I.A. Bunin considered the works of the collection “Dark Alleys” to be his highest achievement. The book was first published in New York in 1943 in an edition of six hundred copies. Of the twenty stories written at that time, eleven were included in the book. This book is entirely about love.
“All love is great happiness, even if it is not shared” - these words from the book “Dark Alleys” could be repeated by all Bunin’s heroes. With a huge variety of individuals, social status, etc. they live in anticipation of love, search for it, and most often, scorched by it, die. This concept was formed in Bunin’s work back in the pre-revolutionary decade.
“Dark Alleys,” a book that was published in its final form in 1946 in Paris, is the only one of its kind in Russian literature. Thirty-eight short stories in this collection provide a great variety of unforgettable female types - Rusya, Antigone, Galya Ganskaya (stories of the same name), Polya (Madrid), the heroine of Clean Monday. Near this inflorescence, male characters are much more inexpressive; they are less developed, sometimes only outlined and, as a rule, static. They are characterized rather indirectly, reflectedly, in connection with the physical and mental appearance of the woman who is loved and who occupies a self-sufficient place. Even when only “he” acts, for example, a loving officer who shot a quarrelsome beautiful woman, still only “she” remains in memory - “long, wavy” (“Steamboat Saratov”).
In “Dark Alleys” there is both a rough sensuality and a simply skillfully told playful anecdote (“One Hundred Rupees”), but the theme of pure and beautiful love runs through the book. The heroes of these stories are characterized by extraordinary strength and sincerity of feelings.
Next to full-blooded stories breathing suffering and passion (“Tanya”, “Dark Alleys”, “Clean Monday”, “Natalie”, etc.) there are unfinished works (“Caucasus”), expositions, sketches of future short stories (“Beginning”) or direct borrowings from foreign literature (“Returning to Rome”, “Bernard”).
According to the writer’s wife, Bunin considered this book the most perfect in craftsmanship, especially the story “Clean Monday.” On one of the sleepless nights, according to N.V. Bunina, I left the following confession on a piece of paper: “I thank God that he gave me the opportunity to write “Clean Monday.” This story is written with extraordinary conciseness and masterly imagery. Every stroke, color, detail plays an important role in the external movement of the plot and becomes a sign of some internal trends. In vague forebodings and mature thoughts, the bright, changeable appearance of the heroine of the work, the author embodied his ideas about the contradictory atmosphere of the human soul, about the emergence of some new moral ideal.
“All the stories in this book are only about love, about its “dark” and most often very gloomy and cruel alleys,” the author wrote.
The heroine of the story that gives the collection its title, like other heroes of Bunin’s works, believes: “Everyone’s youth passes, but love is another matter...”
Collection of stories “Dark Alleys” by I.A. Bunin wrote far from his homeland, while in France and worrying about the consequences of the October Revolution and the difficult years of the First World War. The works included in this cycle are filled with motifs of the tragic fate of man, the inevitability of events and longing for his native land. The central theme of the collection of stories “Dark Alleys” is love, which turns out to be closely connected with suffering and fatal outcome.
Central to understanding the writer’s intention is the story of the same name in the collection “Dark Alleys”. It was written in 1938 under the influence of a poem by N.P. Ogarev’s “An Ordinary Tale”, where the image of dark alleys is used, as well as the philosophical thoughts of L.N. Tolstoy that happiness in life is unattainable, and a person only catches its “lightnings” that need to be appreciated.
Analysis of the work by I.A. Bunin "Dark Alleys"
The plot of the work is based on the meeting of two already elderly people after many years of separation. To be precise, the story talks about 35 years since the last breakup. Nikolai Alekseevich arrives at the inn, where the owner Nadezhda meets him. The woman calls the hero by name, and he recognizes his former lover in her.
Since then, a whole life has passed, which the loved ones were destined to spend separately. The whole point is that Nikolai Alekseevich in his youth left a beautiful maid, who then received her freedom from the landowner and became the mistress of the inn. The meeting of two heroes raises a whole storm of feelings, thoughts and experiences inside them. However, the past cannot be returned and Nikolai Alekseevich leaves, imagining how life could have turned out differently if he had not neglected Nadezhda’s feelings. He is sure that he would be happy, he thinks about how she would become his wife, mother of children and mistress of the house in St. Petersburg. True, all this will remain the hero’s pipe dreams.
Thus, in the story “Dark Alleys” there are three main plot points:
- The hero's stop at the inn
- Meeting of former lovers
- Reflections on the way after the incident
The first part of the work is an episode before the characters recognize each other. Here the portrait characteristics of the characters predominate. It is the social difference between people that is significant. For example, Nadezhda addresses the visitor “Your Excellency,” but the hero allows himself “Hey, who’s there.”
The pivotal moment is the meeting that marks the second part of the plot. Here we see a description of feelings, emotions and experiences. Social boundaries are discarded, which allows you to better know the characters and contrast their thoughts. For the hero, a meeting with Nadezhda is a rendezvous with his conscience. The reader understands that she has retained her inner integrity. Nikolai Alekseevich, on the contrary, feels his life is useless, aimless, he sees only its ordinariness and vulgarity.
The third part of the story is the actual departure and conversation with the coachman. Social boundaries are important for the hero, which he cannot neglect even for the sake of high feelings. Nikolai Alekseevich is ashamed of his words and revelations, and regrets that he kissed the hand of the owner of the inn and his former lover.
This structure of the plot makes it possible to imagine love and past feelings as a flash that unexpectedly illuminated the ordinary life of Nikolai Alekseevich, who was bored with himself. A story built on the hero’s memories is an artistic device that allows the author to tell about familiar things in a more exciting way and make an additional impression on the reader.
In the text of the work there are no instructive intonations, condemnation of the actions of the heroes or, conversely, manifestations of pity for them. The narration is based on a description of the feelings and emotions of the characters, which are revealed to the reader and it is he who has to evaluate what happened.
Characteristics of the main characters of the story “Dark Alleys”
The image of Nadezhda appears in a positive light. We don't learn much about her from the story, but it's enough to draw certain conclusions. The heroine is a former serf, who is now the mistress of a state-owned postal station. Having grown old, she continues to look beautiful, feel light and “beyond her age.” Nadezhda was able to get a good job in life thanks to her intelligence and honesty. The coachman, in a conversation with Nikolai Alekseevich, notes that she is “getting rich, giving money on interest,” i.e. on loan. The heroine is characterized by practicality and enterprise.
She had to go through a lot. The feelings from Nikolai Alekseevich’s act were so strong that Nadezhda admits that she wanted to commit suicide. However, she was able to overcome difficulties and become stronger.
The woman continues to love, but she was unable to forgive the betrayal of her beloved. She boldly declares this to Nikolai Alekseevich. The wisdom of Nadezhda evokes the reader’s sympathy. For example, to the general’s attempts to justify his past actions, she replies that youth passes for everyone, but love never does. These words of the heroine also say that she knows how and can truly love, but this does not bring her happiness.
The image of Nikolai Alekseevich is in many ways contrasted with Nadezhda. He is a nobleman and a general, a representative of high society. He made a good career, but in his personal life the hero is unhappy. His wife left him, and his son grew up to be an insolent and dishonest man. The hero looks tired, while his former lover is full of strength and desire to act. He once gave up love a long time ago and never got to know it, spending his whole life without happiness and pursuing false goals. "Everything passes. Everything is forgotten” - this is the hero’s position in relation to happiness and love.
Nikolai Alekseevich is already about 60 years old, but when he meets Nadezhda, he blushes like a young man. The soldier remembers with shame that he abandoned his beloved, but does he have the strength to correct what happened? No. The hero again chooses the easiest path and leaves.
The character’s spiritual weakness, the inability to distinguish true feelings from “a vulgar, ordinary story” dooms him and Nadezhda to suffering. Nikolai Alekseevich can only remember the past, his love, which “gave him the best minutes of his life.”
The love between Nadezhda and Nikolai Alekseevich turns out to be doomed, and the history of their relationship is full of drama. Why did everything happen like this? There are several reasons. This is also the weakness of the hero, who pushed away his loved one and did not see the future in his feelings for her. This is also the role of prejudices in society, which exclude the possibility of a relationship, and especially a marriage, between a nobleman and an ordinary maid.
The difference in views on love also predetermined the dramatic destinies of the heroes. If for Nadezhda, feelings for a loved one are loyalty to herself, a driving force that inspires and helps her in life, then for Nikolai Alekseevich love is a moment, a past story. The irony is that it was this moment, this part of my life associated with my ex-lover, that became the best moment in all my years.
“Dark Alleys” is a book of short stories. The name is given by the opening
book to the story of the same name and refers to the poem by N.P.
