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"Sunstroke"

After dinner we left the brightly and hotly lit dining room onto the deck and stopped at the railings. She closed her eyes, put her hand to her cheek with her palm outward, laughed with a simple, lovely laugh - everything was lovely about this little woman - and said:

I'm completely drunk ... Actually, I'm completely crazy. Where did you come from? Three hours ago, I didn't even know you existed. I don't even know where you sat down. In Samara? But still, you're cute. Is my head spinning, or are we turning somewhere?

There was darkness and lights ahead. From the darkness a strong, soft wind was blowing in the face, and the lights were rushing somewhere to the side: the steamer with Volga panache was abruptly describing a wide arc, running up to a small pier.

The lieutenant took her hand, raised it to his lips. The hand, small and strong, smelled of tan. And blissfully and terribly her heart sank at the thought of how strong and dark she was, probably, under this light canvas dress after a whole month of lying under the southern sun, on the hot sea sand (she said that she was coming from Anapa).

The lieutenant muttered:

Let's get off ...

Where to? she asked in surprise.

On this pier.

He said nothing. She put her hand back to her hot cheek again.

Crazy...

Let's get off, ”he repeated dully. - I beg you...

Oh, do as you like, ”she said, turning away.

The runaway steamer hit the dimly lit pier with a soft thud, and they nearly fell on top of each other. The end of the rope flew over our heads, then it flew backwards, and the water boiled with a noise, the gangway rattled ... The lieutenant rushed to get his things.

A minute later they passed the sleepy office, came out onto the deep sand, up to the hub, and silently sat down in the dusty cab. The gentle uphill climb, among the rare crooked lanterns, along the road soft with dust, seemed endless. But then they got up, drove out and crackled along the (pavement, here is some kind of square, public places, watchtower, the warmth and smells of the night summer county town ... wooden ladder, an old, unshaven footman in a pink blouse and frock coat took his things with displeasure and went forward on his trampled feet. We entered a large, but terribly stuffy room, hotly heated by the sun during the day, with white lowered curtains on the windows and two unburned candles on the mirror, and as soon as they entered and the footman closed the door, the lieutenant rushed to her so impetuously and both of them gasped in a kiss so frenziedly that for many years they remembered this moment later: neither the one nor the other had ever experienced anything like this in their entire life.

At ten o'clock in the morning, sunny, hot, happy, with the ringing of churches, with a bazaar on the square in front of the hotel, with the smell of hay, tar and again all that complex I smelling like what a Russian county town smells like, she, this little nameless woman, and without telling her name, jokingly calling herself a beautiful stranger, she left. We slept little, but in the morning, coming out from behind the screen near the bed, having washed and dressed in five minutes, she was as fresh as at seventeen. Was she embarrassed? No, very little. She was still simple, cheerful and - already reasonable.

No, no, dear, - she said in response to his request to go on together, - no, you must stay until the next steamer. If we go together, everything will be ruined. It will be very unpleasant for me. I give you my word of honor that I am not at all what you might think of me. Nothing even similar to what happened has never happened to me, and there will never be any more. I was definitely eclipsed ... Or, rather, we both got something like a sunstroke ...

And the lieutenant somehow easily agreed with her. In a light and happy spirit, he drove her to the pier - just in time for the departure of the pink Plane - kissed her on deck in front of everyone and barely had time to jump onto the gangway, which had already moved back.

He returned to the hotel just as easily, carelessly. However, something has changed. The number without her seemed somehow completely different than it was with her. He was still full of her - and empty. It was weird! She also smelled of good English cologne, her unfinished cup was still on the tray, but she was no longer there ... And the lieutenant's heart suddenly sank with such tenderness that the lieutenant hurried to light a cigarette and, slapping himself on the bootlegs with a stack, several times walked up and down room.

A strange adventure! he said aloud, laughing and feeling that tears were pouring into his eyes. - "I give you my word of honor that I am not at all what you might think ..." And already left ... Ridiculous woman!

The screen was pushed aside, the bed had not yet been made. And he felt that there was simply no strength to look at this bed now. He closed it with a screen, shut the windows so as not to hear the bazaar talk and the creak of the wheels, pulled down the white bubbling curtains, sat down on the sofa ... Yes, this is the end of this "road adventure"! She left - and now she is already far away, sitting, probably, in a glass white saloon or on the deck and looking at the huge river shining under the sun, at the oncoming rafts, at the yellow shallows, at the shining distance of water and sky, at this whole immense Volga expanse. .. And I'm sorry, and already forever, forever. - Because where can they meet now? - "I can't, he thought, I can't come to this city for no reason, no reason, where her husband, her three-year-old girl, in general her whole family and her whole ordinary life!" And this city seemed to him some kind of special, reserved city, and the thought that she would live her lonely life in it, often, perhaps, remembering him, remembering their accidental, such a fleeting meeting, and he never will not see her, this thought amazed and amazed him. No, it can't be! It would be too wild, unnatural, incredible! - And he felt such pain and such uselessness of his entire future life without her that he was seized by horror, despair.

“What the devil!” He thought, getting up, again starting to walk around the room and trying not to look at the bed behind the screen. “But what is it with me? It seems not for the first time - and now ... What’s in it special and what actually happened? In fact, like some kind of sunstroke! And most importantly, how can I now, without her, spend the whole day in this backwater? "

He still remembered all of her, with all her slightest peculiarities, he remembered the smell of her tan and gingham dress, her strong body, the lively, simple and cheerful sound of her voice ... The feeling of just experienced pleasures of all her feminine charm was still extraordinarily alive in him , but now the main thing was still this second, completely new feeling - that painful, incomprehensible feeling that did not exist at all while they were together, which he could not even imagine in himself, starting yesterday, as he thought, only funny acquaintance, and about which there was no one, there was no one to tell now! - "And most importantly, he thought, after all, you will never tell! And what to do, how to live this endless day, with these memories, with this insoluble torment, in this godforsaken town above that shining Volga along which this pink steamer! "

I had to save myself, occupy something, distract myself, go somewhere. He resolutely put on his cap, took a stack, quickly walked, jingling his spurs, along the empty corridor, ran down the steep stairs to the entrance ... Yes, but where to go? At the entrance stood a young cab, in a dexterous coat, and calmly smoked a gypsy, obviously waiting for someone. The lieutenant looked at him in confusion and amazement: how is it possible to sit so calmly on the box, smoke and generally be simple, careless, indifferent? “Probably, I am the only one so terribly unhappy in this whole city,” he thought, walking towards the bazaar.

