Light breathing full content. “Easy Breathing” Bunin

In the cemetery, over a fresh clay mound, there stands a new cross made of oak, strong, heavy, smooth.

April, gray days; the monuments of the cemetery, spacious, county, are still far visible through the bare trees, and cold wind the porcelain wreath at the foot of the cross rings and rings.

A rather large, convex porcelain medallion is embedded in the cross itself, and in the medallion is a photographic portrait of a schoolgirl with joyful, amazingly lively eyes.

This is Olya Meshcherskaya.

As a girl, she did not stand out in any way in the crowd of brown school dresses: what could be said about her, except that she was one of the pretty, rich and happy girls, that she was capable, but playful and very careless about the instructions that the classy lady gave her ? Then she began to blossom and develop by leaps and bounds. At the age of fourteen, she had thin waist And slender legs, her breasts and all those forms were already clearly outlined, the charm of which human words had never yet expressed: at fifteen she was already known as a beauty. How carefully some of her friends combed their hair, how clean they were, how careful they were about their restrained movements! But 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... No one danced at balls like she, no one at the balls was courted as much as she was, and for some reason no one was loved as much by the lower classes as she was. Imperceptibly she became a girl, and her high school fame was imperceptibly strengthened, and rumors had already spread that she was flighty, could not live without admirers, that the school student Shenshin was madly in love with her, that she supposedly loved him too, but was so changeable in her treatment of him that he attempted suicide...

During her last winter, Olya Meshcherskaya went completely crazy with fun, as they said in the gymnasium. The winter was snowy, sunny, frosty, the sun set early behind the tall spruce forest of the snowy gymnasium garden, invariably fine, radiant, promising frost and sun for tomorrow, a walk on Sobornaya Street, an ice skating rink in the city garden, a pink evening, music and this in all directions the crowd gliding on the skating rink, in which Olya Meshcherskaya seemed the most carefree, the happiest. And then, one day, during a big break, when she was rushing around the assembly hall like a whirlwind from the first-graders chasing her and squealing blissfully, she was unexpectedly called to the boss. She stopped running, took only one deep breath, straightened her hair with a quick and already familiar feminine movement, pulled the corners of her apron to her shoulders and, her eyes shining, ran upstairs. The boss, young-looking but gray-haired, sat calmly with knitting in her hands at her desk, under the royal portrait.

“Hello, Mademoiselle Meshcherskaya,” she said in French, without raising her eyes from her knitting. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have been forced to call you here to talk to you about your behavior.”

After lunch, we walked out of the brightly and hotly lit dining room onto the deck and stopped at the railing. She closed her eyes, put her hand to her cheek with her palm facing outwards, laughed a simple, charming laugh - everything was charming about this little woman - and said:

I think I'm drunk... Where did you come from? Three hours ago I didn’t even know you existed. I don't even know where you sat down. In Samara? But still... Is it my head spinning or are we turning somewhere?

There was darkness and lights ahead. From the darkness, a strong, soft wind beat in the face, and the lights rushed somewhere to the side: the steamer, with Volga panache, abruptly described a wide arc, running up to a small pier.

The lieutenant took her hand and raised it to his lips. The hand, small and strong, smelled of tan. And her heart sank blissfully and terribly at the thought of how strong and dark she must be under this light canvas dress after a whole month of lying under the southern sun, on the hot sea sand (she said that she was coming from Anapa). The lieutenant muttered:

Let's go...

Where? - she asked in surprise.

On this pier.

He said nothing. She again put the back of her hand to her hot cheek.

Madness...

Let’s get down,” he repeated stupidly. “I beg you...

“Oh, do as you wish,” she said, turning away.

The runaway steamer hit the dimly lit dock with a soft thud, and they almost fell on top of each other. The end of the rope flew over their heads, then it rushed back, and the water boiled noisily, the gangway rattled... The lieutenant rushed to get his things.

A minute later they passed the sleepy office, came out onto sand deep as deep as the hub, and silently sat down in a dusty cab. The gentle climb uphill, among rare crooked streetlights, along a road soft with dust, seemed endless. But then they got up, drove out and crackled along the pavement, there was some kind of square, public places, a tower, the warmth and smells of a night summer provincial town... The cab driver stopped near the illuminated entrance, behind the open doors of which an old wooden staircase rose steeply, old, unshaven the footman in a pink blouse and frock coat took his things with displeasure and walked forward on his trampled feet. They entered a large, but terribly stuffy room, hotly heated by the sun during the day, with white drawn curtains on the windows and two unburnt candles on the mirror - and as soon as they entered and the footman closed the door, the lieutenant so impulsively rushed to her and both of them suffocated so frantically in a kiss that for many years later they remembered this moment: neither one nor the other had ever experienced anything like this in their entire lives.

At ten o'clock in the morning, sunny, hot, happy, with the ringing of churches, with a market on the square in front of the hotel, with the smell of hay, tar and again everything complex and odorous that Russians smell of. county town, she, this little nameless woman who never said her name, jokingly calling herself a beautiful stranger, left. We slept little, but in the morning, coming out from behind the screen near the bed, washing and dressing in five minutes, she was as fresh as she was at seventeen. Was she embarrassed? No, very little. She was still simple, cheerful and - already reasonable.

No, no, honey,” she said in response to his request to go further together, “no, you must stay until the next ship.” If we go together, everything will be ruined. This will be very unpleasant for me. I give it to you honestly that I am not at all what you might have thought about me. Nothing even similar to what happened has ever happened to me, and there never will be again. The eclipse definitely hit me... Or, rather, we both got something like sunstroke...

And the lieutenant somehow easily agreed with her. In a light and happy spirit, he took her to the pier - just in time for the departure of the pink "Airplane", - kissed her on the deck in front of everyone and barely had time to jump onto the gangplank, which had already moved back.

