In the window, covered by patterns of frost, sat on a stool the girl who shared his room--Anyuta, a thin little brunette of five-and-twenty, very pale with mild grey eyes. Sitting with bent5 back she was busy embroidering6 with red thread the collar of a man's shirt. She was working against time. . . . The clock in the passage struck two drowsily7, yet the little room had not been put to rights for the morning. Crumpled8 bed-clothes, pillows thrown about, books, clothes, a big filthy9 slop-pail filled with soap-suds in which cigarette ends were swimming, and the litter on the floor--all seemed as though purposely jumbled10 together in one confusion. . . .
"The right lung consists of three parts . . ." Klotchkov repeated. "Boundaries! Upper part on anterior11 wall of thorax reaches the fourth or fifth rib12, on the lateral13 surface, the fourth rib . . . behind to the _spina scapul?_. . ."
Klotchkov raised his eyes to the ceiling, striving to visualise what he had just read. Unable to form a clear picture of it, he began feeling his upper ribs14 through his waistcoat.
"These ribs are like the keys of a piano," he said. "One must familiarise oneself with them somehow, if one is not to get muddled15 over them. One must study them in the skeleton and the living body . . . . I say, Anyuta, let me pick them out."
Anyuta put down her sewing, took off her blouse, and straightened herself up. Klotchkov sat down facing her, frowned, and began counting her ribs.
"H'm! . . . One can't feel the first rib; it's behind the shoulder-blade . . . . This must be the second rib. . . . Yes . . . this is the third . . . this is the fourth. . . . H'm! . . . yes. . . . Why are you wriggling16?"
"Your fingers are cold!"
"Come, come . . . it won't kill you. Don't twist about. That must be the third rib, then . . . this is the fourth. . . . You look such a skinny thing, and yet one can hardly feel your ribs. That's the second . . . that's the third. . . . Oh, this is muddling17, and one can't see it clearly. . . . I must draw it. . . . Where's my crayon?"
Klotchkov took his crayon and drew on Anyuta's chest several parallel lines corresponding with the ribs.
"First-rate. That's all straightforward18. . . . Well, now I can sound you. Stand up!"
Anyuta stood up and raised her chin. Klotchkov began sounding her, and was so absorbed in this occupation that he did not notice how Anyuta's lips, nose, and fingers turned blue with cold. Anyuta shivered, and was afraid the student, noticing it, would leave off drawing and sounding her, and then, perhaps, might fail in his exam.
"Now it's all clear," said Klotchkov when he had finished. "You sit like that and don't rub off the crayon, and meanwhile I'll learn up a little more."
And the student again began walking to and fro, repeating to himself. Anyuta, with black stripes across her chest, looking as though she had been tattooed19, sat thinking, huddled20 up and shivering with cold. She said very little as a rule; she was always silent, thinking and thinking. . . .
In the six or seven years of her wanderings from one furnished room to another, she had known five students like Klotchkov. Now they had all finished their studies, had gone out into the world, and, of course, like respectable people, had long ago forgotten her. One of them was living in Paris, two were doctors, the fourth was an artist, and the fifth was said to be already a professor. Klotchkov was the sixth. . . . Soon he, too, would finish his studies and go out into the world. There was a fine future before him, no doubt, and Klotchkov probably would become a great man, but the present was anything but bright; Klotchkov had no tobacco and no tea, and there were only four lumps of sugar left. She must make haste and finish her embroidery21, take it to the woman who had ordered it, and with the quarter rouble she would get for it, buy tea and tobacco.
"Can I come in?" asked a voice at the door.
Anyuta quickly threw a woollen shawl over her shoulders. Fetisov, the artist, walked in.
"I have come to ask you a favour," he began, addressing Klotchkov, and glaring like a wild beast from under the long locks that hung over his brow. "Do me a favour; lend me your young lady just for a couple of hours! I'm painting a picture, you see, and I can't get on without a model."
"Oh, with pleasure," Klotchkov agreed. "Go along, Anyuta."
"The things I've had to put up with there," Anyuta murmured softly.
"Rubbish! The man's asking you for the sake of art, and not for any sort of nonsense. Why not help him if you can?"
Anyuta began dressing22.
"And what are you painting?" asked Klotchkov.
"Psyche23; it's a fine subject. But it won't go, somehow. I have to keep painting from different models. Yesterday I was painting one with blue legs. 'Why are your legs blue?' I asked her. 'It's my stockings stain them,' she said. And you're still grinding! Lucky fellow! You have patience."
"Medicine's a job one can't get on with without grinding."
"H'm! . . . Excuse me, Klotchkov, but you do live like a pig! It's awful the way you live!"
"How do you mean? I can't help it. . . . I only get twelve roubles a month from my father, and it's hard to live decently on that."
