in the\nKhitrovka, told a fellow drunkard, a reporter of the _Novosti Dnya_,\nthat Tolstoi was writing a play, and also told him the subject of the\nplay. The reporter made an article of it and published it in the paper.\nThis was the cause of the _dramatis personae_ coming to Tolstoi, and\nit was also one of the reasons why Tolstoi left the play unfinished.\n(Years afterwards the play, finished, was published and entitled _The\nLiving Corpse_.)\n\n\n\n\n1902\n\n\n_Moscow, January 13th._ Tolstoi once told me:\n\n\u201cWhen I went to see _Power of Darkness_ acted I sat in the gallery on\npurpose so as not to be recognized. Yet I was recognized; they began to\ntell me to go on the stage, and I hurried home at once. But there was\na moment when I could hardly restrain myself from stepping on to the\nstage and beginning to speak, to say everything--whatever that may be.\u201d\n\n\n_January 15th._ Gorky read aloud to Tolstoi the end of Mazzini\u2019s book\n_On the Duties of Man_, which Tolstoi likes very much. While Gorky was\nreading, Tolstoi, who had read the book more than once, was almost\nmoved to tears.\n\nMadame N. N. Den told me the following story, which she had from her\nsister. When Tolstoi was very ill he thought he was dying, and took\nleave and said good-bye to all who were present. Leo Lvovich was the\nonly one of Tolstoi\u2019s children who was absent, and Tolstoi dictated\na letter to him. Those who read it say that this farewell letter at\nthe point of death was deeply moving. The letter, however, was not\nsent, for Leo Lvovich arrived at Gaspra in person. When he came into\nTolstoi\u2019s room, Tolstoi said that it was difficult for him to speak,\nbut that he had expressed all his thoughts and feelings in the letter,\nwhich he handed to his son. Leo Lvovich read the letter at once in\nTolstoi\u2019s room, then came into the next room, and, in the presence\nof all those who were there (Countess Sophie Nicolaevna included),\ntore his dying father\u2019s letter into little bits and threw it in the\nwastepaper basket....\n\n\n_Yasnaya Polyana, July 25th._ I have been here a few days. Tolstoi is\nwell physically.\n\nTo-day Tolstoi said to Doctor Butkevich:\n\n\u201cThe only true way for a man to improve human life is by the way of\nmoral perfection in his personal life. Spiritual life is a constant\nprogress, a constant effort towards the realization of truth.\u201d\n\nThe conversation turned upon literature. It began with my saying that\nSienkewicz\u2019s novel, _The Sword Bearers_, was a boring book.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cYes, for some reason I began it, but I could not read it. Do you\nremember how, when one is a child, one sometimes gets a piece of meat\nwhich one chews and chews and chews, and one can\u2019t deal with it, and at\nlast one quietly spits it out and throws it under the table.\u201d\n\nThen Tolstoi remembered B.\u2019s story which he read recently:\n\n\u201cIt begins with a superb description of nature--a little shower, which\nis done as Turgenev even could not do it, let alone myself. And then\nthere is a girl. She dreams of him\u201d (Tolstoi shortly told the plot\nof the story), \u201cand all this--the girl\u2019s silly emotion, the little\nshower--all this is needed, in order that B. may write a story. Just\nas in ordinary life, when people have nothing to say they talk about\nthe weather, so writers, when they have nothing to write about, write\nabout the weather, and it is time to put an end to it. Yes, there was\na little shower; there might just as well have been no shower at all.\nI think that all this must come to an end in literature. It is simply\nimpossible to read any longer.\n\n\u201cI once belonged to the guild of authors, and from habit I watch and am\ninterested in everything that goes on there.\u201d\n\nTolstoi quoted a few instances of misstatements and inaccuracies in\nwriters like Uspensky and Korolenko, but said that these were only\nslips. But when psychological mistakes are made, when the characters in\nnovels and stories do what, from their spiritual nature, they cannot\ndo, it is a terrible failing, and the works of the Andreevs, etc.,\nare full of such mistakes. Even in Gorky it is always happening. For\ninstance, it is the case in his story about the silver clasps, or\nin the opinions of the women in _Three_. His _Burghers_ is utterly\nuninteresting. The surroundings are indefinite, untypical; nobody can\nmake anything of it at all.\n\n\u201cI am always afraid of falling into the old man\u2019s habit of being unable\nto appreciate or to understand the present. But I try my best and\ngenuinely can find no beauty in the modern tendencies of art. There\nhas recently appeared a very just article by E. Markov on Gorky. The\nwriter, rather timidly--for Gorky has become such an idol that people\ndare not speak of him--has pointed out correctly that modern Russian\nliterature has completely turned away from those high moral problems\nwhich it formerly pursued. And indeed what a complete denial of moral\nprinciples there is! You may be vicious, you may rob or kill; there is\nnothing to restrain the individual; all is allowed....\n\n\u201cBut still I am impressed by the fact that Gorky is translated in\nEurope and greatly read there. Undoubtedly there is something new\nin him. His chief merit is that he was the first to draw the world\nof outcasts and tramps from the life, which until then no one had\nattempted. In this respect he did what Turgenev and Grigorovich did in\ntheir day for the world of peasants.\n\n\u201cI love Chekhov very much and value his writings, but I could not\nmake myself read his play, _The Three Sisters_. What is it all for?\nGenerally speaking, modern writers have lost the conception of drama.\nDrama, instead of telling us the whole of a man\u2019s life, must place\nhim in such a situation, tie such a knot, that, when it is untied,\nthe whole man is made visible. Now, I allowed myself to criticize\nShakespeare. But with him every character is alive; and it is always\nclear why he acts as he does. In Shakespeare\u2019s theatre there were\nboards with inscriptions \u2018moonlight,\u2019 \u2018a house,\u2019 because (Heaven be\npraised!) the whole attention was concentrated on the substance of the\ndrama. Now it is just the opposite.\u201d\n\nTolstoi spoke with disgust of Andreev\u2019s _Abyss_, and said:\n\n\u201cWith regard to Leonid Andreev, I always remember a story by Ginzburg\nabout a boy who cannot pronounce the letter \u2018r\u2019 and says to his\nfriend: \u2018I went for a walk and suddenly I see a wolf.... Are you\nfwightened? Are you fwightened?\u2019\n\n\u201cSo Andreev also keeps on asking me: \u2018Are you fwightened?\u2019 and I am not\nin the least frightened.\u201d\n\nYesterday the conversation was about the Hertzen, Bakunin, and Belinsky\ncircle. Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cThe most characteristic thing about that circle was a kind of\nepicureanism, or at least the denial of, the complete failure to\nunderstand, a religious conception of the world. Doctor Nikitin, for\ninstance, was surprised that I did not think Gogol mad. They thought\nhim mad, because he believed in God. And they could not even understand\nwhat was going on in his soul.\u201d\n\nTolstoi spoke very disapprovingly of Belinsky\u2019s famous letter to Gogol.\n\nDoctor Butkevich asked Tolstoi if he had read Maeterlinck\u2019s new play,\n_Monna Vanna_.\n\nTolstoi replied:\n\n\u201cWhy should I? Have I committed a crime?\u201d\n\nSome one observed that common people are very seldom interested by\n_Power of Darkness_.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cTo interest the people one must write more simply and much more\nshortly, as Sophie Andreevna paints; everything in profile and\neverything on the plane, and yet no other pictures are enjoyed so much\nby children. In the same way, form must be simple and primitive if it\nis to be enjoyed by the people.\u201d\n\nTolstoi went on to say:\n\n\u201cI have been thinking a great deal about it lately. There are two kinds\nof art, and both are equally needed--one simply gives pleasure and\ncomfort to people, the other teaches them.\u201d\n\nYesterday Tolstoi criticized the scientists (he mentioned Mechnikov)\nfor their denial and misunderstanding of a religious conception of the\nworld.\n\nSome one mentioned the new Russian University in Paris.\n\nTolstoi is sceptical about it and said:\n\n\u201cSome seventy young women come and listen to the professors who teach\nthem.\u201d\n\nMme. Stakhovich said something about the harm that is done to the girl\nstudents, but Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cWell, they are bad enough already without that.\u201d\n\n\n_July 28th._ The other day we walked in the woods. Tolstoi sat down on\nhis camp stool, which was given him by N. He sighed and said:\n\n\u201cYes, poor fellow!\u201d\n\nThen he turned to Marie Lvovna and asked:\n\n\u201cMasha, who\u2019s the poor fellow?\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not know, papa.\u201d\n\n\u201cBuddha. N. bespattered Socrates, and now he is going to do the same to\nBuddha.\u201d\n\nYesterday Tolstoi was showing us a portrait group of the Tolstoi\nbrothers, and, pointing to his brother Nicolay, said:\n\n\u201cHe was my beloved brother. He was the man of whom Turgenev justly said\nthat he had not a single one of the faults which one must have in order\nto be a writer. And I, although it is wrong of me, must say of my son\nLeo, that he, on the contrary, has all these faults, but none of the\ngifts, which are needed for a writer.\u201d\n\nIlya Lvovich said to Mme. Stakhovich that a writer must himself\nexperience everything in order to tell it to others.\n\nTolstoi replied:\n\n\u201cMere technique is sometimes enough to describe what he has\nexperienced. A real writer, as Goethe justly observed, must be able to\ndescribe everything. And I must say that, although I am not very fond\nof Goethe, he could do it.\u201d\n\nTo-day Tolstoi was enthusiastic about Mozart\u2019s operas, particularly\nabout _Don Juan_. Together with the extraordinary richness of its\nmelody, he rates very high its power to give in music the reflection\nof characters and situations. Tolstoi recalled the statue of the\ncommander, the village scene, and especially the duel.\n\nHe said:\n\n\u201cI hear there a presentiment, as it were, of the tragic _d\u00e9nouement_,\ntogether with the excitement and even the romance of the duel.\u201d ...\n\nThen Tolstoi turned the conversation to the importance and province of\nform in art:\n\n\u201cI think that every great artist necessarily creates his own form also.\nIf the content of works of art can be infinitely varied, so also can\ntheir form. Once Turgenev and I came back from the theatre in Paris and\ndiscussed this. He completely agreed with me. We recalled all that is\nbest in Russian literature and it seemed that in these works the form\nwas perfectly original. Omitting Pushkin, let us take Gogol\u2019s _Dead\nSouls_. What is it? Neither a novel nor a story. It is a something\nperfectly original. Then there is the _Memoirs of a Sportsman_, the\nbest book Turgenev ever wrote; then Dostoevsky\u2019s _House of the Dead_,\nand then, sinner that I am, my _Childhood_; Hertzen\u2019s _Past and\nThoughts_; Lermontov\u2019s _Hero of our Time_....\u201d\n\n\n_August 1st._ Tolstoi talked with Marie Alexandrovna Schmidt in my\npresence about a certain Khokhlov who went mad.\n\nTolstoi told me his story briefly, and then said:\n\n\u201cWhat a riddle insanity is! What is he--alive or dead?\u201d\n\nI said that insanity is not a greater riddle than sanity. The mystery\nis how the personality which lives in me manifests itself through the\nbrain. But if I admit that the first cause is not in my brain, but\noutside it, and the brain is only a means by which my personality is\nshown, then it is for me no _fresh_ mystery that that personality of\nmine cannot be manifested when the machine of the brain is disordered.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cYes, it is all a mystery! Let us take a child. When it is born, has\nit conscious life? When does consciousness begin in a child? And what\nis it when it moves in its mother\u2019s womb? To me life is a ceaseless\nliberation of the \u2018I\u2019 of the spirit. Recently N. N. came to me and\nasked me whether I believe in a future life? But to me there is a\ncontradiction contained in the question. What does \u2018future life\u2019 mean?\nOne may believe in life, but for eternal life our conception \u2018future\u2019\nis quite inapplicable.\n\n\u201cBut if we speak of life as we can realize it, as life _after_ our\npresent life, then it seems to me that it can be conceived only in\ntwo possible forms: either as a fusion with the eternal spiritual\nprinciple, with God, or as a continuation, in a different form, of the\nsame process of liberation of the spiritual \u2018I\u2019 from what is called\nmatter.\n\n\u201cIt may be accidental, but it is remarkable that Christ said to the\nPharisees: \u2018Before Abraham was, I am.\u2019\u201d\n\n\nI came into the dining-room while Tolstoi was talking with K. A.\nMikhailov about art:\n\n\u201cAmong the sensations experienced by our senses of touch, sight,\nhearing, etc., there are some which are unpleasant and painful--for\ninstance, a violent knock, a deafening noise, a bitter taste, etc. Now\nmodern art often works upon us not so much by means of its content, as\nby irritating our organs of sensation, painfully. As regards taste,\nan unhealthy taste needs mustard, whilst it produces an unpleasant\nimpression upon a pure taste. So it is in the arts. It is necessary to\ndraw a dividing line and to find where that artistic mustard begins,\nand I think it is a problem of enormous importance. In painting, it\nseems to me, it is particularly difficult to draw that line.\u201d\n\n\nTolstoi said to Count Yashvil:\n\n\u201cI have been learning all my life and do not cease to learn, and this\nis what I have noticed: learning is only fruitful when it corresponds\nto one\u2019s needs. Otherwise it is useless. I remember I was a Justice of\nthe Peace; I used to take the laws and tried to study them, but I could\nnot fix anything in my mind. But whenever for some particular case, I\nneeded certain legal knowledge, I always kept it in my mind and could\nuse it in practice.\u201d\n\nThe conversation turned on our government. Count Yashvil began giving\ninstances to prove how bad it is in Europe.\n\nTo this Tolstoi replied even with some irritation:\n\n\u201cWhat right have we to condemn anything in the West, when we are still\nso far behind them? Our government is so abominable that we have no\nright at all to condemn any one. We are without the possibility of\nsatisfying the most elementary needs of every man: to read, write,\nthink what and how one wishes.\u201d\n\nTolstoi was now writing _Hadji-Murat_, and he said:\n\n\u201cI remember how a long time ago some one gave me a travelling\ncandlestick for a present. When I showed the candlestick to our Yasnaya\nPolyana carpenter, he looked at it, looked again, and then sighed and\nsaid: \u2018It is crude stuff!\u2019 The same applies to my present work: it is\ncrude stuff!\u201d\n\n\n_Yasnaya Polyana, August 30th._ I have been here now for three days.\nTolstoi talked with Ilya Lvovich and some one else about farming and\nabout the new machine called \u201cThe Planet.\u201d\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cIt is surprising how few technical inventions and improvements have\nbeen made in agriculture, compared with what has been done in industry.\u201d\n\nAfterwards Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cRuskin says how much more valuable human lives are than any\nimprovements and mechanical progress.\u201d\n\nThen Tolstoi added:\n\n\u201cIt is difficult to argue with Ruskin: he by himself has more\nunderstanding than the whole House of Commons.\u201d\n\n\nTolstoi went for a walk, and I fetched him his overcoat. I met him on\nthe road. We walked home together and walked through the fields.\n\nTolstoi looked at the bad harvest and said:\n\n\u201cMy farmer\u2019s eye is exasperated: God alone knows how they sowed!\u201d\n\nWhen we reached the boundary of the Yasnaya Polyana forest, we heard\nthe loud voices of children, and soon we saw a motley crowd of village\nboys discussing something. They noticed Tolstoi and began urging one\nanother to go up to him--then they felt shy and hid themselves. Tolstoi\nbecame interested in them and beckoned to them. They began to approach,\nat first timidly and one by one, but gradually all came together.\nI particularly remember one of them dressed in grey calico striped\ntrousers, in a ragged cap and shirt, with huge heavy boots, probably\nbelonging to his father.\n\nTolstoi showed them his camp stool, which was a great success. He asked\nthem what they were doing there. It appeared they had been picking\npears and the watchman ran after them. Tolstoi walked with them. On the\nway he enquired about their parents. One boy turned out to be the son\nof Taras Fokanich.