Maundy Thursday story by Bunin. Analysis of the story “Clean Monday” (Bunin I
Every evening in the winter of 1912, the narrator visits the same apartment opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. There lives a woman whom he loves madly. The narrator takes her to luxury restaurants, gives her books, chocolate and fresh flowers, but does not know how it will all end. She doesn't want to talk about the future. There has not yet been real, final intimacy between them, and this keeps the narrator “in unresolved tension, in painful anticipation.” Despite this, he is happy next to her.
She is studying history courses and lives alone - her father, a widowed enlightened merchant, settled “at rest in Tver.” She accepts all the narrator's gifts carelessly and absent-mindedly.
It looked like she didn’t need anything: no flowers, no books, no lunches, no theaters, no dinners out of town.
She has her favorite flowers, she reads books, she eats chocolate and has dinner with great pleasure, but her only real weakness is “ good clothes, velvet, silk, expensive fur.”
Both the narrator and his lover are young and very beautiful. The narrator looks like an Italian, is bright and active. She is dark and dark-eyed like a Persian. He is “prone to talkativeness and simple-hearted gaiety,” she is always reserved and silent.
The narrator often recalls how they met at a lecture by Andrei Bely. The writer did not give a lecture, but sang it, running around the stage. The narrator “twirled and laughed so much” that he attracted the attention of the girl sitting in the next chair, and she laughed with him.
Sometimes she silently, but without resisting, allows the narrator to kiss “her arms, legs, her body, amazing in its smoothness.” Feeling that he can no longer control himself, she pulls away and leaves. She says that she is not fit for marriage, and the narrator does not speak to her about it again.
Our incomplete intimacy sometimes seemed unbearable, but even here, what was left for me except hope for time?
The fact that he looks at her and accompanies her to restaurants and theaters constitutes torment and happiness for the narrator.
This is how the narrator spends January and February. Maslenitsa is coming. On Forgiveness Sunday, she orders you to pick her up earlier than usual. They go to Novodevichy Convent. On the way, she says that yesterday morning she was at the schismatic cemetery where their archbishop was buried, and recalls the whole ceremony with delight. The narrator is surprised - until now he had not noticed that she was so religious.
They come to the cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent and walk for a long time between the graves. The narrator looks at her with adoration. She notices this and is sincerely surprised: he really loves her so much! In the evening they eat pancakes in a tavern Okhotny Ryad, she again tells him with admiration about the monasteries that she managed to see, and threatens to go to the most remote of them. The narrator does not take her words seriously.
The next evening, she asks the narrator to take her to a theater skit, although she considers such gatherings extremely vulgar. She drinks champagne all evening, watches the antics of the actors, and then dashingly dances the polka with one of them.
Deep at night the narrator brings her home. To his surprise, she asks him to let the coachman go and go up to her apartment - she didn’t allow this before. They are finally getting closer. In the morning she tells the narrator that she is leaving for Tver, promises to write and asks to leave her now.
The narrator receives the letter two weeks later. She says goodbye to him and asks him not to wait and not look for her.
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’s useless to prolong and increase our torment...
The narrator fulfills her request. He begins to disappear through the dirtiest taverns, gradually losing his human appearance, then for a long time, indifferently and hopelessly, he comes to his senses.
Two years pass. Under New Year the narrator, with tears in his eyes, repeats the path he once took with his beloved on Forgiveness Sunday. Then he stops at the Marfo-Mariinsky monastery and wants to enter. The janitor does not let the narrator in: inside there is a service for the Grand Duchess and the Grand Duke. The narrator still comes in, handing the janitor a ruble.
In the courtyard of the monastery, the narrator sees a religious procession. Headed by him Grand Duchess, followed by a line of singing nuns or sisters with candles near their pale faces. One of the sisters suddenly raises her black eyes and looks straight at the narrator, as if sensing his presence in the darkness. The narrator turns and quietly leaves the gate.
Of course, first of all, this is a story about love. That young one passionate love, when every moment of meeting with your beloved is sweet and painful (and the story is told from the perspective of the hero, a young rich man, and this detail will turn out to be very important in understanding the meaning of the work), when it is impossible, without incredible tenderness, to look at the star-like marks left by her heels on snow, when incomplete intimacy seems ready to drive you crazy and you are all permeated with that “ecstatic despair” that breaks your heart!
