Ivan Bunin always raised the problem of love in his stories, because he knew that this feeling is fleeting and ultimately leads to tragedy, since it does not last forever.
A work that deserves the attention of readers is “Clean Monday”, which shows a wonderful feeling that ultimately leads to disaster.
Between the main character and his beloved there is a flash, a spark, emotions, a rush of tenderness. The character and heroine are pierced by love, which, as Bunin says, cannot last long, because everything beautiful has the ability to end. Lyrical hero appreciates a girl for what she is, for her magnificent figure and facial features. However, all this is carnal, not sublime. The heroine, on the contrary, has different ideas about relationships; for her, love is not so much affection as it is pleasure and pleasure from every minute spent together.
She is a student. The character sometimes believes that the girl does not understand the meaning of the concept of “love”, for him there is now, here she is in front of him, the whole world is turning upside down, he doesn’t want to think about anything, only about how to get closer to the girl as quickly as possible, but true spiritual values the hero does not. He is too far from those ideas about the great warm feelings that usually arise between lovers. The character, if you read the text, does not understand the girl, who envelops the young man’s consciousness with her own mystery.
Unfortunately, the story has a sad ending, because Bunin does not want to give a continuation where it is impossible, where ultimately everything leads to collapse, to the point of no return. There is a huge gap between the character and the heroine: one shows interest in the girl’s body, while the other reveals main plan spiritual values that are beyond the character’s ability to understand. And when he opens his eyes in the morning and doesn’t find the heroine nearby, he doesn’t realize why she left. Why didn't the girl get along with the hero? What stopped her? And she left him because she saw the light, became convinced of the invalidity of the hero’s feelings for her. Yes, there was love, but not in the direction she dreamed of.
Sometimes it happens that our desires do not coincide with real actions and deeds. It happens that a person finds his beloved, only later opening his eyes to what is really happening. But it’s better to understand everything late than never. And Ivan Bunin makes it clear that love has such tragic ends from which no one is safe. This is life!
Thus, the writer showed his point of view on the consequences of such a pure feeling as love. No one argues that it inspires, makes you live in a new way, but you should be prepared for the difficulties that love brings with it. The main thing is to accept as a fact that in life a person decides for himself how to love and for what: for the beauty of the soul or the body. If the first becomes important for the reader, then most likely he is on the right track. Fate will be kind to him, because people with spiritual dreams are able not to be disappointed when the body they once fell in love with begins to crack. For them, the soul, which is mysterious and original, is of interest. Therefore, it is worth appreciating your beloved not for his appearance, but for the depth of his soul, no matter how long love may last!
Analysis of the work Clean Monday for grade 11
1944 World War II is having a detrimental effect on families, love, and feelings in general like never before. Bunin, being on the territory of modern Russia, perfectly understands the feelings of all soldiers, mothers and girls waiting for their lovers. At the same time, his work examines the theme of love and the author zealously seeks answers to eternal questions.
The work “Clean Monday” was created precisely at this time. It is noteworthy that the characters are not given names - the author did not consider it necessary to give names, because such a story could happen many times to everyone. Instead, the man acts as a narrator, which gives the reader the opportunity to hear the words first-hand, feel the emotions, and understand what guides the young man in love in his actions.
The heroes are antagonists to each other: he is ardent, energetic and has a character reminiscent of an Italian, and she is more restrained in actions and words. The young lady is at the center of the Universe, and the author is, as it were, assigned to her. He himself writes that she is not touched by either wealth or beautiful places, no lunches. The girl accepts all the advances, but remains cold.
During Lent, the hero notices that his companion is passionate about monasteries. He could have noticed this earlier, however, it is quite possible that due to his concentration on his feelings he could not think about her happiness. And what could such a nature desire, which is spiritually rich and thinks about the essence of love and happiness? How much she slipped away, when attempts to get closer crossed the line of decency so much that the hero could no longer control himself!
He was not given the opportunity to understand the indirect signs that she did not want to connect her life with such a man. However, on the last night the girl gives herself to him, which gives the illusion that they have finally become close. After this, she leaves for the monastery. In the projection of Bunin’s modernity, the following are given: famous names, like Stanislavsky, Andrei Bely, Moskvin. Appearing for a moment, they make tempting offers or help to have fun beautiful couple. However, they are of no value.
After weeks of hard drinking and idleness without his beloved, the author comes to the monastery and meets the same one there, in the guise of a nun. Bunin thereby shows that, despite tempting offers that do not carry spiritual value and temporary adversity (war), Russia will find itself. Just as the heroine suffered, trying to understand her role, so the state was going through bad times. However, there will be that Clean Monday that will cleanse the country of the dirt that is now on it!
Essay on the story Clean Monday by Bunin
Bunin writes the story in 1944, during the Second World War. As you know, during the war, the Soviet government opened many churches and flew around Moscow with icons in order to protect the city. People could turn to faith again.
The story is set in 1912-14, a period also difficult for Russia, the pre-revolutionary years, the proximity of war. The period when turning to faith is relevant and very urgent.
The main character is like a reflection of the era, she has fun, but is not seduced or carried away by these entertainments, she seems to see the ephemerality of all existence and feels the precarious nature of her time. At the same time, Bunin specifically introduces genuine historical figures: Stanislavsky, Moskvin, Sulerzhitsky, Bely, Kachalov - to some extent they are the face of their time. The main characters also enter into this world; moreover, they attract admiring glances, often find themselves in the center of attention, and attract with their beauty and independence.
