The Lady with the Dog Fate and Free Will Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Section.Paragraph). We used Constance Garnett's translation.

Quote #4

Here at the station was already a scent of autumn; it was a cold evening.

"It's time for me to go north," thought Gurov as he left the platform. "High time!" (2.41-2)

Gurov's mood is very much a product of his environment; this is why he feels the need to change locations once Anna leaves.

Quote #5

What savage manners, what people! What senseless nights, what uninteresting, uneventful days! The rage for card-playing, the gluttony, the drunkenness, the continual talk always about the same thing. Useless pursuits and conversations always about the same things absorb the better part of one's time, the better part of one's strength, and in the end there is left a life groveling and curtailed, worthless and trivial, and there is no escaping or getting away from it – just as though one were in a madhouse or a prison. (3.12)

There's something fatalistic in this passage, as though Gurov has no control over the circumstances of his life.

Quote #6

He was sick of his children, sick of the bank; he had no desire to go anywhere or to talk of anything. (3.13)

Anna has completely changed the course of Gurov's life – he's unable to return to normalcy after their affair.