The Tales of Chekhov, vol 3 | Page 5

but a memory. . . . He was moved, sad, and conscious of a slight
remorse. This young woman whom he would never meet again had not
been happy with him; he was genuinely warm and affectionate with her,
but yet in his manner, his tone, and his caresses there had been a shade
of light irony, the coarse condescension of a happy man who was,
besides, almost twice her age. All the time she had called him kind,
exceptional, lofty; obviously he had seemed to her different from what
he really was, so he had unintentionally deceived her. . . .
Here at the station was already a scent of autumn; it was a cold
evening.
"It's time for me to go north," thought Gurov as he left the platform.
"High time!"
III
At home in Moscow everything was in its winter routine; the stoves
were heated, and in the morning it was still dark when the children
were having breakfast and getting ready for school, and the nurse
would light the lamp for a short time. The frosts had begun already.
When the first snow has fallen, on the first day of sledge-driving it is
pleasant to see the white earth, the white roofs, to draw soft, delicious
breath, and the season brings back the days of one's youth. The old
limes and birches, white with hoar-frost, have a good-natured
expression; they are nearer to one's heart than cypresses and palms, and
near them one doesn't want to be thinking of the sea and the mountains.
Gurov was Moscow born; he arrived in Moscow on a fine frosty day,
and when he put on his fur coat and warm gloves, and walked along

Petrovka, and when on Saturday evening he heard the ringing of the
bells, his recent trip and the places he had seen lost all charm for him.
Little by little he became absorbed in Moscow life, greedily read three
newspapers a day, and declared he did not read the Moscow papers on
principle! He already felt a longing to go to restaurants, clubs,
dinner-parties, anniversary celebrations, and he felt flattered at
entertaining distinguished lawyers and artists, and at playing cards with
a professor at the doctors' club. He could already eat a whole plateful of
salt fish and cabbage.
In another month, he fancied, the image of Anna Sergeyevna would be
shrouded in a mist in his memory, and only from time to time would
visit him in his dreams with a touching smile as others did. But more
than a month passed, real winter had come, and everything was still
clear in his memory as though he had parted with Anna Sergeyevna
only the day before. And his memories glowed more and more vividly.
When in the evening stillness he heard from his study the voices of his
children, preparing their lessons, or when he listened to a song or the
organ at the restaurant, or the storm howled in the chimney, suddenly
everything would rise up in his memory: what had happened on the
groyne, and the early morning with the mist on the mountains, and the
steamer coming from Theodosia, and the kisses. He would pace a long
time about his room, remembering it all and smiling; then his memories
passed into dreams, and in his fancy the past was mingled with what
was to come. Anna Sergeyevna did not visit him in dreams, but
followed him about everywhere like a shadow and haunted him. When
he shut his eyes he saw her as though she were living before him, and
she seemed to him lovelier, younger, tenderer than she was; and he
imagined himself finer than he had been in Yalta. In the evenings she
peeped out at him from the bookcase, from the fireplace, from the
corner--he heard her breathing, the caressing rustle of her dress. In the
street he watched the women, looking for some one like her.
He was tormented by an intense desire to confide his memories to some
one. But in his home it was impossible to talk of his love, and he had
no one outside; he could not talk to his tenants nor to any one at the
bank. And what had he to talk of? Had he been in love, then? Had there
been anything beautiful, poetical, or edifying or simply interesting in
his relations with Anna Sergeyevna? And there was nothing for him but

to talk vaguely of love, of woman, and no one guessed what it meant;
only his wife twitched her black eyebrows, and said:
"The part of a lady-killer does not suit you at all, Dimitri."
One evening, coming out of the doctors' club with an official with
whom he had been playing cards, he could not resist saying:
"If only