So, she is no stranger to entertainment, but when she has a free evening or morning, she visits cathedrals and temples. She studies history and in this Bunin emphasizes the desire for the roots, for the search for the true face and essence of the people. Also, the main character understands Orthodox tradition, but does not call herself religious. This is an interesting detail, the main character seems to be more of a seeker and analyst than just a believer. She has warm feelings about religious themes, but also has deep feelings.
The same deep, but slightly peculiar feelings for the main character, to whom she allows affection, but does not give herself completely. This shows a certain chastity, which is not something feigned, because he is “the first and the last” for her and she has no one else. Therefore, here we see in to a greater extent aspiration to save one’s own soul and the soul of one’s beloved. He often asks if she loves him and demands confirmation, doubts. However, in final scene In the story we see how she recognizes her lover in complete darkness, already being a nun.
Bunin describes the connection between these people as incredibly strong and rising above the everyday life of the world. The main character is passionate and literally sings of every detail of the heroine, admiring everything down to the footprints in the snow from her shoes. The main character is more silent and thoughtful, she reflects on books and on this world. As a result, the only way out that she chooses is to go to the monastery as a search for something real, something genuine in this world.
Option 4
Bunin writes about feelings between two people. They are characteristic representatives of their time, the author does not even name names and at the same time achieves an amazing effect. Many readers do not notice the absence of names of the main characters at all.
The girl is rich and beautiful, as the narrator describes her, she has some kind of Indian beauty. The young man has beauty and morals, also southern, but more “Persian”. He is also an accomplished person and attracts admiring glances.
The relationship between them remains almost platonic; more precisely, it allows for some physical intimacy, which never reaches its logical conclusion. The heroine always tactfully dismisses him, after which they go for a walk to restaurants and theaters and so on for many days, or rather, nights in a row.
Nevertheless, as the reader later learns, the heroine is not alien to Orthodox culture and even understands the topic of faith, although she never shows excessive religiosity or piety. At the same time, she can make very precise remarks that emphasize her certain detachment from this world: “she doesn’t seem to need books, theaters and the rest at all.” This fact is emphasized by the narrator himself when he describes the heroine, but one gets the impression that he is making some mockery of the heroine.
For example, he talks about her phrase “I don’t understand how people don’t always get tired of having lunch and dinner” and after that he describes in some detail the dishes that the heroine herself loved to partake of. She had “Moscow” taste and did not shy away from simple earthly pleasures.
When the heroine talks about her intention to eventually go to a monastery, the hero also perceives such an attack as not serious and even wants to say in response that if this happens, then he himself will do so in order to recover from hard labor or something similar.
As a result, it is the heroine’s intentions that turn out to be completely serious. She also takes seriously the stories about the Murom prince Pavel and his wife.
For the heroine, the history of her country is part of her own being; Bunin mentions this “history interests her.” Moreover, in the image of the heroine one can see that holiness, that originality of Rus', which is now hidden under the feigned and worldly. It is not surprising that when the girl eventually goes to the monastery, she sees in these pre-revolutionary years the only way out is to turn to something real, higher than earthly things and idleness.
However, she remembers her “first and last” lover. She is the one who recognizes in pitch darkness, being a nun.
P.I. Bobchinsky - minor character comedies. He is a fairly wealthy landowner and, thanks to his desire to collect all kinds of gossip, he is one of the first to know the news about the arrival of the auditor
We all think about the meaning of life sooner or later. Despite the depth of this philosophical question, almost every person gives himself a simple answer to it, guided by his values
“Clean Monday” by I.A. Bunin
Included in the collection " Dark alleys» story by I.A. Bunin's "Clean Monday" was written in 1944. It combines tragic and lyrical principles. At the center of the plot of the work - love story. At the same time, for I.A. For Bunin, it is not so much the events themselves that are important, but rather the feelings and emotions of the characters in the story. This is the main feature of most of his works. They are distinguished by the presence of a lyrical plot, organized according to the associative principle.
Love for I.A. Bunin is a short-term happy period of life, which, unfortunately, always ends quickly, but for many years leaves an indelible mark on the heroes’ souls.
The plot of the story is dynamic. The actions of the heroes are not fully explained, and are unlikely to be interpreted logically. It is no coincidence that the author often uses the epithet “strange” in this work.
The hero of the story is a nobleman. The heroine belongs to the merchant class. The hero dreams of marriage, but his chosen one deliberately avoids serious conversations on this topic.
A poetic portrait of the heroine is created using a number of exquisite details. This is the garnet velvet of the dress, the black velvet of the hair and eyelashes, the gold of the skin of the face. It is symbolic that the heroine consistently appears in clothes of three colors: in a garnet velvet dress and the same shoes, in a black fur coat, hat and boots on Forgiveness Sunday and in a black velvet dress on the night from Monday to Tuesday. Finally, in the final scene of the story, an image of a female figure in a white robe appears.
Of particular importance for the creation of artistic space in the work is the play of light and darkness (“It had long since gotten dark, the frost-lit windows behind the trees were turning pink,” “The Moscow gray winter day was getting dark, the gas in the lanterns was coldly lit, the shop windows were warmly illuminated”). Such light contrasts enhance the atmosphere of mystery and mystery.
The story has many symbolic details: a view of the Kremlin and the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the gate as a symbol of purification, finding the righteous path. Every evening the hero moves from the Red Gate to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and back. At the end of the story, he finds himself at the gates of the Marfo-Mariinsky monastery. On the last evening of the heroes' intimacy, he sees her naked in swan slippers in the doorway. This scene is also symbolic: the heroine has already decided her fate, she is ready to go to a monastery and turn from a sinful secular life to a righteous life.
The story consists of four parts. At the same time artistic time as if completing a certain circle: from December 1912 to the end of 1914.