Ogarev “An Ordinary Tale” (Nearby, a scarlet rose hip was blooming //
There was an alley of dark linden trees). Bunin himself points to the source in
note “The Origin of My Stories” and in a letter to N.A. Teffi. The author worked on the book from 1937 to 1944. Among
sources and implications mentioned by Bunin and numerous
criticism, we point out the main ones: Plato’s “Symposium”, the Old Testament story about
“Seven Plagues of Egypt”, “Feast during the Plague” by A.S. Pushkin,
"Song of Songs" ("In the Spring, in Judea"), "Antigone" by Sophocles
("Antigone"), Boccaccio's Decameron, lyrics by Petrarch, Dante
“New Life” (“Swing”), Russian fairy tales “Animal’s Milk,”
“Medvedko, Usynya, Gorynya and Dubina are heroes”, “The Tale of Peter and
Fevronia", "Lokis" by Prosper Merimee ("Iron Wool"),
poems by N.P. Ogareva (see above), Ya.P. Polonsky (“In one
familiar street"), A. Fet ("Cold Autumn"), "Evenings on the farm
near Dikanka” (“Late Hour”), “Dead Souls” by N.V. Gogol
(“Natalie”), “The Noble Nest” by I. S. Turgenev (“Pure
Monday", "Turgenevsky", as Teffi puts it, the end of "Natalie"),
“Breakage” by I. I. Goncharov (“Business Cards”, “Natalie”),
A.P. Chekhov (“Business Cards”), novels by Marcel Proust
(“Late Hour”), “Spring in Fialta” by V.V. Nabokov (“Henry”) and many others. etc.
The book contains forty stories, comprising three sections: in the 1st - 6
stories, in the 2nd - 14, in the 3rd - 20. In 15 stories
the narration is told from the 1st person, in the 20th - from the 3rd, in the 5th -
There are transitions from the narrator's persona to the first person. 13
stories are named after names, nicknames or pseudonyms of women
characters, one with a male nickname (“Raven”). Celebrating
the appearance of their heroines (they much more often “possess” names and
portrait characteristics), 12 times Bunin describes
black-haired, three times his heroines are red-brown, only once
meets (“Raven”) blonde. 18 times events happen
in summer, 8 in winter, 7 in autumn, 5 in spring. Thus, we
we see that the most common stamp of sensual
heroine (blonde) and the least sensual season (spring)
used by Bunin. The author himself indicated that the content
books - “not frivolous, but tragic.”
Work on the composition continued until 1953, when the book
"Dark Alleys" included two stories: "Spring in Judea" and
“Overnight”, which closed the book.
In total, Bunin names his male heroes 11 times, heroines 16 times,
in the last seven stories the characters don't have names at all, that's all
more acquiring the features of “bare essences” of feelings and passions.
The book opens with the story “Dark Alleys.” Sexagenarian
Nikolai Alekseevich, retired military man, “in the cold autumn
bad weather" (the most common time of year in the book), stopping
relax in a private room, recognizes the hostess,
“a dark-haired, ...beautiful woman beyond her age” (she is 48 years old) –
Nadezhda, a former serf, her first love, who gave him “her
beauty" and never loved anyone else, seduced
them and subsequently received freedom. His “legal” wife
cheated on him, his son grew up to be a scoundrel, and here’s a chance meeting:
past happiness and past sin, and his love is the mistress and
a moneylender who has not forgiven him anything. And, as if behind the scenes, they sound
Ogarev's poetic lines, which he once read to Nadezhda and
setting the main melody of the book - failed love, sick
memory, separation.
The last story, “Overnight,” becomes a mirror image
the first, with the difference that only the outlined watercolor lines
plots acquire plot density (as if painted in oil)
and completeness. Autumn cold provincial Russia
replaced by the Spanish wilderness on a hot June night,
upper room - inn. His owner, an old woman, receives
overnight stay for a passing Moroccan who is interested
a young niece “about 15 years old” helping the housewife
serve. It is quite noteworthy that Bunin, describing the Moroccan,
indicates similarities with Nikolai Alekseevich (the hero of the first
story) appearance features: the Moroccan had “a face
eaten away by smallpox" and "hard curls curled at the corners of the upper lip
black hair. There were similar curls here and there on the chin,”
Nikolai Alekseevich - “hair... with backcombing on the temples to
the corners of the eyes curled slightly... the face with dark eyes kept
here and there traces of smallpox.” Such coincidences are hardly accidental.
