Zinaida Nikolayevna Gippius (1869-1945)
A meditation on exile and suffering. n.d.
Autograph manuscript, fragment of a philosophical text, n.p., n.d.

In French. Half page, 210 x 180mm, with number of cancellations and emendations (tape repairs to verso). Provenance: Temira Pachmuss (1927-2007, professor of Russian literature at Illinois University at Urbana-Champaign and leading Gippius scholar).

A meditation on exile and suffering. 'There is joy when others hate you, – And perceive good as evil, – when they turn away without seeing your tears, – calling you their enemy. / There is joy in being an eternal reprobate, – And like a wave on the ocean travelling far, always alone, – without friends, always alone. / There is only hidden suffering – I want to pass like a shadow – For my unknown pain to be joyful for me – My way of the cross'.

Although the manuscript is undated, Gippius's text is deeply expressive of the increasingly isolated status – socially, financially and intellectually – she and Merezhkovsky endured in the long years of their exile.

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