“The Gentleman from San Francisco” is one of the most famous stories of the Russian prose writer Ivan Alekseevich Bunin. It was published in 1915 and has long become a textbook, it is held in schools and universities. Behind the seeming simplicity of this work, deep meanings and problems are hidden, which never loses relevance.
Article menu:
History of creation and plot of the story
According to Bunin himself, the inspiration for writing "Mr...." was Thomas Mann's story "Death in Venice". At that time, Ivan Alekseevich did not read the work of his German colleague, but only knew that an American was dying in it on the island of Capri. So “The Gentleman from San Francisco” and “Death in Venice” are not connected in any way, except perhaps by a good idea.
In the story, a certain gentleman from San Francisco, along with his wife and young daughter, set off on a big journey from the New World to the Old World. The gentleman worked all his life and amassed a solid fortune. Now, like all people of his status, he can afford a well-deserved rest. The family sails on a luxurious ship called "Atlantis". The ship is more like a chic mobile hotel, where the eternal holiday lasts and everything works in order to bring pleasure to its obscenely wealthy passengers.
The first tourist point in the route of our travelers is Naples, which meets them unfavorably - the city has disgusting weather. Soon a gentleman from San Francisco leaves the city to go to the shores of sunny Capri. However, there, in a cozy reading room of a fashionable hotel, an unexpected death from an attack awaits him. The gentleman is hastily transferred to the cheapest room (so as not to spoil the reputation of the hotel) and in a dead box, in the hold of the Atlantis, they are sent home to San Francisco.
Main characters: characterization of images
gentleman from san francisco
We get acquainted with the gentleman from San Francisco from the first pages of the story, because he is the central character of the work. Surprisingly, the author does not honor his hero with a name. Throughout the story, he remains "master" or "mister." Why? The writer honestly admits this to his reader - this person is faceless "in his desire to buy the charms of real life with the existing wealth."
Before hanging labels, let's get to know this gentleman better. Suddenly he's not so bad? So, our hero worked hard all his life (“the Chinese, whom he ordered to work for him by the thousands, knew this well”). He is 58 years old and now he has the full material and moral right to arrange for himself (and his family part-time) a great vacation.
“Until this time, he did not live, but only existed, though not badly, but still placing all his hopes on the future”
Describing the appearance of his nameless master, Bunin, who was distinguished by his ability to notice individual features in everyone, for some reason does not find anything special in this person. He casually draws a portrait of him - "dry, short, ill-fitting, but tightly sewn ... a yellowish face with trimmed silver mustaches ... large teeth ... a strong bald head." It seems that behind this rough “ammunition”, which is issued complete with a solid state, it is difficult to consider the thoughts and feelings of a person, and, perhaps, everything sensual simply turns sour in such storage conditions.
With a closer acquaintance with the master, we still learn little about him. We know that he wears elegant, expensive suits with suffocating collars, we know that at dinner at Atlantis he gorges himself, smokes red-hot cigars and gets drunk on liquors, and this brings pleasure, but in fact we don’t know anything else.
It is amazing, but during the entire long journey on the ship and stay in Naples, not a single enthusiastic exclamation sounded from the lips of the gentleman, he does not admire anything, is not surprised by anything, does not argue about anything. The trip brings him a lot of inconvenience, but he cannot help but go, because all people of his rank do this. So it is necessary - first Italy, then France, Spain, Greece, certainly Egypt and the British Isles, exotic Japan on the way back ...
Exhausted by seasickness, he sails to the island of Capri (an obligatory point on the way of any self-respecting tourist). In a chic room in the best hotel on the island, a gentleman from San Francisco constantly says “Oh, this is terrible!” Without even trying to understand what exactly is terrible. The pricks of cufflinks, the stuffiness of a starched collar, naughty gouty fingers ... I would rather go to the reading room and drink local wine, all respected tourists certainly drink it.
And having reached his “mecca” in the hotel reading room, the gentleman from San Francisco dies, but we do not feel sorry for him. No, no, we do not want a righteous reprisal, we simply do not care, as if a chair were broken. We wouldn't shed tears about a chair.
In pursuit of wealth, this deeply limited man did not know how to manage money, and therefore bought what society imposed on him - uncomfortable clothes, unnecessary travel, even the daily routine, according to which all travelers were required to rest. Early rise, first breakfast, walk on the deck or “enjoyment” of the sights of the city, second breakfast, voluntary-compulsory sleep (everyone should be tired at this time!), gatherings and a long-awaited dinner, plentiful, satisfying, drunk. This is what the imaginary “freedom” of a rich man from the New World looks like.
master's wife
The wife of the gentleman from San Francisco, alas, also has no name. The author calls her "Mrs" and characterizes her as "a large, broad and calm woman." She, like a faceless shadow, follows her wealthy spouse, walks along the deck, has breakfast, dinner, “enjoys” the sights. The writer admits that she is not very impressionable, but, like all elderly American women, she is a passionate traveler ... At least she is supposed to be.
The only emotional outburst occurs after the death of a spouse. Mrs. is indignant that the manager of the hotel refuses to place the body of the deceased in expensive rooms and leaves him to “spend the night” in a shabby, damp little room. And not a word about the loss of a spouse, they have lost respect, status - that's what occupies an unfortunate woman.
Master's daughter
This sweet miss does not cause negative emotions. She is not capricious, not swaggering, not talkative, on the contrary, she is very reserved and shy.
“Tall, thin, with magnificent hair, beautifully done up, with aromatic breath from violet cakes and with the most delicate pink pimples near the lips and between the shoulder blades”
At first glance, the author is favorable to this lovely person, but he does not even give a name to his daughter, because again there is nothing individual in her. Remember the episode when she trembles while talking aboard the Atlantis with the Crown Prince, who was traveling incognito. Everyone, of course, knew that this was an oriental prince and knew how fabulously rich he was. The young miss went crazy with excitement when he noticed her, perhaps she even fell in love with him. Meanwhile, the oriental prince was not at all good-looking - small, like a boy, thin face with tight swarthy skin, sparse mustaches, unattractive European attire (he travels incognito!). Falling in love with princes is supposed to be, even if he is a real freak.
Other characters
As a contrast to our cold trinity, the author intersperses descriptions of characters from the people. This is the boatman Lorenzo (“carefree reveler and handsome man”), and two highlanders with bagpipes at the ready, and simple Italians meeting the boat from the shore. All of them are the inhabitants of a joyful, cheerful, beautiful country, they are its masters, its sweat and blood. They do not have untold fortunes, tight collars, and social duties, but in their poverty they are richer than all the San Francisco gentlemen put together, their cold wives and tender daughters.
A gentleman from San Francisco understands this on some subconscious, intuitive level ... and hates all these “men who stink of garlic”, because he cannot just run barefoot along the shore - he has lunch on schedule.
Analysis of the work
The story can be conditionally divided into two unequal parts - before and after the death of a gentleman from San Francisco. We are witnessing a vivid metamorphosis that has taken place literally in everything. How the money and the status of this man, this self-proclaimed ruler of life, instantly depreciated. The manager of the hotel, who just a few hours ago broke into a sweet smile in front of a wealthy guest, now allows himself undisguised familiarity in relation to Mrs., Miss and the deceased gentleman. Now this is not an honored guest who will leave a substantial amount in the cash register, but simply a corpse, which risks casting a shadow on the high-society hotel.
With expressive strokes, Bunin draws the chilling indifference of everyone around to the death of a person, starting from the guests, whose evening is now overshadowed, and ending with his wife and daughter, whose journey is hopelessly ruined. Fierce selfishness and coldness - everyone thinks only about himself.
The generalized allegory of this thoroughly false bourgeois society is the ship "Atlantis". It is also divided into classes by its decks. In luxurious halls, the rich have fun and get drunk with their companions and families, and in the holds, those who are not considered by representatives of the high society and for people work up to a sweat. But the world of money and lack of spirituality is doomed, which is why the author calls his ship-allegory in honor of the sunken mainland "Atlantis".
Problems of the work
In the story “The Gentleman from San Francisco,” Ivan Bunin raises the following questions:
- What is the true meaning of money in life?
- Can you buy joy and happiness?
- Is it worth enduring constant deprivation for the sake of an illusory reward?
- Who is freer: the rich or the poor?
- What is the purpose of man in this world?
The last question is of particular interest. It is certainly not new - many writers have thought about what is the meaning of human existence. Bunin does not go into a complex philosophy, his conclusion is simple - a person must live in such a way as to leave a mark. Whether it will be works of art, reforms in the lives of millions, or a bright memory in the hearts of loved ones, it does not matter. The gentleman from San Francisco left nothing, no one will sincerely mourn him, even his wife and daughter.
Place in literature: Literature of the 20th century → Russian literature of the 20th century → The work of Ivan Bunin → The story “The Gentleman from San Francisco” (1915).
Gentleman from San Francisco: main characters, analysis of the work, problems
5 (100%) 2 votesThe history of writing the work was told by the author himself in one of his essays. Work on it is also mentioned in his diary.
The author himself spoke about the appearance of the idea to write such a story in one of the essays. In 1915, in the summer, passing by a bookstore, Bunin saw a book by Thomas Mann "Death in Venice" in the window. However, the plot of "The Gentleman from San Francisco" was invented by the writer a little later. In the autumn, while at his cousin's estate, he remembered the sudden death of an American, which befell him in a hotel on the island of Capri, where he lived Bunin.
Bunin admitted that he did not know what exactly prompted him to tell the story about this, but he decided to write "Death on Capri". With free time, the writer spent four days creating the work. Warm clear and calm autumn days passed, he spent time on frivolous hunting fun, shooting pigeons, and writing a story.
However, researchers of Bunin's work note that the work on "The Gentleman from San Francisco" required great efforts of the writer and was very tense. Probably, hunting for pigeons was a way to get distracted and put your thoughts in order, since the topic of the story was very interesting for the writer.
According to the surviving drafts, he sought to give the work greater expressiveness and conciseness. In addition, the writer deliberately crossed out everything that could be perceived as flat and instructive. He also got rid of foreign words, literary clichés and pretentious epithets. Bunin did not want the story to be instructive.
Despite the peaceful atmosphere in the autumn estate, the creation of the story was also emotionally colored, Bunin was excited by the story of sudden death, described by him. According to the memoirs of his literary activity, published by writers, the work was created in an unusual manner for him. He admitted that he wept when he finished the story, although he usually worked on the literary texts he created quickly and maintaining his usual mood. The diary entries of the writer also speak of this.
In the process of creating the work, Bunin changed a lot compared to his original idea. A number of details with which the story is filled were, by his own admission, fictional by the writer. He is a real story about death at the Quinsana Hotel in Capri, only the very fact of the sudden death of an American remained. Everything else was created by the experiences and ideas of Bunin himself.
The writer wanted to talk about the frailty of being and the unreliability of the values that people serve, in particular, about wealth. It is noteworthy that the story originally came out with an epigraph from the Bible, a famous phrase foreshadowing grief for Babylon (which in the Holy Scriptures is a symbol of material prosperity). However, Bunin, who blotted out established clichés and moralizing from the manuscript, apparently considered this to be too obvious a hint, and the work was reprinted without an epigraph.
Some interesting essays
- Romashov in the story Kuprin's duel image and characterization essay
Yuri Alekseevich Romashov is the protagonist of the famous story of the Russian writer and translator Alexei Ivanovich Kuprin "Duel".
- The image and characteristics of the Rowman in the story Turgenev's Singers composition
One of the main characters of the work, which is part of the "Notes of a Hunter" cycle, is Ryadchik, represented by the writer in the form of an urban tradesman, engaged in hiring workers, who competes with poor Yashka the Turk in a singing competition.
- Alice in Wonderland by Carroll
Together with the heroine you find yourself in various unusual places, meet the heroes, communicate with them
When the rain softly knocks on the roof, it has a lulling effect on me, I can even fall asleep.
Often people scold their neighbors. They keep you awake on weekends, make noise during the holidays, listen to music loudly. But few people praise their neighbors. What does an ideal neighbor look like?
History of the creation of the story
The story of the great and famous writer I.A. Bunin "The Gentleman from San Francisco" was first published in the popular collection "The Word". This event took place in 1915. The writer himself told the story of writing this work in one of his essays. In the summer of the same year, he was walking around Moscow and, passing along the Kuznetsky bridge, stopped near Gauthier's bookstore to carefully examine its showcase, where sellers usually exhibited new or popular books. Ivan Alekseevich's gaze lingered on one of the exhibited brochures. It was a book by foreign writer Thomas Mann "Death in Venice".Bunin noticed that this work had already been translated into Russian. But, after standing for several minutes and carefully examining the book, the writer did not go into the bookstore and did not buy it. He will later regret it many times.
In the early autumn of 1915, he went to the Oryol province. In the village of Vasilyevsky, Yelets district, the great writer had a cousin, with whom he often and often visited, resting from the hustle and bustle of the city. And now, being in the estate of a relative, he remembered the book that he had seen in the capital. And then he remembered his vacation in Capra, when he stayed at the Quisisana Hotel. In this hotel at that time there was a sudden death of some rich American. And suddenly Bunin wanted to write the book "Death on Capra".
Working on a story
The story was written by the writer quickly, in just four days. Bunin himself describes this time as follows, when he wrote calmly and slowly:“I’ll pee a little, get dressed, take a loaded double-barreled shotgun, and walk through the garden to the threshing floor.” Bunin wrote: "I got excited and wrote even through enthusiastic tears only the place where the zaponyars go and praise the Madonna."
The writer changed the title of the story as soon as he wrote the first line of his work. So the name "The Gentleman from San Francisco" appeared. Initially, Ivan Alekseevich took the epigraph from the Apocalypse. It sounds like this: “Woe to you, Babylon, strong city!”. But already during the first reprint, this epigraph was removed by the writer himself.
Bunin himself claimed in his essay "The Origin of My Stories" that all the events of his work are fictitious. Researchers of Bunin's work claim that the writer did hard work, as he tried to get rid of the pages of the story, where there were edifying or journalistic elements, and also got rid of epithets and foreign words. This is clearly seen from the manuscript, which has survived to this day.
A certain wealthy gentleman from San Francisco spent his whole life trying to achieve a certain position in society. And he could achieve this only when he became rich. All his life he earned money in different ways, and finally, at the age of 58, he was able to indulge himself and his family in nothing. Therefore, he decided to go on a long journey.
A gentleman from San Francisco, whose name no one knew, is sent with his family to the Old World for 2 years. His route was planned in advance by him:
✔ December and January is a visit to Italy;
✔ he will meet the carnival in Nice, and also in Monte Carlo;
✔ early March - visit to Florence;
✔ the passion of the Lord is a visit to Rome.
And on the way back, he was going to visit other countries and states: Venice, Paris, Seville, Egypt, Japan and others. But these plans do not come true. First, on the huge ship "Atlantis", among the fun and constant celebration, the master's family sails to the shores of Italy, where they continue to enjoy everything that they could not afford before.
After staying in Italy, they cross over to the island of Capri, where they settle in an expensive hotel. The maids and servants were ready to serve them every minute, clean up after them and fulfill their every desire. Every time they get a good tip for it. On the same evening, the gentleman sees a poster in which there is an advertisement for a beautiful dancer. Having learned from the servant that her partner is the brother of the beauty, he decides to take care of her a little. Therefore, she dresses up in front of the mirror for a long time. But the tie was so tight on his throat that he could hardly breathe. Learning that his wife and daughter were not yet ready, he decided to wait for them downstairs, reading the newspaper or spending this time in pleasant conversation.