The bazaar was already leaving. For some reason, he walked along the fresh manure among carts, among carts with cucumbers, among new bowls and pots, and the women sitting on the ground, vying with each other, called him, took the pots in their hands and knocked, jingled fingers in them, showing their good quality, men deafened him, shouted to him "Here are the first sort of cucumbers, your honor!" All this was so stupid, absurd, that he fled from the market. He entered the cathedral, where they were already singing loudly, cheerfully and decisively, with the consciousness of a fulfilled duty, then he walked for a long time, circled around the small, hot and neglected garden on the edge of the mountain, over the immense light-steel width of the river ... Shoulder straps and buttons of his jacket it was so hot that it was impossible to touch them. The rim of the cap was wet with sweat inside, his face was flushed ... Returning to the hotel, he delightedly entered the large and empty cool dining room on the ground floor, took off his cap with delight and sat down at a table near the open window, which carried heat, but that was all. -Tako breathed air, and ordered botvinya with ice. Everything was good, there was immeasurable happiness in everything, great joy, even in this heat and in all the bazaar smells, in this whole unfamiliar town and in this old district hotel there was she, this joy, and at the same time my heart was simply torn to pieces. He drank several glasses of vodka, nibbling on lightly salted cucumbers with dill and feeling that he, without hesitation, would die tomorrow, if it were possible by some miracle to return her, spend one more day with her, - spend only then, only then, in order to tell her and prove something to her, to convince her how painfully and enthusiastically he loves her ... Why prove? Why convince? He didn't know why, but it was more necessary than life.

Nerves have completely cleared up! - he said, pouring the fifth glass of vodka.

He pushed the botvinya away from him, asked for black coffee, I began to smoke and thought hard: what should he do now, how to get rid of this sudden, unexpected love? But to get rid - he felt it too vividly - was impossible. And he suddenly got up again quickly, took the cap and the stack and, asking where the post office was, hurriedly went there with the phrase of the telegram already ready in his head: "From now on, blowing my life forever, to the grave, yours, in your power." - But, having reached an old thick-walled house, where there was a post office and a telegraph office, he stopped in horror: he knew the city where she lived, knew that she had a husband and a three-year-old daughter, but did not know her surname or her name! He asked her about this several times yesterday at dinner and at the hotel, and each time she laughed and said:

Why do you need to know who I am? I am Marya Marevna, the overseas princess ... Isn't that enough for you?

There was a photographic display case on the corner near the post office. He looked for a long time at a large portrait of some military man in thick epaulettes, with bulging eyes, with a low forehead, with amazingly magnificent sideburns and the broadest chest, completely decorated with orders ... How wild, how ridiculous, scary everything everyday, ordinary, when the heart amazed - yes, amazed, he now understood it - by this terrible "sunstroke", too much love, too much happiness! He glanced at the newlyweds - a young man in a long frock coat and white tie, cropped by a hedgehog, stretched out to the front under the arm with a girl in a wedding gas, - turned his eyes to a portrait of some pretty and perky young lady in a student cap on one side ... Then, languishing with agonizing envy of all these unknown to him, not suffering people, he began to look intently along the street.

Where to go? What to do?

The street was completely empty. The houses were all the same, white, two-story, merchant houses, with large gardens, and it seemed that there was not a soul in them; thick white dust lay on the pavement; and all this was blinding, everything was flooded with hot, fiery and joyful, but here it was as if aimless, the sun. In the distance, the street rose, hunched over and rested against the cloudless, grayish, with a reflection of the sky. There was something southern about it, reminiscent of Sevastopol, Kerch ... Anapa. This was especially unbearable. And the lieutenant, with his head lowered, squinting from the light, looking intently at his feet, staggering, stumbling, clinging to the spur with his spur, walked back.

He returned to the hotel so overwhelmed with fatigue, as if he had made a huge transition somewhere in Turkestan, in the Sahara. Gathering his last strength, he entered his large and empty room. The room had already been tidied up, stripped of the last traces of her — only one hairpin, which she had forgotten, lay on the night table! He took off his tunic and looked at himself in the mirror: his face — an ordinary officer’s face, gray with sunburn, with whitish mustache bleached from the sun and bluish whiteness of eyes that seemed even whiter from the sun — now had an excited, crazy expression, and in a thin white shirt with a starchy stand-up collar, there was something youthful and deeply unhappy. He lay down on the bed, on his back, put his dusty boots on the dump. The windows were open, the curtains were lowered, and a light breeze from time to time blew them in, blew into the room with the heat of heated iron roofs and all this luminous and now completely empty silent Volga world. He lay with his hands behind his head and gazed into the space in front of him. Then he gritted his teeth, closed his eyelids, feeling the tears roll down his cheeks, and finally fell asleep, and when he opened his eyes again, the evening sun was already turning reddish yellow behind the curtains. The wind died down, the room was stuffy and dry, like in an oven ... And yesterday and this morning were remembered as if they were ten years ago.

He slowly got up, slowly washed his face, raised the curtains, rang the bell and asked for the samovar and the bill, drank tea with lemon for a long time. Then he ordered a cabman to be brought in, carried out his things, and, sitting down in the cab, on its red, burnt-out seat, he gave the footman five rubles.

And it seems, your honor, that it was I who brought you at night! - said the cabby cheerfully, taking up the reins.

