Teffi: biography, interesting facts and videos. Interesting facts from the life and biography of Nadezhda Teffi Biography of Nadezhda Teffi summary

Teffi Nadezhda Aleksandrovna (real name - Lokhvitskaya, married name - Buchinskaya), years of life: 1872-1952, famous Russian writer. Born on May 6, 1872 in St. Petersburg. Father is the famous publisher of the magazine "Judicial Bulletin", professor of criminology A.V. Lokhvitsky. The writer’s sister is the famous poetess Mirra (Maria) Lokhvitskaya, nicknamed the “Russian Sappho.” Taffy received her education at the gymnasium on Liteiny Prospekt.

Her first husband was Vladislav Buchinsky, their first daughter was born in 1892. After her birth, the family moved to live on an estate near Mogilev. In 1900, their daughter Helena and son Janek were born. After some time, Teffi separated from her husband and left for St. Petersburg. Since then, her literary activity began. The first publications date back to 1901 and were published under her maiden name.

She first signed her pseudonym Teffi in 1907. The appearance of this pseudonym still remains unknown. The writer herself connected its origin with the household nickname of the servant Sepana-Steffi. Her works had unprecedented popularity during pre-revolutionary Russia, which even led to the appearance of sweets and perfumes called “Taffy”. From 1908 to 1918, the writer was a regular contributor to such magazines as Satyricon and New Satyricon. And in 1910, the publishing house "Rosehipnik" published a debut book and a collection of stories. Then several more collections were published. Teffi had a reputation as an insightful, kind and ironic writer.

His attitude towards his characters has always been unusually soft, kind-hearted and condescending. The miniature - a story about a small comic incident - has always been the author’s favorite genre. During the period of revolutionary sentiment, Teffi collaborated with the Bolshevik newspaper Novaya Zhizn. This stage of her literary activity did not leave a significant imprint on her creative life. Her attempts to write social feuilletons on topical topics for the newspaper “Russkoye Slovo” in 1910 were also unsuccessful.

At the end of 1918, she left for Kyiv with the famous satirist A. Averchenko for public speaking. This departure resulted in a year and a half of ordeal in the south of Russia (Novorossiysk, Odessa, Ekaterinodar). Teffi eventually reached Paris through the city of Constantinople. Later, in 1931, the writer, in her autobiography-memoir, recreated the route of her travels of those years and did not hide her hope and aspirations for a speedy return to her homeland, to St. Petersburg. After emigrating to France, sad and at some points even tragic notes noticeably intensified in Teffi’s work. All her thoughts are only about Russia, and about that generation of people who are forced to live during the revolution. The true values ​​at this time for Teffi remain childish inexperience and commitment to moral truth. It is in this that the writer finds her salvation in times of loss of ideals that previously seemed unconditional. This theme begins to dominate most of her stories. One of the most important places in her work began to be occupied by the theme of love, including Christian love, which, in spite of everything, withstands the most difficult tests that were intended for it in the 20th century.

At the dawn of her creative career, Teffi completely abandoned the satirical and sarcastic tone in her works, on which her early work was based. Love, humility and enlightenment are the main intonations of her latest works. During the occupation and World War II, Taffina was in Paris, never leaving it. Sometimes she read her stories for Russian emigrants, who became fewer and fewer from year to year. After the war, Teffi's main activity was memoir essays about his contemporaries.

In the literary and near-literary world, the name Teffi is not an empty phrase. Everyone who loves to read and is familiar with the works of Russian writers also knows the stories of Teffi - this wonderful writer with sharp humor and a kind heart. What is her biography, what kind of life did this talented person live?

Teffi's childhood

Relatives and friends learned that there was an addition to the Lokhvitsky family living in St. Petersburg in 1872 - then, in fact, this happy event happened. However, there is now a problem with the exact date - it is impossible to name it reliably. According to various sources, this could be either April or May. Be that as it may, in the spring of 1872, Alexander and Varvara Lokhvitsky had a baby - the girl was named Nadenka. This was not the couple’s first child - after the eldest son Nikolai (later he would become Kolchak’s closest ally) and middle daughters Varvara and Maria (Masha would later prefer to be called Mirra - under this name she would become famous as a poetess).

Not much is known about Nadyusha’s childhood. Although you can still glean something - for example, from her own stories, where the main character is a girl - well, so funny, the spitting image of Nadya in childhood. Autobiographical features are undoubtedly present in many of the writer’s works. Posrelenok is the name given to children like little Nadenka.

Nadya's father was a famous lawyer, the author of many scientific works, a professor and publisher of his own magazine. Her mother's maiden name was Goyer; she belonged to a family of Russified Frenchmen and was well versed in literature. In general, everyone in the Lokhvitsky family loved to read, and Nadya was by no means an exception. Leo Tolstoy remained the girl’s favorite writer for many years, and Teffi’s very bright story is widely known - the memory of the already adult Nadezhda - about how she went to the estate to visit the great writer.

Young years. Sister

Nadenka was always friendly with her sister Maria (later known as Mirra Lokhvitskaya, poetess). There was a three-year difference between them (Masha is older), but this did not prevent the two sisters from having a good relationship. That is why, in their youth, both girls, who loved literature, had a penchant for writing and dreamed of taking their place on the literary Olympus, agreed: there should be no competition between them, this is one, but two - for this purpose, you need to start your creative path not at the same time, but one by one. And the first place is the Machine, it’s fairer, because she’s older. Looking ahead, it must be said that the sisters’ plan, in general, was a success, but not quite in the way they imagined...

Marriage

According to the sisters’ original plan, Masha was to be the first to step onto the literary podium, bask in the rays of glory, and then give way to Nadya, ending her career. However, they did not imagine that the poems of the aspiring poetess Mirra Lokhvitskaya (Masha decided that the name Mirra was more suitable for a creative person) would resonate so much in the hearts of readers. Maria gained instant and stunning popularity. The first collection of her poems spread at the speed of light, and she herself was undoubtedly one of the most widely read authors at the end of the nineteenth century.

What about Nadya? With such success of her sister, there could be no talk of ending her career. But if Nadya tried to “break through”, it is very likely that the shadow of her popular older sister would close her down. Nadezhda understood this perfectly, and therefore was in no hurry to declare herself. But she hurried to get married: barely graduating from a women's gymnasium, in 1890 she married a Pole, Wladislav Buchinsky, a lawyer by profession. He worked as a judge, but after marrying Nadya, he left the service, and the family went to his estate near Mogilev (now Belarus). Nadya was only eighteen years old at that time.

However, it cannot be said that the couple’s family life was successful and happy. What was this marriage - love or calculation, a cold decision to arrange a family life while the sister arranges her literary life, in order to later be able to devote herself entirely to her career?.. There is no answer to this question. Be that as it may, by the time Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya’s family already had three children (daughters Valeria and Elena and son Janek), her marriage to Vladislav was bursting at the seams. By the beginning of the new millennium, the couple separated. In 1900, twenty-eight-year-old Nadezhda reappeared in St. Petersburg with the firm intention of settling in literary circles.

