In his October 17, 1893, letter Leo Tolstoy wrote to Grigorovich : " You are a man most dear to me, especial due to the unforgettable effect your first two novels have had upon me & How enraptured and touched was I, the 16 year old boy, as I've read " Anton Goremyka " for the first time to marvel at this unbelievable revelation, that one could write about muzhik-our nurturer and, if I may say so, spiritual teacher,-not as of a landscape's detail, but as of a real man, and to write with love, respect and even some trepidation ."
32.
Such a gift is not mine . . . take me as I am, for I've gotten used to polishing my stuff and simply cannot work in any other way, " he wrote to Chertkov in one of his 1888 letters . " My clergymen talk like clergymen do, and my muzhiks talk like muzhiks talk in real life . . . this folkish, vulgar and intricate language is not of my invention, I've listened for years to Russian people talking . . . and I can say that in my books they talk like they do in real life, not in literary fashion, " he insisted later, speaking to biographer Anatoly Faresov.
33.
Such a gift is not mine . . . take me as I am, for I've gotten used to polishing my stuff and simply cannot work in any other way, " he wrote to Chertkov in one of his 1888 letters . " My clergymen talk like clergymen do, and my muzhiks talk like muzhiks talk in real life . . . this folkish, vulgar and intricate language is not of my invention, I've listened for years to Russian people talking . . . and I can say that in my books they talk like they do in real life, not in literary fashion, " he insisted later, speaking to biographer Anatoly Faresov.
34.
Arkady Volsky, an aide to Andropov and other general secretaries, recounts an episode that occurred after a Politburo meeting on the day following Andropov's demise : As Politburo members filed out of the conference hall, either Andrei Gromyko or ( in later accounts ) Dmitriy Ustinov is said to have put his arm round Nikolai Tikhonov's shoulders and said : " It's okay, Kostya is an agreeable guy ( " pokladisty muzhik " ), one can do business with him . . . . " The Politburo failed to pass the decision for Gorbachev, who was nominally Chernenko's second in command, to run the meetings of the Politburo itself in the absence of Chernenko; the latter due to his declining health, began to miss those meetings with increasing frequency.
