poet, when driving through the Mokhovaia Street, would invariably let
down the window of his carriage and spit at the University. He would
expectorate and spit: Bah! His coachman got so used to this that every
time he drove past the University, he would stop.

In January I was in Petersburg and stayed with Souvorin. I often
saw Potapenko. Met Korolenko. I often went to the Maly Theatre.
As Alexander [Chekhov's brother] came downstairs one day, B.V.G.
simultaneously came out of the editorial office of the _Novoye
Vremya_ and said to me indignantly: "Why do you set the old man
(i.e. Souvorin) against Burenin?" I have never spoken ill of the
contributors to the _Novoye Vremya_ in Souvorin's presence, although I
have the deepest disrespect for the majority of them.

In February, passing through Moscow, I went to see L.N. Tolstoi. He
was irritated, made stinging remarks about the _décadents_, and for
an hour and a half argued with B. Tchitcherin, who, I thought, talked
nonsense all the time. Tatyana and Mary [Tolstoi's daughters] laid
out a patience; they both wished, and asked me to pick a card out;
I picked out the ace of spades separately for each of them, and that
annoyed them. By accident there were two aces of spades in the pack.
Both of them are extraordinarily sympathetic, and their attitude to
their father is touching. The countess denounced the painter Gé all
the evening. She too was irritated.

May 5. The sexton Ivan Nicolayevitch brought my portrait, which he has
painted from a photograph. In the evening V.N.S. brought his friend N.
He is director of the Foreign Department ... editor of a magazine ...
and doctor of medicine. He gives the impression of being an unusually
stupid person and a reptile. He said: "There's nothing more pernicious