A gentleman from San Francisco is a writer. "Mr. from San Francisco" main characters

Bunin wrote the story “The Gentleman from San Francisco” in 1915. The work was created in the traditions of neorealism (an artistic movement in Russian literature).

In the story, the author touches on the theme of life and death, showing how insignificant power and wealth really are in the face of death. According to the depicted society, money can buy anything (even supposedly love in the example of a pair of hired lovers), but this turns out to be an illusion generated by the “pride of the New Man.”

Main characters

Mister from San Francisco- a wealthy 58-year-old man who worked all his life for the “American Dream”.

Master's wife and daughter

The hotel owner

Couple playing lovers

“A gentleman from San Francisco - no one remembered his name either in Naples or Capri - went to the Old World for two whole years, with his wife and daughter, solely for the sake of entertainment.”

The gentleman was rich and “just started to live.” Before that, he “only existed” because he worked so hard. The gentleman planned to vacation in Southern Italy in December and January, attend the carnival in Nice, and visit Florence in March. Then go to Rome, Venice, Paris, Seville, the English Isles, Athens, Asia.

It was the end of November. They sailed on the steamship Atlantis, which “looked like a huge hotel with all the amenities.” Passengers lived a relaxed life here, walked along the decks, played various games, read newspapers, and dozed on the longchairs.

In the evenings, after a sumptuous dinner, dancing began in the ballroom. Among the people relaxing on the ship was a great rich man, a famous writer, an elegant couple in love (although only the commander knew that the couple was hired here specifically for the entertainment of the public - to play love), and the crown prince of Asia, who was traveling incognita. The gentleman’s daughter was infatuated with the prince, while the gentleman himself “kept glancing” at the famous beauty – a tall blonde.

In Naples, the family stayed in a room overlooking the bay and Vesuvius. In December the weather turned bad, “the city seemed especially dirty and cramped.” In rainy Italy, the gentleman felt “as it should be for him - quite an old man.”

The family moved to Capri, where they were provided with the best apartments. There was supposed to be a tarantella at the hotel that evening. The gentleman was the first to change for dinner, so while waiting for his wife and daughter, he decided to go into the reading room. Some German was already sitting there. The gentleman sat down in a “deep leather chair,” straightened his tight collar and picked up a newspaper.

“Suddenly the lines flashed before him with a glassy sheen, his neck tensed, his eyes bulged, his pince-nez flew off his nose... He rushed forward, wanted to take a breath of air - and wheezed wildly; his lower jaw fell off, illuminating his entire mouth with gold fillings, his head fell onto his shoulder and began to roll, the chest of his shirt stuck out like a box - and his whole body, writhing, lifting up the carpet with his heels, crawled to the floor, desperately struggling with someone.”

If there had not been a German in the reading room, this “terrible incident” “would have been quickly and deftly hushed up in the hotel.” But the German ran out of the reading room screaming and “alarmed the whole house.” The owner tried to calm the guests, but many had already seen how the lackeys tore off the gentleman’s clothes, how he “still struggled,” wheezed, “persistently fought against death,” how they carried him out and put him in the worst and smallest room - forty-third, on lower floor.

“After a quarter of an hour, everything somehow came back to order at the hotel. But the evening was irreparably ruined.” The owner approached the guests, reassuring them, “feeling guiltlessly guilty,” promising to take “all measures in his power.” Because of the incident, the tarantella was canceled and the excess electricity was turned off. The gentleman's wife asked to move her husband's body to their apartment, but the owner refused and ordered that the body be removed at dawn. Since there was no place to get a coffin, the gentleman’s body was placed in a long English soda box.

The body of “a dead old man from San Francisco was returning home to his grave on the shores of the New World.” “It finally landed again on the same famous ship” - Atlantis. “But now they were hiding him from the living - they lowered him deep into a black hold in a tarred coffin.” At night the ship sailed past the island of Capri. As usual, there was a ball on the ship. “He was there on the second and third night.”

