1896
My neighbor V.N.S. told me that his uncle Fet-Shenshin, the famous
poet, when driving through the Mokhovaia Street, would invariably let
down the window of his carriage and spit at the University. He would
expectorate and spit: Bah! His coachman got so used to this that every
time he drove past the University, he would stop.
In January I was in Petersburg and stayed with Souvorin. I often
saw Potapenko. Met Korolenko. I often went to the Maly Theatre.
As Alexander [Chekhov's brother] came downstairs one day, B.V.G.
simultaneously came out of the editorial office of the _Novoye
Vremya_ and said to me indignantly: "Why do you set the old man
(i.e. Souvorin) against Burenin?" I have never spoken ill of the
contributors to the _Novoye Vremya_ in Souvorin's presence, although I
have the deepest disrespect for the majority of them.
In February, passing through Moscow, I went to see L.N. Tolstoi. He
was irritated, made stinging remarks about the _décadents_, and for
an hour and a half argued with B. Tchitcherin, who, I thought, talked
nonsense all the time. Tatyana and Mary [Tolstoi's daughters] laid
out a patience; they both wished, and asked me to pick a card out;
I picked out the ace of spades separately for each of them, and that
annoyed them. By accident there were two aces of spades in the pack.
Both of them are extraordinarily sympathetic, and their attitude to
their father is touching. The countess denounced the painter Gé all
the evening. She too was irritated.
May 5. The sexton Ivan Nicolayevitch brought my portrait, which he has
painted from a photograph. In the evening V.N.S. brought his friend N.
He is director of the Foreign Department ... editor of a magazine ...
and doctor of medicine. He gives the impression of being an unusually
stupid person and a reptile. He said: "There's nothing more pernicious
on earth than a rascally liberal paper," and told us that, apparently,
the peasants whom he doctors, having got his advice and medicine free
of charge, ask him for a tip. He and S. speak of the peasants with
exasperation and loathing.
June 1. I was at the Vagankov Cemetery and saw the graves there of
the victims of the Khodinka. [During the coronation of Nicholas II
in Moscow hundreds of people were crushed to death in the Khodinka
Fields.] I. Pavlovsky, the Paris correspondent of the _Novoye Vremya_,
came with me to Melikhovo.
August 4. Opening of the school in Talezh. The peasants of Talezh,
Bershov, Doubechnia and Sholkovo presented me with four loaves, an
icon and two silver salt-cellars. The Sholkovo peasant Postnov made a
speech.
N. stayed with me from the 15th to the 18th August. He has been
forbidden [by the authorities] to publish anything: he speaks
contemptuously now of the younger G., who said to the new Chief of
the Central Press Bureau that he was not going to sacrifice his weekly
_Nedelya_ for N.'s sake and that "We have always anticipated the
wishes of the Censorship." In fine weather N. walks in goloshes, and
carries an umbrella, so as not to die of sunstroke; he is afraid to
wash in cold water, and complains of palpitations of the heart. From
me he went on to L.N. Tolstoi.
I left Taganrog on August 24. In Rostov I had supper with a
school-friend, L. Volkenstein, the barrister, who has already a
house in town and a villa in Kislovodsk [in the Caucasus]. I was in
Nakhichevan--what a change! All the streets are lit by electric light.
In Kislovodsk, at the funeral of General Safonov, I met A.I. Tchouprov
[a famous economist], later I met A.N. Vesselovsky [littérateur] in
the park. On the 28th I went on a hunting party with Baron Steingel,
passed the night in Bermamut. It was cold with a violent wind.
2 September in Novorissisk. Steamer _Alexander II_. On the 3rd I
arrived at Feodossia and stopped with Souvorin. I saw I.K. Aivasovsky
[famous painter] who said to me: "You no longer come to see me, an old
man." In his opinion I ought to have paid him a visit. On the 16th in
Kharkov, I was in the theatre at the performance of "The Dangers of
Intelligence." 17th at home: wonderful weather.
