Rain in a Strange City

Engineer Chizhegov often comes on business trips to a small town. Here he met a woman who returned his feelings. Chizhegov faces a difficult choice — after all, his family lives in Leningrad…

In the evenings downstairs, where the desk clerk sat, the business travelers gathered, or guests, as they were called there. A kettle hummed there, dominoes clattered on the long table, people drank tea and chatted. What else was there for people on business trips to do on autumn evenings in a town like Lykovo?..
Kira used to come in during Ganna Denisovna’s shift. They were friends. At first Chizhegov noticed nothing special about her. If someone had told him that he would soon suffer and torment himself because of this woman, he would have laughed — she was so inconspicuous. And if someone had told him that, probably nothing would have happened. For Chizhegov had long since stopped thinking about anything of the sort; over the years his thorough and serious nature had adapted itself entirely to work and domesticity. And he himself was used to the fact that the women with whom he had brief business-trip affairs looked at him as a family man, and no plans ever entered their heads…