Which Russian writer did Bunin not like? Bunin

They are called one of the most difficult personalities in Russian literature of the early 20th century. A nobleman, a snob and an esthete, he despised almost all contemporary writers. In his diary, he left very peculiar (to put it mildly!) reviews about them, which have long become Internet memes.

We decided to remember what Maxim Gorky, Alexander Kuprin, Alexey Tolstoy and other classics thought about Bunin and his work.

Take Bunin out of Russian literature, and it will fade, lose the iridescent shine and starry radiance of his lonely wandering soul.

Quiet, fleeting and always tenderly beautiful sadness, graceful, thoughtful love, melancholic, but light, clear “sadness of days gone by” and, in particular, the mysterious charm of nature, the charm of its colors, flowers, smells - these are the main motifs of Mr. Bunin’s poetry . And we must give justice to the talented poet, with rare artistic subtlety he knows how to convey his mood with unique, characteristic techniques, which subsequently makes the reader imbued with this mood of the poet and experience, feel it.

Bunin's mastery is an extremely important example for our literature - how to handle the Russian language, how to see a subject and depict it plastically. We learn from him the mastery of words, imagery and realism.

Our great literature, born of the Russian people, gave birth to our glorious writer, now welcomed by us, I. A. Bunin. He came from the Russian depths, he is bloodily, spiritually connected with his native land and his native sky, with Russian nature - with open spaces, with fields, distances, with the Russian sun and free wind, with snow and impassability, with smoking huts and manorial estates, with dry and sonorous country roads, with sunny rains, with storms, with apple orchards, with barns, with thunderstorms... - with all the beauty and richness of our native land. All this is in him, all this is absorbed by him, sharply and firmly taken and poured into creativity - with the most wonderful instrument, with an accurate and measured word - with his native speech. This word connects him with the spiritual depths of the people, with his native literature.

“Know how to take care...” Bunin managed to save it - and capture it, imperishably. These are the true collectors of Russia, its imperishables: our writers and among them - Bunin, recognized even in foreign countries for his wonderful gift.

Through our literature, born of Russia, through Russia-born Bunin, Russia itself, captured in writing, is recognized by the world.

Zinaida Gippius

Bunin in general, as a person (and as a writer), is one of the irreconcilables. This is his wonderful feature. In part, it is the reason for his closeness, secrecy, conciseness, self-collection.

Is he kind? Don't know. Maybe kinder than the kind; It’s not for nothing that such streaks, such rays of tenderness break out from him... But somehow this question does not come to him. In any case, not soft, not brittle. It is enough to look at his dry, thin figure, at his sharp, calm face with sharp (really sharp) eyes to say: perhaps this man can be merciless, almost cruel... and more towards himself than towards others .

I don’t like him: a cold, cruel, arrogant gentleman. I don’t love him, but I love his wife very much.

When I met him, he was painfully preoccupied with his own aging. From the very first words we spoke to each other, he noted with pleasure that he stood straighter than me, although he was thirty years older. He was enjoying the Nobel Prize he had just received and, I remember, invited me to some expensive and fashionable Parisian restaurant for an intimate conversation. Unfortunately, I cannot stand restaurants and cafes, especially Parisian ones - crowds of hurrying lackeys, gypsies, vermouth mixtures, coffee, snacks, musicians wandering from table to table and the like... Intimate conversations, confessions in the Dostoevsky style are also not my thing . Bunin, an active elderly gentleman with a rich and unchaste vocabulary, was puzzled by my indifference to hazel grouse, which I had tried enough of in childhood, and irritated by my refusal to talk about eschatological topics. By the end of lunch we were already unbearably bored with each other. “You will die in terrible agony and in complete solitude,” Bunin noted bitterly as we headed to the hangers... I wanted to help Bunin put on his raglan, but he stopped me with a proud movement of his palm. Continuing to struggle politely - he was now trying to help me - we floated out into the pale overcast of a Parisian winter day. My companion was about to button his collar, when suddenly his pleasant face twisted into an expression of bewilderment and annoyance. Warily opening his coat, he began to rummage somewhere in his armpit. I came to his aid, and with our joint efforts we pulled out my long scarf, which the girl had mistakenly stuffed into the sleeve of his coat. The scarf came out very gradually, it was some kind of unwinding of a mummy, and we quietly revolved around each other, to the raunchy amusement of the three panel whores. Having completed this operation, we silently continued our way to the corner, where we shook hands and parted.

