Analysis of I. Bunin's stories "Dark Alleys". The theme of love in the works of A. Bunin (analysis of the story “Dark Alleys”) (I. A. Bunin) Bunin dark alleys author’s position

I. A. Bunin is the first of the Russian writers to receive the Nobel Prize, who achieved popularity and fame at the world level, having fans and associates, but... deeply unhappy, because since 1920 he was cut off from his homeland and yearned for it. All stories from the emigration period are imbued with a feeling of melancholy and nostalgia.

Inspired by the lines of the poem “An Ordinary Tale” by N. Ogarev: “The scarlet rose hips were blooming all around / There was an alley of dark linden trees,” Ivan Bunin conceived the idea of ​​writing a cycle of love stories about subtle human feelings. Love is different, but it is always a strong feeling that changes the lives of heroes.

The story “Dark Alleys”: summary

The story “Dark Alleys,” which bears the same name in the cycle and is the main story, was published on October 20, 1938 in the New York edition of “New Earth.” The main character, Nikolai Alekseevich, accidentally meets Nadezhda, whom he seduced and abandoned many years ago. For the hero then it was just an affair with a serf girl, but the heroine seriously fell in love and carried this feeling throughout her life. After the affair, the girl received her freedom, began to earn her own living, and now owns an inn and “gives money on interest.” Nikolai Alekseevich ruined Nadezhda’s life, but was punished: his beloved wife abandoned him as vilely as he himself had once done, and his son grew up to be a scoundrel. The heroes part, now forever, Nikolai Alekseevich understands what kind of love he missed. However, the hero cannot even in his thoughts overcome social conventions and imagine what would have happened if he had not abandoned Nadezhda.

Bunin, “Dark Alleys” - audiobook

Listening to the story “Dark Alleys” is extremely pleasant, because the poetic language of the author is also manifested in prose.

Image and characteristics of the main character (Nikolai)

The image of Nikolai Alekseevich evokes antipathy: this man does not know how to love, he sees only himself and public opinion. He is afraid of himself, of Nadezhda, no matter what happens. But if everything is outwardly decent, you can do as you please, for example, break the heart of a girl for whom no one will stand up. Life punished the hero, but did not change him, did not add strength of spirit. His image personifies habit, the routine of life.

Image and characteristics of the main character (Nadezhda)

Much stronger is Nadezhda, who was able to survive the shame of an affair with the “master” (although she wanted to kill herself, she came out of this state), and also managed to learn to earn money on her own, and in an honest way. Coachman Klim notes the woman’s intelligence and fairness; she “gives money on interest” and “gets rich,” but does not profit from the poor, but is guided by justice. Nadezhda, despite the tragedy of her love, kept it in her heart for many years, forgave her offender, but did not forget. Its image is the soul, the sublimity, which is not in origin, but in personality.

The main idea and main theme of the story “Dark Alleys”

Love in Bunin’s “Dark Alleys” is a tragic, fatal, but no less important and beautiful feeling. It becomes eternal, because it remains forever in the memory of both heroes; it was the most precious and brightest thing in their lives, although it is gone forever. If a person has ever loved like Nadezhda, he has already experienced happiness. Even if this love ended tragically. The life and fate of the heroes of the story “Dark Alleys” would be completely empty and gray without such a bitter and sick, but still stunning and bright feeling, which is a kind of litmus test that tests a human personality for strength of spirit and moral purity. Nadezhda passes this test, but Nikolai does not. This is the idea of ​​the work. You can read more about the theme of love in the work here:

“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 Bunin 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. "In January next year"
“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
children'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: I wish I 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, Tetmeier,
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 (is it not 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.

The story “Dark Alleys” opens perhaps Bunin’s most famous cycle of stories, which got its name from this first, “title” work. It is known what importance the writer attached to the initial sound, the first “note” of the narrative, the timbre of which was supposed to determine the entire sound palette of the work. A kind of “beginning” that creates a special lyrical atmosphere of the story were lines from N. Ogarev’s poem “An Ordinary Tale”:

It was a wonderful spring
They sat on the shore
She was in her prime,
His mustache was barely black.
The scarlet rose hips were blooming all around,
There was an alley of dark linden trees...

