“What weather!” he said. “It’s not weather, but a curse laid upon us. It’s raining again!”
He grumbled3 on, while his family sat waiting at table for him to have finished washing his hands before beginning dinner. Fedosya Semyonovna, his wife, his son Pyotr, a student, his eldest4 daughter Varvara, and three small boys, had been sitting waiting a long time. The boys—Kolka, Vanka, and Arhipka—grubby, snub-nosed little fellows with chubby5 faces and tousled hair that wanted cutting, moved their chairs impatiently, while their elders sat without stirring, and apparently6 did not care whether they ate their dinner or waited....
As though trying their patience, Shiryaev deliberately7 dried his hands, deliberately said his prayer, and sat down to the table without hurrying himself. Cabbage-soup was served immediately. The sound of carpenters’ axes (Shiryaev was having a new barn built) and the laughter of Fomka, their labourer, teasing the turkey, floated in from the courtyard.
Big, sparse8 drops of rain pattered on the window.
Pyotr, a round-shouldered student in spectacles, kept exchanging glances with his mother as he ate his dinner. Several times he laid down his spoon and cleared his throat, meaning to begin to speak, but after an intent look at his father he fell to eating again. At last, when the porridge had been served, he cleared his throat resolutely9 and said:
“I ought to go tonight by the evening train. I ought to have gone before; I have missed a fortnight as it is. The lectures begin on the first of September.”
“Well, go,” Shiryaev assented10; “why are you lingering on here? Pack up and go, and good luck to you.”
A minute passed in silence.
“He must have money for the journey, Yevgraf Ivanovitch,” the mother observed in a low voice.
“Money? To be sure, you can’t go without money. Take it at once, since you need it. You could have had it long ago!”
The student heaved a faint sigh and looked with relief at his mother. Deliberately Shiryaev took a pocket-book out of his coat-pocket and put on his spectacles.
“How much do you want?” he asked.
“The fare to Moscow is eleven roubles forty-two kopecks....”
“Ah, money, money!” sighed the father. (He always sighed when he saw money, even when he was receiving it.) “Here are twelve roubles for you. You will have change out of that which will be of use to you on the journey.”
“Thank you.”
After waiting a little, the student said:
“I did not get lessons quite at first last year. I don’t know how it will be this year; most likely it will take me a little time to find work. I ought to ask you for fifteen roubles for my lodging11 and dinner.”
Shiryaev thought a little and heaved a sigh.
“You will have to make ten do,” he said. “Here, take it.”
The student thanked him. He ought to have asked him for something more, for clothes, for lecture fees, for books, but after an intent look at his father he decided12 not to pester13 him further.
The mother, lacking in diplomacy14 and prudence15, like all mothers, could not restrain herself, and said:
“You ought to give him another six roubles, Yevgraf Ivanovitch, for a pair of boots. Why, just see, how can he go to Moscow in such wrecks16?”
“Let him take my old ones; they are still quite good.”
“He must have trousers, anyway; he is a disgrace to look at.”
And immediately after that a storm-signal showed itself, at the sight of which all the family trembled.
Shiryaev’s short, fat neck turned suddenly red as a beetroot. The colour mounted slowly to his ears, from his ears to his temples, and by degrees suffused17 his whole face. Yevgraf Ivanovitch shifted in his chair and unbuttoned his shirt-collar to save himself from choking. He was evidently struggling with the feeling that was mastering him. A deathlike silence followed. The children held their breath. Fedosya Semyonovna, as though she did not grasp what was happening to her husband, went on:
“He is not a little boy now, you know; he is ashamed to go about without clothes.”
Shiryaev suddenly jumped up, and with all his might flung down his fat pocket-book in the middle of the table, so that a hunk of bread flew off a plate. A revolting expression of anger, resentment18, avarice—all mixed together—flamed on his face.
“Take everything!” he shouted in an unnatural19 voice; “plunder me! Take it all! Strangle me!”
He jumped up from the table, clutched at his head, and ran staggering about the room.
“Strip me to the last thread!” he shouted in a shrill20 voice. “Squeeze out the last drop! Rob me! Wring21 my neck!”
