The zoologist V. A. Wagner, who took his degree with you, is staying in the
same courtyard. He is writing a very solid dissertation. Kisilyov, the
artist, is living in the same yard too. We go walks together in the
evenings and discuss philosophy....




TO A. S. SUVORIN.

BOGIMOVO,
July 24, 1891.


... Thanks for the five kopecks addition. Alas, it will not settle my
difficulties! To save up a reserve, as you write, and extricate myself from
the abyss of halfpenny anxieties and petty terrors, there is only one
resource left me--an immoral one. To marry a rich woman or give out Anna
Karenin as my work. And as that is impossible I dismiss my difficulties in
despair and let things go as they please.

You once praised Rod, a French writer, and told me Tolstoy liked him. The
other day I happened to read a novel of his and flung up my hands in
amazement. He is equivalent to our Matchtet, only a little more
intelligent. There is a terrible deal of affectation, dreariness, straining
after originality, and as little of anything artistic as there was salt in
that porridge we cooked in the evening at Bogimovo. In the preface this Rod
regrets that he was in the past a "naturalist," and rejoices that the
spiritualism of the latest recruits of literature has replaced materialism.