But, as always with Bunin, “sound” is inseparable from “image”. As he wrote in the notes “The Origin of My Stories,” when he began working on the story, he imagined “some kind of big road, a troika harnessed to a tarantass, and autumn bad weather.” We must add to this the literary impulse, which also played a role: Bunin named L.N.’s “Resurrection” as such. Tolstoy, the heroes of this novel - young Nekhlyudov and Katyusha Maslova. All this came together in the writer’s imagination, and a story was born about lost happiness, the irrevocability of time, lost illusions and the power of the past over man.

The meeting of the heroes, once united in their youth by an ardent feeling of love, takes place many years later in the most ordinary, perhaps even nondescript setting: in a muddy place, in an inn located on a large road. Bunin does not skimp on “prosaic” details: “a mud-covered tarantass,” “simple horses,” “tails tied up from the slush.” But the portrait of the arriving man is given in detail, clearly designed to arouse sympathy: “a slender old military man,” with black eyebrows, a white mustache, and a shaved chin. His appearance speaks of nobility, and his stern but tired look contrasts with the liveliness of his movements (the author notices how he “threw” his leg out of the tarantass and “ran up” onto the porch). Bunin clearly wants to emphasize the combination of cheerfulness and maturity, youthfulness and sedateness in the hero, which is very important for the overall plan of the story, which is implicated in the desire to collide the past and the present, to strike a spark of memories that will illuminate the past with a bright light and will incinerate and turn into ash what exists Today.

The writer deliberately drags out the exposition: of the three and a half pages devoted to the story, almost a page is occupied by the “introduction”. In addition to the description of the stormy day, the hero’s appearance (and at the same time a detailed description of the coachman’s appearance), which is supplemented with new details as the hero gets rid of his outerwear, it also contains a detailed description of the room where the visitor found himself. Moreover, the refrain of this description is an indication of cleanliness and neatness: a clean tablecloth on the table, cleanly washed benches, a recently whitewashed stove, a new image in the corner... The author emphasizes this, since it is known that the owners of Russian inns and hotels were not known for their neatness and a constant feature of these places were cockroaches and dim windows covered with flies. Consequently, he wants to draw our attention to the almost unique way in which this establishment is maintained by its owners, or rather, as we will soon learn, by its mistress.

But the hero remains indifferent to the surrounding environment, although later he will note the cleanliness and neatness. From his behavior and gestures it is clear that he is irritated, tired (Bunin uses the epithet tired for the second time, now in relation to the entire appearance of the arriving officer), perhaps not very healthy (“pale, thin hand”), and is hostile to everything that is happening (“ “hostilely” called the owners), absent-minded (“inattentively” answers the questions of the hostess who appeared). And only this woman’s unexpected address to him: “Nikolai Alekseevich,” makes him seem to wake up. After all, before that, he asked her questions purely mechanically, without thinking, although he managed to glance at her figure, note her rounded shoulders, light legs in worn Tatar shoes.

The author himself, as if in addition to the “unseeing” gaze of the hero, gives a much more sharply expressive, unexpected, juicy portrait of the woman who entered: not very young, but still beautiful, similar to a gypsy, plump, but not overweight, a woman. Bunin deliberately resorts to naturalistic, almost anti-aesthetic details: large breasts, a triangular belly, like a goose’s. But the anti-aestheticism of the image is “removed”: the breasts are hidden under a red blouse (the diminutive suffix is ​​intended to convey a feeling of lightness), and the stomach is hidden by a black skirt. In general, the combination of black and red in clothes, the fluff above the lip (a sign of passion), and the zoomorphic comparison are aimed at emphasizing the carnal, earthly nature in the heroine.

