Ivan Alekseevich Bunin, the great Russian writer, has an amazing story, “Grammar of Love” (a brief summary follows). Written in 1915, long before the famous Dark Alleys cycle appeared, it was the author’s first step towards the eternal theme of Love. But, as they say, the steps are different - timid, timid or inept, which cannot be said about this work: it is unusually deep, talented, which is called live, you hear it, you feel it, it penetrates into the very depths of the soul ...
I.A. Bunin, the story "Grammar of Love": a summary
The beginning of June. Someone Ivlev temporarily takes a tarantas from his brother-in-law, hires a trio of horses and goes to the far edges of his county. The weather is warm, fine. The fields are endless with many bright flowers and larks. However, heavy lead clouds soon pulled , and light rain began to rain. They decided not to rush and wait out the bad weather in the Count's house. The latter was not in the estate, so Ivleva was greeted by a young countess, dressed in a wide pink hood, with open hands and powdered breasts.
While a small driver of eighteen, a cab driver, sat motionless in the torrential rain on the goats of a tarantass, and the horses rested in the middle of a dirty yard, Ivlev was in a cozy living room dark with rain, had a measured conversation with the mistress of the house and waited for tea. The countess smoked, laughed and straightened her hair. Whatever the conversation was about, he certainly eventually came down to the theme of love. They also recalled the common acquaintance, close neighbor, the landowner Khvoshchinsky, who was known far beyond the county for his crazy love for the maid Lushka.
Amazing love story
This is a long story. The landowner Khvoshchinsky was passionately in love with his maid Lushka, who soon after they met, in her early youth, unexpectedly died. Since then, “this eccentric” has shut up on his estate, hasn’t gone anywhere and hasn’t let anyone in, and for the rest of his life, for more than twenty years, he has only been in her room and sat through the mattress on her bed, indulging in “crazy dreams about her” ". No matter what happens around, in the village or in the world - everything was attributed to Lushkin influence. For example, bad weather - it’s Lushka that sends thunder, war in the country — this is at her command, poor harvest - the men didn’t please Lushka with something.
Ivlev knew this story from childhood, admired such a deep feeling, and was even a little in love with this very Lushka. The news that Khvoshchinsky died this winter evoked old memories, old feelings and questions in Ivlev: crazy or really stunned, pure soul of rare quality? On the way home, he decided to definitely drop into the deserted Khvoshchinsky estate and see for himself the home of the mysterious Luska, and maybe there he will feel and understand everything ...
The estate of Khvoshchinsky
I.A. Bunin and his short story “Grammar of Love”, the brief content of which is now in front of you, is just a superficial account of the plot of a great work. Therefore, in order to understand the full depth of the described history, you need to read the original.
A new landscape opened before Ivlev: a shallow river, further on a small hill, rows of hay were visible, and between them were old silver poplars. Here is the famous house, which is quite large and, apparently, once bleached ... A young man was standing on the porch. He looked in surprise at the approaching tarantas. It seems that this was the son of the famous Lushka. Ivlev hastened to explain his arrival with a desire to buy books from the library of the deceased.
He was led through the whole house, cold and empty, and led to a short door. The young man took a large key from his pocket, inserted it into a rusty keyhole, and a door opened in front of them in a small closet with two windows. There was a bare iron bed on one side, and two bookcases on the other. This “book collection” was disgraceful: “The Newest Dream Book”, “Reflections on the Sacraments of the Universe”, “Morning Star and Night Demons” ... But Ivlev’s attention was attracted by a completely different one - the middle regiment. A casket stood on it and only one small book lay, more like a prayer book. The Grammar of Love, a brief summary (14 short stories) of which acquaints the reader with an amazing sense of love, does not end there.
