I
People were telling one another that a newcomer had been seen on the promenade--a lady with a dog. Dmitri Dmitrich Gurov had been a fortnight in Yalta, and was accustomed to its ways, and he, too, had begun to take an interest in fresh arrivals. From his seat in Vernet's outdoor café, he caught sight of a young woman in a toque, passing along the promenade; she was fair and not very tall; after her trotted a white Pomeranian.
Later he encountered her in the municipal park and in the square several times a day. She was always alone, wearing the same toque, and the Pomeranian always trotted at her side. Nobody knew who she was, and people referred to her simply as "the lady with the dog."
"If she's here without her husband, and without any friends," thought Gurov, "it wouldn't be a bad idea to make her acquaintance."
He was not yet forty but had a twelve-year-old daughter and two sons in high school. He had been talked into marrying in his third year at college, and his wife now looked nearly twice as old as he did. She was a tall woman with dark eyebrows, erect, dignified, imposing, and, as she said of herself, a "thinker." She was a great reader, omitted the "hard sign" at the end of words in her letters, and called her husband "Dimitry" instead of Dmitry; and though he secretly considered her shallow, narrow-minded, and dowdy, he stood in awe of her, and disliked being at home. He had first begun deceiving her long ago and he was now constantly unfaithful to her, and this was no doubt why he spoke slightingly of women, to whom he referred as the lower race.
He considered that the ample lessons he had received from bitter experience entitled him to call them whatever he liked, but without this "lower race" he could not have existed a single day. He was bored and ill-at-ease in the company of men, with whom he was always cold and reserved, but felt quite at home among women, and knew exactly what to say to them, and how to behave; he could even be silent in their company without feeling the slightest awkwardness. There was an elusive charm in his appearance and disposition which attracted women and caught their sympathies. He knew this and was himself attracted to them by some invisible force.
Repeated and hitter experience had taught him that every fresh intimacy, while at first introducing such pleasant variety into every-day life, and offering itself as a charming, light adventure, inevitably developed, among decent people (especially in Moscow, where they are so irresolute and slow to move), into a problem of excessive complication leading to an intolerably irksome situation. But every time he encountered an attractive woman he forgot all about this experience, the desire for life surged up in him, and everything suddenly seemed simple and amusing.
One evening, then, while he was dining at the restaurant in the park, the lady in the toque came strolling up and took a seat at a neighboring table. Her expression, gait, dress, coiffure, all told him that she was from the upper classes, that she was married, that she was in Yalta for the first time, alone and bored. . . . The accounts of the laxity of morals among visitors to Yalta are greatly exaggerated, and he paid no heed to them, knowing that for the most part they were invented by people who would gladly have transgressed themselves, had they known how to set about it. But when the lady sat down at a neighboring table a few yards away from him, these stories of easy conquests, of excursions to the mountains, came back to him, and the seductive idea of a brisk transitory liaison, an affair with a woman whose very name he did not know, suddenly took possession of his mind.
He snapped his fingers at the Pomeranian and, when it trotted up to him, shook his forefinger at it. The Pomeranian growled. Gurov shook his finger again.
The lady glanced at him and instantly lowered her eyes.
"He doesn't bite," she said, and blushed.
"May I give him a bone?" he asked, and on her nod of consent added in friendly tones: "Have you been long in Yalta?"
"About five days."
"And I am dragging out my second week here."
Neither spoke for a few minutes.
"The days pass quickly, and yet one is so bored here," she said, not looking at him.
"It's the thing to say it's boring here. People never complain of boredom in godforsaken holes like Belyev or Zhizdra, but when they get here it's: 'Oh, the dullness! Oh, the dust!' You'd think they'd come from Granada to say the least."
She laughed. Then they both went on eating in silence, like complete strangers. But after dinner they left the restaurant together, and embarked upon the light, jesting talk of people free and contented, for whom it is all the same where they go, or what they talk about. They strolled along, remarking on the strange light over the sea. The water was a warm, tender purple, the moonlight lay on its surface in a golden strip. They said how close it was, after the hot day. Gurov told her he was from Moscow, had a degree in literature but worked in a bank; that he had at one time trained himself to sing in a private opera company, but had given up the idea; that he owned two houses in Moscow. . . . And from her he learned that she had grown up in Petersburg, but had gotten married in the town of S., where she had been living two years, that she would stay another month in Yalta, and that perhaps her husband, who also needed a rest, would join her. She was quite unable to explain whether her husband was a member of the province council, or on the board of the zemstvo, and was greatly amused at herself for this. Further, Gurov learned that her name was Anna Sergeyevna.
Back in his own room he thought about her, and felt sure he would meet her the next day. It was inevitable. As he went to bed he reminded himself that only a very short time ago she had been a schoolgirl, like his own daughter, learning her lessons, he remembered how much there was of shyness and constraint in her laughter, in her way of conversing with a stranger--it was probably the first time in her life that she found herself alone, and in a situation in which men could follow her and watch her, and speak to her, all the time with a secret aim she could not fail to divine. He recalled her slender, delicate neck, her fine gray eyes.
"And yet there's something pathetic about her," he thought to himself as he fell asleep.
II
A week had passed since the beginning of their acquaintance. It was a holiday. Indoors it was stuffy, but the dust rose in clouds out of doors, and people's hats blew off. It was a parching day and Gurov kept going to the outdoor café for fruit drinks and ices to offer Anna Sergeyevna. The heat was overpowering.
In the evening, when the wind had dropped, they walked to the pier to see the steamer come in. There were a great many people strolling about the landing-place; some, bunches of flowers in their hands, were meeting friends. Two peculiarities of the smart Yalta crowd stood out distinctly--the elderly ladies all tried to dress very youthfully, and there seemed to be an inordinate number of generals about.
Owing to the roughness of the sea the steamer arrived late, after the sun had gone down, and it had to maneuver for some time before it could get alongside the pier. Anna Sergeyevna scanned the steamer and passengers through her lorgnette, as if looking for someone she knew, and when she turned to Gurov her eyes were glistening. She talked a great deal, firing off abrupt questions and forgetting immediately what it was she had wanted to know. Then she lost her lorgnette in the crush.
The smart crowd began dispersing, features could no longer be made out, the wind had quite dropped, and Gurov and Anna Sergeyevna stood there as if waiting for someone else to come off the steamer. Anna Sergeyevna had fallen silent, every now and then smelling her flowers, but not looking at Gurov.
"It's turned out a fine evening," he said. "What shall we do? We might go for a drive."
She made no reply.
He looked steadily at her and suddenly took her in his arms and kissed her lips, and the fragrance and dampness of the flowers closed round him, but the next moment he looked behind him in alarm--had anyone seen them? "Let's go to your room," he murmured.
And they walked off together, very quickly.
Her room was stuffy and smelt of some scent she had bought in the Japanese shop. Gurov looked at her, thinking to himself: "How full of strange encounters life is!" He could remember carefree, good-natured women who were exhilarated by love-making and grateful to him for the happiness he gave them, however short-lived; and there had been others--his wife among them--whose caresses were insincere, affected, hysterical, mixed up with a great deal of quite unnecessary talk, and whose expression seemed to say that all this was not just lovemaking or passion, but something much more significant; then there had been two or three beautiful, cold women, over whose features flitted a predatory expression, betraying a determination to wring from life more than it could give, women no longer in their first youth, capricious, irrational, despotic, brainless, and when Gurov had cooled to these, their beauty aroused in him nothing but repulsion, and the lace trimming on their underclothes reminded him of fish-scales.
But here the timidity and awkwardness of youth and inexperience were still apparent; and there was a feeling of embarrassment in the atmosphere, as if someone had just knocked at the door. Anna Sergeyevna, "the lady with the dog," seemed to regard the affair as something very special, very serious, as if she had become a fallen woman, an attitude he found odd and disconcerting. Her features lengthened and drooped, and her long hair hung mournfully on either side of her face. She assumed a pose of dismal meditation, like a repentant sinner in some classical painting.
"It isn't right," she said. "You will never respect me anymore."
On the table was a watermelon. Gurov cut himself a slice from it and began slowly eating it. At least half an hour passed in silence.
Anna Sergeyevna was very touching, revealing the purity of a decent, naïve woman who had seen very little of life. The solitary candle burning on the table scarcely lit up her face, but it was obvious that her heart was heavy.
"Why should I stop respecting you?" asked Gurov. "You don't know what you're saying."
"May God forgive me!" she exclaimed, and her eyes filled with tears. "It's terrible."
"No need to seek to justify yourself."
"How can I justify myself? I'm a wicked, fallen woman, I despise myself and have not the least thought of self-justification. It isn't my husband I have deceived, it's myself. And not only now, I have been deceiving myself for ever so long. My husband is no doubt an honest, worthy man, but he's a flunky. I don't know what it is he does at his office, but I know he's a flunky. I was only twenty when I married him, and I was devoured by curiosity, I wanted something higher. I told myself that there must be a different kind of life I wanted to live, to live. . . . I was burning with curiosity . . . you'll never understand that, but I swear to God I could no longer control myself, nothing could hold me back, I told my husband I was ill, and I came here. . . . And I started going about like one possessed, like a madwoman and now I have become an ordinary, worthless woman, and everyone has the right to despise me."
Gurov listened to her, bored to death. The naïve accents, the remorse, all was so unexpected, so out of place. But for the tears in her eyes, she might have been jesting or play-acting.
"I don't understand," he said gently. "What is it you want?"
She hid her face against his breast and pressed closer to him.
"Do believe me, I implore you to believe me," she said. "I love all that is honest and pure in life, vice is revolting to me, I don't know what I'm doing. The common people say they are snared by the Devil. And now I can say that I have been snared by the Devil, too."
"Come, come," he murmured.
He gazed into her fixed, terrified eyes, kissed her, and soothed her with gentle affectionate words, and gradually she calmed down and regained her cheerfulness. Soon they were laughing together again.
When, a little later, they went out, there was not a soul on the promenade, the town and its cypresses looked dead, but the sea was still roaring as it dashed against the beach. A solitary fishing-boat tossed on the waves, its lamp blinking sleepily.
They found a carriage and drove to Oreanda.
"I discovered your name in the hall, just now," said Gurov, "written up on the board. Von Diederitz. Is your husband a German?"
"No. His grandfather was, I think, but he belongs to the Orthodox Church himself."
When they got out of the carriage at Oreanda they sat down on a bench not far from the church, and looked down at the sea, without talking. Yalta could be dimly discerned through the morning mist, and white clouds rested motionless on the summits of the mountains. Not a leaf stirred, the grasshoppers chirruped, and the monotonous hollow roar of the sea came up to them, speaking of peace, of the eternal sleep lying in wait for us all. The sea had roared like this long before there was any Yalta or Oreanda, it was roaring now, and it would go on roaring, just as indifferently and hollowly, when we had passed away. And it may be that in this continuity, this utter indifference to the life and death of each of us lies hidden the pledge of our eternal salvation, of the continuous movement of life on earth, of the continuous movement toward perfection.
Side by side with a young woman, who looked so exquisite in the early light, soothed and enchanted by the sight of all this magical beauty--sea, mountains, clouds and the vast expanse of the sky--Gurov told himself that, when you came to think of it, everything in the world is beautiful really, everything but our own thoughts and actions, when we lose sight of the higher aims of life, and of our dignity as human beings.
Someone approached them--a watchman, probably--looked at them and went away. And there was something mysterious and beautiful even in this. The steamer from Feodosia could be seen coming towards the pier, lit up by the dawn, its lamps out.
"There's dew on the grass," said Anna Sergeyevna, breaking the silence.
"Yes. Time to go home."
They went back to the town.
After this they met every day at noon on the promenade, lunching and dining together, going for walks, and admiring the sea. She complained of sleeplessness, of palpitations, asked the same questions over and over again, alternately surrendering to jealousy and the fear that he did not really respect her. And often, when there was nobody in sight in the square or the park, he would draw her to him and kiss her passionately. The utter idleness, these kisses in broad daylight, accompanied by furtive glances and the fear of discovery, the heat, the smell of the sea, and the idle, smart, well-fed people continually crossing their field of vision, seemed to have given him a new lease of life. He told Anna Sergeyevna she was beautiful and seductive, made love to her with impetuous passion, and never left her side, while she was always pensive, always trying to force from him the admission that he did not respect her, that he did not love her a bit, and considered her just an ordinary woman. Almost every night they drove out of town, to Oreanda, the waterfall, or some other beauty-spot. And these excursions were invariably a success, each contributing fresh impressions of majestic beauty.
All this time they kept expecting her husband to arrive. But a letter came in which he told his wife that he was having trouble with his eyes, and implored her to come home as soon as possible. Anna Sergeyevna made hasty preparations for leaving.
"It's a good thing I'm going," she said to Gurov. "It's the intervention of fate."
She left Yalta in a carriage, and he went with her as far as the railway station. The drive took nearly a whole day. When she got into the express train, after the second bell had been rung, she said:
"Let me have one more look at you. . . . One last look. That's right."
She did not weep, but was mournful, and seemed ill, the muscles of her cheeks twitching.
"I shall think of you . . . I shall think of you all the time," she said. "God bless you! Think kindly of me. We are parting forever, it must be so, because we ought never to have met. Good-bye--God bless you."
The train steamed rapidly out of the station, its lights soon disappearing, and a minute later even the sound it made was silenced, as if everything were conspiring to bring this sweet oblivion, this madness, to an end as quickly as possible. And Gurov, standing alone on the platform and gazing into the dark distance, listened to the shrilling of the grasshoppers and the humming of the telegraph wires, with a feeling that he had only just awakened. And he told himself that this had been just one more of the many adventures in his life, and that it, too, was over, leaving nothing but a memory. . . . He was moved and sad, and felt a slight remorse. After all, this young woman whom he would never again see had not been really happy with him. He had been friendly and affectionate with her, but in his whole behaviour, in the tones of his voice, in his very caresses, there had been a shade of irony, the insulting indulgence of the fortunate male, who was, moreover, almost twice her age. She had insisted in calling him good, remarkable, high-minded. Evidently he had appeared to her different from his real self, in a word he had involuntarily deceived her. . . .
There was an autumnal feeling in the air, and the evening was chilly.
"It's time for me to be going north, too," thought Gurov, as he walked away from the platform. "High time!"
III
When he got back to Moscow it was beginning to look like winter; the stoves were heated every day, and it was still dark when the children got up to go to school and drank their tea, so that the nurse had to light the lamp for a short time. Frost had set in. When the first snow falls, and one goes for one's first sleigh-ride, it is pleasant to see the white ground, the white roofs; one breathes freely and lightly, and remembers the days of one's youth. The ancient lime-trees and birches, white with hoarfrost, have a good-natured look, they are closer to the heart than cypresses and palms, and beneath their branches one is no longer haunted by the memory of mountains and the sea.
Gurov had always lived in Moscow, and he returned to Moscow on a fine frosty day, and when he put on his fur-lined overcoat and thick gloves, and sauntered down Petrovka Street, and when, on Saturday evening, he heard the church bells ringing, his recent journey and the places he had visited lost their charm for him. He became gradually immersed in Moscow life, reading with avidity three newspapers a day, while declaring he never read Moscow newspapers on principle. Once more he was caught up in a whirl of restaurants, clubs, banquets, and celebrations, once more glowed with the flattering consciousness that well-known lawyers and actors came to his house, that he played cards in the Medical Club opposite a professor. He could once again eat a whole serving of Moscow Fish Stew served in a pan.
He had believed that in a month's time Anna Sergeyevna would be nothing but a vague memory, and that hereafter, with her wistful smile, she would only occasionally appear to him in dreams, like others before her. But the month was now well over and winter was in full swing, and all was as clear in his memory as if he had parted with Anna Sergeyevna only the day before. And his recollections grew ever more insistent. When the voices of his children at their lessons reached him in his study through the evening stillness, when he heard a song, or the sounds of a music-box in a restaurant, when the wind howled in the chimney, it all came back to him: early morning on the pier, the misty mountains, the steamer from Feodosia, the kisses. He would pace up and down his room for a long time, smiling at his memories, and then memory turned into dreaming, and what had happened mingled in his imagination with what was going to happen. Anna Sergeyevna did not come to him in his dreams, she accompanied him everywhere, like his shadow, following him everywhere he went. When he closed his eyes, she seemed to stand before him in the flesh, still lovelier, younger, tenderer than she had really been, and looking back, he saw himself, too, as better than he had been in Yalta. In the evenings she looked out at him from the bookshelves, the fireplace, the corner, he could hear her breathing, the sweet rustle of her skirts. In the streets he followed women with his eyes, to see if there were any like her. . . .
