Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Zinaida Gippius. Strange people

Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky (2 (14) August 1865, St. Petersburg, Russian Empire - December 9, 1941, Paris, France) - Russian writer, poet, critic, translator, historian, religious philosopher, public figure. Husband of the poetess Zinaida Gippius.
D. S. Merezhkovsky, a bright representative of the Silver Age, went down in history as one of the founders of Russian symbolism, the founder of the new genre of the historiosophical novel for Russian literature, one of the pioneers of the religious and philosophical approach to the analysis of literature, an outstanding essayist and literary critic. Merezhkovsky (since 1914, when academician N.A. Kotlyarevsky nominated him) repeatedly applied for the Nobel Prize; was close to her in 1933 (when I. A. Bunin became the laureate).
The controversial philosophical ideas and radical political views of D. S. Merezhkovsky evoked sharply mixed responses; nevertheless, even his opponents recognized him as an outstanding writer, genre innovator and one of the most original thinkers of the 20th century.

Personal life. Union with Z. Gippius

Merezhkovsky's first serious romantic interest was L.K. Davydova, the daughter of the publisher of the Northern Messenger L.K. Davydova. In the summer of 1885, he traveled with the family of A. A. Davydova in France and Switzerland, but this love affair was unsuccessful: 398. In January 1889, Merezhkovsky married Z. N. Gippius, the future poetess and writer, who became his closest friend, ideological companion and “accomplice in spiritual and creative quests” for the rest of his life. The union of Merezhkovsky and Gippius is the most famous creative tandem in the history of Russian culture of the “Silver Age”.
Contemporaries noted that Merezhkovsky and Gippius formed a single whole and were inseparable from each other. The spouses themselves admitted that they often did not understand which of them originated the idea. “She is not another person, but I am in another body,” wrote Merezhkovsky in a letter to V.V. Rozanov dated October 14, 1899. They lived together, as Gippius wrote in her memoirs, “52 years, without being separated for a single day.”
The beginning of this union was already unusual. As soon as they met, they began to meet every day, in the park, and secretly from others. Each of their conversations resulted in an argument, but at the same time quickly contributed to the awareness of complete unity. The line between an “interview” and a love date was practically erased. “His sensitivity, his ability to assimilate ideas borders on the miraculous. He “listens every now and then,” as she says, and compared to him she is rude. But she has ideas, or rather, some still vague reality that has not found expression,” V. A. Zlobin later wrote about these meetings.

Having given each other complete romantic freedom in advance, the spouses to some extent sacrificed the sensual side of the union; until the very end of their life together, feeling complete spiritual and intellectual unity, they no longer experienced strong feelings for each other; suffered, on the one hand, from the inability to live without each other, on the other, from internal mutual rejection. As a result, a “strange artificiality” developed in the Merezhkovskys’ relationship, which turned into a “painful and unpleasant game”, where the husband, as many memoirists noted, played “passive, or even passive”

From Baudelaire

My dove,
Let's rush to the edges,
Where everything, like you, is perfection,
And we will be there
To split in half
And life, and love, and bliss.
From damp curtains
Misty skies
There the sun shines thoughtfully,
Like these eyes
Where are the teardrop pearls?
A tear of ecstasy trembles.

This is a world of mysterious dreams,
Tenderness, caresses, love and beauty.

All the furniture is around
In your peace
It gets shiny over time.
Breath of flowers
Overseas Gardens
And the scent of ambergris flows.
Rich and tall
stucco ceiling,
And there the mirrors are so deep;
And a fabulous view
speaks to the soul
About the distant, wonderful East.

This is a world of mysterious dreams,
Tenderness, caresses, love and beauty.

Look at the channel
Where the fleet dozed off:
There, like a migratory flock,
Your cargo ships
From the ends of the earth
They're carrying it for you, darling.
Houses and bay
Evening low tide
Dressed luxuriously with hyacinths,
And a warm wave,
Like golden rain
He drops his rays silently.

This is a world of mysterious dreams,
Tenderness, caresses, love and beauty.
1885

DE PROFUNDIS *
(From the diary)

In those days there will be such sorrow,
which was not from the beginning of creation,
which God created even to this day,
and it won't. And if the Lord had not
shortened those days, then I was not saved
no flesh. (Ev. Mark,
Ch. XIII, 19, 20).

FATIGUE

I don't feel sorry for myself.
I accept all Your gifts, O God.
But sometimes it seems that joy and sadness,
Both life and death are one and the same.

Live in peace, die in peace -
My last joy.
There's no need to regret anything
And there is no need to hope for anything.

There is no pain, no pleasure.
Deception - freedom and love and pity.
In the soul - a trace of aimless life -
One severe fatigue.

From the underworld I cry
I, wounded by the sting of death:
Your heavenly dew
Come into my fierce spirit.

I love the stench of earthly pleasures,
When there are prayers in your mouth -
I love evil, I love sin,
I love the audacity of crime.

My Enemy mocks me:
"There is no God: the heat of prayer is fruitless."
Shall I fall on my face before You?
He says: "Rise and be free."

Am I running again to Your love, -
He tempts, is proud and evil:
"Go ahead, pick the fruit of knowledge,
You will be like me in strength."

Save, save me! I'm waiting,
I believe, you see, I believe in a miracle,
I won’t shut up, I won’t go away
And I will knock on Your door.

My blood burns with desire,
The seed of corruption lurks within me.
Oh give me pure love
Oh, give me tears of tenderness.

And forgive the damned one,
Cleanse my soul with suffering -
And enlighten the dark mind
You are an unflickering radiance!

* From the depths [I call upon You, Lord]
(lat.) - Psalm 129, 1.

And I want, but I am not able to love people:
I am a stranger among them; friends are closer to my heart -
Stars, sky, cold, blue distance
And the forests and the desert are silent sadness...
I won’t get tired of listening to the noise of the trees,
In the darkness of the night I can watch until the morning
And it’s so sweet and crazy to cry about something,
Like the wind is my brother, and the wave is my sister,
And the damp earth is my mother...
Meanwhile, I can’t live with the wave or the wind,
And I'm scared of not loving anyone for the rest of my life.
Is my heart dead forever?
Give me strength, Lord, to love my brothers!

LONELINESS
Trust me: people won't understand
Your soul to the bottom!..
How full of moisture the vessel is, -
She is full of sadness.

When you and your friend cry, know:
Maybe you can
Only two or three drops over the edge
Pour over that cup.

But he always sleeps in silence
Far from all friends, -
What's there, at the bottom, at the very bottom
Your sick soul.

Someone else's heart is someone else's world,
And there is no way to it!
In him and with a loving soul
We can't enter.

And there's something that's deep
It's burning in your eyes
And so far from me
Like the stars in the sky...

In my prison, in myself,
You poor man
In love, and in friendship, and in everything
One, one forever!..

Why does freedom, so beautiful in itself, make people so ugly? And is this ugliness really necessary?
Zinaida Gippius, Diaries, “Blue Book”

Only the two of them walked through the fire and ice of the 20th century, but they walked for 52 whole years, hand in hand, without parting for a single day or for a single night. Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky and Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius, two elves who accidentally found themselves in the human world. They were different from others and made for each other. And was it not the finger of Providence that they found each other? Yes, of course, they both ate and drank, went to theaters, ran a salon, hung out at artistic and philosophical journals, and Zinaida Nikolaevna also knew how to dress to suit the person and took care of Merezhkovsky’s dress (he generally abstracted himself from these everyday problems). But at the same time they existed in the virtual space of high matters. They created their Internet, the Web of the Mind, long before the deadline, without any wires, computers or modems.

