Page:Gorky - Reminiscences of Leo Nicolayevitch Tolstoi.djvu/38

 individual and contempt for society and for mankind. That is true, but 'anarchical sovereignty' is a slip of the pen, it should have been 'monarchical.' That is a good and true idea; all the terrorists will trip up over it—I mean the honest ones. The man who naturally loves killing won't trip up. There is nothing for him to trip up over. He's just a plain murderer, and has only accidentally become a terrorist."]

OMETIMES he seems to be conceited and intolerant, like a Volga preacher, and this is terrible in a man who is the sounding bell of this world. Yesterday he said to me:

"I am more of a mouzhik than you and I feel better in a mouzhik way."

God, he ought not to boast of it, he must not!

READ him some scenes from my play, The Lower Depths; he listened attentively and then asked:

"Why do you write that?"

I explained as best I could.

"One always notices that you jump like a cock on to everything. And more—you always want to paint all the grooves and cracks over with your own paint. You remember that Andersen says: 'The