Andrei Bely (Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev, 1880-1934)
A nervous breakdown. n.d.
Autograph letter signed ('B. Bugaev') to Aleksei Nikolaievich [Tolstoy], n.p., n.d.

In Russian. Two pages, 210 x 129mm, on a bifolium.

'I am not able to speak – just suffocating': Bely incapacitated by a nervous breakdown. 'I am deeply saddened and ashamed to have to write to you about the following: I have already for four days now been afflicted by seizures of neurosis; – so bad that I cannot speak nor move'. He is obliged to go to the country to recuperate, and is on this account unable to participate in a planned debate on 4 May: 'I am not able to speak – just suffocating'. He also asks Tolstoy to postone another meeting, as he is leaving immediately for the country in order to take advantage of the availability of horses at the station. He closes with apologies: 'my flesh becomes weaker and weaker with time'.

Aleksei Tolstoy (1883-1945), known as the 'Comrade Count' for his alignment with the Soviet regime, was a writer of remarkable versatility, at once a pioneer of Russian science fiction, with his novel Aelita (1923), and of historical fiction, with his Peter the First (1929-34). Bely had been an important influence on his early development in the pre-First World War years.

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