The Yalta waterfront by Natalia Muravskay from Anton Chekhov's short story "The Lady with the dog." |
Originally published:
December 1899.
GUEST BLOG/ Short Fiction by Anton
Chekov--It was said that a new person had appeared on the sea front: a lady
with a little dog. Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov, who had by then been a fortnight at
Yalta, and so was fairly at home there, had begun to take an interest in new
arrivals. Sitting in Verney's pavilion, he saw, walking on the sea-front, a
fair-haired young lady of medium height, wearing a béret; a white Pomeranian
dog was running behind her.
And afterwards he met her in the
public gardens and in the square several times a day. She was walking alone,
always wearing the same béret, and always with the same white dog; no one knew
who she was, and every one called her simply "the lady with the dog."
"If she is here alone without a
husband or friends, it wouldn't be amiss to make her acquaintance," Gurov
reflected.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian
playwright and short story writer, who is considered to be among the greatest
writers of short fiction in history.
Born: January 29, 1860, Taganrog, Russia. Died: July 15, 1904,
Badenweiler, Germany.
He was under 40, but he had a
daughter already 12 years old, and two sons at school. He had been married
young, when he was a student in his second year, and by now his wife seemed
half as old again as he. She was a tall, erect woman with dark eyebrows, staid
and dignified, and, as she said of herself, intellectual. She read a great
deal, used phonetic spelling, called her husband, not Dmitri, but Dimitri, and
he secretly considered her unintelligent, narrow, inelegant, was afraid of her,
and did not like to be at home. He had begun being unfaithful to her long ago
-- had been unfaithful to her often, and, probably on that account, almost
always spoke ill of women, and when they were talked about in his presence,
used to call them "the lower race."
It seemed to him that he had been so
schooled by bitter experience that he might call them what he liked, and yet he
could not get on for two days together without "the lower race." In
the society of men he was bored and not himself, with them he was cold and
uncommunicative; but when he was in the company of women he felt free, and knew
what to say to them and how to behave; and he was at ease with them even when
he was silent. In his appearance, in his character, in his whole nature, there
was something attractive and elusive which allured women and disposed them in
his favour; he knew that, and some force seemed to draw him, too, to them.
Experience often repeated, truly
bitter experience, had taught him long ago that with decent people, especially
Moscow people -- always slow to move and irresolute -- every intimacy, which at
first so agreeably diversifies life and appears a light and charming adventure,
inevitably grows into a regular problem of extreme intricacy, and in the long
run the situation becomes unbearable. But at every fresh meeting with an
interesting woman this experience seemed to slip out of his memory, and he was
eager for life, and everything seemed simple and amusing.
One evening he was dining in the
gardens, and the lady in the béret came up slowly to take the next table. Her
expression, her gait, her dress, and the way she did her hair told him that she
was a lady, that she was married, that she was in Yalta for the first time and
alone, and that she was bored. . . . The stories told of the immorality in such
places as Yalta are to a great extent untrue; he despised them, and knew that
such stories were for the most part made up by persons who would themselves
have been glad to sin if they had been able; but when the lady sat down at the
next table three paces from him, he remembered these tales of easy conquests,
of trips to the mountains, and the tempting thought of a swift, fleeting love
affair, a romance with an unknown woman, whose name he did not know, suddenly
took possession of him.
He beckoned coaxingly to the
Pomeranian, and when the dog came up to him he shook his finger at it. The
Pomeranian growled: Gurov shook his finger at it again.
"He doesn't bite," she
said, and blushed.
"May I give him a bone?" he
asked; and when she nodded he asked courteously, "Have you been long in
Yalta?"
"Five days."
"And I have already dragged out
a fortnight here."
There was a brief silence.
"Time goes fast, and yet it is
so dull here!" she said, not looking at him.
"That's only the fashion to say
it is dull here. A provincial will live in Belyov or Zhidra and not be dull,
and when he comes here it's 'Oh, the dullness! Oh, the dust!' One would think
he came from Grenada."
She laughed. Then both continued
eating in silence, like strangers, but after dinner they walked side by side;
and there sprang up between them the light jesting conversation of people who
are free and satisfied, to whom it does not matter where they go or what they
talk about. They walked and talked of the strange light on the sea: the water
was of a soft warm lilac hue, and there was a golden streak from the moon upon
it. They talked of how sultry it was after a hot day.