Bunin attached particular importance to the writer’s ability to describe the brightest, most frank moments of love. It was to the sharp-sweet moments of rapprochement between a man and a woman that he dedicated the cycle “Dark Alleys,” which was written over 10 years - from the mid-30s to the mid-40s. - and consisting (almost unprecedented in the history of literature!) of 38 short stories, telling only about love, only about meetings, only about partings. And in this sense, “Sunstroke” can be considered as a prelude to this cycle. And as a kind of demand-credo of the writer, one can regard his words in one of the stories: “The writer has the same full right to be bold in his verbal depictions of love and its faces, which at all times was granted in this case to painters and sculptors: only vile souls they see the vile even in the beautiful or the terrible.” Of particular note last words: beautiful and terrible. For Bunin, they are always nearby, inseparable, determining the very essence of life. Therefore, in “Clean Monday” the heroine will also be brought into something like an ecstatic stupor by “beauty and horror” that accompany death, departure to another world, the entire funeral ritual!
However, the above statement by Bunin did not prevent many critics and literary scholars from seeing in frank stories “ Dark alleys” the influence of Western literature: this is indeed true in Russian classical literature scenes of love had never been depicted before (it is known that L.N. Tolstoy chose to fill an entire line with dots rather than reveal the secret of the closeness of Anna Karenina and Vronsky). For Bunin, there is nothing unworthy or unclean in love (we repeat, in love!). “Love,” as one of his contemporaries wrote, “always seemed to him to be perhaps the most significant and mysterious thing in the world... All love is great happiness...” And the story “ Clean Monday” tells about such a mysterious, great, happily-unhappy love.
And yet this story, although it has all the signs of a love story and its culmination is the night spent by the lovers together (it is important that this is the night of the eve of Lent; Clean Monday comes after Forgiveness Sunday and is the first day of Lent), it is not about this or not only about this.... Already at the very beginning of the story it is directly stated that a “strange love” will unfold before us between a dazzling handsome man, in whose appearance there is even something “Sicilian” (however, he comes only from Penza), and “The Shamakhan queen” (as those around her call the heroine), whose portrait is given in great detail: there was something “Indian, Persian” in the girl’s beauty (although her origins are very prosaic: her father is a merchant of a noble family from Tver, her grandmother is from Astrakhan ). She has “a dark-amber face, magnificent and somewhat ominous hair in its thick blackness, softly shining like black sable fur, eyebrows, black like velvet coal (Bunin’s amazing oxymoron! - M.M.), eyes”, captivating “ velvety crimson lips, shaded with dark down. Her favorite evening outfit is also described in detail: pomegranate velvet dress, the same shoes with gold buckles. (Somewhat unexpected in the rich palette of Bunin’s epithets is the persistent repetition of the epithet velvet, which, obviously, should highlight the amazing softness of the heroine. But let’s not forget about “coal,” which is undoubtedly associated with hardness.) Thus, Bunin’s heroes are deliberately likened to each other to a friend - in the sense of beauty, youth, charm, obvious originality of appearance.
However, further Bunin carefully, but very consistently “prescribes” the differences between the “Sicilian” and the “Shamakhan Queen”, which will turn out to be fundamental and ultimately lead to a dramatic denouement - eternal separation. And here lies the difference between the concept of love revealed in “ Sunstroke”, and the love of the heroes of “Clean Monday”. There, the lack of a future for the lieutenant and the woman in the canvas dress was explained by the incompatibility of the severity of the experiences caused by the “sun” love blow with the everyday life that millions of people live and which will soon begin for the heroes themselves.
“Sunstroke,” according to Bunin, is one of the manifestations of cosmic living life, which they were able to join for a moment. But it can be revealed to a person at the moments of turning to the highest works art, and through memory, which blurs temporary barriers, and through contact and dissolution in nature, when you feel like a small part of it.