The mystery of this couple, in whose life there were no adventures until 1917, is precisely that they were advanced users of this cosmic Being, not too similar to earthly life. At the same time, they spent more time online than outside. They had no children, and it never occurred to anyone to be surprised by this. Can angels reproduce? By the way, their absolute, frightening, repulsive freedom for timid friends comes from the same place, from their personal Runet. They did not know how to be afraid; they were not affected by external stimuli: pain, fear, threat, death. Their analysis was merciless: no myths, no hobbies, no complexes. Two sighted people in a country of blind and deaf people... of course, they were left alone. In life, in history, in literature, in posterity. It was forbidden to quote their names under Soviet rule; they were in the crypt for 70 years: poetry, prose, essays, memoirs. Mentioning them was dangerous: it meant excommunication from literary studies, history, and journalism. They have survived to this day, like Tutankhamun and Nefertiti: a terrible and captivating mystery in the golden glow of precious coffins. Let's do like Lara Croft, the tomb raider: let's disturb the peace of the pyramid of silence and awaken the sleeping ones.

Dmitry Merezhkovsky

The name of Dmitry Merezhkovsky is one of the most striking in the history of the Silver Age. A brilliant master of essayism and literary criticism, a philosopher, he was one of the pioneers of the genre of the Russian historiosophical novel and stood at the origins of symbolism in literature. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize 10 times, and debates about his political statements in the historical and literary community still do not subside.

It is known that at the age of 20 he was in love with the daughter of the publisher of the Northern Messenger and had serious intentions, but the romance quickly ended. About the love of his life, which overtook him three years later, Merezhkovsky in his “Autobiographical Note” writes extremely sparingly: “After graduating from university, I went to the Caucasus in the summer, met there by chance in Borjomi with Z. N. Gippius, and very soon made her proposal, that same winter in Tiflis he married her and returned with her to St. Petersburg.”

O.A. Florenskaya and Z.N. Gippius

I can't submit to people.
Is it possible to want slavery?
We spend our whole lives judging each other,
And then die.
Zinaida Gippius, “Freedom”

In 1908, the couple returned to St. Petersburg. In 1908-1912, Zinaida Gippius published collections of stories “Black on White” and “Moon Ants” - the writer considered them the best in her work. In 1911, Gippius’s novel “The Devil’s Doll” was published in the magazine “Russian Thought”, which became part of an unfinished trilogy (the third part is “The Roman Tsarevich”). At this time, the writer under the pseudonym Anton Krainy published a collection of critical articles, “Literary Diary.” Gippius wrote about those who collaborated with the Znamya publishing house - it was headed by Maxim Gorky - and about literature in the tradition of classical realism.

D.V. Filosofov, Z.N. Gippius, D.S. Merezhkovsky

It’s a sin to live without daring and without dreams,
Not recognized - and not persecuted.
Know neither horror nor hope
And be acceptable, but not loved.
Zinaida Gippius, “What is sin?”

Gippius did not accept the October Revolution. In an article for the newspaper “Common Cause,” she wrote: “Russia has perished irrevocably, the reign of the Antichrist is coming, and brutality is raging on the ruins of a collapsed culture.” Gippius even broke off relations with Valery Bryusov, Alexander Blok, Andrei Bely. At the beginning of 1920, the Merezhkovskys, Dmitry Filosofov and Gippius’ secretary Vladimir Zlobin illegally crossed the Russian-Polish border. After a short stay in Poland, the Merezhkovskys emigrated to France forever.

“GREEN LAMP” AND LITERARY DISCUSSIONS

I remember, as a child, in my grandmother’s chest, for a long time I saw a ripped cloak, exactly like this. Only from him, and from the chest, there was a particularly sweet and piercing smell. I called this smell hundred years old. And it seemed to me that Adele’s dress couldn’t help but smell like that.
Zinaida Gippius, “Out of Time. Old sketch"

Who, who understands the word “Father,” will not understand that the word “morality” is an empty word, completely unnecessary for people? They cover up their curse, their rejection from the Father.
Zinaida Gippius, “Bread of Life”

In Paris, on the initiative of Gippius, the Sunday literary and philosophical society “Green Lamp” was created in 1927, which existed until 1940. Writers and thinkers from abroad united in the Merezhkovsky house: Ivan Bunin and Mark Aldanov, Nikolai Berdyaev and Georgy Ivanov, Georgy Adamovich and Vladislav Khodasevich. They read reports on philosophical, literary and social topics, discussed the mission of literature in exile, and discussed the “neo-Christian” concepts that Merezhkovsky developed in his poems.

In 1939, a book of poems by Gippius “Radiants” was published in Paris. This is the last collection of the poetess: after it, only individual poems and introductory articles to the collections were published. The poems of “Shine” are permeated with nostalgia and loneliness:

All of me, heart and body,
I forgot you a long time ago
It's like the house is empty
Your window has closed.

Zinaida Gippius, “Above Oblivion”

In 1941, Dmitry Merezhkovsky died. Gippius took the loss of her husband very hard. “I am dead, only my body remains to die,” she wrote after her husband’s death. In the last years of her life, the writer worked on memoirs, a biography of her late husband, as well as on the long poem “The Last Circle”, which was published much later - in 1972.

grave of Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Zinaida Gippius

Zinaida Gippius outlived Dmitry Merezhkovsky by only four years. She died on September 9, 1945, at the age of 76. The writer was buried in Paris at the Russian cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois in the same grave with her husband.

Everything was strange in this marriage from the very beginning to the very end. What kind of relationship was between the spouses - neither relatives, nor friends, nor enemies could understand. The couple were not afraid of gossip. Often the impression was created that the wife was deliberately “promoting” herself and was enjoying being called a “damn doll”, “witch”, “Satanness” to her face and behind her back.

They lived together for 52 years without being apart for a single day. My husband died 4 years earlier. After his death, earthly life ended for the widow; she stopped communicating with almost everyone. At night she wrote memoirs about her husband, which she simply called “Dmitry Merezhkovsky.” Didn't finish - she died. She was buried next to her husband. Her name was Zinaida Gippius. Until the very end, both were sincerely convinced that their meeting in this life was of a mystical nature and was predetermined from above.

D. V. Filosofov, D. S. Merezhkovsky, Z. N. Gippius, V. A. Zlobin. Exodus from Soviet Russia. Late 1919 - early 1920 Photo: Publik Domain/wikipedia.org

They met at a dance. At the resort of Borjomi. This, perhaps, is all that was in life together “like people”, and everything else...

On the first evening they decided that they would get married. Judging by further relations, she was the initiator. What they talked about and what conditions they put forward to each other remained their secret. They agreed, and the “groom” went to St. Petersburg for four months on his business. There was no love correspondence, only occasional letters of a business nature. The young man returned to the Caucasus. They got married in the Tiflis Church of the Archangel Michael. She turned 19 years old, he turned 23. According to the mutual desire of the newlyweds, the wedding was very modest. The bride is in a dark gray suit and a small hat with a pink lining, and the groom is in a frock coat and a uniform “Nikolaev” overcoat. There were no guests, no flowers, no prayer service, no wedding feast.

Gippius - about the first meeting. Photo: publik Domain/wikipedia.org

In the evening after the wedding, Dmitry went to his hotel, and Zina stayed with her parents. Here's to your wedding night. In the morning, her mother woke her up shouting: “Get up! You’re still sleeping, but your husband has already come!”