However, it is she who will reveal - as we will see a little later - the spiritual principle as opposed to the mundane existence that, without realizing it, the hero drags out, without thinking or looking into his past. That's why she is the first! - recognizes him. No wonder she “looked inquisitively at him all the time, squinting slightly,” and he will look at her only after she addresses him by name and patronymic. She - and not he - will name the exact number when it comes to the years that they have not seen each other: not thirty-five, but thirty. She will tell you how old he is now. This means that she meticulously calculated everything, which means that every year she left a notch in her memory! And this is at a time when he should never forget what connected them, for in the past he had - no less than - a dishonest act, however, completely ordinary at that time - having fun with a serf girl when visiting friends' estates, sudden departure...

In the terse dialogue between Nadezhda (that’s the name of the owner of the inn) and Nikolai Alekseevich, the details of this story are restored. And the most important thing is the different attitude of the heroes towards the past. If for Nikolai Alekseevich everything that happened is “a vulgar, ordinary story” (however, he is ready to put everything in his life under this standard, as if removing from a person the burden of responsibility for his actions), then for Nadezhda her love became a great test, and a great event, the only one of significance in her life. “Just as I didn’t have anything more valuable than you in the world at that time, so I didn’t have anything later,” she will say.

For Nikolai Alekseevich, the love of a serf was only one of the episodes of his life (Nadezhda directly states this to him: “It’s as if nothing happened for you”). She “wanted to kill herself” several times, and despite her extraordinary beauty, she never got married, never being able to forget her first love. That’s why she refutes Nikolai Alekseevich’s statement that “everything passes over the years” (he, as if trying to convince himself of this, repeats the formula that “everything passes” several times: after all, he really wants to brush aside the past, to imagine everything is not enough significant event), with the words: “Everything passes, but not everything is forgotten.” And she will say them with unshakable confidence. However, Bunin almost never comments on her words, limiting himself to monosyllabic “answered”, “approached”, “paused”. Only once does he slip an indication of the “unkind smile” with which Nadezhda utters the phrase addressed to her seducer: “I was deigned to read all the poems about all sorts of “dark alleys”.”

The writer is also stingy with “historical details.” Only from the words of the heroine of the work: “The gentlemen soon after you gave me my freedom,” and from the mention of the hero’s appearance, which had “a resemblance to Alexander II, which was so common among the military during his reign,” we can get the idea that The story apparently takes place in the 60s or 70s of the 19th century.

But Bunin is unusually generous in commenting on the condition of Nikolai Alekseevich, for whom a meeting with Nadezhda becomes a meeting with both his past and his conscience. The writer here reveals himself as a “secret psychologist” in all his splendor, making it clear through gestures, intonation of voice, and the behavior of the hero what is happening in his soul. If at first the only thing that interests a visitor at the inn is that “from behind the stove damper there was a sweet smell of cabbage soup” (Bunin even adds this detail: the smell of “boiled cabbage, beef and bay leaf” was felt), from which we can conclude that the guest is clearly hungry), then upon meeting Nadezhda, upon recognizing her, upon further conversation with her, fatigue and absent-mindedness instantly disappear from him, he begins to look fussy, worried, talking a lot and confusedly (“mumbled”, “added quickly” , “hurriedly said”), which is a sharp contrast with the calm majesty of Nadezhda. Bunin points three times to Nikolai Alekseevich’s reaction of embarrassment: “he quickly straightened up, opened his eyes and blushed,” “he stopped and, blushing through his gray hair, began to speak,” “blushed to the point of tears”; emphasizes his dissatisfaction with himself with sudden changes in position: “he walked decisively around the room,” “frowning, he walked again,” “stopping, he grinned painfully.”