Gossip is when you hear things you like about people you don't like. E. Wilson

This post has been in drafts for ages! It's time to come out of the darkness! So, one day I came across such a remarkable diagram on the Internet, compactly containing 16 statements by Ivan Alekseevich Bunin about other writers and poets. I already did it in 2014, but it didn’t mention anything like that.
Nothing is visible in the post, I recommend enlarging the diagram by clicking here or opening the image in a new tab(right mouse button). I will list the “heroes” clockwise, starting from the upper left corner:

Isaac Babel- "one of the most vile blasphemers"
Marina Tsvetaeva"with her lifelong, continuous shower of wild words and sounds in poetry"
Sergey Yesenin:“Get some sleep and don’t breathe your messianic moonshine on me!”etc. round, I won’t reprint it, but the enlarged diagram will show:
Anatoly Mariengof
Maksim Gorky
Alexander Blok
Valery Bryusov
Andrey Bely
Vladimir Nabokov
Konstantin Balmont
Maximilian Voloshin
Mikhail Kuzmin
Leonid Andreev
Zinaida Gippius
Velimir Khlebnikov
Vladimir Mayakovsky

I became curious and decided to look online for other similar statements by writers about each other. I’m sharing my favorites with you:

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Ivan Bunin about Maxim Gorky:
“For many years now, world fame has been completely unparalleled in its undeservedness, based on an immensely happy confluence of not only political, but also very many other circumstances for its bearer - for example, the complete ignorance of the public about his biography.”

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Ivan Bunin about Vladimir Mayakovsky:
“Mayakovsky will remain in the history of literature of the Bolshevik years as the lowest, most cynical and harmful servant of Soviet cannibalism, in terms of literary praise of it and thereby the impact on the Soviet mob.”

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Another interesting one Bunin quoteabout Nabokov (Sirin),Although, of course, more about yourself:
“I think I influenced many. But how can I prove this, how can I define it? I think if it weren’t for me, there wouldn’t be Sirin (although at first glance he seems so original).”

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Vladimir Nabokov about Fyodor Dostoevsky:
“Dostoevsky’s bad taste, his monotonous delving into the souls of people suffering from pre-Freudian complexes, his intoxication with the tragedy of trampled human dignity - all this is difficult to admire”

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Vladimir Nabokov on Ernest Hemingway (1972):
"Mentally and intellectually he is hopelessly young. I hate his stories about bells, balls and bulls." (the original is better: “about bells, balls, and bulls”).

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Vladimir Nabokov on Thomas Mann:
"A tiny writer who wrote giant novels."

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Vladimir Nabokov about Nikolai Gogol:
“When I want to have a real nightmare, I imagine Gogol, scribbling in Little Russian volume after volume of Dikanka and Mirgorod: about ghosts that wander along the banks of the Dnieper, vaudeville Jews and dashing Cossacks.”

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Vladimir Nabokov about William Faulkner:
“Chronicle of the Corn Cob. To consider his works masterpieces is absurd. Nonentity."

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Vladimir Nabokov about Boris Pasternak’s novel “Doctor Zhivago”:
“I hate it. Melodramatic and poorly written. Considering it a masterpiece is an absurd delusion. Pro-Bolshevik novel, historically incorrect. A pathetic thing, clumsy, trivial, melodramatic, with hackneyed situations and banal coincidences.”

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William Faulkner on Mark Twain:
“A venal scribbler who in Europe would be considered fourth-rate, but who managed to charm several mossy literary skeletons who should long ago be sent to the furnace with local flavor, intriguing superficiality and laziness.”