Thus was born this strange family union, which was destined to play a vital role in the history of Russian culture.

Dmitry Merezhkovsky came from a wealthy family. The family had three daughters and six sons, Dmitry was the youngest, his mother’s favorite. It was thanks to his mother that Dmitry Sergeevich was able to get his father, a rather stingy man, to agree to financial assistance. The mother rented and furnished an apartment for the young couple in St. Petersburg - immediately after the wedding, Dmitry and Zinaida moved there. By the time of his marriage, he had already published the first book of his poems and was known in literary circles. His young wife also wrote poetry. They lived like this: each had a separate bedroom, their own office and a common living room, where the spouses met, exchanged opinions, and received guests.

Who hasn't visited the Merezhkovskys' house! All celebrities from both capitals. The newlyweds did not intend to build a cozy nest and give birth to children. And it was impossible to imagine Zinaida Gippius in the role of a mother.

Merezhkovsky and Gippius lived in this house for 23 years. Muruzi House, Liteiny Prospekt (St. Petersburg), House 24 (27 - on Pestel Street), belonged to Prince Muruzi and was used as an apartment building. Photo: Lkitrossky/wikipedia.org/PublikDomain

They started talking about them. Here are the words of a contemporary: “This couple makes a strange impression: outwardly they were strikingly unsuitable for each other. He is short, with a narrow sunken chest, in an antediluvian frock coat. His black, deep-set eyes burned with the alarming fire of a biblical prophet... He behaved with an undeniable sense of superiority and sprinkled quotes from the Bible and from pagan philosophers. And next to him is Zinaida Nikolaevna. Seductive, elegant, special. She seemed tall due to her extreme thinness. Lush dark golden hair hung down onto a snow-white forehead and set off the depth of her elongated green eyes, in which an attentive mind shone. Skillfully bright makeup, the dizzying aroma of strong perfume... The face breathed with some kind of sinful memory. She behaved like a recognized beauty, and, moreover, a poetess. From people who were close to the Merezhkovskys, I heard more than once that Zinaida Nikolaevna was solely in charge of caring for family well-being, and that she achieved incredible success in this area.” This is an outside view.

But here is a look from the inside - from Gippius herself: “D.S. and I were as different in nature as our biographies were different before we started living together. True, there was also a similarity - the only one, but an important one: the attitude towards the mother.” But: “... the difference in our natures was not of the kind in which they destroy each other, but, on the contrary, they can and do find a certain harmony among themselves. We both knew this, but we didn’t like to understand mutual psychology.”

Contemporaries argued that the family union of these people was, first of all, a spiritual union and was never truly marital. Both denied the physical side of marriage. At the same time, both had hobbies, but they only strengthened the family.

Zinaida Nikolaevna had many novels - she liked to charm men and liked to be charmed herself. But it never went beyond kissing. She had her own theory about this: only in a kiss are people equal, but in what should follow next, someone dominates. And Zinaida Nikolaevna could not allow this:

Oh, flour! O love! Oh, temptations!
I did not bow my head to you.
But there is a temptation - the temptation of solitude,
No one has defeated him yet.

For this woman, the main things in relationships were equality and the union of minds and souls, not bodies. But still, in relations with her “native” husband, she was the leader - everyone understood this.

Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius was not only the owner of the salon, who gathered the most interesting people in her house, but also an inspirer, an ardent participant in all disputes and intrigues. She was very fond of hoaxes. For example, she wrote letters to her husband in different handwritings, as if from fans, in which she scolded or praised him. The opponent could write a letter in his handwriting. She actively participated in the literary and personal lives of her contemporaries.

Gradually, acquaintance with the Merezhkovskys became mandatory for all debutants in the field of culture. With the active assistance of Gippius, the literary discoveries of Blok and Mandelstam took place. She wrote a review of the poems of the then unknown Sergei Yesenin.

Yesenin in 1924. Photo: Publik Domain/wikipedia.org

But her interest and attention to creative individuals also had a dark side. She, for example, took a very direct part in the family drama of Alexander Blok: she wanted to stir up a scandal with all her might, very persistently instructed Blok’s rival, Andrei Bely, and demanded a nightly “report on the work done.” Blok's wife was incited to cheat. During a very difficult period of his life, Alexander Blok was told that now was the time to pose daily for the talented young artist, Zinaida’s sister, Tata Gippius. The posing sessions continued for several months. In the morning there will be a session with the Bloks, and in the evening there will be a report with the Merezhkovskys. The portrait, by the way, turned out good.

Gippius was a famous critic. She usually wrote under male pseudonyms, the most famous of which was Anton Krainy. Everyone knew who was hiding behind these men's masks. Insightful, daring, smart, malicious - she wrote about everything that deserved even the slightest attention. They were afraid of her sharp tongue, many hated her, but everyone listened to the opinion of Anton Krainy.

Gippius had a passion for men's clothing, men's pseudonyms, the male lyrical self in poetry, and smoked flavored cigarettes. Photo: Publik Domain/wikipedia.org

The next stage of this mutually beneficial strange alliance was the creation of the “New Church”. Leading an absolutely non-Christian lifestyle, the Merezhkovskys talked a lot about God. They came up with the idea of ​​the famous Religious and Philosophical Meetings (1901–1903), where the creative intelligentsia, together with representatives of the official church, discussed issues of faith. At the first meeting, Zinaida Nikolaevna appeared in a black transparent dress with a pink lining. With every movement, the impression of a translucent naked body was created. The church hierarchs present at the meeting were embarrassed and did not know where to put their eyes.

Gippius deliberately provoked others to have negative feelings towards her. She liked being called a “witch” - this confirmed her “demonic essence”, which she cultivated in herself in every possible way. Probably, the spouses considered this piquant: the “witch” teaches how to love God.

In 1903, meetings were prohibited by decree of the Holy Synod. “Well, it’s impossible, it’s impossible,” Zinaida Nikolaevna obviously decided. Moreover, a new idea was on the way, even more interesting. Enough talk and theorizing - we ourselves are tired of it a long time ago. The Merezhkovsky couple, in their remarkable self-development, are ripe to bring their amazing and surprising ideas to life.

The next 15 years of their married life simply created a psychological and cultural sensation among the creative elite of both capitals.

Even the most progressive people without prejudice gasped; when they learned how the Merezhkovskys brought their religious ideas to life. During the Religious and Philosophical Meetings, the couple became close to the writer Dmitry Vasilyevich Filosofov. The rapprochement turned out to be so strong that a “triple” alliance was concluded, reminiscent of a marriage, for which a special jointly developed ritual was performed. The idea of ​​a “triple order of the world,” which should replace the traditional Christian world order, was diligently developed by the spouses at the everyday level, and took the form of a joint “family” residence of two men and one woman. Of course, this was another shocking thing: society was full of rumors, wondering: are they sleeping or not sleeping together? And then a letter arrived from Paris, where the “holy trinity” left in 1906. The sarcastic Zinaida wrote to Bryusov that they were enjoying their new, original household: a huge apartment, and only 3 beds and 3 armchairs from furniture. Nobody understood anything. Nobody knows how it really happened. In any case, these three were not separated for many, many years.

Dmitry Merezhkovsky, as a man, was more active in his hatred of his former Motherland; he consistently bet on all European dictators. At the end of the 30s, he became interested in the ideas of fascism. It was fascism, in his opinion, that could and should have saved Europe from the “communist infection.”