“Clean Monday” is different. Nothing bothers the heroes; they live such a prosperous life that the concept of everyday life is not very applicable to their pastime. It is no coincidence that Bunin literally piece by piece recreates a rich picture of intellectual and cultural life Russia 1911-1912 (For this story, the attachment of events to a specific time is generally very important. Bunin usually prefers greater temporal abstraction.) Here, as they say, on one spot, all the events that during the first one and a half decades of the 20th century are concentrated. excited minds Russian intelligentsia. These are new productions and skits Art Theater; lectures by Andrei Bely, read by him in such an original manner that everyone talked about it; the most popular stylization historical events XVI century - witch trials and the novel by V. Bryusov “ Fire Angel”; fashion writers Viennese school“modern” A. Schnitzler and G. Hofmannsthal; works of the Polish decadents K. Tetmaier and S. Przybyszewski; the stories of L. Andreev, who attracted everyone's attention, the concerts of F. Chaliapin... Literary scholars even find historical inconsistencies in the picture of life in pre-war Moscow depicted by Bunin, pointing out that many of the events he cited could not have occurred at the same time. However, it seems that Bunin deliberately compresses time, achieving its utmost density, materiality, and tangibility.
So, every day and evening of the heroes is filled with something interesting - visiting theaters, restaurants. They should not burden themselves with work or study (it is true that the heroine is studying at some courses, but she cannot really answer why she attends them), they are free and young. I would really like to add: and happy. But this word can only be applied to the hero, although he is aware that the happiness of being near her is mixed with torment. And yet for him this is undoubted happiness. “Great happiness,” as Bunin says (and his voice in this story largely merges with the voice of the narrator).
What about the heroine? Is she happy? Isn't it the greatest happiness for a woman to discover that she is loved? more life(“It’s true, how you love me!” she said with quiet bewilderment, shaking her head.”) that she is desired, that they want to see her as a wife? But this is clearly not enough for the heroine! It is she who utters a significant phrase about happiness, which concludes a whole life philosophy: “Our happiness, my friend, is like water in delirium: if you pull it, it swells, but if you pull it out, there’s nothing.” At the same time, it turns out that it was not invented by her, but said by Platon Karataev, whose wisdom her interlocutor also immediately declared “eastern”.
It’s probably worth immediately paying attention to the fact that Bunin, clearly emphasizing the gesture, emphasized how the young man, in response to Karataev’s words cited by the heroine, “waved his hand.” Thus, the discrepancy between the views and perceptions of certain phenomena by the hero and heroine becomes obvious. He exists in the real dimension, in the present time, therefore he calmly perceives everything that happens in him as an integral part of him. Boxes of chocolates are as much a sign of attention for him as a book; In general, he doesn’t care where to go - whether to have dinner at the Metropol, or wander around Ordynka in search of Griboedov’s house, sit at dinner in a tavern, or listen to the gypsies. He does not feel the surrounding vulgarity, which is wonderfully captured by Bunin both in the performance of the “Polish woman Tranblanc”, when his partner shouts out a meaningless set of phrases as a “goat”, and in the cheeky performance of songs by the old gypsy “with the gray muzzle of a drowned man” and the gypsy woman “with a low forehead under a tar bang.” " He is not very offended by drunk people around, annoyingly helpful sex workers, or the emphasized theatricality in the behavior of people of art. And how the height of discrepancy with the heroine is his consent to her invitation, pronounced in English: “All right!”
All this does not mean, of course, that high feelings are inaccessible to him, that he is unable to appreciate the unusualness and uniqueness of the girl he meets. On the contrary, his enthusiastic love clearly saves him from the surrounding vulgarity, and the rapture and pleasure with which he listens to her words, how he knows how to highlight a special intonation in them, how attentive he is even to little things (he sees “ quiet light” in her eyes, he is pleased with her “kind talkativeness”), speaks in his favor. It is not without reason that when he mentions that his beloved may go to a monastery, he, “lost with excitement,” lights a cigarette and almost admits out loud that out of despair he is capable of stabbing someone to death or also becoming a monk. And when something really happens that only arose in the heroine’s imagination, and she decides first to obey, and then, apparently, to take monastic vows (in the epilogue the hero meets her in the Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy) - he first sinks and drinks himself to such an extent that it seems that it is impossible to be reborn, and then, albeit little by little, he “recovers”, returns to life, but somehow “indifferently, hopelessly,” although he sobs, walking through the places where they once visited together. sensitive heart: after all, immediately after a night of intimacy, when nothing yet portends trouble, he feels himself and what happened so strongly and bitterly that the old woman near the Iverskaya Chapel turns to him with the words: “Oh, don’t kill yourself, don’t kill yourself like that!”
