In the work of I. A. Bunin, perhaps the leading place is occupied by the theme of love. Bunin's love is always a tragic feeling that has no hope of a happy ending; it is a difficult test for lovers. This is how it appears to readers in the story "Sunstroke".

Along with the collection of stories about love "Dark Alleys", created by Ivan Alekseevich in the mid-1920s, "Sunstroke" is one of the pearls of his work. The tragedy and complexity of the time during which I. Bunin lived and wrote were fully embodied by the writer in the images of the main characters of this work.

The work was published in "Sovremennye zapiski" in 1926. Critics took the work wary, skeptically noting the emphasis on the physiological side of love. However, not all reviewers were so sanctimonious; among them there were also those who warmly welcomed Bunin's literary experiment. In the context of the poetics of the Symbolists, his image of the Stranger was perceived as a mystical mystery of feeling, clothed in flesh and blood. It is known that the author, creating his story, was impressed by Chekhov's work, so he crossed out the introduction and began his story with a random sentence.

About what?

From the very beginning, the story is intriguing because the story begins with an impersonal sentence: "After dinner we went out ... on deck ...". The lieutenant meets a beautiful stranger on the ship, whose name, like his name, remains unknown to the reader. Both of them are struck by sunstroke; passionate, ardent feelings flare up between them. The traveler and his companion leave the ship for the city, and the next day she leaves by steamer to her family. The young officer remains completely alone and after a while realizes that he can no longer live without that woman. The story ends with the fact that, sitting under a canopy on the deck, he feels ten years older.

The main characters and their characteristics

  • She. From the story, you can learn that this woman had a family - a husband and a three-year-old daughter, to whom she returned on a steamer from Anapa (probably from rest or treatment). The meeting with the lieutenant became for her a "sunstroke" - a fleeting adventure, "clouding of her mind." She does not tell him her name and asks not to write to her in her city, as she understands that what was between them was just a momentary weakness, and her real life is completely different. She is beautiful and charming, her charm lies in mystery.
  • The lieutenant is an ardent and impressionable man. For him, a meeting with a stranger became fatal. He managed to truly realize what happened to him only after the departure of his beloved. He wants to find her, return her, because he is seriously carried away by her, but it's too late. The misfortune that can happen to a person from an overabundance of the sun, for him was a sudden feeling, true love, which made him suffer from the realization of the loss of his beloved. This loss affected him greatly.

Problematic

  • One of the main problems in the story "Sunstroke" of this story is the problem of the essence of love. In I. Bunin's understanding, love brings a person not only joy, but also suffering, making him feel unhappy. The happiness of short moments in the future pours into the bitterness of separation and painful parting.
  • This also gives rise to another problem of the story - the problem of short duration, the fragility of happiness. For both the mysterious stranger and the lieutenant, this euphoria was short-lived, but in the future they both "recalled this moment for many years." Short moments of delight are accompanied by long years of melancholy and loneliness, but I. Bunin is sure that it is thanks to them that life takes on meaning.
  • Topic

    The theme of love in the story "Sunstroke" is a feeling full of tragedy, mental anguish, but at the same time it is filled with passion and ardor. This great, all-consuming sensation becomes both happiness and grief at the same time. Bunin's love is like a match that rapidly flares up and fades away, and at the same time it suddenly strikes, like a sunstroke, and can no longer leave its imprint on the human soul.

    Meaning

    The meaning of "Sunstroke" is to show readers all facets of love. It arises suddenly, lasts a little, passes hard, like an illness. She is beautiful and painful at the same time. This feeling can both elevate a person and completely destroy him, but it is this feeling that can give him those bright moments of happiness that color his faceless everyday life and fill his life with meaning.

    Ivan Aleksandrovich Bunin in his story "Sunstroke" seeks to convey to readers his main idea that passionate and strong emotions do not always have a future: a love fever is fleeting and similar to a powerful shock, but this is what makes it the most wonderful feeling in the world.

