Ivan Bunin's story "Cold Autumn" can be grasped at a glance, like a picture, and at the same time, its meaning is deeper than a simple description. Why does the hero quote only the first stanza of the poem? Why does the heroine remember a single evening for thirty years? We bring to your attention the experience of a careful reading of the story "Cold Autumn".

Feral children - human children who grew up in conditions of extreme social isolation - without contact with people from an early age - and experienced little care and love from another person, had no experience of social behavior and communication. Such children, abandoned by their parents, are raised by animals or live in isolation.

If children had some social behavior skills before isolation from society, the process of their rehabilitation is much easier. Those who lived in the animal society for the first 3.5-6 years of their life practically cannot master the human language, walk straight, communicate meaningfully with other people, despite the years spent later in the society of people, where they received enough care. This once again shows how important the first years of his life are for the development of the child.

These children are not human. If a person has not spoken before the age of six, then he is unlikely to speak. That is, who we are is a product of our culture, and culture is what we remember.

A person can not always formulate what he thought. There are “thoughts” or emotions when you later read about it and say that you thought so, but could not formulate it. In fact, it was a “thought-child”, there was no adult thought yet. And literature and art help to find a form for this thought.

Memory in relation to a person is not an exact word, especially now, when the word is firmly connected with memory a computer. When a person memorizes something, assimilates information, then the memory changes him, and the computer does not change from what is entered into its memory.

Many great writers thought about memory. For example, V.V. Nabokov in "Memory, Speak" Camus also gives occasion for deep reflection. The hero of his work "The Outsider" has been in solitary confinement in prison for quite a long time. This is what he felt after a certain time:

“Yes, I had to endure some troubles, but I was not very unhappy. The most important thing, I will say again, was to kill time. But since I learned to remember, I have not been bored. Sometimes I remembered my bedroom: I imagined how I went out of one corner and, having passed through the room, came back; I went over in my mind everything that I met on my way. In the beginning, I got over it quickly. But each time the journey took more and more time. I remembered not only a cabinet, a table or a shelf, but all the things that were there, and I drew each thing for myself in every detail: color and material, inlay pattern, crack, jagged edge. He tried his best not to lose the thread of his inventory, not to forget a single item. After a few weeks, I could spend hours describing everything that was in my bedroom. The more I thought about it, the more forgotten or neglected things popped up in my memory. And then I realized that a person who lived in the world for at least one day could easily spend a hundred years in prison. He would have enough memories to not be bored. In a way, it was beneficial."

A. Camus. "Outsider"

In the story "Cold Autumn" one can just see the process of forming thought and memory. The protagonist quotes Fet's poems:

“Dressing in the hallway, he continued to think something, with a sweet smile he remembered Fet’s poems:

What a cold autumn!

Put on your shawl and hood...

I don't remember, it seems like this:

Look - between the blackening pines

As if the fire rises ... "

I.A. Bunin. "Cold fall"

He helps his future wife to make the last evening of their meeting so bright and strong that at the end of her life she says:

“But, remembering everything that I have experienced since then, I always ask myself: yes, but what did happen in my life? And I answer myself: only that cold autumn evening. Has he ever been? Still, there was. And that's all that was in my life - the rest is an unnecessary dream.

I.A. Bunin. "Cold fall"

Remember the beginning of the piece:

“In June of that year, he visited us on the estate - he was always considered our man: his late father was a friend and neighbor of my father. On June 15, Ferdinand was killed in Sarajevo. On the morning of the sixteenth they brought newspapers from the post office. Father left the office with a Moscow evening newspaper in his hands into the dining room, where he, mother and I were still sitting at the tea table, and said:

- Well, my friends, war! Austrian crown prince killed in Sarajevo. This is war!

On Peter's Day, a lot of people came to us - it was my father's name day - and at dinner he was announced as my fiance. But on the nineteenth of July, Germany declared war on Russia...

In September, he came to us for just a day - to say goodbye before leaving for the front (everyone then thought that the war would end soon, and our wedding was postponed until spring). And then came our farewell party. After supper, as usual, a samovar was served, and, looking at the windows fogged up from its steam, the father said:

- Surprisingly early and cold autumn!

We sat quietly that evening, only occasionally exchanging insignificant words, exaggeratedly calm, hiding our secret thoughts and feelings. With feigned simplicity, my father also spoke about autumn. I went to the balcony door and wiped the glass with a handkerchief: in the garden, in the black sky, pure ice stars sparkled brightly and sharply..

I.A. Bunin. "Cold fall"

This is a story about how poetry helps to see the beauty of the world, how they create a mood, how they help to live through difficult moments.

The main character is a very talented person, he knows how to see and live what is needed. Note that he only quotes the first stanza of Fet's poem. Perhaps, he remembered the second stanza, but quoted the first. Because it is felt that his beloved has not yet unfolded as a person, has not had time to fall in love, she is still only in anticipation of the emotions that she will have. He understands that she is not yet ready for this love. He saw her coldness, non-involvement in the present moment. Therefore, he quotes only the first stanza. The second one goes like this:

"Shine of the northern night

I remember always near you

And phosphorescent eyes shine,

They just don't warm me up."

The hero, feeling his chosen one, recalls the second stanza, but, as a delicate person, he quotes the first. He anticipates that he will be her only one, he does not need to rush. For their happiness, even his love is enough. In her coldness, he is able to see the beauty.

Bunin has wonderful poems:

We always remember happiness

And happiness is everywhere. Maybe it

This autumn garden behind the barn

And clean air pouring through the window.

In the bottomless sky with a light white edge

Rise, the cloud shines. For a long time

I follow him ... We see little, we know

And happiness is given only to those who know.

The window is open. She squeaked and sat down

A bird on the windowsill. And from books

I look away tired for a moment.

The day is getting dark, the sky is empty,

The hum of the threshing machine is heard in the threshing floor...

I see, I hear, I am happy. Everything is in me.

I.A. Bunin. "Evening"

The hero of the story understands how to feel happiness, enjoy it.

The heroine says a banal thing, and he guesses her thoughts from this banality:

“I thought: “What if the truth is killed? And will I really forget it in some short period of time - after all, everything is eventually forgotten? And hastily answered, frightened by her thought:

- Do not say that! I won't survive your death!

After a pause, he spoke slowly:

- Well, if they kill you, I'll wait for you there. You live, rejoice in the world, then come to me.

I.A. Bunin. "Cold fall"

The fact that someone will not survive someone's death is usually said when they do not want to communicate on this important topic for the interlocutor. For example, a person knows that he is mortally ill and says that he will die soon. He wants to talk about this topic, even though it is difficult. And often loved ones leave this conversation, despite the fact that it is their support that is needed.

In the story, we see that, due to her youth, the heroine does not know how to talk about this topic. Then she herself says that she survived the loss and lived on. She had a long life, but he was the only one for her - this evening. And this evening was decorated by the hero himself with his quote, by what he said:

“- Look how very special, in autumn, the windows of the house shine. I will be alive, I will always remember this evening ... "

I.A. Bunin. "Cold fall"

Pay attention to the poetry of his phrase.

If we imagine that he would not have turned out to be such a person, would not have quoted Fet, would not have expressed feelings in verse, then this evening would not have remained in her memory for the rest of her life. This example clearly shows how important literature is, how it helps.

Bunin, like his heroine, died in exile.

