Ivan Alekseevich Bunin 1870-1953

Antonov apples - Story (1900)

The author-narrator recalls the recent past. He recalls the early fine autumn, the whole golden dried up and thinned garden, the delicate aroma of fallen leaves and the smell of Antonov apples: gardeners pour apples onto carts to send them to the city. Late at night, running out into the garden and talking with the watchmen guarding the garden, he looks into the dark blue depths of the sky overflowing with constellations, looks for a long, long time, until the earth floats under his feet, feeling how good it is to live in the world!

The narrator recalls his Vyselki, which since the time of his grandfather have been known in the district as a rich village. Old men and women lived there for a long time - the first sign of well-being. The houses in Vyselki were brick and strong. The average noble life had much in common with the rich peasant life. He remembers his aunt Anna Gerasimovna, her estate is small, but solid, old, surrounded by hundred-year-old trees. The aunt's garden was famous for its apple trees, nightingales and doves, and the house for its roof: its thatched roof was unusually thick and high, blackened and hardened with time. First of all, the smell of apples was felt in the house, and then other smells: old mahogany furniture, dried lime blossom.

The narrator recalls his late brother-in-law Arseniy Semenych, a landowner-hunter, in whose big house a lot of people gathered, everyone had a hearty dinner, and then went hunting. A horn blows in the yard, dogs howl in different voices, the owner's favorite, a black greyhound, climbs onto the table and devours the remains of a hare with sauce from the dish. The author recalls himself riding an evil, strong and squat "Kyrgyz": trees flash before his eyes, the cries of hunters, the barking of dogs are heard in the distance. From the ravines it smells of mushroom dampness and wet tree bark. It is getting dark, the whole gang of hunters tumble into the estate of some almost unknown bachelor hunter and, it happens, stays with him for several days. After a whole day spent hunting, the warmth of a crowded house is especially pleasant. When it happened to oversleep hunting the next morning, one could spend the whole day in the master's library, leafing through old magazines and books, looking at the notes in their margins. Family portraits look from the walls, an old dreamy life rises before my eyes, my grandmother is remembered with sadness,

But the old people died in Vyselki, Anna Gerasimovna died, Arseniy Semenych shot himself. There comes the kingdom of small landed nobles, impoverished to beggary. But this small local life is good too! The narrator happened to visit a neighbor. He gets up early, orders the samovar to be put on, and, putting on his boots, goes out onto the porch, where he is surrounded by hounds. It will be a glorious day for hunting! Only they don’t hunt along the black trail with hounds, oh, if only greyhounds! But he has no greyhounds ... However, with the onset of winter, again, as in the old days, small locals come to each other, drink with their last money, disappear for whole days in snowy fields. And in the evening, on some remote farmstead, the windows of an outbuilding glow in the dark: candles burn there, clouds of smoke float, they play the guitar, they sing ...

The Village - A Tale (1910)

Russia. Late XIX - early. XNUMXth century The Krasov brothers, Tikhon and Kuzma, were born in the small village of Durnovka. In their youth, they were engaged in petty trade together, then they quarreled, and their paths diverged. Kuzma went to work for hire. Tikhon rented an inn, opened a tavern and a shop, began buying up grain from the landowners, acquiring land for a pittance, and, becoming a fairly wealthy owner, even bought a manor estate from an impoverished descendant of the previous owners. But all this did not bring him joy: his wife gave birth only to dead girls, and there was no one to leave everything that he had gained. Tikhon did not find any consolation in the dark, dirty village life, except for the tavern. Began to drink. By the age of fifty, he realized that there was nothing to remember from the past years, that there was not a single close person and he himself was a stranger to everyone. Then Tikhon decided to make peace with his brother.

