A Russian Affair

The Lady with the Little Dog

I

People said that there was a new arrival on the Promenade: a lady with a little dog. Dmitry Dmitrich Gurov, who had already spent a fortnight in Yalta and who was by now used to the life there, had also begun to take an interest in new arrivals. As he sat on the terrace of Vernet’s restaurant he saw a young, fair-haired woman walking along the Promenade, not very tall and wearing a beret. A white Pomeranian trotted after her.

And then he came across her several times a day in the municipal park and the square. She was always alone, always wearing that beret, always with the white Pomeranian. No one knew who she was and people simply called her ‘The lady with the little dog’.

‘If she’s here without husband or friends,’ Gurov reasoned, ‘then it wouldn’t be a bad idea if I got to know her.’

He was not yet forty, but already he had a twelve-year-old daughter and two schoolboy sons. He had been married off while still quite young, as a second-year student, and now his wife seemed about half as old again as he was. She was a tall, black-browed woman, plain-spoken, pretentious, respectable and – as she was fond of claiming – ‘a thinking woman’. She was an avid reader, followed the latest reforms in spelling, called her husband Demetrius instead of Dmitry. But in secret he considered her not very bright, narrow-minded and unrefined. He was afraid of her and disliked being at home. He had begun deceiving her a long time ago, had frequently been unfaithful – which was probably why he always spoke disparagingly of women and whenever they were discussed in his company he would call them an ‘inferior breed’.

He felt that he had learnt sufficiently from bitter experience to call them by whatever name he liked, yet, for all that, he could not have survived two days without his ‘inferior breed’. He was bored in male company, not very talkative and offhand. But with women he felt free, knowing what to talk to them about and how to behave. Even saying nothing at all to them was easy for him. There was something attractive, elusive in his appearance, in his character – in his whole personality – that appealed to women and lured them to him. He was well aware of this and some power similarly attracted him.

Repeated – and in fact bitter – experience had long taught him that every affair, which at first adds spice and variety to life and seems such a charming, light-hearted adventure, inevitably develops into an enormous, extraordinarily complex problem with respectable people – especially Muscovites, who are so hesitant, so inhibited – until finally the whole situation becomes a real nightmare. But on every new encounter with an interesting woman all this experience was somehow forgotten and he simply wanted to enjoy life – and it all seemed so easy and amusing.

So, late one afternoon, he was dining at an open-air restaurant when the lady in the beret wandered over and sat at the table next to him. Her expression, the way she walked, her clothes, her hairstyle – all this told him that she was a socially respectable, married woman, that she was in Yalta for the first time, alone and bored.

There was a great deal of untruth in all those stories about the laxity of morals in that town and he despised them, knowing that such fictions are invented by people who would willingly have erred – if they’d had the chance. But when the lady seated herself about three paces away from him at the next table, those stories of easy conquests, of trips to the mountains came to mind; and the alluring thought of a swift, fleeting affair, of a romance with a strange woman whose name he didn’t even know, suddenly possessed him.

Gently, he coaxed the dog over and when it came up to him he wagged his finger. The dog growled. Gurov wagged his finger again.

The lady glanced at him and immediately lowered her eyes.

‘He doesn’t bite,’ she said, blushing.

‘May I give him a bone?’ he asked. And when she nodded he said affably:

‘Have you been long in Yalta, madam?’

‘About five days.’

‘I’ve almost survived my second week here.’

There was a brief pause.

‘The time passes quickly, but it’s still so boring here!’ she said, without looking at him.

‘That’s the done thing – to say it’s boring there! Your average tripper who lives very nicely if you please in some backwater like Belyov or Zhizdra never gets bored there, but the moment he comes here he says: “Oh, what a bore! Oh, all this dust!” You’d think he’d just breezed in from sunny Granada!’

She laughed. They both carried on eating in silence, like strangers. But after dinner they wandered off together and then there began that inconsequential, light-hearted conversation of people who have no ties, who are contented, who could not care less where they go or what they talk about. As they walked they talked about the unusual light on the sea. The water was the soft, warm colour of lilac and a golden strip of moonlight lay across it. They talked about how humid it was after the heat of the day. Gurov told her he was a Muscovite, a graduate in literature but working in a bank. At one time he had trained as an opera singer but had given it up; and he owned two houses in Moscow. From her he learnt that she had grown up in St Petersburg but had got married in S—, where she had been living for the past two years; that she intended staying another month in Yalta, after which her husband – who also needed a break – might possibly come and fetch her. She was quite unable to explain where her husband worked – whether he was with the rural or county council – and this she herself found very funny. And Gurov discovered that her name was Anna Sergeyevna.

