OF women he talks readily and much, like a French novelist, but always
with the coarseness of a Russian peasant. Formerly it used to affect me
unpleasantly. To-day in the Almond Park he asked Anton Tchekhov:
"You whored a great deal when you were young?"
Anton Pavlovitch, with a confused smile, and pulling at his little
beard, muttered something inaudible, and Leo Nicolayevitch, looking at
the sea, confessed:
"I was an indefatigable...."
He said this penitently, using at the end of the sentence a salty
peasant word. And I noticed for the first time how simply he used the
word, as though he knew no more fitting one to use. All those kinds of
words, coming from his shaggy lips, sound simple and natural and lose
their soldierly coarseness and filth. I remember my first meeting with
him and his talk about "Varienka Oliessova" and "Twenty-six and One."
From the ordinary point of view what he said was a string of indecent
words. I was perplexed by it and even offended. I thought that he
considered me incapable of understanding any other kind of language. I
understand now: it was silly to have felt offended.