The Devil watched the ship from the rocks of Gibraltar. “The devil was huge, like a cliff, but even bigger than him was the ship, multi-tiered, multi-pipe, created by the pride of a New Man with an old heart.” In the upper chambers of the ship sat the overweight driver of the ship, looking like a “pagan idol.” “In the underwater womb of Atlantis, thousands of pounds of boilers and all sorts of other machines shone dimly with steel, hissed with steam and oozed boiling water and oil.” “And the middle of Atlantis, its dining rooms and ballrooms, shed light and joy, hummed with the talk of an elegant crowd, fragrant with fresh flowers, and sang with a string orchestra.”

And again among the crowd flashed a “thin and flexible” pair of those same lovers. “And no one knew either that this couple had long been bored with pretending to suffer their blissful torment to the shamelessly sad music, or that the coffin stood deep, deep below them, at the bottom of the dark hold, in the vicinity of the gloomy and sultry bowels of the ship "

Conclusion

Bunin's story "Mr. from San Francisco" is compositionally divided into two parts: before and after the death of the master. The reader witnesses a metamorphosis: in an instant the status and money of the deceased depreciated. His body is treated without respect, like an “object” that can be thrown into a drinks crate. The author shows how indifferent people around are to the death of a person like them, how everyone thinks only about themselves and their “peace of mind.”

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Retelling rating

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Composition

“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, the great city Babylon, the mighty city! for in one hour your judgment has come” (Revelation of St. John the Theologian, chapter 18, verse 10). In later reprints the epigraph will be removed; Already in the process of working on the story, the writer abandoned the initially invented title “Death on Capri.” However, the feeling of catastrophism evoked by the first version of the title and epigraph permeates the very verbal flesh of the story.

The story “The Gentleman from San Francisco” was highly appreciated by M. Gorky. “If you 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 the story of the last months of the life of a wealthy American businessman who arranged a long and pleasure-filled trip to southern Europe for his family. Europe - on the way back home - was to be followed by the Middle East and Japan. The cruise undertaken by the American is explained in tedious detail in the exposition of the story; the plan and route of the trip are set out with business 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 the amenities,” was chosen for the trip, and the days spent on it on the way across the Atlantic do not in any way darken the mood of the wealthy tourist.

However, the plan, remarkable for its thoughtfulness and richness, begins to collapse as soon as it begins to be implemented. The violation of the millionaire's expectations and his growing discontent correspond in the structure of the plot to the plot and development of the action. The main “culprit” for the rich tourist’s irritation is nature, beyond his control and therefore seemingly unpredictably capricious, mercilessly breaking the promises of tourist brochures (“the morning sun deceived me every day”); we have to adjust the original plan and, in search of the promised sun, go from Naples to Capri. “On the day of departure - a very memorable one for the family from San Francisco!.. - Bunin uses in this sentence the technique of anticipating an imminent outcome, omitting the now familiar word “master”, - ... there was no sun even in the morning.”

As if wanting 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 the hotel service and, finally, devotes half a page to the clothing accessories of the gentleman preparing for a late lunch.

However, the plot movement is unstoppable: the adverb “suddenly” opens the climactic scene, depicting the sudden and “illogical” death of the main character. It would seem that the plot potential of the story has been exhausted and the outcome 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 about a loser-American: 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 author’s field of vision. The reader is presented with a plot-unmotivated panorama of the Gulf of Naples, a sketch of a street market, colorful images of the boatman Lorenzo, two Abruzzese highlanders and - most importantly - a generalizing lyrical description of a “joyful, beautiful, sunny” country. The movement from exposition to 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 returns us to the description of the famous “Atlantis” - the ship that returns the dead gentleman to America. This compositional repetition not only gives the story a harmonious proportionality of parts and completeness, but also enlarges the scale of the picture created in the work. It is interesting that the gentleman and members of his family remain nameless in the story until the end, while the peripheral characters - Lorenzo, Luigi, Carmella - are given their own names.