When we went down to the pier, the blue over the Volga was already blue summer night, and already many colored lights were scattered along the river, and the lights hung on the masts of the approaching steamer.

Delivered exactly! said the cabby ingratiatingly.

The lieutenant gave him five rubles, took a ticket, went to the pier ... Just like yesterday, there was a soft knock on her pier and a slight dizziness from unsteadiness underfoot, then a flying end, the sound of water boiling and running forward under the wheels a little back a steamer ... And it seemed unusually friendly, good from the crowd of this steamer, already everywhere lit and smelling of kitchen.

The dark summer dawn was dying away far ahead, gloomy, sleepy and multicolored reflected in the river, still here and there glowing trembling ripples in the distance below it, under this dawn, and the lights, scattered in the darkness around, floated and floated back.

The lieutenant was sitting under the awning on the deck, feeling ten years older.

Maritime Alps. 1925

See also Bunin Ivan - Prose (stories, poems, novels ...):

Compatriot
As a boy, this Bryansk man was brought to Moscow from a village, consisting of ...

Pines
I Evening, the silence of a house covered with snow, a noisy forest blizzard outside ...

THE FIRST LOVE

From childhood memories

It would all be funny

Whenever it was so sad ...

Dmitry Alekseevich!

Pale-faced dog!

Get up, finally!

I was already awake, but I tried to show that I was terribly sleepy and did not understand what was the matter. Pulling the blanket that Petya and Lyova was pulling from me with all my might, I just hummed and kicked. But they did not let up and, jumping off the windowsill on which they were sitting (they climbed from the garden into the window), stopped by the bed.

That's what you are! - muttered Petya in indecision. - What to do with him? We will miss the dawn ...

Let's leave, '' Lyova said in his usual, sharp and abrupt tone. - He is not a friend, but a woman, an old prickly elk! Let's slap on the fist and leave!

I, brother, will slap so that you ... die! I shouted unexpectedly, standing up and swinging my fist as if there was something in it. At that moment it seemed to me that I was unusually formidable and wild.

But Petya and Lyova, to my surprise, burst out with the most good-natured laughter and held out their hands to me.

I, a little embarrassed, shook them, gloomily and reluctantly, and again fell on the pillow.

Well, let's go, let's go! - said Petya. “We will indeed miss the dawn.

This was said so sincerely and seriously that I myself was afraid of the thought of missing the dawn. What this dawn was for us, why we gave each other our word to guard it - I really won't explain well now. But then I thought it was necessary. We really liked leaving the house than the light, when the village, and the dark fields, and the distant dense forest are embraced dead sleep and only in the east is the sky covered with silver, light stripes. Then it seemed to us that we are completely alone and in the fresh semi-dark forest everything is really mysterious and primitive. We, like real Indians, climbed into the very thicket of the garden and, waiting for the sunrise, sat in a circle and smoked a "pipe of peace", or, in other words, a pipe stolen from my uncle. And although I was already twelve years old and perfectly understood that all this was a game, and even a completely childish game, I liked it so much that I could not help but enjoy it.

So I jumped up at once and began to pull on my stockings.

The sun hasn't risen yet, has it? I asked hastily.

You would have slept until lunchtime, - answered Lyova, - and then you would have asked.

“Scares! It's not too late, ”I thought, going up to the sink and shivering from the morning freshness that floated through the open window.

The cold stream of water made me shudder even more and finally wake up. Having washed my face hastily, I was ready to go. We had to set off today on a long journey, to the very end of the large meadow that was behind our garden. There a forest began, and a wide meadow turned into narrow ravines, rocky and dug by spring water. Today we intended to smoke the last "pipe of the world" there, to say goodbye until summer. It was the last day of the Easter holidays, and in two days I was supposed to go to Oryol, to the gymnasium.

Take it, - Leva commanded, - bows as soon as possible.

We immediately put on our bows and climbed out the window onto the dewy grass of the garden.

The sun was just rising. On the grass lay cold, dull silver dew, but along the paths the ground was damp and blackened. The light, mirrored pond smoked faintly. But the reflections of the tall, slender aspens were still motionless and clear; the nightingale snapped especially loudly in the young greenery. The morning was just beginning.

We walked down to the pond, along a wide coastal alley. Leva was the leader. He always loved to be the first, loved to command us, although he was two years younger than me and Petit. He looked still quite a boy; short-cropped white hair stuck out at the crown; the addition was still quite childish.

What is Bunin's story about? Sunstroke"? Of course, about love, it cannot be otherwise. Rather, not about love - whole, clear and transparent, but about the infinite variety of its facets and shades. Going through them, you clearly feel how immense and insatiable human desires and feelings. These depths are frightening and inspiring. The transience, swiftness and beauty of every moment are acutely felt here. Here they fall and drown - a priori there can be no happy ending. But at the same time, there is an indispensable ascent to that very unattainable true love. So, we present to your attention the story "Sunstroke". Its summary will be presented below.

Unexpected acquaintance

Summer. On one of the Volga ships he and she meet. This is how Bunin's extraordinary story "Sunstroke" begins. She is a young, adorable little woman in a light canvas dress. He is a lieutenant: young, light and carefree. After a month of lying under the hot sun of Anapa, she returns home to her husband and three-year-old daughter. He is sailing on the same steamer. Three hours ago, each of them lived their own simple life, unaware of each other's existence. And suddenly…

After lunch in the "bright and hot-lit dining room", they go out on deck. Ahead - impenetrable darkness and lights. A strong, soft wind blows incessantly in the face. The steamer, describing a wide arc, approaches the pier. Suddenly he takes her hand, brings it to his lips and in a whisper begs her to get off without fail. 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 it end there summary? Sunstroke is still full of events.