Consequently, the height of his feelings and ability to experience are beyond doubt. The heroine herself admits this when farewell letter asks God to give him the strength “not to answer” her, realizing that their correspondence will only “uselessly prolong and increase our torment.” And yet the intensity of his mental life cannot be compared with her spiritual experiences and insights. Moreover, Bunin deliberately creates the impression that he, as it were, “echoes” the heroine, agreeing to go where she calls, admiring what delights her, entertaining her with what, as it seems to him, can occupy her in the first place. This does not mean that he does not have his own “I”, his own individuality. He is no stranger to reflections and observations, he is attentive to the changes in his beloved’s mood, and is the first to notice that their relationship is developing in such a “strange” city as Moscow.
But nevertheless, it is she who leads the “party”, it is her voice that is most clearly distinguishable. Actually, the heroine’s fortitude and the choice she ultimately makes become the semantic core of Bunin’s work. It is her deep concentration on something that is not immediately definable, for the time being hidden from prying eyes, that constitutes the alarming nerve of the narrative, the ending of which defies any logical or everyday explanation. And if the hero is talkative and restless, if he can put off a painful decision until later, assuming that everything will be resolved somehow by itself or, in extreme cases, not think about the future at all, then the heroine is always thinking about something of her own, which is only indirect breaks through in her remarks and conversations. She loves to quote Russian chronicles, especially the ancient Russian “The Tale of the Faithful Spouses Peter and Fevronia of Murom” (Bunin incorrectly indicated the name of the prince - Pavel).
She can listen to church hymns. The very vowel sounds of the words of the Old Russian language will not leave her indifferent, and she will repeat them, as if spellbound...
And her conversations are no less “strange” than her actions. She either invites her lover to the Novodevichy Convent, then leads him around Ordynka in search of the house where Griboyedov lived (it would be more accurate to say, he visited, because in one of the Horde alleys there was the house of uncle A.S. Griboyedov), then she talks about her visiting an old schismatic cemetery, he confesses his love for Chudov, Zachatievsky and other monasteries, where he constantly goes. And, of course, the most “strange” thing, incomprehensible from the point of view of everyday logic, is her decision to retire to a monastery, to sever all ties with the world.
But Bunin, as a writer, does everything to “explain” this strangeness. The reason for this “strangeness” is the contradictions of the Russian national character, which themselves are a consequence of Rus'’s location at the crossroads of East and West. This is where the story constantly emphasizes the clash between Eastern and Western principles. The author's eye, the narrator's eye, stops at the cathedrals built in Moscow Italian architects, ancient Russian architecture, who perceived eastern traditions(something Kyrgyz in the towers of the Kremlin wall), the Persian beauty of the heroine - the daughter of a Tver merchant, reveals a combination of incongruous things in her favorite clothes (either the archaluk of an Astrakhan grandmother, or the European fashionable dress), in the setting and affections - “Moonlight Sonata” and the Turkish sofa on which she reclines. When the Moscow Kremlin clock strikes, she hears the sounds of a Florentine clock. The heroine’s gaze also captures the “extravagant” habits of the Moscow merchants - pancakes with caviar, washed down with frozen champagne. But she herself is not alien to the same tastes: she orders foreign sherry with Russian navazhka.
No less important is the internal contradiction of the heroine, who is depicted by the writer at a spiritual crossroads. She often says one thing and does something else: she is surprised by the gourmandness of other people, but she herself has lunch and dinner with an excellent appetite, then she attends all the newfangled meetings, then she does not leave the house at all, she is irritated by the surrounding vulgarity, but goes to dance the Tranblanc polka, causing everyone’s admiration and applause, delays moments of intimacy with her beloved, and then suddenly agrees to it...
But in the end, she still makes a decision, the only correct decision, which, according to Bunin, was predetermined by Russia - by its entire destiny, its entire history. The path of repentance, humility and forgiveness.
Refusal of temptations (it is not for nothing that, agreeing to intimacy with her lover, the heroine says, characterizing his beauty: “The serpent in human nature, extremely beautiful...” - i.e., she refers to him the words from the legend of Peter and Fevronia - about the intrigues the devil, who sent the pious princess “a flying serpent for fornication”), which appeared at the beginning of the 20th century. before Russia in the form of uprisings and riots and, according to the writer, served as the beginning of its “ damn days”, - this is what was supposed to provide his homeland with a decent future. Forgiveness addressed to all those who are guilty is what, according to Bunin, would help Russia withstand the whirlwind of historical cataclysms of the 20th century. The path of Russia is the path of fasting and renunciation. But that didn't happen. Russia has chosen a different path. And the writer never tired of mourning her fate while in exile.
