For I. A. Bunin, the feeling of love is always a secret, great, unknowable and miracle beyond the control of human reason. In his stories, no matter what kind of love it is: strong, real, mutual, it never reaches marriage. He stops it at the highest point of pleasure and immortalizes it in prose.

From 1937 to 1945 Ivan Bunin writes an intriguing work, which will later be included in the collection “Dark Alleys”. While writing the book, the author emigrated to France. Thanks to the work on the story, the writer was to some extent distracted from the dark streak that was going on in his life.

Bunin said that “Clean Monday” is best job which was written by him:

I thank God for giving me the opportunity to write “Clean Monday.”

Genre, direction

“Clean Monday” was written in the direction of realism. But before Bunin they didn’t write about love like that. The writer finds those only words that do not trivialize feelings, but each time rediscover emotions familiar to everyone.

The work “Clean Monday” is a short story, a small everyday work, somewhat similar to a short story. The difference can only be found in the plot and compositional structure. The short story genre, unlike the short story, is characterized by the presence of a certain turn of events. In this book, such a turn is a change in the heroine’s outlook on life and a sharp change in her lifestyle.

Meaning of the name

Ivan Bunin clearly draws a parallel with the title of the work, making the main character a girl who rushes between opposites and does not yet know what she needs in life. She changes for the better on Monday, and not just the first day of the new week, but a religious celebration, that turning point, which is marked by the church itself, where the heroine goes to cleanse herself of the luxury, idleness and bustle of her former life.

Clean Monday is the first holiday of Lent in the calendar, leading to Forgiveness Sunday. The author draws the thread of the turning point in the heroine’s life: from various amusements and unnecessary fun, to the adoption of religion, and leaving for a monastery.

The essence

The story is told in the first person. The main events are as follows: every evening the narrator visits a girl who lives opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, for whom he has strong feelings. He is extremely talkative, she is very silent. There was no intimacy between them, and this keeps him in bewilderment and some kind of expectation.

For some time they continue to go to theaters and spend evenings together. Forgiveness Sunday is approaching, and they go to the Novodevichy Convent. Along the way, the heroine talks about how yesterday she was at the schismatic cemetery, and with admiration describes the burial ceremony of the archbishop. The narrator had not previously noticed any religiosity in her, and therefore listened attentively, with glowing, loving eyes. The heroine notices this and is amazed at how much he loves her.

In the evening they go to a skit party, after which the narrator accompanies her home. The girl asks to let the coachmen go, which she hasn’t done before, and come up to her. It was just their evening.

In the morning, the heroine says that she is leaving for Tver, to the monastery - there is no need to wait or look for her.

The main characters and their characteristics

Image main character can be viewed from several angles of the narrator: the young man in love evaluates his chosen one as a participant in the events, and he also sees her in the role of a person who only remembers the past. His views on life after falling in love, after passion, change. By the end of the story, the reader now sees his maturity and depth of thoughts, but at the beginning the hero was blinded by his passion and did not see the character of his beloved behind it, did not feel her soul. This is the reason for his loss and the despair into which he plunged after the disappearance of the lady of his heart.

The girl's name cannot be found in the work. For the storyteller, this is simply the same one - unique. The heroine is an ambiguous nature. She has education, sophistication, intelligence, but at the same time she is withdrawn from the world. She is attracted by an unattainable ideal, to which she can only strive within the walls of the monastery. But at the same time, she fell in love with a man and cannot just leave him. The contrast of feelings leads to an internal conflict, which we can glimpse in her tense silence, in her desire for quiet and secluded corners, for reflection and solitude. The girl still cannot understand what she needs. She is seduced by a luxurious life, but at the same time, she resists it and tries to find something else that will illuminate her path with meaning. And in this honest choice, in this loyalty to oneself lies great strength, there is great happiness, which Bunin described with such pleasure.

Topics and issues

  1. The main theme is love. It is she who gives a person meaning in life. For the girl, the guiding star was divine revelation, she found herself, but her chosen one, having lost the woman of his dreams, lost his way.
  2. The problem of misunderstanding. The whole essence of the tragedy of heroes lies in misunderstanding each other. The girl, feeling love for the narrator, does not see anything good in this - for her this is a problem, and not a way out of a confusing situation. She is looking for herself not in the family, but in service and spiritual calling. He sincerely does not see this and tries to impose on her his vision of the future - the creation of marriage bonds.
  3. Theme of choice also appears in the novella. Every person has a choice, and everyone decides for themselves what to do right. The main character chose her own path - entering a monastery. The hero continued to love her, and could not come to terms with her choice, because of this he could not find inner harmony, find himself.
  4. Also I. A. Bunin can be traced theme of human purpose in life. The main character does not know what she wants, but she feels her calling. It is very difficult for her to understand herself, and because of this, the narrator also cannot fully understand her. However, she follows the call of her soul, vaguely guessing her destiny - destiny higher powers. And this is very good for both of them. If a woman made a mistake and got married, she would remain unhappy forever and blame the one who led her astray. And the man would suffer from unrequited happiness.
  5. The problem of happiness. The hero sees him in love with the lady, but the lady moves along a different coordinate system. She will find harmony only alone with God.

    6. the main idea

    The writer writes about true love, which ultimately ends in breakup. The heroes make such decisions themselves; they have complete freedom of choice. And the meaning of their actions is the idea of ​​the entire book. Each of us must choose exactly that love that we can worship without complaint throughout our lives. A person must be true to himself and the passion that lives in his heart. The heroine found the strength to go to the end and, despite all doubts and temptations, to reach her cherished goal.

    The main idea of ​​the novel is an ardent call for honest self-determination. There is no need to be afraid that someone will not understand or judge your decision if you are sure that this is your calling. In addition, a person must be able to resist those obstacles and temptations that prevent him from hearing his own voice. Fate depends on whether we are able to hear him, both our own fate and the position of those to whom we are dear.