Gurov told her that he came from
Moscow, that he had taken his degree in Arts, but had a post in a bank; that he
had trained as an opera-singer, but had given it up, that he owned two houses
in Moscow. . . . And from her he learnt that she had grown up in Petersburg,
but had lived in S---- since her marriage two years before, that she was
staying another month in Yalta, and that her husband, who needed a holiday too,
might perhaps come and fetch her. She was not sure whether her husband had a
post in a Crown Department or under the Provincial Council -- and was amused by
her own ignorance. And Gurov learnt, too, that she was called Anna Sergeyevna.
Anna Sergeyevna |
"There's something pathetic
about her, anyway," he thought, and fell asleep.
II
A week had passed since they had made
acquaintance. It was a holiday. It was sultry indoors, while in the street the
wind whirled the dust round and round, and blew people's hats off. It was a
thirsty day, and Gurov often went into the pavilion, and pressed Anna
Sergeyevna to have syrup and water or an ice. One did not know what to do with
oneself.
In the evening when the wind had
dropped a little, they went out on the groyne to see the steamer come in. There
were a great many people walking about the harbour; they had gathered to
welcome some one, bringing bouquets. And two peculiarities of a well-dressed
Yalta crowd were very conspicuous: the elderly ladies were dressed like young
ones, and there were great numbers of generals.
Steamer arriving in Yalta, Ukraine |
The festive crowd began to disperse;
it was too dark to see people's faces. The wind had completely dropped, but
Gurov and Anna Sergeyevna still stood as though waiting to see some one else
come from the steamer. Anna Sergeyevna was silent now, and sniffed the flowers
without looking at Gurov.
"The weather is better this
evening," he said. "Where shall we go now? Shall we drive
somewhere?"
She made no answer.
Then he looked at her intently, and
all at once put his arm round her and kissed her on the lips, and breathed in
the moisture and the fragrance of the flowers; and he immediately looked round
him, anxiously wondering whether any one had seen them.
"Let us go to your hotel,"
he said softly. And both walked quickly.
The room was close and smelt of the
scent she had bought at the Japanese shop. Gurov looked at her and thought:
"What different people one meets in the world!" From the past he
preserved memories of careless, good-natured women, who loved cheerfully and
were grateful to him for the happiness he gave them, however brief it might be;
and of women like his wife who loved without any genuine feeling, with
superfluous phrases, affectedly, hysterically, with an expression that
suggested that it was not love nor passion, but something more significant; and
of two or three others, very beautiful, cold women, on whose faces he had
caught a glimpse of a rapacious expression -- an obstinate desire to snatch
from life more than it could give, and these were capricious, unreflecting,
domineering, unintelligent women not in their first youth, and when Gurov grew
cold to them their beauty excited his hatred, and the lace on their linen
seemed to him like scales.
But in this case there was still the
diffidence, the angularity of inexperienced youth, an awkward feeling; and
there was a sense of consternation as though some one had suddenly knocked at
the door. The attitude of Anna Sergeyevna -- "the lady with the dog"
-- to what had happened was somehow peculiar, very grave, as though it were her
fall -- so it seemed, and it was strange and inappropriate. Her face dropped
and faded, and on both sides of it her long hair hung down mournfully; she
mused in a dejected attitude like "the woman who was a sinner" in an
old-fashioned picture.
"It's wrong," she said.
"You will be the first to despise me now."
There was a water-melon on the table.
Gurov cut himself a slice and began eating it without haste. There followed at
least half an hour of silence.
Anna Sergeyevna was touching; there
was about her the purity of a good, simple woman who had seen little of life.
The solitary candle burning on the table threw a faint light on her face, yet
it was clear that she was very unhappy.
"How could I despise you?"
asked Gurov. "You don't know what you are saying."
"God forgive me," she said,
and her eyes filled with tears. "It's awful."
"You seem to feel you need to be
forgiven."