The plot is the most noticeable aspect of the work, a kind of façade of an artistic building that forms the initial perception of the story. However, in “The Mister from San Francisco” the coordinates of the general picture of the world being drawn are much wider than the actual plot time and spatial boundaries.

The events of the story are very precisely “tied to the calendar” and fit into geographical space. The journey, planned for two years in advance, begins at the end of November (sailing across the Atlantic), and is suddenly interrupted in December, most likely the week before Christmas: at this time in Capri there is noticeable pre-holiday revival, the Abruzzese mountaineers 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 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 about not only the private fate of the nameless gentleman, but about life and death as key - eternal - categories of existence.

Accuracy and utmost authenticity - the absolute criteria of Bunin's aesthetics - are manifested in the care with which the daily routine of wealthy tourists is described in the story. Indications of the “hours and minutes” of the life they lived, the list of attractions visited in Italy seemed to be verified from reliable tourist guides. But the main thing, of course, is not Bunin’s meticulous fidelity to verisimilitude.

The sterile regularity and inviolable 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 route, then by a measured account of 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: “firstly”, “secondly”, “thirdly”; “at eleven”, “at five”, “at seven o’clock”. In general, the punctuality of the lifestyle of the American and his companions sets a monotonous rhythm for the description of everything that comes into his field of vision of the natural and social world.

The element of living life turns out to be an expressive contrast to this world in the story. This life, unknown to the gentleman from San Francisco, is subject to a completely different time and spatial scale. There is no place in it for schedules and routes, numerical sequences and rational motivations, and therefore there is no predictability and “understandability” for the sons of civilization. The vague impulses of this life sometimes excite the consciousness of travelers: then the daughter of an American will think 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, “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 extreme openness to time and space. Time is counted not in hours and days, but in millennia, in historical eras, and the spaces that open to the eye reach the “blue stars of the sky.” That is why, having parted with the deceased character, Bunin continues the story with an inserted episode about the Roman tyrant Tiberius. What is important to the author is not so much the associative parallel with the fate of the title character, but the opportunity to extremely enlarge the scale of the problem.

In the last third of the story, the phenomena depicted are presented in the most general plan (the final sketch of “Atlantis”). The story about the collapse of life 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 existence. Here, on the last pages of the story, the name of the ship goes deep into the symbolic name (Atlantis - a semi-legendary huge island west of Gibraltar, which sank to the bottom of the ocean due to an earthquake).

The frequency of using image-symbols is increasing: images of a raging ocean are perceived as symbols with a wide field of meanings; “countless fiery eyes” of the ship; “as huge as a rock,” the Devil; resembling a pagan idol of a captain. Moreover: in an image projected onto the infinity of time and space, any detail (images of characters, everyday realities, sound gamut and light-color palette) acquires symbolic content potential.

Subject detail, or, as Bunin himself called this aspect of writing technique, external depiction, is one of the strongest aspects of his skill. This facet of Bunin’s talent, even at the dawn of his writing career, was noticed and appreciated by A.P. Chekhov, who emphasized the density of Bunin’s depiction in words, the density of the reconstructed plastic paintings: “... this is very new, very fresh and very good, only too compact, like a condensed broth."

It is remarkable that with the sensory richness and “texture” of the descriptions, any of their details are fully provided by the author’s exact knowledge: Bunin was unusually strict about the accuracy and specificity of the image. Of course, the accuracy and specificity of details is not the limit of a 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 and self-sufficiency of the reproduced details. Bunin’s detail is sometimes in a relationship with the plot that is unusual for classical realism. Let us remember that in the literature of the nineteenth century, detail, as a rule, was subordinated to some artistic task - revealing the image of the hero, characterizing the scene of action, and, ultimately, concretizing the plot movement. Of course, Bunin cannot do without details of the same plan.

