WorldLit #2 The Lady with the Dog: From a Flagrant Philanderer to a True Lover

                  ‘The Lady with the Dog’ by Anton Chekhov is a captivating story about the love of a married man and a woman, Gurov and Anna. I like this story because it has realistic and elaborate descriptions about the characters’ mentality about love and adultery. In this journal I would write about the change of Gurov’s attitude toward love: his change from a flagrant philanderer to a true lover.

                  In part Ⅰ, Gurov is a corrupt character. He is unfaithful to her wife, and despises women, even calling them as ‘lower race’. However, ironically, and hypocritically, he comforts himself the most when he meets women. He accosts Anna only to seek for entertainment in a dreary routine. She is merely one of the ‘lower race’ people that pass him by.

However, in part Ⅱ, he certainly discovers her uniqueness: the “diffidence and angularity of inexperienced youth” does not fit into any of his three categories of women. This insinuates that Anna will be someone special in his life. However, his love is insincere. He feels bored when Anna cries and suffers from guiltiness of adultery, and he is more interested in kissing with her than understanding her emotions. Anna seems to recognize this, and often “urges him to confess that he does not respect her”. Moreover, about adultery, although he does not feel guilty as much as Anna does, he does feel embarrassed. He displays vigilance while he kisses her in broad daylight. Even the philanderer cannot completely avoid such embarrassment in a society of stern atmosphere.

He realizes his hypocrisy only after Anna leaves him. As Anna disappears with the train horn, Gurov reflects back the memories with her. Thinking about his ironical and condescending behaviors, he finally concludes that he has deceived her. In part Ⅲ, he questions to himself whether he has really been in love and whether his relation with Anna was beautiful or merely entertaining. He has made a meaningful introspection, an essential prerequisite for a mature, fulfilling love. Now he is ready for a true love.

Not only he had some self-examination, his affection for Anna becomes more intense after she leaves him. He would remember the memories with Anna at every moment, and imagine their beautiful future. Anna “follows him about everywhere like a shadow and haunts him’. She is now definitely a huge portion of his life. This part reminds me of a quote from The Prophet by Khalil Gibran: “And stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.” Gurov can love Anna more by experiencing a period of parting, rather than staying near her every day.

However, still the love is incomplete. By inserting the sentence “Anna Sergeyevna did not visit him in dreams” in an awkward place, the author may have intended to emphasize that his love still had a room for expansion. Moreover, Gurov still wants to confide and show off his memories of love, which directly indicates that his love is yet not fully mature.

Gurov finally visits her city due to an event that made him indignant. The event is seemingly trivial; it cannot force him to make such grand decision. However, this is the point where I thought Chekhov’s description is truly realistic. Life is not a continuum of magnificent events as in romantic stories: it is often initiated from the tiniest happening. Although the dialogue “the sturgeon was a bit too strong!” might not be as dramatic as what readers might expect from love stories, it makes the description of Gurov’s change extremely convincing and realistic.

Anyway he arrives in Anna’s town. When he finally sees the lady’s face, an enormous, wild wave blows his mind. This is the very moment of completion of his love. He realizes that she “filled his whole life now, was his sorrow and his joy, the only happiness that he now desired for himself.” The rejoin after a long farewell made his love absolute. Part Ⅳ reveals many evidences of the maturity of his love. He now admits that he had solaced his miserable soul by considering women as lower race, and completely escapes from the need for such comfort. He has “profound compassion”, and craves for sincerity, a quality very opposite to a blatant womanizer. He is a true lover!

Not all ordeals are resolved. Gurov strives to deny the immorality of his adultery, justifying himself that “all personal life rests on secrecy.” Anna is still miserable of their situation of being “thieves”. Despite all these difficulties, as their love is hardened with sincerity, they feel certain that they will overcome any further challenges. As the last paragraph insists, a new splendid life full of genuine love would begin.