Ivan Alekseevich Bunin
"Clean Monday"
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 didn’t 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...” to 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 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, 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 while 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. “He kept saying 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 - 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 the 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 sense His presence? He turned and quietly walked out of the gate.
They met one day in December by chance. He came to listen to Andrei Bely’s lecture, and laughed so much that he infected everyone around him with his laughter. She found herself next to him, and also laughed, not understanding the reason. Now they went to restaurants and theaters together, and lived in the same apartment. They didn't want to talk about the future, enjoying every minute of their happiness. She had a separate apartment in Moscow. My father, from a wealthy family, lived in Tver. Every day he brought flowers and gifts. Both were not poor, young and happy. In restaurants, everyone followed them with their eyes, admiring the combination of such beauty. But they weren’t ready for marriage yet.
There were times when it seemed to him that there was no love. In response I heard only the words: “What is love?” Over and over again, it was just the two of them, and they enjoyed every moment of life. So the winter passed, and on Forgiveness Sunday she put on black clothes, and suggested going to the Novodevichy Convent. He looked at her in surprise, and she told how the heart beats when you are in church, and how beautifully the church choir sings. They walked around the Novodevichy cemetery for a long time, looking for the graves of famous writers. After that, they went to a tavern on Okhotny Ryad.
There were a lot of people in the tavern. She never stopped thinking about how good it was in Russian monasteries, and wanted to someday go to one of them. She recited ancient Russian legends by heart, and he again looked at her in surprise, not knowing what was happening to her.
The next day, she decided to go to a theater meeting, although she said that it was cheesy. Here she looked at celebrities and smoked a lot. One of the actors watched her greedily all evening, and at the end, after getting drunk, he pressed his lips to her hand. He asked who her companion was, looking at him with hatred. Late at night, coming from a party, she thought that her gentleman was too handsome, like a snake in human form. And after thinking a little, she released the crew.
Entering the quiet, calm apartment, she immediately went into the bedroom and took off her dress. He went to the door and saw her standing only in swan slippers. She stood in front of the mirror and combed her hair. Saying that she was leaving for Tver to see her father in the morning, she went to bed. Two weeks later, he received a letter saying that she would no longer come. In addition, she asked not to seek a meeting with her. He didn't even look for a long time, going down to the bottom with the help of alcohol. Then, little by little, he began to come to his senses.
A few years later, he left home and went to the Kremlin. It was a clean Monday, and he stood for a long time in one of the cathedrals without praying. Then he drove through the dark streets of Moscow and cried.
After some time, he stopped at the gates of the Marfo-Mariinsky Monastery, where the girls’ choir sang so beautifully and sadly. At first they didn’t want to let him in, but after paying the janitor a ruble, he entered. Here he saw nuns come out of the church, holding candles in their hands. He looked at them carefully. Suddenly he saw her. She looked into the darkness, straight at him, seeing nothing. It is possible that she felt his presence. He turned around and left.
Ivan Bunin is known to many readers as a brilliant writer and poet. During his creative career, the writer created huge amount poems, stories, novellas and novels. They are all imbued deep meaning and have an interesting and exciting plot. The collection of short stories “ Dark alleys" All works from it tell about love. For the writer himself, this feeling evokes conflicting emotions - happy and sad at the same time. To talk about love in more detail, Bunin wrote “Clean Monday”. shows how ambiguous and deep it is.
The strangeness of love between the heroes of the story
Love is not only the joy of meetings, but also the torment of parting, this is also shown by analysis. Bunin wrote “Clean Monday” to show the depth of his characters’ feelings. The writer didn’t even give them names, because the story is told by the hero himself, and the image of the heroine is so complex, multifaceted and mysterious that she doesn’t need a name. Even at the beginning of the work, it becomes clear that the lovers will have no future. This is a beautiful, young full of strength and steam energy, but they are too different.
