There are days when I ask myself if I had a dream about all this - Petrograd, Isaac, white nights, a dress not from someone else's shoulder (I was robbed and I walk here God knows what), the opportunity not to think about tomorrow's lunch? You - I have no doubt about it - have been, are and will be. But was I on my trip to Kazan and how could it happen that I left without saying goodbye to you? Oh, how much I demanded from life then, how pampered, capricious, proud I was! Or was I then - me, and now I have lost myself, alone, cut off from my loved ones, tormented by hatred, confusion, perplexity? I am a tie here, and even things, I sometimes think, are able to long for when they do not belong to anyone.
My only refuge is work. The name of my teacher and my priceless friend Vardges Yakovlevich Surenyants. He is sixty years old. There is no time or opportunity to tell you everything he taught me. And God knows if my message will ever reach you! I can only say that if I still live and work after everything I saw and experienced in Yalta - he did it. He lives in Yalta because the Armenian church of the rich Ter-Gukasovs signs his sketches. It is not enough to say that he is an educated man. He speaks German, English, Persian and Italian perfectly. He is in love with Oriental art, was fond of Pre-Raphaelites (direction in painting) and remained an Armenian artist for life. He lived in Paris, Vienna, Rome, Valencia, Venice, he illustrated Maeterlinck, Wilde, Tolstoy, Pushkin, worked at the Moscow Art Theater - according to his sketches "The Seagull" was staged.
However, Vardges Yakovlevich does not teach as much as he does himself. From him there is a silence, which I need so long ago and deeply.
He is lonely, from his assistant, also an Armenian artist, I learned that he loved one woman who married his friend, the famous writer Hovhannisyan all his life. Isn't that why we understand each other from half a word?
Well, what else can I tell you about him? I, like a monastery, went into his wisdom. He gave me confidence. Not with praise, on the contrary, with the demands. But you can only demand this from a talented person. And he treated my Byzantium in his own way. The miracle of art has preserved it for centuries, despite the fact that it was trampled by the Turks - as now, before our eyes, trampled and humiliated by the Germans of Yalta.
Goodbye, dear, dear. Will I ever see you again? Who knows?
If I had my will, I would have walked through Russia. I want to, even dream about it!
I send you my love and blessing.
Your Lisa.
There was nothing impossible in his decision to get to Yalta and take Liza away, although he would have had to cross two front lines and go through Ukraine, where he managed some Makhno. Karnovskyy found out all the details. It was necessary to go with the false certificate about a birthplace - Yalta or any other city in Crimea. Dangerous places started behind Mikhailovskiy farm - a draw lane to Konotop, part of the way you have to walk, and easily run into the gaydamaks (Russian soldiers). It was easy to get to Kiev from Konotop, and in Kiev Karnovsky had a hand: Mavrin gave a letter to his cousin, who was the mayor of Kiev. From Kiev to Odessa - by train, and from Odessa to Yalta - by steamer. Germans, according to rumors, let in Yalta for a bribe.
Karnovsky hid the Kazan documents in a waterproof bag, and sewed the bag into the lining of his coat. He got the money, and Lavrov gave him stud and a watch for bribes. One of Karnovsky's students, who now served in the Kazan City Council, gave him a false certificate that he was a native of Yalta. He signed up with Dobroselov, a Moscow mathematician who had some connections in Ukraine. In short, everything was ready to leave when his mother got sick. At first Karnovskyy decided that the disease was fake and connected with his decision. But the disease - weakness and dizziness - increased every day. Everything in the house fell apart, fell apart. It broke up, fell apart, and his "crazy" decision, as Lavrov proved, cooled.
In November 1920, the next day after the news about the liberation of Yalta appeared in the newspapers, he wrote to the artist Surenyants, in whose house Lisa lived, and after a long wait received an answer - a large letter on six pages, written in a slightly shaking old hand. The paper was thick, yellow, and the pages were renumbered with large Roman numerals. This is what he read:
Yalta. 15.03.1921.
Dear Konstantin Pavlovich, I am sorry to answer your letter late. I confess that I had to gather my soul before writing to you about Elizabeth Nikolaevna.
First, I will say that you are not a stranger to me. Elizabeth and I have talked a lot about you. It happened that she read me lines from your letters, showed me photos. She endured painful separation from you. Until the last minute of her stay in Yalta, she waited for news from you and, having returned, exhausted, after the first unsuccessful attempt to leave, first asked if there was a letter from you ...
To be continued...