Dark Alleys is a collection of love stories by Ivan Alekseevich Bunin. He worked on them for several years (from 1937 to 1945).
Most of them were written during World War II. The title of the collection was given by the story, which is called Dark Alleys. It was published in 1943 in the publication "New Earth" in New York. In this article I want to tell exactly about him. So, I. A. Bunin, “The Dark Alley”, a summary of the work.
Acquaintance with Nikolai Alekseevich
In autumn, on a rainy day, a tarantas rode along a bad road, in which a strong peasant shaking his horse and an experienced military man in a gray Nikolaev overcoat shook. It was Nikolai Alekseevich - the main character of the story. Despite the years, he looked youthful, his camp was pulled up, his chin was neatly shaved, his black bushy eyebrows contrasted with his white mustache turning into sideburns. That is how Bunin describes his hero. "Dark Alley", a brief summary of which is given here, is a story about the man's inextinguishable love for a woman, about the impossibility to correct the mistakes of youth. Here we will not get carried away with the description of the characters, but move on to the essence of the work.
Unexpected meeting
Tarantas stopped near the postal station, half of the building of which was occupied by a small room where you could eat and relax after the road. Nikolai Alekseevich entered the hut and looked around. It was clean and comfortable, deliciously smelled of homemade food. The mistress entered the room and greeted him politely. She was a middle-aged woman, black-browed and dark-haired. Our hero noted that, despite the years, she is very beautiful and easy to climb. Looking at her face, the brave military realized that before him was Nadezhda - his former lover. Once, while still young, he left her and left. Thirty years have passed since then, and all these years he had not heard anything about her. This is how Bunin describes this unexpected meeting. Dark Alleys (a summary will be described later) is a love story. Therefore, it is logical to assume that then a hard conversation took place between the heroes.
No easy conversation
Nikolai Alekseevich praised the woman for her cleanliness and neatness, and also questioned about her life. It turned out that Nadezhda was never married. When the hero asked about the reason for this, the woman replied that all her life she loved only him alone and did not want to get married without love. Nikolai Alekseevich was feeling his tears, tears appeared in his eyes. He asked Hope to leave, but first told her about his unhappy family life. The brave military man told his former lover that the wife whom he idolized had cheated on him and abandoned him, leaving his son.
All his life he lived for his son, trying to invest in him as much as possible. But the son grew up a scoundrel and a scoundrel. In parting, Nadezhda tells him that she has not forgiven him and will never forgive him, and kisses his hand. Nikolai Alekseevich in response does the same. All the experiences of the main characters that did not pass over time were described in this scene by Bunin. The “Dark Alley” (a brief summary confirms this) causes readers to feel sad for their lost love and regret the impossibility of returning it.
Alone with his thoughts
As soon as the horses were fed, our hero set off again. The weather was inclement, and his soul was bad. He sat and recalled how good Nadezhda was in her youth, what verses he read to her: “Scarlet rose hips bloomed all around, there were dark linden alleys ...”. For a moment he imagined this zealous woman as the mistress of his large Petersburg house. “What would happen then?” asked Nikolai Alekseevich. For so long he sat and thought, shaking his head. This episode ended Bunin's “Dark Alleys”. The heroes of the work were invented by him. But he so vividly described them, so close and understandable to each of us is their situation that a realistic picture of their relationship arises before our eyes.
One of the writer's best works, as Ivan Bunin himself admitted, is The Dark Alley. The summary contained in this article cannot convey the whole atmosphere of the story. I advise you to read it in full.