Contents of the work
The action takes place in 1912. The narrator and his beloved have an interesting time, attend concerts, restaurants, theaters, listen to public lectures...
One day on the eve of Clean Monday, on Forgiveness Sunday, they, at her request, go to the Novodevichy Convent, where they walk through the cemetery. The next day, again at the girl’s request, the heroes go to a theater skit, where she drinks champagne and dances. At night the narrator brings her home. In the morning the girl tells him that she is leaving and promises to write. In the letter, she says goodbye to him, says that she is leaving for a monastery and asks him not to look for her.
Clean Monday summary
Bunin’s story “Clean Monday” was written in 1944 and was included in the author’s collection dedicated to the theme of love “Dark Alleys”. The work belongs to the literary movement of neorealism. The leading artistic device of the story is antithesis - the author contrasts the images of the hero and heroine, everyday life and spirituality, the city and the monastery, etc., leading the reader to the central problem of the work - the problem of the Russian national character, revealed through the image of the main character. You can read a summary of “Clean Monday” online directly on our website. Main characters The hero-narrator is a young man in love originally from the Penza province. He was outwardly “indecently handsome”, with a “southern”, lively, attractive character. The story is told on his behalf. The heroine is the narrator’s beloved, a girl with a bright appearance - a dark-amber face, thick black hair and eyes black as velvet coal. One rents an apartment in Moscow, and at the end of the work she goes to a monastery. Summary
Every winter evening the narrator drove “from the Red Gate to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior,” opposite which his beloved lived. Every day he took her to restaurants, theaters, and concerts.
The narrator's beloved studied history courses, although she rarely attended them. Her father is a widower, a man of “noble merchant family, lived in retirement in Tver,” and the girl herself rented a corner apartment on the fifth floor for the sake of a picturesque view of Moscow. Her apartment had two rooms. In the first there was a Turkish sofa (a portrait of Tolstoy hung above it) and an expensive piano, on which the heroine was learning the beginning of the Moonlight Sonata. The hero constantly gave his beloved flowers, books, chocolate. The girl received them casually and absent-mindedly, lying on the sofa, but always thanked them. “It looked like she didn’t need anything: no flowers, no books, no lunches, no theaters, no dinners out of town,” although she had her own opinion about everything and loved to eat deliciously. “Her obvious weakness was only good clothes, velvet, silk, expensive fur...” They made a brilliant couple. The young man looked like an Italian; the girl had “some kind of Indian, Persian” beauty. As much as the hero “was prone to talkativeness, to simple-hearted gaiety,” the heroine is silent, she read a lot.
They met in December at a lecture by Andrei Bely, who sang his lecture while running around the stage. The narrator “twirled and laughed” so much that the girl, who happened to sit next to him, became amused herself.
Sometimes, not seeing reciprocity, the young man reproached his beloved for indifference. The girl replied that she had no one except her father and him: “You are my first and last.” She did not resist his caresses, but at the last moment she pulled him away, went into another room and returned already dressed for evening walks. One day the hero started talking to her about marriage. The girl replied that she was not fit to be a wife. The hero understood that he could only hope, although the existing order of things was sometimes unbearable for him.
January, February, the beginning and end of Maslenitsa were a happy period for the hero - he took his beloved to restaurants and theaters, admiring his companion. On Forgiveness Sunday, on the initiative of the heroine, they go to the Novodevichy Convent. The girl says that yesterday morning she was at the Rogozhskoye cemetery, where the archbishop was buried, and enthusiastically recalls what happened. The young man was surprised how she knew so much about the church and church orders, to which the heroine replied that in the mornings, when he “doesn’t drag her to restaurants,” she goes to the Kremlin cathedrals.
While walking, they entered the cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent. At some point, the heroine notices the young man’s adoring gaze and, turning around, says in quiet bewilderment: “It’s true, how you love me.” In the evening, “over pancakes” in Yegorov’s tavern, the girl “with a quiet light in her eyes” talks about monasteries and chronicles, casually mentioning that perhaps she herself will go “to some of the most remote, Vologda, Vyatka” monasteries. Her words worried the hero. The next day, the heroine asks to take her to the “cabbage party” of the Art Theater. Arriving at her in the evening, the hero was surprised that in the girl’s hallway it was unusually light, “and the piano sounded like the beginning of the “Moonlight Sonata” - increasingly rising, sounding the further, the more weary, inviting, in somnambulistic, blissful sadness.” When he slammed the door, the piano fell silent, and the girl came out to him in a black velvet dress.
