“Masha, who’s the poor fellow?”
“I do not know, papa.”
“Buddha. N. bespattered Socrates, and now he is going to do the same to Buddha.”
Yesterday Tolstoi was showing us a portrait group of the Tolstoi brothers, and, pointing to his brother Nicolay, said:
“He was my beloved brother. He was the man of whom Turgenev justly said that he had not a single one of the faults which one must have in order to be a writer. And I, although it is wrong of me, must say of my son Leo, that he, on the contrary, has all these faults, but none of the gifts, which are needed for a writer.”
Ilya Lvovich said to Mme. Stakhovich that a writer must himself experience everything in order to tell it to others.
Tolstoi replied:
“Mere technique is sometimes enough to describe what he has experienced. A real writer, as Goethe justly observed, must be able to describe everything. And I must say that, although I am not very fond of Goethe, he could do it.”
To-day Tolstoi was enthusiastic about Mozart’s operas, particularly about Don Juan. Together with the extraordinary richness of its melody, he rates very high its power to give in music the reflection of characters and situations. Tolstoi recalled the statue of the commander, the village scene, and especially the duel.
He said: