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He felt that he had learnt sufficiently from bitter experience to call them by whatever name he liked, yet, for all that, he could not have survived two days without his ‘inferior breed’. He was bored in male company, not very talkative and offhand. But with women he felt free, knowing what to talk to them about and how to behave. Even saying nothing at all to them was easy for him. There was something attractive, elusive in his appearance, in his character – in his whole personality – that appealed to women and lured them to him. He was well aware of this and some power similarly attracted him.
Repeated – and in fact bitter – experience had long taught him that every affair, which at first adds spice and variety to life and seems such a charming, light-hearted adventure, inevitably develops into an enormous, extraordinarily complex problem with respectable people – especially Muscovites, who are so hesitant, so inhibited – until finally the whole situation becomes a real nightmare. But on every new encounter with an interesting woman all this experience was somehow forgotten and he simply wanted to enjoy life – and it all seemed so easy and amusing.
Later, back in his hotel room, he thought about her. He was bound to meet her tomorrow, of that there was no doubt. As he went to bed he remembered that she had only recently left boarding-school, that she had been a schoolgirl just like his own daughter – and he remembered how much hesitancy, how much awkwardness there was in her laughter, in the way she talked to a stranger – it must have been the very first time in her life that she had been on her own, in such surroundings, where men followed her, eyed her and spoke to her with one secret aim in mind, which she could hardly fail to guess. He recalled her slender, frail neck, her beautiful grey eyes.
‘Still, there’s something pathetic about her,’ he thought as he fell asleep.
Her room was stuffy and smelt of the perfume she had bought in the Japanese shop. Looking at her now Gurov thought: ‘The encounters one has in life!’ He still remembered those carefree, light-hearted women in his past, so happy in their love and grateful to him for their happiness – however short-lived. And he recalled women who, like his wife, made love insincerely, with too much talk, affectedly, hysterically, with an expression that seemed to say that it was neither love nor passion, but something more significant. And he recalled two or three very beautiful, cold women across whose faces there suddenly flashed a predatory expression, a stubborn desire to seize, to snatch from life more than it could provide… and these women were no longer young; they were capricious, irrational, domineering and unintelligent. And when Gurov cooled towards them their beauty aroused hatred in him and the lace on their underclothes seemed like fish scales.
But here there was that same hesitancy, that same discomfiture, that gaucheness of inexperienced youth. And there was an air of embarrassment, as if someone had just knocked at the door. In her own particular, very serious way, Anna Sergeyevna, that lady with the little dog, regarded what had happened just as if it were her downfall. So it seemed – and it was all very weird and out of place. Her features sank and faded, and her long hair hung sadly on each side of her face. She struck a pensive, dejected pose, like the woman taken in adultery in an old-fashioned painting.
‘How can I defend myself? I’m a wicked, vile woman. I despise myself and I’m not going to make any excuses. It’s not my husband but myself I’ve deceived. And I don’t mean only just now, but for a long time. My husband’s a fine honest man, but he’s no more than a lackey. What does he do in that office of his? I’ve no idea. But I do know he’s a mere lackey. I was twenty when I married him and dying from curiosity; but I wanted something better. Surely there must be a different kind of life, I told myself. I wanted to live life to the full, to enjoy life… to enjoy it! I was burning with curiosity. You won’t understand this, but I swear that my feelings ran away with me, something was happening to me and there was no holding me back. So I told my husband I was ill and I came here… And ever since I’ve been going around as if intoxicated, like someone demented. So, now I’m a vulgar, worthless woman whom everyone has the right to despise.’
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In Oreanda they sat on a bench near the church and looked down at the sea without saying a word. Yalta was barely visible through the morning mist; white clouds lay motionless on the mountain tops. Not one leaf stirred on the trees, cicadas chirped, and the monotonous, hollow roar of the sea that reached them from below spoke of peace, of that eternal slumber that awaits us. And so it roared down below when neither Yalta nor Oreanda existed. It was roaring now and would continue its hollow, indifferent booming when we are no more. And in this permanency, in this utter indifference to the life and death of every one of us there perhaps lies hidden a pledge of our eternal salvation, of never-ceasing progress of life upon earth, of the never-ceasing march towards perfection. As he sat there beside that young woman who seemed so beautiful at daybreak, soothed and enchanted at the sight of those magical surroundings – sea, mountains, clouds, wide skies – Gurov reflected that, if one thought hard about it, everything on earth was truly beautiful except those things we ourselves think of and do when we forget the higher aims of existence and our human dignity.
One night, as he left the Doctors’ Club with his partner – a civil servant – he was unable to hold back any more and said:
‘If you only knew what an enchanting woman I met in Yalta!’
The civil servant climbed into his sledge and drove off. But then he suddenly turned round and called out:
‘Dmitry Dmitrich!’
