Of course, first of all, this is a story about love. That young, passionate love, when every moment of meeting with your beloved is sweet and painful (and the story is told from the perspective of the hero, a young rich man, and this detail will turn out to be very important in understanding the meaning of the work), when it is impossible, without incredible tenderness, to look at the star marks , left by her heels on the snow, when incomplete intimacy seems ready to drive you crazy and you are all permeated with that “ecstatic despair” that breaks your heart!
Bunin attached particular importance to the writer’s ability to describe the brightest, most frank moments of love. It was to the sharp-sweet moments of rapprochement between a man and a woman that he dedicated the cycle “Dark Alleys,” which was written over 10 years - from the mid-30s to the mid-40s. - and consisting (almost unprecedented in the history of literature!) of 38 short stories, telling only about love, only about meetings, only about partings. And in this sense, “Sunstroke” can be considered as a prelude to this cycle. And as a kind of demand-credo of the writer, one can regard his words in one of the stories: “The writer has the same full right to be bold in his verbal depictions of love and its faces, which at all times was granted in this case to painters and sculptors: only vile souls they see the vile even in the beautiful or the terrible.” Of particular note last words: beautiful and terrible. For Bunin, they are always nearby, inseparable, determining the very essence of life. Therefore, in “Clean Monday” the heroine will also be brought into something like an ecstatic stupor by “beauty and horror” that accompany death, departure to another world, the entire funeral ritual!
However, the above statement by Bunin did not prevent many critics and literary scholars from seeing the influence of Western literature in the frank stories of “Dark Alleys”: after all, this is indeed the case in Russian classical literature scenes of love had never been depicted before (it is known that L.N. Tolstoy preferred to fill an entire line with dots rather than reveal the secret of the closeness of Anna Karenina and Vronsky). For Bunin, there is nothing unworthy or unclean in love (we repeat, in love!). “Love,” as one of his contemporaries wrote, “always seemed to him to be perhaps the most significant mysterious thing in the world... All love is great happiness...” And the story “ Clean Monday” tells about such a mysterious, great, happily-unhappy love.
And yet this story, although it has all the signs of a love story and its culmination is the night spent by the lovers together (it is important that this is the night of the eve of Lent; Clean Monday comes after Forgiveness Sunday and is the first day of Lent), it is not about this or not only about this.... Already at the very beginning of the story it is directly stated that a “strange love” will unfold before us between a dazzling handsome man, in whose appearance there is even something “Sicilian” (however, he comes only from Penza), and “The Shamakhan queen” (as those around her call the heroine), whose portrait is given in great detail: there was something “Indian, Persian” in the girl’s beauty (although her origins are very prosaic: her father is a merchant of a noble family from Tver, her grandmother is from Astrakhan ). She has “a dark-amber face, magnificent and somewhat ominous hair in its thick blackness, softly shining like black sable fur, eyebrows, black like velvet coal (Bunin’s amazing oxymoron! - M.M.), eyes”, captivating “ velvety crimson” lips, shaded with dark fluff. Her favorite evening outfit is also described in detail: a garnet velvet dress and matching shoes with gold buckles. (Somewhat unexpected in the rich palette of Bunin’s epithets is the persistent repetition of the epithet velvet, which, obviously, should highlight the amazing softness of the heroine. But let’s not forget about “coal,” which is undoubtedly associated with hardness.) Thus, Bunin’s heroes are deliberately likened to each other to a friend - in the sense of beauty, youth, charm, obvious originality of appearance.
However, further Bunin carefully, but very consistently “prescribes” the differences between the “Sicilian” and the “Shamakhan Queen”, which will turn out to be fundamental and ultimately lead to a dramatic denouement - eternal separation. And here lies the difference between the concept of love revealed in “ Sunstroke”, and the love of the heroes of “Clean Monday”. There, the lack of a future for the lieutenant and the woman in the canvas dress was explained by the incompatibility of the severity of the experiences caused by the “sun” love blow with the everyday life that millions of people live and which will soon begin for the heroes themselves.
“Sunstroke,” according to Bunin, is one of the manifestations of cosmic living life, which they were able to join for a moment. But it can be revealed to a person both in moments of turning to the highest works of art, and through memory, which blurs temporary barriers, and during contact and dissolution in nature, when you feel like a small part of it.
“Clean Monday” is different. Nothing bothers the heroes; they live such a prosperous life that the concept of everyday life is not very applicable to their pastime. It is no coincidence that Bunin literally piece by piece recreates a rich picture of intellectual and cultural life Russia 1911-1912 (For this story, the attachment of events to a specific time is generally very important. Bunin usually prefers greater temporal abstraction.) Here, as they say, on one spot, all the events that during the first one and a half decades of the 20th century are concentrated. excited the minds of the Russian intelligentsia. These are new productions and skits Art Theater; lectures by Andrei Bely, read by him in such an original manner that everyone talked about it; the most popular stylization of historical events of the 16th century. - witch trials and V. Bryusov’s novel “Fire Angel”; fashion writers Viennese school“modern” A. Schnitzler and G. Hofmannsthal; works of the Polish decadents K. Tetmaier and S. Przybyszewski; the stories of L. Andreev, who attracted everyone's attention, the concerts of F. Chaliapin... Literary scholars even find historical inconsistencies in the picture of life in pre-war Moscow depicted by Bunin, pointing out that many of the events he cited could not have occurred at the same time. However, it seems that Bunin deliberately compresses time, achieving its utmost density, materiality, and tangibility.
