And Tolstoi told how during lunch to-day an unusually importunate beggar arrived. He stood by the balcony and began saying how happy he was to see and salute Tolstoi, etc.... He was given something, but he was not satisfied, went to the kitchen, and began begging with extraordinary importunity. After lunch when Tolstoi was coming down from the balcony, Ilya Vasilevich, pointing to the beggar, said to Tolstoi:
“Yes, that fellow could beg the parson’s mare off him.”
August 19th. At tea the conversation turned upon modern literature. Tolstoi asked Buturlin to send him anything new he could find by Anatole France, whom Tolstoi values very highly. He spoke again.
Tolstoi said:
“I cannot remember getting a strong impression from a book for a long time. I do not think it is because I am old; it seems to me that modern literature, like the Roman literature in the past, is coming to an end. There is no one, neither in the West nor here.”
Buturlin asked Tolstoi if he remembered Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis.
Tolstoi had not read it, but said:
“I forget everything now, but I remember having tried to read Wilde, and it has left me with an impression that he was not worth reading.”
Speaking of modern Russian writers Tolstoi mentioned Kuprin.