A striking example of “official” plot-motivating details in “The Gentleman from San Francisco” is the description of the central character’s evening suit. The inertia of the author's ironic listing of clothing items (“cream silk tights,” “black silk socks,” “ball shoes,” “black trousers pulled up with silk braces,” “snow-white shirt,” “shiny cuffs”) suddenly dries up when the close-up and In the manner of slow-motion filming, the final, most significant detail is presented - the old man’s neck cufflink, which cannot be grasped by the fingers, the struggle with which deprives him of his last strength. The juxtaposition of this episode with a “talking” sound detail – the “second gong” buzzing throughout the hotel – is also strikingly appropriate. The impression of the solemn exclusivity of the moment perfectly prepares the reader for the perception of the climactic scene.

At the same time, Bunin’s details are not 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 sound of the clock in the lobby could clearly be heard, where only one parrot muttered something woodenly, fiddling around before going to bed in his cage, managing to fall asleep with his paw absurdly lifted up on the top pole...” The exotic parrot next to the scene of death seems to be asking to be included in a separate prosaic miniature - this expressive description is so self-sufficient. Was this detail used just 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 temporarily, making one forget about the events taking place.

The detail in Bunin's prose is not limited to a specific plot episode, but testifies to the state of the world as a whole and therefore strives to absorb the fullness of the sensory manifestations of life. Already the writer’s contemporaries started talking about his unique ability to convey impressions from the outside world in the entire complex set of perceived qualities - shape, color, light, sound, smell, temperature characteristics and tactile characteristics, as well as those subtle psychological properties that the human imagination endows with the world around him, guessing about its animation and 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 “telepathic” persuasiveness of images.

Bunin’s complex and fused description of the sensations that arise in characters in specialized literature is sometimes called synesthetic (from the word “synesthesia” - complex perception in which sensations characteristic of different senses interact and mix; for example, “color hearing”). Bunin relatively rarely 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 imagery: “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 flying cheerfully and madly towards it...”

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 rich epithets, giving the image a specifically “Bunin” flavor (“countless eyes”, “mourning” waves, an island looming “with its blackness”, “ shining morning couples over the sea”, “furious squeals of sirens”, etc.). Using homogeneous epithets, Bunin varies their qualitative characteristics so that they do not obscure each other, but are perceived in a seamless complementarity. In inexhaustibly different combinations, combinations are given with the meaning of color, sound, temperature, volume, smell. Bunin loves compound epithets and - a real strong point of the writer - oxymorons (for example, “sinfully modest girl”).

However, with all the verbal wealth and diversity, Bunin is characterized by constancy in the use of once found epithets and verbal groups. He repeatedly uses his “trademark” phrases in different works, not stopping at repetitions if they are dictated by the tasks of visual accuracy (sometimes it seems that he deliberately ignores the possibility of using a synonym or periphrasis). So the flip side of the visual splendor and precision in Bunin’s style is the balance and restraint of word usage. Ile Bunin is balanced and restrained use of words. Bunin never allowed excessive floridity and ornamentation in his style, calling such a style “cockerel style” and sometimes scolding his colleagues for it who were carried away by “intrinsic beauty.” Accuracy, artistic appropriateness and completeness of the image - these are the qualities of subject detail that we find in the story “The Mister from San Francisco”.

Both the plot and external descriptiveness in Bunin’s story are important, but do not exhaust the fullness 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 meaningfulness that Bunin has in the very periodicity of 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 in the created picture. If we summarize all this with a universal stylistic concept, then the most appropriate term would be rhythm.

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.” It is not surprising in this regard that the proportion of plot in the composition of Bunin’s works can be minimal: for example, the famous story “Antonov Apples” is almost completely “plotless.” In “The Mister 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 one is consistent in its own emotional tone. It is not difficult to notice, for example, that service details (like the marked neck cufflink or the repeated details of dinners and “entertainment”) serve as substantive support for the first (this motive can, using a musical term, be called the “master’s theme”). On the contrary, “unauthorized”, “superfluous”, seemingly spontaneously appearing details in the text give impulses to the motive of living life (let’s call it, again conventionally, “lyrical theme”). These are the noted descriptions of a sleeping parrot or a discharged horse and many particular characteristics of nature and people of a “beautiful, sunny country.”

