Summary:
In Moscow, winter had commenced. It was pleasant to see everything covered in snow. The wintry landscape made Gurov forget the sea of Yalta. He had been born and bred in Moscow, and he quickly became consumed with Moscow life. He read three newspapers a day and became consumed by social events and prestige. He could eat a whole plate of salt fish and cabbage. He anticipated that the memory of his affair with Anna would soon subside—but over a month later, with winter in full swing, his memories of her remained clear. He thought of her throughout his daily life, and her image haunted him at night. In the streets, he looked for women who looked like Anna. He wanted to talk to someone about her, but there was no one to be found. One day, after playing cards with an official in a club, he became disgusted by life in Moscow and the people that surrounded him. Conventions and useless conversations occupied everyone's time and trapped Gurov in a life without meaning. He could hardly sleep that night, and he stayed up thinking the next night, too.
In December, Gurov prepared for a journey, telling his wife he was going to do something for a friend. He arrived in S—, took the best room in a hotel, and obtained the address of Von Diderits from the porter. He went to the house and walked up and down the street, waiting to see Anna. At one point, her dog came out; Gurov became very excited, but Anna did not surface. He became annoyed and thought that surely Anna had found someone else with whom to amuse herself. He went back to the hotel frustrated. In the morning, he went to see "The Geisha" at the theater, thinking Anna might attend. The theater was full, and the Governor's daughter sat in the Governor's box. Anna arrived and sat down in the third row. Looking at her, Gurov felt that she was the most important person in the world to him. A tall and whiskered man sat down next to her: the husband. When the husband left for a smoking break, Gurov went to greet Anna. She glanced at him in horror. They did not know what to do. They left the theatre, and Anna told Gurov that she had been so unhappy. He began kissing her and she pushed him away in horror. She told him he had to leave, but she promised to visit him in Moscow.
Once every two or three months, Anna began visiting Gurov in Moscow, telling her husband she was seeing a doctor there. In Moscow, Gurov went to see her in a hotel, and no one knew about their liaisons. One morning, he was on his way to see her, walking his daughter to school. While answering his daughter's questions about the snow, Gurov thought about how he had a secret life that no one knew about. He had two lives, and everything that was meaningful and important to him was in the secret one. Private life, he reflected, was the valuable one.
Gurov knocked on Anna's door and they shared a slow, passionate kiss. Afterward, Anna cried, upset by the secrecy. Gurov drank tea and waited for her to cry. He knew their love would not be over soon; they were too attached to each other. He went over to cheer her up, but as he did, he glimpsed his reflection in the mirror and was struck by how old he looked. All the past women with whom he had been involved had not really loved him for himself. Now that he finally was truly in love, his hair was grey. Gurov and Anna had a very pure, tender love. They talked about how they might live out in the open. They knew they would find a solution somehow, embarking on a long road of loving each other without secrecy.
Analysis:
In the first half of the text, Gurov is preoccupied with the idea of their affair but less concerned with Anna herself. In this second half, this dynamic dramatically changes. Soon after returning to Moscow, Gurov realizes that he cannot forget Anna; in fact, he is in love with her. Mirroring this shift is the dramatic change in scenery from sleepy, seaside Yalta to bustling Moscow. In Moscow, a world governed by social ritual and tradition, where there are expectations of playing cards at elite clubs and inviting important people to dinner, Gurov sees his affair with Anna with fresh eyes. Viewing the past from within a bubble of hierarchy and superficiality, he longs for what he sees as the more authentic feelings he experienced in Yalta.
Gurov's intense feelings in Moscow foreshadow his transformation from a condescending womanizer into a deeply sensitive lover. When he sees Anna again after their separation, "his heart contract[s]." For the first time, he fully realizes the depth of his feelings for her, understanding "clearly that for him there was in the whole world no creature so near, so precious, and so important to him...[She] filled his whole life now, was his sorrow and his joy, the one happiness that he now desired for himself." Gurov continues to evolve into a more compassionate lover. At the end of the story, when he meets Anna in her Moscow hotel, she is deeply upset and cries over the secrecy of their affair. Early on in their affair, Gurov was dismissive of Anna's tears; now, however, he is moved. Looking in the mirror and noting the gray color of his hair, he feels "compassion for this life" that he now shares with Anna, and he is suddenly moved to be "sincere and tender." This is a remarkable change from his earlier dismissal of Anna as merely an object of sexual distraction.
Gurov is not the only character that changes in the second half of the text. In the first half of the story, Anna is distraught at the idea of the affair. She weeps after their sexual encounters; she asks Gurov constant and inane questions concerning his respect for her; she bemoans her sins against her husband. Yet she remains fully complicit, willingly submitting to Gurov's continued pursuits. In this second half of the story, however, Anna transforms into a much more active character. In fact, she becomes the defining force in the relationship when Gurov, driven mad by longing, goes to find her. She refuses his advances firmly, and Gurov immediately submits to her wishes. Anna then decides when to come to Moscow to visit Gurov, thus determining how often they see each other and continuing to dictate the terms of the relationship.
Together, these transformations constitute one of this text's most profound lessons: love has the power to transform us. At the start of the story, Gurov is depicted as a cynical, shallow man; Anna is an inexperienced, insecure, and unremarkable young woman. Their love story not only deeply transforms their individual characters but also creates a new entity: their partnership. By the end of the story, these two unlikely characters are like "a pair of birds of passage." Indeed, the narrator explicitly states that their love "had changed them both." In this way, the narrative clearly expresses the beauty and inherent potential contained within romantic love.