    Interesting? Keep it on your wall!
The writer Ivan Alekseevich Bunin is a prominent representative of the literary creation of an entire era. His services on the literary front have been appreciated not only by Russian critics, but also by the world community. Everyone knows that in 1933 Bunin received the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The difficult life of Ivan Alekseevich left an imprint on his works, but in spite of everything, the theme of love as a red stripe runs through all of his work.

In 1924, Bunin began to write a series of works that were very closely related. These were separate stories, each of which was an independent work. These stories are united by one theme - this is the theme of love. Bunin combined five of his works in that cycle: "Mitya's Love", "Sunstroke", "Ida", "Mordovian Sarafan", "The Case of the Cornet Elagin". They describe five different cases of love arising out of nowhere. The very love that strikes at the very heart, overshadowing the mind and subordinating the will.

This article will focus on the story "Sunstroke". It was written in 1925 when the writer was in the Alpes-Maritimes. How the story arose later, the writer told Galina Kuznetsova, one of his lovers. She, in turn, wrote it all down in her diary.

A connoisseur of human passions, a man who can erase all boundaries in front of a wave of feelings, a writer who owned a word in perfect grace, inspired by a new feeling, easily and naturally expounded his thoughts as soon as an idea was born. Any object, any event or natural phenomenon could serve as a stimulator. The main thing is not to waste the received feeling, and fully surrender to the description, without stopping, and perhaps not completely controlling yourself.

The plot of the story

The storyline of the story is rather simple, although one should not forget that the action takes place a hundred years ago, when the morals were completely different, and it was not customary to write about it openly.

On a wonderful warm night, a man and a woman meet on the ship. They are both warmed up with wine, there are magnificent views around, the mood is good and there is romance everywhere. They talk, after that they spend the night together in the nearest hotel and leave when morning comes.

The meeting is so amazing, fleeting and unusual for both that the main characters did not even recognize each other's names. This madness is justified by the author: "I have never experienced anything like this in my entire life, neither one nor the other."

The fleeting meeting impressed the hero so much that he could not find a place for himself after parting, the next day. The lieutenant realizes that only now he understood what happiness can look like when the object of all desires is nearby. After all, for a moment, even if this night, he was the happiest person on earth. The tragedy of the situation was also added by the realization that most likely he would not see her again.

At the beginning of their acquaintance, the lieutenant and the stranger did not exchange any data, they did not even recognize each other's names. As if dooming yourself in advance to one and only communication. Young people retired with one single purpose. But this does not denigrate them, they have a serious excuse for their action. The reader learns about this from the words of the main character. After a night spent together, she seemed to conclude: "It was as if an eclipse has come over me ... Or, rather, we both got something like a sunstroke ..." And this sweet young woman wants to believe.

The narrator manages to dispel any illusions about the possible future of a wonderful couple and reports that the stranger has a family, a husband and a little daughter. And the main character, when he remembered himself, assessed the situation and decided not to lose such a beloved object of personal preference, suddenly realizes that he cannot even send a telegram to his night lover. He does not know anything about her, neither name, nor surname, nor address.

Although the author did not pay attention to the detailed description of the woman, the reader likes her. I would like to believe that the mysterious stranger is beautiful and smart. And this incident should be perceived as a sunstroke, nothing more.

Probably, Bunin created the image of a femme fatale who represented his own ideal. And although there is no detail either in appearance or in the inner filling of the heroine, we know that she has a simple and adorable laugh, long hair, since she wears hairpins. The woman has a strong and elastic body, strong small arms. About her grooming can be said by the fact that close to her there is a subtle scent of perfume.

Semantic load


In his work, Bunin did not concretize. There are no names or titles in the story. The reader does not know which steamer the main characters were sailing, in which city they made a stop. Even the names of the heroes remain unknown.

