In 1915, a short story by I.A. Bunin "The Gentleman from San Francisco". The title of the work can be confusing, especially if the reader is not familiar with the work of Ivan Alekseevich. It seems that we are talking about an exciting plot in which a certain gentleman, a mysterious person from alien lands, finds himself in the very center of amazing and somewhere dangerous adventures. However, the content of the story suggests otherwise. Who is this San Francisco man really?

Our site offers short story The Gentleman from San Francisco read online. Describing the protagonist, the author deliberately does not mention his name and warns from the very first lines that no one on board the Atlantis, Capri, or Naples remembered his name. How could this happen? Before us is a respectable middle-aged gentleman who, over many years of hard work, has accumulated money, acquired a strong family - a wife and daughter, and created his own reliable system of values. He deserves respect, a big name and a long-awaited rest. However, there is a downside to ostentatious well-being, proving the opposite. The life of this character was so gray, dull and vulgar that, on the contrary, if there was a person who remembered his name, it could become a real sensation. All his life he worked hard, but not for unprecedented discoveries and achievements, and not for inner growth and self-awareness. He pursued a different goal - to become equal to respected, "respectable" people from high society, and together with them to spend the remaining years in a variety of pleasures and pleasures. And now this long-awaited hour has come, when his financial condition approached the desired figure, and he could go on a long journey around the world. He crosses the ocean and ends up in a luxury hotel. In the evening, a sumptuous dinner awaits him, and he pompously prepares for it: he slowly washes, shaves, puts on an elegant tailcoat, magnificent ball shoes and goes downstairs ... A minute later, something terrible happens in a cozy reading room, and at the same time natural - he dies. Around the pandemonium and noise. The guests are sad. But it was not a tragedy that struck them, but a hopelessly ruined evening and an early departure from a decent hotel.

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The story "The Gentleman from San Francisco" Bunin wrote in 1915. The work was created in the tradition of neo-realism (an artistic movement in Russian literature).

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

main characters

gentleman from san francisco is a 58-year-old wealthy man who has 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 "had just begun to live." Before that, he "only existed", because he worked very hard. The gentleman planned to have a rest in Southern Italy in December and January, visit 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 steamer Atlantis, which "looked like a huge hotel with all the comforts." Passengers lived here measuredly, walked along the decks, played various games, read newspapers, dozed on long chairs.

In the evenings, after a sumptuous dinner, dances opened in the ballroom. Among the people who rested on the ship were a great rich man, and a famous writer, and 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 traveled incognita. The daughter of the gentleman was carried away by the prince, while the gentleman himself "looked all over" 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 befitted him - a very old man."

The family moved to Capri, where they were provided with the best apartments. There was supposed to be a tarantella in the hotel in the 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. A German was already there. The gentleman sat down in a "deep leather armchair," straightened his tight collar, and picked up a newspaper.

“Suddenly, the lines flashed in front of him with a glassy sheen, his neck tensed up, his eyes bulged, his pince-nez flew off his nose ... He rushed forward, wanted to take a breath of air - and groaned wildly; his lower jaw fell off, illuminating his entire mouth with gold fillings, his head fell on his shoulder and wrapped around, his shirt chest bulged out like a box - and his whole body, wriggling, raising the carpet with his heels, crawled to the floor, desperately fighting with someone.

If there had not been a German in the reading room, this “terrible incident” “could have been quickly and deftly hushed up in the hotel.” But the German ran screaming out of the reading room and "alarmed the whole house." The host tried to calm the guests, but many had already managed to see how the lackeys tore off the clothes from the gentleman, how he “still fought”, wheezed, “persistently fought 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 in the hotel, everything was somehow in order. But the evening was irreparably ruined. The owner approached the guests, reassuring them, "feeling guilty without guilt", promising to take "all measures in his power". Because of the incident, the tarantella was canceled, excess electricity was extinguished. The master's wife asked to transfer her husband's body to their apartment, but the owner refused and ordered that the body be taken out at dawn. Since there was nowhere to get the coffin, the body of the gentleman was placed in a long box of English soda water.

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 hit the same famous ship again” - Atlantis. “But now they were already hiding him from the living - they lowered him deeply in a tarred coffin into a black hold.” At night, the ship sailed past the island of Capri. As usual, there was a ball on the ship. "He was on the second and on the third night."