The composition of the story is divided into two parts. The first part shows all the charms of the bourgeois world, and the second part is the result of the life that is led by people who decide to go through and experience all the sins. Therefore, the second compositional part begins from the moment when the gentleman without a name goes downstairs and takes a newspaper to read. But at the same moment he falls to the floor and, wheezing, begins to die.
The servants and the innkeeper tried to give him a little help, but most of all they were afraid for their reputation, so they hurried to console their living clients. And the half-dead gentleman was transferred to the poorest room. This room was dirty and dark. But the owner of the hotel refused to the demands of his daughter and wife to transfer the gentleman to his apartment, because then he would not be able to rent this room to anyone, and the rich tenants, having learned about such a neighborhood, would simply scatter.
This is how a wealthy man without a name from San Francisco died in a poor and miserable environment. And neither the doctor nor his relatives - no one could help him at that moment. Only his adult daughter was crying, as some kind of loneliness set in in her soul. Soon the wheezing of the protagonist subsided, and the owner immediately asked the relatives to take out the body before the morning, otherwise the reputation of their institution could suffer greatly. The wife started talking about the coffin, but no one on the island could make it so quickly. Therefore, it was decided to take out the body in a long box in which soda water was transported and remove partitions from it.
Both the coffin and the family of the master, who were no longer treated with the same respect as before, were transported on a small steamer to Italy, and already there they were loaded into the dark and damp hold of the steamer Atlantis, on which the journey of the gentleman without a name and his family began. . Having experienced many humiliations, the body of the old man returned to his homeland, and the fun continued on the upper decks, and no one cared at all that there, below, was a small coffin with the body of a gentleman from San Francisco. A person's life also ends quickly, leaving either memories or emptiness in people's hearts.
Characteristics of a gentleman from San Francisco
The writer specifically does not indicate the name of the protagonist, since his character is a fictional person. But still, you can learn a lot about him from the whole story:Elderly American;
he is 58 years old;
rich;
he has a wife;
the hero also has an adult daughter.
Gives Bunin gives a description of his appearance: "Dry, short, awkwardly cut, but tightly sewn, cleared to a gloss and moderately lively." But the writer then goes on to a more detailed description of the hero: “There was something Mongolian in his yellowish face with trimmed silver mustaches, his large teeth shone with gold fillings, his strong bald head was old ivory.”
The No Name Gentleman from San Francisco was a hardworking man and quite purposeful, as he once set himself the goal of becoming rich and worked hard all these years until he achieved his goal. It turns out that he did not even live, but existed, thinking only about work. But in his dreams, he always imagined how he would go on vacation and enjoy all the benefits, having prosperity.
And when he achieved everything, he went on a trip with his family. And here he began to drink and eat a lot, but also visits brothels. He stays only in the best hotels and distributes such tips that the servants are surrounded by attention and care. But he dies without realizing his dream. A rich gentleman without a name is sent back to his homeland, but already in a coffin and in a dark hold, where he is no longer given any honors.
Story analysis
The power of Bunin's story, of course, is contained not in the plot, but in the images that he painted. Frequent images are symbols that occur in the story:
★ The raging sea is like a wide field.
★ The image of the captain as an idol.
★ A dancing couple of lovers who are hired to act like love. They symbolize the falsity and rottenness of this bourgeois world.
★ A ship that carries a rich man without a name from San Francisco on an exciting journey, then carries his body back. So this ship is a symbol of human life. This ship symbolizes human sins, which most often accompany rich people.
But as soon as the life of such a person ends, these people become completely indifferent to someone else's misfortune.
The external figurativeness that Bunin uses in his work makes the plot denser and richer.
Criticism about the story of I.A. Bunin
This work was highly appreciated by writers and critics. So, Maxim Gorky said that he read the new work of his favorite writer with great trepidation. He hastened to report this in a letter to Bunin in 1916.
Thomas Mann wrote in his diary that "in its moral power and strict plasticity, it can be placed next to some of Tolstoy's most significant works - with Polikushka, with The Death of Ivan Ilyich."
Criticism noted this story by the writer Bunin as his most outstanding work. It was said that this story helped the writer reach the highest point of his development.
"The Gentleman from San Francisco" appeared in print in 1915. The story was preceded by an epigraph from the Apocalypse: "Woe to you, Babylon, strong city!" Here is the immediate context of these words in the final book of the New Testament: “Woe, woe to you, great city of Babylon, strong city! for in one hour your judgment has come” (Revelation of St. John the Theologian, ch.18, verse 10). In later editions, the epigraph will be removed; already in the process of working on the story, the writer abandoned the name “Death on Capri” that he had originally invented. However, the feeling of catastrophism evoked by the first version of the title and the epigraph permeates the very verbal flesh of the story.
The story "The Gentleman from San Francisco" was highly appreciated by M. Gorky. “If you only knew with what trepidation I read The Man from San Francisco,” he wrote to Bunin. One of the greatest German writers of the 20th century. Thomas Mann was also delighted with the story and wrote that it "in its moral power and strict plasticity can be placed next to some of Tolstoy's most significant works."