Amazing items
Opening the latter, Ivlev saw a simple necklace. More than ever, he was in awe and incomprehensible excitement. It is impossible to imagine this shabby lace, these cheap blue balls on the neck of the one that was supposed to be so desired and loved ... Having watched enough, he carefully returned the box to its original place and took up the book. It was a small, we can say, elegantly decorated, old shabby book - “The Grammar of Love, or the Art of Love and Love”
It was divided into many chapters: about the mind, about beauty, about the heart, about the quarrel and reconciliation ... Each consisted of famous aphorisms, sayings and subtle observations of famous people about life and love. Some of them were marked in red ink, and in the end, on a clean page, the quatrains of Khvoshchinsky himself “sounded”.
Half an hour later, Ivlev said goodbye to the young man. Of all the books, he chose only one - The Grammar of Love. The summary of the story on this episode ends.
So different love
As you can see, the plot of the novel is quite simple, and, perhaps, under other circumstances or under the pen of another author, it would turn into a regular "county joke." At I.A. But Bunina, it acquires a different sound - is such love possible, is it true, or is it just a kind of obsession, madness. The author does not give a definite answer, because it is impossible to penetrate into a person, look into his soul and touch his feelings and feelings. How many characters in the story, so many opinions. One cannot be blamed for bias, and the other should not be praised for objectivity. However, on the examples of heroes - the late Khvoshchinsky, Ivlev, a young countess and even a carriage driver - a little eighteen years old - one can observe a peculiar evolution of the human soul, and with it a different understanding of love, and the very possibility, ability to truly love.
So, the driver, the son of a wealthy man, stupid, but economic, rudely remarks that Lushka drowned, and the landowner went completely crazy "not from her," but from poverty. He does not see any love in this story, as, indeed, in any other. The young countess, on the contrary, reduced all conversations to love, while laughing and straightening her hair all the time. She sacredly believed in the sanity and health of the lover of Khvoshchinsky - he simply "was not the current couple."
The pendulum of love ... He always sways right and left. The lack of the gift of love in a young man is one side. However, the shift of the pendulum from the equilibrium position to the other, opposite side does not mean the depth and sincerity of feelings or the presence of high spirituality in a person. Yes, the young countess believes in love, but in which? The love story of Khvoshchinsky and Lushka is rather a beautiful cover for the next female novel for her. You can admire, be amazed, cry and complain that today you will not find such feelings, but soon forget and get carried away with something else, no less colorful.
Equilibrium
Before us is the story "Grammar of Love." Summary, analysis of the work of I.A. Bunina does not end there. We continue ...
Sooner or later, the pendulum slows down and stops. He is resting in a balance position. This is true love. It was to her, after long searches, doubts and unexpected insights, that Ivlev and the late Khvoshchinsky approached: “There is being, but by what name should it be called? Neither it is a dream, nor vigil - it’s between them, and in a man, reason borders on madness for them ... "
In the image of the maid Lushka in the story “Grammar of Love” (for a brief summary of the chapters see above), the author wanted to show the very true love that entered forever in the life of Khvoshchinsky and Ivlev. What was she like? They said that "she was herself even not good," but suddenly she suddenly fell on the head of the landowner, then she also died unexpectedly and unexpectedly, being young, in the color of her years, and everything went to dust ... But did it go to dust? No and no again. This love, albeit completely incomprehensible, strange, “mysterious in its charm”, turned into a real “life” the life of one person, which was supposed to be the most ordinary.
A book similar to the prayer book “Grammar of Love”, the content of which delights and surprises; Lushka’s simple necklace, evoking a feeling akin to what a person experiences when looking at relics of saints ... For those who do not resist love, who let it into their lives, everything that is ordinary turns into sacred, and the tragic is considered not as some doom, but as the highest the spiritual meaning of life. Hvoshchinsky, making his own notes and notes in a book, wrote his “grammar of love”. Ivlev, having bought only this battered “prayer book” expensively, accepted this priceless gift in order to ultimately derive his “laws”, write his own rules, and “show this Grammar of Love” to grandchildren and great-grandchildren.