In 1889, in Oryol, Ivan Bunin met his first love – Varvara Pashchenko, daughter of Vladimir Pashchenko, once a wealthy owner of the Kharkov opera, who was a doctor in the uyezd Elets.
Bunin described his first meeting with Pashchenko as follows: ‘I met her… at the editorial office of “Oryol Vestnik”. A tall girl with very beautiful features in pince-nez came out to have a cup of tea in the morning. At first I even looked sideways at her: due to the pince-nez she seemed to me as if proud and dandyish. I even began to carp. She replied something to me pretty nicely. Then I stopped carping. She seemed to me quite smart and mature’. Gradually they became close, began to meet often. Bunin recalled: ‘Sometimes, in the midst of some kind of emotional conversation, I allowed myself to kiss her hand – I liked her so much’.
The couple’s relationship was turbulent. They confessed their love to each other, then parted, they planned to get married, then they vowed to never see each other again. Bunin wrote to his brother Yuly about his feelings: “The feeling did not go away. And it was a good feeling. I have never loved so sensibly and nobly. All my feeling consists of poetry <…> I arrived at the Oryol hotel forgetting myself completely. Nerves, perhaps, I was sobbing in the room violently, and then scribbled the uncouth letter to her: I swear, I hardly remember it. I only remember that I begged to love at least for minutes, and hate for months. I sent the letter at once and laid down on the sofa. When I close my eyes – I hear loud voices, the rustle of a dress near me… Even when I jump up… My head is on fire, my thoughts are confused, my hands are cold – just death”.
Pashchenko’s parents were strongly opposed to her marriage with ‘a boy without a livelihood, without a position’, ‘a vagabond’, ‘a beggar’. Then the lovers fled from Oryol and in 1892 went to Poltava, where Yuly Bunin served in the zemstvo council. However, their relationship there ended in disaster.
‘I love him very much and appreciate him as an intelligent and good person, but we will never have a family, peaceful life. It is better, no matter how hard it is for me, for us to break up now, than in a year or six months. This, you see, will be harder and more difficult, ” – Pashchenko confessed to the writer’s brother. – ‘I did not want to keep him on a string, in his words, all the time, deciding to finally live with him, I tried to get used to him, to his character, but now I see that I cannot do this’. As a result, Varvara Vladimirovna broke up with Bunin in November 1894 and soon married writer’s friend Arseny Bibikov.
Bunin was very upset about the breakup, was on the verge of suicide. However, he forgave Pashchenko, and only later, in emigration, recalled: “And my heart suddenly sank – young, tender and sad, – for some reason I remembered the time of my love, unhappy, deceived – and yet right at that time: after all, at that time there was in her, then, an amazing prettiness, charm, appealingness, purity, ardour…”
Bunin described his first meeting with Pashchenko as follows: ‘I met her… at the editorial office of “Oryol Vestnik”. A tall girl with very beautiful features in pince-nez came out to have a cup of tea in the morning. At first I even looked sideways at her: due to the pince-nez she seemed to me as if proud and dandyish. I even began to carp. She replied something to me pretty nicely. Then I stopped carping. She seemed to me quite smart and mature’. Gradually they became close, began to meet often. Bunin recalled: ‘Sometimes, in the midst of some kind of emotional conversation, I allowed myself to kiss her hand – I liked her so much’.
The couple’s relationship was turbulent. They confessed their love to each other, then parted, they planned to get married, then they vowed to never see each other again. Bunin wrote to his brother Yuly about his feelings: “The feeling did not go away. And it was a good feeling. I have never loved so sensibly and nobly. All my feeling consists of poetry <…> I arrived at the Oryol hotel forgetting myself completely. Nerves, perhaps, I was sobbing in the room violently, and then scribbled the uncouth letter to her: I swear, I hardly remember it. I only remember that I begged to love at least for minutes, and hate for months. I sent the letter at once and laid down on the sofa. When I close my eyes – I hear loud voices, the rustle of a dress near me… Even when I jump up… My head is on fire, my thoughts are confused, my hands are cold – just death”.
Pashchenko’s parents were strongly opposed to her marriage with ‘a boy without a livelihood, without a position’, ‘a vagabond’, ‘a beggar’. Then the lovers fled from Oryol and in 1892 went to Poltava, where Yuly Bunin served in the zemstvo council. However, their relationship there ended in disaster.
‘I love him very much and appreciate him as an intelligent and good person, but we will never have a family, peaceful life. It is better, no matter how hard it is for me, for us to break up now, than in a year or six months. This, you see, will be harder and more difficult, ” – Pashchenko confessed to the writer’s brother. – ‘I did not want to keep him on a string, in his words, all the time, deciding to finally live with him, I tried to get used to him, to his character, but now I see that I cannot do this’. As a result, Varvara Vladimirovna broke up with Bunin in November 1894 and soon married writer’s friend Arseny Bibikov.
Bunin was very upset about the breakup, was on the verge of suicide. However, he forgave Pashchenko, and only later, in emigration, recalled: “And my heart suddenly sank – young, tender and sad, – for some reason I remembered the time of my love, unhappy, deceived – and yet right at that time: after all, at that time there was in her, then, an amazing prettiness, charm, appealingness, purity, ardour…”