So, every day and evening of the heroes is filled with something interesting - visiting theaters, restaurants. They should not burden themselves with work or study (it is true that the heroine is studying at some courses, but she cannot really answer why she attends them), they are free and young. I would really like to add: and happy. But this word can only be applied to the hero, although he is aware that the happiness of being near her is mixed with torment. And yet for him this is undoubted happiness. “Great happiness,” as Bunin says (and his voice in this story largely merges with the voice of the narrator).
What about the heroine? Is she happy? Isn't it the greatest happiness for a woman to discover that she is loved? more life(“It’s true, how you love me!” she said with quiet bewilderment, shaking her head.”) that she is desired, that they want to see her as a wife? But this is clearly not enough for the heroine! It is she who utters a significant phrase about happiness, which encapsulates an entire philosophy of life: “Our happiness, my friend, is like water in delirium: if you pull it, it’s inflated, but if you pull it out, there’s nothing.” At the same time, it turns out that it was not invented by her, but said by Platon Karataev, whose wisdom her interlocutor also immediately declared “eastern”.
It’s probably worth immediately paying attention to the fact that Bunin, clearly emphasizing the gesture, emphasized how the young man, in response to Karataev’s words cited by the heroine, “waved his hand.” Thus, the discrepancy between the views and perceptions of certain phenomena by the hero and heroine becomes obvious. He exists in the real dimension, in the present time, therefore he calmly perceives everything that happens in him as an integral part of him. Boxes of chocolates are as much a sign of attention for him as a book; In general, he doesn’t care where to go - whether to have dinner at the Metropol, or wander around Ordynka in search of Griboedov’s house, sit at dinner in a tavern, or listen to the gypsies. He does not feel the surrounding vulgarity, which is wonderfully captured by Bunin both in the performance of the “Polish woman Tranblanc”, when his partner shouts out a meaningless set of phrases as a “goat”, and in the cheeky performance of songs by the old gypsy “with the gray muzzle of a drowned man” and the gypsy woman “with a low forehead under a tar fringe.” " He is not very offended by drunk people around, annoyingly helpful sex workers, or the emphasized theatricality in the behavior of people of art. And how the height of discrepancy with the heroine sounds is his agreement to her invitation, pronounced in English: “All right!”
All this does not mean, of course, that he is not available high feelings that he is unable to appreciate the unusualness and uniqueness of the girl he meets. On the contrary, enthusiastic love clearly saves him from the surrounding vulgarity, and the way with which rapture and pleasure he listens to her words, how he can highlight a special intonation in them, how attentive he is even to little things (he sees a “quiet light” in her eyes, his her “kind talkativeness” pleases her, speaks in his favor. It is not without reason that when he mentions that his beloved may go to a monastery, he, “lost with excitement,” lights a cigarette and almost admits out loud that out of despair he is capable of stabbing someone to death or also becoming a monk. And when something really happens that only arose in the heroine’s imagination, and she decides first to obey, and then, apparently, to take tonsure (in the epilogue the hero meets her at the Marfo-Mary Convent of Mercy) - he first sinks and drinks himself to such an extent that it seems that it is impossible to be reborn, and then, albeit little by little, he “recovers”, returns to life, but somehow “indifferently, hopelessly,” although he sobs, walking through the places where the two of them once visited: He has a sensitive heart: after all, immediately after a night of intimacy, when nothing portends trouble, he feels himself and what happened so strongly and bitterly that the old woman near the Iverskaya Chapel turns to him with the words: “Oh, don’t kill yourself, don’t kill yourself like that!”
Consequently, the height of his feelings and ability to experience are beyond doubt. The heroine herself admits this when, in her farewell letter, she asks God to give him the strength “not to answer” her, realizing that their correspondence will only “uselessly prolong and increase our torment.” And yet the intensity of his mental life cannot be compared with her spiritual experiences and insights. Moreover, Bunin deliberately creates the impression that he, as it were, “echoes” the heroine, agreeing to go where she calls, admiring what delights her, entertaining her with what, as it seems to him, can occupy her in the first place. This does not mean that he does not have his own “I”, his own individuality. He is no stranger to reflections and observations, he is attentive to the changes in his beloved’s mood, and is the first to notice that their relationship is developing in such a “strange” city as Moscow.
But nevertheless, it is she who leads the “party”, it is her voice that is most clearly distinguishable. Actually, the heroine’s fortitude and the choice she ultimately makes become semantic core Bunin's work. It is her deep concentration on something that is not immediately definable, for the time being hidden from prying eyes, that constitutes the alarming nerve of the narrative, the ending of which defies any logical or everyday explanation. And if the hero is talkative and restless, if he can put off a painful decision until later, assuming that everything will be resolved somehow by itself or, in extreme cases, not think about the future at all, then the heroine is always thinking about something of her own, which is only indirect breaks through in her remarks and conversations. She loves to quote Russian chronicles, especially the ancient Russian “The Tale of the Faithful Spouses Peter and Fevronia of Murom” (Bunin incorrectly indicated the name of the prince - Pavel).
She can listen to church hymns. The very vowel sounds of the words of the Old Russian language will not leave her indifferent, and she will repeat them, as if spellbound...
