“Clean Monday. Clean Monday Bunin's story Clean Monday read summary
In this article you will get acquainted with a summary of Bunin’s story “Clean Monday”. Written in the first person, the narrator, aka - main character, a handsome young man from the Penza province, without any specific occupation, but well-off financially. The heroine is also a rich, young and glamorous girl, sometimes she attended some courses, but the author does not specify which ones. In the story you will get acquainted with another story of unhappy love - a woman chose spiritual life over real relationships.
So, a summary of Bunin’s story
Acquaintance
December. In the evenings the narrator visits an apartment near the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The owner lives there only because of the beautiful view of the temple. The main character met a woman at a lecture by Andrei Bely. Soon the main characters fall in love with each other. He presents her with flowers, chocolate, books, and takes her to dinners and receptions in posh places. She does not accept his gifts very willingly, but she always thanks him, reads his books to the end and eats chocolate. Her real passion is “good clothes.” Both try not to think about the future. The characters are opposites: the narrator is active, talkative, and she is silent, thoughtful.
Forgiveness resurrection
So two months pass, the Forgiveness Resurrection arrives. The heroine, dressed in black, invites the narrator to visit the Novodevichy Convent. The woman talked about the beauty of the funeral of a schismatic archbishop and about the singing of the church choir. The couple visited the graves of Chekhov and Ertel, heading further to the tavern. The heroine tells the narrator that real Rus' has probably been preserved only in monasteries in the north, and maybe she will go to one of them. The main character does not take her words seriously, suggesting that these are “fads again.”
Clean Monday
The next morning, the woman asks the main character to take her to the theater, to a skit party, however, considering such “gatherings” vulgar. Here the heroine smokes incessantly, drinks champagne, watches the actors perform, and dances with one of them. At three o'clock in the morning the young man takes the woman home. She releases the coachman and invites him to her place. The characters get closer physically. In the morning she tells her lover that she is leaving for Tver and does not know how long she will stay there.
Ending
Two weeks later, a letter arrives from his beloved asking him not to write or try to find her. She reports that first she will be a novice, and then, perhaps, she will take monastic vows and become a nun. After this, the main character disappears in taverns, going to great lengths and sinking ever lower. Then he recovers for a long time, being completely indifferent to everything. We understand that he is depressed.
Two years pass, on New Year's Eve the main character, with tears in his eyes, walks the road he once walked with her. A man stops at the Marfo-Mariinsky monastery and wants to visit it. The janitor allows entry only after payment. There is a service for the prince and princess at the monastery. In the courtyard, a man watches the religious procession. One of the novices singing in the choir suddenly looks at the main character, as if seeing him in the dark. He realizes that this is his lost lover, turns around and quietly leaves.
conclusions
The love tragedy of the heroes is that they could not understand each other. The heroine renounces carnal love and sees the end of her spiritual quest in the church. Her new love- love of God. Now nothing vulgar will touch her subtle soul. She finds a new meaning in life and peace. The heroine finds her own path, but the narrator was never able to find a place for himself in this life.
The author tells readers that material and physical well-being do not guarantee happiness. Happiness lies in understanding each other and ourselves. The main characters of the story were completely different, and therefore were not happy. After all, the main character did not fully understand his beloved, he saw in her only some oddities and “quirks.” I didn’t see the full depth of her soul and the uniqueness of the spiritual world. He could offer her only external things - wealth, entertainment, carnal pleasures, a bourgeois family. And she wanted more. Bunin told us a sad story about an unhappy love that could not end with a happy ending.
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"CLEAN MONDAY"
I.A. BUNIN
SUMMARY
A Moscow gray winter day turns into evening. Every evening the narrator is driven by a coachman from the Red Gate to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Opposite the temple lives a lady whom he takes to dinner and to the theaters. Who she will be for him, he does not know, she is mysterious and incomprehensible, but he is happy with her. She takes courses, lives alone, and constantly learns the beginning of the “Moonlight Sonata.”