From the rocks of Gibraltar, the Devil was watching the ship. “The Devil was as big as a rock, but even bigger than him was the ship, many-tiered, many-trumpeted, created by the pride of a New Man with an old heart.” In the upper chambers of the ship, the overweight driver of the ship, similar to a "pagan idol", "sat". “In the underwater womb of the Atlantis, the thousand-pound bulks of boilers and all sorts of other machines shone dimly with steel, hissed with steam and oozed with boiling water and oil.” “And the middle of Atlantis, its dining rooms and ballrooms poured out light and joy, buzzed with the voice of an elegant crowd, fragrant with fresh flowers, sang with a string orchestra.”

And again, among the crowd, a “thin and flexible” pair of those very lovers flashed by. “And no one knew either that this couple had long been bored with pretending to suffer their blissful torment to shamelessly sad music, or that the coffin stands 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 "The Gentleman from San Francisco" is compositionally divided into two parts: before and after the death of the gentleman. The reader becomes a witness of a metamorphosis: in an instant, the status and money of the deceased depreciated. His body is treated with disrespect, like an "object" that can be thrown into a drink case. The author shows how the surrounding people are indifferent to the death of the same person as they are, how everyone thinks only about themselves and their “peace”.

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Retelling rating

Average rating: 4.1. Total ratings received: 4733.

Everyone knows the content of Bunin's story, which deals with a rich gentleman who suddenly died on the deck of a luxury yacht. This work is included in the school curriculum. Today we remember some details of the plot of the short story of the last Russian classic, and also answer the question "from what the gentleman from San Francisco died."

Characteristics of the main character

Little is said about the life of the hero. Yes, the work itself is small. However, Bunin made it clear that the life of his character is faceless, monotonous, one might even say, unspiritual. The biography of a wealthy American is described in the first paragraph. He was 58 years old. For many years he worked, saved and increased his fortune. He achieved a lot and now, in his declining years, he decided to take from life what he had not had time for before. Namely, travel.

What did the gentleman from San Francisco die of at the age of 58? After all, only now he began to truly live. Planned a trip to Monte Carlo, Venice, Paris, Seville and other wonderful cities. On the way back I dreamed of visiting Japan. But not fate. The life of many people is spent in labor. Not everyone has the opportunity to relax, have fun, visit distant countries. But Bunin's work is not about a workaholic who devoted his life to his beloved work. This is the story of a man whose existence was aimed at achieving financial well-being and the imaginary respect of others.

Once a gentleman from San Francisco was a penniless young man. One day, apparently, he set out to become a millionaire. He succeeded. Thousands of Chinese people worked tirelessly at his enterprise. He became rich. However, he did not live, but existed. Is it possible to call life a constant overcoming of barriers?

steamer

The writer compares the deck, cabins, room for staff with the circles of hell Dante. A wealthy American, his wife and daughter know nothing of what is going on downstairs. They rest, spend time as people of their circle should: have breakfast, drink coffee in a restaurant, then have lunch, slowly stroll along the deck. A gentleman from San Francisco has long dreamed of a vacation. However, it turned out that he did not know how to rest at all. He spends time as if according to the approved schedule. However, he himself did not notice this, being in anticipation of the corrupt love of the young Neapolitan women, carnival in Monte Carlo, bullfighting in Seville.

And somewhere far away, in the lower cabins, dozens of workers are working. A lot of people serve the hero Bunin and gentlemen like him. "Masters of life" have the right to a luxurious vacation. They deserve it.

The gentleman from San Francisco is quite generous. He believes in the care of all those who water him, feed him, serve him at breakfast. Although, perhaps, he never thought about the degree of sincerity of the staff. This is a man who sees nothing, as they say, beyond his nose.

What did the gentleman from San Francisco die of? Surrounding people warn his slightest desires, protect his purity and peace, drag his suitcases. He is in a state that can be called happiness. At least he hadn't experienced anything like it before.

To Palermo

Before answering the question of why the gentleman from San Francisco died, it is worth talking about his last days. They passed in the picturesque Palermo. Helpful guides scurried around here, broadcasting about local attractions.

