Under Andreev's banner: Izvestia publishes a fragment of Pavel Basinsky's book
Just a year and a half after the release of The True Story of Konstantin Levin, the sequel to Leo Tolstoy's acclaimed novel, Pavel Basinsky is releasing a new book. Now let's talk about Leonid Andreev, a younger contemporary of Tolstoy, whose work is already aimed at the 20th century. But if in the dilogy about "Anna Karenina" Basinsky focused on analyzing a specific work, now he talks not so much about literature as about the personal life and the formation of a very difficult person, as if he had absorbed the contradictions and dissonances of the era.
Pavel Basinsky, "Leonid Andreev: Duke Lorenzo" (fragment)
It's over with Antonova. Nevertheless, having accidentally met her somewhere on the Arbat, he then falls into depression and resorts to a proven way to get rid of her — vodka. But these are short-term eclipses. In a state of sobriety, he is free from the two extremes to which he is prone — self-flagellation and pride. He quietly likes himself.
Having plumped up and flushed, I also acquired that self-confidence that always eludes me, which people sometimes owe to the consciousness of their virtue and which makes relationships with loved ones easy and pleasant. I easily make new acquaintances, leaving behind the impression of a very nice, intelligent and eloquent young man everywhere.
And I wish I could get married.
But first, his choice falls not on Shurochka, who is still too young, but on Natalia Lavrentievna Zhdanova.
Pretty, slender, with a modest face and hairstyle. He speaks little, laughs heartily. The voice, a beautiful, low contralto voice, charmed me. She is a student, but until this year she lived almost constantly in the village. It has a rustic freshness and unbrokenness.
The trouble was, he was looking for the same feminine ideal in Natasha that he was trying to find in Sibileva and Antonova, and in any girl. Fresh, unspoiled… Not only in the carnal sense, but also in the sense of extraneous influences. However, neither Sibileva nor Antonova met these criteria. The first was too willful, and the second was too influenced by her mother.
It turned out even worse with Zhdanova. She easily believed all the gossip that his "friends" spread about Andreev, and many of which were not fiction, but the truth.
Zhdanova answered Andreev's letter with a categorical demand to answer "yes" or "no" evasively, and then returned the letter to him without comment.
Everything was different with Shurochka.
Famous photos show us her appearance when she had already become a wife. Andreeva. But they are static and do not convey the changes in her face. Therefore, it is important to describe her appearance, which Andreev himself made two years before their wedding in a multi—page essay "Alexandra Mikhailovna Veliegorskaya (so. - P.B.). The experience of characterization." The essay was written specifically for Shurochka, so it's easy to imagine how long she looked at herself in the mirror after reading these lines.:
Alexandra Mikhailovna Veliegorskaya is 19 years old, a high school student. She is of average height, the most suitable for a woman; slender and flexible, although she does not have a classic correct build. His gait is small, fast, light and confident. The facial features are very irregular, giving the impression of sharpness. The forehead is large for a woman, wide; the hair is not thick, but soft, shiny, approaching black in color. The eyes are small, slightly Mongolian in type, dark, with a warm brown tinge, lively, thinking, easily changing expression. They are brilliant when talking or laughing; they become very dull in a moment of indifference or reflection; they become unpleasant, petty-angry when angry. The nose is narrow, with almost no bridge, which is the ugliest part of the face. The most beautiful is the mouth, somewhat large, but with a characteristic curve of thin pink lips and beautiful even teeth, matte white. When smiling and laughing, the face changes a lot, becoming very lively, expressive, frank and simple. The chin is wide, indicating stubbornness. The complexion is unstable: anemic, sometimes pale yellowish, tired, but more often it has a light, transparent and delicate blush. The face is "not pretty," but one that appeals to youth, vitality, and the general character of something secretive, sharp, and attentive. One of those people who promises more than they give, and they don't give at all what is expected of them.
For all the deliberate and somewhat emphasized "objectivity" of this sketch, it was undoubtedly written by a man in love. By this time, Andreev had already made his choice. But Shurochka is not there yet. She would hesitate for two more years before answering "yes" to him. This explains the last line, which has a clear hint — shouldn't we hurry up with the answer? As well as other places of this talented verbal drawing. For example, the emphasis is on the fact that a girl does not have a very beautiful appearance and is only good in her heyday, while she is still young, fresh, etc.
In 1902, when they got married, Andreev was 31 years old, Alexandra Mikhailovna was 21. What did that mean?
His youth was coming to an end. He has already experienced all the fears, joys, hobbies and delusions of a teenager and a young man of the 19th century. They were a thing of the past, like the century itself. If Andreev changed later, it was due to very serious personal upheavals. But as an adult by the beginning of the century, Andreev had fully established himself.
When Shurochka turned 21, she entered the age of full adulthood. She could get married, or she could stay married and manage herself without parental care. According to the laws of the Russian Empire, if she had a paternal inheritance, she could own it after marriage. I could have taken a course.
But here's what's important. This whole difficult life period, which is not coincidentally called the transition age, when she turned from a girl into a girl and then into a capable woman, took place not just in front of Leonid Andreev's eyes, but under his direct influence.
Imagine a not-too-beautiful girl who falls in love with a handsome young man at the age of 15 and watches him for 5.5 years before marrying him.
His whole life passes before her eyes. Before her eyes, he falls in love with other women and pursues her older sister. He makes offers to other women and gets rejected by them. He drinks and commits bad deeds, and then repents in letters to her and in a diary, which he gives her to read. He tells her about his love, and then suffers because of Antonova's refusal and wants to commit suicide.
And this isn't some mythical woman she doesn't know. Here it is, before my eyes! Antonova's portrait hangs in the advertising window of a photo studio on Arbat Street — look at what a beauty!
