Chapter 2 light-1

light A dog barked uncomfortably outside the door.The engineer Ananyev, with his assistant, the student von Schinberg, and I, went outside the hut to see who the dog was barking at.I was a guest in the cottage, and could not have gone out, but, to tell the truth, I was a little dizzy from some wine, and would have liked to go out for some fresh air. "There's no one at all ..." Ananyev said as we went outside. "Why are you screaming for nothing, Azorka? Fool!" There was no one to be seen around.Azorka the Fool, a black guard dog who, presumably trying to apologize to us for barking for no reason, came up to us timidly, wagging his tail.The engineer bent down, put his hand between its ears, and touched it.

"Why do you bark for no reason?" he said, in the voice of a well-meaning man to children and dogs. "Have you had a nightmare or something? Look, doctor, I want you to take a good look at it," he said to me. "It's a very nervous animal! You can't imagine it anymore, it can't stand being alone, old man." It is a terrible dream, nightmares torment it, and whenever you yell at it, it will be sad like hysterical." "Yes, this is a delicate dog..." The college student also affirmed. Azorka probably understood what these people were talking about.It raised its face and wailed desolately, as if it wanted to say: "Yes, sometimes I feel very sad, you have to forgive me!"

It was an August night, with stars in the sky, but darkness all around.Never in my life had I come across such strange surroundings as I had occasionally intruded into, and I therefore felt that this starry night was more desolate, gloomy, and dark than it really was.Right now I'm on a railway line that's still under construction.High half-built embankments, mounds of sand, mounds of earth, piles of rubble, huts, pits, wheelbarrows here and there, flat roofs of mud huts where the workers lived, in short, the messy scene was covered by darkness. Painted in the same color, it adds a strange appearance to the earth, reminiscent of the prehistoric era before the creation of the world.The things in front of me were in disarray, so it was a little strange to see human faces and slender telephone poles on the ugly and unrecognizable land that was excavated. These two things destroy the entire pattern of the picture. , hardly of this world.There was silence save for the monotonous hum of the wires high above our heads.

We climbed onto the embankment of the railway and looked down at the land from a height.About fifty yards away from us, in a place where hollows, pits, and mounds mingled with the darkness of the night, there was a dim light flickering.Behind it another light flashed, and after that another light, and behind this about a hundred paces away, two red eyes—two windows of a cottage, perhaps—shone, and beyond, that kind of light It became a long row, denser and more blurred as it got farther away, stretching along the railway line to the horizon, then turning left in a semicircle and disappearing into the distant darkness.The lights were motionless.They seem to have something in common with the silence of the night and the dirge of the wires.As if there was a great secret buried beneath the embankment, known only to the lights, the night, and the wires. ... "How wonderful, Lord!" sighed Ananyev. "It's so vast, so beautiful, it's hard to leave! What kind of embankment is this! Dude, it's not an embankment, it's a real Mont Blanc! This embankment is worth millions.  … After drinking the wine, the engineer became a little drunk and felt sentimental. While admiring the lights and the embankment worth millions, he patted the shoulder of the college student von Schinberg, and continued in a joking tone: "How about it? Mihailo Mihalitch, are you thinking deeply? You probably feel happy looking at the work you have done with your own hands? Last year this place was a barren steppe with no people, but now you see: there is life and Be civilized!

How good it is, really!At present, you and I are building the railway, but after we leave, some good people will build factories, schools, and hospitals here in a hundred or two hundred years, and it will be lively!isn't it? " The college student stood motionless, his hands in his pockets, his eyes never taking his eyes off the light.He didn't hear the engineer's words, and was thinking about his own thoughts, clearly in a state of mind that neither wanted to speak nor listen to.After a long silence, he turned back to me and said softly, "You know what these endless lights look like? They remind me of something long dead, something that lived thousands of years ago , something like the camping of the Amalekites or the Philistines. It is as if there was a people in the "Old Testament" who camped and waited for the morning to fight Saul or David. The sound of trumpets and the sound of sentries calling each other in some Negro language was all that was needed to complete the vision."

"Notes" ①②The two nations in the Old Testament: The Book of Samuel. ③④ Two military leaders in the Old Testament: The Book of Samuel. "That's a good statement..." agreed the engineer. At this time, a gust of wind happened to blow along the railway line, bringing a kind of weapon like Ding? ?The sound of clinking.Silence followed.I don't know what the engineers and college students were thinking at this time, but I felt that there was something that had died before me, and I even heard the sentinel speaking in a language I couldn't understand.My fancy quickly drew tents, strange people, their costumes, their armor.

... "Yes," murmured the college student in thought. "In this world, the Philistines and Amalekites once lived, fought, and played a role, but they are not even a shadow now. We will be like this in the future. Now we are building railroads, station We talk here, but after two thousand years, there is not even a trace of this embankment, or those who are sleeping soundly in front of them after heavy labor. This is really terrible!" "But you must put these thoughts aside..." said the engineer in a serious and lecturing tone. "why?" "Because .

