Review of I. Bunin's story Sunstroke
Story " Clean Monday"(1944) completes the cycle from late creativity I.A. Bunin "Dark Alley". The writer laughed that he wrote "about the same thing thirty-eight times." That one theme was the theme of love. And as in everything ingenious, we read " Of dark alleys»We do not feel exhaustion or repetition in similar stories about the relationship between a man and a woman, although even the plot scheme of the stories of the cycle is of the same type. As a rule, a meeting of heroes, a sudden rapprochement, a flash of feelings - and an inevitable separation are described. Love for Bunin is just a wonderful moment. And in each story he finds new and new shades of love feelings.
V last story- "Clean Monday" - amazingly lyrics and pathos merged, folk traditions and modern, divine and worldly; here it is as if the poetic and philosophical results of Bunin's work are summed up. The author unfolds before us a story not only about love, but about secrets human soul, about the understanding of happiness, about the complex and contradictory national character, about the spirit historical era, about faith. And the deliberate similarity of the plots helps the reader to focus not on the course of events, but on the heroes and inimitable style of Bunin.
The main artistic technique in the story "Clean Monday" there is a method of antithesis. A whole system of oppositions is being built: antonyms that permeate the first sentence (“The gray Moscow winter day was darkening, the gas in the streetlights was coldly lit, the shop windows were warmly illuminated - and the evening Moscow life, freeing from day-to-day affairs, flared up: , diving trams ... "); hero and heroine, different in character (“… and as far as I was inclined to talkativeness, to simple-hearted gaiety, she was so often silent: she was thinking something, as if she was mentally delving into something…”); smart Savor the heroine and her deep religiosity; love that has no external obstacles, and its tragic ending. The movement of the text seems to be controlled by two opposite motives - the vulgarity of the surrounding reality and the spirituality of eternal values.
The story has a retrospective structure: the hero recalls his passionate love for the mysterious beauty. This makes it possible to present events as if in a double light: what the hero did not notice "then", he already comprehends from memory, as if summing up the results. The construction of the story on separate episodes and the circular composition allows the author not only to show the transience of time, but also to recreate the portrait of the era with the greatest completeness. The historical panorama of the 10s of the XX century in Russia is presented by people who really existed, personifying the culture of that time. Bunin ironically depicts A. Bely, K. Stanislavsky, F. Chaliapin, and this shows the manner of the writer to communicate with his contemporaries, so familiar to us from his memoirs. At the same time, the details of the reality of the beginning of the 20th century are intertwined with signs of deep antiquity: along with the restaurants Yar, Strelna, the countless names of Moscow churches, monasteries, icons (Cathedral of Christ the Savior, Kremlin, St. Basil's Cathedral, Zachatievsky monastery, the icon of the Virgin of the Three-handed woman and others), the names of historical figures (Oslyabli, Peresvet), quotes from chronicles, legends, prayers. This is how the story develops the image of an era that combines modernity and "pre-Petrine Rus", and this is how the Russian national character woven from contradictions.
The plot and compositional center of the work becomes complicated relationship two heroes - His and Her. The narration is in the first person, which creates the effect of presence and enhances the realism of the events. The very image of the protagonist is given sketchily, only his feelings and experiences are shown, and this makes the character related to lyrical hero poetry of Bunin. But we are alarmed that the hero does not understand the one whom he sincerely worships. Blinded by love, he cannot comprehend what inner work happens in the soul of his beloved. However, it is falling in love that gives the hero an exceptional acuity of perception, through the prism of which the portrait of the heroine is presented in the story. In her description, the epithets "strange" and "mysterious" are defining: "... she was mysterious, incomprehensible to me, our relations with her were strange ...". Details of the appearance, repeated in portrait sketches, the epithets "black", "velvet", "amber" do not clarify psychological condition heroines, on the contrary, emphasize her mystery.
