A fascinating story about first love and loneliness. Quotes About Loneliness

Reading is impossible in a noisy campaign, reading does not exist without loneliness, but some writers have managed to turn it from a necessary condition into a central element of their works, making loneliness almost a central character.

Characters who are outside the social circle, without the opportunity to talk to anyone or find company, form a stronger bond with the reader, who becomes their "partner". Thus, when reading books, we are much more actively immersed in the fictional world of characters, becoming an active researcher, rather than a passive observer.

It's no surprise that so many of the stories that take place outside of society are set against beautiful landscapes and the most beautiful exotic or hard-to-reach places. A lonely person is able to notice and appreciate the beauty around him more subtly.

The following are stories from world literature, listed in chronological order, in which the characters are forced to face and come to terms with loneliness.

"Jane Eyre", Charlotte Brontë, 1847

This is the story of a young, but very strong and brave girl who lived a difficult life and endured many trials in a relatively short period. In one of the chapters, Jane declares that “happy is the one who is loved by others, the one whose presence makes someone’s life easier,” but in order to understand and come to such happiness, the girl is forced to find strength and fortitude away from her loved ones. of people.

"Pan", Knut Hamsun, 1894

The hero of the story "Pan" is perfectly adapted to a lonely life in the dense Norwegian forest. Lieutenant Thomas Glan lives by hunting, he has military endurance and discipline, and his faithful dog Aesop is his company. The idyll and silence of a remote corner is great for Thomas, and his detailed knowledge of every blade of grass and berry, his love for the northern forest make the lieutenant's life more luxurious than miserable, until unbidden love and passion appear on the threshold of the house.

To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf, 1927

This novel is reminiscent of the paintings of the Impressionists and depicts the inner, psychological loneliness of the characters. The author knowingly covered the characters with the shadow of a "lighthouse" - a distant, lonely island, she created a landscape against which the inner voice of each character sounds even more isolated from others. Wulf masterfully portrayed the most terrible form of loneliness: that feeling when you are alone even next to the closest people.

All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren, 1946

From the words of the main character of the novel, it follows that any place where we come will only be a copy of where we came from, until changes occur in ourselves. The action of the novel takes place among people, almost in their midst, but the main character, from whose point of view the story is being told, is in constant search of himself and best place, time and people. Even in his loneliest moments, Jack Burden remains a wise, fair and truly visionary man.

Seymour: An Introduction, Jerome Salinger, 1963

The center of this brilliant novel by Salinger is the loss loved one. Badi Glass unsuccessfully tries to tell readers about his brother Seymour, while the reader does not get a clear picture of the internal and external appearance of Seymour, and he can only wonder if Bady knew him so poorly, or knew him so well that words can only interfere. Salinger has repeatedly managed to create an attractive and deep picture of loneliness, and this story is no exception.

"A holiday that is always with you", Ernest Hemingway, 1964

What does Ernest Hemingway do when he is alone? He eats, drinks, writes, walks, reads. He chooses and does what he loves the most. This story about the life of the great writer in Paris and about the beginning of his creative path will teach any person to create a "home" for himself anywhere, with anyone and without anyone. A relatively dry retelling of how many pages were written per day, how many glasses were drunk per night and kilometers covered, can be taken as a ready-made recipe for self-sufficiency. In addition, the book will teach aspiring writers to treat their ambitions as their only constant partner.

Change, Liv Ullman, 1997

The autobiography of the beautiful Norwegian actress focuses on a five-year romance with director Ingmar Bergman. On the Swedish island of Fore, where Bergman's Persona was filmed, in which Liv played the main role, the actress and director did not live long, but full life. Liv Ullman sincerely and without embellishment talks about what comes after love: a bright and deep loneliness, which is as necessary for the soul as air.

"Secrets of Pittsburgh", Michael Chabon, 1988

The already well-known and recognized author of The Adventures of Cavalier and Clay began his career with a kind of remake of The Great Gatsby. Main character novel Art Bechstein is faced with doubts about his sexual orientation, which forces him to look at his world from the outside. This alienation, in turn, increases his perception and sensitivity to his surroundings. He seems to see with new eyes, which gave him loneliness.

An Experiment in Love, Hilary Mantel, 1995

Today, Hilary Mantel is a popular writer, a multiple winner of the British Booker Prize, but only two of her novels have been published in Russian: Blacker than Black and Wolf Hall. 20 years before receiving her first literary award, Mantel wrote a touching study of youth. Teenager Carmel McBain moves to different cities, studies in different schools, in each of which she is an “outsider”. The author does not try to smooth his prose, but, on the contrary, describes teenage loneliness with all its destructive power.

Leaving the Atocha Station, Ben Lerner, 2011

The mischievous, insecure, but talented hero of the novel, Adam Gordon, spends a year in Madrid, where he came on a scholarship. For twelve months, Gordon is always alone. He is all alone in a gallery full of people, he is alone in his bed, where a new Spaniard spends almost every night. He experiences the life, joys and tragedies of the city in absolute and uncompromising loneliness, and all because he constantly engages in introspection, which prevents Gordon from experiencing true togetherness.

We have published a book of incredible beauty and with deep meaning - "Starry, Starry Night". This book touches the heart of everyone who has picked it up at least once - and takes a part of it. Forever. The penetrating illustrations by Taiwanese artist Jimmy Liao immerse themselves in history completely and without a trace - this the whole world. Magic. Understandable to everyone.