Bunin was very upset by what happened to Russia. Probably, before his death, he dreamed of joining her there, who was killed in wars:

“How can we forget the Motherland? Can a person forget his homeland? She is in the soul. I am a very Russian person. It doesn't disappear over the years."

I.A. Bunin

Motherland

Under a leaden sky

Gloomy winter day fades,

And there is no end to the pine forests,

And far from the villages.

One mist is milky blue,

Like someone's mild sorrow,

Above this snowy desert

Softens the gloomy distance.

I.A. Bunin

Note that there are no names of the characters in the story. There is only the name of Duke Ferdinand. Truly close people live for us without a name, we do not need to name them. They just occupy some part of us.

It is worth noting that the main word in the story is soul. You can even catch a reference to Pushkin's Tatyana:

“Tatyana stood in front of the windows,

Breathing on cold glass

Thinking my soul

Written with a lovely finger

On a foggy window

Treasured monogram O yes E.

A.S. Pushkin. "Eugene Onegin"

And about what happened to the main character that evening in the cold autumn, Bunin clearly says in his other story:

“However, there was no one, and I stood, trembling with excitement and listening to the small, sleepy babble of aspens. Then I sat down on a damp bench ... I was still waiting for something, sometimes I glanced quickly into the dusk of dawn ... And for a long time a close and elusive breath of happiness was felt around me - that terrible and great that at one time or another meets us all on the threshold of life . It suddenly touched me - and, perhaps, did exactly what it needed to do: touch and leave. I remember that all those tender words that were in my soul finally brought tears to my eyes. Leaning against the trunk of a damp poplar, I caught, like someone’s consolation, the faintly arising and fading babble of leaves and was happy with my soundless tears ... "

I.A. Bunin. "Dawn all night"

The story "Cold Autumn" teaches attention to the world, the ability to see the important in what surrounds us. But he himself requires careful reading. When an author writes a work and quotes other authors in it, he implies that the reader knows the cited work in full. In the age of the internet, it's pretty easy to find out exactly what an author was quoting, whenever they wrote it.

This story teaches a careful and careful attitude to one's life. Because what happens to a person turns into his memories and changes him, makes him a different person.

The most detailed description of the properties of memory is in the famous work of Proust, in which memories, the ability to remember, are put in one of the first places:

“Suddenly the memory came alive. It was the taste of a piece of biscuit, which in Combray every Sunday morning (on Sundays I did not leave the house until Mass) treated me, soaked in tea or lime blossom, Aunt Leonie, when I came to greet her. The very sight of a biscuit awakened nothing in me until I had tasted it; perhaps because I later often saw this cake on the shelves of pastry shops, but did not eat it, its image left Combray and merged with more recent impressions; perhaps because not a single one of the memories that fell out of memory a long time ago was resurrected, they all crumbled; the forms—including the shell-cakes, which with each of their austere and pious folds aroused acute sensory perception—died out or, immersed in sleep, lost the ability to spread, thanks to which they could reach consciousness. But when there was nothing left of the distant past, when living beings died out, and things collapsed, only the smell and taste, more fragile, but more tenacious, more immaterial, more resistant, more reliable, for a long time, like the souls of the dead, remind of for themselves, they hope, they wait, and they, these barely perceptible crumbs, among the ruins carry, without bending, a huge building of remembrance.

M. Proust. "Toward Swann"

Sometimes a memory tries to emerge in memory, but it does not work out, and some little thing helps to remember everything at once.

Review of Bunin's story "Cold Autumn" from the cycle "Dark Alleys". Ivan Bunin wrote this cycle in exile when he was seventy years old. Despite the fact that Bunin spent a long time in exile, the writer did not lose the sharpness of the Russian language. This can be seen in this series of stories. All stories are devoted to love, only in each of them the author showed different facets of love. In this cycle there is love, both as a carnal attraction and as a sublime feeling. Compositionally, the story "Cold Autumn" is divided into two parts. Before and after the death of the main character's lover. The line dividing the story and the life of the heroine into two parts is drawn very clearly and precisely. The heroine talks about her past in such a way that it seems to the reader that all events are taking place at the present moment. This illusion arises from the fact that the author describes everything in such small details that a whole picture appears before the reader's eyes, having form, color and sound. The story "Cold Autumn", in my opinion, can be called historical, although the story in this story has been changed. In the first part of the story, events develop rapidly, reaching the climax of the story. On June 15, the crown prince was killed, on Peter's day at dinner, he was declared the fiance of the main character, and on July 19, Germany declared war ... In my opinion, it was no coincidence that the author put ellipsis in this place. He is declared a groom and immediately an idyll of a happy family life is drawn in the reader's head, but in the next phrase war is declared. And all dreams and hopes are shattered in an instant. Further, the author focuses on the farewell party. He was called to the front. In September, he comes to say goodbye before leaving. This evening the father of the bride says: - Surprisingly early and cold autumn! This phrase is pronounced as a statement of fact. At the end of the story, the heroine will say that that cold autumn, that autumn evening is all that she had in her life. This evening is described in great detail, every action of the heroes is described.

The story "cold autumn" was written by I.A. Bunin in 1944. This is a difficult time for the world as a whole. There is a second world war. She greatly influenced Bunin's life. He, already in exile from the USSR in France, was forced to leave Paris, as German troops entered it.

The action of the story begins at the beginning of the First World War, in which Russia was drawn into European intrigues. Betrothed because of the war, the family collapses. He goes to war. And from their love they have only one autumn evening left. This is the evening of farewell. He dies in the war. After the death of her parents, she sells the remnants of property in the market, where she meets an elderly retired military man, whom she marries and with whom she travels to the Kuban. They lived in the Kuban and on the Don for two years and during a hurricane they escape to Turkey. Her husband dies on the ship from typhus. She had only three close people: her husband's nephew, his wife and their seven-month-old daughter. The nephew and his wife went missing after leaving for the Crimea. And she was left with the girl in her arms. It follows Bunin's emigration route (Constantinople-Sofia-Belgrade-Paris). The girl grows up and stays in Paris. The main character moves to Nice, located not far from Bunin's place of residence during the Nazi occupation of France. She realizes that her life has passed "like an unnecessary dream." All life except for the autumn evening saying goodbye to your loved one. This evening is all that was in her life. And she feels that she will soon die and thus be reunited with him.

Love can be so powerful that the death of a loved one devastates the lover's life. And this is tantamount to death in life.

In this story, one can hear a protest against the war, as a weapon of mass murder of people and as the most terrible phenomenon of life. In "Cold Autumn" Bunin draws an analogy of the main character with herself. He himself lived in a foreign land for more than thirty years. And under the conditions of fascist occupation, Bunin wrote "Dark Alleys" - a story about love.

Question #26

The theme of nature in the lyrics of F.I. Tyutchev and A.A. Feta

A. A. Fet- a representative of "pure art" or "art for art's sake". In Russian poetry it is difficult to find a poet more "major" than he is. The poet relied on the philosophy of Schopenhauer - a philosopher who denied the role of reason, art is an unconscious creativity, a gift from God, the artist's goal is beauty. Beautiful is nature and love, philosophical reflections about them. Nature and love are the main themes of Fet's lyrics.