Later, back in his hotel room, he thought about her. He was bound to meet her tomorrow, of that there was no doubt. As he went to bed he remembered that she had only recently left boarding-school, that she had been a schoolgirl just like his own daughter – and he remembered how much hesitancy, how much awkwardness there was in her laughter, in the way she talked to a stranger – it must have been the very first time in her life that she had been on her own, in such surroundings, where men followed her, eyed her and spoke to her with one secret aim in mind, which she could hardly fail to guess. He recalled her slender, frail neck, her beautiful grey eyes.

‘Still, there’s something pathetic about her,’ he thought as he fell asleep.

II

A week had passed since their first encounter. It was a holiday. Indoors it was stifling and the wind swept the dust in swirling clouds down the streets, tearing off people’s hats. All day one felt thirsty and Gurov kept going to the restaurant to fetch Anna Sergeyevna cordials or ice-cream. But there was no escaping the heat.

In the evening, when the wind had dropped, they went down to the pier to watch a steamer arrive. Crowds of people were strolling on the landing-stage: they were all there to meet someone and held bunches of flowers. Two distinguishing features of the Yalta smart set caught one’s attention: the older women dressed like young girls and there were lots of generals.

The steamer arrived late – after sunset – owing to rough seas, and she swung about for some time before putting in at the jetty. Anna Sergeyevna peered at the boat and passengers through her lorgnette, as if trying to make out some people she knew, and when she turned to Gurov her eyes were sparkling. She talked a lot; her questions were abrupt and she immediately forgot what she had asked. Then she lost her lorgnette in the crowd.

The smartly dressed crowd dispersed, no more faces were to be seen; the wind had dropped completely and Gurov and Anna Sergeyevna still stood there, as if waiting for someone else to disembark. Anna Sergeyevna was silent now, sniffing her flowers and not looking at Gurov.

‘The weather’s improved a bit, now it’s evening,’ he said. ‘So, where shall we go? How about driving out somewhere?’

She made no reply.

Then he stared at her – and he suddenly embraced her and kissed her lips. He was steeped in the fragrance, the dampness of the flowers and at once he looked around in fright: had anyone seen them?

‘Let’s go to your place,’ he said softly.

And together they walked away, quickly.

Her room was stuffy and smelt of the perfume she had bought in the Japanese shop. Looking at her now Gurov thought: ‘The encounters one has in life!’ He still remembered those carefree, light-hearted women in his past, so happy in their love and grateful to him for their happiness – however short-lived. And he recalled women who, like his wife, made love insincerely, with too much talk, affectedly, hysterically, with an expression that seemed to say that it was neither love nor passion, but something more significant. And he recalled two or three very beautiful, cold women across whose faces there suddenly flashed a predatory expression, a stubborn desire to seize, to snatch from life more than it could provide … and these women were no longer young; they were capricious, irrational, domineering and unintelligent. And when Gurov cooled towards them their beauty aroused hatred in him and the lace on their underclothes seemed like fish scales.

But here there was that same hesitancy, that same discomfiture, that gaucheness of inexperienced youth. And there was an air of embarrassment, as if someone had just knocked at the door. In her own particular, very serious way, Anna Sergeyevna, that lady with the little dog, regarded what had happened just as if it were her downfall. So it seemed – and it was all very weird and out of place. Her features sank and faded, and her long hair hung sadly on each side of her face. She struck a pensive, dejected pose, like the woman taken in adultery in an old-fashioned painting.

‘This is wrong,’ she said. ‘You’ll be the first to lose respect for me now.’

On the table was a water-melon. Gurov cut himself a slice and slowly started eating it. Half an hour, at least, passed in silence.

Anna Sergeyevna looked most touching. She had that air of genuine, pure innocence of a woman with little experience of life. The solitary candle burning on the table barely illuminated her face, but he could see that she was obviously suffering.

‘Why should I lose my respect for you?’ Gurov asked. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying.’

‘May God forgive me!’ she said – and her eyes filled with tears. ‘It’s terrible.’

‘You seem to be defending yourself.’

‘How can I defend myself? I’m a wicked, vile woman. I despise myself and I’m not going to make any excuses. It’s not my husband but myself I’ve deceived. And I don’t mean only just now, but for a long time. My husband’s a fine honest man, but he’s no more than a lackey. What does he do in that office of his? I’ve no idea. But I do know he’s a mere lackey. I was twenty when I married him and dying from curiosity; but I wanted something better. Surely there must be a different kind of life, I told myself. I wanted to live life to the full, to enjoy life … to enjoy it! I was burning with curiosity. You won’t understand this, but I swear that my feelings ran away with me, something was happening to me and there was no holding me back. So I told my husband I was ill and I came here … And ever since I’ve been going around as if intoxicated, like someone demented. So, now I’m a vulgar, worthless woman whom everyone has the right to despise.’

Gurov found all this very boring. He was irritated by her naïve tone, by that sudden, untimely remorse. But for the tears in her eyes he would have thought she was joking or play-acting.

‘I don’t understand,’ he said softly. ‘What is it you want?’

She buried her face on his chest and clung to him.

‘Please, please believe me, I beg you,’ she said. ‘I yearn for a pure, honest life. Sin revolts me. I myself don’t know what I’m doing. Simple folk say: “The devil’s led me astray” – and I can honestly say that the devil’s led me astray.’

‘That’s enough, enough,’ he muttered.

He gazed into her staring, frightened eyes, kissed her and spoke softly and gently, so that gradually she grew calmer and her gaiety returned. They both started laughing.

Later, after they had gone out, there wasn’t a soul to be seen on the Promenade and that town with its cypresses seemed completely dead; but the sea still roared as it broke on the shore. A small launch with its little lamp sleepily glimmering was tossing on the waves.

They took a cab and drove to Oreanda.

‘I’ve just discovered your name downstairs in the lobby. The board says “von Diederitz”,’ Gurov said. ‘Is your husband German?’

‘No. I think his grandfather was, but he’s Russian.’

In Oreanda they sat on a bench near the church and looked down at the sea without saying a word. Yalta was barely visible through the morning mist; white clouds lay motionless on the mountain tops. Not one leaf stirred on the trees, cicadas chirped, and the monotonous, hollow roar of the sea that reached them from below spoke of peace, of that eternal slumber that awaits us. And so it roared down below when neither Yalta nor Oreanda existed. It was roaring now and would continue its hollow, indifferent booming when we are no more. And in this permanency, in this utter indifference to the life and death of every one of us there perhaps lies hidden a pledge of our eternal salvation, of never-ceasing progress of life upon earth, of the never-ceasing march towards perfection. As he sat there beside that young woman who seemed so beautiful at daybreak, soothed and enchanted at the sight of those magical surroundings – sea, mountains, clouds, wide skies – Gurov reflected that, if one thought hard about it, everything on earth was truly beautiful except those things we ourselves think of and do when we forget the higher aims of existence and our human dignity.

Someone came up – probably a watchman – glanced at them and went away. And even in this little incident there seemed to be something mysterious – and beautiful too. They could see the steamer arriving from Feodosiya, illuminated by the sunrise, its lights extinguished.

‘There’s dew on the grass,’ Anna Sergeyevna said after a pause.

‘Yes, it’s time to go back.’

They returned to town.

After this they met on the Promenade at noon every day, had lunch together, dinner together, strolled and admired the sea. She complained that she was sleeping badly, that she had palpitations and she asked him those same questions again, moved by jealousy, or fear that he did not respect her enough. And when they were in the square or municipal gardens, when no one was near, he would suddenly draw her to him and kiss her passionately. This complete idleness, the kisses in broad daylight when they would look around, afraid that someone had seen them, the heat, the smell of the sea and constant glimpses of those smartly dressed, well-fed people, seemed to transform him. He told Anna Sergeyevna how lovely she was, how seductive; he was impatient in his passion and did not leave her side for one moment. But she often became pensive and constantly asked him to admit that he had no respect for her, that he didn’t love her at all and could only see her as a vulgar woman. Almost every day, in the late evening, they would drive out somewhere, to Oreanda or the waterfall. The walks they took were a great success and every time they went their impressions were invariably beautiful and majestic.

Her husband was expected to arrive soon, but a letter came in which he told her that he had eye trouble and begged his wife to return as soon as possible. Anna Sergeyevna hurried.

