Надежда Лохвицкая - Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me - The Best of Teffi

Since I don’t intend to discuss their literary work but simply to describe the Merezhkovskys as they appeared to me, this peculiarity of theirs might seem irrelevant—but it did in fact play a crucial role in their whole approach to people and life.

All around them were scarcely perceptible shades, phantoms and spectres. These shades had names and they spoke, though what they said had no meaning. As for Merezhkovsky, he never conversed. Dialogue meant nothing to him. The Merezhkovskys never knew what any particular person felt about them, nor did they have the least wish to know. They could be attentive (Merezhkovsky could even be absurdly flattering) to someone useful, but without taking any real interest in this person or why they might want to make themselves useful to him.

As to whether they had ever felt simple human love towards someone… I doubt it.

At one time they were very good friends with Dmitry Filosofov. For a long time they formed an inseparable trio.

When a rumour went round Biarritz that Filosofov had died, I thought, “Someone is going to have to tell the Merezhkovskys.”

That day I happened to meet them on the street.

“Have you heard the sad news about Filosofov?”

“What news? Has he died?” asked Merezhkovsky.

“Yes.”

“Do they know what from?” he asked. And without waiting for an answer, he said, “Well, we must be on our way, Zina, or we’ll be late again and all the best dishes will be gone.”

“We’re having lunch at a restaurant today,” he explained.

And that was that.

In Petersburg I had only seldom come across the Merezhkovskys. We didn’t get to know one another at all well until our time in Biarritz. [3] In June 1940, as the German army advanced on Paris, around three quarters of the city’s population fled in panic. Many of the Russian émigrés went to Biarritz, though this too was soon under German occupation. There we saw a lot of one another and talked a great deal.

Life did not go well for the Merezhkovskys in Biarritz. It was not easy for any of us, but it must have been especially hard for them, since they took any kind of disorder in their living arrangements as a personal affront.

We refugees had been allocated the magnificent Maison Basque hotel. Each of us had a beautifully appointed room and bathroom for ten francs a day. But the Merezhkovskys were reluctant to pay even this. They considered it unjust. All their practical affairs were seen to by their secretary, Vladimir Zlobin, a touchingly steadfast friend. A talented poet himself, Zlobin had abandoned literature in order to fully devote himself to looking after the Merezhkovskys.

Money, of course, was tight, and we had to be inventive. A grand fundraising celebration was arranged for Dmitry Sergeyevich’s seventy-fifth birthday. [4] Merezhkovsky turned seventy-five on 14th August 1940. Zlobin writes in Difficult Soul that, to help them financially, their friends organized a birthday celebration which turned a profit of 7,000 francs.

Presided over by Countess G., the guests—some wearing German uniforms—assembled on the enormous terrace of our hotel. Merezhkovsky gave a long speech that greatly alarmed all the Russians living in the hotel. In this speech he attacked both the Bolsheviks and the Germans. He trusted that the present nightmare would soon be over, that the antichrists terrorizing Russia and the antichrists that now had France by the throat would soon be destroyed, and that the Russia of Dostoevsky would hold out a hand to the France of Pascal and Joan of Arc.

“Now the Germans will throw us out of the hotel,” the Russians whispered fearfully.

But the Germans seemed not to understand Merezhkovsky’s prophecies and they applauded genially along with everyone else. They did not throw us out of the hotel. Nevertheless, we were unable to stay there long. The hotel was to be made into an army barracks and we all had to find rooms in private apartments.

The Merezhkovskys managed to install themselves in a wonderful villa, which naturally they could not afford. Dmitry Sergeyevich was ill; it was thought he had a stomach ulcer. And Zinaida Nikolaevna was nursing him dutifully.

“I changed his hot water bottle seventeen times last night,” she said. “Then old age got the better of me and I emptied out the eighteenth onto my stomach.”

Despite his illness, they continued to receive people on Sundays. Chatting and joking, everyone would sit in the large dining room, around an empty table. Merezhkovsky was usually at the far end of the room, reclining on a chaise longue, sullen and sulking. He would greet his guests by shouting loudly, “There’s no tea. No tea at all.”

“Look, Madam D. has brought us some biscuits,” said Zinaida Nikolaevna.

“Let them bring biscuits. Let them bring everything!” Merezhkovsky declared grimly.

“But Dmitry Sergeyevich,” I said. “I thought suffering ennobled the soul.” I had heard these words from him many times.

“Indeed it does!” he barked—and turned away. I think he found me almost unbearable. When he spoke to me he never looked at me, and when, in my presence, he spoke about me, he would refer to me simply as she . It was quite amusing, really.

After I had packed everything in preparation for the move, I went down to the Merezhkovskys and asked Zinaida Nikolaevna if she could lend me a book for the night. They always had piles of cheap French crime novels which they read diligently every evening.

“Zina,” said Merezhkovsky, “grab one from the second-rate pile and say she absolutely must return it tomorrow morning.”

“No,” I said to Zinaida Nikolaevna. “ She is going to choose something she likes and bring it back in her own good time. She is certainly not going to hurry.”

He turned away angrily.

Zinaida Nikolaevna courteously found me one of the more interesting books.

Another time, while we were still at the hotel, I found a letter under my door. The Merezhkovskys and I were being invited to move to the Free Zone. Well-wishers had arranged visas for us and would pay our passage to America. I was to inform the Merezhkovskys at once. And so, off I went.

Merezhkovsky was furious.

“She must tell them to keep their distance. And she’s not to go either.”

“Why should she be so rude to people who are only showing their concern and doing their best to help?” I asked.

“They’re not trying to help us at all, and they’re not in the least concerned about us. They only want our names. I’d rather go to Spain. They’ve got a saint there that hardly anyone has written anything about. I’ll write a book about her and they’ll give me a visa. But she should stay here in Biarritz.”

“More saints?” I asked. “You’re a real demon, Dmitry Sergeyevich—you can’t keep away from saints.”

Strangely, though, despite his loathing for her (a loathing well earned, as I could never resist teasing him), they had somehow taken it into their heads that they’d like to move into an apartment with me. This plan greatly amused the rest of the Russian colony. Everyone was wondering exactly how this arrangement would work out.

During these first months the Merezhkovskys felt a real disgust for the Germans, which they made no attempt to hide. If we were about to go out together, Zinaida Nikolaevna would begin with a quick check: were there any Germans about? If she did see a German, she would slam the gate and wait for him to pass by. And she drew caricatures of the Germans that were really not bad at all.

The Merezhkovskys led a very ordered existence. Dmitry Sergeyevich worked throughout the morning and rested after an early lunch. Then they would always go for a walk.