f
X I L E
53
unchaste vocabulary, was puzzled by my unresponsiveness to good
food and exasperated by my refusal to discuss eschatological mat–
ters. Toward the end of the meal we were utterly bored with each
other. "You will die in dreadful pain and complete isolation,"
remarked Bunin bitterly as we went toward the cloakroom. An at–
tractive, frail-looking girl took the check for our heavy overcoats and
presently fell with them in her embrace upon the low counter. I
wanted to help Bunin into his raglan but he stopped me with a
proud gesture of his open hand. Still struggling perfunctorily- he was
now trying to help
me-we
emerged into the pallid bleakness of a
Paris winter day. My companion was about to button his collar when
a look of surprise and distress twisted his aquiline features. Gingerly
opening his overcoat, he began tugging at something under his arm–
pit. I came to his assistance and together we finally dragged out of
his sleeve my long woolen scarf which the girl had tucked into
the wrong coat. The thing came out inch by inch; it was like un–
wrapping a mummy and we kept slowly revolving around each
other in the process. Then, when the operation was over, we walked
on without a word to a street corner where we shook hands and
separated. Subsequently we used to meet quite often, but always in the
midst of other people, generally in the house of Fondaminsky–
Bunakov ( a saintly and heroi c soul who did more for Russian
emigre
literature than any other man and who died in a German
prison ) . Somehow Bunin and I adopted a bantering and rather
depressing give-and-take sort of double talk, which I regret now
when there is so little chance of my ever revisiting him in remote
France.
I met many other
emigre
Russian authors. I did not meet Pop–
lavsky who died young, a far violin among near balalaikas. His plan–
gent tonalities I shall never forget, nor shall I ever forgive myself
the ill-tempered review in which I attacked him for trivial flaws in
his unfledged verse. I met wise, prim, charming Aldanov; decrepit
Kuprin, carefully carrying a bottle of
vin ordinaire
through rainy
streets; Eichenwald-a Russian version of Walter Pater- later killed
by a trolley car; Marina Tsvetaeva, wife of a double agent and a
poet of genius, who, in the late thirties, returned to Russia and
perished there. But the author that interested me most was naturally
Sirin. He belonged to my generation. Among the young writers pro–
duced
in
exile he turned out to be the only major one. Beginning
