The plot is pure Monday Bunin. "Clean Monday"
// / 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.
The whole range of feelings that he experiences main character, we feel it ourselves. 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 devotes great importance small details: “a gray winter day”, “the trams were rattling”, “the smell is coming 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 push this thought away.
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, Novodevichy Convent, Marfo-Maryinskaya monastery.
The work “Clean Monday” leaves a feeling of 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, visits theatrical performances, attend lectures.
The main characters I.A. Bunin shows how completely opposite people. 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 that united them was natural beauty and 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. Second - 1914, time last meeting 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 cannot 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.
The book "Dark Alleys" is especially similar to a book of poetry. Poems and short poems, ballads. Thirty-eight poems and the size is the best for a collection. And the thematic content and unity are perfectly observed: love and death are just about that.
Mysterious, unusually new, all the stories in a row, all equally filled with the sadness of memories, deep melancholy about everything that is said here - about everyone female image, each story told with complete sincerity and unparalleled, hot-carnal frankness.
S. Landgraf reads a story by Ivan Bunin
"CLEAN MONDAY"
They met in December, by chance. When he got to Andrei Bely's lecture, he spun and laughed so much that she, who happened to be in the chair next to her and at first looked at him with some bewilderment, also laughed...
The Moscow gray winter day was darkening, the gas in the lanterns was coldly lit, the shop windows were warmly illuminated - and the evening life of Moscow, freed from daytime affairs, flared up: the cab sleighs rushed thicker and more vigorously, the crowded, diving trams rattled more heavily - in the darkness it was already visible how Green stars fell from the wires with a hiss, and dull black passers-by hurried more animatedly along the snowy sidewalks...
Biography of I.A. Bunina
Russian writer: prose writer, poet, publicist. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was born on October 22 (Old Style - October 10), 1870 in Voronezh, in the family of an impoverished nobleman who belonged to an old noble family.
Ivan Bunin came to literary fame in 1900 after the publication of the story " Antonov apples". In 1901, the Symbolist publishing house "Scorpio" published a collection of poems "Falling Leaves". For this collection and for the translation of the poem by the American romantic poet G. Longfellow "The Song of Hiawatha" (1898, some sources indicate 1896) Russian Academy Sciences to Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was awarded Pushkin Prize. In 1902, the publishing house "Znanie" published the first volume of the works of I.A. Bunina. In 1905, Bunin, who lived in the National Hotel, witnessed the December armed uprising.
The last years of the writer passed in poverty. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin died in Paris. On the night of November 7-8, 1953, two hours after midnight, he passed away: he died quietly and calmly, in his sleep. On his bed lay the novel by L.N. Tolstoy's "Resurrection". Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was buried in the Russian cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois, near Paris.
For I. A. Bunin, the feeling of love is always a secret, great, unknowable and miracle beyond the control of human reason. In his stories, no matter what kind of love it is: strong, real, mutual, it never reaches marriage. He stops it at the highest point of pleasure and immortalizes it in prose.
From 1937 to 1945 Ivan Bunin writes an intriguing work, which will later be included in the collection “Dark Alleys”. While writing the book, the author emigrated to France. Thanks to the work on the story, the writer was to some extent distracted from the dark streak that was going on in his life.
Bunin said that “Clean Monday” is best job which was written by him:
I thank God for giving me the opportunity to write “Clean Monday.”
Genre, direction
“Clean Monday” was written in the direction of realism. But before Bunin they didn’t write about love like that. The writer finds those only words that do not trivialize feelings, but each time rediscover emotions familiar to everyone.
The work “Clean Monday” is a short story everyday work, something similar to a story. The difference can only be found in the plot and compositional construction. The short story genre, unlike the short story, is characterized by the presence of a certain turn of events. In this book, such a turn is a change in the heroine’s outlook on life and a sharp change in her lifestyle.
Meaning of the name
Ivan Bunin clearly draws a parallel with the title of the work, making the main character a girl who rushes between opposites and does not yet know what she needs in life. She changes for the better on Monday, and not just the first day of the new week, but a religious celebration, that turning point, which is marked by the church itself, where the heroine goes to cleanse herself of the luxury, idleness and bustle of her former life.