A successful businessman knew how to pay. True, there are things in this world that cannot be bought with money. Unfortunately, the weather turned bad. From noon the sun was gray, it began to rain. The city seemed dirty, cramped, the museums were monotonous. The American with his family decided to leave Palermo. Where did the gentleman from San Francisco die? A successful businessman died before he could complete his journey on the island of Capri.

last hours

The island of Capri met the American family more hospitably. At first it was damp and dark, but soon nature came to life. And here the gentleman from San Francisco was surrounded by a caring crowd. He was served, catered to, offered - met in accordance with his social and financial position. The arrivals were given apartments, which had recently been occupied by another no less high-ranking person. For dinner, pheasants, asparagus, and roast beef were served.

What have you been thinking about in the last few minutes? main character story? About wine, tarantella, the upcoming walk in Capri. Philosophical thoughts did not visit him. However, as in the previous 58 years.

Death

The gentleman from San Francisco was going to have a rather pleasant evening. I spent a lot of time on the toilet. When I was ready for the next stage of luxurious, but well-planned leisure, I decided to go to the reading room. There he took a comfortable leather armchair, unfolded a newspaper, looked through an article about a never-ending Balkan war. In this unremarkable moment, he died.

After death

What did the gentleman from San Francisco die of? Most likely from a heart attack. Bunin did not say anything about the diagnosis of his hero. But it doesn't matter what the cause of the death of a rich American is. What matters is how he lived his life and what happened after his death.

And after the death of the rich gentleman, absolutely nothing happened. Unless other guests have a little spoiled mood. In order not to upset the impressionable gentlemen, the bellboy and footman quickly carried the dead American to the cramped, worst room.

Why did the gentleman from San Francisco die? His death irreparably spoiled such a beautiful evening. The guests returned to the dining room, had lunch, but their faces were dissatisfied, offended. The owner of the hotel came up to one or the other, apologized for such an unpleasant situation, in which, of course, he was not to blame. Meanwhile, the hero of the story was lying in a cheap room, on a cheap bed, under a cheap blanket. No one else smiled at him, no one served him. He was no longer interested in anyone.

gentleman from san francisco, who in the story is never named by name, since, the author notes, no one remembered his name either in Naples or Capri, he is sent with his wife and daughter to the Old World for two whole years in order to have fun and travel. He worked hard and is now rich enough to afford such a vacation.

At the end of November, the famous Atlantis, which looks like a huge hotel with all amenities, sets sail. Life on the ship is measured: they get up early, drink coffee, cocoa, chocolate, take baths, do gymnastics, walk along the decks to stimulate their appetite; then - go to the first breakfast; after breakfast they read the newspapers and calmly wait for the second breakfast; the next two hours are devoted to rest - all decks are filled with long reed chairs, on which travelers lie, covered with rugs, looking at the cloudy sky; then - tea with cookies, and in the evening - that which is the main goal of this entire existence - dinner.

A fine orchestra exquisitely and tirelessly plays in a huge hall, behind the walls of which the waves of a terrible ocean go with a roar, but decollete ladies and men in tailcoats and tuxedos do not think about it. After dinner, dancing begins in the ballroom, the men in the bar smoke cigars, drink liquors, and they are served by Negroes in red coats.

Finally, the ship arrives in Naples, the family of the gentleman from San Francisco stays in an expensive hotel, and here their life also flows according to routine: early in the morning - breakfast, after - visiting museums and cathedrals, second breakfast, tea, then - cooking for dinner and in the evening - a plentiful dinner. However, December in Naples turned out to be rainy this year: wind, rain, dirt on the streets. And the family of the gentleman from San Francisco decides to go to the island of Capri, where, as everyone assures them, it is warm, sunny and lemons bloom.

A small steamboat, rolling on the waves from side to side, transports a gentleman from San Francisco with his family, who are seriously suffering from seasickness, to Capri. The funicular takes them to a small stone town on top of a mountain, they settle in a hotel, where they are warmly welcomed by everyone, and they are preparing for dinner, already fully recovered from seasickness. Having dressed before his wife and daughter, the gentleman from San Francisco goes to the cozy, quiet reading room of the hotel, opens the newspaper - and suddenly the lines flash before his eyes, the pince-nez flies off his nose, and his body, wriggling, slides to the floor. Another guest of the hotel, who was present at the same time, runs into the dining room screaming, everyone jumps up from their seats, the owner tries to calm the guests, but the evening is already irreparably ruined.

