than it could give, and these were capricious, unreflecting,
domineering, unintelligent women not in their first youth, and when
Gurov grew cold to them their beauty excited his hatred, and the
lace on their linen seemed to him like scales.

But in this case there was still the diffidence, the angularity of
inexperienced youth, an awkward feeling; and there was a sense of
consternation as though some one had suddenly knocked at the door.
The attitude of Anna Sergeyevna--"the lady with the dog"--to
what had happened was somehow peculiar, very grave, as though it
were her fall--so it seemed, and it was strange and inappropriate.
Her face dropped and faded, and on both sides of it her long hair
hung down mournfully; she mused in a dejected attitude like "the
woman who was a sinner" in an old-fashioned picture.

"It's wrong," she said. "You will be the first to despise me now."

There was a water-melon on the table. Gurov cut himself a slice and
began eating it without haste. There followed at least half an hour
of silence.

Anna Sergeyevna was touching; there was about her the purity of a
good, simple woman who had seen little of life. The solitary candle
burning on the table threw a faint light on her face, yet it was
clear that she was very unhappy.

"How could I despise you?" asked Gurov. "You don't know what you
are saying."

"God forgive me," she said, and her eyes filled with tears. "It's
awful."

"You seem to feel you need to be forgiven."

"Forgiven? No. I am a bad, low woman; I despise myself and don't
attempt to justify myself. It's not my husband but myself I have
deceived. And not only just now; I have been deceiving myself for
a long time. My husband may be a good, honest man, but he is a
flunkey! I don't know what he does there, what his work is, but I
know he is a flunkey! I was twenty when I was married to him. I
have been tormented by curiosity; I wanted something better. 'There
must be a different sort of life,' I said to myself. I wanted to
live! To live, to live! . . . I was fired by curiosity . . . you
don't understand it, but, I swear to God, I could not control myself;
something happened to me: I could not be restrained. I told my
husband I was ill, and came here. . . . And here I have been walking
about as though I were dazed, like a mad creature; . . . and now I
have become a vulgar, contemptible woman whom any one may despise."

Gurov felt bored already, listening to her. He was irrit