I.A. Bunin considered this story the best he had ever written. The fate of the heroine in it to some extent symbolizes the fate of Russia: the writer saw the path of his native power in purification, and not in the bloody cataclysms of the revolutionary era.
The story “Clean Monday” is amazingly beautiful and tragic at the same time. The meeting of two people leads to the emergence of a wonderful feeling - love. But love is not only joy, it is a huge torment, against the background of which many problems and troubles seem invisible. The story described exactly how the man and woman met. But the story begins from the moment at which their relationship had already been going on for quite some time. Bunin pays attention to the smallest details, to how “the Moscow gray winter day darkened,” or to where the lovers went for dinner - “to Prague, to the Hermitage, to the Metropol.”
The tragedy of separation is anticipated at the very beginning of the story. The main character does not know where their relationship will lead. He simply prefers not to think about this: “I didn’t know how it was going to end, and I tried not to think, not to speculate: it was useless - just like talking to her about it: she once and for all turned away conversations about our future.” Why does the heroine reject conversations about the future?
Is she not interested in continuing the relationship with her loved one? Or does she already have some idea about her future? judging by the way Bunin describes the main character, she appears as a completely special woman, unlike many around. She takes courses, not realizing, however, why she needs to study. When asked why she was studying, the girl answered: “Why is everything done in the world? Do we understand anything in our actions?”
The girl loves to surround herself with beautiful things, she is educated, sophisticated, smart. But at the same time, she seems somehow surprisingly detached from everything that surrounded her: “It looked like she didn’t need anything: no flowers, no books, no dinners, no theaters, no dinners out of town.” At the same time, she knows how to enjoy life, enjoys reading, delicious food, and interesting experiences. It would seem that the lovers have everything they need for happiness: “We were both rich, healthy, young and so good-looking that in restaurants and at concerts they looked at us.” At first it may seem that the story describes a real love idyll. But in reality everything was completely different.
It is no coincidence that the main character comes up with the idea of the strangeness of their love. The girl denies in every possible way the possibility of marriage, she explains that she is not fit to be a wife. The girl cannot find herself, she is in thought. She is attracted to the luxurious, fun life. But at the same time she resists it, wants to find something different for herself. Conflicting feelings arise in the girl’s soul, which are incomprehensible to many young people accustomed to a simple and carefree existence.
The girl visits churches and Kremlin cathedrals. She is drawn to religion, to holiness, herself, perhaps, not realizing why she is attracted to this. Quite suddenly, without explaining anything to anyone, she decides to leave not only her lover, but also her usual way of life. After leaving, the heroine informs in a letter of her intention to decide to take monastic vows. She doesn't want to explain anything to anyone. Parting with his beloved turned out to be a difficult test for the main character. Only after a long time was he able to see her among the line of nuns.
The story is called “Clean Monday” because it was on the eve of this holy day that the first conversation about religiosity took place between the lovers. Before this, the main character had not thought or suspected about the other side of the girl’s nature. She seemed quite happy with her usual life, in which there was a place for theaters, restaurants, and fun. The renunciation of secular joys for the sake of a monastic monastery testifies to the deep internal torment that took place in the soul of the young woman. Perhaps this is precisely what explains the indifference with which she treated her usual life. She could not find a place for herself among everything that surrounded her. And even love could not help her in finding spiritual harmony.
Love and tragedy go hand in hand in this story, as, indeed, in many other works of Bunin. Love in itself does not seem to be happiness, but rather a difficult test that must be endured with honor. Love is sent to people who cannot, do not know how to understand and appreciate it in time.
What is the tragedy of the main characters in the story “Clean Monday”? The fact is that a man and a woman were never able to understand and appreciate each other properly. Each person is a whole world, a whole Universe. Inner world The girl, the heroine of the story, is very rich. She is in thought, in spiritual search. She is attracted and frightened at the same time surrounding reality, she doesn't find anything to get attached to. And love appears not as salvation, but as another problem that weighs on her. That is why the heroine decides to give up love.
Refusal of worldly joys and entertainment reveals a strong nature in a girl. This is how she answers her own questions about the meaning of existence. In the monastery she does not have to ask herself any questions; now the meaning of life for her becomes love for God and service to him. Everything vain, vulgar, petty and insignificant will never touch her again. Now she can be in her solitude without worrying that it will be disturbed.
The story may seem sad and even tragic. To some extent this is true. But at the same time, the story “Clean Monday” is sublimely beautiful. It makes you think about true values, that each of us sooner or later has to face a situation moral choice. And not everyone has the courage to admit that the choice was made incorrectly.
At first, the girl lives the way many of those around her live. But gradually she realizes that she is not satisfied not only with the way of life itself, but also with all the little things and details that surround her. She finds the strength to look for another option and comes to the conclusion that love for God can be her salvation. Love for God simultaneously elevates her, but at the same time makes all her actions completely incomprehensible. The main character, a man in love with her, practically ruins his life. He remains alone. But the point is not that she leaves him completely unexpectedly. She treats him cruelly, making him suffer and suffer. True, he suffers with him. He suffers and suffers of his own free will. This is evidenced by the heroine’s letter: “May God give me the strength not to answer me - it is useless to prolong and increase our torment...”.
Lovers are separated not because unfavorable circumstances arise. In fact, the reason is completely different. The reason is a sublime and at the same time deeply unhappy girl who cannot find the meaning of existence for herself. She cannot but deserve respect - this amazing girl, who was not afraid to change her destiny so dramatically. But at the same time, she seems to be an incomprehensible and incomprehensible person, so unlike everyone who surrounded her.