‘It’s a good thing I’m leaving,’ Anna Sergeyevna said. ‘It’s fate.’

She went by carriage and he rode with her. The drive took nearly a whole day. When she took her seat in the express train she said after the second departure bell:

‘Let me look at you again … one last look. There …’

She was not crying, but she looked sad, as if she were ill, and her face was trembling.

‘I shall think of you … I shall remember you …’ she said. ‘God bless you …’ and take care of yourself. Don’t think badly of me. This is our final farewell – it must be, since we never should have met … Well, God bless you.’

The train swiftly drew out of the station, its lights soon vanished and a minute later its noise had died away, as though everything had deliberately conspired to put a speedy end to that sweet abandon, to that madness. Alone on the platform, gazing into the murky distance, Gurov listened to the chirring of the grasshoppers and the humming of the telegraph wires, and he felt that he had just woken up. So, this was just another adventure or event in his life, he reflected, and that too was over now, leaving only the memory … He was deeply moved and sad, and he felt a slight twinge of regret: that young woman, whom he would never see again, had not been happy with him, had she? He had been kind and affectionate, yet in his attitude, his tone and caresses, there had been a hint of casual mockery, of the rather coarse arrogance of a victorious male who, besides anything else, was twice her age. The whole time she had called him kind, exceptional, high-minded: obviously she had not seen him in his true colours, therefore he must have been unintentionally deceiving her …

Here at the station there was already a breath of autumn in the air and the evening was cool.

‘It’s time I went north too’, Gurov thought, leaving the platform. ‘It’s time!’

III

Back home in Moscow it was already like winter; the stoves had been lit; it was dark in the mornings when the children were getting ready for school and having their breakfast, so Nanny would briefly light the lamp. The frosts had set in. When the first snow falls, on the first day of sleigh-rides, it is so delightful to see the white ground and the white roofs. The air is so soft and so marvellous to breathe – and at such times one remembers the days of one’s youth. The old limes and birches, white with hoarfrost, have a welcoming look – they are closer to one’s heart than cypresses or palms and beside them one has no desire to think of mountains and sea.

Gurov was a Muscovite and he returned to Moscow on a fine, frosty day. When he put on his fur coat and warm gloves, and strolled down the Petrovka, when he heard the sound of bells on Saturday evening, that recent trip and the places he had visited lost all their enchantment. Gradually he immersed himself in Moscowlife, hungrily reading three newspapers a day whilst claiming that he didn’t read any Moscow papers, on principle. Once again he could not resist the temptation of restaurants, clubs, dinner parties, anniversary celebrations; he was flattered that famous lawyers and artists visited him and that he played cards with a professor at the Doctors’ Club. He could polish off a whole portion of Moscow hotpot straight from the pan.

After another month or two the memory of Anna Sergeyevna would become misted over, so it seemed, and only occasionally would he dream of her touching smile – just as he dreamt of others. But more than a month went by, deep winter set in, and he remembered Anna Sergeyevna as vividly as if he had parted from her yesterday. And those memories became even more vivid. Whether he heard in his study, in the quiet of evening, the voices of his children preparing their lessons, or a sentimental song, or an organ in a restaurant, whether the blizzard howled in the stove, everything would suddenly spring to life in his memory: the events on the jetty, that early, misty morning in the mountains, that steamer from Feodosiya and those kisses. For a long time he paced his room, reminiscing and smiling – and then those memories turned into dreams and the past merged in his imagination with what would be. He did not simply dream of Anna Sergeyevna – she followed him everywhere, like a shadow, watching him. When he closed his eyes he saw her as though she were there before him and she seemed prettier, younger, gentler than before. And he considered himself a better person than he had been in Yalta. In the evenings she would look at him from the bookcase, from the fireplace, from a corner; he could hear her breathing, the gentle rustle of her dress. In the street he followed women with his eyes, seeking someone who resembled her.

And now he was tormented by a strong desire to share his memories with someone. But it was impossible to talk about his love with anyone in the house – and there was no one outside it. Certainly not with his tenants or colleagues at the bank! And what was there to discuss? Had he really been in love? Had there been something beautiful, romantic, edifying or even interesting in his relations with Anna Sergeyevna? And so he was forced to talk about love and women in the vaguest terms and no one could guess what he was trying to say. Only his wife raised her dark eyebrows and said:

‘Really, Demetrius! The role of ladies’ man doesn’t suit you one bit …’

One night, as he left the Doctors’ Club with his partner – a civil servant – he was unable to hold back any more and said:

‘If you only knew what an enchanting woman I met in Yalta!’

