XXIII
In the morning some "stundists" came to Tolstoy from Feodosia, and
to-day all day long he spoke about peasants with rapture.
At lunch: "They came both so strong and fleshy; says one: 'Well, we've
come uninvited,' and the other says: 'With God's help, we shall leave
unbeated.'" And he broke out into child-like laughter, shaking all over.
After lunch, on the terrace: "We shall
soon cease completely to understand the language of the people. Now we
say 'the theory of progress,' 'the rôle of the individual in
history,' 'the evolution of science'; and a peasant says: 'You can't
hide an awl in a sack'; and all theories, histories, evolutions become
pitiable and ridiculous, because they are incomprehensible and
unnecessary to the people. But the peasant is stronger than we; he is
more tenacious of life, and there may happen to us what happened to the
tribe of Atzurs, of whom it was reported to a scholar: 'All the Atzurs
have died out, but there is a parrot here who knows a few words of their
language.'"
