And Bunin’s light breathing is a problem. The meaning of the title and problems of Bunin’s story “Easy Breathing”
Composition
In the fall of 1912, in an interview with a Moscow newspaper correspondent, Bunin said: “... I have conceived and even started one story, where the theme is love and passion. The problem of love has not yet been developed in my works. And I feel an urgent need to write about it.” Indeed, until the age of thirty-two, the writer almost did not touch on the topic, which a few years later would become the leading one in his work. Since childhood, Bunin was unusually sensitive to female beauty, sensing “something very special” in it, which probably gave superficial interpreters a reason to accuse him of “tart sensuality.”
In fact, Bunin created his own image of love in his youth and remained faithful to this idea until the end of his life. In an article from 1888, the writer noted: “Love, as an eternal feeling, always alive and young, has served and will serve as inexhaustible material for poetry; it brings an ideal attitude and light into the everyday prose of life, stirs up the noble instincts of the soul and does not allow it to become coarse in narrow materialism and crude animal egoism,” In Bunin’s later prose - “The Life of Arsenyev,” in “ Dark alleys“especially – love is always tinged with tragedy and sadness. Through the human experience of love, the writer comprehended the most general and unchangeable laws of life, the complex spiritual processes of involving the individual in the life of the Universe. Among the pre-revolutionary Bunin's stories, united by the theme of love - “The Cup of Life”, “Son”, “The Grammar of Love”, etc. The masterpiece of prose of these years is rightfully recognized as “ Easy breath».
Researchers have interpreted Bunin's short story in different ways, but only those readings that reflect the author's view of man, captured in “Easy Breathing,” can be considered the most successful. First of all, it is necessary to take into account that the category of character is not applicable to all of Bunin’s heroes, from which it follows that the events, actions, and actions of the heroes are optional. More often, a writer presents a person not as a character, but as a state or everyday consciousness. Thought and action are displaced in Bunin’s hero by a state, a feeling, a memory. The entire being of Bunin's man is tuned to the perception of life, and not to its explanation and - especially - change. Art world Bunin, as already mentioned, is always unchanged. And a person exists in it not as a set of certain traits, but in a completely different capacity. G. N. Kuznetsova in her Grasse Diary, recalling life in the Bunins’ house, recounts her conversation with the writer about his “Easy Breathing.” She found the ease with which the heroine of the novel, high school student Olya Meshcherskaya, confesses to the head of the gymnasium that “she is already a woman” questionable. Bunin did not argue, but tried to explain his artistic task. He was interested in the image of a woman brought to the limit of her “uterine essence.” The naivety, lightness, bewilderment and similar irrational states of the heroine are taken by the author “to the limit”, excluding the possibility of assessing Olya Meshcherskaya’s actions from the point of view of reason. Let us remember that Bunin’s predecessors took the rational principles of human life “to the limit.”; The heroes' actions always had socio-cultural reasons. Their actions corresponded to ideas, ideas, and traditions, which, if reasonable, brought good to both the hero himself and his neighbors. Otherwise, misfortunes and tragedies would occur. For Bunin, the motives of human actions almost always originate in the area of the unconscious. They can be described precisely as “uterine”.
In a dispute with Bunin, G.N. Kuznetsova finds herself on the familiar literary work positions classical realism. She knew well the type of Russian high school student of a certain era and considered that the girl could not act like Olya Meshcherskaya. A. S. Vygotsky, analyzing “Easy Breathing,” in this regard, notes the following: the form of Bunin’s story is aimed “not at... revealing the life of a Russian schoolgirl to the end, in all its typicality and depth, but precisely in reverse side" His thought got further development in the study of V. Ya. Linkov, who claims that “...Olya Meshcherskaya does her actions not at all because she is a high school student. Her behavior is not the fruit of upbringing and the influence of the environment, but is generated, as Bunin put it, by the “uterine” beginning that the heroine, in the writer’s opinion, has in common not with Russian schoolgirls, but with all women, regardless of country, environment, upbringing, era.”