Probably, the writer wanted the reader to understand that names and titles are not important when it comes to such a sublime feeling as falling in love and love. This is not to say that the lieutenant and the married lady have a great secret love. The passion that flared up between them, most likely, was initially perceived by both of them as an affair during a trip. But something happened in the soul of the lieutenant, and now he does not find a place for himself from the surging feelings.

From the story you can see that the writer himself is a psychologist of personalities. This can be easily traced by the behavior of the protagonist. At first, the lieutenant parted with his stranger with such ease and even joy. However, after a while, he wonders what is it about this woman that makes him think about her every second, which is why now the whole world is not pleasant to him.

The writer managed to convey all the tragedy of unfulfilled or lost love.

The structure of the work


In his story, Bunin described, without pretense and embarrassment, a phenomenon that the common people call treason. But he was able to do it very subtly and beautifully, thanks to his writing talent.

In fact, the reader becomes a witness of the greatest feeling that has just been born - love. But it happens in reverse chronological order. The standard scheme: peering, acquaintance, walking, meeting, dining - all this is thrown aside. Only the acquaintance of the main characters that took place immediately leads them to the climax in the relationship between a man and a woman. And only after parting, satisfied passion suddenly gives birth to love.

"The feeling of the pleasure he had just experienced was still alive in him, but now the main thing was a new feeling."

The author conveys feelings in detail, placing emphasis on such trifles as smells and sounds. For example, the story describes in detail the morning when the market square is open, with its own smells and sounds. And from the nearby church bells can be heard ringing. It all seems happy and bright, and contributes to an unprecedented romance. At the end of the work, all the same seems to the hero unpleasant, loud and irritable. The sun no longer warms, but beats down, and one wants to hide from it.

In conclusion, one phrase should be quoted:

"The dark summer dawn was dying out far ahead, gloomy, sleepy and multicolored reflected in the river ... and the lights floated and floated back, scattered in the darkness around"

This is what reveals the concept of love of the author himself. Once Bunin himself said that there is no happiness in life, but there are some happy moments that need to be lived and appreciated. After all, love can appear suddenly, and disappear forever. Sadly, but in Bunin's stories, the heroes constantly part. Perhaps he wants to tell us that there is a lot of meaning in separation, because of it, love remains deep in the soul and diversifies human sensitivity. And it all really looks like sunstroke.