We learn that the heroine's father is “an enlightened man of a noble merchant family,” but then there is a hint of his mediocrity (“he collected something like all such merchants”). That is, in the origin, we do not find an explanation for the duality of the spiritual world of the heroine, who enjoys both worldly passions and reveres religious rites... The duality of character is rather rooted in the combination of the western and the eastern. This girl is serious about reading. European literature(Hoffmannstahl, Schnitzler, Tetmayer, Przybyshevsky), but inside her there is a lot of the East, which is manifested even in her appearance: “And she had some kind of Indian, Persian beauty: a dark-amber face, magnificent and somewhat ominous in its thick blackness hair softly shining like black sable fur, eyebrows, eyes black as velvet coal; the mouth, captivating with velvety-crimson lips, was shaded with dark fluff ... ". The whole life of the heroine is woven from inexplicable contradictions. She also visits ancient temples, monasteries and restaurants, and skits with equal interest. All her being is a continuous tossing between flesh and spirit, momentary and eternal. Behind the visible secular gloss, there are primordially national, Russian principles in it. And they turn out to be stronger, as they are manifested in beliefs.
Incomprehensible in her opposite inclinations, the heroine, at the same time, very organically fits into the contrasts of Moscow of those years, a city that combined the centuries-old beauty of cathedrals, the ringing of bells with the realities of the new bourgeois era.
As in all of Bunin's work, one of the most important in "Pure Monday" is the motive of beauty, inextricably linked with the image of the heroine. Moreover, beauty is not so much external as internal. The mysterious woman sees her disappearance everywhere - and this is the main torment of her soul. "But this Russia remained in some northern monasteries ...". The desire to preserve this beauty in herself leads the heroine to the monastery. In addition, she could not find a meaning in her existence in any way: “It seemed as if she didn’t need anything: not flowers,
No books, no dinners, no theaters, no dinners outside the city ... ". Therefore, a desire arose to fill life with something significant, the spiritual world. The author managed to convey the essence of the heroine so subtly that we cannot even imagine her in a situation of earthly happiness. Interestingly, unlike Liza Kalitina from “ Noble nest"I. Turgeneva, Bunin's heroine herself does not seek happiness in this life, initially realizing its impossibility. The psychology of the author of "Dark Alley" differs significantly from the "dialectic of the soul" L. Tolstoy and " secret psychologism"I. Turgenev. The movements of the souls of Bunin's heroes defy logical explanation, the heroes seem to have no power over themselves. In this regard, attention is drawn to the impersonal verb constructions that are often used by the writer ("... for some reason I wanted to go in there ...").
In "Clean Monday" motives of the vain world and spiritual life echo with other works of Bunin. Characteristically, each of the motives is supported by its own system of images. And the great concentration of details, combined with a concise presentation, requires us to carefully read. So, the substantive basis for the motive of the vain world is functionally loaded details: literary bohemia is depicted as a meaningless "skit", where there are only "shouts", antics and posturing. The motive of spiritual life corresponds to “spontaneous” details: descriptions of nature and architectural monuments (“The evening was peaceful, sunny, with frost on the trees; on the brick-bloody walls of the monastery, jackdaws, similar to nuns, chattered in silence, chimes every now and then subtly and sadly played on the bell tower "). The feelings of the artist, who loves his native nature with all his heart, are conveyed through color range and emotionally tinged epithets (“subtle and sad”, “light”, “marvelous”, “on the golden enamel of the sunset”).
The poetry of the story is manifested in the sound and rhythmic organization of the text. Contrasts are also striking here: "a slow, somnambulically beautiful start" Moonlight Sonatas"Is replaced by a cancan, and the sounds of the liturgy are replaced by a march from" Aida ". The alternation of the most important motives - temporal and eternal, the life of the flesh and the life of the spirit - constitutes the rhythmic basis of the story. The "routes" of the heroes' walks are also convincing: "Metropol" - Rogozhskoe cemetery - Egorov's tavern - theater - "skit". Finally, the very name "Clean Monday" symbolizes, in accordance with Orthodox calendar, the border between a vain life and Great Lent, when people must cleanse themselves of the filth of worldly life. The heroine goes to a very big sin, succumbing to temptation with her beloved on this very day. True, she already knew at that moment that she was ready to renounce the earthly world and be spiritually reborn, becoming the bride of Christ. It is important that for the hero, Clean Monday becomes a turning point in life. On Forgiveness Sunday, both heroes say goodbye to their old life, which did not give them happiness, but their love remains with them in a new life. And only having purified the soul with this high feeling, a person comprehends true happiness. The interrelation of the theme of love and the theme of the purification of the soul is the leitmotif of the entire work of I.A. Bunin. “All love is a great happiness, even if it is not shared” - this is how the author wrote in the story “Dark Alleys”.