Moroccan – anti ego of Nikolai Alekseevich, girl –
Nadezhda returned to youth. Repeats at a “reduced” level
“Dark Alleys” situation: Moroccan tries to dishonor
a girl (the result of the love of Nikolai Alekseevich and Nadezhda), love
degenerates into animal passion. The only named
the creature in the last story is an animal, the dog Negra (Negra
- Moroccan, a rare pun for Bunin), and it was she
puts an end to the book about animal and human passions:
bursting into the room where the Moroccan rapes the girl, “with a death grip
“rips out his throat.” Animal passion is punished by animals
same, the final chord: love, deprived of its
human (=mental-spiritual) component, brings death.
The compositional axis (axis of symmetry) of the book “Dark Alleys” is
the middle (20th) story “Natalie” is the largest in volume
in the book. There is a gap between the physical and the mental
personified in the images of two main characters: Sonya Cherkasova, daughter
“Ulan Cherkasova” (Ulan – “maternal uncle” of the main character,
therefore, Sonya is his cousin); and Natalie
Stankevich – Sonya’s high school friend, visiting her on the estate.
Vitaly Petrovich Meshchersky (Vitik) – the main character comes to
summer holidays to my uncle’s estate “to look for love without romance”,
to “disturb the purity”, which caused ridicule from the gymnasium
comrades. He begins an affair with 20-year-old Sonya, who
predicts that Meshchersky will immediately fall in love with her friend
Natalie, and, according to Sonya, Meshchersky “will go crazy
out of love for Natalie, and will kiss with Sonya. Surname
the main character possibly refers to Ole Meshcherskaya from “Easy”
breathing,” the image of both an ideal and carnal feminine
attractiveness.
Meshchersky, indeed, is torn between “painful beauty
adoration for Natalie and... bodily rapture for Sonya." Here
one can read the biographical subtext - Bunin’s complex relationship with
G. Kuznetsova, a young writer who lived in the Bunins’ house
from 1927 to 1942, and, quite likely, Tolstoy (hero
"The Devil" is torn between love for his wife and for the village
girl Stepanida), as well as the plot from “The Idiot” (the love of the book.
Myshkin to Nastasya Filippovna and Aglaya at the same time).
Sonya awakens sensuality in Meshchersky. She is beautiful. She has
“blue-lilac... eyes”, “thick and soft hair” that “shimmers with chestnut”, she comes to Meshchersky at night for
“exhaustingly passionate dates” that became “sweet” for both
habit." But the hero experiences a mental and spiritual attraction to
Natalie, who next to Sonya “seemed almost like a teenager.”
Natalie is a completely different type of woman. She has “golden hair...
black eyes”, which are called “black suns”. She
“built... like a nymph” (“youthful perfection of build”), she has
“thin, strong, thoroughbred ankles.” Something comes from her
"orange, golden." Her appearance brings both light and
a feeling of inevitable tragedy, accompanied by “ominous
omens": a bat that hit Meshchersky in the face,
a rose that fell out of Sonya's hair and withered by evening. Tragedy
really comes: Natalie accidentally at night, during a thunderstorm,
sees Sonya in Meshchersky's room, after which the relationship with
interrupts him. Before that, they confess their love to each other,
why does Meshchersky’s betrayal seem inexplicable to the girl and
unforgivable. A year later she marries her cousin
Meshchersky.
Meshchersky becomes a student in Moscow. "Next January"
“Spending Christmastide at home,” he comes to Tatyana’s day
Voronezh, where he sees Natalie and her husband at the ball. Without introducing myself,
Meshchersky disappears. Another year and a half later he dies from a stroke
Natalie's husband. Meshchersky comes to the funeral service. His love for
Natalie is cleared of all earthly things and in church, during the service,
he cannot take his eyes off her, “like an icon,” and
the angelic nature of his love is also emphasized by the fact that,
looking at her, he sees “the monastic harmony of her dress,
making her especially pure.” Here is the purity of feelings
is emphasized by a triple semantic relationship: icon, nun,
purity.
Time passes, Meshchersky finishes his courses, and at the same time loses
father and mother, settles in his village, “gets along with
peasant orphan Gasha,” she gives birth to his son. To the hero himself
time 26 years. At the end of June, passing through, returning from
border, he decides to visit Natalie, who lives as a widow with
four year old daughter. He asks to forgive him, says that with that
on a terrible stormy night he loved “only... one” of her, but what
Now he is related to another woman with a common child. However
They are unable to part – and Natalie becomes his “secret wife”.