Hotel

A minute later, having collected what was needed, they passed the "sleepy desk", stepped onto the deep sand and silently sat down at the cab. An endless, dusty road. They drove past the square, and some stopped near the illuminated entrance of the district hotel. We went up the old wooden stairs and found ourselves in a large, but terribly stuffy room, hotly heated by the sun during the day. All around it is clean, tidy, on the windows there are white lowered curtains. As soon as they crossed the threshold, and the door closed behind them, the lieutenant rushed to her, and both, not remembering themselves, suffocated in the kiss. Until the end of their days they will remember this moment. Never before and after have experienced anything like this in their lives, neither he nor she ...

Eclipse or Sunstroke?

Ten o'clock in the morning. Outside the window is sunny, hot and certainly, as happens only in summer, a happy day. We slept a little, but she, in a second washed and dressed, shone with the freshness of a seventeen-year-old girl. Was she embarrassed? If yes, then quite a bit. From her came all the same simplicity, fun and already prudence. The lieutenant offered to go further together, but she refused, otherwise everything would be ruined. Nothing like what happened to her was born, and there never will be any more. Maybe it was an eclipse, or maybe something similar to "sunstroke" happened to them.

He agreed with her surprisingly easily. He happily and carefree drove her to the pier, just in time for the pink steamer's departure. In the same mood he returned to the hotel. However, something has already changed. Her scent was still in the room - it smelled like her expensive cologne. Her cup of unfinished coffee was still on the tray. The bed had not yet been made, and the screen was still pulled back. Everything to the last centimeter was full of her - and empty. How so? The lieutenant's heart sank. What a strange road trip! After all, there is nothing special either in this, in fact, ridiculous woman, or in this fleeting meeting - all this is not the first time, and yet something is wrong ... "Indeed, like some kind of sunstroke!" Bunin's story does not end there.

New feelings

What else will the summary tell us? "Sunstroke", a story by I. A. Bunin, further tells about the new feelings of the protagonist. The memory of the smell of her tan, her gingham dress; the memory of the living, so happy and at the same time simple sound of her voice; the memory of the recent pleasures experienced by all her sensuality and feminine seductiveness - was still immensely alive in him, but it had already become secondary. In the first place came another feeling, hitherto unknown to him, of which he did not even suspect, starting this amusing acquaintance for one night the day before. What this feeling was - he could not explain to himself. Memories became an insoluble torment, and all future life, either in this God-forsaken town, or in another place, now seemed empty and meaningless. Terror and despair seized him.

It was necessary to urgently do something in order to escape the obsession, not to look ridiculous. He went out into the city, walked through the bazaar. Soon he returned to the hotel, went into the dining room - a large, empty, cool one, and drank two or three glasses of vodka in one gulp. Everything seemed to be fine, in everything there was immeasurable joy and happiness - both in people, and in this summer heat, and in this complex mixture of market smells, and his heart ached unbearably and was torn to pieces. 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 has changed either in him or in her life?" He couldn't 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 phrase that his whole life henceforth belongs only to her. This will in no way help him get rid of the torment of sudden, unexpected love, but it will definitely ease his suffering. The lieutenant rushed headlong to the old house, where there was a post office and a telegraph office, but halfway there he stopped in horror - he does not know her name or surname! More than once he asked her, both at dinner and in the hotel, but every time she laughed, calling herself either Marya Marevna, or the overseas princess ... An 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. Not a single trace of her remained - only a hairpin on the bedside table. Yesterday's day and this morning seemed like things of bygone years ... So our summary is coming to an end. "Sunstroke" - one of the amazing works of I. Bunin - ends with the same emptiness and hopelessness reigning in the lieutenant's soul. In the evening he got ready, hired a cab, apparently the one who had brought them at night, and arrived at the pier. The "blue summer night" stretched over the Volga, and the lieutenant sat on the deck, feeling ten years older.

Once again I would like to remind you that the article is devoted to the story of IA Bunin "Sunstroke". The content, conveyed in a nutshell, cannot reflect that spirit, those feelings and emotions that soar invisibly in every line, in every letter of the story, and which make them suffer immensely along with the characters. Therefore, reading the work in full is simply necessary.

After dinner, we left the brightly and hotly lit dining room onto the deck and stopped at the railings. She closed her eyes, put her hand to her cheek with her palm outward, laughed with a simple, charming laugh - everything was charming in this little woman - and said:

- I'm completely drunk ... Actually, I'm completely out of my mind. Where did you come from? Three hours ago, I didn’t even know you existed. I don't even know where you sat down. In Samara? But still, you're cute. Is my head spinning, or are we turning somewhere?

There was darkness and lights ahead. From the darkness a strong, soft wind was blowing in the face, and the lights were rushing somewhere to the side: the steamer with Volga panache was abruptly describing a wide arc, running up to a small pier.

The lieutenant took her hand, raised it to his lips. The hand, small and strong, smelled of tan. And blissfully and terribly her heart sank at the thought of how strong and dark she was, probably, under this light canvas dress after a whole month of lying under the southern sun, on the hot sea sand (she said that she was coming from Anapa).

The lieutenant muttered:

- Let's get off ...

- Where to? She asked in surprise.

“On this pier.

He said nothing. She put her hand back to her hot cheek again.

- Crazy ...

“Let's get off,” he repeated dully. - I beg you…

“Oh, do as you please,” she said, turning away.

The runaway steamer hit the dimly lit pier with a soft thud, and they nearly fell on top of each other. The end of the rope flew over our heads, then it drifted backwards, and the water boiled with a noise, the gangway rattled ... The lieutenant rushed for things.

A minute later they passed the sleepy office, went out into the deep sand, up to the hub, and silently sat down in the dusty cab. The slope uphill, among the rare crooked lanterns, along the road soft with dust, seemed endless. But then they got up, drove out and crackled along the pavement, here was some kind of square, public places, watchtower, the warmth and smells of a night summer county town ... The cabman stopped near a lighted entrance, behind the open doors of which an old wooden staircase rose steeply, an old unshaven footman in in a pink blouse and in a frock coat, dissatisfied, took his things and walked forward on his trampled feet. We entered a large, but terribly stuffy room, hotly heated by the sun during the day, with white lowered curtains on the windows and two unburned candles on the mirror, and as soon as they entered and the footman closed the door, the lieutenant rushed to her so impetuously and both of them gasped in a kiss so frenziedly that for many years they remembered this moment later: neither the one nor the other had ever experienced anything like this in their entire life.

