“Problematics and heroes of I. Bunin's story "Sunstroke". Analysis of I. Bunin's story "Sunstroke" Theme of the story Bunin's sunstroke

In the work of I. A. Bunin, perhaps, the theme of love occupies a leading place. Bunin's love is always a tragic feeling that has no hope for 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 love stories "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 accepted the work with caution, skeptically noticing the emphasis on the physiological side of love. However, not all reviewers were so sanctimonious, among them were those who warmly welcomed Bunin's literary experiment. In the context of symbolist poetics, his image of the Stranger was perceived as a mystical mystery of feeling, dressed in flesh and blood. It is known that the author, when 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 in that the narrative begins with an impersonal sentence: "After dinner, we went ... on deck ...". The lieutenant meets a beautiful stranger on the ship, whose name, like his name, remains unknown to the reader. They both seem to be hit by a 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 boat to her family. The young officer is left all alone and after a while realizes that he can no longer live without that woman. The story ends with the fact that he, sitting under a canopy on the deck, feels ten years older.

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 by boat from Anapa (probably from vacation or treatment). The meeting with the lieutenant became for her a "sunstroke" - a fleeting adventure, a "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 happened between them is only a momentary weakness, and her real life is completely different. She is beautiful and charming, her charm lies in the mystery.
• The lieutenant is an ardent and impressionable man. For him, a meeting with a stranger was fatal. He only managed to truly realize what had happened to him after the departure of his beloved. He wants to find her, return her, because he was 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 had a profound effect on him.

Issues

• One of the main problems in the story "Sunstroke" of this story is the problem of the essence of love. In the understanding of I. Bunin, love brings a person not only joy, but also suffering, making him feel unhappy. The happiness of short moments later results in the bitterness of separation and painful parting.
• From this follows another problem of the story - the problem of the short duration, the fluctuation of happiness. And for the mysterious stranger, and for the lieutenant, this euphoria was short-lived, but in the future they both "remembered this moment for many years." Short moments of delight are accompanied by long years of longing and loneliness, but I. Bunin is sure that it is thanks to them that life acquires meaning.

Subject

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 feeling becomes both happiness and grief. Bunin's love is like a match that rapidly flares up and dies out, and at the same time it suddenly strikes, like a sunstroke, and can no longer leave its imprint on the human soul.

Meaning

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

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

Interesting? Save it on your wall!

Many of I. Bunin's works are hymns of true love, which has everything: tenderness, passion, and a feeling of that special connection between the souls of two lovers. This feeling is also described in the story "Sunstroke", which the writer considered one of his best works. Pupils get acquainted with him in the 11th grade. We offer to facilitate the preparation for the lesson by using the analysis of the work presented below. The analysis will also help you quickly and efficiently prepare for the lesson and the exam.

Brief analysis

Year of writing- 1925

History of creation- I. Bunin was inspired to write the work by the nature of the Maritime Alps. The story was created at a time when the writer was working on a cycle of works related to love.

Subject- The main theme of the work is true love, which a person feels both in soul and body. In the final part of the work, the motive of separation from a loved one appears.

Composition- The formal organization of the story is simple, but there are certain features. The elements of the plot are placed in a logical sequence, but the work begins with a plot. Another feature is the framing: the story begins and ends with a picture of the sea.

Genre- Story.

Direction- Realism.

History of creation

"Sunstroke" was written by I. Bunin in 1925. It is worth noting that the year of writing coincided with the period when the writer worked on stories dedicated to the theme of love. This is one of the factors that explains the psychological depth of the work.

I. Bunin told G. Kuznetsova about the history of creation. After the conversation, the woman wrote the following in her diary: “We talked yesterday about writing and about how stories are born. I.A. (Ivan Alekseevich) it begins with nature, some picture that flashed through the brain, often a fragment. So the sunstroke came from the idea of ​​going out on deck after dinner, from the light into the darkness of a summer night on the Volga. And the end came later

Subject

In "Sunstroke", the analysis of the work should begin with a description of the main problems. The story showed motive, very common both in world and domestic literature. Nevertheless, the author managed to reveal it in an original way, delving into the psychology of the characters.

