January 15th. Gorky read aloud to Tolstoi the end of Mazzini’s book On the Duties of Man, which Tolstoi likes very much. While Gorky was reading, Tolstoi, who had read the book more than once, was almost moved to tears.
Madame N. N. Den told me the following story, which she had from her sister. When Tolstoi was very ill he thought he was dying, and took leave and said good-bye to all who were present. Leo Lvovich was the only one of Tolstoi’s children who was absent, and Tolstoi dictated a letter to him. Those who read it say that this farewell letter at the point of death was deeply moving. The letter, however, was not sent, for Leo Lvovich arrived at Gaspra in person. When he came into Tolstoi’s room, Tolstoi said that it was difficult for him to speak, but that he had expressed all his thoughts and feelings in the letter, which he handed to his son. Leo Lvovich read the letter at once in Tolstoi’s room, then came into the next room, and, in the presence of all those who were there (Countess Sophie Nicolaevna included), tore his dying father’s letter into little bits and threw it in the wastepaper basket....
Yasnaya Polyana, July 25th. I have been here a few days. Tolstoi is well physically.
To-day Tolstoi said to Doctor Butkevich:
“The only true way for a man to improve human life is by the way of moral perfection in his personal life. Spiritual life is a constant progress, a constant effort towards the realization of truth.”
The conversation turned upon literature. It began with my saying that Sienkewicz’s novel, The Sword Bearers, was a boring book.
Tolstoi said:
“Yes, for some reason I began it, but I could not read it. Do you remember how, when one is a child, one sometimes gets a piece of meat which one chews and chews and chews, and one can’t deal with it, and at last one quietly spits it out and throws it under the table.”
Then Tolstoi remembered B.’s story which he read recently:
“It begins with a superb description of nature—a little shower, which is done as Turgenev even could not do it, let alone myself. And then there is a girl. She dreams of him” (Tolstoi shortly told the plot of the story), “and all this—the girl’s silly emotion, the little shower—all this is needed, in order that B. may write a story. Just as in ordinary life, when people have nothing to say they talk about the weather, so writers, when they have nothing to write about, write about the weather, and it is time to put an end to it. Yes, there was a little shower; there might just as well have been no shower at all. I think that all this must come to an end in literature. It is simply impossible to read any longer.