At ten o'clock in the morning, sunny, hot, happy, with the ringing of churches, with a bazaar on the square in front of the hotel, with the smell of hay, tar and again all that complex and smelly smell of the Russian provincial town, she, this little nameless woman, and without telling her name, jokingly calling herself a beautiful stranger, she left. We slept little, but in the morning, coming out from behind the screen near the bed, having washed and dressed in five minutes, she was as fresh as at seventeen. Was she embarrassed? No, very little. She was still simple, cheerful and - already reasonable.

- No, no, dear, - she said in response to his request to go on together, - no, you must stay until the next steamer. If we go together, everything will be ruined. It will be very unpleasant for me. I give you my word of honor that I am not at all what you might think of me. Nothing even similar to what happened has never happened to me, and there will never be any more. I was definitely eclipsed ... Or, rather, we both got something like a sunstroke ...

And the lieutenant somehow easily agreed with her. In a light and happy spirit, he drove her to the dock, just in time for the departure of the pink Airplane, kissed her in front of everyone on deck and barely had time to jump onto the gangway, which had already moved back.

He returned to the hotel just as easily, carelessly. However, something has changed. The number without her seemed somehow completely different than it was with her. He was still full of her - and empty. It was weird! She also smelled of good English cologne, her unfinished cup was still on the tray, but she was gone ... And the lieutenant's heart suddenly sank with such tenderness that the lieutenant hurried to smoke and, slapping his bootlegs with a stack, walked up and down the room several times.

- A strange adventure! He said aloud, laughing and feeling that tears were pouring into his eyes. - "I give you my word of honor that I am not at all what you might have thought ..." And she already left ... Ridiculous woman!

The screen was pushed aside, the bed had not yet been made. And he felt that there was simply no strength to look at this bed now. He closed it with a screen, shut the windows so as not to hear the bazaar talk and the creak of the wheels, pulled down the white bubbling curtains, sat down on the sofa ... Yes, this is the end of this “road adventure”! She left - and now she is already far away, probably sitting in a glass white saloon or on the deck and looking at the huge river shining under the sun, at the oncoming rafts, at the yellow shallows, at the shining distance of water and sky, at this whole immense Volga expanse ... And I'm sorry, and already forever, forever. - Because where can they meet now? “I can’t,” he thought, “I can’t come to this city for no reason, no reason, where her husband, her three-year-old girl, in general her whole family and her whole ordinary life!” And this city seemed to him some kind of special, reserved city, and the thought that she would live her lonely life in it, often, perhaps, remembering him, remembering their accidental, such a fleeting meeting, and he never will not see her, this thought amazed and amazed him. No, it can't be! It would be too wild, unnatural, incredible! - And he felt such pain and such uselessness of his entire future life without her that he was seized by horror, despair.

"What the hell! - he thought, getting up, again starting to walk around the room and trying not to look at the bed behind the screen. - What is it with me? It seems not for the first time - and now ... But what is special about her and what actually happened? Indeed, as if some kind of sunstroke! And most importantly, how will I now, without her, spend the whole day in this backwater? "

He still remembered all of her, with all her slightest peculiarities, he remembered the smell of her tan and gingham dress, her strong body, the lively, simple and cheerful sound of her voice ... The feeling of the just experienced pleasures of all her feminine charm was still extraordinary alive in him, but now the main thing was still this second, completely new feeling - that painful, incomprehensible feeling that did not exist at all while they were together, which he could not even imagine in himself, starting yesterday this, as he thought, was just an amusing acquaintance, and about which there was no one, no one to tell now! “And the main thing,” he thought, “you will never tell again! And what to do, how to live this endless day, with these memories, with this insoluble torment, in this godforsaken town above the same shining Volga, along which this pink steamer carried her! "

I had to save myself, occupy something, distract myself, go somewhere. He resolutely put on his cap, took a stack, walked quickly, jingling his spurs, along the empty corridor, ran down the steep stairs to the entrance ... Yes, but where to go? At the entrance stood a young cabman, in a dexterous coat, and calmly smoked a gypsy, obviously waiting for someone. The lieutenant looked at him in bewilderment and amazement: how is it possible to sit so calmly on the box, smoke, and generally be simple, careless, indifferent? “Probably, I am the only one so terribly unhappy in this whole city,” he thought, walking towards the bazaar.

The bazaar was already leaving. For some reason, he walked along the fresh manure among carts, among carts with cucumbers, among new bowls and pots, and the women sitting on the ground, vying with each other, called him, took the pots in their hands and knocked, jingled fingers in them, showing their good quality, men deafened him, shouted to him "Here are the first sort of cucumbers, your honor!" All this was so stupid, absurd that he fled from the market. He entered the cathedral, where they were already singing loudly, cheerfully and decisively, with the consciousness of a fulfilled duty, then he walked for a long time, circled around the small, hot and neglected garden on the cliff of the mountain, over the immense light-steel width of the river ... The shoulder straps and buttons of his tunic were so stung that it was impossible to touch them. The rim of the cap was wet with sweat inside, his face was flushed ... Returning to the hotel, he delightedly entered the large and empty cool dining room on the lower floor, took off his cap with delight and sat down at a table near the open window, which carried heat, but still air blew, and ordered botvinya with ice. Everything was good, there was immeasurable happiness in everything, great joy, even in this heat and in all the bazaar smells, in this whole unfamiliar town and in this old district hotel there was she, this joy, and at the same time my heart was simply torn to pieces. He drank several glasses of vodka, eating lightly salted cucumbers with dill and feeling that he, without hesitation, would die tomorrow, if it were possible by some miracle to return her, spend one more day with her, - spend only then, only then, in order to express to her and to prove with something, to convince how painfully and enthusiastically he loves her ... Why prove? Why convince? He didn't know why, but it was more necessary than life.