Analysis of I. Bunin’s work “Clean Monday” in the genre-genre aspect
“Clean Monday” is one of Bunin’s most wonderful and mysterious works. “Clean Monday” was written on May 12, 1944, and was included in the cycle of stories and short stories “Dark Alleys”. At this time, Bunin was in exile in France. It was there, already in old age, in France occupied by Nazi troops, experiencing hunger, suffering, and a break with his beloved, that he created the cycle “Dark Alleys.” This is how he himself talks about it: “I live, of course, very, very badly - loneliness, hunger, cold and terrible poverty. The only thing that saves us is work.”
The collection “Dark Alleys” is a collection of stories and short stories, united by one common theme, the theme of love, the most diverse, quiet, timid or passionate, secret or obvious, but still love. The author himself considered the works in the collection, written in 1937 - 1944, to be his highest achievement. The author wrote about the book “Dark Alleys” in April 1947: “It talks about the tragic and about many tender and beautiful things - I think that this is the best and most beautiful thing that I have written in my life.” The book was published in 1946 in Paris.
The author considered the story “Clean Monday” to be the best work in this collection.The assessment of the novel made by the author himself is well known: “I thank God that he gave me the opportunity to write “Clean Monday.”
Like the other 37 short stories in this book, the story is dedicated totheme of love. Love is a flash, a brief moment for which you cannot prepare in advance, which cannot be held back; love is beyond any laws, it seems to say:“It can’t be dirty where I’m standing!” - this is Bunin’s concept of love. This is exactly how - suddenly and dazzlingly - love flared up in the heart of the hero of “Clean Monday”.
The genre of this work is a short story. The turning point of the plot, forcing us to rethink the content, is the unexpected departure of the heroine to the monastery.
The narration is told in the first person, so the feelings and experiences of the narrator are deeply revealed. The narrator is a man, recalling what must be the best period of his biography, his young years and the time of passionate love. Memories are stronger than him - otherwise, in fact, this story would not exist.
The image of the heroine is perceived through two different consciousnesses: the hero, a direct participant in the events described, and the distant consciousness of the narrator, who looks at what is happening through the prism of his memory. Above these angles is built the author's position, manifested in artistic integrity and selection of material.
The hero’s worldview undergoes changes after the love story - depicting himself in 1912, the narrator resorts to irony, revealing his limitations in the perception of his beloved, a lack of understanding of the meaning of the experience, which he can only appreciate in retrospect. The general tone in which the story is written speaks of the inner maturity and depth of the narrator.
The short story “Clean Monday” has a complex spatiotemporal organization: historical time (horizontal chronotope) and universal, cosmic time (vertical chronotope).
The picture of life in Russia in the 1910s in the novel is contrasted with ancient, centuries-old, real Rus', reminiscent of itself in churches, ancient rituals, literary monuments, as if peeking through the superficial vanity:“And now this Rus' remains only in some northern monasteries.”
“The Moscow gray winter day darkened, the gas in the lanterns was coldly lit, the store windows were warmly illuminated - and the evening Moscow life, freeing from daytime affairs, flared up: the cabbies' sleighs rushed thicker and more vigorously, the crowded, diving trams rattled more heavily, in the darkness it was visible how green stars hissed from the wires, and dimly blackened passers-by hurried more animatedly along the snowy sidewalks...” - this is how the story begins. Bunin verbally paints a picture of a Moscow evening, and in the description there is not only the author’s vision, but also smell, touch, and hearing. Through this cityscape, the narrator introduces the reader to the atmosphere of an exciting love story. A mood of inexplicable melancholy, mystery and loneliness accompanies us throughout the entire work.
The events of the story “Clean Monday” take place in Moscow in 1913. As already noted, Bunin draws two images of Moscow that determine the toponymic level of the text: “Moscow is the ancient capital of Holy Rus'” (where the theme “Moscow - III Rome” found its embodiment) and Moscow - the beginning of the 20th century, depicted in specific historical and cultural realities: Red Gate, restaurants “Prague”, “Hermitage”, “Metropol”, “Yar”, “Strelna”, Egorova tavern, Okhotny Ryad, Art Theater.
These proper names immerse us in the world of celebration and abundance, unbridled fun and dim light. This is Moscow at night, secular, which is a kind of antithesis to another Moscow, Orthodox Moscow, represented in the story by the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the Iverskaya Chapel, St. Basil's Cathedral, the Novodevichy, Conception, Chudov monasteries, the Rogozhsky cemetery, the Marfo-Mariinsky monastery. These two circles of toponyms in the text form the shape of peculiar rings communicating with each other through the image of a gate. The movement of the characters in the space of Moscow is carried out from the Red Gate along the trajectory of “Prague”, “Hermitage”, “Metropol”, “Yar”, “Strelna”, Art Theater.Through the gates of the Rogozhsky cemetery they find themselves on another toponymic circle: Ordynka, Griboyedovsky Lane, Okhotny Ryad, Marfo-Mariinskaya Convent, Egorova Tavern, Zachatievsky and Chudov Monasteries. These two Moscows are two different worldviews that fit into one given space.
The beginning of the story seems ordinary: before us is the everyday life of evening Moscow, but as soon as significant places appear in the narrativeMoscow, the text takes on a different meaning. The life of the heroes begins to be determined by cultural signs; it fits into the context of the history and culture of Russia. “Every evening at this hour my coachman rushed me on a stretched trotter - from the Red Gate to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior,” the author continues his beginning of the story - and the plot takes on some kind of sacred meaning.
