March 8th. Yesterday Tolstoi was in good form. At tea he laughed and joked. The conversation was about luxury.
Tolstoi said:
“How much more money people spend nowadays than they used! When Sophie Andreevna and I lived in Yasnaya, our income from the Nikolsky estate was about five thousand roubles and we lived superbly. I remember when Sophie Andreevna bought little mats to lay by the beds, it seemed to me a useless and incredible luxury. And now my sons—I seem to have about twenty of them—squander money right and left, buy dogs, horses, gramophones. I asked myself then, why buy carpets when we have slippers? Certainly we did not go barefoot, but, behold, Riepin painted me décolleté, barefooted, in a shirt! I have to thank him for not having taken off my nether garments! And he never asked me, if I liked it! But I have long since got used to being treated as if I were dead. There, in the Peredvizhni exhibition, you will see the Devil (Riepin’s ‘Temptation of Christ’), and you’ll also see the man possessed by the Devil!”
On February 25th Tolstoi’s excommunication was announced. That day Tolstoi and A. N. Dunaev went on some business to a doctor and came into the Lubiansky Square. In the square, by the fountain, the crowd recognized Tolstoi. At first, as Dunaev relates, an ironical voice was heard: “Here’s the Devil in the likeness of a man!” This served for a signal. The crowd threw themselves like one man on Tolstoi. All shouted and threw up their hats. Tolstoi was confused; he didn’t know what to do and walked away almost at a run. The crowd followed him. With great difficulty Tolstoi and Dunaev managed to get a sledge at the corner of Neglinny. The crowd wanted to stop the cabman and many held on to the sledge. At that moment a troop of mounted police appeared, let the cab through, and immediately made a ring and cut off the crowd.
On the occasion of his excommunication Tolstoi received, and is still receiving, a number of addresses, letters of sympathy, etc. One lady sent him a piece of holy bread and a letter in which she said that she had just received the Sacrament and took the Host for his benefit. She ends her letter: “Eat it in health and pay no heed to these stupid priests.”
August 9th. I was the other day in Yasnaya Polyana. Tolstoi is hale and hearty. I have not seen him like that for a long time.
The conversation was about Russian writers.
Tolstoi said:
“I was fond of Turgenev as a man. As a writer, I do not attribute particular importance to him or to Goncharov. Their subjects, the number of ordinary characters and love scenes, have too ephemeral an importance. If I were asked which of the Russian writers I consider the most important, I would say: Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Hertzen, whom our Liberals have forgotten, and Dostoevsky, whom they do not read at all. Well, and then: Griboedov, Ostrovsky, Tyutchev.”
Of Gogol’s works Tolstoi does not like Taras Bulba at all. He far prefers The Revisor (Inspector General), Dead Souls, Shinel, Koliaska (“it’s a masterpiece in miniature”), Nevsky Prospect. Of Pushkin’s works, he considers Boris Godunov a failure.