\n\nTolstoi said to me:\n\n\u201cHe was one of my very best pupils. What a happy time that was! How\nI loved that work! And, above all, there was nobody in my way. Now\nmy fame is always in my way: whatever I do, it is all talked about.\nBut at that time nobody knew or interfered, neither strangers nor my\nfamily--though, there was no family then.\u201d\n\nWhen we reached the spot Tolstoi told the children to gather the pears.\nThey climbed the trees, some knocking down the pears, others shaking\nthem down, others again picking them up. There was a hubbub, a happy\nnoise of children; and the figure of the good old Tolstoi lovingly\nprotecting the children from the attack of the watchman moved one to\ntears. Then two or three peasants came to ask his advice on some legal\npoint.\n\n\nTolstoi, Nikitin, and I talked of Dostoevsky.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cCertain characters of his are, if you like, decadent, but how\nsignificant it all is!\u201d\n\nTolstoi mentioned Kirilov in _The Possessed_, and said:\n\n\u201cDostoevsky was seeking for a belief, and, when he described profoundly\nsceptical characters, he described his own unbelief.\u201d\n\nOf Dostoevsky\u2019s attitude to \u201cLiberalism\u201d Tolstoi observed:\n\n\u201cDostoevsky, who suffered in person from the Government, was revolted\nby the banality of Liberalism.\u201d\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cDuring the sixty years of my conscious life a great change has\ncome over us in Russia--I am speaking of the so-called educated\nsociety--with regard to religious questions: religious convictions were\ndifferentiated; it is a bad word, but I don\u2019t know how to express it\ndifferently. In my youth there were three, or rather four, categories\ninto which society in this respect could be divided. The first was a\nvery small group of very religious people, who had been freemasons\npreviously, or sometimes monks. The second, about 70 per cent of the\nwhole, consisted of people who from habit observed church rituals,\nbut in their souls were perfectly indifferent to religious problems.\nThe third group consisted of unbelievers who observed the conventions\nin cases of necessity; and, finally, there were the Voltairians,\nunbelievers who openly and courageously expressed their unbelief. The\nlatter were few in number--about 2 or 3 per cent. Now one has no idea\nwhom one is going to meet. One finds the most contrary convictions\nexisting side by side. Recently there have appeared the latest\ndecadents of orthodoxy, the orthodox churchmen like Merezhkovsky and\nRosanov.\n\n\u201cMany people were attracted to orthodoxy through Khomyakov\u2019s definition\nof the Orthodox Church, as a congregation of people united by love.\nWhat could be better than that? But the point is that it is merely\nthe arbitrary substitution of one conception for another. Why is the\nOrthodox Church such a congregation of love-united people? It is the\ncontrary rather.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n1903\n\n\n_March 21st._ Last week I went for a day to Yasnaya Polyana. I found\nTolstoi well and cheerful.\n\nTolstoi is always much interested in the question of man\u2019s spiritual\nstate during sleep.\n\nHe told me this time:\n\n\u201cIn a dream one cries, or is happy or excited, and, when one wakes up\nand remembers the dream, one does not understand what made one cry or\nbe happy or excited. I explain it to myself in this way: Apart from\nthe happiness, excitement, or bitterness which are caused by definite\nevents, there are also states of happiness, excitement, ecstasy, and\ngrief. In such states an insignificant event is often sufficient\nto throw us into ecstasy, excitement, etc. In a dream, when one\u2019s\nconsciousness does not act so consistently and logically, this state is\nexpressed by the corresponding sensation which has often no external\ncause. For instance, in a dream one often feels utterly ashamed, and\nwhen one wakes up and sees that one\u2019s trousers are quietly hanging over\na chair, one feels an extraordinary joy. That is why I so much love\n\u2018Popov\u2019s Dream.\u2019[2] It gives a wonderful account of that sensation of\nshame in a dream, and, besides, all the characters are magnificently\ndescribed. In spite of its comic nature, it is a real work of art.\u201d\n\n\n_June 1st._ I returned from Yasnaya Polyana, where I spent a day.\nTolstoi is planning a work of a philosophical nature, which he is\ngreatly excited about at present. Speaking of it, Tolstoi said to me:\n\n\u201cEverything in the world is alive. Everything that seems to us dead\nseems so only because it is either too large or, on the contrary, too\nsmall. We do not see microbes, and heavenly bodies seem dead to us, for\nthe same reason that we seem dead to an ant. The earth is undoubtedly\nalive, and a stone on the earth is the same as a nail on a finger. The\nmaterialists make matter the basis of life. All these theories of the\norigin of species, of protoplasm, of atoms, are all of value in so far\nas they help us to know the laws governing the visible world. But it\nmust not be forgotten that all these, including ether, are working\nhypotheses, and nothing else. Astronomers in their calculations assume\nthat the earth is a motionless body, and only afterwards correct the\nmistake. Materialists too make false premises, but they do not observe\nthe fact that this is so, but let them pass as basic truths.\n\n\u201cTrue life exists where the living being is conscious of itself as an\nindivisible \u2018I,\u2019 in whom all impressions, feelings, etc., become one.\nSo long as the \u2018I\u2019 struggles, as nearly the whole animal world does,\nmerely to crush the other creatures known to him, in order to attain\nhis own temporary advantage, true spiritual life which is without time\nand space remains unexpressed and imprisoned. True spiritual life is\nliberated when a man neither rejoices in his own happiness, nor suffers\nfrom his own suffering, but suffers and rejoices with the worries and\npleasures of others and is fused with them into a common life.\n\n\u201cOf the life to come, although of course the words \u2018to come\u2019 are\ninappropriate here, of life beyond our physical being, it is impossible\nto have knowledge. We can imagine two forms only: either a new form of\nthe individual life, or a fusion of personal life in the life of the\nwhole. The former seems to us more comprehensible and more likely,\nsince we only know our individual life and we can more easily accept\nthe idea of the same life in a different form.\u201d\n\n\n_July 14th._ In the beginning of July my wife and I spent two days in\nYasnaya Polyana.\n\nOn the occasion of Mme. Kolokoltsev\u2019s[3] suicide Tolstoi said to me:\n\u201cI can\u2019t understand why people look upon suicide as a crime. It seems\nto me to be man\u2019s right. It gives a man the chance of dying when he no\nlonger wishes to live. The Stoics thought like that.\u201d\n\nAs Mme. Kolokoltsev was insane, the conversation turned on insanity.\nI said, as I had done previously, that the spiritual life of the\nso-called insane remains unchanged. All that happens is that a mad\nperson cannot make his personality felt. Tolstoi agreed with me.\n\nNext day he said to me:\n\n\u201cYesterday\u2019s conversation on insanity was of great interest to\nme. I have been thinking a great deal about it. There are two\nconsciousnesses in us: one--the animal; the other--the spiritual. The\nspiritual is not always shown in us, but it is this that makes our true\nspiritual life, which is not subject to time. I do not know how it is\nwith you who are comparatively young, but with me there are times in\nmy long life which are clearly preserved in my memory, and other times\nwhich have completely disappeared, they no longer exist. The moments\nwhich remain are most frequently the moments when the spirit in me\nawoke. It often happens at a time when one has done something wrong,\nand suddenly one wakes up, realizes that it is bad, and feels the\nspirit in one with special force. Spiritual life is a recollection.\nA recollection is not the past, it is always the present. It is our\nspirit, which shows itself more or less clearly, that contains the\nprogress of man\u2019s temporary existence. There can be no progress for the\nspirit, for it is not in time. What the life in time is for, we do not\nknow; it is only a transitory phenomenon. Speaking metaphorically, I\nsee this manifestation of the spirit in us as the breathing of God.\n\n\u201cThere is a beautiful story about the unreality of time in _The Arabian\nNights_. Some one was put into a bath; he dipped his head in the water\nand saw a long history with most complicated adventures; and then\nwhen he raised his head from the water, it turned out that he had only\ndipped his head in once!\u201d\n\n\nTolstoi was talking about Fedorov and Peterson, particularly about\nFedorov:\n\n\u201cThey belonged to the sect which believes in the resurrection of the\ndead here on earth. Their idea is that people must try to resurrect\nall those who have died in the past. They believe that by hard work\nfor centuries mankind will achieve it. For this purpose one must study\nall things of antiquity and restore them. Fedorov was librarian to the\nRumyantsev Museum and was a passionate collector of all old things:\nportraits, objects, etc. Mankind must cease to multiply and everything\nwill be resurrected. That is their ideal. It turns out that Vladimir\nSolovev and Dostoevsky to some extent--there is a letter to this\neffect--believed in this idea.\n\n\u201cFedorov, I think, is still alive. He must be over eighty. All his\nlife he has lived as an ascetic. When I once visited him in the spring\nand saw his thin overcoat, I asked him: \u2018Do you wear a thin overcoat\nalready?\u2019 and he replied: \u2018Christ said, if you have two cloaks, give\nthem to him who has none, and I have two overcoats.\u2019 And after that he\nalways wore only a thin coat. He received a very small salary, ate\nvery, very little, slept almost on the bare boards, helped the poor,\nand denied himself everything. He wrote a great deal, but his works\nremain in manuscript: his disciples have no money to publish them, and\nno publisher can be found to publish them.\u201d\n\nThere was a plague of poisonous flies at Yasnaya Polyana this summer\nwhich made one\u2019s face swell when they bit one.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cOnce, when I was younger, I wanted to write a story about a young\nman who stayed in the summer at a friend\u2019s house where there was a\nyoung girl. The very first day they fell in love and raved about each\nother. At night, when he was asleep, a fly bit his lip, and half his\nface swelled up. His lip and cheek were swollen, and his face looked\nidiotic. When the girl saw him in the morning their love at once came\nto an end. There were no more illusions: she noticed a number of faults\nin him which she had not noticed at all the day before.\u201d\n\n\nThe conversation was about Father Gregory Petrov.[4]\n\nTolstoi said of him:\n\n\u201cAs was the case with Ambrosii of the Optino Monastery, he is becoming\nthe slave of his popularity. Generally speaking, fame, popularity, is\na dangerous thing. It is also harmful because it prevents one from\nlooking upon people simply, in a Christian way. Now, for instance, I\nfind Gorky very pleasant as a man, and yet I can\u2019t behave to him with\nperfect sincerity. His popularity prevents me from doing so. It is\nas if he were not in his right place. To him, too, his popularity is\ndangerous. His long novels are worse than his short stories, his plays\nare worse than his novels, and his addresses to the public are simply\nrevolting.\n\n\u201cYet as some one said: if my work is abused by every one, it means\nthat there is something in it. If all praise it, it means that it is\nbad; but if some praise it very much, and others dislike it very much,\nthen it is first-rate. According to this theory Gorky\u2019s works are\nfirst-rate. Well, it may be so.\u201d ...\n\nA blind man came to Tolstoi, and Tolstoi was very much interested in\nhim. The blind man was trying to get into a school for the blind, so as\nto complete his education, and Tolstoi wanted to help him. The blind\nman intended to give an account of his life. After lunch we were going\nfor a walk. Tolstoi was talking to the blind man. Then he took him to\nthe kitchen to give him some food, and said good-bye to him.\n\nThe blind man said to him:\n\n\u201cI should like to go on talking to you.\u201d\n\nTolstoi replied:\n\n\u201cLater, perhaps, I will talk to you again.\u201d\n\nWe went for a walk. But before reaching the gate Tolstoi said that he\nhad changed his mind and would return home.\n\nSophie Andreevna observed:\n\n\u201cHe probably regrets having left the blind man.\u201d\n\nAnd it was true. We walked for a long time, and when we got back\nTolstoi was still sitting with the blind man.\n\nTolstoi said to me later:\n\n\u201cThe blind man told me many legends. One of them I never heard before:\n\n\u201c\u2018Once upon a time Christ and Peter the Apostle walked in the country\nand saw an old peasant making a fence out of reeds. Christ asked him:\n\u201cWhy, father, are you making such a weak fence of reeds?\u201d and the\npeasant replied: \u201cI am old, it will last my lifetime.\u201d After that God\nsaw to it that people should not know their age.\u2019 He also told me\nanother legend, which I had heard before but in a different version:\n\n\u201c\u2018A just old man once lived in the woods. And people came to him and\nsaid: \u201cWhy do you never go to church?\u201d The old man listened to them and\nwent with them. But while they took a boat to cross the river, the old\nman walked upon the water. They arrived and went into the church, but\ninside the church the devils stretched a skin on the floor and wrote\ndown the names of the sinners on it. The old man looked and looked at\nthis, then called the devils bad names, and they wrote his name down.\nOn returning home he was unable to walk upon the water, but had to take\nthe boat.\u2019\u201d\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cIt is time for me to die, and I have a whole mass of subjects, and\neven a new one to-day. I have a whole long list of them.\u201d ...\n\nTolstoi is going to expound in an artistic form Buddha\u2019s teaching, \u201cTa\nTwam Asi,\u201d the meaning of which is that in every man and his actions\none can always recognize oneself.\n\n\nTolstoi recalled the following:\n\n\u201cWhen I was taken for the first time to a box in the Grand Theatre as a\nyoung child I saw nothing: I did not know that it was necessary to look\nat the stage sideways, and I looked straight in front of me at the\nopposite boxes.\u201d\n\n\n_August 12th._ I spent the 7th and 8th in Yasnaya Polyana.\n\nM. S. Sukhotin was talking about Count Bludov. Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cHis was a very interesting house where authors and the most\ninteresting men of their time used to meet. I remember that I read\nthere for the first time my _Two Hussars_. Bludov was once intimate\nwith the Decembrists and sympathized in his soul with every progressive\nmovement. And he kept on serving under Nicolas I.\u201d\n\nMikhail Sergeevich Sukhotin asked whether Bludov was a Russian, and why\nwas he a Count?\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cThe Bludovs were a purely Russian family, to whom the title of Count\nwas granted. I remember, when I gathered the peasants to read to them\nthe Ukase of their liberation, at the bottom were the names of the\nsignatories and it finished with the words: Countersigned by Count\nBludov. An elderly peasant, Eremey, shook his head all the while and\nsaid: \u2018That Blud, he must be a brainy fellow!\u2019 Evidently he took it to\nmean that Bludov was at the head of the whole affair.\u201d\n\nThe conversation was about medicine. Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cMedicine cannot possibly be called an \u2018experimental\u2019 science, for in\nmedicine experiment in the strict sense is impossible. With experiments\nin chemistry a repetition of the more or less same conditions is\npossible, and so there can be approximately an exact conclusion as to\nthe results. But in medicine there is no exact experiment nor can there\nbe, for it is never possible to repeat the conditions that existed\npreviously; if only because the individuality of the patient changes,\nand nearly, if not quite, everything changes in sympathy with that.\u201d\n\n\nTolstoi related this episode from his childhood:\n\n\u201cWe had a distant relation--an old woman Yakovlev. She lived in her own\nhouse in the Staro-Konyushenna Street in Moscow. She was a great miser,\nand, when she went to the country in the summer, she sent her children\nahead in the luggage van. Once, when I was quite a small child, old\nYakovlev came to pay us a visit. She sat with the grown-up people, and\nmy brother Nikolenka got a box, put dolls into it, and began dragging\nit across the rooms. When he dragged it into the room where old\nYakovlev sat, she asked him: \u2018Nicolas, what have you got there?