He began to feel an overwhelming desire to share his memories with someone. But he could not speak of his love at home, and outside his home who was there for him to confide in? Not the tenants living in his house, and certainly not his colleagues at the bank. And what was there to tell? Was it love that he had felt? Had there been anything exquisite, poetic, anything instructive or even amusing about his relations with Anna Sergeyevna? He had to content himself with uttering vague generalizations about love and women, and nobody guessed what he meant, though his wife's dark eyebrows twitched as she said:
"The role of a coxcomb doesn't suit you a bit, Dimitry."
One evening, leaving the Medical Club with one of his card-partners, a government official, he could not refrain from remarking:
"If you only knew what a charming woman I met in Yalta!"
The official got into his sleigh, and just before driving off, turned and called out:
"Dmitry Dmitrich!"
"Yes?"
"You were quite right, you know--the sturgeon was just a leetle off."
These words, in themselves so commonplace, for some reason infuriated Gurov, seemed to him humiliating, gross. What savage manners, what people! What wasted evenings, what tedious, empty days! Frantic card-playing, gluttony, drunkenness, perpetual talk always about the same thing. The greater part of one's time and energy went on business that was no use to anyone, and on discussing the same thing over and over again, and there was nothing to show for it all but a stunted wingless existence and a round of trivialities, and there was nowhere to escape to, you might as well be in a madhouse or a convict settlement.
Gurov lay awake all night, raging, and went about the whole of the next day with a headache. He slept badly on the succeeding nights, too, sitting up in bed, thinking, or pacing the floor of his room. He was sick of his children, sick of the bank, felt not the slightest desire to go anywhere or talk about anything.
When the Christmas holidays came, he packed his things, telling his wife he had to go to Petersburg in the interests of a certain young man, and set off for the town of S. To what end? He hardly knew himself. He only knew that he must see Anna Sergeyevna, must speak to her, arrange a meeting, if possible.
He arrived at S. in the morning and engaged the best suite in the hotel, which had a carpet of gray military frieze, and a dusty ink-pot on the table, surmounted by a headless rider, holding his hat in his raised hand. The hall porter told him what he wanted to know: von Diederitz had a house of his own in Staro-Goncharnaya Street. It wasn't far from the hotel, he lived on a grand scale, luxuriously, kept carriage-horses, the whole town knew him. The hall porter pronounced the name "Drideritz."
Gurov strolled over to Staro-Goncharnaya Street and discovered the house. In front of it was a long gray fence with inverted nails hammered into the tops of the palings.
"A fence like that is enough to make anyone want to run away, thought Gurov, looking at the windows of the house and the fence.
He reasoned that since it was a holiday, Anna's husband would probably be at home. In any case it would be tactless to embarrass her by calling at the house. And a note might fall into the hands of the husband, and bring about catastrophe. The best thing would be to wait about on the chance of seeing her. And he walked up and down the street, hovering in the vicinity of the fence, watching for his chance. A beggar entered the gate, only to be attacked by dogs, then, an hour later, the faint, vague sounds of a piano reached his ears. That would be Anna Sergeyevna playing. Suddenly the front door opened and an old woman came out, followed by a familiar white Pomeranian. Gurov tried to call to it, but his heart beat violently, and in his agitation he could not remember its name.
He walked on, hating the gray fence more and more, and now ready to tell himself irately that Anna Sergeyevna had forgotten him, had already, perhaps, found distraction in another--what could be more natural in a young woman who had to look at this accursed fence from morning to night? He went back to his hotel and sat on the sofa in his suite for some time, not knowing what to do, then lie ordered dinner, and after dinner, had a long sleep.
"What a foolish, restless business," he thought, waking up and looking towards the dark windowpanes. It was evening by now. "Well, I've had my sleep out. And what am I to do in the night?"
He sat up in bed, covered by the cheap gray quilt, which reminded him of a hospital blanket, and in his vexation he fell to taunting himself.
"You and your lady with a dog. . . there's adventure for you! See what you get for your pains."
On his arrival at the station that morning he had noticed a poster announcing in enormous letters the first performance at the local theatre of The Geisha. Remembering this; he got up and made for the theatre.
"It's highly probable that she goes to first nights," he told himself.
The theatre was full. It was a typical provincial theatre, with a mist collecting over the chandeliers, and the crowd in the gallery fidgeting noisily. In the first row of the stalls the local dandies stood waiting for the curtain to go up, their hands clasped behind them. There, in the front seat of the governor's box, sat the governor's daughter, wearing a boa, the governor himself hiding modestly behind the drapes, so that only his hands were visible. The curtain stirred, the orchestra took a long time tuning up their instruments. Gurov's eyes roamed eagerly over the audience as they filed in and occupied their seats.
Anna Sergeyevna came in, too. She seated herself in the third row of the stalls, and when Gurov's glance fell on her, his heart seemed to stop, and he knew in a flash that the whole world contained no one nearer or dearer to him, no one more important to his happiness. This little woman, lost in the provincial crowd, in no way remarkable, holding a silly lorgnette in her hand, now filled his whole life, was his grief, his joy, all that he desired. Lulled by the sounds coming from the wretched orchestra, with its feeble, amateurish violinists, he thought how beautiful she was . . . thought and dreamed. . . .
Anna Sergeyevna was accompanied by a tall, round-shouldered young man with small whiskers, who nodded at every step before taking the seat beside her and seemed to be continually bowing to someone. This must be her husband, whom, in a fit of bitterness, at Yalta, she had called a "flunky." And there really was something of a lackey's servility in his lanky figure, his side-whiskers, and the little bald spot on the top of his head. And he smiled sweetly, and the badge of some scientific society gleaming in his buttonhole was like the number on a footman's livery.
The husband went out to smoke in the first interval, and she was left alone in her seat. Gurov, who had taken a seat in the stalls, went up to her and said in a trembling voice, with a forced smile: "How d'you do?"
She glanced up at him and turned pale, then looked at him again in alarm, unable to believe her eyes, squeezing her fan and lorgnette in one hand, evidently struggling to overcome a feeling of faintness. Neither of them said a word. She sat there, and he stood beside her, disconcerted by her embarrassment, and not daring to sit down. The violins and flutes sang out as they were tuned, and there was a tense sensation in the atmosphere, as if they were being watched from all the boxes. At last she got up and moved rapidly towards one of the exits. He followed her and they wandered aimlessly along corridors, up and down stairs; figures flashed by in the uniforms of legal officials, high-school teachers and civil servants, all wearing badges; ladies, coats hanging from pegs flashed by; there was a sharp draft, bringing with it an odor of cigarette butts. And Gurov, whose heart was beating violently, thought:
"What on earth are all these people, this orchestra for?. . ."
The next minute he suddenly remembered how, after seeing Anna Sergeyevna off that evening at the station, he had told himself that all was over, and they would never meet again. And how far away the end seemed to be now!
She stopped on a dark narrow staircase over which was a notice bearing the inscription "To the upper circle."
"How you frightened me!" she said, breathing heavily, still pale and half-stunned. "Oh, how you frightened me! I'm almost dead! Why did you come? Oh, why?"
"But, Anna," he said, in low, hasty tones. "But, Anna. . .Try to understand . . . do try. . . ."
She cast him a glance of fear, entreaty, love, and then gazed at him steadily, as if to fix his features firmly in her memory.
"I've been so unhappy," she continued, taking no notice of his words. "I could think of nothing but you the whole time, I lived on the thoughts of you. I tried to forget-why, oh, why did you come?"
On the landing above them were two schoolboys, smoking and looking down, but Gurov did not care, and, drawing Anna Sergeyevna towards him, began kissing her face, her lips, her hands.
"What are you doing, oh, what are you doing?" she said in horror, drawing back. "We have both gone mad. Go away this very night, this moment. . . . By all that is sacred, I implore you. . . Somebody is coming."
Someone was ascending the stairs.
"You must go away," went on Anna Sergeyevna in a whisper. "D'you hear me, Dmitry Dmitrich? I'll come to you in Moscow. I have never been happy, I am unhappy now, and I shall never be happy--never! Do not make me suffer still more! I will come to you in Moscow, I swear it! And now we must part! My dear one, my kind one, my darling, we must part."
She pressed his hand and hurried down the stairs, looking back at him continually, and her eyes showed that she was in truth unhappy. Gurov stood where he was for a short time, listening, and when all was quiet, went to look for his coat, and left the theatre.
IV
And Anna Sergeyevna began going to Moscow to see him. Every two or three months she left the town of S., telling her husband that she was going to consult a specialist on female diseases, and her husband believed her and did not believe her. In Moscow she always stayed at the Slavyanski Bazaar, sending a man in a red cap to Gurov the moment she arrived. Gurov went to her, and no one in Moscow knew anything about it.
One winter morning he went to see her as usual (the messenger had been to him the evening before, but had not found him at home). His daughter was with him, for her school was on the way and he thought he might as well see her to it.
"It is forty degrees," said Gurov to his daughter, "and yet it is snowing. You see it is only above freezing close to the ground, the temperature in the upper layers of the atmosphere is quite different."
"Why doesn't it ever thunder in winter, Papa?"
He explained this, too. As he was speaking, he kept reminding himself that he was going to a rendezvous and that not a living soul knew about it, or, probably, ever would. He led a double life--one in public, in the sight of all whom it concerned, full of conventional truth and conventional deception, exactly like the lives of his friends and acquaintances, and another which flowed in secret. And, owing to some strange, possibly quite accidental chain of circumstances, everything that was important, interesting, essential, everything about which he was sincere and never deceived himself, everything that composed the kernel of his life, went on in secret, while everything that was false in him, everything that composed the husk in which he hid himself and the truth which was in him-his work at the bank, discussions at the club, his "lower race," his attendance at anniversary celebrations with his wife-was on the surface. He began to judge others by himself, no longer believing what he saw, and always assuming that the real, the only interesting life of every individual goes on as under cover of night, secretly. Every individual existence revolves around mystery, and perhaps that is the chief reason that all cultivated individuals insisted so strongly on the respect due to personal secrets.
After leaving his daughter at the door of her school Gurov set off for the Slavyanski Bazaar. Taking off his overcoat in the lobby, he went upstairs and knocked softly on the door. Anna Sergeyevna, wearing the gray dress he liked most, exhausted by her journey and by suspense, had been expecting him since the evening before. She was pale and looked at him without smiling, but was in his arms almost before he was fairly in the room. Their kiss was lingering, prolonged, as if they had not met for years.
"Well, how are you?" he asked. "Anything new?"
"Wait, I'll tell you in a minute I can't . . . "
She could not speak, because she was crying. Turning away, she held her handkerchief to her eyes.
"I'll wait till she's had her cry out," he thought, and sank into a chair.
He rang for tea, and a little later, while he was drinking it, she was still standing there, her face to the window. She wept from emotion, from her bitter consciousness of the sadness of their life; they could only see one another in secret, hiding from people, as if they were thieves. Was not their life a broken one?
"Don't cry," he said.
It was quite obvious to him that this love of theirs would not soon come to an end, and that no one could say when this end would be. Anna Sergeyevna loved him ever more fondly, worshipped him, and there would have been no point in telling her that one day it must end. Indeed, she would not have believed him.
He moved over and took her by the shoulders, intending to caress her, to make a joke, but suddenly he caught sight of himself in the looking-glass.
His hair was already beginning to turn gray. It struck him as strange that he should have aged so much in the last few years, have lost so much of his looks. The shoulders on which his hands lay were warm and quivering. He felt a pity for this life, still so warm and exquisite, but probably soon to fade and droop like his own. Why did she love him so? Women had always believed him different from what he really was, had loved in him not himself but the man their imagination pictured him, a man they had sought for eagerly all their lives. And afterwards when they discovered their mistake, they went on loving him just the same. And not one of them had ever been happy with him. Time had passed, he had met one woman after another, become intimate with each, parted with each, but had never loved. There had been all sorts of things between them, but never love.
And only now, when he was gray-haired, had he fallen in love properly, thoroughly, for the first time in his life.
He and Anna Sergeyevna loved one another as people who are very close and intimate, as husband and wife, as dear friends love one another. It seemed to them that fate had intended them for one another, and they could not understand why she should have a husband, and he a wife. They were like two migrating birds, the male and the female, who had been caught and put into separate cages. They forgave one another all that they were ashamed of in the past and in the present, and felt that this love of theirs had changed them both.
Formerly, in moments of melancholy, he had consoled himself by the first argument that came into his head, but now arguments were nothing to him, he felt profound pity, desired to be sincere, tender.
"Stop crying, my dearest," he said. "You've had your cry, now stop. . . . Now let us have a talk, let us try and think what we are to do."
Then they discussed their situation for a long time, trying to think how they could get rid of the necessity for hiding, deception, living in different towns, being so long without meeting. How were they to shake off these intolerable fetters?
"How? How?" he repeated, clutching his head. "How?"
And it seemed to them that they were within an inch of arriving at a decision, and that then a new, beautiful life would begin. And they both realized that the end was still far, far away, and that the hardest, the most complicated part was only just beginning.
-1899-
People were telling one another that a newcomer had been seen on the promenade--a lady with a dog. Dmitri Dmitrich Gurov had been a fortnight in Yalta, and was accustomed to its ways, and he, too, had begun to take an interest in fresh arrivals. From his seat in Vernet's outdoor café, he caught sight of a young woman in a toque, passing along the promenade; she was fair and not very tall; after her trotted a white Pomeranian.
Later he encountered her in the municipal park and in the square several times a day. She was always alone, wearing the same toque, and the Pomeranian always trotted at her side. Nobody knew who she was, and people referred to her simply as "the lady with the dog."
"If she's here without her husband, and without any friends," thought Gurov, "it wouldn't be a bad idea to make her acquaintance."
He was not yet forty but had a twelve-year-old daughter and two sons in high school. He had been talked into marrying in his third year at college, and his wife now looked nearly twice as old as he did. She was a tall woman with dark eyebrows, erect, dignified, imposing, and, as she said of herself, a "thinker." She was a great reader, omitted the "hard sign" at the end of words in her letters, and called her husband "Dimitry" instead of Dmitry; and though he secretly considered her shallow, narrow-minded, and dowdy, he stood in awe of her, and disliked being at home. He had first begun deceiving her long ago and he was now constantly unfaithful to her, and this was no doubt why he spoke slightingly of women, to whom he referred as the lower race.
He considered that the ample lessons he had received from bitter experience entitled him to call them whatever he liked, but without this "lower race" he could not have existed a single day. He was bored and ill-at-ease in the company of men, with whom he was always cold and reserved, but felt quite at home among women, and knew exactly what to say to them, and how to behave; he could even be silent in their company without feeling the slightest awkwardness. There was an elusive charm in his appearance and disposition which attracted women and caught their sympathies. He knew this and was himself attracted to them by some invisible force.
Repeated and hitter experience had taught him that every fresh intimacy, while at first introducing such pleasant variety into every-day life, and offering itself as a charming, light adventure, inevitably developed, among decent people (especially in Moscow, where they are so irresolute and slow to move), into a problem of excessive complication leading to an intolerably irksome situation. But every time he encountered an attractive woman he forgot all about this experience, the desire for life surged up in him, and everything suddenly seemed simple and amusing.
One evening, then, while he was dining at the restaurant in the park, the lady in the toque came strolling up and took a seat at a neighboring table. Her expression, gait, dress, coiffure, all told him that she was from the upper classes, that she was married, that she was in Yalta for the first time, alone and bored. . . . The accounts of the laxity of morals among visitors to Yalta are greatly exaggerated, and he paid no heed to them, knowing that for the most part they were invented by people who would gladly have transgressed themselves, had they known how to set about it. But when the lady sat down at a neighboring table a few yards away from him, these stories of easy conquests, of excursions to the mountains, came back to him, and the seductive idea of a brisk transitory liaison, an affair with a woman whose very name he did not know, suddenly took possession of his mind.
He snapped his fingers at the Pomeranian and, when it trotted up to him, shook his forefinger at it. The Pomeranian growled. Gurov shook his finger again.
The lady glanced at him and instantly lowered her eyes.
"He doesn't bite," she said, and blushed.
"May I give him a bone?" he asked, and on her nod of consent added in friendly tones: "Have you been long in Yalta?"
"About five days."
"And I am dragging out my second week here."
Neither spoke for a few minutes.
"The days pass quickly, and yet one is so bored here," she said, not looking at him.
