“How do you remember it, Tolstoi?” Tolstoi laughed and said: “But you remember in your music, and so we writers remember things in our art.” Tolstoi said about _Virgin Soil_ that he did not share the general indifference towards that novel and considered it very successful. Among other things, he thought the new type of Sipyagin successful and observed at the right time. On this occasion Tolstoi said: “But for the most part I object to the trick of guessing at modern types and phenomena. The other day the painter K. was here. I told him a great deal about his work which must be unpleasant to him. He is always occupied with these modern themes. I said to him that one ought never to paint what is talked about in the newspapers. Besides, he simply can’t make a picture intelligible, clear. In his works you can’t make out what he wants to represent. How inferior he is to Orlov[6] in this respect!” I. V. Denisenko read aloud the chapters about Nicolas from _Hadji-Murat_. Tolstoi sat in his room, but he wanted to come where we were all sitting. He came in several times and said: “It is not interesting; let it be!” At last he even said with irritation: “It is rubbish!” Then M. S. Sukhotin asked him: “Why did you write it, then, Leo Nickolaevich?” Tolstoi replied: “But it is not finished yet. You came into my kitchen, and no wonder it stinks with the smell of cooking.” Tolstoi explained why he had made up his mind never to write to the papers to deny what was said about him. “When I stayed with Turgenev in Petersburg, Mefodii Katkov[7] arrived from Moscow, and, on behalf of his brother, asked Turgenev and myself to let him have something for his _Russkii Vestnik_. I promised nothing, but Turgenev with his characteristic kindness said, rather vaguely, that he might perhaps let him have something. “Soon after this a group of writers in Petersburg, Nekrasov, Turgenev, myself, Panaev, Druzhinin, Grigorovich, formed ourselves into a group and decided to publish only in the _Sovremennik_. When Katkov heard this, he accused Turgenev in print of breaking his promise. Then I wrote a letter to Katkov, and asked him to publish it, in which I, as a witness, refuted Katkov’s statement and proved that Turgenev had not promised Katkov anything. “At first Katkov did not publish the letter; afterwards he published it, but in such a mutilated form that it quite changed its character. After that I made a vow to myself that I would never make any reply to attacks in the Press.” The talk turned on our Government. Tolstoi said: “Do you know, Peter Alexeevich, I want to found a society whose members would bind themselves not to abuse the Government.” Sergeenko and others replied that, although it was true that people made too much of that subject, still, when the Government prevented people from living freely or breathing freely, it was difficult not to criticize it. To this Tolstoi said: