Muromtseva-Bunina Vera -
Bunin's life. Conversations with memory
Year of release: 2009
Artist: Nadezhda Pertseva
Description:
In 1907, twenty-six-year-old Vera Muromtseva, daughter of a member of the Moscow City Council and niece of the chairman of the First State Duma, married the then-famous writer Ivan Bunin. Finally, he met a smart, sensitive, devoted woman who shared with him both joy and sorrow for the rest of his life. A talented writer, VN Muromtseva-Bunina left us two wonderful books - "The Life of Bunin" and "Conversations with Memory".
The first is built both on archival materials and on her personal memories.
The second is only a memoir.
Written brightly and vividly, the books depict the complex character of the one whose "companion to the grave" she happened to become. On the pages of this book, the reader will also meet with A.P. Chekhov, L.N. Tolstoy, A.M. Gorky, L.N. Andreev, A.I. Kuprin, B.K. Zaitsev, A.N. F.I. Chaliapin, S.V. Rakhmaninov and others.
Biography Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva (1881-1961)
Vera Muromtseva was born in 1881 and belonged to a noble, professorial old Moscow family that lived in a cozy mansion on Bolshaya Nikitskaya. She was a well-educated girl: she knew French, English, Italian, translated Maupassant, Flaubert. In addition, she is pleasant in communication, good-looking. Contemporaries unanimously noted her somewhat chilly beauty and similarity with the appearance of the Madonna.
Vera Muromtseva, a twenty-five-year-old student, niece of the chairman of the First State Duma S. A. Muromtsev, and Ivan Bunin (he turned thirty-six) met in November 1906 at literary evening. Before that, however, they had seen each other twice, but, according to Vera Nikolaevna, she “never wanted to connect her life with a writer. At that time, almost all writers were told that they had eternal romances and some have several wives. Turns out they were telling the truth...
Vera Nikolaevna was jealous of Bunin all her life for his past, for his two “main” women and her predecessors - Varvara Pashchenko and Anna Tsakni. “He had novels, although he loved his real wife, Vera Nikolaevna, even some superstitious love... he would not have exchanged Vera Nikolaevna for anyone. And with all this, he liked to see young, talented women around him, courted them, flirted, and this need only intensified over the years. The author of "Dark Alleys" wanted to prove to himself that he could still please and conquer female hearts. In his declining years, Ivan Alekseevich really had only one serious and painful romance with the now deceased talented writer Galina Nikolaevna Kuznetsova…” They met in the summer of 1926. Bunin turned fifty-five, Kuznetsova twenty-six. Vera Nikolaevna was in despair:
“Yan went crazy in his old age. I do not know what to do…"
The situation turned out to be difficult and painful for both spouses. Bunin managed to convince his wife that there was nothing between him and Galina, except for the relationship between a teacher and a student, that they were connected only by literary interests. Vera Nikolaevna believed or forced herself to believe it. As a result, Galina Kuznetsova settled with the Bunins and became "a member of their family." Life began as a threesome - certainly offensive to Vera Nikolaevna, but she decided to save her family at least in this way ... And she kept it for almost ... fifteen years!
The writer's health began to deteriorate from 1942; this became especially noticeable about three years before his death. What about Vera Nikolaevna? She was with Bunin until his last hour. The writer died on November 8, 1953 ...
Having been widowed, the writer's widow was in poverty and even began to sell her husband's archive and his personal belongings to American universities. The USSR embassy in Paris found out about this and persuaded Vera Nikolaevna to transfer Bunin's manuscripts, photographs and things to Russia. It was at the request of the embassy that the Soviet government granted the Russian writer's widow a personal pension, which she regularly received.
... In the thirty-eight stories that made up the Bunin collection " Dark alleys”, According to many literary critics, women of extraordinary spiritual beauty capable of bestowing unspeakable happiness and devoted love for life ...
http://rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3228922
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin is one of the most lyrical and poignant authors in all of Russian literature. The central theme of all his work has always been passionate and all-consuming love. In order to create genuine masterpieces that tell about this deep and wonderful feeling, the writer needed inspiration, which he certainly drew from relationships with women.
Love in the life of Bunin
The quivering and tender heart of the writer has always yearned for love. WITH young years young Bunin tried to find personal happiness. True, he did not always succeed.
In his life there were many sad and tragic stories. Such were his first relations with Varvara Pashchenko. The girl was older than the writer, and the age difference prevented young people from getting married - Varvara's father was categorically against it.
Despite this, relations between them continued for some time, until Varvara left Bunin for a rich landowner. 
Another love failure befell Bunin in his first marriage. His chosen one this time was a beauty with exotic Greek beauty - Anna Tsakni.
The writer passionately fell in love with this wayward and beautiful woman, but Anna never answered him with such a deep feeling, and in general was not interested in her husband's life.
As a result, the marriage broke up. Bunin experienced this gap very hard.
Vera Muromtseva - the main love in the writer's life
Real happiness and peace came to Bunin only at the age of thirty-six. It was at this time that he met Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva.
Calm, reserved and even somewhat cold, at first she was rather aloof. Yes, and Bunin, it would seem, did not show special interest to the girl.
Only later did he realize that the outward coldness was dictated only by a good upbringing, and behind a restrained shell hides a very tender and kind soul. Yes, and Vera Nikolaevna soon fell in love with Bunin with all her heart and gave him all her warmth and care.
For the first time in for a long time the writer felt truly happy. The lovers made several trips together: to Egypt, Palestine, Vienna, Algeria, France, Capri, Tunisia.
The happiness of Bunin and Muromtseva seemed endless, but then a bloody revolution began. An adherent of the traditional monarchy, the writer did not accept the changes that had taken place in the country. Fearing for their lives, Bunin and Muromtseva fled to Odessa, where they lived for about two years, and then emigrated to France, which hospitably received the writer and his faithful lover and became Bunin's second homeland.
Life in exile and discord in relationships
Having moved to France, the lovers settled in Grasse, not far from Nice. Only here, away from their homeland and after almost sixteen years of their relationship, they finally got married and officially became husband and wife.
It would seem that nothing interfered with their peace until Vera faced her husband's betrayal. On sea shore in Grasse, Bunin met an emigrant from Russia, Galina Kuznetsova, who was married. The writer was seized for a long time forgotten feeling all-consuming passion. Galina could not resist his spell and immediately left her husband and settled in the Bunins' house.
For Vera Nikolaevna, this was a real blow. At first, she had no idea how to live on, but then she made a very courageous decision. She hospitably received Galina in her house and did not interfere with the development of her relationship with Bunin.
This was the beginning of a strange and difficult period in the life of the writer. Faithful, kind and understanding Vera and the young beauty Galina got along with him under the same roof, who at first quarreled and scandalized a lot, but, in the end, even became friends. Despite this, the atmosphere in the house remained very tense and unhealthy.
Life long love
In the end, this story of "threesome life" took on a very unexpected turn: Galina announced that she was leaving Bunin, moreover, to a woman - Margot Stepun. Bunin took this news tragically. His grief was aggravated by the fact that Galina, with her new darling settled in the Bunins' house and lived there for almost eight years.
Only when they left this house, in the life of Ivan Alekseevich and Vera, who dutifully waited for him all this time, did relative calm reign again.
devoted and loving wife forgave the writer for all the suffering she had to go through. In everything, even the most difficult moments she supported Bunin, surrounding him with care, warmth and understanding.
The writer spent the last years of his life in poverty and oblivion, but Vera Nikolaevna was always there, until Bunin's death. The woman outlived her beloved husband by eight years, and never for a second did she stop loving him and admiring his work.
After the death of Vera, as she herself bequeathed, she was buried at the feet of her husband in the Paris cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois.
Despite all the difficulties, betrayal, misunderstanding, poverty, disease and other problems, this loving woman forgave Bunin everything and became the only one happy story love in his life.
Only in old age, when life has been lived, do you truly begin to appreciate the joys given by fate, as well as the bitterness of losses.
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin(1870–1953) was born at dawn on October 10 (22), 1870 in the small Russian town of Yelets. Under the morning crowing of roosters and in the rays of the dawn sun. It was an unusual autumn morning, like an omen that opened the poet's doors to a life full of glory, love, despair and loneliness. Life on the edge: happiness and bitterness, love and hate, loyalty and betrayal, recognition during life and humiliating poverty at the end of the road. His muses were women who gave him delight, and troubles, and disappointments, and boundless love. And it was from them that the creator left for the world, misunderstood by many, strange and lonely. Once Bunin remarked in his diary after reading Maupassant: "He is the only one who dared to endlessly say that human life is all under the power of a woman's thirst."
Four women were in the life of the great Russian writer, they left a huge mark on his soul, they tormented his heart, inspired, awakened talent and desire to create.
Varvara Pashchenko-Bibikova (1869-1918)
The first was Varvara Pashchenko. Bunin wanted to marry her in 1891, at the age of twenty. Varvara worked as a proofreader at the Orlovsky Vestnik, where the young author often visited. At that time, having experienced the charm of the first feeling, Bunin wrote: “If only you were with me! With what hot and tender caresses I would prove it to you. Varvara was older and more experienced, but, afraid of her father, a well-known doctor in the city, she refused to marry Bunin, although she promised that "she would still live with him illegally as a wife." Later it was revealed that, while continuing to cohabit with Ivan Alekseevich, the unfaithful woman secretly met with a wealthy landowner Arseny Bibikov whom she later married. Bunin never found out that Varvara's father gave permission for their legal marriage - she kept it a secret. Love and deceit, disappointment and torment: tragic love to Varvara Pashchenko gave the world "The Life of Arseniev", and Bunin - her first love - "great happiness, even if this love is not shared." After a break with Varvara in 1895, Ivan Alekseevich moved from Poltava to Moscow.
Anna Tsakni, Bunin's first wife
A year later, in 1896, Bunin met Anna Tsakni, a beauty Greek origin, rich, artistic, spoiled by male attention and admiration. “It is touching for me to remember,” he told his brother Julius, “how many times I opened my soul to her, full of the best tenderness, she doesn’t feel anything, some kind of stake ... Not a single word of mine, not a single opinion of mine about anything ... » Soon they got married. It was said at the same time that some strange interest Anna's mother tested her son-in-law, but this remained rumors and speculation.
The marriage fell apart after a few years due to a misunderstanding between the spouses, a difference in views and the alienation of emotional experiences. And again Bunin shared with his brother: “I refuse to describe my suffering, and there’s no need ... This morning I lay for three hours in the steppe and sobbed and screamed, because there was more torment, more despair, insult and suddenly lost love, hope ... I didn’t experience any one person ... How much I love her, you can’t imagine ... I don’t have anyone dearer. It seemed to Bunin that life had stopped and that it was pointless and absurd to continue living.
Calmness came when, in 1906, on life path writer appeared Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva(1881–1961). A noblewoman by birth, who grew up in a Moscow professorial family, always kept somewhat cold and calm, she became Bunin's caring and patient wife and remained so until the end of his days.
Ivan Bunin and Vera Muromtseva. 1907
Bunin and Muromtseva met at home mutual friend, an outstanding Russian writer Boris Zaitsev. She fell in love with the already recognized poet and prose writer at first sight, affectionately called him Jan, surrounded him with warmth and care. Was it passionate love on the part of Bunin? Many believe that no, they are inclined to the version that Vera Nikolaevna became only a safe haven for Ivan Alekseevich after two severe disappointments and the ongoing pain of separation and failure. I recall the writer's answer to the question of whether he loves Vera Nikolaevna. Bunin said in a very strange way: “To love Vera? It's like loving your arm or leg."
This novel lasted quite a long time. The lovers made a joint trip to Egypt, Syria and Palestine (1907), Bunin was elected an honorary academician Russian Academy sciences in the category of fine literature (1909), then joint trips to Vienna, to the south of France, to Algeria and Tunisia (1910), to Ceylon (1911), to Capri (1912), along the Volga (1914) took place. Bunin did not accept the revolution, calling it "bloody madness" and "general madness." Ivan Alekseevich and Muromtseva left for Odessa, lived in Odessa for almost two years, and in January 1920 emigrated on the Sparta steamer to Constantinople, from where they later moved to France, with which all future life writer. The Bunin family spent most of their emigrant years in Grasse near Nice (Southern France).
All these years, Ivan Alekseevich and Muromtseva preferred not to legalize their marriage. They got married only in 1922 after sixteen years. life together. Bunin wrote a lot, Vera Nikolaevna helped to print the manuscripts, she herself published essays, newspaper feuilletons and notes. But it was only the calm before the storm - real, all-consuming love, which gave Bunin great happiness, separation, torment and gave the world many of his great works, where love borders on death, happiness echoes with bitterness, where you want to laugh and cry from pain, and know that in the world of vice and evil there is purity and depth of a huge, sincere, real feeling.
This story began in Grasse summer day 1926. After many years main character her - Galina Nikolaevna Kuznetsova (1900–1976) - wrote in her world-famous Grasse Diary: “After leaving Russia and finally settling in France, Bunin lived part of the year in Paris, part in the south, in Provence, whom he loved with ardent love . In a simple, slowly decaying house on a mountain above Grasse, poorly furnished, with cracks in the rough yellow walls, but with a magnificent view from a narrow platform, similar to the deck of an ocean steamer, from where the whole neighborhood was visible for many kilometers around with the Esterel chain and the sea on the horizon, the Bunins lived for many years. It fell to me to live with them all this time ... "
They met on the beach, where they were introduced by a mutual acquaintance, Modest Hoffmann. She is young and beautiful, a little embarrassed, a little stuttering, with huge dark eyes that reflect the carelessness of youth and the wisdom of a mature woman. Kuznetsova was married, and it seemed that her marriage was quite successful. Bunin is short, slightly gray-haired, with refined manners and eyes full of sadness and depth. Famous writer, crowned with many titles and titles. She couldn't help but love him. And he, indulging in the temptation of the return of the passing youth, took her by the hand so as not to let go for fifteen long years. He forgot about all the failures, about those deceptions and torments that caused him ex-wives. But he did not remember about his real wife, who faithfully and selflessly walked with him side by side through a difficult life, about how she helped him overcome hard years emigration, poverty, bordering on poverty ... Crazed in love, the writer forgot about many years of fidelity, care and kindness of a woman unable to survive without him.
Bunin led the girl by the hand to a small restaurant on the seashore. They knew that in the morning the whole provincial town would talk about this party, where they danced and laughed, drank wine and looked at each other as only two people could look, overwhelmed with happiness and forgetting about everything in the world. The next morning, Galina informed her husband that their marriage was now terminated, and she remained to live in Bunin's house. She was then only twenty-five, he was already well over fifty.
Rumors about the crazy romance between Ivan Bunin and the young Galina Kuznetsova were rapidly spreading around the town. Rumors also reached literary Paris, which was breaking news that summer. Muromtseva-Bunina could not recover for a long time after what had happened. She went crazy from her husband's betrayal, but the writer in love managed to convince her that all the rumors were just nonsense and slander, and Galina was an aspiring poetess and writer who had to live in their house for some time to take lessons writing skills. And Vera Nikolaevna believed. So, as only a woman can believe, who lives only the life of her husband, who idolizes him and bows before her genius and idol. She believed because she just wanted to believe. But the lessons dragged on for a long fifteen years. Galina became part of the Bunin family - the "family of three".
