In vain do you try to obtain for me a medical certificate of temporary aberration1. I shall not take advantage of it.
I killed him soberly, conscientiously2, coldly, without the least regret, fear or hesitation3. Were it in your power to resurrect him, I would repeat my crime.
He followed me always and everywhere. He took a thousand human shapes, and did not shrink—shameless creature—to dress in women's clothes upon occasion. He took the guise4 of my relative, my dear friend, colleague, good acquaintance. He could dress to look any age except that of a child (as a child he only failed and looked ridiculous). He has filled up my life with himself, and poisoned it.
What has been most dreadful was that I have always foreseen in advance all his words, gestures and actions.
When I met him he would drawl, crushing my hand in his:
"Aha! Whom—do—I—see? Dear me! You must be getting on in years now. How's your health?"
Then he would answer as for himself, though I had not asked him anything:
"Thank you. So so. Nothing to boast of. Have you read in to-day's paper...?"
If he by any chance noticed that I had a flushed cheek, flushed by the vexation of having met him, he would be sure to croak5:
"Eh, neighbour, how red you're getting."
He would come to me just at those moments when I was up to the neck in work, would sit down and say:
"Ah! I'm afraid I've interrupted you."
For two hours he would bore me to death, prattling6 of himself and his children. He would see I was tearing my hair and biting my lips till the blood came, and would simply delight in my torments7.
Having poisoned my working mood for a whole month in advance, he would stand, yawn a little, and then murmur8:
"Lord knows why I stay here talking. I've got lots to do."
When I met him in a railway carriage he always began:
"Permit me to ask, are you going far?" And then:
"On business or ...?"
"Where do you work?"
"Married?"
Oh, well do I know all his ways. Closing my eyes I see him. He strikes me on the shoulder, on the back, on the knees. He gesticulates so closely to my eyes and nose that I wince9, as if about to be struck. Catching10 hold of the lappet of my coat, he draws himself up to me and breathes in my face. When he visits me he allows his foot to tremble on the floor Under the table, so that the shade of the lamp tinkles11. At an "at home" he thrums on the back of my chair with his fingers, and in pauses of the conversation drawls, "y-e-s, y-es." At cards he calls out, knocks on the table and quacks12 as he loses: "What's that? What? What?"
Start him in an argument, and he always begins by:
"Eh, neighbour, it's humbug13 you're talking."
"Why humbug?" you ask timidly.
"Because it is nonsense."
What evil have I done to this man? I don't know. He set himself to spoil my existence, and he spoiled it. Thanks to him, I now feel a great aversion from the sea, the moon, the air, poetry, painting, music.
"Tolstoy"—he bawled14 orally, and in print—"made his estate over to his wife, and he himself.... Compared with Turgenief, he.... He sewed his own jack-boots ... great writer of the Russian earth.... Hurrah15!...
"Pushkin? He created the language, didn't he? Do you remember 'Calm was the Ukraine night, clear was the sky'? You remember what they did to the woman in the third act. Hsh! There are no ladies present, do you remember?
"'In our little boat we go,
Under the little boat the water.'
"Dostoevsky ... have you read how he went one night to Turgenief to confess ... Gogol, do you know the sort of disease he had?"
Should I go to a picture gallery, and stand before some quiet evening landscape, he would be sure to be on my heels, pushing me forward, and saying to a girl on his arm:
"Very sweetly drawn16 ... distance ... atmosphere ... ... the moon to the life.... Do you remember Nina—the coloured supplement of the Neva1—[1] it was something like it...."
[1] A popular Russian journal.
I sit at the opera listening to "Carmen." He is there, as everywhere. He is behind me, and has his feet on the lower bar of my fauteuil. He hums the tune17 of the duet in the last act, and through his feet communicates to my nerves every movement of his body. Then, in the entr'act, I hear him speaking in a voice pitched high enough for me to hear:
"Wonderful gramophone records the Zadodadofs have. Shalapin absolutely. You couldn't tell the difference."
Yes, it was he or someone like him who invented the barrel organ, the gramophone, the bioscope, the photophone, the biograph, the phonograph, the pathephone, the musical box, the pianino, the motor car, paper collars, oleographs, and newspapers.
There's no getting away from him. I flee away at night to the wild seashore, and lie down in solitude18 upon a cliff, but he steals after me in the shadow, and suddenly the silencers broken by a self-satisfied voice which says:
"What a lovely night, Katenka, isn't it? The clouds, eh, look at them! Just as in a picture. And if a painter painted them just like it, who would say it was true to Nature?"
He has killed the best minutes of my life—minutes of love, the dear sweet nights of youth. How often, when I have wandered arm in arm with the most beauteous creation of Nature, along an avenue where, upon the ground, the silver moonlight was in pattern with the shadows of the trees, and he has suddenly and unexpectedly spoken up to me in a woman's voice, has rested his head on my shoulder and cried out in a theatrical19 tone:
"Tell me, do you love to dream by moonlight?"
Or:
"Tell me, do you love Nature? As for me, I madly adore Nature."
He was many shaped and many faced, my persecutor20, but was always the same underneath21. He took upon occasion the guise of professor, doctor, engineer, lady doctor, advocate, girl-student, author, wife of the excise22 inspector23, official, passenger, customer, guest, stranger, spectator, reader, neighbour at a country house. In early youth I had the stupidity to think that these were all separate people. But they were all one and the same. Bitter experience has at last discovered to me his name. It is—the Russian intelligent.
If he has at any time missed me personally, he has left everywhere his traces, his visiting cards. On the heights of Barchau and Machuka I have found his orange peelings, sardine24 tins, and chocolate wrappings. On the rocks of Aloopka, on the top of the belfry of St. John, on the granites25 of Imatra, on the walls of Bakhchisari, in the grotto26 of Lermontof, I have found the following signatures and remarks:—
"Pusia and Kuziki 1908 year 27 February."
"Ivanof."
"A. M. Plokhokhostof (Bad-tail) from Saratof."
"Ivanof."
"Pechora girl."
"Ivanof."
"M.D. ... P.A.P.... Talotchka and Achmet."
"Ivanof."
"Trophim Sinepupof. Samara Town."
"Ivanof."
"Adel Soloveitchik from Minsk."
"Ivanof."
"From this height I delighted in the view of the sea.—C. NICODEMUS IVANOVITCH BEZUPRECHNY."
"Ivanof."
I have read his verses and remarks in all visiting books, and in Puskhin's house, at Lermontof's Cliff, and in the ancient monasteries27 have read: "The Troakofs came here from Penza, drank kvas and ate sturgeon. We wish the same to you," or "Visited the natal28 ash-tray of the great Russian poet, Chichkin, teacher of caligraphy, Voronezh High School for Boys," or—
"Praise to thee, Ai Petri, mountain white,
In dress imperial of fir.
I climbed up yesterday unto thy height,
Retired29 Staff-Captain Nikoli Profer."
I needed but to pick up my favourite Russian book, and I came upon him at once. "I have read this book.—PAFNUTENKO." "The author is a blockhead." "Mr. Author hasn't read Karl Marx." I turn over the pages, and I find his notes in all the margins30. Then, of course, no one like he turns down corners and makes dog-ears, tears out pages, or drops grease on them from tallow candles.
Gentlemen, judges, it is hard for me to go on. This man has abused, fouled31, vulgarised all that was dear to me, delicate and touching32. I struggled a long while with myself. Years went by. My nerves became more irritable33 I saw there was not room for both of us in the world. One of us had to go.
I foresaw for a long while that it would be just some little trifle that would drive me to the crime. So it was.
You know the particulars. In the compartment34 there was a crush; the passengers were sitting on one another's heads. He, with his wife, his son, a schoolboy in the preparatory class, and a pile of luggage, were occupying four seats. Upon this occasion he was wearing the uniform of the Department of Popular Education. I went up to him and asked:
"Is there not a free seat here?"
He answered like a bulldog with a bone, not looking at me:
"No. This seat is taken by another gentleman. These are his things. He'll be back in a minute."
The train began to move.
I waited, standing35, where I was. We went on about ten miles. The gentleman didn't come. I was silent, and I looked into the face of the pedagogue36, thinking that there might yet be in him some gleam of conscience.
But no. We went another fifteen miles. He got down a basket of provisions and began to eat. He went out with a kettle for hot water, and made himself tea. A little domestic scandal arose over the sugar for the tea.
"Peter, you've taken a lump of sugar on the sly!"
"Word of honour, by God, I haven't I Look in my pockets, by God!"
"Don't swear, and don't lie. I counted them before we set out, on purpose.... There were eighteen and now there are seventeen."
"By God!!"
"Don't swear. It is shameful37 to lie. I will forgive you everything, only tell me straight out the truth. But a lie I can never forgive. Only cowards lie. One who is capable of lying is capable of murdering, of stealing, of betraying his king and his country...."