Just as easily, carefree, he returned to the hotel. However, something has changed. The room without her seemed somehow completely different than it was with her. He was still full of her - and empty. It was strange! There was still the smell of her good English cologne, her unfinished cup was still standing on the tray, but she was no longer there... And the lieutenant’s heart suddenly sank with such tenderness that the lieutenant hurried to light a cigarette and walked back and forth around the room several times.

Strange adventure! - he said out loud, laughing and feeling that tears were welling up in his eyes. “I give you my word of honor that I am not at all what you might think...” And she already left...

The screen had been pulled back, the bed had not yet been made. And he felt that he simply had no strength to look at this bed now. He covered it with a screen, closed the windows so as not to hear the market talk and the creaking of wheels, lowered the white bubbling curtains, sat down on the sofa... Yes, that’s the end of this “road adventure”! She left - and now she’s already far away, probably sitting in the glass white salon or on the deck and looking at the huge river glistening in the sun, at the oncoming rafts, at the yellow shallows, at the shining distance of water and sky, at this entire immeasurable Volga expanse. .. And forgive, and forever, forever... Because where can they meet now? “I can’t,” he thought, “I can’t, out of the blue, come to this city, where her husband is, where her three-year-old girl is, in general her whole family and all her usual life! And this city seemed to him like some kind of special, reserved city, and the thought that she would live her lonely life in it, often, perhaps, remembering him, remembering their random, such a fleeting meeting, and he would never see her again, this thought amazed and amazed him. No, this can't be! It would be too wild, unnatural, implausible! And he felt such pain and such uselessness of all his later life without her, that he was overcome by horror and despair.

"What the hell! - he thought, getting up, again starting to walk around the room and trying not to look at the bed behind the screen. - What is this with me? And what is special about it and what actually happened? In fact, it looks like some kind of sunstroke! And most importantly, how can I now spend the whole day in this outback without her?”

He still remembered all of her, with all her slightest features, he remembered the smell of her tan and canvas dress, her strong body, the lively, simple and cheerful sound of her voice... The feeling of the pleasures he had just experienced with all her feminine charm was still unusually alive in him , but now the main thing was still this second, completely new feeling - that strange, incomprehensible feeling that he could not even imagine in himself, starting yesterday this, as he thought, only a funny acquaintance, and about which it was no longer possible to tell her Now! “And most importantly,” he thought, “you’ll never be able to tell!” And what to do, how to live this endless day, with these memories, with this insoluble torment, in this God-forsaken town above the very shining Volga along which this pink steamer carried her away!

I needed to save myself, do something, distract myself, go somewhere. He resolutely put on his cap, took the stack, quickly walked, jingling his spurs, along the empty corridor, ran down the steep stairs to the entrance... Yes, but where to go? At the entrance stood a cab driver, young, in a smart suit, and calmly smoking a cigarette. The lieutenant looked at him in confusion and amazement: how can you sit so calmly on the box, smoke and generally be simple, careless, indifferent? “I’m probably the only one so terribly unhappy in this whole city,” he thought, heading towards the bazaar.

The market was already leaving. For some reason he walked through the fresh manure among the carts, among the carts with cucumbers, among the new bowls and pots, and the women sitting on the ground vied with each other to call him, took the pots in their hands and knocked, rang them with their fingers, showing their good quality, men they stunned him, shouted to him: “Here are the first grade cucumbers, your honor!” It was all so stupid and absurd that he fled from the market. He went to the cathedral, where they were singing loudly, cheerfully and decisively, with the consciousness of a fulfilled duty, then he walked for a long time, circling around the small, hot and neglected garden on the cliff of a mountain, above the boundless light steel expanse of the river... Shoulder straps and buttons of his jacket it was so hot that it was impossible to touch them. The inside of his cap was wet from sweat, his face was burning... Returning to the hotel, he happily entered the large and empty cool dining room on the ground floor, took off his cap with pleasure and sat down at a table near open window, which was filled with heat, but still had a breath of air, I ordered botvinya with ice... Everything was good, there was immense happiness, great joy in everything; even in this heat and in all the smells of the market, in this whole unfamiliar town and in this old county hotel there was it, this joy, and at the same time the heart was simply torn to pieces. He drank several glasses of vodka while eating lightly salted cucumbers with dill and feeling that he, without hesitation, would die tomorrow, if by some miracle he could return her, spend another, this day, with her - spend only then, only then, to tell her something prove, convince how painfully and enthusiastically he loves her... Why prove? Why convince? He didn’t know why, but it was more necessary than life.

My nerves were completely gone! - he said, pouring his fifth glass of vodka.

He pushed his shoe away from him, asked for black coffee and began to smoke and think intensely: what should he do now, how to get rid of this sudden, unexpected love? But getting rid of it - he felt it too vividly - was impossible. And he suddenly quickly stood up again, took his cap and riding stack and, asking where the post office was, hurriedly went there with the phrase of the telegram already prepared in his head: “From now on, my whole life is forever, until the grave, yours, in your power.” But, having reached the old thick-walled house where there was a post office and telegraph, he stopped in horror: he knew the city where she lived, he knew that she had a husband and a three-year-old daughter, but he did not know her last name or first name! He asked her about this several times yesterday at dinner and at the hotel, and each time she laughed and said:

Why do you need to know who I am, what my name is?

On the corner, near the post office, there was a photographic showcase. He looked for a long time at a large portrait of some military man in thick epaulets, with bulging eyes, a low forehead, with amazingly magnificent sideburns and a wide chest, completely decorated with orders... How wild, scary is everything everyday, ordinary, when the heart is struck, - yes, he was amazed, he now understood it, by this terrible “sunstroke”, too great love, too much happiness! He looked at the newlywed couple - a young man in a long frock coat and white tie, with a crew cut, stretched out in front on the arm of a girl in a wedding gauze - he turned his eyes to the portrait of some pretty and perky young lady in a student’s cap at an askew... Then, languishing with painful envy of all these unknown, non-suffering people, he began to look intently along the street.

