I don't like people who are right

Eccentrics, as we all understand them, are obviously people who don't play by the usual rules, who do things their own way and are not understood by their contemporaries. In the eyes of the right-thinking layman, There is no doubt that Beau Lay is an eccentric. The sane are, in Marina Tsvetaeva's words, those who declare, and there are plenty of them, that "the most rational, first and right thing to do is to go mad." A whole book could be written about the weird things Beau Lay did. Here are just a few casual anecdotes.

When someone was unkind to Beau Lay, he was sure to retaliate like a child against that nasty person. For example, he somehow disliked Lukonen, who boxed his way in the poetry affairs section of Simonov's editorial office. When I was working at New World magazine, Beau Lay came to Lukonen for some literary business. I heard him call once asking for "Lutohin". "There is no such person." The secretary replied.

"Oh, no? Then get Lutoshkin! Also have no? Then look for Lukoshkin!"

In this way he wanted to show disrespect and malice towards Lukonen. He also called Simonov to me "the best of villains."

Beau Lay had an unusual sense of humor. He thought it very funny, for example, to call the гладиолус, the гладиолус, the sword "male" and laughed at it; the laugh was so contagious that everyone looked at him and laughed too.

Later, in his novel Doctor Zhivago, he said through the mouth of his protagonist: "I do not like those who are right, who have never fallen, who have never made a mistake. The beauty of life had not unfolded before them."

Liuxia Popova (O y Sviatlovskaya) told me about two interesting moments:

"We had tea at Beau Lie's cottage. There was no sugar for some reason. Beau Lay spread mustard on brown bread for tea.

A beggar knocked at the door. Boris Leonidovich gave him all the change he had, but, feeling that it was not enough, began to run about so much that the beggar was obviously embarrassed and wanted to leave. But Beau Lay wouldn't let him go.

'I beg your pardon, there's nothing at home,' he kept trying to explain. 'The family have gone to get their rations; Come back tomorrow, everything will be here tomorrow, I can give you something; Now there's not even a penny... '

At last the beggar almost ran out of the door, for Beau Lay prevented him from going, and through the crack he literally ran away, accompanied by a thunderous farewell, 'You must come tomorrow! '

And Beau Lay went on for a long time talking to himself: How unfortunate, how awkward it was, that someone had come and had nothing to offer... '"

The second thing:

"Boris Leonidovich told me about a party when someone he didn't know came up to him -- tall, very well-dressed -- and introduced himself.

'I see,' muttered Beau Lay. 'It's Wisinski [1]. And he suddenly started talking about how much I was liked and respected in the expatriate community, and how much joy I had brought to the people who had left their homeland. I was surprised -- you would think that Mr. Wisinski cared so much about the lives of expatriates. So I asked him for some advice on my housing problems. Now it's Wisinski who's surprised. I was later told that it was not Vysinski at all, but Alexander Verchinsky, who had recently returned to China [2]... '

It was not long before Alexander Nikolaevich told me [3] 'I visited Pasternak at Easter. He was so detached from everyday life, so suspended in the sky, he should have been closer to the earth... '

Then I asked Boris Leonidovich about Verjinsky's visit, and he muttered unpleasantly:

'Yes, he did come and read his poems. I told him, "Give up writing poetry. It's not art." And I think he's angry. He should have come earlier so we could have a drink together... '

'Boris Leonidovich should not read his texts,' I said. 'He should be heard; In no way should he be told to "give up writing poetry." After all, Vertinsky was Vertinsky -- he was the only man in All Russia. '

'But you know what? Maybe I didn't offend him. He said nothing himself. I just seem a little angry. 'And he was angry."

After Boris Leonidovich died, the writer Alexander Ruskin told a story. After a villa near Pasternak's home in The village of Perlegelkino was ransacked by thieves, beau Lay was asked by his worried family to take precautions.

He found an envelope and wrote "For thief" in large letters. Inside the envelope he put money and a note:

Dear thief,

There are six hundred roubles in this envelope. This is all the money I have now. Don't bother to change the money. There's nothing else at home. Take the money and go. It will be safer for you and for us. You don't have to count the money.

The story of what followed was told to me by Alexander Ruskin.

The envelope was in the front room under the mirror. A long time passed, and the thief did not come. Boris Leonidovich's wife began quietly taking money from envelopes to supplement their household expenses. Take the money and fill it in. One day I took the money, but I haven't had time to make it up... Boris Leonidovich remembered to check the envelope and found that the money was missing. He was furious.

'Did you take the money I gave the thief? !" "He roared. "You robbed my thieves? What if they come today? How am I supposed to face them? What to say to them? Stole their money?"