The lyrical theme, barely discernible at first, gradually gains strength to sound clearly in the last third of the story (its components are images of multi-colors, picturesque variegation, sunshine, opening up space). The final part of the story - a kind of musical coda - summarizes the previous development. Almost all the 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 the 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 internal lyricism, rises to the height of tragic generalization: in the end, the author’s thought about the frailty of earthly existence and the artist’s intuition about the greatness and beauty of living life sound inseparably united. The objective 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 the form, creates an irreducible and beautiful counterbalance to this feeling.

And yet the most subtle and most “Bunin” means of rhythmizing a text is its sound organization. In his ability to recreate the stereo illusion of a “ringing world,” Bunin, perhaps, has 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 tangos allows restaurant audiences to “relax”; on the periphery of the descriptions there are mentions of a tarantella or bagpipes. 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 inaudible whisper to a deafening roar. The text is extremely rich in sound details, 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, trumpets, bells, gongs, sirens. The text of the story seems to be stitched with these sound threads, giving the work the impression of the highest proportionality of the parts. At first perceived as real details of everyday life, these details, as the story progresses, begin to correlate with the overall picture of the universe, with a menacing warning rhythm, gradually gaining strength in the author’s meditations, acquiring the status of symbols. This is also facilitated by the high degree of phonetic ordering of the text.

“...The ninth circle was like the underwater womb of a steamship, the one where the gigantic furnaces cackled dully...” The apocalyptic accompaniment in this fragment is created not only by the mention of hell (“ninth circle”), but also by a chain of assonances (four percussive “o” "in a row!) and the intensity of alliteration. Sometimes sound connections are even more important for Bunin than semantic compatibility: the verb “giggle” will not evoke associations with muffledness in everyone.

The work of any great master provides deep and varied interpretative possibilities, but the boundaries of possible interpretations are still determined by the meaningful core of the work. For a long time, Bunin’s story was perceived by both his contemporaries and people of subsequent generations mainly from the perspective of social criticism. These readers were primarily drawn to the contrasts of wealth and poverty recorded by the writer, and the author’s main goal was to “expose” the bourgeois world order. At first glance, Bunin's story really provides 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 plan could have been a dispute in which Bunin objected to his opponent, a fellow passenger on the ship: “If you cut the ship vertically, you will see: we are sitting, drinking wine ... and the drivers are in the heat, black from the coals, working... Is this fair?” However, is it only social ill-being in the writer’s field of view 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 imbalances 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 short-sightedness of human claims to dominance in this world, about the unknowable depth and beauty of the Universe - that beauty that, as Bunin writes in the story, “the human word is powerless to express "

Other works on this work

A gentleman from San Francisco - no one remembered his name either in Naples or Capri - was traveling to the Old World for two whole years, with his wife and daughter, solely for the sake of entertainment.

He was firmly convinced that he had every right to rest, to pleasure, to a long and comfortable journey, and who knows what else. His reason for such confidence was that, firstly, he was rich, and secondly, he had just started life, despite his fifty-eight years. Until that time, he had not lived, but only existed, although very well, but still pinning all his hopes on the future. He worked tirelessly - the Chinese, whom he hired thousands of to work for him, knew well what this meant! - and, finally, he saw that a lot had already been done, that he was almost equal to those whom he had once taken as a model, and decided to take a break. The people to whom he belonged had the custom of beginning the enjoyment of life with a trip to Europe, India, and Egypt. He decided to do the same. Of course, he wanted to reward himself first of all for his years of work; however, he was also happy for his wife and daughter. His wife had never been particularly impressionable, but after all, all elderly American women are passionate travelers. And as for the daughter, an older girl and slightly sickly, the journey was absolutely necessary for her - not to mention the health benefits; don’t there be happy encounters during travel? Here sometimes you sit at a table or look at frescoes next to a billionaire.

