A Lady’s Story (Chekhov)
Short summary
Rural Russia, late 19th century. Natalya Vladimirovna and Pyotr Sergeyitch, a deputy prosecutor, were riding to fetch letters when they encountered a thunderstorm. The experience filled them with exhilaration as they raced back to the house.
In the stable doorway, Pyotr confessed his love for Natalya, asking nothing in return but to be allowed to admire her. His rapture affected her, and they ran laughing through the rain. That evening, he was cheerful and playful, while she pondered her feelings for him.
Years passed. In town, their social inequality created a wall between them that neither could overcome. Natalya let opportunities for happiness slip away. After her father died, she grew older and melancholic. Years later, Pyotr visited her, now disillusioned and unwell. Seeing him, she realized how much they had both lost.
I broke into loud sobs, pressing my temples, and muttered: "My God! my God! my life is wasted!" And he sat and was silent, and did not say to me: "Don't weep." He understood that I must weep, and that the time for this had come.
As she saw him to the door, she sensed he was remembering their day in the storm. After he left, she returned to her fireplace, alone with her regrets as the frost tapped at the windows.
Detailed summary
Division into chapters is editorial.
The thunderstorm ride: initial excitement and attraction
Nine years ago, the narrator and Pyotr Sergeyitch, a deputy prosecutor, were riding together one evening during haymaking season to collect letters from the station. The weather was magnificent, but on their return journey, they heard thunder and saw an angry black storm-cloud approaching them directly. Against this dramatic backdrop, their house and church appeared strikingly white, with tall poplars shining like silver.
Pyotr Sergeyitch was in high spirits, laughing and talking nonsense. He joked that it would be nice if they could suddenly come upon a medieval castle with turreted towers where they could take shelter from the rain, only to be killed by a thunderbolt in the end.
As the first wave of the storm raced through the fields, a gust of wind stirred up dust in the air. Pyotr laughed and spurred on his horse, exclaiming how fine and splendid it was. Infected by his gaiety, Natalya too began laughing at the thought that she might soon be drenched to the skin and possibly struck by lightning. The exhilaration of riding swiftly in a hurricane made her feel breathless and thrilled, like a bird with her heart aflutter.
A declaration of love in the stable
By the time they rode into their courtyard, the wind had subsided, and large raindrops were pattering on the grass and roofs. Finding no one near the stable, Pyotr himself took the bridles off and led the horses to their stalls. Natalya stood in the doorway waiting for him to finish, watching the slanting streaks of rain and inhaling the sweet, exciting scent of hay, which was even stronger here than in the fields.
After a particularly loud peal of thunder that seemed to split the sky in two, Pyotr came to stand beside her in the doorway. Still breathless from their ride, he looked at her with admiration and said he would give anything to stay there longer and look at her, telling her she was lovely that day.
His eyes gazed at her with delight and supplication, his face was pale, and raindrops glittered on his beard and mustache. Then he declared his love for her.
"I love you," he said. "I love you, and I am happy at seeing you. I know you cannot be my wife, but I want nothing, I ask nothing; only know that I love you. Be silent, do not answer me, take no notice of it."
His rapture affected Natalya too. She stood spellbound, unable to move, longing to continue looking into his shining eyes and listening to his voice that mingled with the patter of the rain. He told her that her silence was splendid and encouraged her to remain silent.
An evening of joy and lightheartedness
Feeling happy, Natalya laughed with delight and ran through the drenching rain to the house. Pyotr laughed too and ran after her, leaping as he went. Both drenched and panting, they noisily clattered up the stairs like children and dashed into the room. Her father and brother, unaccustomed to seeing her laughing and lighthearted, looked at her in surprise and began laughing too.
The storm clouds had passed and the thunder ceased, but raindrops still glittered on Pyotr's beard. Throughout the evening until suppertime, he was singing, whistling, playing noisily with the dog, and racing about the room after it, nearly upsetting the servant with the samovar.