"It's the thing to say it's boring here. People never complain of boredom in godforsaken holes like Belyev or Zhizdra, but when they get here it's: 'Oh, the dullness! Oh, the dust!' You'd think they'd come from Granada to say the least."
She laughed. Then they both went on eating in silence, like complete strangers. But after dinner they left the restaurant together, and embarked upon the light, jesting talk of people free and contented, for whom it is all the same where they go, or what they talk about. They strolled along, remarking on the strange light over the sea. The water was a warm, tender purple, the moonlight lay on its surface in a golden strip. They said how close it was, after the hot day. Gurov told her he was from Moscow, had a degree in literature but worked in a bank; that he had at one time trained himself to sing in a private opera company, but had given up the idea; that he owned two houses in Moscow. . . . And from her he learned that she had grown up in Petersburg, but had gotten married in the town of S., where she had been living two years, that she would stay another month in Yalta, and that perhaps her husband, who also needed a rest, would join her. She was quite unable to explain whether her husband was a member of the province council, or on the board of the zemstvo, and was greatly amused at herself for this. Further, Gurov learned that her name was Anna Sergeyevna.
Back in his own room he thought about her, and felt sure he would meet her the next day. It was inevitable. As he went to bed he reminded himself that only a very short time ago she had been a schoolgirl, like his own daughter, learning her lessons, he remembered how much there was of shyness and constraint in her laughter, in her way of conversing with a stranger--it was probably the first time in her life that she found herself alone, and in a situation in which men could follow her and watch her, and speak to her, all the time with a secret aim she could not fail to divine. He recalled her slender, delicate neck, her fine gray eyes.
"And yet there's something pathetic about her," he thought to himself as he fell asleep.
II
A week had passed since the beginning of their acquaintance. It was a holiday. Indoors it was stuffy, but the dust rose in clouds out of doors, and people's hats blew off. It was a parching day and Gurov kept going to the outdoor café for fruit drinks and ices to offer Anna Sergeyevna. The heat was overpowering.
In the evening, when the wind had dropped, they walked to the pier to see the steamer come in. There were a great many people strolling about the landing-place; some, bunches of flowers in their hands, were meeting friends. Two peculiarities of the smart Yalta crowd stood out distinctly--the elderly ladies all tried to dress very youthfully, and there seemed to be an inordinate number of generals about.
Owing to the roughness of the sea the steamer arrived late, after the sun had gone down, and it had to maneuver for some time before it could get alongside the pier. Anna Sergeyevna scanned the steamer and passengers through her lorgnette, as if looking for someone she knew, and when she turned to Gurov her eyes were glistening. She talked a great deal, firing off abrupt questions and forgetting immediately what it was she had wanted to know. Then she lost her lorgnette in the crush.
The smart crowd began dispersing, features could no longer be made out, the wind had quite dropped, and Gurov and Anna Sergeyevna stood there as if waiting for someone else to come off the steamer. Anna Sergeyevna had fallen silent, every now and then smelling her flowers, but not looking at Gurov.
"It's turned out a fine evening," he said. "What shall we do? We might go for a drive."
She made no reply.
He looked steadily at her and suddenly took her in his arms and kissed her lips, and the fragrance and dampness of the flowers closed round him, but the next moment he looked behind him in alarm--had anyone seen them? "Let's go to your room," he murmured.
And they walked off together, very quickly.
Her room was stuffy and smelt of some scent she had bought in the Japanese shop. Gurov looked at her, thinking to himself: "How full of strange encounters life is!" He could remember carefree, good-natured women who were exhilarated by love-making and grateful to him for the happiness he gave them, however short-lived; and there had been others--his wife among them--whose caresses were insincere, affected, hysterical, mixed up with a great deal of quite unnecessary talk, and whose expression seemed to say that all this was not just lovemaking or passion, but something much more significant; then there had been two or three beautiful, cold women, over whose features flitted a predatory expression, betraying a determination to wring from life more than it could give, women no longer in their first youth, capricious, irrational, despotic, brainless, and when Gurov had cooled to these, their beauty aroused in him nothing but repulsion, and the lace trimming on their underclothes reminded him of fish-scales.
But here the timidity and awkwardness of youth and inexperience were still apparent; and there was a feeling of embarrassment in the atmosphere, as if someone had just knocked at the door. Anna Sergeyevna, "the lady with the dog," seemed to regard the affair as something very special, very serious, as if she had become a fallen woman, an attitude he found odd and disconcerting. Her features lengthened and drooped, and her long hair hung mournfully on either side of her face. She assumed a pose of dismal meditation, like a repentant sinner in some classical painting.
"It isn't right," she said. "You will never respect me anymore."
On the table was a watermelon. Gurov cut himself a slice from it and began slowly eating it. At least half an hour passed in silence.
Anna Sergeyevna was very touching, revealing the purity of a decent, naïve woman who had seen very little of life. The solitary candle burning on the table scarcely lit up her face, but it was obvious that her heart was heavy.
"Why should I stop respecting you?" asked Gurov. "You don't know what you're saying."
"May God forgive me!" she exclaimed, and her eyes filled with tears. "It's terrible."
"No need to seek to justify yourself."
"How can I justify myself? I'm a wicked, fallen woman, I despise myself and have not the least thought of self-justification. It isn't my husband I have deceived, it's myself. And not only now, I have been deceiving myself for ever so long. My husband is no doubt an honest, worthy man, but he's a flunky. I don't know what it is he does at his office, but I know he's a flunky. I was only twenty when I married him, and I was devoured by curiosity, I wanted something higher. I told myself that there must be a different kind of life I wanted to live, to live. . . . I was burning with curiosity . . . you'll never understand that, but I swear to God I could no longer control myself, nothing could hold me back, I told my husband I was ill, and I came here. . . . And I started going about like one possessed, like a madwoman and now I have become an ordinary, worthless woman, and everyone has the right to despise me."
Gurov listened to her, bored to death. The naïve accents, the remorse, all was so unexpected, so out of place. But for the tears in her eyes, she might have been jesting or play-acting.
"I don't understand," he said gently. "What is it you want?"
She hid her face against his breast and pressed closer to him.
"Do believe me, I implore you to believe me," she said. "I love all that is honest and pure in life, vice is revolting to me, I don't know what I'm doing. The common people say they are snared by the Devil. And now I can say that I have been snared by the Devil, too."
"Come, come," he murmured.
He gazed into her fixed, terrified eyes, kissed her, and soothed her with gentle affectionate words, and gradually she calmed down and regained her cheerfulness. Soon they were laughing together again.
When, a little later, they went out, there was not a soul on the promenade, the town and its cypresses looked dead, but the sea was still roaring as it dashed against the beach. A solitary fishing-boat tossed on the waves, its lamp blinking sleepily.
They found a carriage and drove to Oreanda.
"I discovered your name in the hall, just now," said Gurov, "written up on the board. Von Diederitz. Is your husband a German?"
"No. His grandfather was, I think, but he belongs to the Orthodox Church himself."
When they got out of the carriage at Oreanda they sat down on a bench not far from the church, and looked down at the sea, without talking. Yalta could be dimly discerned through the morning mist, and white clouds rested motionless on the summits of the mountains. Not a leaf stirred, the grasshoppers chirruped, and the monotonous hollow roar of the sea came up to them, speaking of peace, of the eternal sleep lying in wait for us all. The sea had roared like this long before there was any Yalta or Oreanda, it was roaring now, and it would go on roaring, just as indifferently and hollowly, when we had passed away. And it may be that in this continuity, this utter indifference to the life and death of each of us lies hidden the pledge of our eternal salvation, of the continuous movement of life on earth, of the continuous movement toward perfection.
Side by side with a young woman, who looked so exquisite in the early light, soothed and enchanted by the sight of all this magical beauty--sea, mountains, clouds and the vast expanse of the sky--Gurov told himself that, when you came to think of it, everything in the world is beautiful really, everything but our own thoughts and actions, when we lose sight of the higher aims of life, and of our dignity as human beings.
Someone approached them--a watchman, probably--looked at them and went away. And there was something mysterious and beautiful even in this. The steamer from Feodosia could be seen coming towards the pier, lit up by the dawn, its lamps out.
"There's dew on the grass," said Anna Sergeyevna, breaking the silence.
"Yes. Time to go home."
They went back to the town.
After this they met every day at noon on the promenade, lunching and dining together, going for walks, and admiring the sea. She complained of sleeplessness, of palpitations, asked the same questions over and over again, alternately surrendering to jealousy and the fear that he did not really respect her. And often, when there was nobody in sight in the square or the park, he would draw her to him and kiss her passionately. The utter idleness, these kisses in broad daylight, accompanied by furtive glances and the fear of discovery, the heat, the smell of the sea, and the idle, smart, well-fed people continually crossing their field of vision, seemed to have given him a new lease of life. He told Anna Sergeyevna she was beautiful and seductive, made love to her with impetuous passion, and never left her side, while she was always pensive, always trying to force from him the admission that he did not respect her, that he did not love her a bit, and considered her just an ordinary woman. Almost every night they drove out of town, to Oreanda, the waterfall, or some other beauty-spot. And these excursions were invariably a success, each contributing fresh impressions of majestic beauty.
All this time they kept expecting her husband to arrive. But a letter came in which he told his wife that he was having trouble with his eyes, and implored her to come home as soon as possible. Anna Sergeyevna made hasty preparations for leaving.
"It's a good thing I'm going," she said to Gurov. "It's the intervention of fate."
She left Yalta in a carriage, and he went with her as far as the railway station. The drive took nearly a whole day. When she got into the express train, after the second bell had been rung, she said:
"Let me have one more look at you. . . . One last look. That's right."
She did not weep, but was mournful, and seemed ill, the muscles of her cheeks twitching.
"I shall think of you . . . I shall think of you all the time," she said. "God bless you! Think kindly of me. We are parting forever, it must be so, because we ought never to have met. Good-bye--God bless you."
The train steamed rapidly out of the station, its lights soon disappearing, and a minute later even the sound it made was silenced, as if everything were conspiring to bring this sweet oblivion, this madness, to an end as quickly as possible. And Gurov, standing alone on the platform and gazing into the dark distance, listened to the shrilling of the grasshoppers and the humming of the telegraph wires, with a feeling that he had only just awakened. And he told himself that this had been just one more of the many adventures in his life, and that it, too, was over, leaving nothing but a memory. . . . He was moved and sad, and felt a slight remorse. After all, this young woman whom he would never again see had not been really happy with him. He had been friendly and affectionate with her, but in his whole behaviour, in the tones of his voice, in his very caresses, there had been a shade of irony, the insulting indulgence of the fortunate male, who was, moreover, almost twice her age. She had insisted in calling him good, remarkable, high-minded. Evidently he had appeared to her different from his real self, in a word he had involuntarily deceived her. . . .
There was an autumnal feeling in the air, and the evening was chilly.
"It's time for me to be going north, too," thought Gurov, as he walked away from the platform. "High time!"
III
When he got back to Moscow it was beginning to look like winter; the stoves were heated every day, and it was still dark when the children got up to go to school and drank their tea, so that the nurse had to light the lamp for a short time. Frost had set in. When the first snow falls, and one goes for one's first sleigh-ride, it is pleasant to see the white ground, the white roofs; one breathes freely and lightly, and remembers the days of one's youth. The ancient lime-trees and birches, white with hoarfrost, have a good-natured look, they are closer to the heart than cypresses and palms, and beneath their branches one is no longer haunted by the memory of mountains and the sea.
Gurov had always lived in Moscow, and he returned to Moscow on a fine frosty day, and when he put on his fur-lined overcoat and thick gloves, and sauntered down Petrovka Street, and when, on Saturday evening, he heard the church bells ringing, his recent journey and the places he had visited lost their charm for him. He became gradually immersed in Moscow life, reading with avidity three newspapers a day, while declaring he never read Moscow newspapers on principle. Once more he was caught up in a whirl of restaurants, clubs, banquets, and celebrations, once more glowed with the flattering consciousness that well-known lawyers and actors came to his house, that he played cards in the Medical Club opposite a professor. He could once again eat a whole serving of Moscow Fish Stew served in a pan.
He had believed that in a month's time Anna Sergeyevna would be nothing but a vague memory, and that hereafter, with her wistful smile, she would only occasionally appear to him in dreams, like others before her. But the month was now well over and winter was in full swing, and all was as clear in his memory as if he had parted with Anna Sergeyevna only the day before. And his recollections grew ever more insistent. When the voices of his children at their lessons reached him in his study through the evening stillness, when he heard a song, or the sounds of a music-box in a restaurant, when the wind howled in the chimney, it all came back to him: early morning on the pier, the misty mountains, the steamer from Feodosia, the kisses. He would pace up and down his room for a long time, smiling at his memories, and then memory turned into dreaming, and what had happened mingled in his imagination with what was going to happen. Anna Sergeyevna did not come to him in his dreams, she accompanied him everywhere, like his shadow, following him everywhere he went. When he closed his eyes, she seemed to stand before him in the flesh, still lovelier, younger, tenderer than she had really been, and looking back, he saw himself, too, as better than he had been in Yalta. In the evenings she looked out at him from the bookshelves, the fireplace, the corner, he could hear her breathing, the sweet rustle of her skirts. In the streets he followed women with his eyes, to see if there were any like her. . . .
He began to feel an overwhelming desire to share his memories with someone. But he could not speak of his love at home, and outside his home who was there for him to confide in? Not the tenants living in his house, and certainly not his colleagues at the bank. And what was there to tell? Was it love that he had felt? Had there been anything exquisite, poetic, anything instructive or even amusing about his relations with Anna Sergeyevna? He had to content himself with uttering vague generalizations about love and women, and nobody guessed what he meant, though his wife's dark eyebrows twitched as she said:
"The role of a coxcomb doesn't suit you a bit, Dimitry."
One evening, leaving the Medical Club with one of his card-partners, a government official, he could not refrain from remarking:
"If you only knew what a charming woman I met in Yalta!"
The official got into his sleigh, and just before driving off, turned and called out:
"Dmitry Dmitrich!"
"Yes?"
"You were quite right, you know--the sturgeon was just a leetle off."
These words, in themselves so commonplace, for some reason infuriated Gurov, seemed to him humiliating, gross. What savage manners, what people! What wasted evenings, what tedious, empty days! Frantic card-playing, gluttony, drunkenness, perpetual talk always about the same thing. The greater part of one's time and energy went on business that was no use to anyone, and on discussing the same thing over and over again, and there was nothing to show for it all but a stunted wingless existence and a round of trivialities, and there was nowhere to escape to, you might as well be in a madhouse or a convict settlement.
Gurov lay awake all night, raging, and went about the whole of the next day with a headache. He slept badly on the succeeding nights, too, sitting up in bed, thinking, or pacing the floor of his room. He was sick of his children, sick of the bank, felt not the slightest desire to go anywhere or talk about anything.
When the Christmas holidays came, he packed his things, telling his wife he had to go to Petersburg in the interests of a certain young man, and set off for the town of S. To what end? He hardly knew himself. He only knew that he must see Anna Sergeyevna, must speak to her, arrange a meeting, if possible.
He arrived at S. in the morning and engaged the best suite in the hotel, which had a carpet of gray military frieze, and a dusty ink-pot on the table, surmounted by a headless rider, holding his hat in his raised hand. The hall porter told him what he wanted to know: von Diederitz had a house of his own in Staro-Goncharnaya Street. It wasn't far from the hotel, he lived on a grand scale, luxuriously, kept carriage-horses, the whole town knew him. The hall porter pronounced the name "Drideritz."
Gurov strolled over to Staro-Goncharnaya Street and discovered the house. In front of it was a long gray fence with inverted nails hammered into the tops of the palings.
"A fence like that is enough to make anyone want to run away, thought Gurov, looking at the windows of the house and the fence.
He reasoned that since it was a holiday, Anna's husband would probably be at home. In any case it would be tactless to embarrass her by calling at the house. And a note might fall into the hands of the husband, and bring about catastrophe. The best thing would be to wait about on the chance of seeing her. And he walked up and down the street, hovering in the vicinity of the fence, watching for his chance. A beggar entered the gate, only to be attacked by dogs, then, an hour later, the faint, vague sounds of a piano reached his ears. That would be Anna Sergeyevna playing. Suddenly the front door opened and an old woman came out, followed by a familiar white Pomeranian. Gurov tried to call to it, but his heart beat violently, and in his agitation he could not remember its name.
He walked on, hating the gray fence more and more, and now ready to tell himself irately that Anna Sergeyevna had forgotten him, had already, perhaps, found distraction in another--what could be more natural in a young woman who had to look at this accursed fence from morning to night? He went back to his hotel and sat on the sofa in his suite for some time, not knowing what to do, then lie ordered dinner, and after dinner, had a long sleep.