After dinner, we left the brightly and hotly lit dining room onto the deck and stopped at the railings. She closed her eyes, put her hand to her cheek with her palm outward, laughed with a simple delightful laugh - everything was delightful in this little woman - and said: - I seem to be drunk ... Where did you come from? Three hours ago, I didn't even know you existed. I don't even know where you sat. In Samara? But all the same ... Is my head spinning or are we turning somewhere? There was darkness and lights ahead. From the darkness a strong, soft wind was blowing in the face, and the lights were rushing somewhere to the side: the steamer with Volga panache was abruptly describing a wide arc, running up to a small pier. The lieutenant took her hand, raised it to his lips. The hand, small and strong, smelled of tan. And her heart sank blissfully and terribly at the thought of how strong and dark she was under this light canvas dress after a whole month of lying under the southern sun, on the hot sea sand (she said she was going from Anapa). The lieutenant muttered:- Let's get off ... - Where? She asked in surprise. “On this pier.- Why? He said nothing. She put her hand back to her hot cheek again. - Crazy ... “Let's get off,” he repeated dully. - I beg you... “Oh, do as you like,” she said, turning away. The scattered steamer hit the dimly lit pier with a soft thud, and they nearly fell on top of each other. The end of the rope flew over our heads, then it flew backwards, and the water boiled with a noise, the gangplank thundered ... The lieutenant rushed to get his things. A minute later they passed the sleepy office, went out into the deep sand, up to the hub, and silently sat down in the dusty cab. The gentle uphill climb, among the rare crooked lanterns, along the road soft with dust, seemed endless. But then they got up, drove out and crackled along the pavement, here was some kind of square, public places, watchtower, the warmth and smells of a night summer county town ... a footman in a pink shirt and a frock coat took his things with displeasure and walked forward on his trampled feet. We entered a large, but terribly stuffy room, hotly heated by the sun during the day, with white lowered curtains on the windows and two unburned candles on the mirror, and as soon as they entered and the footman closed the door, the lieutenant rushed to her so impetuously and both of them gasped in a kiss so frenziedly that for many years they remembered this moment later: neither one nor the other had ever experienced anything like this in their entire life. At ten o'clock in the morning, sunny, hot, happy, with churches ringing, with a bazaar on the square in front of the hotel, with the smell of hay, tar and again all that complex and smelly smell of the Russian provincial town, she, this little nameless woman, and without telling her name, jokingly calling herself a beautiful stranger, she left. We slept little, but in the morning, coming out from behind the screen by the bed, having washed and dressed in five minutes, she was as fresh as at seventeen. Was she embarrassed? No, very little. She was still simple, cheerful and - already reasonable. - No, no, dear, - she said in response to his request to go on together, - no, you must stay until the next steamer. If we go together, everything will be ruined. It will be very unpleasant for me. I give you my word of honor that I am not at all what you might think of me. Nothing even similar to what happened has never happened to me, and there will never be any more. I was definitely eclipsed ... Or rather, we both got something like a sunstroke ... And the lieutenant somehow easily agreed with her. In a light and happy spirit, he drove her to the dock, just in time for the departure of the pink Airplane, kissed her on deck in front of everyone and barely had time to jump onto the gangway, which had already moved back. He returned to the hotel just as easily, carelessly. However, something has changed. The number without her seemed somehow completely different than it was with her. He was still full of her - and empty. It was weird! She also smelled of good English cologne, her unfinished cup was still on the tray, but she was no longer there ... And the lieutenant's heart suddenly sank with such tenderness that the lieutenant hurried to smoke and walked up and down the room several times. - A strange adventure! He said aloud, laughing and feeling that tears were pouring into his eyes. - "I give you my word of honor that I am not at all what you might think ..." And I already left ... The screen had been pushed aside, the bed had not yet been made. And he felt that he simply did not have the strength to look at this bed now. He closed it with a screen, shut the windows so as not to hear the bazaar talk and the squeak of wheels, pulled down the white bubbling curtains, sat down on the sofa ... Yes, this is the end of this "road adventure"! She left - and now she is far away, sitting, probably, in a glass white saloon or on the deck