The student flushed and dropped his eyes. He could not go on eating. Fedosya Semyonovna, who had not after twenty-five years grown used to her husband’s difficult character, shrank into herself and muttered something in self-defence. An expression of amazement22 and dull terror came into her wasted and birdlike face, which at all times looked dull and scared. The little boys and the elder daughter Varvara, a girl in her teens, with a pale ugly face, laid down their spoons and sat mute.
Shiryaev, growing more and more ferocious23, uttering words each more terrible than the one before, dashed up to the table and began shaking the notes out of his pocket-book.
“Take them!” he muttered, shaking all over. “You’ve eaten and drunk your fill, so here’s money for you too! I need nothing! Order yourself new boots and uniforms!”
The student turned pale and got up.
“Listen, papa,” he began, gasping24 for breath. “I... I beg you to end this, for...”
“Hold your tongue!” the father shouted at him, and so loudly that the spectacles fell off his nose; “hold your tongue!”
“I used... I used to be able to put up with such scenes, but... but now I have got out of the way of it. Do you understand? I have got out of the way of it!”
“Hold your tongue!” cried the father, and he stamped with his feet. “You must listen to what I say! I shall say what I like, and you hold your tongue. At your age I was earning my living, while you... Do you know what you cost me, you scoundrel? I’ll turn you out! Wastrel25!”
“Yevgraf Ivanovitch,” muttered Fedosya Semyonovna, moving her fingers nervously26; “you know he... you know Petya...!”
“Hold your tongue!” Shiryaev shouted out to her, and tears actually came into his eyes from anger. “It is you who have spoilt them—you! It’s all your fault! He has no respect for us, does not say his prayers, and earns nothing! I am only one against the ten of you! I’ll turn you out of the house!”
The daughter Varvara gazed fixedly27 at her mother with her mouth open, moved her vacant-looking eyes to the window, turned pale, and, uttering a loud shriek28, fell back in her chair. The father, with a curse and a wave of the hand, ran out into the yard.
This was how domestic scenes usually ended at the Shiryaevs’. But on this occasion, unfortunately, Pyotr the student was carried away by overmastering anger. He was just as hasty and ill-tempered as his father and his grandfather the priest, who used to beat his parishioners about the head with a stick. Pale and clenching29 his fists, he went up to his mother and shouted in the very highest tenor30 note his voice could reach:
“These reproaches are loathsome31! sickening to me! I want nothing from you! Nothing! I would rather die of hunger than eat another mouthful at your expense! Take your nasty money back! take it!”
The mother huddled32 against the wall and waved her hands, as though it were not her son, but some phantom33 before her. “What have I done?” she wailed34. “What?”
Like his father, the boy waved his hands and ran into the yard. Shiryaev’s house stood alone on a ravine which ran like a furrow35 for four miles along the steppe. Its sides were overgrown with oak saplings and alders36, and a stream ran at the bottom. On one side the house looked towards the ravine, on the other towards the open country, there were no fences nor hurdles37. Instead there were farm-buildings of all sorts close to one another, shutting in a small space in front of the house which was regarded as the yard, and in which hens, ducks, and pigs ran about.
Going out of the house, the student walked along the muddy road towards the open country. The air was full of a penetrating38 autumn dampness. The road was muddy, puddles39 gleamed here and there, and in the yellow fields autumn itself seemed looking out from the grass, dismal40, decaying, dark. On the right-hand side of the road was a vegetable-garden cleared of its crops and gloomy-looking, with here and there sunflowers standing up in it with hanging heads already black.
Pyotr thought it would not be a bad thing to walk to Moscow on foot; to walk just as he was, with holes in his boots, without a cap, and without a farthing of money. When he had gone eighty miles his father, frightened and aghast, would overtake him, would begin begging him to turn back or take the money, but he would not even look at him, but would go on and on.... Bare forests would be followed by desolate41 fields, fields by forests again; soon the earth would be white with the first snow, and the streams would be coated with ice.... Somewhere near Kursk or near Serpuhovo, exhausted42 and dying of hunger, he would sink down and die. His corpse43 would be found, and there would be a paragraph in all the papers saying that a student called Shiryaev had died of hunger....
A white dog with a muddy tail who was wandering about the vegetable-garden looking for something gazed at him and sauntered after him.
