Anton Chekhov
The Lady with the Dog
Print Version:
Chekhov, Anton.
"The Lady with the Dog"
The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories
Trans. Constance Garnett
The Tales of Chekhov, 3
New York: Macmillan, 1917
Rpt. Hopewell, NJ: Ecco P, 1984. 3-28
THE LADY WITH THE DOG
I
IT was said that a new person had appeared on the sea-front: a lady with a
little dog. Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov, who had by then been a fortnight at Yalta,
and so was fairly at home there, had begun to take an interest in new arrivals.
Sitting in Verney's pavilion, he saw, walking on the sea-front, a fair-haired
young lady of medium height, wearing a béret; a white Pomeranian dog was running
behind her.
And afterwards he met her in the public gardens and in the square several times
a day. She was walking alone, always wearing the same béret, and always with the
same white dog; no one knew who she was, and every one called her simply "the
lady with the dog."
"If she is here alone without a husband or friends, it wouldn't be amiss to make
her acquaintance," Gurov reflected.
He was under forty, but he had a daughter already twelve years old, and two sons
at school. He had been married young, when he was a student in his second year,
and by now his wife seemed half as old again as he. She was a tall, erect woman with dark eyebrows, staid
and dignified, and, as she said of herself, intellectual. She read a great deal,
used phonetic spelling, called her husband, not Dmitri, but Dimitri, and he
secretly considered her unintelligent, narrow, inelegant, was afraid of her, and
did not like to be at home. He had begun being unfaithful to her long ago -- had
been unfaithful to her often, and, probably on that account, almost always spoke
ill of women, and when they were talked about in his presence, used to call them
"the lower race."
It seemed to him that he had been so schooled by bitter experience that he might
call them what he liked, and yet he could not get on for two days together
without "the lower race." In the society of men he was bored and not himself,
with them he was cold and uncommunicative; but when he was in the company of
women he felt free, and knew what to say to them and how to behave; and he was
at ease with them even when he was silent. In his appearance, in his character,
in his whole nature, there was something attractive and elusive which allured
women and disposed them in his favour; he knew that, and some force seemed to
draw him, too, to them.
Experience often repeated, truly bitter experience, had taught him long ago that
with decent people, especially Moscow people -- always slow to move and
irresolute -- every intimacy, which at first so agreeably diversifies life and
appears a light and charming adventure, inevitably grows into a regular problem of extreme intricacy, and in the long run the situation becomes
unbearable. But at every fresh meeting with an interesting woman this experience
seemed to slip out of his memory, and he was eager for life, and everything
seemed simple and amusing.
One evening he was dining in the gardens, and the lady in the béret came up
slowly to take the next table. Her expression, her gait, her dress, and the way
she did her hair told him that she was a lady, that she was married, that she
was in Yalta for the first time and alone, and that she was dull there. . . .
The stories told of the immorality in such places as Yalta are to a great extent
untrue; he despised them, and knew that such stories were for the most part made
up by persons who would themselves have been glad to sin if they had been able;
but when the lady sat down at the next table three paces from him, he remembered
these tales of easy conquests, of trips to the mountains, and the tempting
thought of a swift, fleeting love affair, a romance with an unknown woman, whose
name he did not know, suddenly took possession of him.
He beckoned coaxingly to the Pomeranian, and when the dog came up to him he
shook his finger at it. The Pomeranian growled: Gurov shook his finger at it
again.
The lady looked at him and at once dropped her eyes.
"He doesn't bite," she said, and blushed.
"May I give him a bone?" he asked; and when she nodded he asked courteously, "Have you been long in Yalta?"
"Five days."
"And I have already dragged out a fortnight here."
There was a brief silence.
"Time goes fast, and yet it is so dull here!" she said, not looking at him.
"That's only the fashion to say it is dull here. A provincial will live in
Belyov or Zhidra and not be dull, and when he comes here it's 'Oh, the dulness!
Oh, the dust!' One would think he came from Grenada."
She laughed. Then both continued eating in silence, like strangers, but after
dinner they walked side by side; and there sprang up between them the light
jesting conversation of people who are free and satisfied, to whom it does not
matter where they go or what they talk about. They walked and talked of the
strange light on the sea: the water was of a soft warm lilac hue, and there was
a golden streak from the moon upon it. They talked of how sultry it was after a
hot day. Gurov told her that he came from Moscow, that he had taken his degree
in Arts, but had a post in a bank; that he had trained as an opera-singer, but
had given it up, that he owned two houses in Moscow. . . . And from her he
learnt that she had grown up in Petersburg, but had lived in S---- since her
marriage two years before, that she was staying another month in Yalta, and that
her husband, who needed a holiday too, might perhaps come and fetch her. She was not sure whether her husband had a post in a Crown Department or under the
Provincial Council -- and was amused by her own ignorance. And Gurov learnt,
too, that she was called Anna Sergeyevna.
Afterwards he thought about her in his room at the hotel -- thought she would
certainly meet him next day; it would be sure to happen. As he got into bed he
thought how lately she had been a girl at school, doing lessons like his own
daughter; he recalled the diffidence, the angularity, that was still manifest in
her laugh and her manner of talking with a stranger. This must have been the
first time in her life she had been alone in surroundings in which she was
followed, looked at, and spoken to merely from a secret motive which she could
hardly fail to guess. He recalled her slender, delicate neck, her lovely grey
eyes.
"There's something pathetic about her, anyway," he thought, and fell asleep.
II
A week had passed since they had made acquaintance. It was a holiday. It was
sultry indoors, while in the street the wind whirled the dust round and round,
and blew people's hats off. It was a thirsty day, and Gurov often went into the
pavilion, and pressed Anna Sergeyevna to have syrup and water or an ice. One did
not know what to do with oneself.
In the evening when the wind had dropped a little, they went out on the groyne
to see the steamer come in. There were a great many people walking about the harbour; they had
gathered to welcome some one, bringing bouquets. And two peculiarities of a
well-dressed Yalta crowd were very conspicuous: the elderly ladies were dressed
like young ones, and there were great numbers of generals.
Owing to the roughness of the sea, the steamer arrived late, after the sun had
set, and it was a long time turning about before it reached the groyne. Anna
Sergeyevna looked through her lorgnette at the steamer and the passengers as
though looking for acquaintances, and when she turned to Gurov her eyes were
shining. She talked a great deal and asked disconnected questions, forgetting
next moment what she had asked; then she dropped her lorgnette in the crush.
The festive crowd began to disperse; it was too dark to see people's faces. The
wind had completely dropped, but Gurov and Anna Sergeyevna still stood as though
waiting to see some one else come from the steamer. Anna Sergeyevna was silent
now, and sniffed the flowers without looking at Gurov.
"The weather is better this evening," he said. "Where shall we go now? Shall we
drive somewhere?"
She made no answer.
Then he looked at ...
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