The story is so touching that the editor cried while reading it the first few times, then the marketer cried, and then the copywriter - twice (I confess, it's me). The book leaves no one indifferent.

The story of first love and loneliness

The girl who used to live with her grandparents in the mountains - where the stars are big and bright - moves to the city, to her parents' apartment. “Now I miss my grandfather. He stayed high, high in the mountains. And for my grandmother - she is high, high in the sky.

The city seems to her a cold and soulless place, mom and dad constantly swear, classmates do not let her pass at school. So she just hides in her world. Together with the kitten, which her mother brought her from a trip abroad, sometimes he turns into a thunder-a-a-a-bottom cat.

But everything changes when he moves into the next house new boy... "Dense snow was falling, and he lay so happy and carefree, as if he had fallen from another planet."

And then in this story something happened that should have happened to teenagers, each of whom was lonely and different from the others. It's so hard to see the stars in the city! The plan appeared by itself: "Let's run away!"

Moreover, there is no strength to listen to the quarrels of parents. And outside the city such a beautiful sky.

The most important question...

When you throw your head back to the starry sky, the world seems huge.

While I was preparing this post, I almost burst into tears for the third time. Never before had a children's book touched me so strongly. Maybe because she's not exactly a child? Or because too many difficult events have fallen to the lot of small heroes. Or it's all about Jimmy Liao's magical illustrations - even though I'm a copywriter, I have no words to describe them. You just need to look. The words from The Little Prince flashed through my head: “Only the heart is vigilant. You can’t see the most important thing with your eyes.” Yes, exactly ... Each page of this book should be considered in a special way - with the heart.

How this story will end, I will not say. Let me just say that the book is a surprise. And when you understand what he is - just goosebumps.

Simple but very layered, this story will appeal to both children and adults. And will be remembered for a long time. Certainly.

The inevitable lot of a person who sees in his surroundings something alien and distant, or, at best, extraneous to his soul. Only love gives happiness to the communion of souls, but even this happiness is transitory and short-lived. This is the main idea expressed in the story "In Paris". Here, the motive of loneliness finds a new expression in the theme of the forever lost homeland, life, aimlessly flowing in a foreign land. This story is a gem of artistic expression.

Two Russians meet in Paris. He is a former general, writes the history of the first imperialist and civil wars "by order of foreign publishers." She is a waitress in a small Russian restaurant. But who they are now does not matter, except perhaps that very sparingly, in passing, is told about their biographies.

But these biographies are not fraught with anything unexpected. In them is the fate of the white emigration, who lost their strength of mind in wandering around foreign countries.

The path of the hero of the story passed through Constantinople. Here his young wife, like many other Russian women, succumbed to the temptation of an "easy" life, left him for a Greek millionaire, an insignificant boy. About her future fate nothing is said, but one can assume the worst, knowing what often awaited women there who had strayed from their native shore.

With an unhealed wound of her memory, a former general lives out his life in Paris. He lives far from all sorts of political quarrels, as if secluded in himself, waiting for a meeting with a woman who is just as lonely and close to him in spirit.

Chance meetings with a half-hour stay in cheap hotels are increasingly moving this dream away from him. And yet it is carried out, short-lived happiness comes.

Even less is known about the fate of the heroine of the story. She is married, but the stormy waves of the sea of ​​\u200b\u200blife threw her husband into Yugoslavia, while she settled in Paris. And everything here before meeting the hero gives off a bitter aftertaste of banality. Meeting a young Frenchman who turns out to be a pimp, working as a saleswoman in a large department store, getting fired, another step "down" - serving in a restaurant.

Probably, in the simplicity of the plot of the story "In Paris", in its very ordinary theme, in the development of relations between its heroes devoid of any accidents, there is part of the secret of its wise beauty. Bunin deliberately adheres to the template in everything, until the fire of love ignites from a spark.

Even for an artistic portrait of the hero, the writer does not look for any pretext, "hook". The description of his appearance begins with the very first word of the story. Straight bearing of an officer, light eyes, looking "with dry sadness", immediately talk about their former profession, years of trials, not passing heartache. And it is immediately reported that he rented a farm in Provence, trying to manage the household, but turned out to be unsuitable for such a life, taking out of it only the habit of inserting caustic Provencal jokes into the conversation.

A drizzling rain, a long autumn evening when a lonely person does not know what to do with himself, a sad showcase of stale dishes of a small restaurant, a small hall with several tables - this is by no means a poetic setting where a long-awaited and belated love is born, where two tormented souls find each other .

The theme of loneliness is increasingly intertwined with the theme of newfound happiness. He and she feel the need to talk about being alone because they are no longer alone. In them, in essence, the joy of overcoming grief sings. And this conversation ends like this: “Poor! she said, squeezing his hand. This word contains both maternal tenderness, and nascent love and a deep understanding of the suffering of another person.

The writer sets off the beauty of their feelings with the dreary routine of the surrounding reality, in which they are no longer alone. So, at his house "in the metallic light of a gas lamp, rain fell on a tin vat of garbage." But they hardly notice this and, going up the elevator, they quietly kiss.