Bunin - Muromtseva - Kuznetsova
At first relationships between women were very tense. Vera Nikolaevna considered Galina a spoiled young girl, very capricious and unsuitable for everyday life. Galina, in turn, was annoyed by the fact that the legal wife of her idol never contradicted him, obeyed in everything and agreed with everything. According to Galina, the constant "agreement" of Vera Nikolaevna raised in Bunin depressive moods and dark thoughts. He often spoke of death, exalted it, and tragic end his literary heroes became the main final chord of all Bunin's works. “I am annoyed at V.N.,” Galina wrote in her memoirs, “she frightens him with incessant advice to lie down, not to do this or that, she speaks to him in an exaggerated, solemnly gentle tone. From this he begins to think that he is seriously ill. ”
Vera Nikolaevna experienced torment and torment. “I want the end of life to go under the sign of Good and Faith,” she wrote in her diary. “But it’s hard for me mentally now, more than ever. According to Christianity, one must humble oneself, and this is difficult, beyond one’s strength.” But still, Muromtseva-Bunina finally got used to her dual, illogical position. She accepted Galina as a mother, fell in love with her very much, and Galina, who for a long time was wary of the writer's wife, soon answered Vera Nikolaevna in the same way. Time has erased irritation and alertness. Life itself reconciled them: two happy women who shared with each other one beloved man, and two unfortunate women who could not fully possess their genius. They became friends. “I noticed several times,” recalled Galina Kuznetsova, “that I feel worse when V.N. in a bad state, and I am glad when it becomes easier. At the same time, Vera Nikolaevna wrote in her memoirs of those days: “Walking to the station, I suddenly realized that I had no right to prevent Jan from loving whomever he wants, since his love has a source in God. Let him love Galina - if only this love made him feel sweet in his soul.
Galina and Vera Nikolaevna often walked together, often talked for a long time at night, helped Bunin publish manuscripts, and together put up with the poverty that reigned then in their house. Both later recalled that at that time they didn’t even have ink, and if they did, they had to save a lot so that Bunin could continue writing.
As many researchers of the personal life of the Russian classic note, the relationship between Bunin and Kuznetsova were only platonic, and all the speculation about the stormy intimate life- nothing more than a reflection of the intensity of spiritual passions. Vera Nikolaevna, once calling the Grasse house “The Monastery of the Muses”, apparently meant that all the inhabitants in it were somehow connected with literature. Although in another sense, perhaps she was not far from the truth when she called Villa Belvedere "a monastery."
Galina Kuznetsova
Nevertheless, after a few years, problems came to this strange union. Galina wanted more freedom, but Bunin severely limited her. “My partial emancipation of him (Bunin) is annoying,” she noted in personal diary Galina, - I do not have time to be alone, to walk alone. She was under the constant supervision of the writer. She could not write and improve her skills, because Bunin was the center of attention and everything in the house revolved around his interests. “Everything is somehow flat, hopeless,” Galina complained, “my desk has some kind of neglected, uninhabited look.”
The crisis in the house grew. Everyone felt miserable. Galina lacked freedom. Vera Nikolaevna, possessing a rare kindness, wanted to see everyone happy. And only sometimes, remembering herself, she trusted her pain to the diary: “I woke up with the thought that there is no shared love in life. And the whole drama is that people don’t understand this and especially suffer.”
The heavy character of Bunin was the cause of quarrels and misunderstandings. Many friends who used to love so much to visit their house stopped hanging a villa in Grasse, they were pressed by an unhealthy atmosphere in the house. One of my friends once said: “It just feels like you are all connected by some kind of thread, that everything has already been discussed with you, that you are terribly tired of each other.” The difficult situation was constantly aggravated by the lack of material resources. “Yan cannot buy warm linen for himself,” complained Vera Nikolaevna, “I for the most part I go in Galina's things.
In the autumn of 1933, a telegram was brought to the small villa Belvedere about the decision of the Swedish Academy to award Ivan Alekseevich Bunin Nobel Prize. 715 thousand French francs - that was the amount of the award. Of course, Bunin went with both women to receive it. And the first thing he did in Stockholm after the award ceremony was to buy a pair of new shoes for his wife. From that day on, poverty seemed to be forgotten. Bunin spent money, bought fur coats and jewelry for his wife and Galina, helped colleagues who were impoverished far from their homeland, and contributed impressive amounts to various funds. Came worldwide fame, next to the writer were two beloved women: one - who gave comfort and well-being, the other - passion and muse. It seemed that real happiness and peace reigned in life.