In the center of the piece subject sincere, passionate love, in the context of which Problems relationships between people, separation of lovers, internal contradiction caused by incompatibility of feelings and circumstances. Issues works based on psychology. The system of images is unbranched, so the reader's attention is constantly focused on two characters - the lieutenant and the beautiful stranger.

The story begins with a description of lunch on the deck of the ship. It was in such conditions that young people met. A spark immediately flew between them. The man offered the girl to run away from strangers. They got off the ship and went to the hotel. When the young people were left alone, the flames of passion immediately engulfed their bodies and minds.

The time at the hotel flew by. In the morning, the lieutenant and the beautiful stranger were forced to part, but it turned out to be very difficult to do this. Young people wonder what happened to them. They assume it was sunstroke. In these arguments lies the meaning of the title of the work. Sunstroke in this context is a symbol of a sudden mental shock, love that overshadows the mind.

Beloved persuades the lieutenant to escort her to the deck. Here the man seems to be struck by sunstroke again, because he allows himself to kiss a stranger in front of everyone. The hero cannot recover for a long time after separation. He is tormented by thoughts that his beloved most likely has a family, so they are not destined to be together. A man tries to write to his beloved, but then he realizes that he does not know her address. In such a rebellious state, the hero spends another night, recent events are gradually moving away from him. However, they do not pass without a trace: it seems to the lieutenant that he has aged ten years.

Composition

The composition of the work is simple, but some features are worth paying attention to. Plot elements are placed in a logical sequence. Nevertheless, the story begins not with an exposition, but with a plot. This technique enhances the sound of the idea. The characters get to know each other, and then we learn more about them. The development of events - a night in a hotel and a morning conversation. The climax is the parting scene between the lieutenant and the stranger. The denouement - the outbreak of love is gradually forgotten, but leaves a deep imprint in the soul of the hero. This conclusion provides the reader with the opportunity to draw certain conclusions.

The framing can also be considered a feature of the composition of the work: the story begins and ends with a scene on the deck.

Genre

The genre of I. Bunin's work "Sunstroke" is a story, as evidenced by such signs: a small volume, the main role is played by the storyline of lovers, there are only two main characters. The direction of the story is realism.

Artwork test

Analysis Rating

Average rating: 4.6. Total ratings received: 112.