First publications

The first thing Nadezhda published under her own surname (she returned it back after breaking up with Vladislav), small poems, caused a wave of critical comments, on the one hand, and went unnoticed by readers, on the other. Perhaps these poems were attributed to Mirra, who published under the same name, but in any case they did not create a sensation. As for criticism, for example, Nadezhda’s future colleague Valery Bryusov extremely scolded them, believing that they contained too much tinsel, empty, fake. However, the poems were only the first experience of the writer; she became famous not thanks to poetry, but thanks to prose: Teffi’s stories brought her well-deserved fame.

The appearance of a pseudonym

After her first experience with poems, Nadya realized: for St. Petersburg alone, two Lokhvitsky writers are too many. A different name was needed. After a diligent search, it was found: Teffi. But why Teffi? Where did Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya's pseudonym come from?

There are many versions on this matter. The most common one says that Lokhvitskaya borrowed this name from Kipling (he has such a girlish character). Others believe that it is from Edith Nesbit, only slightly modified (she has a heroine named Effie). Nadezhda Aleksandrovna Lokhvitskaya herself, in her own story “Pseudonym,” told the following story: she wanted to find a pseudonym that was neither male nor female, but something in between. It occurred to me to borrow the name of some “fool,” because fools are always happy. The only fool I knew was the parents' servant Stepan, who was called Steffy in the house. This is how the name arose, thanks to which Nadezhda managed to gain a foothold on literary Olympus. How true this version is cannot be said with certainty: the writer, whose path was humorous and satirical stories, loved to joke and confuse those around her, so she took the true secret of her pseudonym Teffi with her to the grave.

Becoming

She was done with poetry for a while (but not forever - the writer returned to it in 1910, publishing a collection of poems, again, however, unsuccessful). The first satirical experiments, which suggested to Nadezhda that she was moving in the right direction and subsequently gave life to Teffi’s stories, appeared in 1904. Then Lokhvitskaya began to collaborate with the newspaper Birzhevye Vedomosti, in which she published feuilletons castigating the vices of various representatives of the “top of power.” It was then that they first started talking about Teffi - these feuilletons were already signed with a pseudonym. And three years later, the writer published a small one-act play entitled “The Women’s Question” (some believe that Nadezhda’s pseudonym first appeared with this work), which was later even staged at the Maly Theater in St. Petersburg.

Fans of Teffi's comics and stories, despite the fact that they often ridiculed the authorities, were also among these same authorities. At first Nicholas II laughed at them, then they delighted Lenin and Lunacharsky. In those years, Teffi could be read in many places: she collaborated with various representatives of the periodical press. Teffi's works were published in the magazine "Satyricon", in the newspaper "Birzhevye Vedomosti" (which was already mentioned earlier), in the magazine "New Satyricon", in the newspaper "New Life", which was published by the Bolsheviks, and so on. But Teffi's true glory was yet to come...

Woke up famous

This is exactly what they say when an event occurs that overnight makes a person a “star,” a mega-popular and recognizable personality. A similar thing happened with Teffi - after the publication of her first collection of humorous stories with the same name. The second collection, released soon after the first, not only repeated his success, but also surpassed it. Teffi, like her older sister once upon a time, has become one of the most beloved, read and successful authors in the country.

Until 1917, Nadezhda published nine more books - one or even two per year (the first collection of stories appeared in 1910 simultaneously with the previously mentioned collection of poems). Everyone brought her success. Teffi's stories were still in demand by the general public.

Emigration

The year 1917 came, the year of revolution, the year of a radical change in people's lives. Many writers who did not accept such drastic changes left the country. What about Teffi? And Teffi was delighted at first - and then horrified. The consequences of October left a heavy mark on her soul, which was reflected in the writer’s work. She writes new feuilletons, addressing them to Lenin’s comrades, she does not hide her pain for her native country. She publishes all this, at her own peril and risk (she really risked - both freedom and life), in the magazine "New Satyricon". But in the fall of 1918 it was closed, and then Teffi realized: it was time to leave.

First, Nadezhda moved to Kyiv, then, after some time, to Odessa, to several other cities - and finally reached Paris. She settled there. She did not initially intend to leave her homeland, and being forced to do this, she did not give up hope of a quick return. It didn’t happen - Teffi lived in Paris until the end of her life.

In emigration, Teffi’s creativity did not fade away; on the contrary, it blossomed with renewed vigor. Her books were published with enviable regularity both in Paris and in Berlin, she was recognized and talked about. In general, everything would be fine - but not at home... But “at home” they forgot about Teffi for many years - until the mid-sixties, when the writer’s works were finally allowed to be published again.

Screen adaptation of Teffi's works

After the death of the writer, several of her stories were filmed in the Union. This happened in 1967-1980. The stories on which the telenovelas were based are called "The Painter", "Happy Love" and "Agility of Hands".

A little about love

After her first not very successful marriage (except for the birth of children), Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya’s personal life did not improve for a long time. Only after leaving for Paris did she meet “her” man there - Pavel Theakston, also an emigrant from Russia. Teffi lived with him in a happy, albeit civil, marriage for about ten years - until his death.

last years of life

At the end of her life, having survived the occupation during the Second World War, hunger, poverty, and separation from her children, Nadezhda Alexandrovna lost her humorous outlook on life a little. Teffi's stories, published in her last book (in 1951 in New York), are permeated with sadness, lyricism and are more autobiographical. In addition, during the final years of her life, the writer worked on her memoirs.

Teffi died in 1952. She is buried in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois cemetery in Paris. Next to her is the grave of her colleague and fellow emigration Ivan Bunin. You can come to the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois cemetery at any time and honor the memory of Teffi and many other once-famous talented personalities.

1. Nadezhda's elder sister, Maria, died quite young - at thirty-five years old. She had a bad heart.
2. During the First World War, Teffi worked as a nurse.
3. Teffi always hid her true age, subtracting ten years from her age. In addition, she carefully looked after herself in order to correspond to the declared years.
4. All her life she loved cats very much.
5. In everyday life I was a very absent-minded person.

Such is the life and fate of Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya - Teffi.

Nadezhda Aleksandrovna LOKHVITSKAYA,

married - BUCHINSKAYA

9(21).V.1872, St. Petersburg, according to other sources - on an estate in the Volyn province - 6.X.1952, Paris

The famous Lokhvitsky sisters: the eldest Mirra wrote poetry and was awarded the title “Russian Sappho”, the youngest, Nadezhda, composed humoresques and feuilletons and became the most popular “humorist” in Russia. To distinguish herself from her sister, she took a pseudonym from Kipling - Teffi.

Teffi herself explained the adoption of a pseudonym this way: “...Why does a Russian woman sign her works with some anglicized word? If she wanted to take a pseudonym, she could have chosen something more sonorous or, at least, with a touch of ideology, like Maxim Gorky, Demyan Bedny, Skitalets. These are all hints at some kind of poetic suffering and endear the reader... I didn’t want to hide behind a male pseudonym. Cowardly and cowardly. It’s better to choose something incomprehensible, neither this nor that. But what?.."