And her conversations are no less “strange” than her actions. She either invites her lover to the Novodevichy Convent, then leads him around Ordynka in search of the house where Griboyedov lived (it would be more accurate to say, he visited, because in one of the Horde alleys there was the house of uncle A.S. Griboyedov), then she talks about her visiting an old schismatic cemetery, he confesses his love for Chudov, Zachatievsky and other monasteries, where he constantly goes. And, of course, the most “strange” thing, incomprehensible from the point of view of everyday logic, is her decision to retire to a monastery, to sever all ties with the world.
But Bunin, as a writer, does everything to “explain” this strangeness. The reason for this “strangeness” is the contradictions of the Russian national character, which themselves are a consequence of Rus'’s location at the crossroads of East and West. This is where the story constantly emphasizes the clash between Eastern and Western principles. The author's eye, the narrator's eye, stops at the cathedrals built in Moscow by Italian architects, ancient Russian architecture, who has adopted eastern traditions (something Kyrgyz in the towers of the Kremlin wall), the Persian beauty of the heroine - the daughter of a Tver merchant, reveals a combination of incongruous things in her favorite clothes (either an Astrakhan grandmother's arkhaluk, or a European fashionable dress), in the atmosphere and affections - “Moonlight Sonata” ” and the Turkish sofa on which she reclines. When the Moscow Kremlin clock strikes, she hears the sounds of a Florentine clock. The heroine’s gaze also captures the “extravagant” habits of the Moscow merchants - pancakes with caviar, washed down with frozen champagne. But she herself is not alien to the same tastes: she orders foreign sherry with Russian navazhka.
No less important is the internal contradiction of the heroine, who is depicted by the writer at a spiritual crossroads. She often says one thing and does something else: she is surprised by the gourmandness of other people, but she herself has lunch and dinner with an excellent appetite, then she attends all the newfangled meetings, then she does not leave the house at all, she is irritated by the surrounding vulgarity, but goes to dance the Tranblanc polka, causing everyone’s admiration and applause, delays moments of intimacy with her beloved, and then suddenly agrees to it...
But in the end, she still makes a decision, the only correct decision, which, according to Bunin, was predetermined by Russia - by its entire destiny, its entire history. The path of repentance, humility and forgiveness.
Refusal of temptations (it is not for nothing that, agreeing to intimacy with her lover, the heroine says, characterizing his beauty: “The serpent in human nature, extremely beautiful...” - i.e., she refers to him the words from the legend of Peter and Fevronia - about the intrigues the devil, who sent the pious princess “a flying serpent for fornication”), which appeared at the beginning of the 20th century. before Russia in the form of uprisings and riots and, according to the writer’s conviction, served as the beginning of its “cursed days” - this is what was supposed to provide his homeland with a worthy future. Forgiveness addressed to all those who are guilty is what, according to Bunin, would help Russia withstand the whirlwind of historical cataclysms of the 20th century. The path of Russia is the path of fasting and renunciation. But that didn't happen. Russia has chosen a different path. And the writer never tired of mourning her fate while in exile.
Probably, strict zealots of Christian piety will not consider the writer’s arguments in favor of the heroine’s decision convincing. In their opinion, she clearly accepted him not under the influence of the grace that descended on her, but for other reasons. They will rightly feel that there is too little revelation and too much poetry in her adherence to church rituals. She herself says that her love for church rituals can hardly be considered real religiosity. Indeed, she perceives funerals too aesthetically (wrought gold brocade, white bedspread embroidered with black letters (air) on the face of the deceased, blinding snow and shine in the cold spruce branches inside the grave), she listens too admiringly to the music of the words of Russian legends (“I re-read what I especially liked until I memorize it by heart”), she is too immersed in the atmosphere accompanying the service in the church (“the stichera are wonderfully sung there,” “there are puddles and air everywhere.” already soft, my soul is somehow tender, sad...”, “all the doors in the cathedral are open, ordinary people come and go all day long”...). And in this, the heroine, in her own way, turns out to be close to Bunin himself, who also in the Novodevichy Convent will see “jackdaws that look like nuns,” “gray coral branches in the frost,” marvelously emerging “on the golden enamel of the sunset,” blood-red walls and mysteriously glowing lamps. By the way, the closeness of the heroines to the writer, their special spirituality, significance and unusualness were immediately noted by critics. Gradually, the concept of “Bunin’s women” is taking root in literary criticism, as bright and definite as “Turgenev’s girls”.
Thus, in choosing the ending of the story, it is not so much the religious attitude and position of Bunin the Christian that is important, but rather the position of Bunin the writer, for whose worldview a sense of history is extremely important. “The feeling of the homeland, its antiquity,” as the heroine of “Clean Monday” says about it. This is also why she abandoned a future that could have turned out happily, because she decided to leave everything worldly, because the disappearance of beauty, which she feels everywhere, is unbearable for her. “Desperate cancans” and frisky Poles Tranblanc, performed by the most talented people of Russia - Moskvin, Stanislavsky and Sulerzhitsky, replaced singing on “hooks” (what is that!), and in the place of the heroes Peresvet and Oslyabi (remember who they are) - “pale from drunk, with large sweat on his forehead”, the beauty and pride of the Russian stage - Kachalov and the “daring” Chaliapin, almost falling off his feet.