The route was developed by the gentleman from San Francisco and was extensive. In December and January he hoped to enjoy the sun of Southern Italy, ancient monuments, tarantella, serenades of traveling singers and what people at his age feel! especially subtly - with the love of young Neapolitan women, even if not completely disinterested, he thought to hold the carnival in Nice, in Monte Carlo, where at this time the most selective society flocks - the same one on which the entire benefit of civilization depends: and the style of tuxedos , and the strength of thrones, and the declaration of wars, and the welfare of hotels - where some enthusiastically indulge in automobile and sailing races, others in roulette, others in what is commonly called flirting, and still others in shooting pigeons, which soar very beautifully from cages over the emerald lawn, against the backdrop of the sea, the color of forget-me-nots, and immediately the white lumps hit the ground; he wanted to devote the beginning of March to Florence, to come to Rome for the passion of the Lord to listen to Miserere there; His plans included Venice, and Paris, and a bullfight in Seville, and swimming in the English islands, and Athens, and Constantinople, and Palestine, and Egypt, and even Japan - of course, already on the way back... And everything went from the beginning Great.

It was the end of November, and all the way to Gibraltar we had to sail either in icy darkness or amid a storm with sleet; but they sailed quite safely.

There were many passengers, the ship - the famous "Atlantis" - looked like a huge hotel with all the amenities - with a night bar, with oriental baths, with its own newspaper - and life on it flowed very measuredly: they got up early, at the sound of trumpets, sharply resounding through the corridors even at that gloomy hour, when the light was shining so slowly and uninvitingly over the gray-green watery desert, heavily agitated in the fog; putting on flannel pajamas, drinking coffee, chocolate, cocoa; then they sat in the marble baths, did gymnastics, stimulating their appetite and good health, performed their daily toilets and went to their first breakfast; until eleven o'clock they were supposed to walk cheerfully along the decks, breathing in the cold freshness of the ocean, or play sheffle board and other games to whet their appetite again, and at eleven they had to refresh themselves with sandwiches with broth; having refreshed themselves, they read the newspaper with pleasure and calmly waited for the second breakfast, even more nutritious and varied than the first; the next two hours were devoted to rest; all the decks were then filled with longchairs, on which travelers lay, covered with blankets, looking at the cloudy sky and at the foamy mounds flashing overboard, or sweetly dozing off; at five o'clock, refreshed and cheerful, they were given strong fragrant tea with cookies; at seven they announced with trumpet signals what was the main goal of this entire existence, its crown... And then the gentleman from San Francisco, rubbing his hands with a surge of vitality, hurried to his rich luxury cabin to get dressed.

In the evenings, the floors of Atlantis gaped in the darkness as if with countless fiery eyes, and a great many servants worked in the cooks', sculleries' and wine cellars. The ocean that walked outside the walls was terrible, but they did not think about it, firmly believing in the power over it of the commander, a red-haired man of monstrous size and bulkiness, always as if sleepy, resembling in his uniform, with wide golden stripes, a huge idol and very rarely appearing to people from his mysterious chambers; on the forecastle the siren constantly wailed with hellish gloom and shrieked with furious anger, but few of the diners heard the siren - it was drowned out by the sounds of a beautiful string orchestra, exquisitely and tirelessly playing in the marble two-story hall, covered with velvet carpets, festively flooded with lights, crowded with low-cut ladies and men in tailcoats and tuxedos, slender footmen and respectful head waiters, among whom one, the one who took orders only for wine, even walked around with a chain around his neck, like some lord mayor. The tuxedo and starched underwear made the gentleman from San Francisco look very young. Dry, short, awkwardly cut, but tightly sewn, cleaned to a gloss and moderately animated, he sat in the golden-pearl radiance of this palace behind a bottle of amber Johannisberg, behind glasses and goblets of the finest glass, behind a curly bouquet of hyacinths. There was something Mongolian in his yellowish face with a trimmed silver mustache, his large teeth glittered with gold fillings, and his strong bald head was old ivory. His wife was dressed richly, but according to her years, a large, broad and calm woman; complex, but light and transparent, with innocent frankness - a daughter, tall, thin, with magnificent hair, beautifully dressed, with aromatic breath from violet cakes and with the most delicate pink pimples near the lips and between the shoulder blades, slightly powdered... Lunch lasted more than an hour, and after dinner, dances opened in the ballroom, during which the men, including, of course, the gentleman from San Francisco, raised their feet, decided on the basis of the latest stock market news the fate of nations, smoked Havana cigars until they were crimson red and got drunk on liqueurs a bar served by blacks in red camisoles, with whites that looked like peeling hard-boiled eggs.