She chose Taffy. A short, sonorous word, and when it became fashionable, the “Taffy” perfume appeared in honor of the writer, with a unique original smell. Teffi began publishing in the newspapers Birzhevye Vedomosti and Rus, and then became a regular author of Satyricon and New Satyricon. In 1910, Teffi’s poetry collection “Seven Lights” and two volumes of “Humorous Stories” were published.

As Irina Odoevtseva notes, Teffi’s fame in pre-revolutionary Russia was enormous. They read it and admired it. When, during the compilation of the anniversary collection dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the reign of the Romanov dynasty, the tsar was respectfully asked which of the modern Russian writers he would like to see included in it, Nicholas II decisively said:

Teffi! Only her. You don't need anyone but her. One Teffi!

And with obvious displeasure, after much persuasion, the tsar agreed that the names and portraits of other poets and writers, led by Gippius and Merezhkovsky, appear in the anniversary collection.

How did Teffi take readers? An amazing combination of the funny and sad, the combination of anecdote and tragedy, the accuracy of everyday details (“hardly the most observant of our writers” - this is how Georgy Adamovich assessed Teffi), elegant banter at bourgeois morals and tastes. And also because she possessed, in the words of Mikhail Zoshchenko, “the secret of laughing words.” And, of course, excellent Russian. Thus, Alexander Kuprin noted the inherent “impeccability of the Russian language, ease and variety of speech patterns.”

Two examples:

“The theme was the most original: one young girl fell in love with one young man and married him. This thing was called “Hieroglyphs of the Sphinx”” (Taffy’s story “Talent”).

“...Then we sat down to dinner. We ate seriously and for a long time. They were talking about some kind of chicken, which was eaten somewhere with some kind of mushrooms. Ivan Petrovich was angry. Occasionally I tried to start a conversation about the theater, literature, and city news. They answered him casually and again returned to the familiar chicken...” (“Vacation”).

Teffi also wrote poetry. As Nikolai Gumilyov defined them, “genuine, elegantly simple fairy tales of the Middle Ages.” Here is "Black Dwarf":

Your black dwarf kissed your feet,

He was so affectionate and so sweet with you,

All your rings, your earrings, brooches -

He collected it and kept it in a chest.

But on a terrible day of sadness and anxiety

Your dwarf suddenly rose and grew -

Now you should kiss his feet,

And he left... and took away the chest...

Salon? Cute? Yes. But Teffi also wrote about the topic of the day; Thus, in October 1905, she nailed General Trepov for his textbook order “Do not spare cartridges” in the poem “Cartridges and Patron,” which at the end said:

Trepov! Isn't it of your own free will?

Did you have to fly away?

You yourself deigned to teach,

So that you don’t waste your cartridges!

And yet, the main thing in Teffi’s work is not poetry, but her prose, or rather, her humor. Before the revolution, her numerous collections were published: “Carousel”, “Smoke without Fire”, “Miniatures and Monologues”, “Life-Being” and others. Teffi remained fruitful in emigration; it is enough to name such books as “The East” (Shanghai, 1920), “Quiet Backwater” (Paris, 1921), “Black Iris” (Stockholm, 1921), “The Book of June” (Belgrade, 1931 ), “About Tenderness” (Paris, 1938), “All about Love” (Paris, 1946). Standing apart are “Memoirs” (1931) about those whom the writer knew during the sparkling time of the Silver Age. And also the book “The Witch” (Paris, 1936) about the ancient Slavic gods - this book was highly appreciated by Bunin, Kuprin and Merezhkovsky.

Emigration did not break Teffi, but she could not avoid acute nostalgia for her homeland. In 1920, Teffi left Russia. In one of her last essays, written in Odessa, she wrote: “A trickle of blood seen in the morning at the gates of the commissariat... cuts off the path of life forever. You can't step over it. It is impossible to go further. You can turn and run." Teffi “ran” - through Constantinople to Paris. On the ship, looking at the restless waves of the Black Sea, Teffi wrote a poem, which Alexander Vertinsky later included in his repertoire:

To the cape of joy, or to the rocks of sorrow,

To the islands of lilac birds,

It doesn't matter where we land,

We can't lift our tired eyelashes...

Having experienced the bitterness of emigrant life, Teffi made a mournful confession: “They were afraid of the Bolshevik death - and died a death here... The soul turned to the east withers. We only think about what is THERE now. We are only interested in what comes from there.”

Not everything was smooth in his personal life. In her youth, Teffi married lawyer Vladislav Buchinsky. After the birth of her second daughter, Elena, she separated from him in 1900, that is, at the age of 28. And then alone? Here is what Irina Odoevtseva wrote about this in her memoirs “On the Banks of the Seine”:

“Women’s successes gave Teffi no less, and perhaps more, pleasure than literary ones. She was extremely attentive and condescending to her fans.

Nadezhda Aleksandrovna, how can you listen to N.N.’s stupidest compliments for hours? After all, he is an idiot! - her friends were indignant.

Firstly, he’s not an idiot for being in love with me,” she explained reasonably. “And secondly, I’m much more pleased with an idiot who is in love with me than with the most intelligent smart guy who is indifferent to me or in love with another fool.”

This answer contains all of Teffi. In Paris, fate brought her together with P. Tikson, with whom they lived together until his death. However, they did not register their marriage. Teffi's last man was seriously ill, and the writer tenderly looked after him and continued to write her funny stories. The public loved laughing Teffi. She paid money for her laughter. Teffi understood this perfectly and did not change her tone.

Galina Shakhovskaya recalls in her memoirs: “Taffy, in essence, was the only “lady” of literary Paris - not a “literary lady”, but a charming, well-mannered and “metropolitan” lady. Perhaps somewhat dry and extremely intelligent, Teffi, it seems to me, was not interested in politics or world issues. She was interested in human types, children and animals, but she not only understood the tragic fate of all living things, but also felt it in her own, above all, experience.

Satirists and humorists (with the exception of Myatlev) are almost all hypochondriacs, from Gogol to Don Aminado and Zoshchenko. Like all of them, Teffi laughed with a “bitter laugh,” without malice, but with the utmost vigilance, noting, and magnifying them for clarity, the absurdities of everyday life and human weaknesses.

When I knew her, her health already required painkillers, and sometimes stimulants, and I had to see her either brilliant and witty, or completely extinguished, overcoming herself and life. And suddenly, because someone was next to her, the spark hidden in her flared up again, and apt remarks, witty stories, and vivid memories scattered like fireworks.

She loved N.A. very much. balls and appearances, took care of her appearance, dressed as elegantly as she could, I never saw her unkempt and untidy...”

And here’s what Irina Odoevtseva recalled: “...Both then and after the war, Teffi was very poor. In recent years, she had been seriously ill for a long time, but even before her death she did not lose her amazing gift - her sense of humor. I turned to my friends for financial help like this: “I’ll forgive you for the last time. I promise that I won’t stay on this earth for long. And please, give me now the money that you will still spend on flowers when you come to my funeral.”

Shortly before her death, Nadezhda Aleksandrovna Teffi, looking back at her life path, noted: “I belong to the Chekhov school, and I consider Maupassant to be my ideal. I love St. Petersburg, I loved Gumilyov very much, he was both a good poet and a good person. The best period of my creativity was still in Russia.”