Kuzma was a completely different person by character. Since childhood, he dreamed of studying. A neighbor taught him to read and write, a market “freethinker”, an old accordion player, supplied him with books and introduced him to disputes about literature. Kuzma wanted to describe his life in all its poverty and terrible routine. He tried to compose a story, then began to write poetry and even published a book of simple verses, but he himself understood all the imperfections of his creations. And this business did not bring in any income, and a piece of bread was not given for nothing. Many years passed in search of work, often fruitless. Having seen enough of human cruelty and indifference in his travels, he started drinking, began to sink lower and lower and came to the conclusion that he must either go to a monastery or commit suicide.

Here Tikhon found him, offering his brother to take over the management of the estate. It seems that a quiet place was found. Having settled in Durnovka, Kuzma became cheerful. At night, he walked with a mallet - he guarded the estate, during the day he read newspapers and made notes in an old office book about what he saw and heard around. But gradually he began to overcome his longing: there was no one to talk to. Tikhon rarely appeared, talking only about the economy, about the meanness and malice of the peasants, and about the need to sell the estate. The cook, Avdotya, the only living creature in the house, was always silent, and when Kuzma fell seriously ill, leaving him to himself, without any sympathy, she went to spend the night in the servants' room.

Kuzma recovered with difficulty from his illness and went to his brother. Tikhon greeted the guest cordially, but there was no mutual understanding between them. Kuzma wanted to share what he read from the newspapers, but Tikhon was not interested. For a long time he had been obsessed with the idea of ​​arranging Avdotya's wedding with one of the village boys. Once he had sinned with her for the sake of his indomitable desire to have a child - even if it was illegal. The dream did not come true, and the woman was disgraced throughout the village. Now Tikhon, who rarely went to church, decided to justify himself before God. He asked his brother to take care of this matter. Kuzma opposed the undertaking: he felt sorry for the unfortunate Avdotya, in whose fiancés Tikhon identified a real "liver cutter", who beat his own father, had no inclination to the household and was tempted only by the promised dowry. Tikhon stood his ground, Avdotya meekly submitted to an unenviable fate, and Kuzma was forced to yield to his brother.

The wedding was played in a routine manner. The bride sobbed bitterly, Kuzma blessed her with tears, the guests drank vodka and sang songs. The irrepressible February blizzard accompanied the wedding train to the dull chime of bells.

The Gentleman from San Francisco - The Story (1915)

A gentleman from San Francisco, who is never mentioned by name in the story, since, as the author notes, no one remembered his name either in Naples or Capri, he is sent with his wife and daughter to the Old World for two whole years in order to to have fun and travel. He worked hard and is now rich enough to afford such a vacation.

At the end of November, the famous "Atlantis", which looks like a huge hotel with all amenities, sets sail. Life on the ship is measured: they get up early, drink coffee, cocoa, chocolate, take baths, do gymnastics, walk along the decks to whet their appetite; then - go to the first breakfast; after breakfast they read the newspapers and calmly wait for the second breakfast; the next two hours are devoted to rest - all decks are filled with long reed chairs, on which travelers lie, covered with rugs, looking at the cloudy sky; then - tea with cookies, and in the evening - that which is the main goal of this entire existence - dinner.

A fine orchestra exquisitely and tirelessly plays in a huge hall, behind the walls of which the waves of a terrible ocean go with a rumble, but decollete ladies and men in tailcoats and tuxedos do not think about it. After dinner, dancing begins in the ballroom, men in the bar smoke cigars, drink liquors, and they are served by Negroes in red coats.

Finally, the ship arrives in Naples, the family of the gentleman from San Francisco stays in an expensive hotel, and here their life also flows according to routine: early in the morning - breakfast, after - visits to museums and cathedrals, second breakfast, tea, then - cooking for dinner and in the evening - a plentiful dinner. However, December in Naples turned out to be unsuccessful this year: wind, rain, mud on the streets. And the family of the gentleman from San Francisco decides to go to the island of Capri, where, as everyone assures them, it is warm, sunny and lemons bloom.