A man is fixated on his feelings, and this prevents him from knowing better spiritual world to your beloved. They spend a lot of time together, have a picnic, go to restaurants, visit the theater, but the girl seems too distant. The heroine is in search of her true purpose- this is exactly what the analysis shows. Bunin composed “Clean Monday” to talk about the fact that sooner or later every person will have to decide what to do next, to determine whether he has chosen the right path. The girl does not want to talk about the future, categorically denies the possibility of marriage, and says that she is not ready to become a wife. The man understands that this is not normal, but still agrees with the oddities of his beloved.
Finding your place in this world
The heroine cannot find herself - this is also shown by the analysis. Bunin wrote “Clean Monday” to show the girl’s emotional experiences. She did everything that was accepted in society: she studied, dressed beautifully, attended the theater, met with her loved one. But deep down, the woman realized that all this was not what she needed. This is what explains the detachment main character, her reluctance to talk about a future together with her lover. She always did everything the way everyone else did, but that didn’t suit her.
Painful separation
Conflicting feelings increasingly arise in the girl’s soul; she can no longer live simply and carefree, like most young people. The decision to radically change her life has long been brewing for the heroine, and the analysis speaks to this. It was not in vain that Bunin chose Clean Monday for turning point in the fate of the characters. On the first day of Lent, the girl decides to devote herself to serving God. The heroine makes a man suffer from separation, but she herself suffers from this.
The story "Clean Monday" is mainly devoted to strong personality a girl who was not afraid to do differently from everyone else, to dramatically change her life and find the meaning of her existence.
This article will focus on his work called “Clean Monday,” which was written in 1944. This story was included in the famous collection “Dark Alleys,” which reveals to the reader a special world where, even in a dark space, there is a place for love. But notes of love are not the only attractive effect. With his stories, the author tried to show as accurately as possible the life of Russia, both in pre-revolutionary times and after great events, which for some were constructive, and for others destructive.
In the story, written in the first person, every evening the hero visits one apartment, which is located opposite the temple. In this place lives a girl with whom he is madly in love. He goes out with her a lot, takes her to various taverns and theaters, showers her with various gifts, but until the very end he cannot understand how it will all end. The girl is silent about the future and her intentions.
And although the main characters do not have intimacy, the young man is already truly happy next to his beloved.
The girl is taking a history course, she lives alone, her father is a merchant on the road. She accepts gifts from the hero, thanks him, but it seems that she is completely indifferent.
It looked like she didn’t need anything: no flowers, no books, no dinners, no theaters, no dinners out of town.
She, like every girl, has her favorite flowers, she loves sweets. However, her real passion lies in chic clothes. According to the work, the hero himself and his girlfriend are young and beautiful. He looks somewhat like an Italian, and she looks like a Persian princess. By nature, the hero is talkative and cheerful, but she is quite the opposite, silent and very tactful.
The main character often recalls how he met his beloved. This happened during a lecture when the teacher was running around the audience and singing songs. Then this amused the guy so much that he laughed uncontrollably, and the girl was very attracted to this. From the first meetings, the young man felt charmed and was happy, although the desire to be even closer with the girl did not leave him.
All this happens in the same tone over several months. Maslenitsa has passed and the girl asks the hero to come to her earlier than usual. Afterwards they go together to the monastery, where along the way she told about the burial ceremony of the archbishop. Then the hero was very surprised. He realized that he didn’t know her well since he had not noticed such a strong passion for religion.
Near the monastery they visit a cemetery, where they walk for a long time among the graves. The hero looks at her so lovingly that the girl understands that this is not a simple hobby, it is probably love. When, having wandered, they find themselves in a tavern, the heroine continued to talk about monasteries and expressed a desire to happily leave to serve God. However, the narrator admires her so much that he does not notice what she is saying and does not take her words seriously.
A day later, she asks the hero to bring her to the theater for a skit. She drank champagne and danced all evening. Afterwards the hero took her home, and she asked him to come up to her. Later they made love, and the next morning she said that she was leaving for Tver forever and asked not to look for her, she would write herself. The letter said this:
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 hero was in despair, began to drink a lot, and completely lost faith in himself and in life. Two years later, he again remembered his beloved and repeated the path that he had once taken with her in Forgiveness Sunday. Inside there was a service for the princess and prince; the hero, handing some money to the janitor, went there. A religious procession takes place here. The princess goes first, followed by the sisters with candles. One of them raised her eyes and looked straight at the hero, but he turned and left.
