Zoyka and Valeria (Bunin)
Short summary
Moscow, 1940s. Medical student Levitsky spent his free time at the Danilevsky family's home in Moscow and later at their summer dacha. He was treated as a distant relative by the family, including their children Zoyka and Grishka.
Levitsky had been secretly in love with a visitor named Darya Tadiyevna, and before her, with fourteen-year-old Zoyka, who would sit on his knees and let him kiss her cheek. That summer, Valeria Ostrogradskaya, Danilevsky's niece from Kharkov, came to stay at the dacha.
Levitsky fell in love with Valeria immediately. She initially allowed him close, but soon became interested in Dr. Titov. Zoyka, who had been secretly pursuing Levitsky, revealed to him that Titov had rejected Valeria.
That night, Levitsky decided to leave the dacha. While wandering outside, he encountered Valeria on the balcony. She led him to the avenue of firs and said,
"Do you remember this place? Here I kissed you for the first time. Kiss me here for the last time..." And, passing quickly under the branches of the fir, she impulsively flung the shawl onto the ground. "Come here to me!"
After their encounter, she pushed him away in disgust. Levitsky returned to his room and decided to leave immediately. He rode his bicycle toward the station but, in despair, deliberately rode onto the railway tracks into the path of an oncoming train.
Detailed summary
Division into chapters is editorial.
Levitsky and the Danilevskys: The protagonists relationship with the family
In Moscow, Levitsky spent his free time at the Danilevskys' apartment during winter and visited their dacha in the pine forests along the Kazan road in summer. He was twenty-four and in his fifth year as a medical student, but the family called him Georges or Georgeik, with only Dr. Danilevsky referring to him as "colleague."
By reason of solitude and susceptibility to love, he was continually becoming attached to one house of his acquaintance or another, soon becoming one of the family in it, a guest from one day to the next...
Levitsky had become like family to the Danilevskys, treated as a distant, homeless relative even by the children. The doctor's practice occupied the front part of their apartment, while the residential area was always lively with guests and family gatherings.
During the previous winter, Levitsky had been secretly in love with Darya Tadiyevna, a visitor to the Danilevsky home. Before her, he had experienced feelings for fourteen-year-old Zoyka, the Danilevskys' physically developed daughter who had been removed from grammar school due to a brain condition.
Valerias arrival: A new object of affection
That summer, Valeria Ostrogradskaya, Dr. Danilevsky's niece from Kharkov, came to stay at the dacha. Levitsky was sent to meet her at the Kursk Station in Moscow. He returned with her to the dacha, visibly tired but joyously excited, having fallen in love with her at first sight.
She seemed incomprehensible to Zoyka... But she was a genuine Little Russian beauty! And what shoulders! And on them, how transparent were the pink silk ribbons holding the camisole beneath her fine white blouse!
Valeria immediately began treating Levitsky imperiously, ordering him around while barely noticing him. Despite this, he stopped returning to Moscow and remained constantly by her side, happy that she had allowed him into her circle. Zoyka was so enraptured by Valeria's beauty that she wasn't even jealous of Levitsky's attention to her.
According to Grishka, Levitsky and Valeria had shared a kiss after bathing. He claimed to have seen them walking down the avenue of fir trees, with Valeria wrapped in a towel and Levitsky dragging her wet sheet, when he suddenly caught her by the shoulder and kissed her on the lips.
Rejection and humiliation: Valerias interest shifts to Titov
Soon, however, Valeria's attention shifted to Dr. Titov, a young, tall, good-looking doctor who visited the dacha. Levitsky noticed that he had been dismissed, and he began spending more time with Klavdia Alexandrovna, helping her prepare raspberries, while Valeria pursued Titov.
Amidst all this dacha happiness Levitsky was doubly unhappy. Feeling himself from morning till evening pitiful, deceived, superfluous, he suffered all the more for understanding very well how vulgar his unhappiness was.
On weekends, the dacha was filled with guests from Moscow. One Sunday, several visitors came: a dark-faced, bilious writer who loved games; a professor who resembled Socrates with his young blonde wife; a small, well-dressed lady nicknamed the Wasp; and Dr. Titov. While the guests played croquet near the pines, Levitsky was ordered by Valeria to help her aunt prepare cherries on the balcony.
Levitsky suffered as he watched Valeria playing croquet with Titov, noticing how her skirt hung over her calves in fine stockings and how her breasts stretched her transparent blouse. He told Klavdia Alexandrovna that he planned to leave for Mogilyov the next day, though she noticed his disheveled appearance and unshaven face.
If at tea or lunch he threw glances at her in secret, she would become fastidiously absent-minded. Once, as she was passing, she saw Zoyka on his knees... and gave a ringing cry: "Don't you dare climb all over men's knees, you vile girl!"
Zoykas manipulation: Exploitation of Levitskys vulnerability
After lunch, while everyone rested in the shade of the avenue of firs, Levitsky went to the empty stable's hayloft to be alone with his thoughts. Zoyka followed him there, eager to share what she called "something terribly interesting." She demanded a kiss in exchange for her secret.
When Levitsky expressed tenderness toward her, saying she was the only one who loved him, Zoyka suddenly cried out in pain, claiming something had bitten her. She asked him to examine her backside, pulling down her drawers. After he blew on the area where she claimed to be hurt, he kissed her, only to have her leap up triumphantly, exclaiming that she had fooled him.
Her "terrible secret" was that Titov had rejected Valeria. Zoyka and Grishka had overheard them from behind armchairs in the drawing room, where Titov had told Valeria he wouldn't be led by the nose and didn't love her. After revealing this, Zoyka darted away, leaving Levitsky disgusted with himself.
"I'm a scoundrel for whom hanging's too good!" he said loudly, still tasting her body on his lips.
An unexpected encounter: Valerias mysterious behavior
That evening, as twilight fell, Levitsky noticed Valeria on a swing under the pines. He watched her flying up and down, pretending not to notice him. At dinner, she laughed unnaturally and viciously, eating curd cheese and sour cream greedily without looking at him once. Only Zoyka kept glancing at him with gleaming eyes, aware of their shared secret.
After dinner, everyone retired early. Levitsky began packing his things in his room, planning to leave the next day. Unable to sleep, he went out into the yard, where he was struck by the beauty of the starry night sky. He walked toward the rear balcony and was startled to find Valeria sitting there in a silvery shawl.
She invited him to walk with her down the avenue of firs. When he asked why she had tormented him so terribly, she simply told him to be quiet. They reached the end of the avenue where she reminded him that this was where she had first kissed him. She asked him to kiss her there for the last time, throwing her shawl onto the ground.
Immediately after the final moment she sharply and disgustedly pushed him away... In the frozen quietness of the night and the forests, low over a dim field, the late moon showed red in the distance like a motionless slice of melon.
The final decision: Levitskys tragic end
Returning to his room with eyes swollen from crying, Levitsky checked the time and was alarmed to see it was nearly two in the morning. He quietly wheeled his bicycle down from the balcony and across the yard. Outside the gates, he mounted it and began pedaling furiously through the sandy forest road, worried he would be late.
He was racing to catch the express train from Moscow that passed through their station at 2:15 without stopping. With only minutes to spare, he spotted the station building in the dawn's half-light. He turned decisively onto the railway track and sped downhill between the rails, heading directly toward the roaring steam engine with its blinding lights that was approaching from below.
Inwardly, without words, he began praying for some kind of heavenly mercy, for someone's pity on him, sensing with bitter joy his union with the sky and already a certain deliverance from himself, from his body...
The story ends with Levitsky cycling directly toward the oncoming train, clearly intending to end his life after his final, humiliating encounter with Valeria.