Opponent of faded idyllicness in descriptions of love relationships, Bunin supplements the story of the love of his characters with a description of the awakening of sensuality. He creates for lonely people who have found each other that fullness of happiness, which is impossible for a long time, must inevitably collapse, either by the will of fate, or by the evil of an unsettled life.

The writer stops the flowing narration smoothly and calmly, in order to announce in the next two or three lines after the love scene that his characters have agreed and, just in case, he put the money he earned in the bank in her name. At the same time, he recalls a bitter French proverb: “Even donkeys dance for love,” and adds: “I feel like I'm twenty years old. But you never know what can be ... ".

The interval in the narrative is nevertheless marked, and marked tragically. The love story began in the fall, and "... on the third day of Easter, he died in a subway car - while reading a newspaper, he suddenly threw back his head to the back of the seat, turned his eyes ...".

So, autumn, winter, spring - this is a short period of happiness, love, about which - and this is important - nothing has been said. And what can you say about shared love, when two people are isolated in it from the whole world, when the struggle constantly going on in it is regarded as an evil that must be shunned. If Ivan Bunin tried in his stories, and especially those written at a time when fascism spread its black wings over Europe, if he tried to indulge in idyllic dreams, his works about modernity would have sounded differently. One cannot indulge in long joy when the world is groaning from uncertainty and sadness. The writer weighed his attitude to life on the scales of his own conscience. And it was extremely difficult. One stroke in the story is also very characteristic. As already mentioned, his hero writes the history of the civil and the first world wars. And the story, although the action in it refers to the period preceding the Second World War, was written in November 1940, when France was already groaning under the Teutonic boot. This is reflected in the story only indirectly, in the tragic intensity of the ending.

These lines are perhaps the most tragic of all written by Bunin. A huge gift of found happiness turns into an unbearable pain of loss, a return to the loneliness of the heroine of the story - Olga Alexandrovna, who knows how to survive. But there is something else in the final lines. Here are the lines:

“When she, in mourning, returned from the cemetery, it was a lovely spring day, in some places spring clouds floated in the soft Parisian sky, and everything spoke of young, eternal life - and of her, finished.

At home, she began to clean the apartment. In the corridor, in a poster, I saw his old summer overcoat, gray, with a red lining. She took it off the hanger, pressed it to her face and, pressing it, sat on the floor, twitching all over with sobs and screaming, begging someone for mercy.

In this comparison, perhaps, the whole of Bunin, with his love of life, with his horror in the face of death. More than once, apparently, the aged writer had the thought: is it really possible that young life will still awaken in the spring, and I will not? And along with it, another arose: but still life is beautiful, and I lived it not in vain, I will leave a particle of myself to people!

The story "In Paris", having raised the favorite theme of love by Yunin to the highest point of artistic perfection, did not, however, exhaust it. The writer's aesthetic attitude to life does not change, but he finds new and new angles in highlighting the main thing, in his opinion, that determines the thoughts and feelings of a person. Various variations of the Bunin theme arise from the infinitely shifting relationships of characters and situations, from the artistic and stylistic decisions of this or that story.

Some of them are elegiac, covered with quiet sadness of memories of the motherland and young love. The most characteristic in this respect is the short story "In a certain familiar street", prompted, like the story "Dark Alleys", in verse. The story may not be autobiographical, but Bunin undoubtedly experienced something similar to the one described in his youth. And the story begins as if the writer is talking about himself. He walks along the Parisian boulevard in the spring and recalls the verses:

In a familiar street
I remember the old house
With a high dark staircase
With a curtained window...

By association with poetry, a memory arises. And then the prose text is interspersed with the poetic one. Prose starts from verse, complements it and argues with it. A person, as it were, cultivates the beauty of feelings in his soul. Reality is poorer than the poetic representation of it, than the poet's re-creation of it. But is it important, since a person experiences the delight of possession, acquires his beloved? The poems speak of the beauty of a loose braid, and the hero of the story recalls a braided blond pigtail "rather poor." The verses speak of a "miracle girl", but there was a girl with a common people's face, transparent from hunger. The verses speak of a kiss that is not childishly fiery, and the kisses of the girl from the memories were tender, like weak girls kiss. The verses say: “Listen, let's run away!”, but in life there was nowhere to run and there was no reason to.

All these comparisons of life, decorated by the poet, with life as it is, create an amazing artistic effect. Poems contribute to creating a mood in the story, but they are not the ones that touch, but the young love described by Bunin, touches because only a person who has never loved will not get excited when he reads: “There were these weak, sweetest lips in the world, they were from an excess of happiness that spoke to the eyes hot tears, heavy languor of young bodies, from which we bowed our heads on each other's shoulders ... ".

According to Bunin, by nature, man was created for happiness and for the affirmation of beauty on earth. A person's need for happiness, his desire to create beauty are indestructible, although the "evil" reality constantly crushes his hopes, overturns his plans. The evil surrounding a person does not exist, according to Bunin, isolated from a person, it penetrates a person, distorts him, gives rise to some kind of irrationality in him, leading him, in turn, to evil, destruction.