Zinaida Nikolaevna did not share his ideas: she believed that any dictator was bad. But they didn’t quarrel with their husband over “such nonsense.” She was very lenient about her husband's passion for politics.

In the summer of 1941, shortly after Germany’s attack on the USSR, Dmitry Merezhkovsky gave a speech on German radio, where he began to compare Hitler with Joan of Arc. Very beautifully, figuratively and temperamentally, he said that the Teutonic knight warriors were called upon to save the world from the “red plague", that the USSR is a devilish stronghold, and Hitler simply has a divine mission - to save the world. The wife said: “Well, now we are lost.” Zinaida Nikolaevna very much regretted that she missed the moment when her husband’s passion for politics took such a painful form. Everyone turned away from the Merezhkovskys.In December 1941, Dmitry Sergeevich died.

Only a few people came to see him off on his final journey. But Zinaida would not be Zinaida if she had not imagined her loneliness with her own choice. She held on until the end in such a way that people did not live up to her hopes and trust.

After the death of her husband, Gippius could resurrect him only in her thoughts, in written words. This is the only thing she has left...

It’s interesting to wonder if Dmitry Sergeevich could have started a similar enterprise after the death of his girlfriend, that is, started writing a book about her? I think not. And not at all because there was more selfishness in him, and more sacrifice in her. And therefore, it is likely that in their union she carried a strange, special mission. As snide contemporaries noted, Zinaida Nikolaevna “fertilized” her husband’s consciousness, and he “nurtured” ideas.

Everything in this marriage was strange from the very beginning to the very end... The Merezhkovskys were buried in the same grave.

The couple's grave at the Parisian cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois. Photo: Publik Domain/wikipedia.org

Larisa Mikhailova

Would you install an application on your phone to read articles from the epochtimes website?

Usually pilgrims travel in entire work groups. After all, what they do is not sports or tourism. It’s good for the pilgrims: they reached the shrine, kissed each other, and that’s it. But the pilgrims search, often all their lives. The Holy Grail, the Truth, the Third Testament, the Earthly Heaven and the Heavenly Earth. The Pilgrim Choir sings not only during working hours, it sings always, night and day. Pilgrims are stern and often unpleasant to treat, because they do not curry favor with anyone and do not lie to anyone. The pilgrims from Tannhäuser are a frightening power, a fatal force, a deathly sweet, languid melody of their procession and choir. Brodsky’s pilgrims are even more inconvenient for life and life: “They are ugly and hunchbacked, hungry and half-dressed, their eyes are full of sunset, their hearts are full of dawn...”

And sometimes there are only two pilgrims, two for a whole century. Only the two of them walked through the fire and ice of the 20th century, but they walked for 52 whole years, hand in hand, without parting for a single day or for a single night. Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky and Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius, two elves who accidentally found themselves in the human world. They were different from others and made for each other. And was it not the finger of Providence that they found each other? Yes, of course, they both ate and drank, went to theaters, ran a salon, hung out at artistic and philosophical journals, and Zinaida Nikolaevna also knew how to dress to suit the person and took care of Merezhkovsky’s dress (he generally abstracted himself from these everyday problems). But at the same time they existed in the virtual space of high matters. They created their Internet, the Web of the Mind, long before the deadline, without any wires, computers or modems. The mystery of this couple, in whose life there were no adventures until 1917, is precisely that they were advanced users of this cosmic Being, not too similar to earthly life. At the same time, they spent more time online than outside. They had no children, and it never occurred to anyone to be surprised by this. Can angels reproduce? By the way, their absolute, frightening, repulsive freedom for timid friends comes from the same place, from their personal Runet. They did not know how to be afraid; they were not affected by external stimuli: pain, fear, threat, death. Their analysis was merciless: no myths, no hobbies, no complexes. Two sighted people in a country of blind and deaf people... of course, they were left alone. In life, in history, in literature, in posterity. It was forbidden to quote their names under Soviet rule; they were in the crypt for 70 years: poetry, prose, essays, memoirs. Mentioning them was dangerous: it meant excommunication from literary studies, history, and journalism. They have survived to this day, like Tutankhamun and Nefertiti: a terrible and captivating mystery in the golden glow of precious coffins. Let's do like Lara Croft, the tomb raider: let's disturb the peace of the pyramid of silence and awaken the sleeping ones.

D. V. Filosofov, D. S. Merezhkovsky, Z. N. Gippius, V. A. Zlobin. Late 1919 – early 1920s

Merlin of the twentieth century

Don't think that Merlin is not the crazy, shaggy old man that bad filmmakers portrayed him as. Merlin is a young and strict magician, an inspired psychic with great power, co-author of the Round Table, educator of the noble Arthur, creator of the British dream of the Holy Grail, master of the mystical Avalon, 1400 years ahead of his 6th century. Avatar. The same as Buddha and (according to Merezhkovsky) Christ. Our Merlin was Dmitry Merezhkovsky. It is said that Merlin was the illegitimate son of a minor Celtic king (half of Normandy) and the daughter of the King of Wales. Merezhkovsky, too, had everything in order with his origin: an alien class, a nobleman. He was born in 1866 in cold and magnificent St. Petersburg in the family of an official of the Palace Department, a Privy Councilor, by the way. He studied at a classical gymnasium. There were 10 children in the family; the writer’s father, Sergei Ivanovich, counted ten kopecks because the salary was not enough. He loved his wife very much, but with scandals and reproaches about unnecessary expenses (and the poor thing simply could not get away with what her husband brought) he brought her to an early grave. As a child, Dima had no estate, no river, no crayfish, no bugs, no grass, no horse of his own. That's why he went to his personal Internet... At the age of 15, his dad took him to Dostoevsky: to show his son's poems. But Dostoevsky didn’t like it, he said that it was weak, that you had to suffer in order to write decently. Dmitry Sergeevich's poems will not be included in the annals; for him they were something like scales. And he won’t go to suffer hard labor according to the prescription of Dostoevsky’s heroes: Sonechka Marmeladova and the holy fool Nikolka. His suffering will lie in another sphere, and, like that of the one for whom he passionately sought, it will also be “not of this world.” A short, slick biography of a Russian intellectual, a cultural figure known to every literate reader of magazines. In 1884 he entered the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University. And he devotes himself to science: both Spencer and Vl. Soloviev, and Nietzsche - he is interested in everything. In 1888, Merezhkovsky peacefully travels through the Caucasus (no longer the evil Chechens, nor the daring Kabardians, the Caucasus is “pacified”). He is 23 years old, and in Borjomi he finds her, his alterego, “second self,” Zinochka. The young philosopher does not know how to talk to young ladies, he again talks to a beauty of less than 17 years old about philosophy and the meaning of existence. And this is exactly what is needed, the key to her heart! In a year they will get married. This is a union of equals, this is a spiritual union to the point that there were no flowers or wedding attire at the wedding, and after the wedding they went in different directions, the husband to a hotel, the wife to home. We met the next day for tea at Zinochka’s, and the old governess did not believe that “Zinochka got married.” And the honeymoon was not an ordinary one: along the snow-covered Georgian Military Road. Family life will begin in St. Petersburg. Dmitry Sergeevich's mother will buy them an apartment in St. Petersburg, on a quiet street, in the house of Muruzi, 18. This marriage was made in heaven. Merezhkovsky and Gippius were one team. And they quarreled not because of imaginary betrayals, money, or social acquaintances, but for purely philosophical reasons. For example, the idea of ​​a novel about Leonardo da Vinci seemed fake to Zinochka. She argued and cried as she would never argue over rags and jealousy. True, lonely voices were later heard attributing to Zinaida Nikolaevna an affair with D. Filosofov, but they were refuted on the spot, long before the death of this impeccable couple. When the sky is both “under your feet” and “above your head”, like Leonardo’s, there is no time for adultery.

