At last he even said with irritation:
“It is rubbish!”
Then M. S. Sukhotin asked him:
“Why did you write it, then, Leo Nickolaevich?”
Tolstoi replied:
“But it is not finished yet. You came into my kitchen, and no wonder it stinks with the smell of cooking.”
Tolstoi explained why he had made up his mind never to write to the papers to deny what was said about him.
“When I stayed with Turgenev in Petersburg, Mefodii Katkov[7] arrived from Moscow, and, on behalf of his brother, asked Turgenev and myself to let him have something for his Russkii Vestnik. I promised nothing, but Turgenev with his characteristic kindness said, rather vaguely, that he might perhaps let him have something.
“Soon after this a group of writers in Petersburg, Nekrasov, Turgenev, myself, Panaev, Druzhinin, Grigorovich, formed ourselves into a group and decided to publish only in the Sovremennik. When Katkov heard this, he accused Turgenev in print of breaking his promise. Then I wrote a letter to Katkov, and asked him to publish it, in which I, as a witness, refuted Katkov’s statement and proved that Turgenev had not promised Katkov anything.
“At first Katkov did not publish the letter; afterwards he published it, but in such a mutilated form that it quite changed its character. After that I made a vow to myself that I would never make any reply to attacks in the Press.”