One day I was returning from Yasnaya Polyana to Moscow with one of these "simple-hearted" Russians, a Moscow man, and for a long time he could not recover his breath, but kept on smiling woefully and repeating in astonishment: "Well, well, that was a cold bath. He's severe ... pooh!"
And in the middle of it all he exclaimed, apparently with regret: "And I thought he was really an anarchist. Everyone keeps on saying: Anarchist, anarchist,' and I believe it...."
The man was a large, rich manufacturer, with a great belly, and a face the colour of raw meat--why did he want Tolstoi to be an anarchist? One of the "profound mysteries" of the Russian soul!
When Leo Nicolayevitch wished to please, he could do so more easily than a clever and beautiful woman. Imagine a company of people of all kinds sitting in his room: the Grand Duke Nicolay Mikhailovitch, the house-painter Ilya, a social-democrat from Yalta, the stundist Patzuk, a musician, a German, the manager of the estates of Countess Kleinmichel, the poet Bulgakov, and all look at him with the same enamoured eyes. He explains to them the teaching of Lao-Tse, and he seems to me an extraordinary man-orchestra, possessing the faculty of playing several instruments at the same time, a brass trumpet, a drum, harmonium, and flute. I used to look at him just as the others did. And now I long to see him once more--and I shall never see him again.
Journalists have come asserting that a telegram has been received in Rome "denying the rumour of Tolstoi's death." They bustled and chattered, redundantly expressing their sympathy with Russia. The Russian newspapers leave no room for doubt.
To lie to him, even out of pity, was impossible; even when he was seriously ill, one could not pity him. It would be banal to pity a man like him. They ought to be taken care of, cherished, not loaded with the wordy dust of worn-out, soulless words.
He used to ask: "You don't like me?" and one had to answer: "No, I don't."
"You don't love me?"--"No, to-day I don't love you."
In his questions he was merciless, in his answers reserved, as becomes a wise man.
He used to speak with amazing beauty of the past, and particularly of Turgeniev; of Fet always with a good-natured smile and always something amusing, of Nekrassov coldly and sceptically; but of all writers exactly as if they were his children and he, the father, knew all their faults, and--there you are!