\u2019 and he\nreplied, \u2018It is old Yakovlev going into the country, and her children\nare being sent ahead in the luggage van.\u2019\u201d ...\n\n\nDuring the two days (the 6th and 7th August) of my stay in Yasnaya,\nTolstoi wrote a perfectly new and very powerful story called _Father\nand Daughter_,[5] which, he said, \u201cwill stay as it is for the time\nbeing.\u201d Tolstoi himself seems to be very well pleased with the story,\nand he thinks he may not have to alter it.\n\nTolstoi recalled the folk-story of \u201cVanka Kliushnik,\u201d who asked before\nhis execution to be allowed to sing a song; and Tolstoi was in raptures\nover the beauty of it.\n\n\nTolstoi is much amused because he is riding a young horse and training\nit. He is a great connoisseur of horses; he loves them and is a perfect\nhorseman. He trains his horse to various paces. He showed me and Ilya\nVasilevich how the horse started to gallop with the right leg. At the\nbeginning of the ride I asked Tolstoi how to train a horse to start\nwith this or that leg. Tolstoi explained to me how it was done, and\nthen observed:\n\n\u201cOnce a horse leads off with a certain leg, it wants to start with the\nsame leg next time. In a man\u2019s life, too, custom plays an enormous\npart. Once a certain habit is formed, a man unconsciously tries to act\nin accordance with it. It is very seldom that people act in accordance\nwith reason, and only very remarkable people do so; usually people\nlive and act by habit. How otherwise could it be possible that moral\ntruths, announced so long ago by the great thinkers and admitted by\nmost people, so rarely guide their actions? Very few people overcome\nthe habits of animal life and oppose them by the convictions of reason.\u201d\n\nWhen later we drove past a beautiful wood Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cOnce upon a time this forest belonged to Dolin-Ivansky. He was about\nto sell it and I wanted to buy it, but for some reason I bargained,\nalthough the price was reasonable. We did not settle the business. When\nI came home and thought it over, I saw that the price was reasonable\nand the forest good, and I sent the steward to say that I was ready to\nbuy it. But when the steward arrived, the forest was already sold. For\na long time afterwards I could not remember without annoyance that I\nhad let that forest slip through my hands.\u201d\n\nThen we drove by the forest called \u201cLimonov Woods.\u201d It is a young\nforest planted by Tolstoi. He had not been there for a long time and\nwas surprised to see how everything had flourished and grown up.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cYes, it is a queer sense, that of ownership: here, too, one finds\nthe same habit. When one analyses it in one\u2019s own mind, the feeling\ndisappears; but instinctively one always sees in oneself a particular\ninterest in what was or is one\u2019s property, although one considers\nownership harmful and unnecessary.\u201d\n\nSpeaking later of the present political events Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cThe same is true also with regard to patriotism: unconsciously one\u2019s\nsympathies are on the side of Russia and her fortunes, and one catches\noneself at it. But it is clear that with these internal and foreign\ntroubles one fine day all of a sudden Russia may fall to pieces. As\nthe saying goes: _sic transit gloria mundi_. Now it is an enormous and\npowerful state, and suddenly everything may go to pieces!\u201d\n\nTolstoi drew my attention to the fact that the road was beautifully lit\nup by the rays of the sun coming through the branches of the trees. He\nrecalled that Turgenev in _Virgin Soil_ has described how Sipyagin met\nMariana and Nezhdanov lit up by such rays. He asked me if I remembered\nthe passage. I did not remember it and said:\n\n\u201cHow do you remember it, Tolstoi?\u201d\n\nTolstoi laughed and said:\n\n\u201cBut you remember in your music, and so we writers remember things in\nour art.\u201d\n\nTolstoi said about _Virgin Soil_ that he did not share the general\nindifference towards that novel and considered it very successful.\nAmong other things, he thought the new type of Sipyagin successful and\nobserved at the right time.\n\nOn this occasion Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cBut for the most part I object to the trick of guessing at modern\ntypes and phenomena. The other day the painter K. was here. I told him\na great deal about his work which must be unpleasant to him. He is\nalways occupied with these modern themes. I said to him that one ought\nnever to paint what is talked about in the newspapers. Besides, he\nsimply can\u2019t make a picture intelligible, clear. In his works you can\u2019t\nmake out what he wants to represent. How inferior he is to Orlov[6] in\nthis respect!\u201d\n\nI. V. Denisenko read aloud the chapters about Nicolas from\n_Hadji-Murat_.\n\nTolstoi sat in his room, but he wanted to come where we were all\nsitting.\n\nHe came in several times and said:\n\n\u201cIt is not interesting; let it be!\u201d\n\nAt last he even said with irritation:\n\n\u201cIt is rubbish!\u201d\n\nThen M. S. Sukhotin asked him:\n\n\u201cWhy did you write it, then, Leo Nickolaevich?\u201d\n\nTolstoi replied:\n\n\u201cBut it is not finished yet. You came into my kitchen, and no wonder it\nstinks with the smell of cooking.\u201d\n\nTolstoi explained why he had made up his mind never to write to the\npapers to deny what was said about him.\n\n\u201cWhen I stayed with Turgenev in Petersburg, Mefodii Katkov[7] arrived\nfrom Moscow, and, on behalf of his brother, asked Turgenev and myself\nto let him have something for his _Russkii Vestnik_. I promised\nnothing, but Turgenev with his characteristic kindness said, rather\nvaguely, that he might perhaps let him have something.\n\n\u201cSoon after this a group of writers in Petersburg, Nekrasov, Turgenev,\nmyself, Panaev, Druzhinin, Grigorovich, formed ourselves into a group\nand decided to publish only in the _Sovremennik_. When Katkov heard\nthis, he accused Turgenev in print of breaking his promise. Then I\nwrote a letter to Katkov, and asked him to publish it, in which I, as\na witness, refuted Katkov\u2019s statement and proved that Turgenev had not\npromised Katkov anything.\n\n\u201cAt first Katkov did not publish the letter; afterwards he published\nit, but in such a mutilated form that it quite changed its character.\nAfter that I made a vow to myself that I would never make any reply to\nattacks in the Press.\u201d\n\nThe talk turned on our Government.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cDo you know, Peter Alexeevich, I want to found a society whose members\nwould bind themselves not to abuse the Government.\u201d\n\nSergeenko and others replied that, although it was true that people\nmade too much of that subject, still, when the Government prevented\npeople from living freely or breathing freely, it was difficult not to\ncriticize it.\n\nTo this Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cIt is only necessary to remember that the Government, however strong\nand cruel it may be, can never prevent the real, spiritual life of man,\nwhich alone is of importance. And why wonder that the Government is\ncruel and wicked? So it must be. Mosquitoes bite, worms devour leaves,\npigs grout in manure--all this suits them and it is not worth while\nto be indignant about it. I remember many years ago--my sons are now\ntall, bearded men, but they were then children--I once came into the\ndining-room downstairs in the Khamovniki house and saw that a ray\nof the sun fell across the whole room through the windows and made\na bright spot on the sideboard which stood by the wall opposite the\nwindow. The ventilator was not tight shut and was moved by the wind,\nand as it moved the bright spot slid over the sideboard. I went in,\nshowed the children the bright spot, and cried out: \u2018Catch it!\u2019 They\nall threw themselves on to the bright spot to catch it, but it raced,\nand it was difficult to catch it. But if one of the children succeeded\nin putting his hand on it, the bright spot showed on the top of his\nhand. That is like the spiritual nature of man: however you hide it,\nhowever much you try to suppress it or extinguish it, it will always\nremain the same and unchanged.\u201d\n\nAbout writing Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cIf you ask some one: \u2018Can you play the violin?\u2019 and he says: \u2018I don\u2019t\nknow, I have not tried, perhaps I can,\u2019 you laugh at him. Whereas\nabout writing, people always say: \u2018I don\u2019t know, I have not tried,\u2019 as\nthough one had only to try and one would become a writer.\u201d\n\n\nTolstoi said about Jews:\n\n\u201cThere are three kinds of Jews. Some are believers, religious,\nrespecting their religion and strictly following its teaching. Others\nare cosmopolitan, standing on the highest step of consciousness; and\nfinally a third kind, the middle kind, almost the biggest class, at\nany rate of educated Jews, are even ashamed of being Jews or hide the\nfact, and at the same time they are hostile to other races; but it is\nas if they hid their hostility behind the skirts of their overcoats.\nAs my sympathies are with the first two classes, so the third is\nunsympathetic to me.\u201d\n\n\nThe conversation was about religion. Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cRousseau expressed a perfectly true idea that the Jewish religion\nadmitted one revelation--the past; the Christian religion two--the\npast and present; and the Muhammadan three--the past, the present, and\nthe future. Historically it is undoubtedly a progressive movement.\nChristianity is higher than Judaism, which is no longer alive. It is\nall in the past; and Muhammadanism is higher than Christianity: it has\nnot the superstitions, the idolatry. To me personally Christianity, to\nbe sure, is above all religions, but I speak about Christianity, not as\nthe highest religious moral teaching, but as a historical fact. And as\nthere is ever much in common between the opposite poles, so there is\nhere; both Judaism and Muhammadanism keep strictly to monotheism, and\nthere is no intoxication in either; but in the historical Christianity\nof the churches there is polytheism, as well as all kinds of ignorance\nand cruelty. Everything is justified and even encouraged.\u201d\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[2] A comic poem by Count Alexey K. Tolstoi.\n\n[3] Mme. Kolokoltsev was the wife of the landowner N. A. Kolokoltsev.\nShe suffered from nervous disorder and made several attempts at\nsuicide. In spite of constant observation, she managed one night to\nmake the blanket on the bed into a figure, and thus deceived her\nhusband. She went into his study, opened the drawer of his table with\na skeleton key, took out his revolver and shot herself. She was an\nelderly woman, the mother of two grown-up daughters.\n\n[4] G. S. Petrov, a publicist and politician who started his career as\na preacher of the Church and then resigned his priesthood.\n\n[5] Called in its final version, _After the Ball_.\n\n[6] N. V. Orlov, a painter from the people, of whose pictures Tolstoi\nwas very fond. Reproductions of most of his paintings hang in Tolstoi\u2019s\nroom.\n\n[7] The brother of the well-known editor M. N. Katkov.\n\n\n\n\n1904\n\n\nAt Christmas Alexandra Lvovna made a Christmas tree in the lodge to\nentertain the village children. I do not know who made the choice,\nbut, as there was not enough room, all the children were not admitted.\nTolstoi, myself, and some one else, I don\u2019t remember who, came in\nrather later when the entertainment was at its height. At the door of\nthe lodge stood the children who could not be admitted. When they saw\nus, the mothers of the children began asking Tolstoi to take their\nchildren with him. Tolstoi took two or three inside with him. It was\nbright and hot. Inside the burning candles flamed. It smelt of burnt\nbranches. We soon came out.\n\nTolstoi said with a sigh:\n\n\u201cHow wrong it is! Some are inside and the others are not allowed in.\nWhen our children were small, Sophie Andreevna always had a Christmas\ntree, and the village children came to it. Once they gave us the\nscarlet fever, and after that they were no longer admitted, except a\nfew who were carefully chosen. I remember once there was a Christmas\ntree upstairs. I was lying downstairs on the sofa (where the library\nnow is), and I was terribly ashamed to think of the children crowding\noutside and not being let in. I remember I could not endure it, came\nout, and gave them three roubles, and of course made things still\nworse--they began to dispute and quarrel over the division of it, and\nit was revolting, shameful, and painful!\u201d\n\n\n_June 5th._ Yasnaya Polyana.\n\nOn the day of our arrival, May 27th, Tolstoi talked at dinner about\nthe Decembrists whom he knew after their return from banishment (he is\nagain studying that period).\n\nHe spoke of Prince Volkonsky:[8]\n\n\u201cHis appearance with his long grey hair was altogether like that of an\nOld Testament prophet. What a pity I spoke so little to him then, when\nI need him so much now! He was a wonderful old man, the flower of the\nPetersburg aristocracy both by birth and by his position at Court. And\nthen in Siberia, after he had already served hard labour, and his wife\nhad something like a salon, he worked with the peasants; all sorts of\ntools for peasants\u2019 work were in his room.\u201d\n\nTolstoi does not believe the story about the affair between Poggio and\nPrincess Volkonsky.\n\nHe said:\n\n\u201cI do not want to believe it: such scandals are so often invented and\npeople\u2019s memory spoilt. Moreover, Poggio loved Volkonsky so much that\nwhen later (Volkonsky\u2019s wife being already dead) he felt the approach\nof death himself, he came to Volkonsky to die there.\u201d\n\nTolstoi went on to say:\n\n\u201cI made Volkonsky\u2019s acquaintance in Florence at Dolgorukov\u2019s, Koko\nDolgorukov, the doctor. At that time it was rare for an aristocrat\nto become a doctor. It was when Nicolas I. limited the number of\nuniversity students to three hundred, and Dolgorukov could not be\nadmitted to any other faculty. He was a wonderfully capable man: he\nwrote poems, was a superb musician, painted pictures. He was married\nto (?). When I visited them for the first time in Florence, this was\nthe scene I found: his wife and the well-known Marquis de Rogan were\nplaying an extraordinary game: they made a mark on the wall and tried,\nby lifting their feet, to touch the mark; each tried to lift his or her\nleg higher and higher.\n\n\u201cThere was also present the very gifted painter Nikitin. He drew\nwonderfully in pencil. I remember he had an album and drew Volkonsky\u2019s\nportrait in it. He also drew mine. I wonder where the album is. If some\ncollector were to get hold of it now!\u201d\n\nThen at dinner Tolstoi told us two anecdotes from his life. The first\nwas how he ate some earth-worms (Tolstoi told it because Alexandra\nLvovna and Ilya Lvovich\u2019s children were going fishing). Tolstoi said he\nwas carrying the worms in one hand, and a loaf of black bread in the\nother. He had finished eating the bread, and, thinking of something\nelse, put the worms in his mouth and began chewing them, and for some\ntime could not think what mess he had put in his mouth.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cI remember the taste of them as if I were eating them now.\u201d\n\nMy wife asked him if it was very unpleasant.\n\n\u201cThe taste of earth; but I don\u2019t advise you to taste it.\u201d\n\nSome one sneezed and Tolstoi told another story.\n\n\u201cI used to sneeze very loudly; once at night I woke and felt I was\ngoing to sneeze immediately, and as Sophie Andreevna was going to have\na baby, I was afraid to frighten her by sneezing. Half asleep I cried\nout: \u2018Sonia, I am going to sneeze!\u2019 Sophie Andreevna of course woke up\nand was frightened, and I instantly fell asleep without having sneezed.\u201d\n\nTolstoi also talked about Belogolovy\u2019s _Reminiscences_.[9] He seemed to\nTolstoi a narrow-minded man. Speaking of the terrible impression made\nby his description of the diseases and deaths of Nekrasov, Turgenev,\nand Saltikov, Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cHow they dreaded death! And then there were those horrible disgusting\ndetails of their illnesses, particularly Nekrasov\u2019s.\u201d\n\nLast winter my wife and I stayed at Yasnaya Polyana, and, when we had\nto leave, Tolstoi was sitting in his room with P. A. Boulanger. We\ncame into the room to say good-bye, and probably they were talking of\nBoulanger\u2019s family affairs.