Clean Monday is the first holiday of Lent in the calendar, leading to Forgiveness Sunday. The author extends the thread life-changing heroines: from various amusements and unnecessary fun, to the adoption of religion, and entering a monastery.
The essence
The story is told in the first person. The main events are as follows: every evening the narrator visits a girl who lives opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, for whom he has feelings strong feelings. He is extremely talkative, she is very silent. There was no intimacy between them, and this keeps him in bewilderment and some kind of expectation.
For some time they continue to go to theaters and spend evenings together. Forgiveness Sunday is approaching, and they go to the Novodevichy Convent. Along the way, the heroine talks about how yesterday she was at the schismatic cemetery, and with admiration describes the burial ceremony of the archbishop. The narrator had not previously noticed any religiosity in her, and therefore listened attentively, with glowing, loving eyes. The heroine notices this and is amazed at how much he loves her.
In the evening they go to a skit party, after which the narrator accompanies her home. The girl asks to let the coachmen go, which she hasn’t done before, and come up to her. It was just their evening.
In the morning, the heroine says that she is leaving for Tver, to the monastery - there is no need to wait or look for her.
The main characters and their characteristics
The image of the main character can be viewed from several angles of the narrator: a young man in love evaluates his chosen one as a participant in the events, and he also sees her in the role of a person who only remembers the past. His views on life after falling in love, after passion, change. By the end of the story, the reader now sees his maturity and depth of thoughts, but at the beginning the hero was blinded by his passion and did not see the character of his beloved behind it, did not feel her soul. This is the reason for his loss and the despair into which he plunged after the disappearance of the lady of his heart.
The girl's name cannot be found in the work. For the storyteller, this is simply the same one - unique. The heroine is an ambiguous nature. She has education, sophistication, intelligence, but at the same time she is withdrawn from the world. She is attracted by an unattainable ideal, to which she can only strive within the walls of the monastery. But at the same time, she fell in love with a man and cannot just leave him. Contrast of feelings leads to internal conflict, which we can glimpse in her tense silence, in her desire for quiet and secluded corners, for reflection and solitude. The girl still cannot understand what she needs. She is seduced by a luxurious life, but at the same time, she resists it and tries to find something else that will illuminate her path with meaning. And in this honest choice, in this loyalty to oneself lies great power, there is great happiness, which Bunin described with such pleasure.
Topics and issues
- The main theme is love. It is she who gives a person meaning in life. For a girl guiding star there was a divine revelation, she found herself, but her chosen one, having lost the woman of his dreams, lost his way.
- The problem of misunderstanding. The whole essence of the tragedy of heroes lies in misunderstanding each other. The girl, feeling love for the narrator, does not see anything good in this - for her this is a problem, and not a way out of a confusing situation. She is looking for herself not in the family, but in service and spiritual calling. He sincerely does not see this and tries to impose on her his vision of the future - the creation of marriage bonds.
- Theme of choice also appears in the novella. Every person has a choice, and everyone decides for themselves what to do right. The main character chose her own path - entering a monastery. The hero continued to love her, and could not come to terms with her choice, because of this he could not find inner harmony, find yourself.
- Also I. A. Bunin can be traced theme of human purpose in life. The main character does not know what she wants, but she feels her calling. It is very difficult for her to understand herself, and because of this the narrator also cannot fully understand her. However, she follows the call of her soul, vaguely guessing her destiny - destiny higher powers. And this is very good for both of them. If a woman made a mistake and got married, she would remain unhappy forever and blame the one who led her astray. And the man would suffer from unrequited happiness.
- The problem of happiness. The hero sees him in love with the lady, but the lady moves along a different coordinate system. She will find harmony only alone with God.
Main idea
The writer writes about true love, which ultimately ends in breakup. The heroes make such decisions themselves; they have complete freedom of choice. And the meaning of their actions is the idea of the entire book. Each of us must choose exactly that love that we can worship without complaint throughout our lives. A person must be true to himself and the passion that lives in his heart. The heroine found the strength to go to the end and, despite all doubts and temptations, to reach her cherished goal.