"Why?" the student asked again. "All these thoughts, such as the shortness and worthlessness of life, the aimlessness of life, the inevitability of death, the darkness of the grave, etc., I say, my dear fellow, that noble thoughts are not bad in old age, Naturally, they are the product of long-term inner activity and suffering, and are truly the wealth of wisdom. But those thoughts are disasters for young minds just beginning to live independently! Disasters!" Ananyev Repeatedly say, wave your hand. "It seems to me that, at your age, it would be better not to have a head on your shoulders than to think in this way. I say this to you seriously, Baron.

I've been meaning to talk to you about this for a long time, because I've seen from the first day we met that you love such goddamn ideas! " "Lord, why should such thoughts be damned?" asked the student with a smile, and it was clear from his tone and countenance that he was answering out of sheer politeness, and that he was not at all impressed by the controversy provoked by the engineer. interest. My eyelids are closing.My desire was not soon fulfilled that we should say good night and go to bed immediately after returning from our walk.When we got back to the hut, the engineer put some empty wine bottles under the bed, took two full bottles out of the big wicker box, uncorked them, and sat down at the work table, obviously intending to go on drinking, talking, and working.He took a few sips from his wine glass, drew on the pattern with a pencil, and continued to explain to the college students that his idea was inappropriate.The university student sat beside him, checking the accounts, and said nothing.He wanted neither to talk nor to hear what was said, as I did.Not wanting to interfere with their work, I left my desk and sat down on the engineer's bent-legged camp bed next to me, feeling bored and eager for them to put me to bed.It was already past twelve o'clock.

With nothing to do, I observed my new acquaintance.Whether it was Ananiyev or a college student, I had never met before, and I didn't know each other until the above-mentioned night.When it was very late that day, I rode back from the market to visit a landowner, but in the twilight I went astray and lost my way.I walked around the railway line, seeing the colorless blackness, thinking of those "barefoot railway thugs", who were lying in wait for travelers on foot and horseback, and I was afraid and knocked on the door of the cabin as soon as I came across it.Here, Ananyev and the students warmly welcomed me.Just like when strangers meet by chance, we quickly got to know each other and became intimate. First we drank tea, and later we drank wine. We felt as if we had known each other for many years.After only an hour or so, I already knew who they were and how fate sent them from the capital to the distant grasslands. They also knew who I was, what I did, and what kind of thoughts I had.

The engineer Nikolai Anastasievich Ananiyev was short and stocky, with broad shoulders. From the appearance, he had "fallen into the valley of old age" like Othello, and was too fat.He was in what matchmakers tend to call "a man in the prime of his life," that is to say, neither young nor old, fond of good food, good wine, praises of the past, a little out of breath when he walked, He snored loudly when he fell asleep, and as for the people around him, he always showed a quiet and stable kindness, which is what all decent people will become when they are promoted to the age of colonel and fat.His hair and beard were far from gray, and yet he could not help calling young men "good boys" in a somewhat old-fashioned way, and felt entitled to berate their ways of thinking.His movements and voice were always calm, steady, and confident, like those of men who know full well that they are on the right track, have a regular job, a regular income, and a fixed opinion about everything. ... His suntanned face with its big nose, his muscular neck seemed to say: "I am well fed, healthy and content, and someday you young people will be He will be well fed, healthy, and content...” He wore a calico shirt with the neck open on one side, and a pair of baggy linen trousers tucked into large leather boots.From little things, such as his colorful sash of thread, his embroidered collar, the patches on his elbows, etc., I could guess that