\n\nWe entered just as Tolstoi was saying:\n\n\u201c ... if people only said more often: \u2018Do you remember?\u2019 People should\nmake it a rule that if one person says or does something wrong in the\nheat of a quarrel, or when one is angry, the other should say: \u2018Do you\nremember?\u2019\u201d\n\nTolstoi noticed my wife and me and said:\n\n\u201cNow, you young people, you ought to make that your rule! No one can be\nsuch a friend as one\u2019s wife, a real friend. In marriage it is either\nparadise, or simple hell; there is no \u2018purgatory.\u2019\u201d\n\nBoulanger said that generally it was a case of purgatory.\n\nTolstoi thought for a time and then said with a sigh:\n\n\u201cYes, perhaps, unfortunately.\u201d ...\n\nThat same evening, looking at Andrey Lvovich\u2019s little girl, Sonechka,\nplaying on the floor, Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cFaust speaks of the rare moment of which one can say: \u2018Verweile doch,\ndu bist so sch\u00f6n!\u2019 Now there it is, that moment!\u201d (Tolstoi pointed\nto the little girl.) \u201cThere is a perfectly happy, pure, and innocent\nmoment.\u201d\n\n\n_June 20th._ Some time ago, in May, Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cReligions are usually based on one of these three principles: on\nsentiment, reason, or illusion. Stoicism is an example of the religion\nof reason; Mormonism of illusion; Muhammadanism of sentiment. I have\nlately received many letters from Muhammadans. I had a letter from\nCairo from a representative of the Baptist sect, it is an example of\nthe religion of sentiment. I also had a letter from India, written by\na wonderful and very religious man. He writes that true Muhammadanism\nis a perfectly different thing from what people usually think it to be.\nIndeed, I know some very religious Moslems. And how movingly simple and\nlofty is their worship!\u201d\n\n\nTo-day at sunset we walked in the garden. We talked of Gorky and his\nfeeble \u201cMan.\u201d Tolstoi was saying that to-day on his walk he met on\nthe road (he likes to go out on to the road, and sit down on a little\nstone, a milestone, and to observe or to speak to the passers-by) a man\nwho turned out to be a rather well-educated working-man.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cHis outlook on the world agrees perfectly with Gorky\u2019s so-called\nNietzscheism and the cult of the personality. It is evidently the\nspirit of the time. Nietzsche did not say anything new--his is now a\nvery popular world-conception.\u201d\n\nThen Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cWhen I was a Justice of the Peace, there lived in Krapivna a merchant\ncalled Gurev, who used to say about young people of education: \u2018Well,\nI look at your students--they are all scholars, they know everything,\nonly they have no invention.\u2019 Turgenev, I remember, liked this\nexpression very much.\u201d\n\n\nRecently a party of gypsies camped on the road near Yasnaya Polyana.\nGypsies often roam about Yasnaya Polyana. The party usually stay for\ntwo or three days, and in the evenings the Yasnaya Polyana household\ncomes out to hear the gypsy songs and enjoy their dances.\n\nTolstoi, looking at the gypsies, became a changed man, and\ninvoluntarily began to dance to their tunes, and to cry out again and\nagain approvingly.\n\n\u201cWhat a wonderful people!\u201d\n\nThe old gypsies all know Tolstoi and always enter into conversation\nwith him. Tolstoi from his youngest days loved and knew the gypsies and\ntheir peculiar life.\n\nWhen we left the house, it was drizzling. Soon the rain got worse, and\nwe returned.\n\nAndrey Lvovich said:\n\n\u201cNow we have come to the house, the rain will stop.\u201d\n\nAnd, indeed, on our way home the rain stopped, and we went back to the\ngypsies.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cYes, it is always like that: as soon as you turn to go home the rain\nstops. Something like this happens in Moscow too. When you have to\nfind some one in a large building and ring for the porter, he is never\nthere. But no sooner do you go into the yard to make water than the\nporter is sure to catch you. So I advise you that if you have to find\nsome one, don\u2019t ring for the porter, but do the second thing first.\u201d\n\n\nWhen Andrey Lvovich was made an aide-de-camp, Tolstoi said to him:\n\n\u201cMy only comfort is that you are sure not to kill a single Japanese.\nAn aide-de-camp is always exposed to great danger, but seldom takes\npart in the fighting. I spent a great deal of time on the fourth\nbastion at Sevastopol when I was in the army on the Danube. I was\naide-de-camp, and I believe I had not to fire even once. I remember\nonce on the Danube, near Silistria, we were on our side of the river,\nbut there was also a battery on the other side, and I was sent across\nwith some order. The commander of the battery, Schube, on seeing me,\nthought: \u2018Well, there\u2019s that little Count, I\u2019ll give him a lesson!\u2019\nAnd he took me across the whole line under fire, and with deadly\nslowness on purpose. I passed that test well outwardly, but my\nfeelings were not pleasant. I also remember how one of the highest\nofficers--Kotsebu--visited the bastion in Sevastopol, and some one,\nI think it was Novosilzev, wanted to put him to the test, and began\nsaying perpetually: \u2018Look, Your Excellency, just there at their line,\u2019\nforcing him to put his head out from behind the fortifications. He put\nhis head out once or twice, and then, realizing what was up, he, as the\nsuperior officer, began in his turn to order the other man to look at\nthe firing, and, after teasing him for some time, he said: \u2018Next time I\nadvise you not to doubt the courage of your superiors.\u2019\u201d\n\nTolstoi recalled Lichtenberg\u2019s[10] aphorism to the effect that mankind\nwill finally perish when not a single savage is left.\n\nTolstoi added:\n\n\u201cI first turned to the Japanese, but they have already successfully\nadopted all the bad sides of our culture. The Kaffirs are the only hope\nremaining.\u201d\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cI do not remember during any previous war such depression and\nanxiety as are now in Russia. I think it is a good sign, a proof that\na realization of the evil and uselessness and absurdity of war is\npermeating deeper and deeper the social consciousness; so that perhaps\nthe time is coming when wars will be impossible--nobody will want to go\nto war. Now Lisanka, who always sees the good in things, was telling me\nabout a peasant--a porter, I think--who was called up and, before going\nto the front, took off his cross. That is a truly Christian spirit!\nAlthough he is not able to resist the general will and has to yield to\nit, yet he clearly realizes that it is not God\u2019s doing.\u201d\n\nTolstoi described with horror how a priest marched with his cross in\nhis hand in front of the soldiers.\n\n\n_June 26th._ Last week I reached Yasnaya in the evening. The Sukhotins\nwere there. During tea Misha Sukhotin began to tell Tolstoi that on\ncompleting his studies at the School of Jurisprudence he would like\nto go to Paris to continue his studies; and he began to argue with\nTolstoi. I did not hear the beginning of the argument. I came in when\nTolstoi was saying:\n\n\u201c ... Every man is a perfectly individual being, who has never existed\nbefore and will never happen again. It is just the individuality, the\nsingularity of him, which is valuable; but school tries to efface all\nthis and to make man after its own pattern. The pupils of the Tula\nsecondary school came to me lately and asked what they should do. I\nsaid to them: above all, try to forget everything you have been taught.\u201d\n\nTolstoi thinks the Russian University in Paris perfectly useless and\ngood-for-nothing. He said:\n\n\u201cThe best educational institution that I know is the Kensington Museum\nin London. There is a large public library where many people work, and\nthey have professors of various special subjects. Every one who works,\nif he has a question to ask, gives notice of it, and, when several such\nquestions have accumulated, the professor issues a notice to say that\nhe will lecture on such and such subjects, and those who wish may come\nand hear him. Such an arrangement is most in keeping with the true\nobject of teaching--to answer the questions which arise in the minds\nof the students. But in every other institution, lectures which are of\nno use to the student are read by professors who are for the most part\nentirely without gift. None of these lecturers would dare to publish\ntheir lectures. Goethe said:\n\n\u201c\u2018When I speak it turns out better than when I think; I write better\nthan I speak; and what I publish is better than what I write.\u2019 He\nmeant by this that what a man publishes is usually the cream of his\nthought, the thing he most believes in. Instead of going to Paris to\nattend lectures, go to the public library, and you won\u2019t come out for\ntwenty years, if you really wish to learn. One ought not to talk about\noneself, but I must say this: when I was at the University in Kazan\nI did practically nothing the first year. The second year I began to\nwork. There was a Professor Mayer who took an interest in me and gave\nme, as a subject, to compare the code of Catherine the Great with\nMontesquieu\u2019s _Esprit des lois_. And, I remember, I became infatuated\nwith the work. I went into the country and began to read Montesquieu;\nthis reading opened up endless horizons; I began reading Rousseau, and\nleft the University for the simple reason that I wanted to work; for at\nthe University I should have to occupy myself with subjects that did\nnot interest me and were of no use to me.\u201d\n\nSergey Lvovich asked Tolstoi why he did not go in for his examinations\nat Petersburg University.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cI began to work hard, passed two examinations, was awarded two marks\nof distinction, but then it was spring; it drew me to the country;\nwell, I gave it up and went away.\u201d ... Speaking of the good effects\nupon men of having received no education, Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cI know two musicians who never went to school, and yet they are very\nwell-educated men, who, whatever subject you talk about, know it\nthoroughly,--G. and Sergey Ivanovich Taneev.\u201d\n\n\nI played. Then Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cAnton Rubinstein told me that, if he is moved himself by what he is\nplaying, he ceases to move his audience. This shows that the creation\nof a work of art is only possible when the emotion has settled in the\nartist\u2019s mind.\u201d\n\nI do not remember how the conversation now got upon writing, but\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cUsually when I begin a new book I am very pleased with it myself and\nwork with great interest. But as the book work goes on, I become more\nand more bored, and often in rewriting it I omit things, substitute\nothers, not because the new idea is better, but because I get tired of\nthe old. Often I strike out what is vivid and replace it by something\ndull.\u201d\n\nThe conversation turned upon Hertzen. Tolstoi read aloud extracts from\nhis book (a collection of articles published in the _Kolokol_). Tolstoi\nis extremely fond of Hertzen and values him very highly. He spoke of\nHertzen\u2019s unhappy private life and of the suffering he went through\nwhen the representatives (particularly the younger representatives) of\nthe party with whom he had worked throughout his life deserted him and\nceased to understand him.\n\nTolstoi saw Hertzen in London, when Hertzen lived with Mme.\nTuchkov-Ogarev.\n\nBiryukov asked Tolstoi (for the biography of Tolstoi which he is\nwriting) about his conversation with Hertzen which Mme. Ogarev refers\nto in her _Reminiscences_.\n\nTolstoi said that he remembered a great many of their talks, but not\nthat particular one. And he added:\n\n\u201cPerhaps she merely invented the conversation, as the authors of\nmemoirs and reminiscences so often do.\u201d\n\nOn the whole, Tolstoi has not a high opinion of Mme. Ogarev, although\nhe says he knows her but little.\n\nHe said:\n\n\u201cI received a letter from her in which she, as though to justify\nherself, gives an account of the affair with the peasants which had\nlately taken place on her estate. There were some fields there which\nthe peasants had had the use of from time immemorial. The fields\nbelonged legally to the landowner. A bailiff was engaged, a Pole\ncalled Stanislavski, and he drove the peasants\u2019 cattle from the fields\non to the estate. The peasants collected with thick sticks in their\nhands to free their cattle, determined not to give up the use of the\nfields. They arrived at the Manor and began by demanding their cattle.\nFinally, Stanislavski fired, and killed or wounded, I do not remember\nwhich, some one in the crowd. The crowd became furious and threw\nthemselves on Stanislavski, who tried to save himself by flight, but\nhe was overtaken on a moor and was murdered in a most brutal way. As\na result of the affair, a military court was held and two or three\npeasants were hanged.\u201d\n\nTolstoi had known of this before he got her letter, and was horrified\nat the incredible verdict.\n\nAfterwards Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cLately I got a letter from a lady asking me why, strictly speaking,\nit is a crime to kill. Anyhow man must die sooner or later--is it\nnot all the same? I replied that since every man represents a unique\ntype, which never occurs again, we have and can have no absolute\nknowledge of why he is needed for the life of all. In life everything\nis very carefully arranged, and we do not know the reason why just\nthis individual should be alive, and it is for this reason that the\ndestruction of this unique creature appears so terrible.\u201d\n\nOf being afraid in battle, Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cIt is impossible not to be afraid. Everyone is afraid, but tries to\nconceal it. When wounded have to be carried off the battlefield, so\nmany men volunteer for the work that the officers have to use great\nforce to keep the soldiers back, since every one wants, even for a\ntime, to get out of fire.\u201d\n\nOf himself Tolstoi said that he was never so much afraid as upon the\nnight before the attack on Silistria, which after all did not take\nplace.\n\nThen Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cThe Japanese are less afraid, for they evidently value life much less\nthan Europeans do. The absence of the fear of death goes to extreme\nlengths with some people. For instance, if a Chukcha wants to spite his\nenemy, he comes to his hut and kills himself near it, knowing that his\nenemy will then have much trouble with legal proceedings.\u201d\n\n\n_July 8th._ Tolstoi said with regard to his article about war, \u201cBethink\nYourselves\u201d:\n\n\u201cIt is painful to feel that my words go unheeded. If one is dealing\nwith the so-called men of science who regard war, apart from its moral\nsignificance, as one of the stages in the evolution of human relations,\nthen, at any rate, one knows where one is. But what is one to do and\nhow is one to speak to people who evidently cannot understand my point\nof view? Whatever I say glides off them. They are, as it were, greased\nwith a sort of oil, so that everything runs off them, like water,\nwithout wetting them.\u201d\n\nAfter this Tolstoi said that, when he wrote to Nicolas II. (from the\nCrimea, in the winter of 1901-1902), he was told that Nicolas II. \u201cread\nhis letter with pleasure.\u201d He also recollected Hertzen\u2019s letters to\nAlexander II.\n\nTolstoi wrote to Nicolas II. about the land question.\n\nWith reference to the attitude in Government circles to that question\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cI can\u2019t possibly put myself at their point of view. I remember when\nI was young and an officer I was never bothered by these questions;\nsomehow they did not arise in me. But I cannot imagine that I should\npass by such a problem, if I happened to come across it. I remember two\nsuch cases in my life. One, when Vasili Ivanovich Alexeev,[11] when I\nwas at the height of my career as a landlord, expressed to me for the\nfirst time the idea that the ownership of land is evil. I remember how\nmuch I was struck by the idea, and how at once perfectly new horizons\nopened before me. So it also happened when some one, I don\u2019t remember\nwho it was, I think a Frenchman, told me that prostitution was an\nabnormal thing, and not only useless, but really harmful to mankind.\nSchopenhauer, for instance, says that it is only owing to prostitution\nthat family relations are still preserved in the community. I had not\npreviously thought about it, but, on hearing the Frenchman speak, I at\nonce felt the truth of what he said and could no longer go back. I can\nimagine that one\u2019s thoughts may not tend in a certain direction; one\nmay be ignorant of some point of view. But I cannot understand that\nincapacity and unwillingness to learn.