- The nerves have completely cleared! - he said, pouring the fifth glass of vodka.

He pushed the botvinya away from him, asked for black coffee and began to smoke and think intensely: what should he do now, how to get rid of this sudden, unexpected love? But to get rid - he felt it too vividly - was impossible. And suddenly he quickly got up again, took the cap and the stack and, asking where the post office was, hurriedly went there with the phrase of the telegram already ready in his head: "From now on, blowing my life forever, to the grave, yours, in your power." - But, having reached the old thick-walled house, where there was a post office and a telegraph office, he stopped in horror: he knew the city where she lived, knew that she had a husband and a three-year-old daughter, but did not know her last name or her first name! He asked her about this several times yesterday at dinner and at the hotel, and each time she laughed and said:

- Why do you need to know who I am? I am Marya Marevna, the overseas princess ... Isn't that enough for you?

There was a photographic display case on the corner near the post office. He looked for a long time at a large portrait of some military man in thick epaulettes, with bulging eyes, with a low forehead, with amazingly magnificent sideburns and a broad chest, completely decorated with orders ... How wild, how ridiculous, scary everything everyday, ordinary, when the heart is struck, - yes, amazed, he understood it now, - with this terrible "sunstroke", too much love, too much happiness! He glanced at the newlywed couple - a young man in a long frock coat and a white tie, cut by a hedgehog, stretched out to the front under the arm with a girl in a wedding gas, - turned his eyes to a portrait of some pretty and perky young lady in a student cap on one side ... Then, languishing in a painful envy to all these unknown to him, not suffering people, began to look tensely along the street.

- Where to go? What to do?

The street was completely empty. The houses were all the same, white, two-story, merchant houses, with large gardens, and it seemed that there was not a soul in them; thick white dust lay on the pavement; and all this was blinding, everything was flooded with hot, fiery and joyful, but here it was as if aimless, the sun. In the distance, the street rose, hunched over and rested against the cloudless, grayish, with a reflection of the sky. There was something southern about it, reminiscent of Sevastopol, Kerch ... Anapa. This was especially unbearable. And the lieutenant, with his head bowed, squinting from the light, staring intently at his feet, staggering, stumbling, clinging to the spur with his spur, walked back.

He returned to the hotel so overwhelmed with fatigue, as if he had made a huge transition somewhere in Turkestan, in the Sahara. Gathering his last strength, he entered his large and empty room. The room had already been tidied up, stripped of the last traces of her — only one hairpin, which she had forgotten, lay on the night table! He took off his tunic and looked at himself in the mirror: his face — an ordinary officer’s face, gray with sunburn, with whitish mustache bleached from the sun and bluish whiteness of eyes that seemed even whiter from the sun — now had an excited, crazy expression, and in a thin white shirt with a standing starched collar, there was something young and deeply unhappy. He lay down on the bed, on his back, put his dusty boots on the dump. The windows were open, the curtains were lowered, and a light breeze from time to time blew them in, blew into the room with the heat of heated iron roofs and all this luminous and now completely empty silent Volga world. He lay with his hands behind his head and gazed into the space in front of him. Then he gritted his teeth, closed his eyelids, feeling the tears roll down his cheeks - and finally fell asleep, and when he opened his eyes again, the evening sun was already turning reddish yellow behind the curtains. The wind died down, the room was stuffy and dry, like in an oven ... Both yesterday and this morning were remembered as if they were ten years ago.

He slowly got up, slowly washed his face, raised the curtains, rang the bell and asked for the samovar and the bill, drank tea with lemon for a long time. Then he ordered a cabman to be brought in, carried out his things, and, sitting down in the cab, on its red, burnt-out seat, he gave the footman five rubles.

- And it seems, your honor, that it was I who brought you at night! Said the cabby cheerfully, taking hold of the reins.

When we went down to the pier, the blue summer night was already blue over the Volga, and many colored lights were already scattered along the river, and the lights hung on the masts of the approaching steamer.

- Delivered exactly! Said the cabby ingratiatingly.

The lieutenant gave him five rubles, took a ticket, went to the pier ... Just like yesterday, there was a soft knock on its pier and a slight dizziness from unsteadiness underfoot, then a flying end, the sound of boiling and running forward water under the wheels of a steamer that had leapt backwards ... And it seemed unusually friendly and good from the crowd of this steamer, already lit everywhere and smelling of kitchen.

The dark summer dawn was dying away far ahead, gloomy, sleepy and multicolored reflected in the river, still here and there glowing trembling ripples in the distance below it, under this dawn, and the lights, scattered in the darkness around, floated and floated back.

The lieutenant was sitting under the awning on the deck, feeling ten years older.

