What is Bunin's story “Sunstroke” about? Of course, about love, it cannot be otherwise. Rather, not about love - whole, clear and transparent, but about an infinite number of its faces and shades. Going through them, you clearly feel how immense and insatiable human desires and feelings are. These depths are frightening and inspiring. Here the transience, swiftness and the charm of every moment are keenly felt. Here they fall and drown - there cannot be a priori a happy ending. But at the same time, there is an indispensable ascent to that same unattainable true love. So, we present to your attention the story “Sunstroke”. A summary of it will be set forth below.
Unexpected meeting
Summer. On one of the Volga steamboats, he and she meet. Thus begins the unusual story of Bunin's “Sunstroke”. She is a young, lovely little woman in a light "canvas" dress. He is a lieutenant: young, light and carefree. After a month of lying in the hot sun of Anapa, she returns home to her husband and three-year-old daughter. He is sailing on the same boat. Three hours ago, each of them lived his own simple life, unaware of the existence of each other. And suddenly…
After lunch, in the "bright and warmly lit dining room" they go on deck. Ahead is impenetrable darkness and lights. A strong, soft wind strikes continuously in the face. The steamboat, describing a wide arc, approaches the pier. Suddenly, he takes her hand, brings it to her lips and in a whisper begs to be sure to get off. What for? Where to? He is silent. It is clear without words: they are on the verge of a risky, crazy and at the same time so seductive enterprise that there is simply no strength to refuse and leave. And they go ... Does this conclude with a summary? Sunstroke is still full of events.
Hotel
A minute later, having collected the necessary things, they passed the "sleep desk", stepped on the deep sand and silently sat down to the cab. Endless, dusty road. They drove through the square, some public places and stopped near the lighted entrance of the county hotel. We climbed an old wooden staircase and found ourselves in a large, but terribly stuffy, hot room heated by the sun during the day. Around clean, tidy, on the windows - white curtains dropped. As soon as they crossed the threshold and the door closed behind them, the lieutenant abruptly rushed towards her, and both, not remembering themselves, suffocated in a kiss. Until the end of their days they will remember this moment. Neither he nor she had ever experienced anything like this before and after ...
Eclipse or sunstroke?
It’s ten in the morning. Outside the window is sunny, hot and certainly, as happens only in summer, a happy day. They slept little, but she washed herself and dressed for a second, and shone with the freshness of a seventeen-year-old girl. Was she embarrassed? If so, then quite a bit. All the same simplicity, fun and judiciousness emanated from her. The lieutenant proposed to continue traveling together, but she refused, otherwise everything would be ruined. Spawning nothing like what happened to her, was not, and never will be. Maybe it was an eclipse, or maybe something similar to “sunstroke” happened to them.
He surprisingly easily agreed with her. Happily and carefreely brought her to the pier, just in time for the very departure of the pink ship. In the same mood, he returned to the hotel. However, something has already changed. The room still smelled of her — it smelled of expensive cologne. Her cup of unfinished coffee was still on the tray. The bed had not yet been removed, and the screen was still pushed back. Everything to the last centimeter was full of it - and empty. How so? The lieutenant's heart sank. What a weird road adventure! After all, nothing special either in this essentially ridiculous woman, or in this fleeting meeting - all this is not the first time, and yet something is wrong ... "Indeed, it’s like some kind of sunstroke!" The story of I. A. Bunin does not end there.
New feelings
What else will the summary tell us? “Sunstroke,” a story by I. A. Bunin, further narrates the new feelings of the protagonist. The memory of the smell of her tan, her canvas dress; the memory of the living, so happy and at the same time simple sound of her voice; the memory of the recent experienced pleasures with all her sensuality and feminine seduction - was still alive in him immensely, but it had already become secondary. In the first place came a different feeling, hitherto unknown to him, about which he did not even suspect, starting on the eve of this amusing acquaintance for one night. What kind of feeling it was - he could not explain to himself. Memories became insoluble torment, and all further life, either in this small town forgotten by God, or in any other place, now seemed empty and meaningless. Horror and despair seized him.
There was an urgent need to do something in order to escape from obsession, not to look ridiculous. He went into the city, walked around the bazaar. He soon returned to the hotel, went into the dining room - large, empty, cool, and drank two or three glasses of vodka in one gulp. Everything seemed to be fine, immeasurable joy and happiness was felt in everything - both in people, and in this summer heat, and in this complex mixture of market smells, and his heart was unbearably aching and was breaking apart. He needs her, and only her, at least for one day. For what? To tell her, to tell her everything that is in his soul - about his enthusiastic love for her. And again the question: "Why, if nothing can be changed either in his or her life?" He could not explain this feeling. He knew one thing - this is more important than life itself.
Telegram
Suddenly, an unexpected thought came to him - to send her an urgent telegram with one single sentence, that his whole life henceforth belongs only to her. This in no way will help him get rid of the torment of sudden, unexpected love, but will definitely ease his suffering. The lieutenant rushed to the old house, where there was a post office and a telegraph, but stopped halfway in horror - he does not know her name or surname! He asked her more than once, both at lunch and at the hotel, but every time she laughed, calling herself Marya Marevna, then the overseas princess ... Amazing woman!
Summary: “Sunstroke”, I. A. Bunin - conclusion
Where should he go now? What to do? He returned to the hotel tired and broken. The room has already been cleaned. There was not a single trace of her - just a hairpin on the night table. Yesterday and this morning seemed to be the deeds of bygone years ... So our summary is coming to an end. “Sunstroke” - one of I. Bunin’s amazing works - ends with the same emptiness and hopelessness reigning in the soul of the lieutenant. In the evening he gathered, hired a cabman, it seems, the one who brought them at night, and came to the pier. A “blue summer night” spreads over the Volga, and the lieutenant was sitting on the deck, feeling like he was ten years old.
Once again, I want to remind you that the article is dedicated to the story of I. A. Bunin “Sunstroke”. The content, given in a nutshell, cannot reflect that spirit, those feelings and emotions that invisibly hover in every line, in every letter of the story, and which cause immeasurable suffering along with the heroes. Therefore, reading the work in full is simply necessary.