Merezhkovsky was not a vague mystic, he even walked in the highest heights of consciousness with a scalpel of analysis and frightened and shocked everyone: democrats, churchmen, officialdom. It’s good that he was not registered in any institution, otherwise he would have been miserably fired. Here he writes to the magazines “Severny Vestnik” and “Russian Review”. The century is ending, the “Notes of the Fatherland” are ending. Here he travels with Zinochka around Europe, translating the Greeks, Edgar Allan Poe, Goethe. From 1906 to 1914 they lived a lot of time in Paris, even bought an apartment there (intuition!). There was enough money for this, but they didn’t need horses, carriages, mansions, or diamonds. With the permission of Pobedonostsev himself (and the idea was Zinaidina), at the beginning of the century religious and philosophical meetings were organized in their apartment, from 1901 to 1903. Even the church hierarchs are present. And his philosophy is not a theory, but an artistic opening day. A sword of thought in a scabbard of images, and diamonds of concept on the hilt. National Treasure: “Christ and Antichrist”, trilogy. "Death of the Gods. Julian the Apostate”, 1896. In 1901 “Leonardo da Vinci” was published. Resurrected gods." And in 1905, “my diamond crown” according to Pushkin, the pinnacle, acme (a symbolist term, but Merezhkovsky is the patriarch of symbolism). This crown is “Peter and Alexey. Antichrist". What is this about? The first novel-treatise tells how Emperor Julian in Rome, Caesar the philosopher, tried to ban Christianity and return to paganism. But it didn’t work out: people didn’t want pagan joys, they wanted Christian torment and quest. They didn't want beauty, they wanted sacrifice. Through the power of suffering, Christianity triumphed. Leonardo da Vinci describes the Renaissance, the Inquisition, and Rome. And again the heretics thirst for torment and flame and drive themselves to the stake with the power of religious fury. It belongs to both the executioners and the victims. Consensus. The gods are thirsty. But the most terrible thing is “Peter and Alexey”. White death among the Pentecostals, red death in fire among the schismatics, the religious ecstasy of Russia seeking a burden. And Peter, a civilizer and a villain, in the name of saving the world - Russia, sacrifices a lamb, his son, Alexei. He gave him up to torture and death, and the son did not reproach his father, but loved him. Here God is the executioner, the dictator, and Jesus is his runaway slave, the prodigal son, who returned voluntarily to the scaffold and into chains. Here is the Third Testament - the truth is like a wound. Too much truth. The clergy did not like the philosopher, they were afraid, they censored him. And they can be understood. What came out of all the home religious get-togethers? In one essay, Merezhkovsky tried to prove that Jesus is not the son of God, that he is the son of another Father, that he is Dennitsa, that is, Lucifer. Cool. Too cool not only for a 1911, but also for a 2011. Merezhkovsky had no followers. For people, Christ remained Christ, and Lucifer remained Satan. He entered too boldly into the mystery of faith, went too far. Not all veils should be peeled off; people won’t bear it. There is no consolation in Merezhkovsky’s religion; this is Christianity for the apostles. For equals. Not for the congregation. For priests. And the state Church demanded obedience, fulfillment of rituals, and that parishioners “not arise.” Merezhkovsky frightened the Synod so much that he was not even excommunicated from the church, so as not to spread his “heresy.” They wanted to “besiege” Tolstoy and excommunicated him. But they wanted to forget about Merezhkovsky; they would be less afraid of the Antichrist. Even intellectuals were afraid of his theories. I hope that Christ received him well, because the philosopher was a scribe, not a Pharisee. So, he quarreled with the Church. Mentally they burned him. “...but he dared to ask questions, and this is heresy, because God was unable to answer them.”

Dmitry Merezhkovsky

And then historical novels come out. “Paul I” - in 1908. Legends of deep antiquity? Oh no! Lawsuit! Again there is a lot of truth, too much. “Alexander I” was published in 1913, and “December 14” in 1918, but it was no longer December, but October, and there was no time for philosophy. This right-wing conservative hates autocracy as lack of freedom, as dogma, as the blunt force of tradition. The autocracy was offended. After all, Merezhkovsky even reproached Pushkin for cupids, political cupids with the tsar, for public devotion, for “Stanzas”, for “Poltava”. This means that autocracy and Orthodoxy are a thing of the past. What about the nationality? Even worse. Merezhkovsky offended the populists. Everyone around was leftist, rushing around with the God-bearing people, and Dmitry Sergeevich, looking at 1905, understood everything about our revolution and our “God-bearer” back in 1906. And he wrote “The Ham of the Future.”

Blok, Bryusov, Bagritsky, Leonid Andreev - they all waited for the revolution and prayed for it. And Merezhkovsky said: “The coming boor,” and he was right. There is also a complete break with the revolution.

And with the jingoistic patriots too - a bummer. 1914, tears, snot, toasts, addresses. For the victory of Russian weapons! But Merezhkovsky and Gippius understood everything about this war and smashed it to smithereens.

Unnoticed and unexpectedly for himself, Dmitry Sergeevich becomes a classic. In 1911-1913 Wolf's book partnership publishes a 17-volume collected works of Merezhkovsky, and in 1914 Sytin published 24 volumes. Merezhkovsky's prose is popular in Europe; he is translated into many languages. He caught the mysterious Slavic soul by the wings and placed it under the binding, and the European soul was also suitable for the herbarium. Merezhkovsky forever defined us Russians as “those who do not have the present city, but who seek the future city.” This is both a manifesto and a diagnosis. For us, Merezhkovsky is a lesson and a reproach; for the West, he is a fairy tale and a tourist prospectus. And also science. The positive West honors science, and Merezhkovsky is a true scientist.

And then suddenly this couple of celestials is covered by Chaos! The coming boor has arrived. Godzilla. 1917 How were these two able to survive? Active enemies of Soviet power, smart, merciless, precise. Those who did not write “Good!”, did not “run after the Komsomol with their pants up,” did not see Jesus Christ ahead of the twelve pogromists, and did not shake hands with Blok after this Bolshevik apologetics gathered at Zinaida’s fireplace. The Merezhkovskys were starving, freezing, and didn’t even get on the philosophical ship. They were probably too dangerous. They didn't want to release them. What saved them? They said that Lunacharsky covered these dissidents. But they did not want to stay. They did not value life, but they did not want to live under the yoke, under the yoke. Merezhkovsky pretended that he wanted to give lectures to Red Army units. The authorities were terribly happy, they thought that they had finally broken this “bitter couple.” And they decided to run away. It was a terrible risk, it was the 1920s, they could have been spanked for escaping from our Chevengur. They cross the front and end up in Minsk, which, fortunately, is near Poland. But Poland signs a truce with Russia, and the Merezhkovskys flee further to Paris, where they have an apartment. They run with one small bag containing torn linen, manuscripts and notebooks. And here the fears of the Bolsheviks were fully justified. The Merezhkovskys turned out to be very skillful and active anti-Soviet activists, replacing both Svoboda and Deutsche Welle. They didn’t whine, they didn’t feel nostalgic, they actively worked against the USSR. They even created the philosophical society “Green Lamp” (1927) under the chairmanship of G. Ivanov. Many emigrants, such as Kuprin and Marina Tsvetaeva, had conciliatory sentiments; they hoped that they would be accepted in their homeland and forgiven. And here the indomitable Merezhkovskys turned out to be black sheep. In 1931, the Nobel Committee decided who should give the prize, Bunin or Merezhkovsky. They gave it to Bunin, and this did not improve their relationship. Bunin had more beauty and Russian realities, he is also a portrait painter, but in the works of Merezhkovsky hidden great revelations of Russian history and enormous power of thought.