From the Red Gate to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, Bunin's Moscow stretches; from the Red Gate to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, every evening the hero makes this path in his desire to see his beloved. The Red Gate and the Cathedral of Christ the Savior are the most important symbols of Moscow, and beyond it, of all of Russia. One marks the triumph of imperial power, the other is a tribute to the feat of the Russian people. The first is a confirmation of the luxury and splendor of secular Moscow, the second is gratitude to God, who stood up for Russia in the war of 1812. It should be noted that the Moscow style in urban planning at the turn of the century is characterized by a strange combination and interweaving of various styles and trends. Therefore, Moscow in Bunin’s text is Moscow of the modern era. Architectural style in the text of the story corresponds to a similar process in literature: modernist sentiments permeate the entire culture.
The heroes of the story visit the Art Theater and Chaliapin's concerts. Bunin, naming in “Clean Monday” the names of the cult symbolist writers: Hoffmannsthal, Schnitzler, Tetmeier, Przybyshevsky and Bely, does not name Bryusov, he introduces into the text only the title of his novel, thereby turning the reader to this work, and not to everything the writer’s work (“- Have you finished reading “The Fiery Angel”? - I finished it. It’s so pompous that I’m ashamed to read.”)
In all their splendor and characteristic Moscow eclecticism, “Prague”, “Hermitage”, “Metropol” appear - famous restaurants where Bunin’s heroes spend their evenings. With the mention in the text of the story about the Rogozhsky cemetery and the Egorov tavern, where the heroes visited on Forgiveness Sunday, the narrative is filled with ancient Russian motifs. The Rogozhskoe cemetery is the center of the Moscow community of Old Believers, a symbol of the eternal Russian “schism” of the soul. The newly emerging gate symbol accompanies those entering.Bunin was not a deeply religious person. He perceived religion, in particular Orthodoxy, in the context of other world religions, as one of the forms of culture. Perhaps it is from this cultural point of view that the religious motifs in the text should be interpreted as a hint at the dying spirituality of Russian culture, at the destruction of connections with its history, the loss of which leads to general confusion and chaos. Through the Red Gate, the author introduces the reader to Moscow life, immerses him in the atmosphere of idle Moscow, which has lost its historical vigilance in stormy fun. Through another gate - “the gate of the Marfo-Mariinsky monastery” - the narrator leads us into the space of Moscow of Holy Rus': “On Ordynka I stopped a cab driver at the gate of the Marfo-Mariinsky monastery... For some reason I definitely wanted to enter there.” And here is another important toponym of this Holy Rus' - Bunin’s description of the cemetery of the Novo-Maiden Convent:“Creaking in silence through the snow, we entered the gate, walked along the snowy paths through the cemetery, it was light, the branches in the frost were marvelously drawn on the golden enamel of the sunset like gray coral, and the unquenchable lamps scattered over the graves mysteriously glowed around us with calm, sad lights.” The state of the external natural world surrounding the heroes contributes to the heroine’s concentrated and in-depth perception and awareness of her feelings and actions, and decision-making. It seems that when she left the cemetery, she had already made a choice. The most important toponym in the Moscow text of the story is also Egorov’s tavern, with which the author introduces significant folklore and Christian realities. Here the “Egorov pancakes” appear before the reader, “thick, ruddy, with different fillings.” Pancakes, as you know, are a symbol of the sun - a festive and memorial food. Forgiveness Sunday coincides with the pagan holiday of Maslenitsa, also the day of remembrance of the dead. It is noteworthy that the heroes go to the Egorov tavern for pancakes after visiting the graves of people dearly loved by Bunin - Ertel and Chekhov - at the cemetery of the Novo-Devichy Convent.
Sitting on the second floor of the tavern, Bunin’s heroine exclaims: “Good! There are wild men below, and here are pancakes with champagne and the Mother of God of Three Hands. Three hands! This is India after all! » Obviously, this is a jumble of symbols and associations with different cultures and different religions in one the Orthodox image of the Mother of God gives us the opportunity for an ambiguous interpretation of this image. On the one hand, this is the deep-rooted, blind worship of the people of their deity - the Mother of God, rooted in the pagan fundamental principle, on the other - worship, ready to turn into a blind, cruel in its naivety, popular revolt, and rebellion in any of its manifestations Bunin the writer condemned.
The plot of the story “Clean Monday” is based on the unhappy love of the main character, which determined his whole life. Distinctive feature many works by I.A. Bunin - absence happy love. Even the most prosperous story often ends tragically for this writer.
Initially, one may get the impression that “Clean Monday” has all the hallmarks of a love story and its culmination is the night the lovers spend together. But the storynot about this or not only about this.... Already at the very beginning of the story it is directly stated that what will unfold before us« strange love» between a dazzling handsome man, in whose appearance there is even something« Sicilian» (however, he only comes from Penza), and« Shamakhan queen» (as those around her call the heroine), whose portrait is given in great detail: there was something in the beauty of the girl« Indian, Persian» (although her origin is very prosaic: her father is a merchant of a noble family from Tver, her grandmother is from Astrakhan). She has« dark-amber face, magnificent and somewhat ominous hair in its thick blackness, softly shining like black sable fur, eyebrows, eyes black as velvet coal» , 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 firmness.) Thus, Bunin’s heroes are deliberately likened to each other - in the sense of beauty, youth, charm, and obvious originality of appearance
However, further Bunin carefully, but very consistently« prescribes» differences between« Sicilian» And« Shamakhan queen» , which will turn out to be fundamental and ultimately lead to a dramatic outcome - eternal separation. Nothing bothers the heroes of Clean Monday; 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 the intellectual and cultural life of Russia in 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 historical events XVI century - witch trials and V. Bryusov’s novel “Fire Angel”; fashionable writers of the 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 desirable, 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 contains an entire life philosophy:« Our happiness, my friend, is like water in delirium: if you pull it, it swells, 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 responded to Karataev’s words quoted 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 - to« Metropol» whether to have lunch, or wander around Ordynka in search of Griboedov’s house, or sit at dinner in a tavern, or listen to the gypsies. He does not feel the surrounding vulgarity, which is wonderfully captured by Bunin and in the performance« Poles Tranblanc» when your partner shouts out« goat» a meaningless set of phrases, and in the cheeky performance of songs by an old gypsy« with the gray face of a drowned man» and a gypsy« with a low forehead under tar bangs» . 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 his agreement to her invitation, spoken in English, sounds like the height of disagreement with the heroine:« Ol right!»
