2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25
An unusually sensual, emotional, but at the same time tragic story by I. Bunin "Clean Monday", the summary of which is almost impossible to retell - on the pages of the story there are not so much events as feelings and experiences of the main characters.
“Clean Monday” begins with a casual meeting between a young man and a girl at a lecture by Andrei Bely, which was the beginning of an amazingly beautiful romance that had no future. Every evening they went to dine in expensive restaurants, attended concerts, theaters, and in the social fuss the young man tried not to think about how their romance would end. So uncertain and unsteady were their relationship, he was so afraid of losing her that he appreciated every hour spent next to her. He came every day to her apartment, constantly gave chocolate, flowers, brought the latestfashion books, but each time she got a “Thank you….” in such an absent tone that it was clear she didn’t need anything.
On Pure Monday, the day after Forgiveness Sunday, they visited the Novodevichy Convent and the cemetery together. He was surprised at the animation with which she told him about the funeral of the archbishop, about the singing of the church choir, about the fear and trembling that she had experienced. He was surprised that she knew all church terms so well and, moreover, often visited cathedrals.
After the Novodevichy Convent, we immediately went to a tavern, where she mentioned that she wanted to go to a monastery, and to the most distant and deaf; and quoted ancient Russian legends, which surprised him unspeakably. The next day there was a theater, a vulgar theatrical skit … That evening there was an unexpected closeness of the heroes - without explaining the reasons, she decided so.
At dawn, she said that she would leave for Tver, but she didn’t know when she would return … Two weeks later, he received a letter in which she asked not to look for her and forget - she decided to leave Moscow forever and go to the monastery for obedience, and there for a tonsure. He obediently did not look for her, but every day he sank lower and lower, drank himself in the dirtiest taverns, but awareness gradually returned, he began to come to his senses. Two years after their last Clean Monday, he went to pray at the Archangel Cathedral, after which he drove for a long time through dark alleys.
Near the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent I stopped, having heardmaiden choir, entered and got to the religious procession of the nuns. Carefully peering into the faces, it suddenly seemed to him that one of them raised her head and peered into the darkness, as if seeing him. He turned and walked out.
"Clean Monday" is not just a story about beautiful and tragic love. Bunin raises the most important religious topic - the right to choose, given to us by God. Every day, every minute, we make choices that affect our lives. The heroine bathed in secular life, her weakness was expensive outfits and furs, but she constantly felt like a stranger in the material world. It is characteristic that the heroes do not have names - earthly names are unimportant for God.
While reading the story, we seem to feel the hand of fur, silk, we see the sparkle of diamonds and the radiance of church gold, we inhale the delicious smells of expensive restaurants and the smell of church incense, we hear restaurant music and the singing of the monastic choir … Bunin writes with feelings, emotions, so that it is it is clear how great is the difference between the material and the spiritual world, between what can be touched and the divine that is invisibly present in the soul of every person. The heroine made a choice, even if she remained misunderstood by her lover. And he preferred to slide into the abyss of sin after her departure: this is easier than accepting her choice with humility.
The story “Clean Monday”, which can be analyzed endlessly, makes you think not about love, not about forgiveness, not about understanding, but about choosing and accepting this choice, and this is the most difficult thing.
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