The story tells about the last months of the life of a wealthy American businessman who arranged for his family a long and "pleasure"-filled trip to southern Europe. Europe, on the way back home, was to be followed by the Middle East and Japan. The American-led cruise is motivated in detailed, tedious detail in the story's exposition; the plan and itinerary of the journey are set out with business-like clarity and thoroughness: everything is taken into account and thought out by the character in such a way that absolutely no room is left for accidents. The famous steamship Atlantis, which looks like a “huge hotel with all conveniences,” was chosen for the trip, and the days spent on it on the way across the Atlantic do not overshadow the mood of a wealthy tourist.
However, the plan, remarkable for its thoughtfulness and richness, begins to crumble as soon as it begins to be implemented. The violation of the millionaire's expectations and his growing dissatisfaction correspond in the structure of the plot to the plot and the development of the action. The main "culprit" of the irritation of a wealthy tourist - nature beyond his control and therefore seemingly unpredictably capricious - mercilessly violates the promises of tourist brochures ("the morning sun deceived every day"); we have to adjust the original plan and go from Naples to Capri in search of the promised sun. “On the day of departure, very memorable for a family from San Francisco! .. - Bunin uses in this sentence the technique of anticipating an imminent denouement, omitting the word “sir”, which has already become familiar, “... even in the morning there was no sun.”
As if wishing to slightly delay the inexorably approaching catastrophic climax, the writer extremely carefully, using microscopic details, gives a description of the move, a panorama of the island, details of the hotel service, and, finally, devotes half a page to the gentleman preparing for a late dinner with clothing accessories.
However, the plot movement is unstoppable: the adverb “suddenly” opens a climactic scene depicting the sudden and “illogical” death of the protagonist. It would seem that the plot potential of the story has been exhausted and the denouement is quite predictable: the body of a rich dead man in a tarred coffin will be lowered into the hold of the same ship and sent home, "to the shores of the New World." This is what happens in the story, but its boundaries turn out to be wider than the boundaries of the story of the American loser: the story continues at the will of the author, and it turns out that the story told is only part of the overall picture of life that is in the field of view of the author. The reader is presented with a non-plotted panorama of the Gulf of Naples, a sketch of a street market, colorful images of the boatman Lorenzo, two Abruzzo highlanders and, most importantly, a generalizing lyrical description of the “joyful, beautiful, sunny” country. The movement from the exposition to the denouement turns out to be only a fragment of the unstoppable flow of life, overcoming the boundaries of private destinies and therefore not fitting into the plot.
The final page of the story brings us back to the description of the famous "Atlantis" - the steamer that returns the dead master to America. This compositional repetition not only gives the story a harmonious proportion of parts and completeness, but also enlarges the scale of the picture created in the work. It is interesting that the master and members of his family remain nameless in the story to the end, while the peripheral characters - Lorenzo, Luigi, Carmella - are endowed with their own names.
The plot is the most visible side of the work, a kind of facade of an artistic building that forms the initial perception of the story. However, in The Gentleman from San Francisco, the coordinates of the overall picture of the world being drawn are much wider than the actual plot temporal and spatial boundaries.
The events of the story are very accurately “linked to the calendar” and inscribed in the geographical space. The journey, planned two years in advance, begins at the end of November (swimming across the Atlantic), and suddenly stops in December, most likely the week before Christmas: Capri is noticeably pre-holiday revival at this time, the Abruzzo highlanders offer “humbly joyful praises” to the Mother of God in front of her statue “in the grotto of the rocky wall of Monte Solaro”, and they also pray “to the one born from her womb in the cave of Bethlehem, ... in the distant land of Judah ...”. Thanks to this implicit calendar detail, the content of the story is enriched with new facets of meaning: it is not only about the private fate of the nameless gentleman, but about life and death as key - eternal - categories of being.
Accuracy and ultimate authenticity - the absolute criteria of Bunin's aesthetics - are manifested in the thoroughness with which the daily routine of wealthy tourists is described in the story. Indications of the “hours and minutes” of their life, the list of sights visited in Italy seem to be verified according to reliable tourist guides. But the main thing, of course, is not Bunin's meticulous fidelity to credibility.
The sterile regularity and indestructible routine of the master's existence introduce into the story the most important motif for him of artificiality, the automatism of the civilized pseudo-existence of the central character. Three times in the story, the plot movement almost stops, canceled first by a methodical presentation of the cruise itinerary, then by a measured report on the daily routine on the Atlantis, and finally by a careful description of the order established in the Neapolitan hotel. The "graphs" and "points" of the master's existence are mechanically lined: "first", "second", "third"; "eleven", "five", "seven o'clock". In general, the punctuality of the way of life of the American and his companions sets a monotonous rhythm to the description of everything that falls into his field of vision of the natural and social world.
An expressive contrast to this world is the element of living life in the story. This life, unknown to the gentleman from San Francisco, is subject to a completely different time and space scale. It has no place for schedules and routes, numerical sequences and rational motivations, and therefore there is no predictability and "understandability" for the sons of civilization. The obscure impulses of this life sometimes excite the minds of travelers: it will seem to the daughter of an American that she sees the crown prince of Asia during breakfast; then the owner of the hotel in Capri will turn out to be exactly the gentleman whom the American himself had already seen in a dream the day before. However, “the so-called mystical feelings” do not leave any traces in the soul of the main character.