All this does not mean, of course, that high feelings are inaccessible to him, that he is unable to appreciate the unusualness and uniqueness of the girl he meets. On the contrary, his enthusiastic love clearly saves him from the surrounding vulgarity, and the rapture and pleasure with which he listens to her words, how he knows how to highlight a special intonation in them, how attentive he is even to little things (he sees«
quiet light»
in her eyes, it makes her happy«
good talkativeness»
), speaks in his favor. It is not without reason that when he mentioned that his beloved might go to a monastery, he«
lost in 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 monastic vows (in the epilogue the hero meets her in the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent of Mercy), he first sinks and drinks himself to such an extent degree that it seems impossible to be reborn, and then, albeit little by little,«
is recovering»
, comes back to life, but somehow«
indifferent, hopeless»
, although he sobs, walking through those places where they once visited together. 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 Iveron 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 farewell letter asks God to give him strength«
don't answer»
to her, realizing that their correspondence will only«
it is useless to 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. That doesn't mean he doesn't have his own«
I»
, own individuality. He is no stranger to reflections and observations, he is attentive to the changes in the mood of his beloved, he is the first to notice that their relationship is developing in such a way«
strange»
a city like Moscow.
But still it is she who leads« party» , it is her voice that is especially 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 chronicle tales, and is especially fascinated by ancient Russian« The story of the faithful spouses Peter and Fevronia of Murom» (Bunin incorrectly indicated the name of the prince - Pavel).
However, it should be noted that the text of the life is used by the author of “Clean Monday” in a significantly revised form. The heroine, who knows this text, in her words, thoroughly (“I re-read what I especially like until I learn it by heart”), mixes two completely different plot lines of “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia”: the episode of the temptation of Prince Paul’s wife, to which the devil-snake appears in the guise of her husband, then killed by Paul’s brother, Peter, and the story of the life and death of Peter himself and his wife Fevronia. As a result, it seems as if the “blessed death” of the characters in the life is in a cause-and-effect relationship with the theme of temptation (cf. the heroine’s explanation: “This is how God tested”). Absolutely not corresponding to the actual state of affairs in life, this idea is quite logical in the context of Bunin’s story: the image “composed” by the heroine herself of a woman who did not succumb to temptation, who, even in marriage, managed to prefer eternal spiritual kinship to “vain” physical intimacy, is psychologically close to her.
Even more interesting is what shades such an interpretation of the ancient Russian story brings to the image of Bunin’s hero. Firstly, he is directly compared to “a serpent in human nature, extremely beautiful.” The comparison of the hero with the devil, who has temporarily taken on human form, is prepared from the beginning of the story: “I<. >was handsome at that time<. >was even “indecently handsome,” as one famous actor once told me<. >“The devil knows who you are, some kind of Sicilian,” he said.” In the same spirit, the association with another work of the hagiographic genre can be interpreted in “Clean Monday” - this time introduced by the hero’s remark, who quotes the words of Yuri Dolgoruky from a letter to Svyatoslav Seversky with an invitation to a “Moscow dinner”. At the same time, the plot of “The Miracle of St. George” and, accordingly, the motif of snake fighting are updated: firstly, the Old Russian form of the prince’s name - “Gyurgi” is given; secondly, the heroine herself clearly personifies Moscow (the hero defines the inconsistency of her actions as “Moscow quirks” ). It is not surprising, by the way, that the hero in this case turns out to be more erudite than the heroine who loves antiquities: as a sybarite, he knows better everything that concerns “dinners” (including historical ones), and as a “snake” - everything that concerns “snake fighters” .
However, precisely because the heroine of “Clean Monday” treats the Old Russian text quite freely, the hero of the story in the subtext turns out to be not only a “snake”, but also a “snake fighter”: in the work, for the heroine, he is not only “this snake”, but also “this prince” (as she herself is “princess”). It should be taken into account that in the real “Tale of Peter and Fevronia” Peter kills a snake in the guise of his own brother, Paul; The motive of “fratricide” in Bunin’s story takes on meaning, because it emphasizes the idea of “the two-part nature of man, the coexistence and struggle of the “divine” and the “devilish” in him. Of course, the hero-narrator himself “does not see” these extremes in his own being and does not oppose them; Moreover, it is impossible to reproach him for any malicious intent: he plays the role of a tempter only involuntarily. It is interesting, for example, that although the heroine claims that the lifestyle they lead is imposed by the hero (“I, for example, often go in the mornings or evenings, when you don’t drag me to restaurants, to the Kremlin cathedrals”), the impression is that that the initiative belongs to her. As a result, the “serpent” is put to shame, the temptation is overcome - however, the idyll does not come: a joint “blessed dormition” is impossible for the heroes. Within the framework of the “paradise lost” scheme, the hero embodies “Adam” and “Snake” in one person.