He walked along the road and thought of death, of the grief of his family, of the moral sufferings of his father, and then pictured all sorts of adventures on the road, each more marvellous than the one before—picturesque places, terrible nights, chance encounters. He imagined a string of pilgrims, a hut in the forest with one little window shining in the darkness; he stands before the window, begs for a night’s lodging.... They let him in, and suddenly he sees that they are robbers. Or, better still, he is taken into a big manor-house, where, learning who he is, they give him food and drink, play to him on the piano, listen to his complaints, and the daughter of the house, a beauty, falls in love with him.
Absorbed in his bitterness and such thoughts, young Shiryaev walked on and on. Far, far ahead he saw the inn, a dark patch against the grey background of cloud. Beyond the inn, on the very horizon, he could see a little hillock; this was the railway-station. That hillock reminded him of the connection existing between the place where he was now standing and Moscow, where street-lamps were burning and carriages were rattling45 in the streets, where lectures were being given. And he almost wept with depression and impatience46. The solemn landscape, with its order and beauty, the deathlike stillness all around, revolted him and moved him to despair and hatred47!
“Look out!” He heard behind him a loud voice.
An old lady of his acquaintance, a landowner of the neighbourhood, drove past him in a light, elegant landau. He bowed to her, and smiled all over his face. And at once he caught himself in that smile, which was so out of keeping with his gloomy mood. Where did it come from if his whole heart was full of vexation and misery48? And he thought nature itself had given man this capacity for lying, that even in difficult moments of spiritual strain he might be able to hide the secrets of his nest as the fox and the wild duck do. Every family has its joys and its horrors, but however great they may be, it’s hard for an outsider’s eye to see them; they are a secret. The father of the old lady who had just driven by, for instance, had for some offence lain for half his lifetime under the ban of the wrath49 of Tsar Nicolas I.; her husband had been a gambler; of her four sons, not one had turned out well. One could imagine how many terrible scenes there must have been in her life, how many tears must have been shed. And yet the old lady seemed happy and satisfied, and she had answered his smile by smiling too. The student thought of his comrades, who did not like talking about their families; he thought of his mother, who almost always lied when she had to speak of her husband and children....
Pyotr walked about the roads far from home till dusk, abandoning himself to dreary50 thoughts. When it began to drizzle51 with rain he turned homewards. As he walked back he made up his mind at all costs to talk to his father, to explain to him, once and for all, that it was dreadful and oppressive to live with him.
He found perfect stillness in the house. His sister Varvara was lying behind a screen with a headache, moaning faintly. His mother, with a look of amazement and guilt52 upon her face, was sitting beside her on a box, mending Arhipka’s trousers. Yevgraf Ivanovitch was pacing from one window to another, scowling53 at the weather. From his walk, from the way he cleared his throat, and even from the back of his head, it was evident he felt himself to blame.
“I suppose you have changed your mind about going today?” he asked.
The student felt sorry for him, but immediately suppressing that feeling, he said:
“Listen... I must speak to you seriously... yes, seriously. I have always respected you, and... and have never brought myself to speak to you in such a tone, but your behaviour... your last action...”
The father looked out of the window and did not speak. The student, as though considering his words, rubbed his forehead and went on in great excitement:
“Not a dinner or tea passes without your making an uproar54. Your bread sticks in our throat... nothing is more bitter, more humiliating, than bread that sticks in one’s throat.... Though you are my father, no one, neither God nor nature, has given you the right to insult and humiliate55 us so horribly, to vent44 your ill-humour on the weak. You have worn my mother out and made a slave of her, my sister is hopelessly crushed, while I...”
“It’s not your business to teach me,” said his father.
“Yes, it is my business! You can quarrel with me as much as you like, but leave my mother in peace! I will not allow you to torment56 my mother!” the student went on, with flashing eyes. “You are spoilt because no one has yet dared to oppose you. They tremble and are mute towards you, but now that is over! Coarse, ill-bred man! You are coarse... do you understand? You are coarse, ill-humoured, unfeeling. And the peasants can’t endure you!”
The student had by now lost his thread, and was not so much speaking as firing off detached words. Yevgraf Ivanovitch listened in silence, as though stunned57; but suddenly his neck turned crimson58, the colour crept up his face, and he made a movement.