\u201d\n\n\n_July 9th._ Speaking of Lichtenberg\u2019s aphorisms Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cAphorisms are perhaps the best way of expounding philosophical\njudgments. For instance, Schopenhauer\u2019s aphorisms (_Parerga and\nParalipomena_) express his conception of the world much more clearly\nthan _The World as Will and Imagination_. A philosopher, in explaining\na whole complicated system, sometimes involuntarily ceases to be\nhonest. He becomes the slave of his system, for the symmetry of which\nhe is often prepared to sacrifice the truth.\u201d\n\nSpeaking of Lichtenberg\u2019s beautiful German style, Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cEvery literary language reaches its highest point and then begins\nto decline. In the German language that time was at the end of the\neighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century; it was the\nsame with the French language. Now both in Germany and France the\nlanguage has become utterly spoilt. In Russia we are now finding\nourselves on the border-line. The Russian language has quite lately\nreached its apex and now it begins to decay.\u201d\n\nTolstoi praised Chekhov\u2019s language very highly for its simplicity,\ncompactness, and expressiveness. Gorky\u2019s language he disapproves of,\nthinking it artificial and rhetorical.\n\n\nWhen Nicolas II. appeared in many places to bless the troops going to\nthe Japanese war with icons, Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cIf A, the ruler of a huge country, takes a board, B, in his hand and\nkisses it in the presence of crowds of many thousands of kneeling\ntroops and then waves the board over the heads of those who stand in\nfront of him, and does this all over the country, what except trash\ncan come from such a country? This has never happened before. In your\nown room you may do whatever you like. One man likes to wash himself\nwith wine or eau-de-Cologne, another kisses icons if he likes, but such\nidolatry on a large scale in the face of all and such deception of the\ncrowd are simply incredible!\u201d ...\n\nDuring the war Tolstoi always said that in spite of his attitude to\nwar and to patriotism generally, he felt in the depth of his soul an\ninstinctive sorrow at Russian defeats.\n\nI heard him say this in the presence of G., B., and some others. All of\nthem energetically denied in themselves any such instinctive \u201cpatriotic\nbias.\u201d It seems to me that they were simply afraid of admitting it even\nto themselves.\n\n\n_October 22nd._ Mechnikov sent Tolstoi his book (_Studies on the Nature\nof Man_) in French. Tolstoi read it through.\n\nTo-day he said to me:\n\n\u201cI got much interesting information out of the book, for Mechnikov\nis undoubtedly a great scientist. But the self-satisfied narrowness\nwith which he is convinced that he has solved almost all problems that\nagitate man is surprising in him. He is so sure that man\u2019s happiness\nconsists in a state of animal contentment that he calls old age an\nevil (because of its limited capacity of physical enjoyment), and does\nnot even understand that there are men who think and feel precisely\nthe opposite. But I value my old age and would not exchange it for any\nearthly blessings.\u201d\n\nThe conversation turned on the tendency of women to crowd to\nuniversities.\n\nTolstoi said smilingly:\n\n\u201cIf I were a Minister of Education, I should issue a Ukase by which all\nwomen were obliged to enter universities and would be deprived of the\nright to marry and have children. For the infringement of this law the\nguilty would be liable to a heavy fine. Then all of them would be sure\nto marry!\u201d\n\nTolstoi spoke on August 28th with exasperation about writing as a\nprofession. I have rarely seen him so agitated:\n\nHe said:\n\n\u201cOne ought only to write when one leaves a piece of one\u2019s flesh in the\nink-pot each time one dips one\u2019s pen.\u201d\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[8] Prince S. G. Volkonsky (1788-1865), one of the most famous\nDecembrists, and his wife, _n\u00e9e_ Raevsky (1805-1863). Both left\nremarkable memoirs.\n\n[9] N. A. Belogolovy (1834-1895), doctor, author of the well-known\n_Reminiscences_, in which there is a chapter devoted to Tolstoi called\n\u201cA Meeting with L. N. Tolstoi.\u201d\n\n[10] G. C. Lichtenberg (1742-1799), German physicist, critic, and\npublicist.\n\n[11] V. I. Alexeev, at that time tutor of Tolstoi\u2019s son Ilya.\n\n\n\n\n1905\n\n\n_January 5th._ During the Christmas holidays Misha Sukhotin read\nProfessor Korkunov\u2019s book on Russian State Law. Tolstoi took it and\nbegan to read it. He sat nearly the whole evening in his room, and\ncame out in a state of agitation and disturbance saying: \u201cIt gave me\npalpitation of the heart to read that! In this, as in almost all legal\nbooks which deal with \u2018rights\u2019 of different kinds, it talks of anything\nand everything except the truth of the matter. It deals with the\n\u2018subject\u2019 and \u2018object\u2019 of right--I never could make out what precisely\nthose words and others of the same sort mean, nor could I ever get any\none to explain them to me. But whenever the argument approaches the\nreal question, the author immediately swerves aside and hides himself\nbehind his objects and subjects.\u201d\n\nFurther Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cThis is what surprises me; all my life I have striven for knowledge.\nI sought and still seek for it, and the so-called men of science\nsay that I denounce science. All my life I have been occupied with\nreligious questions, and outside of them I see no sense in human life;\nyet the so-called religious men consider me an atheist.\u201d ...\n\nAbout that time, in January, Tolstoi said that he should like to write\na whole series of stories for his \u201cReading Circle\u201d which he is now\nplanning, and that he had already many subjects in mind.\n\n\u201cOnly one minute of life remains, and there\u2019s work for a hundred\nyears,\u201d he said.\n\nWhen later in the evening I played Chopin\u2019s prelude, Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cThose are the kind of short stories one ought to write!\u201d\n\nThere was then an interesting talk about Chekhov\u2019s story, _The\nDarling_, with reference to Gorbunov\u2019s letter dissuading him from\npublishing the story in the \u201cReading Circle.\u201d Tolstoi on the contrary\ndecided to include the story without fail, and expressed his very high\nopinion of it; and in a few days he wrote a preface to _The Darling_ in\nwhich he expressed his feeling for it.\n\nOf Gorbunov\u2019s letter Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cI feel a woman\u2019s influence on him in this. The confused modern idea is\nthat a woman\u2019s capacity to give herself up with all her being to love\nis obsolete and done with; and yet this is the most precious and the\nbest thing in her and her true vocation; and not political meetings,\nscientific courses, revolutions, etc.\u201d\n\nOf Beethoven\u2019s music Tolstoi said that at times he felt a little bored\nby it, as he thought often happens with what has once struck one\ngreatly. He felt the same, for instance, about Ge\u2019s paintings.\n\n\n_June 16th._ In February I made a note of Tolstoi\u2019s words:\n\n\u201cImmortality, incomplete, of course, is certainly realized in our\nchildren. How strongly man desires immortality, is most clearly shown\nby his endeavour to leave some trace after his death. It might seem of\nno importance to a man what is said of him and whether he is remembered\nafter he has gone; and yet what efforts he makes for it!\u201d\n\nTolstoi said of the Molokans that he had no sympathy with their\nreligious formalism. In this respect he draws a parallel between the\nMolokans and the English.\n\nThe son of Vicomte de Vog\u00fc\u00e9 visited Tolstoi in the spring; Tolstoi said\nof him:\n\n\u201cHe is a typical Frenchman in everything--from his trousers to his way\nof thought. His father translated _Three Deaths_ and wrote to me about\nit long ago. It was on my conscience that I did not answer him, and was\nglad to have the opportunity of apologizing to his son.\u201d\n\nTolstoi was surprised by young de Vog\u00fc\u00e9\u2019s saying that his father worked\nat night and smoked a great deal during his work.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cI imagine that a Frenchman must in the morning rub himself red with\neau-de-Cologne, drink his coffee, and sit down quietly to work.\n\n\u201cI always write in the morning. I was pleased to hear lately that\nRousseau too, after he got up in the morning, went for a short walk\nand sat down to work. In the morning one\u2019s head is particularly fresh.\nThe best thoughts most often come in the morning after waking, while\nstill in bed or during the walk. Many writers work at night. Dostoevsky\nalways wrote at night. In a writer there must always be two people--the\nwriter and the critic. And, if one works at night, with a cigarette in\none\u2019s mouth, although the work of creation goes on briskly, the critic\nis for the most part in abeyance, and this is very dangerous.\u201d\n\nTolstoi often says that he cannot find a suitable definition of music.\n\nOnce in the spring he said:\n\n\u201cMusic is the shorthand of emotion. Emotions which let themselves be\ndescribed in words with such difficulty, are directly conveyed to man\nin music, and in that is its power and significance.\u201d\n\nOnce, a long time ago, Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cLife is the present. All that a man has felt remains with him as a\nmemory. We always live by memories. I often feel more strongly not what\nI have actually felt, but what I have written and felt in describing\nmy characters. They too have become my memories, as if they had been\nactual experiences.\u201d\n\nThe other day the talk was on the same lines.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cA so-called misfortune happens; one does not usually feel it, just as\none does not feel a wound at the moment it is inflicted; and it is only\nby degrees that the sorrow grows in strength, having become a memory,\nplaced, that is, not outside me, but already within. Yet, after a long\nlife, I notice that the bad and painful things have not become me; they\nhave somehow passed by; but on the contrary, all the pleasant feelings,\nall the loving relations towards people--my childhood, all that has\nbeen good--rise with particular clearness in my memory.\u201d\n\nTatyana Lvovna said:\n\n\u201cBut how do you explain Pushkin\u2019s poem; \u2018Memory unfolding its long\nscroll,\u2019 and further: \u2018And reading my life with disgust, I tremble and\ncurse\u2019?\u201d\n\nTolstoi replied:\n\n\u201cThat is quite different. To be able to experience and feel all that is\nbad in one with such power--that is a precious and necessary quality.\nHappy and of great importance is the man who can go through it with the\nvigour of Pushkin.\u201d\n\n\n_July 6th._ We went for a walk to the sandpits. During the walk\nGorbunov asked Tolstoi about Alexander Dobrolyubov\u2019s[12] religious and\nphilosophic book. Tolstoi said of the book:\n\n\u201cIt is vague, false, and artificial.\u201d\n\nOn that occasion the talk was about the literary profession.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cIt is surprising how in even a little piece of work one must think it\nover from all points of view before starting it. It does not matter\nwhether you are making a shirt or a move in chess. And if you do not\nthink it out, you at once spoil it all--you won\u2019t make the shirt,\nyou\u2019ll lose the game. It is only in writing that one can do what one\nlikes, and people never notice--indeed one can become a famous writer.\u201d\n\nTolstoi went on to say:\n\n\u201cThe whole business of the writer is to perfect himself. I have always\ntried and try now to make a question which interests me clear to the\nhighest degree that I am capable of making it. The writer\u2019s work\nconsists in that. The most dangerous thing is to be a teacher. I do not\nthink I have tried to be that. Yes, I have.... But always badly.\u201d\n\nI. Gorbunov was saying that the \u201cPosrednik\u201d had the Censor\u2019s permission\nto publish an excellent little book, in which a visit to Sarov is\ndescribed impartially.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cI have no sympathy when such things are described in a joking or\njeering way. There is a great deal of sincere, simple belief there\nwhich should be treated carefully. In some old credulous woman you\nfeel, in spite of the absurd superstition, that the foundation of her\nfaith is a real striving for the highest and for the truth. Her outlook\non the world is much higher than that of a professor who has solved all\nquestions long ago.\u201d\n\nV. G. Kristi who walked with us asked Tolstoi:\n\n\u201cIf such an old woman talked about religion, must one destroy her\nillusions and tell her honestly what one thinks?\u201d\n\nTolstoi replied to him:\n\n\u201cThe question does not exist to me. If I talk about religious\nquestions, I always express my thoughts, if I believe the truth of what\nI say; and if my words are not understood, it is none of my business,\nbut I can say only what I think.\u201d\n\n\nLast year two young men came to Tolstoi, and now they have been again.\nThey are very nice and in search of a better life. They turned out\nto be ballet dancers from the Moscow Grand Theatre. The necessity of\nmaintaining their family prevents them from changing their profession.\nTolstoi praised them highly. Then with a smile he said:\n\n\u201cIf I had children now, I should send them to the ballet. At any rate\nit is better than the university. Their feet alone might be spoilt in\nthe ballet, but at the university it is their heads.\u201d\n\nTolstoi compared marriage to a little boat in which two people sail\nover a stormy ocean.\n\n\u201cEach must sit tight and not make sharp movements or the boat will\nupset.\u201d\n\n\nSpeaking of the present schemes for a constitution in Russia Tolstoi\nsaid:\n\n\u201cThe misfortune is in that the Radicals and their set will only try\nto say something very clever, to play the part of Russian Bebels,\nand the party game will constitute the whole of the activity of the\nrepresentatives of the people.\u201d\n\n\nOf the war Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cThe comforting side of the Russian failure in the war consists in\nthis, that, however much people distort the genuine Christian teaching,\nyet its meaning has already permeated the consciousness of the people\nso deeply that war cannot become to them, as to the Japanese, a sacred\ncause by sacrificing his life to which a man becomes a hero and does a\ngreat deed. The view of war, as an evil, permeates the consciousness of\nthe people, deeper and deeper.\u201d\n\nTolstoi said about the Japanese:\n\n\u201cThe Japanese are perfectly incomprehensible and unknown to me. I see\ntheir wonderful capacity for adapting and even for carrying further the\nsuperficial side of European culture, chiefly in its worse aspects,\nbut the soul of the Japanese is absolutely dark to me. Japan, by\nthe way, proved that the whole of the boasted European civilization\nof a thousand years could be taken over and even surpassed in a few\ndecades.\u201d\n\nThe conversation was about crowd psychology.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cIt is an interesting and still little explored problem. It is a\nhypnotism which has a terrible power over men. There is one moment\nwhen it is still possible to resist it. I am now no longer infected by\nothers\u2019 yawning, because I always remember it. When you see a crowd\nrunning, you have to remember that you do not know why they run, and\nto look back; and immediately you have dissociated yourself from the\ncrowd, you are at once saved from the danger of succumbing to the\nhypnotism.\u201d\n\nWe played chess on the terrace, and in the hall Sophie Nicolaevna sang\nSchubert\u2019s \u201cWanderer.\u201d\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cAh that Schubert! he did a lot of harm!\u201d\n\nI asked how?\n\n\u201cBecause he had in a high degree the power of making music correspond\nto the poetry of the text. This rare power of his has brought to birth\na great deal of music which pretends to correspond to poetry, and that\nis a revolting kind of art.\u201d\n\nThey sang Glinka. Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cNow, sinful man....\u201d The interesting state of the game prevented him\nfrom finishing his sentence.\n\nLater he said:\n\n\u201cI feel that Glinka was coarse, a sensual man. One always feels the man\nhimself in his music. The young Mozart--bright and direct; the simple\nHaydn; the stern, conceited Beethoven--are all heard in their music.