ng>The essence of the content, structure and style of the analyzed short story is most thoroughly revealed by the foreign Russianist A.K. Zholtovsky in his work “Easy Breathing” by Bunin - Vygodsky seventy years later.” According to Zholtovsky, the originality of Bunin’s work lies primarily in the composition, which is characterized by many time jumps. They can also be considered as a method of reducing interest in events in favor of creation general atmosphere lightness and detachment, and as a way of creating narrative contrasts (event surprises, etc.). Compositional shifts are subject to general scheme: the narrative from the present (at Olya’s grave) moves on to the restoration of the past (her high school life), reaches almost the present (Olya’s death and the investigation of her killer), again turns to the past (the episode of the fall), moves to the present (a cool lady on the way to Olya’s grave), then briefly describing the past (of the cool lady), returns to the present (the cool lady at the grave), then the author brings a conversation from the past (about easy breathing), from where he sharply returns us to the present (the wind in the cemetery).
The movement from the present to the past is rhythmically uneven. Close-up Olya’s conversation with her boss and a story about “easy breathing” are given. The whole chain important events and plans are compressed into one, at first glance, unnaturally long sentence: “And the incredible confession of Olya Meshcherskaya, which stunned the boss, was completely confirmed: the officer told the judicial investigator that Meshcherskaya lured him, was close to him, vowed to be his wife, and at the station, on the day of the murder, accompanying him to Novocherkassk, she suddenly told him that she had never thought of loving him, that all this talk about marriage was just her mockery of him, and she gave him to read that page of the diary that talked about Malyutin.”
The degree of importance of events “piled up” in ONE sentence is distorted. And even if all the events are arranged sequentially in no order, gaps remain in Olya’s biography. As a result, the conversation about easy breathing is not confined to any specific period of Olya’s life (before or after the fall? before or after the connection with the officer?). In other words, in Bunin the movement of time does not contribute to the chronological construction of the heroine’s story. Instead of its measured movement in one direction, there are stops and breaks. Time is running unevenly, on poorly connected segments and in different directions. This technique creates the effect of freeing up time and weakens interest in the development of the plot.
Traditional short story storytelling is always based on interest in an event, the meaning of which is revealed at the end of the work. Hence the suspenseful plot of the novella. In “Easy Breathing,” traditional methods of presentation are squeezed out, but not completely discarded. Olya's death is announced at the beginning of the work; the reader wants to know how it happened. Interest is reinforced by the fact that the story of Olya’s “fall” is first skipped, then interrupted as soon as it begins (in the scene with the boss) and only later is it told about by a page from the diary. Such a break in the plot connections indicates the presence in Bunin’s text of a clearly pronounced features modernist writing. Thus, it remains unknown what the high school student Shenshin’s attempted suicide led to, how Olya’s conversation with her boss, interrupted by the narrator, ended, what happened to Olya’s arrested killer, how the relationship between Olya and her parents developed with their friend and her seducer Malyutin. At the same time, the narrator pays a lot of attention to the completely secondary Tolya and Subbotina. There seems to be a deliberate blurring of the plot. And she herself is far from accepted in realistic literature causal connection.
Bunin called his story "Easy Breathing." How can breathing be easy? After all, this is already something initially easy, familiar. Breathing is given by nature, it is natural for every person. All people are accustomed to breathing, and for no one breathing is difficult work. Light breathing is something elusive and very short-lived.
The personification of “easy breathing” is Olya Meshcherskaya. Her image is contrasted with another: the image of the gentleman from San Francisco. The gentleman from San Francisco planned out his whole life day by day, he always knew (or at least thought he knew) when, where and what he would do, he clearly imagined his future and planned to start " real life"only after fifty-eight years. All his fifty-eight years he did not live, but existed according to a strictly established routine. His life did not take place due to the fact that he thought too much, trying to foresee everything. He killed his soul and became incapable enjoy the beauty of nature, from artistic values. The gentleman from San Francisco opposed himself to nature, fenced himself off from it, but in this contradiction nature won, and man turned out to be pitiful and useless to anyone.
