Story of "Pure Monday" or between two worlds

An unusually sensual, emotional, but simultaneously tragic story of I. Bunin's "Pure Monday", the brief content of which is almost impossible to retell - the pages of the story are not so much events as the feelings and emotions of the main characters.

"Net Monday" begins with a chance acquaintance of a young man and a girl at the lecture of Andrei Bely, which was the beginning of a surprisingly beautiful novel that had no future. Every evening they went to dinner in expensive restaurants, attended concerts, theaters, and in the worldly bustle the young man tried not to think about what would end their romance. So vague and unsteady were their relations, so he was afraid of losing her, that he valued every hour spent next to her. He came every day to her apartment, constantly gave chocolate, flowers, brought the latest fashion books, but each time in return received "Thank you ....", said in such a diffused tone that it was clear - she did not need anything.

On Net Monday, the day after the Forgiveness of the Resurrection, they together visited the Novodevichy Convent and the cemetery. He was surprised at how animated she was to tell him about the funeral of the archbishop, about the singing of the church choir, about the fear and trembling that she had endured. He was surprised that she knew all the church terms so well and, moreover, frequented cathedrals.

After the Novodevichy Convent, we immediately went to the tavern, where she said that she wanted to go to the monastery, and in the most remote and deaf; And quoted the Old Russian legends, which surprised him ineffably. The next day there was a theater, a vulgar theatrical skit ... On this evening, the unexpected closeness of the characters happened-without explaining the reasons, she decided so.

At dawn she said that she would go to Tver, but when she returned she did not know ... In two weeks he received a letter in which she asked not to look for her and forget-she decided to leave forever from Moscow and go to the monastery for obedience, and there and on Tonsured. He obediently did not search for her, but every day he went lower and lower, mingling in the dirty taverns, but gradually he regained consciousness, he began to recover. Two years after their last Clean Monday, he went to pray in the Archangel Cathedral, after which he traveled for a long time along dark alleys. Near the Martha-Mariinsky cloister, stopped, having heard a girlish choir, entered and got to the procession of the nuns. Looking closely at the faces, he suddenly thought that one of them raised her head and peered into the darkness, as if seeing him. He turned and left.

"Net Monday" is not just a story about a beautiful and tragic love. Bunin raises the most important religious theme - the right of choice given to us by God. Every day, every minute, we make a choice, on which our life depends. The heroine bathed in secular life, her weakness was expensive clothes and furs, but she constantly felt like a stranger in the material world. It is characteristic that the heroes have no names - for God's earthly names are unimportant.

While reading the story, we feel like the hand of fur and silk, we see the glitter of diamonds and the radiance of church gold, we breathe in the delightful smells of expensive restaurants and the smell of church incense, we hear restaurant music and the singing of a monastic choir ... Bunin writes with feelings, emotions, to make it clear how great the difference Between the material and spiritual world, between what can be touched, and the divine that is invisibly present in the soul of each person. The heroine made a choice, even if she remained an unaccounted lover. And he preferred after her departure to slip into the abyss of sin: it's easier than accepting her choice with humility.

The story "Clean Monday", the analysis of which can be conducted endlessly, makes us think not about love, not about forgiveness, not about understanding, but about choosing and accepting this choice, and this is the most difficult.