The author's view constantly corrects the limited perception of the character: thanks to the author, the reader sees and learns much more than what the hero of the story is able to see and understand. The most important difference between the author's "omniscient" view is its ultimate openness to time and space. Time is counted not for hours and days, but for millennia, for historical epochs, and the spaces that open up to the gaze reach the “blue stars of the sky”. That is why, having parted with the deceased character, Bunin continues the story with an insert episode about the Roman tyrant Tiberius. What matters to the author is not so much the associative parallel with the fate of the title character as the opportunity to maximize the scale of the problem.
In the last third of the story, the phenomena depicted are presented as broadly as possible (the final sketch of Atlantis). The story about the life collapse of the self-confident "master of life" develops into a meditation (lyrically rich reflection) about the connection between man and the world, about the greatness of the natural cosmos and its insubordination to human wills, about eternity and the impenetrable mystery of being. Here, on the last pages of the story, it deepens to the symbolic name of the ship (Atlantis is a semi-legendary huge island to the west of Gibraltar, which sank to the bottom of the ocean due to an earthquake).
The frequency of using images-symbols is increasing: images of a raging ocean are perceived as symbols with a wide field of meanings; "countless fiery eyes" of the ship; "huge as a cliff," the Devil; resembling a pagan idol of the captain. Moreover, in an image projected onto the infinity of time and space, any particular (images of characters, everyday realities, sound gamut and light-color palette) acquires a symbolic meaningful potential.
Subject detailing, or, as Bunin himself called this side of writing technique, external depiction, is one of the strongest aspects of his skill. This side of Bunin's talent was noticed and appreciated by A.P. Chekhov at the dawn of his writing path, who emphasized the density of Bunin's depiction in a word, the density of the recreated plastic paintings: “... it is very new, very fresh and very good, only too compact, like a condensed broth."
It is remarkable that despite the sensuous richness and "texture" of the descriptions, any of their details are fully provided with the exact author's knowledge: Bunin was unusually strict precisely to the accuracy and specificity of the image. Of course, the accuracy and concreteness of details is not the limit of the writer's aspirations, but only the starting point for creating an artistically convincing picture.
The second feature of Bunin's detailing is the amazing autonomy, self-sufficiency of reproduced details. Bunin's detail is sometimes in an unusual relationship with the plot for classical realism. Recall that in the literature of the nineteenth century, the detail, as a rule, was subordinated to some artistic task - the disclosure of the image of the hero, the characterization of the scene and, ultimately, the concretization of the plot movement. Of course, Bunin cannot do without the details of the same plan.
A vivid example of "official" details that motivate the plot in "The Gentleman from San Francisco" is the description of the central character's evening dress. The inertia of the author's ironic enumeration of elements of clothing ("creamy silk tights", "black silk socks", "ball shoes", "black trousers pulled up with silk straps", "snow-white shirt", "shiny cuffs") suddenly dries up when close-up and in in the manner of slow motion filming, the final, most significant detail is presented - a neck cufflink that is not given to the fingers of the old man, combat with which deprives him of his last strength. Strikingly appropriate is the proximity to this episode of the "speaking" sound detail - the "second gong" buzzing throughout the hotel. The impression of the solemn exclusivity of the moment is the best way to prepare the reader for the perception of the climactic scene.
At the same time, Bunin's details are by no means always so clearly correlated with the overall picture of what is happening. Here, for example, is a description of a hotel calming down after the sudden death of an American: “... Tarantella had to be canceled, the excess electricity was turned off ... and it became so quiet that the knock of the clock in the lobby was clearly heard, where only one parrot woodenly muttered something, fiddling with before going to sleep in his cage, managing to fall asleep with his paw absurdly raised on the upper sixth ... ”The exotic parrot next to the death scene seems to be asking for a separate prose miniature - this expressive description is so self-sufficient. Is this detail used only for the sake of spectacular contrast? For the plot, this detail is clearly redundant. Particularity tends to fill the entire field of vision, at least for a while, forcing one to forget about the events taking place.
The detail in Bunin's prose is not closed to a specific plot episode, but testifies to the state of the world as a whole and therefore seeks to absorb the fullness of the sensual manifestations of life. The writer's contemporaries have already started talking about his unique ability to convey impressions from the outside world in the whole complex set of perceived qualities - shape, color, light, sound, smell, temperature features and tactile characteristics, as well as those subtle psychological properties that the human imagination endows the world around, guessing about his animation and co-naturalness to man. In this regard, Bunin relies on Tolstoy's stylistic tradition with its "pagan", as critics said, the power of plastic characteristics and the "telepathic" persuasiveness of images.
Bunin's complex and fused description of the sensations that arise in the characters in the special literature is sometimes called synesthetic (from the word "synesthesia" - a complex perception in which sensations characteristic of different sense organs interact and mix; for example, "color hearing"). Bunin relatively infrequently uses metaphors and metaphorical comparisons in his descriptions, but if he does resort to them, he achieves amazing brightness. Here is an example of such figurativeness: “In the Mediterranean Sea, there was a large and flowery wave, like a peacock’s tail, which, with a bright shine and a completely clear sky, was parted by a tramontana merrily and furiously flying towards ...”