And this is not the only misfortune that lies in wait for a person. Often love leads to destruction and grief, yes, the same love that reveals the beauty of the universe to a person gives him short days happiness. And here Bunin has no contradiction. After all, love does not take into account formal moments, it arises not only when a person has the “right” to love. And since life is badly arranged, there are constant clashes between a person's natural desire for happiness and slavery legalized in love, between freedom and possessiveness in love. Ownership, as the evil of life, standing in the way of human happiness, is one of the main motives of a number of the best stories from the concluding cycle "Dark Alleys". These include "Galya Ganskaya", "Dubki", "Steamboat" Saratov "," Raven "and standing somewhat apart" Clean Monday".

In the story "Galya Ganskaya" a kind of special case is taken. There are, in fact, no grounds for a tragic outcome, except that passion turns

a person into an owner, striving to possess completely to the point of death.

With a few exceptions, the whole story, which is conducted on behalf of his hero - an Odessa artist, is devoted to the disclosure of one character, one passion, the depiction of one figure. This is a kind of psychological and artistic portrait, conveying the spiritual and physiological formation of a young girl, her passionate nature, which caused the last tragic gesture.

The hero of the story visited Paris twice and imagined himself to be a sort of irresistible heartthrob and trendsetter. And yet he spares the innocence of the girl who came to his studio. The hero, in essence, is a decent person, and youth simply boils in him, and the girl is very pretty. Nevertheless, even in moments of sensual “madness”, he cannot forget that her father always accepted him with open arms and once said to them, young artists: “Oh, oh, what a girl is growing with me, my friends! I'm afraid for her!"

The artist avoids meeting the girl for a whole year, fearing that he will not be able to restrain himself for the second time. But life goes on as usual, and he meets her again by chance. The first meeting did not pass, and could not pass in vain for her, for this addicting, passionate nature, experiencing, in addition to everything, the time of maturation. With extraordinary accuracy of psychological and plastic details, the external manifestations of that "secret" force that pushes young people into each other's arms are transmitted. However, this second meeting is just another step towards rapprochement. Young people do not see each other for six months. And when again, and again by chance, they meet at the same cafe, the inevitable happens. He invites her to him, and they draw closer, for they have come close to the line beyond which this should have happened.

Meetings between the artist and Gali Ganskaya continue. And there is nothing unusual about their love story, from the very beginning until the turn leading to tragedy. There is only a love story, of which there are many, told by a sharp-sighted artist. But here an absurd turn takes place in it, which clarifies a lot and motivates the tragic outcome.

The artist is going to leave for a short time in Italy. He has not yet had time to inform his beloved about this. She learns of his impending departure by the side, and the following explanation occurs between them:

You, they say, are leaving for Italy the other day?

Yes, so what?

Why didn't you say a word to me about this? Would you like to leave secretly?

God be with you. Just now I was going to go to you and tell you.

With dad? Why not me alone? No, you're not going anywhere!

I freaked out like a fool.

No, I'll go.

No, you won't.

And I tell you that I will go.

Is this your last word?

Last, but understand that I'll be back in a month, a lot in a month and a half. And in general, listen, Galya ...

I am not Galya. Now I understand you - everything, I understand everything! And if you now began to swear to me that you will never go anywhere and forever, it makes no difference to me now. That's not the point anymore!

This most important dialogue in the story is at first glance insignificant. In fact, he belongs to those "passing" places that play a special and most important role in Bunin's works, revealing the most important thing in the simplest. Like an insignificant dialogue in the story "In Paris", a clash over a trifle between the heroes of the story "Galya Ganskaya" reveals a lot in the character of the heroine, in the disparity of their feelings.

Galya and her lover feel differently and think in different categories. She gave herself undividedly to her love, for such is her nature, and the slightest encroachment on her feelings raises suffering in her soul, which she is unable to cope with. In essence, this, of course, is a manifestation of that possessiveness in love, which does not bring peace and joy into it. But Bunin does not blame his heroine and only talks about one more case among hundreds of other options, when short-lived happiness turns into death.

You can not blame the artist, beloved of Hanska, the writer tells us, he was captivated by the charm, beauty, passion of the girl. But to love the way she loved, apparently, did not know how. It was perfectly normal for him to inform her, somewhat belatedly, of his departure, but for her it was a revelation, the realization that he loved her differently than she loved him. And that was exactly what she couldn't bear.

The story of "Dubki" is filled to the brim with tart passion, the appeal of sex, jealousy. Small in size, it is artistically one of the best late stories of the writer. Human feelings are depicted in it in extreme tension, and the image of a woman at the center of the story is a wonderful success.

In "Dubki" everything, except for the heroine, is very Russian, traditional. This is a visit to the native estate of the landowner's son, a young cornet, the nature of the middle lane, described more than once, mighty, hundred-year-old oaks, like guards guarding the crumbling grandfather's house, and a peasant hut nearby, where she lives in solitude with her husband - Anfisa.

The plot of "Dubkov" is consonant with the story "Mitya's Love". There, the headman brings Mitya to the secluded hut of the forester Tryphon, where his daughter-in-law Alenka lives. This visit is associated with the need to finally agree with Alenka on a meeting with Mitya. But Bunin, apparently, was captivated by the possibility of recreating passionate love in the enchanted atmosphere of a secluded hut, perched in an overgrown and deserted park of a ruined estate.

