We have grown very fond of the Bulgakovs and see them almost every day. Misha amazes me with his energy, efficiency, enterprise and cheerfulness of spirit. We are great friends and inseparable interlocutors.

Nadezhda Afanasyevna Zemskaya kindly took us in… It turned into a ‘terem-teremok’ [a village hut], where five people have already been living and awaiting the arrival of Elena Bulgakova’s younger sister from Kyiv. Then we came along. Fortunately, it was summer, and we were accommodated in the teachers’ room under a portrait of the stern Ushinsky on an oilcloth sofa, from which I rolled down at night. There were other portraits, but less severe, and therefore unmemorable. With amazing meekness and enviable patience — as if it were necessary and could not be otherwise — Nadezhda Afanasyevna received all her relatives.