he was married, and that his wife probably loved him tenderly. Baron von Schtenberg, whose first name and father's name was Mikhail Mikhailovich, was a student of the Faculty of Transport, and was young, between twenty-three and twenty-four years old.Only his hazel hair, his thin beard, and perhaps his more or less vulgar and rigid countenance, suggested that he came from a baronial family on the eastern coast of the Baltic, and everything else, such as his Names, religious beliefs, ideas, demeanor, and expressions on faces are just like pure Russians.Like Ananyev, he also wore a calico shirt with the bottoms not tucked into his trousers, and he wore big leather boots, and besides, he was a little stooped, hadn't had a haircut for a long time, and his skin was tanned, so his He didn't look like a college student or a baron, but like an ordinary Russian journeyman.He spoke and moved very little, drank reluctantly, had no appetite, and checked the accounts absently, as if he had been thinking about something on his mind.His movements and voice are also quiet and steady, but his calm is different from that of the engineer, it is another kind of calm.His tanned, slightly ironic, thoughtful face, his slightly gloomy looking eyes, and his whole body all expressed his stagnation of spirit and sloth of mind. . . . He looked as if he didn't care about anything, whether the lamp before him was on or out, whether the wine was good or bad, whether the accounts he checked were right or wrong. It doesn't matter. ... I read in his intelligent, calm face that he was thinking: "I don't see any good in it now, either in a fixed job, in a fixed income, or in a fixed view of things. It's all nonsense. I used to live in Petersburg, and now I'm sitting here in my hut, and I'm going back to Petersburg in the fall, and back to here in the spring. . . . What's the point of such a thing, I don't know, and nobody knows. . . . So it's useless to talk about it. . . . " He listened to the engineer's speech, but he didn't feel interested at all. Kind-hearted elders nagging the same.It seemed that nothing the engineer said was very new to him, which would have been much newer and wiser if he had not been lazy to talk. But Ananyev refused to give up.He had already put aside that well-intentioned teasing tone, and began to speak seriously, even fascinated, which did not match the calm expression on his face at all.Obviously, he was not uninterested in abstract questions, he liked them, but he was not good at them, nor was he used to talking about them.This unaccustomed expression was so strongly expressed in his words that I always couldn't figure out what he was trying to say. "I hate that idea with all my heart!" he said. "I was plagued by these thoughts when I was young, and I still haven't quite got rid of them. I tell you, perhaps because I am stupid, these thoughts are not understood by me, so they have brought me nothing but evil. Something else. This is easy to understand! Ideas about life without purpose, about the meaninglessness and ephemerality of the earthly world, about Solomon's 'all is empty' were and still are the highest and last stage in the field of human thought. Thinkers reach This stage stops! There is no way forward. Normal mental activity always ends here, which is natural and conventional. But our misfortune is that we start thinking precisely from the end. We start where normal people leave off. As soon as our minds begin to function independently, we climb to the highest and last level, refusing to understand the levels below." "What's the harm in that?" asked the student. "But you must understand that this is not normal!" cried Ananyev, looking at him almost indignantly. "If we figured out a way to reach the sky without having to go through the steps below, the whole long ladder, that is, the whole of life, with its colors, sounds, and thoughts, would have no meaning for us. In your At this age, such thinking is a scourge and absurdity, and you can see it in every step of your reasonable independent life. Suppose you sit down to read Darwin or Shakespeare at this moment. You have just read a page, then Here comes the poisonous thought: Your long life, Shakespeare, and Darwin are all boring and absurd to you, because you know you're going to die, and Shakespeare and Darwin are dead too, they Their thoughts have not saved