"Forgiven? No. I am a bad, low
woman; I despise myself and don't attempt to justify myself. It's not my
husband but myself I have deceived. And not only just now; I have been
deceiving myself for a long time. My husband may be a good, honest man, but he
is a flunkey! I don't know what he does there, what his work is, but I know he
is a flunkey! I was 20 when I was married to him. I have been tormented by
curiosity; I wanted something better. 'There must be a different sort of life,'
I said to myself. I wanted to live! To live, to live! . . . I was fired by
curiosity . . . you don't understand it, but, I swear to God, I could not
control myself; something happened to me: I could not be restrained. I told my
husband I was ill, and came here. . . . And here I have been walking about as
though I were dazed, like a mad creature; . . . and now I have become a vulgar,
contemptible woman whom any one may despise."
Gurov felt bored already, listening
to her. He was irritated by the naïve tone, by this remorse, so unexpected and
inopportune; but for the tears in her eyes, he might have thought she was
jesting or playing a part.
"I don't understand," he
said softly. "What is it you want?"
She hid her face on his breast and
pressed close to him.
"Believe me, believe me, I
beseech you . . ." she said. "I love a pure, honest life, and sin is
loathsome to me. I don't know what I am doing. Simple people say: 'The Evil One
has beguiled me.' And I may say of myself now that the Evil One has beguiled
me."
"Hush, hush! . . ." he
muttered.
He looked at her fixed, scared eyes,
kissed her, talked softly and affectionately, and by degrees she was comforted,
and her gaiety returned; they both began laughing.
Afterwards when they went out there
was not a soul on the sea-front. The town with its cypresses had quite a
deathlike air, but the sea still broke noisily on the shore; a single barge was
rocking on the waves, and a lantern was blinking sleepily on it.
They found a cab and drove to
Oreanda.
"I found out your surname in the hall just now: it was written on the board -- Von Diderits," said Gurov. "Is your husband a German?"
"No; I believe his grandfather
was a German, but he is an Orthodox Russian himself."
At Oreanda they sat on a seat not far
from the church, looked down at the sea, and were silent. Yalta was hardly
visible through the morning mist; white clouds stood motionless on the
mountain-tops. The leaves did not stir on the trees, grasshoppers chirruped,
and the monotonous hollow sound of the sea rising up from below, spoke of the
peace, of the eternal sleep awaiting us. So it must have sounded when there was
no Yalta, no Oreanda here; so it sounds now, and it will sound as indifferently
and monotonously when we are all no more. And in this constancy, in this
complete indifference to the life and death of each of us, there lies hid,
perhaps, a pledge of our eternal salvation, of the unceasing movement of life upon
earth, of unceasing progress towards perfection. Sitting beside a young woman
who in the dawn seemed so lovely, soothed and spellbound in these magical
surroundings -- the sea, mountains, clouds, the open sky -- Gurov thought how
in reality everything is beautiful in this world when one reflects: everything
except what we think or do ourselves when we forget our human dignity and the
higher aims of our existence.
A man walked up to them -- probably a
keeper -- looked at them and walked away. And this detail seemed mysterious and
beautiful, too. They saw a steamer come from Theodosia, with its lights out in
the glow of dawn.
"There is dew on the
grass," said Anna Sergeyevna, after a silence.
"Yes. It's time to go
home."
They went back to the town.
Then they met every day at twelve
o'clock on the sea-front, lunched and dined together, went for walks, admired
the sea. She complained that she slept badly, that her heart throbbed
violently; asked the same questions, troubled now by jealousy and now by the
fear that he did not respect her sufficiently. And often in the square or
gardens, when there was no one near them, he suddenly drew her to him and
kissed her passionately. Complete idleness, these kisses in broad daylight
while he looked round in dread of some one's seeing them, the heat, the smell
of the sea, and the continual passing to and fro before him of idle,
well-dressed, well-fed people, made a new man of him; he told Anna Sergeyevna
how beautiful she was, how fascinating. He was impatiently passionate, he would
not move a step away from her, while she was often pensive and continually
urged him to confess that he did not respect her, did not love her in the
least, and thought of her as nothing but a common woman. Rather late almost
every evening they drove somewhere out of town, to Oreanda or to the waterfall;
and the expedition was always a success, the scenery invariably impressed them
as grand and beautiful.
They were expecting her husband to
come, but a letter came from him, saying that there was something wrong with
his eyes, and he entreated his wife to come home as quickly as possible. Anna
Sergeyevna made haste to go.
"It's a good thing I am going
away," she said to Gurov. "It's the finger of destiny!"