The main idea of the novel is an ardent call for honest self-determination. There is no need to be afraid that someone will not understand or judge your decision if you are sure that this is your calling. In addition, a person must be able to resist those obstacles and temptations that prevent him from hearing his own voice. Fate depends on whether we are able to hear him, both our own fate and the position of those to whom we are dear.
Interesting? Save it on your wall! 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: the cab sleighs rushed thicker and more vigorously, the crowded, diving trams rattled more heavily - in the dusk it was already visible how with a hiss, green stars fell from the wires - dimly blackened passers-by hurried more animatedly along the snowy sidewalks... Every evening at this hour my coachman rushed me on a stretched trotter - from the Red Gate to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior: she lived opposite him; every evening I took her to dinner at Prague, at the Hermitage, at Metropol, after dinner at the theaters, to concerts, and then to Yar, Strelna... How should all this end, I I didn’t know and tried not to think, not to think: it was useless - just like talking to her about it: she once and for all put aside conversations about our future; she was mysterious, incomprehensible to me, and our relationship with her was strange - we were still not very close; and all this endlessly kept me in unresolved tension, in painful anticipation - and at the same time I was incredibly happy with every hour spent near her. For some reason, she took courses, attended them quite rarely, but attended them. I once asked: “Why?” She shrugged her shoulder: “Why is everything done in the world? Do we understand anything in our actions? In addition, I am interested in history...” She lived alone - her widowed father, an enlightened man of a noble merchant family, lived in retirement in Tver, collecting something, like all such merchants. In the house opposite the Church of the Savior, for the sake of the view of Moscow, she rented a corner apartment on the fifth floor, only two rooms, but spacious and well furnished. In the first, a wide Turkish sofa occupied a lot of space, there was an expensive piano, on which she kept practicing the slow, somnambulistically beautiful beginning “ Moonlight Sonata“, - only one beginning, - on the piano and on the mirror-glass, elegant flowers bloomed in cut vases, - on my order, fresh ones were delivered to her every Saturday, - and when I came to her on Saturday evening, she was lying on the sofa, above which why “There was a portrait of a barefoot Tolstoy hanging, she slowly extended her hand to me for a kiss and said absentmindedly: “Thank you for the flowers...” I brought her boxes of chocolate, new books - Hofmannsthal, Schnitzler, Tetmeyer, Przybyshevsky - and received everything the same “ thank you” and an outstretched warm hand, sometimes an order to sit near the sofa without taking off your coat. “It’s not clear why,” she said thoughtfully, stroking my beaver collar, “but it seems that nothing can happen.” better smell winter air with which you enter the room from the yard...” It looked like she didn’t need anything: no flowers, no books, no lunches, no theaters, no dinners outside the city, although she still had flowers favorite and least favorite, she always read all the books that I brought her, she ate a whole box of chocolate in a day, she ate as much as me at lunches and dinners, she loved pies with burbot fish soup, pink hazel grouse in deep-fried sour cream, sometimes she said: “Don’t I understand how people won’t get tired of it all their lives, having lunch and dinner every day,” but she herself had lunch and dinner with a Moscow understanding of the matter. Her obvious weakness was only good clothes, velvet, silk, expensive fur... We were both rich, healthy, young and so good-looking that people stared at us in restaurants and at concerts. I, being from the Penza province, was at that time handsome for some reason, with a southern, hot beauty, I was even “indecently handsome,” as one once told me famous actor, a monstrously fat man, a great glutton and a clever girl. “The devil knows who you are, some Sicilian,” he said sleepily; and my character was southern, lively, always ready for a happy smile, for good joke. And she had some kind of Indian, Persian beauty: a dark-amber face, magnificent and somewhat ominous hair in its thick blackness, softly shining like black sable fur, eyebrows, eyes black as velvet coal; the mouth, captivating with velvety crimson lips, was shaded with dark fluff; when going out, she most often put on a garnet velvet dress and the same shoes with gold buckles (and she went to courses as a modest student, ate breakfast for thirty kopecks in a vegetarian canteen on Arbat); and as much as I was inclined to talkativeness, to simple-hearted gaiety, she was most often silent: she was always thinking about something, she seemed to be delving into something mentally; lying on the sofa with a book in