"What a foolish, restless business," he thought, waking up and looking towards the dark windowpanes. It was evening by now. "Well, I've had my sleep out. And what am I to do in the night?"
He sat up in bed, covered by the cheap gray quilt, which reminded him of a hospital blanket, and in his vexation he fell to taunting himself.
"You and your lady with a dog. . . there's adventure for you! See what you get for your pains."
On his arrival at the station that morning he had noticed a poster announcing in enormous letters the first performance at the local theatre of The Geisha. Remembering this; he got up and made for the theatre.
"It's highly probable that she goes to first nights," he told himself.
The theatre was full. It was a typical provincial theatre, with a mist collecting over the chandeliers, and the crowd in the gallery fidgeting noisily. In the first row of the stalls the local dandies stood waiting for the curtain to go up, their hands clasped behind them. There, in the front seat of the governor's box, sat the governor's daughter, wearing a boa, the governor himself hiding modestly behind the drapes, so that only his hands were visible. The curtain stirred, the orchestra took a long time tuning up their instruments. Gurov's eyes roamed eagerly over the audience as they filed in and occupied their seats.
Anna Sergeyevna came in, too. She seated herself in the third row of the stalls, and when Gurov's glance fell on her, his heart seemed to stop, and he knew in a flash that the whole world contained no one nearer or dearer to him, no one more important to his happiness. This little woman, lost in the provincial crowd, in no way remarkable, holding a silly lorgnette in her hand, now filled his whole life, was his grief, his joy, all that he desired. Lulled by the sounds coming from the wretched orchestra, with its feeble, amateurish violinists, he thought how beautiful she was . . . thought and dreamed. . . .
Anna Sergeyevna was accompanied by a tall, round-shouldered young man with small whiskers, who nodded at every step before taking the seat beside her and seemed to be continually bowing to someone. This must be her husband, whom, in a fit of bitterness, at Yalta, she had called a "flunky." And there really was something of a lackey's servility in his lanky figure, his side-whiskers, and the little bald spot on the top of his head. And he smiled sweetly, and the badge of some scientific society gleaming in his buttonhole was like the number on a footman's livery.
The husband went out to smoke in the first interval, and she was left alone in her seat. Gurov, who had taken a seat in the stalls, went up to her and said in a trembling voice, with a forced smile: "How d'you do?"
She glanced up at him and turned pale, then looked at him again in alarm, unable to believe her eyes, squeezing her fan and lorgnette in one hand, evidently struggling to overcome a feeling of faintness. Neither of them said a word. She sat there, and he stood beside her, disconcerted by her embarrassment, and not daring to sit down. The violins and flutes sang out as they were tuned, and there was a tense sensation in the atmosphere, as if they were being watched from all the boxes. At last she got up and moved rapidly towards one of the exits. He followed her and they wandered aimlessly along corridors, up and down stairs; figures flashed by in the uniforms of legal officials, high-school teachers and civil servants, all wearing badges; ladies, coats hanging from pegs flashed by; there was a sharp draft, bringing with it an odor of cigarette butts. And Gurov, whose heart was beating violently, thought:
"What on earth are all these people, this orchestra for?. . ."
The next minute he suddenly remembered how, after seeing Anna Sergeyevna off that evening at the station, he had told himself that all was over, and they would never meet again. And how far away the end seemed to be now!
She stopped on a dark narrow staircase over which was a notice bearing the inscription "To the upper circle."
"How you frightened me!" she said, breathing heavily, still pale and half-stunned. "Oh, how you frightened me! I'm almost dead! Why did you come? Oh, why?"
"But, Anna," he said, in low, hasty tones. "But, Anna. . .Try to understand . . . do try. . . ."
She cast him a glance of fear, entreaty, love, and then gazed at him steadily, as if to fix his features firmly in her memory.
"I've been so unhappy," she continued, taking no notice of his words. "I could think of nothing but you the whole time, I lived on the thoughts of you. I tried to forget-why, oh, why did you come?"
On the landing above them were two schoolboys, smoking and looking down, but Gurov did not care, and, drawing Anna Sergeyevna towards him, began kissing her face, her lips, her hands.
"What are you doing, oh, what are you doing?" she said in horror, drawing back. "We have both gone mad. Go away this very night, this moment. . . . By all that is sacred, I implore you. . . Somebody is coming."
Someone was ascending the stairs.
"You must go away," went on Anna Sergeyevna in a whisper. "D'you hear me, Dmitry Dmitrich? I'll come to you in Moscow. I have never been happy, I am unhappy now, and I shall never be happy--never! Do not make me suffer still more! I will come to you in Moscow, I swear it! And now we must part! My dear one, my kind one, my darling, we must part."
She pressed his hand and hurried down the stairs, looking back at him continually, and her eyes showed that she was in truth unhappy. Gurov stood where he was for a short time, listening, and when all was quiet, went to look for his coat, and left the theatre.
IV
And Anna Sergeyevna began going to Moscow to see him. Every two or three months she left the town of S., telling her husband that she was going to consult a specialist on female diseases, and her husband believed her and did not believe her. In Moscow she always stayed at the Slavyanski Bazaar, sending a man in a red cap to Gurov the moment she arrived. Gurov went to her, and no one in Moscow knew anything about it.
One winter morning he went to see her as usual (the messenger had been to him the evening before, but had not found him at home). His daughter was with him, for her school was on the way and he thought he might as well see her to it.
"It is forty degrees," said Gurov to his daughter, "and yet it is snowing. You see it is only above freezing close to the ground, the temperature in the upper layers of the atmosphere is quite different."
"Why doesn't it ever thunder in winter, Papa?"
He explained this, too. As he was speaking, he kept reminding himself that he was going to a rendezvous and that not a living soul knew about it, or, probably, ever would. He led a double life--one in public, in the sight of all whom it concerned, full of conventional truth and conventional deception, exactly like the lives of his friends and acquaintances, and another which flowed in secret. And, owing to some strange, possibly quite accidental chain of circumstances, everything that was important, interesting, essential, everything about which he was sincere and never deceived himself, everything that composed the kernel of his life, went on in secret, while everything that was false in him, everything that composed the husk in which he hid himself and the truth which was in him-his work at the bank, discussions at the club, his "lower race," his attendance at anniversary celebrations with his wife-was on the surface. He began to judge others by himself, no longer believing what he saw, and always assuming that the real, the only interesting life of every individual goes on as under cover of night, secretly. Every individual existence revolves around mystery, and perhaps that is the chief reason that all cultivated individuals insisted so strongly on the respect due to personal secrets.