But instead of happiness, trouble befell this strange family. Returning from Stockholm, Galina fell ill, and it was decided that she would stay for a while in Dresden, with an old family friend, Fyodor Stepun, a famous Russian philosopher. What exactly happened in Stepun's house is not known for certain, this episode is practically not described either in the diaries of Galina Kuznetsova or in the memoirs of Vera Nikolaevna. But it was there that Galina met the sister of the philosopher Margo Stepun, a very strange, strong-willed and strong woman.
Upon Kuznetsova's return from the trip, life in the house completely went wrong. Galina became strange and thoughtful, but somewhere in the depths of her almond-shaped eyes, happy lights flashed every now and then. At the same time, she moved away from Bunin, became withdrawn and tried to spend more time alone. She wrote something, sent letters to Germany, and every day received a response message from Dresden. Bunin was angry, nervous, quarreled with Galina, tried to return the old relationship, but he did not succeed. Beloved woman moved away from him more and more.
At the end of May 1934, Margot Stepun arrived in Grasse. There was something vicious, unhealthy in this woman. She was bright, but ugly, and her masculine voice and harsh manner made her extremely rude. Galina looked like a timid, defenseless creature against her background. She, who had been silent for a long time, suddenly revived and blossomed. She spent all the time with Margot: her friends walked, spent the night in the same room, constantly retired and seemed to forget about everyone. Bunin joked about their inseparable friendship, until one day a terrible guess struck him. And every day it was confirmed more and more: the relationship of women was clearly unnatural.
In those days, Vera Nikolaevna wrote in her diary: “They merge their lives. And what are they from different worlds, but this is a guarantee of a fortress: Gali's stay in our house was from the evil one.
The break with Kuznetsova turned out to be a real blow for the writer, and from the side where he did not expect a blow at all. Bunin was furious and at the same time came to extreme despair. He suffered strongly and deeply. In addition, the situation was further aggravated by the fact that Kuznetsova and Stepun continued to live in the Grasse villa!
Two years from wasted Nobel Prize there was not a penny left, and the house again plunged into poverty. Eight years Kuznetsova and Stepun remained in the care of Bunin, and his life turned into hell. Sick and aging, he closed himself in his little room and wrote, wrote until dawn, being at the same time on the verge of insanity, despair, unbearable bitterness of resentment and pain. Then thirty-eight short stories were written, which were later included in the collection "Dark Alleys".
Bunin did not understand and did not forgive Kuznetsov: “What came out of Galina! What stupidity, what heartlessness, what a meaningless life!”
Kuznetsova and Stepun left the Grasse villa only in 1942, and in 1949 they moved to the USA, worked in the UN publishing house, from where they were transferred to Geneva in 1959.
The last years of Ivan Bunin's life were spent in serious illnesses and poverty. He became embittered, aggressive, published very caustic and full of malice "Memoirs", where he spoke with bile and malice about Blok, Gorky, Yesenin. The writer hated the whole world, and despair turned him into a miserable and impoverished old man. And yet, all his life, Ivan Alekseevich exalted love! He described the tragedy human life and he himself ended it with a tragedy in which love and hate, victories and defeats, ups and downs, and also beloved women were intertwined, to whom the writer dedicated both his stories and his life - the life of a genius.
In 1953, Bunin died. He died quietly and calmly, in his sleep. He was buried in the Russian cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois, near Paris.
Eight years later, in 1961, Vera Nikolaevna Bunina-Muromtseva also died. According to her will, she was buried at the feet of her beloved husband.
Galina Kuznetsova outlived Bunin by twenty-three years and died in Munich. She left known to the world diary about love and life with the great Russian writer. The Grasse Diary by Galina Kuznetsova was published in 1967 in Germany. It tells about the inhabitants of the Villa Belvedere, reveals many secrets, but also poses new mysteries that will never find their solution and will forever remain in an old house in the small Provencal town of Grasse. “Memories are something terrible that is given to a person as if as a punishment ...” Bunin once said.