Therefore, the phrase: “It’s only in some northern monasteries that this Rus' now remains” - appears quite naturally in the mouth of the heroine. She means the irretrievably disappearing feelings of dignity, beauty, goodness, for which she yearns immensely and which she hopes to find in monastic life.
As we have seen, an unambiguous interpretation of “Clean Monday” is hardly possible. This work is about love, and about beauty, and about the duty of man, and about Russia, and about its fate. This is probably why it was Bunin’s favorite story, the best, according to him, of what he wrote, for the creation of which he thanked God...
In the writer's diaries there are often entries about his work on stories. On the night of May 8-9, 1944, while working on the short story “Clean Monday,” which I. A. Bunin himself loved very much, he wrote in his diary: “It’s one o’clock in the morning. I got up from the table and had a few pages left to finish on Clean Monday. He turned off the light, opened the window to ventilate the room, not the slightest movement of air; the full moon, the entire valley in the thinnest fog, far on the horizon the gentle pink shine of the sea, silence, the soft freshness of young tree greenery, here and there the clicking of the first nightingales... Lord, extend my strength for my lonely, poor life in this beauty and work! »
Features of the genre. The composition “Clean Monday” is a short story. Novella small prose genre, comparable in volume to the story, but it differs in its sharp centripetal plot and compositional rigor. The novella is characterized by the presence of a so-called pointe turning point. In "Clean Monday" such a novelistic pointe is the unexpected departure of the heroine to a monastery.
I. A. Bunin is masterfully diverse in constructing the plot. “Clean Monday” has a flowing plot, which is combined with the consistency of the aesthetics of external descriptions. Speaking about the non-hierarchical nature of the artistic world of I. A. Bunin, one can notice that “Clean Monday”, a short story about love, contains a description of food: pies with burbot fish soup, pink hazel grouse in deep-fried sour cream and chocolate, stacks of pancakes, filled to excess with butter and sour cream, etc.
Themes, motifs, symbols of “Dark Alleys” can be called an encyclopedia of love. The most varied moments and shades of feelings that arise between a man and a woman occupy the writer; he peers, listens, guesses, tries to imagine the whole “gamut” difficult relationships hero and heroine.
According to I. A. Bunin, in life everything is merged and intertwined. Love, lofty and strange, existing next to everyday life and everyday life, adjacent to the funny and crazy, it was in the past, it is almost the present, it can always be. Love is the main form of manifestation of cosmic life. It is the only one that gives unprecedented, but short-lived happiness of harmonious existence, communion with the innermost depths of life, and it also conceals within itself an inexorable catastrophe, inevitably brings tragedy. It is without personality, does not come from a person, but “falls” on him from the outside and forever knocks him out of the rut of everyday existence, but also beyond the boundaries of his modest personality.
I. A. Bunin also acts as a poet in prose: he does not need such an intermediate authority as a hero in order to instill in the reader a certain state of mind. The state is inspired directly, and already under its impression the reader perceives and understands the hero, his soul and his actions. The reader does not need a detailed depiction of the hero's soul to understand what is happening to him. The author introduces him into a similar state of mind. He not only easily understands the mysteries of the hero’s behavior, but, as happens with understanding his own mental situation, he often does not see any mystery here. Therefore, there is no desire to delve into the motives of the actions of the heroine of “Clean Monday”.
I. A. Bunin’s story “Clean Monday” was written on May 12, 1944, when it was already clear to the whole world. What Soviet army wins victory over Nazi Germany. It was then that Bunin reconsidered his attitude towards Soviet Russia, which he did not accept after the October Revolution, as a result of which he went abroad. The writer had a desire to turn to the origins, the beginning of all the disasters that befell Russia.
The story is included in the collection "Dark Alleys", but is distinguished by its originality. Bunin himself considered this story the best of all that he wrote. The author’s diary contains an entry from 1944 on the night of May 8-9: “It’s one o’clock in the morning. I got up from the table - I just had to finish writing a few pages of “Clean Monday.” I turned off the light, opened the window to ventilate the room - not the slightest movement of air... "He asks the Lord to give him the strength to complete the story. This means that the writer attached great importance to this work. And already on May 12, he makes an entry in his diary, where he thanks God for allowing him to write “Clean Monday.”
Before us is a poetic portrait of the era Silver Age with his ideological confusion and spiritual quest. Let's try to follow the author step by step to understand what makes this work unique.
The story opens with a city sketch.
“The Moscow gray winter day was darkening, the gas in the lanterns was coldly lit, the store windows were warmly illuminated - and the evening life of Moscow, freed from daytime affairs, flared up...” Already in one sentence there are epithets: “warm” - “cold”, perhaps indicating on complex and contradictory phenomena and characters. The Moscow evening bustle is emphasized by many details and comparisons: “the cab sleighs rushed thicker and more vigorously, the crowded, diving trams rattled more heavily,” “green stars fell from the wires with a hiss.” ..Before us, life is vanity, life is temptation and seduction, it is not without reason that when describing the sparks falling from the wires of a tram, the author uses not only the metaphor “green stars”, but also the epithet “with hissing”, which associatively evokes the image of the serpent - the tempter in biblical garden. The motives of vanity and temptation are leading in the story.
The narration comes from the perspective of the hero, not the heroine, which is very important. It is enigmatic, mysterious and incomprehensible, complex and contradictory, and remains so until the end of the story - not fully explained. He is simple, understandable, easy to communicate, and does not have the heroine’s reflection. There are no names, perhaps because young people personify the pre-revolutionary era and their images carry some kind of symbolic subtext, which we will try to identify.