The poem "I came to you with greetings ..." became a kind of poetic manifesto by Fet. Three poetic subjects - nature, love and song - are closely interconnected, penetrate each other, forming Fetov's universe of beauty. Using the method of personification, Fet animates nature, she lives with him: “the forest has woken up”, “the sun has risen”. And the lyrical hero is full of thirst for love and creativity.

Fet's impressions of the world around him are conveyed by vivid images "A bonfire blazes with a bright sun in the forest ...":

A bonfire blazes with the bright sun in the forest,

And, shrinking, the juniper cracks;

Like drunken giants, a crowded choir,

Flushed, the spruce tree staggers.

One gets the impression that a hurricane is raging in the forest, swaying mighty trees, but then one becomes more and more convinced that the night depicted in the poem is quiet and windless. It turns out that it's just the glare from the fire that gives the impression that the trees are staggering. But it was this first impression, and not the giant firs themselves, that the poet sought to capture.

Fet consciously depicts not the object itself, but the impression that this object makes. He is not interested in details and details, is not attracted to motionless, finished forms, he seeks to convey the variability of nature, the movement of the human soul:

Every bush buzzed with bees,

Happiness weighed on the heart,

I trembled so that from timid lips

Your confession did not fly off ...

He is helped to solve this creative task by peculiar visual means: not a clear line, but blurry contours, not color contrast, but shades, halftones, imperceptibly passing one into another. The poet reproduces in the word not an object, but an impression. We encounter such a phenomenon in Russian literature for the first time precisely in Fet.

The poet not only likens nature to man, but fills it with human emotions. Fet's poems are saturated with aromas, the smell of herbs, "fragrant nights", "fragrant dawns":

Your luxurious wreath is fresh and fragrant,

All incense flowers are heard in it ...

But sometimes the poet still manages to stop the moment, and then a picture of a frozen world is created in the poem:

The mirror moon floats across the azure desert,

The grasses of the steppe are humiliated by evening moisture,

Speech is jerky, the heart is again superstitious,

Long shadows in the distance sank into a hollow.

Here, each line captures a brief complete impression, and there is no logical connection between these impressions.

In the poem “Whisper, timid breathing…”, a quick change of static pictures gives the verse an amazing dynamism, airiness, gives the poet the opportunity to depict the subtlest transitions from one state to another. Without a single verb, only with short nominal sentences, like an artist - with bold strokes, Fet conveys a tense lyrical experience.

The poem has a specific plot: it describes the meeting of lovers in the garden. In just 12 lines, the author managed to express a whole bunch of feelings, subtly convey all the shades of experiences. The poet does not describe in detail the development of relationships, but recreates only the most important moments of this great feeling.

In this poem, momentary sensations are perfectly conveyed, and, alternating them, Fet conveys the state of the heroes, and the course of the night, and the consonance of nature with the human soul, and the happiness of love. The lyrical hero strives to “stop the moment”, to capture the most precious and sweet moments of communication with his beloved, with beauty, with nature, with God himself: the whisper and breathing of the beloved, the sounds of the stream flowing by, the first timid rays of the approaching dawn, his delight and ecstasy.

Thus, the main themes of Fet's lyrics - nature and love, seem to be merged into one. It is in them, as in a single melody, that all the beauty of the world, all the joy and charm of life are combined.

TYUTCHIV Being a contemporary of Pushkin, F. I. Tyutchev, however, was ideologically connected with another generation - the generation of “wise men”, who sought not so much to actively intervene in life as to comprehend it. This propensity for knowledge of the surrounding world and self-knowledge led Tyutchev to a completely original philosophical and poetic concept.

Tyutchev's lyrics can be thematically presented as philosophical, civil, landscape and love. However, these themes are very closely intertwined in each poem, where a passionate feeling gives rise to a deep philosophical thought about the existence of nature and the universe, about the connection of human existence with universal life, about love, life and death, about human destiny and the historical destinies of Russia.

Tyutchev's worldview is characterized by the perception of the world as a dual substance. The ideal and the demonic are two beginnings that are in constant struggle. The existence of life is impossible if one of the principles is missing, because there must be balance in everything. So, for example, in the poem "Day and Night" these two states of nature are opposed to each other:

Day - this brilliant cover -

Day - earthly revival,

Souls of the aching healing,

Friend of man and gods.

Tyutchev's day is filled with life, joy and boundless happiness. But he is only an illusion, a ghostly cover thrown over the abyss. The night has a completely different character:

And the abyss is naked to us,

With your fears and darkness

And there are no barriers between her and us:

That is why we are afraid of the night.

The image of the abyss is inextricably linked with the image of the night; this abyss is that primordial chaos from which everything came and into which everything will go. It beckons and scares at the same time. Night leaves a person alone not only with cosmic darkness, but also alone with himself. The night world seems to Tyutchev true, because the true world, in his opinion, is incomprehensible, and it is the night that allows a person to touch the secrets of the universe and his own soul. The day is dear to the human heart because it is simple and understandable. Night gives rise to a feeling of loneliness, being lost in space, helplessness in front of unknown forces. That is, according to Tyutchev, the true position of man in this world. Maybe that's why he calls the night "holy."

The quatrain "The Last Cataclysm" prophesies the last hour of nature in grandiose images, heralding the end of the old world order:

When the last hour of nature strikes,

The composition of the parts will collapse earthly:

Everything visible will again be covered by water,

And God's face will be depicted in them.

Tyutchev's poetry shows that the new society never got out of the state of "chaos". Modern man has not fulfilled his mission to the world, he has not allowed the world to rise with him to beauty, to reason. Therefore, the poet has many poems in which a person is, as it were, recalled back to the elements as having failed in his own role.

Poems "Silentium!" (Silence) - a complaint about the isolation, the hopelessness in which our soul resides:

Be silent, hide and hide

And your feelings and dreams ...

The true life of a man is the life of his soul:

Only know how to live in yourself -

There is a whole world in your soul

Mysterious magical thoughts ...

It is no coincidence that images of a starry night, pure underground springs are associated with inner life, and images of daylight rays and external noise are associated with outer life. The world of human feelings and thoughts is a true world, but unknowable. As soon as a thought takes on a verbal form, it is instantly distorted: "A thought uttered is a lie."

Tyutchev tries to see things in contradiction. In the poem "Gemini" he writes:

There are twins - for terrestrial

The two deities are Death and Sleep...

Tyutchev's twins are not twins, they do not echo each other, one is feminine, the other is masculine, each has its own meaning; they coincide with each other, but they are also at enmity. For Tyutchev, it was natural to find polar forces everywhere, one and yet dual, consistent with each other and turned against each other.

"Nature", "element", "chaos", on the one hand, space - on the other. These are perhaps the most important of those polarities that Tyutchev reflected in his poetry. Separating them, he penetrates deeper into the unity of nature in order to bring the divided closer together again.

Sections: Literature

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin is an outstanding Russian writer who has gained special worldwide fame. Bunin's poetry and prose come from a common verbal-psychological source, his richest language, full of unique plasticity, is united beyond the division into literary types and genres. In it, according to K. Paustovsky, there was everything "from ringing copper solemnity to the transparency of flowing spring water, from measured chasing to intonations of amazing softness, from a light melody to slow peals of thunder."

What attracts the creativity of I.A. Bunin today's schoolchildren?