At the cabbage party, the heroine smoked a lot, constantly drank champagne, then danced a polka with one of the actors. They returned home at three o'clock in the morning. To the young man’s surprise, the girl told him to let the coachman go, and the two of them went up to her apartment. At dawn, waking up the young man, the girl reports that she is leaving for Tver in the evening and, crying, asks to leave her alone.
Two weeks later, the hero received a letter: “I won’t return to Moscow, I’ll go to obedience for now, then maybe I’ll decide to take monastic vows... May God give me the strength not to answer me - it’s useless to prolong and increase our torment...”. The young man fulfilled her request. Having a hard time experiencing what had happened, he disappeared through “the dirtiest taverns,” but then, “indifferently, hopelessly,” he began to “little by little recover.” Almost two years after that Clean Monday, “in the fourteenth year, on New Year’s Eve,” the hero visits the Archangel Cathedral, where he stands for a long time without praying. Driving through their places, the young man could not hold back his tears. Stopping at the gates of the Marfo-Mariinskaya Convent, the hero heard the singing of a girls’ choir. Having slipped a ruble to the janitor, the young man goes inside the courtyard and witnesses the religious procession: the princess came out of the church, and behind her “a white line of singers, with candle lights on their faces, nuns or sisters.” One of the walkers suddenly raised her head and looked with dark eyes into the darkness, as if sensing the presence of a hero there. He “turned and quietly walked out of the gate.”
Conclusion Bunin, reflecting on his story, wrote: “I thank God that he gave me the opportunity to write “Clean Monday.” Indeed, the story amazes with the depth of its themes, making us think about the most important issues in our lives: the choice between “worldly” human happiness and spirituality, the desire for God, and self-knowledge. The main character makes a choice in favor of the latter, explaining her choice in the words of Tolstoy’s character, Platon Karataev: “Happiness [“worldly”] is ours, my friend, like water in delirium: if you pull it, it’s inflated, but if you pull it out, there’s nothing.”
The retelling of the work “Clean Monday” presented on the site will be useful for schoolchildren, students and anyone who wants to familiarize themselves with the plot of the story.
What do Peter and Fevronia have to do with it?
Peter and Fevronia. Drawing by Alexander Prostev
Of great importance in the story “Clean Monday” are references to the ancient Russian hagiography “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia”.
The heroine of “Clean Monday” refers to the text of the story; she reads the first two quotes by heart on the eve of Clean Monday. Telling the hero about her love for antiquity, she says: “There was a city in the Russian land called Murom, and a noble prince named Paul reigned in it. And the devil introduced a flying serpent to his wife for fornication. And this serpent appeared to her in human nature, extremely beautiful...” Then, not paying attention to her companion, she explains: “This is how God tested her,” and then the second quote follows: “When the time came for her blessed death, this prince and this princess begged God to repose in one day. And they agreed to be buried in the same coffin. And they ordered to carve two grave beds in a single stone. And they also clothed themselves at the same time in monastic robes...”
These two quotes refer to different plots of “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia”: the first is about Prince Paul and his wife, seduced by the tempting serpent, the second is about the marriage of Paul’s brother Peter to the wise maiden Fevronia and about their faithful married life. In the heroine's mind, these two plots are combined into one. The first plot is related to the motives of temptation and testing in the story. The second one has themes of love and marriage. The heroine projects both plots onto her life, trying to understand herself and her relationship with her lover. The heroine understands that she cannot live the kind of life that Peter and Fevronia lived with her companion. On the one hand, she strives for purity and chastity, and on the other, she experiences love-passion for her lover and joy from secular pleasures.
Her departure to the monastery is due to the fact that the heroine cannot find in worldly life what will bring peace and spiritual joy to her soul.
According to the heroine, love for a man and love for God should not conflict. Feeling this contradiction in herself, the heroine, unlike Fevronia, who immediately saw her husband in Peter, does not see herself in the role of a wife (“No, I’m not fit to be a wife. I’m not fit, I’m not fit...”). She understands that for her lover, marriage is first and foremost a continuation of sensual relationships.
