Then they met every day at twelve o’clock on the sea-front, lunched and dined together, went for walks, admired the sea.  She complained that she slept badly, that her heart throbbed violently; asked the same questions, troubled now by jealousy and now by the fear that he did not respect her sufficiently.  And often in the square or gardens, when there was no one near them, he suddenly drew her to him and kissed her passionately.  Complete idleness, these kisses in broad daylight while he looked round in dread of some one’s seeing them, the heat, the smell of the sea, and the continual passing to and fro before him of idle, well-dressed, well-fed people, made a new man of him; he told Anna Sergeyevna how beautiful she was, how fascinating.  He was impatiently passionate, he would not move a step away from her, while she was often pensive and continually urged him to confess that he did not respect her, did not love her in the least, and thought of her as nothing but a common woman.  Rather late almost every evening they drove somewhere out of town, to Oreanda or to the waterfall; and the expedition was always a success, the scenery invariably impressed them as grand and beautiful.

They were expecting her husband to come, but a letter came from him, saying that there was something wrong with his eyes, and he entreated his wife to come home as quickly as possible.  Anna Sergeyevna made haste to go.

“It’s a good thing I am going away,” she said to Gurov.  “It’s the finger of destiny!”

She went by coach and he went with her.  They were driving the whole day.  When she had got into a compartment of the express, and when the second bell had rung, she said: 

“Let me look at you once more . . . look at you once again.  That’s right.”

She did not shed tears, but was so sad that she seemed ill, and her face was quivering.

“I shall remember you . . . think of you,” she said.  “God be with you; be happy.  Don’t remember evil against me.  We are parting forever —­it must be so, for we ought never to have met.  Well, God be with you.”

The train moved off rapidly, its lights soon vanished from sight, and a minute later there was no sound of it, as though everything had conspired together to end as quickly as possible that sweet delirium, that madness.  Left alone on the platform, and gazing into the dark distance, Gurov listened to the chirrup of the grasshoppers and the hum of the telegraph wires, feeling as though he had only just waked up.  And he thought, musing, that there had been another episode or adventure in his life, and it, too, was at an end, and nothing was left of it but a memory. . . .  He was moved, sad, and conscious of a slight remorse.  This young woman whom he would never meet again had not been happy with him; he was genuinely warm and affectionate with her, but yet in his manner, his tone, and his caresses there had been a shade of light irony, the coarse condescension of a happy man who was, besides, almost twice her age.  All the time she had called him kind, exceptional, lofty; obviously he had seemed to her different from what he really was, so he had unintentionally deceived her. . . .