THE LADY WITH THE LITTLE DOG

Dimitri, a wealthy businessman from Moscow, takes a cure in an elegant but somewhat dull spa town. One day he notices a pretty young woman who always walks her snow-white dog on the promenade. Her name is Anna and she lives in a small town near Petersburg with her husband. They start a conversation, spend the day and evening together, and fall in love. After they spent the night together Anna is tormented by feelings of guilt. She loves Dimitri but doesn’t manage to leave her sick husband. So they go their separate ways. Dimitri returns to his family in Moscow and Anna to her husband in the country. At home, Dimitri isn’t able to think straight – he is permanently tormented by love-sickness. His wife, who truly loves him but whom he married as a young student for financial reasons only, doesn’t suspect what is going on inside him. Dimitri slides deeper and deeper into depression. Then a business trip takes him to St. Petersburg. Having hardly arrived, he goes to Anna’s hometown nearby. When he faces her in the opera house, she rejects him at first. She wants to forget him even though she knows that she will never be able to.