He talks most of God, of peasants, and of woman; of literature rarely
and little, as 'though literature were something alien to him. Woman,
in my opinion, he regards with implacable hostility and loves to punish
her, unless she be a Kittie or Natasha Rostov, _i.e.,_ a creature not
too narrow. It is the hostility of the male who has not succeeded in
getting all the pleasure he could, or it is the hostility of spirit
against "the degrading impulses of the flesh." But it is hostility,
and cold, as in _Anna Karenin._ Of "the degrading impulses of the
flesh" lie spoke well on Sunday in a conversation with Tchekhov and
Yelpatievsky about Rousseau's _Confession._ Suler wrote down what he
said, and later, while preparing coffee, burnt it in the spirit-lamp.
Once before he burnt Leo Nicolayevitch's opinions on Ibsen, and he also
lost the notes of the conversation in which Leo Nicolayevitch said very
pagan things on the symbolism of the marriage ritual, agreeing to a
certain extent with V. V. Rosanov.