Bunin's work is characterized by an appeal to the inner world of heroes: penetration into the secret impulses of the soul, the riddles of actions, the connection between "mind" and "heart". The environment, surrounding material things lose their meaning. The angle of the author's work of art is narrowed down to the psychology and emotionality of the hero.

What a cold autumn
Put on your shawl and hood...
Look between the blackening pines
As if a fire is rising.

These lines of Fet, uttered by the hero of the story "Cold Autumn", most clearly reflect the time when I. Bunin wrote the cycle "Dark Alleys" in exile. Time of change, time of struggle, time of contradictions. It is noteworthy that in the story "Cold Autumn" contradictions appear constantly. If we trace the creative activity of Bunin, we will see that its “distinctive feature is the opposition of the poetic traditions of the Russian muse of the “Golden Age” to the innovative searches of the Symbolists.” According to Y. Aikhenvald's definition, Bunin's work "... stood out against their background as a good old one."

But for Bunin himself, this was not just an opposition of views, principles, worldviews - it was a stubborn and consistent struggle against symbolism. And this struggle was so heroic that Bunin was alone and was not afraid of the deep wounds that she inflicted on him. “To the extremes of the Symbolists, he contrasted too much balance of feeling: their whimsicalness is too complete a sequence of thought, their desire for unusualness is too deliberately emphasized simplicity, their paradoxes are the obvious irrefutability of statements. The more the subject of Symbolist poetry wants to be exceptional, the more the subject of Bunin's poetry tries to be normal. An interesting fact is that while in Italy or Capri, Bunin wrote stories about the Russian village, and while in Russia - about India, Ceylon. Even in this example, one can see the conflicting feelings of the artist. When looking at Russia, Bunin always needed a distance - chronological, and even geographical.

Bunin's position in relation to Russian life looked unusual: to many of his contemporaries, Bunin seemed "cold", albeit a brilliant master. "Cold" Bunin. "Cold fall". Consonance of definitions. Is it random? It seems that there is a struggle behind both - the struggle of the new with the old, truth with untruth, justice with injustice - and inevitable loneliness.

"Cold" Bunin. He sought to wrest from his work everything that could be in it in common with symbolism. Bunin was especially stubborn against the symbolists in the field of depicting reality. “The symbolist is the creator of his landscape, which is always located around him. Bunin, on the other hand, steps aside, making every effort to reproduce the reality he idolizes most objectively. But the symbolist, depicting not the world, but essentially himself, in each work achieves the goal immediately and completely. Bunin, on the other hand, complicates the achievement of his goal, he depicts the landscape as accurate, truthful, alive, which leads to the fact that most often there is no place left for the personality of the artist. But this is precisely what he opposed himself to the symbolists.

"Cold fall". Bunin in this story, by awakening the system of associative connections in the mind of the reader, seeks to say about what is left in the past - simplicity, goodness, purity of thoughts and about the inevitability of the coming tragedy.

In it, the fate of the Russian intelligentsia is shown through the fate of a woman, and her fate is revealed not so much through a detailed biography, but through a story about love, in which several days of the past are perceived more fully than the 30 years that have flown by after him. The dissonance between good and evil, peace and war, harmony and chaos can be traced throughout the short story. And in the end - loneliness, disappointment in life, although it is brightened up by a dream and faith in happiness "out there". The story is a tragedy of love in troubled times, a tragedy of reason in the mad flame of revolutionary upheavals.

Contrasting Bunin's worldview and creativity with others, contraposing the old world and the new, good and evil in the story. This is what unites the consonance of definitions - “cold” Bunin and “Cold autumn”. Bunin's antithesis is very attractive, so I would like to consider the story "Cold Autumn" from this point of view.

The aim of the work is to determine the ideological and artistic role of antithesis reception in the story "Cold Autumn" at the level of:

• plot
• compositions
• chronotope
• space
• image systems
• artistic and visual means.

The story "Cold Autumn" begins with an event that sets the stage for historical authenticity - the First World War. Events are given in fragments: "In June he was a guest", "On Peter's day he was declared a groom." The whole work is built on contrast. So in the exposition we read: “In September I came to say goodbye" and "Our wedding has been postponed until spring." Cold autumn can be interpreted as the end of ordinary peaceful life along with the dying of nature. But the wedding of the heroes has been postponed until spring. After all, spring appears not only as a time of rebirth of nature, but also as the beginning of a new peaceful life.

Further development of the action takes place in the house of the heroine, where "he" came to say goodbye. Bunin capaciously conveys the atmosphere "farewell party" reapplying one antithesis after another. On the one hand, a window behind which surprisingly early cold autumn. This laconic phrase has a multi-layered meaning: it is both the cold of autumn and the cold of the soul - as if we are hearing a father’s prophecy to his child: surprisingly, terribly early you will lose Him, you will know the cold of loneliness. On the other hand, "Steam-fogged window" With this phrase, Bunin emphasizes the warmth of the house, comfort, tranquility - “sat quietly”, “exchanged insignificant words, exaggeratedly calm, hiding their secret thoughts and feelings”, “with feigned simplicity”. And again, the antithesis is in the manifestation of external calm and internal anxiety. Bunin masterfully contrasts this state of all the people in the room with the feeling that "touching and creepy." In the same part of the story “in the black sky, pure ice stars sparkled brightly and sharply” and “a hot lamp hanging over the table”. Another vivid illustration of the antithesis: "cold" and "heat", external "ice stars" and internal "hot lamp" - someone else's and one's own.

The next steps take place in the garden. "Get out into the garden" Bunin uses this particular verb so that the reader immediately has a single association: they descended into hell (take away “s” from the word garden). From the world of warmth, family - into autumn, war. “At first it was so dark. Then black boughs began to appear in the brightening sky, showered with sparkling mineral stars.. And from hell “quite especially, the windows of the house shine in autumn.” House-paradise, which will soon burst into autumn, war, hell. There is also a strange dialogue between "her" and "him". The author escalates the state of impending trouble. Deeply symbolic are the words quoted by "him": "look between the blackening pines as if a fire rises ..." Her misunderstanding of the symbol: "What fire? “Moonrise, of course.” The moon symbolizes death, cold. And "fire", fire as a symbol of suffering, pain, destruction of one's own, dear, warm. The atmosphere of non-comfort, non-vitality is discharged by a logical emotional outburst: “Nothing, dear friend. Still sad. Sad and good. I very-very love you". This phrase, warm and light, stands out in contrast to the gloomy and cold background of the story. This makes the dissonance between good and evil, peace and war even stronger.

The climax of the story is the send-off scene, which is built on contrast. Heroes become in opposition to nature. “They crossed themselves with impetuous despair and, after standing, entered the empty house” and felt “only the amazing incompatibility between us and those around us on a joyful, sunny morning sparkling with frost on the grass.” Climax phrase: “Killed him - what a terrible word! - A month later in Galicia "- Bunin capaciously recreated the feeling of an erased emotional perception over the years. That descent has already happened: "I lived in Moscow in the basement." This is from home where “after dinner, as usual, a samovar was served!”, “became a woman in bast shoes.” It's from "Swiss Cape!" Aptly and meaningfully, the author here uses details that characterize better than lengthy descriptions: she sold “some ring, then a cross, then a fur collar ...” That is, she sold the past, renouncing it: "The times of our grandparents", "Oh, my God, my God." The beauty and slowness of life before the death of the hero are contrasted with the frantic pace of life, the abundance of misfortunes and failures after. Paradise-house turned into a hell-foreign land. The descent has ended. There is no life here - it's just an unnecessary dream.

