Word: bunin
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...Through the production efforts of Walt Disney and French Producer Lou Bunin, some U.S. moviegoers were exposed in a single week to two versions...
...deeper, sadder convictions were never concealed for long. "For 25 years," he complained, "they tear a man to shreds, and then they come and present him with a quill pen made of aluminum." He had little faith in any triumph of human goodness. "In nature," he assured Bunin, "a repulsive caterpillar turns into a lovely butterfly. But with human beings it's the other way round...
...being asked to give his services gratis. "Only little birds sing for nothing," he loved to say. But nothing pleased him more than to phone his friend, Pianist Rachmaninoff, and invite him to an all-night session of duets. One night when Chaliapin was in his cups, he fixed Bunin with a beady eye, and saying, "I think, Vanusha, that you are very tight indeed," humped him on to his back and carried him up five flights of stairs...
...What a Pity that Kolya . . ." Such were Bunin's friends. His enemies were Russian writers who preferred a pampered life in the Soviet Union to weedy exile. One such was Maxim Gorky, who "walked lightly, toes first, with a certain slinking gracefulness typical, if I may say so, of thieves...
...Bunin saw clearly that there was no common ground for supporters of the old and new regimes (he refused two Soviet invitations to return to Russia). But the most touching personal history in his book is that of the Prince of Oldenburg, a man too saintly and naive to realize this. "Oh, what nice, charming people you all are!" cried the good old simpleton after spending an evening chatting with revolutionaries. "And what a pity that Kolya never spent an evening like this! Everything, everything would have been different if you and he had come to know each other...