The civil servant climbed into his sledge and drove off. But then he suddenly turned round and called out:

‘Dmitry Dmitrich!’

‘What?’

‘You were right the other day – the sturgeon was off!’

This trite remark for some reason suddenly nettled Gurov, striking him as degrading and dirty. What barbarous manners, what faces! What meaningless nights, what dismal, unmemorable days! Frenetic card games, gluttony, constant conversations about the same old thing. Those pointless business affairs and perpetual conversations – always on the same theme – were commandeering the best part of his time, his best strength, so that in the end there remained only a limited, humdrum life, just trivial nonsense. And it was impossible to run away, to escape – one might as well be in a lunatic asylum or a convict squad!

Gurov was so exasperated he did not sleep the whole night, and he suffered from a headache the whole day long. And on following nights too he slept badly, sitting up in his bed the whole time thinking, or pacing his room from corner to corner. The children bored him, he didn’t want to go anywhere or talk about anything.

During the Christmas holidays he packed his things and told his wife that he was going to St Petersburg on behalf of a certain young man he wanted to help – and he went to S—. Why? He himself was not sure. But he wanted to see Anna Sergeyevna again, to arrange a meeting – if that were possible.

He arrived at S— in the morning and took the best room in the hotel, where the entire floor was fitted from wall to wall with a carpet the colour of grey army cloth; on the table was an inkstand, grey with dust, in the form of a mounted horseman holding his hat in his uplifted hand and whose head had been broken off.

The porter told him all he needed to know: von Dodderfits (this was how he pronounced von Diederitz) was living on Old Pottery Street, in his own house, not far from the hospital. He lived lavishly, on the grand scale, kept his own horses and was known by everyone in town.

Without hurrying Gurov strolled down Old Pottery Street and found the house. Immediately opposite stretched a long grey fence topped with nails.

‘That fence is enough to make you want to run away’, Gurov thought, looking now at the windows, now at the fence.

It was a holiday, he reflected, and local government offices would be closed – therefore her husband was probably at home … In any event, it would have been tactless to go into the house and embarrass her. But if he were to send a note it would most likely fall into the husband’s hands and this would ruin everything. Best of all was to trust to luck. So he continued walking along the street, by the fence, waiting for his opportunity. He watched how a beggar went through the gates and was set upon by dogs; and then, an hour later, he heard the faint, indistinct sounds of a piano. Anna Sergeyevna must be playing. Suddenly the front door opened and out came some old lady followed by that familiar white Pomeranian. Gurov wanted to call the dog, but his heart suddenly started pounding and he was too excited to remember the dog’s name.

He carried on walking, hating that grey fence more and more. By now he was so irritated that he was convinced Anna Sergeyevna had forgotten him and was perhaps already dallying with someone else – which was only natural with a young woman forced to look at that damned fence from morning to night. He returned to his hotel room and sat on the sofa for a long time, not knowing what to do. Then he had dinner, after which he had a long sleep.

‘How stupid and upsetting it all is!’ he thought as he awoke and peered at the dark windows; it was already evening. ‘Well, now that I’ve had a good sleep what shall I do tonight?’

He sat on the bed that was covered with a cheap, grey hospital-like blanket and in his irritation he mocked himself: ‘So much for ladies with little dogs! So much for holiday adventures … Now I’m stuck in this hole!’

At the railway station that morning his attention had been caught by a poster that advertised in bold lettering the first night of The Geisha. He remembered this now and drove to the theatre.

‘It’s very likely she goes to first nights’, he thought.

The theatre was full and, as in all local theatres, there was a thick haze above the chandeliers; the gallery was noisy and excited. In the first row, before the performance began, the local dandies were standing with their arms crossed behind their backs. And in front, in the Governor’s box, sat the Governor’s daughter sporting a feather boa, while the Governor himself humbly hid behind the portière, so that only his hands were visible. The curtain shook, the orchestra took an age to tune up. All this time the audience were entering and taking their seats. Gurov looked eagerly around him.