A small steamboat, waddling on the waves from side to side, transports a gentleman from San Francisco with his family, seriously suffering from seasickness, to Capri. the funicular takes them to a small stone town on top of a mountain, they settle in a hotel where they are warmly welcomed by everyone, and they are preparing for dinner, already quite recovered from seasickness. Having dressed before his wife and daughter, the gentleman from San Francisco goes to the cozy, quiet reading room of the hotel, opens the newspaper - and suddenly the lines flash before his eyes, the pince-nez flies off his nose, and his body, wriggling, slides to the floor. Another guest who was present at the same time of the hotel, screaming, runs into the dining room, everyone jumps up from their seats, the owner tries to calm the guests, but the evening is already irreparably ruined.

The gentleman from San Francisco is transferred to the smallest and worst room; wife, daughter, servants stand and look at him, and now what they expected and feared has happened - he is dying. The wife of a gentleman from San Francisco asks the owner to allow the body to be transferred to their apartment, but the owner refuses: he appreciates these rooms too much, and tourists would begin to avoid them, since the whole of Capri would immediately become aware of what had happened. The coffin is also not available here - the owner can offer a long crate of soda water bottles.

At dawn, a cab driver carries the body of the gentleman from San Francisco to the pier, a steamboat transports him through the Gulf of Naples, and the same Atlantis, on which he arrived with honor in the Old World, is now carrying him, dead, in a tarred coffin, hidden from the living. deep down in the black hold. Meanwhile, on the decks, the same life continues as before, everyone has breakfast and dinner in the same way, and the ocean is still terrifying behind the glass of the portholes.

Easy Breath - Short Story (1916)

The exposition of the story is a description of the grave of the main character. What follows is a summary of her story. Olya Meshcherskaya is a prosperous, capable and playful high school student, indifferent to the instructions of her class lady. At the age of fifteen she was a recognized beauty, had the most admirers, danced the best at balls and skated. There were rumors that one of the high school students in love with her attempted suicide because of her frivolity.

In the last winter of her life, Olya Meshcherskaya "went completely crazy with fun." Her behavior leads the boss to make another remark, reproaching her, among other things, for dressing and behaving not like a girl, but like a woman. At this point, Meshcherskaya interrupts her with a calm message that she is a woman and the friend and neighbor of her father, brother of the boss, Alexei Mikhailovich Malyutin, is to blame for this.

A month after this conversation, an ugly Cossack officer shot Meshcherskaya on the station platform among a large crowd of people. He announced to the bailiff that Meshcherskaya was close to him and swore to be his wife. On this day, seeing him to the station, she said that she had never loved him, and offered to read a page from her diary, which described how Malyutin had seduced her.

It followed from the diary that this happened when Malyutin came to visit the Meshcherskys and found Olya alone at home. Describes her attempts to occupy the guest, their walk in the garden; Malyutin's comparison of them with Faust and Margarita. After tea, she pretended to be unwell, and lay down on the couch, and Malyutin moved to her, first kissed her hand, then kissed her on the lips. Further, Meshcherskaya wrote that after what happened next, she feels such disgust for Malyutin that she is unable to survive it.

The action ends at the cemetery, where every Sunday her cool lady comes to the grave of Olya Meshcherskaya, who lives in an illusory world that replaces reality for her. The subject of her previous fantasies was her brother, a poor and unremarkable ensign, whose future seemed to her brilliant. After the death of her brother, Olya Meshcherskaya takes his place in her mind. She goes to her grave every holiday, keeps her eyes on the oak cross for hours, remembers her pale face in the coffin among the flowers and once overheard words that Olya said to her beloved friend. She read in one book what beauty a woman should have - black eyes, black eyelashes, longer than usual hands, but the main thing is light breathing, and she (Oli) has it: "... you listen to how I I sigh, is it true?

