Elena Rai - Love for Three

© Elena Rai, 2020

ISBN 978-5-4496-3390-3

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Chapter II

“Sharing love for three is like having a threesome with one spoon.

Just wait until it comes to you”

In the last century, many well-known creative people were able to share love for three. Such love for them was considered absolutely normal phenomenon. And it was not a fleeting connection, but a relationship that lasted for years. “Love for three” was not uncommon. The poet Zinaida Hippius even bragled the fact that her husband Dmitry Merezhkovsky gets along under one roof with her lover – Dmitry Philosophov. And some celebrities, though not living under the same roof, but love for three shared. Someone – by the call of his heart, and someone – by the dictates of the party and the coincidence of circumstances.

Vladimir Mayakovsky, Lily Brik and her husband Osip Brick lived threesome in one flat for some time. Lily mocked, in literally was harassing the great poet. Everyone knows the painful history of their relationship in Russia. Already after the death of the poet Lily herself confessed that they and Osip deliberately mocked Mayakovsky.

There is evidence that Lilichka practiced and love for three with him and with Osip, which greatly traumatized Mayakovsky, but he suffered from the love of brick. In addition, all this love triangle contained Mayakovsky, lived only on his money, as the briks had material difficulties.

There are many stories in the life of celebrities, where they shared love for three:

Friedrich Nietzsche – Lou Salome – Paul Ray. History keeps photos where all three are naked. His famous work “So said Zaratustra” Nietzsche wrote under the impression of Lou Salome. The famous philosopher made an offer of his lover’s hand and heart, but she offered him only friendship. When Paul Ray joined them, they began to live threesome under one roof. Angry Elizabeth, Friedrich Nietzsche’s sister, wrote a rude letter to Lou, which led to the quarrel between Friedrich and his lover, and then to the parting.

The love triangle of Alexander Blok – Lyubov Mendeleev – Andrey Bely, Anna Akhmatova – Arthur Luarier -Olga Sudeykin, and many other creative celebrities didn’t pass by. Let’s focus on the most impressive.

The famous Russian writer Ivan Bunin lived for many years in exile, in the ancient city of Grasse, which is located on South of France. In Nice, on the beach Bunin met a young writer Galina Kuznetsova, who was younger than him for 30 years. Between them struck up a friendship, which later turned into a strong feeling. Bunin for a year in one of the hotels of Nice had a romantic meeting with his lover. He rushed between the two cities, and meanwhile his wife Vera Nikolaevna was very jealous of her husband and told all the time that Bunin had gone mad.

Once the writer could not endure and at a living wife brought to the house a young lady Galina Kuznetsova, saying that she would live with them. This is his secretary. And the wife had to accept. She was not young; she had no money and refuge too. Vera Nikolaevna cried, and then resigned herself. Said, so God wants. Everyone laughed and whispered, the questions were offensive. And they lived the three. At the time of acquaintance with Bunin Galina Kuznetsova was married, but because of love to the writer left her husband, and settled in the house of Bunin.

So, since the spring of 1927, in the Villa “Belvedere”, in the ancient city of Grasse, the spouses of Bunin settled Galina Kuznetsova, thus turning the family union of the beads of Bunin into a family triangle.

But soon there was an event that Bunin would regret for the rest of his life. The famous writer received a lot of letters from his readers, worshipping his work. One of these letters he received from Riga from a young man-Leonid Fedorovich Zurov, who in a letter to the writer expressed his admiration for his talent. Zurov also reported that he works as a house painter, but he tries to write, and as well asked Bunin to read and evaluate his work. Kuznetsova after reading the letter of Zurov, offered Bunin to invite painter to visit. The wife of Ivan Alekseevich was categorically against, lamenting that there is nothing in the house, and there was not enough here yet only Zurov. Bunin, at first doubted, and then agreed to the persuasion of Kuznetsova and invited a talented young man to visit. Zurov arrived quickly, without warning, which caused a considerable surprise among the inhabitants of the house.

Bunin’s family triangle has become a square.

The writer’s wife pierced the sympathy to the young man and began to take care of him. The painter really liked to visit. The food is good, the treatment is delicate. Well, he stayed forever. What will you take from a madman? And the painter was crazy. Chased Bunin with a dangerous razor, fight the climb, and so sarcastic grin, when Bunin told something, pulled the flowers that the writer in the garden was putting in to punish him, if he somehow behaved, and Vera Nikolaevna always defended the poor young man. The four of them lived. The years went by.

In November 1933, the Swedish Academy awarded Bunin I.A. the Nobel Prize for literature. The writer went to Stockholm with his wife and with Kuznetsova Galina. On the way back home to Grasse, Kuznetsov was very ill, and Bunin had to leave her in Munich with his friend, publisher Fedor Stepun, and with his wife had to return home. Stepun lived with his sister Margo. She really liked Galina.

The girls became friends, and then fell in love. After the illness Kuznetsov returned to Bunin’s house with Margo Stepun. The life of the writer turned to hell when he discovered that his beloved Galya is in close love with a woman, and even living in his house, and he no longer belongs. Later Ivan Alekseevich recalled: “It was hard to live close by, watching her together – not even with another! With the other!” This ‘‘friendship’’ between Galina and Margo Bunin always felt like a wound.

Once the writer broke down and said to his wife: “You know, Verochka, the two of us, still lived better, though a little dull. Let’s live together! “The wife replied that it was too late, not good to kick people out to the street. We are responsible, Vanya, for those who are tamed!

Kuznetsova and Stepun lived in Bunin’s house for 8 years. The writer became even harder when Galina after 15 years of life under the roof with Bunin left him forever.

The lines of the poet, written by him in 1906 and as if predicted his fate, are remembered:

…I wanted to shout:

“Come back, I’m related to you!

But there is no past for a woman!

Fell out of love – and became it someone else”

Bunin’s friends wrote that the writer was on the verge of madness and despair. He worked long days, trying to forget his lover.

After the war, out of war-torn Europe, Kuznetsova Galina together with Margo Stepun, will move to the United States, where Galina will work in the Library of the United Nations. Together they will live another five years. After the death of Margo, Galina will be free.