And in came Anna Sergeyevna. She sat in the third row and when Gurov looked at her his heart seemed to miss a beat: now it was plain to him that no one in the whole world was closer, dearer and more important to him than she was. That little woman, not remarkable in any way, lost in that provincial crowd, with a vulgar lorgnette in her hand, now filled his whole life, was his sorrow, his joy, the only happiness that he now wished for himself. And to the sounds of that atrocious orchestra, of those wretched fiddlers, he thought how lovely she was. He thought – and he dreamed.

A young man with short side-whiskers, very tall and stooping, entered with Anna Sergeyevna and sat next to her. With every step he shook his head and he seemed to be perpetually bowing. Probably he was the husband whom she had called ‘lackey’ in Yalta in a fit of pique. And indeed, in his lanky figure, in his side-whiskers, in that slight baldness, there was something of a flunkey’s subservience. He had a sickly smile and in his buttonhole there gleamed the badge of some learned society – just like the number on a flunkey’s jacket.

In the first interval the husband went out for a smoke, while she remained in her seat. Gurov, who was also in the stalls, went up to her and forced a smile as he said in a trembling voice:

‘Good evening!’

She looked at him and turned pale. Then she looked again, was horrified and could not believe her eyes, tightly clasping her fan and lorgnette and obviously trying hard to stop herself fainting. Neither said a word. She sat there, he stood, alarmed at her embarrassment and not daring to sit next to her. The fiddles and flutes began to tune up and suddenly they felt terrified – it seemed they were being scrutinized from every box. But then she stood up and quickly went towards the exit. He followed her and they both walked aimlessly along the corridors, up and down staircases, caught glimpses of people in all kinds of uniforms – lawyers, teachers, administrators of crown estates, all of them wearing insignia. They glimpsed ladies, fur coats on hangers; a cold draught brought the smell of cigarette ends. Gurov’s heart was throbbing. ‘God in heaven!’ he thought. ‘Why these people, this orchestra?’

And at that moment he suddenly remembered saying to himself, after he had seen Anna Sergeyevna off at the station that evening, that it was all over and that they would never see one another again. But how far they still were from the end!

On the narrow, gloomy staircase with the sign ‘Entrance to Circle’ she stopped.

‘What a fright you gave me!’ she exclaimed, breathing heavily, still pale and stunned. ‘Oh, what a fright you gave me. I’m barely alive! Why have you come? Why?’

‘Please understand, Anna, please understand,’ he said hurriedly in an undertone. ‘I beg you, please understand!’

She looked at him in fear, in supplication – and with love, staring at his face to fix his features more firmly in her mind.

‘It’s such hell for me!’ she went on without listening to him. ‘The whole time I’ve thought only of you. I’ve existed only by thinking about you. And I wanted to forget, forget. But why have you come?’

On a small landing above them two schoolboys were smoking and looking down, but Gurov didn’t care. He drew Anna Sergeyevna to him and started kissing her face, her cheeks, her arms.

‘What are you doing? What are you doing?’ she cried out in horror, pushing him away. ‘We’ve both gone out of our minds! You must leave tonight … you must go now … I implore you, by all that’s holy, I beg you … Someone’s coming … !’

Someone was coming up the staircase.

‘You must go,’ Anna Sergeyevna continued, whispering. ‘Do you hear, Dmitry Dmitrich? I’ll come and see you in Moscow. I’ve never been happy, I’m unhappy now and I shall never, never be happy! Never! Don’t make me suffer even more! I swear I’ll come to Moscow. But now we must say goodbye … My dear, kind darling, we must part!’

She pressed his hand and swiftly went downstairs, constantly looking back at him – and he could see from her eyes that she really was unhappy. Gurov stayed a while longer, listening hard. And then, when all was quiet, he found his peg and left the theatre.

IV

And Anna Sergeyevna began to visit him in Moscow. Two or three times a month she left S—, telling her husband that she was going to consult a professor about some women’s complaint – and her husband neither believed nor disbelieved her. In Moscow she stayed at the Slav Fair Hotel, and the moment she arrived she would send a messenger with a red cap over to Gurov. He would go to her hotel and no one in Moscow knew a thing.

One winter’s morning he went to see her as usual (the messenger had called the previous evening but he had been out). With him walked his daughter, whom he wanted to take to school, as it was on the way. A thick wet snow was falling.

