their words is always concealed a desire to allow the other person to show what is in his mind. A good peasant will never show at once what is in his own mind: it is not profitable. He knows that people approach a stupid man frankly and directly, and that's the very thing he wants. You stand revealed before him and he at once sees all your weak points. He is suspicious; he is afraid to tell his inmost thoughts even to his wife. But with your peasants in every story everything is revealed: it's a universal council of wisdom. And they all speak in aphorisms; that's not true to life, either; aphorisms are not natural to the Russian language."
"What about sayings and proverbs?"
"That's a different thing. They are not of to-day's manufacture."
"But you yourself often speak in aphorisms."
"Never. There again you touch everything up; people as well as nature—especially people. So did Lieskov, an affected, finicking writer whom nobody reads now. Don't let anyone influence you, fear no one, and then you'll be all right."
XVII
IN his diary which he gave me to read, I was struck by a strange aphorism: "God is my desire."
To-day, on returning him the book, I asked him what it meant.
"An unfinished thought," he said, glancing at the page and screwing up his eyes. "I must have
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