There is another climactic wave in the work - “I always ask myself: yes, but what happened in my life after all? And I answer myself: only that cold evening. Bunin gives the heroine the last chance to realize that that evening was the triumph of the spirit, the meaning of life, life itself.

This contradiction is the basis of the tragic plot. Now the heroine has only faith in the expectation of a meeting, faith in happiness “there.” Thus, the storyline can be built like this:

			A life

The composition is in the form of a ring: "You live, rejoice in the world ..."- life - "... I lived and rejoiced ...". Compositional construction is explained by Bunin as follows: “What did happen in my life? Only that cold autumn evening ... the rest is an unnecessary dream. The work begins with a description of the autumn evening, ends with a recollection of it. In the episode of the conversation in the park, the heroine says: "I won't survive your death." And his words: "You live, rejoice in the world, then come to me." And she admits that she did not survive him, she simply forgot herself in a terrible nightmare. And it becomes clear why, in such a dry, hurried, indifferent tone, she told about everything that happened after. The soul died with that evening. The ring composition is used to show the closed circle of the heroine's life: It's time for her to "go", to return to "him". Compositionally, the work can be divided into parts that contrast with each other.

Part 1. From the beginning of the story to the words: “... do you want to walk a little?”- an almost absurd picture of tragic calmness, regularity in life, in the estate against the backdrop of a distant, seemingly unreal war.

Part 2 . From the words: “In my soul ...” to the words: “... or sing at the top of my voice?”- He and she, farewell. Against the backdrop of a joyful, sunny morning, there is emptiness and impotence in the soul of the heroine.

Part 3 From the words: "They killed him ..." to the words: "what did she become for me"-acceleration of action: on one page - the rest of life. The depiction of the wanderings and hardships of the heroine, which begins with a climactic phrase about "his" death. The heroine impartially describes her future life, stating the facts.

Part 4 until the end of the story- before us is the heroine-narrator in the present.

So, the story is built on antithesis. This principle is proclaimed by the exclamation: "Well, my friends, war!" The words "friends" and "war" are the main links in the chain of contradictions: farewell to your beloved - and a conversation about the weather, the sun - and separation. The contradictions of the absurd.

But there are also contradictions associated with human psychology, accurately conveying mental confusion: "... cry for me or sing at the top of my voice." And then the beauty and unhurriedness of life before “his” death is contrasted with the frantic pace and abundance of failures and misfortunes after.

The chronotope of the work is very detailed. In the first sentence, the season is right away: "in June". Summer, the flowering of the soul, feelings. There is no exact date of “that year”: the numbers are not important - this is the past, gone. Past, own, native, blood, organic. The official date is a foreign concept, therefore the foreign date is indicated exactly: "the fifteenth of July they killed", "on the nineteenth of July, Germany declared war on Russia," to emphasize rejection even in time. A vivid illustration of Bunin's antithesis of "friend or foe".

The boundaries of the time of the whole story are open. Bunin states only the facts. Mentioning specific dates: “July 15 they killed”, “on the morning of the 16th”, “but on June 19th”. Seasons and months: "in June of that year", "in September", "postponed until spring", "in the winter in a hurricane", "killed him a month later". Enumeration of the number of years: “Thirty whole years have passed since then”, “we spent two years in the Don and Kuban”, “in 1912”. And the words by which you can determine the passage of time: “she lived for a long time”, “the girl grew up”, “that cold autumn evening”, “the rest is an unnecessary dream”. Of course, there is a feeling of vanity, mobility of time. In the episode of the farewell evening, Bunin uses only words by which you can determine the time, feel it: “after dinner”, “that evening”, “time to sleep”, “we stayed a little longer”, “at first it was so dark”, “he left in the morning”. There is a feeling of isolation, everything happens in one place, in one small period of time - evening. But it does not burden, but causes a feeling of concreteness, reliability, warm sadness. The specificity and abstractness of time is the antithesis of “her own” time and “foreign” time: the heroine lives in “her own” and lives in “alien” as if in a dream.

The boundaries of time and the meaning of living life are contradictory. The words of the time of the whole story are numerous enumerations, but they are insignificant for the heroine. But the words of time in the episode of the farewell evening, according to the meaning of living, are a whole life.

The words of the time of the whole story		Farewell time words
specific dates:		After dinner
		time to sleep
on the morning of the 16th		that evening
spring 18th		stay a little longer
seasons and months:		at first it was so dark
in June of that year		he left in the morning
in september postpone until spring in winter in a hurricane
listing the number of years:
as much as 30 years have passed, stayed more than 2 years in 1912
words to tell time:
only lived for a day

The contrast of the narrative is felt in the work immediately. The space of the story seems to expand when the stars appear. They appear in two images: first, sparkling in a black sky, and then shining in a brightening sky. This image carries a philosophical meaning. Stars in world culture symbolize eternity, the continuity of life. Bunin emphasizes the contrast: the quick separation and death of the hero - the eternity and injustice of life. In the second part of the story, when the heroine talks about her wanderings, the space lengthens first to Moscow, and then to Eastern and Western Europe: “lived in Moscow”, “lived in Constantinople for a long time”, “Bulgaria, Serbia, Czech Republic, Paris, Nice...” The measured calm life in the estate turned into endless fuss, the randomness of the heroine's living space : "I was in Nice for the first time in 1912 - and could I think in those happy days what she would once become for me".

One of the main means in the formation of the author's position is the system of images. Bunin's principle of presenting heroes is distinguished by its brightness and unusualness. So none of the characters has a name, the name of the “guest” and “groom” is never mentioned - it is too sacred to trust the paper with the sacred letters, the sounds of the beloved name. Name of a dear person "He" akin to Blok's name of the Beautiful Lady in verse - "She". But the name of not one's own, a stranger's name is called - "Ferdinand was killed in Sarajevo." In a surreal sense, it can be considered a source of trouble. Evil is "more expressive" than good - here it has a specific name. Bunin's antithesis of "one's own - someone else's" was embodied in these images.

Bunin introduces a new layer of images into the work: "family - people." The family is in comfort, kindness, happiness, and the people are strangers “like destroyers”, thieves of harmony, “like many”, “on Peter’s day a lot of people came to us”, “Germany declared war on Russia”, “I, too(as mass ) was engaged in trade, sold”, “sailed with a myriad crowd of refugees”. Using these images, the author seems to emphasize that his story is not only about what happened to everyone personally, but also about what happened to a whole generation. Most clearly, Bunin shows the tragedy of the generation, using the fate of the woman - the main character. The image of a woman has always been associated with the image of a homemaker, and family and home are the main values ​​of the time. The events of the First World War, the revolution that followed it, the post-revolutionary years - all this fell to the lot of the heroine - a blooming girl at the first meeting with her and an old woman close to death - at the end of the story with her memories, similar to a life outcome. In her character, the pride of an emigrant coexists with disobedience to fate - are not the traits of the author himself? A lot of things coincide in life: the revolution fell to his lot, which he could not accept, and Nice, which could not replace Russia.

