“Grammar of Love” and “Dark Paths” by Ivan Bunin Review

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Ivan Bunin’s short stories are unique to many authors we may be exposed to in American literature. His prose is highly descriptive, taking in endless landscapes and palatial gothic mansions. Bunin can be considered a realist, coming from the dynamic Soviet realism that was pervasive in Russia during his time. Though Bunin left after the First World War, the influence of his home country in his work is undeniable, even though he is not nearly as widely read as many other more well-known authors. Still, his contribution to literary history is hard to deny. Here we are presented with two of his short stories, “Grammar of Love” and “Dark Paths”. The connections between the two stories are undeniable, presenting us with the timeless themes of love and memory. By examining “Grammar of Love” and “Dark Paths”, we gain insight not only into the complexity of Bunin’s work but into the nature of the human spirit as well.

Ivan Bunin is certainly a larger-than-life character in Russian literature, indeed literature in general. As the first Russian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, his style has become renowned in its unique richness. Bunin is associated with the same canonical genre as Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekov, and other celebrated Russian authors. Like Nabokov and other writers, Bunin left Russia to escape the turmoil of political oppression and wrote much of his popular prose in the Diaspora. This is widely considered quite significant to Bunin’s career, because, unlike Nabokov, pretty much all of Bunin’s work takes place in Russia. Aside from his writing, Bunin was known for being a strong opposition against the Nazi rule that was become increasingly pervasive in the decades after he left Russia, even hiding a Jew in his house while he lived in France. Bunin’s stories often revolve around love, lost love, and the effect that the past has on the present, and our memories.

With “Dark Paths” we are presented with an obscure world of lost love. We see the countryside along which the protagonist, who is only referred to as “Your Excellency” by the driver and the innkeeper, travels, and finally a small house in which the man and his driver stop with what appears at first to be intentions to sleep the night there. When the man enters he is greeted by a woman whose beauty is described as not befitting her age. She is graceful, curvaceous, and witty. Through dialogue between the man and the innkeeper, we discover that she knows the man from their youth. “Your Excellency” is surprised, obviously not having recognized her at all. Bunin often describes the characters’ actions to denote their mood or sentiment. For example, upon discovering the true identity of the innkeeper, “Your Excellency” is described as follows: “His weariness and his indifference vanished. He got up and started pacing the room with resolute strides, his eyes upon the floor.

Then he stopped and, with a blush creeping through his gray sideburns, began to speak” (Bunin 253). This passage seems to express a lot more than what is in the words. In his silence, we assume that the protagonist is reviewing the past events of his life, lost deep in thought, trying to figure out how he lost track of someone he had once known so well. Further dialogue reveals that they were deeply in love and that when he abandoned her and had a family with another, she never gave her heart to anyone else. A sense of intimacy comes across here, almost an expectation that these two love birds, after a lifetime apart, have finally been given the chance to reunite. The man confesses that he had been in love with his wife but that she had betrayed and abandoned him. In the end, the innkeeper, it seems, can not forgive the abandonment. Eventually, the man leaves, after which we discover more about the innkeeper through the words of the man’s driver; he claims that “…she’s getting richer all the time, they say.

She lends money out to folks” (Bunin 255). This is an interesting detail because considering the way the protagonist carries himself and how he is treated; the reader may assume that he is an aristocrat while the innkeeper was lower class. This comment from the driver suggests that “Your Excellency” would achieve some monetary gain if he knows the innkeeper well. However, perhaps as a testament to his true character, the protagonist dismisses the idea and leaves contemplating what his future may have been like if he had chosen the innkeeper as his wife instead of the life he has led. We are left wondering why the man did not turn around to reunite with his long-lost love. In this way, Bunin truly captures the reality of human nature and love; despite the lack of tactile obstacles like distance and spouses, emotional and mental obstacles remain and are perhaps more impossible to overcome than any others.

“Grammar of Love” opens with Ivlev, who is traveling through the country. We do not find out immediately where Ivlev is traveling, we only witness the passing landscapes, the description of the sky and weather, and the initial dialogue between Ivlev and his driver, who is concerned about the horses and seems just as enchanted by the surroundings as Ivlev and the reader. Ivlev notices the weather change, remarking that these summer days often end with an unexpected downpour. They stop and visit with the countess on the way to their destination.

The countess and Ivlev talk, though there is very little dialogue in the text, and the topic frequently comes back to love, and in specific, Ivlev’s late friend Khvoshchinsky who was in love with his chambermaid, Lushka, so fiercely that rumors say he died from madness after she passed away in her youth. They discuss the real nature and reason for his madness; the countess mentions that Khvoshchinsky was an upstanding man who could have been quite intelligent and respectable, but that after the death of Lushka he locked himself in his house and rarely took visitors for the rest of his life. Ivlev eventually leaves the countess to travel further to Khvoshchinsky’s old house, where he meets Khvoshchinsky’s son. Here, Ivlev explains that he is there to purchase the library. The boy leads him through the house, to the library, where Ivlev finds a volume called Grammar of Love which seems to provide a collection of love advice. He leaves with it, consumed with thoughts of his dead friend and Lushkah, who he compares to a female saint. We are left with the verses Khvoshchinsky had written himself in the back of the book.