her hands, she often lowered it and looked inquiringly in front of her: I saw this, sometimes visiting her during the day, because every month she did not leave the house for three or four days at all, she lay and read, forcing me to sit in a chair near the sofa and read silently. “You are terribly talkative and restless,” she said, “let me finish the chapter... “If I hadn’t been talkative and restless, I might never have recognized you,” I answered, reminding her of our acquaintance: one day in December, when I got to Art club to a lecture by Andrei Bely, who sang it while running and dancing on the stage, I spun and laughed so much that she, who happened to be in the chair next to me and at first looked at me with some bewilderment, also finally laughed, and I immediately turned cheerfully to her. “That’s all right,” she said, “but still be silent for a while, read something, smoke... - I can’t remain silent! You can’t imagine the full power of my love for you! You don't love me! - I can imagine. As for my love, you know very well that besides my father and you, I have no one in the world. In any case, you are my first and last. Is this not enough for you? But enough about that. We can’t read in front of you, let’s drink tea... And I got up, boiled water in an electric kettle on the table behind the sofa, took cups and saucers from the walnut pile that stood in the corner behind the table, saying whatever came to mind: —Have you finished reading “Fire Angel”? - I finished watching it. It's so pompous that it's embarrassing to read. — Why did you suddenly leave Chaliapin’s concert yesterday? - He was too daring. And then I don’t like yellow-haired Rus' at all. - You still don’t like it!- Yes, a lot... "Strange love!" - I thought and, while the water was boiling, I stood looking out the windows. The room smelled of flowers, and for me she connected with their smell; outside one window lay low in the distance huge picture beyond the river, snow-blue Moscow; in the other, to the left, part of the Kremlin was visible; on the contrary, somehow too close, the too-new bulk of Christ the Savior loomed white, in the golden dome of which the jackdaws forever hovering around it were reflected with bluish spots... “Strange city! - I said to myself, thinking about Okhotny Ryad, about Iverskaya, about St. Basil the Blessed. — St. Basil the Blessed — and Spas-on-Boru, Italian cathedrals — and something Kyrgyz in the points of the towers on the Kremlin walls...” Arriving at dusk, I sometimes found her on the sofa in only one silk archaluk trimmed with sable - the inheritance of my Astrakhan grandmother, she said - I sat next to her in the semi-darkness, without lighting the fire, and kissed her hands and feet, amazing in their smoothness body... And she did not resist anything, but all in silence. I constantly searched for her hot lips - she gave them, breathing fitfully, but all in silence. When she felt that I was no longer able to control myself, she pushed me away, sat down and, without raising her voice, asked to turn on the light, then went into the bedroom. I lit it, sat on a swivel stool near the piano and gradually came to my senses, cooled down from the hot intoxication. A quarter of an hour later she came out of the bedroom, dressed, ready to leave, calm and simple, as if nothing had happened before: -Where to today? To Metropol, maybe? And again we spent the whole evening talking about something unrelated. Soon after we became close, she said to me when I started talking about marriage: - No, I’m not fit to be a wife. I'm not good, I'm not good... This didn't discourage me. “We’ll see from there!” - I said to myself in the hope that her decision would change over time and no longer talked about marriage. Our incomplete intimacy sometimes seemed unbearable to me, but even here, what was left for me except hope for time? One day, sitting next to her in this evening darkness and silence, I grabbed my head: - No, this is beyond my strength! And why, why do you have to torture me and yourself so cruelly! She remained silent. - Yes, after all, this is not love, not love... She evenly responded from the darkness: - May be. Who knows what love is? - I, I know! - I exclaimed. - And I will wait for you to find out what love and happiness are! - Happiness, happiness... “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.”