The gentleman from San Francisco is transferred to the smallest and worst room; wife, daughter, servants stand and look at him, and now what they expected and feared has happened - he is dying. The wife of a gentleman from San Francisco asks the owner to allow the body to be transferred to their apartment, but the owner refuses: he appreciates these rooms too much, and tourists would begin to avoid them, since the whole of Capri would immediately become aware of what had happened. The coffin is also not available here - the owner can offer a long crate of soda water bottles.

At dawn, the cabman carries the body of the gentleman from San Francisco to the pier, the steamboat transports him through the Gulf of Naples, and the same Atlantis, on which he arrived with honor in the Old World, is now carrying him, dead, in a tarred coffin, hidden from the living. deep down in the black hold. Meanwhile, on the decks, the same life continues as before, everyone has breakfast and dinner in the same way, and the ocean, which is worried behind the windows of the portholes, is still terrible.

"Sir from San Francisco"- a story by Ivan Alekseevich Bunin. It is a parable that tells about the insignificance of wealth and power in the face of death. The main idea of ​​the story is the comprehension of the essence of human existence: human life is fragile and perishable, so it becomes disgusting if it lacks authenticity and beauty. First published in 1915 in the collection The Word in the Russian Empire.

History of creation

According to Bunin, the writing of the story was facilitated by the cover of Thomas Mann's novel "Death in Venice" accidentally seen in the summer of 1915 in Moscow in a bookstore window: in early September 1915, while visiting a cousin in the Oryol province, " for some reason, I remembered this book and the sudden death of an American who had arrived in Capri, at the Quisisana Hotel, where we lived that year, and immediately decided to write Death on Capri, which I did in four days - not hurrying, calmly, in tune with the autumn calm of the gray and already rather short and fresh days and the silence in the estate ... Of course, I crossed out the title "Death on Capri" immediately, as soon as I wrote the first line: "The gentleman from San Francisco ..." And San Francisco, and everything else (except that some American actually died after dinner at Quisisan) I made up... I read Death in Venice in Moscow only at the end of autumn. This is a very unpleasant book.» .

Summary

In terms of composition, the narrative can be divided into two unequal parts: the gentleman's journey from San Francisco on the ship Atlantis to the shores of Italy and the return journey of the ship Atlantis to the shores of the United States with the body of the gentleman in a coffin in the hold of the ship. The description of the gentleman's journey to Capri is written in dry, detached language; the master himself has no name, he is faceless in his desire to buy charms with the wealth he has real life. One of the striking symbols in this part of the story is a dancing couple of hired actors, depicting true passion in the dance. In a hotel in Capri, the gentleman dies unexpectedly, losing not only his life, but all the privileges of a rich man, becoming a burden on everyone around him, from the hotel owner, who is opposed to the coffin remaining in his apartment, and ending with his own family, who does not know what to do with the body of the lord. The description of the natural world, the world of poor people on the island of Capri, is carried out in a lively language full of symbolic images and therefore stands out against the background of the general style of the work. At the conclusion of the story, the body of the master returns home, to the grave, to the shores of the New World, on the same ship that carried him with great honor to the Old World, but now his body lies in a tarred coffin at the bottom of the hold, and on the ship in bright, shining chandeliers in the halls is a crowded ball.

Reviews of contemporaries

After the story's release, periodicals gave it high praise. So, the critic A. Derman wrote in the Russian Thought magazine of 1916: “ More than ten years separate us from the end of Chekhov's work, and during this period, if we exclude what was made public after the death of Leo Tolstoy, did not appear in Russian artwork, equal in strength and significance to the story "The Gentleman from San Francisco" ... How did the artist evolve? On the scale of his feelings ... With some kind of solemn and righteous sadness, the artist painted a large image of enormous evil - an image of sin in which the life of a modern city man with an old heart goes on, and the reader feels here not only the legality, but also the justice and beauty of the author's own coldness to his hero ..." The magazine "Russian wealth" from 1917 gave a more restrained response: " The story is good, but it lacks its merit, as the French say. The contrast between the superficial brilliance of our modern culture and its insignificance in the face of death is expressed in the story with gripping force, but it exhausts it to the very bottom ... »

Notes

Literature

• I. Bunin Collected works, volume 4. - Moscow: Fiction, 1966. - S. 483-488 (notes to that).
• Baboreko A. K. Bunin ZhZL series - M .: Young Guard, 457 p., 2004
• The gentleman from San Francisco in the library of Maxim Moshkov

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