and looking at the huge river glistening under the sun, at the oncoming rafts, at the yellow shallows, at the shining distance of water and sky, at all this immense Volga expanse. .. And I'm sorry, and already forever, forever ... Because where can they meet now? “I can't,” he thought, “I can't come to this city for no reason at all, where is her husband, where is her three-year-old girl, in general her whole family and her whole ordinary life!” - And this city seemed to him some kind of special, reserved city, and the thought that she would live her lonely life in it, often, perhaps, remembering him, remembering their accidental, such a fleeting meeting, and he already never see her, the thought amazed and startled him. No, it can't be! It would be too wild, unnatural, incredible! - And he felt such pain and such uselessness of his entire future life without her that he was seized by horror, despair. "What the hell! - he thought, getting up, again starting to walk around the room and trying not to look at the bed behind the screen. - What is it with me? And what is special about it and what actually happened? Indeed, it’s like some kind of sunstroke! And most importantly, how can I now, without her, spend the whole day in this backwater? " He still remembered her all, with all her slightest features, he remembered the smell of her tan and gingham dress, her strong body, the lively, simple and cheerful sound of her voice ... , but now the main thing was all the same this second, completely new feeling - that strange, incomprehensible feeling that did not exist at all while they were together, which he could not even imagine in himself, starting yesterday, as he thought, only funny acquaintance, and about which it was already impossible to tell her now! “And most importantly,” he thought, “you can never tell! And what to do, how to live this endless day, with these memories, with this insoluble torment, in this godforsaken town above the very shining Volga, along which this pink steamer carried her! " I had to save myself, occupy something, distract myself, go somewhere. He resolutely put on his cap, took a stack, quickly walked, jingling his spurs, along the empty corridor, ran down the steep stairs to the entrance ... Yes, but where to go? At the entrance stood a young cab, in a dexterous coat, and calmly smoked a cigarette. The lieutenant looked at him in bewilderment and amazement: how is it possible to sit so calmly on the box, smoke and generally be simple, careless, indifferent? “Probably, I'm the only one so terribly unhappy in this whole city,” he thought, heading towards the bazaar. The bazaar was already leaving. For some reason, he walked along the fresh manure among carts, among carts with cucumbers, among new bowls and pots, and the women sitting on the ground, vying to call him, took the pots in their hands and knocked, jingled fingers in them, showing their good quality, men deafened him, shouted to him: "Here are the first sort of cucumbers, your honor!" All this was so stupid, absurd that he fled from the market. He went to the cathedral, where they were already singing loudly, merrily and decisively, with the consciousness of a fulfilled duty, then he walked for a long time, circled around the small, hot and neglected garden on the cliff of the mountain, over the immense light-steel width of the river ... it was so hot that it was impossible to touch them. The peg of the cap was wet with sweat inside, his face was flushed ... Returning to the hotel, he delightedly entered the large and empty cool dining room on the ground floor, took off his cap with delight and sat down at a table near the open window, which carried heat, but that was all. - the air was still blowing, I ordered botvinya with ice ... Everything was fine, there was immeasurable happiness in everything, great joy; even in this heat and in all the smells of the bazaar, in this whole unfamiliar town and in this old district hotel, there was she, this joy, and at the same time, my heart was simply torn to pieces. He drank several glasses of vodka, nibbling on lightly salted cucumbers with dill and feeling that he, without hesitation, would die tomorrow, if it was possible by some miracle to return her, spend one more day with her, spend only then, only then, in order to express to her and prove something to her, to convince how painfully and enthusiastically he loves her ... Why prove? Why convince? He did not know why, but it was more necessary than life. - The nerves have completely cleared up! - he said, pouring the fifth glass of vodka. He pushed the botvinya away from him, asked for black coffee and began to smoke and think intensely: what should he do now, how to get rid of this sudden, unexpected love? But to get rid - he felt it too vividly - was impossible. And suddenly he quickly got up again, took the cap and stack and, asking where the post office was, hurriedly went there with the phrase of the telegram already ready in his head: "From now on, my whole life is forever, to the