An important touch in the system of images "girl". She is indifferent to her past: she has become "French". The heroine describes "sleek hands", "silver nails" and "gold laces" his pupil with bitter irony, but without any malice. "Sunny bunny" among the dull colors of "her" narrative, but we do not feel heat - an icy shine. The greatest tragedy of the intelligentsia is shown by Bunin through its image: the loss of the future, lack of demand, the death of Russia in the souls of the children of emigrants.

Appears in the story and the metonymic image of soldiers "in folders and unbuttoned greatcoats." This is obvious, the Red Army soldiers, who were sold their things by people who did not fit the new time. The image of the heroine's husband is interesting. He is also not named by name, but the contrast of the place of their (the heroine and future husband) meeting (at the corner of the Arbat and the market) and a very laconic, but capacious characterization of the husband himself is emphasized. "a man of rare, beautiful soul." This perhaps symbolizes the chaos of the history of Russia at that time. Having chosen several characters, Bunin reflected the great tragedy of Russia. Again, the contrast - what was and what has become. Thousands of elegant ladies turned into "Baby in bast shoes", and "people, a rare, beautiful soul", dressed "Worn-out Cossack zipuns" and let go "black beards". So gradually, following ring, cross, fur collar " people were losing their country, and the country was losing its color and pride. The contrast of Bunin's system of images is obvious.

Bunin, as a master of the word, brilliantly, masterfully uses the antithesis at all levels of the language. Bunin's syntax is the most interesting. The language of this work of art is typical for the author: it is simple, not replete with pretentious metaphors and epithets. In the first part of the short story (see above for the boundaries of the parts), the author uses simple, uncommon sentences. This creates the impression of flipping through photos in a family album, only a statement of facts. Offer - frame. Fifteen lines - ten sentences - frames. Flipping through the past. "On June 15, Ferdinand was killed in Sarajevo." “On the morning of the sixteenth they brought newspapers from the post office.” "This is war!" "And now our farewell party has come." "Surprisingly early and cold autumn." In the farewell evening episode, the author seems to stop time, stretches the space, filling it with events, and the sentences become complex, each of their parts is widespread. In this part, there are many minor members of the sentence, contrasting in meaning: « sweaty from steam windows" and "surprisingly early and cold autumn", "on black sky brightly and sharply sparkled clean icy stars" and "hung over the table hot lamp". Numerically, this is expressed as follows: there are five sentences in fourteen lines. “That evening we sat quietly, only occasionally exchanging insignificant words, exaggeratedly calm, hiding our secret thoughts and feelings.” “Then black boughs began to appear in the brightening sky, showered with minerally shining stars.” “Left alone, we stayed a little longer in the dining room,” I decided to play solitaire, “he silently walked from corner to corner, then asked:“ Do you want to walk a little? In the next part, Bunin reveals the inner world of the heroes using dialogue. Dialogues in this part play a particularly important role. Behind all the on-duty phrases, remarks about the weather, about “autumn”, there is a second meaning, subtext, unspoken pain. They say one thing - they think about something else, they speak only for the sake of a word, a conversation. The so-called "undercurrent". And the fact that the distraction of the father, the diligence of the mother, the indifference of the heroine are feigned, the reader understands even without a direct explanation of the author: "only occasionally exchanged insignificant words, exaggeratedly calm, hiding their secret thoughts and feelings." “Dressing in the hallway, he continued to think something, with a sweet smile he remembered Fet’s poems:

What a cold autumn

Put on your shawl and hood...

- I do not remember. It seems so:

Look between the blackening pines As if the fire rises...

- What fire?

- Moonrise, of course. There is some charm in these verses: “Put on your shawl and hood...” The times of our grandparents... Oh, my God, my God!

- What you?

- Nothing, dear friend. Still sad. Sad and good. I really, really love you I love".

The final part of the story is dominated by declarative sentences complicated by homogeneous parts of the sentence. An unusual feeling of rhythm, overflowing with life events is created: “some kind of ring, then a cross, then a fur collar”, “Bulgaria, Serbia, Czech Republic, Belgium, Paris, Nice ...”, “was engaged ..., sold ..., met ..., left. ..", "sleek hands with silver nails... gold laces". Bunin contrasts all this with the inner emptiness, the fatigue of the heroine. She states her misfortunes without any emotion. The overcrowding of events life turns into the fact that life - then there is none. At the level of syntax, the antithesis is clearly expressed: simple - complex sentences, prevalence, saturation with homogeneous members of the sentence and their absence, dialogicity - the monologue of the heroine. Consciousness splits: there is yesterday and now, the past and all life. Syntax tools help with this.

The masterful use of morphological means of language also draws attention. So in the first part of the work, the verbs are put in the past tense. Memories... The heroine seems to be making her way through the windbreak of the past to the present, living life, growing old, disappointed: “rose”, “crossed”, “passed”, “looked”, “lived”, “wandered”. In the last part of the story, the narration is conducted using the forms of the present tense: I ask, I answer, I believe, I wait. The heroine awakens. And life is over.

So, the main feature of the "Bunin" antithesis is that it permeates all levels of the story "Cold Autumn".

1. "Bunin's" antithesis is a way of expressing the author's position.
2. Bunin's contrast is a way of reflecting reality, creating a picture of the world.
3. The opposition is used to reveal the worldview, philosophical concept of the author.
4. Antithesis as a demonstration of the catastrophic nature of time at the turn of two centuries, revolutions, wars.
5. The contrast of the psychology of people in the early 20th century.
6. The antithesis in Bunin's story "Cold Autumn" is a technique for creating a composition, plot, chronotope, space, system of images, language features.

The title of the collection "Dark Alleys" evokes images of dilapidated gardens of old estates, overgrown alleys of Moscow parks. Russia, fading into the past, into oblivion.

Bunin is a master who knows how to be unique in the most banal situations, to always remain chaste and pure, because love for him is always unique and holy. In Dark Alleys, love is alien to the concept of sin: “After all, cruel tears remain in the soul, that is, memories that are especially cruel, painful if you remember something happy.” Perhaps, in the melancholy of the short stories of "Dark Alleys", the old pain from the happiness experienced once gains a voice.

Bunin is not a philosopher, not a moralist and not a psychologist. For him, it is more important what sunset was when the heroes said goodbye and went somewhere than the purpose of their trip. "He was always a stranger to both God-seeking and theomachism." Therefore, it is pointless to look for a deep meaning in the actions of the heroes. "Cold Autumn" is a story where love, in fact, is not mentioned. This work is the only one with a documented accurate chronology. The language of the narration is emphatically dry... An elderly woman, neatly dressed, is sitting somewhere in a coastal restaurant and, nervously fiddling with her scarf, tells her story to a random interlocutor. There are no more emotions - everything has long been experienced. She equally casually speaks of the death of her fiancé and the indifference of her adopted daughter. As a rule, Bunin's action is concentrated in a short time interval. "Cold Autumn" is not just a segment of life, it is a chronicle of a lifetime. Earthly love, cut off by death, but, thanks to this death, became unearthly. And at the end of her turbulent life, the heroine suddenly realizes that she had nothing but this love. “Bunin, during his bleak “cold autumn”, having survived the revolution and exile, during the days of one of the most terrible wars, writes a story about love, just as Boccaccio wrote the Decameron during the plague. For the flashes of this unearthly fire are the light that illuminates the path of mankind.” As one of the heroines of "Dark Alleys" said: "All love is a great happiness, even if it is not divided."