Parting with the heroine also affected the hero. Suffering changed his character: the ease, the idea of life as a series of pleasures, is gradually replaced by a serious understanding of life and humility.
Interesting Facts
Bunin’s wife, Vera Muromtseva, said that Bunin himself, who was already 73 years old at the time of writing the story “Clean Monday,” called it his best work.
There are only two main characters in the story: the heroine and the narrator himself. The reader will never know their names.
The story “Clean Monday” is part of Bunin’s famous cycle of 38 short stories “Dark Alleys”, telling about love, meetings and partings. Bunin wrote the cycle over 10 years - from the mid-1930s to the mid-1940s. The name “Dark Alleys” was taken by the writer from the poem “An Ordinary Tale” by the poet Nikolai Ogarev, dedicated to his first love, which did not have a happy continuation.
The peculiarity of Bunin's numerous stories about love is that the love of two heroes for some reason cannot continue. However, in each story a happy moment of love is experienced, remaining in the memory of the heroes forever. According to Bunin, it is memory that makes love eternal.
...Date at the cemetery
Excerpt from Ivan Bunin’s story “Clean Monday”
Who knows what love is? - I, I know! - I exclaimed. - And I will wait for you to find out what love and happiness are! - Happiness, happiness... “Our happiness, my friend, is like water in delirium: if you pull it, it’s inflated, but if you pull it out, there’s nothing.” - What's this? - This is what Platon Karataev told Pierre. I waved my hand: “Oh, God be with her, with this eastern wisdom!” And again, the whole evening he talked only about strangers - about a new production at the Art Theater, about a new story by Andreev... Again, it was enough for me that first I was sitting closely with her in a flying and rolling sleigh, holding her in the smooth fur of a fur coat, then I enter with her into the crowded hall of the restaurant to the sound of a march from Aida, eat and drink next to her, hear her slow voice, look at the lips that I kissed an hour ago... And tomorrow and the day after tomorrow everything will be the same, I thought, everything the same torment and the same happiness... Well, it’s still happiness, great happiness! So January and February passed, Maslenitsa came and went. On Forgiveness Sunday, she ordered me to come to her at five o’clock in the evening. I arrived, and she met me already dressed, in a short astrakhan fur coat, astrakhan hat, and black felt boots. - All Black! - I said, entering, as always, joyfully. Her eyes were gentle and quiet. “After all, tomorrow is already clean Monday,” she answered, taking it out of her astrakhan muff and giving me her hand in a black kid glove. - “Lord, master of my belly...” Do you want to go to the Novodevichy Convent? I was surprised, but hastened to say: “I want to!” “Well, it’s all taverns and taverns,” she added. - Yesterday morning I was at the Rogozhskoye cemetery... I was even more surprised: - At the cemetery? For what? Is this the famous schismatic? - Yes, schismatic. Pre-Petrine Rus'! Their archbishop was buried. And just imagine: the coffin is an oak block, as in ancient times, the gold brocade seems to be forged, the face of the deceased is covered with white “air”, embroidered with large black lettering - beauty and horror. And at the coffin there are deacons with ripidae and trikiria... - How do you know this? Ripids, trikiriyas! - You don't know me. “I didn’t know you were so religious.” - This is not religiosity. I don’t know what... But I, for example, often go in the mornings or evenings, when you don’t drag me to restaurants, to the Kremlin cathedrals, and you don’t even suspect it... So: deacons - what kind! Peresvet and Oslyabya! And on two choirs there are two choirs, also all Peresvets: tall, powerful, in long black caftans, they sing, calling to each other - first one choir, then the other - and all in unison, and not according to notes, but according to “hooks”. And the inside of the grave was lined with shiny spruce branches, and outside it was frosty, sunny, blinding snow... No, you don’t understand this! Let's go... The evening was peaceful, sunny, with frost on the trees; on the bloody brick walls of the monastery, jackdaws chattered in silence, looking like nuns, and the chimes played subtly and sadly every now and then in the bell tower. Creaking in silence through the snow, we entered the gate, walked along the snowy paths through the cemetery - the sun had just set, it was still quite light, the branches in the frost were wonderfully drawn on the golden enamel of the sunset like gray coral, and mysteriously glowed around us with calm, sad lights unquenchable lamps scattered over the graves. I followed her, looking with emotion at her little footprint, at the stars that her new black boots left in the snow. She suddenly turned around, feeling this: “It’s true, how you love me!” - she said with quiet bewilderment, shaking her head. We stood near the graves of Ertel and Chekhov. Holding her hands in her lowered muff, she looked for a long time at the Chekhov gravestone, then shrugged her shoulder: “What a disgusting mixture of leafy Russian style and the Art Theater!” It began to get dark and freezing, we slowly walked out of the gate, near which my Fyodor was obediently sitting on a box. “We’ll drive a little more,” she said, “then we’ll go eat the last pancakes at Yegorov’s... But not too much, Fedor, right?” - I’m listening, sir. — Somewhere on Ordynka there is a house where Griboyedov lived. Let's go look for him... And for some reason we went to Ordynka, drove for a long time along some alleys in the gardens, were in Griboyedovsky Lane; but who could tell us which house Griboyedov lived in? There wasn’t a soul passing by, and who of them could need Griboyedov? It had long since gotten dark, the frost-lit windows behind the trees were turning pink... “There is also the Marfo-Mariinsky Monastery,” she said. I laughed: “Back to the monastery again?” - No, it’s just me...