grave, yours, in your power." But when he reached an old thick-walled house where there was a post office and a telegraph office, he stopped in horror: he knew the city where she lived, knew that she had a husband and a three-year-old daughter, but did not know her last name or her first name! He asked her about this several times yesterday at dinner and at the hotel, and each time she laughed and said: - Why do you need to know who I am, what is my name? On the corner, near the post office, there was a photographic display case. He looked for a long time at a large portrait of some military man in thick epaulettes, with bulging eyes, with a low forehead, with amazingly magnificent sideburns and a wide chest, completely decorated with orders ... yes, amazed, he now understood it - with this terrible "sunstroke", too much love, too much happiness! He glanced at the newlyweds - a young man in a long frock coat and a white tie, cropped with a hedgehog, stretched out to the front under the arm of a girl in a wedding dress, - turned his eyes to a portrait of some pretty and perky young lady in a student cap on one side ... Then, languishing with agonizing envy of all these unknown to him, not suffering people, he began to stare intently along the street. - Where to go? What to do? The street was completely empty. The houses were all the same, white, two-story, merchant houses, with large gardens, and it seemed that there was not a soul in them; thick white dust lay on the pavement; and all this was blinding, everything was flooded with hot, fiery and joyful, but here it was like an aimless sun. In the distance, the street rose, hunched over and rested against the cloudless, grayish, with a reflection of the sky. There was something southern about it, reminiscent of Sevastopol, Kerch ... Anapa. This was especially unbearable. And the lieutenant, with his head lowered, squinting from the light, staring intently at his feet, staggering, stumbling, clinging to the spur with his spur, walked back. He returned to the hotel so overwhelmed with fatigue, as if he had made a huge trek somewhere in Turkestan, in the Sahara. He, gathering his last strength, entered his large and empty room. The room had already been tidied up, devoid of the last traces of her — only one hairpin, which she had forgotten, lay on the night table! He took off his tunic and looked at himself in the mirror: his face — an ordinary officer’s face, gray with sunburn, with whitish mustache faded from the sun and bluish whiteness of eyes that seemed even whiter from the sun — now had an excited, crazy expression, and in a thin white shirt with a starchy stand-up collar, there was something youthful and deeply unhappy. He lay on his back on the bed, put his dusty boots on the dump. The windows were open, the curtains were drawn down, and a light breeze from time to time blew them in, blew into the room with the heat of heated iron roofs and all this luminous and now completely empty, silent Volga world. He lay with his hands under the back of his head and gazed in front of him. Then he gritted his teeth, closed his eyelids, feeling the tears roll down his cheeks - and finally fell asleep, and when he opened his eyes again, the evening sun was already turning reddish yellow behind the curtains. The wind died down, the room was stuffy and dry, like in an oven ... Both yesterday and this morning were remembered as if they were ten years ago. He slowly got up, slowly washed, lifted the curtains, rang the bell and asked for the samovar and the bill, drank tea with lemon for a long time. Then he ordered a cabman to be brought in, carry out his things, and, sitting down in the cab, on its red-haired, burnt-out seat, he gave the footman a full five rubles. - And it seems, your honor, that it was I who brought you at night! - said the cabby cheerfully, taking hold of the reins. When we went down to the pier, the blue summer night was already blue over the Volga, and already many colored lights were scattered along the river, and the lights hung on the masts of the approaching steamer. - Delivered exactly! - said the cabby ingratiatingly. The lieutenant gave him five rubles, took a ticket, went to the pier ... Just like yesterday, there was a soft knock on her pier and a slight dizziness from unsteadiness underfoot, then a flying end, the sound of water boiling and running forward under the wheels a little back a steamer ... And it seemed unusually welcoming, it seemed good from the crowd of this steamer, already everywhere lit and smelling of kitchen. A minute later they ran further, upward, to the same place where she had been carried away this morning. The dark summer dawn was dying away far ahead, gloomy, sleepy and multicolored reflected in the river, still here and there glowing trembling ripples in the distance below it, under this dawn, and the lights, scattered in the darkness around, floated and floated back. The lieutenant was sitting under the awning on the deck, feeling ten years older. Alps-Maritimes, 1925.

