... They write about Tolstoy as old women talk about a crazy saint, all sorts of unctuous nonsense; it’s a mistake for him to talk to those people.... They have elected Tolstoy [Footnote: An honorary Academician.]--against the grain. According to notions there, he is a Nihilist. Anyway, that’s what he was called by a lady, the wife of an actual privy councillor, and I heartily congratulate him upon it.... TO L. S. MIZINOV. YALTA, January 29, 1900. DEAR LIRA, They have written to me that you have grown very fat and become dignified, and I did not expect that you would remember me and write to me. But you have remembered me--and thank you very much for it, dear. You write nothing about your health: evidently it’s not bad, and I am glad. I hope your mother is well and that everything is going on all right. I am nearly well; I am ill from time to time, but not often, and only because I am old--the bacilli have nothing to do with it. And when I see a lovely woman now I smile in an aged way, and drop my lower lip--that’s all. * * * * * Lika, I am dreadfully bored in Yalta. My life does not run or flow, but crawls along. Don’t forget me; write to me now and then, anyway. In your letters just as in your life you are a very interesting woman. I press your hand warmly. TO GORKY. YALTA, February 3, 1900. DEAR ALEXEY MAXIMOVITCH, Thank you for your letter, for the lines about Tolstoy and about “Uncle Vanya,” which I haven’t seen on the stage; thanks altogether for not forgetting me. Here in this blessed Yalta one could hardly keep alive without letters. The idleness, the idiotic winter with the temperature always above freezing-point, the complete absence of interesting women, the pig-faces on the sea-front--all this may spoil a man and wear him out in a very short time. I am tired of it; it seems to me as though the winter had been going on for ten years.