“In December she dies “in premature birth.”
A tragic ending: death in war or from illness, murder,
suicide, - every third plot of the book ends (13
stories), and death is most often a consequence of either
– I. The naked sinfulness of love-passion and betrayal-deception:
"Caucasus" - the suicide of an officer husband who finds out about his wife's infidelity,
who fled to the south with her lover and there, in the south, to Sochi, without finding
her shooting bullets into her temples “from two revolvers”;
“Zoyka and Valeria” - accidental death under the wheels of a deceived train
and the humiliated Georges Levitsky, a 5th year student
medical faculty, vacationing at the doctor's dacha in the summer
Danilevsky, where a 14-year-old girl is “secretly hunting him”
Doctor Zoika’s daughter: “she was very developed physically... she
there was... a look of oily blue eyes and always moist lips...
with all the fullness of the body... graceful coquetry of movements,” and
where he falls in love with the doctor's niece who came to stay
Valeria Ostrogradskaya, “a real Little Russian beauty”,
“strong, fine, with thick dark hair, with velvet
eyebrows, ..., with menacing eyes the color of black blood... with
bright shine of teeth and full cherry lips”, which
while flirting with Zhorik, he falls in love with Dr. Titov, a friend
the Danilevsky family (the head of the family himself calls Titov “arrogant
gentleman,” and his wife is Klavdia Alexandrovna, although she
already 40 years old, “in love with a young doctor”), and, having received
resignation, at night in the park (“that’s where I kissed you for the first time”) is given
Zhorik, “immediately after the last minute... sharply and disgustingly
pushing him away,” after which the tearful young man on a bicycle
hurries that same night to catch a train - to escape to Moscow - to meet
his absurd death under the wheels of a train;
“Galya Ganskaya” - where the main character goes from being a 13-year-old
a “frisky, graceful” girl in love with her friend
father-artist (Galya is half-orphan, her mother died), also an artist,
to a young woman, the same artist’s mistress for
so that, having learned about his departure to Italy (without her knowledge and
warnings of future separation), take a lethal dose of poison;
“Henry” – the murder by a husband of his wife who cheated on him;
“Dubki” - a young (25-30 years old) beautiful wife, Anfisa, similar to
Spanish girl, falls in love with a 23-year-old gentleman, calls him to her
night, while her husband, 50-year-old elder Lavr, leaves for the city, but
the spouse returning from the road due to a snowstorm, exposing
uninvited guest, executes his wife, staging her suicide through
hanging;
“Young Lady Clara” - the murder of a capricious prostitute by a client;
"Iron Wool" - the suicide of a "beautiful maiden from a rich and
ancient peasant yard", "wonderful charm: face
transparent, whiter than the first snow, azure eyes like those of saints
young women”, given “at the very dawn of life” in marriage and
raped by her groom on her first wedding night “under the shrines” after
how she told her young husband that she had made a vow
Mother of God to be pure. She finds herself stripped of her innocence
after which he runs away into the forest, where he hangs himself, mourned by the sitting
at her feet her lover - the “great bear”;
"Steamboat" Saratov" - murder by a deceived officer-lover (his
name is Pavel Sergeevich) of his beloved, returning
back to the abandoned husband,
“Overnight” – see above;
or – II. Sudden death occurs when the heroes acquire
the highest happiness of true pure love:
“Late Hour” - the first and happy love of 19-year-old heroes
interrupted by her sudden mysterious death, which he remembers
half a century later;
“In Paris” – sudden death from a stroke on the 3rd day after Easter
Nikolai Platonovich - a former general who was once thrown into
Constantinople by his wife, who accidentally met his wife in a restaurant
last true love (their happiness lasts no more
four months) - Olga Alexandrovna, a black-haired beauty"
about thirty”, working as a waitress,
“Natalie” – see above;
“Cold Autumn” - the death of the groom and
the memory of the only autumn farewell party, preserved
his bride throughout her long difficult life: she
subsequently married “a man of rare, beautiful soul,
an elderly retired military man who died of typhus, raised
the niece of her husband remaining in her arms (“a child of seven
months"), who, having become "completely French", turned out to be
“completely indifferent” to her adoptive mother - and in the end
out of the entire flow of years, choosing one day: “... and what
still happened in my life?...just that cold autumn evening”;
“The Chapel” is a half-page story-parable that sums it all up
conversations about love and death: “...uncle is still young... and when
very in love, they always shoot themselves...,” the words of a child from
a child's conversation about those resting on a “hot summer day, in a field,
behind the garden of the old manor" in a "long-abandoned cemetery"
near the "collapsing chapel".