Teffi managed to celebrate her 80th birthday and left forever, as she put it, the “island” of her “memories.” She wrote in advance about death, like Charon:

He will sail at night on black sails,

A silver ship with a purple border!

But people won't understand that he came for me,

And they will say: “The moon is playing on the waves”...

Like a black seraph three paired wings,

He will raise his sails above the starry silence!

But people won't understand that he sailed away with me

And they will say: “She died today.”

So, the silver ship took one of the brightest representatives of the Silver Age - Nadezhda Teffi - to the silver distance...

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Nadezhda Aleksandrovna Lokhvitskaya was born on May 9 (21), 1872 in St. Petersburg (according to other sources in the Volyn province) in the family of lawyer Alexander Vladimirovich Lokhvitsky (-). She studied at the gymnasium on Liteiny Prospekt.

She was called the first Russian humorist of the early 20th century, “the queen of Russian humor.” However, she was never a supporter of banal humor, leading readers into the realms of pure humor, where it is refined with sadness and witty observations of the life around them. After emigrating, satire and other useless uses of humor gradually ceased to dominate her work; Observing the concept of humor gave her texts a philosophical character.

Nickname

There are several options for the origin of the nickname Teffi.

The first version is stated by the writer herself in the story "Nickname". She did not want to sign her texts with a man’s name, as contemporary writers often did: “I didn’t want to hide behind a male pseudonym. Cowardly and cowardly. It’s better to choose something incomprehensible, neither this nor that. But what? We need a name that would bring happiness. Best of all is the name of some fool - fools are always happy.". To her "I remembered<…>one fool, truly excellent and, in addition, one who was lucky, which means that fate itself recognized him as an ideal fool. His name was Stepan, and his family called him Steffy. Out of delicacy, discarding the first letter (so that the fool does not become arrogant)", writer “I decided to sign my play “Taffy””. After the successful premiere of this play, in an interview with a journalist, when asked about her pseudonym, Teffi replied that “this is... the name of one fool..., that is, such a surname”. The journalist noticed that he "they said it was from Kipling". Teffi, who remembered Kipling's song “Taffy was a walshman / Taffy was a thief...”(rus. Taffy was from Wales, Taffy was a thief ), agreed with this version.

The same version is voiced by researcher Teffi E. Nitraur, indicating the name of the writer’s acquaintance as Stefan and specifying the title of the play - "Women's Question", and a group of authors under the general leadership of A.I. Smirnova, ascribing the name Stepan to a servant in the Lokhvitsky house.

Another version of the origin of the pseudonym is offered by researchers of Teffi’s creativity E.M. Trubilova and D.D. Nikolaev, according to whom the pseudonym for Nadezhda Alexandrovna, who loved hoaxes and jokes, and was also the author of literary parodies and feuilletons, became part of a literary game aimed at creating an appropriate image of the author.

There is also a version that Teffi took her pseudonym because her sister, the poetess Mirra Lokhvitskaya, who was called the “Russian Sappho,” was published under her real name.

Creation

In Russia

Since childhood, she has been interested in classical Russian literature. Her idols were A. S. Pushkin and L. N. Tolstoy, she was interested in modern literature and painting, and was friends with the artist Alexander Benois. Teffi was also greatly influenced by N.V. Gogol, F.M. Dostoevsky and her contemporaries F. Sologub and A. Averchenko.

Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya began writing as a child, but her literary debut took place at almost thirty years of age. Teffi's first publication took place on September 2, 1901 in the weekly magazine "Sever" - it was a poem “I had a dream, crazy and beautiful...”

Teffi herself spoke about her debut like this: “They took my poem and took it to an illustrated magazine without telling me a word about it. And then they brought me an issue of the magazine where the poem was published, which made me very angry. I didn’t want to be published then, because one of my older sisters, Mirra Lokhvitskaya, had been publishing her poems with success for a long time. It seemed to me something funny if we all delved into literature. By the way, that’s how it happened... So - I was unhappy. But when the editors sent me the fee, it made the most gratifying impression on me.” .

In exile

In exile, Teffi wrote stories depicting pre-revolutionary Russia, the same philistine life that she described in collections published in her homeland. Melancholic title "That's how we lived" What unites these stories is that they reflect the collapse of the emigration's hopes of returning the past, the complete futility of an unattractive life in a foreign country. Teffi’s story was published in the first issue of the newspaper “Last News” (April 27, 1920) “Ke fer?”(French) "What to do?"), and the phrase of his hero, the old general, who, looking around the Parisian square in confusion, mutters: “This is all good... but que faire? Fer-to-ke?, became a kind of password for those in exile.

The writer was published in many prominent periodicals of the Russian emigration (“Common Cause”, “Renaissance”, “Rul”, “Today”, “Link”, “Modern Notes”, “Firebird”). Teffi has published a number of books of stories - "Lynx" (), "Book of June" (), "About Tenderness"() - which showed new facets of her talent, like the plays of this period - "Moment of Destiny" , "Nothing like this"() - and the only experience of the novel - "Adventure novel"(1931). But she considered her best book a collection of short stories "Witch". The genre of the novel, indicated in the title, raised doubts among the first reviewers: the discrepancy between the “soul” of the novel (B. Zaitsev) and the title was noted. Modern researchers point to similarities with the adventure, picaresque, courtly, detective novel, as well as the mythical novel.

In Teffi's works of this time, sad, even tragic motives noticeably intensify. “They were afraid of the Bolshevik death - and died here. We only think about what is there now. We are only interested in what comes from there.”, - said in one of her first Parisian miniatures "Nostalgia" () .

Teffi planned to write about the heroes of L.N. Tolstoy and M. Cervantes, who were ignored by critics, but these plans were not destined to come true. On September 30, 1952, Teffi celebrated her name day in Paris, and just a week later she died.

Bibliography

Publications prepared by Teffi

• Seven lights. - St. Petersburg: Rosehip, 1910
• Humorous stories. Book 1. - St. Petersburg: Rosehip, 1910
• Humorous stories. Book 2 (Apes). - St. Petersburg: Rosehip, 1911
• And so it became. - St. Petersburg: New Satyricon, 1912
• Carousel. - St. Petersburg: New Satyricon, 1913
• Miniatures and monologues. T. 1. - St. Petersburg: ed. M. G. Kornfeld, 1913
• Eight miniatures. - Pg.: New Satyricon, 1913
• Smoke without fire. - St. Petersburg: New Satyricon, 1914
• Nothing like that, Pg.: New Satyricon, 1915
• Miniatures and monologues. T. 2. - Pg.: New Satyricon, 1915
• Lifeless beast. - Pg.: New Satyricon, 1916
• And so it became. 7th ed. - Pg.: New Satyricon, 1917
• Yesterday. - Pg.: New Satyricon, 1918
• Smoke without fire. 9th ed. - Pg.: New Satyricon, 1918
• Carousel. 4th ed. - Pg.: New Satyricon, 1918
• This is how we lived. - Paris, 1920
• Black iris. - Stockholm, 1921
• Treasures of the earth. - Berlin, 1921
• Quiet backwater. - Paris, 1921
• Lynx. - Berlin, 1923
• Passiflora. - Berlin, 1923
• Shamran. Songs of the East. - Berlin, 1923
• Evening day. - Prague, 1924
• Town. - Paris, 1927
• Book June. - Paris, 1931
• Adventure novel. - Paris, 1931
• Witch . - Paris, 1936
• About tenderness. - Paris, 1938
• Zigzag. - Paris, 1939
• All about love. - Paris, 1946
• Earthly rainbow. - New York, 1952
• Life and collar
• Mitenka
• Inspiration
• Ours and others