With the outbreak of war between Germany and the USSR, the Merezhkovskys remain in the desert. They were accused of supporting Hitler, although none of their contemporaries say what this really was. Merezhkovsky did not believe in National Socialism, did not share Nazi delirium, considered anti-Semitism a psychosis, and Hitler a maniac. He did not collaborate with the Nazis and Vichyists. But he didn’t do anything stupid either: he didn’t offer his services to Stalin, like Denikin, he didn’t move red flags on the map, marking Stalin’s victories, like Bunin. From the evidence of his contemporaries, only one thing emerges: with Hitler’s wedge, Merezhkovsky hoped to knock out Stalin’s wedge, and, as he hoped, Western democracies would take care of Hitler, liberating Russia at the same time. The calculation did not come true, but what else was there to count on? An intelligent person simply could not believe that Stalin was one of his own and the Germans were strangers. But the emigration, almost all pro-Soviet, took terrible revenge on Merezhkovsky. It was not published, publishing houses broke contracts, old people were on the verge of starvation, and besides, they were not greeted. These are publishing houses not controlled by the Nazis, and Merezhkovsky did not want to deal with Hitler’s. Need hastened his end. He died on September 9, 1941. And only a few people came to the church on Daryu Street for the funeral service.

This is the lot of the pilgrims. Walk “past the lists and temples, past luxurious cemeteries, past temples and bars, past large bazaars, past peace and sorrow, past Mecca and Rome.” Pass by, do not stop, do not become prey to the crowd, passions, delusions. The philosopher’s eternal interlocutor and opponent said on this topic: “So, do not be afraid of the world, for I have overcome the world.”

Maiden of the Lake

She was a contemporary of Merlin and a pagan deity of Celtic legends. Pure maiden, keeper of the magic sword, given to the righteous to protect Purity and Truth. Zinochka, Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius, Blok’s Stranger, Linor of the mad Edgar, was just such a maiden. She handed the sword to Merezhkovsky and walked next to him to the end, the inspirer of all his projects and the champion of all his ideas.

The beginning of her life is cloudless. She was born in 1869. The family was German, but Russified. And the ardent Zinochka was definitely Russian; There was no rationality in her actions. The family first lived in a remote province, in the city of Belev, Tula province. Her father was a famous lawyer, the family lived in prosperity. There were four girls: Zinaida, Anna, Natalya and Tatyana. The girls were prepared at home by governesses and home teachers. And languages, and piano. Prepared for a good marriage. The father dies of consumption and leaves the family almost without funds. In addition, the girls inherited a tendency to consumption, especially Zina. The family goes to Yalta for treatment, then to relatives in Tiflis, then to a dacha in Borjomi. Here our Assol will be found by her captain Gray. Zinochka was surrounded by a mass of admirers, empty socialites or positive and boring interests. Merezhkovsky amazed her by the fact that he did not dance, did not ride a horse, but spoke only about books and philosophy. And Zinochka was a beauty: reddish-gold hair, green eyes, a floor-length braid, a perfect figure, a mermaid laugh. She agreed to the marriage after three days. A year later, on the schooner Corvette, Captain Gray will take her away, take her away: to St. Petersburg salons, to literary life, to the Runet of Reason, to emigration, to Freedom. And all her life these scarlet sails rustled above her head.

She wrote strong, sharp, ringing poems. Taste its autumn: “Puddles drunk with frost are clear and fragile, like crystal, the roads are dirty and clumsy, and the air is shackled with steel.” And what critical articles she wrote under the pseudonyms “Anton Krainy”, “Lev Pushchin”, “Anton Kirsha”! The entire literary elite was afraid of her. She had a devilishly sharp, unfeminine mind. But she didn't seem like a feminist like George Sand. She was on her own, pure and inaccessible, she was intoxicating. She could have had hundreds of lovers, and had none. She wore white and loved oriental scents. He and Dmitry Sergeevich were able to fulfill the most difficult covenant of Christ: they were wise as serpents and simple as doves. Two brilliant children playing a dangerous game in the lap of doomed Russia. When the fateful hour of the 17th year comes, the Beautiful Lady of St. Petersburg will be able to become the Statue of Liberty. Oh, what she will write about the Bolsheviks! After the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, she too will mourn him: “Our great-grandfathers’ secret dream, our fathers’ sacred sacrifice, our prayer and sighing, Constituent Assembly, what have we done to you?” And she will conduct “anti-Soviet agitation” in front of the Cheka. She will push Merezhkovsky to escape. Out of pride, out of defiance. “Don’t live like this! Don’t live like this!” – she will also write. And abroad she will become a real Eumenide for the USSR, the goddess of vengeance. This terrible hatred of her, Charlotte Corday of all our home-grown Marats, and who, moreover, escaped the guillotine (and her sisters will go through camps and exile, and Zinochka will still manage to send them parcels on occasion), and will determine a blanket ban on her most harmless poems, in her name. Right up to perestroika. Wish for the defeat of the USSR! There couldn't be a worse crime. The break with the pro-Soviet emigration fell on her, on her fragile shoulders. She will have to save on milk and essential products, and remake her old dresses and her husband’s suits. She couldn't live without him. She wrote memoirs - about him - and died in September 1945. The USSR was completely victorious, and emigration was more generous to Zinochka than to Dmitry Sergeevich: many came to see her off at Sainte-Genevieve des Bois, everyone who still lived and remembered. Even the irreconcilable Bunin came.

Left: Z. N. Gippius. Photo of the Otto Renard studio. Moscow. 1904 Right: Zinaida Gippius, 1897

Zinaida Nikolaevna left to posterity several phrases that form part of Bunin’s “Cursed Days.” They are like a rapier thrust. “Russia had no history, and what is happening now is not history. It will be forgotten like the unknown atrocities of undiscovered tribes on a desert island.” “They took the village into stakes, the workers into iron. You can’t live here anymore: your soul is dying.”

They made their choice, these two. And I hope that the victors, after so many years, will not dig up their remains on Sainte-Genevieve des Bois, will not take them prisoner posthumously, will not drag them in a zakwagon to Russia and will not give them indefinite imprisonment in the cemetery that they choose themselves, as they have already done with some emigrants. They must remain in free Paris in a free, cozy cemetery, where their sorrowful souls will not be offended by the obelisks with red stars, where good Christians rest.

And Zinochka also left us a description of the electricity that struck her, and from it she came to the idea of ​​the dualism of existence, that the power of negation is just as necessary as some kind of positivity. In the end, she understood her husband: Christ and Dennitsa are Atlanteans who hold up the sky, and no one should leave, otherwise the sky will collapse.

“Two threads are twisted together, the ends are exposed. That “yes” and “no” are not merged, not merged, intertwined. Their close network is dark and dead, but Sunday awaits them, and they wait for it. The ends will touch, “yes” and “no” will awaken, and “yes” and “no” will merge, and their death will be light.”

“There are people who seem to be made by a machine, in a factory, released into the light of God in whole homogeneous series, and there are others, as if “handmade” - and that was Gippius,” Georgy Adamovich wrote in his memoirs about her.