Vladimir Sloviov [famous philosopher] told me that he always carried
an oak-gall in his trouser pocket,--in his opinion, it is a radical
cure for piles.
October 17. Performance of my "Seagull" at the Alexandrinsky Theatre.
It was not a success.
29th. I was at a meeting of the Zemstvo Council at Sezpukhovo.
On the 10th November I had a letter from A.F. Koni who says he liked
my "Seagull" very much.
November 26th. A fire broke out in our house. Count S.I. Shakhovsky
helped to put it out. When it was over, Sh. related that once, when
a fire broke out in his house at night, he lifted a tank of water
weighing 4-1/2 cwt. and poured the water on the flames.
December 4. For the performance [of the "Seagull"] on the 17th October
see "Theatral," No. 95, page 75. It is true that I fled from the
theatre, but only when the play was over. In L.'s dressing-room during
two or three acts. During the intervals there came to her officials of
the State Theatres in uniform, wearing their orders, P.--with a Star;
a handsome young official of the Department of the State Police also
came to her. If a man takes up work which is alien to him, art for
instance, then, since it is impossible for him to become an artist, he
becomes an official. What a lot of people thus play the parasite round
science, the theatre, the painting,--by putting on a uniform! Likewise
the man to whom life is alien, who is incapable of living, nothing
else remains for him, but to become an official. The fat actresses,
who were in the dressing-room, made themselves pleasant to the
officials--respectfully and flatteringly. (L. expressed her delight
that P., so young, had already got the Star.) They were old,
respectable house-keepers, serf-women, whom the masters honored with
their presence.
December 21. Levitan suffers from dilation of the aorta. He carries
clay on his chest. He has superb studies for pictures, and a
passionate thirst for life.
December 31. P.I. Seryogin, the landscape painter, came.
1897.
From January 10 to February 3 busy with the census. I am enumerator
of the 16th district, and have to instruct the other (fifteen)
enumerators of our Bavykin Section. They all work superbly, except
the priest of the Starospassky parish and the Government official,
appointed to the Zemstvo, G., (who is in charge of the census
district); he is away nearly all the time in Serpukhovo, spends every
evening at the Club and keeps on wiring that he is not well. All the
rest of the Government officials of our district are also said to do
nothing.
With such critics as we have, authors like N.S. Lyeskov and S.V.
Maximov cannot be a success.
Between "there is a God" and "there is no God" lies a whole vast
tract, which the really wise man crosses with great effort. A Russian
knows one or other of these two extremes, and the middle tract between
them does not interest him; and therefore he usually knows nothing, or
very little.
The ease with which Jews change their religion is justified by many on
the ground of indifference. But this is not a justification. One has
to respect even one's indifference, and not change it for anything,
since indifference in a decent man is also a religion.
February 13. Dinner at Mme. Morosov's. Tchouprov, Sololevsky,
Blaramberg, Sablin and myself were present.
February 15. Pancakes at Soldatienkov's [a Moscow publisher]. Only
Golziev [editor of _Russian Thought_] and myself were present. Many
fine pictures, nearly all badly hung. After the pancakes we drove to
Levitan, from whom Soldatienkov bought a picture and two studies for
1,100 roubles. Met Polyenov [famous painter]. In the evening I was
at professor Ostroumov's; he says that Levitan "can't help dying." O.
himself is ill and obviously frightened.
February 16. Several of us met in the evening in the offices of
_Russian Thought_ to discuss the People's Theatre. Every one liked
Shekhtel's plan.
February 19. Dinner at the "Continental" to commemorate the
great reform [the abolition of the serfdom in 1861]. Tedious and
incongruous. To dine, drink champagne, make a racket, and deliver
speeches about national consciousness, the conscience of the people,
freedom, and such things, while slaves in tail-coats are running round
your tables, veritable serfs, and your coachmen wait outside in the
street, in the bitter cold--that is lying to the Holy Ghost.