The text is full of many historical and cultural details that require special comment. A young man lives at the Red Gate. This is a monument to the Elizabethan Baroque. At the beginning of the 18th century - the Triumphal Gate for the ceremonial entry of Peter the Great. Because of their beauty they began to be called Red. In 1927, the gates were dismantled to streamline traffic. The name of the metro station "Red Gate" has been preserved. I think the hero’s place of residence is associated with celebration and celebration. And the heroine lives near the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which was conceived by Alexander the First as gratitude to God for intercession for Russia and a monument to the glorious deeds of the Russian people in Patriotic War 1812. The main altar is dedicated to the Nativity of Christ - December 25 - on this day the enemy was expelled from Russia. The temple was destroyed by the Bolsheviks on December 5, 1931, and has now been restored. For a long time, on the site of the temple there was a swimming pool "Moscow".
Every evening the hero races on a stretching trotter from the Red Gate to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. He has his own coachman, who alone in the story has a name: his name is Fedor. But the text is replete with the names of writers and cultural figures of the Silver Age, which accurately and in detail recreates the atmosphere of that time. Every evening the hero takes his beloved to dine at fashionable and expensive restaurants: to Prague, to the Hermitage, to Metropol, then the young people visit theaters, concerts, and after events they go to restaurants again: to Yar (the restaurant on the corner Kuznetsky Most and Neglinnaya Street), to "Strelna" - a country restaurant in Moscow with a huge winter garden.
The young man calls his relationship with the heroine strange: the girl avoided all conversations about the future, was mysterious and incomprehensible to him, they were not close to the end, and this kept the hero “in unresolved tension, in painful anticipation,” but the young man was “indescribably happy every hour spent near her."
An important role in the characterization of the heroine is played by the interior, which combines both eastern and western details. For example, a wide Turkish sofa (East) and an expensive piano (West). The girl was learning a “slow, somnambulistically beautiful beginning” Moonlight Sonata". The heroine herself is only at the beginning of her path, she is at a crossroads, she can’t decide where to go, what to strive for. But the hero doesn’t ask himself any questions, he just lives and enjoys every moment, enjoys every moment. It seemed What is there to be sad about? Both are rich, healthy, young and so good-looking that they are followed everywhere with envious glances.
It is no coincidence that a portrait of a barefoot Tolstoy hangs above the heroine’s sofa. At the end of his life, the great old man left home to begin new life, striving for moral self-improvement. Therefore, the heroine’s departure from worldly life to enter a monastery at the end of the story does not seem so unexpected.
Portraits of heroes are of no small importance in the story. He, originally from the Penza province, is handsome for some reason with a southern, hot beauty. "Some kind of Sicilian." Yes, and the character young man southern, lively, always ready for a happy smile, a good joke. In general, he personifies the West with its focus on success and personal happiness. The girl has “some kind of Indian, Persian beauty: a dark-amber face; magnificent and somewhat ominous hair in its thick blackness; eyebrows softly shining like black sable fur; eyes black as velvet coal; captivating mouth with velvety crimson lips it was shaded with dark fluff..." The heroine's obvious weakness was good clothes, velvet, silk, expensive fur. Most often, she wore a garnet velvet dress and matching shoes with gold clasps. But she attended the courses as a modest student and had breakfast in a vegetarian canteen on Arbat for 30 kopecks. the heroine seems to be choosing between luxury and simplicity, she constantly thinks about something, reads a lot, sometimes does not leave the house for three or four days.
The story of how the young people met is interesting. In December 1912, they attended a lecture by Andrei Bely at the Art Circle. Here Bunin deliberately violates chronological accuracy. The fact is that in 1912-1913 Bely was not in Moscow, but in Germany. But it is more important for the author to recreate the very spirit of the era, its diversity. Other cultural figures of the Silver Age are also mentioned. In particular, the story “Fire Angel” by Valery Bryusov is mentioned, which the heroine did not finish reading due to its stiltedness. She also left Chaliapin’s concert, thinking that famous singer"I was too daring." She has her own opinion on everything, her likes and dislikes. At the beginning of the story, fashionable writers of the time are mentioned, whom the girl reads: Hofmannsthal, Pshebyshevsky. Schnitzler, Tetmeyer.
It is worth paying attention to the description of Moscow, visible from the heroine’s window. She settled on the fifth floor of a corner room opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Savior solely for the view from the window: “...behind one window lay low in the distance a huge picture of the snow-gray Moscow across the river; in the other, to the left, part of the Kremlin was visible; moderately close, the very new bulk of Christ the Savior was white, in the golden dome of which the jackdaws that were forever hovering around it were reflected with bluish spots.. “A strange city!” - the hero thinks. What strange thing did he see in Moscow? Two origins: eastern and western. “St. Basil and the Savior on Bor, Italian cathedrals - and something Kyrgyz in the tips of the towers on the Kremlin walls...” - this is how the young man reflects.
Another “talking” detail in the characterization of the heroine is her silk arkhaluk - the inheritance of her Astrakhan grandmother, again an oriental motif.