Where to go? What to do?

The street was completely empty. The houses were all the same, white, two-story, merchant houses, with large gardens, and it seemed that there was not a soul in them; white thick dust lay on the pavement; and all this was blinding, everything was flooded with hot, fiery and joyful, but here it seemed like an aimless sun. In the distance the street rose, hunched over and rested on a cloudless, grayish sky with a reflection. There was something southern about it, reminiscent of Sevastopol, Kerch... Anapa. This was especially unbearable. And the lieutenant, with his head bowed, squinting from the light, intently looking at his feet, staggering, stumbling, clinging spur to spur, walked back.

He returned to the hotel so overwhelmed with fatigue, as if he had made a huge trek somewhere in Turkestan, in the Sahara. He, collecting last strength, entered his large and empty room. The room was already tidy, devoid of the last traces of her - only one hairpin, forgotten by her, lay on the night table! He took off his jacket and looked at himself in the mirror: his face - an ordinary officer’s face, gray from the tan, with a whitish mustache, bleached from the sun, and bluish white eyes, which seemed even whiter from the tan - now had an excited, crazy expression, and in There was something youthful and deeply unhappy about the thin white shirt with a standing starched collar. He lay down on the bed on his back and put his dusty boots on the dump. The windows were open, the curtains were drawn, and a light breeze blew them in from time to time, blowing into the room the heat of heated iron roofs and all this luminous and now completely empty, silent Volga world. He lay with his hands under the back of his head and looked intently in front of him. Then he clenched his teeth, closed his eyelids, feeling the tears rolling down his cheeks from under them, and finally fell asleep, and when he opened his eyes again, the evening sun was already turning reddish yellow behind the curtains. The wind died down, the room was stuffy and dry, like in an oven... And yesterday and this morning were remembered as if they had happened ten years ago.

He slowly got up, slowly washed his face, raised the curtains, rang the bell and asked for the samovar and the bill, and drank tea with lemon for a long time. Then he ordered a cab driver to be brought, things to be taken out, and, sitting in the cab, on its red, faded seat, he gave the footman five whole rubles.

And it looks like, your honor, that it was I who brought you at night! - the driver said cheerfully, taking the reins.

When we went down to the pier, the blue summer night was already shining over the Volga, and many colorful lights were already scattered along the river, and the lights were hanging on the masts of the approaching steamship.

Delivered promptly! - the cab driver said ingratiatingly.

The lieutenant gave him five rubles, took a ticket, walked to the pier... Just like yesterday, there was a soft knock on its pier and slight dizziness from the unsteadiness underfoot, then a flying end, the sound of water boiling and running forward under the wheels a little back the steamer pulled up... And the crowd of people on this ship, already everywhere lit and smelling of kitchen, seemed unusually friendly and good.

The dark summer dawn faded far ahead, gloomily, sleepily and multi-coloredly reflected in the river, which in some places still glowed like trembling ripples in the distance below it, under this dawn, and the lights floated and floated back, scattered in the darkness around.

The lieutenant sat under a canopy on the deck, feeling ten years older.

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 flared up, freed from daytime affairs; The cab sleighs rushed thicker and more vigorously, the crowded, diving trams rattled more heavily - in the dusk one could already see how green stars hissed from the wires, - the dull black passers-by hurried more animatedly along the snowy sidewalks... Every evening rushed me at this hour to the stretching trotter is my coachman - from the Red Gate to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior: she lived opposite him; every evening I took her to dinner in Prague, the Hermitage, the Metropol, after dinner to theaters, concerts, and then to Yar in Strelna... How all this should end, I don’t know knew 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 faceted 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, slowly, she extended her hand to me for a kiss and absentmindedly said: “Thank you for the flowers...” I brought her boxes of chocolate, new books - Hofmannsthal, Schnitzler, Tetmeyer, Przybyshevsky - and received all 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 be better than the smell of 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 out of town, although she still had flowers that she liked and didn’t like, she always read all the books that I brought her, she ate a whole box of chocolate in a day, At lunch and dinner she ate as much as I did, she loved pies with burbot fish soup, pink hazel grouse in deep-fried sour cream, sometimes she said: “I don’t understand how people won’t get tired of this all their lives, having lunch and dinner every day,” but she herself had lunch and dinner with a Moscow understanding of the matter. Her only obvious weakness was 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 Penza province, was at that time handsome for some reason, with a southern, hot beauty, he was even “indecently handsome,” as one famous actor once told me, monstrously fat person, a great glutton and clever. “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 mentally delving into something: lying on the sofa with a book in her hands, she often lowered it and looked questioningly in front of her. myself: 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 reading 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 the Art Circle for 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 to her cheerfully.

“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 present. 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 I’m ashamed to read it.

He was too daring. And then I don’t like yellow-haired Rus' at all.

You don't like everything!

Yes, a lot...

"Odd love!" - I thought and, while the water was boiling, I stood and looked out the windows. The room smelled of flowers, and for me she connected with their smell; outside one window, a huge picture of the snow-gray Moscow across the river lay low in the distance; 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. - St. Basil and Spas-on-Boru, Italian cathedrals - and something Kyrgyz in the tips 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 know 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's this?

This is what Platon Karataev told Pierre.

I waved my hand.

Oh, God bless her, with this eastern wisdom!

And again the whole evening he talked only about something else - about the 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 all around became noisier, 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 coat 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 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.

All Black! - I said, entering, as always, joyfully.

Her eyes were joyful and quiet.

How do you know this? Ripids, trikiriyas!

It's you who 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 out 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 - yes what! 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, shaking her head in quiet bewilderment.

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 nasty 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 it won’t be too much, Fedor, right?”

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 here,” she said.

I laughed:

Back to the monastery again?

No, that'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 the 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!”

How do you mean “strong”?