Only death parted Galina Kuznetsova with Margot, who died five years before her friend. The remains of Galina Nikolaevna were buried in the common grave of her brother and sister Stepun. There was no one to extend the lease on the grave land, and in the 1990s the burial was destroyed.
Bunin's life
Published in Paris in 1958 in the amount of five hundred copies. This text is printed. The text was changed in chapter two, part 7: twenty-seven lines were deleted, in which an inaccurate statement of facts was given; they were replaced by a letter from Bunin to his relatives on April 13, 1889. V. N. Muromtseva-Bunina requested this in a letter on March 17, 1960. “It seems to me,” she wrote, “that this place can also be amended. Maybe you can do it yourself. Maybe throw away all mine and print his letter? (Letter published in Sat. "On native land". Eagle, 1958. S. 274-276).
In chapter five, part 6, the verses have been corrected, according to Vera Nikolaevna's instructions; instead of
I'm not afraid gentlemen
To eat us Wednesday,
But I'm afraid of another trouble
So as not to drink Wednesday to us ... -
we print:
I'm not afraid gentlemen
What can "Wednesday" seize us,
But I'm afraid of another trouble
If only we could drink “Wednesday”!
V. N. Bunina hoped for a reprint of Bunin's Life and wanted to introduce some clarifications into it. She wrote to M.K. Kuprina-Iordanskaya on January 5, 1959 from Paris:
“Dear Marya Karlovna ‹…> I was very upset that I wrote about you in a wrong way. Tell me all the infidelities, and I will correct everything ‹…› If my book is needed, it will be republished, and I will do everything as you think is right. I am most afraid of lies and infidelity. The book contains that period of your life that I knew about only from stories and, of course, could get it wrong, but, thank God, you are alive, and this can be corrected.
Ivan Alekseevich appreciated you very much and always spoke of you with admiration, and therefore it is especially hard for me that I messed up. I remember just when there was a letter from Finland, he, along with Alexander Ivanovich, admired your intelligence. And they laughed a lot, remembering your common youth with them ‹…›
Hugs and kisses. V. Bunin.
Maria Karlovna replied on February 28. The main inaccuracy in the memoirs of Vera Nikolaevna, according to her, is that there is no “dying will” concerning her and A. I. Kuprin, Alexandra Arkadyevna Davydov - adopted daughter which Maria Karlovna was - “she could not express ... She considered Kuprin a young, promising novelist, but she never saw in him great talent who will ever advance to the forefront. In addition, Alexander Ivanovich, having become my fiancé, irritated her with his often harsh judgments about literary authorities and artistic talents generally recognized at that time. In particular, a sharp exchange of opinions took place between them concerning A.P. Chekhov. Therefore, she was opposed to my marriage to Kuprin. And if it were not for the influence of her beloved friend, Lyudmila Ivanovna Elpatievskaya, who set up Alexandra Arkadyevna, especially during her illness, in favor of Kuprin, then this marriage would not have taken place ... The opinion that Kuprin was a desirable member of the editorial board of such an old magazine as " Peace of God" and could contribute to its success, was at that time absurd ‹…›
On page 134 it is written: "Shortly after the funeral of Alexandra Arkadyevna Musya became the bride of Kuprin, and then they got married." I inform you that I married A. I. Kuprin on February 3, 1902. Alexandra Arkadyevna died on February 24, 1902, that is, three weeks after my wedding. On page 152 you give two episodes. They really took place in my life, but under somewhat different circumstances (this, of course, does not matter much).
For the first episode. In 1907, L. Andreev's Life of a Man was performed at the Komissarzhevskaya Theater. Fyodor Dmitrievich Batyushkov and I went to the theatre. Kuprin did not want to go with us, because he did not like the works of Leonid Andreev at all. When I returned from the theater, Bunin, who was sitting at Kuprin's, asked me with irony:
- Well, did you like the play? Is it true that death sits in a corner eating a cheese sandwich?
To this I quite seriously replied that I liked the thing. My answer infuriated Kuprin, he grabbed matches from the table and set fire to the dress in which I was in the theater.