Pirate editions

• Instead of politics. Stories. - M.-L.: ZiF, 1926
• Yesterday. Humorous stories. - Kyiv: Cosmos, 1927
• Tango of death. - M.: ZiF, 1927
• Sweet memories. -M.-L.: ZiF, 1927

Collected works

• Collected works [in 7 vols.]. Comp. and preparation texts by D. D. Nikolaev and E. M. Trubilova. - M.: Lakom, 1998-2005.
• Collection Op.: In 5 volumes - M.: TERRA Book Club, 2008

Other

• Ancient history / . - 1909
• Ancient history / General history, processed by Satyricon. - St. Petersburg: ed. M. G. Kornfeld, 1912

Criticism

Teffi's works were treated extremely positively in literary circles. The writer and contemporary of Teffi Mikhail Osorgin considered her "one of the most intelligent and sighted modern writers."

The Literary Encyclopedia 1929-1939 reports about the poetess in an extremely vague and negative way:

The cult of love, voluptuousness, a thick coating of oriental exoticism and symbolism, the glorification of various ecstatic states of the soul - the main content of T.'s poetry. Occasionally and accidentally, motives for the struggle against “autocracy” were heard here, but T.'s social ideals were extremely vague. Since the beginning of the 10s. T. switched to prose, giving a number of collections of humorous stories. In them, T. superficially criticizes some philistine prejudices and habits, and in satirical scenes depicts the life of the St. Petersburg “demimonde.” Sometimes representatives of the working people, with whom the main characters come into contact, come into the author’s field of view; These are mostly cooks, maids, painters, presented as stupid and senseless creatures. In addition to poetry and stories, T. wrote and translated a number of plays. The first play, “The Women's Question,” was staged by the St. Petersburg Maly Theater; several others were shown at different times in capital and provincial theaters. In T.'s emigration, stories were written depicting pre-revolutionary Russia, the same petty-bourgeois life. The melancholic title “This is how we lived” unites these stories, reflecting the collapse of the white emigration’s hopes for a return to the past, the complete futility of the unsightly emigrant life. Talking about the “sweet memories” of the emigrants, T. comes to an ironic image of pre-revolutionary Russia, showing the stupidity and worthlessness of philistine existence. These works testify to the cruel disappointment of the emigrant writer in the people with whom she linked her fate.

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Notes

1. O. N. Mikhailov. Teffi // Ch. ed. A. A. Surkov Brief literary encyclopedia. - M., 1972. - T. 7. - pp. 708-709.
2. Nitraur E.“Life laughs and cries...” About the fate and work of Teffi // Teffi. Nostalgia: Stories; Memoirs / Comp. B. Averina; Entry Art. E. Nitraur. - L.: Artist. lit., 1989. - pp. 4-5. - ISBN 5-280-00930-X.
4. The women's gymnasium, opened in 1864, was located on Baseinaya Street (now Nekrasova Street), in house No. 15. In her Nadezhda Aleksandrovna noted: “I first saw my work in print when I was thirteen years old. This was an ode I wrote for the anniversary of the gymnasium."
5. (Russian) . Literary encyclopedia. Fundamental Electronic Library (1939). Retrieved January 30, 2010. .
6. Teffi. Memories // Teffi. Nostalgia: Stories; Memoirs / Comp. B. Averina; Entry Art. E. Nitraur. - L.: Artist. lit., 1989. - pp. 267-446. - ISBN 5-280-00930-X.
7. Don Aminado. The train is on the third track. - New York, 1954. - pp. 256-267.
8. Teffi. Pseudonym // Renaissance (Paris). - 1931. - December 20.
9. Teffi.(Russian) . Short prose of the Silver Age of Russian literature. Retrieved May 29, 2011. .
10. Literature of Russian abroad (“first wave” of emigration: 1920-1940): Textbook: In 2 hours, Part 2 / A. I. Smirnova, A. V. Mlechko, S. V. Baranov and others; Under general ed. Dr. Philol. sciences, prof. A.I. Smirnova. - Volgograd: VolSU Publishing House, 2004. - 232 p.
11. Poetry of the Silver Age: an anthology // Preface, articles and notes by B. S. Akimov. - M.: Rodionov Publishing House, Literature, 2005. - 560 p. - (Series “Classics at School”). - P. 420.

Links

• in the library of Maxim Moshkov
• V
• on the website peoples.ru

Excerpt characterizing Teffi

“But this, brothers, is a different fire,” said the orderly.
Everyone turned their attention to the glow.
“But, they said, Mamonov’s Cossacks set Mamonov’s Cossacks on fire.”
- They! No, this is not Mytishchi, this is further away.
- Look, it’s definitely in Moscow.
Two of the people got off the porch, went behind the carriage and sat down on the step.
- This is left! Of course, Mytishchi is over there, and this is in a completely different direction.
Several people joined the first.
“Look, it’s burning,” said one, “this, gentlemen, is a fire in Moscow: either in Sushchevskaya or in Rogozhskaya.”
No one responded to this remark. And for quite a long time all these people silently looked at the distant flames of a new fire that were flaring up.
The old man, the count's valet (as he was called), Danilo Terentich, approached the crowd and shouted to Mishka.
- What haven’t you seen, slut... The Count will ask, but no one is there; go get your dress.
“Yes, I was just running for water,” said Mishka.
– What do you think, Danilo Terentich, it’s like there’s a glow in Moscow? - said one of the lackeys.
Danilo Terentich did not answer anything, and for a long time everyone was silent again. The glow spread and swayed further and further.
“God have mercy!.. wind and dryness...” the voice said again.
- Look how it went. Oh my God! You can already see the jackdaws. Lord, have mercy on us sinners!
- They'll probably put it out.
-Who should put it out? – the voice of Danila Terentich, who had been silent until now, was heard. His voice was calm and slow. “Moscow is, brothers,” he said, “she is mother squirrel...” His voice broke off, and he suddenly sobbed like an old man. And it was as if everyone was waiting for just this in order to understand the meaning that this visible glow had for them. Sighs, words of prayer and the sobbing of the old count's valet were heard.

