Reminiscences of Leo Nicolayevitch Tolstoi

Reminiscences of Leo Nicolayevitch Tolstoi , by Maxim Gorky, was originally published in Russian in Petrograd in 1919. The first half of the book, consisting of notes, had been written between 1900 and 1901, when Tolstoi, Gorky, and Tchekhov were living in the Crimea. The second half consists of a letter written by Gorky in 1910.
A second edition of the book will shortly be published in Russia, and will contain a few additional notes not included in the first edition. We have included this additional matter in the present edition, enclosing it in square brackets.
This little book is composed of fragmentary notes written by me during the period when I lived in Oleise and Leo Nicolayevitch at Gaspra in the Crimea. They cover the period of Tolstoi's serious illness and of his subsequent recovery. The notes were carelessly jotted down on scraps of paper, and I thought I had lost them, but recently I have found some of them. Then I have also included here an unfinished letter written by me under the influence of the going away of Leo Nicolayevitch from Yassnaya Polyana, and of his death. I publish the letter just as it was written at the time, and without correcting a single word. And I do not finish it, for somehow or other this is not possible. M. GORKY.
The thought which beyond others most often and conspicuously gnaws at him is the thought of God. At moments it seems, indeed, not to be a thought, but a violent resistance to something which he feels above him. He speaks of it less than he would like, but thinks of it always. It can scarcely be said to be a sign of old age, a presentiment of death—no, I think that it comes from his exquisite human pride, and—a bit—from a sense of humiliation: for, being Leo Tolstoi, it is humiliating to have to submit one's will to a streptococcus. If he were a scientist, he would certainly evolve the most ingenious hypotheses, make great discoveries.
H3e has wonderful hands—not beautiful, but knotted with swollen veins, and yet full of a singular expressiveness and the power of creativeness. Probably Leonardo da Vinci had hands like that. With such hands one can do anything. Sometimes, when talking, he will move his fingers, gradually close them into a fist, and then, suddenly opening them, utter a good, full-weight word. He is like a god, not a Sabaoth or Olympian, but the kind of Russian god who sits on a maple throne under a golden lime tree, not very majestic, but perhaps more cunning than all the other gods.