The Belated Spring by Ivan Bunin. Short summary

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The author leaves the gloomy capital and goes to the countryside. He walks around the countryside, visiting former homesteads. The writer cannot get used to and accept the changes taking place. In his soul is the old Russia.

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The author travels from a gloomy and polluted Moscow to an acquaintance in the countryside. In a crowded carriage, he, unable to stand the stench, goes into the vestibule. There stands a former professor, unshaven and shabby. The scientist barely survives, but still hopes to do science.

The train is late, and there are no more people to meet. There is no one to hire, no one to spend the night. The writer sits all night on the porch of the inn. In the morning, a carriage rides up to the train with the commissioner, and the coachman takes the traveling companion. The writer visits an acquaintance and enjoys walks in the neighborhood. He visits the former princely manor, which is guarded by a one-armed Chinese man with a rifle. It is now a museum.

The author understands that there will be no going back to the past, but he cannot accept the new. Many come to their senses from the shocks and begin to live an ordinary life. In the soul of the writer, who by a miracle survived, that, the old Russia. He cites the end of Baratynsky’s elegy about a ghost predicting «an unhurried spring.» These lines seem to him a reflection of the new life of Russia.