However, for the conceived "burning" novel, he needed not a broken and primitive wench Alenka, but a woman capable of hidden and strong passion. And Bunin goes to the "experiment". He abandons the type of Russian peasant woman common in his stories and creates an image that confirms the position that there are no rules without exception. Anfisa looks like a Spaniard. For her artistic portrait and the disclosure of her passionate nature, at the first meeting alone with her beloved, Bunin finds a new and interesting artistic device. The hero of the story sees her in the red smoke of a torch. She is whitewashed and rouged in a rustic way, but she is beautiful even in this costumed guise. “Everything looms, trembles in this brilliance, in smoke, but the eyes are visible through them - they are so wide and intent! sleeves, in a coral necklace - a resin head that would do honor to any secular beauty, smoothly combed in the middle, silver earrings hang in the ears ... Seeing me, she jumped up, instantly threw off my snow-covered hat, fox undercoat, pushed me to the bench, - everything is as if in a frenzy, contrary to all my previous thoughts about her proud impregnability, - she threw herself on her knees to me, hugged me, pressing her hot cheeks to my face ... ".

Until that moment, not a word about love had been said between the lovers. He asks why she was hiding, and the young woman explains this by the constant presence of her husband, who has an eagle eye that notices everything. And she did not give herself away because she was strong in character.

This explanation, coming directly from the heroine, is very substantially supplemented by the entire artistic fabric of the story. Anfisa has no hope for happiness. Moreover, she rushes towards love, fully aware that this threatens her with death. But the power of love, the aversion to a hateful life with a middle-aged and stern husband is so great that she is the first to throw herself into the arms of her beloved.

In Bunin's stories, people who are obsessed with passion die because they find themselves between a rock and a hard place: their feelings and the institutions of society.

Bunin and is not going to combine in happy marriage a young nobleman and a peasant woman, he already expressed his opinion on this matter in the first work of the cycle - the story "Dark Alleys". But there could be happiness, and this is the most important thing in a difficult life of a person. But a woman lives with an unloved husband, and he regards her possession as his most legitimate right. She is his slave, and he, in fact, the slave owner, can manage her life.

There was no betrayal, but Anfisa's husband, Lavr, had long suspected that his wife and barchuk loved each other. Although the story does not mention this, but his departure, apparently, is a way to catch an unfaithful wife. He suddenly returns and, entering the hut, behaves as if the set table, the dressed-up wife and the presence of the young master are a common thing, which does not embarrass him at all. He calmly explains why he returned, and then politely sees the guest out.

The massacre of Lavr with his wife is not shown, but it is said that he strangled her with a belt on an iron hook in the door lintel. And having committed a brutal murder in cold blood, he tries to evade responsibility and, among other things, says to the peasants: “I dressed up for some reason, blushed - and hangs, a little does not reach the floor ... Witness, Orthodox.”

Already in the most clumsy explanation lies a confession. But even without him, the guilt is undeniable. The peasants look at the Lavr and say:

Look what you've done to yourself! And what is it with you, headman, your whole beard is torn out in tufts, your whole face is cut from top to bottom with claws, your eye is bleeding? Knit it guys!

The story concludes with a brief maxim: "He was beaten with whips and sent to Siberia, to the mines."

The theme of possessiveness, limited by the framework of love, does not acquire the significance of direct social generalizations by the writer. Sometimes it is not easy even to determine what is the attitude of the writer to the hero who wants to completely own a woman, who sees this as his legal right. The writer, of course, does not approve of extreme measures - murder. But Anfisa is so good that to some extent one can understand Lavr, who is convinced that his wife does not love him, is ready to give herself to another.

The story "Dubki" is close in theme to the story "Steamboat" Saratov ". Its action takes place in the living room of a secular kept woman. The cruelty and ignorance of rural life gives rise to the law of the owner, but the same law of the owner rules in the so-called intelligent circles of the big city, where a woman is also a slave, is also an object of sale. The social motives of the crime in Steamboat Saratov are more clearly revealed than in Dubki. The crime committed by the officer - the murder of a kept woman who intends to leave him for her previous lover - appears in the story as a derivative of the crime of a society in which such mores can reign.

The woman tells the officer that she is breaking up with him, and he does not believe her at first. A dialogue takes place that does not seem to prepare a tragic denouement. The officer is amused, ironic, even insults the woman. In the heat of an argument, she says to him:

I saw him - and, of course, secretly, not wanting to cause you suffering - and then I realized that I never stopped loving him.

He narrowed his eyes as he chewed on the cigarette holder.

That is his money?

He is not richer than you. And what do I care about your money! If I wanted...

I'm sorry, only cocottes say that.

And who am I, if not a cocotte? Do I live on my own, and not on your money?

He muttered in an officer's patter:

In love, money doesn't matter.

But I do love him!

And I, then, was only a temporary toy, fun from boredom and one of the profitable keepers?

You know very well that it is far from fun, not a toy. Well, yes, I'm a kept woman, and yet it's vile to remind me of this.

In the story “Steamboat Saratov” the main place is occupied by dialogue. With his help, the characters are outlined, and he also creates a dramatic situation with its tragic ending.

It is difficult for the reader to condemn either of the two characters. Who is to blame: a woman or a man? There is no clear answer to this question in the story. And this is far from accidental, because, thinking, the reader begins to look for the truly guilty.

