I played. Then Tolstoi said:
“Anton Rubinstein told me that, if he is moved himself by what he is playing, he ceases to move his audience. This shows that the creation of a work of art is only possible when the emotion has settled in the artist’s mind.”
I do not remember how the conversation now got upon writing, but Tolstoi said:
“Usually when I begin a new book I am very pleased with it myself and work with great interest. But as the book work goes on, I become more and more bored, and often in rewriting it I omit things, substitute others, not because the new idea is better, but because I get tired of the old. Often I strike out what is vivid and replace it by something dull.”
The conversation turned upon Hertzen. Tolstoi read aloud extracts from his book (a collection of articles published in the Kolokol). Tolstoi is extremely fond of Hertzen and values him very highly. He spoke of Hertzen’s unhappy private life and of the suffering he went through when the representatives (particularly the younger representatives) of the party with whom he had worked throughout his life deserted him and ceased to understand him.
Tolstoi saw Hertzen in London, when Hertzen lived with Mme. Tuchkov-Ogarev.
Biryukov asked Tolstoi (for the biography of Tolstoi which he is writing) about his conversation with Hertzen which Mme. Ogarev refers to in her Reminiscences.
Tolstoi said that he remembered a great many of their talks, but not that particular one. And he added:
“Perhaps she merely invented the conversation, as the authors of memoirs and reminiscences so often do.”
On the whole, Tolstoi has not a high opinion of Mme. Ogarev, although he says he knows her but little.