Hi all! Let me remind you that in this section I briefly retell the books I have read.

“Mr. from San Francisco” is a work that ranks among the Russian classics. The genre of “Mr. from San Francisco” cannot be determined immediately; it is necessary to disassemble the work, analyze it and only then draw any definite conclusions. But it is important to say right away that the work carries a very large semantic load. The theme of the story "Mr. from San Francisco" touches on very important vital problems of society.

A few words about the plot

Speaking about the description of the gentleman from San Francisco, it is important to note that the author himself does not name his main character. In other words, the name of the main character is unknown to the reader, because, as Bunin himself writes, no one remembers the man’s name, which is already an indication that the main character was an ordinary rich man who did not bring any benefit to society.

Besides, as we learn at the end of the story, no one will miss the gentleman from San Francisco. This also proves the fact that among the man’s acquaintances and relatives there were no people who would truly love and appreciate him, and not perceive him as a fat wallet capable of paying for any whim.

Contents of "Mr. from San Francisco" by Bunin

To correctly analyze a story, you need to know its content. Continuing the description of the gentleman from San Francisco, let's look at the plot that unfolds around the main character. The man, this same gentleman, goes on a trip with his family, consisting of his wife and daughter. He has worked hard throughout his life and now he can finally afford such a vacation, since he is pretty rich.

Going to his vacation spot on a huge and expensive ship, the gentleman does not deny himself any amenities: the ship has baths, gymnasiums, and ballrooms. Many passengers simply stroll along the decks. From the description of the conditions on this ship, the reader can immediately see that the people on board are rich. They can afford any pleasure: several meals, liqueurs, cigars and much more.

When the ship reaches its final destination - Naples, a gentleman from San Francisco goes with his family to an expensive hotel. Even at the hotel, everything goes as planned: in the morning - breakfast, a walk, in the afternoon - visiting museums and sightseeing, in the evening - a rich table and a hearty dinner. But this year has not been very warm for Naples - it rains incessantly and an icy wind blows. Then the family of the gentleman from San Francisco decides to go to the island of Capri, where, according to rumors, there is intense heat and lemons bloom.

Death of a Rich Man

Having boarded a small ship, the family finds no place for themselves - they have seasickness, from which they are very exhausted. Having reached the island, the gentleman's family stays in a small hotel. Having more or less recovered from the difficult journey, the family begins to prepare for dinner. Having gathered before his daughter and wife, the man heads to the quiet reading room. Having opened the newspaper, the gentleman suddenly felt ill and died of a heart attack.

The body of the gentleman from San Francisco is carried into one of the smallest bedrooms in the entire hotel. His wife, daughter and several employees standing around look at him and don’t know what to do next - either rejoice or grieve. The gentleman's wife asks the hotel owner to allow her to move the body of her late husband to their apartment, but is refused. According to the owner, these rooms are too valuable for his hotel and he simply cannot afford to ruin the reputation of his enterprise. The gentleman's wife also asks where she can order a coffin for the deceased. The hotel owner explains that such things cannot be found here, and in return offers the widow a huge soda box as a coffin.

Already at dawn, the body of the late gentleman from San Francisco is sent to his native lands. The body, which lies in a well-tarred soda box, is located at the very depths of the steamer. He sets off home along the same road, with the deep sea waters still roaring terribly around the gentleman.