This means strong. How come you don't know? “Gyurgi’s speech...”

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 with the 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 eyes:

I love Russian chronicles, I love Russian legends so much that I keep re-reading what I especially like until I know 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...”

Jokingly, I made scary eyes:

Oh, what a horror!

This is 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 also put on the monastic robe at the same time...”

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 no earlier than ten. Tomorrow is the “cabbage party” of the Art Theater.

So? - I asked. “Do you want to go to this “cabbage party”?

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:

Ol 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 walked in and she stood straight and somewhat theatrically near the piano in black. velvet dress, making her thinner, shining with his elegance, the festive headdress of his jet-black hair, the dark amber of his bare arms, shoulders, the tender, full beginning of his breasts, the sparkle of diamond earrings along his slightly powdered cheeks, the coal velvet of his eyes and the velvety purple of his 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 with my foot a 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 a 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, stood up and, deftly, with a short stamp of her feet, sparkling with her 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!

At three o'clock in the morning she stood up, closing her eyes. When we got dressed, she looked at my beaver hat, stroked the beaver collar and went to the exit, saying either jokingly or seriously:

Of course he is beautiful. Kachalov said the truth... “The serpent is in human nature, extremely beautiful...”

On the way she was silent, bowing her head from the bright moonlit snowstorm flying towards her. For a full month he dived in the clouds above the Kremlin - “some kind of glowing skull,” she said. The clock on the Spasskaya Tower struck three, and she also said:

What an ancient sound - something tin and cast iron. And just like that, with the same sound, three o’clock in the morning struck in the fifteenth century.

And in Florence there was exactly the same battle, it reminded me of Moscow...

When Fyodor stopped at the entrance, she lifelessly ordered:

Let him go...

Amazed, - she never allowed her to go up to her at night, - I said in confusion:

Fedor, I'll return on foot...

And we silently reached up in the elevator, entered the night warmth and silence of the apartment with hammers clicking in the heaters. I took off her fur coat, slippery from the snow, she threw a wet down shawl from her hair onto my hands and quickly walked, rustling her silk underskirt, into the bedroom. I undressed, entered the first room and, with my heart sinking as if over an abyss, sat down on the Turkish sofa. Her steps could be heard behind the open doors of the illuminated bedroom, the way she, clinging to the hairpins, pulled her dress over her head... I stood up and went to the doors: she, wearing only swan slippers, stood with her back to me, in front of dressing table, combing with a tortoiseshell comb the black threads of long hair hanging along her face.

“He kept saying that I don’t think much about him,” she said, throwing the comb on the mirror-glass, and, throwing her hair over her back, turned to me: “No, I thought...

At dawn I felt her movement. I opened my eyes and she was staring at me. I rose from the warmth of the bed and her body, she leaned towards me, quietly and evenly saying:

This evening I'm leaving for Tver. For how long, only God knows...

And she pressed her cheek to mine - I felt her wet eyelash blink.

I'll write everything as soon as I arrive. I will write everything about the future. Sorry, leave me now, I'm very tired...

And she lay down on the pillow.

I dressed carefully, timidly kissed her hair and tiptoed out onto the stairs, already brightening with a pale light. I walked on foot through the young sticky snow - there was no longer a blizzard, everything was calm and already visible far along the streets, there was a smell of snow and from the bakeries. I reached Iverskaya, the inside of which was burning hotly and shining with whole bonfires of candles, stood in the crowd of old women and beggars on the trampled snow on my knees, took off my hat... Someone touched me on the shoulder - I looked: some unfortunate old woman was looking at me , wincing with pitiful tears:

Oh, don't kill yourself, don't kill yourself like that! Sin, sin!

The letter I received two weeks after that was brief - an affectionate but firm request not to wait for her any longer, not to try to look for her, to see: “I won’t return to Moscow, I’ll go to obedience for now, then, maybe, I’ll decide to take monastic vows.. May God give me the strength not to answer me - it is useless to prolong and increase our torment...”

I fulfilled her request. And for a long time he disappeared into the dirtiest taverns, became an alcoholic, sinking more and more in every possible way. Then he began to recover little by little - indifferently, hopelessly... Almost two years have passed since that clean Monday...

In the fourteenth year, on New Year’s Eve, there was the same quiet, sunny evening as that unforgettable one. I left the house, took a cab and went to the Kremlin. There he went into the empty Archangel Cathedral, stood for a long time, without praying, in its twilight, looking at the faint shimmer of the old gold iconostasis and the tombstones of the Moscow kings - stood, as if waiting for something, in that special silence of an empty church when you are afraid to breathe in her. Coming out of the cathedral, he ordered the cab driver to go to Ordynka, drove at a pace, as then, along dark alleys in gardens with windows illuminated under them, drove along Griboedovsky Lane - and kept crying and crying...

On Ordynka, I stopped a cab at the gates of the Marfo-Mariinsky monastery: there were black carriages in the courtyard, the open doors of a small illuminated church were visible, and the singing of a girls’ choir flowed sadly and tenderly from the doors. For some reason I definitely wanted to go there. The janitor at the gate blocked my path, asking softly, pleadingly:

You can't, sir, you can't!

How can you not? Can't go to church?

You can, sir, of course you can, I just ask you for God’s sake, don’t go, there right now Grand Duchess Elzavet Fedrovna and Grand Duke Mitriy Palych...

I handed him a ruble - he sighed sadly and let it pass. But as soon as I entered the courtyard, icons and banners, carried in their arms, appeared from the church, behind them, all in white, long, thin-faced, in a white trim with a gold cross sewn on it on the forehead, tall, walking slowly, earnestly with lowered eyes , with a large candle in her hand, the Grand Duchess; and behind her stretched the same white line of singers, with candle lights on their faces, nuns or sisters - I don’t know who they were or where they were going. For some reason I looked at them very carefully. And then one of those walking in the middle suddenly raised her head, covered with a white scarf, blocking the candle with her hand, and fixed her dark eyes into the darkness, as if right at me... What could she see in the darkness, how could she feel my presence? I turned and quietly walked out of the gate.