List of used literature

1. Adamovich G.V. Loneliness and freedom. New York, 1985.
2. Aleksandrova V.A. "Dark Alleys" // New Journal, 1947 No. 15.
3. Afanasiev V.O. On some features of Bunin's late lyrical prose // Izvestiya AN SSSR. Dep. Literature and language, 1979, v.29, issue 6.
4. Baboreko A.K. Bunin during the war 1943-1944 // Daugava, 1980 No. 10.
5. Dolgopolov L.O. On some features of late Bunin's realism // Russian Literature, 1973 No. 2.
6. Muromtseva - Bunina V.N. Bunin's life, Paris, 1958.
7. School of Classics. Criticism and comments. Silver Age. 1998.

Meshcheryakova Nadezhda.

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Analysis of the story by I. A. Bunin "Cold Autumn".

Before us is the story of I. A. Bunin, which, among his other works, has become classical Russian literature.

The writer turns to ordinary, at first glance, types of human characters, so that through them, their experiences reveal the tragedy of an entire era. The comprehensiveness and accuracy of each word, phrase (characteristic features of Bunin's stories) manifested itself especially clearly in the story "Cold Autumn". The name is ambiguous: on the one hand, the time of the year when the events of the story unfolded is quite specifically called, but in a figurative sense, “cold autumn”, like “Clean Monday”, is a period of time, the most important in the life of heroes, this is also a state of mind.

The story is told from the perspective of the main character.

The historical framework of the story is wide: they cover the events of the First World War, and the revolution that followed it, and the post-revolutionary years. All this fell to the lot of the heroine - a blooming girl at the beginning of the story and an old woman close to death at the end. Before us are her memoirs, similar to a generalizing life outcome. From the very beginning, events of world significance are closely connected with the personal fate of the characters: “war breaks into the sphere of“ peace ”. “... at dinner, he was announced as my fiancé. But on July 19 Germany declared war on Russia…”. The heroes, anticipating trouble, but not realizing its true scale, still live in a peaceful regime - calm both internally and externally. “Father left the office and cheerfully announced: “Well, my friends, war! Austrian crown prince killed in Sarajevo! This is war! - so the war entered the life of Russian families in the hot summer of 1914. But here comes the "cold autumn" - and before us it seems that the same, but in fact already different people. Bunin talks about their inner world with the help of dialogues that play a particularly important role in the first part of the work. Behind all the on-duty phrases, remarks about the weather, about “autumn”, there is a second meaning, subtext, unspoken pain. They say one thing - they think about another, they say only for the sake of maintaining a conversation. Quite Chekhov's technique - the so-called "undercurrent". And the fact that the absent-mindedness of the father, the diligence of the mother (like a drowning man clutching at a “silk bag” at a straw), the indifference of the heroine are feigned, the reader understands even without a direct explanation of the author: “only occasionally they exchanged insignificant words, exaggeratedly calm, hiding their secret thoughts and the senses". Over tea, anxiety grows in the souls of people, already a clear and inevitable premonition of a thunderstorm; the same “fire rises” - the ghost of war looms ahead. In the face of adversity, secrecy increases tenfold: “My heart was getting harder, I responded indifferently.” The harder it is inside, the more indifferent the heroes become outwardly, avoiding explanations, as if it is easier for them all, until the fatal words are spoken, then the danger is more vague, the hope is brighter. It is no coincidence that the hero turns to the past, the nostalgic notes of “The Times of Our Grandparents” sound. The heroes yearn for a peaceful time, when they can put on a “shawl and a hood” and, embracing, take a calm walk after tea. Now this life is collapsing, and the heroes are desperately trying to keep at least an impression, a memory of him, quoting Fet. They notice how the windows “shine” in an autumnal way, how “mineral” the stars shine (these expressions acquire a metaphorical coloring). And we see what a huge role the spoken word plays. Until the groom performed the fatal "If they kill me." The heroine did not fully understand the full horror of what was to come. “And the stone word fell” (A. Akhmatova). But, frightened, even by a thought, she drives her away - after all, her beloved is still there. Bunin, with the precision of a psychologist, exposes the souls of the characters with the help of replicas.

As always with Bunin, nature plays an important role. Starting with the name "Cold Autumn" dominates the narrative, the refrain sounds in the words of the characters. The “joyful, sunny, sparkling frost” morning contrasts with the internal state of people. Mercilessly "bright and sharp" sparkle "ice stars". How the stars "shine eyes." Nature helps to feel more deeply the drama of human hearts. From the very beginning, the reader already knows that the hero will die, because everything around points to this - and above all the cold - a harbinger of death. "Are you cold?" - asks the hero, and then, without any transition: "If they kill me, will you ... not immediately forget me?" He is still alive, and the bride is already blowing cold. Premonitions - from there, from another world. “I will be alive, I will always remember this evening,” he says, and the heroine, as if she already knows what she will have to remember, that’s why she remembers the smallest details: “Swiss cape”, “black branches”, head tilt ...

The fact that the main character traits of the hero are generosity, disinterestedness and courage is indicated by his remark, similar to a poetic line, sounding heartfelt and touching, but without any pathos: “You live, rejoice in the world.”

And the heroine? Without any emotions, sentimental lamentations and sobs, she tells her story. But not callousness, but fortitude, courage and nobility are hidden behind this secrecy. We see the subtlety of feelings from the scene of separation - something that makes her related to Natasha Rostova, when she was waiting for Prince Andrei. Narrative sentences predominate in her story, scrupulously, to the smallest detail, she describes the main evening of her life. Doesn't say, "I cried," but notes that the friend said, "How the eyes are shining." He talks about misfortunes without pity for himself. Describes the "sleek hands", "silver nails", "golden laces" of his pupil with bitter irony, but without any malice. In her character, the pride of an emigrant coexists with resignation to fate - are these not traits of the author himself? A lot of things coincide in their lives: the revolution fell to his lot, which he could not accept, and Nice, which could never replace Russia. The French girl shows the features of the younger generation, a generation without a homeland. Having chosen several characters, Bunin reflected the great tragedy of Russia. Thousands of elegant ladies who have turned into "women in bast shoes." And "people of a rare, beautiful soul" who put on "worn Cossack zipuns" and lowered "black beards." So gradually, following the “ring, cross, fur collar” people lost their country, and the country lost its color and pride. The ring composition of the story closes the circle of the heroine's life: it's time for her to "go", to return. The story begins with a description of the “autumn evening”, ends with a recollection of it, and the sad phrase sounds like a refrain: “You live, rejoice in the world, then come to me.” We suddenly find out that the heroine lived only one evening in her life - that very cold autumn evening. And it becomes clear why, in fact, in such a dry, hurried, indifferent tone, she told about everything that happened after - after all, it was all just an “unnecessary dream”. The soul died along with that evening, and the woman looks at the remaining years as if they were someone else’s life, “as with the soul they look from a height at the body they abandoned” (F. Tyutchev). According to Bunin, true love - love - a flash, love - a moment - triumphs in this story. Bunin's love constantly breaks off at the most seemingly bright and joyful note. Circumstances interfere with her - sometimes tragic, as in the story "Cold Autumn". I recall the story "Rusya", where the hero really lived for only one summer. And circumstances intervene not by chance - they “stop the moment”, until love becomes vulgar, does not die, so that the memory of the heroine retains “not a plate, not a crucifix”, but the same “shining gaze”, full of “love and youth”, so that life-affirming beginning, "hot faith" was preserved.