Life of Arseniev YOUTH - Novel (1927-1933, published 1952)

Alexey Arsenyev was born in the 70s. XIX century in central Russia, on his father’s estate, on the Kamenka farm. His childhood years were spent in the silence of discreet Russian nature. Endless fields with the aromas of herbs and flowers in the summer, vast expanses of snow in the winter gave rise to a heightened sense of beauty, which shaped his inner world and remained for the rest of his life. For hours he could watch the movement of clouds in the high sky, the work of a beetle entangled in ears of grain, the play of the sun's rays on the parquet floor of the living room. People gradually came into his circle of attention. His mother occupied a special place among them: he felt his “inseparability” with her. My father attracted me with his love of life, cheerful disposition, breadth of nature, and also with his glorious past (he participated in the Crimean War). The brothers were older, and in children's fun the younger sister Olya became the boy's friend. Together they explored the secret corners of the garden, the vegetable garden, the manor buildings - everywhere had its own charm.

Then a man named Baskakov appeared in the house, who became Alyosha's first teacher. He had no pedagogical experience, and, having quickly learned the boy to write, read, and even French, he did not really introduce the student to the sciences. Its influence was in a different way - in a romantic attitude towards history and literature, in the worship of Pushkin and Lermontov, who forever captured Alyosha's soul. Everything acquired in communication with Baskakov gave impetus to the imagination and poetic perception of life. These carefree days ended when it was time to enter the gymnasium. Parents took their son to the city and settled with the tradesman Rostovtsev. The atmosphere was miserable, the environment completely alien. Lessons in the gymnasium were conducted by the state, among the teachers there were no people of any interest. During all his gymnasium years, Alyosha lived only with a dream of a vacation, of a trip to his relatives - now in Baturino, the estate of his deceased grandmother, since his father, short of money, sold Kamenka.

When Alyosha moved to the 4th grade, a misfortune happened: brother Georgy was arrested for involvement in the "socialists". He lived for a long time under a false name, hid, and then arrived in Baturin, where, on the denunciation of the clerk of one of the neighbors, the gendarmes took him. This event was a big shock for Alyosha. A year later, he left the gymnasium and returned to his parental home. At first, the father scolded, but then he decided that his son’s vocation was not service and not household (especially since the household was in complete decline), but “poetry of the soul and life” and that, perhaps, a new Pushkin or Lermontov would come out of him. Alyosha himself dreamed of devoting himself to "verbal creativity." His development was greatly facilitated by long conversations with George, who was released from prison and deported to Baturin under police supervision. From a teenager, Alexei turned into a young man, he matured physically and spiritually, felt in himself growing strength and the joy of being, read a lot, thought about life and death, wandered around the neighborhood, visited neighboring estates.

Soon he experienced his first love, having met in the house of one of his relatives a young girl Ankhen, who was visiting there, and experienced separation from her as a true grief, because of which even the St. Petersburg magazine received on the day of her departure with the publication of his poems did not bring real joy. But then there followed a slight passion for young ladies who came to neighboring estates, and then a relationship with a married woman who served as a maid on the estate of brother Nikolai. This "madness", as Alexey called his passion, ended due to the fact that Nikolai finally calculated the culprit of the unseemly story.

In Alexei, the desire to leave the almost ruined native nest and start an independent life was ripening more and more tangibly. Georgiy by this time had moved to the stalls, and the younger brother decided to go there too. From the first day, a lot of new acquaintances and impressions fell upon him. The surroundings of George differed sharply from the village. Many of the people included in it went through student circles and movements, visited prisons and exiles. At the meetings, conversations were in full swing about the pressing issues of Russian life, the form of government and the rulers themselves were condemned, the need to fight for the constitution and the republic was proclaimed, and the political positions of literary idols - Korolenko, Chekhov, Tolstoy were discussed. These table conversations and disputes fueled Alexei's desire to write, but at the same time he was tormented by his inability to put it into practice.