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The Moscow gray winter day was darkening, the gas in the lanterns was coldly lit, the store 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 with a hiss, green stars fell from the wires - dimly blackened passers-by hurried more animatedly along the snowy sidewalks... Every evening at this hour my coachman rushed me on a stretched trotter - from the Red Gate to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior: she lived opposite him; every evening I took her to dinner at Prague, at the Hermitage, at Metropol, after dinner at the theaters, to concerts, and then to Yar, Strelna... How should all this end, I I didn’t know and tried not to think, not to think: it was useless - just like talking to her about it: she once and for all put aside conversations about our future; she was mysterious, incomprehensible to me, and our relationship with her was strange - we were still not very close; and all this endlessly kept me in unresolved tension, in painful anticipation - and at the same time I was incredibly happy with every hour spent near her. For some reason, she took courses, attended them quite rarely, but attended them. I once asked: “Why?” She shrugged her shoulder: “Why is everything done in the world? Do we understand anything in our actions? In addition, I am interested in history...” She lived alone - her widowed father, an enlightened man of a noble merchant family, lived in retirement in Tver, collecting something, like all such merchants. In the house opposite the Church of the Savior, for the sake of the view of Moscow, she rented a corner apartment on the fifth floor, only two rooms, but spacious and well furnished. In the first, a wide Turkish sofa occupied a lot of space, there was an expensive piano, on which she kept practicing the slow, somnambulistically beautiful beginning of the “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 see her on Saturday evening, she, lying on the sofa, above which for some reason hung a portrait of a barefoot Tolstoy, slowly 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, Przybyszewski - and received the same “thank you” and an outstretched warm hand, sometimes an order to sit near the sofa without taking off my 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 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, 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 ate lunch and dinner herself. with a Moscow understanding of the matter. Her obvious weakness was only good clothes, velvet, silk, expensive fur... We were both rich, healthy, young and so good-looking that people stared at us in restaurants and at concerts. I, being from the Penza province, was at that time handsome for some reason, with a southern, hot beauty, I was even “indecently handsome,” as one 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 a 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. And as for my love, you know well that besides my father and you, I have no one in the world. In any case, you are my first and last. Is this not enough for you? But enough about that. We can’t read in front of you, let’s drink tea... And I got up, boiled water in an electric kettle on the table behind the sofa, took cups and saucers from the walnut pile that stood in the corner behind the table, saying whatever came to mind: —Have you finished reading “Fire Angel”? - I finished watching it. It's so pompous that it's embarrassing to read. — Why did you suddenly leave Chaliapin’s concert yesterday? - He was too daring. And then I don’t like yellow-haired Rus' at all. - You still don’t like it!- Yes, a lot... "Odd love!" - I thought and, while the water was boiling, I stood looking out the windows. The room smelled of flowers, and for me she connected with their smell; outside one window, 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 the Blessed. — St. Basil the Blessed — and Spas-on-Boru, Italian cathedrals — and something Kyrgyz in the points of the towers on the Kremlin walls...” Arriving at dusk, I sometimes found her on the sofa in only one silk archaluk trimmed with sable - the inheritance of my Astrakhan grandmother, she said - I sat next to her in the semi-darkness, without lighting the fire, and kissed her hands and feet, amazing in their smoothness body... And she did not resist anything, but all in silence. I constantly searched for her hot lips - she gave them, breathing fitfully, but all in silence. When she felt that I was no longer able to control myself, she pushed me away, sat down and, without raising her voice, asked to turn on the light, then went into the bedroom. I lit it, sat on a swivel stool near the piano and gradually came to my senses, cooled down from the hot intoxication. A quarter of an hour later she came out of the bedroom, dressed, ready to leave, calm and simple, as if nothing had happened before: -Where to today? To Metropol, maybe? And again we spent the whole evening talking about something unrelated. Soon after we became close, she said to me when I started talking about marriage: - No, I’m not fit to be a wife. I'm not good, I'm not good... This didn't discourage me. “We’ll see from there!” - I said to myself in the hope that her decision would change over time and no longer talked about marriage. Our incomplete intimacy sometimes seemed unbearable to me, but even here, what was left for me except hope for time? One day, sitting next to her in this evening darkness and silence, I grabbed my head: - No, this is beyond my strength! And why, why do you have to torture me and yourself so cruelly! She remained silent. - Yes, after all, this is not love, not love... She evenly responded from the darkness: - May be. Who knows what love is? - I, I know! - I exclaimed. - And I will wait for you to find out what love and happiness are! - Happiness, happiness... “Our happiness, my friend, is like water in delirium: if you pull it, it’s inflated, but if you pull it out, there’s nothing.”- What's this? - This is what Platon Karataev told Pierre. I waved my hand: - Oh, God bless her, with this eastern wisdom! And again all evening he talked only about strangers - about new production Art Theatre, about Andreev's new story... Once again, it was enough for me that I first sat closely with her in a flying and rolling sleigh, holding her in the smooth fur of a fur coat, then I entered with her into the crowded hall of the restaurant accompanied by a march from “Hades,” 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 down above them, at the garnet the velvet of the dress, on the slope of the shoulders and the oval of the 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 I flew to the Red Gate. And tomorrow and the day after tomorrow everything will be the same, I thought - all the same torment and all the same happiness... Well, still happiness, great happiness! So January and February passed, Maslenitsa came and went. On Forgiveness Sunday, she ordered me to come to her at five o’clock in the evening. I arrived, and she met me already dressed, in a short astrakhan fur coat, astrakhan hat, and black felt boots. - All Black! - I said, entering, as always, joyfully. Her eyes were gentle and quiet. “After all, tomorrow is already clean Monday,” she answered, taking it out of her astrakhan muff and giving me her hand in a black kid glove. - “Lord, master of my belly...” Do you want to go to the Novodevichy Convent? I was surprised, but hastened to say:- Want! “Well, it’s all taverns and taverns,” she added. - Yesterday morning I was at the Rogozhskoye cemetery... I was even more surprised: - At the cemetery? For what? Is this the famous schismatic? - Yes, schismatic. Pre-Petrine Rus'! Their archbishop was buried. And just imagine: the coffin is an oak block, as in ancient times, the gold brocade seems to be forged, the face of the deceased is covered with white “air”, sewn with large black lettering - beauty and horror. And at the tomb there are deacons with ripidae and trikiria... - How do you know this? Ripids, trikiriyas! - You don't know me. “I didn’t know you were so religious.” - This is not religiosity. I don’t know what... But I, for example, often go in the mornings or