Each of us remembers his first love throughout his life. But what will these memories be like? Joyful or bitter? What feelings awaken in us when we remember these times? These philosophical reflections form the basis of Ivan Bunin's story "Dark Alleys" from the collection of the same name.
In this work, the author tells about the first and unequal love of Nikolai Alekseevich and Nadezhda. But the problem is that love can be different. Not only giving meaning to life and inspiring, but also ignored, unhappy, unrequited.
In this work, the reader will be confronted with two different manifestations of love. For example, Nikolai Alekseevich, a retired military man, having met a woman who gave him that very first love, chose to run away from his feelings. He leaves, and on the way his companions were only empty fields and a low yellow sun. Imagining this landscape, it immediately becomes dreary and anxious. This road leads to the world of everyday life, routine and indifference. The hero was left alone again. The cold autumn sun will never give him “the best moments of life”.
The second kind of love is faithful, inspiring, constant. Probably, the author did not accidentally name the main character Hope. For thirty years this woman hoped for a miracle that would certainly make her happy, she was able to preserve her feelings, carried them through the years and they did not fade away. Introducing Nadezhda, the image of a real Russian woman for whom there is nothing comes to mind more important than love, there are no barriers and boundaries in order to love and keep all the best memories and feelings.
The very title of the story symbolically indicates both the darkness of the human soul and the uncertainty, the vagueness of the future. How would the fate of the heroes develop if Nikolai Petrovich followed the voice of his heart, and not the traditional ideas of society about relationships? Would they be happy together? Would such a decision be correct? The author does not give a definite answer, he only accompanies the reader on a journey along his dark alley.
In this story, Bunin briefly and aptly describes the inner state of the heroes, their future with the help of the season and expressive landscapes, because the nature of Russia also symbolically reflects the soul of the Russian person - anxious, changeable, sad.
This work touches on several topics at once: first love, betrayal, the continuous connection between man and nature, and the author also managed to masterfully describe the mysterious Russian soul - faithful, loving, but, nevertheless, choosing suffering.
Ekaterina Chizhova shared her opinion on the story "Dark Alleys".
Review of the work of Bunin "Mr. from San Francisco"
"Mr. from San Francisco" I.A. Bunin
The beginning of the 20th century, a time very saturated for Russia with such events as revolutions and wars.
Even then, Bunin was called one of the the best masters words in Russia. He writes such works as "Dreams of Chang", " Easy breath"," The grammar of love ". In 1915, Bunin wrote, perhaps, one of his most striking works, "The gentleman from San Francisco."
The story was originally called Death on Capri. Bunin linked his plan with the story of the German writer Thomas Mann "Death in Venice", but even more with the memories of the unexpected death of an American who came to Capri. However, as Ivan Alekseevich himself admitted, "and" San Francisco ", and everything else" he invented, living on his estate cousin in the Yelets district of the Oryol province. + The story begins on the ship Atlantis. The main character is a gentleman from San Francisco. Bunin does not give him a name. This is due to the fact that no one remembered him, that there are many like him. The gentleman goes "to the Old World for two whole years, with his wife and daughter, solely for the sake of entertainment." He has a planned route, money, desires. He feels and behaves as a master in all respects. But is it really so? No. For his fifty-eight years, he never learned to live, love, feel, enjoy life, so no matter how hard he tries, he does not attend all cultural and entertainment events, he does not get any pleasure. Here he "is pleasant, but bored, like snow-lit museums or cold, wax-smelling churches, in which the same thing is everywhere: a stately entrance, closed by a heavy leather curtain, but inside there is a huge emptiness, silence ...". So is the gentleman himself: on the outside he is elegant, well-groomed, beautiful, but on the inside he is empty, soulless. For him, there is no family, joys or troubles, a beloved woman. There are no surprises or surprises in his life, everything is measured, scheduled by day, hour and second. And he pretends to be happy. Very symbolic is the love couple who was paid to portray, play love for good money on one or the other ship.
Throughout the story, it can be traced that Bunin mainly uses black, white, red, gold colors in describing the life of rich people. This is no coincidence. After all, it was in these colors that the royal people dressed. For example, a red robe with gold-embroidered lilies and black and white ermine. + The gentleman from San Francisco is one of the many passengers of the large ship Atlantis, "a huge hotel with all amenities - with a night bar, with oriental baths, with its own newspaper" - on top of which all the cream of society is having fun and including the gentleman from San Francisco.