‘What?’
‘You were right the other day – the sturgeon was off!’
This trite remark for some reason suddenly nettled Gurov, striking him as degrading and dirty. What barbarous manners, what faces! What meaningless nights, what dismal, unmemorable days! Frenetic card games, gluttony, constant conversations about the same old thing. Those pointless business affairs and perpetual conversations – always on the same theme – were commandeering the best part of his time, his best strength, so that in the end there remained only a limited, humdrum life, just trivial nonsense. And it was impossible to run away, to escape – one might as well be in a lunatic asylum or a convict squad!
As they drove up out of the ravine, Anisim kept looking back at the village. It was a fine warm day. For the first time that year, cattle had been led out to graze and young girls and women were walking round the herd in their holiday dresses. A brown bull bellowed, rejoicing in its freedom, and pawed the earth with its front hoofs. Larks were singing everywhere – on the ground and high up above. Anisim glanced back at the graceful church, which had recently been whitewashed, and he remembered that he had prayed there five days ago. And he looked back at the school, with its green roof, at the river where he once swam or tried to catch fish, and his heart thrilled with joy. He wanted a wall suddenly to rise up out of the ground to block his path, so that he could remain there, with only the past.
The priest stood with his Gospels open, waiting. In the ensuing silence the harmonious singing of a male voice choir could be clearly heard: they were singing somewhere beyond the garden, by the river, no doubt. And it was so delightful when the bells in the neighbouring monastery suddenly pealed and their soft, melodious chimes blended with the singing. Yanshin’s heart seemed to miss a beat in sweet anticipation of something fine and he almost forgot that he was supposed to be helping an invalid. The sounds from outside that floated into the room somehow reminded him how little freedom and enjoyment there was in his present life and how trivial, insignificant and boring were the tasks with which he so furiously grappled every day, from dawn to dusk. When he had led the sick man out, while the servants made way and looked on with that morbid curiosity with which village people usually survey corpses, he suddenly felt hatred, a deep, intense hatred for the invalid’s puffy, clean-shaven face, for his waxen hands, for his plush dressing-gown, for his heavy breathing, for the tapping of his black cane. This feeling, which he was experiencing for the first time in his life and which had taken possession of him so suddenly, made his head and legs go cold and his heart pound. He passionately wanted Mikhail Ilich to drop dead that very minute, to utter a last cry and slump onto the floor, but in a flash he pictured that death for himself and recoiled in horror. When they left the room no longer did he want the sick man to die, but craved life for himself. If only he could tear his hand from that warm armpit and run away, to run and run without looking back.
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That evening the monks’ singing was harmonious and inspired; a young, black-bearded priest was officiating. When he heard the ‘bridegroom who cometh at midnight’2 and ‘the mansion richly adorned’, he felt neither penitent nor sorrowful, but a spiritual peace and calm as his thoughts wandered off into the distant past, to his childhood and youth, when they had sung of that same bridegroom and mansion. Now that past seemed alive, beautiful, joyful, such as it most probably had never been. Perhaps, in the next world, in the life to come, we will remember that distant past and our life on earth below with just the same feelings. Who knows? The bishop took his seat in the dark chancel, and the tears flowed. He reflected that he had attained everything a man of his position could hope for, and his faith was still strong. All the same, there were things he did not understand, something was lacking. He did not want to die. And still it seemed that an integral part of his life, which he had vaguely dreamed of at some time, had vanished; and precisely the same hopes for the future which he had nurtured in his childhood, at the college and abroad, still haunted him.
‘Just listen to them sing today!’ he thought, listening intently. ‘How wonderful!’
After that came a sitting-room, with a round table, sofa and armchairs upholstered in a bright blue material. A large photograph of Father Andrey, in priest’s hat and wearing decorations, hung over the sofa. Then they entered the dining-room, with its sideboard, and then the bedroom. Here in the half-light, two beds stood side by side, giving the impression that the room had been furnished with the intention that everything there would always be perfect and could never be otherwise. Andrey Andreich led Nadya through the whole house, keeping his arm around her waist all the time. But she felt weak and guilty, hating all those rooms, beds and armchairs, and nauseated by that naked lady. Now she clearly understood that she no longer loved Andrey Andreich and that perhaps she never had. But how could she put it into words, whom could she tell and what good would it do? This was something she did not and could not understand, although she had thought about it for days and nights on end. He was holding her round the waist, talking to her so affectionately, so modestly – he was happy walking around his new house. But all she saw was vulgarity, stupid, fatuous, intolerable vulgarity, and that arm round her waist seemed as hard and cold as an iron hoop. Every minute she was on the verge of running away, sobbing, throwing herself out of the window. Andrey Andreich led her to the bathroom, where he placed his hand on a tap set in the wall – and suddenly water flowed.