February 22. I went to Serpukhovo to an amateur performance in aid of
the school at Novossiolki. As far as Zarizin I was accompanied by ... a
little queen in exile,--an actress who imagines herself great;
uneducated and a bit vulgar.
From March 25 till April 10 I was laid up in Ostroumov's clinic.
Hæmorrhage. Creaking, moisture in the apices of both my lungs;
congestion in the apex of the right. On March 28 L.N. Tolstoi came
to see me. We spoke of immortality. I told him the gist of Nossilov's
story "The Theatre of the Voguls," and he evidently listened with
great pleasure.
May 1. N. arrived. He is always thanking you for tea and dinner,
apologizing, afraid of being late for the train; he talks a great
deal, keeps mentioning his wife, like Gogol's Mijniev, pushes the
proofs of his play over to you, first one sheet then another, giggles,
attacks Menshikov, whom Tolstoi has "swallowed"; assures you that he
would shoot Stassiulevitch, if the latter were to show himself at a
review, as President of the Russian Republic; giggles again, wets his
mustaches with the soup, eats hardly anything, and yet is quite a nice
man after all.
May 4. The monks from the monastery paid us a visit. Dasha
Moussin-Poushkin, the wife of the engineer Gliebov, who has been
killed hunting, was there. She sang a great deal.
May 24. I was present at the examination of two schools in Tchirkov.
[The Tchirkov and Mikhailovo schools.]
July 13. Opening of the school at Novossiolki which I have had built.
The peasants gave me an icon with an inscription. The Zemstvo people
were absent.
Braz [painter] does my portrait (for the Tretiakov Gallery). Two
sittings a day.
July 22. I received a medal for my work on the census.
July 23. In Petersburg. Stopped at Souvorin's, in the drawing-room.
Met VI. T.... who complained of his hysteria and praised his own
books. I saw P. Gnyeditch and E. Karpov, who imitated Leykin showing
off as a Spanish grandee.
July 27. At Leykin's at Ivanovsk. 28th in Moscow. In the editorial
offices of _Russian Thought_, bugs in the sofa.
September 4. Arrived in Paris. "Moulin Rouge," danse du ventre, Café
du Néon with Coffins, Café du Ciel, etc.
September 8. In Biarritz. V.M. Sobolevsky and Mme. V.A. Morosov are
here. Every Russian in Biarritz complains of the number of Russians
here.
September 14. Bayonne. Grande course landoise. Bull-fight.
September 22. From Biarritz to Nice via Toulouse.
September 23. Nice. I settled into the Pension Russe. Met Maxim
Kovalevsky; lunched at his house at Beaulieu, with N.I. Yurassov and
Yakobi, the artist. In Monte Carlo.
October 7. Confession of a spy.
October 9. I saw B.'s mother playing roulette. Unpleasant sight.
November 15. Monte Carlo. I saw how the croupier stole a louis d'or.
1898.
April 16. In Paris. Acquaintance with M.M. Antokolsky [sculptor] and
negotiations for a statue of Peter the Great.
May 5. Returned home.
May 26. Sobolevsky came to Melikhovo. Must put down the fact that,
in Paris, in spite of the rain and cold, I spent two or three weeks
without being bored. Arrived here with M. Kovalevsky. Many interesting
acquaintances: Paul Boyer, Art Roë, Bonnie, M. Dreyfus, De Roberti,
Waliczewsky, Onieguin. Luncheons and dinners, at I.I. Schoukin's
house. Left by Nord-express for Petersburg, whence to Moscow. At home,
found wonderful weather.
An example of clerical boorishness. At a dinner party the critic
Protopopov came up to M. Kovalevsky, clinked glasses and said: "I
drink to science, so long as it does no harm to the people."
1901.
September 12. I was at L. Tolstoi's.
December 7. Talked to L. Tolstoi over the telephone.
1903.
January 8. "Istorichesky Vestnik," November 1902, "The Artistic Life
of Moscow in the Seventies," by I.N. Zakharin. It is said in that
article that I sent in my "Three Sisters" to the Theatrical and
Literary Committee. It is not true.