idea and meaning of the story. A. bunina sunstroke? and got the best answer

Answer from Alexey Khoroshev[guru]
The plot of the story is simple, but the subtext is complex, it can be understood at the level of feelings, intuition, memories.
The story "Sunstroke", written in 1925 in the Maritime Alps. This work, as well as "Ida", "The Case of Cornet Elagin", anticipates the collection of short stories "Dark Alleys".
“Every love is a great happiness, even if it is not divided” - this phrase of the writer can be put as an epigraph to all his stories about love. He talked a lot about her, beautiful, incomprehensible, mysterious. But if in the early stories Bunin wrote about tragic unrequited love, then in Sunstroke it is mutual. And yet tragic! Incredible? How can that be? It turns out it can.
The plot of the story is simple. He and she meet on the ship. The meeting is random, warmed up by wine, the warmth of the night, a romantic mood. The heroes, getting off the ship, spend the night in a hotel, and part in the morning. That's all. As you can see, Bunin updates the genre of the story, simplifies the event plot, deprives the story of external entertainment. Behind a very banal plot lies an internal conflict - the conflict of the hero with himself, so Bunin does not pay much attention to events, he writes about feelings. But it is very difficult to look into the soul of a person, into this vast and unknown world, closed from prying eyes. What do we know about heroes? Almost nothing. He, the lieutenant, traveling according to his need, at first does not take this “road adventure” seriously. She leaves home in the morning, where her husband and three-year-old daughter are waiting for her. Is the woman beautiful? Bunin does not offer us a specific portrait of a stranger, but he details it. We see her small strong hand, strong body, her hair, which she fastens with hairpins, we hear her “simple lovely laugh”, we feel the delicate aroma of her perfume.
This is how the image of a mysterious femme fatale is created, as if Bunin wanted to unravel the secret of female charm, which has such a magical effect on a man. And he succeeded. The reader is fascinated by this stranger. He, she, the city - everything is nameless. What is this? Generalization? Or maybe it's not all that important? The important thing is that for the reader they will simply remain a Man and a Woman with a great secret of love. It is important that the city will remain the City of the Sun, happy and unsolved. It is important that Bunin, being a subtle psychologist, allows us to gradually follow the internal state of the hero. Easily and happily, the lieutenant parted with the stranger, carelessly returned to the hotel. But something happened that the lieutenant could not have imagined: his funny adventure was not forgotten! What is this? Love! But how to convey in words what a person can feel on paper? How did Bunin manage to show “all the cataclysms that shake the fragile bodily foundation to the core, when the whole world is transformed in a person’s sensations, when sensitivity to everything around is heightened to the limit?” The writer was able to convey the painful experiences of the hero. Immediately before us is a change in the mood of a man. At first, the lieutenant becomes sad, his heart shrinks with “tenderness". He tries to hide his confusion behind external bravado. Then a kind of dialogue with himself takes place. He tries to laugh, shrug his shoulders, smoke, drive away sad thoughts and ... he cannot. He constantly finds objects reminiscent of a stranger: "a hairpin, a crumpled bed", "an unfinished cup"; he smells her perfume. This is how flour, longing is born. There is no trace of lightness and carelessness!
The system of antonyms proposed by Bunin is aimed at showing what an abyss lay between the past and the present. “The room was still full of her”, her presence was still felt, but already “the room was empty”, “and she was already gone”, “already left”, “she will never see her”, and “you will never say anything again”. The ratio of contrasting sentences that connect the past and the present through memory is constantly visible.

Answer from Makakina[guru]
May garb. Read it and that's all .. Bunin has no veil in his works (almost none) if you read (by the way, not such a great work) you will understand everything yourself!

Ivan Bunin's story "Sunstroke" is amazing and original in its own way. At first glance, the storyline is fairly common. But this is only at first glance. There is hardly a work more finely organized than "Sunstroke". Bunin analyzes in it problems of a personal nature: moments of choice that influence the future fate of a person. The heroes make their choice - and find themselves far from each other.

"Sunstroke" (Bunin): a summary

While traveling on a ship, a military man - a lieutenant and a young woman - a stranger, meet. The author does not endow her with a name, however, as well as a lieutenant. They are just people, their history is not unique at all, similar to many of those that happen. The couple spend the night together. The young woman is embarrassed, but she has no remorse for what has happened. It's just that she has to go, and it's time for him to get off the ship. The lieutenant easily releases the woman, escorts her to the pier and returns to his room. Here, his scent of her perfume, the half-finished cup of coffee they forgot to put away, the memory of last night still alive.

The lieutenant's heart is suddenly filled with a touching feeling, which he is unable to accept and tries to drown out by trying to continuously smoke cigarettes. As if looking for salvation from impending tenderness, he rushes into the city, wanders thoughtlessly through the market, passes among people and feels. When an inexpressible feeling prevents him from thinking, thinking sensibly and reasoning, he decides to send her a telegram, but on the way to the post office he no name, no woman's surname, no address. Back in his room, he feels ten years older. The lieutenant already understands that they will never meet again.

This is a very capacious content of the story, although quite short. Bunin's "sunstroke" in retelling will allow high school students to better prepare for literature lessons. The information may be useful for students of pedagogical colleges, as well as those who study at universities.

What is the story "Sunstroke" about?

Bunin's work "Sunstroke" tells about the unexpected love that overtakes the main characters (lieutenant and stranger) while traveling on a ship. Both of them are not ready for the feeling that has appeared.

