Vladimir bids farewell to Zinaïda

Vladimir bids farewell to Zinaïda Alexandrovna Zasyekin as his family prepares to leave the country house, turning an impending move into a final private encounter. He arrives believing that he cannot depart without seeing her; she responds to his declaration of lasting love with an embrace and a kiss. The encounter ends their immediate closeness without resolving what their attachment means, and Vladimir remembers it as an emotion he would not want to experience again but would have considered himself unlucky to miss.

Departure and the Decision to Visit

Preparations for the family’s move to town are proceeding quietly. Vladimir understands that his father has persuaded his mother not to make a public scandal, and he wanders in a state of agitation, wanting the departure to be over. Alongside that urgency, he is preoccupied with Zinaïda’s situation: he wonders how she could have taken this course while knowing that his father was not free to marry, and why she had not chosen another possible future, such as marriage to Byelovzorov. These questions do not prevent his final visit. Instead, his reflections on the possibility of self-sacrifice make him interpret her actions through the language of love and devotion, even as he cannot understand what she hopes for.

When Vladimir notices a white shape at a window of the lodge, he wonders whether it is Zinaïda and recognizes her there. He seizes the opportunity to go in because he cannot leave without saying goodbye. The decision is immediate, but it follows a period of inward turmoil: the move is approaching, his thoughts keep returning to Zinaïda, and the sight at the window converts longing into action. His visit is not presented as a plan to change the circumstances or prevent the departure. It is an attempt to see her once more before separation.

The Encounter at the Lodge

Princess Zasyekin meets Vladimir in the drawing room with her customary careless manner and asks why his family is leaving so hurriedly. Her ordinary greeting eases a particular worry: Vladimir has been troubled by the word loan, which he heard from Philip, and takes the princess’s apparent lack of suspicion as a sign that she knows nothing of it. He adds the qualification that this was what he believed at the time. The brief exchange therefore gives him relief, but not certainty; the possibility of what Princess Zasyekin does or does not know remains part of the scene’s unsettled background.

Zinaïda comes in from the next room, takes Vladimir by the hand without speaking, and leads him away with her. She says that she heard his voice and came out at once, then asks whether it is easy for him to leave them. Her words make the meeting reciprocal: Vladimir has entered because he could not bear to go without a farewell, while Zinaïda has sought him out as soon as she recognized his voice. Her question does not explain what she wants from him or what she expects after he leaves. It establishes, instead, that the departure matters to her too.

Vladimir tells her that he has come to say goodbye and that it will probably be forever, because his family is going away. When Zinaïda looks intently at him, he repeats that he would continue to love and adore her whatever she had done and however she had tormented him. This is an avowal rather than a request: he does not attach a condition or ask her to return his feelings. His words name a devotion that had already governed his experience of her, but which he now states directly at the point of departure.

The Farewell and Its Lasting Meaning

Zinaïda answers his declaration by turning quickly, opening her arms, embracing his head, and kissing him. Vladimir receives the gesture as intensely meaningful, while recognizing that he cannot know whose absence or presence the farewell kiss was seeking. The difference between what he can feel and what he can know shapes the ending: the kiss confirms that their parting is intimate, but it does not tell him how Zinaïda understands their relationship. He eagerly accepts its sweetness and believes that it will not happen again.

Zinaïda breaks away and leaves; Vladimir leaves as well, continuing to say goodbye. The scene offers no settled explanation of her feelings and no promise of a future meeting. Instead, physical parting closes the encounter while leaving its significance unresolved. Vladimir cannot describe the emotion with which he goes, and his later assessment holds two truths together: he would not wish the experience to return, yet he would consider himself unfortunate never to have known it. That retrospective judgment makes the farewell more than a simple leave-taking. It marks a painful ending that he nevertheless preserves as a defining experience of love.

Narrative Role

The farewell gathers the episode’s tensions into a brief exchange: an impending departure, Vladimir’s inability to leave without seeing Zinaïda, his unanswered questions about her choices, and a declaration that asks for no explicit reply. The lodge provides a private setting for a meeting that unfolds alongside the family’s quiet preparations to move, not as a public confrontation. Its emotional turn comes when Zinaïda answers words with a gesture, but that response remains open to interpretation because Vladimir admits he cannot know whom the kiss was seeking.

The remembered scene also distinguishes the force of an experience from its desirability. Vladimir does not present the farewell as uncomplicated happiness: he describes an emotion he would not want to undergo again. Yet he refuses to treat its pain as proof that it should never have happened. The final separation therefore preserves both loss and gratitude, without converting either into a conclusion about Zinaïda’s motives or a promise that their attachment can continue.