All this testifies to what a difficult, painful process is taking place in him. But at first, nothing comes to mind except the divine beauty of the young girl (“How beautiful you were!... What a figure, what eyes!... How everyone looked at you”) and the romantic atmosphere of their rapprochement, and he is inclined brush aside what he heard, hoping to turn the conversation, if not into a joke, then into the direction of “whoever remembers the old will...” However, after he heard that Nadezhda could never forgive him, because one cannot forgive the one who took away the most dear - the soul, who killed it, he seems to see the light. He is especially shocked, apparently, by the fact that to explain her feeling she resorts to the proverb (obviously, especially loved by Bunin, already used by him once in the story “The Village”) “they don’t carry the dead from the graveyard.” This means that she feels like she died, that she never came back to life after those happy spring days, and that for her, who knew the great power of love, it was not without reason that his question-exclamation: “You couldn’t love me all your life!” - she firmly answers: “So, she could. No matter how much time passed, I still lived alone,” there is no return to the life of ordinary people. Her love turned out to be not just stronger than death, but stronger than the life that came after what happened and which she, as a Christian, had to continue, no matter what.

And what kind of life this is, we learn from several remarks exchanged between Nikolai Alekseevich, who is leaving the short-term shelter, and the coachman Klim, who says that the owner of the inn is “smart,” that she is “getting rich” because she “gives money on interest,” that she is “cool”, but “fair”, which means she enjoys both respect and honor. But we understand how petty and insignificant for her, who has fallen in love once and for all, all this mercantile frivolity, how incompatible it is with what is going on in her soul. For Nadezhda, her love is from God. No wonder she says: “What does God give to whom... Everyone’s youth passes, but love is another matter.” That is why her unpreparedness for forgiveness, while Nikolai Alekseevich really wants and hopes that God will forgive him, and even more so Nadezhda will forgive him, because, by all standards, he committed not such a great sin, is not condemned by the author. Although such a maximalist position runs counter to Christian doctrine. But, according to Bunin, a crime against love, against memory is much more serious than the sin of “grudge.” And it is precisely the memory of love, of the past, in his opinion, that justifies a lot.

And the fact that a true understanding of what happened gradually awakens in the hero’s mind speaks in his favor. After all, at first the words he said: “I think that I, too, have lost in you the most precious thing I had in life,” and his act - he kissed Nadezhda’s hand goodbye - do not cause him anything but shame, and even more - the shame of this shame, are perceived by him as false, ostentatious. But then he begins to understand that what came out accidentally, in a hurry, perhaps even for the sake of a catchphrase, is the most genuine “diagnosis” of the past. His internal dialogue, reflecting hesitation and doubt: “Isn’t it true that she gave me the best moments of my life?” - ends with an unshakable: “Yes, of course, the best moments. And not the best, but truly magical.” But right there - and here Bunin acts as a realist who does not believe in romantic transformations and repentance - another, sobering voice told him that all these thoughts were “nonsense”, that he could not do otherwise, that nothing could be corrected then , not now.

So Bunin, in the very first story of the cycle, gives an idea of ​​the unattainable height to which the most ordinary person is capable of rising if his life is illuminated, albeit tragic, by love. And short moments of this love can “outweigh” all the material benefits of future well-being, all the joys of love interests that do not rise above the level of ordinary affairs, and in general the entire subsequent life with its ups and downs.

Bunin draws the subtlest modulations of the characters’ states, relying on the sound “echo”, the consonance of phrases that are born, often without meaning, in response to spoken words. Thus, the words of coachman Klim that if you don’t give Nadezhda the money on time, then “blame yourself,” resonate like echolalia when Nikolai Alekseevich pronounces them out loud: “Yes, yes, blame yourself.” And then in his soul they will continue to sound like words “crucifixing” him. “Yes, blame yourself,” he thinks, realizing what kind of guilt lies with him. And the brilliant formula created by the author and put into the heroine’s mouth: “Everything passes, but not everything is forgotten,” was born in response to Nikolai Alekseevich’s phrase: “Everything passes. Everything is forgotten,” which was previously supposedly confirmed in a quote from the book of Job: “as you will remember the flowing water.” And more than once throughout the story words will appear that refer us to the past, to memory: “Over the years, everything passes”; “everyone’s youth passes”; “I called you Nikolenka, and you remember me”; “do you remember how everyone looked at you”, “how can you forget this”, “well, why remember.” These echoing phrases seem to be weaving a carpet on which Bunin’s formula about the omnipotence of memory will be forever imprinted.