evenings, when you don’t drag me to restaurants, to the Kremlin cathedrals, and you don’t even suspect it... So: deacons - what kind of deacons! Peresvet and Oslyabya! And on two choirs there are two choirs, also all Peresvets: tall, powerful, in long black caftans, they sing, calling to each other - first one choir, then the other - and all in unison, and not according to notes, but according to “hooks”. And the inside of the grave was lined with shiny spruce branches, and outside it was frosty, sunny, blinding snow... No, you don’t understand this! Let's go... The evening was peaceful, sunny, with frost on the trees; on the bloody brick walls of the monastery, jackdaws chattered in silence, looking like nuns, and the chimes played subtly and sadly every now and then in the bell tower. Creaking in silence through the snow, we entered the gate, walked along the snowy paths through the cemetery - the sun had just set, it was still quite light, the branches in the frost were wonderfully drawn on the golden enamel of the sunset like gray coral, and mysteriously glowed around us with calm, sad lights unquenchable lamps scattered over the graves. I followed her, looking with emotion at her little footprint, at the stars that her new black boots left in the snow - she suddenly turned around, feeling it: - It’s true, how you love me! - she said with quiet bewilderment, shaking her head. We stood near the graves of Ertel and Chekhov. Holding her hands in her lowered muff, she looked for a long time at the Chekhov grave monument, then shrugged her shoulder: - What a disgusting mixture of Russian leaf style and the Art Theater! It began to get dark and freezing, we slowly walked out of the gate, near which my Fyodor was obediently sitting on a box. “We’ll drive a little more,” she said, “then we’ll go eat the last pancakes at Yegorov’s... But not too much, Fedor, right?”- I’m listening, sir. — Somewhere on Ordynka there is a house where Griboyedov lived. Let's go look for him... And for some reason we went to Ordynka, drove for a long time along some alleys in the gardens, were in Griboyedovsky Lane; but who could tell us which house Griboyedov 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-Mariinskaya Convent,” she said. I laughed: - Back to the monastery? - No, it’s just me... On the ground floor of Yegorov's tavern in Okhotny Ryad it was full of shaggy, thickly dressed cab drivers cutting up stacks of pancakes, doused in excess with butter and sour cream; it was steamy, like in a bathhouse. In the upper rooms, also very warm, with low ceilings, the Old Testament merchants washed down fiery pancakes with grainy caviar with frozen champagne. We went into the second room, where in the corner, in front of the black board of the icon of the Mother of God of Three Hands, a lamp was burning, we sat down at a long table on a black leather sofa... The fluff on her upper lip was frosted, the amber of her cheeks turned slightly pink, the blackness of the paradise completely merged with pupil,” I could not take my enthusiastic eyes off her face. And she said, taking a handkerchief from her fragrant muff: - Fine! There are wild men below, and here are pancakes with champagne and the Mother of God of Three Hands. Three hands! After all, this is India! You are a gentleman, you cannot understand this whole Moscow the way I do. - I can, I can! - I answered. - And let's order lunch strong! - How do you mean “strong”? - It means strong. How come you don't know? “Gyurgi’s speech...” - How good! Gyurgi! - Yes, Prince Yuri Dolgoruky. “Gyurga’s speech to Svyatoslav, Prince of Seversky: “Come to me, brother, in Moscow” and order 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. Last year I kept going there for Strastnaya. Oh, how good it was! There are puddles everywhere, the air is already soft, my soul is somehow tender, sad, and all the time there is this feeling of the homeland, its antiquity... All the doors in the cathedral are open, all day long ordinary people come and go, all day long the service... Oh, I’ll leave I’m going somewhere to a monastery, to some very remote one, in Vologda, Vyatka! I wanted to say that then I too would leave or kill someone so that they would drive me to Sakhalin, I lit a cigarette, lost in excitement, but a floor guard in white pants and a white shirt, belted with a crimson tourniquet, approached and respectfully reminded: - Sorry, sir, smoking is not allowed here... And immediately, with special obsequiousness, he began quickly: - What would you like for pancakes? Homemade herbalist? Caviar, salmon? Our sherry is exceptionally good for ears, but for navazhka... “And to the sherry,” she added, delighting me with her kind talkativeness, which did not leave her all evening. And I was already absent-mindedly listening to what she said next. And she spoke with a quiet light in her eyes: “I love Russian chronicles, I love Russian legends so much that I keep re-reading what I especially like until I memorize it by heart.” “There was a city in the Russian land called Murom, and a noble prince named Paul reigned in it. And the devil introduced a flying serpent to his wife for fornication. And this serpent appeared to her in human nature, extremely beautiful...” I jokingly made scary eyes: - Oh, what a horror! She continued without listening: “That’s how God tested her.” “When the time came for her blessed death, this prince and princess begged God to repose before them on one day. And they agreed to be buried in a single coffin. And they ordered to carve two grave beds in a single stone. And they clothed themselves, at the same time, in monastic robes...” And again my absent-mindedness gave way to surprise and even anxiety: what’s wrong with her today? And so, that evening, when I took her home at a completely different time than usual, at eleven o’clock, she, saying goodbye to me at the entrance, suddenly detained me when I was already getting into the sleigh: - Wait. Come see me tomorrow evening, don't hurt ten. Tomorrow is the “cabbage party” of the Art Theater. - So? - I asked. - Do you want to go to this “cabbage party”?- Yes. - But you said that you don’t know anything more vulgar than these “cabbages”! - And now I don’t know. And still I want to go. I mentally shook my head - all quirks, Moscow quirks! - and cheerfully responded:- All right! At ten o'clock in the evening the next day, having gone up in the elevator to her door, I opened the door with my key and did not immediately enter from the dark hallway: behind it it was unusually light, everything was lit - chandeliers, candelabra on the sides of the mirror and a tall lamp under the light lampshade behind the head of the sofa, and the piano sounded the beginning of the “Moonlight Sonata” - increasingly rising, sounding the further, the more languid, more inviting, in somnambulist-blissful sadness. I slammed the hallway door - the sounds stopped, and the rustling of a dress was heard. I entered - she stood straight and somewhat theatrically near the piano in a black velvet dress, making her look thinner, shining with its elegance, the festive headdress of her jet-black hair, the dark amber color of her bare arms, shoulders, tender, full start breasts, the sparkle of diamond earrings along slightly powdered cheeks, the coal velvet of the eyes and the velvety purple of the lips; At her temples, black, shiny braids curled in half-rings toward her eyes, giving her the look of an oriental beauty from a popular print. “Now, if I were a singer and sang on the stage,” she said, looking at my confused face, “I would respond to applause with a friendly smile and slight bows to the right and left, up and to the stalls, and I would imperceptibly but carefully push away foot the train so as not to step on it... At the "cabbage party" she smoked a lot and kept sipping champagne, looked intently at the actors, with lively cries and choruses depicting 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, got up and, deftly, with a short stamp of her feet, sparkling with earrings, her blackness and bare shoulders and arms, walked with him among the tables, followed by admiring glances and applause, while he, raising his head, shouted like a goat:

Let's go, let's go quickly
Polka dance with you!

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’s handsome. 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 was diving 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 come up to her at night - I said in confusion: - Fyodor, 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 open doors of the illuminated bedroom, the way she, clinging to the stilettos, pulled her dress over her head... I stood up and went to the door: she, wearing only swan slippers, stood with her back to me in front of the dressing table, combing black threads with a tortoiseshell comb long hair hanging along the 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 looking straight at me. I rose from the warmth of the bed and her body, she leaned towards me, quietly and evenly saying: “I’m leaving for Tver this evening.” 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 could already be seen 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 most 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 about 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, under New Year, it 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 Griboyedovsky 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. May 12, 1944

They met in December. It is unclear how he ended up at one of Mr. Andrei Bely’s lectures; he could not sit still and spent the entire lecture spinning around and laughing at the entire audience. She looked at him as if he were an eccentric, but she didn’t understand how she laughed at his next joke. Since that time, he comes every evening to her home in the apartment, which she purchased only because she was struck by the view of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. He did not understand what kind of relationship awaited him with her, he took her to restaurants and cafes, visited museums and concerts with her. He didn’t want to think what would happen next, since she had once made it clear to him that such a conversation did not interest her at all.

She had always been a mystery to him, and it haunted him. He enjoyed every minute that fate gave him to feel her breath or see her smile. This was real happiness for him...

She rented an apartment alone; her father lived far away in Tver. She enjoyed taking history classes. She studied the Moonlight Sonata, although she only learned the beginning of it. She took the flowers that he gave her, read the books that he brought and always ate with appetite.

Rich, young, beautiful. In all public places they were followed by glances. He comes from the province of Penza. He was incredibly beautiful, he had some kind of Italian zest. He was cheerful, lively and always smiling. She had either Indian or Persian charm. He complemented each other, he was talkative, she was quiet, he was restless, she was thoughtful. Even in their kisses, they were as different as they could be.

Periodically, she could not control herself and went into the room in which she dressed for a new festivities. She did not want to get married because she believed that she was not created for marriage.

From time to time he could not understand how he could still withstand such relationships. And again they forgot about everything and talked about strangers. He was glad that he had the opportunity to be near her. For him it was both torment and happiness.