\u201d\n\n\nTolstoi is writing an article which is called \u201cThe Beginning of the\nEnd.\u201d\n\nThere was a newspaper correspondent to whom Tolstoi expressed a few of\nthe ideas which made the basis of his article.\n\n\u201cThe present movement in Russia is a world movement, the importance\nof which is still little understood. This movement, like the French\nRevolution formerly, will perhaps give, by means of its ideas, an\nimpetus for hundreds of years to come. The Russian people has in the\nhighest degree the capacity for organization and self-government. They\ngave up their power to the Government and waited, as they formerly did\nfor the liberation of the serfs, for the liberation of the land. They\nhave not been given the land, and they themselves will carry out that\ngreat reform. Our revolutionaries are perfectly ignorant of the people\nand do not understand this movement. They might help it, but they only\nhamper it. In the Russian people, it seems to me, and I think I am not\nbiased, there is more of the Christian spirit than in other peoples.\nProbably the reason is that the Russian people got to know the New\nTestament about five centuries before the people of Europe, who until\nthe Reformation hardly knew it.\u201d\n\n\nTolstoi criticized the complexity and artificiality of modern art in\ngeneral, and of music in particular. He said:\n\n\u201cCertainly, if I love art, I can\u2019t love _no_ art, but I must love that\nwhich exists. Still I have always before me the ideal of the highest\nart: to be clear, simple, and accessible to all.\u201d\n\nI was saying how long and systematically one must teach piano-playing\nin order to be able to play well. Tolstoi found that \u201csystem\u201d dangerous.\n\nHe said:\n\n\u201cIn doing this one may lose the direct fresh feeling with which you\nregard a new work of art. I know it from my own experience--when one\nbegins to write something, one works with excitement and interest, and\nthe work goes well; but then the same old thing begins to tire one and\nit becomes boring. Of course, there is the love of one\u2019s work, and the\nlove is stronger than the boredom, and by love the boredom is overcome,\nbut still boredom there is.\u201d\n\nI spoke about the complexity of certain of Chopin\u2019s works, whom Tolstoi\nloves very much.\n\n\u201cWell, he too makes mistakes,\u201d Tolstoi replied smilingly. \u201cOnce I\nstayed with the Olsufevs in the country, and, referring to the weather\nand the gathering in of the harvest, I said to the old butler there--he\nwas a sceptic and pessimist--that God knows what He does, to which he\nreplied: \u2018He too makes mistakes!\u2019\u201d\n\nOf creative activity Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cThe worst thing of all is to begin a work with the details; then one\ngets muddled and loses the power of seeing the whole. One has to behave\nlike Pokhitonov who has spectacles with double glasses divided in two\n(looking at the distance and at his work), to look now through these\nand now through those and to put on now the bright and now the dark\nglasses.\u201d\n\n\n_July 28th._ Biryukov showed Marie Nikolaevna (Tolstoi\u2019s sister) some\nold letters written by her brother Nikolay in French. Tolstoi recalled\nthen that from childhood he was so much used to writing French that he\nkept the habit until he was quite grown up. When he lived in Paris with\nTurgenev, he once sat down to write a letter to his brother. Turgenev\ncame up and, seeing that he was writing in French, was surprised and\nasked Tolstoi why he did it. Tolstoi said that until that moment it\nseemed to him that it was impossible to do otherwise, so used was he to\nwriting letters in French.\n\nOn account of Biryukov\u2019s visit (he is writing Tolstoi\u2019s biography) and\nthe arrival of his sister Marie Nikolaevna, Tolstoi again turned to\nmemories of the past. He said:\n\n\u201cIt is surprising how all the past becomes _me_. It is in me, like\nsomething folded. But it is difficult to be perfectly sincere.\nSometimes I remember the bad only, another time the opposite. Lately I\nhave remembered only the bad acts and events. It is difficult in this\nto keep the balance, so as not to exaggerate one way or another.\u201d\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cIt is impossible to know anything about God; He is a necessary\nhypothesis or, more truly speaking, the only possible condition of a\nright moral life. As an astronomer must base his observations upon\nthe earth as a motionless centre, so also man cannot live rightly and\nmorally without the idea of God. Christ always speaks of God as of a\nfather, that is, as if He were the condition of our existence.\u201d\n\n\n_August 2nd._ Tolstoi and Marie Nikolaevna were recalling a certain\nVoeikov. He was once a hussar, and then became a monk. When Tolstoi was\nyoung, Voeikov was continually at Yasnaya, permanently drunk, ragged,\nin monk\u2019s clothing, and telling lies unmercifully.\n\nTolstoi remembered a story that Voeikov told:\n\n\u201c\u2018We were once in a box: Mikhail Illarionovich (Kutuzov), Alexander\nPavlovich (Alexander I.), myself, and some one else. Sontag sang. She\ncame out to the front of the stage. Her bosom--oh! (he makes a gesture\nwith his hand showing the size of her bust). Alexander Pavlovich said\nto me: \u201cVoeikov, what is it?\u201d And I said to him: \u201cAn organism, Your\nMajesty!\u201d\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd once, after all his mad ways and lies, he suddenly came up to me\nin the garden and said: \u2018I am tired of life, Levochka!\u2019\u201d\n\nMarie Nikolaevna asked Tolstoi why he had never described Voeikov.\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cThere are some events and people in life, as there are scenes in\nnature, which cannot be described: they are too exceptional and seem to\nbe impossible. Voeikov was like that. Dickens described such types.\u201d\n\n\n_August 3rd._ The conversation turned on Lobachevsky[13] and on his\ntheory that space is of many dimensions. Tolstoi remembers Lobachevsky,\nwho was Professor and Principal of the Kazan University when Tolstoi\nwas an undergraduate there. Then the company began to recall various\nmathematicians, amongst whom there are often queer fellows to be met.\nTolstoi mentioned Prince S. U. Urusov, the Sevastopol hero, who was a\nmathematician and a splendid chess player.\n\nTolstoi said of him:\n\n\u201cHe used to get up at three o\u2019clock in the morning, light his samovar,\nwhich was prepared for him the night before by his orderly, and begin\nhis calculations. Urusov was trying to find a way of solving the\ndifferent forms of equations. Later he went quite mad. Nothing came of\nhis calculations. When, in the belief that he had arrived at a positive\nresult, he decided to read a paper to the Mathematical Society, there\nwas so awkward a silence after his paper was read that all felt\nashamed.\u201d ...\n\nTolstoi went on to say:\n\n\u201cI was always surprised that mathematicians who are so exact in their\nown science are so vague and inexact when they try to philosophize.\u201d\n\nTolstoi also mentioned Professors Nekrasov and B., whom he knew\npersonally. Tolstoi recollected how one evening he visited B.:\n\n\u201cHis wife was an unpleasant woman. That evening she was decollet\u00e9e,\nand, as is always the case on such occasions, one feels something\nsuperfluous, unnecessary--one doesn\u2019t know where to look. Looking at\nher I remembered Turgenev\u2019s story,--how in Paris he always bought\nhimself a loaf in the morning, and the baker\u2019s girl would hand it over\nto him with her bare arm, which was more like a leg than an arm.\u201d\n\n\n_August 20th._ A certain gentleman from Petersburg (I don\u2019t remember\nhis name) now and then sends books to Tolstoi. Recently he sent\nhim the _Sovremennik_ for 1852 in which Tolstoi\u2019s _Childhood_ was\npublished. Tolstoi read the books with great interest and said that\nthe _Sovremennik_ was at that time a very interesting review. Marie\nNikolaevna, who was on a visit to Yasnaya, described how she read\n_Childhood_ for the first time. She lived then with her husband in\nthe country, in the Chernsky district of the Tula province, and\nTurgenev used to come to visit them fairly often. Her brother Sergey\nNikolaevich also lived there. During one visit Turgenev read them the\nMS. of his _Rudin_. Next time he brought a number of the _Sovremennik_\nand said to them:\n\n\u201cThere is a wonderful new writer; a remarkable work by him is published\nhere, _Childhood_\u201d; and he began to read it aloud.\n\nFrom the very first words Marie Nikolaevna and Sergey Nikolaevna were\namazed:\n\n\u201cBut he is describing us! Who is he?\u201d\n\n\u201cAt first we did not think of Levochka,\u201d Marie Nikolaevna went on. \u201cHe\nwas in debt and had been sent to the Caucasus. We were rather inclined\nto think that our brother Nikolay had written _Childhood_.\u201d\n\nIt is said that Turgenev in his _Faust_ described Marie Nikolaevna.\n\nThe conversation turned on Dostoevsky\u2019s hatred of Turgenev. Tolstoi\ngreatly blamed the libel on Turgenev in _The Possessed_. This hatred\nalways surprised Tolstoi, and so did that between Goncharov and\nTurgenev.\n\nTolstoi went on to say:\n\n\u201cNow books are written by people who have nothing to say. You read, but\nyou do not see the writer. They always try to give \u2018the last word.\u2019\nThey reject the real writers and say that they have become obsolete.\nIt is an absurd notion--to become obsolete. Modern books are read\njust because one can get to know \u2018the last word\u2019 from them; and this\nis easier than to read and know the real writers. These purveyors of\n\u2018the last word\u2019 do enormous harm, they make people unused to thinking\nindependently.\u201d\n\nSome one mentioned Kant, and Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cWhat is particularly valuable in Kant is that he always thought for\nhimself. In reading him you deal all the time with _his_ thoughts, and\nthis is extraordinarily valuable.\u201d\n\nAbout reading modern literature Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cI am much more ready to read the memoirs of some old General in the\n_Russkaia Starina_; he romances a little, like Zavalishin, about his\nmerits and successes, but this can be excused, and there is always\nsomething of interest in it.\u201d\n\nTolstoi said further:\n\n\u201cBrain work often tires the head, and when tired, you can\u2019t work as\nfruitfully as with a fresh head. Generally speaking, in brain work the\nmoment is very important. There are moments when your thoughts come out\nas if moulded in bronze; at other moments nothing happens.\u201d\n\n\n_December 31st._ Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cI am always interested to see what can become obsolete in\nliterature. I am curious to know what in modern literature will seem\nold-fashioned, as, for instance, Karamzin\u2019s \u2018Oh soever!\u2019 etc., seems\nto us now. Within my memory it has become impossible to write a long\npoem in verse. It seems to me that in time works of art will cease to\nbe invented. It will be a shame to invent a story about a fictitious\nIvan Ivanovich or Marie Petrovna. Writers, if such there be, will not\ninvent, but will only describe the significant or interesting things\nwhich they have happened to observe in life.\u201d\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[12] A. M. Dobrolyubov (1876), religious seeker. His adherents formed a\n\u201cDobrolyubovian sect\u201d on the basis of Christian anarchy. D. began his\nliterary activity as a poet of the decadent school.\n\n[13] Nikolay Ivanovich Lobachevsky (1793-1856), the great Russian\nmathematician and geometrist (founder of the non-Euclidean geometry).\n\n\n\n\n1906\n\n\n_August 21st._ Speaking about art Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cGreat works of art are for all time. They exist. They must only be\nrevealed, as Michael Angelo said.\u201d\n\nTolstoi was reminded by this saying of Michael Angelo\u2019s of a peasant\nwho without any training cut wonderful figures in wood and said, when\nTolstoi expressed surprise at the art with which he did it:\n\n\u201cIt is inside there. I am only taking off what is not needed.\u201d\n\n\nTolstoi said that Turgenev, in his ecstasy over Pushkin\u2019s description\nof Lensky\u2019s death in Onegin, said that the wonderful rhyme--_ranen,\nstranen_--seemed to be inevitable.\n\nThen Tolstoi recollected certain of Tyutchev\u2019s poems, whom he rates\nvery highly.\n\nI asked him if he knew Tyutchev.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cWhen after the Sevastopol campaign I lived in Petersburg, Tyutchev,\nthen a famous author, did me, a young writer, the honour to call on\nme. And then, I remember, how surprised I was that he, who had all his\nlife mixed in court circles--he was a friend, in the purest sense, of\nthe Empress Marie Alexandrovna--who spoke and wrote French more easily\nthan Russian, picked out for special praise, when he expressed his\nadmiration for my Sevastopol stories, a certain soldiers\u2019 expression;\nand this sensitiveness to the Russian language surprised me in him\nextraordinarily.\u201d\n\n\nThe conversation arose about writers\u2019 fees.\n\nTolstoi turned to P. Biryukov and said:\n\n\u201cI understand fees in the case of a work like your biography (of\nTolstoi), but fees to writers for their artistic work always seemed\nstrange and wrong to me. The man wrote and enjoyed writing, and\nsuddenly for that enjoyment he asks five hundred roubles per printed\nsheet!\u201d ...\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cI became more and more convinced that a sensible man is to be known by\nhis humility. Conceit is incompatible with understanding.\u201d\n\nOf conceit Tolstoi said a long time ago in my presence:\n\n\u201cEvery man can be seen as a fraction, whose numerator is his actual\nqualities, and its denominator his opinion of himself. The greater the\ndenominator the less is the absolute quantity of the fraction.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n1907\n\n\n_September 7th._ Tolstoi went to-day to Mme. Zveginzev to ask the\npolice inspector, who lives on her estate, to release from prison the\nhouse-painter, Ivan Grigorevich; and also to thank her for the peaches\nshe had sent him.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cThere was her daughter, Princess Volkonsky, there. They all wanted to\ndirect me on the path of truth. I tried to speak with all seriousness;\nbut hardly anything could penetrate through their diamonds and luxury.\nThey now employ the stove-maker who used to come to me to borrow\nbooks. And he has been telling them that I said that one should not\nbelieve in God, and various other bits of nonsense. I told them that\nthere was nothing strange in my words being distorted. If even from\nChrist\u2019s teaching people can deduce the rites of the Church, the\nblessing of war, etc., then it is no wonder that our words are always\nmisrepresented and distorted.\n\n\u201cThen they asked me how I explained the fact that in my family no one\nfollowed my teaching. I told them that it probably happened because I\nlived like a Pharisee, and did not fulfil my own teaching. To this they\nmade no reply.\u201d\n\nTolstoi said that he saw to-day a review of a new book on Turgenev.\nThe book is partly of a polemical kind. The author gives an account of\nTurgenev\u2019s quarrels with all writers (Dostoevsky, Tolstoi, Hertzen,\nFet, etc.), as if it were his object to vindicate Turgenev and to prove\nthat on all occasions he was right.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cReally, it is strange that he quarrelled with every one. He was a\nvery nice, good man. Only he was very weak, and was conscious of his\nweakness. Once, I remember, Count Urusov was here, my good friend.\nThere were two brothers, and for some reason people considered them\nstupid. Now knowing this, Turgenev began arguing with them arrogantly\nas though feeling his superiority, but Urusov quietly, easily, and\nconfidently refuted his argument. And no wonder: Urusov had his own\ndefinite religious convictions, whatever they might be, and Turgenev\nhad none.\u201d\n\n\u201cI was fond of him,\u201d Tolstoi said of Turgenev.\n\nSophie Andreevna said that Turgenev had loved Tolstoi very much.\n\n\u201cNo, on the contrary,\u201d Tolstoi replied. \u201cHe rather liked me as a\nwriter, but, as man, I did not find in him real warmth and cordiality.\nWell, he liked no one in that way, except women with whom he happened\nto be in love. He had no friends.\u201d\n\nTolstoi asked me about my work, whether I was composing music, and said\nhow bad it was when people force work out of themselves, and how great\nartists lose by immediately starting a new work when they have finished\nthe old one.