Bunin Ivan Alekseevich

Sunstroke

Ivan Bunin

Sunstroke

After dinner, we left the brightly and hotly lit dining room onto the deck and stopped at the railings. She closed her eyes, put her hand to her cheek with her palm outward, laughed with a simple, lovely laugh - everything was lovely about this little woman - and said:

I'm completely drunk ... Actually, I'm completely out of my mind. Where did you come from? Three hours ago, I didn't even know you existed. I don't even know where you sat. In Samara? But still, you're cute. Is my head spinning, or are we turning somewhere?

There was darkness and lights ahead. From the darkness a strong, soft wind was blowing in the face, and the lights were rushing somewhere to the side: the steamer with Volga panache was abruptly describing a wide arc, running up to a small pier.

The lieutenant took her hand, raised it to his lips. The hand, small and strong, smelled of tan. And her heart sank blissfully and terribly at the thought of how strong and dark she was under this light canvas dress after a whole month of lying under the southern sun, on the hot sea sand (she said she was going from Anapa).

The lieutenant muttered:

Let's get off ...

Where? she asked in surprise.

On this pier.

He said nothing. She put her hand back to her hot cheek again.

Crazy...

Let's get off, ”he repeated dully. - I beg you...

Oh, do as you like, ”she said, turning away.

The scattered steamer slammed into the dimly lit pier with a soft thud, and they nearly fell on top of each other. The end of the rope flew over our heads, then it flew backwards, and the water boiled with a noise, the gangplank thundered ... The lieutenant rushed to get his things.

A minute later they passed the sleepy office, went out into the deep sand, up to the hub, and silently sat down in the dusty cab. The gentle uphill climb, among the rare crooked lanterns, along the road soft with dust, seemed endless. But then they got up, drove out and crackled along the (pavement, here is some kind of square, public places, watchtower, warmth and smells of a night summer county town ... an unshaven footman in a pink blouse and a frock coat took his things with displeasure and walked forward on his trampled feet. came in and the footman closed the door, the lieutenant rushed to her so impetuously and both gasped in the kiss so frenziedly that for many years later they recalled this moment: neither one nor the other had ever experienced anything like this in their entire life.

At ten o'clock in the morning, sunny, hot, happy, with the ringing of churches, with a bazaar on the square in front of the hotel, with the smell of hay, tar and again all that complex I smelling like what a Russian county town smells like, she, this little nameless woman, and without telling her name, jokingly calling herself a beautiful stranger, she left. We slept little, but in the morning, coming out from behind the screen by the bed, having washed and dressed in five minutes, she was as fresh as at seventeen. Was she embarrassed? No, very little. She was still simple, cheerful and - already reasonable.

No, no, dear, - she said in response to his request to go on together, - no, you must stay until the next steamer. If we go together, everything will be ruined. It will be very unpleasant for me. I give you my word of honor that I am not at all what you might think of me. Nothing even similar to what happened has never happened to me, and there will never be any more. I was definitely eclipsed ... Or rather, we both got something like a sunstroke ...

And the lieutenant somehow easily agreed with her. In a light and happy spirit, he drove her to the pier - just in time for the departure of the pink Plane - kissed her in front of everyone on the deck and barely had time to jump onto the gangway, which had already moved back.

He returned to the hotel just as easily, carelessly. However, something has changed. The number without her seemed somehow completely different than it was with her. He was still full of her - and empty. It was weird! She also smelled of good English cologne, her unfinished cup was still standing on the tray, but she was no longer there ... And the lieutenant's heart suddenly sank with such tenderness that the lieutenant hurried to light a cigarette and, slapping himself on the bootlegs with a stack, several times walked up and down room.

A strange adventure! he said aloud, laughing and feeling that tears were pouring into his eyes. - "I give you my word of honor that I am not at all what you might think ..." And already left ... Ridiculous woman!

The screen had been pushed aside, the bed had not yet been made. And he felt that he simply did not have the strength to look at this bed now. He closed it with a screen, shut the windows so as not to hear the bazaar talk and the squeak of wheels, pulled down the white bubbling curtains, sat down on the sofa ... Yes, this is the end of this "road adventure"! She left - and now she is already far away, sitting, probably, in a glass white saloon or on the deck and looking at the huge river glistening under the sun, at the oncoming rafts, at the yellow shallows, at the shining distance of water and sky, at all this immense Volga expanse. .. And I'm sorry, and already forever, forever. - Because where can they meet now? - "I can't, he thought, I can't come to this city for no reason, no reason, where her husband, her three-year-old girl, in general her whole family and her whole ordinary life!" And this city seemed to him some kind of special, reserved city, and the thought that she would live her lonely life in it, often, perhaps, remembering him, remembering their accidental, such a fleeting meeting, and he never will not see her, this thought amazed and amazed him. No, it can't be! It would be too wild, unnatural, incredible! - And he felt such pain and such uselessness of his entire future life without her that he was seized by horror, despair.