Thus ended the winter. On Forgiveness Sunday, she was dressed all in black and invited him to go to the Novodevichy Convent. She shared with him the beauty of those places and the sincerity of the archbishop's funeral. The church choir was close to her; she believed that it made her heart flutter. They walked for a long time in search of Griboyedov’s house, but, having failed to find it, they went to eat at Yegorov’s on Okhotny Ryad.

The tavern turned out to be quite warm and cozy, there were quite a lot of cab drivers in it. She said that only in such quiet places did Rus' remain untouched and that someday she would leave worldly life for a monastery, having read some ancient Russian legend. He didn't understand what other quirks she had in her head.

She asked him to bring her to the theater skit tomorrow, although, as she said, they were quite vulgar. She smoked a lot in this establishment, and, looking intently at the actors, watched the laughter of the local audience. There one man looked at her with greedy eyes, who soon approached them and drunkenly fell to her hand, muttering something about her companion. They left the theater skit around three in the morning, and that day she decided to let the crew go and head home on foot.

She came home and immediately went into her room and began rustling her dress. She was standing by the mirror when he came close to her door. She was combing her gorgeous thick black hair. In the morning he woke up from her gaze, which was unnaturally intent. Saying that she was leaving for Tver and would send him a letter from there, she asked him to leave.

He received the letter approximately two weeks later. In it, she affectionately but firmly explained that he would not wait for her, would not hope to see or hear from her ever again. It turned out that she decided to go to the monastery for obedience in order to eventually become a nun. He listened to her and did not seek a meeting with her, he disappeared into taverns, began to drink a lot of wine, he rolled lower and lower, not wanting to get out of the hole into which he had driven himself. Soon he found strength in himself and began to recover, but all this seemed senseless and soulless to him.

A couple of years have passed since he met her on Clean Monday. On exactly such an evening he got out of the house, caught a cab, and went to the Kremlin. He stood for a long time, without praying, without thinking about anything, in the Archangel Cathedral, after which he rode and cried.

So he reached Ordynka, where the girls’ choir sang in the Marfo-Maryinsky Convent. The janitor didn’t want to let him through at all, but when the gentleman offered him a ruble, he went limp, sighed and opened the passage for the man.


Icons and banners were taken out of the church. The singing nuns walked one after another with burning candles shining beautifully near their faces. He took a closer look and saw her; after examining her carefully, he left. She felt his presence next to her. He didn't stop or turn around. He just left...

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 for a long time around the Novodevichy cemetery, visited the graves of Ertel and Chekhov, for a long time -

and searched fruitlessly for Griboyedov’s house, and not finding it, they 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 as the audience laughed. One of them first looked at her with feigned gloomy greed, then, drunkenly leaning into 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 a 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 one of those walking in the middle suddenly raised her head and fixed her dark eyes on 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.

In 1937, Ivan Bunin began work on his best book. The collection “Dark Alleys” was first published after the end of World War II. This book is a collection of short tragic stories about love. One of Bunin's most famous stories is “Clean Monday”. Analysis and summary works are presented in today's article.

"Dark alleys"

The analysis of Bunin’s “Clean Monday” should begin with brief history creation of a work. This is one of the last stories included in the collection “Dark Alleys”. Bunin completed work on the work “Clean Monday” on May 12, 1944. The story was first published in New York.

The writer was probably pleased with this essay. After all, in his diary, Bunin wrote: “I thank God for the opportunity to create Clean Monday.”

Bunin, in each of his works included in the collection “Dark Alleys,” reveals to the reader the tragedy and catastrophism of love. This feeling is beyond human control. It suddenly comes into his life, gives fleeting happiness, and then certainly causes unbearable pain.

The narration in the story “Clean Monday” by Bunin is told in the first person. The author does not name his heroes. Love breaks out between two young people. They are both beautiful, rich, healthy and seemingly full of energy. But something is missing in their relationship.

They visit restaurants, concerts, theaters. They discuss books and plays. True, the girl often shows indifference, even hostility. “You don’t like everything,” he once says main character, but he himself does not attach importance to his words. A passionate romance is followed by a sudden separation - sudden for the young man, not for her. The ending is typical of Bunin's style. What caused the break between the lovers?

On the eve of the Orthodox holiday

The story describes their first meeting, but the narrative begins with events that occur some time after they met. The girl attends courses, reads a lot, and otherwise leads an idle lifestyle. And she seems quite happy with everything. But this is only at first glance. He is so absorbed in his feeling, his love for her, that he is not even aware of the other side of her soul.

