Nearly all of them like to moan and kiss one another; they all have boneless perspiring hands and lying eyes. At the same time they are practical fellows and manage their earthly affairs cleverly.
Leo Nicolayevitch, of course, well understood the value of the "Tolstoyans," and so did Sulerzhizky, whom Tolstoi loved tenderly and whom he always spoke of with a kind of youthful ardour and fervour. Once one of those "Tolstoyans" at Yassnaya Polyana explained eloquently how happy his life had become and how pure his soul after he accepted Tolstoy's teaching. Leo Nicolayevitch leant over and said to me in a low voice: "He's lying all the time, the rogue, but he does it to please me...."
Many tried to please him, but I did not observe that they did it well or with any skill. He rarely spoke to me on his usual subjects of universal forgiveness, loving one's neighbour, the Gospels, and Buddhism, evidently because he realized at once that all that would not "go down" with me. I greatly appreciated this.
When he liked he could be extraordinarily charming, sensitive, and tactful; his talk was fascinatingly simple and elegant, but sometimes it was painfully unpleasant to listen to him. I always disliked what he said about women—it was unspeakably "vulgar," and there was in his words something artificial, insincere, and at the same time very personal. It seemed as if he had once been hurt, and could neither forget nor forgive. The evening when I first got to know him, he took me into his study—it was at Khamovniki in Moscow—and, making me sit opposite to him, began to talk about Varienka Oliessova and of Twenty-Six and One. I was overwhelmed by his tone and lost my head, he spoke so plainly and brutally, arguing that in a healthy girl chastity is not natural. "If a girl who has turned fifteen is healthy, she desires to be touched and embraced. Her mind is still afraid of the unknown and of what she does not understand -that is what they call chastity and purity. But her flesh is already aware that the incomprehensible is right, lawful, and, in spite of the mind, it demands fulfilment of the law. Now you describe Varienka Oliessova as healthy, but her feelings are anaemic—that is not true to life."
Then he began to speak about the girl in Twenty-six and One, using a stream of indecent words with a simplicity which seemed to me cynical and even offended me. Later I came to see that he used unmentionable words only because he found them more precise and pointed, but at the time it was unpleasant to me to listen to him. I made no reply, and suddenly he became attentive and kindly and began asking me about my life, what I was studying, and what I read.
"I am told that you are very well read; is that true? Is Korolenko a musician?"
"I believe not; but I'm not sure."
"You don't know? Do you like his stories?"
"I do very much."
"It is the contrast. He is lyrical and you haven't got that. Have you read Weltmann?"