The protagonist's world

Speaking about the genre of "Mr. from San Francisco", it is important to say that this is a story. This is immediately evident from the first lines of the work, which tell the reader about the world from which the man came.

The world from which the main character came is striking in its materiality: there is no place in it for human emotions or miracles - only calculation, only banknotes. The author of “Mr. from San Francisco” shows readers how much society has degraded - money has come to the fore, pushing into the background all the spiritual values ​​that were inherent in man by nature.

Main characters

The main characters of “Mr. from San Francisco,” as can be seen even from the brief content, are wealthy people who do not know any financial difficulties. Their journey was planned to last two years, which already suggests that it was carefully thought out. The main character is a gentleman from San Francisco, a man whose life is dominated by order and orderliness. Ivan Bunin especially emphasizes all the preparations of the protagonist for this journey. Having carefully thought through every detail of this trip, the main character shows himself as a responsible person, impatient of any surprises that could put him in an awkward position or cause difficulties.

This gentleman’s wife is a woman who is accustomed to accepting all sorts of attentions from her husband. She is not a support for him, but only takes everything for granted. It is quite common for her that he devoted his life to work in order to support his family in wealth. The master's daughter is a spoiled girl who throughout her life has not known any problems or any adversity. Raised in excellent material conditions, she always got everything she wanted. This journey is something normal and acceptable for the girl, as well as for her mother, despite the hard work of her father in his youth. In addition, it cannot be said that the girl loves her father - coldness and indifference are felt in her relationship with him.

about the author

It’s worth saying a few words right away about the author of “The Gentleman from San Francisco.” Ivan Bunin, who is already well known to everyone interested in literature at the age of 12-13, became the author of this work. However, “The Mister from San Francisco,” whose genre is a story, is not at all similar to those works that are often found in the writer’s literary archive. This story has a main character around whom the plot develops. Usually, the writer comes across works that contain descriptions of landscapes that are “stored in memory”, like paintings. For example, “Antonov Apples” by Bunin became precisely that work that does not have any main plot, but contains a description of the beautiful nature that once surrounded the writer.

The image of the master

The story “Mr. from San Francisco,” whose images are varied and have different roles for the work, is able to teach readers to perceive material wealth as something for granted, unable to prolong life. As we see in the example of the main character, who had everything he wanted, money could not save him from a heart attack. And even though the gentleman was very rich, his body was transported home not in an expensive coffin, but in an ordinary box, which was hidden at the very bottom of the ship. Money could not even provide him with a worthy “last” path.

Wife and daughter: images

The female images in “The Gentleman from San Francisco” became an indicator of commercialism in the work. Accustomed to living in abundance, having denied themselves nothing for many years, these two figures take all blessings for granted. The gentleman became something ordinary for these two heroines, but without any value. Even after the master died, the heroines did not know how to react to his death - on the one hand, they should fall into grief, as a loving wife and daughter would; on the other hand, the master’s death was welcome; it removed the stone from the heroines’ shoulders, freeing them from the onslaught of the man.

General conclusion about the work

Having examined the content of “Mr. from San Francisco,” the genre of which is defined as a story, its main characters, and analyzed all the images, it must be said that the author tried to show how much society had deteriorated over the course of several years. Bunin talks about the degradation of the entire society, which chose money as the main value, forgetting about the simple things that made up the spiritual side of everyone. In addition, in “The Mister from San Francisco” Ivan Bunin shows another side of human nature - a person gets used to everything. This is evidenced by the images of the master’s daughter and wife, who take the man’s benefits for granted and do not carry any value. However, they are not developed spiritually. For them, material things, just like for others, come first, but they do not know the value of money, so they are able to throw it away. They do not support the master, they are not even upset by his death. The man's death only ruined the evening for them.

Ivan Bunin touches on a very important topic in the story “Mr. from San Francisco” that society is faced with: placing material wealth at the forefront in people’s lives and completely denying everything spiritual in a person.