There are no positive characters in the story. Both actors, just as in "Cornet Elagin", are the product of a certain environment where morals reign, disfiguring the human soul. An unoccupied young woman, who is supported by one or another man, is languishing from the uncertainty of her position. She deceives herself and her lovers for internal self-justification. She even believes that she made a mistake, that she loved one, was carried away by another, and then realized that she loved an abandoned lover.

In the story "Steamboat" Saratov ", Bunin is looking for some new angle of coverage of life, confirming his main thesis about the short-lived happiness of a person. But here, too, he, as an artist, creates another indictment against society, even if he does not set himself such a main task.

In a dispute between an officer and a kept woman who is about to leave him, Bunin follows the logic of feelings embracing his heroes, but this logic itself is a derivative of the conditions that shaped their characters, their worldview.

Having "bought" a woman, the officer is outraged by her "black betrayal". And according to the moral principles of the society where he lives, the truth is on his side. Perhaps there would not have been a tragedy if the woman had not met with an opponent behind his back. Then it was logical for everyone to get together, talk heart to heart, and another man would “outbid” a woman from him. Thus, the laws of the owner, the laws of sale and purchase, would be observed. But “treason” is not the only cause of the tragedy; proprietary interests are intertwined with love interests in the conflict.

Treating a woman of the demi-monde, whom it is not customary to love in society as a “decent” lady, in a carefree and easy way, the officer, in the moments when he loses her, suddenly feels that she means more to him than he previously thought. In the heat of the collision, the woman insults him, squeamishly says: "Drunken actor." And when he tries to turn her to face him, he swings at him. And he shoots.

This is immediately followed by an epilogue - a scene on the Saratov steamer, the meaning of which is confirmed, in particular, by the very title of the story.

“In December of the same year, the steamer of the Volunteer Fleet “Saratov” sailed in the Indian Ocean to Vladivostok. Under the hot awning stretched over the forecastle, in the motionless heat, in the hot half-light, in the brilliance of mirror reflections from the water, naked convicts sat and lay on the deck to the waist, with half-shaven, terrible heads, in trousers made of white canvas, with shackle rings on their ankles. bare feet. Like everyone else, he was naked to the waist and he was thin, brown from sunburn. It was dark and only half of his head was short-cropped, his thin cheeks that had not been shaved for a long time were blackened red with coarse hair, his eyes sparkled feverishly. Leaning on the railing, he stared intently at the thick blue wave flying deep below, along the high wall of the side, with humps, and from time to time spat there. This epilogue is perceived as a contrast to the previous one, when the narrative takes on a new and deep meaning in the light of the final ending - one of the very important aspects of the artistic style of Ivan Bunin. The ending in “Steamboat Saratov” seems to throw a bridge into the terrible future of the hero, predicting what lies ahead for him. And right there with new force the question posed earlier arises: is this person really guilty, and is he guilty?

The ending consists of two complementary and reinforcing parts. The first one gives the general picture. In the second, the hero of the story is brought into view, outwardly no different from other prisoners. But we saw him as a brilliant officer, and his appearance, prepared by the first part of the ending, causes excitement, no matter how we imagine him.

Bunin's disharmonious solution to the theme of love is given in a very original way in the beautiful story "The Raven". In it, most clearly of all Bunin's works of the emigrant period, that evil force appears that deprives a person of happiness. The theme of buying and selling in love, begun in Steamboat Saratov, is socially posed much sharper in the story The Raven. Here evil is already personified in the figure of a tsarist provincial bureaucrat holding a high position.

The artistic portrait of this pillar of the provincial yurocracy is given a significant place by no means for artistic "discoveries".

The image of the "raven" is symbolic, the external resemblance to a bird of prey is supported by certain spiritual properties. The description says: “Even in the bureaucratic society to which he belonged, there was no person heavier, more gloomy, silent, coldly cruel in slow words and deeds. Short, stocky, slightly stooped, coarse black-haired, dark with a long shaven face,

big-nosed, he really was a perfect raven, especially when he was in a black tailcoat at the charity evenings of our governor's wife, he stood stooped and firmly near some kiosk ... ".

In the ruling provincial spheres there could be officials of different characters, but supreme power, which controlled them, created from them cold and cruel performers, completely incapable of reckoning with the feelings of people. It is in this sense that the artistic portrait of the tsarist official is symbolic, which is called not by name, but by the perception of his son - “a raven”.

The pernicious pressure of the unrighteous arrangement of life is transferred by the writer from the social plane to the everyday one.

Arriving from Moscow for the holidays in his father's house, the hero of the story finds a new governess there. Two young creatures are drawn to each other, and again, in a very lyrical sound, the theme of short-lived happiness arises. Young love is a kind of island of tenderness in the cold and gloomy house of the "crow", where his cruel will is ready to suppress all life. Nervousness is introduced into this lyrical atmosphere by the hero's sister Lily - a despotic and eccentric girl who clearly inherited many of her father's character traits.

But now the owner proceeds to fulfill his plan. A timid and lovely girl seems to him a suitable slave wife. He is absolutely not inclined to reckon with the difference in years, her feelings. However, he does not want to go into such "details". Money is what, in his opinion, human relations are measured. And he methodically prepares the "purchase" operation. He conducts a conversation with her in an instructive tone, thereby slightly covering his intentions, giving them a kind of decent look. And then he does not miss the opportunity to belittle her, talking about her poverty, offering to dream of wealth.

