The story “Clean Monday” is the pearl of Bunin's prose. It combines all the advantages of the author: lyricism, sophistication and drama. The work was favorably received by critics and readers, it is still loved. The Literaguru team presents you with a summary of this book.
(755 words) The story is narrated on behalf of a man who recalls the days of his youth and love that passed away: every evening the coachman raced him along the Moscow streets - from the Red Gate to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior - to his beloved, who lived in an apartment opposite the church. Every evening he drove her to dinner at expensive restaurants and concerts.
He sent her flowers every Saturday, sweets, books. She graciously accepted gifts, as if, without giving them any meaning: lying on a sofa with a book, absent-mindedly said: “Thank you,” holding out her hand for a kiss.
She cut off all his attempts to talk about their future future, which bothered him, but he was obviously afraid to frighten her away, to lose, which made him appreciate every moment spent with her.
She lived alone. In a removable two-room corner apartment on the fifth floor, which she rented for a view of Moscow. At the expensive piano, she was learning the beginning of the Moonlight Sonata, the beginning! She loved luxurious clothes, and went to courses as a modest student and had breakfast in the dining room. She had a remarkable appetite, although she sometimes said that she didn’t understand how people weren’t tired of having lunch and dinner every day. Her father was a widow merchant, retired, living in Tver. He and She were young, beautiful, rich. Often when people came out into the world, people looked at them, admiring the beauty of a young couple: his beauty was hot, southern, so much so that one actor called him "some Sicilian," she said, "Indian, Persian."
She was mysterious and silent. He is talkative and restless. Despite the fact that they spent a lot of time together, they were still not very close.
Once he rebuked her that she did not represent the full strength of his love for her and did not love him. She answered:
“Imagine. As for my love, you well know that, except for my father and you, I have nobody in the world. In any case, you are my first and last. Is this not enough for you? "
When he spoke of marriage, she shook her head in the negative, saying that she was not suitable for a wife. This did not make him hopeless, he thought, “It will be seen there!” ", But didn’t talk about marriage anymore.
In trips to restaurants and concerts were held in January, February, Shrovetide. Once she met him already dressed, in all black and with quiet joy in her eyes reminded that tomorrow is Clean Monday. She invited him to visit the Novodevichy Convent. That evening, she struck him with a knowledge of church terminology; it turns out that she often visited Kremlin cathedrals ...
After the monastery, they decided to ride around Moscow, looking for the house of Griboedov on Ordynka, but none of the local passers-by knew about his location ...
Already at Okhotny Ryad, in the tavern, she again speaks of monasteries, church hymns and utters the following phrase:
“Oh, I’ll go somewhere to a monastery, to some of the most deaf, Vologda, Vyatka!”
This statement of her excited him, but he said nothing. Beloved before parting, he invited him to visit the “skit” of the Art Theater the next evening, which was not like her: she always called such events vulgar.
On the “skit” she smoked a lot and drank champagne, danced the polka ... At three o’clock in the morning he drove her home, at the entrance ordered to let the coachman go.
“... Her footsteps were heard behind the open doors of the illuminated bedroom, the way she clung to her hairpins and pulled off her dress over her head. .. I got up and went to the door: she, only in swan shoes, stood with her back to me in front of the dressing table, combing the tortoiseshell with black threads of long hair hanging along her face ... "
He woke up early in the morning from her gaze. She said that she was leaving for Tver for an unknown period in the evening and asked to leave her alone.
The letter that he received two weeks later was briefly affectionate, but a firm request not to wait for her anymore, not to try to search, to see:
“I won’t return to Moscow, so far I will go to obedience, then maybe I will decide to tonsure. May God give strength not to answer me - it is useless to extend and increase our flour ... "
He did not seek her, as she requested. He drank, became a regular of the dirtiest taverns. Gradually began to move away from such a lifestyle. Almost two years have passed since that clean Monday ...
In the fourteenth year, on New Year's Eve, he stopped the cab driver at the gates of the Martha-Mariinsky monastery, for some reason he certainly wanted to get inside. The janitor at first did not want to let him in, because at that time there was a service inside, but when he received the ruble, he sighed in dismay and let it pass. But as soon as he entered the courtyard, the icons that were carried on hands appeared from the church, the Grand Duchess followed, and a white string of nuns, or sisters, followed her. For some reason, he carefully looked at them and, as if by magic, recognized her. She raised her eyes and peered into the darkness, where he was. He wondered how she could recognize him, and quietly left the cloister, and she kept looking into the darkness.
After death