After leaving his daughter at the door of her school Gurov set off for the Slavyanski Bazaar. Taking off his overcoat in the lobby, he went upstairs and knocked softly on the door. Anna Sergeyevna, wearing the gray dress he liked most, exhausted by her journey and by suspense, had been expecting him since the evening before. She was pale and looked at him without smiling, but was in his arms almost before he was fairly in the room. Their kiss was lingering, prolonged, as if they had not met for years.
"Well, how are you?" he asked. "Anything new?"
"Wait, I'll tell you in a minute I can't . . . "
She could not speak, because she was crying. Turning away, she held her handkerchief to her eyes.
"I'll wait till she's had her cry out," he thought, and sank into a chair.
He rang for tea, and a little later, while he was drinking it, she was still standing there, her face to the window. She wept from emotion, from her bitter consciousness of the sadness of their life; they could only see one another in secret, hiding from people, as if they were thieves. Was not their life a broken one?
"Don't cry," he said.
It was quite obvious to him that this love of theirs would not soon come to an end, and that no one could say when this end would be. Anna Sergeyevna loved him ever more fondly, worshipped him, and there would have been no point in telling her that one day it must end. Indeed, she would not have believed him.
He moved over and took her by the shoulders, intending to caress her, to make a joke, but suddenly he caught sight of himself in the looking-glass.
His hair was already beginning to turn gray. It struck him as strange that he should have aged so much in the last few years, have lost so much of his looks. The shoulders on which his hands lay were warm and quivering. He felt a pity for this life, still so warm and exquisite, but probably soon to fade and droop like his own. Why did she love him so? Women had always believed him different from what he really was, had loved in him not himself but the man their imagination pictured him, a man they had sought for eagerly all their lives. And afterwards when they discovered their mistake, they went on loving him just the same. And not one of them had ever been happy with him. Time had passed, he had met one woman after another, become intimate with each, parted with each, but had never loved. There had been all sorts of things between them, but never love.
And only now, when he was gray-haired, had he fallen in love properly, thoroughly, for the first time in his life.
He and Anna Sergeyevna loved one another as people who are very close and intimate, as husband and wife, as dear friends love one another. It seemed to them that fate had intended them for one another, and they could not understand why she should have a husband, and he a wife. They were like two migrating birds, the male and the female, who had been caught and put into separate cages. They forgave one another all that they were ashamed of in the past and in the present, and felt that this love of theirs had changed them both.
Formerly, in moments of melancholy, he had consoled himself by the first argument that came into his head, but now arguments were nothing to him, he felt profound pity, desired to be sincere, tender.
"Stop crying, my dearest," he said. "You've had your cry, now stop. . . . Now let us have a talk, let us try and think what we are to do."
Then they discussed their situation for a long time, trying to think how they could get rid of the necessity for hiding, deception, living in different towns, being so long without meeting. How were they to shake off these intolerable fetters?
"How? How?" he repeated, clutching his head. "How?"
And it seemed to them that they were within an inch of arriving at a decision, and that then a new, beautiful life would begin. And they both realized that the end was still far, far away, and that the hardest, the most complicated part was only just beginning.
-1899-
中譯
據說，在堤岸上出現了一個新面孔：一個帶小狗的女人。德米特裡·德米特裡耶維奇·古羅夫已經在雅爾塔生活了兩個星期，對這個地方已經熟悉，也開始對新來的人發生興趣了。他坐在韋爾奈的售貨亭裡，看見堤岸上有一個年輕的金髮女人在走動，她身材不高，戴一頂圓形軟帽；有一條白毛的獅子狗跟在她後面跑。後來他在本城的公園裡，在街心小花園裡遇見她，一天遇見好幾次。她孤身一個人散步，老是戴著那頂軟帽，帶著那條白毛獅子狗；誰也不知道她是什麼人，就都簡單地把她稱做「帶小狗的女人」。
「如果她沒有跟她的丈夫住在這兒，也沒有熟人。」古羅夫暗自思忖道，「跟她認識一下，倒也不壞呢。」
他還沒到四十歲，可是已經有一個十二歲的女兒和兩個上中學的兒子了。他結婚很早，當時他還是大學二年級的學生，如今他妻子的年紀彷彿比他大半倍似的。她是一個高身量的女人，生著兩道黑眉毛，直率，嚴肅，莊重，按她對自己的說法，她是個有思想的女人。她讀過很多書，在信上不寫「b 」這個硬音符號，不叫她的丈夫德米特裡而叫吉米特裡；他呢，私下裡認為她智力有限，胸襟狹隘，缺少風雅，他怕她，不喜歡待在家裡。他早已開始背著她跟別的女人私通，而且不止一次了。大概就是因為這個緣故，他一講起女人幾乎總是說壞話；每逢人家在他面前談到女人，他總是這樣稱呼她們：「賤貨！」他認為他已經受夠了沉痛的經驗教訓，可以隨意罵她們了。可是話雖如此，只要他一連兩天身邊沒有那個「賤貨」，他就過不下去。他跟男人們相處覺得乏味，不稱心，跟他們沒有多少話好談，冷冷淡淡；可是到了女人中間，他就覺得自由自在，知道該跟她們談什麼，該採取什麼樣的態度；甚至跟她們不講話的時候也覺得很輕鬆。他的相貌、他的性格、他的全身心都具有一種迷人的、不可捉摸的東西，使得女人們對他發生好感，吸引她們；這一點他是知道的，同時也有一種未知的力量在把他推向她們那邊去。
多次的經驗，切實沉痛的經驗，早已教導他說：跟正派女人相好，特別是跟優柔寡斷、遲疑不決的莫斯科女人相好，起初倒還能夠給生活增添一點微妙的變化，就像是輕鬆可愛的生活插曲。過後卻不可避免地演變成為非常複雜的大問題，最後情況就會變得令人難以忍受了。可是每當他新遇到一位有情趣的女人，這種經驗不知為何總是從他的記憶裡消失；他渴望生活，於是一切都顯得十分簡單而引人入勝了。
有一天，將近傍晚，他正在公園裡吃飯，那個戴軟帽的女人慢慢地走過來，準備在他旁邊的一張桌子那兒坐下。她的神情、步態、服飾、髮型都告訴他說：她是一個上流社會的女人，已經結過婚，這是頭一次到雅爾塔來，孤身一人，覺得在這裡很寂寞。……那些關於本地風氣敗壞的傳聞，有許多都是假的，他不理會那些傳聞，知道這類傳聞大多是那些只要自己有機會也很樂意犯罪的人們捏造出來的；可是，等到那個女人在離他只有三步遠的那張桌子邊坐下來時，他就不由得想起那些關於風流艷遇和登山旅行的傳聞。於是，來一次快捷而短促的結合，跟一個身世不明、連姓名都不知道的女人干一回風流韻事這樣的誘人想法，就突然控制住了他。
他親切地招呼那條獅子狗，等到它真的走近的時候，他卻搖著手指頭嚇唬它。獅子狗汪汪地吠叫起來。古羅夫又搖著手指頭嚇唬它。那個女人瞟了他一眼，立刻低下眼簾。
「它不咬人。」她說著，臉紅了。
「可以給它一根骨頭吃嗎？」等到她肯定地點了一下頭，他就慇勤地問道：
「您來雅爾塔很久了吧？」
「有五天了。」
「可我在這裡已經待了兩個星期了。」
他們沉默了一會兒。
「光陰過得真快，可是這裡又是那麼沉悶！」她說著，眼睛沒有看他。
「講這裡沉悶，只不過是一種習慣的說詞罷了。一個市民居住在內地城市別廖夫或者日茲德拉，倒不覺得沉悶，可是到了這裡卻說：『唉，沉悶啊！哎，好大的灰塵！』別人會以為他是從格林納達來的呢。」
她笑了起來。後來這兩個人繼續沉默地吃著飯，像兩個不相識的人一樣。可是吃過飯之後他們並排走著，開始了一場說說笑笑的輕鬆談話。只有那種自由而滿足的、不管到哪兒去或者不管聊什麼都無所謂的人，才會這樣聊天。他們一邊散步，一邊談到海面多麼奇怪地放光，海水現出淡紫的顏色，那麼柔和而溫暖，在月光下，水面上蕩漾著幾條金黃色的長帶。他們談到炎熱的白晝過去以後天氣多麼悶熱。古羅夫說他是莫斯科人，在學校裡學的是語言文學，然而卻在一家銀行裡工作；先前他準備在一個私立的歌劇團裡演唱，可是後來不幹了，他在莫斯科有兩所房子。……他從她口中得知：她是在彼得堡長大的，可是出嫁以後就住到了斯城，已經在那裡住了兩年。她在雅爾塔還要呆上一個月，說不定她丈夫也會來，他也打算休養一下。至於她丈夫在什麼地方工作，是在省政府呢，還是在本省的地方自治局執行處，她卻無論如何也說不清楚，連她自己都覺得好笑。古羅夫還打聽到她的名叫安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜。
後來，他在自己的旅館裡想起她，想到明天勢必還會跟她見面，這是一定的。他上床躺下，想起她不久以前還是一名貴族女子中學的學生，還在唸書，就跟現在他的女兒一樣。想起她笑的時候，跟陌生人談話的時候，還是那麼靦腆，那麼侷促不安，大概這是她生平頭一次孤身一人處在這種環境裡吧？而在這種環境裡，人們純粹出於一種她不會不懂的私下目的跟蹤她，注意她，跟她交談。他想起她的瘦弱的脖子和她那雙美麗的灰色眼睛。
「總之，她那樣子有點可憐。」他想著，昏昏睡去了。
二
他們相識以後，一個星期過去了。這一天是個節日。房間裡悶熱，而街道上刮著大風，捲起灰塵，吹掉了行人的帽子。人們一整天都口乾舌燥，古羅夫屢次到那個售貨亭去，時而請安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜喝果汁，時而請她吃冰淇淋。天氣真讓人不知躲到哪裡去才好。
傍晚風小了一點，他們就在防波堤上走來走去，看輪船怎樣開到此地。碼頭上有許多散步的人；他們聚集在這兒，手裡拿著花束，像是在準備迎接什麼人。這個裝束考究的雅爾塔人群有兩個特點清晰地映入人們的眼簾：上了年紀的太太們打扮得跟年輕女人一樣，人群裡將軍很多。由於海上起了風浪，輪船晚點了，直到太陽下山之後才來，而且在靠攏防波堤之前，又花了很長時間用來掉頭。安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜舉起帶柄望遠鏡瞧著輪船，瞧著乘客，好像在尋找熟人似的；等到她轉過身來對著古羅夫，她的眼睛亮了。她說了許多話，她的問話前言不搭後語，而且剛剛問過的問題，馬上就忘了問的是什麼，後來，在人群中還把帶柄望遠鏡也失落了。
裝束考究的人群已經走散，一個人也看不見了，風完全停住。可是古羅夫和安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜卻還站在原地，好像要等著看輪船上還有沒有人下來似的。安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜已經沉默下來，在聞一束花，眼睛沒有看古羅夫。
「天氣到傍晚好一點了。」他說，「可是現在我們到哪兒去呢？我們要不要坐一輛馬車到什麼地方去兜兜風？」
她一句話也沒有回答。
這時候他定睛瞧著她，忽然摟住她，吻她的嘴唇，花束的香味兒和潮氣向他撲來，他立刻戰戰兢兢地往四下裡看：有沒有人注意到他們？
「我們到您的旅館裡去吧。……」他輕聲說道。
兩個人很快地走了。
她的旅館房間裡悶熱，瀰漫著一股她在一家日本商店裡買來的香水的氣味兒。古羅夫瞧著她，心裡暗想：「在生活中會遇到多麼不同的人啊！」在他的記憶裡，保留著以往的一些無憂無慮、心地忠厚的女人的印象：她們由於愛情而高興，感激他帶來的幸福，雖然這幸福十分短暫；還保留著另一些女人的印象，例如他的妻子：她們在戀愛的時候缺乏真誠，說過多的話，裝腔作勢，感情病態。從她們的神情來看，好像這不是愛情，也不是情慾，而是一種更有意義的事情似的；另外還保留著兩三個女人的印象：她們長得很美，內心卻冷冰冰的，臉上忽而會掠過一種猛獸般的貪婪神情。她們具有固執的願望，想向生活索取和爭奪生活所不能給予她們的東西。這種女人年紀已經不輕，為人任性，不通情理，十分專橫，頭腦不聰明。每當古羅夫對她們冷淡下來，她們的美貌總是在他心裡引起憎惡的感覺。在這種時候，她們襯衣上的花邊兒在他的眼裡也好像魚鱗一樣了。可是眼前這個女人卻還是那麼靦腆，流露出缺乏經驗的年青人那種侷促不安的神情和別彆扭扭的心態；她給人一種驚慌失措的印象，好像忽然會有人出其不意地來敲門似的。安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜，這個「帶小狗的女人」，對待剛才發生過的事情態度有點特別，看得十分嚴重，好像這是她的墮落，至少看上去是這樣。而這種事情是奇怪的，不恰當的。她垂頭喪氣，無精打采，她的長頭髮憂傷地掛在臉頰的兩邊，帶著沮喪的樣子呆呆地出神，就好像聖像畫上那個正在懺悔的女人。
「這是不對的。」她說，「現在您要頭一個看不起我了。」