Moreover, they have absolutely no time to figure it out: there is only one day, which decides the outcome of events. When the time comes to say goodbye, the lieutenant cannot even think about what kind of torment he will experience after the young woman leaves his comfortable room. It is as if a whole life passes before his eyes, which is measured, now evaluated from the height of yesterday's night and the feeling that bewitched the lieutenant.

Story Composition

The story can be conditionally divided into three parts, containing different semantic meanings: the first part is the moment when the lieutenant and the stranger are together. Both are confused, somewhat confused.

The second compositional part: the moment of parting of the lieutenant and the young woman. The third part is the moment of awakening a tender feeling, which is difficult to control. The author very subtly shows the moments of transition from one compositional part to another, while the state of the main character, the lieutenant, gradually becomes the center of the narrative.

The ideological component of the story

The meeting of the lieutenant and the stranger became for both of them akin to a real sunstroke, brought blindness with passion, and then bitter insight. Bunin is talking about this. The book "Sunstroke" is fanned by a romantic beginning, tells about the need of everyone to love and be loved, but at the same time it is absolutely devoid of illusions. Perhaps the young men will see here the desire of the heroes to find their only love, but rather, this is an attempt to abandon love in favor of common sense: “We had to save ourselves ...” “This new feeling was too much happiness,” which, obviously, the heroes could not afford otherwise, one would have to change the entire established way of life, make some changes in oneself and change the environment.

The state of a stranger

The image of a young woman whom the lieutenant meets on the ship, Bunin draws without embellishment and does not endow her with special characteristics. She has no name - she is just a woman with whom a certain lieutenant spent the night.

But the author very subtly emphasizes her experiences, anxieties and worries. The woman says, "I'm not at all what you might imagine me to be." Perhaps she was looking for in this fleeting connection the need to love and be loved. Perhaps for her everything that happened was nothing more than an accident, a surprise. It must be that in her married life (the presence of which is mentioned in the story) she did not receive enough warmth and attention. We see that the stranger does not make any plans, does not oblige the lieutenant in anything. That is why she does not consider it necessary to give her name. It is bitter and painful for her to leave, leaving the lieutenant forever, but she does this, obeying her intuition. She subconsciously already knows that their relationship will not end well.

Lieutenant's status

As shown in the story, it is likely that at first the main character was not ready to appreciate the feeling that had arisen for an unfamiliar woman. Therefore, he so easily releases her from him, believing that nothing binds them.

Only when he returns to his room, he feels the signs of the beginning "fever" and understands that it cannot be avoided. He no longer belongs to himself, he is not free. He was suddenly incredibly affected by the atmosphere of the room in which they spent the night together: “there was still an unfinished cup of coffee on the table, the bed was still unmade, but it was gone.” The lieutenant cannot accept this feeling, in every possible way pushes it away from him, almost reaches a frenzy.

Metamorphosis of the lieutenant and its meaning

The way his state of mind changes speaks of the awakening power of feelings. Perhaps the lieutenant, a military man, could not even imagine that some fleeting meeting with a woman would so turn his entire system of values ​​upside down, make him rethink the significance of life and rediscover its meaning. The theme of love as the greatest mystery that knows no compromises is revealed in the story "Sunstroke". Bunin analyzes the state of his hero, emphasizes the confusion and despair, as well as the bitterness with which he tries to suppress the awakening feeling of love in himself. In this unequal battle, it is quite difficult to win. The lieutenant is defeated and feels tired, ten years older.

Main idea of ​​the story

Obviously, with his work, the author wanted to show the dramatic outcome of love. Meanwhile, each of us is always free to choose how to act in this or that difficult situation. The lieutenant and his lady were simply not ready to accept a generous gift of fate, therefore they preferred to part, having barely met. Yes, and it is difficult to call it an acquaintance - they did not tell each other their names, did not exchange addresses.