\n\nTolstoi mentioned Pushkin and said:\n\n\u201cThe best writers are always strict with themselves. I re-write until\nI feel that I am beginning to spoil. And then, of course, I leave it\nalone. And one begins to spoil because at first, when you enjoy your\nwork, whilst it is _yours_, you apply all your spiritual force to it.\nLater when the fundamental original idea ceases more and more to be\nnew, and becomes, as it were, someone else\u2019s, it bores you. You begin\nto try to say something new and you spoil and distort the first idea.\u201d\n\nA telegram arrived from Leonid Andreev asking to be allowed to come.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cHow terribly undeserved fame, like that of Andreev, spoils a man!\u201d\n\nThen Tolstoi could not compose a telegram in reply.\n\n\u201cHow shall I answer? \u2018Come.\u2019 ... But that is too short. \u2018Shall be very\nglad to see you\u2019--that is not altogether true. Well, Dushan Petrovich,\nwrite simply: \u2018You are welcome.\u2019\u201d\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cI had a letter to-day from a man who congratulates me on my\nfifty-fifth anniversary, and writes that he so much loves my works that\nhe is always reading and re-reading _War and Peace_, for instance, but\nhe says: \u2018However much I tried, I could not read a single one of your\nphilosophical writings to the end.\u2019 He tries to persuade me to give up\nthat kind of writing.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy should he have written all that?\u201d Tolstoi said, laughing. \u201cThere\nwas a man living and nobody knew he was a fool, and suddenly he got up\nand told me so!\u201d ...\n\n\n\n\n1908\n\n\n_January 6th._ Yesterday, when many letters came, Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cIn old age one becomes indifferent to the fact that one will never see\nthe results of one\u2019s activity. But the results will be there. It is not\nmodesty on my part, but I know there will be results.\u201d\n\nTo-day, speaking of the revolutionaries, Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cTheir chief mistake is the superstition that one can arrange human\nlife.\u201d\n\n\n_April 12th._ Tatyana Lvovna was saying that A. N. Volkov is writing a\nbook on art. Tolstoi became interested. Volkov says in his book that\nart must follow Nature blindly in everything.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cIt is absolutely untrue. It is always like that. When people are\ndiscussing art, they either say, like the modern decadents, that\neverything is allowed, everything is possible, that there is complete\nfreedom in art. Or they talk about the slavish imitation of Nature.\nBoth views are false. Just as every man is perfectly individual and\nnever occurs twice over, so also his thoughts, his feelings are always\nnew; they are _his_ thoughts and feelings alone. At the basis of a true\nwork of art there must lie some perfectly original idea or feeling, but\nit must be expressed with slavish adherence to the smallest details of\nlife.\u201d\n\n\n_July 27th._ A fortnight ago Mme. E--v, the wife of a privy councillor,\ncame here on a visit. Tolstoi played chess with me on the balcony and\nthe lady talked at first to Sophie Andreevna, and then, I think, to\nMarie Nikolaevna, about the great service which landowners performed,\nand how the peasants are beasts, and how, but for the landed\naristocracy and their culture, they would become absolute brutes.\n\nTolstoi kept silent, but at last could stand it no longer. He got up\nfrom his chair and said to her:\n\n\u201cYou must forgive me, but what you are saying is terrible, one can\u2019t\nlisten to it with indifference. If one is speaking of beasts, then\ncertainly it is not the peasants who are beasts, but all of us who rob\nthem and live on them. And all the \u2018work\u2019 of the landowners is nothing\nbut playing about for want of anything else to do!\u201d\n\nTolstoi was in a state of agitation and could not get calm for a long\ntime afterwards.\n\nThe same evening at tea, when Mme. E--v had gone, the talk was about\nexecutions. Sophie Andreevna tried to prove that any murder is as bad\nas an execution, and yet people don\u2019t talk about them. Elisabetha\nValerianovna replied that an execution is a murder which is considered\nto be just, and the horror of it lies in that.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cIf one were to ask who is worse, the wretched executioner, hired,\nintoxicated, spiritually destroyed, or those who hire him and those who\npass sentence of death, the prosecutors, the judges, then it seems to\nme there can be no doubt.\u201d\n\nAt tea Elisabetha Valerianovna asked her mother, Marie Nikolaevna, to\nhave some milk, and she began to drink it.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cHow is it, Mashenka, that you drink it? For myself, if I am told to\ndrink milk, I want sherry, and, when I\u2019m told to drink sherry, I want\nmilk.\u201d ...\n\nMarie Nikolaevna began recalling the past. When they lived in Moscow,\nsoon after the death of their father in 1837-38, Tolstoi, who was then\nabout eight or nine, jumped out of the first-floor window and was badly\nhurt.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cI remember that quite well. I wanted to see what would happen, and I\neven remember that, as I jumped, I tried to jump upwards.\u201d\n\n\n_July 28th._ Yesterday my wife and I were at Yasnaya. Tolstoi\u2019s leg is\nstill painful. He lies in a chair with it stretched out. He suffers\nfrom inflammation and from embolism of the vein. They say he must lie\nlike that for six weeks.\n\nWe arrived at Yasnaya about eight o\u2019clock. Tolstoi sat in a chair in\nthe dining-room. He played chess with S. Then he began to play chess\nwith me. S. looked on at our game for a time, and then sitting near the\nround table he began to talk to Sophie Andreevna about the children\u2019s\nanthology to be chosen from Tolstoi\u2019s works, which he wishes to\npublish for his Jubilee (Tolstoi\u2019s eighty years). The conversation was\nterrible. Sophie Andreevna said in the sharpest way that she was not\ngoing to be cheated out of her rights, that she would go to a lawyer\nand would write to the papers about it. S. behaved rather well, and\nasked her to point out what she would allow to be published; but she\nwould not listen to reason. At last she said that it was the same as if\nhe stole her silver spoons. It was intolerably humiliating and painful.\n\nSophie Andreevna made attempts to draw Tolstoi into the dispute. Poor\nTolstoi! He suffered, frowned, shook his head in horror, but kept\nsilent. The greatest deed in his life is his humility and patience with\nSophie Andreevna. His behaviour is all the more difficult, because\npeople criticize him for being humble and long-suffering in this way.\nHow much easier it would be for him to leave this kind of life, which\nhe not only does not want, but which is intolerable to him.\n\nThen it became even worse. S. left the room for a time, and when he\nreturned and sat down near us watching the chess, Sophie Andreevna\ndid not see him and began talking about something and, as usual,\ncomplaining of the worries of managing the household, and said:\n\n\u201cWhen I get rid of the steward, of the thieving, of S., and ...\u201d of\nsomething else, I don\u2019t remember what.\n\nEvery one was overcome with shame. Tolstoi even uttered a groan. S.\nturned deadly white. Some one managed to whisper to Sophie Andreevna\nthat he, S., was in the room. She was not in the least put out, and\nonly began saying how much she regretted that she had not died under\nher operation.\n\nTolstoi glanced at S.; S. said:\n\n\u201cDid you want to say something, Leo Nikolaevich?\u201d\n\nTolstoi was silent for a time and then said:\n\n\u201cYou understood me.\u201d\n\nThen he added:\n\n\u201cWhom God loves, him He tries.\u201d\n\nIt was intolerable. S. left the room quickly and went away without\nsaying good-bye to any one.\n\nThere the matter rested. Mme. Zveginzev then arrived. Tolstoi talked\nabout Chertkov\u2019s father:[14]\n\n\u201cWhen he was about forty-five, gangrene attacked his toe. Then it\nwent further, and his leg had to be amputated at the knee. He went\nto England. There they made him an artificial leg on which he walked\nfairly easily. Then the gangrene attacked the other leg. This, too, had\nto be amputated, but this time much above the knee. He sat in a chair\nand was carried about. He was very patient and did not groan, although\nhe shuddered with pain all day long. In the evenings he would be given\nan injection of morphia; he would then revive, read the papers, and\ntalk. He was a brilliant man, a wit, and a great success in society.\nHe used to be taken in his chair to parties. There was even a cult for\nhim; he used to visit the Empress. In society invitations were issued:\n\u2018Venez; M. Chertkoff sera ce soir chez nous.\u2019 He died early. He never\ndrank and never could drink, for the wine went to his head. But once\nat dinner some one drank, and he took a little glass of vodka, and\nsuddenly died then and there at the dinner party.\u201d\n\nSome one began to talk about bugs.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cWhen he has bugs, Perna does not scratch, but lies quietly--he\nallows them to have their fill, like Buddha, who gave himself to be\ndevoured by the tigress; and when the bugs have eaten enough, he sleeps\npeacefully. In olden days, under the serfdom, when the landed gentry\nlived very dirtily and bugs were everywhere, if a guest remained for\nthe night, the butler used to be put into the bed first, so as to feed\nthe bugs, and only after that was the bed made for the guest.\u201d\n\nThen I came up to Tolstoi and he talked to me. At first, with a smile,\nhe winked at Mme. Zveginzev\u2019s colossal hat.\n\nI asked him if he was still working on the new \u201cCircle of Reading.\u201d\nTolstoi said that he is already working at the twenty-first day. He\nmakes the same number of days in all the twelve months. I told him that\nI had read the first day and that it seemed to me very good.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cYes, but it must all be gone over again. At the beginning of each day\nI put the ideas which can be understood by children and simple people.\nThis is very difficult. I am doing it now, when I am an old man, but I\nought to have begun my career as a writer by doing it. I ought to have\nwritten so that it could be understood by every one. This is true, too,\nof your art. And, generally speaking, of all the arts.\u201d\n\nI said to him that in music the most musical language happens to be\nbeyond one\u2019s reach, whether or not one belongs to intellectual circles,\neither because one is not trained or because one is unmusical by nature.\n\nTolstoi agreed with me partly, but said that this was the case in other\narts as well:\n\n\u201cThere are some ideas which can be understood by all and are necessary\nto all, but are expressed in the language of a small group of people.\nFor instance, the poem \u2018I remember the wonderful moment,\u2019 or \u2018When to\nthe mortal the noisy day passes into silence\u2019--do you remember them? A\npeasant couldn\u2019t understand them.\u201d\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cI was thinking a great deal about art to-day and I re-read my article,\nand I must confess I agreed with my ideas.\u201d\n\nTolstoi is reading the English biography of Chopin (by Huneker). He\ndoes not like it. He said to me:\n\n\u201cI have not read books of that kind for a long time. The author does\nnot reveal Chopin\u2019s inner life, but displays his own erudition, his\nability to write well and wittily. He is controversial and proves the\nfaults of other biographers. But there is no Chopin here.... Yet there\nare many interesting facts in it. It is the life of a small circle of\npoets, writers, and musicians--what a perverted and terrible life! And\nGeorge Sand, that disgusting woman!... I can\u2019t understand her success.\u201d\n\nMarie Nikolaevna, who was listening, said:\n\n\u201cNo! she has done good things. Take, for instance, her _Consuelo_.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, that is not good. It is all false and bad and tedious; I could\nnever read it.\u201d\n\n\n_July 30th._ There were staying at Yasnaya Marie Alexandrovna, I.\nGorbunov, and E. I. Popov. Tolstoi was not well. His leg was still\npainful. We played chess. Then there was tea. Before the game of\nchess, when I had come into the drawing-room by myself, Tolstoi was\ntelling Obolensky and the others, whom I mentioned, the plot of Anatole\nFrance\u2019s novel, a very complicated novel. I believe it is called\n_Jocaste_. Tolstoi was telling the plot in detail and was surprised at\nits absurdity, but said it was written with A. France\u2019s usual mastery.\n\nAs I came in, I had met two men downstairs who wished to see Tolstoi.\nAs Tolstoi is ill, Gusev (the secretary) went downstairs. One of the\nmen turned out to be a sectarian, \u201can immortalist,\u201d and the other\nsent up by Gusev a strange note in which, referring to Boulanger\u2019s\npromise to try to find a job for him, he said something foolish about\nhis desire to be useful to Tolstoi. Altogether there was no sense, no\npurpose in it.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cIt is amazing, why can\u2019t they understand? It seems to him that only he\nand myself exist, and yet there are hundreds of him, and only one of\nme. And what can I do for him?\u201d\n\nAt tea Tolstoi talked about the \u2018immortalist.\u2019 Marie Nikolaevna asked\nwhat sect it was.\n\nTolstoi said to her:\n\n\u201cThe \u2018immortalists\u2019 believe that if they go on believing they will\nnever die. And when one of them dies they say: he did not really\nbelieve.... I quite understand it. With them immortality is identified\nwith the body. At a low level of religious development that is\nunderstandable. The Church doctrine also thinks of resurrection as a\nresurrection in the flesh.\u201d\n\nMarie Nikolaevna began to say that she believed that there _would_ be\nsomething after death.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cIn the first place, as to our state after death, it is impossible to\nsay that it _will_ be. Immortality neither will be, nor was, but _is_.\nIt is outside the forms of time and space. People who keep on asking\nwhat is going to happen after death should be told: the very same thing\nthat _was_ before birth. We do not know, neither can we or must we know\nwhat existence outside of the body, fusion with God, is like, and, when\npeople begin telling me about it--even if some one from the other world\nwere to come to tell me about it--I would not believe and I should say\nthat I do not need it. That which we need, we always are aware of and\nknow without doubting. One ought to live so that one\u2019s life should help\non the happiness of other people.\u201d\n\nMarie Nikolaevna said that although she neither believes in nor admits\nthe existence of paradise and hell with real suffering, nevertheless\nthere is hell for the soul in the constant suffering which comes from\nrealization of evil done or of good undone.\n\n\u201cI can\u2019t admit,\u201d she added, \u201cthat one who lives badly and has done no\ngood will achieve the same fusion with God as the man who has lived\njustly.\u201d\n\nTolstoi was about to say something, but Marie Nikolaevna interrupted\nhim.\n\nTolstoi said quietly and gently:\n\n\u201cI listened to you, Mashenka; now do you listen to me. Compared with\nthe perfection of God, the difference which exists in life between the\nmost righteous man and the most wicked is so insignificant that it is\nsimply equal to nothing. And how am I to admit that God, the God whom I\nrealize through love, can be revengeful and punish?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut suppose one lived wickedly all one\u2019s life and died without\nrepenting?\u201d Marie Nikolaevna said.\n\n\u201cAh, Mashenka,\u201d Tolstoi said, \u201cbut what man wishes to be bad? The man\nwhom we think bad we must love and pity for his sufferings. Nobody\nwants to live a bad life and to suffer. He must not be punished, he\nmust be pitied, because he does not know the truth.\u201d\n\nMarie Nikolaevna still could not give up her point of view.\n\nTolstoi said to her:\n\n\u201cVery well, if what you believe in satisfies you; and this must\nnever be condemned, only you must not prevent people from believing\nwhat their conscience prompts them to, and you must not try to make\nthem believe differently, as all the Churches do, the Catholic, the\nProtestant, the Orthodox, the Buddhist, the Muhammadan.\u201d ...\n\nTowards the end of July, Klechkovsky came to Yasnaya and played.\n\nTolstoi lay on the sofa, and, after Klechkovsky had finished playing,\nwe sat by Tolstoi. Klechkovsky began talking about himself, how\ndissatisfied he was with his life, how he would like to live on the\nland, to give up his music teaching and the Institute. But he can\u2019t do\nit because his father would be much upset by such a sudden change in\nhis life. He also said that he would like to go and live in a community.