房間裡的桌子上有一個西瓜。古羅夫給自己切了一塊，慢慢地吃起來。在沉默中至少過了半個鐘頭。
安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜神態動人，從她身上散發出一種正派的、純樸的、生活閱歷很淺的女人那種純潔氣息。桌子上點著一支孤零零的蠟燭，幾乎照不清她的臉，不過還是看得出來她的心緒不佳。
「我怎麼能看不起你呢？」古羅夫問。「你自己都不知道在說什麼了。」
「求天主饒恕我吧！」她說著，眼睛裡滿含淚水。「這是可怕的。」
「你彷彿是在替自己辯白似的。」
「我還有什麼理由來替自己辯白呢？我是個下流的壞女人，我看不起自己，我根本就沒有替自己辯白的意思。我所欺騙的不是我的丈夫，而是我自己。而且不光是現在，我早就在欺騙我自己了。我丈夫也許是個誠實的好人，可是要知道，他是個奴才！我不知道他在整天幹些什麼事，在怎樣工作，我只知道他是個奴才。我嫁給他的時候才二十歲，好奇心煎熬著我，我巴望過好一點兒的日子，我對自己說：「一定有另外一種不同的生活。我一心想生活得好！我要生活，生活。」
「……好奇心燃燒著我，……這您是不會瞭解的。可是，我當著天主起誓，我已經管不住自己了，我起了變化，什麼東西也沒法約束我了。我就對丈夫說我病了，於是就到這裡來了。……到了這兒之後，我老是走來走去，像是著了魔，發了瘋。……現在呢，我變成了一個庸俗下賤的女人，沒有人會看得起我了。」古羅夫已經聽得乏味；那種天真的口氣，那種十分意外而大煞風景的懺悔惹得他不痛快。要不是她眼睛裡含著淚水，別人可能會認為她是在開玩笑或者在裝腔作勢。
「我不明白。」他輕聲說，「你到底想要什麼？」
她把臉埋在他的胸前，偎緊他。
「請您相信我的話，請您務必相信我的話，我求求您，……」她說，「我喜歡正直、純潔的生活，討厭犯罪，我自己也不知道我在幹什麼。俗話說：鬼迷心竅。現在我也可以這樣說自己：鬼迷了我的心竅。」
「得了，得了。……」他嘟噥著說。
他瞧著她那對不動的、驚恐的眼睛，吻她，親熱地柔聲細語。她漸漸地平靜下來，重又感到快活，於是兩個人都笑了。
後來，等他們走出去，堤岸上已經一個人影也沒有了。這座城市以及它那些柏樹顯得死氣沉沉，然而海水卻還在嘩嘩地響，拍打著堤岸。一條汽艇在海浪上搖擺，汽艇上的燈光睡意矇矓般地閃爍著。
他們雇到一輛馬車，就往奧列安達去了。
「剛才我在樓下前廳裡看到了你的姓，那塊牌子上寫著馮·季捷利茨。」古羅夫說，「你丈夫是德國人吧？」
「不，他祖父好像是德國人，然而他本人卻是東正教徒。」
到了奧列安達，他們坐在離教堂不遠處的一條長凳上，瞧著下面的海洋，沉默著。透過晨霧，雅爾塔朦朦朧朧，看不大清楚。白雲一動不動地停在山頂上；樹上的葉子紋絲不動，知了在叫；單調而低沉的海水聲從下面傳上來，訴說著安寧，訴說著那種在等待我們的永恆的安眠。當初此地還沒有雅爾塔，沒有奧列安達的時候，下面的海水就照這樣嘩嘩地響著，如今還在嘩嘩地響著，等我們不在人世的時候，它仍舊會這樣冷漠而低沉地嘩嘩響。這種恆久不變，這種對我們每個人的生和死完全的無動於衷，也許包藏著一種保證：我們會永恆地得救，人間的生活會不斷地前行，一切會不斷地趨於完善。古羅夫和一個在黎明時刻顯得十分美麗的年輕女人坐在一起，面對著這神話般的仙境，面對著這海，這山，這雲，這遼闊的天空，不由得平靜下來，心醉神迷，暗自思忖：如果往深處想一想，那麼實際上，這個世界上的一切都是美好的。惟獨在我們忘記生活的最高目標，忘記我們人類尊嚴的時候，所想的和所做的事情是例外的。
有個人，大概是守夜人吧，走過來，朝他們望了望，然後就走開了。這件小事顯得那麼神秘，而且也挺美好。可以看見有一條從費奧多西亞來的輪船進港了，船身被朝霞照亮，船上的燈火已經熄滅。
「草上有露水了。」沉默之後安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜說。
「是啊。該回去啦。」
於是他們回到城裡去了。
後來，他們每天中午都在堤岸上見面，一塊兒吃早飯，吃午飯，散步，欣賞海景。她抱怨睡眠不好，心跳得不穩；她老是提出同樣的問題，一會兒因為嫉妒而激動，一會兒又擔心他不再尊重她了。在廣場上的小公園或者大公園裡，每逢他們附近沒有行人的時候，他就會突然把她拉到自己身邊，熱烈地吻她。十足的愜意，這種在陽光下的接吻以及左顧右盼、生怕有人看見的擔憂，炎熱，海水的氣兒，再加上悠閒的、裝束考究的、心滿意足的人們不斷在他眼前閃過，這一切彷彿使他重獲了新生；他對安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜說：她多麼好看，多麼迷人，他狂熱地戀著她，一步也不肯離開她的身旁。而她卻常常呆呆地出神，老是要求他承認不尊重她了，一點也不愛她，只把她看做是一個庸俗的女人。幾乎每天傍晚，夜色深了，他們總要坐上馬車出城走一趟，到奧列安達去，或者到瀑布那兒去。這種遊玩兒總是很盡興，他們得到的收穫每一次都必定是美好而莊嚴的。
他們在等她的丈夫到此地來。可是他寄來一封信，通知她說他的眼睛出了大毛病，要求他的妻子趕快回家去。安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜慌亂起來。
「我走了倒好。」她對古羅夫說，「這也是命裡注定的。」
她坐上馬車走了，他去送她。他們走了一整天。等到她在一列特別快車的車箱裡坐好，等到第二遍鐘聲敲響，她對他說道：「好，讓我再看您一回……再看一眼。這就行了。」
她沒有哭，可是神情憂傷，彷彿害了病似的，她的臉在顫抖。
「我會想到您，……念到您。」她說，「願天主與您同在，祝您萬事如意。我有什麼不好的地方，您千萬別記著。我們永遠分別了，這也是應當的，因為我們根本就不該遇見。好，願天主與您同在。」
火車很快地開走了，車上的燈火漸漸消失，過一會兒，連轟隆聲也聽不見了。好像所有事物都串通一氣，竭力要趕快結束這場美夢，這種近乎瘋狂的美夢。古羅夫孤身一個人留在月台上，瞧著黑暗的遠方，聽著螽斯的叫聲和電報天線的嗡嗡聲，覺得自己好像剛剛醒過來一樣。他心裡暗想：如今在他的生活中又增添了一次奇遇，或者一次冒險。而這件事情也已經結束，如今只剩下回憶了。……他感動，悲傷，生出一股淡淡的懊悔心情；要知道這個他從此再也不能與之見面的年輕女人跟他過得並不幸福；他對她親熱，傾心，然而在他對她的態度裡，在他的口吻和溫存裡，仍舊微微地顯露出譏誚的陰影，顯露出一個年紀差不多比她大一倍的幸福男子的，帶有些許粗魯的傲慢。她始終說他心好，不平凡，高尚；顯然，在她的心目中，他跟他的本來面目不同，這樣說來，是他無意中欺騙了她。……在這裡，在車站上，已經有了秋意，傍晚很涼了。
「我也該回北方去了。」古羅夫走出站台，暗想：「是時候了！」
三
在莫斯科，家家都已經是過冬的樣子了，爐子生上了火。早晨，孩子們準備上學，喝早茶的時候天還黑著，保姆點上了燈。嚴寒已經開始。下頭一場雪的時候，人們第一天坐上雪橇，看著白茫茫的大地，白皚皚的房頂，呼吸柔和而舒暢，身心會感到很愉快。這時候，不由得會想起青春的歲月。那些老菩提樹和樺樹因為蒙著厚霜而變得雪白，顯示出一種忠厚的神情，比柏樹和棕櫚樹更貼近人心。有它們在近處，人們就無意去想那些山巒和海洋了。古羅夫是莫斯科人，他在一個晴朗、寒冷的日子回到了莫斯科。等到他穿上皮大衣，戴上暖和的手套，沿著彼得羅夫卡走去。每逢星期六傍晚聽到教堂的鐘聲，不久以前的那次旅行和他所到過的那些地方，對他來說就失去了一切魅力。他漸漸沉浸在莫斯科的生活中，每天津津有味地閱讀三份報紙，嘴上卻說他不是本著原則來讀莫斯科報紙的。他已經喜歡到飯館、俱樂部去，喜歡去參加各種宴會、紀念會。有著名的律師和演員到他的家裡來，或者他在醫師俱樂部裡跟教授們一塊兒打牌，他就覺得光彩。他已經能夠吃完整份的用小煎鍋盛著的酸白菜燜肉了。
……他覺得，再過上個把月，安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜在他的記憶中就會被一層濃霧覆蓋，只有偶爾像別人那樣來到他的夢裡，現出她那動人的笑容罷了。可是一個多月過去，隆冬來了，而在他的記憶中一切還是很清楚，彷彿昨天他才跟安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜分手似的。而且這回憶越來越強烈，不論是在傍晚的寂靜中，孩子們的溫課聲傳到他的書房裡來，或者在飯館裡聽到抒情歌曲，聽到風琴的演奏聲，或者當暴風雪在壁爐裡哀叫，頓時，一切就都會在他的記憶裡復活：在防波堤上發生的事情、清晨以及山上的迷霧、從費奧多西亞開來的輪船、接吻等等。他久久地在書房裡來回走著，回想著，微微地笑著，然後回憶變成了幻想。在想像中，過去的事情就跟將來會發生的事情混淆起來了。安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜沒有到他的夢中來，可是她像影子似的跟著他到處走，一步也不放鬆他。他一閉上眼睛就看見她活生生地站在自己面前，顯得比本來的樣子還要美麗，年輕，溫柔；他自己也顯得比原先在雅爾塔的時候更漂亮。每到傍晚，她總是從書櫃裡，從壁爐裡，從牆角處瞅著他，他能夠聽見她的呼吸聲、她的衣服親切的窸窣聲。在街上，他的目光常常跟蹤著來往的女人，想找到一個跟她長得相像的人。……一種強烈的願望折磨著他，他渴望把他這段回憶跟什麼人聊一聊。然而，在家裡是不能談自己的愛情的；而在外面又找不到一個可以交談的人。跟房客們談是不行的，在銀行裡也不行。而且談些什麼呢？難道那時候他真的愛她嗎？難道在他跟安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜的關係中有什麼優美的，富於詩意的，或者有教育意義的，或者乾脆有趣味的地方嗎？他只能含含糊糊地談到愛情，談到女人。誰也猜不出他的用意在哪兒，只有他的妻子揚起兩道黑眉毛說：「你，德米特裡，可不配演花花公子的角色啊。」有一天夜裡，他同一個剛剛一塊兒打過牌的文官走出醫師俱樂部，忍不住說道：
「但願您知道我在雅爾塔認識了一個多麼迷人的女人！」
那個文官坐上雪橇，走了。可是突然回過頭來喊道：「德米特裡·德米特裡耶維奇！」
「什麼事？」
「方纔您說得對：那鱘魚肉確實有點臭味兒！」
這句話平平常常，可是不知什麼緣故惹得古羅夫冒火了，他覺得這句話不乾不淨，帶有侮辱性。多麼野蠻的習氣，都是些什麼人啊！多麼無聊的夜晚，多麼沒趣味的、平淡的白天啊！狂賭，吃喝，酗酒，反反覆覆講老套的話。不必要的工作和老套的談論佔去了人生中最美好的那部分時間，最美好的那部分精力，到頭來只剩下一種短了翅膀和缺了尾巴的生活，一種無聊的東西。想走也走不開，想逃也逃不脫，彷彿被關在瘋人院裡，或者監獄的強迫勞動隊裡似的！古羅夫通宵未眠，滿腔憤慨，然後頭痛了整整一天。第二天晚上他睡不穩，老是在床上坐起來，想心事，或者從這個牆角走到那個牆角。他討厭他的孩子，討厭銀行，不想到任何地方去，也不想說什麼話。在十二月的假期中，他準備好出門的行裝，對他的妻子說：他要到彼得堡去為一個年青人張羅一件什麼事情，可是他卻動身到斯城去了。去幹什麼呢？他自己也不大清楚。他想跟安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜見面，談一談，如果可能的話，就約她出來相會。
他早晨到達斯城，在一家旅館裡租了一個最好的房間。房間裡整個地板上鋪著灰色的軍用呢子，桌子上有一個蒙著灰塵的墨水瓶，瓶上雕著一個騎馬的人像，舉起一隻拿著帽子的手，腦袋卻被打掉了。看門人給他提供了必要的消息：馮·季捷利茨住在老岡察爾納亞街上他的私宅裡，這所房子離旅館不遠，他生活優裕，闊氣，自己有馬車，全城的人都知道他。看門人把他的姓念成「德雷迪利茨」了。古羅夫慢慢地朝老岡察爾納亞街走去，找到了那所房子。正好在那所房子的對面，佇立著一道灰色的圍牆，很長，牆頭上釘著釘子。「誰見到這樣的圍牆都會選擇逃跑的。」古羅夫看了看窗子，又看了看圍牆，暗想。他心裡盤算著：今天是機關不辦公的日子，她的丈夫大概在家。再者，闖進她的家裡去，攪得她心慌意亂，那總是不妥當的。要是送一封信進去，那封信也許就會落到她丈夫的手裡，那就可能把事情弄糟。最好是見機行事。他一直在街上圍牆旁邊走來走去，等機會。他看到一個乞丐走進大門，於是就有一些狗向他撲過來。後來，過了一個鐘頭，他聽見彈鋼琴的聲音，低微含混的琴聲傳了過來。大概是安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜在彈琴吧？前門忽然開了，一個老太婆從門口走出來，後面跟著那條熟悉的白毛獅子狗。古羅夫想叫那條狗，可是他的心忽然劇烈地跳動起來，他由於興奮而忘記那條獅子狗叫什麼名字了。他走來走去，越來越痛恨那堵灰色的圍牆，於是氣憤地暗想安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜可能忘了他，也許已經跟別的男人好上了。而這在一個從早到晚不得不瞧著這堵該死的圍牆的年輕女人的處境裡，原本是很自然的。他回到他旅館的房間裡，在一張長沙發上坐了很久，不知道該怎麼辦才好。然後是吃午飯，飯後睡了很久。
「這是多麼愚蠢，多麼惱人的事情啊。」他醒來之後，瞧著烏黑的窗子，暗想：現在已經是黃昏時分了。「不知為什麼我倒睡足了。那麼晚上我幹什麼好呢？」他坐在床上，床上鋪著一條灰色的、廉價的、象醫院裡那樣的毯子。他懊惱地挖苦自己說：「你去會那個帶小狗的女人吧。……去搞風流韻事吧。……你可能只會在這裡坐著。」
今天早晨他還在火車站的時候，有一張用很大的字寫的海報映入他的眼簾：英國作曲家瓊斯的輕歌劇《蓋伊霞》第一次公演。他想起了這件事，於是就坐車到劇院去了。
「她很可能去看第一次公演的戲。」他想。
劇院裡觀眾滿座。這裡如同一般的內地劇院一樣，枝形吊燈架的上邊瀰漫著一團迷霧，頂層樓座那邊吵吵嚷嚷；在開演以前，頭一排的當地大少爺們站在那兒，把手抄在背後；在省長包廂裡，頭一個座位上坐著省長的女兒，圍著毛皮圍脖。而省長本人卻謙遜地躲在簾幕後面，人們只看得見他的兩條胳膊。舞台上的大幕晃動著，樂隊調音化了很久的時間。在觀眾們走進來找位子的時候，古羅夫一直在熱切地用眼光搜尋著。
安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜也走進來了。她坐在第三排，古羅夫一眼瞧見她，他的心就縮緊了。他這才清楚地意識到如今對他來說，全世界再也沒有一個比她更親近、更寶貴、更重要的人了。她，這個嬌小的女人，混雜在內地的人群裡，一點兒出眾的地方也沒有，手裡拿著一隻俗氣的長柄望遠鏡，然而現在她卻佔據了他生命的全部，成為他的悲傷，他的歡樂，他目前所指望的唯一幸福；他聽著那個糟糕樂隊的演奏，聽著那粗俗、低劣的提琴聲，暗自想著：她多麼美啊。他思索著，幻想著。
跟安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜一同走進來、坐在她旁邊的是一個身量很高的年輕人，留著小小的絡腮鬍子，背有點駝；他每走一步路就晃一下頭，好像在不住地點頭致意似的。這人大概就是她的丈夫，也就是以前在雅爾塔，她在痛苦的心情中斥之為奴才的那個人吧？果然，他那細長的身材、他那絡腮鬍子、他那一小片禿頂，都有一種奴才般的卑順神態，他的笑容甜得膩人，他的紐扣眼上有個什麼學會的發亮的證章，活像是聽差的號碼牌子。
頭一次幕間休息的時候，她丈夫走出去吸煙，她留在位子上。古羅夫也坐在池座裡，這時候便走到她跟前去，勉強擠出笑臉，用發顫的聲音說：「您好。」
她看他一眼，臉色頓時發白，然後又戰戰兢兢地看他一眼，不相信自己的眼睛了；她雙手緊緊地握住扇子和長柄望遠鏡，分明是在極力支撐著，免得昏厥過去。
兩個人都沒有說話。她坐著，他呢，站在那兒，被她的窘態弄得驚慌失措，不敢挨著她坐下去。提琴和長笛開始調音，他忽然覺得可怕，似乎所有包廂裡的人都在瞧著他們。可這時候她卻站了起來，很快地往出口走去；他跟著她走，兩個人糊里糊塗地穿過過道，時而上樓，時而下樓，眼前晃過一些身穿法官制服、教師制服、皇室地產管理部門制服的人，一概佩帶著證章；又晃過一些女人和衣架上的皮大衣，穿堂風迎面吹來，送來一股煙頭的氣味。古羅夫心跳得厲害，心想：「唉，天主啊！幹嘛要有這些人，要有那個樂隊啊。……」這時候他突然記起那天傍晚，他在火車站上送走安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜的那一刻，對自己說：事情就此結束，他們從此再也不會見面了。可是，這件事情離著結束還遠得很呢！在一道標著「通往梯形樓座」的狹窄而陰暗的樓梯上，她站住了。
「您嚇了我一大跳！」她說著，呼吸急促，臉色仍舊蒼白，嚇慌了神。「哎，您真嚇了我一大跳。我幾乎死過去了。您來幹什麼？幹什麼呀？」
「可是您要明白，安娜，您要明白。……」他匆忙地低聲說「我求求您，您要明白。……」她帶著恐懼、哀求、熱切瞧著他，凝視著他，要把他的相貌更牢固地留在自己的記憶裡。
「我苦死了！」她沒有聽他的話，接著說，「我時時刻刻都在想您，只想您一個人，我完全是在對您的思念中生活著。我一心想忘掉，忘掉您，可是您為什麼到這兒來？為什麼呢？」
上邊，樓梯口有兩個中學生在吸煙，瞧著下面，可是古羅夫全不在意，把安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜拉到身邊來，開始吻她的臉、她的臉頰、她的手。
「您幹什麼呀，您幹什麼呀！」她驚恐地說著，把他從身邊推開。「我們兩個都瘋了。您今天就走，馬上就走。……我憑一切神聖的東西懇求您，央求您。……有人到這兒來了！」
下面有人走上樓來了。
「您一定得走。……」安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜接著小聲說。
「您聽見了嗎，德米特裡·德米特裡耶維奇？我會到莫斯科去找您的。我從來沒有幸福過，我現在不幸福，將來也絕不會幸福，絕不會，絕不會的！不要再給我增添痛苦了！我發誓，我會到莫斯科去的。現在我們分手吧！我親愛的，好心的人，我寶貴的人，我們分手吧！」
她握一下他的手，開始快步走下樓去，不住地回頭看他，從她的眼神裡看得出來，她也確實不幸福。……古羅夫站了一會兒，留心聽著，然後，等到一切聲音停息下來之後，他找到他那掛在衣帽架上的大衣，走出劇院去了。
四
安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜真的動身到莫斯科去看他了。每過兩三個月她就從斯城去一趟。告訴她的丈夫說：她去找一位教授治她的婦科病，她的丈夫將信將疑。她到了莫斯科就在斯拉維揚斯基商場住下來，立刻派一個戴紅帽子的人去找古羅夫。
