“With Turgenev N.G. Bunin met earlier than other writers. This acquaintance began by chance in 1860 or 1861, at the end of August or beginning of September, while hunting partridges in the Shchigrovsky district of the Kursk province. Bunin and his beloved dog were hunting in familiar places and, having climbed out onto a hillock, saw in the distance two more hunters walking in the same places almost in his footsteps: one was wearing a light round hat with wide brims, obviously a gentleman, and the other, as far as one could judge judging by his suit and pancake-shaped cap, which had slid down to the very back of his head, he was a guide from a typical courtyard of serfdom...”