“Late at night” is one of the key stories in Ivan Bunin’s Dark Avenues cycle. It tells of an émigré’s spiritual return and reconciliation with his past. In complete solitude, the protagonist revisits his abandoned hometown to honor the memory and grave of his first and only love. The story is built on the contrast between the relentless passage of time and lost happiness: vivid images of the past — the night garden, the first touch, the “green star” — oppose the emptiness of the present life. The mystical encounter at his beloved’s grave transforms memory into an eternal yet cold truth. Bunin achieves the height of poetic tragedy, blending the hopelessness of human fate with an elegy for lost Russia.