Bunin's vocabulary is rich, but expressiveness is achieved not so much by the quantitative expansion of the words used, but by the virtuosity of their comparisons and combinations. The named object, action or state, as a rule, is accompanied by subjectively “coloring”, “voicing” or psychologically saturated epithets, giving the image a specifically “Bunin” flavor (“countless eyes”, “mourning” waves, an island approaching “with its blackness”, “ shining morning vapors over the sea”, “violent squealing of a siren”, etc.). Using homogeneous epithets, Bunin varies their qualitative characteristics so that they do not obscure each other, but are perceived in a continuous complementarity. In inexhaustibly different combinations, combinations are given with the meaning of color, sound, temperature, volume, smell. Bunin loves compound epithets and - the writer's real strong point - oxymorons (for example, "sinfully modest girl").
However, with all the verbal richness and diversity, Bunin is characterized by constancy in the use of once found epithets and word groups. He repeatedly and in different works uses his “branded” phrases, not stopping at repetitions if they are dictated by the tasks of figurative accuracy (sometimes it seems that he deliberately ignores the possibility of using a synonym or paraphrase). So the reverse side of the pictorial magnificence and accuracy in Bunin's style is the balance and restraint of word usage. Bunin never allowed excessive flamboyance and ornamentality in the style, calling such a style “cockerel” and sometimes scolding his colleagues who were fond of “beauty in itself” for it. Accuracy, artistic relevance and completeness of the image - these are the qualities of subject detail that we find in the story "The Gentleman from San Francisco".
Both the plot and the external descriptiveness in Bunin's story are important, but do not exhaust the completeness of the aesthetic impression of the work. The image of the central character in the story is deliberately generalized and by the end leaves the focus of the writer's gaze. We have already paid attention to the content of Bunin's very periodicity in the presentation of the depicted facts and events, the very alternation of dynamic and descriptive scenes, the author's point of view and the limited perception of the hero - in a word, the very measure of regularity and the spontaneity that crowds it out in the created picture. If we generalize all this with a universal stylistic concept, then the term rhythm will be the most appropriate.
Sharing the secrets of writing, Bunin admitted that before writing anything, he must feel a sense of rhythm, "find the sound": "As soon as I found it, everything else comes by itself." In this regard, it is not surprising that the proportion of the plot in the composition of Bunin's works can be minimal: almost completely "plotless" is, for example, the famous story "Antonov apples". In The Gentleman from San Francisco, the plot is more significant, but the role of the leading compositional principle belongs not to the plot, but to the rhythm. As already mentioned, the movement of the text is controlled by the interaction and alternation of two motives: the regulated monotony of the master's existence and the unpredictably free element of genuine, living life. Each of the motives is supported by its own system of figurative, lexical and sound repetitions; each is sustained in its own emotional tone. It is easy to see, for example, that official details (such as a marked neck cufflink or repetitive details of dinners and "entertainments") serve as an objective support for the first (this motif can, using a musical term, be called the "master's theme"). On the contrary, “unauthorized”, “superfluous”, as if spontaneously appearing in the text, details give impulses to the motive of living life (let us call it, again conditionally, “lyrical theme”). Such are the noted descriptions of a sleeping parrot or a dressed-down horse and many particular characteristics of nature and people of the “beautiful, sunny country”.
The lyrical theme, barely distinguishable at first, gradually gains strength to resound distinctly in the last third of the story (its components are images of multicolored, picturesque variegation, sunshine, and open space). The final part of the story - a kind of musical coda - summarizes the previous development. Almost all objects of the image here are repeated in comparison with the beginning of the story: again "Atlantis" with its contrasts of decks and "underwater womb", again the acting of a dancing couple, again walking mountains of the ocean overboard. However, what at the beginning of the story was perceived as a manifestation of the author's social criticism, thanks to intense inner lyricism, rises to the height of a tragic generalization: in the end, the author's thought about the frailty of earthly existence and the artist's intuition about the grandeur and beauty of living life sound inseparably united. The substantive meaning of the final images seems to give rise to a feeling of catastrophism and doom, but their artistic expressiveness, the very musical fluidity of form create an irremovable and wonderful counterbalance to this feeling.
And yet, the most subtle and most “Buninian” means of rhythmizing a text is its sound organization. In the ability to recreate the stereo-illusion of the "ringing world" Bunin, perhaps, knows no equal in Russian literature. Musical motifs are an integral part of the thematic content of the story: string and brass bands sound in certain plot episodes; "sweetly shameless" music of waltzes and tango allows the restaurant public to "relax"; on the periphery of the descriptions, there are references to the tarantella or the bagpipe. However, something else is even more important: the smallest fragments of the emerging picture under Bunin's pen are voiced, creating a wide acoustic range from an almost indistinguishable whisper to a deafening roar. The text is saturated to the limit with the details of sound, and the expressiveness of the sound vocabulary is supported by the phonetic appearance of words and phrases. A special place in this series is occupied by signals: beeps, pipes, bell, gong, siren. The text of the story seems to be stitched with these sound threads, giving the work an impression of the highest proportionality of the parts. Initially perceived as real details of everyday life, these details, as the story progresses, begin to correlate with the overall picture of the universe, with formidable warning rhythms, gradually gaining strength in the author's meditations, and acquire the status of symbols. This is facilitated by a high degree of phonetic ordering of the text.