\n\nTolstoi replied to him:\n\n\u201cWhy in a community? One ought not to separate oneself from other\npeople. If there is anything good in a man, let that light be spread\nabout him wherever he lives. What numbers of people settled in\ncommunities, yet nothing came of it! All their energies went at first\ninto external arrangement of life, and when at length they settled\ndown, there began to be quarrels and gossip, and it all fell to\npieces.... You are grumbling at the Institute, yet there is the porter\nthere whom you could treat kindly, like a human being, and then you\nwould have done a good act. And the girls, your pupils? Can\u2019t you make\na great deal that is good out of those relations? One can always shut\noneself off from people, but nothing good will come of it. I say this\nnot because I want to justify my own life. I live in the wrong way and\nknow it is the wrong way, but I have always wanted and tried to live\nbetter, only I could not.... I shall go to God in the consciousness\nthat I did what I could to make my life better.\n\n\u201cOne should never attempt to arrange life beforehand. At times I ask\nmyself what I should do if I remained here alone? For instance, I\nshould say to Ilya Vasilevich: \u2018It would be nice if you did the rooms\nand tidied them to-day, and I will do them to-morrow.\u2019 Then we should\neat together. And so on with one thing after another, as things would\narrange themselves. Only it has to be remembered that the ideal of the\nmaterial life cannot be fully realized, any more than the ideal of the\nspiritual life. The whole point is in the constant effort to approach\nthe ideal. If I gave up everything now and went away, Sophie Andreevna\nwould hate me, and the evil of that would perhaps be worse. You have\nyour father ... and so it is with every one.\u201d\n\nTolstoi said before this:\n\n\u201cI said to Sophie Andreevna to-day, and I believe she was hurt by it:\nthe first concern in life must be for the things of the soul, and, if\nhousehold duties interfere with that, then damn household duties.\u201d\n\n\nLast night we sat on the balcony.\n\nTolstoi said that he had had a nice letter from a simple man who had\nread several of his books, and who asked, at the end of his letter,\nwhere there were people who live a Christian life, for he would leave\neverything and go and live with them. Tolstoi said that he replied to\nhim much in the same way as he had done to Klechkovsky.\n\nTolstoi added:\n\n\u201cI think that even if one was a woman in a brothel, or a gaoler,\none ought not suddenly to give up one\u2019s work. Certainly any one who\nrealizes the evil of such a life will not go on with it, but the\nimportant thing is not the external change.\u201d\n\nTolstoi said he had received three letters: one from Mr. Grekov, who\nsent him three copies of his book, _The Message of Peace_, and wrote\nthat his book was so remarkable that, if it were widely read, it would\nrevolutionize human life; the second letter was from an intellectual\nwho asked for a loan of 800 roubles; and the third from a simple\nilliterate peasant, a good serious letter. Tolstoi said that, besides\nletters asking for money, he also receives letters from authors sending\nhim their books, and begging that Tolstoi will use his authority to\nmake their books known.\n\n\u201cAn odd idea,\u201d Tolstoi said, \u201cthat I should try to spread opinions\nwhich I neither sympathize with nor share.\u201d\n\n\n_August 5th._ Marie Nikolaevna told how the steward Fokanich had\nonce stolen 400 roubles from Tolstoi, and Tolstoi took it rather\nindifferently. Soon afterwards Sergey Nikolaevich, Tolstoi\u2019s brother,\nwas very much worried about his affairs, and when he was told that it\nwas not worth while to be so worried, he said:\n\n\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter to Levochka that Fokanich stole 400 roubles from\nhim; he will write a story and get the money back; and he will describe\nFokanich into the bargain; but where shall I get my money?\u201d\n\nTolstoi replied to this:\n\n\u201cMashenka, how can you remember all this? But I heard an expression\nto-day that keeps on coming back into my mind.\u201d\n\nAnd Tolstoi told how during lunch to-day an unusually importunate\nbeggar arrived. He stood by the balcony and began saying how happy he\nwas to see and salute Tolstoi, etc.... He was given something, but\nhe was not satisfied, went to the kitchen, and began begging with\nextraordinary importunity. After lunch when Tolstoi was coming down\nfrom the balcony, Ilya Vasilevich, pointing to the beggar, said to\nTolstoi:\n\n\u201cYes, that fellow could beg the parson\u2019s mare off him.\u201d\n\n\n_August 19th._ At tea the conversation turned upon modern literature.\nTolstoi asked Buturlin to send him anything new he could find by\nAnatole France, whom Tolstoi values very highly. He spoke again.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cI cannot remember getting a strong impression from a book for a long\ntime. I do not think it is because I am old; it seems to me that modern\nliterature, like the Roman literature in the past, is coming to an end.\nThere is no one, neither in the West nor here.\u201d\n\nButurlin asked Tolstoi if he remembered Oscar Wilde\u2019s _De Profundis_.\n\nTolstoi had not read it, but said:\n\n\u201cI forget everything now, but I remember having tried to read Wilde,\nand it has left me with an impression that he was not worth reading.\u201d\n\nSpeaking of modern Russian writers Tolstoi mentioned Kuprin.\n\n\u201cHis scope is small; he knows the life of the soldiers, but still he\nhas real artistic power. The others simply have nothing to say, and are\non the look-out for new forms. But why look for new forms? If you have\nsomething to say, you should only ask for time in which to say what you\nwant, but you won\u2019t need to seek new forms.\u201d\n\nApropos of Eltzbacher\u2019s book on anarchy, which Tolstoi was re-reading,\nhe said:\n\n\u201cChristian anarchy is a narrow definition of the Christian conception\nof the world, but anarchy follows certainly from Christianity in its\napplication to social life.\u201d\n\n\n_September 3rd._ Tolstoi again spoke about the old German mystic,\nAngelus Silesius. Tolstoi asked some one to fetch his book (a large old\nvolume) and read aloud several aphorisms, translating them as he read.\nWhen he came to the passage: \u201cIf God did not love Himself in us, we\ncould neither love ourselves, nor God,\u201d Tolstoi exclaimed:\n\n\u201cAh, how well that\u2019s said!\u201d\n\nReferring to some account in the papers of a conversation with him,\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cIf I were to live for another eighty years, and were never to cease\ntalking, I could not manage to say all the sayings that are attributed\nto me.\u201d\n\n\n_September 6th._ Tolstoi said, with reference to the addresses and\ncongratulations on his eightieth birthday (August 28th, 1908) which\nkeep on coming:\n\n\u201cI believe I am right in saying that I have no vanity, but I can\u2019t help\nbeing touched involuntarily. And yet, at my age, I live so far away\nfrom all this, it is all so unnecessary and so humiliating. Only one\nthing is necessary, the inner life of the spirit.\u201d\n\nOn August 29th, when more than two thousand telegrams of congratulation\narrived, Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cI feel with joy that I have utterly lost the power of being interested\nin all this. In the past, I remember, I experienced a feeling of\npride; I was glad at my success. But now--and I think it is not false\nmodesty--it is a matter of absolute indifference to me. Perhaps it is\nbecause I have had too much success. It is like sweets: if you have too\nmany, you feel surfeited. But one thing is pleasant: in nearly all the\nletters, congratulations, addresses, the same thing is repeated--it has\nsimply become a truism--that I have destroyed religious delusions and\nopened the way for the search after truth. If it is true, it is just\nwhat I have wanted and tried to do all my life, and this is very dear\nto me.\u201d\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[14] Gregory Ivanovich Chertkov (1828-1884), Adjutant-General.\n\n\n\n\n1909\n\n\n_February 10th._ Once in the winter Sophie Andreevna in Tolstoi\u2019s\npresence criticized V. G. Chertkov bitterly, which, as usual,\npained him very much. This was in the morning. In the middle of the\nconversation Tolstoi got up and went into his room.\n\nSome time later he came into the dining-room, stood at the door, and\nsaid in an agitated voice:\n\n\u201cThere is an old nurse in our house. I scarcely know her, but I love\nher because she loves Sasha, and when there is nothing like that in a\nhouse, there is no real love.\u201d ...\n\nAfter saying this, Tolstoi turned and quietly went to his room.\n\nTo-night Tolstoi said:\n\n\u201cWhen one listens to music, it agitates, excites, elates, but one does\nnot think. But when I play patience in my room, the finest thoughts\ncome to me.\u201d\n\nDuring work, especially if he found some difficulty, Tolstoi used to\nplay patience. This was his habit throughout his life. When he was\nwriting Part III. of _Resurrection_, Tolstoi was undecided for a long\ntime about the fate of Katyusha Maslov. Now he decided that Nekhlyudov\nshould marry her, now that he should not. At last he decided to play\na game of patience: if the patience came out, Nekhlyudov should marry\nher; if not, then he should not marry her. The patience did not come\nout. Once Tolstoi told me that he had found a passage in a book, which\nhe was writing, very difficult. He hesitated for a long time what to\ndo, but made up his mind and wrote it. Then he decided to test it by\nmeans of a game of patience; if the patience came out, that meant that\nwhat he had written was good; if it did not come out, then it was bad.\nThe patience did not come out, and Tolstoi said to himself: \u201cNever\nmind, it is good as it is!\u201d and he left it as he had written it.\n\n\n_May 24th._ Tolstoi was speaking about Dietrich\u2019s German book on\nGoethe. The author sent him the book and asked him his opinion.\n\nTolstoi said:\n\n\u201cIt is amazing! So far back as 1824 Goethe wrote that sincerity\nwas become almost impossible in art, because of the multitude of\nnewspapers, journals, and reviews. The artist reads them, involuntarily\npays attention to them, and cannot be perfectly sincere. What would he\nsay if he lived now!\u201d\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n_Printed in Great Britain by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.\n\n\n\n\nTHE\n\nHOGARTH PRESS\n\nHOGARTH HOUSE, PARADISE ROAD,\n\nRICHMOND\n\n_FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS_\n\n\nE. M. FORSTER. Pharos and Pharillon.      5s.\n\n     A book of essays on Alexandria ancient and modern by E. M.\n     FORSTER, the author of _Howards End_.\n\n\nTHE LETTERS OF STEPHEN REYNOLDS.      16s.\n\n     This volume of letters by the author of _A Poor Man\u2019s House_ and\n     _Seems So!_ has been edited by Mr. HAROLD WRIGHT.\n\n\nTOLSTOI\u2019S LOVE LETTERS.      5s.\n\n     This book contains the extremely interesting letters written by\n     Tolstoi to a young girl to whom he was engaged for a short time,\n     and which have not previously been translated into English. It\n     also contains a study of the autobiographical elements in the\n     writings of Tolstoi by Tolstoi\u2019s friend and biographer, M. Paul\n     Biryukov.\n\n\n\n\n_RECENT PUBLICATIONS_\n\n\nNEW DOSTOEVSKY.\n\n\nSTAVROGIN\u2019S CONFESSION, etc. (The unpublished\n    chapter from \u201cThe Possessed,\u201d and the\n    plan of \u201cThe Life of a Great Sinner.\u201d)      6s.\n\n     \u201cThis so-called chapter of \u2018The Possessed\u2019 is a precious survival.\n     It has value in itself, by reason of the beauty and terror it\n     contains; it has value as throwing light on some of Dostoevsky\u2019s\n     most secret and intimate thoughts ... but its greatest value is\n     as an evidence of the creative process in Dostoevsky.\u201d--_Times\n     Literary Supplement._\n\n\nJACOB\u2019S ROOM. A New Novel by VIRGINIA\n    WOOLF. Second Impression.      7s. 6d.\n\n     \u201cWhose curious and original genius,\u201d says the _Spectator_, \u201chas\n     already provoked conflicting opinions.\u201d\n\n     \u201cA supremely important writer.\u201d--REBECCA WEST in _The New\n     Statesman_.\n\n     \u201cHow much more amusing is \u2018Jacob\u2019s Room\u2019 than the competent,\n     true-to-type novel.\u201d--_The Observer._\n\n     \u201cRead the book for yourself.... I find myself repeating the words\n     of M. Bergeret: \u2018Si pourtant c\u2019\u00e9tait un chef-d\u2019\u0153uvre?\u2019\u201d--FORREST\n     REID in _The Nation_.\n\n     \u201c\u2018Jacob\u2019s Room\u2019 is the best thing she has done. It reads like an\n     absolute transcript of life.\u201d--_John o\u2019 London\u2019s Weekly._\n\n\nLEONID ANDREEV. The Dark. Translated by\n    K. WALTER and L. A. MAGNUS.      2s.\n\n     \u201cIt is a notable story.\u201d--J. MIDDLETON MURRY in _The Nation_.\n\n\n\n\n     THE GENTLEMAN FROM SAN FRANCISCO, AND OTHER STORIES. By I. A.\n     BUNIN. Translated from the Russian by D. H. LAWRENCE, S. S.\n     KOTELIANSKY, and LEONARD WOOLF. 4s. net.\n\nI. A. Bunin is a well-known Russian writer, but his short stories have\nnot hitherto been published in an English translation. Four stories are\nincluded in this volume. The _Times Literary Supplement_ in reviewing\na French translation of the first story in this volume says: \u201cWhatever\nits faults this is certainly one of the most impressive stories of\nmodern times.\u201d\n\n\n     DAYBREAK. A Book of Poems. By FREDEGOND SHOVE.\n\n3s. 6d.\n\nMrs. Shove has the distinction of being the only woman poet whose work\nhas been included in _Georgian Poetry_, although she has previously\npublished only one volume, _Dreams and Journeys_.\n\n\n     KARN. A Poem. By RUTH MANNING-SANDERS.\n\n3s. 6d. net.\n\nThis is an ambitious narrative poem by a young writer who has\npreviously published one book of short poems. Unlike most narrative\npoems, it is vivid and readable.\n\n\n\n\n     THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF COUNTESS SOPHIE TOLSTOI. With Introduction\n     and Notes by VASILII SPIRIDONOV. Translated from the Russian by S.\n     S. KOTELIANSKY and LEONARD WOOLF.\n\n4s. net.\n\nThis autobiography was written by Tolstoi\u2019s wife in 1913, and is\nextraordinarily interesting, not only \u201cas a human document,\u201d but in the\nlight which it throws upon Tolstoi\u2019s life and teaching and on those\nrelations with his wife and family which led up to his \u201cgoing away.\u201d\nCountess Tolstoi wrote it at the request of the late S. A. Vengerov,\na well-known Russian critic. He intended to publish it, but this\nintention was not carried out owing to the war and his death. The MS.\nwas discovered recently among his papers, and has just been published\nin Russia. It deals with the whole of Tolstoi\u2019s married life, but in\nparticular with the differences which arose between him and his wife\nover his doctrines and his desire to put them into practice in their\nway of living. It also gives an account of Tolstoi\u2019s \u201cgoing away\u201d and\ndeath. The book is published with an introduction by Vasilii Spiridonov\nand notes and appendices which contain information regarding Tolstoi\u2019s\nlife and teachings not before available to English readers.\n\n\n\n\n_PREVIOUS PUBLICATIONS_\n\n\nCLIVE BELL\n    Poems.                                          2s. 6d. net.\n\nT. S. ELIOT\n    Poems.                                       _Out of print._\n\nE. M. FORSTER\n    The Story of the Siren.                      _Out of print._\n\nROGER FRY\n    Twelve Original Woodcuts. Third impression.         5s. net.\n\nMAXIM GORKY\n    Reminiscences of Tolstoi. Second edition.           5s. net.\n\nKATHERINE MANSFIELD\n    Prelude.                                     _Out of print._\n\nHOPE MIRRLEES\n    Paris. A Poem.                               _Out of print._\n\nJ. MIDDLETON MURRY\n    The Critic in Judgment.                         2s. 6d. net.\n\nLOGAN PEARSALL SMITH\n    Stories from the Old Testament retold.       _Out of print._\n\nThe Note-books of ANTON TCHEKHOV, together\n    with Reminiscences of TCHEKHOV by MAXIM GORKY.      5s. net.\n\nLEONARD WOOLF\n    Stories of the East.                                3s. net.\n\nVIRGINIA WOOLF\n    Monday or Tuesday. _With Woodcuts\n      by Vanessa Bell._                             4s. 6d. net.\n    The Mark on the Wall. Second edition.           1s. 6d. net.\n    Kew Gardens.                                 _Out of print._\n\nLEONARD & VIRGINIA WOOLF\n    Two Stories.                                 _Out of print._","title":"Talks with Tolstoi","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":35371}