- What is this? - This is what Platon Karataev told Pierre. I waved my hand: - Oh, God bless her, with this eastern wisdom! And again all evening he talked only about strangers - about new production Art Theater, about Andreev’s new story... Again, it was enough for me that I first sat closely with her in a flying and rolling sled, holding her in the smooth fur of a fur coat, then I entered with her into the crowded hall of the restaurant to the march from “Aida” “, I eat and drink next to her, I hear her slow voice, I look at the lips that I kissed an hour ago - yes, I kissed, I told myself, looking at them with rapturous gratitude, at the dark fluff above them, at the garnet velvet of the dress. , on the slope of her shoulders and the oval of her breasts, smelling some slightly spicy smell of her hair, thinking: “Moscow, Astrakhan, Persia, India!” In restaurants outside the city, towards the end of dinner, when the tobacco smoke was becoming more and more noisy all around, she, also smoking and tipsy, would sometimes take me to a separate office, ask me to call the gypsies, and they would enter deliberately noisily, cheekily: in front of the choir, with a guitar on a blue ribbon over his shoulder, an old gypsy in a Cossack with braid, with the gray muzzle of a drowned man, with a head as bare as a cast-iron ball, behind him a gypsy singer with a low forehead under tar bangs... She listened to the songs with a languid, strange smile... At three or four o'clock in the morning I took her home, at the entrance, closing my eyes in happiness, kissing the wet fur of her collar and in some kind of ecstatic despair I flew to the Red Gate. And tomorrow and the day after tomorrow everything will be the same, I thought - all the same torment and all the same happiness... Well, still happiness, great happiness! So January and February passed, Maslenitsa came and went. On Forgiveness Sunday, she ordered me to come to her at five o’clock in the evening. I arrived, and she met me already dressed, in a short astrakhan fur coat, astrakhan hat, and black felt boots. - Everything is black! - I said, entering, as always, joyfully. Her eyes were gentle and quiet. “After all, tomorrow is already clean Monday,” she answered, taking it out of her astrakhan muff and giving me her hand in a black kid glove. - “Lord, master of my belly...” Do you want to go to the Novodevichy Convent? I was surprised, but hastened to say:- Want! “Well, it’s all taverns and taverns,” she added. - Yesterday morning I was at the Rogozhskoye cemetery... I was even more surprised: - To the cemetery? For what? Is this the famous schismatic? - Yes, schismatic. Pre-Petrine Rus'! Their archbishop was buried. And just imagine: the coffin - oak deck, as in ancient times, the golden brocade seems to be forged, the face of the deceased is covered with white “air”, sewn with large black script - beauty and horror. And at the tomb there are deacons with ripidae and trikiria... - How do you know this? Ripids, trikiriyas! - You don't know me. “I didn’t know you were so religious.” - This is not religiosity. I don’t know what... 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... So: deacons - what kind of deacons! Peresvet and Oslyabya! And on two choirs there are two choirs, also all Peresvets: tall, powerful, in long black caftans, they sing, calling to each other - first one choir, then the other - and all in unison, and not according to notes, but according to “hooks”. And the inside of the grave was lined with shiny spruce branches, and outside it was frosty, sunny, blinding snow... No, you don’t understand this! Let's go... 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, and the chimes played subtly and sadly every now and then in the bell tower. Creaking in silence through the snow, we entered the gate, walked along the snowy paths through the cemetery - the sun had just set, it was still quite light, the branches in the frost were marvelously drawn on the golden enamel of the sunset like gray coral, and mysteriously glowed around us with calm, sad lights unquenchable lamps scattered over the graves. I followed her, looking with emotion at her little footprint, at the stars that her new black boots left in the snow - she suddenly turned around, feeling it: - It’s true, how you love me! - she said with quiet bewilderment, shaking her head. We stood near the graves of Ertel and Chekhov. Holding her hands in her lowered muff, she looked for a long time at Chekhov's grave monument, then shrugged her shoulder: - What a disgusting mixture of Russian leaf style and the Art Theater! It began to get dark and freezing, we slowly walked out of the gate, near which my Fyodor was obediently sitting on a box. “We’ll drive a little more,” she said, “then we’ll go eat the last pancakes at Yegorov’s... But not too much, Fedor, right?”- I’m listening, sir. — Somewhere on Ordynka there is a house where Griboyedov lived. Let's go look for him... And for some reason we went to Ordynka, drove for a long time along some alleys in the gardens, were in Griboyedovsky Lane; but who could tell us which house Griboedov lived in? There wasn’t a soul passing by, and who of them could need Griboyedov? It had long since gotten dark, the frost-lit windows behind the trees were turning pink... “There is also the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent,” she said. I laughed: - Back to the monastery? - No, it’s just me... On the ground floor of Yegorov's tavern in Okhotny Ryad it was full of shaggy, thickly dressed cab drivers cutting up stacks of pancakes, doused in excess with butter and sour cream; it was steamy, like in a bathhouse. In the upper rooms, also very warm, with low ceilings, the Old Testament merchants washed down fiery pancakes with grainy caviar with frozen champagne. We went into the second room, where in the corner, in front of the black board of the icon of the Mother of God of Three Hands, a lamp was burning, we sat down at a long table on a black leather sofa... The fluff on her upper lip was frosted, the amber of her cheeks turned slightly pink, the blackness of the paradise completely merged with pupil,” I could not take my enthusiastic eyes off her face. And she said, taking a handkerchief from her fragrant muff: - Fine! 