“What the hell!” He thought, getting up, again starting to walk around the room and trying not to look at the bed behind the screen. special and what actually happened? Indeed, like some kind of sunstroke! And most importantly, how can I now, without her, spend the whole day in this backwater? "

He still remembered her all, with all her slightest features, he remembered the smell of her tan and gingham dress, her strong body, the lively, simple and cheerful sound of her voice ... , but now the main thing was still this second, completely new feeling - that painful, incomprehensible feeling that did not exist at all while they were together, which he could not even imagine in himself, starting yesterday, as he thought, only funny acquaintance, and about which there was no one, there was no one to tell now! - "And most importantly, he thought, you will never tell! And what to do, how to live this endless day, with these memories, with this insoluble torment, in this godforsaken town above that shining Volga along which this pink steamer! "

Sunstroke
story
reads reads V.Zozulin

Bunin's concept of love is also revealed in the story "Sunstroke", written in the Alps-Maritimes in 1925.
This work, in my opinion, is typical of Bunin. Firstly, it is structured in the same way as many other stories, and depicts the experiences of the hero, in whose life a great feeling was met.
So, the story begins with a meeting on the ship of two people: a man and a woman. A mutual attraction arises between them, and they decide on an instant love affair. Waking up in the morning, they act as if nothing had happened, and soon "she" leaves, leaving "him" alone. They know that they will never see each other, do not attach any importance to the meeting, but ... something strange begins to happen to the hero ... In the finale, the lieutenant again finds himself in the same situation: he is again sailing on the ship, but "feels yourself ten years older. " Emotionally, the story affects the reader in an amazing way. But not because we sympathize with the hero, but because the hero made us think about the meaning of life. Why are heroes unhappy? Why does Bunin not give them the right to find happiness? Why, having experienced such wonderful moments, do they part?
The story is titled "Sunstroke". What does this name mean? There is a feeling of something instantaneous, suddenly striking, and here - and entailing the devastation of the soul, suffering, unhappiness. This is especially clearly felt if we compare the beginning and the end of the story.
A whole series of details of the story, as well as the scene of the meeting between the lieutenant and the cabman, help us to understand the author's intention. The most important thing that we discover after reading the story "Sunstroke" is that love, which Bunin describes in his works, has no future. His heroes can never find happiness, they are doomed to suffer. "Sunstroke" once again reveals Bunin's concept of love: "Having fallen in love, we die ...".

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin
Russian writer: prose writer, poet, publicist. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was born on October 22 (according to the old style - October 10), 1870 in Voronezh, in the family of an impoverished nobleman who belonged to an old noble family.
Literary fame to Ivan Bunin came in 1900 after the publication of the story "Antonov apples". In 1901, the Scorpion publishing house of the Symbolists published a collection of poems "Falling Leaves". For this collection and for the translation of the poem of the American romantic poet G. Longfellow "The Song of Hiawatha" (1898, some sources indicate 1896), the Russian Academy of Sciences awarded Ivan Alekseevich Bunin the Pushkin Prize. In 1902, the publishing house "Knowledge" published the first volume of the works of I.A. Bunin. In 1905, Bunin, who lived in the National Hotel, witnessed the December armed uprising.

The last years of the writer were spent in poverty. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin died in Paris. On the night of November 7-8, 1953, two hours after midnight, he was gone: he died quietly and calmly, in his sleep. On his bed was a novel by L.N. Tolstoy's "Resurrection". Buried Ivan Alekseevich Bunin in the Russian cemetery Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois, near Paris.
In 1927-1942, a friend of the Bunin family was Galina Nikolaevna Kuznetsova, who became a deep late affection of Ivan Alekseevich and wrote a number of memoirs ("The Grass Diary", article "In Memory of Bunin"). In the USSR, the first collected works of I.A. Bunin was published only after his death - in 1956 (five volumes in the Ogonyok Library).


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