About the product
Bunin wrote the story “Antonov Apples” in 1900. The work is a lyrical monologue-memory, constructed using the “association technique”.
The author wrote the story under the impression of visiting his brother’s estate, where it smelled of Antonov apples. Compositionally, the work is divided into four parts, which trace the change from autumn to harsh winter and the corresponding changes in the life of the village.
On our website you can read online a summary of “Antonov Apples”. The retelling will help you prepare for a literature lesson and test.
The material was prepared jointly with a teacher of the highest category, Kuchmina Nadezhda Vladimirovna.
Experience as a teacher of Russian language and literature - 27 years.
IV
The smell of Antonov apples disappears from the landowners' estates. These days were so recent, and yet it seems to me that almost a whole century has passed since then. The old people in Vyselki died, Anna Gerasimovna died, Arseny Semenych shot himself... The kingdom of the small landed people, impoverished to the point of beggary, is coming!.. But this beggarly small-scale life is also good!
So I see myself again in the village, in late autumn. The days are bluish and cloudy. In the morning I get into the saddle and with one dog, a gun and a horn, I go into the field. The wind rings and hums in the barrel of a gun, the wind blows strongly towards, sometimes with dry snow. All day long I wander through the empty plains... Hungry and frozen, I return to the estate at dusk, and my soul becomes so warm and joyful when the lights of Vyselok flash and the smell of smoke and housing draws me out of the estate. I remember in our house they liked to “go twilight” at this time, not light a fire and conduct conversations in the semi-darkness. Entering the house, I find the winter frames already installed, and this puts me even more in the mood for a peaceful winter mood. In the servant's room, a worker lights the stove, and, as in childhood, I squat down next to a heap of straw, already smelling sharply of winter freshness, and look first into the blazing stove, then at the windows, behind which the dusk, turning blue, sadly dies. Then I go to the people's room. It’s bright and crowded there: the girls are chopping cabbage, the chops are flashing by, I listen to their rhythmic, friendly knock and friendly, sad and cheerful village songs... Sometimes some small-scale neighbor will come and take me away for a long time... Small-scale life is good too!
The small-timer gets up early. Stretching tightly, he gets out of bed and rolls a thick cigarette made of cheap, black tobacco or simply shag. The pale light of an early November morning illuminates a simple, bare-walled office, yellow and crusty fox skins above the bed and a stocky figure in trousers and a belted blouse, and the mirror reflects the sleepy face of a Tatar warehouse. There is dead silence in the dim, warm house. Outside the door in the corridor, the old cook, who lived in the manor house when she was a girl, is snoring. This, however, does not stop the master from hoarsely shouting to the whole house:
- Lukerya! Samovar!
Then, putting on his boots, throwing his jacket over his shoulders and not buttoning the collar of his shirt, he goes out onto the porch. The locked hallway smells like a dog; lazily reaching out, yawning and smiling, the hounds surround him.
- Burp! - he says slowly, in a condescending bass voice, and walks through the garden to the threshing floor. His chest breathes widely with the sharp air of dawn and the smells of a naked garden, chilled during the night. Leaves curled up and blackened by frost rustle under boots in a birch alley that has already been half-cut down. Silhouetted against the low gloomy sky, tufted jackdaws sleep on the crest of the barn... It will be a glorious day for hunting! And, stopping in the middle of the alley, the master looks for a long time into the autumn field, at the deserted green winter fields through which the calves wander. Two hound bitches squeal at his feet, and Zalivay is already behind the garden: jumping over the prickly stubble, he seems to be calling and asking to go to the field. But what will you do now with the hounds? The animal is now in the field, on the rise, on the black trail, and in the forest he is afraid, because in the forest the wind rustles the leaves... Oh, if only there were greyhounds!