Fet's poem runs through the whole story - the same technique as in the story "Dark Alleys".

During the Great Patriotic War, being at that time in exile and living in the Villa Jeannette in Grasse, I.A. Bunin created the best of everything he wrote - the cycle of stories "Dark Alleys". In it, the writer made an unprecedented attempt: thirty-eight times he wrote "about the same thing" - about love. However, the result of this amazing constancy is amazing: every time Bunin tells about love in a new way, and the sharpness of the reported "details of feelings" is not dulled, but even intensified.

One of the best stories in the cycle is Cold Autumn. The writer wrote about him: "Cold Autumn is very touching." It was created on May 3, 1944. This story stands out from the rest. Bunin usually narrates in the third person, in which the hero's confession is wedged, his recollection of some bright moment of his life, of his love. And in describing feelings, Bunin follows a certain pattern: a meeting - a sudden rapprochement - a blinding flash of feelings - an inevitable parting. And most often the writer talks about a somewhat forbidden love. Here Bunin refuses both impersonal narration and the usual scheme. The story is told from the point of view of the heroine, which gives the work a subjective color and at the same time makes it unbiased, accurate in expressing the feelings experienced by the characters. But at the same time, the all-seeing author still exists: he manifests himself in the organization of the material, in the characteristics of the characters, and involuntarily we learn from him in advance about what will happen, we feel it.

The violation of the scheme consists in the fact that the heroine's story begins, as it were, from the middle. We do not know anything about how and when love was born. The heroine begins her story with the last meeting in the life of two loving people. Before us is already a denouement, a technique not typical for Dark Alleys: the lovers and their parents have already agreed on a wedding, and the “inevitable separation” is due to the war in which the hero is killed. This suggests that Bunin in this story writes not only about love.

The plot of the story is quite simple. All events are presented sequentially, one after another. The story opens with an extremely brief exposition: here we learn about the time when the main events took place, a little about the heroes of the story. The plot is the murder of Ferdinand and the moment when the heroine's father brings newspapers to the house and announces the beginning of the war. Very smoothly, Bunin brings us to the denouement, which is contained in one sentence:

They killed him (what a strange word!) a month later, in Galicia.

The subsequent narration is already an epilogue (a story about the narrator's later life): time passes, the heroine's parents pass away, she lives in Moscow, gets married, and moves to Yekaterinodar. After the death of her husband, she wanders around Europe with the daughter of his nephew, who, together with his wife, drove off to Wrangel and went missing. And now, when her story is told, she lives alone in Nice, remembering that cold autumn evening.

The time frame in the work as a whole is preserved. Only in one place the chronology is broken. In general, the internal time of the story can be divided into three groups: “past first” (cold autumn), “past second” (thirty years later) and present (living in Nice, time of storytelling). "The First Past" ends with a message about the death of the hero. Here, time seems to break off and we are transported to the present:

And thirty years have passed since then.

At this point, the story is divided into two parts, sharply opposed to each other: a cold autumn evening and "life without it", which seemed so impossible. Then the chronology of time is restored. And the words of the hero “You live, rejoice in the world, then come to me ...” at the end of the story, as it were, return us to that cold autumn, which is mentioned at the beginning.

Another feature of the time in "Cold Autumn" is that not all the events that make up the plot of the work are covered in the same detail. More than half of the story is occupied by the ups and downs of one evening, while the events of thirty years of life are listed in one paragraph. When the heroine talks about the autumn evening, time seems to slow down. The reader, along with the characters, plunges into a state of half-asleep, every breath, every rustle is heard. Time seems to be suffocating.

The space of the story combines two plans: local (heroes and their close circle) and historical and geographical background (Ferdinand, Wrangel, Sarajevo, World War I, cities and countries of Europe, Yekaterinodar, Novocherkassk, etc.). Thanks to this, the space of the story expands to world limits. At the same time, the historical and geographical background is not only a background, it is not just a decoration. All these historical, cultural and geographical realities are directly related to the heroes of the story and to what is happening in their lives. The love drama takes place against the backdrop of the First World War, or rather its beginning. Moreover, it is the cause of the ongoing tragedy:

On Peter's Day, a lot of people came to us - it was my father's name day, and at dinner he was announced as my fiancé. But on the nineteenth of July Germany declared war on Russia...

Bunin's condemnation of the war is obvious. The writer, as it were, tells us that this world tragedy is at the same time the general tragedy of love, because it destroys it, hundreds of people suffer from the fact that the war has begun and precisely for the reason that loved ones are separated by it, often forever. This is further confirmed by the fact that Bunin in every possible way draws our attention to the typicality of this situation. This is often stated directly:

I was also engaged in trade, sold, like many sold then ...

Then, like many, where only I did not wander with her! ..

There are few characters, as in any story: the hero, the heroine, her father and mother, her husband and his nephew with his wife and daughter. None of them have names! This confirms the idea expressed above: they are not specific people, they are one of those who suffered first from the First World War, and then from the Civil War.

To convey the internal state of the characters, "secret psychologism" is used. Very often, Bunin uses words with the meaning of indifference, calmness: “insignificant”, “exaggeratedly calm” words, “feigned simplicity”, “looked absentmindedly”, “sighed lightly”, “answered indifferently” and others. This is a manifestation of Bunin's subtle psychologism. The heroes try to hide their excitement, which is growing every minute. We are witnessing a great tragedy. There is silence all around, but she is dead. Everyone understands and feels that this is their last meeting, this evening - and this will never happen again, nothing will happen further. From this and "touching and creepy", "sad and good." The hero is almost sure that he will never return to this house, which is why he is so sensitive to everything that happens around him: he notices that “the windows of the house are shining in an autumnal way”, the sparkle of her eyes, “quite winter air”. He walks from corner to corner, she decided to play solitaire. The conversation doesn't stick. The emotional tragedy reaches its climax.

Dramatic shade carries the landscape. Approaching the balcony door, the heroine sees how “in the garden, in the black sky”, “brightly and sharply”, “ice stars” sparkle; going out into the garden - "black branches in the brightening sky, showered with minerally shining stars." In the morning, during his departure, everything around is joyful, sunny, sparkling with frost on the grass. And the house remains empty - forever. And there is an “amazing incompatibility” between them (the heroes of the story) and the nature around them. It is no coincidence that the pine trees from Fet's poem, which the hero recalls, become "blackening" (Fet's - "dormant"). Bunin condemns the war. Any. It violates the natural order of things, destroys the ties between man and nature, makes the heart turn black and kills love.

But this is not the most important thing in the story "Cold Autumn".

Once Leo Tolstoy said to Bunin: "There is no happiness in life, there are only lightning bolts of it - appreciate them, live by them." The hero, leaving for the front, asked the heroine to live and be glad in the world (if he was killed). Was there any joy in her life? She herself answers this question: there was "only that cold autumn evening", and that's all, "the rest is an unnecessary dream." And yet this evening "still happened." And the past years of her life, in spite of everything, seem to her “that magical, incomprehensible, incomprehensible neither mind nor heart, which is called the past.” That painfully disturbing "cold autumn" was the very lightning of happiness that Tolstoy advised to appreciate.

Whatever was in a person's life - it "still happened"; it is this magical past, it is about it that the memory retains memories.