I.A. Bunin was in exile in 1937, where he wrote a collection of Dark Alleys, which he later considered his best work. Despite the fact that the work “Dark Alleys” is not the first in this collection, it plays a key role in shaping it.
(292 words) Events take place along the Tula road. The main character, who was like Alexander II, drives up to a long hut. The hut was divided into two parts. In one, passing travelers could spend the night, and the other was a postal station. The main character was a military man, moreover, a traveler, so he decided to stay in this hut. Going into the hut, he met a "dark-haired" girl who offered the traveler to eat, they talked, and the girl suddenly calls the traveler "Nikolai Alekseevich." The traveler cheered up, became warm and remembered his old lover - Hope.
The man reflects on how many years ago they did not see each other, which Nadezhda did not hesitate to say, “Thirty years.” Next, the girl talks about her life, after breaking up with Nikolai. She was given free, but she never found a husband because she could not forget him. The man is trying to explain that “everything passes both love and youth”, to which the girl replies that “youth can and passes, but love is another matter.” The girl recalls how he read her poems about "all kinds of dark alleys."
Despite revelations with Nadezhda, Nicholas asks to submit horses and says that only God can forgive him, and she has already forgiven him, apparently. Hope answers him that, of course, she has not forgotten anything and cannot forgive him, because she had no one more like him than he did. Nicholas became sympathetic and told the whole truth about his life. He adored his wife, but she betrayed him and abandoned him, but he adored his son, and he grew arrogant. He admits that, most likely, he lost in the girl everything that was expensive that he had.
In parting, the protagonist kisses the girl’s hand, and she kisses him. Later, the coachman Klim will say that the girl looked after them. Nikolai Alekseevich is in despair, he is ashamed that he kissed the hand of the girl he had once loved. He regrets what happened and wants to take the time back.