Probably, strict zealots of Christian piety will not consider the writer’s arguments in favor of the heroine’s decision convincing. In their opinion, she clearly accepted him not under the influence of the grace that descended on her, but for other reasons. They will rightly feel that there is too little revelation and too much poetry in her adherence to church rituals. She herself says that her love for church rituals can hardly be considered real religiosity. Indeed, she perceives funerals too aesthetically (wrought gold brocade, white bedspread embroidered with black letters (air) on the face of the deceased, snow blinding in the cold and glitter spruce branches inside the grave), she listens too admiringly to the music of the words of Russian legends (“I re-read what I especially liked until I memorize it by heart”), she is too immersed in the atmosphere accompanying the service in the church (“the stichera are wonderfully sung there,” “there are puddles and air everywhere.” already soft, my soul is somehow tender, sad...”, “all the doors in the cathedral are open, ordinary people come and go all day long”...). And in this, the heroine in her own way turns out to be close to Bunin himself, who also in the Novodevichy Convent will see “jackdaws that look like nuns”, “gray coral branches in frost”, marvelously emerging “on the golden enamel of sunset”, blood-red walls and mysteriously glowing lamps. By the way, the closeness of the heroines to the writer, their special spirituality, significance and unusualness were immediately noted by critics. Gradually, the concept of “Bunin’s women” is taking root in literary criticism, as bright and definite as “Turgenev’s girls.”
Thus, in choosing the ending of the story, it is not so much the religious attitude and position of Bunin the Christian that is important, but rather the position of Bunin the writer, for whose worldview a sense of history is extremely important. “The feeling of the homeland, its antiquity,” as the heroine of “Clean Monday” says about it. This is also why she abandoned a future that could have turned out happily, because she decided to leave everything worldly, because the disappearance of beauty, which she feels everywhere, is unbearable for her. “Desperate cancans” and frisky Poles Tranblanc, performed by the most talented people Russia - Moskvin, Stanislavsky and Sulerzhitsky, replaced the singing with “hooks” (what is that!), and in the place of the heroes Peresvet and Oslyabi (remember who they are) - “pale from hops, with large sweat on his forehead,” almost falling off the feet the beauty and pride of the Russian stage - Kachalov and the “daring” Chaliapin.
Therefore, the phrase: “It’s only in some northern monasteries that this Rus' now remains” - appears quite naturally in the mouth of the heroine. She means the irretrievably disappearing feelings of dignity, beauty, goodness, for which she yearns immensely and which she hopes to find in monastic life.
As we have seen, an unambiguous interpretation of “Clean Monday” is hardly possible. This work is about love, and about beauty, and about the duty of man, and about Russia, and about its fate. This is probably why it was Bunin’s favorite story, the best, according to him, of what he wrote, for the creation of which he thanked God...
Everything in his life is simple and clear. Every evening at the same hour he meets his beloved, takes her to theaters and restaurants, gives her flowers, sweets, books. He is in love, but the character of his beloved remains a mystery to him, and their future together is doubtful. They are beautiful, they are followed by glances.
He is talkative, she is thoughtful. He admires her, languishes and does not understand. For some reason, she is taking a history course, learning the “Moonlight Sonata,” in which, apart from the somnambulistic beginning, she seems to be interested in nothing. Chaliapin was too daring for her, and his novels were stilted. She doesn't like much.
On Forgiveness Sunday, she asks to be taken to the Novodevichy Convent. They eat pancakes and drink champagne in a tavern under the icon of the Three-Handed Woman. She talks about cathedrals, ancient Russian chronicles, nostalgia for true Rus', which is alive only in northern monasteries, and in church hymns, mentions the legend of the tempting serpent, and he listens absentmindedly, trying to understand “what’s wrong with her now?” The next day, at the theater skit, she is again like everyone else: drinking champagne, dancing, listening to vulgar compliments from her acquaintances, calling her lover a very beautiful snake.
That night they become close and infinitely far. In the morning she tenderly says goodbye and leaves for an indefinite period of time in Tver, and two weeks later she writes in a letter that she has decided to become a novice. In desperation main character wanders around the taverns, drinking himself to death and sinking. Gradually, indifference and hopelessness sets in, and two years later, at the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent, he meets her in a string of singing nuns and sisters in snow-white robes.