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William Faulkner on Ernest Hemingway:
"He was never known for writing words that would make a reader open a dictionary."

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Ernest Hemingway on William Faulkner:
“Have you ever heard of someone who is mercilessly pawned by the collar while working? That's right, it's Faulkner. He does this so regularly that I can tell right in the middle of the page when he took his first sip."

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Mark Twain on Jane Austen:
“I have no right to criticize books, and I don't unless I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, her books infuriate me so much that I cannot hide my rage from the reader, for this reason I have to stop as soon as I start. Every time I open Pride and Prejudice, I want to crush her skull with her own shin bone."

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Friedrich Nietzsche on Dante Alighieri:
"The Hyena Who Writes Poetry on Gravesides"

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Charles Baudelaire on Voltaire (1864):
“In France, everything bored me - and the main reason was Voltaire... the king is a simpleton, an imaginary prince, an anti-creator, a representative of the cleaning women.”

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Samuel Butler on Goethe (1874):
“I read a translation of Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister. Is this a good piece? For me, this is the most terrible book I have ever read. No Englishman would write such a book. I can’t remember a single good page or thought... If this is really Goethe, then I’m happy that I didn’t learn German at the time.”

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Marina Tsvetaeva about Pasternak:
“He looks like a Bedouin and his horse at the same time.”

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An interesting explanation for training your writing skills was offered by Ernest Hemingway:
“I started very modestly and beat Mr. Turgenev , - Hemingway confessed. - Then - it took a lot of work - I beat Mr. de Maupassant . With Mr. Stendhal I had a draw twice, but I think I won on points in the last round. But nothing will force me to enter the ring against Mr. Tolstoy ».

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Charlotte Brontë on Jane Austen (1848):
“I don’t know why everyone is so excited about Jane Austen. I could not bear to live with its elegant but limited heroes."

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H.G. Wells on Bernard Shaw:
"Dumb-witted child screaming in the clinic."

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Elizabeth Bishop on J.D. Salinger:
“I HATE ["Catcher in the rye"]! It took me days to get through this book, page by page, blushing for him at every next stupid sentence. How did they let him publish this?”

This is all I had the strength and patience to gather online. Thank you for your attention! I hope it was interesting!

“I could never look at Ivan Alekseevich, talk to him, listen to him without a nagging feeling that I should look at him enough, I should listen to him enough, precisely because this is one of the last rays of some wonderful Russian day...” .

G. Adamovich

“...Interest in Bunin, when he was not published, was simply pointless for most readers. That’s how I didn’t read Bunin before the war, because in Voronezh, where I lived then, it was impossible to get hold of Bunin. In any case, those people I knew did not have it.<…>
Bunin is a writer of enormous talent, a Russian writer, and, of course, he should have a large readership in Russia. I think that Bunin’s readership significantly exceeds the circulation of his books.
In terms of painting, in terms of the feeling of the word (and Bunin’s is amazing), his stories written in exile are perhaps no weaker than his previous works. But no matter how important this side of artistic creativity is, the main thing still remains what the thing is written for. But this main thing in many stories does not seem significant (I mean the emigrant period).
Did Bunin influence me? I don't think so. But I’m not sure, since at one time I was definitely influenced by Sholokhov, and Sholokhov, undoubtedly, was strongly influenced by Bunin. But I realized this later, when I read Bunin.”

G. Ya. Baklanov, 1969

“Bunin is a rare phenomenon. In our literature, in language, this is the peak above which no one can rise.
Bunin’s strength also lies in the fact that he cannot be imitated. And if you can learn from him, then only love for your native land, knowledge of nature, an amazing ability not to repeat anyone and not to outdo yourself - this also applies to the emigrant period. And most importantly - people, Russian people whom he knew, loved, with whom he did not part and left us as a legacy.”

S. A. Voronin

“Take Bunin out of Russian literature, and it will fade, lose the iridescent shine and starry radiance of his lonely wandering soul.”