So he ran on and ran on. I had heard such utterances38 from him in my earliest childhood, when he was my governess, afterwards when he was my class teacher, and again when he wrote in the newspaper.
I interrupted.
"You find fault with your son for lying, and yet you yourself have, in his presence, told a whopping lie. You said this seat was occupied by a gentleman. Where is that gentleman? Show him to me."
The pedagogue went purple, and his eyes dilated39.
"I beg you, don't interfere40 with people who don't interfere with you. Mind your own business. How scandalous! Conductor, please warn this passenger that he will not be allowed to interfere with other people in the railway carriage. Please take measures, or I'll report the matter to the gendarme41, and write in the complaint book."
The conductor screwed up his eyes in a fatherly expression, and went out. But the pedagogue went on, unconsoled:
"No one speaks to you. No one was interfering42 with you. Good Lord! a decent-looking man too, in a hat and a collar, clearly one of the intelligentia. ... A peasant now, or a workman ... but no, an intelligent!"
Intel-li-gent! The executioner had named me executioner! It was ended.... He had pronounced his own sentence.
I took out of the pocket of my overcoat a revolver, examined the charge, pointed43 it at the pedagogue between the eyes, and said calmly:
"Say your prayers."
He turned pale and shrieked44:
"Guard-d-d!..."
That was his last word. I pulled the trigger.
I have finished, gentlemen. I repeat: I do not repent45. There is no sorrow for him in my soul. One desolating46 doubt remains47, however, and it will haunt me to the end of my days, should I finish them in prison or in an asylum48.
He has a son left! What if he takes on his father's nature?
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收听单词发音
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1
aberration
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| n.离开正路，脱离常规，色差 | |
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2
conscientiously
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| adv.凭良心地；认真地，负责尽职地；老老实实 | |
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3
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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4
guise
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| n.外表，伪装的姿态 | |
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5
croak
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| vi.嘎嘎叫，发牢骚 | |
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6
prattling
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| v.（小孩般）天真无邪地说话( prattle的现在分词 )；发出连续而无意义的声音；闲扯；东拉西扯 | |
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7
torments
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| （肉体或精神上的）折磨，痛苦( torment的名词复数 )； 造成痛苦的事物[人] | |
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8
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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9
wince
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| n.畏缩，退避，（因痛苦，苦恼等)面部肌肉抽动；v.畏缩，退缩，退避 | |
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10
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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11
tinkles
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| 丁当声，铃铃声( tinkle的名词复数 )； 一次电话 | |
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12
quacks
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| abbr.quacksalvers 庸医，骗子(16世纪习惯用水银或汞治疗梅毒的人)n.江湖医生( quack的名词复数 )；江湖郎中；（鸭子的）呱呱声v.（鸭子）发出嘎嘎声( quack的第三人称单数 ) | |
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13
humbug
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| n.花招，谎话，欺骗 | |
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14
bawled
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| v.大叫，大喊( bawl的过去式和过去分词 )；放声大哭；大声叫出；叫卖（货物） | |
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15
hurrah
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| int.好哇，万岁，乌拉 | |
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16
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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17
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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18
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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19
theatrical
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| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
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20
persecutor
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| n. 迫害者 | |
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21
underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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22
excise
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| n.(国产)货物税；vt.切除，删去 | |
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23
inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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24
sardine
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| n.[C]沙丁鱼 | |
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25
granites
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| 花岗岩，花岗石( granite的名词复数 ) | |
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26
grotto
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| n.洞穴 | |
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27
monasteries
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| 修道院( monastery的名词复数 ) | |
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28
natal
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| adj.出生的，先天的 | |
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29
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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30
margins
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| 边( margin的名词复数 )； 利润； 页边空白； 差数 | |
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31
fouled
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| v.使污秽( foul的过去式和过去分词 )；弄脏；击球出界；（通常用废物）弄脏 | |
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32
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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33
irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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34
compartment
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| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
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35
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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36
pedagogue
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| n.教师 | |
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37
shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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38
utterances
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| n.发声( utterance的名词复数 )；说话方式；语调；言论 | |
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39
dilated
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| adj.加宽的，扩大的v.（使某物）扩大，膨胀，张大( dilate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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40
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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41
gendarme
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| n.宪兵 | |
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42
interfering
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| adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词 | |
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43
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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44
shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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45
repent
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| v.悔悟，悔改，忏悔，后悔 | |
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46
desolating
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| 毁坏( desolate的现在分词 )； 极大地破坏； 使沮丧； 使痛苦 | |
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47
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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48
asylum
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| n.避难所，庇护所，避难 | |
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