All this takes place in the middle of the ocean, symbolizing an endlessly flowing life, unpredictable in its turns. He "was scary, but they did not think of him", "a siren was constantly howling on the tank with fierce malice, but few of the diners heard the siren - it was drowned out by the sounds of a beautiful orchestra." The siren is a symbol of world chaos, "music" is a calm harmony.
The gentleman arrives in Naples, and nature itself begins to interfere with his plans: the sun "deceived", sowed rain, something terrible was happening everywhere. But nothing shakes the gentleman, and he and his family go to Capri. And there, as expected, everyone treats him like a master. They put him in the most exquisite hotel, "put the most beautiful and skillful maid," "the most prominent of the lackeys." He gets all the best, but it is still he is able to pay.
And now he is dying, dying, only having begun to “live”. But death does not at all fit into the image of a rich hotel. “If there weren't a German in the reading room, they would have quickly and cleverly managed to hush up this terrible incident in the hotel, instantly, in reverse, they would have rushed by the legs and the head of the gentleman from San Francisco to hell - and not a single soul from the guests would have learned that he did it. " The gentleman dies in the "smallest, worst, dampest and coldest" room.
The story ends at the same place where it began - "Atlantis". Here everyone is still having fun, dancing and having fun, only our master from San Francisco is not there, he does not return home in first class, now he is hidden from human eyes in the womb of the ship - in the hold, he lies in a tarred coffin. + A vision of the Devil appears, observing "a ship, multi-tiered, multi-pipe, created by the pride of a New Man with an old heart."
"Mr. from San Francisco" I.A. Bunin The beginning of the 20th century, a time very saturated for Russia with such events as revolutions and wars. Even then Bunin
More work
The writer's world is so sensitive, tangible, attentive, audible that pressing problems come to the surface, forgotten details come to light. Bunin's short text is just full of the impression of the hero, a range of sounds. The work of the creator is a monologue in which the writer recounts a moment from his childhood. Bunin speaks to readers and as a participant in some event, at the same time as an observer that he sees himself after so many past years.
As you know, the composition of this creation Bunin performed abroad. During this period of time, he was very homesick. Accordingly, the work of "Name Day" fully reflected the atmosphere of the reigning disorder in the writer's soul. Despite the fact that there is a holiday around, there are name days, the author can not bring himself to rejoice, because longing and bitterness for the homeland take their toll. The mood for holiday for the hero, it is something that brings horror and anxiety. Being on the birthday, he realizes that he is outside of life, cut off from the time of the present, going with inexorable speed. One can feel a dip into the dark and not letting go of antiquity, downturn. The hero experiences emotional mood swings, the stream of consciousness changes, the character's outlook is not the same as it was before. He understands that alienation from this present kills the desire to live. And this, absolutely certainly, should not arise in the mind of a person!
What is the ending of the story? In bitterness and longing for their native places and lands. In the fact that time inexorably takes its toll, everything cannot be returned to its place. However, memories are in full swing, leaving stab wounds on the heart! This is what Bunin says: that isolation from your homeland not only breaks you physically, but also cripples you spiritually!
With his monologue, the author was able to describe his own experiences during the period of separation from places that were warm for him. This text gives you the opportunity to immerse yourself in inner world Ivan Bunin, to realize how much the writer was attached to his native land! A piece written during a stay abroad unusually touches all the strings of the soul! This is the talent of the creator: his in simple words sink into the heart forever, forcing to rethink own life!
Several interesting compositions
- Rylov A.A.
Arkady Ivanovich Rylov was born on January 29, 1870. The boy's father was a simple rural notary. At a young age he was sent to St. Petersburg to study the arts. He was trained famous masters arts
- Composition Learning to work Grade 7
I have never thought about why all adults make us work. Literally from an early age, as soon as I began to stand well on my feet, they began to take me to dig up potatoes, gave me a small bucket and in a joking manner offered to help
- Composition by Liza Mokhova in the novel Tikhiy Don Sholokhov
Liza is the daughter of the merchant Sergei Platonovich Mokhov from the Tatarsky farm. In addition to her father, Lisa's family consists of a stepmother and a brother named Vladimir. Father and stepmother devoted little time to raising their children.
At the mention of the word "Motherland", pictures of everything that is most important to me, beautiful, dear and beautiful, instantly appear before my eyes.
I woke up with a knock. Opening his eyes, he realized that the sun had not yet risen, and decided to try to fall asleep again. But all my attempts were in vain. In addition, the knock did not give rest.