“... The ninth circle was like the underwater womb of a steamship, the one where gigantic fireboxes cackled dully...” The apocalyptic accompaniment in this fragment is created not only by the mention of hell (“the ninth circle”), but also by a chain of assonances (four percussion “o "in a row!) and the intensity of alliterations. Sometimes sound rapprochement for Bunin is even more important than semantic compatibility: the verb “cackle” will not cause associations with muffledness for everyone.
The work of any great master provides deep and varied interpretive possibilities, but the boundaries of possible interpretations are nevertheless determined by the content core of the work. Bunin's story for a long time was perceived by both contemporaries and people of subsequent generations mainly in the perspective of social criticism. First of all, the contrasts of wealth and poverty recorded by the writer fell into the field of view of such readers, and the main author's goal at the same time was declared to be "exposing" the bourgeois world order. At first glance, Bunin's story does provide material for such conclusions.
Moreover, according to the testimony of the writer's wife, V.N. Muromtseva-Bunina, one of the biographical sources of the idea could be a dispute in which Bunin objected to his opponent, a fellow traveler on the steamer: “If we cut the steamer vertically, we will see: we are sitting, drinking wine ... and the machinists are in hell, black from coal, working ... Is this fair? However, is it only social trouble in the writer's field of vision, and is it, from his point of view, the main reason for the general catastrophism of life?
As we already know, Bunin's thinking is much more ambitious: social disproportions for him are only a consequence of much deeper and much less transparent reasons. Bunin's story is about the complex and dramatic interaction of the social and natural-cosmic in human life, about the myopia of human claims to dominate this world, about the unknowable depth and beauty of the Universe - the beauty that, as Bunin writes in the story, "the human word is powerless to express ".
A gentleman from San Francisco, who is never mentioned by name in the story, since, as the author notes, no one remembered his name either in Naples or Capri, he is sent with his wife and daughter to the Old World for two whole years in order to to have fun and travel. He worked hard and is now rich enough to afford such a vacation.
At the end of November, the famous Atlantis, which looks like a huge hotel with all amenities, sets sail. Life on the ship is measured: they get up early, drink coffee, cocoa, chocolate, take baths, do gymnastics, walk along the decks to stimulate their appetite; then - go to the first breakfast; after breakfast they read the newspapers and calmly wait for the second breakfast; the next two hours are devoted to rest - all decks are filled with long reed chairs, on which travelers lie, covered with rugs, looking at the cloudy sky; then - tea with cookies, and in the evening - that which is the main goal of this entire existence - dinner.
A fine orchestra exquisitely and tirelessly plays in a huge hall, behind the walls of which the waves of a terrible ocean go with a roar, but decollete ladies and men in tailcoats and tuxedos do not think about it. After dinner, dancing begins in the ballroom, the men in the bar smoke cigars, drink liquors, and they are served by Negroes in red coats.
Finally, the ship arrives in Naples, the family of the gentleman from San Francisco stays in an expensive hotel, and here their life also flows according to routine: early in the morning - breakfast, after - visiting museums and cathedrals, second breakfast, tea, then - cooking for dinner and in the evening - a plentiful dinner. However, December in Naples turned out to be rainy this year: wind, rain, dirt on the streets. And the family of the gentleman from San Francisco decides to go to the island of Capri, where, as everyone assures them, it is warm, sunny and lemons bloom.
A small steamboat, rolling on the waves from side to side, transports a gentleman from San Francisco with his family, who are seriously suffering from seasickness, to Capri. The funicular takes them to a small stone town on top of a mountain, they settle in a hotel, where they are warmly welcomed by everyone, and they are preparing for dinner, already fully recovered from seasickness. Having dressed before his wife and daughter, the gentleman from San Francisco goes to the cozy, quiet reading room of the hotel, opens the newspaper - and suddenly the lines flash before his eyes, the pince-nez flies off his nose, and his body, wriggling, slides to the floor. Another guest of the hotel, who was present at the same time, runs into the dining room screaming, everyone jumps up from their seats, the owner tries to calm the guests, but the evening is already irreparably ruined.
The gentleman from San Francisco is transferred to the smallest and worst room; wife, daughter, servants stand and look at him, and now what they expected and feared has happened - he is dying. The wife of a gentleman from San Francisco asks the owner to allow the body to be transferred to their apartment, but the owner refuses: he appreciates these rooms too much, and tourists would begin to avoid them, since the whole of Capri would immediately become aware of what had happened. The coffin is also not available here - the owner can offer a long crate of soda water bottles.
At dawn, the cabman carries the body of the gentleman from San Francisco to the pier, the steamboat transports him through the Gulf of Naples, and the same "Atlantis", on which he arrived with honor in the Old World, is now carrying him, dead, in a tarred coffin, hidden from the living. deep down in the black hold. Meanwhile, on the decks, the same life continues as before, everyone has breakfast and dinner in the same way, and the ocean, which is worried behind the windows of the portholes, is still terrible.