The valet, returning, reported to the count that Moscow was burning. The Count put on his robe and went out to have a look. Sonya, who had not yet undressed, and Madame Schoss came out with him. Natasha and the Countess remained alone in the room. (Petya was no longer with his family; he went forward with his regiment, marching to Trinity.)
The Countess began to cry when she heard the news of the fire in Moscow. Natasha, pale, with fixed eyes, sitting under the icons on the bench (in the very place where she sat when she arrived), did not pay any attention to her father’s words. She listened to the incessant moaning of the adjutant, heard three houses away.
- Oh, what a horror! - said Sonya, cold and frightened, returned from the yard. – I think all of Moscow will burn, a terrible glow! Natasha, look now, you can see from the window from here,” she said to her sister, apparently wanting to entertain her with something. But Natasha looked at her, as if not understanding what they were asking her, and again stared at the corner of the stove. Natasha had been in this state of tetanus since this morning, ever since Sonya, to the surprise and annoyance of the Countess, for some unknown reason, found it necessary to announce to Natasha about Prince Andrei’s wound and his presence with them on the train. The Countess became angry with Sonya, as she was rarely angry. Sonya cried and asked for forgiveness and now, as if trying to make amends for her guilt, she never stopped caring for her sister.
“Look, Natasha, how terribly it burns,” said Sonya.
– What’s burning? – Natasha asked. - Oh, yes, Moscow.
And as if in order not to offend Sonya by refusing and to get rid of her, she moved her head to the window, looked so that, obviously, she could not see anything, and again sat down in her previous position.
-Have you not seen it?
“No, really, I saw it,” she said in a voice pleading for calm.
Both the Countess and Sonya understood that Moscow, the fire of Moscow, whatever it was, of course, could not matter to Natasha.
The Count again went behind the partition and lay down. The Countess approached Natasha, touched her head with her inverted hand, as she did when her daughter was sick, then touched her forehead with her lips, as if to find out if there was a fever, and kissed her.
-You're cold. You're shaking all over. You should go to bed,” she said.
- Go to bed? Yes, okay, I'll go to bed. “I’ll go to bed now,” Natasha said.
Since Natasha was told this morning that Prince Andrei was seriously wounded and was going with them, only in the first minute she asked a lot about where? How? Is he dangerously injured? and is she allowed to see him? But after she was told that she could not see him, that he was seriously wounded, but that his life was not in danger, she, obviously, did not believe what she was told, but was convinced that no matter how much she said, she would be answer the same thing, stopped asking and talking. All the way, with big eyes, which the countess knew so well and whose expression the countess was so afraid of, Natasha sat motionless in the corner of the carriage and now sat in the same way on the bench on which she sat down. She was thinking about something, something she was deciding or had already decided in her mind now - the countess knew this, but what it was, she did not know, and this frightened and tormented her.
- Natasha, undress, my dear, lie down on my bed. (Only the countess alone had a bed made on the bed; m me Schoss and both young ladies had to sleep on the floor on the hay.)
“No, mom, I’ll lie here on the floor,” Natasha said angrily, went to the window and opened it. The adjutant’s groan from the open window was heard more clearly. She stuck her head out into the damp air of the night, and the countess saw how her thin shoulders were shaking with sobs and beating against the frame. Natasha knew that it was not Prince Andrei who was moaning. She knew that Prince Andrei was lying in the same connection where they were, in another hut across the hallway; but this terrible, incessant groan made her sob. The Countess exchanged glances with Sonya.
“Lie down, my dear, lie down, my friend,” said the countess, lightly touching Natasha’s shoulder with her hand. - Well, go to bed.
“Oh, yes... I’ll go to bed now,” said Natasha, hastily undressing and tearing off the strings of her skirts. Having taken off her dress and put on a jacket, she tucked her legs in, sat down on the bed prepared on the floor and, throwing her short thin braid over her shoulder, began to braid it. Thin, long, familiar fingers quickly, deftly took apart, braided, and tied the braid. Natasha's head turned with a habitual gesture, first in one direction, then in the other, but her eyes, feverishly open, looked straight and motionless. When the night suit was finished, Natasha quietly sank down onto the sheet laid on the hay on the edge of the door.
“Natasha, lie down in the middle,” said Sonya.
“No, I’m here,” Natasha said. “Go to bed,” she added with annoyance. And she buried her face in the pillow.
The Countess, m me Schoss and Sonya hastily undressed and lay down. One lamp remained in the room. But in the yard it was getting brighter from the fire of Malye Mytishchi, two miles away, and the drunken cries of the people were buzzing in the tavern, which Mamon’s Cossacks had smashed, on the crossroads, on the street, and the incessant groan of the adjutant was heard.
Natasha listened for a long time to the internal and external sounds coming to her, and did not move. She heard first the prayer and sighs of her mother, the cracking of her bed under her, the familiar whistling snoring of m me Schoss, the quiet breathing of Sonya. Then the Countess called out to Natasha. Natasha did not answer her.
“He seems to be sleeping, mom,” Sonya answered quietly. The Countess, after being silent for a while, called out again, but no one answered her.
Soon after this, Natasha heard her mother's even breathing. Natasha did not move, despite the fact that her small bare foot, having escaped from under the blanket, was chilly on the bare floor.
As if celebrating victory over everyone, a cricket screamed in the crack. The rooster crowed far away, and loved ones responded. The screams died down in the tavern, only the same adjutant’s stand could be heard. Natasha stood up.
- Sonya? are you sleeping? Mother? – she whispered. No one answered. Natasha slowly and carefully stood up, crossed herself and stepped carefully with her narrow and flexible bare foot onto the dirty, cold floor. The floorboard creaked. She, quickly moving her feet, ran a few steps like a kitten and grabbed the cold door bracket.
It seemed to her that something heavy, striking evenly, was knocking on all the walls of the hut: it was her heart, frozen with fear, with horror and love, beating, bursting.
She opened the door, crossed the threshold and stepped onto the damp, cold ground of the hallway. The gripping cold refreshed her. She felt the sleeping man with her bare foot, stepped over him and opened the door to the hut where Prince Andrei lay. It was dark in this hut. In the back corner of the bed, on which something was lying, there was a tallow candle on a bench that had burned out like a large mushroom.
Natasha, in the morning, when they told her about the wound and the presence of Prince Andrei, decided that she should see him. She did not know what it was for, but she knew that the meeting would be painful, and she was even more convinced that it was necessary.
All day she lived only in the hope that at night she would see him. But now, when this moment came, the horror of what she would see came over her. How was he mutilated? What was left of him? Was he like that incessant groan of the adjutant? Yes, he was like that. He was in her imagination the personification of this terrible groan. When she saw an obscure mass in the corner and mistook his raised knees under the blanket for his shoulders, she imagined some kind of terrible body and stopped in horror. But an irresistible force pulled her forward. She carefully took one step, then another, and found herself in the middle of a small, cluttered hut. In the hut, under the icons, another person was lying on the benches (it was Timokhin), and two more people were lying on the floor (these were the doctor and the valet).
The valet stood up and whispered something. Timokhin, suffering from pain in his wounded leg, did not sleep and looked with all his eyes at the strange appearance of a girl in a poor shirt, jacket and eternal cap. The sleepy and frightened words of the valet; “What do you need, why?” - they only forced Natasha to quickly approach what was lying in the corner. No matter how scary or unlike a human this body was, she had to see it. She passed the valet: the burnt mushroom of the candle fell off, and she clearly saw Prince Andrei lying with his arms outstretched on the blanket, just as she had always seen him.
He was the same as always; but the inflamed color of his face, his sparkling eyes, fixed enthusiastically on her, and especially the tender child’s neck protruding from the folded collar of his shirt, gave him a special, innocent, childish appearance, which, however, she had never seen in Prince Andrei. She approached him and with a quick, flexible, youthful movement she knelt down.
He smiled and extended his hand to her.