"Yes . . . yes . . ." said the artist, frowning with an air of disgust; "but, still, you might live better. . . . An educated man is in duty bound to have taste, isn't he? And goodness knows what it's like here! The bed not made, the slops, the dirt . . . yesterday's porridge in the plates. . . Tfoo!"
"That's true," said the student in confusion; "but Anyuta has had no time to-day to tidy up; she's been busy all the while."
When Anyuta and the artist had gone out Klotchkov lay down on the sofa and began learning, lying down; then he accidentally dropped asleep, and waking up an hour later, propped24 his head on his fists and sank into gloomy reflection. He recalled the artist's words that an educated man was in duty bound to have taste, and his surroundings actually struck him now as loathsome25 and revolting. He saw, as it were in his mind's eye, his own future, when he would see his patients in his consulting-room, drink tea in a large dining-room in the company of his wife, a real lady. And now that slop-pail in which the cigarette ends were swimming looked incredibly disgusting. Anyuta, too, rose before his imagination--a plain, slovenly26, pitiful figure . . . and he made up his mind to part with her at once, at all costs.
When, on coming back from the artist's, she took off her coat, he got up and said to her seriously:
"Look here, my good girl . . . sit down and listen. We must part! The fact is, I don't want to live with you any longer."
Anyuta had come back from the artist's worn out and exhausted27. Standing28 so long as a model had made her face look thin and sunken, and her chin sharper than ever. She said nothing in answer to the student's words, only her lips began to tremble.
"You know we should have to part sooner or later, anyway," said the student. "You're a nice, good girl, and not a fool; you'll understand. . . ."
Anyuta put on her coat again, in silence wrapped up her embroidery in paper, gathered together her needles and thread: she found the screw of paper with the four lumps of sugar in the window, and laid it on the table by the books.
"That's . . . your sugar . . ." she said softly, and turned away to conceal29 her tears.
"Why are you crying?" asked Klotchkov.
He walked about the room in confusion, and said:
"You are a strange girl, really. . . . Why, you know we shall have to part. We can't stay together for ever."
She had gathered together all her belongings30, and turned to say good-bye to him, and he felt sorry for her.
"Shall I let her stay on here another week?" he thought. "She really may as well stay, and I'll tell her to go in a week;" and vexed31 at his own weakness, he shouted to her roughly:
"Come, why are you standing there? If you are going, go; and if you don't want to, take off your coat and stay! You can stay!"
Anyuta took off her coat, silently, stealthily, then blew her nose also stealthily, sighed, and noiselessly returned to her invariable position on her stool by the window.
The student drew his textbook to him and began again pacing from corner to corner. "The right lung consists of three parts," he repeated; "the upper part, on anterior wall of thorax, reaches the fourth or fifth rib . . . ."
In the passage some one shouted at the top of his voice: "Grigory! The samovar!"
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1
zealously
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| adv.热心地；热情地；积极地；狂热地 | |
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2
conning
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| v.诈骗，哄骗( con的现在分词 )；指挥操舵( conn的现在分词 ) | |
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3
anatomy
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| n.解剖学，解剖；功能，结构，组织 | |
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4
perspiring
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| v.出汗，流汗( perspire的现在分词 ) | |
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5
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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6
embroidering
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| v.（在织物上）绣花( embroider的现在分词 )；刺绣；对…加以渲染（或修饰）；给…添枝加叶 | |
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7
drowsily
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| adv.睡地，懒洋洋地，昏昏欲睡地 | |
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8
crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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9
filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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10
jumbled
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| adj.混乱的；杂乱的 | |
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11
anterior
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| adj.较早的；在前的 | |
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12
rib
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| n.肋骨，肋状物 | |
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13
lateral
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| adj.侧面的，旁边的 | |
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14
ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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15
muddled
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| adj.混乱的；糊涂的；头脑昏昏然的v.弄乱，弄糟( muddle的过去式)；使糊涂；对付，混日子 | |
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16
wriggling
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的现在分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等）；蠕蠕 | |
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17
muddling
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| v.弄乱，弄糟( muddle的现在分词 )；使糊涂；对付，混日子 | |
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18
straightforward
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| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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19
tattooed
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| v.刺青，文身( tattoo的过去式和过去分词 )；连续有节奏地敲击；作连续有节奏的敲击 | |
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20
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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21
embroidery
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| n.绣花，刺绣；绣制品 | |
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22
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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23
psyche
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| n.精神；灵魂 | |
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24
propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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25
loathsome
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| adj.讨厌的，令人厌恶的 | |
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26
slovenly
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| adj.懒散的，不整齐的，邋遢的 | |
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27
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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28
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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29
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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30
belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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31
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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