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22 May 1922
Dear Koteliansky
I feel you ought to know this. I met Bunin last Tuesday evening. He seemed very surprised that he had received nothing for this story in The Dial and that he had not been consulted in anyway about the English translation of his stories. He realised that there is no law by which a Russian author can claim any sum of money for the translation rights of his stories. But it was evident that he felt, in the existing circumstances, when he receives no money at all from Russia and finds it terribly difficult to live at all, he was entitled to a share of whatever profits there may be. I don't know. Perhaps you have a scheme by which he may benefit later. But if that is the case would you write to him and explain? I think it would relieve him greatly. You see they do not know you and poverty has made them resentful. Zinaida Hippius (whom I detest) chipped in with the fact I that you had received 500 dollars for the American acting rights of her play and that you had told her she was not entitled to a penny. But it is Bunin who matters. He is a very decent man - awfully decent, and both he and Manoukhin believe Hippius' story.
You understand why I write this?
Yours ever
Katherine. [To S.S. Koteliansky, 25 May 1922.]