Most likely, their meeting was only an attempt to drown out the disturbing voice of a yearning heart. As you might guess, the characters are unhappy in their personal lives and very lonely, despite being married. They did not leave each other addresses, did not give their names because they did not want to continue the relationship. This is the main idea of ​​the story "Sunstroke". Bunin analyzes and compares the heroes, which of them is no longer ready for a new life, but as a result it turns out that both show significant cowardice.

Theatrical productions and cinema

This work was filmed more than once, and also played on the stage of the theater, the situation that Bunin described in the story "Sunstroke" is so amazing. Mikhalkov filmed the film of the same name in Bouvre. The acting is amazing, it conveys the feelings of the characters and their inner pain to the utmost, which sounds like a heavy chord from beginning to end.

There is probably no other work that evokes such ambivalent feelings as "Sunstroke". Bunin, reviews of this story (very contradictory) confirm this, described a situation that leaves few people indifferent. Someone pities the main characters and believes that they certainly needed to find each other, others are sure that such meetings between a man and a woman should remain a secret, an unattainable dream and have nothing to do with reality. Who knows whether it is worth believing in a sudden passion or should one look for the cause deep within oneself? Perhaps all "love" is only an enthusiastic fantasy, characteristic of youth?

Ivan Bunin "Sunstroke" and the school curriculum

I would like to note that this story is included in the school curriculum of compulsory study in literature and is intended for older students - children of sixteen - seventeen years old. As a rule, at this age, the work is perceived in pink colors, it appears to young people as a story about great love. For older people and adults enough, the work suddenly opens up from the other side and makes you think about the question of how ready we are in life to accept love and how we do it. The fact is that in youth it seems that love itself is able to overcome any obstacles. By the age of twenty-five or thirty, an understanding comes that nothing in life is given for free, and such a feeling as love must be protected with all the strength of the soul and heart.

Unforgettably strong work - "Sunstroke". Bunin analyzes in it a person’s ability to accept love in special circumstances of life and how the characters cope with this task, shows that in most cases people are not able to recognize it at the very beginning and take responsibility for the development of relationships. Such love is doomed.

This is what Bunin tells about in his work “Sunstroke”. The summary allows you to determine the theme of the story, its compositional and ideological component. If you are interested in this description, we recommend that you refer to reading. "Sunstroke", no doubt, is one of those works that leave a feeling of slight sadness after reading and linger in memory for a long time.

Russian literature has always been distinguished by extraordinary chastity. Love, in the view of a Russian person and a Russian writer, is primarily a spiritual feeling. The attraction of souls, mutual understanding, spiritual community, similarity of interests have always been more important than the attraction of bodies, the desire for physical intimacy. The latter, in accordance with Christian dogmas, was even condemned. L. Tolstoy administers a strict trial over Anna Karenina, no matter what various critics say. In the traditions of Russian literature, there was also an image of women of easy virtue (remember Sonechka Marmeladova) as pure and immaculate creatures, whose soul is in no way affected by the “costs of the profession”. And in no way could a short-term connection, a spontaneous rapprochement, a carnal impulse of a man and a woman to each other be welcomed and not justified. A woman who embarked on this path was perceived as a creature either frivolous or desperate. In order to justify Katerina Kabanova in her actions and see in her betrayal of her husband an impulse for freedom and a protest against oppression in general, N.A. Dobrolyubov in his article “A Ray of Light in a Dark Kingdom” had to involve the entire system of social relations in Russia! And of course, such a relationship has never been called love. Passion, attraction at its best. Ho not love.

Bunin fundamentally rethinks this "scheme". For him, the feeling that suddenly arises between random fellow travelers on the ship turns out to be as priceless as love. Moreover, it is love that is this heady, selfless, suddenly arising feeling, causing association with a sunstroke. He is convinced of this. “Soon it will be released,” he wrote to his friend, “the story “Sunstroke”, where I again, as in the novel“ Mitina Love ”, in“ The Case of Cornet Elagin ”, in“ Ida ”,“ I talk about love.

