– There’s no need to explain. You surely remember how I loved you.

He blushed to tears and, frowning, walked on again.

– Everything passes, my friend, – he muttered. – Love, youth – everything, everything. It’s all a stale, common history. With years, everything passes. As it’s said in the book of Job? “As the waters that have passed away.”

– Everyone loses their youth, Nikolai Alexeyevich, but love – that’s another matter.

He raised his head and, stopping, smiled painfully:

– But you couldn’t have loved me all your life!

– That means I could have.

(“Dark Alleys” I. Bunin)

Dear friends!

At our last literary salon, we decided to remember the great Russian writer Ivan Bunin together.

This time, our choice fell on the cycle of stories united under the common title “Dark Alleys”. Bunin himself called this work the best of what he had written.

The cycle consists of three parts and includes 37 stories united by a single theme – the theme of love. Love as a gift or tragedy, a force that is beyond human control. Love that never disappears, it just fades into the past for a while to be remembered in the future.

Read on! Enjoy the magnificent prose! Remember your feelings and experiences! Come share your impressions, discover something new.

Language of the event: Russian.