“Clean Monday” is a search for love in its highest sense, thinking about happiness, the vanity of the world in which we live, we do things without thinking and without knowing why. He has the key to her house, but not to her heart.
You can use this text for reader's diary
Bunin. All works
- Antonov apples
- Clean Monday
Clean Monday. Picture for the story
Currently reading
- Summary of Leskov The Imprinted Angel
During a severe snowstorm, several travelers stay at the boarding house. One wanderer claims that an angel saved them. He began to tell his companions terrifying and sacred stories about the angel.
- Summary of Dubov Sirota
The book tells about the life of Lesha Gorbachev. His father died at the front, and soon his mother died of illness. Uncle and Aunt Lesha, stupid and greedy people, took custody of him.
- Summary of Kipling Mowgli
The story begins with a two-year-old child, the son of a woodcutter, getting lost and ending up in the jungle. The boy immediately makes friends who care for and protect him. In addition to them, the worst enemy appears
- Summary of Hoffmann Don Juan
The story describes the life of one Don Juan. He had a servant, Leporello, who worked for him and always complained about his master. He always waited for him when he went to Donna Anna.
- Summary Vasily Shibanov Tolstoy A.K.
A. Tolstoy put completely into the basis of this work real events. It was at this time that Kurbsky left the country and went abroad because he was afraid of Ivan the Terrible.
The Moscow gray winter day was darkening, the gas in the lanterns was coldly lit, the shop windows were warmly illuminated - and the evening Moscow life, freed from daytime affairs, flared up: the cab sleighs rushed thicker and more vigorously, the crowded, diving trams rattled more heavily - in the dusk it was already visible how green stars fell from the wires with a hiss, - dimly blackened passers-by hurried more animatedly along the snowy sidewalks... Every evening at this hour my coachman rushed me on a stretched trotter - from the Red Gate to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior: she lived opposite him; every evening I took her to dinner at Prague, at the Hermitage, at Metropol, after dinner at the theaters, to concerts, and then to the Yar in Strelna... How all this should end, I didn’t know and tried not to to think, not to think out: it was useless - just like talking to her about it: she once and for all averted conversations about our future; she was mysterious, incomprehensible to me, and our relationship with her was strange - we were still not very close; and all this endlessly kept me in unresolved tension, in painful anticipation - and at the same time I was incredibly happy with every hour spent near her.
For some reason, she took courses, attended them quite rarely, but attended them. I once asked: “Why?” She shrugged her shoulder: “Why is everything done in the world? Do we understand anything in our actions? In addition, I am interested in history...” She lived alone - her widowed father, an enlightened man of a noble merchant family, lived in retirement in Tver, collecting something, like all such merchants. In the house opposite the Church of the Savior, for the sake of the view of Moscow, she rented a corner apartment on the fifth floor, only two rooms, but spacious and well furnished. In the first, a wide Turkish sofa occupied a lot of space, there was an expensive piano, on which she kept practicing the slow, somnambulistically beautiful beginning “ Moonlight Sonata“, - only one beginning, - on the piano and on the mirror-glass, elegant flowers bloomed in cut vases, - on my order, fresh ones were delivered to her every Saturday, - and when I came to her on Saturday evening, she was lying on the sofa, above which why - there was a portrait of a barefoot Tolstoy hanging, she slowly extended her hand to me for a kiss and said absently: “Thank you for the flowers...” I brought her boxes of chocolate, new books - Hofmannsthal, Schnitzler, Tetmeyer, Przybyshevsky - and received 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, 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 dinners, 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 a day, at dinners and at dinners she ate no less than me, 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 Moscow understanding of the matter. Her obvious weakness was only good clothes, velvet, silk, expensive fur...
We were both rich, healthy, young and so good-looking that people stared at us in restaurants and at concerts. I, being from Penza province, at that time he was handsome for some reason, with a southern, hot beauty, he was even “indecently handsome,” as one once told me famous actor, monstrous 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 delving into something mentally; lying on the sofa with a book in her hands, she often lowered it and looked inquiringly in front of her: I saw this, sometimes visiting her during the day, because every month she did not go out at all for three or four days and did not leave the house, 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, Running and dancing on the stage, I was spinning and laughing 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 can imagine. As for my love, you know very well that besides my father and you, I have no one in the world. In any case, you are my first and last. Is this not enough for you? But enough about that. We can’t read in front of you, let’s drink tea...