Both “Grammar of Love” and “Dark Paths” have curiously similar constructs. Both stories begin with a lengthy description of the landscape. This is somewhat reminiscent of Hemingway or Steinbeck, who used the description of the land as a reflection of the time or the sentiment of the character. The next component of both stories is the subtly crafted dialogue. Most, if not all, of the stories, are revealed in their dialogue. In “Grammar of Love” we learn of the effect that Khvoshchinsky’s love for Lushka has had on Ivlev: ” ‘Because this queer fellow had made a divinity of her, I, in my youth, was almost in love with her: I fancied, in thinking of her, God knows what…’ ” (Bunin 160). The last element of the construction of the two stories is the third-person contemplation on which both stories end. In “Grammar of Love” Ivlev leaves consumed with thoughts of Lushka and memories from his past. In “Dark Paths” Bunin ends with the protagonist wrestling over the choices he has made.

This pattern of description, dialogue, and monologue seem unique to Bunin. Another unique element of the construct of the stories is that the emotions of the stories are kept under the surface. There is a very little description of how any of the characters feel, other than the contemplative endings. The reader gains a sense of how the characters are feeling only through the description of their actions. For example, near the end of “Grammar of Love”, Ivlev is in his old friend Khvoshchinsky’s home, speaking with the son and master of the house about Khvoshchinksy’s supposed illness. Bunin describes the son’s reaction to accusations of mental illness only briefly: “The young man flared up. ‘That is, ill in what way?’ he said, and manlier notes sounded in his voice” (Bunin 166). From this reaction to Ivlev questioning his father’s possible mental illness, we get the sense that the son is protective of his father’s image, and remembers him as strong and wise. The “manlier notes” in the son’s voice denote a sense that the son is fulfilling the role of his late father, assuming the authority of the master of the estate.

A very significant theme amongst Bunin’s works is the connection between past and present. In “Grammar of Love”, very little is happening in the present, and what does occur is linked wholly to the past. In the nearly excessive description of the land that passes as the protagonist Ivlev travels, we get the sense that this is simultaneously being seen and recalled from Ivlev’s past. We are presented with Ivlev’s thoughts—he recalls his friend from youth Khvoshchinsky and his lost love Lushka, who was his chambermaid. This relationship between his childhood friend and Lushka becomes the center stone of the story.

“Dark Paths” also entwines past and present. Bunin uses these characters to show the unavoidable influence the past has on the present. Perhaps if the two had met for the first time in this story, they may have become lovers. But their past seems to be the one thing holding them back. The innkeeper can not forget and forgive the abandonment she suffered as a girl, and “Your Excellency” can not seem to move beyond the wounds he carries from what he sees as his failed past. The theme of past and present also explains the sense from dialogue that the two are brought back in their minds to the past, when they were shy and young, but are always aware of how much time has truly passed. He repeatedly remarks on how wonderful she was then as if to emphasize that he does not see that same beauty anymore. ” ‘Ah, how lovely you were then! How passionate! How beautiful! What a body, what eyes! Remember the way everyone gazed at you” (Bunin 254)?

The role of experience and memory is also integral to the understanding of both stories. In “Grammar of Love”, Ivlev can not escape the experiences of his youth. He recalls the memory of Khvoshchinsky and his lost love in a way that seems to pain him rather than bring him nostalgia and joy. His memory is so strong that he even recalls feeling as though he loved Lushka himself because his friend’s obsession had been so strong. When Ivlev asks her son to see the necklace that once belonged to Lushka, he is left with a strong feeling, which he later compares to that of an experience he had in which he had seen the ancient relics of a female saint. Indeed, thoughts of Lushka linger with him even after he leaves the house when he remarks that “She has come into my life forever” (Bunin 172). This effect of feeling as though he loved her himself is an interesting one. Perhaps this is Bunin’s way of remarking upon the nature of man, the truth that reality and memory are practically indistinguishable from each other, as over time the mind distorts our memories.

The element of experience and memory is also a focal point in “Dark Paths”. For example, when “Your Excellency” arrives at the inn, he does not recognize his lost love until she mentions where she was raised. Time has skewed his memory to the point where someone he once loved dearly and intimately, was now a stranger to him, by which he seems surprised. “Dark Paths” truly expresses to its readers the fragility of time and experience, and how at any given moment there are several paths to choose from, with each choice we make taking is far away from the results another choice may have given us. Bunin uses the element of experience when explaining what the protagonist’s life has been like since he left the innkeeper as a young girl. He considers the fact that the failed experience with his wife has changed him irrevocably, and wonders what his life would have been like without this experience, having instead chosen to stay with his first love. Aside from the characters wrestling with the effects of experience and memory, the author leaves the readers pondering their nature as well. As we leave the protagonist questioning the choices he made in the past, we question why he left the inn. If his experience with his wife had been different—perhaps he had left her instead of her him—would he have acted differently? Does his sense of betrayal from his wife give him guilt that he did not choose the woman who truly loved him?

Certainly, it seems as though the questions we are left with are the true value of Ivan Bunin’s stories. Bunin leaves his endings somewhat unresolved. Perhaps more accurately, he ends his stories by presenting the protagonist with a new dilemma, and the reader with food for thought. These are atypical reflections on the love that become more realistic than other more cut and dry love stories. Bunin presents us with the reality of love, that it is fragile and easy to lose, and that finding it never truly guarantees happiness. Bunin’s literary relevance is undeniable, despite being lost and nearly forgotten beneath the celebrity of contemporary’s Chekov and Tolstoy. Bunin, unlike the others, provides a side of Russian literature that we may not otherwise see—that of subtlety, understated emotion, and stylistic prose. Thus, Bunin’s work should be considered with the same regard we give our favorite popular authors.

Works Cited

Bunin, Ivan. “Dark Paths”. 250-256.

Bunin, Ivan. “Grammar of Love” (1934). 158-172.

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“Grammar of Love” and “Dark Paths” by Ivan Bunin Review

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