Threshing begins in Riga. The drum of the thresher hums slowly, dispersing. Lazily pulling on the lines, resting their feet on the dung circle and swaying, the horses walk in the drive. In the middle of the drive, spinning on a bench, the driver sits and shouts monotonously at them, always whipping only one brown gelding, who is the laziest of all and completely sleeps while walking, fortunately his eyes are blindfolded.
- Well, well, girls, girls! - the sedate waiter shouts sternly, donning a wide canvas shirt.
The girls hastily sweep away the current, running around with stretchers and brooms.
- With God blessing! - says the server, and the first bunch of starnovka, launched for testing, flies into the drum with a buzzing and squealing and rises up from under it like a disheveled fan. And the drum hums more and more insistently, the work begins to boil, and soon all the sounds merge into the general pleasant noise of threshing. The master stands at the gate of the barn and watches how red and yellow scarves, hands, rakes, straw flash in its darkness, and all this moves and bustles rhythmically to the roar of the drum and the monotonous scream and whistle of the driver. Proboscis flies towards the gate in clouds. The master stands, all gray from him. He often glances at the field... Soon, soon the fields will turn white, winter will soon cover them...
Winter, first snow! There are no greyhounds, there is nothing to hunt in November; but winter comes, “work” with the hounds begins. And here again, as in the old days, small-scale families gather together, drink with their last money, and disappear for whole days in the snowy fields. And in the evening, on some remote farm, the outbuilding windows glow far away in the darkness of the winter night. There, in this small outbuilding, clouds of smoke float, tallow candles burn dimly, a guitar is being tuned...
At dusk, the wind blew wildly, It opened wide my gates,” someone begins in a chesty tenor. And others clumsily, pretending that they are joking, pick up with sad, hopeless daring:
He opened my wide gates, covered the path with white snow...
1900
Summary
Chapter I
The narrator recalls an early fine autumn, August, “a dried up and thinning garden,” “the smell of Antonov apples.” From the garden the road leads to a large hut, “near which the townspeople acquired a whole household over the summer.” On holidays, fairs were held here, where villagers gathered and crowded here until the evening.
Late at night the narrator comes to the garden. Taking a gun from the tradesman Nikolai, he shoots, and then peers for a long time into the “dark blue depths of the sky” and returns home along the alley. “How good it is to live in the world!”
Chapter II
If Antonovka was born, then bread was born. The narrator recalls that Vyselki from time immemorial was famous for its “wealth”: “old men and women lived in Vyselki for a very long time.” He cites Pankrat as an example: the man remembered his fellow villager Platon Apollonych, which means Pankrat himself was “at least a hundred years old.”
“Rich men had huts in two or three connections.” Bees were bred here, “thick and fat hemp plants were dark on the threshing floors,” and all sorts of goods were stored in barns. To the narrator, then still a boy, “at times it seemed extremely tempting to be a man.”
Even in his memory, “the lifestyle of an average nobleman” had “much in common with the lifestyle of a rich peasant life.” This “was the estate of Aunt Anna Gerasimovna, who lived about twelve versts from Vyselki.” Her serfdom was already felt in her yard. There were many low outbuildings made of oak logs.
“My aunt’s garden was famous for its neglect, nightingales, turtle doves and apples,” and the house was famous for its thick thatched roof. “You walk into the house and the first thing you smell is apples.” While talking about antiquity, the aunt served treats, apples of different varieties - Antonovsky, “Bel-Barynya”, Borovinka, “Plodovitka”.
Chapter III
“In recent years, one thing has kept the fading spirit of the landowners alive—hunting.”
The narrator remembers how he gathered with other hunters at the estate of Arseny Semenych. One day the “black greyhound, Arseny Semenych’s favorite” began to “devour the remains of the hare with sauce from the dish.” Arseny Semenych, who came out of the office, fired a revolver and, laughing and playing with his eyes, said: “It’s a pity that I missed!”
The narrator recalls how he was riding with “Arseny Semenych’s noisy gang” and hunting. After the hunt, they stopped to spend the night at the estate of “some almost unknown bachelor landowner.”