Olya Meshcherskaya was “one of the pretty, rich and happy girls.” “Without any worries or effort, somehow imperceptibly came to her everything that so distinguished her from the entire gymnasium - grace, elegance, dexterity, the clear sparkle of her eyes” - nature gave her what many would like to have. Olya herself was a part of nature: she did not try to restrain her movements and feelings, did not hide her emotions. Olya stood out among the “crowd of brown school dresses” because she knew how to find joy in every day. Probably, not many people were able to notice that the winter was “snowy, sunny, frosty”; not many could cheer up the fact that “the sun set early behind the tall spruce forest of the gymnasium garden, invariably fine, radiant, promising frost and sun for tomorrow ".
Olya considered other people to be the same as her. Therefore, she only notices around her beautiful features of what surrounds her. She notices that the boss, although gray-haired, is youthful, that her office is “extraordinarily clean and large,” and that she notices “the warmth of a shiny Dutch dress and the freshness of lilies of the valley on the desk.” Walking into this “unusually clean and large office,” she did not think that she would be scolded there. All she notices about Malyutin is that although he is fifty-six years old, “he is still very handsome and always well dressed, and his eyes are very young, black, and his beard is gracefully divided into two long parts and completely silver.”
Olya’s elegance, elegance, and dexterity reflected the same graceful, beautiful spiritual world, she was not capable of any vile act. Olya thought that other people were the same as her, that their good appearance and good clothes reflect the same pure soul as hers. She tried to find out as much as possible more peace, which she loved, brought her every day great amount impressions, meetings, feelings that she could not help but “go crazy with fun.” Olya was cheerful, happy with life and naive, so she did not think that the world around her might not actually be as beautiful as she imagined it to be. She never thought that the people she liked could turn out to be scoundrels and take advantage of her beauty, youth, and naivety.
Striving to learn and experience as much as possible, Olya did not notice that what was natural for her was against the rules established in society. Schoolgirls had to be restrained in their movements - and she was “rushing like a whirlwind from the first-graders chasing her,” she had to drown in “a crowd of brown dresses” - but she had women's hairstyle, expensive combs in her hair and “shoes that cost twenty rubles”, she had to be modest - but she declared that she was “already a woman, not a high school student.” When Olya realized that she was mistaken about Malyutin, that he forced her to do something that was not allowed by the rules, she became disgusted not only with Malyutin, but also with herself.
"I never thought I was like this!" Yes, Olya didn’t think, she just lived. I.A. Bunin said that he “was always attracted by the image of a woman brought to the limit of her “uterine essence.” “Only we call it the womb, but I called it light breathing. Such naivety and lightness in everything, both in audacity and in death, is “easy breathing,” not thinking.”
After Olya’s death, her cool lady began visiting her grave. For what? Maybe because she realized that Olya Meshcherskaya lived her short life more interestingly than she did. After all, a cool lady is “an elderly girl who has long been living with some kind of fiction that replaces her real life.” The boss and the cool lady scolded Olya for her hairstyle, behavior, clothes because they didn’t have what she had: neither beautiful hair, no graceful movements, no youth. They did not know how to enjoy the snowy winter and the shining sun. Their essence was only enough for them to sit at their desk with knitting in their hands and gray hair.
If all people were as pure, naive, beautiful as Olya was, and if everyone knew how to enjoy every day, then everyone would be happy. But not everyone has easy breathing. Olya was too different from the society in which she lived. People envied her, did not understand her joy, her happiness, but she did not understand people. Olya could not live by the laws by which society lived. The light breath had to dissipate “in this cloudy sky, in this cold spring wind,” because it cannot be tied to the ground.
