It was not only Olyessia’s beauty that fascinated me, but her whole free independent nature, her mind at once clear and enwrapped in unshakable178 ancestral superstitions5, childlike and innocent, yet not wholly devoid6 of the sly coquetry of the handsome woman. She never tired of asking me every detail concerning things which stirred her bright unspoiled imagination—countries and peoples, natural phenomena7, the order of the earth and the universe, learned men, large towns.... Many things seemed to her wonderful, fairy, incredible. But from the very beginning of our acquaintance I took such a serious, sincere, and simple tone with her that she readily put a complete trust in all my stories. Sometimes when I was at a loss for an explanation of something which I thought was too difficult for her half-savage mind—it was often by no means clear to my own,—I answered her eager questions with, ‘You see.... I shan’t be able to explain this to you.... You won’t understand me.’
Then she would begin to entreat8 me.
‘Please tell me, please, I’ll try.... Tell me somehow, though ... even if it’s not clear.’
She forced me to have recourse to preposterous9 comparisons and incredibly bold analogies, and when I was at a loss for a suitable expression she would help me out with a torrent10 of impatient conclusions, like those which we offer to a stammerer11. And, indeed, in the end her pliant12 mobile mind and her fresh imagination triumphed over my pedagogic impotence. I became convinced that, considering her environment and her education (rather, lack of education) her abilities were amazing.
179 Once I happened in passing to mention Petersburg. Olyessia was instantly intrigued13.
‘What is Petersburg? A small town?’
‘No, it’s not a small one. It’s the biggest Russian city.’
‘The biggest? The very largest of all? There isn’t one bigger?’ she insisted na?vely.
‘The largest of all. The chief authorities live there ... the big folks. The houses there are all made of stone; there aren’t any wooden ones.’
‘Of course, it’s much bigger than our Stiepany?’ Olyessia asked confidently.
‘Oh, yes. A good bit bigger. Say five hundred times as big. There are houses there so big that twice as many people live in a single one of them as in the whole of Stiepany.’
‘My God! What kind of houses can they be?’ Olyessia asked almost in fright.
‘Terrible houses. Five, six, even seven stories. You see that fir tree there?’
‘The tall one. I see.’
‘Houses as tall as that, and they’re crammed14 with people from top to bottom. The people live in wretched little holes, like birds in cages, ten people in each, so that there isn’t enough air to breathe. Some of them live downstairs, right under the earth, in the damp and cold. They don’t see the sun from one end of the year to the other, some of them.’
‘Nothing would make me change my forest for your city,’ Olyessia said, shaking her head. ‘Even when I go to the market at Stiepany, I’m disgusted. They push, shout, swear ...180 and I have such a longing15 for the forest, that I want to throw everything away and run and never look back. God may have your city: I don’t want to live there.’
‘But what if your husband comes from a town?’ I asked with the trace of a smile.
Her eyebrows16 frowned and her nostrils17 trembled.
‘What next!’ she said with scorn. ‘I don’t want a husband.’
‘You say that now, Olyessia. Nearly every girl says the same, but still they marry. You wait a bit: you’ll meet somebody and you’ll fall in love—and you’ll follow him, not only to town, but to the end of the earth.’
‘No, no.... We won’t talk of that, please,’ she cut me short in vexation. ‘Why should we talk like this? I ask you not to.’
‘How funny you are, Olyessia. Do you really believe you’ll never love a man in your life? You’re so young, handsome, strong. If your blood once catches fire, no oaths of yours will help you.’
‘Well, ... then, I’ll love,’ Olyessia answered with a challenge in her flashing eyes. ‘I shan’t ask anybody’s leave.’
‘So you’ll have to marry too,’ I teased her.
‘I suppose you’re meaning the church?’ she guessed.
‘Exactly—the church. The priest will lead you round the altar; the deacon will sing, “Isaiah, rejoice!” they’ll put a crown on your head....’
181 Olyessia cast down her eyes and shook her head, faintly smiling.
‘No, dear.... Perhaps you won’t like what I say, but in our family no one was ever married in church. My mother and my grandmother before her managed to live without that.... Besides, we must not enter a church....’
‘All because of your witchery?’
‘Yes, because of our witchery,’ Olyessia replied with a calm seriousness. ‘How could I dare to appear in a church? From my very birth my soul was sold to Him.’
‘Olyessia, dear.... Believe me, you’re deceiving yourself. It’s wild and ridiculous what you say.’
Once more there appeared on Olyessia’s face the strange expression of convinced and gloomy submissiveness to her mysterious destiny, which I had noticed before.
