This woman is not Dunya Efros or a chorus girl or the bored wife of a druggist or a witch. She is educated and, she thinks, worldly. All those other women, however, would see right through her. Will Sofya look back at this moment in embarrassment or joy? Both? She will eventually analyze her feelings the way that Chekhov has.
“Nothing is settled or done with,” began Ilyin. “You repeat copy-book maxims to me. ‘I love and respect my husband… the sanctity of marriage….’ I know all that without your help, and I could tell you more, too. I tell you truthfully and honestly that I consider the way I am behaving as criminal and immoral. What more can one say than that? But what’s the good of saying what everybody knows? Instead of feeding nightingales with paltry words, you had much better tell me what I am to do.”
“I’ve told you already—go away.”
“As you know perfectly well, I have gone away five times, and every time I turned back on the way. I can show you my through tickets—I’ve kept them all. I have not will enough to run away from you! I am struggling. I am struggling horribly; but what the devil am I good for if I have no backbone, if I am weak, cowardly! I can’t struggle with Nature! Do you understand? I cannot! I run away from here, and she holds on to me and pulls me back. Contemptible, loathsome weakness!”
Ilyin flushed crimson, got up, and walked up and down by the seat.
Things have gone way past where Sofya is comfortable. And she, as a decent woman, realizes she is now in new territory. She did not foresee this part. She has had control, but she does not have it now.
“I feel as cross as a dog,” he muttered, clenching his fists. “I hate and despise myself! My God! like some depraved schoolboy, I am wooing another man’s wife, writing idiotic letters, degrading myself… ugh!”
Ilyin clutched at his head, groaned, and sat down. “And then your insincerity!” he went on bitterly. “If you do dislike my disgusting behavior, why have you come here? What drew you here? In my letters I only ask you for a direct, definite answer—yes or no; but instead of a direct answer, you contrive every day these ‘chance’ meetings with me and regale me with copy-book maxims!”
How can someone in love say angry, accusatory things to the person they’re in love with—and yet be persuasive? Love is forcing realizations on Ilyin. He is broken. But he is broken by love, and the broken pieces can almost instantly reglue themselves.
Madame Lubyantsev was frightened and flushed. She suddenly felt the awkwardness which a decent woman feels when she is accidentally discovered undressed.
“You seem to suspect I am playing with you,” she muttered. “I have always given you a direct answer, and… only today I’ve begged you…”
“Ough! as though one begged in such cases! If you were to say straight out ‘Get away,’ I should have been gone long ago; but you’ve never said that. You’ve never once given me a direct answer. Strange indecision! Yes, indeed; either you are playing with me, or else…”
Or else what? Or else she’s in fact in love with him?
Ilyin leaned his head on his fists without finishing. Sofya Petrovna began going over in her own mind the way she had behaved from beginning to end. She remembered that not only in her actions, but even in her secret thoughts, she had always been opposed to Ilyin’s wooing; but yet she felt there was a grain of truth in the lawyer’s words. But not knowing exactly what the truth was, she could not find answers to make to Ilyin’s complaint, however hard she thought. It was awkward to be silent, and, shrugging her shoulders, she said:
“So I am to blame, it appears.”
“I don’t blame you for your insincerity,” sighed Ilyin. “I did not mean that when I spoke of it…. Your insincerity is natural and in the order of things. If people agreed together and suddenly became sincere, everything would go to the devil.”
And Chekhov had certainly run himself into this walclass="underline" What if people didn’t lie?… If we didn’t flinch and deceive others and ourselves, would there be chaos?
Sofya Petrovna was in no mood for philosophical reflections, but she was glad of a chance to change the conversation, and asked:
“But why?”
“Because only savage women and animals are sincere. Once civilization has introduced a demand for such comforts as, for instance, feminine virtue, sincerity is out of place….”
She is where she really never could have imagined. Ilyin’s suffering has brought him to an experiential wisdom that she has not achieved. Until now, to her this has all been a happily interesting adventure. And it’s still interesting, but she wants to get this situation back under control.
Ilyin jabbed his stick angrily into the sand. Madame Lubyantsev listened to him and liked his conversation, though a great deal of it she did not understand. What gratified her most was that she, an ordinary woman, was talked to by a talented man on “intellectual” subjects; it afforded her great pleasure, too, to watch the working of his mobile, young face, which was still pale and angry. She failed to understand a great deal that he said, but what was clear to her in his words was the attractive boldness with which the modern man without hesitation or doubt decides great questions and draws conclusive deductions.
She suddenly realized that she was admiring him, and was alarmed.
The verb admire here is “lyubuetsya.” Its root is lyub-, love. She’s looking at him with too much attention. She has never seen anything like it.
“Forgive me, but I don’t understand,” she said hurriedly. “What makes you talk of insincerity? I repeat my request again: be my good, true friend; let me alone! I beg you most earnestly!”
She’s offended by his calling out her “insincerity,” because as far as she can remember, she has been sincere. But Ilyin is deeply connected to his feelings. Socially his feelings are wrong. He is tormented. He already knows that this relationship is a piece of bad luck.
And now perhaps we can accept the appropriateness of the story’s title. We are in the realm of Greek myths rather than Anna Karenina. Sofya is overwhelmed by a force that she hasn’t expected.
“Very good; I’ll try again,” sighed Ilyin. “Glad to do my best…. Only I doubt whether anything will come of my efforts. Either I shall put a bullet through my brains or take to drink in an idiotic way. I shall come to a bad end! There’s a limit to everything—to struggles with Nature, too. Tell me, how can one struggle against madness? If you drink wine, how are you to struggle against intoxication? What am I to do if your image has grown into my soul, and day and night stands persistently before my eyes, like that pine there at this moment? Come, tell me, what hard and difficult thing can I do to get free from this abominable, miserable condition, in which all my thoughts, desires, and dreams are no longer my own, but belong to some demon who has taken possession of me? I love you, love you so much that I am completely thrown out of gear; I’ve given up my work and all who are dear to me; I’ve forgotten my God! I’ve never been in love like this in my life.”
While she has tried to remain in social mode, he has crashed ashore and has the words to describe what he is actually feeling. And it is fascinating to her and terrible! And we and Chekhov are happy, amused. Ilyin couldn’t have expressed himself better—though it fits no model of proper pronouncement of feelings.
Sofya Petrovna, who had not expected such a turn to their conversation, drew away from Ilyin and looked into his face in dismay. Tears came into his eyes, his lips were quivering, and there was an imploring, hungry expression in his face.
“I love you!” he muttered, bringing his eyes near her big, frightened eyes. “You are so beautiful! I am in agony now, but I swear I would sit here all my life, suffering and looking in your eyes. But… be silent, I implore you!”