For Prince Andrei, seven days have passed since he woke up at the dressing station of the Borodino field. All this time he was in almost constant unconsciousness. The fever and inflammation of the intestines, which were damaged, in the opinion of the doctor traveling with the wounded man, should have carried him away. But on the seventh day he happily ate a slice of bread with tea, and the doctor noticed that the general fever had decreased. Prince Andrei regained consciousness in the morning. The first night after leaving Moscow it was quite warm, and Prince Andrei was left to spend the night in a carriage; but in Mytishchi the wounded man himself demanded to be carried out and to be given tea. The pain caused to him by being carried into the hut made Prince Andrei moan loudly and lose consciousness again. When they laid him on the camp bed, he lay for a long time with his eyes closed without moving. Then he opened them and quietly whispered: “What should I have for tea?” This memory for the small details of life amazed the doctor. He felt the pulse and, to his surprise and displeasure, noticed that the pulse was better. To his displeasure, the doctor noticed this because from his experience he was convinced that Prince Andrei could not live and that if he did not die now, he would only die with great suffering some time later. With Prince Andrei they were carrying the major of his regiment, Timokhin, who had joined them in Moscow with a red nose and was wounded in the leg in the same Battle of Borodino. With them rode a doctor, the prince's valet, his coachman and two orderlies.
Prince Andrey was given tea. He drank greedily, looking ahead at the door with feverish eyes, as if trying to understand and remember something.
- I don’t want anymore. Is Timokhin here? - he asked. Timokhin crawled towards him along the bench.
- I'm here, your Excellency.
- How's the wound?
- Mine then? Nothing. Is that you? “Prince Andrei began to think again, as if remembering something.
-Can I get a book? - he said.
- Which book?
- Gospel! I have no.
The doctor promised to get it and began asking the prince about how he felt. Prince Andrei reluctantly, but wisely answered all the doctor’s questions and then said that he needed to put a cushion on him, otherwise it would be awkward and very painful. The doctor and the valet lifted the greatcoat with which he was covered and, wincing at the heavy smell of rotten meat spreading from the wound, began to examine this terrible place. The doctor was very dissatisfied with something, changed something differently, turned the wounded man over so that he groaned again and, from the pain while turning, again lost consciousness and began to rave. He kept talking about getting this book for him as soon as possible and putting it there.
- And what does it cost you! - he said. “I don’t have it, please take it out and put it in for a minute,” he said in a pitiful voice.
The doctor went out into the hallway to wash his hands.
“Ah, shameless, really,” the doctor said to the valet, who was pouring water on his hands. “I just didn’t watch it for a minute.” After all, you put it directly on the wound. It’s such a pain that I’m surprised how he endures it.
“It seems like we planted it, Lord Jesus Christ,” said the valet.
For the first time, Prince Andrei understood where he was and what had happened to him, and remembered that he had been wounded and how at that moment when the carriage stopped in Mytishchi, he asked to go to the hut. Confused again from pain, he came to his senses another time in the hut, when he was drinking tea, and then again, repeating in his memory everything that had happened to him, he most vividly imagined that moment at the dressing station when, at the sight of the suffering of a person he did not love, , these new thoughts came to him, promising him happiness. And these thoughts, although unclear and indefinite, now again took possession of his soul. He remembered that he now had new happiness and that this happiness had something in common with the Gospel. That's why he asked for the Gospel. But the bad situation that his wound had given him, the new upheaval, again confused his thoughts, and for the third time he woke up to life in the complete silence of the night. Everyone was sleeping around him. A cricket screamed through the entryway, someone was shouting and singing on the street, cockroaches rustled on the table and icons, in the autumn a thick fly beat on his headboard and near the tallow candle, which had burned like a large mushroom and stood next to him.
His soul was not in a normal state. A healthy person usually thinks, feels and remembers simultaneously about a countless number of objects, but he has the power and strength, having chosen one series of thoughts or phenomena, to focus all his attention on this series of phenomena. A healthy person, in a moment of deepest thought, breaks away to say a polite word to the person who has entered, and again returns to his thoughts. The soul of Prince Andrei was not in a normal state in this regard. All the forces of his soul were more active, clearer than ever, but they acted outside of his will. The most diverse thoughts and ideas simultaneously possessed him. Sometimes his thought suddenly began to work, and with such strength, clarity and depth with which it had never been able to act in a healthy state; but suddenly, in the middle of her work, she broke off, was replaced by some unexpected idea, and there was no strength to return to it.
“Yes, I have discovered a new happiness, inalienable from a person,” he thought, lying in a dark, quiet hut and looking ahead with feverishly open, fixed eyes. Happiness that is outside of material forces, outside of material external influences on a person, the happiness of one soul, the happiness of love! Every person can understand it, but only God can recognize and prescribe it. But how did God prescribe this law? Why son?.. And suddenly the train of these thoughts was interrupted, and Prince Andrei heard (not knowing whether he was in delirium or in reality he was hearing this), he heard some quiet, whispering voice, incessantly repeating in rhythm: “And drink piti drink” then “and ti tii” again “and piti piti piti” again “and ti ti.” At the same time, to the sound of this whispering music, Prince Andrei felt that some strange airy building made of thin needles or splinters was erected above his face, above the very middle. He felt (although it was difficult for him) that he had to diligently maintain his balance so that the building that was being erected would not collapse; but it still fell down and slowly rose again at the sounds of steadily whispering music. “It’s stretching!” stretches! stretches and everything stretches,” Prince Andrei said to himself. Along with listening to the whisper and feeling this stretching and rising building of needles, Prince Andrei saw in fits and starts the red light of a candle surrounded in a circle and heard the rustling of cockroaches and the rustling of a fly beating on the pillow and on his face. And every time the fly touched his face, it produced a burning sensation; but at the same time he was surprised by the fact that, hitting the very area of ​​​​the building erected on his face, the fly did not destroy it. But besides this, there was one more important thing. It was white by the door, it was a sphinx statue that was also crushing him.
“But maybe this is my shirt on the table,” thought Prince Andrei, “and these are my legs, and this is the door; but why is everything stretching and moving forward and piti piti piti and tit ti - and piti piti piti... - Enough, stop, please, leave it, - Prince Andrei begged someone heavily. And suddenly the thought and feeling emerged again with extraordinary clarity and strength.
“Yes, love,” he thought again with perfect clarity), but not the love that loves for something, for something or for some reason, but the love that I experienced for the first time, when, dying, I saw my enemy and still fell in love with him. I experienced that feeling of love, which is the very essence of the soul and for which no object is needed. I still experience this blissful feeling. Love your neighbors, love your enemies. To love everything - to love God in all manifestations. You can love a dear person with human love; but only an enemy can be loved with divine love. And from this I experienced such joy when I felt that I loved that person. What about him? Is he alive... Loving with human love, you can move from love to hatred; but divine love cannot change. Nothing, not death, nothing can destroy it. She is the essence of the soul. And how many people have I hated in my life. And of all people, I have never loved or hated anyone more than her.” And he vividly imagined Natasha, not the way he had imagined her before, with only her charm, joyful for himself; but for the first time I imagined her soul. And he understood her feeling, her suffering, shame, repentance. Now for the first time he understood the cruelty of his refusal, saw the cruelty of his break with her. “If only it were possible for me to see her just one more time. Once, looking into these eyes, say..."
And piti piti piti and ti ti ti, and piti piti - boom, a fly hit... And his attention was suddenly transferred to another world of reality and delirium, in which something special was happening. Still in this world, everything was erected without collapsing, a building, something was still stretching, the same candle was burning with a red circle, the same sphinx shirt was lying at the door; but, besides all this, something creaked, there was a smell of fresh wind, and a new white sphinx, standing, appeared in front of the door. And in the head of this sphinx there was the pale face and sparkling eyes of the very Natasha about whom he was now thinking.
“Oh, how heavy is this incessant nonsense!” - thought Prince Andrei, trying to banish this face from his imagination. But this face stood before him with the force of reality, and this face came closer. Prince Andrei wanted to return to the former world of pure thought, but he could not, and delirium pulled him into its realm. The quiet whispering voice continued its measured babble, something was pressing, stretching, and a strange face stood in front of him. Prince Andrey gathered all his strength to come to his senses; he moved, and suddenly his ears began to ring, his eyes grew dim, and he, like a man plunged into water, lost consciousness. When he woke up, Natasha, the same living Natasha, whom of all the people in the world he most wanted to love with that new, pure divine love that was now open to him, was kneeling before him. He realized that it was a living, real Natasha, and was not surprised, but was quietly happy. Natasha, on her knees, scared but chained (she could not move), looked at him, holding back her sobs. Her face was pale and motionless. Only in the lower part of it was something trembling.
Prince Andrei sighed with relief, smiled and extended his hand.
- You? - he said. - How happy!
Natasha, with a quick but careful movement, moved towards him on her knees and, carefully taking his hand, bent over her face and began to kiss her, barely touching her lips.
- Sorry! - she said in a whisper, raising her head and looking at him. - Excuse me!
“I love you,” said Prince Andrei.
- Sorry…
- Forgive what? - asked Prince Andrei.
“Forgive me for what I did,” Natasha said in a barely audible, broken whisper and began to kiss her hand more often, barely touching her lips.
“I love you more, better than before,” said Prince Andrei, raising her face with his hand so that he could look into her eyes.
These eyes, filled with happy tears, timidly, compassionately and joyfully lovingly looked at him. Natasha’s thin and pale face with swollen lips was more than ugly, it was scary. But Prince Andrei did not see this face, he saw shining eyes that were beautiful. A conversation was heard behind them.
Peter the valet, now completely awake from his sleep, woke the doctor. Timokhin, who had not slept all the time from pain in his leg, had long seen everything that was being done, and, diligently covering his undressed body with a sheet, shrank on the bench.
- What is it? - said the doctor, rising from his bed. - Please go, madam.
At the same time, a girl sent by the Countess, who missed her daughter, knocked on the door.
Like a somnambulist who was awakened in the middle of her sleep, Natasha left the room and, returning to her hut, fell sobbing on her bed.