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! You are a gentleman, you cannot understand this whole Moscow the way I do. - I can, I can! - I answered. - And let's order lunch strong! - How do you mean “strong”? - It means strong. How come you don't know? “Gyurgi’s speech...” - How good! Gyurgi! - Yes, Prince Yuri Dolgoruky. “Gyurga’s speech to Svyatoslav, Prince of Seversky: “Come to me, brother, in Moscow,” and ordered a strong dinner.” - How good. And now only this Rus' remains in some northern monasteries. Yes, even in church hymns. Recently I went to the Conception Monastery - you can’t imagine how wonderfully the stichera are sung there! And in Chudovoy it’s even better. I last year I kept going there on Strastnaya. Oh, how good it was! There are puddles everywhere, the air is already soft, my soul is somehow tender, sad, and all the time there is this feeling of the homeland, its antiquity... All the doors in the cathedral are open, all day long ordinary people come and go, all day long the service... Oh, I’ll leave I’m going somewhere to a monastery, to some very remote one, in Vologda, Vyatka! I wanted to say that then I too would leave or kill someone so that they would drive me to Sakhalin, I lit a cigarette, lost in excitement, but a floor guard in white pants and a white shirt, belted with a crimson tourniquet, approached and respectfully reminded: - Sorry, sir, smoking is not allowed here... And immediately, with special obsequiousness, he began quickly: - What would you like for pancakes? Homemade herbalist? Caviar, salmon? Our sherry is exceptionally good for ears, but for navazhka... “And to the sherry,” she added, delighting me with her kind talkativeness, which did not leave her all evening. And I was already absent-mindedly listening to what she said next. And she spoke to quiet light in the eyes: “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.” “There was a city in the Russian land called Murom, and a noble prince named Paul reigned in it. And the devil introduced a flying serpent to his wife for fornication. And this serpent appeared to her in human nature, extremely beautiful...” I jokingly made scary eyes: - Oh, what a horror! She continued without listening: “That’s how God tested her.” “When the time came for her blessed death, this prince and princess begged God to repose before them on one day. And they agreed to be buried in a single coffin. And they ordered to carve two grave beds in a single stone. And they clothed themselves, at the same time, in monastic robes...” And again my absent-mindedness gave way to surprise and even anxiety: what’s wrong with her today? And so, that evening, when I took her home at a completely different time than usual, at eleven o’clock, she, saying goodbye to me at the entrance, suddenly detained me when I was already getting into the sleigh: - Wait. Come see me tomorrow evening, don't hurt ten. Tomorrow is the “cabbage party” of the Art Theater. - So? - I asked. - Do you want to go to this “cabbage party”?- Yes. - But you said that you don’t know anything more vulgar than these “cabbages”! - And now I don’t know. And still I want to go. I mentally shook my head - all quirks, Moscow quirks! - and cheerfully responded:- All right! At ten o'clock in the evening the next day, having gone up in the elevator to her door, I opened the door with my key and did not immediately enter from the dark hallway: behind it it was unusually light, everything was lit - chandeliers, candelabra on the sides of the mirror and a tall lamp under the light lampshade behind the head of the sofa, and the piano sounded the beginning of the “Moonlight Sonata” - increasingly rising, sounding the further, the more languid, more inviting, in somnambulist-blissful sadness. I slammed the hallway door - the sounds stopped, and the rustling of a dress was heard. I entered - she stood straight and somewhat theatrically near the piano in a black velvet dress, making her look thinner, shining with its elegance, the festive headdress of her jet-black hair, the dark amber color of her bare arms, shoulders, tender, full start breasts, the sparkle of diamond earrings along slightly powdered cheeks, the coal velvet of the eyes and the velvety purple of the 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. “Now, if I were a singer and sang on the stage,” she said, looking at my confused face, “I would respond to applause with a friendly smile and slight bows to the right and left, up and to the stalls, and I would imperceptibly but carefully push away foot the train so as not to step on it... At