themselves, nor the earth, nor you. Since life has lost its meaning in this way, knowledge, poetry, lofty thoughts, etc., are nothing but useless for grown-up children. It's just entertainment, something to amuse your mind. You can't read it after the second page. Another example, someone comes to you, thinks you are a smart person, and asks you, for example, what you think of the war: Is war necessary and moral? You answer that dreadful question by shrugging your shoulders and saying something corny, because the way you think about it, thousands of people die violently. It doesn't matter if you die at the end of your life; it's exactly the same, whether you die the first way or the second way, the result is the same: ashes and oblivion. I am repairing the railway with you.Excuse me, since we know that this railway will turn into dust in two thousand years, why should we rack our brains, invent, despise the old ways, feel sorry for the workers, corrupt or not?The list goes on and on. ... You have to admit that in this unfortunate way of thinking there can be no progress, no science, no art, not even thought itself.We think we are smarter than the crowd, smarter than Shakespeare, but in fact our mental activities will not produce any results, because we don't want to descend to those steps below, and there is no room to go above, so our brains stop. At the freezing point, it is impossible to move a step. ... For six years or so I have been under the sway of such thoughts, and I swear to God I have not read a single useful book during that time, nor have I become a little wiser, and my moral level Did not improve a point.Isn't this a disaster?Furthermore, not only are we poisoned, we poison the lives of those around us.It would be fine if we gave up life with our pessimism, lived in caves, or died quickly, but in reality, we live in accordance with universal laws, have feelings, love women, and raise children , Repair the railway! " "Our thoughts can't make people hot or cold..." the college student reluctantly said. "No. Well, you must get rid of such thoughts! You don't understand life very well. Look, you won't understand until you're my age, my friend! We don't As innocent as you think. In real life, in contact with other people, this kind of thinking can only produce misery and stupid things. I have experienced such things, such things, even if it is a vicious Tartar. people, and I don't want them to suffer either." "An example?" I asked. "An example?" the engineer repeated.He thought for a while, and said with a smile: "For example, let's take that incident as an example. To be more precise, it is not an incident, but a real novel, with a beginning and an end. That's wonderful. lesson! Oh, what a lesson that is!" He filled us and himself with wine, stroked his broad chest with the palm of his hand, addressed me more than the student, and went on: "That was in eighteen seventy. ... In the summer of 1999, shortly after the war, I had just finished my studies. I was on my way to the Caucasus by train, and was stopped for five days in a town on the coast. I must tell you that I was born and raised in that town. It's big, so don't be surprised, I think this city is very comfortable, warm, and beautiful. In fact, for people from the capital, living in this city is as boring and uncomfortable as living in Chukhloma① or Kashila②. I walked past the middle school I used to study in a melancholy mood, walked in a familiar park with a melancholy mood, and planned to take a closer look at those people I hadn’t seen for a long time but still remembered them. ...I treat all this with a melancholy mood..." One evening, I took a bus to a so-called quarantine station.It was a small, sparse grove.Once upon a time, during a now-forgotten period of plague, there was indeed a quarantine station in this wood, but it is now the residence of the guests of the villa.It is four versts from the city, and can be reached by car along a soft and good road.Sitting in the car, one can see the light blue ocean on the left and the gloomy boundless grassland on the right. It is really refreshing and broad-minded.The grove is located right by the sea.After I got out of the car, I walked into the familiar gate, and the first thing I did was walk along the tree-lined road to a small stone pavilion that I liked very much when I was young.That clumsy