Love and happiness... The heroes disagree on these philosophical issues. For him, love is happiness. She claims that she is not suitable for marriage, and in response to his phrase: “Yes, after all, this is not love, not love...” - responds from the darkness: “Maybe. Who knows what happiness is?” She quotes the words of Platon Karataev from Leo Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace”: “Our happiness, my friend, is like water in delirium: if you pull it, it’s inflated, but if you pull it out, there’s nothing.” The hero calls these words eastern wisdom.
Two days in the life of the heroes are described in detail. The first is Forgiveness Sunday. On this day, the young man learned a lot about his beloved. She quotes a line from the Lenten prayer of Efim the Syrian: “Lord, master of my life...” - and invites the hero to the Novodevichy Convent, and also reports that she was at the Rogozhskoye cemetery - the famous, schismatic one, and was present at the funeral of the archbishop. knows words such as "ripids", "triciria". The young man is amazed: he did not know that she was so religious. But the girl objects: “This is not religiosity.” She herself doesn’t know what it is. The girl is delighted church service in the Kremlin cathedrals, deacons and singers of the church choir, compares them with the heroes of the Battle of Kulikovo, the monks sent by St. Sergius of Radonezh to help Dmitry Donskoy in the confrontation with the Golden Horde. Think. the names of Peresvet and Oslyabi have symbolic connotations. Former warriors - heroes go to the monastery, and then again commit military feat. After all, the girl is also preparing for a spiritual feat.
Let's consider the landscape given at the time the heroes visited the Novodevichy Convent. Some details emphasize the beauty of this “peaceful, sunny” evening: frost on the trees, the creaking of steps in silence in the snow, the golden enamel of the sunset, the gray corals of branches in frost. Everything is filled with peace, silence and harmony, some kind of warm sadness. The feeling of anxiety is caused by the “brick and bloody walls of the monastery, chatty jackdaws that look like nuns. For some reason the heroes went to Ordynka, looked for Griboyedov’s house, but never found it. Griboyedov’s name is not mentioned by chance. A Westerner in his views, he died in embassy in the East in Persia at the hands of an angry, fanatical crowd.
The next episode of this evening takes place in the famous Yegorov tavern in Okhotny Ryad, where the Old Testament merchants washed down fiery pancakes with grainy caviar with frozen champagne (pancakes are a symbol of Russian Maslenitsa, champagne is a symbol Western culture). Here the heroine draws attention to the icon of the Mother of God of Three Hands and says with admiration: “Good! There are wild men below, and here are pancakes with champagne and the Mother of God of Three Hands. Three hands! After all, this is India!” The heroine is wrong, of course. The three-handed woman is in no way connected with the Indian god Shiva, but the rapprochement with the East is symbolic. The girl quotes lines from Russian chronicles, remembers how she went to the Chudov Monastery on Strastnaya last year: “Oh, how good it was! There were puddles everywhere, the air was already soft, spring-like, my soul was somehow tender, sad, and all the time there was a feeling of homeland, her antiquities..." With a quiet light in her eyes she says, "I love Russian chronicles, I love Russian legends so much that I keep re-reading what I especially like until I memorize it by heart." The heroine retells "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia." Bunin deliberately combines two episodes of this ancient Russian story. In one, a serpent “in human nature, exceedingly beautiful” began to appear to the wife of the autocratic noble Prince of Murom Pavel. Devilish temptation and seduction - this is exactly how a girl perceives a young man. And the second episode is connected with the images of the holy believers Peter and Fevronia, who went to the monastery and reposed on the same day and hour.
Now let’s analyze the episode “On Clean Monday”. The heroine invites a young man to the “cabbage party” of the Art Theater. The young man perceives this invitation as just another “Moscow quirk.” since before the girl considered these skits vulgar, she nevertheless answered cheerfully and in English: “Ol right!” I think that this is also a characteristic of a hero associated with the West. By the way, Bunin himself also did not like the skits and had never been there, so in a letter to B. Zaitsev he asked whether he accurately recreated the atmosphere of the skits; it was important for him to be accurate in all the details.
The episode opens with a description of the heroine's apartment. The young man opened the door with his key, but did not immediately enter from the dark hallway. He was amazed bright light, everything was lit: chandeliers, candelabra on the sides of the mirror and a tall lamp under a light lampshade behind the head of the sofa. The beginning of the “Moonlight Sonata” sounded - increasingly rising, sounding the further, the more languid, more inviting, in somnambulist-blissful sadness.
A parallel can be drawn with Margarita’s preparations for Satan’s Ball at Bulgakov’s. All the lights were on in Margarita's bedroom. The three-leaf window glowed with furious electric fire. A mirror is also mentioned - a dressing table as a way of passing from one world to another.
The appearance of the heroine is recreated in detail: a straight and somewhat theatrical pose, a black velvet dress that made her thinner, a festive headdress of jet-black hair, the dark amber of her bare arms, shoulders, the tender and full beginning of her breasts, the sparkle of diamond earrings along her slightly powdered cheeks, the velvety purple of her lips ; At her temples, black shiny braids curled in half-rings toward her eyes, giving her the look of an oriental beauty from a popular print. The hero is amazed by such a brilliant beauty of his beloved, he has a confused face, and she treats her appearance with slight irony: “Now, if I were a singer and sang on the stage... I would respond to applause with a friendly smile and slight bows to the right and to the left, up and into the stalls, and she would imperceptibly but carefully move the train away with her foot so as not to step on it..."