She went by coach and he went with
her. They were driving the whole day. When she had got into a compartment of
the express, and when the second bell had rung, she said:
"Let me look at you once more .
. . look at you once again. That's right."
She did not shed tears, but was so sad
that she seemed ill, and her face was quivering.
"I shall remember you . . .
think of you," she said. "God be with you; be happy. Don't remember
evil against me. We are parting forever -- it must be so, for we ought never to
have met. Well, God be with you."
The train moved off rapidly, its
lights soon vanished from sight, and a minute later there was no sound of it,
as though everything had conspired together to end as quickly as possible that
sweet delirium, that madness. Left alone on the platform, and gazing into the
dark distance, Gurov listened to the chirrup of the grasshoppers and the hum of
the telegraph wires, feeling as though he had only just waked up. And he
thought, musing, that there had been another episode or adventure in his life, and
it, too, was at an end, and nothing was left of it but a memory. . . . He was
moved, sad, and conscious of a slight remorse. This young woman whom he would
never meet again had not been happy with him; he was genuinely warm and
affectionate with her, but yet in his manner, his tone, and his caresses there
had been a shade of light irony, the coarse condescension of a happy man who
was, besides, almost twice her age. All the time she had called him kind,
exceptional, lofty; obviously he had seemed to her different from what he
really was, so he had unintentionally deceived her. . . .
Here at the station was already a
scent of autumn; it was a cold evening.
"It's time for me to go
north," thought Gurov as he left the platform. "High time!"
III
At home in Moscow everything was in
its winter routine; the stoves were heated, and in the morning it was still
dark when the children were having breakfast and getting ready for school, and
the nurse would light the lamp for a short time. The frosts had begun already.
When the first snow has fallen, on the first day of sledge-driving it is
pleasant to see the white earth, the white roofs, to draw soft, delicious
breath, and the season brings back the days of one's youth. The old limes and
birches, white with hoar-frost, have a good-natured expression; they are nearer
to one's heart than cypresses and palms, and near them one doesn't want to be
thinking of the sea and the mountains.
Gurov was Moscow born; he arrived in
Moscow on a fine frosty day, and when he put on his fur coat and warm gloves,
and walked along Petrovka, and when on Saturday evening he heard the ringing of
the bells, his recent trip and the places he had seen lost all charm for him.
Little by little he became absorbed in Moscow life, greedily read three
newspapers a day, and declared he did not read the Moscow papers on principle!
He already felt a longing to go to restaurants, clubs, dinner-parties,
anniversary celebrations, and he felt flattered at entertaining distinguished
lawyers and artists, and at playing cards with a professor at the doctors'
club. He could already eat a whole plateful of salt fish and cabbage.
In another month, he fancied, the
image of Anna Sergeyevna would be shrouded in a mist in his memory, and only
from time to time would visit him in his dreams with a touching smile as others
did. But more than a month passed, real winter had come, and everything was
still clear in his memory as though he had parted with Anna Sergeyevna only the
day before. And his memories glowed more and more vividly.
When in the evening stillness he
heard from his study the voices of his children, preparing their lessons, or
when he listened to a song or the organ at the restaurant, or the storm howled
in the chimney, suddenly everything would rise up in his memory: what had
happened on the groyne, and the early morning with the mist on the mountains,
and the steamer coming from Theodosia, and the kisses.
He would pace a long time about his
room, remembering it all and smiling; then his memories passed into dreams, and
in his fancy the past was mingled with what was to come. Anna Sergeyevna did
not visit him in dreams, but followed him about everywhere like a shadow and
haunted him. When he shut his eyes he saw her as though she were living before
him, and she seemed to him lovelier, younger, tenderer than she was; and he
imagined himself finer than he had been in Yalta.
In the evenings she peeped out at him
from the bookcase, from the fireplace, from the corner -- he heard her
breathing, the caressing rustle of her dress. In the street he watched the
women, looking for some one like her.
He was tormented by an intense desire
to confide his memories to some one. But in his home it was impossible to talk
of his love, and he had no one outside; he could not talk to his tenants nor to
any one at the bank. And what had he to talk of? Had he been in love, then? Had
there been anything beautiful, poetical, or edifying or simply interesting in
his relations with Anna Sergeyevna? And there was nothing for him but to talk
vaguely of love, of woman, and no one guessed what it meant; only his wife
twitched her black eyebrows, and said:
"The part of a lady-killer does
not suit you at all, Dimitri."