Through these reminiscences, the author to some extent explains the strange behavior of the heroine of “Clean Monday”. She leads, at first glance, a life typical of a representative of the bohemian-aristocratic circle, with quirks and the obligatory “consumption” of various intellectual “food”, in particular the works of the symbolist writers mentioned above. And at the same time, the heroine visits churches, schismatic cemetery, without considering herself too religious. “This is not religiosity. “I don’t know what,” she says. “But I, for example, often go in the mornings or evenings, when you don’t drag me to restaurants, to the Kremlin cathedrals, and you don’t even suspect it...”
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, as if spellbound, will repeat them... 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 and sever all ties with the world.
But Bunin, as a writer, does everything to “explain” this strangeness. The reason for this "strangeness"» - in the contradictions of 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 the Astrakhan grandmother’s arkhaluk, or a European fashionable dress), in the atmosphere and affections - “ Moonlight Sonata"and the Turkish sofa on which she is reclining. 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 (no wonder, agreeing to intimacy with her lover, the heroine says, characterizing his beauty: “A serpent in human nature, extremely beautiful...» , - i.e. refers to him the words from the legend of Peter and Fevronia - about the machinations of the devil, who sent the pious princess “a flying kite 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, served as the beginning of its “cursed days» , - this is what was supposed to provide his homeland with a decent 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 the funeral too aesthetically (forged gold brocade, a white bedspread embroidered with black letters (air) on the face of the deceased, snow blinding in the cold and the shine of fir branches inside the grave), she listens too admiringly to the music of the words of Russian legends (“I’m re-reading what what I especially liked until I memorize it”), becomes too immersed in the atmosphere that accompanies the service in the church (“the stichera are wonderfully sung there,” “there are puddles everywhere, the air is already soft, my soul is somehow tender, sad...”,” “ all the doors in the cathedral are open, ordinary people come and go all day» ...). 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 corals of branches in frost”, marvelously emerging “on the golden enamel of the sunset» , blood-red walls and mysteriously glowing lamps.
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 - “pale from hops, with a large sweat on forehead”, the beauty and pride of the Russian stage almost falling off his feet - Kachalov and the “daring” Chaliapin.
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.
The main character experiences the tragic ending of his relationship with the heroine very hard. The following passage confirms this: “I spent a long time drinking myself in the dirtiest taverns, sinking more and more in every possible way... Then I began to recover - indifferently, hopelessly.” Judging by these two quotes, the hero is a very sensitive and emotional person, capable of deep feelings. Bunin avoids direct assessments, but allows one to judge this by the state of the hero’s soul, by skillfully selected external details, and light hints.
We look at the heroine of the story through the eyes of the narrator who is in love with her. Already at the very beginning of the work, her portrait appears before us: “She had some kind of Indian, Persian beauty: a dark-amber face, magnificent and somewhat ominous hair in its thickness, softly shining like black sable fur, black like velvet coal , eyes". Through the mouth of the protagonist, a description of the heroine’s restless soul, her search for the meaning of life, worries and doubts is conveyed. As a result, the image of a “spiritual wanderer” is revealed to us in its entirety.
The climax of the story is the decision of the hero’s beloved to go to a monastery. This unexpected plot twist allows us to understand the undecided soul of the heroine. Almost all descriptions of the heroine’s appearance and the world around her are given against a background of dim light, in the twilight; and only in the cemetery on Forgiveness Sunday and exactly two years after that Clean Monday does the process of enlightenment take place, the spiritual transformation of the heroes’ lives, a symbolic and artistic modification of the worldview takes place, the images of light and the brilliance of the sun change. IN art world harmony and tranquility dominate: “The evening was peaceful, sunny, with frost on the trees; on the bloody brick walls of the monastery, jackdaws chattered in silence, looking like nuns; the chimes played every now and then subtly and sadly in the bell tower». Artistic development time in the story is associated with symbolic metamorphoses of the image of light. The whole story takes place as if in twilight, in a dream, illuminated only by the mystery and sparkle of eyes, silk hair, gold clasps on red dress shoes main character. Evening, darkness, mystery - these are the first things that catch your eye in the perception of the image of this unusual woman.
It is symbolically inseparable both for us and for the narrator with the most magical and mysterious time of day. However, it should be noted that the contradictory state of the world is most often defined by the epithets calm, peaceful, quiet. The heroine, despite her intuitive sense of space and time of chaos, like Sophia, carries within herself and gives harmony to the world. According to S. Bulgakov, the category of time as the driving image of eternity “seems not applicable to Sophia, since temporality is inextricably linked with being-non-existence» and if in Sophia everything is absent, then temporality is also absent: She conceives everything, has everything in herself in a single act, in the image of eternity, she is timeless, although she carries all eternity within herself;
Contradictions and oppositions begin from the first sentence, from the first paragraph:
the gas was lit coldly - the shop windows were warmly illuminated,
The day grew darker - passers-by hurried more animatedly,
every evening I rushed to her - I didn’t know how it would all end,
I didn’t know - and try not to think,
We met every evening - once and for all we stopped talking about the future...
for some reason I studied in courses - I rarely attended them,
it looked like she didn’t need anything - but she always read books, ate chocolate,
I didn’t understand how people wouldn’t get tired of having lunch every day - I dined myself with a Moscow understanding of the matter,
my weakness was good clothes, velvet, silks - I went to courses as a modest student,
went to restaurants every evening - visited cathedrals and monasteries, when she was not “dragged” to restaurants,
meets, allows himself to be kissed - with quiet bewilderment he is surprised: “How you love me”...