The story “Easy Breathing,” written in 1916, is deservedly considered one of the pearls of Bunin’s prose - the image of the heroine is so succinctly and vividly captured in it, and the feeling of beauty is so tenderly conveyed. What is “light breathing”, why has this phrase long ago become a common noun to denote human talent - the talent to live? To understand this, let’s analyze the story “Easy Breathing.”
Bunin builds his narrative on contrasts. Already from the first lines, the reader has some kind of dual feeling: a sad, deserted cemetery, a gray April day, cold wind, which "rings and rings like a porcelain wreath at the foot of the cross." Here is the beginning of the story: “In the cemetery, over a fresh clay mound stands new cross made of oak, strong, heavy, smooth... The cross itself has a rather large, convex porcelain medallion embedded in it, and in the medallion is a photographic portrait of a schoolgirl with joyful, amazingly lively eyes.” The whole life of Olechka Meshcherskaya is described according to the principle of contrast: cloudless childhood and adolescence are contrasted tragic events the last year Olya lived. The author everywhere emphasizes the gap between the apparent and the real, external and internal state heroines. The plot of the story is extremely simple. The young, recklessly happy beauty schoolgirl Olya Meshcherskaya becomes first the prey of an elderly sensualist, and then a living target for the Cossack officer deceived by her. Tragic death Meshcherskoy encourages a lonely little woman - a classy lady - to perform a frantic, withering “service” to her memory. The apparent simplicity of the story's plot is disrupted by the contrast: a heavy cross and joyful, lively eyes, which makes the reader's heart clench anxiously. It will haunt us throughout the entire story of short life Olya Meshcherskaya. The simplicity of the plot is deceptive: after all, this is a story not only about the fate of a young girl, but also about the joyless fate of a classy lady, accustomed to living someone else’s life, shining with reflected light - the light of Olya Meshcherskaya’s “living eyes”.
Bunin believed that the birth of a person is not his beginning, which means that death is not the end of the existence of his soul. The soul - its symbol is “light breathing” - does not disappear irrevocably. She is the best, real part of life. The embodiment of this life was the heroine of the story, Olya Meshcherskaya. The girl is so natural that even the external manifestations of her existence cause rejection among some and admiration among others: “And she was not afraid of anything - not ink stains on her fingers, not a flushed face, not disheveled hair, not a knee that became bare when falling while running. Without any of her worries or efforts, and somehow imperceptibly, everything that had so distinguished her from the entire gymnasium in the last two years came to her - grace, elegance, dexterity, the clear sparkle of her eyes...” At first glance, before us is an ordinary The schoolgirl is a beautiful, prosperous and slightly flighty girl, the daughter of wealthy parents, who is expecting a brilliant match.
But our attention is constantly and persistently directed to some hidden springs of Olya’s life. To do this, the author delays the explanation of the reasons for the death of the heroine, as if generated by the very logic of the girl’s behavior. Maybe she herself is to blame for everything? After all, she flirts with the high school student Shenshin, flirts, albeit unconsciously, with Alexei Mikhailovich Malyutin, who seduces her, for some reason promises the Cossack officer to marry him. For what? Why does she need all this? And gradually we understand that Olya Meshcherskaya is beautiful, just as the elements are beautiful. And just as immoral as she is. She wants to reach the limit in everything, to the depth, to the innermost essence, regardless of the opinions of others. In Olya’s actions there is no meaningful vice, no sense of revenge, no pain of repentance, no firmness of decision. It turns out that a wonderful feeling of fullness of life can be destructive. Even the unconscious longing for her (like a classy lady) is tragic. Therefore, every detail, every step of Olya’s life threatens disaster: curiosity and pranks can lead to violence, frivolous play with other people’s feelings can lead to murder. Olya Meshcherskaya lives, and does not play the role of a living being. This is her essence. This is her fault. To be extremely alive without following the rules of the game means to be extremely doomed. After all, the environment in which Meshcherskaya was destined to appear was completely devoid of an organic, holistic sense of beauty. Here life is subject to strict rules, the violation of which has to be paid. Olya, who was accustomed not only to teasing fate, but simply to courageously go towards new sensations and impressions in their entirety, did not have the chance to meet a person who would appreciate not only her physical beauty, but also her spiritual generosity and brightness. After all, Olya really had “ easy breathing“- a thirst for some special, unique destiny, worthy only of the chosen few. The teacher, who was unable to save her student, recalls her words, accidentally overheard during recess. Among detailed description female beauty and the half-childish “trying on” of this description to one’s own appearance, the phrase about “easy breathing” sounds so unexpectedly, taken literally by the girl: “...But the main thing is, do you know what? - easy breath! But I have it - listen to how I sigh...” The author leaves to the world not the beauty of the girl, not her experience, but only this never-revealed opportunity. She, according to Bunin, cannot completely disappear, just as the craving for beauty, happiness, for perfection cannot disappear: “Now this light breath has again dissipated in the world, in this cloudy sky, in this cold spring wind.”