And I got up, boiled water in an electric kettle on the table behind the sofa, took cups and saucers from the walnut pile that stood in the corner behind the table, saying whatever came to mind:
– Have you finished reading “Fire Angel”?
- I finished watching it. It's so pompous that it's embarrassing to read.
– Why did you suddenly leave Chaliapin’s concert yesterday?
- He was too daring. And then I don’t like yellow-haired Rus' at all.
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin
"Clean Monday"
They met in December, by chance. When he got to Andrei Bely's lecture, he spun and laughed so much that she, who happened to be in the chair next to him and at first looked at him with some bewilderment, also laughed. Now every evening he went to her apartment, which she rented solely for the wonderful view of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, every evening he took her to dinner in chic restaurants, to theaters, to concerts... He did not know how all this was supposed to end and tried not to even think: she put an end to talk about the future once and for all.
She was mysterious and incomprehensible; their relationship was strange and uncertain, and this kept him in constant unresolved tension, in painful anticipation. And yet, what a joy every hour spent next to her was...
She lived alone in Moscow (her widowed father, an enlightened man of a noble merchant family, lived in retirement in Tver), for some reason she studied at courses (she liked history) and kept learning the slow beginning of the “Moonlight Sonata”, just the beginning... He gave her gifts flowers, chocolate and newfangled books, receiving an indifferent and absent-minded “Thank you...” for all this. And it looked like she didn’t need anything, although she still preferred her favorite flowers, read books, ate chocolate, had lunch and dinner with gusto. Her obvious weakness was only good clothes, expensive fur...
They were both rich, healthy, young and so good-looking that people watched them in restaurants and at concerts. He, being from the Penza province, was then handsome with southern, “Italian” beauty and had the appropriate character: lively, cheerful, always ready for a happy smile. And she had some kind of Indian, Persian beauty, and as much as he was talkative and restless, she was so silent and thoughtful... Even when he suddenly kissed her hotly, impetuously, she did not resist, but was silent all the time. And when she felt that he was unable to control himself, she calmly pulled away, went into the bedroom and got dressed for the next trip. “No, I’m not fit to be a wife!” - she repeated. “We’ll see from there!” - he thought and never spoke about marriage again.
But sometimes this incomplete intimacy seemed unbearably painful to him: “No, this is not love!” - “Who knows what love is?” - she answered. And again, all evening they talked only about strangers, and again he was only happy that he was just next to Her, hearing her voice, looking at the lips that he kissed an hour ago... What torment! And what happiness!
So January and February passed, Maslenitsa came and went. On Forgiveness Sunday, she dressed all in black (“After all, tomorrow is Clean Monday!”) and invited him to go to the Novodevichy Convent. He looked at her in surprise, and she talked about the beauty and sincerity of the funeral of the schismatic archbishop, about the singing of the church choir, making the heart tremble, about her lonely visits to the Kremlin cathedrals... Then they wandered around for a long time. Novodevichy Cemetery, visited the graves of Ertel and Chekhov, searched for a long time and fruitlessly for Griboedov’s house, and not finding it, went to Egorov’s tavern in Okhotny Ryad.
The tavern was warm and full of thickly dressed cab drivers. “That’s good,” she said. “And now only this Rus' remains in some northern monasteries... Oh, I’ll go somewhere to a monastery, to some very remote one!” And she read by heart from ancient Russian legends: “...And the devil gave his wife a flying serpent for fornication. And this serpent appeared to her in human nature, extremely beautiful...” And again he looked with surprise and concern: what’s wrong with her today? Are they all quirks?
Tomorrow she asked to be taken to a theater skit, although she noticed that there was nothing more vulgar than them. At the skit party, she smoked a lot and looked intently at the actors, making faces while the audience laughed. One of them first looked at her with feigned gloomy greed, then, drunkenly falling to his hand, inquired about her companion: “Who is this handsome man? I hate it”... At three o’clock in the morning, leaving the skit party, She said, either jokingly or seriously: “He was right. Of course he is beautiful. “The serpent is in human nature, extremely beautiful...”.” And that evening, against custom, she asked to let the crew go...