Current page: 41 (book has 41 pages total) [available reading passage: 23 pages]

Easy breath

In the cemetery, above a fresh clay mound, there is a new cross made of oak, strong, heavy, smooth.

April, gray days; The monuments of the cemetery, spacious, county, are still visible far away through the bare trees, and the cold wind rings and rings the porcelain wreath at the foot of the cross.

A rather large, convex porcelain medallion is embedded in the cross itself, and in the medallion is a photographic portrait of a schoolgirl with joyful, amazingly lively eyes.

This is Olya Meshcherskaya.

As a girl, she did not stand out in any way in the crowd of brown school dresses: what could be said about her, except that she was one of the pretty, rich and happy girls, that she was capable, but playful and very careless about the instructions that the classy lady gave her ? Then she began to blossom and develop by leaps and bounds. At the age of fourteen, with a thin waist and slender legs, her breasts and all those forms, the charm of which had never yet been expressed by human words, were already clearly outlined; at fifteen she was already considered a beauty. How carefully some of her friends combed their hair, how clean they were, how careful they were about their restrained movements! But 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 distinguished her from the entire gymnasium in the last two years came to her - grace, elegance, dexterity, the clear sparkle of her eyes... No one danced at balls like Olya Meshcherskaya , no one ran on skates like she did, no one was courted as much at balls as she was, and for some reason no one was loved as much by the junior classes as she was. Imperceptibly she became a girl, and her high school fame was imperceptibly strengthened, and rumors had already spread that she was flighty, could not live without admirers, that the school student Shenshin was madly in love with her, that she supposedly loved him too, but was so changeable in her treatment of him that he attempted suicide.

During her last winter, Olya Meshcherskaya went completely crazy with fun, as they said in the gymnasium. The winter was snowy, sunny, frosty, the sun set early behind the tall spruce forest of the snowy gymnasium garden, invariably fine, radiant, promising frost and sun for tomorrow, a walk on Sobornaya Street, an ice skating rink in the city garden, a pink evening, music and this in all directions the crowd gliding on the skating rink, in which Olya Meshcherskaya seemed the most carefree, the happiest. And then one day, during a big break, when she was rushing around the assembly hall like a whirlwind from the first-graders chasing her and squealing blissfully, she was unexpectedly called to the boss. She stopped running, took only one deep breath, straightened her hair with a quick and already familiar feminine movement, pulled the corners of her apron to her shoulders and, her eyes shining, ran upstairs. The boss, young-looking but gray-haired, sat calmly with knitting in her hands at her desk, under the royal portrait.

“Hello, Mademoiselle Meshcherskaya,” she said in French, without raising her eyes from her knitting. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have been forced to call you here to talk to you about your behavior.”

“I’m listening, madame,” Meshcherskaya answered, approaching the table, looking at her clearly and vividly, but without any expression on her face, and sat down as easily and gracefully as only she could.

“You won’t listen to me well, I, unfortunately, am convinced of this,” said the boss and, pulling the thread and spinning a ball on the varnished floor, which Meshcherskaya looked at with curiosity, she raised her eyes. “I won’t repeat myself, I won’t speak at length,” she said.

Meshcherskaya really liked this unusually clean and large office, which on frosty days breathed so well with the warmth of a shiny Dutch dress and the freshness of lilies of the valley on the desk. She looked at the young king, depicted in full height in the middle of some brilliant hall, at the even parting in the milky, neatly crimped hair of the boss and was silent expectantly.

“You’re not a girl anymore,” the boss said meaningfully, secretly beginning to get irritated.

“Yes, madame,” Meshcherskaya answered simply, almost cheerfully.

“But not a woman either,” the boss said even more meaningfully, and her matte face turned slightly red. – First of all, what kind of hairstyle is this? This is a women's hairstyle!

“It’s not my fault, madame, that I have good hair,” Meshcherskaya answered and slightly touched her beautifully decorated head with both hands.

- Oh, that’s it, it’s not your fault! - said the boss. - It’s not your fault for your hairstyle, it’s not your fault for these expensive combs, it’s not your fault that you’re ruining your parents for shoes that cost twenty rubles! But, I repeat to you, you completely lose sight of the fact that you are still only a high school student...

And then Meshcherskaya, without losing her simplicity and calmness, suddenly politely interrupted her:

- Excuse me, madame, you are mistaken: I am a woman. And you know who is to blame for this? Dad's friend and neighbor, and your brother Alexey Mikhailovich Malyutin. This happened last summer in the village...

And a month after this conversation, a Cossack officer, ugly and plebeian in appearance, who had absolutely nothing in common with the circle to which Olya Meshcherskaya belonged, shot her on the station platform, among a large crowd of people who had just arrived by train. And the incredible confession of Olya Meshcherskaya, which stunned the boss, was completely confirmed: the officer told the judicial investigator that Meshcherskaya had 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 and never thought to love 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.

