“Their visit was very interesting and useful to me. Once more, as so many times before, I was convinced how much feebler and more unreal are the psychological motives which one invents oneself in order to explain actions. The actions of one’s imaginary characters are then the motives which guided those people in real life. After talking to these people I cooled to my work.” On another occasion, in the dining-room downstairs, animated conversation was going on among the younger people. Tolstoi, who was resting in the next room in the dark, afterwards came into the dining-room and said to me: “I lay there and listened to your talk. It interested me from two points of view: it was interesting simply to hear young people talking, and then it was also interesting from the dramatic point of view. I listened and said to myself: This is how one ought to write for the stage. It is not one speaking and the others listening. It is never like that. It is necessary that all should speak, and the art of the writer consists in making what he wants run through it like a beautiful thread.” _March 8th._ Yesterday Tolstoi was in good form. At tea he laughed and joked. The conversation was about luxury. Tolstoi said: “How much more money people spend nowadays than they used! When Sophie Andreevna and I lived in Yasnaya, our income from the Nikolsky estate was about five thousand roubles and we lived superbly. I remember when Sophie Andreevna bought little mats to lay by the beds, it seemed to me a useless and incredible luxury. And now my sons--I seem to have about twenty of them--squander money right and left, buy dogs, horses, gramophones. I asked myself then, why buy carpets when we have slippers? Certainly we did not go barefoot, but, behold, Riepin painted me _décolleté_, barefooted, in a shirt! I have to thank him for not having taken off my nether garments! And he never asked me, if I liked it! But I have long since got used to being treated as if I were dead. There, in the Peredvizhni exhibition, you will see the Devil (Riepin’s ‘Temptation of Christ’), and you’ll also see the man possessed by the Devil!” On February 25th Tolstoi’s excommunication was announced. That day Tolstoi and A. N. Dunaev went on some business to a doctor and came into the Lubiansky Square. In the square, by the fountain, the crowd recognized Tolstoi. At first, as Dunaev relates, an ironical voice was heard: “Here’s the Devil in the likeness of a man!” This served for a signal. The crowd threw themselves like one man on Tolstoi. All shouted and threw up their hats. Tolstoi was confused; he didn’t know what to do and walked away almost at a run. The crowd followed him. With great difficulty Tolstoi and Dunaev managed to get a sledge at the corner of Neglinny. The crowd wanted to stop the cabman and many held on to the sledge. At that moment a troop of mounted police appeared, let the cab through, and immediately made a ring and cut off the crowd.