On the occasion of his excommunication Tolstoi received, and is still receiving, a number of addresses, letters of sympathy, etc. One lady sent him a piece of holy bread and a letter in which she said that she had just received the Sacrament and took the Host for his benefit. She ends her letter: “Eat it in health and pay no heed to these stupid priests.” _August 9th._ I was the other day in Yasnaya Polyana. Tolstoi is hale and hearty. I have not seen him like that for a long time. The conversation was about Russian writers. Tolstoi said: “I was fond of Turgenev as a man. As a writer, I do not attribute particular importance to him or to Goncharov. Their subjects, the number of ordinary characters and love scenes, have too ephemeral an importance. If I were asked which of the Russian writers I consider the most important, I would say: Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Hertzen, whom our Liberals have forgotten, and Dostoevsky, whom they do not read at all. Well, and then: Griboedov, Ostrovsky, Tyutchev.” Of Gogol’s works Tolstoi does not like _Taras Bulba_ at all. He far prefers _The Revisor_ (_Inspector General_), _Dead Souls_, _Shinel_, _Koliaska_ (“it’s a masterpiece in miniature”), _Nevsky Prospect_. Of Pushkin’s works, he considers _Boris Godunov_ a failure. It is characteristic that in making his selection Tolstoi said: “I do not speak of myself; it’s not for me, but for others, to judge of my importance.” That evening in his study Tolstoi said to me: “Alexander Borisovich, an image comes before me. Rays spread out from a centre. The centre is the spiritual essence; the rays are the perpetually growing needs of the body. A time comes when a spiritual life begins to exist inside these rays. They spread out at an ever diminishing angle, become parallel, and at last draw together and finally unite in the one infinitely small and entirely spiritual centre--death.” _Gaspra, Crimea, September 12th._ Chekhov was here yesterday. He does not look well; he looks old and coughs perpetually. He speaks little, in short sentences, but they are always to the point. He gave a touching account of his life with his mother in the winter at Yalta. Tolstoi was very glad to see him. _Gaspra, Crimea, September 16th._ Life here goes on very quietly. After dinner I or N. L. Obolensky, or both in turn, read Chekhov’s stories aloud, which Tolstoi greatly enjoys. The other day I read _The Tedious Story_. Tolstoi was in constant raptures over Chekhov’s understanding. He also liked, for the originality of the idea and the mastery of the writing, _The Bet_, and particularly _The Steppe_. Of Chekhov Tolstoi said: “He is a strange writer: he throws words about as if at random, and yet everything is alive. And what understanding! He never has any superfluous details; every one of them is either necessary or beautiful.”