One evening, coming out of the
doctors' club with an official with whom he had been playing cards, he could
not resist saying:
"If only you knew what a
fascinating woman I made the acquaintance of in Yalta!"
The official got into his sledge and
was driving away, but turned suddenly and shouted:
"Dmitri Dmitritch!"
"What?"
"You were right this evening:
the sturgeon was a bit too strong!"
These words, so ordinary, for some
reason moved Gurov to indignation, and struck him as degrading and unclean.
What savage manners, what people! What senseless nights, what uninteresting,
uneventful days! The rage for card-playing, the gluttony, the drunkenness, the
continual talk always about the same thing. Useless pursuits and conversations
always about the same things absorb the better part of one's time, the better
part of one's strength, and in the end there is left a life grovelling and
curtailed, worthless and trivial, and there is no escaping or getting away from
it -- just as though one were in a madhouse or a prison.
Gurov did not sleep all night, and
was filled with indignation. And he had a headache all next day. And the next
night he slept badly; he sat up in bed, thinking, or paced up and down his
room. He was sick of his children, sick of the bank; he had no desire to go
anywhere or to talk of anything.
In the holidays in December he
prepared for a journey, and told his wife he was going to Petersburg to do
something in the interests of a young friend -- and he set off for S----. What
for? He did not very well know himself. He wanted to see Anna Sergeyevna and to
talk with her -- to arrange a meeting, if possible.
He reached S---- in the morning, and
took the best room at the hotel, in which the floor was covered with grey army
cloth, and on the table was an inkstand, grey with dust and adorned with a
figure on horseback, with its hat in its hand and its head broken off. The
hotel porter gave him the necessary information; Von Diderits lived in a house
of his own in Old Gontcharny Street -- it was not far from the hotel: he was
rich and lived in good style, and had his own horses; every one in the town
knew him. The porter pronounced the name "Dridirits."
Gurov went without haste to Old
Gontcharny Street and found the house. Just opposite the house stretched a long
grey fence adorned with nails.
"One would run away from a fence
like that," thought Gurov, looking from the fence to the windows of the
house and back again.
He considered: today was a holiday,
and the husband would probably be at home. And in any case it would be tactless
to go into the house and upset her. If he were to send her a note it might fall
into her husband's hands, and then it might ruin everything. The best thing was
to trust to chance. And he kept walking up and down the street by the fence,
waiting for the chance. He saw a beggar go in at the gate and dogs fly at him;
then an hour later he heard a piano, and the sounds were faint and indistinct.
Probably it was Anna Sergeyevna playing. The front door suddenly opened, and an
old woman came out, followed by the familiar white Pomeranian. Gurov was on the
point of calling to the dog, but his heart began beating violently, and in his
excitement he could not remember the dog's name.
He walked up and down, and loathed
the grey fence more and more, and by now he thought irritably that Anna
Sergeyevna had forgotten him, and was perhaps already amusing herself with some
one else, and that that was very natural in a young woman who had nothing to
look at from morning till night but that confounded fence. He went back to his
hotel room and sat for a long while on the sofa, not knowing what to do, then
he had dinner and a long nap.
"How stupid and worrying it
is!" he thought when he woke and looked at the dark windows: it was
already evening. "Here I've had a good sleep for some reason. What shall I
do in the night?"
He sat on the bed, which was covered
by a cheap grey blanket, such as one sees in hospitals, and he taunted himself
in his vexation:
"So much for the lady with the
dog . . . so much for the adventure. . . . You're in a nice fix. . . ."
That morning at the station a poster
in large letters had caught his eye. "The Geisha" was to be performed
for the first time. He thought of this and went to the theatre.
"It's quite possible she may go
to the first performance," he thought.
The theatre was full. As in all
provincial theatres, there was a fog above the chandelier, the gallery was
noisy and restless; in the front row the local dandies were standing up before
the beginning of the performance, with their hands behind them; in the
Governor's box the Governor's daughter, wearing a boa, was sitting in the front
seat, while the Governor himself lurked modestly behind the curtain with only
his hands visible; the orchestra was a long time tuning up; the stage curtain
swayed. All the time the audience were coming in and taking their seats Gurov
looked at them eagerly.