All this time Shurochka continues to love him and build marriage plans in her head. They discuss some things together, which for Andreev might have been one of the backup options, but for her it was very serious!
Shurochka was brought up in a moral family. She could not have thought of becoming one of Andreev's mistresses. Was he just thinking of seducing her? Was. He openly admits this in his diary and writes that "he was even sure that it was possible."
The erotic principle played a significant role in his attitude towards Shurochka. In any case, he writes about her body in his diary no less often than about her soul.
Her body has a terrible power over me, such a power that I have never experienced before.… I love A.M.'s figure, gait, her hands, the color of her body, her hair, her legs. In this sense, there is no woman in the world more desirable to me than she is.… I can say that, having reached the age of 27, for the first time I get to know love from this side and I will say that it is no less terrible, domineering and irresistible than purely spiritual love. In this regard, I am again influenced by the incomprehensible laws of love, as I know a lot of girls who are physically superior to A.m. It's the kind of love for the body that can kill you.
The Taming of the Shrew
Raised first in a patriarchal family led by a strong and domineering father, then spoiled by his mother's adoration, Andreev did not see his future wife as anything other than a woman completely subordinate to him. It is only by understanding this that one can appreciate his letter to Shurochka dated June 2, 1898, where he selfishly insists on "inequality" in love.
... for me, there is no equality in love, and one person must be absorbed by another. The motto of this personality should be the famous words: "Your My God God!"... I'll say it bluntly and frankly — the woman I love should become such a person... from this woman I expect self-denial, I expect boundless love, ready for any sacrifice. Follow me everywhere: to the grave, to prison, to the madhouse.
This letter offended Shurochka. But at this age, girls grow up quickly. The letter was no longer read by 15-year-old Shurochka, who was head over heels in love with him, but by a 17-year-old girl who, after two years of dating him, had the opportunity to take a closer look at him and evaluate him correctly. In her diary she writes:
The letter to Leonid is ready. He's staying with us. It remains to seize a moment and give it to him. But... I have an indecision. Should I give it back or not? After all, I say that I don't love him, but at the same time I have something that can be called love. Oh, I do not know if I love him. I have to give him the letter anyway. There are two outcomes: to finish now, or to surrender to him, to become his slave. No, it's better to finish.
I gave it back.
Let it be what it will be.
There is something symbolic in the fact that when Andreev first declared his love to her, Shurochka was standing at the piano and flipping through the notes of Eugene Onegin. Now her letter had the notes of a matured Pushkin heroine. She showed Andreev that the devil was no longer messing with the baby.
Your letter made two completely opposite impressions on me: the first is self—loathing, the second is contempt for you. Self-loathing rose in me as soon as I read your letter: "He's suffering, and I'm adding to his suffering because of some stupid calculations. It's mean of me." That's the first thought that came to my mind at the end of your letter. "And if it's a lie, a fake?" was my second thought, and with it came my contempt for you.… I cannot become your slave solely because I do not love you... two years ago I could not have been the cause of any of your torments. Why didn't you write me this letter then?
Then I was a sweet, sweet girl, then I loved you, believed you, and was ready to do anything to earn your love. Then I wouldn't have hesitated for a minute and would have followed you. Do you know what I dreamed about then? Shall I tell you? It may seem silly and sentimental to you, but it's all the same because it happened. Listen, all I've been thinking is that if you loved me, I'd make you happy. This was the picture in my mind: we are sitting together in a warm, cozy room by the fireplace, you, tired of everyday struggle, tormented by various worries, pour out your whole soul in front of me, and I listen, I am indignant at the perpetrators of your suffering and I try to calm you with caresses.
And now... now I've deteriorated and I can't be any different, because I don't love you... I stopped loving you not because you seemed worse to me now than you did a few months ago, not because I was disappointed in my expectations. However... maybe it also had some significance here that you can't stop drinking, which I've only now become convinced of... I wish you to find the woman you're looking for, I wish you to be happy! Now I appeal to you with a request: do not drink after this letter... your fading "rosette"... if this "rosette" were put in water, would it be able to come to life?
At the end of the letter, she still couldn't resist feminine coquetry. But there was something serious in this postscript, some hint of a continuation of their relationship... in the event that not only she would change, but also he... Perhaps this was what she meant by living water for the Rose.
And yet, reading this letter, one cannot help but notice how literally Andreev transferred this imaginary scene of family life, which Shurochka modeled in her head, into the first act of the play "The Life of a Man." And considering that the play was written as if on the margins of their real family history and was dedicated to Alexandra Mikhailovna, it becomes clear that Shurochka managed to bring this scene to real life, and he only had to transfer it to paper.
The result of Shurochka's new attitude towards Leonid was not long in coming. He fell deeply and forever in love.
The whole meaning and content of my life is limited to one word — Shurochka. It would take a long time, and it would be fruitless, to trace the process that led me from freedom to a state of serfdom. But the fact is obvious: I am enslaved.
In September 1898, Sibileva was passing through Moscow. She managed to marry an engineer, became a Spider, and left with her husband for Siberia. In Moscow, she met with her former lover. He writes in his diary:
Zinaida passed through Moscow and spent most of the day with me today. Still the same. He's got a little more cheerfulness, he's dreaming of a job, but I think he's going to fall into his old doldrums in a month. She's older, uglier. It doesn't arouse any desires in me — an almost asexual being in my eyes.
Shurochka will not give her final consent to become his wife for another three years. And this longest period of his love torments will turn out to be one of the most fruitful for him creatively. From 1898 to 1902, Leonid Andreev was born as a great Russian writer.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