M. Gorky

“Quiet, fleeting and always tenderly beautiful sadness, graceful, thoughtful love, melancholic, but light, clear “sadness of days gone by” and, in particular, the mysterious charm of nature, the charm of its colors, flowers, smells - these are the main motives of Mr. Bunina. And we must give justice to the talented poet; with rare artistic subtlety, he knows how to convey his mood with unique techniques, characteristic of him alone, which subsequently makes the reader imbued with this mood of the poet and experience, feel it.”

A. I. Kuprin

“I see... the inspired beauty of your stories, the renewal of Russian art through your efforts, which you managed to enrich even more in both form and content.”

Romain Rolland

“Bunin’s mastery is an extremely important example for our literature - how to handle the Russian language, how to see a subject and depict it plastically. We learn from him the mastery of words, imagery and realism.”

A. N. Tolstoy

“Bunin’s prose is not so much the prose of a poet as the prose of an artist - there is too much painting in it.”

Yu. V. Trifonov

“Our great literature, born of the Russian people, gave birth to our glorious writer, now welcomed by us, I. A. Bunin. He came from the Russian depths, he is bloodily, spiritually connected with his native land and his native sky, with Russian nature - with open spaces, with fields, distances, with the Russian sun and free wind, with snow and impassability, with smoking huts and manorial estates, with dry and sonorous country roads, with sunny rains, with storms, with apple orchards, with barns, with thunderstorms... - with all the beauty and richness of our native land. All this is in him, all this is absorbed by him, sharply and firmly taken and poured into creativity - with the most wonderful instrument, with an accurate and measured word - with his native speech. This word connects him with the spiritual depths of the people, with his native literature.
“Know how to take care...” Bunin managed to save it - and capture it, imperishably. These are the true collectors of Russia, its imperishables: our writers and among them - Bunin, recognized even in foreign countries for his wonderful gift.
Through our literature, born of Russia, through Russia-born Bunin, Russia itself, captured in writing, is recognized by the world.”

On October 22, 1870, one of the four Russian Nobel Prize laureates in literature, Ivan Bunin, was born. His sayings and aphorisms are still retold as legends. 7 witticisms of the great master, or, as he called himself - the kilometer

Bunin and the modernists

The peak of Bunin's causticity and oratorical skill fell on contemporary modernists of all stripes. Bunin did not tolerate posing, let alone anything else, and they did not disdain posing in the Silver Age. The writer constantly made fun of “all you decadents” and sometimes said:
“Shouldn’t we invent some kind of nonsense so that nothing can be understood, so that the beginning is at the end and the end at the beginning. You know how they write now... I assure you that most of our critics would be completely delighted, and in magazines the articles would have sympathetically indicated that “Bunin is looking for new ways.” I assure you that “new ways” would not have happened!
He parodied Zinaida Gippius immensely and could not forget her one line from the review.
“She’s an inventor, she wants something that doesn’t exist in the world,” said Bunin, half-closing his eyes and, not without mannerisms, moving his hand away, as if pushing something away, in imitation of Gippius’s manner of reading.”
“But you’re not interested, you think that I’m not a writer, but a describer... I, my dear, won’t forget this until my death!” - Bunin Gippius once said.

Bunin and Tolstoy

Tolstoy was an authority for Bunin, and none of his contemporaries can remember caustic statements about him. And although Bunin said that the end of Anna Karenina was written poorly, his respect for this author was immeasurable.
Bunin believed that those pages in Anna Karenina, where Vronsky at night, at a snow-covered station, unexpectedly approaches Anna and speaks about his love for the first time, are “the most poetic in all Russian literature.”
And at the end of his life, when he was seriously ill, as Georgy Adamovich recalls, such a dialogue took place.
“Bunin was especially weak that day. He didn’t open his eyes, didn’t raise his head from the pillow, spoke hoarsely, abruptly, with long pauses. Here, however, he sat up heavily, leaned on his elbow and looked at me gloomily, almost angrily:
- Do I remember? What are you really? Who do you take me for? Who can forget this? I will die, and then on my deathbed I will repeat the entire chapter to you almost word for word... And you ask if I remember!”