The image of the "raven" is unique in the gallery of characters created by Bunin in the last period of his work. And in its outline, the main role belongs to vocabulary. Here is one of its most characteristic examples:

Blond, dear Elena Nikolaevna, either black or pixie suits... If only a black satin dress with a scalloped, standing collar a la Mary Stuart, studded with small diamonds would suit your face very much ... or a medieval dress of pixie velvet with a small neckline and ruby cross-stitched ... A coat of dark blue Lyon velvet and a Venetian beret would also suit you ... All this, of course, is a dream, ”he said, grinning. “Your father receives only seventy-five rubles a month from us, and he has five more children besides you, less small or small, which means that you will most likely have to live in poverty all your life.

In this monologue - the whole person. In slow, somewhat old-fashioned speech, in all its inner essence, the unshakable self-confidence of a conservative and cruel egoist is expressed. At the same time, this is a vile bargain-purchase, where a dilemma is posed before the victim, who still has little understanding of life: wealth or poverty. "Raven", in fact, does not hope for an immediate solution to the issue, but he sets the snares in advance, being convinced that the victim will fall into them sooner or later.

Some frivolous rake would try to seduce the girl with an expensive gift. But the "raven" acts methodically, inevitably, like that bureaucratic system, of which he is a typical representative.

The theme of a short-lived love between a girl and a boy acquires a stronger social sound in the story than in previous stories. "Raven" is a violent and active social force that breaks the happiness of two young creatures. Still not knowing anything about the love that had arisen between them, this provincial despot, seeing a possible rival in his son, leads an attack on him. One evening, in his usual mocking tone, he says that he will not leave anything to his son, since, they say, “a waste of the first degree” will come out of him.

What follows is a very concise account of the short happiness of young people. These are random and joyful touches of hands, the first quivering kiss and inexpressible longing that embraces lovers. And that's all ... "Raven" "covers" them, and the reprisal is not long in coming. He orders his son to leave for the Samara estate, threatening, in case of resistance, to completely deprive him of his inheritance and, by agreement with the governor, expel him in stages. Consequently, violence against the human soul is being prepared with the direct support of those in power.

The young man is deprived of the opportunity to resist, and at night he forever leaves such an inhospitable father's house.

The story's ending is somewhat unusual for Bunin. The hero sees her and her father in the box of the Mariinsky Theater, already a wife and husband. Description of her appearance and the story ends. She carries herself easily, at ease. She is charming, wearing a dress of crimson velvet, stabbed on the left shoulder with a ruby ​​agraph, and a ruby ​​cross shimmers with dark fire on her neck. This is exactly one of those outfits with which the “raven” seduced her, a young girl.

It seems that there are no tragedies. Everything has entered into a certain life track. The young man works in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she lives in luxury. But the reader, who is familiar with Bunin's views on love, will himself conclude that under the cover of external well-being two people live with unhealed spiritual wounds ...

It was not clear whether it was day or night. The tiny room was neither dark nor light. The small window opposite the door was not a source of light, but just a white spot on the dark gray wall. The room was bare and empty, there was no furniture except an old, shabby stool.

Under the bare wire, most likely intended for a chandelier, stood this most miserable stool, on which a middle-aged man hunched over with grief sat. The gray hair only slightly touched his black hair, there were practically no wrinkles on his face, and he could pass for a very young, but indifferent lifeless look, fixed on the long unpainted floor, eloquently emphasized the age of the man. He didn't move. It was as if he did not breathe at all, but simply died with his eyes open. But suddenly a groan escaped from the man's chest, and a tear slipped down his cheek.

There was a soft knock on the door. The man shuddered, but did not hurry to get up and meet the guests. He didn't even look in the direction of the door. After a couple of minutes, the door creaked on its rusty, unlubricated hinges. A bright girl's head poked into the room.

- Can I come in? asked the little girl, shifting timidly from foot to foot.

The man slowly turned around and looked at the uninvited guest with complete indifference.

The question did not seem to discourage the girl at all.

“I will live here,” and she smiled a sweet childish smile. One of her milk teeth seemed to have fallen out recently, but this defect did not in the least make her any less pretty.

- You?! The man laughed strangely. – Will you live here? I have been living here for many years and no one has come to me. And you…

The man turned away, and the girl quietly approached him, put her little pale hand on his shoulder and whispered:

- But I came, now you are not alone ...

- For many years I tried to leave this hated room, I tried to knock down the doors, I tried to break the window, I would even agree to gnaw through the bars with my teeth in order to leave, to escape ... But no, nothing came of it! - the man jumped up, but then fell back on the stool and, clasping his head in his large hands, began to cry.

“Now you are free,” the girl said quietly. - You can go. The door is open.

The man looked at the girl with disbelief and asked:

- Who are you? Can I trust you?

The girl smiled.

- I am Love ... My middle name is Tenderness.

- And I ... - the man began uncertainly, but the girl did not let him finish.

“I know you are Loneliness. You have lived here for a very long time. But now I will live here. God himself sent me here.

The man stood up, looked around the room and said:

Thanks to you, this little room will change. It will become larger, it will be filled with flowers, with a wonderful aroma. Thanks to you, it will be filled with a bright warm light - it will no longer be dark and cold here. I am finally leaving, but from time to time, I will return so that you become stronger and firmer, so that you do not leave, but live in the heart of this Man forever.