It is worth paying attention to the title of the story - “Clean Monday”. The meaning of Bunin's story is quite deep. On the eve of the holy day, the lovers have their first conversation about religiosity. Before this, the main character had no idea that the girl was attracted to everything connected with the church. In his absence, she visits Moscow monasteries, moreover, she is thinking about becoming a monk.

Clean Monday is the beginning of Lent. On this day, cleansing rituals are carried out, the transition from fast food to Lenten restrictions.

Parting

One day they go to the Novodevichy Convent. By the way, this is a rather unusual route for him. Previously, they spent time exclusively in entertainment venues. The visit to the monastery is, of course, the idea of ​​the protagonist's beloved.

The next day, intimacy occurs between them for the first time. And then the girl leaves for Tver, from there she sends a letter to her lover. In this message she asks not to wait for her. She became a novice in one of the Tver monasteries, and perhaps she will decide to take monastic vows. He will never see her again.

After receiving the last letter from his beloved, the hero began to drink, go downhill, and then finally came to his senses. One day, after a long time, I saw a nun in a Moscow church, in whom I recognized my former beloved. Perhaps the image of his beloved was too firmly entrenched in his mind, and it was not her at all? He didn't tell her anything. He turned and walked out of the temple gates. This is the summary of Bunin’s “Clean Monday”.

Love and tragedy

Bunin's heroes do not find happiness. In "Clean Monday", as in other works of the Russian classic, we are talking about love, which brings only bitterness and disappointment. What is the tragedy of the heroes of this story?

Probably the fact that, being close, they did not know each other at all. Each person is a whole Universe. AND inner world Sometimes even those close to you cannot figure it out. Bunin spoke about loneliness among people, about love, which is impossible without complete mutual understanding. Analysis work of art cannot be done without characterizing the main characters. What do we know about the girl who, living in prosperity and being loved, went to a monastery?

main character

When analyzing Bunin’s “Clean Monday”, it is worth paying attention to the portrait of a nameless girl that the author creates at the beginning of the work. She led an idle life. She read a lot, studied music, and loved visiting restaurants. But she did all this somehow indifferently, without much interest.

She is educated, well-read, and enjoys immersing herself in the world of luxury. social life. She likes good cuisine, but she wonders “how people don’t get bored having lunch and dinner every day”? She calls acting skits vulgar, while she ends the relationship with her lover by visiting the theater. Bunin's heroine cannot understand what his purpose in this life is. She is not one of those who is content to live in luxury and talk about literature and art.

The inner world of the main character is very rich. She constantly thinks and is in a spiritual search. The girl is attracted by the surrounding reality, but at the same time she is frightened. Love becomes not a salvation for her, but a problem that terribly burdens her, forcing her to make the only correct sudden decision.

The main character refuses worldly joys, and this shows her strong nature. “Clean Monday” is not the only story from the collection “Dark Alleys” in which the author paid a lot of attention to the female image.

Bunin brought to the fore the hero's experiences. At the same time, he showed a rather controversial female character. The heroine is satisfied with the lifestyle she leads, but all sorts of details, little things, depress her. Finally, she decides to go to a monastery, thereby destroying the life of the man who loves her. True, by doing this she causes suffering to herself. After all, in the letter that the girl sends to her lover there are the words: “May God give me the strength not to answer you.”

Main character

About how it turned out further fate young man, little is known. He had a hard time being separated from his beloved. He disappeared into the dirtiest taverns, drank and became miserable. But still he came to his senses and returned to his previous way of life. It can be assumed that the pain that this strange, extraordinary and somewhat exalted girl inflicted on him will never subside.

In order to find out who the writer was during his lifetime, you just need to read his books. But is the biography of Ivan Bunin really so tragic? Was there true love in his life?

Ivan Bunin

The writer's first wife, Anna Tsakni, was the daughter of an Odessa Greek, editor of a popular magazine at that time. They got married in 1898. Soon a son was born, who did not live even five years. The child died of meningitis. Bunin took the death of his son very hard. The relationship between the spouses went wrong, but his wife did not give him a divorce for a long time. Even after he connected his life with Vera Muromtseva.

The writer's second wife became his "patient shadow." Muromtseva replaced his secretary, mother, and friend. She did not leave him even when he started an affair with Galina Kuznetsova. Still, it was Galina Muromtseva who was next to the writer in last days his life. The creator of “Dark Alleys” was not deprived of love.