What is the tone of "The Lady with the Pet Dog"? By what means and how effectively is it communicated?

i think it's unrealistic to assume that they're both going to leave their marriages and be together, and that they're truly in love.

Come on, he has a deep seeded hatred of women and she's a naive young woman who doesn't see any of that, convinces herself otherwise.

Not to mention the dark foreshadowing midway into the story: "..the monotonous muffled sound of the sea that rose from below spoke of the peace, the eternal sleep awaiting us..."

I think it's a shallow assumption to believe that this womanizer, this man that continually uses and discards women, has fallen in love, has finally found the woman that will forever fulfill him. Additionally, SHE LEFT HIM. Such a man would more likely have the need to leave her, not the other way around.

There is even a paragraph at the very end that reads "...he suddently recalled how when he had seen anna sergeyevna off at the station he had said to himself that all was over between them and that they would never meet again. But how distant the end still was!"

He sees an end. I believe she is yet another conquest.

The tone is one of listlessness.