古羅夫得到消息就去看她，在莫斯科沒有一個人知道這件事。
有一回，那是冬天的一個早晨（前一天傍晚信差來找過他，可是沒有碰到他），他照例去看她。他的女兒與他同行，他打算先送她去上學，正好是順路。天上下著大片的濕雪。
「現在的氣溫是零上三度，然而卻下雪了。」古羅夫對他的女兒說，「可是要知道，這只是地球表面的溫度，大氣上層的溫度就完全不同了。」
「爸爸，為什麼冬天不打雷呢？」
關於這個問題他也解釋了一下。他一邊說著，一邊心裡暗想：現在他正趕去赴幽會，這件事情任何人都不知道，大概永遠也不會有人知道。他有兩種生活：一種是公開的，凡是想瞭解這種生活的人都看得見，都知道，充滿了傳統的真實和傳統的欺騙，跟他的熟人和朋友們的生活完全一樣；另一種生活則在暗地裡進行的。由於環境的一種奇特的、也許是偶然的巧合，凡是他認為重大的、有趣的、必不可少的事情，凡是他真誠地去做而沒有欺騙自己的事情，凡是構成他生活核心的事情，統統都是瞞著別人，暗地裡進行的；而凡是他弄虛作假，他用以偽裝自己、以遮蓋真相的外衣，例如他在銀行裡的工作、他在俱樂部裡的爭論、他的所謂「賤貨」、他帶著他的妻子去參加紀念會等等，卻統統都是公開的。他根據自己來判斷別人，就不相信他看見的事情，老是揣測著每一個人都在私密的掩蓋之下，就像在夜幕的遮蓋下一樣，過著他的真正的、最有趣的生活。每個人的私生活都包藏在秘密裡，也許，多多少少因為這個緣故，有文化的人才那麼萋萋惶惶地主張個人隱私應當受到尊重吧？
古羅夫把他的女兒送到學校之後，就朝斯拉維揚斯基商場走去。他在樓下脫掉皮大衣，上了樓，輕輕地敲門。安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜穿著他所喜愛的那件灰色連衣裙，由於旅行和等待而感到疲憊，從昨天傍晚起就在盼著他了。她臉色蒼白，望著他，沒有一點笑容，他剛走進去，她就撲在他的懷裡了。彷彿他們有兩年沒有見面似的，他們的接吻又深又長。
「哦，你在那邊過得怎麼樣？」他問。「有什麼新聞嗎？」
「等一等，我過一會兒告訴你。……我說不出話來了。」
她沒法說話，因為她哭了。她轉過臉去，用手帕摀住眼睛。
「好，就讓她哭一場吧，我坐下來等著就是。」他想著，在一個圈椅上坐了下來。
後來他搖鈴，吩咐送茶來，然後他喝茶。她呢，仍舊站在那兒，面對著窗子。……她哭，是因為激動，因為淒苦地體驗到他們的生活淪落到多麼悲慘的境地；他們只能偷偷地見面，瞞住外人，像竊賊一樣！難道他們的生活不是毀掉了嗎？
「得了，別哭了！」他說。
對他來說，事情是明顯的，他們這場戀愛還不會很快就結束，不知道什麼時候才會結束。安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜越來越深地依戀他，崇拜他；如果有人對她說這場戀愛早晚一定會結束，那在她來講是不可想像的，而且說了她也不會相信。
他走到她跟前，扶著她的肩膀，想跟她溫存一下，說幾句笑話。這時候他看見了自己在鏡子裡的影子。
他的頭髮已經開始花白了。他不由得感到奇怪：近幾年來他變得這樣蒼老，這樣難看了。他的手扶著的那個肩膀是溫暖的，正在顫抖著的。他對這個生命感到憐憫，這個生命還這麼溫暖，這麼美麗。可是大概已經臨近開始凋謝、枯萎的地步，像他的生命一樣了。她為什麼這樣愛他呢？他在女人們的心目中總是跟他的本來面目不同，她們愛他並不是愛他本人，而是愛一個由她們的想像所創造出來的、她們在生活裡熱切地追尋的人。後來她們發現自己錯了，卻仍舊愛他。她們跟他相好的時候，沒有一個人幸福過。歲月如流，以往他認識過一些女人，跟她們相好過，後來分手了，然而他一次也沒有愛過；把這種事情說成無論什麼都可以，單單不能說是愛情。
直到現在，他的頭髮開始花白了，他才平生第一次認真地、真正地愛上一個女人。
安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜和他相親相愛，像是十分貼近的親人，像是一對夫婦，像是知心的朋友。他們覺得他們的相遇似乎是命中注定的，他們不懂為什麼他已經娶了妻子，她也已經嫁了丈夫；他們彷彿是兩隻候鳥，一雌一雄，被人捉住，硬關在兩隻籠子裡，分開生活似的。他們互相原諒他們過去所做過的自覺羞愧的事情，原諒目前所做的一切，感到他們的這種愛情把他們兩個人都改變了。以前在憂傷的時候，他總是用他想得到的任何道理來安慰自己。可是現在，他顧不上什麼道理了，他只是感到深深的憐憫，一心希望自己誠懇，溫柔。……「別哭了，我的好人。」他說，「哭一會兒也就夠了。……現在讓我們來談談，想出一個什麼辦法來吧。」
後來他們商量了很久，談到應該怎樣做才能擺脫目前這種必須躲藏、欺騙、分居兩地、很久不能相見的處境，應該怎樣做才能從這種不堪忍受的桎梏中解放出來呢？
「應該怎樣做？應該怎樣做呢？」他問，抱住頭，「應該怎樣做呢？」
似乎再過一會兒，答案就可以找到。到那時候，一種嶄新的、美好的生活就要開始了。不過，兩個人心裡都明白：離著結束還很遠很遠，那最複雜、最艱難的道路現在才剛剛開始。
「如果她沒有跟她的丈夫住在這兒，也沒有熟人。」古羅夫暗自思忖道，「跟她認識一下，倒也不壞呢。」
他還沒到四十歲，可是已經有一個十二歲的女兒和兩個上中學的兒子了。他結婚很早，當時他還是大學二年級的學生，如今他妻子的年紀彷彿比他大半倍似的。她是一個高身量的女人，生著兩道黑眉毛，直率，嚴肅，莊重，按她對自己的說法，她是個有思想的女人。她讀過很多書，在信上不寫「b 」這個硬音符號，不叫她的丈夫德米特裡而叫吉米特裡；他呢，私下裡認為她智力有限，胸襟狹隘，缺少風雅，他怕她，不喜歡待在家裡。他早已開始背著她跟別的女人私通，而且不止一次了。大概就是因為這個緣故，他一講起女人幾乎總是說壞話；每逢人家在他面前談到女人，他總是這樣稱呼她們：「賤貨！」他認為他已經受夠了沉痛的經驗教訓，可以隨意罵她們了。可是話雖如此，只要他一連兩天身邊沒有那個「賤貨」，他就過不下去。他跟男人們相處覺得乏味，不稱心，跟他們沒有多少話好談，冷冷淡淡；可是到了女人中間，他就覺得自由自在，知道該跟她們談什麼，該採取什麼樣的態度；甚至跟她們不講話的時候也覺得很輕鬆。他的相貌、他的性格、他的全身心都具有一種迷人的、不可捉摸的東西，使得女人們對他發生好感，吸引她們；這一點他是知道的，同時也有一種未知的力量在把他推向她們那邊去。
多次的經驗，切實沉痛的經驗，早已教導他說：跟正派女人相好，特別是跟優柔寡斷、遲疑不決的莫斯科女人相好，起初倒還能夠給生活增添一點微妙的變化，就像是輕鬆可愛的生活插曲。過後卻不可避免地演變成為非常複雜的大問題，最後情況就會變得令人難以忍受了。可是每當他新遇到一位有情趣的女人，這種經驗不知為何總是從他的記憶裡消失；他渴望生活，於是一切都顯得十分簡單而引人入勝了。
有一天，將近傍晚，他正在公園裡吃飯，那個戴軟帽的女人慢慢地走過來，準備在他旁邊的一張桌子那兒坐下。她的神情、步態、服飾、髮型都告訴他說：她是一個上流社會的女人，已經結過婚，這是頭一次到雅爾塔來，孤身一人，覺得在這裡很寂寞。……那些關於本地風氣敗壞的傳聞，有許多都是假的，他不理會那些傳聞，知道這類傳聞大多是那些只要自己有機會也很樂意犯罪的人們捏造出來的；可是，等到那個女人在離他只有三步遠的那張桌子邊坐下來時，他就不由得想起那些關於風流艷遇和登山旅行的傳聞。於是，來一次快捷而短促的結合，跟一個身世不明、連姓名都不知道的女人干一回風流韻事這樣的誘人想法，就突然控制住了他。
他親切地招呼那條獅子狗，等到它真的走近的時候，他卻搖著手指頭嚇唬它。獅子狗汪汪地吠叫起來。古羅夫又搖著手指頭嚇唬它。那個女人瞟了他一眼，立刻低下眼簾。
「它不咬人。」她說著，臉紅了。
「可以給它一根骨頭吃嗎？」等到她肯定地點了一下頭，他就慇勤地問道：
「您來雅爾塔很久了吧？」
「有五天了。」
「可我在這裡已經待了兩個星期了。」
他們沉默了一會兒。
「光陰過得真快，可是這裡又是那麼沉悶！」她說著，眼睛沒有看他。
「講這裡沉悶，只不過是一種習慣的說詞罷了。一個市民居住在內地城市別廖夫或者日茲德拉，倒不覺得沉悶，可是到了這裡卻說：『唉，沉悶啊！哎，好大的灰塵！』別人會以為他是從格林納達來的呢。」
她笑了起來。後來這兩個人繼續沉默地吃著飯，像兩個不相識的人一樣。可是吃過飯之後他們並排走著，開始了一場說說笑笑的輕鬆談話。只有那種自由而滿足的、不管到哪兒去或者不管聊什麼都無所謂的人，才會這樣聊天。他們一邊散步，一邊談到海面多麼奇怪地放光，海水現出淡紫的顏色，那麼柔和而溫暖，在月光下，水面上蕩漾著幾條金黃色的長帶。他們談到炎熱的白晝過去以後天氣多麼悶熱。古羅夫說他是莫斯科人，在學校裡學的是語言文學，然而卻在一家銀行裡工作；先前他準備在一個私立的歌劇團裡演唱，可是後來不幹了，他在莫斯科有兩所房子。……他從她口中得知：她是在彼得堡長大的，可是出嫁以後就住到了斯城，已經在那裡住了兩年。她在雅爾塔還要呆上一個月，說不定她丈夫也會來，他也打算休養一下。至於她丈夫在什麼地方工作，是在省政府呢，還是在本省的地方自治局執行處，她卻無論如何也說不清楚，連她自己都覺得好笑。古羅夫還打聽到她的名叫安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜。
後來，他在自己的旅館裡想起她，想到明天勢必還會跟她見面，這是一定的。他上床躺下，想起她不久以前還是一名貴族女子中學的學生，還在唸書，就跟現在他的女兒一樣。想起她笑的時候，跟陌生人談話的時候，還是那麼靦腆，那麼侷促不安，大概這是她生平頭一次孤身一人處在這種環境裡吧？而在這種環境裡，人們純粹出於一種她不會不懂的私下目的跟蹤她，注意她，跟她交談。他想起她的瘦弱的脖子和她那雙美麗的灰色眼睛。
「總之，她那樣子有點可憐。」他想著，昏昏睡去了。
二
他們相識以後，一個星期過去了。這一天是個節日。房間裡悶熱，而街道上刮著大風，捲起灰塵，吹掉了行人的帽子。人們一整天都口乾舌燥，古羅夫屢次到那個售貨亭去，時而請安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜喝果汁，時而請她吃冰淇淋。天氣真讓人不知躲到哪裡去才好。
傍晚風小了一點，他們就在防波堤上走來走去，看輪船怎樣開到此地。碼頭上有許多散步的人；他們聚集在這兒，手裡拿著花束，像是在準備迎接什麼人。這個裝束考究的雅爾塔人群有兩個特點清晰地映入人們的眼簾：上了年紀的太太們打扮得跟年輕女人一樣，人群裡將軍很多。由於海上起了風浪，輪船晚點了，直到太陽下山之後才來，而且在靠攏防波堤之前，又花了很長時間用來掉頭。安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜舉起帶柄望遠鏡瞧著輪船，瞧著乘客，好像在尋找熟人似的；等到她轉過身來對著古羅夫，她的眼睛亮了。她說了許多話，她的問話前言不搭後語，而且剛剛問過的問題，馬上就忘了問的是什麼，後來，在人群中還把帶柄望遠鏡也失落了。
裝束考究的人群已經走散，一個人也看不見了，風完全停住。可是古羅夫和安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜卻還站在原地，好像要等著看輪船上還有沒有人下來似的。安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜已經沉默下來，在聞一束花，眼睛沒有看古羅夫。
「天氣到傍晚好一點了。」他說，「可是現在我們到哪兒去呢？我們要不要坐一輛馬車到什麼地方去兜兜風？」
她一句話也沒有回答。
這時候他定睛瞧著她，忽然摟住她，吻她的嘴唇，花束的香味兒和潮氣向他撲來，他立刻戰戰兢兢地往四下裡看：有沒有人注意到他們？
「我們到您的旅館裡去吧。……」他輕聲說道。
兩個人很快地走了。
她的旅館房間裡悶熱，瀰漫著一股她在一家日本商店裡買來的香水的氣味兒。古羅夫瞧著她，心裡暗想：「在生活中會遇到多麼不同的人啊！」在他的記憶裡，保留著以往的一些無憂無慮、心地忠厚的女人的印象：她們由於愛情而高興，感激他帶來的幸福，雖然這幸福十分短暫；還保留著另一些女人的印象，例如他的妻子：她們在戀愛的時候缺乏真誠，說過多的話，裝腔作勢，感情病態。從她們的神情來看，好像這不是愛情，也不是情慾，而是一種更有意義的事情似的；另外還保留著兩三個女人的印象：她們長得很美，內心卻冷冰冰的，臉上忽而會掠過一種猛獸般的貪婪神情。她們具有固執的願望，想向生活索取和爭奪生活所不能給予她們的東西。這種女人年紀已經不輕，為人任性，不通情理，十分專橫，頭腦不聰明。每當古羅夫對她們冷淡下來，她們的美貌總是在他心裡引起憎惡的感覺。在這種時候，她們襯衣上的花邊兒在他的眼裡也好像魚鱗一樣了。可是眼前這個女人卻還是那麼靦腆，流露出缺乏經驗的年青人那種侷促不安的神情和別彆扭扭的心態；她給人一種驚慌失措的印象，好像忽然會有人出其不意地來敲門似的。安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜，這個「帶小狗的女人」，對待剛才發生過的事情態度有點特別，看得十分嚴重，好像這是她的墮落，至少看上去是這樣。而這種事情是奇怪的，不恰當的。她垂頭喪氣，無精打采，她的長頭髮憂傷地掛在臉頰的兩邊，帶著沮喪的樣子呆呆地出神，就好像聖像畫上那個正在懺悔的女人。
「這是不對的。」她說，「現在您要頭一個看不起我了。」
房間裡的桌子上有一個西瓜。古羅夫給自己切了一塊，慢慢地吃起來。在沉默中至少過了半個鐘頭。
安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜神態動人，從她身上散發出一種正派的、純樸的、生活閱歷很淺的女人那種純潔氣息。桌子上點著一支孤零零的蠟燭，幾乎照不清她的臉，不過還是看得出來她的心緒不佳。
「我怎麼能看不起你呢？」古羅夫問。「你自己都不知道在說什麼了。」
「求天主饒恕我吧！」她說著，眼睛裡滿含淚水。「這是可怕的。」
「你彷彿是在替自己辯白似的。」
「我還有什麼理由來替自己辯白呢？我是個下流的壞女人，我看不起自己，我根本就沒有替自己辯白的意思。我所欺騙的不是我的丈夫，而是我自己。而且不光是現在，我早就在欺騙我自己了。我丈夫也許是個誠實的好人，可是要知道，他是個奴才！我不知道他在整天幹些什麼事，在怎樣工作，我只知道他是個奴才。我嫁給他的時候才二十歲，好奇心煎熬著我，我巴望過好一點兒的日子，我對自己說：「一定有另外一種不同的生活。我一心想生活得好！我要生活，生活。」
「……好奇心燃燒著我，……這您是不會瞭解的。可是，我當著天主起誓，我已經管不住自己了，我起了變化，什麼東西也沒法約束我了。我就對丈夫說我病了，於是就到這裡來了。……到了這兒之後，我老是走來走去，像是著了魔，發了瘋。……現在呢，我變成了一個庸俗下賤的女人，沒有人會看得起我了。」古羅夫已經聽得乏味；那種天真的口氣，那種十分意外而大煞風景的懺悔惹得他不痛快。要不是她眼睛裡含著淚水，別人可能會認為她是在開玩笑或者在裝腔作勢。
「我不明白。」他輕聲說，「你到底想要什麼？」
她把臉埋在他的胸前，偎緊他。
「請您相信我的話，請您務必相信我的話，我求求您，……」她說，「我喜歡正直、純潔的生活，討厭犯罪，我自己也不知道我在幹什麼。俗話說：鬼迷心竅。現在我也可以這樣說自己：鬼迷了我的心竅。」
「得了，得了。……」他嘟噥著說。
他瞧著她那對不動的、驚恐的眼睛，吻她，親熱地柔聲細語。她漸漸地平靜下來，重又感到快活，於是兩個人都笑了。
後來，等他們走出去，堤岸上已經一個人影也沒有了。這座城市以及它那些柏樹顯得死氣沉沉，然而海水卻還在嘩嘩地響，拍打著堤岸。一條汽艇在海浪上搖擺，汽艇上的燈光睡意矇矓般地閃爍著。
他們雇到一輛馬車，就往奧列安達去了。
「剛才我在樓下前廳裡看到了你的姓，那塊牌子上寫著馮·季捷利茨。」古羅夫說，「你丈夫是德國人吧？」
「不，他祖父好像是德國人，然而他本人卻是東正教徒。」
到了奧列安達，他們坐在離教堂不遠處的一條長凳上，瞧著下面的海洋，沉默著。透過晨霧，雅爾塔朦朦朧朧，看不大清楚。白雲一動不動地停在山頂上；樹上的葉子紋絲不動，知了在叫；單調而低沉的海水聲從下面傳上來，訴說著安寧，訴說著那種在等待我們的永恆的安眠。當初此地還沒有雅爾塔，沒有奧列安達的時候，下面的海水就照這樣嘩嘩地響著，如今還在嘩嘩地響著，等我們不在人世的時候，它仍舊會這樣冷漠而低沉地嘩嘩響。這種恆久不變，這種對我們每個人的生和死完全的無動於衷，也許包藏著一種保證：我們會永恆地得救，人間的生活會不斷地前行，一切會不斷地趨於完善。古羅夫和一個在黎明時刻顯得十分美麗的年輕女人坐在一起，面對著這神話般的仙境，面對著這海，這山，這雲，這遼闊的天空，不由得平靜下來，心醉神迷，暗自思忖：如果往深處想一想，那麼實際上，這個世界上的一切都是美好的。惟獨在我們忘記生活的最高目標，忘記我們人類尊嚴的時候，所想的和所做的事情是例外的。
有個人，大概是守夜人吧，走過來，朝他們望了望，然後就走開了。這件小事顯得那麼神秘，而且也挺美好。可以看見有一條從費奧多西亞來的輪船進港了，船身被朝霞照亮，船上的燈火已經熄滅。
「草上有露水了。」沉默之後安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜說。
「是啊。該回去啦。」
於是他們回到城裡去了。
後來，他們每天中午都在堤岸上見面，一塊兒吃早飯，吃午飯，散步，欣賞海景。她抱怨睡眠不好，心跳得不穩；她老是提出同樣的問題，一會兒因為嫉妒而激動，一會兒又擔心他不再尊重她了。在廣場上的小公園或者大公園裡，每逢他們附近沒有行人的時候，他就會突然把她拉到自己身邊，熱烈地吻她。十足的愜意，這種在陽光下的接吻以及左顧右盼、生怕有人看見的擔憂，炎熱，海水的氣兒，再加上悠閒的、裝束考究的、心滿意足的人們不斷在他眼前閃過，這一切彷彿使他重獲了新生；他對安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜說：她多麼好看，多麼迷人，他狂熱地戀著她，一步也不肯離開她的身旁。而她卻常常呆呆地出神，老是要求他承認不尊重她了，一點也不愛她，只把她看做是一個庸俗的女人。幾乎每天傍晚，夜色深了，他們總要坐上馬車出城走一趟，到奧列安達去，或者到瀑布那兒去。這種遊玩兒總是很盡興，他們得到的收穫每一次都必定是美好而莊嚴的。
他們在等她的丈夫到此地來。可是他寄來一封信，通知她說他的眼睛出了大毛病，要求他的妻子趕快回家去。安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜慌亂起來。