And in a quiet apartment at night, she immediately went into the bedroom and rustled the dress she was taking off. He walked up to the door: she, wearing only swan slippers, stood in front of the dressing table, combing her black hair with a tortoiseshell comb. “Everyone said that I don’t think much about him,” she said. “No, I thought...” ...And at dawn he woke up from her gaze: “This evening I’m leaving for Tver,” she said. - For how long, only God knows... I’ll write everything as soon as I arrive. Sorry, leave me now..."
The letter received two weeks later was brief - an affectionate but firm request not to wait, not to try to search and see: “I won’t return to Moscow, I’ll go to obedience for now, then maybe I’ll decide to take monastic vows...” And he didn’t look for a long time disappeared into the dirtiest taverns, became an alcoholic, sinking more and more. Then he began to recover little by little - indifferent, hopeless...
Almost two years have passed since that clean Monday... On the same quiet evening he left the house, took a cab and went to the Kremlin. He stood for a long time, without praying, in the dark Archangel Cathedral, then he drove for a long time, as then, through dark alleys and kept crying and crying...
On Ordynka I stopped at the gates of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent, in which the girls’ choir sang sadly and tenderly. The janitor didn’t want to let me in, but for the ruble, with a sad sigh, he let me in. Then icons and banners, carried in their hands, appeared from the church, a white line of singing nuns stretched out, with candle lights on their faces. He looked at them carefully, and then one of those walking in the middle suddenly raised her head and fixed her gaze on dark eyes into the darkness, as if seeing him. What could she see in the darkness, how could she feel His presence? He turned and quietly walked out of the gate.
They met one day in December by chance. He came to listen to Andrei Bely’s lecture, and laughed so much that he infected everyone around him with his laughter. She found herself next to him, and also laughed, not understanding the reason. Now they went to restaurants and theaters together, and lived in the same apartment. They didn't want to talk about the future, enjoying every minute of their happiness. She had a separate apartment in Moscow. My father, from a wealthy family, lived in Tver. Every day he brought flowers and gifts. Both were not poor, young and happy. In restaurants, everyone followed them with their eyes, admiring the combination of such beauty. But they weren’t ready for marriage yet.
There were times when it seemed to him that there was no love. In response I heard only the words: “What is love?” Over and over again, it was just the two of them, and they enjoyed every moment of life. So the winter passed, and on Forgiveness Sunday she put on black clothes, and suggested going to the Novodevichy Convent. He looked at her in surprise, and she told her how your heart beats when you are in church, and how beautifully the church choir sings. They walked around the Novodevichy cemetery for a long time, looking for graves famous writers. After that, they went to a tavern on Okhotny Ryad.
There were a lot of people in the tavern. She never stopped thinking about how good it was in Russian monasteries, and wanted to someday go to one of them. She recited it by heart ancient Russian tales, and he again looked at her in surprise, not knowing what was happening to her.
The next day, she decided to go to a theater meeting, although she said it was cheesy. Here she looked at celebrities and smoked a lot. One of the actors watched her greedily all evening, and at the end, after getting drunk, he pressed his lips to her hand. He asked who her companion was, looking at him with hatred. Late at night, coming from a party, she thought that her gentleman was too handsome, like a snake in human form. And after thinking a little, she released the crew.
Entering the quiet, calm apartment, she immediately went into the bedroom and took off her dress. He went to the door and saw her standing only in swan slippers. She stood in front of the mirror and combed her hair. Saying that she was leaving for Tver to see her father in the morning, she went to bed. Two weeks later, he received a letter saying that she would not come again. In addition, she asked not to seek a meeting with her. He didn't even look for a long time, going down to the bottom with the help of alcohol. Then, little by little, he began to come to his senses.
A few years later, he left home and went to the Kremlin. It was a clean Monday, and he stood for a long time in one of the cathedrals without praying. Then he drove through the dark streets of Moscow and cried.
After some time, he stopped at the gates of the Marfo-Mariinsky Monastery, where the girls’ choir sang so beautifully and sorrowfully. At first they didn’t want to let him in, but after paying the janitor a ruble, he entered. Here he saw nuns come out of the church, holding candles in their hands. He looked at them carefully. Suddenly he saw her. She looked into the darkness, straight at him, seeing nothing. It is possible that she felt his presence. He turned around and left.