“Hold your tongue!” he shouted.
“That’s right!” the son persisted; “you don’t like to hear the truth! Excellent! Very good! begin shouting! Excellent!”
“Hold your tongue, I tell you!” roared Yevgraf Ivanovitch.
Fedosya Semyonovna appeared in the doorway59, very pale, with an astonished face; she tried to say something, but she could not, and could only move her fingers.
“It’s all your fault!” Shiryaev shouted at her. “You have brought him up like this!”
“I don’t want to go on living in this house!” shouted the student, crying, and looking angrily at his mother. “I don’t want to live with you!”
Varvara uttered a shriek behind the screen and broke into loud sobs60. With a wave of his hand, Shiryaev ran out of the house.
The student went to his own room and quietly lay down. He lay till midnight without moving or opening his eyes. He felt neither anger nor shame, but a vague ache in his soul. He neither blamed his father nor pitied his mother, nor was he tormented61 by stings of conscience; he realized that every one in the house was feeling the same ache, and God only knew which was most to blame, which was suffering most....
At midnight he woke the labourer, and told him to have the horse ready at five o’clock in the morning for him to drive to the station; he undressed and got into bed, but could not get to sleep. He heard how his father, still awake, paced slowly from window to window, sighing, till early morning. No one was asleep; they spoke62 rarely, and only in whispers. Twice his mother came to him behind the screen. Always with the same look of vacant wonder, she slowly made the cross over him, shaking nervously.
At five o’clock in the morning he said good-bye to them all affectionately, and even shed tears. As he passed his father’s room, he glanced in at the door. Yevgraf Ivanovitch, who had not taken off his clothes or gone to bed, was standing by the window, drumming on the panes63.
“Good-bye; I am going,” said his son.
“Good-bye... the money is on the round table...” his father answered, without turning round.
A cold, hateful rain was falling as the labourer drove him to the station. The sunflowers were drooping64 their heads still lower, and the grass seemed darker than ever.
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收听单词发音
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1
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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copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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3
grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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chubby
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| adj.丰满的，圆胖的 | |
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6
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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7
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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8
sparse
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| adj.稀疏的，稀稀落落的，薄的 | |
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resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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10
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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11
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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pester
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| v.纠缠，强求 | |
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diplomacy
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| n.外交；外交手腕，交际手腕 | |
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prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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16
wrecks
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| n.沉船( wreck的名词复数 )；（事故中）遭严重毁坏的汽车（或飞机等）；（身体或精神上）受到严重损伤的人；状况非常糟糕的车辆（或建筑物等）v.毁坏[毁灭]某物( wreck的第三人称单数 )；使（船舶）失事，使遇难，使下沉 | |
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17
suffused
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| v.（指颜色、水气等）弥漫于，布满( suffuse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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18
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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19
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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21
wring
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| n.扭绞；v.拧，绞出，扭 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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23
ferocious
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| adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的 | |
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24
gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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wastrel
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| n.浪费者；废物 | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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fixedly
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| adv.固定地；不屈地，坚定不移地 | |
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shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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29
clenching
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的现在分词 ) | |
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30
tenor
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| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
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31
loathsome
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| adj.讨厌的，令人厌恶的 | |
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32
huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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34
wailed
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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35
furrow
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| n.沟；垄沟；轨迹；车辙；皱纹 | |
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alders
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| n.桤木( alder的名词复数 ) | |
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hurdles
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| n.障碍( hurdle的名词复数 )；跳栏；（供人或马跳跃的）栏架；跨栏赛 | |
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38
penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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39
puddles
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| n.水坑， （尤指道路上的）雨水坑( puddle的名词复数 ) | |
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40
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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41
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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42
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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43
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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44
vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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45
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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46
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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47
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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48
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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49
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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50
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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51
drizzle
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| v.下毛毛雨；n.毛毛雨，蒙蒙细雨 | |
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52
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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53
scowling
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| 怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的现在分词 ) | |
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54
uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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55
humiliate
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| v.使羞辱，使丢脸[同]disgrace | |
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56
torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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57
stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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58
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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59
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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60
sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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61
tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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62
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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63
panes
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| 窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
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64
drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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