Bunin explores the path of love in all its manifestations: from
1. Natural lust: “Guest” – Adam who came to visit his friends
Adamycha deflowers a kitchen girl on a chest in the hallway,
“a kitchen that smells like a child: muddy hair... filled with gray
blood and like oily hands... full knees the color of beets”;
“Kuma” – “connoisseur and collector of ancient Russian icons”, friend of her husband
meets in his absence with his godfather - “a radiant thirty-year-old
merchant beauty" lady, committing not only deception and
adultery, but also violating the purity of the spiritual connection between godparents
parents, and not even loving the godmother (“...I... probably
I’ll hate you fiercely at once”);
“Young lady Clara” – “Irakli Meladze, son of a rich merchant”, killing
bottle to the prostitute “young lady Clara” in her apartment (“mighty
brunette "with a porous chalky face, thickly covered
powder, ...orange cracked lips, ...wide gray
parted among flat, black-colored hair"), after she
refuses to immediately surrender to him: “Impatient as
boy!.. let’s have another glass and let’s go...”);
via: 2. A kind of somatic catharsis when a casual connection
turns out to be purified and elevated to the rank of the only and
unique love, as in the stories: “Antigone” - student
Pavlik comes to the estate to visit his rich uncle and aunt. His uncle
- a disabled general, takes care of him and carries him in a gurney
new sister Katerina Nikolaevna (the general calls her "my
Antigone", making fun of the situation in the Sophocles tragedy “Oedipus in
Colone" - Antigone accompanies her blind father - Oedipus),
“tall, stately beauty... with big gray eyes, all
shining with youth, strength, purity, shine of well-groomed
hands, matte whiteness of the face.” Pavlik dreams: if only he could take it...
arouse her love... then say: be my wife... ", and
a day later, going into his room to exchange books (she
reads Maupassant, Octave Mirbeau), Antigone easily and unexpectedly
is given to him. The next morning the aunt discovers that her
the nephew spends the night with the hired sister, and the sister is expelled, and in
moment of farewell “he is ready... to scream in despair”;
“Business cards” - on the ship “Goncharov” a passenger “from the 3rd
class" (“weary, sweet face, thin legs”, “abundant,
dark hair done up somehow”, “slender, like a boy”, married
for "a kind, but... not at all interesting person")
gets acquainted and the next day “desperately” gives himself up to the first person traveling
class to the “tall, strong brunette”, famous writer,
and then reveals his dream: “a high school student... most of all
dreamed... of ordering business cards for myself,” and he, touched by her
“poverty and simple-heartedness”, seeing her off, kisses “her
cold hand with that love that remains somewhere in the heart for all
life";
k – 3. Deification of loved ones or spiritual soaring caused by
love: “Late hour” - the hero, remembering his deceased beloved, thinks:
“If there is a future life and we meet in it, I will stand there
on my knees and kiss your feet for everything you gave me
earth";
“Rusya” is a hero, traveling on a train with his wife past acquaintances from their youth
years of places, recalls how he served “in one dacha area”
tutor for the heroine’s younger brother, Marusya Viktorovna
(Rusi) - a young artist with a long black braid,
“iconic” “dry and coarse... hair”, “dark face with
small dark moles, narrow regular nose, black
eyes, black eyebrows” and fell in love with her. And at night, already about
himself, he continues the memories - about their first intimacy:
“Now we are husband and wife,” she said then, and “he no longer dared
touch her, just kiss her hands... and... sometimes how
something sacred... cold chest,” and a week later he was “with
disgrace... kicked out of the house" by her half-crazed mother,
which presented Russia with a choice: “mother or he!”, but to this day
the hero truly loves only that, his first love. "Amata
nobis quantum amabitur nulla!” , he says, grinning,
to his wife;
“Smaragd” - a conversation between two young heroes on a golden summer night, fragile
dialogue between him and Tolya, and between her and Ksenia (she: “I’m talking about this sky
among the clouds... how can one not believe that there is heaven, angels,
God’s throne,” he: “And golden pears on the willow tree...”), and when
she, “jumping off the windowsill, runs away” after his awkward
kiss, he thinks: “stupid to the point of holiness!”;
“Zoyka and Valeria” - Georges wanders through the garden, around the “eternal
religiosity of the night" and he "internally, without words, prays for some
heavenly mercy..." - a prayer is described here on the eve of the fateful
meetings with Valeria;
so that it will finally end with the story “Clean Monday”.