“The Cabbage Man” is Satan’s ball, where the heroine succumbed to all temptations: she smoked a lot and kept sipping champagne, watching intently as the big Stanislavsky with white hair and black eyebrows and the stocky Moskvin in pince-nez on his trough-shaped face performed a desperate cancan to the laughter of the audience.. ." Kachalov called the heroine “the tsar-maiden, the Shamakhan queen,” and this definition emphasizes both the Russian and oriental beauty of the heroine.
All this carnival action takes place on Clean Monday, the beginning of Lent. And this means that Clean Monday in religious sense there wasn't. It was on this night that the heroine leaves the young man with her for the first time. And at dawn, quietly and evenly, she tells him that she is leaving for Tver for an indefinite time, but promises to write about the future.
The young man walked home through the sticky snow past the Iveron Chapel. "the inside of which was burning hotly and shining with whole bonfires of candles. Here, too, there is a bright light, but this is a different light - the light of fasting and repentance, the light of prayers. He stood in the crowd of old women and the beggar, trampled on his knees, took off his hat. Some unfortunate old woman said to him, wincing from pitiful tears: “Oh, don’t kill yourself like that! Sin! Sin!"
Two weeks later he received a letter with a gentle but firm request not to look for her. she decided to go to obedience and hopes to decide to take monastic vows.
The hero's life turned into absolute hell: he disappeared into the dirtiest taverns, became an alcoholic, and sank lower and lower. Then he gradually began to recover - indifferent, hopeless. Two years have passed since that Clean Monday. In 14, on New Year's Eve, the hero goes to the Kremlin, drives into the empty Archangel Cathedral, stands for a long time, without praying, as if expecting something. Driving along Ordynka, he remembered his past happiness and cried and cried. .. The hero stopped at the gates of the Marfo-Mariinsky monastery, where they did not want to let him in because of the service, where Elizaveta Feodorovna was present. Having given the watchman a ruble, he entered the courtyard and saw how icons and banners were being carried out of the church, and behind them, all in white, long, thin-faced, tall, walking slowly, earnestly with lowered eyes, with a large candle in her hand, Grand Duchess, and behind her a white line of nuns. One of those walking in the middle suddenly raised her head, covered with a white shawl, and fixed her dark eyes on the darkness, as if she felt his presence. Thus ends this amazing story.
In 1937, Ivan Bunin began work on his best book. The collection “Dark Alleys” was first published after the end of World War II. This book is a collection of short tragic stories about love. One of the most famous stories Bunina - “Clean Monday”. Analysis and summary works are presented in today's article.
"Dark Alleys"
The analysis of Bunin’s “Clean Monday” should begin with a brief history of the creation of the work. This is one of latest stories, included in the collection “Dark Alleys”. Bunin completed work on the work “Clean Monday” on May 12, 1944. The story was first published in New York.
The writer was probably pleased with this essay. After all, in his diary, Bunin wrote: “I thank God for the opportunity to create Clean Monday.”
Bunin, in each of his works included in the collection “Dark Alleys,” reveals to the reader the tragedy and catastrophism of love. This feeling is beyond human control. It suddenly comes into his life, gives fleeting happiness, and then certainly causes unbearable pain.
The narration in the story “Clean Monday” by Bunin is told in the first person. The author does not name the names of his heroes. Love breaks out between two young people. They are both beautiful, rich, healthy and seemingly full of energy. But something is missing in their relationship.
They visit restaurants, concerts, theaters. They discuss books and plays. True, the girl often shows indifference, even hostility. “You don’t like everything,” the main character once says, but he himself does not attach any significance to his words. A passionate romance is followed by a sudden separation - sudden for the young man, not for her. The ending is typical of Bunin's style. What caused the break between the lovers?
On the eve of the Orthodox holiday
The story describes their first meeting, but the narrative begins with events that occur some time after they met. The girl attends courses, reads a lot, and otherwise leads an idle lifestyle. And she seems quite happy with everything. But this is only at first glance. He is so absorbed in his feeling, his love for her, that he is not even aware of the other side of her soul.
It is worth paying attention to the title of the story - “Clean Monday”. The meaning of Bunin's story is quite deep. On the eve of the holy day, the lovers have their first conversation about religiosity. Before this, the main character had no idea that the girl was attracted to everything connected with the church. In his absence, she visits Moscow monasteries, moreover, she is thinking about becoming a monk.
Clean Monday is the beginning of Lent. On this day, cleansing rituals are carried out, the transition from fast food to Lenten restrictions.
Parting
One day they go to the Novodevichy Convent. By the way, this is a rather unusual route for him. Previously, they spent time exclusively in entertainment venues. The visit to the monastery is, of course, the idea of the protagonist's beloved.
The next day, intimacy occurs between them for the first time. And then the girl leaves for Tver, from there she sends a letter to her lover. In this message she asks not to wait for her. She became a novice in one of the Tver monasteries, and perhaps she will decide to take monastic vows. He will never see her again.
After receiving the last letter from his beloved, the hero began to drink, go downhill, and then finally came to his senses. One day, after a long time, I saw a nun in a Moscow church, in whom I recognized my former beloved. Perhaps the image of his beloved was too firmly entrenched in his mind, and it was not her at all? He didn't tell her anything. He turned and walked out of the temple gates. This is the summary of Bunin’s “Clean Monday”.
