on earth than a rascally liberal paper," and told us that, apparently,
the peasants whom he doctors, having got his advice and medicine free
of charge, ask him for a tip. He and S. speak of the peasants with
exasperation and loathing.

June 1. I was at the Vagankov Cemetery and saw the graves there of
the victims of the Khodinka. [During the coronation of Nicholas II
in Moscow hundreds of people were crushed to death in the Khodinka
Fields.] I. Pavlovsky, the Paris correspondent of the _Novoye Vremya_,
came with me to Melikhovo.

August 4. Opening of the school in Talezh. The peasants of Talezh,
Bershov, Doubechnia and Sholkovo presented me with four loaves, an
icon and two silver salt-cellars. The Sholkovo peasant Postnov made a
speech.

N. stayed with me from the 15th to the 18th August. He has been
forbidden [by the authorities] to publish anything: he speaks
contemptuously now of the younger G., who said to the new Chief of
the Central Press Bureau that he was not going to sacrifice his weekly
_Nedelya_ for N.'s sake and that "We have always anticipated the
wishes of the Censorship." In fine weather N. walks in goloshes, and
carries an umbrella, so as not to die of sunstroke; he is afraid to
wash in cold water, and complains of palpitations of the heart. From
me he went on to L.N. Tolstoi.

I left Taganrog on August 24. In Rostov I had supper with a
school-friend, L. Volkenstein, the barrister, who has already a
house in town and a villa in Kislovodsk [in the Caucasus]. I was in
Nakhichevan--what a change! All the streets are lit by electric light.