“Easy breathing” in Bunin’s view is the ability to enjoy life and accept it as a bright gift. Olya Meshcherskaya captivated those around her with her generous and fierce love of life, but in the meager world of the small town, unfortunately for her, there was no person who could protect her “light breath” from the “cold spring wind.”
The story “Easy Breathing” is one of the most complex and philosophically filled works by I.A. Bunina. The reader is presented with quite simple story from the life of an ordinary high school student, but it is she who makes you think about many pressing issues not only of modernity, but also of existence.
"Easy breathing" genre features refers to a short story that sets itself the task, through a unique and specific event, to show not only the fate of its hero, but also to recreate a picture of the life of the entire society, including its vices and delusions.
The composition of the story is complex and unusual. The technique of reverse narration is used as a basis. At the beginning of the work, the reader learns that the main character Olya Meshcherskaya is dead, and then gets acquainted with her and the story of her life, already understanding that it will be tragic.
Analysis of Bunin’s work “Easy Breathing”
Compositional shifts and contrasts occur throughout the story. First there is a narrative from the present (the girl’s grave), which moves on to events of the past (a description of life in the gymnasium). Then the reader returns to a time close to the present - the death of Olya and the investigation of the officer who committed the murder. After which the narrative again moves into the past, telling about the vulgar connection between the girl and Malyutin. Here again the present is described: a cool lady on the way to the cemetery where the heroine is buried. The work ends with another reference to the past - a dialogue between Ole Meshcherskaya and her friend and her thoughts about the “light breathing” of a woman.
In each episode telling about the stage of Meshcherskaya’s life (growing up, moral decline and death), the author turns to various forms: narration, portrait, speech characters, landscape sketches, diary entries and author's remarks.
The time of the work is constantly interrupted or stopped, and the reader reconstructs the chronology of what happened. The narrative is vague, but thanks to this, reading the novel not only arouses interest, but also gives new meanings, provides an answer to main question: “Why is Olya’s fate so tragic?”
Everyone is to blame for what happened. This is also a cool lady who was unable to establish communication with her student, give her advice and become a mentor. Naturally, this is Malyutin, who seduced and seduced Olya. There is some blame also on the shoulders of the girl’s parents, who are mentioned a little in the story. Were they not obliged to protect their daughter from frivolity and, at a minimum, not to make friends with a person like Malyutin.
The tragic outcome was also predetermined by Ole Meshcherskaya’s attitude towards life. A person is also responsible for his destiny and what happens to him. I.A. Bunin speaks about this very clearly in his work.
Characteristics of the main characters of the story “Easy Breathing”
Olya Meshcherskaya is the main character of the story. She is the daughter of wealthy parents. He dances and skates best at balls. The girl differs from her peers in her beauty and femininity: early “she began to blossom, to develop by leaps and bounds,” and “at fifteen she was already known as a beauty.” Olya is opposed to other high school students with her attitude to life. While others carefully combed their hair, were very clean, and “watched their restrained movements,” the heroine of the story was not afraid of “neither ink stains on their fingers, nor a flushed face, nor disheveled hair.”
