Tolstoi laughed and said:
“But you remember in your music, and so we writers remember things in our art.”
Tolstoi said about Virgin Soil that he did not share the general indifference towards that novel and considered it very successful. Among other things, he thought the new type of Sipyagin successful and observed at the right time.
On this occasion Tolstoi said:
“But for the most part I object to the trick of guessing at modern types and phenomena. The other day the painter K. was here. I told him a great deal about his work which must be unpleasant to him. He is always occupied with these modern themes. I said to him that one ought never to paint what is talked about in the newspapers. Besides, he simply can’t make a picture intelligible, clear. In his works you can’t make out what he wants to represent. How inferior he is to Orlov[6] in this respect!”
I. V. Denisenko read aloud the chapters about Nicolas from Hadji-Murat.
Tolstoi sat in his room, but he wanted to come where we were all sitting.
He came in several times and said:
“It is not interesting; let it be!”