round pavilion supported by ugly columns, with the lyrical atmosphere of the tombstones and the roughness of Sobakevich, was, in my opinion, the most poetic little corner of the town.It stands on a cliff near the shore, from which the ocean can be seen clearly. "I sat on a bench and leaned my upper body over the railing, looking down. Beside the pavilion there was a path going down the high, steep, almost vertical shore, lined with clods and burdocks. The path ended a little further down. In the distance, there is a sandy beach, and some low-rise waves on the beach lazily spit out foam and whisper softly. The ocean is as solemn, gloomy, and boundless as when I finished middle school and left my hometown for the capital seven years ago. Endless. In the distance there is a long black plume of smoke, which is a steamship sailing, and there is nothing else but this almost invisible, motionless black line and the floating gulls flashing on the water. The monotonous picture of sea and sky has been added a little life to the monotonous picture of sea and sky. On the left and right sides of the pavilion stretched uneven banks of earth. . . . " You know, whenever a melancholy person faces the sea alone, or faces him For some reason, besides the melancholy, he was always mixed with the belief that he would live and die in obscurity, so he casually picked up a tube of pencils and hurriedly Write his name on everything he comes across.Probably because of this reason, all the lonely and secluded corners like my pavilion are painted with pencil writing and full of handwriting carved with a pencil sharpener.I still remember very clearly that I looked at the railing and read: "Ivan Korolkov visited here on May 16, 1876, and wrote this as a souvenir."Next to Korolkov, a local dreamer wrote his name and added two lines of verse: "He stood beside the desolate and heaving shore, and his heart was full of great thoughts." ④ His handwriting is Dreamy, soft, like wet silk soaked in water.There was a man named Cross, probably a very small and insignificant person, who realized his own insignificance very strongly, so he performed his knife skills and carved his name into a depth of one inch.I casually took a tube of pencils from my pocket and wrote my name on the post.But none of this has anything to do with what I'm talking about. ... Excuse me, I am not good at brevity. ..."I was depressed and a little bored. The boredom, the silence, the hum of the sea, gradually led me to the kind of thinking we were talking about just now. At that time, at the end of the seventies, that kind of thinking was beginning to appear in society. prevailed among the people, and later to eight In the early 1900s, I gradually shifted from social people to literature, science and politics.I was only twenty-six at the time, but I already knew very clearly that life has no purpose, no meaning, that everything is a deception and illusion, and that the life of a convict on Sakhalin⑤is not the same as that in Nice⑤ in essence and results. There is no difference in life, the difference between Kant's mind and a fly's mind is of no great significance, no one is right or guilty in this world, everything is boring and meaningless, fuck it!I am living, but I seem to be doing this to honor an invisible force that compels me to live, as if to say: "Power, you see, I don't despise life at all, but I live! 'I think along one set of lines, but with infinite variety, and in this I am like a fine gourmet, who can cook up a hundred delicious dishes from potatoes alone. I am undoubtedly biased, even a little bit Narrow, yet I thought at the time that the universe of my thoughts had neither beginning nor end, that my thoughts were as vast as the ocean. Yes, I judge from my own experience, that the thought we are speaking of is as far as its substance is concerned. Saying that there is something captivating and intoxicating is like tobacco or morphine. It becomes a habit, it becomes a necessity. You take advantage of every solitary moment and every convenient opportunity to let your mind run wild, what life doesn't The goal, how dark it is in the tomb. I was sitting in the pavilion, and there were some Greek children with long noses walking in the avenue. I took this convenient opportunity to look at them and thought to myself: "How , For what purpose are these children born and