Before us is a meeting of two personified principles, which, due to
tragic duality of human existence into spiritual and
the corporeal cannot coexist in one vital
space: “we were both rich, healthy, young and so good
ourselves, that in restaurants, at concerts we were seen off
glances." He “comes from the Penza province, ... is beautiful in the south,
hot beauty, ...even “indecently handsome”, inclined “to
talkativeness, to simple-hearted gaiety", "...she had beauty
some kind of Indian...: dark-amber face,...somewhat
hair ominous in its density, softly shining like black
sable fur, eyebrows, eyes black as velvet coal,”
“...a body amazing in its smoothness.” They meet and visit
restaurants, concerts, lectures (including A. Bely), he
often visits her (“she lived alone,” her widower father,
an enlightened man of a noble merchant family, lived in retirement in
Tver"), so that, sitting “near her in the semi-darkness,” kiss “her hands,
legs...", tormented by their "incomplete intimacy" - "I am not a wife
I’m fit,” she once said in response to his conversations about
marriage.
They are immersed in the real Moscow semi-bohemian, semi-cultural
life: “new books by Hofmannsthal, Schnitzler, Tetmeyer,
Przybyshevsky", gypsy choir in a "separate room", "cabbage"
Art Theater, “Andreev’s new story,” but gradually
next to this familiar “sweet life” that seems to him
completely natural, another, its opposite, appears:
she calls him to Ordynka to look for “the house where Griboyedov lived,” and
after, in the evening - to the next tavern, where unexpectedly, “with
quiet light in the eyes,” reads by heart the chronicle legend about
death of the Murom prince Peter and his wife, tempted
“a flying serpent for fornication”, about their death in “one day”, “in one
to the coffin" of those who were laid to rest and before their death "at one time" received
monastic tonsure, and the next day, after the skit party,
the night calls him to itself, and they become close for the first time. She
says he is leaving for Tver, and two weeks later he receives
a letter where she asks not to look for her: “I’ll go... to obedience,
then, maybe... to be tonsured.”
“Almost two years” pass, spent in “dirty taverns,” he
comes to his senses, and in the 14th year, “on New Year’s Eve,” accidentally hitting
on Ordynka, enters the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent (once
she spoke about her), where among the “rown... nuns or
sisters" sees her, "covered with a white scarf", fixing her "glance
dark eyes into the darkness, as if right at him - and quietly leaves
away.
The ending of “Clean Monday” is reminiscent of the ending of “The Noble Nest”,
Turgenev's Liza also goes to a monastery, but the reasons for leaving
different. In Bunin, behind the external irrationality of the act
the heroine has a long-standing tradition of leaving the world (acceptance
monasticism by spouses) - hence the meaning of the plot she told,
very common in hagiographic literature. Moreover, it is important that
that the heroine gives her beloved the opportunity to stay with her - she
expects him to “speak” to her on Forgiveness Sunday
language: he will ask for forgiveness according to Christian custom and go with her
to the service, and not to the restaurant, but on Clean Monday, when
this doesn’t happen, it’s like she’s making the final sacrifice to the world
- gives his beloved the most valuable thing - his virginity, so that
there is no way back anymore and go to the monastery to beg for your
sin is an act completely in the spirit of that spiritually troubled time.
For Liza, such warming up is not yet necessary - she is closer in spirit to
living times and her departure fits well into the model
behavior of a believing girl.
It is also important here that the heroine’s departure to the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent
leaves her the opportunity to return to the world - since the sisters of this
the monastery did not take a vow of celibacy. Thus, the possibility
the spiritual rebirth of the hero is proportional to the possibility of his
connections with your beloved. That after several years
desolation, he voluntarily comes to the monastery for service (that is,
which was previously impossible in his spiritual lukewarmness),
says he has changed. Perhaps all this time she was waiting for
such a step - and then she can return to him.
Perhaps her departure was her conscious call to him -
to be reborn and horrified by the emptiness of the life he leads? Here
Bunin brilliantly preserved both options for the future: she is among
“nuns and sisters,” but we don’t know if she is a nun (and then
connection is impossible) – or “sister”, and then the path to return to
the world is real. The hero knows about this, but he is silent...
