Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/rstalkswithtolst00golduoft TALKS WITH TOLSTOI by A. B. GOLDENVEIZER Translated by S. S. Koteliansky and Virginia Woolf Published by Leonard & Virginia Woolf at The Hogarth Press, Paradise Road, Richmond 1923 TRANSLATORS’ NOTE In the following pages we have made a selection from vol. i. of the diary of the well-known Russian musician, A. B. Goldenveizer, which was published at the end of 1922 in Moscow under the title _Vblizi Tolstovo_ (literally _Near Tolstoi_). INTRODUCTORY NOTE In publishing the diary devoted to my friendship of nearly fifteen years with Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi, I think it best to state first what my aim was in making notes, and the method I pursued in doing so. I put down chiefly Tolstoi’s words, and to some extent the events of his private life, making no attempt to select what would be interesting from some special point of view, but adopting no method and attempting to supply no connection between one entry and another. My diary, therefore, is in no sense “literature.” Its aim is to be a document. Unfortunately, I did not always make notes and was far from writing down everything. After 1908 my records were fuller; in 1909-1910, the last year of Tolstoi’s life, my reports were voluminous; but it was only in 1910 that my records were as complete as they could possibly be. This is the cause of a great disproportion between the parts. The first volume of my diary contains the long period from January 1896 to January 1st, 1910, the second volume records and materials for the year 1910 only, yet vol. ii. is considerably larger than vol. i. My notes from 1896 to 1904 are now published for the first time. The notes from 1904 to 1908 were published in _Russ. Prop._ vol. ii., and the notes from the end of 1908 to January 1st, 1910, appeared in _Tolstoi: Pamyatniki Zhizni i Tvorchestva_. The parts of the diary which have been previously published are here published in a considerably enlarged form. A. GOLDENVEIZER. 1896 My first visit to the house of Leo Nikolaevich was on January 20th, 1896. I was not then twenty-one years old. I was almost a boy. I was taken to the Tolstois’ by a well-known Moscow lady singer who used to visit the Tolstois. She took me there in my capacity as pianist, of course. If one is so unlucky as to play some instrument, or to sing or recite, one has a constant impediment in one’s relations with people. People do not take to one, are not interested in one as in a person: one is asked to play something, to sing, to recite.... Hence one feels so embarrassed, so awkward, in other people’s society.