alive?Is there any meaning to their existence?They themselves don't know why they have grown up, needlessly lived in the middle of nowhere, and then died. ...' "I even hated those children, because they walked around neatly and talked solemnly, as if they really valued their small and unglamorous lives, and knew what purpose to live for. . . . I remember, from afar Yes, at the end of the avenue three women appeared. Three ladies, one in a pink dress and two in white dresses. They walked side by side arm in arm, talking and laughing. I stared at them, I thought to myself: "Now I am very bored, I wish I could find a woman to live a romantic life for a day or two! ' "Notes" ① They are all small cities in the interior of Russia. ② They are all small cities in the interior of Russia. ③A landlord in Gogol's novel Dead Souls. ④ Quoted from Pushkin's long poem "The Bronze Horseman". ⑤ China is called Sakhalin Island. ⑥A health resort on the coast of southeast France. "By the way, I remembered that I hadn't seen that mistress in Petersburg for three weeks, and thought it would be a good time for a brief romance. The lady in the white dress standing in the middle looked much better than her girlfriend. They are younger and prettier. Judging by her demeanor and laughter, she is probably a girl in the upper class of middle school. I looked at her breasts with impure thoughts, and at the same time thought of her: "She learns music and manners, and she will marry A Grecian (God forgive me for saying this) living a needless, gray, stupid life and having kids and dying for no reason.What an absurd life! ' "In conclusion, it must be said that I am a master of combining the loftiest thoughts with the basest of mundane ones. Thoughts about how dark the graves are do not prevent me from admiring women's breasts and thighs. Our dear The baron's lofty ideas did not in the least prevent him from taking a carriage to Vokolovka on Saturdays to have his love affairs. In good conscience, I still remember that my attitude towards women at that time was quite smug. Insulting. Now, you see, I blush at what I thought when I think of those schoolgirls, and yet my conscience is at peace. I am the son of an aristocratic family, a Christian, highly educated, I'm not vicious or stupid by nature, but I don't feel the slightest bit uneasy when I pay a woman a Blutgeld, as the Germans say, or follow a schoolgirl with insulting glances.... The crux of the matter is, Youth has its own rights, whether these rights are good or hateful, we have no objection in principle. Those who know that life has no purpose and death is inevitable are always very indifferent to the concept of fighting against nature and evil: whether you fight or not, you will die and rot anyway. ... Secondly, my sir, our kind of thinking infuses even the very young with so-called rationality.The triumph of reason over emotion prevails among us.Immediate feeling and inspiration are completely overwhelmed by shallow analysis.Wherever there is reason there must be cruelty, and the cruel (it need not be concealed) do not know purity.Only those who are passionate, earnest, and skilled in love can appreciate this virtue.Third, our thinking denies the meaning of life and at the same time denies the meaning of each individual personality.Obviously, if I deny the personality of a certain Natalya Stepanovna, it does not matter to me whether she is insulted or not.Today I insult her human dignity, pay her Blutgeld, and tomorrow I forget her. "I sat in the pavilion like this and observed the young ladies. Another figure of a woman appeared on the avenue. She was hatless, with fair hair, and a white woolen shawl around her shoulders. She walked along the avenue. Walked along the road for a while, then walked into the pavilion, holding on to the railing, and looked indifferently at the ocean below and in the distance. She walked into the pavilion, but didn’t pay attention to me at all, as if she didn’t see me. I looked at her from foot to head (Not from head to toe like looking at a man), I found that she was young, no more than twenty-five years old, handsome, and good-looking, probably no longer a lady, but a lady of a high-class family. She wore homely clothes, but her style Fashionable, elegant and generous, the dress of educated ladies in the city is generally like this. "'Look, it'd be nice to get along with this one...' I thought, looking at her pretty waist and arms. 