Page:Gorky - Reminiscences of Leo Nicolayevitch Tolstoi.djvu/52

 And, evidently seeing that his words had not been understood, he added with a quick smile:

"If a man has learned to think, no matter what he may think about, he is always thinking of his own death. All philosophers were like that. And what truths can there be, if there is death?"

He went on to say that truth is the same for all—love of God; but on this subject he spoke coldly and wearily. After lunch on the terrace, he took up the book again, and, finding the passage, "Tolstoi, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche could not live without an answer to their questions, and for them any answer was better than none," he laughed and said:

"What a daring coiffeur; he says straight that I deceived myself, and that means that I deceived others too. That is the obvious conclusion . . ."

"Why coiffeur?" asked Suler.

"Well," he answered thoughtfully, "it just came into my mind—he is fashionable, chic, and I remembered the coiffeur from Moscow at a wedding of his peasant uncle in the village. He has the finest manners and he dances fashionably, and so he despises everyone."

I repeat this conversation, I think, almost literally; it is most memorable for me, and I even wrote it down, as I did many other things which struck me. Sulerzhizky and I wrote down many things which Tolstoi said, but Suler lost his notes when he came to me at Arsamas: he was habitually careless, and although he loved Leo Nicolayevitch like a woman,