University of Virginia Library

XX

Of women he talks readily and much, like a French novelist, but always with the coarseness of a Russian peasant. Formerly it used to affect me unpleasantly. To-day in the Almond Park he asked Anton Tchekhov:

"You whored a great deal when you were young?"

Anton Pavlovich, with a confused smile,

and pulling at his little beard, muttered something inaudible and Leo Nikolaevich, looking at the sea, confessed:

"I was an indefatigable . . ."

He said this penitently, using at the end of the sentence a salty peasant word. And I noticed for the first time how simply he used these words, as though he knew no more fitting ones to use. Coming from his shaggy lips, they sound simple and natural and lose their soldierly coarseness and filth. I remember my first meeting with him and his talk about Varienka Oliessova and "Twenty-six and One." From the ordinary point of view what he said was a string of indecent words. I was perplexed by it and even offended. I thought that he considered me incapable of understanding any other kind of language. I understand now: it was silly to have felt offended.