| Side by side with a young woman, who looked so exquisite in the early light, soothed and enchanted by the sight of all this magical beauty - sea, mountains, clouds and the vast expanse of the sky - Gurov told himself that, when you come to think of it, everything in the world is beautiful really, everything but our own thoughts and actions, when we lose sight of the higher aims of life, and of our dignity as human beings. ****** She complained of sleeplessness, of palpitations, asked the same questions over and over again, alternately surrendering to jealousy and the fear that he did not really respect her. And often, when there was nobody in sight in the square of the park, he would draw her to him and kiss her passionately. ****** He told Anna Sergeyevna she was beautiful and seductive, made love to her with impetuous passion and never left her side, while she was always pensive, always trying to force from him the admission that he did not respect her, that he did not love her a bit, and considered her just an ordinary woman. ****** Why did she love him so? Women had always believed him different from what he really was, had loved in him not himself but the man their imagination pictured him, a man they had sought for eagerly all their lives. And afterwards when they discovered their mistake, they went on loving him just the same. And not one of them had ever been happy with him. Time had passed, he had met one woman after another, become intimate with each, parted with each, but had never loved. There had been all sorts of things between them, but never love. And only now, when he was grey-haired, had he fallen in love properly, thoroughly, for the first time in his life. He and Anna Sergeyevna loved one another as people who are very close and intimate, as husband and wife, as dear friends love one another. ****** And it seemed to them that they were within an inch of arriving at a decision, and that then a new, beautiful life would begin. And they both realized that the end was still far, far away, and that the hardest, the most complicated part was only just beginning. |
