"Yes."
"Isn't he a good writer, clever, exact, and with no exaggeration? He is sometimes better than Gogol. He knew Balzac. And Gogol imitated Marlinsky."
When I said that Gogol was probably influenced by Hoffmann, Stern, and perhaps Dickens, he glanced at me and asked: "Have you read that somewhere? No? It isn't true. Gogol hardly knew Dickens. But you must clearly have read a great deal: now look here, it's dangerous. Kolzov ruined himself by it."
When he accompanied me to the door, he embraced and kissed me and said: "You are a real mouzhik. You will find it difficult to live among writers, but never mind, don't be afraid, always say what you feel even if it be rude—it doesn't matter. Sensible people will understand."
I had two impressions from this first meeting: I was glad and proud to have seen Tolstoi, but his conversation reminded me a little of an examination, and in a sense I did not see in him the author of Cossacks, Kholstomier, War and Peace, but a barin who, making allowances for me, considered it necessary to speak to me in the common language, the language of the street and market-place. That upset my idea of him, an idea which was deeply rooted and had become dear to me.
It was at Yassnaya Polyana that I saw him again. It was an overcast, autumn day with a drizzle of rain, and he put on a heavy overcoat and high leather boots and took me for a walk in the birch wood. He jumped the ditches and pools like a boy, shook the rain-drops off the branches, and gave me a superb account of how Fet had explained Schopenhauer to him in this wood. He stroked the damp, satin trunks of the birches lovingly with his hand and said: "Lately I read a poem—
The mushrooms are gone, but in the hollows
Is the heavy smell of mushroom dampness....
Very good, very true."
Suddenly a hare got up under our feet. Leo Nicolayevitch started up excited, his face lit up, and he whooped like a real old sportsman. Then, looking at me with a curious little smile, he broke into a sensible, human laugh. He was wonderfully charming at that moment.
Another time he was looking at a hawk in the park: it was hovering over the cattle-shed, making wide circles suspended in the air, moving its wings very slightly as if undecided whether or not the moment to strike had come. Leo Nicolayevitch stood up shading his eyes with his hand and murmured with excitement: "The rogue is going for our chickens. Now, now ... it's coming ... O, he's afraid. The groom is there, isn't he? I'll call the groom...."