Three Meetings With Grin

Abstract

I shall Start with the second. The twenties. A House of the Arts had opened. It was in the former mansion of a rich man, Eliseev, on the corner of the Nevsky and the Moika. Writers, poets, painters assembled under a single roof. N. Tikhonov, V. Rozhdestvenskii, O. Forsh, Al. Sandler, Mikh, Slonimskii — I cannot remember them all — occupied small rooms opening onto a long hallway. A tall man in a tunic, stooped, with prominent cheekbones and uncommonly serious eyes, came to live in one of those rooms: Aleksandr Grin. I had known Grin earlier. Our first meeting occurred when I was still a boy. I had seen that silent man in the apartment of Kalistrat Faleevich Zhakov, a Zyrianian [Komi]. A literary circle attended by young and not so young writers met at Zhakov's. I was the youngest, then a student in the local high school. At that time Grin was in hiding and lived under another name, which I do not remember because it was so long ago. He had a very poor room on Vasil'evksii Island, the greatest merit of which was that its windows faced the Neva.