Bunin and Dostoevsky

Bunin could not stand Dostoevsky. "Seer of the spirit!" - Bunin was indignant. Seer of the spirit. What nonsense!"
“More than once he said that Dostoevsky was a “very bad writer,” he got angry when people objected to him, waved his hand, turned away, making it clear that there was no point in arguing. I, they say, know a lot about my business better than all of you.
“Yes,” she exclaimed with agony. “No,” he objected with a shudder... That’s all your Dostoevsky!
- Ivan Alekseevich, fear God, Dostoevsky doesn’t have this anywhere!
- Why not? I read it yesterday... Well, no, it could be so! Everything is made up, and very badly made up."
Of course, although Bunin could not “organically” tolerate the heroes of Fyodor Mikhailovich, he recognized Dostoevsky’s well-known skill. Descriptive...
“This poor, dank, dark Petersburg, rain, slush, holey galoshes, stairs with cats, this hungry Raskolnikov, with burning eyes and an ax in his bosom, rising to the old woman-pawnbroker... this is amazing!”

Bunin and war

Bunin and mediocrity

In his diaries, Bunin emerges as an even sharper and sharper-tongued person than in the memoirs of his contemporaries. Just look at his reviews of books he has read or not read:
“I started reading to N. Lvov - it’s terrible. A pathetic and mediocre provincial girl. I started re-reading Ertel’s “Mineral Waters” - it’s terrible! A mixture of Turgenev, Boborykin, even Nemirovich-Danchenko and sometimes Chirikov. Eternal irony over the heroes, the language is vulgar. I re-read “Cruel Stories” "Villiers de Lisle Adan. The fool and plebeian Bryusov admires. The stories are popular fiction, sophistication, beauty, cruelty, etc. - a mixture of E. Poe and Wilde, it’s a shame to read."
And, of course, about Gippius, with whom Bunin loved to talk and in whom he recognized intelligence: “Gippius finished reading. An unusually nasty little soul, not a single living word, various inventions dead-beat into stupid doggerel. There is not an iota of poetic nature in her.”

Bunin and Nobel

In 1934, Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. There is a wonderful legend about this event that Merezhkovsky, also nominated for this prize, offered Bunin to negotiate, make a deal - and, if one of them received this prize, to honestly divide it in half. To which Bunin replied: “I will not share my prize for literature with anyone.” And, indeed, I got it after learning about it in the cinema.
Here’s what Bunin’s wife Vera Nikolaevna wrote about this proposal: “Merezhkovsky suggests that Ian write letters to each other and have them certified by a notary, that if one of them receives the Nobel Prize, he will give the other 200,000 francs. I don’t know, but there’s something in this something terribly low - a notary, and why 200,000? After all, if someone gets it, then he will have to help others and this whole method is very humiliating ... "

Bunin and revolution

Bunin did not accept the revolution and wrote a lot about his attitude towards it in his diaries and “Cursed Days”. His reflections on Russia are tragic, filled with biblical references and powerful metaphors.
"...Satan of Cain's malice, bloodthirstiness and the wildest arbitrariness breathed on Russia precisely in those days when brotherhood, equality and freedom were proclaimed. Then a frenzy, acute insanity immediately set in."
“Our children and grandchildren will not be able to even imagine the Russia in which we once (that is, yesterday) lived, which we did not appreciate, did not understand - all this power, complexity, wealth, happiness...”
But it breaks through gloomy thoughts and optimism, however, only about the distant future:
“The day will come when our children, mentally contemplating the shame and horror of our days, will forgive Russia a lot for the fact that Cain was not the only one who ruled in the darkness of these days, that Abel was among her sons.”

Publications in the Literature section

“Russia lived in him, he was Russia”

On October 22, 1870, the writer and poet Ivan Bunin was born. The last pre-revolutionary Russian classic and the first Russian Nobel laureate in literature was distinguished by his independence of judgment and, in the apt expression of Georgy Adamovich, “he saw through people, he unmistakably guessed what they would prefer to hide.”