Every Saturday the narrator sends her flowers, brings her chocolate, new books. This couple is followed everywhere by looks. He is talkative and restless, she is silent and thoughtful. They met at a lecture by Andrei Bely, the narrator was spinning and laughing so much that she laughed too. He tells her that she doesn’t love him, she replies that besides her father and him, she has no one. They drink tea, talking about everything that comes to mind. Arriving in the evening, he kissed her for a long time, then she got ready, not allowing complete intimacy, and they went, for example, to the Metropol, again talking about something extraneous. Immediately after they met, she said that she was not fit to be a wife; he did not talk about marriage, but expected her decision to change. Once, after kissing, he grabbed his head and groaned: “Yes, after all, this is not love, not love...” She replied that no one knows what love is. He exclaims that he knows and will wait for her to know love and happiness. And again they talk about something else. It is enough for him to be next to her every evening. January, February passed, Maslenitsa passed.
On Forgiveness Sunday, she ordered him to come to her at five o’clock in the evening, met him all in black, saying that tomorrow was Clean Monday, and invited him to go to the Novodevichy Convent. The narrator was surprised, she said that yesterday she was at the Rogozhskoye cemetery and walks around the city in the morning without him. But this is not religiosity, but something else. In Novodevichy, she tells him with quiet bewilderment: “It’s true, how you love me!” They looked at the graves of Ertel and Chekhov. Then we went to look for Griboedov’s house, and also to Egorov’s tavern for the last pancakes. She says that the Martha and Mary Convent is nearby... In the tavern, in the room with the icon of the Mother of God of the Three Hands, she says: “You are a master, you cannot understand all this Moscow the way I do.” Over dinner, she mentions that she went to the Conception Monastery, where the stichera are sung marvelously, and was in the Chudov Monastery: “Oh, I’ll go somewhere to a monastery, to some very remote one.” In despair, he thinks that then he too will leave or kill someone to be sent to Sakhalin, and lights a cigarette, forgetting that smoking is not allowed here. With a quiet light in her eyes, she retells the Russian legend about how God tested the princess. The narrator is surprised and alarmed.
When he took her home, she told her to come no earlier than ten tomorrow; she wants to go to the skit party at the Art Theater, although she doesn’t like skit parties. He arrives at the appointed time and finds her performing the beginning of the “Moonlight Sonata”, in a black velvet dress. She favorably accepts the attention of the men at the skit party, on the way to the house the month seems to her like a luminous skull, the chimes seem ancient, tin and cast iron. At the entrance, she asks to let the coachman go, although before that she had never allowed him to go up to her place at night. This night was the night of love.
At dawn she said that she was leaving for an indefinite period to visit her father, and that she would write as soon as she arrived. She asks to leave her, the narrator leaves, goes to Iverskaya, kneels and prays. Some old woman takes pity on him: “Oh, don’t kill yourself, don’t kill yourself like that! It’s a sin! It’s a sin!”
Two weeks later he receives a letter: she asks not to wait for her, intends to go to obedience and then, perhaps, to tonsure. She asks him not to answer because it will only increase the torment. He drank for a long time, then began to come to his senses indifferently. Almost two years have passed.
On New Year's Eve, 1914, he goes to the Kremlin, stands without praying in the Archangel Cathedral, then goes to where they skated together, and cries. Having stopped a cab driver at the gates of the Marfo-Mariinsky monastery, he experiences an irresistible desire to go into the temple. But the janitor at the gate blocks the road, asking not to walk, because “Grand Duchess Elzavet Fedrovna and Grand Duke Mitriy Palych” are there now. They let him in for a ruble, but upon entering the courtyard, he sees a religious procession, the Grand Duchess, and one of the sisters suddenly raises her head and looks into the darkness. He understands that this is his beloved.
She somehow sensed his presence and looked straight at him, even though he was standing in the dark. The narrator turned and walked out of the gate.