It is impossible not to notice the obvious similarity of this story with Turgenev’s “Asya”. As we remember, even there the hero at the end tries to convince himself that “fate was good in not uniting him with Asya.” He consoles himself with the thought that “he probably would not be happy with such a wife.” It would seem that the situations are similar: in both cases the idea of ​​misalliance, i.e. the possibility of marrying a woman of a lower class is initially rejected. But what is the result of this, it would seem, from the point of view of the attitudes of the right decision accepted in society? The hero of “Asia” turned out to be condemned forever to remain a “familyless loner”, dragging out “boring” years of complete loneliness. It's all in the past.

For Nikolai Alekseevich from “Dark Alleys” life turned out differently: he achieved a position in society, is surrounded by family, he has a wife and children. True, as he admits to Nadezhda, he was never happy: his wife, whom he loved “without memory,” cheated and left him, his son, on whom great hopes were pinned, turned out to be “a scoundrel, a spendthrift, an insolent person without a heart, without honor, without conscience.” ....” Of course, it can be assumed that Nikolai Alekseevich somewhat exaggerates his feeling of bitterness, his experiences, in order to somehow make amends for Nadezhda, so that it would not be so painful for her to realize the difference in their states, their different assessment of the past. Moreover, at the end of the story, when he tries to “learn a lesson” from the unexpected meeting, to sum up his life, he, reflecting, comes to the conclusion that it would still be impossible to imagine Nadezhda as the mistress of his St. Petersburg house, the mother of his children. Consequently, we understand that his wife, apparently, returned to him, and besides the scoundrel son, there are other children. But why, in this case, is he so initially irritated, bilious, gloomy, why does he have a stern and at the same time tired look? Why is this look “questioning”? Maybe this is a subconscious desire to still give oneself an account of how he lives? And why does he shake his head in bewilderment, as if driving away doubts... Yes, all because the meeting with Nadezhda brightly illuminated his past life. And it became clear to him that there had never been anything in his life better than those “truly magical” minutes when “the scarlet rose hips were in bloom, there was an alley of dark linden trees,” when he passionately loved passionate Nadezhda, and she recklessly gave herself to him with all recklessness youth.

And the hero of Turgenev’s “Asia” cannot remember anything more vividly than that “burning, tender, deep feeling” that was given to him by a childish and serious girl beyond his years...

Both of them have only “flowers of memories” left from the past - a dried geranium flower thrown from Asya’s window, a scarlet rose hip from Ogarev’s poem that accompanied the love story of Nikolai Alekseevich and Nadezhda. Only for the latter it is a flower that has caused unhealed wounds with its thorns.

So, following Turgenev, Bunin depicts the greatness of the female soul, capable of loving and remembering, in contrast to the male one, burdened with doubts, entangled in petty addictions, subordinate to social conventions. Thus, already the first story of the cycle reinforces the leading motifs of Bunin’s late work - memory, the omnipotence of the past, the significance of a single moment in comparison with a dull series of everyday life.

Bunin’s series of stories “Dark Alleys” is the best thing written by the author in his entire creative career. Despite the simplicity and accessibility of Bunin's style, analysis of the work requires special knowledge. The work is studied in 9th grade during literature lessons; its detailed analysis will be useful in preparing for the Unified State Exam, writing creative works, test assignments, and drawing up a story plan. We invite you to familiarize yourself with our version of the analysis of “Dark Alleys” according to plan.

Brief Analysis

Year of writing– 1938.

History of creation- the story was written in exile. Homesickness, bright memories, escape from reality, war and hunger - served as the impetus for writing the story.

Subject– love lost, forgotten in the past; broken destinies, the theme of choice and its consequences.

Composition- traditional for a short story or short story. It consists of three parts: the arrival of the general, the meeting with his former lover and the hasty departure.

Genre- story (short story).

Direction– realism.

History of creation

In “Dark Alleys,” the analysis will be incomplete without the history of the creation of the work and knowledge of some details of the writer’s biography. In N. Ogarev’s poem “An Ordinary Tale,” Ivan Bunin borrowed the image of dark alleys. This metaphor impressed the writer so much that he endowed it with his own special meaning and made it the title of a series of stories. All of them are united by one theme - bright, fateful, life-long love.