‘No, no.... You can’t understand it.... But I feel it.... Just here....’ She pressed her hand strongly to her heart. ‘I feel it in my soul. All our family is cursed for ever and ever. But think yourself, who is it that helps us if it is not He? Can an ordinary person do the things I can do? All our power comes from Him.’
Every time our conversation touched upon this strange theme it ended in the same way. In vain I exhausted18 every argument to which Olyessia was sensible; in vain I spoke19 in simple terms of hypnotism, suggestion, mental doctors, and Indian fakirs; in vain I endeavoured to182 explain certain of her experiments by physiology20, such, for instance, as blood charming, which is easily produced by skilful21 pressure on a vein22. Still Olyessia, who believed me so implicitly23 in all else, refuted all my arguments and explanations with obstinate24 insistence25.
‘Very well, I’ll make you a present of blood charming,’ she said, raising her voice in the heat of the discussion. ‘But where do the other things come from? Is blood charming the only thing I know? Would you like me to take away all the mice and beetles26 from a hut in a single day? If you like, I’ll cure the most violent fever in two days with plain cold water, even though all your doctors give the patient up. I can make you forget any word you like, completely? And how is it I interpret dreams? How is it I can see the future?’
The discussion always ended by our mutual27 silence, from which a certain inward irritation28 against each other was not wholly absent. Indeed, for much of her black art I could find no explanation in my small science. I do not know and cannot say whether Olyessia possessed29 one half the secrets of which she spoke with such na?ve belief. But the things which I frequently witnessed planted an unshakable conviction in me that Olyessia had access to that strange knowledge, unconscious, instinctive30, dim, acquired only by accidental experience, which has outrun exact science for centuries, and lives intertwined with wild and ridiculous superstitions, in the obscure impenetrable heart of the183 masses, where it is transmitted from one generation to another as the greatest of all secrets.
For all our disagreement on this single point, we became more and more strongly attached to one another. Not a word had been spoken between us of love as yet, but it had become a necessity for us to be together; and often in moments of silence I saw Olyessia’s eyes moisten, and a thin blue vein on her temple begin to pulse.
But my relations with Yarmola were quite ruined. Evidently my visits to the chicken-legged hut were no secret to him, nor were my evening walks with Olyessia. With amazing exactness, he always knew everything that went on in the forest. For some time I noticed that he had begun to avoid me. His black eyes watched me from a distance, with reproach and discontent every time I went out to walk in the forest, though he did not express his reproof31 by so much as a single word. Our comically serious studies in reading and writing came to an end; and if I occasionally called Yarmola in to learn during the evening he would only wave his hand.
‘What’s the good? It’s a peggling business, sir!’ he would say with lazy contempt.
Our hunting also ceased. Every time I began to talk of it, Yarmola found some excuse or other for refusing. Either his gun was out of order, or his dog was ill, or he was too busy. ‘I have no time, sir.... I have to be ploughing to-day,’ was Yarmola’s usual answer to my invitation; but I knew quite well that he would do no ploughing at all, but spend a good hour184 outside the inn in the doubtful hope of somebody standing32 him a drink. This silent, concealed33 animosity began to weary me, and I began to think of dispensing34 with Yarmola’s services, on the first suitable occasion.... I was restrained only by a sense of pity for his enormous poverty-stricken family, whom Yarmola’s four weekly roubles just saved from starvation.
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1
dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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grumbling
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| adj. 喃喃鸣不平的, 出怨言的 | |
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malevolence
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| n.恶意，狠毒 | |
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fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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superstitions
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| 迷信，迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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devoid
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| adj.全无的，缺乏的 | |
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7
phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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8
entreat
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| v.恳求，恳请 | |
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preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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10
torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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stammerer
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| n.口吃的人；结巴 | |
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pliant
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| adj.顺从的；可弯曲的 | |
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intrigued
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| adj.好奇的，被迷住了的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的过去式)；激起…的兴趣或好奇心；“intrigue”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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14
crammed
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| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
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15
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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16
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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17
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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18
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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19
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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physiology
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| n.生理学，生理机能 | |
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skilful
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| (=skillful)adj.灵巧的，熟练的 | |
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vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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implicitly
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| adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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beetles
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| n.甲虫( beetle的名词复数 ) | |
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27
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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29
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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reproof
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| n.斥责，责备 | |
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32
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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33
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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34
dispensing
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| v.分配( dispense的现在分词 )；施与；配（药） | |
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