but a literary maniac who put literature far above everything in life. I so
rarely see genuine literary people at home in Moscow that a conversation
with Boborykin seemed like heavenly manna, though I don't believe in the
physiology of the novel and the natural course of its development--that is,
there may exist such a physiology in nature, but I don't believe with
existing methods it can be detected. Boborykin dismisses Gogol absolutely
and refuses to recognize him as a forerunner of Turgenev, Gontcharov, and
Tolstoy.... He puts him apart, outside the current in which the Russian
novel has flowed. Well, I don't understand that. If one takes the
standpoint of natural development, it's impossible to put not only Gogol,
but even a dog barking, outside the current, for all things in nature
influence one another, and even the fact that I have just sneezed is not
without its influence on surrounding nature....

Good health to you! I am reading Shtchedrin's "Diary of a Provincial." How
long and boring it is! And at the same time how like real life!




TO N. A. LEIKIN.

MOSCOW,
December 2, 1891.


I am writing to ask you a great favour, dear Nikolay Alexandrovitch. This
is what it is. Until last year I have always lived with my university
diploma, which by land and by sea has served me for a passport; but every
time it has been _vise_ the police have warned me that one cannot live with