The man grabbed the door handle to leave, but turned around and asked:

- Can I come back?

The girl smiled.

“Since Man gave his heart to God,” she said joyfully, “there is no place here for you as a life prisoner, but there will always be a place for Loneliness, as a good faithful friend and guest who is always welcome.

Loneliness disappeared, and Tenderness began to grow and grow stronger in the heart of Man.

“Remember, the moment when you most feel your loneliness is the moment when you most need to be alone,” wrote Douglas Copeland. You can only add to this - "to be alone and read a good book about loneliness." Our review contains the best books that are worth opening on this occasion.

1. Haruki Murakami - the novel "Norwegian Forest"

This is a story about a man who was selling records in the evening. From time to time he watched passers-by through the window glass. On the street, he saw a variety of bar hostesses, mini-girls, families, yakuza, drunk citizens, couples in love, guys with beatnik beards, and other personalities. When the hero put on a record with the works of rock musicians, loafers and hippies accumulated next to the window, sitting simply on the pavement or dancing to the beat of the melody. The hero of the "Norwegian Forest" looked at everything that was happening and could not understand what was happening, what people wanted to say with all this ...

2. Jean-Paul Sartre - the novel "Nausea"

Nausea, the author calls, washed away the lives of all people who daily find themselves in the center of turmoil. He considers them abandoned to the mercy of a bleak and ruthless reality. Where there is nausea, there is no place for trust and love, and therefore one should not be surprised that women and men cannot understand each other in any way. Nausea is considered the reverse side of despair, overstepping which a person gains freedom. But the path to freedom turns out to be so difficult and lonely that having received this freedom, it is difficult to understand what to do with it now.

3. Janusz Wisniewski - novel "Loneliness in the Net"

Among all the romance novels that appeared on the bookshelves of Russia, this work can be classified as one of the most poignant. Ya.L. Vishnevsky, in this European bestseller, decided to tell that love is the shortest of all things eternal.

The main characters of the novel called "Loneliness on the Web" communicate for some time through virtual chats, share erotic fantasies with each other, and naturally, tell life stories, many of which are incredible, but real. Time passes, the main characters overcome numerous trials, but the meeting in Paris turns out to be the most difficult test for their love...

4. Gabriel Garcia Marquez - the story "No one writes to the Colonel"

"No one writes to the Colonel"- this is an amazing story, which has no analogues in Latin American prose. The writer did not manage to get such a strong and capacitive work right away. To achieve this result, Marquez had to rewrite the book a dozen times.

At first glance, the plot of the story seems quite ordinary. The writer talks about the change of power in Latin America. New politicians try to get rich as soon as possible at the expense of the common people. And the story tells of an elderly colonel who participated in the Civil War, who in given time barely making ends meet in some provincial town. Garcia Marquez, using the example of this colonel, tells how a person can overcome loneliness, fight the absurdity and arbitrariness that prevail in the world.

5. Douglas Copeland - novel "Eleanor Rigby"

This is a story about a lonely girl named Liz, who introduces herself on the Web as Eleanor Rigby. main character is absolutely lonely and lives in anticipation of a miracle, which nevertheless happens to her. However, it is not in vain that people are told. What you need to be afraid of your desires. Having received what she wants, Liz realizes that in reality everything is not what she imagined. How will the story develop further? Events are unpredictable...

6. Patrick Suskind - play "Double bass"

Many people know the work called "Perfumer", created by Petrik Suskind. But at the same time, not many people read the play of this German writer called "Contrabass", which became his first work. Immediately after the release, this book became one of the best-selling books in Munich and throughout Europe. You can find it on sale in Russia. The book included the writer's autobiography, as well as reviews of Suskind's work from some art historians.

7. Ernest Hemingway - "The Old Man and the Sea"

The book called "The Old Man and the Sea" is Hemingway's most famous work and is recognized as a true masterpiece. In this work, the author spoke about the fact that in any even the most losing situations, a person must always maintain dignity and remain courageous. The writer vividly describes the battle with a monstrous fish and the attack of sharks on it. From time to time, tragic events are interrupted by reflections on the surrounding world and the past. It is this contrasting reception that makes the story unforgettable.

8. Michael Cunningham - "The Hours"

The author Mike Kenningham in his novel asks numerous questions that relate to the device of time, the procedure for the birth of books. He is trying to figure out what effect words have on events and vice versa, how the words-dreams of the authors are related to each other. The reader finds answers to all these questions in the novel The Hours, which describes ultra-modern New York, America of the 90s, the fate of Virginia Woolf, post-war Los Angeles, England of the 20s. Creativity, death and love are mixed in the novel.

9. Richard Matheson - "I Am Legend"

The story of a hero named Robert Neville, who turned out to be the only person in all of Los Angeles who remained human, while the rest of the population in the city picked up a strange virus that makes living creatures look like vampires. He alone tries to find a cure for the virus, hiding from the infected, in an armored house.

Millions of citizens know this story from the film of the same name, where Will Smith played the role of the protagonist. That's just the movie story does not exactly repeat the book, and therefore not everyone knows how the end of the story seemed to the literary hero Richard Matheson. But in your future fantasy world he laid the deepest meaning, which will shock readers. This is a work that will never get old, just the way cult books should be.