Her image intertwines childish naivety, sincerity, simplicity with unprecedented femininity and beauty. Such a destructive combination gave rise to envy, jealousy, and the emergence of thousands of rumors that she was flighty, incapable of love, and was driving her loved one to suicide with her behavior. However, the author makes it clear that these opinions of people about Olga Meshcherskaya are groundless. Her beauty and uniqueness attracts not only young people, but also evil with a fatal outcome.
Children are drawn to the heroine and feel in her good man. The narrator constantly mentions Olya only in context beautiful landscapes and harmonious places. When she is skating, it is a beautiful pink evening outside. When a girl is on a walk, the sun shines throughout wet garden" All this indicates the author's sympathy for his character.
Olga always reaches out to the beautiful, the perfect. She is not satisfied with the philistine attitude towards herself and life. However, this is precisely the position main character together with its uniqueness and spiritual subtlety predetermine the tragic outcome. How could it have been different? No. Olya Meshcherskaya is opposed to the whole world, her actions are unconscious, and her behavior does not depend on modern norms and rules accepted in society.
The rest of the characters, including the cool lady, Malyutin, Olya’s friend and other people around, were introduced by the author only to emphasize the heroine’s individuality, her unusualness and originality.
The main idea of the story “Easy Breathing”
Researchers have long come to the conclusion that it is not so much the external appearance that helps to understand the author’s intention, but internal plot, filled with psychological, poetic and philosophical meanings.
The heroine of the story is frivolous, but in a good way this word. Unknowingly she is exposed love affair with Malyutin, my father’s friend. But is this really the fault of the girl who believed an adult who talked about his feelings for her, who, as it turned out, showed ostentatious kindness and seemed like a real gentleman?
Olya Meshcherskaya is not like all the other characters, she is opposed to them and at the same time lonely. The episode of the fall and relationship with Malyutin only aggravated internal conflict and the heroine's protest.
The main character's motives
A number of researchers believe that the heroine herself sought death. She specifically handed over a sheet from the diary to the officer, who learned about the vicious affair of his beloved and was so upset that he shot the girl. Thus, Olga broke out of the vicious circle.
Other literary scholars believe that one mistake, i.e. The vicious relationship with Malyutin did not make the girl think about what happened. As a result, Olga started a relationship with an officer who had “absolutely nothing in common with the circle to which she belonged,” making her second and already fatal mistake.
Let's look at the episode of farewell to the officer at the station from a different angle. Olga gave him the most valuable and intimate thing - a sheet of paper with an entry from the diary. What if she loved her future killer and decided to tell the bitter truth about what happened to her. True, the officer did not take this as a confession, but as a mockery, a deception of the one who “swore to be his wife.”
One of the most widely famous works I.A. Bunin is undoubtedly the story “Easy Breathing”. It can be assumed that the impetus for its writing was the writer’s trip to Capri, where during a walk the writer saw a tombstone with a medallion in a small cemetery. It depicted a very young and unusually beautiful girl with a happy expression on his face. The tragedy of this terrible contradiction, apparently, struck the writer so much that he decided to “revive” the heroine on the pages of his prose.
The image of “light breathing” that organizes the entire story is taken from an old book, which the main character Olya Meshcherskaya reads, retelling to her friend an episode that particularly struck her. It says that a woman should be able to be beautiful and the most important thing about her is “easy breathing.” The heroine joyfully concludes that she has it and that only happiness awaits her in life. However, fate decrees otherwise.
The central character of this story is high school student Olya Meshcherskaya. She is famous for her beauty, sweet spontaneity, charming naturalness. “She was not afraid of anything - not ink stains on her fingers, not a flushed face, not disheveled hair, not a knee that became bare when falling while running,” the author of the story lovingly writes about her. There is even something from Natasha Rostova in Olya - the same love of life, the same openness to the whole world. No one danced better than Olya, no one skated better, no one was looked after like that. This young creature with sparkling, lively eyes seemed created only for happiness.