Bunin's interpretation of the theme of love is connected with his idea of ​​Eros as a powerful elemental force - the main form of manifestation of cosmic life. It is tragic in its essence, as it turns a person upside down, dramatically changes the course of his life. Much in this respect brings Bunin closer to Tyutchev, who also believed that love does not so much bring harmony into human existence as it reveals the "chaos" lurking in it. But if Tyutchev was nevertheless attracted by the “union of the soul with the soul of his own”, which ultimately resulted in a fatal duel, if in his poems we see unique individuals who initially, even striving for this, are not able to bring happiness to each other, then Bunina is not concerned about the union of souls. Rather, he is shocked by the union of bodies, which in turn gives rise to a special understanding of life and another person, a feeling of indestructible memory, which makes life meaningful, and in a person shows his natural beginnings.

It can be said that the whole story “Sunstroke”, which, as the writer himself admitted, grew out of one mental “idea of ​​going on deck ... from the light into the darkness of a summer night on the Volga”, is devoted to a description of this immersion in darkness, which the lieutenant is experiencing who lost his random lover. This immersion in darkness, almost “insanity” takes place against the backdrop of an unbearably stuffy sunny day, filling everything around with penetrating heat. All descriptions are literally overflowing with burning sensations: the room where random fellow travelers spend the night is “hotly hot during the day by the sun”. And the next day begins with a "sunny, hot morning." And later, “everything around was flooded with a hot, fiery ... sun.” And even in the evening, heat spreads in the rooms from the heated iron roofs, the wind raises thick white dust, the huge river glistens under the sun, the distance of water and sky shines dazzlingly. And after the forced wanderings around the city, the shoulder straps and buttons of the lieutenant's tunic “burned so much that they could not be touched. The band of the cap was wet with sweat inside, his face was on fire...”.

The sunshine, the blinding whiteness of these pages should remind readers of the “sunstroke” that overtook the heroes of the story. This is at the same time immeasurable, sharpest happiness, but it is still a blow, albeit a “sunny”, i.e. painful, twilight state, loss of reason. Therefore, if at first the epithet solar is adjacent to the epithet happy, then later on the pages of the story there will appear “a joyful, but here it seems to be an aimless sun.”

Bunin very carefully reveals the ambiguous meaning of his work. He does not allow the participants in a short-term romance to immediately understand what happened to them. The heroine pronounces the first words about some kind of “eclipse”, “sunstroke”. Later, he will repeat them in bewilderment: “Indeed, it’s like some kind of “sunstroke”. But she still talks about it without thinking, more concerned about ending the relationship right away, because it may be “unpleasant” for her to continue it: if they go again together, “everything will be spoiled”. At the same time, the heroine repeatedly repeats that this has never happened to her, that what happened on her own day is incomprehensible, incomprehensible, unique. But the lieutenant, as it were, passes her words past her ears (later, however, with tears in his eyes, perhaps only in order to revive her intonation, he repeats them), he easily agrees with her, easily takes her to the pier, easily and Carelessly returns to the room where they had just been together.

And now the main action begins, because the whole story of the rapprochement of two people was only an exposition, only a preparation for the shock that happened in the soul of the lieutenant and which he immediately cannot believe. First, it is about the strange feeling of the emptiness of the room, which struck him when he returned. Bunin boldly collides antonyms in sentences to sharpen this impression: “The number without her seemed somehow completely different than it was with her. He was still full of her - and empty ... She still smelled of her good English cologne, her unfinished cup was still standing on the tray, but she was already gone. And in the future, this contrast - the presence of a person in the soul, in memory and his real absence in the surrounding space - will intensify with every moment. In the soul of the lieutenant, a feeling of wildness, unnaturalness, implausibility of what happened, intolerable pain from loss is growing. The pain is such that it must be saved at all costs. There is no salvation in anything. And every action only brings him closer to the thought that he cannot “get rid of this sudden, unexpected love” in any way, that his memories of the experience, “the smell of her sunburn and canvas dress”, about the “lively, simple and cheerful sound” will forever haunt him. her voices." Once F. Tyutchev begged:

Oh Lord, give me burning suffering
And dispel the deadness of my soul:
You took it, but the flour of remembrance,
Leave living flour to me for her.