About Ivan Bunin

"I was born October 10, 1870(all dates in the quote are indicated in the old style. - Editor's note) in Voronezh. He spent his childhood and early youth in the village, and began writing and publishing early. Quite soon, criticism also paid attention to me. Then my books were awarded three times with the highest award of the Russian Academy of Sciences - the Pushkin Prize. However, I was not more or less widely known for a long time, because I did not belong to any literary school. In addition, I did not move much in the literary environment, lived a lot in the village, traveled a lot in Russia and outside Russia: in Italy, Turkey, Greece, Palestine, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, in the tropics.

My popularity began from the time I published my “Village”. This was the beginning of a whole series of my works, which sharply depicted the Russian soul, its light and dark, often tragic foundations. In Russian criticism and among the Russian intelligentsia, where, due to ignorance of the people or political considerations, the people were almost always idealized, these “merciless” works of mine evoked passionate, hostile responses. During these years, I felt my literary strength becoming stronger every day. But then war broke out, and then revolution. I was not one of those who was taken by surprise by it, for whom its size and atrocities were a surprise, but still the reality exceeded all my expectations: no one who did not see it will understand what the Russian revolution soon turned into. This spectacle was sheer horror for anyone who had not lost the image and likeness of God, and from Russia, after Lenin seized power, hundreds of thousands of people who had the slightest opportunity to escape fled. I left Moscow on May 21, 1918, lived in the south of Russia, which passed from hand to hand between whites and reds, and on January 26, 1920, having drunk the cup of unspeakable mental suffering, I emigrated first to the Balkans, then to France. In France, I lived for the first time in Paris, and in the summer of 1923 I moved to the Alpes-Maritimes, returning to Paris only for some winter months.

In 1933 he received the Nobel Prize. While in exile, I wrote ten new books.”

Ivan Bunin wrote about himself in “Autobiographical Notes”.

When Bunin came to Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize, it turned out that all passers-by knew his face: photographs of the writer were published in every newspaper, in store windows, on the cinema screen. Seeing the great Russian writer, the Swedes looked around, and Ivan Alekseevich pulled his lambskin cap over his eyes and grumbled: "What's happened? A perfect success for the tenor".

“For the first time since the establishment of the Nobel Prize, you awarded it to an exile. For who am I? An exile enjoying the hospitality of France, to which I, too, will forever remain grateful. Gentlemen of the Academy, allow me, leaving aside myself and my works, to tell you how wonderful your gesture is in itself. There must be areas of complete independence in the world. Undoubtedly, around this table there are representatives of all kinds of opinions, all kinds of philosophical and religious beliefs. But there is something unshakable that unites us all: freedom of thought and conscience, something to which we owe civilization. For a writer, this freedom is especially necessary - for him it is a dogma, an axiom.”

From Bunin's speech at the Nobel Prize ceremony

However, his feeling for his homeland and the Russian language was enormous and he carried it throughout his life. “We took Russia, our Russian nature with us, and wherever we are, we cannot help but feel it”, - Ivan Alekseevich said about himself and about millions of the same forced emigrants who left their fatherland during the turbulent revolutionary years.

“Bunin did not have to live in Russia to write about it: Russia lived in him, he was Russia.”

Writer's secretary Andrey Sedykh

In 1936, Bunin went on a trip to Germany. In Lindau, he first encountered the fascist order: he was arrested and subjected to an unceremonious and humiliating search. In October 1939, Bunin settled in Grasse at the Villa Jeannette, where he lived throughout the war. Here he wrote his “Dark Alleys”. However, under the Germans he did not publish anything, although he lived in great poverty and hunger. He treated the conquerors with hatred and sincerely rejoiced at the victories of the Soviet and allied troops. In 1945 he moved permanently from Grasse to Paris. I have been sick a lot in recent years.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin died in his sleep on the night of November 7–8, 1953 in Paris. He was buried in the cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois.