‘It’s three degrees above zero, yet it’s snowing,’ Gurov told his daughter. ‘But it’s only warm on the surface of the earth, the temperature’s quite different in the upper layers of the atmosphere.’

‘Papa, why isn’t there thunder in winter?’

And he explained this too, conscious as he spoke that here he was on his way to an assignation, that not a soul knew about it and that probably no one would ever know. He was leading a double life: one was undisguised, plain for all to see and known to everyone who needed to know, full of conventional truths and conventional deception, identical to the lives of his friends and acquaintances; and another which went on in secret. And by some strange, possibly fortuitous chain of circumstances, everything that was important, interesting and necessary for him, where he behaved sincerely and did not deceive himself and which was the very essence of his life – that was conducted in complete secrecy; whereas all that was false about him, the front behind which he hid in order to conceal the truth – for instance, his work at the bank, those quarrels at the club, his notions of an ‘inferior breed’, his attending anniversary celebrations with his wife – that was plain for all to see. And he judged others by himself, disbelieving what he saw, invariably assuming that everyone’s true, most interesting life was carried on under the cloak of secrecy, under the cover of night, as it were. The private, personal life of everyone is grounded in secrecy and this perhaps partly explains why civilized man fusses so neurotically over having this personal secrecy respected.

After taking his daughter to school, Gurov went to the Slav Fair Hotel. He took off his fur coat downstairs, went up and gently tapped at the door. Anna Sergeyevna, wearing his favourite grey dress, exhausted by the journey and by the wait, had been expecting him since the previous evening. She was pale and looked at him unsmiling; but the moment he entered the room she flung herself on his chest. Their kiss was long and lingering, as though they had not seen one another for two years.

‘Well, how are things?’ he asked. ‘What’s the news?’

‘Wait, I’ll tell you in a moment. But not now …’

She was unable to speak for crying. Turning away from him she pressed her handkerchief to her eyes.

‘Well, let her have a good cry … I’ll sit down in the meantime’, he thought as he sat in the armchair.

Then he rang and ordered some tea. After he had drunk it she was still standing there, facing the window. She wept from the mournful realization that their lives had turned out so sadly. They were meeting in secret, hiding from others, like thieves! Surely their lives were ruined?

‘Please stop crying!’ he said.

Now he could see quite clearly that this was no short-lived affair – and it was impossible to say when it would finish. Anna Sergeyevna had become even more attached to him, she adored him and it would have been unthinkable of him to tell her that some time all this had to come to an end. And she would not have believed him even if he had.

He went over to her and put his hands on her shoulders, intending to caress her, to joke a little – and then he caught sight of himself in the mirror.

He was already going grey. And he thought it strange that he had aged so much over the past years, had lost his good looks. The shoulders on which his hands were resting were warm and trembling. He felt pity for this life, still so warm and beautiful, but probably about to fade and wither like his own. Why did she love him so? Women had never taken him for what he really was – they didn’t love the man himself, but someone who was a figment of their imagination, someone they had been eagerly seeking all their lives. And then, when they realized their mistake, they still loved him. Not one of them had been happy with him. Time passed, he met new women, had affairs, parted, but never once had he been in love. There had been everything else, but there had been no love.

And only now, when his hair had turned grey, had he genuinely, truly fallen in love – for the first time in his life.

Anna Sergeyevna and he loved one another as close intimates, as man and wife, as very dear friends. They thought that fate itself had intended them for each other and it was a mystery why he should have a wife and she a husband. And in fact they were like two birds of passage, male and female, caught and forced to live in separate cages. They forgave one another all they had been ashamed of in the past, forgave everything in the present, and they felt that this love of theirs had transformed them both.

Before, in moments of sadness, he had reassured himself with any kind of argument that happened to enter his head, but now he was not in the mood for arguments: he felt profound pity and wanted to be sincere, tender …

‘Please stop crying, my sweet,’ he said. ‘You’ve had a good cry … it’s enough … Let’s talk now – we’ll think of something.’

Then they conferred for a long time and wondered how they could free themselves from the need to hide, to deceive, to live in different towns, to see each other only after long intervals. How could they break free from these intolerable chains?

‘How? How?’ he asked, clutching his head. ‘How?’

And it seemed – given a little more time – a solution would be found and then a new and beautiful life would begin. And both of them clearly realized that the end was far, far away and that the most complicated and difficult part was only just beginning.