Clean Monday - Bunin Ivan Alekseevich (2016)
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Ivan Bunin Clean Monday The Moscow gray winter day was darkening, the gas in the lanterns was coldly lit, the shop windows were warmly illuminated - and the evening life of Moscow, freed from daytime affairs, flared up: the cab sleighs rushed thicker and more vigorously, the crowded, diving trams rattled more heavily - in the dusk it was already one could see green stars falling from the wires with a hiss—the dimly blackened passers-by hurried more animatedly along the snowy sidewalks... Every evening my coachman rushed me at that hour on a stretched trotter—from the Red Gate to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior: she lived opposite him; every evening I took her to dinner at Prague, at the Hermitage, at Metropol, after dinner to theaters, to concerts, and then to Yar, to Strelna... How all this was going to end, I didn’t know and tried not to think, not to think: it was useless - just like talking to her about it: she once and for all put aside conversations about our future; she was mysterious, incomprehensible to me, and our relationship with her was strange - we were still not very close; and all this endlessly kept me in unresolved tension, in painful anticipation - and at the same time I was incredibly happy with every hour spent near her.
For some reason, she took courses, attended them quite rarely, but attended them. I once asked: “Why?” She shrugged her shoulder: “Why is everything done in the world? Do we understand anything in our actions? Besides, I’m interested in history...” She lived alone - her widowed father, an enlightened man of a noble merchant family, lived in retirement in Tver, collecting something, like all such merchants. In the house opposite the Church of the Savior, for the sake of the view of Moscow, she rented a corner apartment on the fifth floor, only two rooms, but spacious and well furnished. In the first, a wide Turkish sofa occupied a lot of space, there was an expensive piano, on which she kept practicing the slow, somnambulistically beautiful beginning of the “Moonlight Sonata”, only one beginning - on the piano and on the mirror-glass, elegant flowers bloomed in cut vases - on my orders to her they delivered fresh ones every Saturday - and when I came to her on Saturday evening, she, lying on the sofa, above which for some reason hung a portrait of a barefoot Tolstoy, slowly extended her hand to me for a kiss and absently said: “Thank you for the flowers...” I he brought her boxes of chocolate, new books - Hofmannsthal, Schnitzler, Tetmeier, Przybyszewski - and received the same “thank you” and an outstretched warm hand, sometimes an order to sit near the sofa without taking off her coat. “It’s not clear why,” she said thoughtfully, stroking my beaver collar, “but, it seems, nothing can be better than the smell of winter air with which you enter the room from the yard...” It looked like she didn’t need anything: neither flowers, no books, no dinners, no theaters, no dinners outside the city, although she still had flowers that she liked and didn’t like, she always read all the books that I brought her, she ate a whole box of chocolate in a day, at lunches and she ate dinners no less than me, loved pies with burbot fish soup, pink hazel grouse in deep-fried sour cream, sometimes she said: “I don’t understand how people won’t get tired of this all their lives, having lunch and dinner every day,” but she herself had lunch and dinner with the Moscow understanding of the matter. Her obvious weakness was only good clothes, velvet, silk, expensive fur...
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