The Lady with the Dog

"...unceasing progress towards perfection..."

Love, ah sweet love and the longing for it, the early giddiness, the high expectations, the disappointments, the irritations, the growing bitterness, the regrets...the philandering.

This story is about that but an unexpected one that begins at the end, with philandering. Nothing assures me that it will not be a wheel, turning back to the beginning.

If a romance story for you is about people you care about who wrench your heart over the obstacles they must overcome to be together, and the heart-warming joy of their union at last, this is not that kind of romance.

This is cynical romance, one that begins outside of marriage, as part of a game of short-lived pursuits to combat boredom. The man is a show more cad who likes women almost only because he finds men boring. He thinks of women as "the lesser race." He sees the lady with the dog, a young woman seeking her own first dalliance outside of a marriage that is just 2 years old, and together they begin an almost calculated affair.

But something happened. It became love. Although, I can't see why either sees anything in the other to warrant a surprised, passionate devout feeling of love. But there you go. Love, ah sweet, inexplicable love.

Almost always doomed to failure when its foundation is romance. Or lust. Or boredom. Or expectations of perfection. Or being too young. Or....well, yes, it's a fragile thing.

"...then a new and splendid life would begin..." show less

What happens when a misogynistic philanderer falls in love for the first time? Chekhov won’t give you an answer, which is one of the notable and enjoyable things about this story from 1899. Much is unknown and unsaid, by the author and his characters. Chekhov takes advantage of the brevity of the form to let the reader fill in the gaps - possibly in different permutations with each reading. There are gaps of backstory as well as the middle and, especially, the abrupt and open ending. It means Chekhov avoids moralising and the reader chooses whether it's a tragedy or happy-ever-after.

Nevertheless, I wouldn’t be as hyperbolic as Nabokov’s final sentence, here:
“All the traditional rules of story telling have been broken in this show more wonderful short story of twenty pages or so. There is no problem, no regular climax, no point at the end. And it is one of the greatest stories ever written.”

Image: Chekhov in his study at his White Dacha in Yalta (Source)

The anti-hero

After the first few sentences, I noted “what a horrid, horrid, stalkerish man he is. Self-justification drips from every page”. He often states that women are “the inferior race”, but he needs their company because men are boring and he knows he is attractive to women. I didn’t warm to Gurov as the story progressed, but I don’t mind that: it is an interesting character study. His thoughts about women are derogatory and dismissive, and are part of his deflection of blame or guilt.

“The personal life of every individual is based on secrecy, and perhaps it is partly for that reason that civilized man is so nervously anxious that personal privacy should be respected.”

He does reach a point of self-reflection, but it doesn’t mark a meaningful or plausible change. He thinks there has never been love in his affairs (another excuse), and acknowledges that “not one of them had been happy with him”. But he immediately remembers that they loved what they thought him to be (an image he cultivated), saw their mistake, and then continued to love him. So had they loved him or not? Either way, it’s the women’s fault.

What happens in Yalta stays in Yalta?

“They walked and talked of the strange light of the sea: the water was a soft, warm, lilac color, and there was a golden band of moonlight upon it.”

Yalta was a fashionable resort in Crimea (part of Ukraine, but occupied by Russia since 2014). Gurav is nearing forty and Anna is only twenty two. Both are on holiday without their spouses. The scenery is beautiful, the days are long, and the weather sultry. So far, so predictable. Where the story becomes interesting is what happens after they part “forever”.

Image: Sunset over Yalta by Ivan Ayvazovsky, in 1861, as it would have looked in their grandparents’ day (Source)

No gun

I’ve long been familiar with the principle of Chekhov’s Gun: that every element is necessary, so if a gun is mentioned early on, you know it will be fired before the end.

That’s not true here. There are lots of specific details that add realism, but don’t seem to affect the plot or have obvious symbolism: unhurriedly eating a watermelon, someone commenting that a sturgeon was “a bit high”, and an inkstand so unusual, I couldn’t find a picture of anything close to the description: “gray with dust and topped by a figure on horseback, its hat in its raised hand and its head broken off”.