“I ran through these lines and right there, on the platform where she was walking, waiting for me to finish reading, I shot at her,” said the officer. - This diary, here it is, look what was written in it on the tenth of July last year. The following was written in the diary: “It’s now two o’clock in the morning. I fell asleep soundly, but woke up immediately... Today I have become a woman! Dad, mom and Tolya all left for the city, I was left alone. I was so happy that I was alone! In the morning I walked in the garden, in the field, was in the forest, it seemed to me that I was alone in the whole world, and I thought as well as never in my life. I had lunch alone, then played for a whole hour, I had such a feeling while listening to music feeling that I would live endlessly and be as happy as anyone. Then I fell asleep in my dad’s office, and at four o’clock Katya woke me up and said that Alexei Mikhailovich had arrived. I was very happy with him, I was so pleased to receive him and borrow. He arrived in a couple of his Vyatkas, very beautiful, and they stood at the porch all the time, he stayed because it was raining, and he wanted it to dry out by the evening. He regretted that he did not find his dad, he was very animated and held treated me like a gentleman, joked a lot that he had been in love with me for a long time. When we walked around the garden before tea, the weather was again lovely, the sun was shining through the whole wet garden, although it had become completely cold, and he led me by the arm and said that he is Faust with Margarita. He is fifty-six years old, but he is still very handsome and always well dressed - the only thing I didn’t like was that he arrived in a lionfish - he smells of English cologne, and his eyes are very young, black, and his beard is gracefully divided into two long parts and completely silver. Over tea we sat on the glass veranda, I felt as if unwell and lay down on the ottoman, and he smoked, then moved to me, began again to say some pleasantries, then examined and kissed my hand. I covered my face with a silk scarf, and he kissed me on the lips through the scarf several times... I don’t understand how this could happen, I’m crazy, I never thought I was like this! Now I have only one way out... I feel such disgust for him that I can’t get over it!..”

During these April days, the city became clean, dry, its stones turned white, and it was easy and pleasant to walk along them. Every Sunday, after mass, a small woman in mourning, wearing black kid gloves and carrying an ebony umbrella, walks along Cathedral Street, leading to the exit from the city. She crosses a dirty square along the highway, where there are many smoky forges and the fresh air of the field blows; further, between the monastery and the fort, the cloudy slope of the sky turns white and the spring field turns grey, and then, when you make your way among the puddles under the wall of the monastery and turn left, you will see what appears to be a large low garden, surrounded by a white fence, above the gate of which is written the Dormition of the Mother of God. The little woman makes the sign of the cross and walks habitually along the main alley. Having reached the bench opposite the oak cross, she sits in the wind and in the spring cold for an hour or two, until her feet in light boots and her hand in a narrow kid are completely cold. Listening to the spring birds singing sweetly even in the cold, listening to the sound of the wind in a porcelain wreath, she sometimes thinks that she would give half her life if only this dead wreath would not be before her eyes. This wreath, this mound, the oak cross! Is it possible that under him is the one whose eyes shine so immortally from this convex porcelain medallion on the cross, and how can we combine with this pure gaze the terrible thing that is now associated with the name of Olya Meshcherskaya? “But deep down in her soul, the little woman is happy, like all people devoted to some passionate dream.

This woman is the cool lady Olya Meshcherskaya, a middle-aged girl who has long lived in some kind of fiction that replaces her real life. At first, her brother, a poor and unremarkable ensign, was such an invention - she united her whole soul with him, with his future, which for some reason seemed brilliant to her. When he was killed near Mukden, she convinced herself that she was an ideological worker. The death of Olya Meshcherskaya captivated her with a new dream. Now Olya Meshcherskaya is the subject of her persistent thoughts and feelings. She goes to her grave every holiday, does not take her eyes off the oak cross for hours, remembers the pale face of Olya Meshcherskaya in the coffin, among the flowers - and what she once overheard: one day, during a long break, walking through the gymnasium garden, Olya Meshcherskaya quickly, quickly said to her beloved friend, plump, tall Subbotina:

“I read in one of my dad’s books—he has a lot of old funny books—what kind of beauty a woman should have... There, you know, there are so many sayings that you can’t remember everything: well, of course, black eyes boiling with resin,” she— God, that’s what it’s written: boiling with pitch! - eyelashes as black as night, a gentle blush, a thin figure, longer than an ordinary arm - you know, longer than usual! - small legs, moderately large breasts, properly rounded calves, shell-colored knees, sloping shoulders - I almost learned a lot by heart, it’s all so true! – but most importantly, you know what? - Easy breath! But I have it,” listen to how I sigh, “I really have it, don’t I?”

Now this light breath has again dissipated in the world, in this cloudy sky, in this cold spring wind.

The question of the meaning of life is eternal; in the literature of the early twentieth century, discussion of this topic also continued. Now the meaning was seen not in achieving some clear goal, but in something else. For example, according to the theory of "living life", the meaning of human existence is in itself, regardless of what this life is like. This idea was supported by V. Veresaev, A. Kuprin, I. Shmelev, B. Zaitsev. I. Bunin also reflected “Living Life” in his writings; his “Easy Breathing” is a vivid example.

However, the reason for creating the story was not life at all: Bunin conceived the novella while walking through the cemetery. Seeing a cross with a portrait of a young woman, the writer was amazed at how her cheerfulness contrasted with the sad surroundings. What kind of life was it? Why did she, so lively and joyful, leave this world so early? No one could answer these questions anymore. But Bunin’s imagination painted the life of this girl, who became the heroine of the short story “Easy Breathing.”

The plot is outwardly simple: cheerful and precocious Olya Meshcherskaya arouses burning interest among the opposite sex. feminine attractiveness, her behavior irritates the headmistress of the gymnasium, who decides to give the pupil an instructive conversation about the importance of modesty. But this conversation ended unexpectedly: the girl said that she was no longer a girl, she became a woman after meeting the boss’s brother and a friend of Malyutin’s father. It soon turned out that this was not the only love story: Olya met with a Cossack officer. The latter was planning a quick wedding. However, at the station, before her lover left for Novocherkassk, Meshcherskaya said that their relationship was insignificant for her and she would not marry. Then she suggested reading diary entry about his fall. A military man shot a flighty girl, and the novella begins with a description of her grave. A cool lady often goes to the cemetery; the student’s fate has become meaningful to her.