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Very summary(in a nutshell)
The main character and heroine met by chance at a lecture by Andrei Bely. They started dating, romantic evenings began. They were a match for each other - rich and beautiful, everyone envied their relationship. The main character fell in love with the heroine very much, but did not rush the relationship. Winter passed, and Forgiveness Sunday came, followed by Clean Monday. That day she drank and smoked a lot, and in the evening she left the main character at home. In the morning she announced that she was leaving for Tver, from where she would write a letter. In the letter, she said that she was leaving for a monastery and urgently asked not to look for her. He fulfilled her request, although it was very difficult for him. Two years later, he accidentally saw her at the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent, where he accidentally went. After exchanging glances, he went outside.
Summary (details)
It was an ordinary winter evening. Moscow was gradually freed from daytime activities and illuminated by the lights of shop windows. Driver's sleighs, diving trams and hurrying passers-by rushed through the city. Somewhere among them the main character drove by, urging the coachman on. He was heading from the Red Gate towards the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, where his beloved lived in the house opposite. Every evening, at approximately the same time, he took her out into the world: to restaurants, theaters, and concerts.
They met in December, by chance. When he got to Andrei Bely's lecture, he spun and laughed so much that she, who happened to be in the chair next to him and at first looked at him with some bewilderment, also laughed. Now every evening he went to her apartment, which she rented solely for the wonderful view of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, every evening he took her to dinner in chic restaurants, to theaters, to concerts... He did not know how all this was supposed to end and tried not to even think: she put an end to talk about the future once and for all.
She was mysterious and incomprehensible; their relationship was strange and uncertain, and this kept him in constant unresolved tension, in painful anticipation. And yet, what a joy every hour spent next to her was...
She lived alone in Moscow (her widowed father, an enlightened man of a noble merchant family, lived in retirement in Tver), for some reason she studied at courses (she liked history) and kept learning the slow beginning of the “Moonlight Sonata”, just the beginning... He gave her gifts flowers, chocolate and newfangled books, receiving an indifferent and absent-minded “Thank you...” for all this. And it looked like she didn’t need anything, although she still preferred her favorite flowers, read books, ate chocolate, had lunch and dinner with gusto. Her only obvious weakness was good clothes, expensive fur...
They were both rich, healthy, young and so good-looking that people watched them in restaurants and at concerts. He, being from the Penza province, was then handsome with southern, “Italian” beauty and had the appropriate character: lively, cheerful, always ready for a happy smile. And she had some kind of Indian, Persian beauty, and as much as he was talkative and restless, she was so silent and thoughtful... Even when he suddenly kissed her hotly, impetuously, she did not resist, but was silent all the time. And when she felt that he was unable to control himself, she calmly pulled away, went into the bedroom and got dressed for the next trip. “No, I’m not fit to be a wife!” - she repeated. “We’ll see from there!” - he thought and never spoke about marriage again.
But sometimes this incomplete intimacy seemed unbearably painful to him: “No, this is not love!” - “Who knows what love is?” - she answered. And again, all evening they talked only about strangers, and again he was only happy that he was just next to Her, hearing her voice, looking at the lips that he kissed an hour ago... What torment! And what happiness!
So January and February passed, Maslenitsa came and went. On Forgiveness Sunday, she dressed all in black (“After all, tomorrow is Clean Monday!”) and invited him to go to the Novodevichy Convent. He looked at her in surprise, and She talked about the beauty and sincerity of the funeral of the schismatic archbishop, about the singing of the church choir, making the heart tremble, about her lonely visits to the Kremlin cathedrals... Then they wandered for a long time around the Novodevichy cemetery, visited the graves of Ertel and Chekhov, for a long time -
and searched fruitlessly for Griboyedov’s house, and not finding it, they went to Egorov’s tavern in Okhotny Ryad.