The heroes of Bunin do not need to conjure - the “torment of remembrance” is always with them. The writer perfectly depicts that terrible feeling of loneliness, rejection from other people, which the lieutenant experienced, pierced by love. Dostoevsky believed that such a feeling can be experienced by a person who has committed a terrible crime. Such is his Raskolnikov. What crime did the lieutenant commit? Only that he was overwhelmed by “too much love, too much happiness”!? However, this is what immediately distinguished him from the mass of ordinary people living an ordinary, unremarkable life. Bunin deliberately picks out individual human figures from this mass in order to clarify this idea. Here, at the entrance of the hotel, a cab stopped and simply, carelessly, indifferently, calmly sitting on the box, smokes a cigarette, and another cab driver, taking the lieutenant to the pier, says something cheerfully. Here the women and peasants at the bazaar are energetically inviting buyers, praising their goods, and satisfied newlyweds look at the lieutenant from photographs, a pretty girl in a wrinkled cap and some military man with magnificent sideburns, in a uniform decorated with orders. And in the cathedral the church choir sings “loudly, cheerfully, resolutely.”

Of course, the fun, carelessness and happiness of others are seen through the eyes of the hero, and, probably, this is not entirely true. But the fact of the matter is that from now on he sees the world just like that, imbued with people who are not “hit” by love, “torturously envy”. After all, they really do not experience that unbearable torment, that incredible suffering that does not give him a moment of peace. Hence his sharp, some kind of convulsive movements, gestures, impetuous actions: “quickly got up”, “hurriedly walked”, “stopped in horror”, “began to stare intently”. The writer pays special attention to the gestures of the character, his facial expressions, his views (for example, an unmade bed repeatedly falls into his field of vision, possibly still keeping the warmth of their bodies). Also important are his impressions of being, the sensations uttered aloud by the most elementary, but therefore striking phrases. Only occasionally does the reader get the opportunity to learn about his thoughts. This is how Bunin's psychological analysis is built, at the same time both secret and explicit, some kind of "super-obvious".

The culmination of the story can be considered the phrase: “Everything was fine, there was immense happiness in everything, great joy; even in this heat and in all the smells of the marketplace, in all this unfamiliar town and in this old county hotel, there was this joy, and at the same time, the heart was simply torn to pieces. It is even known that in one of the editions of the story it was said that the lieutenant "had a persistent thought of suicide." Thus, a dividing line is drawn between the past and the present. From now on, he exists, “deeply unhappy”, and some of them, others, happy and contented. And Bunin agrees that “everything everyday, ordinary is wild, scary” to the heart, which was visited by great love - that “new ... strange, incomprehensible feeling”, which this unremarkable person “could not even imagine in himself”. And mentally the hero dooms his chosen one to a “lonely life” in the future, although he knows perfectly well that she has a husband and daughter. But the husband and daughter are present in the dimension of “ordinary life”, just as simple, unpretentious joys remain in “ordinary life”. Therefore, for him, after parting, the whole world around turns into a desert (not without reason in one of the phrases of the story - on a completely different occasion - the Sahara is mentioned). “The street was completely empty. The houses were all the same, white, two-story, merchants ... and it seemed that there was not a soul in them. The room breathes with the heat of “light-bearing (and therefore colorless, blinding! - M.M.) and now completely empty, silent ... world”. This “silent Volga world” comes to replace the “immeasurable Volga expanse”, in which she, beloved, the only one, disappeared, disappeared forever. This motif of the disappearance and at the same time the presence in the world of a human being living in human memory is very reminiscent of the intonation of Bunin's story “Light Breath” -

about the chaotic and unrighteous life of the young schoolgirl Olya Meshcherskaya, who possessed this most inexplicable “light breath” and died at the hands of her lover. It ends with these lines: "Now this light breath has again dissipated in the world, in this cloudy sky, in this cold spring wind."