Maritime Alps. 1925

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| collection website
|-------
| Ivan Alekseevich Bunin
| Sunstroke
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After dinner, we left the brightly and hotly lit dining room onto the deck and stopped at the railings. She closed her eyes, put her hand to her cheek with her palm outward, laughed with a simple, charming laugh - everything was charming in this little woman - and said:
- I'm completely drunk ... Actually, I'm completely out of my mind. Where did you come from? Three hours ago, I didn’t even know you existed. I don't even know where you sat down. In Samara? But still, you're cute. Is my head spinning, or are we turning somewhere?
There was darkness and lights ahead. From the darkness a strong, soft wind was blowing in the face, and the lights were rushing somewhere to the side: the steamer with the Volga panache was abruptly describing a wide arc, running up to a small pier.
The lieutenant took her hand, raised it to his lips. The hand, small and strong, smelled of tan. And blissfully and terribly her heart sank at the thought of how strong and dark she was, probably, under this light canvas dress after a whole month of lying under the southern sun, on the hot sea sand (she said she was going from Anapa).
The lieutenant muttered:
- Let's get off ...
- Where to? She asked in surprise.
“On this pier.
- What for?
He said nothing. She put her hand back to her hot cheek again.
- Crazy ...
“Let's get off,” he repeated dully. - I beg you…
“Oh, do as you please,” she said, turning away.
The scattered steamer hit the dimly lit pier with a soft thud, and they nearly fell on top of each other. The end of the rope flew overhead, then it flew backwards, and the water boiled with a noise, the gangway rattled ... The lieutenant rushed to get his things.
A minute later they passed the sleepy office, went out into the deep sand, up to the hub, and silently sat down in the dusty cab. The gentle uphill climb, among the rare crooked lanterns, along the road soft with dust, seemed endless. But then they got up, drove out and crackled along the pavement, here was some kind of square, public places, watchtower, the warmth and smells of a night summer county town ... The cabman stopped near a lighted entrance, behind the open doors of which an old wooden staircase rose steeply, an old unshaven footman in in a pink blouse and in a frock coat, dissatisfied, he took his things and walked forward on his trampled feet. We entered a large, but terribly stuffy room, hotly heated by the sun during the day, with white lowered curtains on the windows and two unburned candles on the mirror, and as soon as they entered and the footman closed the door, the lieutenant rushed to her so impetuously and both of them gasped in a kiss so frenziedly that for many years they remembered this moment later: neither one nor the other had ever experienced anything like this in their entire life.
At ten o'clock in the morning, sunny, hot, happy, with the ringing of churches, with a bazaar on the square in front of the hotel, with the smell of hay, tar and again all that complex and smelly smell of the Russian county town, she, this little nameless woman, and without telling her name, jokingly calling herself a beautiful stranger, she left.