Zinaida Gippius was born in 1869 in the town of Belov, Tula province, where her father, who came from an old German family, came after graduating from the law department of Moscow University. Zinaida spent her childhood in Ukraine, in white and lilac Nizhyn. Then the Gippius family moved to Moscow. Zina entered the Fisher classical gymnasium on Ostozhenka. But she suddenly developed tuberculosis, and her parents took her to Crimea and then to Tiflis. In the summer in Borjomi, where the Gippius family was vacationing, young people were crazy about a tall, stately girl with golden hair and emerald eyes. Zinaida loved to dance, was interested in music, painting, and horse riding. And, of course, writing: she kept a diary and wrote poetry. There, in Borjomi, she met Dmitry Merezhkovsky, “a serious young man with encyclopedic knowledge,” who knew how to talk “interestingly about interesting things.”

There, on July 22, 1888, Holguin’s day, a frank conversation took place. Not a “declaration of love,” not a “proposal,” but, as Gippius writes, “they both suddenly began talking as if it had long been decided that we were getting married and that it would be good.” Six months later, on January 8, 1889, a wedding took place in the Church of the Archangel Michael in Tiflis. Zinaida Gippius is 19, Merezhkovsky is 23 years old. Thus began their marriage-union-companionship. The newlyweds did not intend to build a cozy nest or give birth to children. And it was impossible to imagine Zinaida Gippius as a mother of many children - this “lady with a lorgnette,” the owner of a literary salon.

Having moved to St. Petersburg, the Merezhkovskys soon settled in a huge house on the corner of Liteiny and Panteleimonovskaya. Who among the famous writers and artists of the two capitals has not visited it! Merezhkovsky contributed greatly to the first publication of Zinaida's poems. Gradually, Gippius found her own poetic voice, which could not be confused with anyone else - an amazing combination of internal struggle; demonism and coldly passionate restraint.

Oh, let there be something that does not happen,

It never happens:

The pale sky promises me miracles,

It promises.

But I cry without tears about an untrue vow,

About a false vow...

I need something that is not in the world,

What is not in the world

But not everyone recognized her talent. “Electric poems,” said Bunin. Adamovich added that “the lines seem to crackle and glow with bluish sparks.”

Zinaida Gippius said that she lived with Merezhkovsky “52 years, not being separated from their wedding day in Tiflis, not once, not for a single day.” Love? Creative union? Spiritual community? In the book "Dmitry Merezhkovsky" she wrote simply: "The connection of our lives." Valery Bryusov's sister-in-law Bronislava Pogorelova recalls:

“This couple made a strange impression: outwardly they were strikingly unsuitable for each other. He was short in stature, with a narrow sunken chest, in an antediluvian frock coat. His black, deep-set eyes burned with the alarming fire of a biblical prophet. This similarity was emphasized by his half-gray, freely growing beard and with that slight squeal with which the words shimmered when D.S. got irritated. He carried himself with an undeniable sense of superiority and sprinkled quotes from the Bible, then from pagan philosophers. And next to him - Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius. Seductive, elegant, special. She seemed tall due to her excessive thinness. But her mysteriously beautiful face did not bear such traces of illness. Lush dark-golden hair hung down onto her snow-white forehead and set off the depth of her elongated eyes, in which an attentive mind shone. Skillfully bright makeup, the dizzying aroma of strong , very pleasant perfume... With all the chastity of the figure, which rather resembled a young man dressed as a lady, Z.N.'s face breathed with some kind of sinful understanding. She behaved like a recognized beauty, and also a poetess. From people who were close to the Merezhkovskys, I heard more than once that Z.N. was solely in charge of caring for family well-being. and that in this area she achieved incredible success."

Many contemporaries noted how unusually well the Merezhkovsky family duo acted in literary circles: D.S. "worked like a holy fool", uttering shocking judgments, and Gippius - like a "witch", seducing and bewitching. “There was a lot of strange talk about the Merezhkovskys,” we read further from Pogorelova. “In particular about Gippius. Z.N. really possessed some kind of mental and, most importantly, physical properties that made her unlike her contemporaries, and all the poets agreed with lines from Vladimir Solovyov, who wrote about Gippius:

I am a young satire

I live entirely for fun

I'm melting hooves under my skirt

And the tail...

Someone will look at them angrily

Scoundrel!

Many men were attracted by the beauty of “Zinaida the Beautiful,” as Bryusov called her. The critic and publicist Pyotr Pertsov described Z.N. as follows: “A tall, slender blonde with long golden hair and emerald mermaid eyes, in a blue dress that suited her very well, she was striking with her appearance. I would call this appearance “Botticelli-esque”... .

Lev Bakst depicted Gippius in his portrait reclining on a chair, wearing a camisole and trousers; long crossed legs are stretched diagonally across the canvas, making the whole figure seem even more elongated. On a pale face, bordered by a white frill, under narrow, sharply defined eyebrows, there are slightly mocking and contemptuous eyes, thin evil lips. “Your soul is without tenderness, and your heart is like a needle...” - these words of Gippius could serve as a signature to his own portrait.

And here is another piece of evidence from the memoirist: “... Cold drafts were coming from the brilliant Zinaida... The smile almost never left her face, but it didn’t make her look any better. , an unkind word. She really wanted to amaze, attract, enchant, conquer. In those days, at the end of the 19th century, it was not customary to smear yourself like that. But Zinaida blushed and whitened thickly, openly, as actresses do for the stage. This gave her face the appearance of the mask emphasized... its artificiality. And her movements were strange... She did not supplement her words with gestures, but when she moved, her long arms and legs drew geometric shapes that were not related to what she was saying. High Throwing back her sharp elbow, she constantly brought a golden lorgnette to her myopic eyes and, squinting, looked through it at people like insects, not caring whether they were pleased or not. She dressed picturesquely. She came to the Tugans in a long white silk, intercepted gold lace tunic. Wide, folded-back sleeves moved behind her back like wings..."

These memories are clearly not filled with sympathy. The art critic Akim Volynsky, who was in love with Gippius, left us this portrait of her:

In front of me was a woman-girl, thin, above average height, flexible and dry, like a twig, with a large cascade of golden hair. Her gait especially remained in my memory. The steps are small, the gait is confident, the movement is fast, turning into a sliding run. The eyes are gray, with reflections of playing light. When greeting and saying goodbye, she placed a childishly soft, tremulous hand, with dry outstretched fingers, into your hand. Coquettishness in her reached high levels of artistry... A strange thing: even then, this child was hiding a strict thinker who knew how to put objects of reasoning into suitable verbal cases, like few others. She herself was poetic through and through. She dressed somewhat provocatively and sometimes even loudly. But there was still a great fantastic charm in her toilet. The cult of beauty never left her, either in ideas or in life..."

In the 1890s, the Merezhkovskys’ social circle was dominated by writers of the older generation: Polonsky, Pleshcheev, Sluchevsky, Suvorin and others. Gippius, according to Slonimsky’s recollections, when she began to publish in Vestnik Evropy, she “flirted with the old men and, since she was remarkably beautiful, with green eyes, terribly lively, charmed them.”