From that day, during the entire further journey of the Rostovs, at all rests and overnight stays, Natasha did not leave the wounded Bolkonsky, and the doctor had to admit that he did not expect from the girl either such firmness or such skill in caring for the wounded.
No matter how terrible the thought seemed to the countess that Prince Andrei could (very likely, according to the doctor) die during the journey in the arms of her daughter, she could not resist Natasha. Although, as a result of the now established rapprochement between the wounded Prince Andrei and Natasha, it occurred to him that in the event of recovery, the previous relationship of the bride and groom would be resumed, no one, least of all Natasha and Prince Andrei, spoke about this: the unresolved, hanging question of life or death is not only over Bolkonsky, but over Russia, overshadowed all other assumptions.

Pierre woke up late on September 3rd. His head ached, the dress in which he slept without undressing weighed down his body, and in his soul there was a vague consciousness of something shameful that had been committed the day before; This was a shameful conversation yesterday with Captain Rambal.
The clock showed eleven, but it seemed especially cloudy outside. Pierre stood up, rubbed his eyes and, seeing the pistol with a cut-out stock, which Gerasim had put back on the desk, Pierre remembered where he was and what lay ahead of him that very day.

Nadezhda Aleksandrovna Lokhvitskaya (1872-1952) appeared in print under the pseudonym “Taffy”. Father is a famous St. Petersburg lawyer, publicist, and author of works on jurisprudence. Mother is a literature connoisseur; sisters - Maria (poet Mirra Lokhvitskaya), Varvara and Elena (wrote prose), younger brother - all were literary gifted people.

Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya began writing as a child, but her literary debut took place only at the age of thirty, according to a family agreement to enter literature “one by one.” Marriage, the birth of three children, and moving from St. Petersburg to the provinces also did not contribute to literary studies.

In 1900 she separated from her husband and returned to the capital. She first appeared in print with the poem “I Dreamed a Dream...” in 1902 in the magazine “North” (No. 3), followed by stories in the supplement to the magazine “Niva” (1905).

During the years of the Russian Revolution (1905-1907) he composed topical poems for satirical magazines (parodies, feuilletons, epigrams). At the same time, the main genre of Teffi’s work was determined - a humorous story. First in the newspaper “Rech”, then in “Birzhevye Novosti” regularly - almost weekly, in every Sunday issue - Teffi’s literary feuilletons are published, which soon brought her not only fame, but also all-Russian love.

Teffi had the talent to speak on any topic easily and gracefully, with inimitable humor, and knew “the secret of laughing words.” M. Addanov admitted that “people of very different political views and literary tastes agree on admiration for Teffi’s talent.”

In 1910, at the peak of his fame, a two-volume collection of Teffi’s stories and the first collection of poems, “Seven Lights,” were published. If the two-volume work was reprinted more than 10 times before 1917, the modest book of poetry went almost unnoticed against the backdrop of the resounding success of the prose.

Teffi’s poems were criticized by V. Bryusov for being “literary”, but N. Gumilyov praised them for this. “The poetess speaks not about herself and not about what she loves, but about what she could be and what she could love. Hence the mask that she wears with solemn grace and, it seems, irony,” Gumilyov wrote.

Teffi’s languid, somewhat theatrical poems seem designed for melodic recitation or created for romance performance, and indeed, A. Vertinsky used several texts for his songs, and Teffi herself sang them with a guitar.

Teffi had a great sense of the nature of stage conventions, she loved the theater, worked for it (wrote one-act and then multi-act plays - sometimes in collaboration with L. Munstein). Finding herself in exile after 1918, Teffi most regretted the loss of the Russian theater: “Of all that fate deprived me of when it deprived me of my Motherland, my greatest loss is the Theater.”

Teffi's books continued to be published in Berlin and Paris, and exceptional success accompanied her until the end of her long life. In exile, she published about twenty books of prose and only two collections of poetry: “Shamram” (Berlin, 1923), “Passiflora” (Berlin, 1923).