But “when I happened to oversleep the hunt, the rest was especially pleasant.” After a walk in the garden, the narrator went to the library, where his grandfather’s books were kept. Among them are novels, “magazines with the names: Zhukovsky, Batyushkov, lyceum student Pushkin” and others. He sadly recalled how his grandmother played the clavichord and read “Eugene Onegin.”
Chapter IV
“The smell of Antonov apples disappears from the landowners’ estates.”
“The old people in Vyselki died, Anna Gerasimovna died, Arseny Semenych shot himself... The kingdom of the small estates, impoverished to the point of beggary, is coming!”
The narrator comes again to the village in late autumn. “Sometimes some small-scale neighbor will stop by and take me away for a long time... The life of a small-scale estate is good too!” “The small-timer gets up early.” Waking up, he goes to work. “Often he glances at the field... Soon, soon the fields will turn white, winter will soon cover them...”
In winter, “again, as in former times, small-scale residents gather together” and “disappear for whole days in the snowy fields” - they hunt.
A summary of the story “Antonov Apples” in detail by chapter.
Chapter 1
The author recalls a beautiful warm autumn on his native estate. The main indicator of a good year is a rich harvest of Antonov apples. All peasants were engaged in collecting them. The aroma of apples enveloped the area for several days. Every evening there were dances in the garden and loud laughter was heard.
These days, the young narrator loved to run out into the garden at night and admire the starry sky. It seemed to him that life would always be as wonderful.
Author: Ivan Alekseevich Bunin
Chapter 2
“Vigorous Antonovka - for a fun year.” The author remembered this phrase for the rest of his life. In a harvest year, the village of Vyselki seemed to be transformed. Driving through it, the author once again drew attention to the well-being of the residents.
The old people in Vyselki were so ancient that they didn’t even know how old they were. It seemed that they were not dying of old age, but only as a result of an accident.
Many men had very rich yards and extensive farms. Looking at the self-satisfied peasant with his beautiful wife, the author involuntarily envied their lifestyle. Although in everyday life, landowners were not much different from peasants.
For the author, the estate of his aunt, Anna Gerasimovna, was an Old Testament “island” reminiscent of the times of serfdom. Coming to her, it was as if he found himself in a different era. The guest was respectfully greeted by old courtyard people who remained faithful to their mistress. The aunt herself began long, leisurely conversations about old times, telling various stories from her life. Abundant food was laid out on the tables...
Chapter 3
One of the most vivid youthful memories for the author remains his visits to his brother-in-law, Arseny Semenych. Many hunters constantly gathered on his estate. During a noisy dinner, a hunting dog could run into the hall and steal a piece from the table. The owner himself could scare the guests with a shot right in the house.
The noisy hunt brought great joy: mad galloping, baiting the animal, fatigue at the end of the day. In the evening, the whole company could, without an invitation, descend on some neighboring landowner and live with him for several days.
If the narrator happened to be late for a hunt, he spent the whole day in an empty house: wandering around an unfamiliar garden, looking at old books in the library, indulged in dreams, looking at family portraits...
Chapter 4
The author considers the ruin of landowners' farms to be a real tragedy. Anna Gerasimovna and Arseny Semenych, long-livers in Vyselki, are no longer alive. Together with them, an entire era goes into the past.
Arriving at the family nest in the fall, the narrator stays with the poor small-scale nobles, whose life also has its charms. Such a landowner became even closer to the peasants. Getting up very early, he lights a cheap cigarette and orders tea to be served. Going out into the street, the small estate owner sadly thinks that he cannot go hunting because there is no money for greyhounds. He aimlessly watches the peasants at work and looks forward to the first snow.
With the onset of winter, the poor nobles gather together, drink away their last money, and disappear for whole days in the snowy fields with the hounds. At night, over sad songs, they remember the years gone by forever.