For the second episode. One evening we were expecting guests for dinner. The table was set for twelve people. Sergeev-Tsensky also came by chance. It must be said that Sergeev-Tsensky and Kuprin did not feel great "sympathy" for each other. Alexander Ivanovich was reading "Staff Captain Rybnikov" that evening. The story seemed to Sergeev-Tsensky unfinished, half-hearted, and pointing to the table, he said: "It's all the same if you served only the tail or one head of a herring to the table." Kuprin flew into a rage and rolled the entire table setting on the floor. ‹…›
Once again, I sincerely thank you for the book ... I kiss you very hard. Do not forget me. Yours M. Kuprin.
“Dear Marya Karlovna. ‹…› I am very pleased that I can sometimes exchange letters with you. ‹…› I cannot forgive myself that, having written about you, I did not send you these extracts, though I thought you lived in northern capital, not in Moscow; if I knew that you were in Moscow, I could ask Baboreko to demolish these pages for you ... Regarding the burning of the dress, of course, I forgot this, I was so struck by the very fact that I forgot the details for fifty years, but then jealousy . <…> I hug and kiss you with all tenderness, I wish you health and joy. When you get better, write about yourself. Kiss you again. Yours V. Bunina.
In a letter dated August 17, 1960, V. N. Bunina says: “Dear, dear Marya Karlovna. ‹…› Little by little I “talk with memory”. My next book It's called "Conversations with Memory". <…> I hope that in this book I will not make mistakes, as in the last one. I wrote to Baboreko, if his plan comes true and he succeeds in arranging Bunin's Life with you, then I will instantly send him all the corrections that you made in my book, and ask him to show these places to you. "Conversations" also did not do without you, but in them I barely touch and write about my impression of you.
"Conversations with Memory" Vera Nikolaevna wanted to bring to 1918. "The Life of Bunin" I offered the publishing house " Soviet writer". L.F. Zurov reported in a letter from Paris on April 26, 1961: “Vera Nikolaevna believed for a long time that Bunin’s Life would be republished in the Soviet Union. This hope helped her work on her memories.
Nothing came of my efforts.
Maria Karlovna, in correspondence with Vera Nikolaevna, also refers to the memoirs of Lyudmila Sergeevna Elpatievskaya (married Wrangel), which Vera Nikolaevna quotes: “... there were never any evenings, no gatherings of young people in our house,” she wrote on September 20, 1960, - on Sundays there were zhurfiks of Alexandra Arkadyevna, at which, of course, I could attend, but by no means my girlfriends or Mikhailovsky's sons - high school students. All this company of gymnasium youth Lyodya could see only in the house of the famous translator E. K. Pimenova, at that time civil wife N. K. Mikhailovsky. The Pimenovs and the Mikhailovskys lived in the same house, on the same stairwell, so the gatherings that Ledya recalls sometimes took place at the Mikhailovskys', but mainly at the Pimenovs'. At that time, Lyodya could only see Marxists at Lydia Karlovna Tugan-Baranovsky's, since there was only one Marxist in my mother's house - her son-in-law M.I. Tugan-Baranovsky (though Struve very rarely visited). ‹…› The portrait of Heine, which Ledya recalls, belonged to Lidia Karlovna. She bought it from abroad. After her death, this portrait passed to me by inheritance. It hung over the armchair in which Ivan Alekseevich really liked to sit. According to him, he sat down here on purpose to emphasize his similarity in profile with Heine. (Letters from V. N. Bunina and M. K. Kuprina are kept by her niece, Lidia Iosifovna Davydova, to whom I am deeply grateful for extracts from autographs.)
In addition to the above, the following editorial changes have been made to Bunin's Life: Bunin's trip to Revel is designated instead of the erroneous date 1937 as 1938; the singing of the Swiss, which Bunin heard during the trip of 1900, is referred to as in the autograph of his letter: he sang "iodel". An error in our publication of this letter (sang "iodeln") passed into Vera Nikolaevna's book.