Analysis of the story “Clean Monday”
The name of this story was not invented without reason, Clean Monday, this is the date of the first week during Lent. There is also another meaning here; we can consider that the actions take place in last holiday before the war in Moscow. The work has a strong and varied atmosphere, perhaps this is all due to the fact that the work itself is written in the first person. Everything is described here quite simply, everything happens in a strange city, where the hero suffers from an incomprehensible love for a mysterious girl. The hero doesn’t even think about the future; he doesn’t care what happens. The story is written using a refrain that enhances the sensations of a waking dream.
“And why, why do you have to torture me and yourself so cruelly?”
Life in Moscow is described in great detail; the story contains a lot of specifics. For example, the fact that the author’s morning smells of both snow and the smell of bakeries, and the day is damp - this too special attention. There are also many detailed descriptions here, here are some of them: “gray coral branches in the frost”, “crowded, diving trams”, “snowy sidewalks dimly blackening passers-by”. As you can see, life in the Soviet metropolis is described in detail, the reader is imbued with the work and it already seems that he himself is present at the scene of events and feels all these smells.
The city is described surprisingly accurately. The story shows many sights of Moscow. The author, without being lazy, describes both monasteries and cathedrals, taverns and restaurants. Even restaurant menus are described quite colorfully. The main characters either eat pink hazel grouse in fried sour cream or pancakes with homemade herbal tea.
When you read this work, you get the feeling that there is eternal movement going on here. The hero himself came from what is now Penza, so he is already in Moscow and falls in love, and the girl herself is not from Moscow either, she is from Tver. The characters, having met, are constantly doing something, reading and discussing books, going to theaters, attending concerts and not forgetting about lectures.
Even the place where they live is remarkable. So the man lives at the Red Gate, and she lives near the temple. All this points to the temperament of the heroes. And although their appearance and characters were different, they were drawn to each other.
“For some reason I was handsome, with a southern, hot beauty...”, “And she had some kind of Indian, Persian beauty...”
The story describes everything clearly and in detail. Everything is captured in the work: meeting places, conversations, the mood of the characters, it is even described in detail how certain objects are located in the apartment. Their love is called strange and mysterious, somewhat incomprehensible. Then there is this separation, the girl goes to the monastery and, most likely, will give lunch.
IN this work emphasized not only psychological aspect, there's a lot of philosophy and history here. On specific example shows all the dullness of everyday life in Russia. There is melancholy all around and there is no hope for a bright future, only mystery and a fatal premonition. You read this work and want to think about Mother Russia.
It is interesting that, unlike Bunin’s other stories, there is a specific time frame here. The action takes place at the end of Maslenitsa and the beginning of Lent. Although the work is small in volume, the time range here is quite wide. There are several dates, for example, events developed in 1912, and already last meeting they occurred in 1914.
You can observe the hero’s inner experiences by several things, such as movement in time and real historical events. So he fell in love, his life seemed to have found new meaning, more sublime, but there is the tragedy of that time all around. The writer very subtly emphasized the details of that era, the lyrics here are drawn through the epic narrative.
Although the story is filled with many details and descriptions of that era, all the lyricism and tragedy of the work is clearly visible here. What’s interesting is that the heroes break up not because something obliges them. It’s just that their habit of each other began to develop into love, and this is the reason for the separation. IN in this case love did not bring the couple together, but separated them.
Like most of Bunin's stories, love is a flash that does not lead to anything good, and this work was no exception. The choice has been made, and everyone has chosen their own path.
