Bunin, "Grammar of Love": a summary, an analysis

Ivan Ivanovich Bunin, the great Russian writer, has an amazing story "The Grammar of Love" (a brief summary follows). Written in 1915, long before the appearance of the famous cycle "Dark alleys", he was the first step of the author towards the age-old theme "Love". But, as they say, the steps are different - timid, timid or unskillful, which can not be said about this work: it is extraordinarily deep, talented, that is, alive, you hear it, feel it penetrates into the very depths of the soul ...

I.A. Bunin, the story "Grammar of Love": a brief summary

The beginning of June. Someone Ivlev takes for a time the brother-in-law of the tarantas, hires three horses and goes to the far edges of his county. The weather is warm, weathering. The fields are endlessly full of bright colors and larks. Soon, heavy leaden clouds dragged on, and a fine rain began to spill. We decided not to hurry and wait out the bad weather in the count's house. The last one was not in the estate, so Ivlev was met by a young countess, dressed in a wide pink hood, with open arms and powdered breasts.

While a small eighteen, a cab driver, was sitting motionless in the pouring rain on the tarantas goats, and the horses were resting in the middle of the dirty yard, Ivlev was in a cozy living room darkening from the rain, conducting a measured conversation with the hostess of the house and waiting for tea. The countess smoked, she laughed and straightened her hair. Whatever it was, he inevitably ended up with the theme of love. They also recalled the common acquaintance, the close neighbor, landowner Khvoshchinsky, who was known far beyond the bounds of the county for his insane love for maid Lushka.

A Wonderful Love Story

This story is old. Landowner Khvoshchinsky was passionately in love with his maid Lushka, who soon after her acquaintance, when she was young, unexpectedly died. Ever since, "this eccentric" closed on his estate, did not go anywhere and did not let anyone in, and for the rest of his life, more than twenty years was only in her room and sat through the mattress on her bed, indulging in "crazy dreams about her ". Whatever happened around, in the village or in the world - everything was attributed to lushkin influence. For example, bad weather - this Lushka sends a thunder, war in the country is at her command, a crop failure - the peasants did not please Lushka.

Ivlev knew this story from childhood, admired such deep feelings and even was a little in love with this very Lushka. The news that Khvoshchinsky died this winter caused in Ivlev former memories, old feelings and questions: a crazy or really stunned, pure soul of rare quality? On the way home, he decided to visit the deserted estate of Khvoshchinsky and see the dwelling of the mysterious Lushka, and maybe he will feel and understand everything there ...

Khvoshchinsky Manor

I.A. Bunin and his story "The Grammar of Love," a brief summary of which is now in front of you - it's just a superficial presentation of the plot of the great work. Therefore, in order to understand the depth of the described history, you need to read the original.

Before Ivlev opened a new landscape: a small river, further, on a small hill, could be seen rows of hay, and between them - old silvery poplars. Here is the famous house, quite large and, apparently, once bleached ... On the porch stood a young man. He looked at the approaching tarantas in surprise. It seems that this was the son of the famous Lushka. Ivlev hastened to explain his arrival with the desire to buy books from the library of the deceased.

He was led across the house, cold and empty, and led to a low door. The young man took a big key from his pocket, inserted it into a rusty keyhole, and before them a door opened into a small room with two windows. On one side stood a bare iron bed, and on the other - two lockers with books. This "book collection" was strange: "The Newest Dream Book", "Reflections on the Sacraments of the Universe", "The Morning Star and Night Demons" ... But Ivlev's attention was drawn to a completely different - the average regiment. There was a casket on it and only a small book lay, more like prayer books. "The Grammar of Love," a short summary (14 novellas) of which introduces the reader to the amazing feeling of love, does not end there.

Amazing Items

Opening the latter, Ivlev saw a simple necklace. More than ever, he was seized with awe and an incomprehensible excitement. It is impossible to imagine this shabby lace, these cheap blue balls on the neck of the one who was destined to be so desired and loved ... After a lot of sightseeing, he carefully returned the box to its original place and took up the book. It was a small, one might say elegantly decorated, old scruffy book - "Grammar of Love, or The Art of Loving and Being Beloved"

It was divided into many chapters: about the mind, about beauty, about the heart, about the quarrel and reconciliation ... Each consisted of famous aphorisms, statements and subtle observations of famous people about life and love. Some of them were marked with red ink, and at the end, the quatrain of Khvoshchinsky himself "sounded" on the clean page.

Half an hour later Ivlev said goodbye to the young man. Of all the books he chose only one - "Grammar of Love." The summary of the story on this episode ends.

Such different love

Apparently, the storyline of the novel is quite simple, and, perhaps, under other circumstances or under the pen of another author, it would have turned into an ordinary "uyezd joke". In I.A. Bunin, it acquires a different sound - is it possible such a love, is it true, or is it just some kind of obsession, madness. The author does not give an unambiguous answer, because it is impossible to get inside a person, to look into his soul and to touch his feelings and experiences. How many characters in the story, so many opinions. One can not blame one for prejudice, and another to praise for objectivity. However, on the examples of the heroes - the late Khvoshchinsky, Ivlev, the young countess and even the driver - a small eighteen years - one can observe the peculiar evolution of the human soul, and with it a different understanding of love, and the very possibility, the ability to truly love.

So, the driver, the son of a rich peasant, dull, but economic, rudely notes that Lushka was drowned, and the landowner went mad at all "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, made all the talk to love, while laughing and straightening her hair all the time. She firmly believed in the sanity and robustness of the enamored Khvoshchinsky - he simply "was not the present couple."

The pendulum of love ... He always swings to the right, then to the left. The absence of the gift of love in a young man is one side. However, the displacement of the pendulum from the equilibrium position to the other, the opposite side, does not speak of the depth and sincerity of the senses or the presence of high spirituality in man. Yes, the young countess believes in love, but in what? The love story of Khvoshchinsky and Lushka - for her it is, rather, a beautiful cover of the next female novel. You can admire, be touched, cry and complain that now you can not find such feelings, but soon forget and be carried away by something else, no less colorful.

Equilibrium

Before us is the story "Grammar of Love". Summary, analysis of the work of IA. Bunin does not end there. We continue ...

Sooner or later the pendulum slows down and stops. It rests in a state of equilibrium. This is true love. It was to her, after many searches, doubts and unexpected insights, and Ivlev and the late Khvoshchinsky approached: "There is a being, but by what name is it? Neither a dream nor a vagabond, - between them it is, and in a man they are madly bordered by reason ... "

In the image of the maid Lushka in the story "The Grammar of Love" (for a brief summary of the chapters, see above), the author wanted to show that very true love that entered forever into the lives of Khvoshchinsky and Ivlev. What was she like? It was said that "she was quite unwell," but suddenly she suddenly fell on the landowner's head, then unexpectedly and unexpectedly died, being young, in the color of years, and everything went to dust ... But whether it was ashes? No and no again. This love, though incomplete and strange, "mysterious in its charm," turned the life of one person into a real "life", which should be the most ordinary.

Similar to the prayer book is the book "Grammar of Love", the content of which delight and surprise; A simple necklace of Lushka, a feeling that is akin to what a person feels when looking at the relics of saints ... For those who do not resist love, who let it into their lives, everything ordinary turns into a sacred one, and tragic is seen not as a certain doom, but as a supreme Spiritual meaning of life. Khvoshchinsky, making his own notes and notes in the book, wrote his "grammar of love." Ivlev, after buying this shabby "prayer book", bought this invaluable gift to eventually deduce his "laws", write his own rules, and "to his grandchildren and great-grandchildren will show this Grammar of Love".