“A so-called misfortune happens; one does not usually feel it, just as one does not feel a wound at the moment it is inflicted; and it is only by degrees that the sorrow grows in strength, having become a memory, placed, that is, not outside me, but already within. Yet, after a long life, I notice that the bad and painful things have not become me; they have somehow passed by; but on the contrary, all the pleasant feelings, all the loving relations towards people—my childhood, all that has been good—rise with particular clearness in my memory.”
Tatyana Lvovna said:
“But how do you explain Pushkin’s poem; ‘Memory unfolding its long scroll,’ and further: ‘And reading my life with disgust, I tremble and curse’?”
Tolstoi replied:
“That is quite different. To be able to experience and feel all that is bad in one with such power—that is a precious and necessary quality. Happy and of great importance is the man who can go through it with the vigour of Pushkin.”
July 6th. We went for a walk to the sandpits. During the walk Gorbunov asked Tolstoi about Alexander Dobrolyubov’s[12] religious and philosophic book. Tolstoi said of the book:
“It is vague, false, and artificial.”
On that occasion the talk was about the literary profession.
Tolstoi said:
“It is surprising how in even a little piece of work one must think it over from all points of view before starting it. It does not matter whether you are making a shirt or a move in chess. And if you do not think it out, you at once spoil it all—you won’t make the shirt, you’ll lose the game. It is only in writing that one can do what one likes, and people never notice—indeed one can become a famous writer.”