We slept little, but in the morning, coming out from behind the screen near the bed, having washed and dressed in five minutes, she was as fresh as at seventeen. Was she embarrassed? No, very little. She was still simple, cheerful and - already reasonable.
- No, no, dear, - she said in response to his request to go on together, - no, you must stay until the next steamer. If we go together, everything will be ruined. It will be very unpleasant for me. I give you my word of honor that I am not at all what you might think of me. Nothing even similar to what happened has never happened to me, and there will never be any more. I was definitely eclipsed ... Or, rather, we both got something like a sunstroke ...
And the lieutenant somehow easily agreed with her. In a light and happy spirit, he drove her to the dock, just in time for the departure of the pink Airplane, kissed her on deck in front of everyone and barely had time to jump onto the gangway, which had already moved back.
He returned to the hotel just as easily, carelessly. However, something has changed. The number without her seemed somehow completely different than it was with her. He was still full of her - and empty. It was weird! She also smelled of good English cologne, her unfinished cup was still standing on the tray, but it was gone ... And the lieutenant's heart suddenly sank with such tenderness that the lieutenant hurried to smoke and, slapping his bootlegs with a stack, walked up and down the room several times.
- A strange adventure! He said aloud, laughing and feeling that tears were pouring into his eyes. - "I give you my word of honor that I am not at all what you might have thought ..." And she already left ... Ridiculous woman!
The screen was pushed aside, the bed had not yet been made. And he felt that he simply did not have the strength to look at this bed now. He closed it with a screen, shut the windows so as not to hear the bazaar talk and the creak of the wheels, pulled down the white bubbling curtains, sat down on the sofa ... Yes, this is the end of this “road adventure”! She left - and now she is far away, probably sitting in a glass white saloon or on the deck and looking at the huge river shining under the sun, at the oncoming rafts, at the yellow shoals, at the shining distance of water and sky, at all this immense Volga expanse ... And I'm sorry, and already forever, forever. - Because where can they meet now? “I can't,” he thought, “I can't come to this city for no reason, no reason, where her husband, her three-year-old girl, in general her whole family and her whole ordinary life!” And this city seemed to him some kind of special, reserved city, and the thought that she would live her lonely life in it, often, perhaps, remembering him, remembering their accidental, such a fleeting meeting, and he never will not see her, this thought amazed and amazed him. No, it can't be! It would be too wild, unnatural, incredible! - And he felt such pain and such uselessness of his entire future life without her that he was seized by horror, despair.
"What the hell! - he thought, getting up, again starting to walk around the room and trying not to look at the bed behind the screen. - What is it with me? It seems not for the first time - and now ... But what is special about her and what actually happened? Indeed, as if some kind of sunstroke! And most importantly, how can I now, without her, spend the whole day in this backwater? "
He still remembered all of her, with all her slightest peculiarities, he remembered the smell of her tan and gingham dress, her strong body, the lively, simple and cheerful sound of her voice ... The feeling of just experienced pleasures of all her feminine beauty was still extraordinary alive in him, but now the main thing was still this second, completely new feeling - that painful, incomprehensible feeling that did not exist at all while they were together, which he could not even imagine in himself, starting yesterday this, as he thought, was just an amusing acquaintance, and about which there was no one, no one to tell now! “And the main thing,” he thought, “you will never tell again! And what to do, how to live this endless day, with these memories, with this insoluble torment, in this godforsaken town above the same shining Volga, along which this pink steamer carried her! "
I had to save myself, occupy something, distract myself, go somewhere. He resolutely put on his cap, took a stack, walked quickly, jingling his spurs, along the empty corridor, ran down the steep stairs to the entrance ... Yes, but where to go? At the entrance stood a young cabman, in a dexterous coat, and calmly smoked a gypsy, obviously waiting for someone. The lieutenant looked at him in bewilderment and amazement: how is it possible to sit so calmly on the box, smoke, and generally be simple, careless, indifferent? “Probably, I am the only one so terribly unhappy in this whole city,” he thought, walking towards the bazaar.
The bazaar was already leaving. For some reason, he walked along the fresh manure among carts, among carts with cucumbers, among new bowls and pots, and the women sitting on the ground, vying with each other, called him, took the pots in their hands and knocked, jingled fingers in them, showing their good quality, men deafened him, shouted to him "Here are the first sort of cucumbers, your honor!" All this was so stupid, absurd that he fled from the market. He entered the cathedral, where they were already singing loudly, cheerfully and decisively, with the consciousness of a fulfilled duty, then he walked for a long time, circled around the small, hot and neglected garden on the cliff of the mountain, over the immense light-steel width of the river ... The shoulder straps and buttons of his tunic were so stung that it was impossible to touch them. The rim of the cap was wet with sweat inside, his face was flushed ... Returning to the hotel, he delightedly entered the large and empty cool dining room on the lower floor, took off his cap with delight and sat down at a table near the open window, which carried heat, but still air blew, and ordered botvinya with ice. Everything was good, there was immeasurable happiness in everything, great joy, even in this heat and in all the bazaar smells, in this whole unfamiliar town and in this old district hotel there was she, this joy, and at the same time my heart was simply torn to pieces. He drank several glasses of vodka, eating lightly salted cucumbers with dill and feeling that he, without hesitation, would die tomorrow, if it were possible by some miracle to return her, spend one more day with her, - spend only then, only then, in order to express to her and to prove with something, to convince how painfully and enthusiastically he loves her ... Why prove? Why convince? He didn't know why, but it was more necessary than life.
- The nerves have completely cleared! - he said, pouring the fifth glass of vodka.
He pushed the botvinya away from him, asked for black coffee and began to smoke and think intensely: what should he do now, how to get rid of this sudden, unexpected love? But to get rid - he felt it too vividly - was impossible. And suddenly he quickly got up again, took the cap and the stack and, asking where the post office was, hurriedly went there with the phrase of the telegram already ready in his head: "From now on, blowing my life forever, to the grave, yours, in your power." - But, having reached the old thick-walled house, where there was a post office and a telegraph office, he stopped in horror: he knew the city where she lived, knew that she had a husband and a three-year-old daughter, but did not know her last name or her first name! He asked her about this several times yesterday at dinner and at the hotel, and each time she laughed and said:
- Why do you need to know who I am? I am Marya Marevna, the overseas princess ... Isn't that enough for you?
There was a photographic display case on the corner near the post office. He looked for a long time at a large portrait of some military man in thick epaulettes, with bulging eyes, with a low forehead, with amazingly magnificent sideburns and a broad chest, completely decorated with orders ... How wild, how ridiculous, scary everything everyday, ordinary, when the heart is struck, - yes, amazed, he understood it now, - with this terrible "sunstroke", too much love, too much happiness! He glanced at the newlywed couple - a young man in a long frock coat and a white tie, cut by a hedgehog, stretched out to the front under the arm with a girl in a wedding gas, - turned his eyes to a portrait of some pretty and perky young lady in a student cap on one side ... Then, languishing in a painful envy to all these unknown to him, not suffering people, began to look tensely along the street.
- Where to go? What to do?
The street was completely empty. The houses were all the same, white, two-story, merchant houses, with large gardens, and it seemed that there was not a soul in them; thick white dust lay on the pavement; and all this was blinding, everything was flooded with hot, fiery and joyful, but here it was as if aimless, the sun. In the distance, the street rose, hunched over and rested against the cloudless, grayish, with a reflection of the sky. There was something southern about it, reminiscent of Sevastopol, Kerch ... Anapa. This was especially unbearable. And the lieutenant, with his head bowed, squinting from the light, staring intently at his feet, staggering, stumbling, clinging to the spur with his spur, walked back.
He returned to the hotel so overwhelmed with fatigue, as if he had made a huge transition somewhere in Turkestan, in the Sahara. Gathering his last strength, he entered his large and empty room. The room had already been tidied up, stripped of the last traces of her — only one hairpin, which she had forgotten, lay on the night table! He took off his tunic and looked at himself in the mirror: his face — an ordinary officer’s face, gray with sunburn, with whitish mustache bleached from the sun and bluish whiteness of eyes that seemed even whiter from the sun — now had an excited, crazy expression, and in a thin white shirt with a standing starched collar, there was something young and deeply unhappy. He lay down on the bed, on his back, put his dusty boots on the dump. The windows were open, the curtains were lowered, and a light breeze from time to time blew them in, blew into the room with the heat of heated iron roofs and all this luminous and now completely empty silent Volga world. He lay with his hands behind his head and gazed into the space in front of him. Then he gritted his teeth, closed his eyelids, feeling the tears roll down his cheeks - and finally fell asleep, and when he opened his eyes again, the evening sun was already turning reddish yellow behind the curtains. The wind died down, the room was stuffy and dry, like in an oven ... Both yesterday and this morning were remembered as if they were ten years ago.
He slowly got up, slowly washed his face, lifted the curtains, rang the bell and asked for the samovar and the bill, drank tea with lemon for a long time. Then he ordered a cabman to be brought in, carry out his things, and, sitting down in the cab, on its red, burnt-out seat, gave the footman five rubles.
- And it seems, your honor, that it was I who brought you at night! Said the cabby cheerfully, taking hold of the reins.
When we went down to the pier, the blue summer night was already blue over the Volga, and many colored lights were already scattered along the river, and the lights hung on the masts of the approaching steamer.
- Delivered exactly! Said the cabby ingratiatingly.
The lieutenant gave him five rubles, took a ticket, went to the pier ... Just like yesterday, there was a soft knock on its pier and a slight dizziness from unsteadiness underfoot, then a flying end, the sound of boiling and running forward water under the wheels of a steamer that had leapt backwards ... And it seemed unusually friendly and good from the crowd of this steamer, already lit everywhere and smelling of kitchen.
A minute later they ran further, up, to the same place where she had been carried away this morning.
The dark summer dawn was dying away far ahead, gloomy, sleepy and multi-colored reflected in the river, still here and there shining with trembling ripples in the distance below it, under this dawn, and the lights, scattered in the darkness around, floated and floated back.
The lieutenant was sitting under the awning on the deck, feeling ten years older.

Maritime Alps. 1925

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