In full accordance with the contrast between the individual existence of a grain of sand (such a definition suggests itself!) And the boundless world, a collision of times so significant for Bunin's concept of life arises - the present, present, even momentary time and eternity, into which time grows without it. The word never begins to sound like a refrain: “he will never see her again”, “never tell” her about his feelings. I would like to write: “From now on, my whole life is forever, until your grave ...” - but you cannot send a telegram to her, since the name and surname are unknown; I’m ready to die even tomorrow in order to spend a day together today, to prove my love, but it’s impossible to return my beloved ... At first, it seems unbearable for the lieutenant to live without her only an endless, but a single day in a dusty town forgotten by God. Then this day will turn into flour "the uselessness of all future life without her."

The story has, in fact, a circular composition. At the very beginning of it, a blow is heard on the pier of the moored steamer, and at the end the same sounds are heard. Days passed between them. One day. Ho, in the view of the hero and the author, they are separated from each other by at least ten years (this figure is repeated twice in the story - after everything that happened, after realizing his loss, the lieutenant feels “aged ten years”!), but in fact, by eternity. Another person is riding on the ship again, having comprehended some of the most important things on earth, having joined her secrets.

What is striking in this story is the sense of the materiality of what is happening. Indeed, one gets the impression that such a story could be written by a person who only really experienced something similar, who remembered both the lonely hairpin forgotten by his beloved on the night table, and the sweetness of the first kiss, which took his breath away. Ho Bunin sharply objected to identifying him with his heroes. “I have never told my own novels ... and“ Mitina Love ”and“ Sunstroke ”are all fruits of the imagination,” he was indignant. Rather, in the Maritime Alps, in 1925, when this story was written, he imagined the shining Volga, its yellow shoals, oncoming rafts and a pink steamer sailing along it. All the things he was never meant to see. And the only words that the author of the story utters “on his own behalf” are the words that they “remembered this minute for many years afterwards: neither one nor the other had ever experienced anything like this in their entire lives.” The heroes, who are not destined to see each other anymore, cannot know what will happen to them in that “life” that will arise outside the narrative, what they will feel afterwards.

In a purely “dense”, material manner of narration (it was not for nothing that one of the critics called what came out from under his pen “brocade prose”) it was precisely the worldview of the writer who thirsted through memory, through touching the subject, through the trace left by someone (when Having visited the Middle East, he was glad that he saw in some dungeon a “living and clear footprint” left five thousand years ago) to resist the destructive action of time, to triumph over oblivion, and therefore over death. It is memory in the writer's mind that makes a person like God. Bunin proudly said: "I am a man: like a god, I am doomed / To know the longing of all countries and all times." So a person who has recognized love, in the artistic world of Bunin, can consider himself a deity, to whom new, unknown feelings are revealed - kindness, spiritual generosity, nobility. The writer speaks of the mystery of the currents that run between people, binding them into an indissoluble whole, but at the same time he persistently reminds us of the unpredictability of the results of our actions, of the “chaos” that hides under a decent existence, of the trembling caution that such a fragile organization requires, like human life.

Bunin's work, especially on the eve of the cataclysm of 1917 and emigration, is imbued with a sense of catastrophism that lies in wait for the passengers of the Atlantis, and selflessly devoted to each other lovers, who are nevertheless bred by life circumstances. But the anthem of love and joy of life will sound no less loudly in it, which can be available to people whose heart has not grown old, whose soul is open to creativity. But in this joy, and in this love, and in the self-forgetfulness of creativity, Bunin saw the danger of a passionate attachment to life, which can sometimes be so strong that his heroes choose death, preferring eternal oblivion to the acute pain of pleasure.