Page 1 of 4
CLEAR 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 Moscow life, freed from daytime affairs, flared up: the cabbies' sleighs rushed thicker and more vigorously, the crowded, diving trams rattled more heavily - in the darkness it was already visible how green stars fell from the wires with a hiss, - dimly blackened passers-by hurried more animatedly along the snowy sidewalks... Every evening my coachman rushed me at this 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 in “Prague”, in “Hermitage”, in “Metropol”, after dinner in theaters, to concerts, and then to “Yar”, “Strelna”... How should all this end, I I didn’t know and tried not to think, not to think about it: it was useless - just like talking to her about it: she once and for all averted 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? In addition, I am 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 faceted vases - on my order fresh ones were delivered to her 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 said absentmindedly: “Thank you for the flowers... “I 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 my 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 seemed that nothing mattered to her she needed: no flowers, no books, no lunches, no theaters, no dinners out of town, although she still had her favorite and least favorite flowers, she always read all the books that I brought her, she ate a whole box of chocolate in a day, at lunches and dinners she ate 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 ate lunch and I dined with a Moscow understanding of the matter. Her obvious weakness was only good clothes, velvet, silk, expensive fur...
We were both rich, healthy, young and so good-looking that people stared at us in restaurants and at concerts. I, being from the Penza province, was at that time handsome for some reason with a southern, hot beauty, I was even “indecently handsome,” as one famous actor, a monstrously fat man, a great glutton and a clever man once told me. “The devil knows who you are, some Sicilian,” he said sleepily; and my character was southern, lively, always ready for a happy smile, for a good joke. And she had some kind of Indian, Persian beauty: a dark-amber face, magnificent and somewhat ominous hair in its thick blackness, softly shining like black sable fur, eyebrows, eyes black as velvet coal; the mouth, captivating with velvety crimson lips, was shaded with dark fluff; when going out, she most often put on a garnet velvet dress and the same shoes with gold buckles (and she went to courses as a modest student, ate breakfast for thirty kopecks in a vegetarian canteen on Arbat); and as much as I was inclined to talkativeness, to simple-hearted gaiety, she was most often silent: she was always thinking about something, she seemed to be delving into something mentally; lying on the sofa with a book in her hands, she often lowered it and looked inquiringly in front of her: I saw this, sometimes visiting her during the day, because every month she did not leave the house for three or four days at all, she lay and read, forcing me to sit in a chair near the sofa and read silently.
“You are terribly talkative and restless,” she said, “let me finish reading the chapter...
If I hadn’t been talkative and restless, I might never have recognized you,” I answered, reminding her of our acquaintance: one day in December, when I got to the Art Circle for a lecture by Andrei Bely, who sang it while running and while dancing on the stage, I spun and laughed so much that she, who happened to be in the chair next to me and at first looked at me with some bewilderment, also finally laughed, and I immediately turned to her cheerfully.
“That’s all right,” she said, “but still be silent for a while, read something, smoke...
I can't remain silent! You can’t imagine the full power of my love for you! You don't love me!
I present. As for my love, you know very well that besides my father and you, I have no one in the world. In any case, you are my first and last. Is this not enough for you? But enough about that. We can’t read in front of you, let’s drink tea...
And I got up, boiled water in an electric kettle on the table behind the sofa, took cups and saucers from the walnut pile that stood in the corner behind the table, saying whatever came to mind:
Have you finished reading “Fire Angel”?
I finished watching it. It's so pompous that it's embarrassing to read.
Why did you suddenly leave Chaliapin’s concert yesterday?
He was too daring. And then I don’t like yellow-haired Rus' at all.
You don't like everything!
Yes, a lot...
“Strange love!” - I thought and, while the water was boiling, I stood and looked out the windows. The room smelled of flowers, and for me she connected with their smell; outside one window lay low in the distance a huge picture of Moscow across the river, snow-blue; in the other, to the left, part of the Kremlin was visible; on the contrary, somehow too close, the too-new bulk of Christ the Savior was white, in the golden dome of which the jackdaws eternally hovering around it were reflected with bluish spots... “ Strange city! - I said to myself, thinking about Okhotny Ryad, about Iverskaya, about St. Basil. - St. Basil the Blessed - and Spas-on-Bor, Italian cathedrals - and something Kyrgyz in the points of the towers on the Kremlin walls...”
