The Gentleman from San Francisco

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin (1870—1953) - an impeccable master of Russian prose, the first Russian laureate of the Nobel Prize (1933). The story "The Gentleman from San Francisco" is a parable that narrates the insignificance of wealth and power in the face of death. At the center of the narrative is an American millionaire - by the end of the story we never learn his name. He decided to take a vacation and is traveling by steamboat to Italy with his family. Will his dreams come true? Or will fate decide to arrange things differently? The collection also includes novellas and stories about the psychology of the Russian people, the dying life of noble estates, the morals of the Russian village, and, of course, love. Love in Bunin's works always ends in loss. Only moments of love are possible - and the inevitable destructive fall, when idealistic youthful notions shatter upon encountering real life.