Ivan Bunin on the Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Bunin
Recent book in Spanish: http://www.acantilado.es/catalogo/dias-malditos/
Some good writers, even writers with a Nobel Prize, are sometimes out of fashion. It all depens on the market, and not on the quality of their texts. All of a sudden you discover an author and you want to read some books by them, but, what happens? It happens that is very difficult to find their books, or their books are old books and their editions not updated any more. I think Ivan Bunin is a typical case of this situation.
His short story is a very odd story: it doesn't have a regular chronological rhythm: at the beginning all it's very slow; then, at the middle of it, thirty years pass by in a single paragraph, and, after all the adventures, only a single afternoon remains.
At the end of our lives, what is going to remain? What is the thing, the deed, that would make us able to say about life: "it's worth it"?
QUESTIONS ABOUT THE READING
Who is the person who tells the story?
What is the meaning of "her son to be" in the context of the story?
In all the story you can breath sadness. Say some sentence, phrase, word, image that makes you feel that sadness. For example: "an early and cold autumn".
Why do you think that the boy prefers going in the morning?
The girl is frightened at her own thought "Suppose he realy is killed..." Why?
What was in the little bag her mum has been sewing for him? Why fateful?
What do you think this sentence mean: "not knowing what to do with myself, wether I should sob or sing at the top of my voice"?
What was the protagonist doing 30 years after her boyfriend's death?
Who did she get married to?
Then it happened a lot of things to her in quick succession: what things?
At the end, only a memory remains with all its strength inside her: what was it?
VOCABULARY
gather = meet
innermost = deep inside
gaze = look at
set off = leave, go away
game of patience = game of cards where you play alone
linger = wander waiting for nothing
Fet = Afanassin Fet (1820-1872), Russian poet.
stand out = be more visible that the rest
<<< Swiss cloak
jerky = nervous
hoarfrost = ice on objects after a night of freezing weather
Galicia = Galitzia = a region between Poland and Ukraine
moth = little insect that eats clothes
Arbat, Smolensk = markets in Moscow
GENERAL QUESTION:
Name-day: do you celebrate it? Why (yes/no)?