But one Cossack officer, who sought intimacy with her and was refused, ends this young wonderful life with one shot.
This ending is too tragic, and sometimes I want to reproach the writer for such a painful ending. But let's think about it: did the shot really kill the heroine? Maybe the officer just pulled the trigger, and the tragedy happened much earlier?
Indeed, reading the story, you wonder why, besides Olya, in this provincial town there is not a single person worthy of being depicted with the same admiration. The rest of the characters simply leave us indifferent, like, for example, Meshcherskaya’s friend, or they cause disgust. This is Olya’s father’s friend, fifty-six-year-old Malyutin. The whole city seems to be saturated with a suffocating atmosphere of vulgarity, inertia and depravity. Indeed, how can you explain Olya’s behavior? Yes, she is charming, sweet, natural, but reading the scene where Meshcherskaya admits to the head of the gymnasium that she is already a woman, you can’t help but be embarrassed by such a terrible dual personality: on the one hand, Olya is perfection itself, on the other, she is just a girl , who knew the joy of carnal pleasures too early. These contradictory images the same heroine is not given an unambiguous understanding of her character, and sometimes an almost hooligan thought comes to mind: isn’t Olya Lola, introduced by Bunin into literature long before the author of “Lolita”?
In my opinion, the motives for the heroine’s actions “ Easy breathing" is very difficult to evaluate from a logical point of view. They are irrational, “uterine”. Revealing the image of such an ambiguous heroine as Meshcherskaya, one should not be afraid to consider different and even opposing points of view. We said above that Olya’s fate and character are a product of the inert provincial environment where she grew up. Now, faced with the amazing inconsistency of the heroine, we can assume something completely different.
Bunin, as you know, although he is considered the last classic critical realism, still does not fully follow his principles of depicting reality. To say that Meshcherskaya is just a product of an environment that corrupts and kills young innocence means, in my opinion, to consider the story too straightforwardly, thereby impoverishing the original author’s intention. Correct society, and there will be no vices - this is what they said in the 19th century, but in the 20th they increasingly do not look for reasons, saying that the world is unknowable. Meshcherskaya is like that, and nothing more. As another argument, we can recall Bunin’s stories about love, in particular, where the actions of the heroes are also very difficult to motivate. It’s as if they are controlled by some blind, unreasoning force, spontaneously giving people happiness and sorrow in half. In general, Bunin is characterized by just such a worldview. Let us recall the story “The Gentleman from San Francisco,” in which fate takes the hero’s life in the most unexpected way, without giving any explanation. In the light of these considerations, we can make a judgment about Olya that is opposite and to some extent counterbalances our first conclusions: the writer, in the image of a high school student unlike others, wanted to show the true nature of a woman who is completely at the mercy of blind, “uterine” instincts. The conviction that life disposes of us solely at its own discretion is best illustrated by the example of a young girl who knew life too early and therefore died untimely.
Probably, it is impossible to give an unambiguous answer to the question of who Olya really is, what problems she raises in this story, and it is hardly necessary. You can delve deeper into the image of the main character, better understand the specifics and problems of the story and try to reconcile the two opposing points of view outlined above by thinking about the title. The “light breath” that “dissipates forever in that cold wind” is, in my opinion, figurative expression what is spiritual, truly human, in a person. A charming and at the same time depraved schoolgirl, a stupid and evil officer who killed her, a provincial town with all its ugliness - all this will remain on the sinful earth, and this spirit that lived in Ola Meshcherskaya will fly up to be embodied in something again and remind us that, besides our vain and petty thoughts and deeds, there is something else in the world that is beyond our control. This, in my opinion, is the enduring significance outstanding story Ivan Alekseevich Bunin.