The tavern was warm and full of thickly dressed cab drivers. “That’s good,” she said. “And now only this Rus' remains in some northern monasteries... Oh, I’ll go somewhere to a monastery, to some very remote one!” And she read by heart from ancient Russian legends: “...And the devil gave his wife a flying serpent for fornication. And this serpent appeared to her in human nature, extremely beautiful...” And again he looked with surprise and concern: what’s wrong with her today? Are they all quirks?
Tomorrow she asked to be taken to a theater skit, although she noticed that there was nothing more vulgar than them. At the skit party, she smoked a lot and looked intently at the actors, making faces as the audience laughed. One of them first looked at her with feigned gloomy greed, then, drunkenly leaning into his hand, inquired about her companion: “Who is this handsome man? I hate it”... At three o’clock in the morning, leaving the skit party, She said, either jokingly or seriously: “He was right. Of course he is beautiful. “The serpent is in human nature, extremely beautiful...” And that evening, contrary to usual, she asked to let the crew go...
And in a quiet apartment at night, she immediately went into the bedroom and rustled the dress she was taking off. He walked up to the door: she, wearing only swan slippers, stood in front of the dressing table, combing her black hair with a tortoiseshell comb. “Everyone said that I don’t think much about him,” she said. “No, I thought...” ...And at dawn he woke up from her stare: “I’m leaving for Tver this evening,” she said. - For how long, only God knows... I’ll write everything as soon as I arrive. Sorry, leave me now..."
The letter received two weeks later was brief - an affectionate but firm request not to wait, not to try to search and see: “I won’t return to Moscow, I’ll go to obedience for now, then maybe I’ll decide to take monastic vows...” And he didn’t look for a long time disappeared into the dirtiest taverns, became an alcoholic, sinking more and more. Then he began to recover little by little - indifferent, hopeless...
Almost two years have passed since that clean Monday... On the same quiet evening he left the house, took a cab and went to the Kremlin. He stood for a long time, without praying, in the dark Archangel Cathedral, then he drove for a long time, as then, through dark alleys and kept crying and crying...
On Ordynka I stopped at the gates of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent, in which the girls’ choir sang sadly and tenderly. The janitor didn’t want to let me in, but for a ruble, with a sad sigh, he let me in. Then icons and banners, carried in their hands, appeared from the church, a white line of singing nuns stretched out, with candle lights on their faces. He looked at them carefully, and one of those walking in the middle suddenly raised her head and fixed her dark eyes on the darkness, as if seeing him. What could she see in the darkness, how could she feel His presence? He turned and quietly walked out of the gate.
They met in December, by chance. When he got to Andrei Bely's lecture, he spun and laughed so much that she, who happened to be in the chair next to him and at first looked at him with some bewilderment, also laughed. Now every evening he went to her apartment, which she rented solely for the wonderful view of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, every evening he took her to dinner in chic restaurants, to theaters, to concerts... He did not know how all this was supposed to end and tried not to even think: she put an end to talk about the future once and for all.
She was mysterious and incomprehensible; their relationship was strange and uncertain, and this kept him in constant unresolved tension, in painful anticipation. And yet, what a joy every hour spent next to her was...
She lived alone in Moscow (her widowed father, an enlightened man of a noble merchant family, lived in retirement in Tver), for some reason she studied at courses (she liked history) and kept learning the slow beginning of the “Moonlight Sonata”, just the beginning... He gave her gifts flowers, chocolate and newfangled books, receiving an indifferent and absent-minded “Thank you...” for all this. And it looked like she didn’t need anything, although she still preferred her favorite flowers, read books, ate chocolate, had lunch and dinner with gusto. Her only obvious weakness was good clothes, expensive fur...