Merezhkovsky's literary talent and Gippius' feminine charm multiplied the number of their acquaintances. On December 6, 1901, a meeting took place with Andrei Bely. First impression from meeting Z.N. Bely rather sarcastically describes in his memoirs “The Beginning of the Century”: “...Here I closed my eyes; there was a sparkle coming from the rocking chair; 3. Gippius, like a wasp the size of a man... a lump of swollen red hair (if he let it down, it would reach his toes) covered a very small and some kind of crooked face; powder and shine from a lorgnette, into which a greenish eye was inserted; she was fingering faceted beads, staring at me, five flames of her lips, showered with powder; from her forehead, like a shining eye, hung a stone: on a black pendant; with a breastless a black cross rattled across her chest; and the buckle from her shoe sparkled; she crossed her legs; she threw the train of a tight white dress; the charm of her bony, sideless frame was reminiscent of a communicant cleverly captivating Satan..."

But later Bely somewhat changes his opinion about Gippius: “Communication with her is like throwing hay in a drought: throwing aphorisms into the fireplace coals; sometimes, scattering her magnificent golden-red hair, falling to her toes, she combed it: hairpins into her teeth; she threw herself at me with a bright phrase, the fire of bright chrysolite eyes; instead of cheeks, a nose, a forehead - hair, crooked, bloody lips, and two wheels - not two eyes... In irresponsible conversations I rested with her: from the heavy load I was struggling with Merezhkovsky; she , “a night resident,” disposed of me, calling me into the living room upon returning from the Blocks (at 12 at night); we chatted; she chatted me up; and wrote playful pirouettes, sorting out her and my acquaintances; she kept it with her until three or four o’clock in the morning: under the sapphire haze of a cigarette we used to talk about color perceptions: what is “red”, what is “purple". She used to surrender to the mysticism of numbers: what is one, two, three, four? What is the sin of the flesh? What is its holiness ?.." During this period, Bely had a rapidly developing affair with the wife of Alexander Blok, and he constantly turned to Gippius and Merezhkovsky for advice. “Dear, dear, dear Zina...” Andrei Bely begins his next letter and tries on its pages to unravel the complex tangle of his relationship with Lyubov Mendeleeva. At the end of the letter (or rather, one of the letters): "...I smile at you, I pray to you, I love you all - Dima, Dmitry Sergeevich. Write..."

Dima is Dmitry Filosofov (1872-1940), literary critic and publicist. Merezhkovsky and Gippius intensively developed the idea of ​​a “triple structure of the world,” the so-called Kingdom of the Third Testament, which should replace Christianity. At the everyday level, they hoped to create a kind of community, an intellectual mini-commune, which would combine the intimate connection of its members and the closeness of their worldview.

Such a commune was actually created and received the name of the “triple alliance”: Merezhkovsky-Gippius-Philosophers. The most radical positions were occupied by Filosofov, Merezhkovsky was more conservative, and Gippius seemed to stand somewhere in the middle between the two Dmitrii. The formation of this triad, or, as it was called, the “holy trinity,” was a clear challenge to society. The three of them living together looked downright shocking. So subsequently Lilya Brik did not come up with anything new, she simply transferred the example of her “older friend” into her life. The strengthening of the “triple alliance” coincided with the pilgrimage to Paris. The departure took place on February 25, 1906.

So was there real female love in the life of Zinaida Gippius, with passionate confessions, vows and tears, and not the “comedy of love” that she often played out? Perhaps the answer to this question is her affair with Akim Volynsky, the leading author of the Northern Messenger magazine. Their meetings and correspondence continued for many years. Here are just a few excerpts from Gippius’ letters to Volynsky:

And I can’t live without you... We gave too much to each other. And I ask God as a mercy, so that he teaches the heart not to love! February 27, 1895: “...God, how I wish everyone loved you!.. I mixed my soul with yours, and praise and blasphemy of you affect me as if addressed to myself. I didn’t notice how everything has changed. Now I want everyone to recognize a significant person who loves me...

March 4, 1895: “...I want to connect the ends of life, make a full circle, I want love not as it happens, but... as it should be and which one is worthy of you and me. This is not pleasure, not happiness - this is a lot of work, not everyone is capable of it. But you are capable - and it’s a sin, and it would be a shame to turn such a gift from God into something fun and unnecessary..."

On October 15, 1895, Gippius writes in his diary: “He is not able to experience the “miracles of love”... It is not in my character to act like a drop on a stone... He is anti-aesthetic, opposes me in everything, alien to all manifestations of beauty and to my God! ..” Anti-aesthetic - this is the final verdict in the mouth of Gippius.

Gippius greeted the February Revolution of 1917, if not with jubilation, then with great hopes. In her “Black Notebooks” she called the October events nothing more than “fornication”, “disrespect for sacred things”, “robbery”. She could not forgive anyone for serving with the Bolsheviks, including Blok. The Merezhkovskys emigrated from Russia. In Warsaw they developed vigorous activity, organized a newspaper, and made plans to liberate Russia from the Bolsheviks. Then - Paris, where they had an apartment from pre-revolutionary times. “They unlocked the door with their key,” writes Nina Berberova, “and found everything in place: books, dishes, linen. They did not have the feeling of homelessness that Bunin and others had so acutely.” There was no hopeless nostalgia either. We can say that the Merezhkovskys entered Parisian life relatively smoothly. Since 1925, literary “Sundays” have resumed, as in St. Petersburg, and since 1927, regular literary-religious-philosophical meetings of the society called “Green Lamp”. “Sundays” at the Merezhkovskys’ during the pre-war years were one of the busiest literary centers,” Yuri Terapiano notes in his memoirs, “they brought great benefit to many representatives of the “younger generation.”

After the death of the Merezhkovskys, a void was left in this sense, and new attempts to create something similar to “Sundays” ended in failure... “Dmitry Merezhkovsky was the first to die - on December 9, 1941, at the age of 76. About the widow, Yuri Terapiano wrote: “Z. N. - completely petrified." Gippius's last lyrics are philosophical, balanced and slightly bitter. She jokingly called herself "the grandmother of Russian decadence":

The last pine tree is illuminated.

Beneath it the dark ridge fluffs up.

Now it will go out too.

The day is over - not i yutort.

The day is over. What was in it?

I don’t know, I flew by like a bird.

It was an ordinary day

But still it won’t happen again.

In recent years, she was friends with Nadezhda Teffi, who recalls: “Gippius was very thin, almost incorporeal. Huge, once red hair was strangely curled and pulled in by a net. Her cheeks were painted bright pink. Slanting, greenish, poorly seeing eyes . She dressed very strangely... She pulled a pink ribbon around her neck, threw a cord behind her ear, on which a monocle dangled near her cheek. In winter, she wore some kind of shower warmers, capes, several of them at once, one on top of the other. When they offered her a cigarette, From this pile of furry wrappers, a dry hand quickly stretched out, like the tongue of an anteater, tenaciously grabbed it and retracted again.”

She also gathered society at her place, on Sundays - a general circle of acquaintances, on Wednesdays - a narrow, almost “secret” one. Her last admirers were the old diplomat Loris-Melikov and the poet Mamchenko. And the very last friend of Z.N. there was a cat, ugly, wild and angry. “We simply called her “Koshshshka”, with three “sh,” writes Teffi. “She always sat on Z.N.’s lap and, at the sight of guests, quickly scurried out of the room. Z.N. got used to her and, dying, She didn’t open her eyes anymore, she was half conscious, she kept looking with her hands to see if Koshshshka was there.”

Z.N. she worked at night - she wrote the book “Dmitry Merezhkovsky”, and this tired her very much. The right hand is paralyzed. The last days she lay silently, facing the wall and did not want to see anyone. The cat was lying next to her.

She did not have time to finish the book. On September 9, 1945, Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius died, having outlived her husband by only four years.