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.  In Kislovodsk, at the funeral of General Safonov, I met A.I.  Tchouprov [a famous economist], later I met A.N.  Vesselovsky [litterateur] in the park.  On the 28th I went on a hunting party with Baron Steingel, passed the night in Bermamut.  It was cold with a violent wind.

2 September in Novorissisk.  Steamer Alexander II.  On the 3rd I arrived at Feodossia and stopped with Souvorin.  I saw I.K.  Aivasovsky [famous painter] who said to me:  “You no longer come to see me, an old man.”  In his opinion I ought to have paid him a visit.  On the 16th in Kharkov, I was in the theatre at the performance of “The Dangers of Intelligence.” 17th at home:  wonderful weather.

Vladimir Sloviov [famous philosopher] told me that he always carried an oak-gall in his trouser pocket,—­in his opinion, it is a radical cure for piles.

October 17.  Performance of my “Seagull” at the Alexandrinsky Theatre.  It was not a success.

29th.  I was at a meeting of the Zemstvo Council at Sezpukhovo.

On the 10th November I had a letter from A.F.  Koni who says he liked my “Seagull” very much.

November 26th.  A fire broke out in our house.  Count S.I.  Shakhovsky helped to put it out.  When it was over, Sh. related that once, when a fire broke out in his house at night, he lifted a tank of water weighing 4-1/2 cwt. and poured the water on the flames.