They were both rich, healthy, young and so good-looking that people watched them in restaurants and at concerts. He, being from the Penza province, was then handsome with southern, “Italian” beauty and had the appropriate character: lively, cheerful, always ready for a happy smile. And she had some kind of Indian, Persian beauty, and as much as he was talkative and restless, she was so silent and thoughtful... Even when he suddenly kissed her hotly, impetuously, she did not resist, but was silent all the time. And when she felt that he was unable to control himself, she calmly pulled away, went into the bedroom and got dressed for the next trip. “No, I’m not fit to be a wife!” - she repeated. “We’ll see from there!” - he thought and never spoke about marriage again.
But sometimes this incomplete intimacy seemed unbearably painful to him: “No, this is not love!” - “Who knows what love is?” - she answered. And again, all evening they talked only about strangers, and again he was only happy that he was just next to Her, hearing her voice, looking at the lips that he kissed an hour ago... What torment! And what happiness!
So January and February passed, Maslenitsa came and went. On Forgiveness Sunday, she dressed all in black (“After all, tomorrow is Clean Monday!”) and invited him to go to the Novodevichy Convent. He looked at her in surprise, and She talked about the beauty and sincerity of the funeral of the schismatic archbishop, about the singing of the church choir, making the heart flutter, about her lonely visits to the Kremlin cathedrals... Then they wandered for a long time around the Novodevichy cemetery, visited the graves of Ertel and Chekhov, long and fruitlessly They looked for Griboyedov’s house, and not finding it, they went to Egorov’s tavern in Okhotny Ryad.
The tavern was warm and full of thickly dressed cab drivers. “That’s good,” she said. “And now only this Rus' remains in some northern monasteries... Oh, I’ll go somewhere to a monastery, to some very remote one!” And she read by heart from ancient Russian legends: “...And the devil gave his wife a flying serpent for fornication. And this serpent appeared to her in human nature, extremely beautiful...” And again he looked with surprise and concern: what’s wrong with her today? Are they all quirks?
Tomorrow she asked to be taken to a theater skit, although she noticed that there was nothing more vulgar than them. At the skit party, she smoked a lot and looked intently at the actors, making faces as the audience laughed. One of them first looked at her with feigned gloomy greed, then, drunkenly leaning into his hand, inquired about her companion: “Who is this handsome man? I hate it”... At three o’clock in the morning, leaving the skit party, She said, either jokingly or seriously: “He was right. Of course he is beautiful. “The serpent is in human nature, extremely beautiful...” And that evening, contrary to usual, she asked to let the crew go...
And in a quiet apartment at night, she immediately went into the bedroom and rustled the dress she was taking off. He walked up to the door: she, wearing only swan slippers, stood in front of the dressing table, combing her black hair with a tortoiseshell comb. “Everyone said that I don’t think much about him,” she said. “No, I thought...” ...And at dawn he woke up from her gaze: “This evening I’m leaving for Tver,” she said. - For how long, only God knows... I’ll write everything as soon as I arrive. Sorry, leave me now..."
The letter received two weeks later was brief - an affectionate but firm request not to wait, not to try to search and see: “I won’t return to Moscow, I’ll go to obedience for now, then maybe I’ll decide to take monastic vows...” And he didn’t look for a long time disappeared into the dirtiest taverns, became an alcoholic, sinking more and more. Then he began to recover little by little - indifferently, hopelessly...
Almost two years have passed since that clean Monday... On the same quiet evening he left the house, took a cab and went to the Kremlin. He stood for a long time, without praying, in the dark Archangel Cathedral, then he drove for a long time, as then, through dark alleys and kept crying and crying...
On Ordynka I stopped at the gates of the Marfo-Mariinsky monastery, in which the girls’ choir sang sadly and tenderly. The janitor didn’t want to let me in, but for a ruble, with a sad sigh, he let me in. Then icons and banners, carried in their hands, appeared from the church, a white line of singing nuns stretched out, with candle lights on their faces. He looked at them carefully, and one of those walking in the middle suddenly raised her head and fixed her dark eyes on the darkness, as if seeing him. What could she see in the darkness, how could she feel His presence? He turned and quietly walked out of the gate.