the "cabbage party" she smoked a lot and kept sipping champagne, looked intently at the actors, with lively cries and choruses portraying something as if Parisian, at the big Stanislavsky with white hair and black eyebrows and the thick-set Moskvin in pince-nez on his trough-shaped face - both with deliberate With seriousness and diligence, falling backwards, they performed a desperate cancan to the laughter of the audience. Kachalov came up to us with a glass in his hand, pale from hops, with heavy sweat on his forehead, on which a tuft of his Belarusian hair hung, raised his glass and, looking at her with feigned gloomy greed, said in his low actor’s voice: - Tsar Maiden, Queen of Shamakhan, your health! And she smiled slowly and clinked glasses with him. He took her hand, drunkenly fell towards her and almost fell off his feet. He managed and, gritting his teeth, looked at me: - What kind of handsome guy is this? I hate it. Then the organ wheezed, whistled and thundered, the barrel organ skipped and stomped its polka - and the small Sulerzhitsky, always in a hurry and laughing, flew up to us, gliding, bending over, feigning Gostiny Dvor gallantry, and hastily muttered: - Allow me to invite Tranblanc to the table... And she, smiling, got up and, deftly, with a short stamp of her feet, sparkling with earrings, her blackness and bare shoulders and arms, walked with him among the tables, followed by admiring glances and applause, while he, raising his head, shouted like a goat:Let's go, let's go quickly
Polka dance with you!
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 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”. He 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 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 darkened, the gas in the lanterns was coldly lit, the shop 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 - 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 for streamlining. 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 “incredibly 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 the “slow, somnambulistically beautiful beginning of the 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, rejoices at every moment. It would seem that there is nothing to be sad about? Both are rich, healthy, young and so good-looking that they are followed with envious glances everywhere.
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 by Valery Bryusov is mentioned " Fire Angel", which the heroine did not finish reading because of its pomposity. She also left Chaliapin’s concert, considering that the famous singer “had gone overboard.” She has her own opinion on everything, her likes and dislikes. At the beginning of the story, fashionable writers are mentioned of that time, which the girl reads: Hofmannsthal, Pshebyshevsky, Schnitzler, Tetmeier.
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 Kremlin walls..." - this is how the young man thinks.
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. First - 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 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 overtones. Former warriors- the heroes go to the monastery, and then again perform a 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 footsteps in silence in the snow, the golden enamel of the sunset, the gray corals of branches covered in frost. Everything is filled with peace, silence and harmony, some kind of warm sadness. A 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. Griboedov’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. Three-handed has nothing to do with 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 snake “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 the girl perceives the young man. And the second episode is associated 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 the girl used to consider these skits vulgar, she still 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 appearance of an oriental beauty with popular print. The hero is amazed by such a brilliant beauty of his beloved, he has a confused face, and she slight irony refers to her appearance: “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 left, up and to the stalls, and I would imperceptibly but carefully push away the train with my 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. This means that there was no Clean Monday in the religious sense. 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, slowly, earnestly walking with lowered eyes, with a large candle in her hand, the Grand Duchess, and behind her is a white line of nuns. One of those walking in the middle suddenly raised her head, covered with a white robe, and fixed her dark eyes on the darkness, as if she felt his presence. Thus ends this amazing story.
Effective preparation for the Unified State Exam (all subjects) - start preparing
Updated: 2017-09-30
Attention!
Thank you for your attention.
If you notice an error or typo, highlight the text and click Ctrl+Enter.
By doing so, you will provide invaluable benefit to the project and other readers.