In the end, the frightened family members scraped together the missing money, and six hundred roubles (old notes) [4] lay in the envelope for a long time without waiting for the "honorable thief".

In the last year we lived opposite Fadeyev's tavern, maluchia, the watchwoman next door, and her uncle, who had no fixed occupation and was always happy, made a lot of moonmooners. By the way, most of the farmers in Izmalkovo know how to do that. After several deaths from paralysis, Maluxia, fearing that her brew would be found, requested that a three-liter jar of the best first pot wine be hidden in our cellar. The entrance to the cellar is in our room.

Boris Leonidovich not only agreed with her, but was extremely pleased:

"It is wonderful, Olyssa, that we are now bound to them, that they know we know the secret of their crime, and that they are our Allies themselves!"

"Our crime" refers to meeting foreigners in violation of the ban and our conversation about the novel that is now known around the world. Our friends warned us that there was a tape recorder in the wall. Beau Lay often greeted the recorder with a sarcastic bow. We are so used to the invisible presence that it becomes an involuntary public interlocutor, "Miss Tape Recorder," as Beau Lay affectionately calls her.

It was also in this last year of Beau Lay's life that it was announced to us that two long-established Russian wives, who were in Moscow either as tourists or as special correspondents for a large newspaper group, wanted to see us. One was Vera Gutchkova Terrell, the daughter of the interim army minister, and the other, no less famous, was Maria Ignatievna Zaklevskaya (who was also Duchess Benkdorf and Baroness Boudberg).

Beau Lay was very excited that Maria Ignatyevna Zaklevskaya was coming to visit. She had a surprisingly storied life, being very close to Maxim Gorky and being the widow of Herbert Wells [5].

Anastasia Tsvetaeva [6], who visited the Gorky Villa in Capri, described Zaklevskaya as: "Tall, slender and well-proportioned, with a slightly round (but not fat) face, a broad, intelligent, dignified forehead, and large black eyes. Her dark hair was slicked back.

Well educated, an upper-class woman... He is proficient in many languages. He has translated Gorky into English, and I think he has also translated Pasternak's The Childhood of Lyuwells."

Boria appointed a day for the two women to go to their Potabov Alley home for a hearty breakfast and began a whirlwind of preparations.

At seven o 'clock in the morning, Beau Lay arrived at Lavrushin Alley from Pellegerino. He found a barber and began making phone calls to Potabov Alley.

Ila slept by the phone. Beau Lay called me at eight o 'clock and woke her up. Beau Lay asked anxiously:

"Olliusa, do we have any Wells books?"

"Yes, two volumes."

"Take them out and put them where you can see them."

At half past nine the second bell rang:

"Gorky? You turn it over carelessly. Zaklevskaya is in the dedication!"

When the phone rang for the third time after ten o 'clock, IRA, who had not had enough sleep, finally cried out:

"She's got a lot of life experience. You stay on the phone. The old classic will call ten more times."

But our preparations seem to stop at Maria Ignatyevna's first lover, the adventurer Lockhart: we don't have his memoirs.

To welcome our guests, we prepare a large jar of lumpy black caviar. I was going to put the whole jar on the table, but Beau Lay said to divide it in little saucers of jam. He soon realized that I was right.

Beau Lay arrived, with his hair neatly groomed and his clothes smartly dressed, and then the guests arrived.

Although our elevator was in good working order that day, the two women somehow managed to climb to the sixth floor (the house Khrushchev had built before he took the stage) [7]. The young lady was easy enough, but the baroness was much more difficult.

Tall, fat, and clumsy, she was almost out of breath when she climbed the stairs, but insisted that Boria not help her take off her fur coat, and rummaged stubbornly in her bottomless pockets for something. Finally, she felt in her pocket for Boria's present: a large, old-fashioned tie that looked, well, like a Welles legacy. She went on rummaging. The hunt ended with the discovery of another tie and a gift for me -- a pair of large gold-plated earrings.

At last, when the guests had caught their breath and taken off their coats, Beau Lay expressed his thanks and invited them into the dining room, where the tables were already filled with breakfast.

The main purpose of the visit, the women said, was to interview Pasternak. They decided to do the interview over breakfast.

Boria was very warm, thoughtful and brilliant, talking about Wells, Gorky, and everything about literature.

The Baroness, oblivious to paulie's little "detail" of gorky and Wells, praised the tin of lumpy black caviar.

There are many rumours about Boris Leonidovich's insouciance.