'It's not bad. . . . She's probably the wife of a doctor or a schoolteacher.  … . . .'" However, it is not easy, and not necessarily possible, to befriend her, that is to say, to make her the heroine of a temporary love affair that travelers love so much.This is what I realized when I looked closely at her face.Judging from her eyes and her expression, it seemed that she was already tired of the ocean, the black smoke in the distance, and the sky.She seemed tired, bored, and thinking of something unpleasant.Any woman, when she feels that there is a strange man beside her, will almost always show a look of being restless but pretending to be indifferent, but she doesn't even have this expression on her face. "This blond woman gave me an inadvertently bored look, sat down on a bench, and thought to herself. I could see from her eyes that she didn't pay attention to me at all, and the appearance of me and my people from the capital was not even in her mind. A little ordinary curiosity aroused. Still I decided to strike up a conversation with her, and asked: "'Madame, please allow me to ask you, what time does the coach leave for the city from here? '"'It seems to be ten o'clock or eleven o'clock. . . .'" I thanked him.Once or twice she gazed at me intently, and a look of curiosity and then something like surprise flashed across her unenthusiastic face. ... I hastened to put on an air of indifference and made a nonchalant gesture.She is hooked! As if something had bitten her hard, she suddenly stood up from the bench, smiled gently, looked at me hurriedly, and asked timidly: "'Excuse me, aren't you Ananyev? '" 'Yes, I am Ananyev . . . ' I replied. "'Then you don't know me? Don't you?' "I was a little flustered, and looked at her carefully for a while. Guess what, I recognized her not from her face, nor from her figure, but from her gentle and tired smile. She is Natalie Ya Stepanovna, or Kisotchka, as she was called in the old days, was the girl whom I loved without thinking, seven or eight years ago, when I was still in school uniform. It's a long-gone thing, an old thing.②...I recalled Kisotchka's petite and thin appearance when she was a schoolgirl of fifteen or sixteen, and she was just right for a schoolboy at that time. Mind, nature created her just to be the object of platonic love. How charming is that girl! With her fair face, delicate figure, and graceful demeanor, it seems that if you breathe on her, she will Flew up to the sky like a feather. Her face always looked so gentle and perplexed, her hands were small, her long soft braids fell to her belt, her waist was as thin as a wasp, in short, she was as beautiful as moonlight. Light and crystal clear. In a word, from the point of view of a middle school student, she is an indescribably handsome beauty.... I fell in love with her at that time, and the love was so painful! I couldn't sleep at night and wrote many poems. ...Often, in the evening, when she was sitting on a bench in the inner city park, we high school students would surround her and look at her respectfully.... We praised her, we put on airs, we sighed, and she, in the Crouching nervously in the evening damp, narrowing her eyes, and smiling softly, she was very much like a small, pretty cat at such times. We looked at her, each of us wishing she were a cat, To get close to her, to caress her, that's why she got the nickname Kisotchka. "We have been separated for seven or eight years, and Kisotchka has changed a lot. She has become strong and plump, and she is not like a soft, fluffy kitten at all. Her face is not old or haggard, but it seems to be lost. Her original splendor had become harsh. Her hair appeared short, but her figure was taller, her shoulders almost twice as broad, mainly because her face already had the usual expression of an upper-class woman of her age.母性和温顺的神情，当然，这种神情以前我在她的脸上没看见过。……一句话，除了温和的笑容以外，在她身上已经不复存在往日那个女学生和柏拉图式恋爱的对象的痕迹了。……”我们攀谈起来。基索琪卡听说我已经成为工程师，高兴极了。 “'这多么好哇！'她说，快活地瞧着我的眼睛。'啊，多么好哇！你们全都了不起！你们那一期毕业生，没有一个是失败者，个个都出人头地。有的做了工程师，有的做了医师，有的做了教员，听说有的已经在彼得堡成了著名的歌唱家呢。 ……你们啊，你们全都了不起！啊，这多么好哇！ ' "Notes" ①德语：耻辱的酬劳费。 ②这两句话引自普希金的长诗《鲁斯兰和柳德米拉》。 ③在俄语中，“猫”与“基索琪卡”发音近似。 “基索琪卡的眼睛里闪着真诚的快乐和善意。她象姐姐或者往日的女教师那样赞赏我。可是我瞧着她那张可爱的脸，心里却暗想：”今天能把她搞上手才好！'“'您记得吗，娜达丽雅·斯捷潘诺芙娜？'我问，'有一回我拿着一捧花和一封信到公园里去送给您。您看过我那封信后脸上现出一副困惑神情。……'”'不，这我不记得了，'她说着，笑起来。'