The whole book has forty (isn’t it the number of days in Lent?) options
dialogue between Soul and Body, and both Soul and Body gain
human faces and destinies in each of the stories,
merging in moments of high love and losing each other in minutes
falls.
3. Certificate V.N. Murovtseva-Bunina.
Before directly analyzing the work “Dark Alleys” by Bunin, let us recall the history of writing. The October Revolution passed, and Bunin’s attitude towards this event was clear - in his eyes, the revolution became a social drama. In 1920, after emigrating, the writer worked a lot, and at that time the series “Dark Alleys” appeared, which included various short stories. In 1946, thirty-eight stories were included in the publication of the collection; the book was published in Paris.
Although the main theme of these short stories was the theme of love, the reader learns not only about its bright sides, but also its dark ones. This is not difficult to guess by reflecting on the title of the collection. It is important to note in the analysis of “Dark Alleys” that Ivan Bunin lived abroad for about thirty years, far from his home. He yearned for the Russian land, but his spiritual closeness with his homeland remained. All this is reflected in the work we are discussing.
How Bunin introduced love
It is no secret that Bunin presented the theme of love in a somewhat unusual way, not in the way it was usually covered in Soviet literature. Indeed, the writer’s view has its own difference and peculiarity. Ivan Bunin perceived love as something that suddenly arose and was very bright, as if it were a flash. But that's why love is beautiful. After all, when love flows into simple affection, feelings turn into routine. We don’t find this in Bunin’s heroes, because that very flash occurs between them, and then parting follows, but the bright trace of the experienced feelings overshadows everything. The above is the most important thought in the analysis of the work “Dark Alleys”.
Briefly about the plot
General Nikolai Alekseevich once had a chance to visit a postal station, where he met a woman whom he had met 35 years ago, and with whom he had a whirlwind romance. Now Nikolai Alekseevich is elderly, and does not even immediately understand that this is Nadezhda. And the former lover became the mistress of the inn where they once met for the first time.
It turns out that Nadezhda has loved him all her life, and the general begins to make excuses to her. However, after clumsy explanations, Nadezhda expresses the wise thought that everyone was young, and youth is a thing of the past, but love remains. But she reproaches her lover, because he left her alone in the most heartless way.
All these details will help make the analysis of Bunin’s “Dark Alleys” more accurate. The general does not seem to repent, but it becomes clear that he has never forgotten his first love. But it didn’t work out with his family - his wife cheated on him, and his son grew up to be a spendthrift and an unscrupulous insolent.
What happened to your first love?
It is very important to note, especially when we analyze “Dark Alleys,” that the feelings of Nikolai Alekseevich and Nadezhda managed to survive - they still love. When the main character leaves, he realizes that it was thanks to this woman that he felt the depth of love and saw all the colors of feelings. But he abandoned his first love, and now he is reaping the bitter fruits of this betrayal.
You can remember the moment when the general hears from the coachman a comment about the hostess: she is driven by a sense of justice, but at the same time her character is very “cool”. Having lent money to someone at interest, she demands repayment on time, and whoever did not make it in time - let him answer. Nikolai Alekseevich begins to reflect on these words and draws parallels with his life. If he had not abandoned his first love, everything would have turned out differently.
What got in the way of the relationship? An analysis of the work “Dark Alleys” will help us understand the reason - let’s think: the future general was supposed to connect his life with a simple girl. How would others view this relationship and how would it affect your reputation? But in Nikolai Alekseevich’s heart the feelings did not fade away, and he could not find happiness with another woman, nor could he give his son a proper upbringing.
The main character Nadezhda did not forgive her lover, who made her suffer a lot and in the end she was left alone. Although we emphasize that love did not pass in her heart. The general was unable to go against society and class prejudices in his youth, but the girl simply resigned herself to fate.
A few conclusions in the analysis of “Dark Alleys” by Bunin
We saw how dramatic the fates of Nadezhda and Nikolai Alekseevich were. They broke up, even though they loved each other. And both turned out to be unhappy. But let us emphasize an important point: thanks to love, they learned the power of feelings and what real experiences are. These best moments of life remain in my memory.
As a cross-cutting motif, this idea can be traced in Bunin’s work. Although everyone may have their own idea of love, thanks to this story you can think about how it moves a person, what it encourages, what mark it leaves on the soul.
We hope that you liked the brief analysis of Bunin’s “Dark Alleys” and found it useful. Read also