A vague mental disorder prompted some kind of change. He decided to see new places, went to the Crimea, was in Sevastopol, on the banks of the Donets, and, having already decided to return to Baturino, stopped by Orel on the way to look at the "city of Leskov and Turgenev." There he found the editorial office of Golos, where he had planned to find a job even earlier, met the editor Nadezhda Avilova and received an offer to cooperate in the publication. After talking about business, Avilova invited him to the dining room, received him at home, and introduced her cousin Lika to the guest. Everything was unexpected and pleasant, but he could not even imagine what an important role fate had assigned to this chance acquaintance.

At first there were just cheerful conversations and walks that gave pleasure, but gradually sympathy for Lika turned into a stronger feeling. Captured by him, Alexei constantly rushed between Baturin and Orel, abandoned classes and lived only by meeting with a girl, she either brought him closer to her, then pushed him away, then again called him out on a date. Their relationship could not go unnoticed. One fine day, Lika's father invited Alexei to his place and ended a rather friendly conversation with a decisive disagreement with the marriage with his daughter, explaining that he did not want to see them both languishing in need, for he understood how uncertain the young man's position was.

Upon learning of this, Lika said that she would never go against her father's will. However, nothing has changed. On the contrary, there was a final rapprochement. Alexei moved to Orel under the pretext of working at Golos and lived in a hotel, Lika settled with Avilova under the pretext of studying music. But little by little, the difference in natures began to show: he wanted to share his memories of his poetic childhood, his observations on life, his literary predilections, and all this was alien to her. He was jealous of her gentlemen at city balls, to partners in amateur performances. There was misunderstanding with each other.

One day Lika's father came to Oryol, accompanied by a rich young tanner Bogomolov, whom he introduced as a contender for his daughter's hand and heart. Lika spent all her time with them. Alex stopped talking to her. She ended up refusing Bogomolov, but nevertheless left Oryol with her father. Alexei was tormented by separation, not knowing how and why to live now. He continued to work in Golos, again began to write and print what was written, but he languished in the squalor of Oryol's life and again decided to embark on wanderings. Having changed several cities, without staying anywhere for a long time, he finally could not stand it and sent a telegram to Lika: "I will be there the day after tomorrow." They met again. Existence apart for both proved unbearable.

A life together began in a small town, where Georgy moved. Both worked in the administration of Zemstvo statistics, were constantly together, visited Baturin. Relatives reacted to Lika with cordial warmth. Everything seemed to be fine. But the roles gradually changed: now Lika lived only with her feelings for Alexei, and he could no longer live only with her. He went on business trips, met different people, reveled in the feeling of freedom, even entered into casual relationships with women, although he still could not imagine himself without Lika. She saw the changes, languished in loneliness, was jealous, was offended by his indifference to her dream of a wedding and a normal family, and in response to Alexei's assurances of the immutability of his feelings, she somehow said that, apparently, she was something like air for him. , without which there is no life, but which you do not notice. Lika could not completely renounce herself and live only by what he lives, and, in despair, having written a farewell note, she left Orel.

Alexei's letters and telegrams remained unanswered until Leakey's father informed her that she had forbidden her hiding place to be opened to anyone. Alexei almost shot himself, quit his service, did not show up anywhere. An attempt to see her father was not successful: he was simply not accepted. He returned to Baturino, and a few months later learned that Aika had come home with pneumonia and died very soon. It was at her request that Alexei was not informed of her death.

He was only twenty years old. There was still much to be experienced, but time did not erase this love from memory - it remained for him the most significant event in his life.

Authors of the retelling: Slava Yanko, Alexandra Vladimirova

<< Back: Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko 1853-1921 (In bad company. From the childhood memories of my friend: Story (1885). The Blind Musician: Story (1886))

>> Forward: Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev 1871-1919 (The Life of Vasily of Fivey - A Story (1903). The Story of the Seven Hanged Men - (1906). Judas Iscariot - A Story (1907))

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