The story is replete with numerous hints and half-hints with which Bunin emphasizes the duality of the contradictory way of Russian life, the combination of the incongruous. In the heroine’s apartment there is a “wide Turkish sofa.”The all too familiar and beloved image of Oblomov’s sofa appears eight times in the text.
Next to the sofa there is an “expensive piano”, and above the sofa, the writer emphasizes, “for some reason there was a portrait of a barefoot Tolstoy”apparently famous work I.E. Repin’s “Leo Tolstoy is barefoot,” and a few pages later the heroine quotes a remark from Tolstoy’s Platon Karataev about happiness. Researchers reasonably correlate the influence of the ideas of late Tolstoy with the hero’s mention of the story that the heroine “had breakfast for thirty kopecks in a vegetarian canteen on the Arbat.”
Once again let's remember that verbal portrait: “...When going out, she most often wore a garnet velvet dress and the same shoes with gold clasps (and she went to courses as a modest student, ate breakfast for thirty kopecks in a vegetarian canteen on the Arbat).” These daily metamorphoses - from morning asceticism to evening luxury - super-concisely and mirror Tolstoy’s life evolution, as he saw it himself - from luxury at the beginning life path to asceticism in old age. Moreover, the external signs of this evolution, like Tolstoy’s, are the preferences of Bunin’s heroine in clothing and food: in the evening, a modest student student transforms into a lady in a garnet velvet dress and shoes with gold clasps; The heroine has breakfast for thirty kopecks in a vegetarian canteen, but she “had lunch and dinner” “with a Moscow understanding of the matter.” Compare with the peasant dress and vegetarianism of the late Tolstoy, effectively and efficiently contrasted with the refined clothing of the nobility and gastronomy (to which the writer paid generous tribute in his youth).
And the final escape of the heroine looks quite Tolstoyan, except with inevitable gender adjustments. from And from this world full of aesthetically and sensually attractive temptations. She even arranges her departure similarly to Tolstoy, sending the hero a letter - “an affectionate but firm request not to wait for her any longer, not to try to look for her, to see her.” Compare with the telegram sent by Tolstoy to his family on October 31, 1910: “We are leaving. Don't look. I’m writing.”
A Turkish sofa and an expensive piano are East and West, barefoot Tolstoy is Russia, Rus' in its unusual, “clumsy” and eccentric appearance that does not fit into any framework.
The idea that Russia is a strange but clear combination of two layers, two cultural structures - “Western” and “Eastern”, European and Asian, which in its appearance, as well as in its history, is located somewhere at the intersection these two lines of world historical development - this idea runs like a red thread through all fourteen pages of Bunin’s story, which, contrary to the initial impression, is based on a complete historical system that touches on the most fundamental moments of Russian history and the character of the Russian person for Bunin and the people of his era.
So, finding itself between two fires - the West and the East, at the point of intersection of opposing historical trends and cultural structures, Russia at the same time retained in the depths of its history specific features national life, the indescribable charm of which for Bunin is concentrated in chronicles on the one hand, and in religious rituals on the other. Spontaneous passion, chaos (East) and classical clarity, harmony (West) are combined in the patriarchal depth of national Russian self-awareness, according to Bunin, into a complex complex in which the main role is given to restraint, meaningfulness - not obvious, but hidden, hidden, although -in your own deep and thorough way.One of essential components The text is its title “Clean Monday”. On the one hand, it is very specific: Clean Monday is a non-church name for the first day of the Great Easter Lent.
At this point, the heroine announces her decision to leave worldly life. On this day, the relationship between the two lovers ended and the hero’s life ended. On the other hand, the title of the story is symbolic. It is believed that on Clean Monday the soul is cleansed from everything vain and sinful. Moreover, not only the heroine, who chose monastic hermitage, changes in the story. Her act prompts the hero to introspection, forces him to change and cleanse himself.
Why did Bunin call his story that, although only a small, albeit important part of it takes place on Clean Monday? Probably because this particular day marked a sharp turning point from Maslenitsa fun to the stern stoicism of Lent. The situation of a sharp turning point is not just repeated many times in “Clean Monday”, but organizes a lot in this story
In addition, in the word “pure”, in addition to the meaning of “holy”, the meaning “filled with nothing”, “empty”, “absent” is paradoxically emphasized. And it is quite natural that at the end of the story, in the hero’s memories of the events of almost two years ago, it is not Clean Monday that appears: “unforgettable” is called here previous evening - the evening of Forgiveness Sunday."
thirty eight times "about the same thing" wrote I. Bunin in the cycle of stories “Dark Alleys”. Simple plots, ordinary, at first glance, everyday stories. But for everyone these are unforgettable, unique stories. Stories that are painfully and acutely experienced. Life stories. Stories that pierce and torment the heart. Never forgotten. Endless stories, like life and memory...
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 of 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 the intellectual and cultural life of Russia in 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 of the 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”; fashionable writers of the Viennese “modern” school 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 than life itself (“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 high feelings are inaccessible to him, 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 the semantic core of 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 that 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, discovers a combination of incongruous things in her favorite clothes (the arhaluk Astrakhan grandmother, then a European fashionable dress), in the setting 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 the funeral too aesthetically (forged gold brocade, a white bedspread embroidered with black letters (air) on the face of the deceased, snow blinding in the cold and the shine of fir branches inside the grave), she listens too admiringly to the music of the words of Russian legends (“I’m re-reading what what I especially liked, until I learn it by heart”), becomes too immersed in the atmosphere that accompanies the service in the church (“the stichera are wonderfully sung there,” “there are puddles everywhere, the air is 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...