At supper, he ate heartily, talked nonsense, and maintained that eating fresh cucumbers in winter brought the fragrance of spring to one's mouth. When Natalya went to bed, she lit a candle, threw her window wide open, and was overcome by an undefined feeling.
When I went to bed I lighted a candle and threw my window wide open, and an undefined feeling took possession of my soul. I remembered that I was free and healthy, that I had rank and wealth... how nice that was!
Huddling in bed as the cold air reached her from the garden, she tried to determine whether she loved Pyotr or not, but fell asleep without reaching any conclusion. The next morning, seeing patches of sunlight and shadows of lime trees on her bed, the events of the previous day rose vividly in her memory. Life seemed rich, varied, and full of charm. Humming, she dressed quickly and went out into the garden.
Social barriers and missed opportunities
Nothing significant happened afterward. In winter, when they lived in town, Pyotr came to visit them occasionally. However, country acquaintances lost their charm in the urban setting. When Natalya poured tea for him in town, it seemed as though he was wearing someone else's coat and stirred his tea too long.
In town, Pyotr sometimes spoke of love, but the effect was entirely different from that in the country. They became more acutely aware of the social wall that stood between them.
In the town we were more vividly conscious of the wall that stood between us. I had rank and wealth, while he was poor, and he was not even a nobleman... we both thought of that wall as very high and thick.
When visiting them in town, Pyotr would criticize aristocratic society with a forced smile and maintain a sullen silence when others were present in the drawing room. Natalya reflected that no wall is insurmountable, yet the heroes of modern romance seemed too timid, spiritless, lazy, and oversensitive. They resigned themselves to failure and criticized the world as vulgar, forgetting that their criticism gradually became vulgarity itself.
Natalya was loved, with happiness seemingly within reach, yet she continued living carelessly without understanding herself or knowing what she wanted from life. Time passed relentlessly. People with their love, bright days, warm nights, nightingales' songs, and fragrant hay all passed rapidly, leaving no trace, unappreciated, vanishing like mist.
Years later: reflection and regret
Years later, Natalya's father had died, and she had grown older. Everything that once delighted her—the patter of rain, rolling thunder, thoughts of happiness, talk of love—had become nothing but memories. Before her stretched a flat, desert-like expanse with no living soul, and a dark, terrible horizon.
The doorbell rang—it was Pyotr Sergeyitch. Through her father's influence, he had long ago been transferred to town. He looked older and thinner, had long since stopped declaring his love or talking nonsense, disliked his official work, and seemed ill and disillusioned. He had given up trying to get anything from life and showed no interest in living. Now he sat silently by the hearth, staring at the fire.
Not knowing what to say, Natalya asked if he had anything to tell her. He answered, "Nothing," and silence fell again as the red glow of the fire played about his melancholy face. Thinking of the past, Natalya's shoulders began to quiver, her head dropped, and she wept bitterly, feeling unbearably sorry for herself and for this man, passionately longing for what had passed away and what life now denied them. She no longer thought about rank and wealth.
Breaking into loud sobs and pressing her temples, she muttered that her life was wasted. Pyotr sat silently, understanding that she needed to weep and that the time for this had come. She could see from his eyes that he was sorry for her, and she felt sorry for him too—this timid, unsuccessful man who could make a life neither for her nor for himself.
When she saw him to the door, he seemed to deliberately take a long time putting on his coat. Twice he kissed her hand without speaking and looked at her tear-stained face. She believed that at that moment, he recalled the storm, the rain streaks, their laughter, and her face from that day. He longed to say something but merely shook his head and pressed her hand.
I was sorry for him, too, and vexed with this timid, unsuccessful man who could not make a life for me, nor for himself... he would have been glad to say it; but he said nothing, he merely shook his head and pressed my hand.
After seeing him out, Natalya returned to her study and sat again on the carpet before the fireplace. The red embers were covered with ash and growing dim. The frost tapped more angrily at the windows, and the wind droned in the chimney. The maid came in and, thinking Natalya was asleep, called her name.
Natalya remained seated by the fire, lost in her thoughts about what might have been, as the last embers of both the fire and her past hopes gradually faded away.