Image: Inkwell with horse and jokey, c1900, French (Source)

There are even a couple of times the illicit lovers could have been caught, and in the case of the guard at Oreanda, Chekov teases the reader: “and this detail, too, seemed so mysterious and beautiful”. But nothing comes of it.

Quotes

Excuses, coupled with misogyny

• “They had found a wife for him when he was very young.”
• “He was eager for life.”
• “Women like his wife who loved without sincerity.”
• “Beautiful, frigid women.”
• “And these were women no longer young… and when Gurov grew cold to them their beauty aroused his hatred, and the lace on their lingerie seemed to him to resemble scales.”

• “He preserved the memory of carefree, good-natured women whom love made gay and who were grateful to him for the happiness he gave them, however brief it might be; and of women like his wife, who loved without sincerity… and of two or three others, very beautiful, frigid women, across whose faces would suddenly flit a rapacious expression… and when Gurov grew cold to them their beauty aroused his hatred, and the lace on their lingerie seemed to him to resemble scales.”

After Yalta

• “He did not dream of Anna Sergeyevna, but she followed him about everywhere and watched him. When he shut his eyes he saw her before him… He heard her breathing, the caressing rustle of her clothes.”

• “Her husband did and did not believe her”

• “He had two lives, an open one, seen and known by all who needed to know it, full of conventional truth and conventional falsehood, exactly like the lives of his friends and acquaintances; and another life that went on in secret… everything that was of interest and importance to him, everything that was essential to him, everything about which he felt sincerely and did not deceive himself, everything that constituted the core of his life, was going on concealed from others; while all that was false… all that went on in the open. Judging others by himself, he did not believe what he saw, and always fancied that every man led his real, most interesting life under cover of secrecy as under cover of night.”

• “They talked of how to avoid the necessity for secrecy, for deception, for living in different cities, and not seeing each other for long stretches of time.”

• “And it seemed as though in a little while the solution would be found, and then a new and glorious life would begin; and it was clear to both of them that the end was still far off, and that what was to be most complicated and difficult for them was only just beginning.”


See also

• I’ve read a trio of other Chekhov stories and given them very different ratings:
The Bet, 5*. See my review HERE.
The Death of a Government Clerk, 2*. See my review HERE
Misery, 5*. See my review HERE.

• Is Anna a nod to Tolstoy’s adulterous Anna Karenina?

• Was Amor Towles nodding to Chekhov when he created willowy Anna Urbanova with dogs in A Gentleman in Moscow? See my review HERE.

Short story club

I read this as one of the stories in The Art of the Short Story, by Dana Gioia, from which I'm aiming to read one story a week with The Short Story Club, starting 2 May 2022.

You can read this story here.

You can join the group here. show less

My goodness, this was a crisp short story! More than that, for the type of character the man was, I thought I would love to hate him, being a philanderer and a generally nasty sort when it comes to women... what we have here is one of the best-written examples of Redemption Through Love.

You know the story. It's EVERYWHERE in the romance market. But this short story is probably the crispest and crispiest I've ever read... by an undisputed master of the form. :)

Well worth reading. :)

I'm consistently drawn to this short story of a middle aged man who finds love just as his prime is fading. There's something about the writing, it's simple realistic manner packs a silent punch. The emotions of each of the characters are finely felt and I always find myself following the words so intently. Even though I know what's going to happen, what's going to be said, reading it always feels like the first time – just has suspenseful, a little giddy, and ever in awe.

A very short story about morally grey characters. Beautiful Prose all around.

. . . who loved without any genuine feeling, with superfluous phrases, affectedly, hysterically, with an expression that suggested that it was not love nor passion, but something more significant; . . .

Exquisite prose.

the key reflection point is in the time looking back through the looking glass