Review of Bunin's story Pure Monday
The story "Clean Monday" (1944) completes the cycle from the late works of I.A. Bunin "Dark Alley". The writer laughed that he wrote "about the same thing thirty-eight times." That one theme was the theme of love. And as in everything ingenious, when we read Dark Alleys, we do not feel exhaustion or repetition in similar narratives about the relationship between a man and a woman, although even the plot scheme of the stories of the cycle is of the same type. As a rule, a meeting of heroes, a sudden rapprochement, a flash of feelings - and an inevitable separation are described. Love for Bunin is just a wonderful moment. And in each story he finds new and new shades of love feelings.
In the last story - "Clean Monday" - lyricism and pathos, folk traditions and modernity, divine and secular, merged in an amazing way; here it is as if the poetic and philosophical results of Bunin's work are summed up. The author unfolds before us a story not only about love, but about the secrets of the human soul, about the understanding of happiness, about a complex and contradictory national character, about the spirit of the historical era, about faith. And the deliberate similarity of the plots helps the reader to focus not on the course of events, but on the heroes and inimitable style of Bunin.
The main artistic device in the story "Clean Monday" is the method of antithesis. A whole system of oppositions is being built: antonyms that permeate the first sentence (“The gray Moscow winter day was darkening, the gas in the streetlights was coldly lit, the shop windows were warmly illuminated - and the evening Moscow life, freeing from day-to-day affairs, flared up: , diving trams ... "); hero and heroine, different in character (“… and as far as I was inclined to talkativeness, to simple-hearted gaiety, she was so often silent: she was thinking something, as if she was mentally delving into something…”); the elegant social life of the heroine and her deep religiosity; love that has no external obstacles, and its tragic ending. The movement of the text seems to be controlled by two opposite motives - the vulgarity of the surrounding reality and the spirituality of eternal values.
The story has a retrospective structure: the hero recalls his passionate love for the mysterious beauty. This makes it possible to present events as if in a double light: what the hero did not notice "then", he already comprehends from memory, as if summing up the results. The construction of the story on separate episodes and the circular composition allows the author not only to show the transience of time, but also to recreate the portrait of the era with the greatest completeness. The historical panorama of the 10s of the XX century in Russia is presented by people who really existed, personifying the culture of that time. Bunin ironically depicts A. Bely, K. Stanislavsky, F. Chaliapin, and this shows the manner of the writer to communicate with his contemporaries, so familiar to us from his memoirs. At the same time, the details of the reality of the beginning of the 20th century are intertwined with signs of deep antiquity: along with the restaurants Yar, Strelna, the countless names of Moscow churches, monasteries, icons (Cathedral of Christ the Savior, Kremlin, St. Basil's Cathedral, Zachatievsky monastery, the icon of the Virgin of the Three-handed woman and others), the names of historical figures (Oslyabli, Peresvet), quotes from chronicles, legends, prayers. This is how the story forms the image of an era that combines modernity and "pre-Petrine Russia", and this is how the Russian national character, woven from contradictions, is drawn.
The plot and compositional center of the work is the complex relationship between the two heroes - His and Her. The narration is in the first person, which creates the effect of presence and enhances the realism of the events. The very image of the protagonist is sketched, only his feelings and experiences are shown, and this makes the character similar to the lyric hero of Bunin's poetry. But we are alarmed that the hero does not understand the one whom he sincerely worships. Blinded by love, he cannot comprehend what kind of inner work is being done in the soul of his beloved. However, it is falling in love that gives the hero an exceptional acuity of perception, through the prism of which the portrait of the heroine is presented in the story. In her description, the epithets "strange" and "mysterious" are defining: "... she was mysterious, incomprehensible to me, our relations with her were strange ...". The details of the appearance, repeated in the portrait sketches, the epithets "black", "velvet", "amber" do not clarify the psychological state of the heroine, but, on the contrary, emphasize her mystery.