For example, once he wrote to an acquaintance: "I wrote you a letter by airmail today, but I sent another thing at the post office, and now I don't remember whether I put it in the mailbox or not. It probably got thrown in the bin with some wrapping paper and never got to you."

On another occasion he wrote to the same recipient: "MY previous letter to you was written in a state of melancholy and probably mental decline, so I am not sure if there is any illogic or grammatical disorder in it -- please ignore it."

No, this is not "professorial" insouciance as it is commonly understood. It's more like total immersion in yourself, something that would be inconceivable for a creator as great as Boris Leonidovich (artist or scholar) not to have.

Alxa Tsvetaeva, who had seen Paulie several times in Moscow after her return from Capri, made a particularly subtle observation: "When he looked at a man, he looked round him (or through him, perhaps). The mind is not drawn to him, but to something of its own. But it's possible that attention may not be focused on the specific 'he' throughout the conversation."

One thing happened (or didn't happen, to be precise) after the 1935 Conference in Paris [8]. The memory of this incident haunted Beau Lay until a few days before his death.

His parents were living in Munich, Germany. He had not seen them for twelve years (since he had left Berlin, where the family had moved in 1921). The parents, of course, hoped that Beau Lay would drop in on them in Munich on his way home from Paris.

"But I didn't go out of some stupid pride," Beau Lay said later. "I didn't want them to see me in my poor, listless state... I wanted to see them on the way back, but decided to go back by way of England. My sister came to see me when my train came to Berlin, but I never saw my father or mother again."

Marina Tsvetaeva wrote to Beau Lie at the end of October 2005:

"... Kill me, I'll never understand, how can I ride a train, pass by my mother, pass 12 years of waiting? Mother will never understand -- don't expect it. This is beyond my comprehension, beyond human comprehension. I am the opposite of you in this: I would rather carry the train myself to see my mother (though I might also be afraid and unhappy) [...

... But -- now your plea -- only such a man could have created such a thing. You were Goethe, you didn't go to say goodbye to Schiller, you didn't visit your mother in Frankfurt for ten years -- to cherish yourself so you could write Faust II -- or whatever, but (parentheses!) To have the courage to fall in love at the age of seventy-four, and decide to get married, is simply a lack of heart (physical!) . You are all profligate in that sense... Can cure all of you (the whole of yourself, this terrible fear: the inhuman side of yourself, the divine side of yourself) [...] Is the simplest thing -- love. "

As if in response to a letter written by Beau Lay to Ariadna, Marina's daughter: "... I had just come out of an anti-fascist meeting... I don't want to meet my parents because I feel terrible about my appearance and I'm ashamed to meet them. I firmly believed that there would be more suitable opportunities. But then they died one after another, first their mother, then their father, so we never met... It's happened to me many times in my life, but I swear to you, it's neither uncaring nor unloving!"

So beau Lay's attitude towards his sisters is very interesting. The younger of the two sisters, Lydia Leonidovna, wrote many kind letters to my brother, to me, and to IRA. We often send each other pictures of our children - she has two boys and two girls. Our friend and IRA's fiance Georges Niva (1935 --) was a French slavologist. She was expelled from the Soviet Union two days before her marriage and a week before her arrest. Later, he became a professor at the University of Geneva. For details, see The Legend of Potabov Alley. Was a frequent visitor to her home in Oxford. He spoke of the many photographs of Beau Lay and IRA hanging in Lydia's room, and of the "cult of personality" they had formed around Pasternak.

After a tour of The Moscow Art Theatre in London, actress Zuyeva (to whom the poem "The Actor" was dedicated was later titled "To Anastasia Platonovna Zuyeva" (1957). Bring beau Lay a long letter from his sisters.

In future correspondence, Leda expressed a wish to come to Moscow. But Boris was still afraid to meet him, after instructing his publisher in Milan to send a large sum of money to his sister (and another sister, Josefina).

When Lydia learned that her brother was seriously ill, she wrote again that she wanted to come to Moscow, and Boria was excited about it and encouraged her to come back.

A nurse on duty at his bedside said he had muttered: "Leda's coming -- she'll take care of everything." The meaning was clear -- he felt that Leda and us, his second family, were on good terms, would not be partial to the first family, and would be able to "smooth over" my problems with Zinaida Nikolaevna. He very much hoped so.

But when she was delayed by her visa, something irreparable happened. Boria had been buried three days when Lydia Leonidovna arrived in Moscow.

She called me, and we arranged to meet the next day at the cemetery in Peregerino.

I went there with IRA and recognized her from a distance: she looked like Boria, I couldn't tell where, an elderly, tired woman.