Anna Sergeyevna, too, came in. She
sat down in the third row, and when Gurov looked at her his heart contracted,
and he understood clearly that for him there was in the whole world no creature
so near, so precious, and so important to him; she, this little woman, in no
way remarkable, lost in a provincial crowd, with a vulgar lorgnette in her
hand, filled his whole life now, was his sorrow and his joy, the one happiness
that he now desired for himself, and to the sounds of the inferior orchestra,
of the wretched provincial violins, he thought how lovely she was. He thought
and dreamed.
During the first interval the husband
went away to smoke; she remained alone in her stall. Gurov, who was sitting in
the stalls, too, went up to her and said in a trembling voice, with a forced
smile:
"Good-evening."
She glanced at him and turned pale,
then glanced again with horror, unable to believe her eyes, and tightly gripped
the fan and the lorgnette in her hands, evidently struggling with herself not
to faint. Both were silent. She was sitting, he was standing, frightened by her
confusion and not venturing to sit down beside her. The violins and the flute
began tuning up. He felt suddenly frightened; it seemed as though all the
people in the boxes were looking at them. She got up and went quickly to the
door; he followed her, and both walked senselessly along passages, and up and
down stairs, and figures in legal, scholastic, and civil service uniforms, all
wearing badges, flitted before their eyes. They caught glimpses of ladies, of
fur coats hanging on pegs; the draughts blew on them, bringing a smell of stale
tobacco. And Gurov, whose heart was beating violently, thought:
"Oh, heavens! Why are these
people here and this orchestra! . . ."
And at that instant he recalled how
when he had seen Anna Sergeyevna off at the station he had thought that
everything was over and they would never meet again. But how far they were
still from the end!
On the narrow, gloomy staircase over
which was written "To the Amphitheatre," she stopped.
"How you have frightened
me!" she said, breathing hard, still pale and overwhelmed. "Oh, how
you have frightened me! I am half dead. Why have you come? Why?"
"But do understand, Anna, do
understand . . ." he said hastily in a low voice. "I entreat you to
understand. . . ."
She looked at him with dread, with
entreaty, with love; she looked at him intently, to keep his features more
distinctly in her memory.
"I am so unhappy," she went
on, not heeding him. "I have thought of nothing but you all the time; I
live only in the thought of you. And I wanted to forget, to forget you; but
why, oh, why, have you come?"
On the landing above them two
schoolboys were smoking and looking down, but that was nothing to Gurov; he
drew Anna Sergeyevna to him, and began kissing her face, her cheeks, and her
hands.
"What are you doing, what are
you doing!" she cried in horror, pushing him away. "We are mad. Go
away today; go away at once. . . . I beseech you by all that is sacred, I
implore you. . . . There are people coming this way!"
Some one was coming up the stairs.
"You must go away," Anna
Sergeyevna went on in a whisper. "Do you hear, Dmitri Dmitritch? I will
come and see you in Moscow. I have never been happy; I am miserable now, and I
never, never shall be happy, never! Don't make me suffer still more! I swear
I'll come to Moscow. But now let us part. My precious, good, dear one, we must
part!"
She pressed his hand and began
rapidly going downstairs, looking round at him, and from her eyes he could see
that she really was unhappy. Gurov stood for a little while, listened, then,
when all sound had died away, he found his coat and left the theatre.
IV
And Anna Sergeyevna began coming to
see him in Moscow. Once in two or three months she left S----, telling her
husband that she was going to consult a doctor about an internal complaint --
and her husband believed her, and did not believe her. In Moscow she stayed at
the Slaviansky Bazaar hotel, and at once sent a man in a red cap to Gurov.
Gurov went to see her, and no one in Moscow knew of it.
Interior of the Hotel Slavianski Bazaar, Moscow before it was closed forever after the October Revolution in 1917. |
Once he was going to see her in this
way on a winter morning (the messenger had come the evening before when he was
out). With him walked his daughter, whom he wanted to take to school: it was on
the way. Snow was falling in big wet flakes.
"It's three degrees above
freezing-point, and yet it is snowing," said Gurov to his daughter.
"The thaw is only on the surface of the earth; there is quite a different
temperature at a greater height in the atmosphere."