We learn that the heroine's father is “an enlightened man of a noble merchant family,” but then there is a hint of his mediocrity (“he collected something like all such merchants”). That is, in the origin we do not find an explanation for the duality of the spiritual world of the heroine, who enjoys worldly passions and worships religious rites. The duality of character is rather rooted in the combination of the western and the eastern. This girl is serious about reading European literature (Hoffmannstahl, Schnitzler, Tetmayer, Przybyshevsky), but inside her there is a lot of the East, which is manifested even in her appearance: “And she had some kind of Indian, Persian beauty: a dark amber face, magnificent and somewhat ominous in its thick black hair, softly shining like black sable fur, eyebrows, eyes black as velvet coal; the mouth, captivating with velvety-crimson lips, was shaded with dark fluff ... ". The whole life of the heroine is woven from inexplicable contradictions. She also visits ancient temples, monasteries and restaurants, and skits with equal interest. All her being is a continuous tossing between flesh and spirit, momentary and eternal. Behind the visible secular gloss, there are primordially national, Russian principles in it. And they turn out to be stronger, as they are manifested in beliefs.
Incomprehensible in her opposite inclinations, the heroine, at the same time, very organically fits into the contrasts of Moscow of those years, a city that combined the centuries-old beauty of cathedrals, the ringing of bells with the realities of the new bourgeois era.
As in all of Bunin's work, one of the most important in "Pure Monday" is the motive of beauty, inextricably linked with the image of the heroine. Moreover, beauty is not so much external as internal. The mysterious woman sees her disappearance everywhere - and this is the main torment of her soul. "But this Russia remained in some northern monasteries ...". The desire to preserve this beauty in herself leads the heroine to the monastery. In addition, she could not find a meaning in her existence in any way: “It seemed as if she didn’t need anything: not flowers,
No books, no dinners, no theaters, no dinners outside the city ... ". Therefore, a desire arose to fill life with something significant, the spiritual world. The author managed to convey the essence of the heroine so subtly that we cannot even imagine her in a situation of earthly happiness. It is interesting that, unlike Liza Kalitina from I. Turgenev's "Noble Nest", the Bunin heroine herself does not seek happiness in this life, initially realizing its impossibility. The psychologism of the author of "Dark Alley" differs significantly from the "dialectics of the soul" L. Tolstoy and "secret psychologism" I. Turgenev. The movements of the souls of Bunin's heroes defy logical explanation, the heroes seem to have no power over themselves. In this regard, attention is drawn to the impersonal verb constructions that are often used by the writer ("... for some reason I wanted to go in there ...").
In "Clean Monday" motives of the vain world and spiritual life echo with other works of Bunin. Characteristically, each of the motives is supported by its own system of images. And the great concentration of details, combined with a concise presentation, requires us to carefully read. So, the substantive basis for the motive of the vain world is functionally loaded details: literary bohemia is depicted as a meaningless "skit", where there are only "shouts", antics and posturing. The motive of spiritual life corresponds to “spontaneous” details: descriptions of nature and architectural monuments (“The evening was peaceful, sunny, with frost on the trees; on the brick-bloody walls of the monastery, jackdaws, similar to nuns, chattered in silence, chimes every now and then subtly and sadly played on the bell tower "). The feelings of the artist, who loves his native nature with all his heart, are conveyed through the range of colors and emotional tint epithets (“subtle and sad”, “light”, “marvelous”, “on the golden enamel of the sunset”).
The poetry of the story is manifested in the sound and rhythmic organization of the text. Contrasts are also striking here: “the slow, somnambulically beautiful beginning of the Moonlight Sonata is replaced by a cancan, and the sounds of the liturgy are replaced by a march from Aida. The alternation of the most important motives - temporal and eternal, the life of the flesh and the life of the spirit - constitutes the rhythmic basis of the story. The "routes" of the heroes' walks are also convincing: "Metropol" - Rogozhskoe cemetery - Egorov's tavern - theater - "skit". Finally, the very name "Clean Monday" symbolizes, in accordance with the Orthodox calendar, the border between a vain life and Great Lent, when people must cleanse themselves of the filth of worldly life. The heroine goes to a very big sin, succumbing to temptation with her beloved on this very day. True, she already knew at that moment that she was ready to renounce the earthly world and be spiritually reborn, becoming the bride of Christ. It is important that for the hero, Clean Monday becomes a turning point in life. On Forgiveness Sunday, both heroes say goodbye to their old life, which did not give them happiness, but their love remains with them in the new life. And only having purified the soul with this high feeling, a person comprehends true happiness. The interrelation of the theme of love and the theme of the purification of the soul is the leitmotif of the entire work of I.A. Bunin. “All love is a great happiness, even if it is not shared” - this is how the author wrote in the story “Dark Alleys”.