Let us turn to the creative legacy of Ivan Bunin and see if he managed to add something substantial to the naive grammar of love of a mad landowner and, unlike Maupassant, not to be disappointed in sexual love, in which «great happiness» is inseparable from the «agonizing loneliness,» but to find, according to Leo Tolstoy’s conviction, love «pure, spiritual, divine.»

      As if conspiring, in the same fifty-seven years of age and the same in the midst of infatuation with a young woman, Bunin, like Gorky, begins to write his main, largely autobiographical novel The Life of Arsenyev, where he creates a picturesque portrait of the first and truly genuine love, in which from the height of literary and life experience, he reveals the action of its eternal inexorable laws.

      At first, the adolescent Arsenyev feels only the first glimpses of «the most incomprehensible of all human feelings» as «something especially sweet and languid.» But in this special feeling arising from «women’s laughing lips,» «the sound of a woman’s voice,» «the roundness of women’s shoulders,» «the thinness of a woman’s waist,» there is already something «terrible,» leading to numbness, so that sometimes he «could not utter a word.» At sixteen, «youthful feelings,» enhanced by the wonderful mysteries of the wedding of his older brother, are embodied in the «happy embarrassment» in the presence of Anchen, the «simple,» «young niece» of the new relatives. And in the young man in love, endowed with a «keen sense of life,» a powerful generator of imagination is set in motion, absorbing the «romantic vignettes» of the poets of the estate library and giving birth to a «thirst to write himself.» After Anchen’s departure, her «living appearance» turned to poetic feeling «with a longing for love in general, for some kind of general beautiful female image.»

      Along with the poetic experience of love Arsenyev was filled with «heightened mental structure»: «a sense of his young strength, bodily and mental health, some beauty of the face and great dignity of the constitution,» as well as «consciousness of his youthful purity, noble motives, truthfulness, contempt for any meanness.» This incredible elation of the soul was ready to build new air castles of love, if only from a chance encounter with a fifteen-year-old skinny girl in a gray dress, with «touchingly painful lips.» The new love this time was «unbearably charming» with «the whiteness of her legs in the green grass» and absorbed both the «June scenes» of bathing in the pond, and «the dense green of shady gardens,» and the smells of «fading jasmine and blooming roses.»

      Two years later, Arsenyev meets his true love. He, a budding poet already published in «metropolitan monthly magazines,» meets three young pretty women in the editorial office of a provincial magazine, and for some reason his choice falls on Lika, who only looked at him «friendlier and more attentive, spoke more simply and more vividly.» Later, marveling at how quickly the time flew by, he will define the first sign of the «meaningless-fun, like ether intoxication» state of falling in love as «the disappearance of time.»

      Varvara Pashchenko, the prototype of Lika, was a girl «quite intelligent and developed,» and in the relationship with her, backed by reciprocal, though fluctuating, as on the scales, feeling and tenderness, guessed a wide palette of common thoughts and aspirations. In a letter to his brother Bunin confessed that he had «never loved so wisely and nobly.» On his scales of love, everything that was found on the negative side was not taken seriously or was considered surmountable. He tried to convey to her his cherished dreams «about the future, about fame, about the happiness of creativity,» to explain that for this he needs to keep «purity and strength of the soul,» and she should avoid the «vulgar» theatrical environment and get rid of «bad tastes and habits.» And although she was with him and «not quite like-minded,» she «still understood a lot.»

      In his love for Lika, Arsenyev discovers the action of its «secret law», which requires «that any love, and especially love for a woman, should include a feeling of pity, compassionate tenderness» – he «ardently loved her simplicity, silence, meekness, helplessness, tears, from which her lips immediately swelled childishly.» However, the action of this law is associated with the insidious need to know one’s limits: sometimes a feeling of pity obscures love itself. Lovers may not notice what is striking to friends and relatives. The editor of the Oryol Herald, where Bunin worked, who was involved in the twists and turns of Ivan’s quarrels and reconciliations with Varvara, writes to his older brother that «she is gradually losing both feelings for him, and respect, and trust», that «Pashchenko does not love him, but only pities him… and he will never be happy with her.»

      Indeed, Bunin’s beloved had no shortage of reasons for pity. He had not finished his last year of high school, lived like a «vagabond,» had no position in society, could have been drafted into the army, her family was categorically against her marrying a groom «without any means,» literary fame was only a dream, and all of his still unstrengthened creative forces he was striving «to form in himself from what life gave him something truly worthy of writing.» In addition, there was always doubt in her love, it seemed to her that «she did not love the way one should love… not the way they say, the way they write in novels.» A separation for a year did not bring clarity to the «authenticity» of her love, and then, having lived with him in a civil marriage, she left him and got married.

      At first glance, there is nothing remarkable in the story of Bunin’s love, except perhaps an amazing belief in himself, his literary talent, a firm desire for a different, «more idealistic life.» At the same time, his «reasonable» love is quite selfish: he «wanted to be loved and to love, remaining free and in everything superior.» Bunin’s alter ego Arsenyev instilled in Lika «one thing: live only for me and by me, do not deprive me of my freedom, my self-will, I love you and