They met in December. It is unclear how he ended up at one of Mr. Andrei Bely’s lectures; he could not sit still and spent the entire lecture spinning around and laughing at the entire audience. She looked at him as if he were an eccentric, but she didn’t understand how she laughed at his next joke. Since that time, he comes every evening to her home in the apartment, which she purchased only because she was struck by the view of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. He did not understand what kind of relationship awaited him with her, he took her to restaurants and cafes, visited museums and concerts with her. He didn’t want to think what would happen next, since she had once made it clear to him that such a conversation did not interest her at all.
She had always been a mystery to him, and it haunted him. He enjoyed every minute that fate gave him to feel her breath or see her smile. This was real happiness for him...
She rented an apartment alone; her father lived far away in Tver. She enjoyed taking history classes. She learned the Moonlight Sonata, although she only learned the beginning of it. She took the flowers that he gave her, read the books that he brought and always ate with appetite.
Rich, young, beautiful. In all public places they were followed by glances. He comes from the province of Penza. He was incredibly beautiful, he had some kind of Italian zest. He was cheerful, lively and always smiling. She had either Indian or Persian charm. He complemented each other, he was talkative, she was quiet, he was restless, she was thoughtful. Even in their kisses, they were as different as they could be.
Periodically, she could not control herself and went into the room in which she dressed for a new festivities. She did not want to get married because she believed that she was not created for marriage.
From time to time he could not understand how he could still stand it similar relationships. And again they forgot about everything and talked about strangers. He was glad that he had the opportunity to be near her. For him it was both torment and happiness.
Thus ended the winter. On Forgiveness Sunday, she was dressed all in black and invited him to go to the Novodevichy Convent. She shared with him the beauty of those places and the sincerity of the archbishop's funeral. The church choir was close to her; she believed that it made her heart flutter. They walked for a long time in search of Griboyedov’s house, but, having failed to find it, they went to eat at Egorov’s on Okhotny Ryad.
The tavern turned out to be quite warm and cozy, there were quite a lot of cab drivers in it. She said that only in such quiet places did Rus' remain untouched and that someday she would leave worldly life for a monastery, having read some ancient Russian legend. He didn't understand what other quirks she had in her head.
She asked him to bring her to the theater skit tomorrow, although, as she said, they were quite vulgar. She smoked a lot in this establishment, and, looking intently at the actors, watched the laughter of the local audience. There he looked at her with greedy eyes one man who soon approached them and drunkenly fell on her hand, muttering something about her companion. They left the theater skit around three in the morning, and that day she decided to let the crew go and head home on foot.
She came home and immediately went into her room and began rustling her dress. She was standing by the mirror when he came close to her door. She was combing her gorgeous thick black hair. In the morning he woke up from her gaze, which was unnaturally intent. Saying that she was leaving for Tver and would send him a letter from there, she asked him to leave.
He received the letter approximately two weeks later. In it, she affectionately but firmly explained that he would not wait for her, would not hope to see or hear from her ever again. It turned out that she decided to go to the monastery for obedience and eventually become a nun. He listened to her and did not seek a meeting with her, he disappeared into taverns, began to drink a lot of wine, he rolled lower and lower, not wanting to get out of the hole into which he had driven himself. Soon he found strength and began to recover, but all this seemed meaningless and soulless to him.
A couple of years have passed since he met her on Clean Monday. On exactly such an evening he got out of the house, caught a cab, and went to the Kremlin. He stood for a long time, without praying, without thinking about anything, in the Archangel Cathedral, after which he rode and cried.
So he reached Ordynka, where the girls’ choir sang in the Marfo-Maryinsky Convent. The janitor didn’t want to let him through at all, but when the gentleman offered him a ruble, he went limp, sighed and opened the passage for the man.
Icons and banners were taken out of the church. The singing nuns walked one after another with burning candles shining beautifully near their faces. He took a closer look and saw her; after examining her carefully, he left. She felt his presence next to her. He didn't stop or turn around. He just left...