Love and tragedy
Bunin's heroes do not find happiness. In "Clean Monday", as in other works of the Russian classic, we are talking about love, which brings only bitterness and disappointment. What is the tragedy of the heroes of this story?
Probably the fact that, being close, they did not know each other at all. Each person is a whole Universe. AND inner world Sometimes even those close to you cannot figure it out. Bunin spoke about loneliness among people, about love, which is impossible without complete mutual understanding. Analysis work of art cannot be done without characterizing the main characters. What do we know about the girl who, living in prosperity and being loved, went to a monastery?
Main character
When analyzing Bunin’s “Clean Monday”, it is worth paying attention to the portrait of a nameless girl that the author creates at the beginning of the work. She led an idle life. She read a lot, studied music, and loved visiting restaurants. But she did all this somehow indifferently, without much interest.
She is educated, well-read, and enjoys immersing herself in the world of luxurious social life. She likes good cuisine, but she wonders “how people don’t get bored having lunch and dinner every day”? She calls acting skits vulgar, while she ends the relationship with her lover by visiting the theater. Bunin's heroine cannot understand what his purpose in this life is. She is not one of those who is content to live in luxury and talk about literature and art.
The inner world of the main character is very rich. She constantly thinks and is in a spiritual search. The girl is attracted to surrounding reality, but at the same time frightening. Love becomes not a salvation for her, but a problem that terribly burdens her, forcing her to make the only correct sudden decision.
The main character refuses worldly joys, and this shows her strong nature. “Clean Monday” is not the only story from the collection “Dark Alleys” in which the author paid a lot of attention to the female image.
Bunin brought to the fore the hero's experiences. At the same time, he showed a rather controversial female character. The heroine is satisfied with the lifestyle she leads, but all sorts of details, little things, depress her. Finally, she decides to go to a monastery, thereby destroying the life of the man who loves her. True, by doing this she causes suffering to herself. After all, in the letter that the girl sends to her lover there are the words: “May God give me the strength not to answer you.”
Main character
About how it turned out further fate young man, little is known. He had a hard time being separated from his beloved. He disappeared into the dirtiest taverns, drank and became miserable. But still he came to his senses and returned to his previous way of life. It can be assumed that the pain that this strange, extraordinary and somewhat exalted girl inflicted on him will never subside.
In order to find out who the writer was during his lifetime, you just need to read his books. But is the biography of Ivan Bunin really so tragic? Was there true love in his life?
Ivan Bunin
The writer's first wife, Anna Tsakni, was the daughter of an Odessa Greek, editor of a popular magazine at that time. They got married in 1898. Soon a son was born, who did not live even five years. The child died of meningitis. Bunin took the death of his son very hard. The relationship between the spouses went wrong, but his wife did not give him a divorce for a long time. Even after he connected his life with Vera Muromtseva.
The writer's second wife became his "patient shadow." Muromtseva replaced his secretary, mother, and friend. She did not leave him even when he began an affair with Galina Kuznetsova. Yet it was Galina Muromtseva who was next to the writer in the last days of his life. The creator of “Dark Alleys” was not deprived of love.
/ / / Analysis of Bunin’s story “Clean Monday”
Story by I.A. Bunin's "" was written in 1944 and was included in the collection of stories "Dark Alleys".
This work is of a love-philosophical nature, because it describes the wonderful feeling that arose between two people.
The story “Clean Monday” got its name because the main actions in it take place on Monday, the first day of Lent.
We feel the whole range of feelings that the main character experiences. This becomes possible because the story is told on behalf of the main character. It is worth noting that in the story you will not find either the first or last names of the main characters. Bunin calls them simply - He and She.
The work begins with a description of one winter Moscow day. The author pays great attention to small details: “a gray winter day”, “the trams rattled”, “the smell from the bakeries”. At the beginning of the story we know that He and She are already together. Bunin will tell us about the acquaintance of the main characters almost at the end of the work. They try not to think about the future and drive away this thought.
I would like to note that the main characters lead a rather wasteful life. We had dinner at the Metropol, Prague or Hermitage. Bunin even describes to us the dishes that the main characters were treated to: pies, fish soup, fried hazel grouse, pancakes.
In addition to descriptions of entertainment venues, the story contains pictures of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the Novodevichy Convent, and the Marfo-Maryinsky Convent.
The work “Clean Monday” leaves a feeling constant movement. It is very dynamic, nothing stands still. So, the main character came to Moscow from the Penza province, the main character was from Tver. Couple in love reading modern literature, attends theatrical performances, attends lectures.
The main characters I.A. Bunin shows how completely opposite people are. If He was an open and cheerful person, he loved to talk a lot, then She was a silent and thoughtful lady. The only thing they had in common was natural beauty and a good position in society. But even here, the author shows us the differences between the two people. He was like an Italian, She was Indian.
There are several time frames in the story. The first is 1912, the time when the main events of the work develop. The second is 1914, the time of the last meeting of the main characters. The third period is indicated by the graves of Chekhov and Ertel, the house of Griboyedov.
Thanks to these time frames through which the main character passes his feelings, Bunin tried to show us the lyrical basis of his work.
All these small details and historical events can't distract us from main topic works - the love experiences of the main character. Ultimately, this wonderful feeling brought only disappointment to the main character.
I.A. himself Bunin compared love to a bright flash, hinting not at its short duration. This outbreak almost never brings happiness. That is why he ends his story on a minor note.