"And why are there no
thunderstorms in the winter, father?"
He explained that, too. He talked,
thinking all the while that he was going to see her, and no living soul knew of
it, and probably never would know. He had two lives: one, open, seen and known
by all who cared to know, full of relative truth and of relative falsehood,
exactly like the lives of his friends and acquaintances; and another life
running its course in secret.
And through some strange, perhaps
accidental, conjunction of circumstances, everything that was essential, of
interest and of value to him, everything in which he was sincere and did not
deceive himself, everything that made the kernel of his life, was hidden from
other people; and all that was false in him, the sheath in which he hid himself
to conceal the truth -- such, for instance, as his work in the bank, his
discussions at the club, his "lower race," his presence with his wife
at anniversary festivities -- all that was open. And he judged of others by
himself, not believing in what he saw, and always believing that every man had
his real, most interesting life under the cover of secrecy and under the cover
of night. All personal life rested on secrecy, and possibly it was partly on
that account that civilised man was so nervously anxious that personal privacy
should be respected.
After leaving his daughter at school,
Gurov went on to the Slaviansky Bazaar. He took off his fur coat below, went
upstairs, and softly knocked at the door. Anna Sergeyevna, wearing his
favourite grey dress, exhausted by the journey and the suspense, had been
expecting him since the evening before. She was pale; she looked at him, and
did not smile, and he had hardly come in when she fell on his breast. Their
kiss was slow and prolonged, as though they had not met for two years.
"Well, how are you getting on
there?" he asked. "What news?"
"Wait; I'll tell you directly. .
. . I can't talk."
She could not speak; she was crying.
She turned away from him, and pressed her handkerchief to her eyes.
"Let her have her cry out. I'll
sit down and wait," he thought, and he sat down in an arm-chair.
Then he rang and asked for tea to be
brought him, and while he drank his tea she remained standing at the window
with her back to him. She was crying from emotion, from the miserable
consciousness that their life was so hard for them; they could only meet in
secret, hiding themselves from people, like thieves! Was not their life
shattered?
"Come, do stop!" he said.
It was evident to him that this love
of theirs would not soon be over, that he could not see the end of it. Anna
Sergeyevna grew more and more attached to him. She adored him, and it was
unthinkable to say to her that it was bound to have an end some day; besides,
she would not have believed it!
He went up to her and took her by the
shoulders to say something affectionate and cheering, and at that moment he saw
himself in the looking-glass.
His hair was already beginning to
turn grey. And it seemed strange to him that he had grown so much older, so
much plainer during the last few years. The shoulders on which his hands rested
were warm and quivering. He felt compassion for this life, still so warm and
lovely, but probably already not far from beginning to fade and wither like his
own. Why did she love him so much? He always seemed to women different from
what he was, and they loved in him not himself, but the man created by their
imagination, whom they had been eagerly seeking all their lives; and
afterwards, when they noticed their mistake, they loved him all the same. And
not one of them had been happy with him. Time passed, he had made their
acquaintance, got on with them, parted, but he had never once loved; it was
anything you like, but not love.
And only now when his head was grey
he had fallen properly, really in love -- for the first time in his life.
Anna Sergeyevna and he loved each
other like people very close and akin, like husband and wife, like tender
friends; it seemed to them that fate itself had meant them for one another, and
they could not understand why he had a wife and she a husband; and it was as
though they were a pair of birds of passage, caught and forced to live in
different cages. They forgave each other for what they were ashamed of in their
past, they forgave everything in the present, and felt that this love of theirs
had changed them both.
In moments of depression in the past
he had comforted himself with any arguments that came into his mind, but now he
no longer cared for arguments; he felt profound compassion, he wanted to be
sincere and tender. . . .
"Don't cry, my darling," he
said. "You've had your cry; that's enough. . . . Let us talk now, let us
think of some plan."
Then they spent a long while taking
counsel together, talked of how to avoid the necessity for secrecy, for
deception, for living in different towns and not seeing each other for long at
a time. How could they be free from this intolerable bondage?
"How? How?" he asked,
clutching his head. "How?"
And it seemed as though in a little
while the solution would be found, and then a new and splendid life would
begin; and it was clear to both of them that they had still a long, long road
before them, and that the most complicated and difficult part of it was only
just beginning.
The End.
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