有一件事我倒还记得：您有一次为我而打算跟弗洛连斯决斗。……'“'哦，您瞧，这件事我倒不记得了。……'”'是啊，过去的事都过去了，……'基索琪卡叹口气说。 '从前我是你们的偶像，现在呢，却轮到我来敬仰你们这些人了。……'“再谈下去，我才知道基索琪卡在中学毕业后大约过了两年就嫁给一个半希腊血统的本地人，这人不是在银行里就是在保险公司里任职，同时兼做小麦生意。他的姓有点古怪，好象是普普拉基或者斯卡兰多普洛。……鬼才知道他姓什么，我忘了。……总的说来，基索琪卡很少讲到自己，而且也不乐意讲。话题全集中在我一个人身上。她问我学院的情况、我的同学的情况、彼得堡的情况、我的计划，凡是我讲的话，都在她心里引起热烈的欢乐和赞叹：”啊，这多么好哇！'“我们走下坡，往海洋走去，在沙滩上散步，然后等到傍晚的潮气从海上吹来，我们才回到坡上。话题始终围绕着我，围绕着过去。我们一直散步到晚霞的光在别墅的窗子上渐渐消退才罢休。 “'到我家里去喝茶吧，'基索琪卡对我提议说。'茶炊一定早就端上桌子了。………只有我一个人在家，'她说，这时候在葱茏的洋槐树林当中出现了她的别墅。'我丈夫老是在城里，一直要到深夜才回来，而且也不是每天都回来，所以，老实说，我闷得要命。'”我跟在她后面走着，欣赏她的后背和肩膀。听说她嫁了人，我暗自高兴。对临时的风流韵事来说，结过婚的女人倒比小姐们合适得多。听说她丈夫不在家，我也暗自高兴。……然而同时，我又觉得这件风流事不会成功。……“我们走进正房。基索琪卡的那些房间都不大，天花板很低，家具是别墅里常用的那种（俄国人喜欢把舍不得丢掉而又没处安放的那些不方便的和暗淡无光的笨重家具摆在别墅里），不过从某些小地方仍旧可以看出基索琪卡和她丈夫的光景并不差，每年总要开支五六千卢布。我记得在基索琪卡称之为饭厅的那个房间里，中央放着一张圆桌，不知什么缘故下面有六条腿，上边放着一个茶炊和几个杯子，桌面靠边的地方放着一本翻开的书、一管铅笔和一个笔记本。我朝那本书看了一眼，知道那是玛里宁和布烈宁合著的算术习题集。我现在还记得，那本书翻开的地方正是'按比例分配'。 “'您这是在给谁温课？'我问基索琪卡。 “'我没给谁温课，……'她回答说。'这是我自己随便做着玩的。………我闷得慌，又没有事情可做，想起了旧日，就做一做这些题目。'”'您有孩子吗？''我生过一个男孩，可是他活了一个星期就死了。'“我们开始喝茶。基索琪卡钦佩我，又说我做了工程师是多么好，她怎样为我的成就高兴。她讲得越多，微笑得越恳切，我也就越相信我会一无所获地离开她的家。那时候我在搞风流韵事方面已经是个行家，善于准确地估量成功或者失败的机会了。如果您要猎取的是个蠢女人，或者是象您自己一样追求冒险和刺激的女人，或者是您不熟悉的狡猾女人，那您自管大胆指望成功好了。可是如果您遇见的女人并不愚蠢，态度严肃，脸上现出疲乏的温顺和善意，而且她高兴陪着您，主要的是她尊敬您，那么您就该拨转马头往回走。在这种情形下，要想取得成功，所需下的工夫就不止一天了。 “可是在傍晚的灯光下，基索琪卡显得比白天更加招人疼爱。我越来越喜欢她，看来她也喜爱我。况且，那环境也最适合于谈情说爱：她丈夫不在家，仆人也不见，四周静悄悄的。……尽管我不大相信会成功，可还是决定不管三七二十一发动进攻。首先得换上一种随随便便的口气，把基索琪卡那种带抒情意味的严肃心情变成一种比较轻松的心情才行。 ... “'我们来改一改话题吧，娜达丽雅·斯捷潘诺芙娜，'我开口说。'我们来谈点快活的事。……首先，请您允许我为了纪念旧日而称呼您基索琪卡。'”她答应了。 “'请您说说，基索琪卡，'我接着说，'本地的这些娘们儿都是发了什么疯？她们怎么回事啊？从前她们都规规矩矩，守身如玉，现在呢，求上帝怜恤吧，不管你问起谁，人家准会给你讲些吓人的事情，逼得你为人类担惊害怕。……这个小姐跟军官私奔了，那个小姐带着中学生逃跑了。这位太太离开丈夫跟戏子走掉了，那位太太离开丈夫去找军官了，等等，等等。……简直成了传染病！照这样下去，恐怕不久你们这个城里就连一个小姐，一个年轻的妻子也不剩了！'”我是用庸俗的调皮口气讲这些话的。'要是基索琪卡笑着回答我的话，我就会照这样继续说下去：“哼，当心啊，基索琪卡，可别让这儿的军官或者戏子把你拐走！'她就会低下眼睛说：”谁高兴拐带我？有的是比我年轻漂亮的女人哟。 ……'那我就对她说：“得了吧，基索琪卡，我就是头一个巴不得把您拐走的人！'我们照这样谈下去，到头来我就会大功告成。然而，基索琪卡回答我的却不是笑声，刚好相反，她现出严肃的脸色，叹了口气。 “'人家讲的那些事都是真的，……'她说。'我的堂妹索尼雅就是离开丈夫跟演员走掉的。当然，这不好。……每个人都应该承受命运为他安排下的一切，可是我不想批评她们，责怪她们。……有的时候环境比人强！'”'这话不错，基索琪卡，可究竟是什么环境才会产生这种名符其实的传染病呢？'“'这很简单，也容易明白，……'基索琪卡拧起眉毛说。 '我们这些有知识的姑娘和女人简直不知道该怎么办才好。出外去进高等学校或者去做女教员，总之象男人那样有理想，有目标地生活下去，那并不是人人都能办到的。于是只好嫁人。 ……不过，请问，嫁给什么人呢？你们这班男孩子念完中学就出外上大学，从此再也不回故乡，在京城成了亲，而女孩子却留在这儿！……请问，要她们嫁给谁呢？好，既然没有正派的、有教养的男人，她们就只好嫁给上帝才知道的角色，各式各样的掮客啦，希腊佬啦，都是些只会喝酒，在俱乐部里闹事的家伙。……姑娘们无可奈何，胡乱地嫁出去了。……可是这以后过的是什么样的生活呢？您自己也会明白：受过教育而有教养的女人不得不跟愚蠢的和难处的男人一块儿过日子，那么她一遇见有知识的人，军官，演员，或者医师，自然就会爱上他，原来的生活她就会觉得不能忍受，她就离开丈夫远走高飞了。可不能责备她们啊！'“'既是这样，基索琪卡，那又何必嫁人呢？'我问。 “'当然，'基索琪卡叹口气说。'不过要知道，每个姑娘都觉得好歹有个丈夫总比没有强。……总之，尼古拉·阿纳斯达西耶维奇，在这儿生活是不愉快的，不愉快得很！做姑娘觉得气闷，嫁了人也还是觉得气闷。……现在大家嘲笑索尼雅，因为她私奔了，而且是跟一个演员私奔的，可是如果把她的灵魂看个明白，就笑不出来了。……'”门外，阿左尔卡又叫起来。它恶狠狠地不知对什么人狂吠，然后凄凉地哀号，全身猛然撞在小屋的墙上。……阿纳尼耶夫怜悯它，皱起了眉，中断他的故事，走出去了。大约有两分钟光景，可以听见他在门外安慰那条狗：“好狗！可怜的狗！” “我们的尼古拉·阿纳斯达西伊奇喜欢谈天，”冯·希千堡笑着说。“他是个好人！”他沉默一忽儿又补了一句。 工程师回到小屋，给我们的杯子里斟满葡萄酒，含笑摩挲着胸脯，接着说：“这样，我的进攻就没有成功。我无计可施，只好丢开那些不纯洁的思想，等比较有利的时机再说。我对失败只得听天由命，俗语说得好，'摆一摆手，算了吧'。事情还不仅是这样，在基索琪卡的声调、傍晚的空气和寂静的影响下，我自己也渐渐染上安静的抒情心境。我记得，当时我坐在敞开的窗子旁边的圈椅上，眺望树木和黑下来的天空。槐树和椴树的黑影跟八年前一模一样，而且，象我小时候那样，远处什么地方有人在弹一架破旧的钢琴。人们仍旧保持着在林荫路上散步的习气，不过换了一批人罢了。在林荫路上溜达的不再是我，不再是我的同学，不再是我的热情的对象，却是陌生的中学生，陌生的小姐了。我忧郁起来。我问起旧日的熟人，大约有五次听到基索琪卡回答说：”他死了'，我的忧郁就变成只有在追悼好人的安魂祭上才会体验到的那种感情。于是我，坐在窗子旁边，瞧着散步的人们，听着钢琴的铿锵声，这才生平头一次亲眼看见一代人怎样急急忙忙地替换另一代人，在人的一生中，哪怕短短的七八年，也会有多么不祥的意义！ “基索琪卡在桌上放了一瓶桑托林酒①。我喝着酒，无精打采，把一件什么事讲了很久。基索琪卡听我讲话，跟先前一样钦佩我和我的才智。然而时光在流逝。天已经黑下来，槐树和椴树的黑影连成一片，人们不再在林荫路上散步，钢琴停下来，只能听见海水的平匀的哗哗声了。 “年轻人都是一样的。您对一个年轻人亲热一点，心疼一下，请他喝点葡萄酒，让他知道他招人喜欢，他就会无拘无束地坐在那儿，忘记到了该告辞的时候，尽自讲啊讲的，讲个没完。……主人的眼睛睁不开，到睡觉的时候了，可是他仍旧坐在那儿，讲他的话。我也是这样。我无意间看一下表：已经十点半了。我就起身告辞。 “'动身前再喝一杯吧，'基索琪卡说。 “我就喝了一杯动身酒，不料又长谈起来，忘记到了该走的时候，却坐下来。然而后来响起了男人的说话声、脚步声、马刺的磕碰声。有人走过窗口，在大门附近站住。 “'好象是我的丈夫回来了，……'基索琪卡听着，说。 “门响了，说话声已经传进前堂，我瞧见两个人走过饭厅门口，一个是身体丰满的黑发男子，生着钩鼻子，戴着草帽，另一个是穿白色军服的军官。他们两人走过门口，只冷淡地瞟一眼我和基索琪卡，我觉得他们似乎喝醉了。 “'这样看来，她对你胡说，你倒听信了！'过了一忽儿，传来响亮的说话声，带着浓重的鼻音。'第一，那不是在大俱乐部，而是在小俱乐部。'”'你在生气，朱庇特，那么你就错了，……'另一个笑着说咳嗽几声，显然是军官的声音。'你听我说，我可以在你家里过夜吗？你说老实话：我不妨碍你吗？'“'这还要问？！不但可以，甚至非在这儿过夜不可呢。你想喝什么，啤酒还是葡萄酒？'”他们两人坐的地方跟我们隔着两个房间，说话声音很响，显然没顾到基索琪卡，也没顾到她的客人。然而基索琪卡从她丈夫回来后，却起了显著的变化。起初她脸红，后来脸上现出胆怯的负咎神情。她变得心神不定。我开始觉得她不好意思把她的丈夫介绍给我，她希望我走。 “我就起身告辞。基索琪卡把我送到门外。我清楚地记得当时她那温和忧郁的笑靥和亲切温顺的眼睛，她握着我的手说：”'大概我们不会再见面了。 ……好，求上帝保佑您万事如意。thank you! '“没有叹息声，也没有多余的话。她跟我告别的时候，手里举着一支蜡烛，有许多光点在她脸上和脖子上跳动，仿佛在追逐她那忧郁的笑靥。我想起往日人们总想把基索琪卡当做猫一样抚摸几下的时候她是什么模样，再定睛看着现在的基索琪卡，不知什么原故，记起了她那句话：”每个人都应该承受命运为他安排下的一切'，我心里觉得不好受。我凭直觉猜到，而且我的良心也小声对我这个幸运而冷漠的人说：我面前站着一个人，她心好，怀着善意，充满热爱，却又苦恼不堪。 ……“我点了点头，往大门口走去。天已经黑了。在南方，七月间的傍晚来得早，天色黑得快。将近十点钟就黑得伸手不见五指。我几乎摸着黑走到大门口，一路上大约划了二十根火柴。