Themes

The main themes of the novel are the value of life, beauty and simplicity. The author himself interpreted his story as a story about highest degree simplicity in a woman: “naivety and lightness in everything, both in audacity and in death.” Olya lived without limiting herself by rules and principles, including moral ones. It was in this simple-heartedness, reaching the point of depravity, that the charm of the heroine lay. She lived as she lived, true to the theory of “living life”: why restrain yourself if life is so beautiful? So she sincerely rejoiced in her attractiveness, not caring about neatness and decency. She also had fun with the courtship of young people, not taking their feelings seriously (school student Shenshin was on the verge of suicide because of his love for her).

Bunin also touched on the theme of the meaninglessness and dullness of existence in the image of the teacher Olya. This “older girl” is contrasted with her student: the only pleasure for her is a suitable illusory idea: “At first, her brother, a poor and unremarkable ensign, was such an invention - she united her whole soul with him, with his future, which for some reason seemed brilliant to her. When he was killed near Mukden, she convinced herself that she was an ideological worker. The death of Olya Meshcherskaya captivated her with a new dream. Now Olya Meshcherskaya is the subject of her persistent thoughts and feelings.”

Issues

• The issue of the balance between passions and decency is revealed quite controversially in the short story. The writer clearly sympathizes with Olya, who chooses the first, praising her “light breathing” as a synonym for charm and naturalness. In contrast, the heroine is punished for her frivolity, and punished harshly - by death. The problem of freedom follows from this: society with its conventions is not ready to give the individual permissiveness even in the intimate sphere. Many people think that this is good, but they are often forced to carefully hide and suppress the secret desires of their own soul. But to achieve harmony, a compromise is needed between society and the individual, and not the unconditional primacy of the interests of one of them.
• You can also highlight the social aspect of the novella: a joyless and dull atmosphere provincial town, where anything can happen if no one finds out. In such a place there is really nothing else to do except discuss and condemn those who want to break out of the gray routine of existence, at least through passion. Social inequality manifests itself between Olya and her last lover (“ugly and plebeian in appearance, who had absolutely nothing in common with the circle to which Olya Meshcherskaya belonged”). Obviously, the reason for the refusal was the same class prejudices.
• The author does not dwell on the relationships in Olya’s family, but judging by the heroine’s feelings and events in her life, they are far from ideal: “I was so happy that I was alone! In the morning I walked in the garden, in the field, was in the forest, it seemed to me that I was alone in the whole world, and I thought as well as I had ever thought in my life. I dined alone, then played for a whole hour, listening to the music I had the feeling that I would live endlessly and be as happy as anyone.” It is obvious that no one was involved in raising the girl, and her problem lies in abandonment: no one taught her, at least by example, how to balance between feelings and reason.

Characteristics of heroes

1. The main and most developed character of the novel is Olya Meshcherskaya. Author great attention pays attention to her appearance: the girl is very beautiful, graceful, graceful. But oh inner world little is said, the emphasis is only on frivolity and frankness. Having read in a book that the basis of female charm is light breathing, she began to actively develop it both externally and internally. She not only sighs shallowly, but also thinks, fluttering through life like a moth. Moths, circling around the fire, invariably scorch their wings, and so the heroine died in the prime of her life.
2. The Cossack officer is a fatal and mysterious hero; nothing is known about him except for his sharp difference from Olya. How they met, the motives for the murder, the course of their relationship - one can only guess about all this. Most likely, the officer is a passionate and addicted person, he fell in love (or thought that he fell in love), but he was clearly not satisfied with Olya’s frivolity. The hero wanted the girl to belong only to him, so he was even ready to take her life.
3. The cool lady suddenly appears in the finale as an element of contrast. She has never lived for pleasure; she sets goals for herself, living in an imaginary world. She and Olya are two extremes of the problem of balance between duty and desire.

Composition and genre

Genre " Easy breathing» - short story (short) plot story), a small volume reflects many problems and topics, paints a picture of life different groups society.

The composition of the story deserves special attention. The narrative is sequential, but it is fragmented. First we see Olya’s grave, then she is told about her fate, then we return to the present again - a visit to the cemetery by a classy lady. Speaking about the life of the heroine, the author chooses a special focus in the narrative: he describes in detail the conversation with the head of the gymnasium, the seduction of Olya, but her murder, acquaintance with the officer is described in a few words. Bunin concentrates on feelings, sensations, colors, his story seems to be written in watercolors, it is filled with airiness and softness, therefore the unpleasant is described captivatingly.

Meaning of the name

“Easy breathing” is the very first component of female charm, according to the creators of the books that Olya’s father has. The girl wanted to learn lightness, turning into frivolity. And she achieved her goal, although she paid the price, but “this light breath dissipated again in the world, in this cloudy sky, in this cold spring wind.”

Lightness is also associated with the style of the short story: the author diligently avoids sharp corners, although he talks about monumental things: true and far-fetched love, honor and dishonor, illusory and real life. But this work, according to the writer E. Koltonskaya, leaves the impression of “bright gratitude to the Creator for the fact that there is such beauty in the world.”

You can have different attitudes towards Bunin, but his style is full of imagery, beauty of presentation and courage - that’s a fact. He talks about everything, even the forbidden, but knows how not to cross the line of vulgarity. That is why this talented writer is still loved to this day.

Bunin Ivan Alekseevich

Easy breath

Ivan Bunin

Easy breath

In the cemetery, above a fresh clay mound, there is a new cross made of oak, strong, heavy, smooth.

April, gray days; The monuments of the cemetery, spacious, county, are still visible far away through the bare trees, and the cold wind rings and rings the porcelain wreath at the foot of the cross.

Embedded in the cross itself is a rather large, convex porcelain medallion, and in the medallion is a photographic portrait of a schoolgirl with joyful, amazingly lively eyes.

This is Olya Meshcherskaya.

