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Love must be a tragedy. A great mystery. The greatest secret in the world!

In this whole long life, I have been unhappy only one minute: when I realized that I would never stop loving you.

Tell me, please, why are there no great tales of love in our day?

I am utterly indifferent as to whether the thing is great or small. I merely loved the thing that was given to me.

The only solace is the music, which speaks of a love that is eternal.

I

In the middle of August, just before the new moon, those repulsive weather conditions suddenly set in that are so characteristic of the northern coast of the Black Sea. For days on end, a dense fog hung heavily over the land and sea, and then the enormous siren on the lighthouse would roar day and night, like a raging bull. Or, from morning until morning, a fine rain, like water dust, would fall without ceasing, turning the clay roads and paths into a continuous, thick mud in which carts and carriages became stuck for long periods. Or a fierce hurricane would blow in from the northwest, from the direction of the steppe; the tops of the trees would sway, bending and straightening, like waves in a storm, the iron roofs of the summer houses would rattle at night, and it seemed as if someone were running across them in hobnailed boots, the window frames would shudder, doors would slam, and a wild howling would sound in the chimneys. Several fishing boats became lost at sea, and two did not return at all: it was only a week later that the fishermen’s corpses were washed up in various places along the shore.

The inhabitants of the suburban seaside resort—mostly Greeks and Jews, life-loving and hypochondriacal, like all southerners—were hastily moving back to the city. Luggage carts, overloaded with all kinds of household goods: mattresses, sofas, chests, chairs, washstands, samovars, stretched endlessly along the softened highway. It was pitiful, and sad, and repulsive to look through the murky haze of the rain at this wretched property, which seemed so worn out, dirty, and beggarly; at the maids and cooks sitting atop the cart on the wet tarpaulin with various irons, tin cans, and baskets in their hands; at the sweating, exhausted horses, which stopped repeatedly, their knees trembling, steaming and breathing rapidly from their flanks; at the hoarsely swearing carters, wrapped against the rain in matting. It was even sadder to see the abandoned summer houses with their sudden spaciousness, emptiness, and bareness, with their ruined flowerbeds, broken glass, abandoned dogs, and all sorts of summer house rubbish—cigarette butts, paper scraps, broken pottery, boxes, and apothecary vials.

But by the beginning of September, the weather suddenly changed sharply and completely unexpectedly. Quiet, cloudless days immediately set in, so clear, sunny, and warm that there hadn’t been any like them even in July. On the dried, harvested fields, on their prickly yellow stubble, the autumn spiderwebs glistened with a mica-like sheen. The now-calm trees silently and obediently shed their yellow leaves.

Princess Vera Nikolaevna Sheina, the wife of the Marshal of the Nobility, was unable to leave the summer house because repairs had not yet been finished at their city home. And now she was very glad for the lovely days that had arrived, the quiet, the solitude, the clean air, the chirping of the swallows gathering on the telegraph wires for their departure, and the gentle, salty breeze weakly pulling in from the sea.