「我走了倒好。」她對古羅夫說，「這也是命裡注定的。」
她坐上馬車走了，他去送她。他們走了一整天。等到她在一列特別快車的車箱裡坐好，等到第二遍鐘聲敲響，她對他說道：「好，讓我再看您一回……再看一眼。這就行了。」
她沒有哭，可是神情憂傷，彷彿害了病似的，她的臉在顫抖。
「我會想到您，……念到您。」她說，「願天主與您同在，祝您萬事如意。我有什麼不好的地方，您千萬別記著。我們永遠分別了，這也是應當的，因為我們根本就不該遇見。好，願天主與您同在。」
火車很快地開走了，車上的燈火漸漸消失，過一會兒，連轟隆聲也聽不見了。好像所有事物都串通一氣，竭力要趕快結束這場美夢，這種近乎瘋狂的美夢。古羅夫孤身一個人留在月台上，瞧著黑暗的遠方，聽著螽斯的叫聲和電報天線的嗡嗡聲，覺得自己好像剛剛醒過來一樣。他心裡暗想：如今在他的生活中又增添了一次奇遇，或者一次冒險。而這件事情也已經結束，如今只剩下回憶了。……他感動，悲傷，生出一股淡淡的懊悔心情；要知道這個他從此再也不能與之見面的年輕女人跟他過得並不幸福；他對她親熱，傾心，然而在他對她的態度裡，在他的口吻和溫存裡，仍舊微微地顯露出譏誚的陰影，顯露出一個年紀差不多比她大一倍的幸福男子的，帶有些許粗魯的傲慢。她始終說他心好，不平凡，高尚；顯然，在她的心目中，他跟他的本來面目不同，這樣說來，是他無意中欺騙了她。……在這裡，在車站上，已經有了秋意，傍晚很涼了。
「我也該回北方去了。」古羅夫走出站台，暗想：「是時候了！」
三
在莫斯科，家家都已經是過冬的樣子了，爐子生上了火。早晨，孩子們準備上學，喝早茶的時候天還黑著，保姆點上了燈。嚴寒已經開始。下頭一場雪的時候，人們第一天坐上雪橇，看著白茫茫的大地，白皚皚的房頂，呼吸柔和而舒暢，身心會感到很愉快。這時候，不由得會想起青春的歲月。那些老菩提樹和樺樹因為蒙著厚霜而變得雪白，顯示出一種忠厚的神情，比柏樹和棕櫚樹更貼近人心。有它們在近處，人們就無意去想那些山巒和海洋了。古羅夫是莫斯科人，他在一個晴朗、寒冷的日子回到了莫斯科。等到他穿上皮大衣，戴上暖和的手套，沿著彼得羅夫卡走去。每逢星期六傍晚聽到教堂的鐘聲，不久以前的那次旅行和他所到過的那些地方，對他來說就失去了一切魅力。他漸漸沉浸在莫斯科的生活中，每天津津有味地閱讀三份報紙，嘴上卻說他不是本著原則來讀莫斯科報紙的。他已經喜歡到飯館、俱樂部去，喜歡去參加各種宴會、紀念會。有著名的律師和演員到他的家裡來，或者他在醫師俱樂部裡跟教授們一塊兒打牌，他就覺得光彩。他已經能夠吃完整份的用小煎鍋盛著的酸白菜燜肉了。
……他覺得，再過上個把月，安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜在他的記憶中就會被一層濃霧覆蓋，只有偶爾像別人那樣來到他的夢裡，現出她那動人的笑容罷了。可是一個多月過去，隆冬來了，而在他的記憶中一切還是很清楚，彷彿昨天他才跟安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜分手似的。而且這回憶越來越強烈，不論是在傍晚的寂靜中，孩子們的溫課聲傳到他的書房裡來，或者在飯館裡聽到抒情歌曲，聽到風琴的演奏聲，或者當暴風雪在壁爐裡哀叫，頓時，一切就都會在他的記憶裡復活：在防波堤上發生的事情、清晨以及山上的迷霧、從費奧多西亞開來的輪船、接吻等等。他久久地在書房裡來回走著，回想著，微微地笑著，然後回憶變成了幻想。在想像中，過去的事情就跟將來會發生的事情混淆起來了。安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜沒有到他的夢中來，可是她像影子似的跟著他到處走，一步也不放鬆他。他一閉上眼睛就看見她活生生地站在自己面前，顯得比本來的樣子還要美麗，年輕，溫柔；他自己也顯得比原先在雅爾塔的時候更漂亮。每到傍晚，她總是從書櫃裡，從壁爐裡，從牆角處瞅著他，他能夠聽見她的呼吸聲、她的衣服親切的窸窣聲。在街上，他的目光常常跟蹤著來往的女人，想找到一個跟她長得相像的人。……一種強烈的願望折磨著他，他渴望把他這段回憶跟什麼人聊一聊。然而，在家裡是不能談自己的愛情的；而在外面又找不到一個可以交談的人。跟房客們談是不行的，在銀行裡也不行。而且談些什麼呢？難道那時候他真的愛她嗎？難道在他跟安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜的關係中有什麼優美的，富於詩意的，或者有教育意義的，或者乾脆有趣味的地方嗎？他只能含含糊糊地談到愛情，談到女人。誰也猜不出他的用意在哪兒，只有他的妻子揚起兩道黑眉毛說：「你，德米特裡，可不配演花花公子的角色啊。」有一天夜裡，他同一個剛剛一塊兒打過牌的文官走出醫師俱樂部，忍不住說道：
「但願您知道我在雅爾塔認識了一個多麼迷人的女人！」
那個文官坐上雪橇，走了。可是突然回過頭來喊道：「德米特裡·德米特裡耶維奇！」
「什麼事？」
「方纔您說得對：那鱘魚肉確實有點臭味兒！」
這句話平平常常，可是不知什麼緣故惹得古羅夫冒火了，他覺得這句話不乾不淨，帶有侮辱性。多麼野蠻的習氣，都是些什麼人啊！多麼無聊的夜晚，多麼沒趣味的、平淡的白天啊！狂賭，吃喝，酗酒，反反覆覆講老套的話。不必要的工作和老套的談論佔去了人生中最美好的那部分時間，最美好的那部分精力，到頭來只剩下一種短了翅膀和缺了尾巴的生活，一種無聊的東西。想走也走不開，想逃也逃不脫，彷彿被關在瘋人院裡，或者監獄的強迫勞動隊裡似的！古羅夫通宵未眠，滿腔憤慨，然後頭痛了整整一天。第二天晚上他睡不穩，老是在床上坐起來，想心事，或者從這個牆角走到那個牆角。他討厭他的孩子，討厭銀行，不想到任何地方去，也不想說什麼話。在十二月的假期中，他準備好出門的行裝，對他的妻子說：他要到彼得堡去為一個年青人張羅一件什麼事情，可是他卻動身到斯城去了。去幹什麼呢？他自己也不大清楚。他想跟安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜見面，談一談，如果可能的話，就約她出來相會。
他早晨到達斯城，在一家旅館裡租了一個最好的房間。房間裡整個地板上鋪著灰色的軍用呢子，桌子上有一個蒙著灰塵的墨水瓶，瓶上雕著一個騎馬的人像，舉起一隻拿著帽子的手，腦袋卻被打掉了。看門人給他提供了必要的消息：馮·季捷利茨住在老岡察爾納亞街上他的私宅裡，這所房子離旅館不遠，他生活優裕，闊氣，自己有馬車，全城的人都知道他。看門人把他的姓念成「德雷迪利茨」了。古羅夫慢慢地朝老岡察爾納亞街走去，找到了那所房子。正好在那所房子的對面，佇立著一道灰色的圍牆，很長，牆頭上釘著釘子。「誰見到這樣的圍牆都會選擇逃跑的。」古羅夫看了看窗子，又看了看圍牆，暗想。他心裡盤算著：今天是機關不辦公的日子，她的丈夫大概在家。再者，闖進她的家裡去，攪得她心慌意亂，那總是不妥當的。要是送一封信進去，那封信也許就會落到她丈夫的手裡，那就可能把事情弄糟。最好是見機行事。他一直在街上圍牆旁邊走來走去，等機會。他看到一個乞丐走進大門，於是就有一些狗向他撲過來。後來，過了一個鐘頭，他聽見彈鋼琴的聲音，低微含混的琴聲傳了過來。大概是安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜在彈琴吧？前門忽然開了，一個老太婆從門口走出來，後面跟著那條熟悉的白毛獅子狗。古羅夫想叫那條狗，可是他的心忽然劇烈地跳動起來，他由於興奮而忘記那條獅子狗叫什麼名字了。他走來走去，越來越痛恨那堵灰色的圍牆，於是氣憤地暗想安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜可能忘了他，也許已經跟別的男人好上了。而這在一個從早到晚不得不瞧著這堵該死的圍牆的年輕女人的處境裡，原本是很自然的。他回到他旅館的房間裡，在一張長沙發上坐了很久，不知道該怎麼辦才好。然後是吃午飯，飯後睡了很久。
「這是多麼愚蠢，多麼惱人的事情啊。」他醒來之後，瞧著烏黑的窗子，暗想：現在已經是黃昏時分了。「不知為什麼我倒睡足了。那麼晚上我幹什麼好呢？」他坐在床上，床上鋪著一條灰色的、廉價的、象醫院裡那樣的毯子。他懊惱地挖苦自己說：「你去會那個帶小狗的女人吧。……去搞風流韻事吧。……你可能只會在這裡坐著。」
今天早晨他還在火車站的時候，有一張用很大的字寫的海報映入他的眼簾：英國作曲家瓊斯的輕歌劇《蓋伊霞》第一次公演。他想起了這件事，於是就坐車到劇院去了。
「她很可能去看第一次公演的戲。」他想。
劇院裡觀眾滿座。這裡如同一般的內地劇院一樣，枝形吊燈架的上邊瀰漫著一團迷霧，頂層樓座那邊吵吵嚷嚷；在開演以前，頭一排的當地大少爺們站在那兒，把手抄在背後；在省長包廂裡，頭一個座位上坐著省長的女兒，圍著毛皮圍脖。而省長本人卻謙遜地躲在簾幕後面，人們只看得見他的兩條胳膊。舞台上的大幕晃動著，樂隊調音化了很久的時間。在觀眾們走進來找位子的時候，古羅夫一直在熱切地用眼光搜尋著。
安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜也走進來了。她坐在第三排，古羅夫一眼瞧見她，他的心就縮緊了。他這才清楚地意識到如今對他來說，全世界再也沒有一個比她更親近、更寶貴、更重要的人了。她，這個嬌小的女人，混雜在內地的人群裡，一點兒出眾的地方也沒有，手裡拿著一隻俗氣的長柄望遠鏡，然而現在她卻佔據了他生命的全部，成為他的悲傷，他的歡樂，他目前所指望的唯一幸福；他聽著那個糟糕樂隊的演奏，聽著那粗俗、低劣的提琴聲，暗自想著：她多麼美啊。他思索著，幻想著。
跟安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜一同走進來、坐在她旁邊的是一個身量很高的年輕人，留著小小的絡腮鬍子，背有點駝；他每走一步路就晃一下頭，好像在不住地點頭致意似的。這人大概就是她的丈夫，也就是以前在雅爾塔，她在痛苦的心情中斥之為奴才的那個人吧？果然，他那細長的身材、他那絡腮鬍子、他那一小片禿頂，都有一種奴才般的卑順神態，他的笑容甜得膩人，他的紐扣眼上有個什麼學會的發亮的證章，活像是聽差的號碼牌子。
頭一次幕間休息的時候，她丈夫走出去吸煙，她留在位子上。古羅夫也坐在池座裡，這時候便走到她跟前去，勉強擠出笑臉，用發顫的聲音說：「您好。」
她看他一眼，臉色頓時發白，然後又戰戰兢兢地看他一眼，不相信自己的眼睛了；她雙手緊緊地握住扇子和長柄望遠鏡，分明是在極力支撐著，免得昏厥過去。
兩個人都沒有說話。她坐著，他呢，站在那兒，被她的窘態弄得驚慌失措，不敢挨著她坐下去。提琴和長笛開始調音，他忽然覺得可怕，似乎所有包廂裡的人都在瞧著他們。可這時候她卻站了起來，很快地往出口走去；他跟著她走，兩個人糊里糊塗地穿過過道，時而上樓，時而下樓，眼前晃過一些身穿法官制服、教師制服、皇室地產管理部門制服的人，一概佩帶著證章；又晃過一些女人和衣架上的皮大衣，穿堂風迎面吹來，送來一股煙頭的氣味。古羅夫心跳得厲害，心想：「唉，天主啊！幹嘛要有這些人，要有那個樂隊啊。……」這時候他突然記起那天傍晚，他在火車站上送走安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜的那一刻，對自己說：事情就此結束，他們從此再也不會見面了。可是，這件事情離著結束還遠得很呢！在一道標著「通往梯形樓座」的狹窄而陰暗的樓梯上，她站住了。
「您嚇了我一大跳！」她說著，呼吸急促，臉色仍舊蒼白，嚇慌了神。「哎，您真嚇了我一大跳。我幾乎死過去了。您來幹什麼？幹什麼呀？」
「可是您要明白，安娜，您要明白。……」他匆忙地低聲說「我求求您，您要明白。……」她帶著恐懼、哀求、熱切瞧著他，凝視著他，要把他的相貌更牢固地留在自己的記憶裡。
「我苦死了！」她沒有聽他的話，接著說，「我時時刻刻都在想您，只想您一個人，我完全是在對您的思念中生活著。我一心想忘掉，忘掉您，可是您為什麼到這兒來？為什麼呢？」
上邊，樓梯口有兩個中學生在吸煙，瞧著下面，可是古羅夫全不在意，把安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜拉到身邊來，開始吻她的臉、她的臉頰、她的手。
「您幹什麼呀，您幹什麼呀！」她驚恐地說著，把他從身邊推開。「我們兩個都瘋了。您今天就走，馬上就走。……我憑一切神聖的東西懇求您，央求您。……有人到這兒來了！」
下面有人走上樓來了。
「您一定得走。……」安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜接著小聲說。
「您聽見了嗎，德米特裡·德米特裡耶維奇？我會到莫斯科去找您的。我從來沒有幸福過，我現在不幸福，將來也絕不會幸福，絕不會，絕不會的！不要再給我增添痛苦了！我發誓，我會到莫斯科去的。現在我們分手吧！我親愛的，好心的人，我寶貴的人，我們分手吧！」
她握一下他的手，開始快步走下樓去，不住地回頭看他，從她的眼神裡看得出來，她也確實不幸福。……古羅夫站了一會兒，留心聽著，然後，等到一切聲音停息下來之後，他找到他那掛在衣帽架上的大衣，走出劇院去了。
四
安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜真的動身到莫斯科去看他了。每過兩三個月她就從斯城去一趟。告訴她的丈夫說：她去找一位教授治她的婦科病，她的丈夫將信將疑。她到了莫斯科就在斯拉維揚斯基商場住下來，立刻派一個戴紅帽子的人去找古羅夫。
古羅夫得到消息就去看她，在莫斯科沒有一個人知道這件事。
有一回，那是冬天的一個早晨（前一天傍晚信差來找過他，可是沒有碰到他），他照例去看她。他的女兒與他同行，他打算先送她去上學，正好是順路。天上下著大片的濕雪。
「現在的氣溫是零上三度，然而卻下雪了。」古羅夫對他的女兒說，「可是要知道，這只是地球表面的溫度，大氣上層的溫度就完全不同了。」
「爸爸，為什麼冬天不打雷呢？」
關於這個問題他也解釋了一下。他一邊說著，一邊心裡暗想：現在他正趕去赴幽會，這件事情任何人都不知道，大概永遠也不會有人知道。他有兩種生活：一種是公開的，凡是想瞭解這種生活的人都看得見，都知道，充滿了傳統的真實和傳統的欺騙，跟他的熟人和朋友們的生活完全一樣；另一種生活則在暗地裡進行的。由於環境的一種奇特的、也許是偶然的巧合，凡是他認為重大的、有趣的、必不可少的事情，凡是他真誠地去做而沒有欺騙自己的事情，凡是構成他生活核心的事情，統統都是瞞著別人，暗地裡進行的；而凡是他弄虛作假，他用以偽裝自己、以遮蓋真相的外衣，例如他在銀行裡的工作、他在俱樂部裡的爭論、他的所謂「賤貨」、他帶著他的妻子去參加紀念會等等，卻統統都是公開的。他根據自己來判斷別人，就不相信他看見的事情，老是揣測著每一個人都在私密的掩蓋之下，就像在夜幕的遮蓋下一樣，過著他的真正的、最有趣的生活。每個人的私生活都包藏在秘密裡，也許，多多少少因為這個緣故，有文化的人才那麼萋萋惶惶地主張個人隱私應當受到尊重吧？
古羅夫把他的女兒送到學校之後，就朝斯拉維揚斯基商場走去。他在樓下脫掉皮大衣，上了樓，輕輕地敲門。安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜穿著他所喜愛的那件灰色連衣裙，由於旅行和等待而感到疲憊，從昨天傍晚起就在盼著他了。她臉色蒼白，望著他，沒有一點笑容，他剛走進去，她就撲在他的懷裡了。彷彿他們有兩年沒有見面似的，他們的接吻又深又長。
「哦，你在那邊過得怎麼樣？」他問。「有什麼新聞嗎？」
「等一等，我過一會兒告訴你。……我說不出話來了。」
她沒法說話，因為她哭了。她轉過臉去，用手帕摀住眼睛。
「好，就讓她哭一場吧，我坐下來等著就是。」他想著，在一個圈椅上坐了下來。
後來他搖鈴，吩咐送茶來，然後他喝茶。她呢，仍舊站在那兒，面對著窗子。……她哭，是因為激動，因為淒苦地體驗到他們的生活淪落到多麼悲慘的境地；他們只能偷偷地見面，瞞住外人，像竊賊一樣！難道他們的生活不是毀掉了嗎？
「得了，別哭了！」他說。
對他來說，事情是明顯的，他們這場戀愛還不會很快就結束，不知道什麼時候才會結束。安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜越來越深地依戀他，崇拜他；如果有人對她說這場戀愛早晚一定會結束，那在她來講是不可想像的，而且說了她也不會相信。
他走到她跟前，扶著她的肩膀，想跟她溫存一下，說幾句笑話。這時候他看見了自己在鏡子裡的影子。
他的頭髮已經開始花白了。他不由得感到奇怪：近幾年來他變得這樣蒼老，這樣難看了。他的手扶著的那個肩膀是溫暖的，正在顫抖著的。他對這個生命感到憐憫，這個生命還這麼溫暖，這麼美麗。可是大概已經臨近開始凋謝、枯萎的地步，像他的生命一樣了。她為什麼這樣愛他呢？他在女人們的心目中總是跟他的本來面目不同，她們愛他並不是愛他本人，而是愛一個由她們的想像所創造出來的、她們在生活裡熱切地追尋的人。後來她們發現自己錯了，卻仍舊愛他。她們跟他相好的時候，沒有一個人幸福過。歲月如流，以往他認識過一些女人，跟她們相好過，後來分手了，然而他一次也沒有愛過；把這種事情說成無論什麼都可以，單單不能說是愛情。
直到現在，他的頭髮開始花白了，他才平生第一次認真地、真正地愛上一個女人。
安娜·謝爾蓋耶芙娜和他相親相愛，像是十分貼近的親人，像是一對夫婦，像是知心的朋友。他們覺得他們的相遇似乎是命中注定的，他們不懂為什麼他已經娶了妻子，她也已經嫁了丈夫；他們彷彿是兩隻候鳥，一雌一雄，被人捉住，硬關在兩隻籠子裡，分開生活似的。他們互相原諒他們過去所做過的自覺羞愧的事情，原諒目前所做的一切，感到他們的這種愛情把他們兩個人都改變了。以前在憂傷的時候，他總是用他想得到的任何道理來安慰自己。可是現在，他顧不上什麼道理了，他只是感到深深的憐憫，一心希望自己誠懇，溫柔。……「別哭了，我的好人。」他說，「哭一會兒也就夠了。……現在讓我們來談談，想出一個什麼辦法來吧。」
後來他們商量了很久，談到應該怎樣做才能擺脫目前這種必須躲藏、欺騙、分居兩地、很久不能相見的處境，應該怎樣做才能從這種不堪忍受的桎梏中解放出來呢？
「應該怎樣做？應該怎樣做呢？」他問，抱住頭，「應該怎樣做呢？」
似乎再過一會兒，答案就可以找到。到那時候，一種嶄新的、美好的生活就要開始了。不過，兩個人心裡都明白：離著結束還很遠很遠，那最複雜、最艱難的道路現在才剛剛開始。
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