As a girl, she did not stand out in any way in the crowd of brown school dresses: what could be said about her, except that she was one of the pretty, rich and happy girls, that she was capable, but playful and very careless about the instructions that the classy lady gave her ? Then she began to blossom and develop by leaps and bounds. At the age of fourteen, with a thin waist and slender legs, her breasts and all those forms, the charm of which had never yet been expressed by human words, were already clearly outlined; at fifteen she was already considered a beauty. How carefully some of her friends combed their hair, how clean they were, how careful they were about their restrained movements! But 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... No one danced like that at balls, like Olya Meshcherskaya, no one ran on skates like she did, no one was looked after at balls as much as she was, and for some reason no one was loved as much by the junior classes as she was. Imperceptibly she became a girl, and her high school fame was imperceptibly strengthened, and rumors had already spread that she was flighty, could not live without admirers, that the school student Shenshin was madly in love with her, that she supposedly loved him too, but was so changeable in her treatment of him that he attempted suicide.

During her last winter, Olya Meshcherskaya went completely crazy with fun, as they said in the gymnasium. The winter was snowy, sunny, frosty, the sun set early behind the tall spruce forest of the snowy gymnasium garden, invariably fine, radiant, promising frost and sun for tomorrow, a walk on Sobornaya Street, an ice skating rink in the city garden, a pink evening, music and this in all directions the crowd gliding on the skating rink, in which Olya Meshcherskaya seemed the most carefree, the happiest. And then one day, during a big break, when she was rushing around the assembly hall like a whirlwind from the first-graders chasing her and squealing blissfully, she was unexpectedly called to the boss. She stopped running, took only one deep breath, straightened her hair with a quick and already familiar feminine movement, pulled the corners of her apron to her shoulders and, her eyes shining, ran upstairs. The boss, young-looking but gray-haired, sat calmly with knitting in her hands at her desk, under the royal portrait.

“Hello, Mademoiselle Meshcherskaya,” she said in French, without raising her eyes from her knitting. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have been forced to call you here to talk to you about your behavior.”

“I’m listening, madame,” Meshcherskaya answered, approaching the table, looking at her clearly and vividly, but without any expression on her face, and sat down as easily and gracefully as only she could.

You won’t listen to me well, I, unfortunately, am convinced of this,” said the boss and, pulling the thread and spinning a ball on the varnished floor, which Meshcherskaya looked at with curiosity, raised her eyes. “I won’t repeat myself, I won’t say extensively,” she said.

Meshcherskaya really liked this unusually clean and large office, which on frosty days breathed so well with the warmth of a shiny Dutch dress and the freshness of lilies of the valley on the desk. She looked at the young king, depicted in full height in the middle of some brilliant hall, at the even parting in the milky, neatly crimped hair of the boss and was silent expectantly.

“You’re not a girl anymore,” the boss said meaningfully, secretly beginning to get irritated.

Yes, madame,” Meshcherskaya answered simply, almost cheerfully.

But not either woman - still The boss said more meaningfully, and her matte face turned slightly red. “First of all, what kind of hairstyle is this?” This is a women's hairstyle!

“It’s not my fault, madame, that I have good hair,” Meshcherskaya answered and slightly touched her beautifully decorated head with both hands.

Oh, that's it, it's not your fault! - said the boss. “It’s not your fault for your hairstyle, it’s not your fault for these expensive combs, it’s not your fault that you’re ruining your parents for shoes that cost twenty rubles!” But, I repeat to you, you completely lose sight of the fact that you are still only a high school student...

And then Meshcherskaya, without losing her simplicity and calmness, suddenly politely interrupted her:

Sorry, madame, you are mistaken: I am a woman. And you know who is to blame for this? Dad's friend and neighbor, and your brother Alexey Mikhailovich Malyutin. It happened last summer in the village...

And a month after this conversation, a Cossack officer, ugly and plebeian in appearance, who had absolutely nothing in common with the circle to which Olya Meshcherskaya belonged, shot her on the station platform, among a large crowd of people who had just arrived by train. And the incredible confession of Olya Meshcherskaya, which stunned the boss, was completely confirmed: the officer told the judicial investigator that Meshcherskaya had 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 and never thought to love him, that all this talk about marriage was just her mockery of him, and she gave him that page of the diary that talked about Malyutin to read.

“I ran through these lines and right there, on the platform where she was walking, waiting for me to finish reading, I shot at her,” said the officer. “This diary, here it is, look what was written in it on the tenth of July last year.” The following was written in the diary: “It’s now two o’clock in the morning. I fell asleep soundly, but woke up immediately... Today I have become a woman! Dad, mom and Tolya all left for the city, I was left alone. I was so happy that I was alone ! In the morning I walked in the garden, in the field, was in the forest, it seemed to me that I was alone in the whole world, and I thought it was as good as never in my life. I had lunch alone, then played for a whole hour, listening to music I had a feeling that I would live endlessly and be as happy as anyone. Then I fell asleep in my dad’s office, and at four o’clock Katya woke me up and said that Alexey Mikhailovich had arrived. I was very happy with him, I was so pleased to receive him and occupy him. He arrived in a couple of his Vyatkas, very beautiful, and they stood at the porch all the time, he stayed because it was raining, and he wanted it to dry out by the evening. He regretted that he did not find dad, he was very animated and behaved like a gentleman with me, joked a lot that he had been in love with me for a long time. When we walked around the garden before tea, the weather was again lovely, the sun was shining through the whole wet garden, although it had become completely cold, and he led me by the arm and said that he is Faust with Margarita. He is fifty-six years old, but he is still very handsome and always well dressed - the only thing I didn’t like was that he arrived in a lionfish - he smells of English cologne, and his eyes are very young, black, and his beard is elegantly divided into two long parts and completely silver Over tea we sat on the glass veranda, I felt as if unwell and lay down on the ottoman, and he smoked, then moved to me, began again to say some pleasantries, then examined and kissed my hand. I covered my face with a silk scarf, and he kissed me on the lips through the scarf several times... I don’t understand how this could happen, I’m crazy, I never thought I was like this! Now I have only one way out... I feel such disgust for him that I can’t get over it!..”