Page:Gorky - Reminiscences of Leo Nicolayevitch Tolstoi.djvu/76

 written by inventors like themselves, and they thought it a serious business; but it was of no use to a soul."

I disagreed with this opinion, and it irritated Leo Nicolayevitch a little; he could barely stand contradiction, and sometimes his opinions were strange and capricious.

"There is no such thing as degeneration," he said once. "The Italian Lombroso invented it, and after him comes the Jew Nordau, screaming like a parrot. Italy is the land of charlatans and adventurers: only Arentinos, Casanovas, Cagliostros, and the like are born there."

"And Garibaldi?"

"That's politics; that's another thing."

To a whole series of facts, taken from the life of the merchant-class families in Russia, he answered: "But it's untrue; it's only written in clever books."

I told him the actual history of three generations of a merchant family which I had known, a history in which the law of degeneration had acted with particular mercilessness. Then he began excitedly tugging at my arm and encouraging me to write about it: "Now that's true. I know it; there are two families like that in Tula. It ought to be written. A long novel, written concisely, do you see? You must do it." His eyes flashed.

"But then there will be knights, Leo Nicolayevitch."

"Don't. This is really serious. The one who is going to be a monk and pray for the whole family