The work, included in the cycle of stories of the same name (1937-1945), was written in 1938, when the author was in exile. During the Second World War, hunger and poverty plagued all residents of Europe, and the French city of Grasse was no exception. It was there that all the best works of Ivan Bunin were written. A return to memories of the wonderful times of his youth, inspiration and creative work gave the author strength to survive separation from his homeland and the horrors of war. These eight years away from his homeland became the most productive and most important in Bunin’s creative career. Mature age, wonderfully beautiful landscapes, rethinking historical events and life values ​​- became the impetus for the creation of the most important work of the master of words.

In the most terrible times, the best, subtle, piercing stories about love were written - the “Dark Alleys” series. In the soul of every person there are places where he looks infrequently, but with special trepidation: the brightest memories, the most “dear” experiences are stored there. It was precisely these “dark alleys” that the author had in mind when giving the title to his book and the story of the same name. The story was first published in New York in 1943 in the publication “New Land”.

Subject

Leading topic- the theme of love. Not only the story “Dark Alleys,” but all the works in the cycle are based on this wonderful feeling. Bunin, summing up his life, was firmly convinced that love is the best thing that can be given to a person in life. It is the essence, the beginning and the meaning of everything: a tragic or happy story - there is no difference. If this feeling flashed through a person’s life, it means he didn’t live it in vain.

Human destinies, the irrevocability of events, choices that one had to regret are the leading motives in Bunin’s story. The one who loves always wins, he lives and breathes his love, it gives him the strength to move on.

Nikolai Alekseevich, who made his choice in favor of common sense, only at the age of sixty understands that his love for Nadezhda was the best event in his life. The theme of choice and its consequences is clearly revealed in the plot of the story: a man lives his life with the wrong people, remains unhappy, fate returns the betrayal and deception that he committed in his youth towards a young girl.

The conclusion is obvious: happiness lies in living in harmony with your feelings, and not contrary to them. The problem of choice and responsibility for one's own and others' fate is also touched upon in the work. The issues are quite broad, despite the small volume of the story. It is interesting to note the fact that in Bunin’s stories, love and marriage are practically incompatible: emotions are swift and bright, they arise and disappear as quickly as everything in nature. Social status has no meaning where love reigns. It equalizes people, makes ranks and classes meaningless - love has its own priorities and laws.

Composition

Compositionally, the story can be divided into three parts.

First part: the hero’s arrival at the inn (descriptions of nature and the surrounding area predominate here). The meeting with the former lover - the second semantic part - mainly consists of dialogue. In the last part, the general leaves the inn - he runs from his own memories and his past.

Main events– the dialogue between Nadezhda and Nikolai Alekseevich is built on two completely opposite views on life. She lives by love, finding consolation and joy in it, and preserves the memories of her youth. In the mouth of this wise woman, the author puts the idea of ​​the story - what the work teaches us: “everything passes, but not everything is forgotten.” In this sense, the heroes are opposite in their views; the old general mentions several times that “everything passes.” This is exactly how his life passed, meaningless, joyless, in vain. Critics received the cycle of stories enthusiastically, despite its courage and frankness.

Main characters

Genre

Dark Alleys belongs to the short story genre; some researchers of Bunin's work tend to consider them short stories.

The theme of love, unexpected abrupt endings, tragedy and dramatic plots - all this is typical for Bunin’s works. It should be noted that the lion's share of lyricism in the story is emotions, the past, experiences and spiritual quests. The general lyrical orientation is a distinctive feature of Bunin’s stories. The author has a unique ability to fit a huge period of time into a small epic genre, reveal the character’s soul and make the reader think about the most important things.

The artistic means that the author uses are always varied: precise epithets, vivid metaphors, comparisons and personifications. The technique of parallelism is also close to the author; quite often nature emphasizes the mental state of the characters.

Work test

Rating analysis

Average rating: 4.6. Total ratings received: 525.