“I was born too late. If I had been born earlier, my writing memories would not have been like this. I wouldn’t have to go through... 1905, then the First World War, followed by the 17th year and its continuation, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler... How not to envy our forefather Noah! Only one flood befell him..."

I.A. Bunin. Memories. Paris. 1950

“Start reading Bunin - be it “Dark Alleys”, “Easy Breathing”, “The Cup of Life”, “Clean Monday”, “Antonov Apples”, “Mitya’s Love”, “The Life of Arsenyev”, and you will immediately be captivated and enchanted by the unique Bunin's Russia with all its charming signs: ancient churches, monasteries, bell ringing, village graveyards, ruined "noble nests", with its rich colorful language, sayings, jokes that you will not find either in Chekhov or Turgenev. But that’s not all: no one has so convincingly, so psychologically accurately and at the same time laconicly described the main feeling of a person - love. Bunin was endowed with a very special property: vigilance of observation. With amazing accuracy, he could draw a psychological portrait of any person he saw, give a brilliant description of natural phenomena, changes in moods and changes in the lives of people, plants and animals. We can say that he wrote on the basis of keen vision, sensitive hearing and keen sense of smell. And nothing escaped him. His memory of a wanderer (he loved to travel!) absorbed everything: people, conversations, speech, colors, noise, smells.”, - literary critic Zinaida Partis wrote in her article “Invitation to Bunin”.

Bunin in quotes

“God gives each of us, along with life, this or that talent and entrusts us with the sacred duty not to bury it in the ground. Why, why? We don't know. But we must know that everything in this world, incomprehensible to us, must certainly have some meaning, some high God’s intention, aimed at ensuring that everything in this world “is good,” and that the diligent fulfillment of this God’s intention is Our service to him is always ours, and therefore joy and pride...”

Story "Bernard" (1952)

“Yes, from year to year, from day to day, you secretly expect only one thing - a happy love meeting, you live, in essence, only in the hope of this meeting - and all in vain...”

The story “In Paris”, collection “Dark Alleys” (1943)

“And he felt such pain and such uselessness of his entire future life without her that he was overcome by horror and despair.”
“The room without her seemed somehow completely different than it was with her. He was still full of her - and empty. It was strange! There was still the smell of her good English cologne, her unfinished cup was still standing on the tray, but she was no longer there... And the lieutenant’s heart suddenly sank with such tenderness that the lieutenant hurried to light a cigarette and walked back and forth around the room several times.”

Short story "Sunstroke" (1925)

“Life is, undoubtedly, love, kindness, and a decrease in love, kindness is always a decrease in life, there is already death.”

Short story "The Blind Man" (1924)

“You wake up and lie in bed for a long time. There is silence throughout the whole house. You can hear the gardener carefully walking through the rooms, lighting the stoves, and the firewood crackling and shooting. Ahead lies a whole day of peace in the already silent, winter-like estate. Slowly get dressed, wander around the garden, find a cold and wet apple accidentally forgotten in the wet leaves, and for some reason it will seem unusually tasty, not at all like the others. Then you’ll get down to reading books—grandfather’s books in thick leather bindings, with gold stars on morocco spines. These books, similar to church breviaries, smell wonderful with their yellowed, thick, rough paper! Some kind of pleasant sour mold, old perfume..."

The story “Antonov Apples” (1900)

“What an old Russian disease this is, this languor, this boredom, this spoiledness - the eternal hope that some frog will come with a magic ring and do everything for you: you just have to go out onto the porch and throw the ring from hand to hand!”
“Our children, our grandchildren will not be able to even imagine the Russia in which we once (that is, yesterday) lived, which we did not appreciate, did not understand - all this power, complexity, wealth, happiness...”
“I walked and thought, or rather, felt: even if now I managed to escape somewhere, to Italy, for example, to France, everywhere it would be disgusting - the man was disgusted! Life made him feel so keenly, look at him so keenly and carefully, his soul, his vile body. What our former eyes - how little they saw, even mine!

Collection “Cursed Days” (1926–1936)