An unusually sensual, emotional, but at the same time tragic story by I. Bunin “Clean Monday”, the summary of which is almost impossible to retell - the pages of the story are not so much events as feelings and experiences of the main characters.
“Clean Monday” begins with a chance acquaintance of a young man and a girl at a lecture by Andrei Bely, which was the beginning of a surprisingly beautiful novel that did not have a future. Every evening they went to dinner in expensive restaurants, attended concerts, theaters, and in the high society, the young man tried not to think about how their romance would end. Their relationship was so vague and unsteady, he was so afraid of losing her that he appreciated 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 he received “Thank you ...”, said in such an absent-minded tone that it was clear that she did not need anything.
On Clean Monday, the day after the Forgiveness Sunday, they together visited the Novodevichy Convent and the cemetery. He was surprised at how animatedly she told him about the archbishop’s funeral, about the singing of the church choir, about the fear and awe that she had experienced. He was surprised that she knew all church terms so well and, moreover, often visited cathedrals.
After the Novodevichy Convent, we immediately went to the tavern, where she said that she wanted to go to the monastery, moreover, to the most distant and deaf; and quoted ancient Russian legends, which surprised him indescribably. The next day there was a theater, a vulgar theater skit ... That evening there was an unexpected closeness of the heroes - without explaining the reasons, she decided so.
At dawn, she said that she would leave for Tver, but when she returned, she didn’t know ... Two weeks later he received a letter asking her not to look for her and to forget - she decided to leave Moscow forever and go to the monastery for obedience, and there tonsured. He obediently did not look for her, but every day he sank lower, drank himself in the dirtiest taverns, but gradually his awareness returned, 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 the dark alleys.
Near the Martha-Mariinsky monastery, he stopped, having heard the girl’s choir, entered and fell on the religious procession of nuns. Looking carefully at the faces, he suddenly thought that one of them raised her head and looked into the darkness, as if seeing him. He turned and left.
“Clean Monday” is not just a story of a beautiful and tragic love. Bunin raises the most important religious theme - the right of choice granted to us by God. Every day, every minute we make a choice on which our life depends. The heroine bathed in social life, her weakness was expensive outfits and furs, but she constantly felt like a stranger in the material world. Characteristically, the heroes have no names - for God, earthly names are unimportant.
Reading the story, we feel with our hands fur, silk, we see the sparkle of diamonds and the radiance of church gold, we inhale the delicious smells of expensive restaurants and the smell of church incense, we hear restaurant music and the singing of the monastic choir ... Bunin writes with sensations, emotions, so that it is clear how big the difference is between the material and spiritual worlds, between that which can be touched, and that divine that is invisibly present in the soul of every person. The heroine made a choice, even if she remained misunderstood by her lover. And he preferred, after her departure, to slide into the abyss of sin: it is easier than accepting her choice with humility.
The story “Clean Monday”, the analysis of which can be conducted endlessly, makes you think not about love, not about forgiveness, not about understanding, but about choosing and accepting this choice, and this is the most difficult.