Vera Iosifovna had been suffering for some time from migraine, but now since Kitten frightened her every day by saying that she was going away to the Conservatoire, the attacks began to be more frequent. All the doctors of the town had been at the Turkins'; at last it was the district doctor's turn. Vera Iosifovna wrote him a touching2 letter in which she begged him to come and relieve her sufferings. Startsev went, and after that he began to be often, very often at the Turkins'.... He really did something for Vera Iosifovna, and she was already telling all her visitors that he was a wonderful and exceptional doctor. But it was not for the sake of her migraine that he visited the Turkins' now....
It was a holiday. Ekaterina Ivanovna finished her long, wearisome exercises on the piano. Then they sat a long time in the dining-room, drinking tea, and Ivan Petrovitch told some amusing story. Then there was a ring and he had to go into the hall to welcome a guest; Startsev took advantage of the momentary3 commotion4, and whispered to Ekaterina Ivanovna in great agitation5:
She shrugged8 her shoulders, as though perplexed9 and not knowing what he wanted of her, but she got up and went.
"You play the piano for three or four hours," he said, following her; "then you sit with your mother, and there is no possibility of speaking to you. Give me a quarter of an hour at least, I beseech10 you."
Autumn was approaching, and it was quiet and melancholy11 in the old garden; the dark leaves lay thick in the walks. It was already beginning to get dark early.
"I haven't seen you for a whole week," Startsev went on, "and if you only knew what suffering it is! Let us sit down. Listen to me."
They had a favourite place in the garden; a seat under an old spreading maple12. And now they sat down on this seat.
"What do you want?" said Ekaterina Ivanovna drily, in a matter-of-fact tone.
"I have not seen you for a whole week; I have not heard you for so long. I long passionately13, I thirst for your voice. Speak."
She fascinated him by her freshness, the na?ve expression of her eyes and cheeks. Even in the way her dress hung on her, he saw something extraordinarily14 charming, touching in its simplicity15 and na?ve grace; and at the same time, in spite of this na?veté, she seemed to him intelligent and developed beyond her years. He could talk with her about literature, about art, about anything he liked; could complain to her of life, of people, though it sometimes happened in the middle of serious conversation she would laugh inappropriately or run away into the house. Like almost all girls of her neighbourhood, she had read a great deal (as a rule, people read very little in S——, and at the lending library they said if it were not for the girls and the young Jews, they might as well shut up the library). This afforded Startsev infinite delight; he used to ask her eagerly every time what she had been reading the last few days, and listened enthralled16 while she told him.
"What have you been reading this week since I saw you last?" he asked now. "Do please tell me."
"I have been reading Pisemsky."
"What exactly?"
"'A Thousand Souls,'" answered Kitten. "And what a funny name Pisemsky had—Alexey Feofilaktitch!"
"Where are you going?" cried Startsev in horror, as she suddenly got up and walked towards the house. "I must talk to you; I want to explain myself.... Stay with me just five minutes, I supplicate17 you!"
She stopped as though she wanted to say something, then awkwardly thrust a note into his hand, ran home and sat down to the piano again.
"Well, that's not at all clever," he thought, coming to himself. "Why the cemetery? What for?"
It was clear: Kitten was playing a prank19. Who would seriously dream of making an appointment at night in the cemetery far out of the town, when it might have been arranged in the street or in the town gardens? And was it in keeping with him—a district doctor, an intelligent, staid man—to be sighing, receiving notes, to hang about cemeteries20, to do silly things that even schoolboys think ridiculous nowadays? What would this romance lead to? What would his colleagues say when they heard of it? Such were Startsev's reflections as he wandered round the tables at the club, and at half-past ten he suddenly set off for the cemetery.
By now he had his own pair of horses, and a coachman called Panteleimon, in a velvet21 waistcoat. The moon was shining. It was still warm, warm as it is in autumn. Dogs were howling in the suburb near the slaughter-house. Startsev left his horses in one of the side-streets at the end of the town, and walked on foot to the cemetery.
"We all have our oddities," he thought. "Kitten is odd, too; and—who knows?—perhaps she is not joking, perhaps she will come"; and he abandoned himself to this faint, vain hope, and it intoxicated22 him.
He walked for half a mile through the fields; the cemetery showed as a dark streak23 in the distance, like a forest or a big garden. The wall of white stone came into sight, the gate.... In the moonlight he could read on the gate: "The hour cometh." Startsev went in at the little gate, and before anything else he saw the white crosses and monuments on both sides of the broad avenue, and the black shadows of them and the poplars; and for a long way round it was all white and black, and the slumbering24 trees bowed their branches over the white stones. It seemed as though it were lighter25 here than in the fields; the maple-leaves stood out sharply like paws on the yellow sand of the avenue and on the stones, and the inscriptions26 on the tombs could be clearly read. For the first moments Startsev was struck now by what he saw for the first time in his life, and what he would probably never see again; a world not like anything else, a world in which the moonlight was as soft and beautiful, as though slumbering here in its cradle, where there was no life, none whatever; but in every dark poplar, in every tomb, there was felt the presence of a mystery that promised a life peaceful, beautiful, eternal. The stones and faded flowers, together with the autumn scent27 of the leaves, all told of forgiveness, melancholy, and peace.
All was silence around; the stars looked down from the sky in the profound stillness, and Startsev's footsteps sounded loud and out of place, and only when the church clock began striking and he imagined himself dead, buried there for ever, he felt as though some one were looking at him, and for a moment he thought that it was not peace and tranquillity28, but stifled29 despair, the dumb dreariness30 of non-existence....
Demetti's tomb was in the form of a shrine31 with an angel at the top. The Italian opera had once visited S—— and one of the singers had died; she had been buried here, and this monument put up to her. No one in the town remembered her, but the lamp at the entrance reflected the moonlight, and looked as though it were burning.
There was no one, and, indeed, who would come here at midnight? But Startsev waited, and as though the moonlight warmed his passion, he waited passionately, and, in imagination, pictured kisses and embraces. He sat near the monument for half an hour, then paced up and down the side avenues, with his hat in his hand, waiting and thinking of the many women and girls buried in these tombs who had been beautiful and fascinating, who had loved, at night burned with passion, yielding themselves to caresses32. How wickedly Mother Nature jested at man's expense, after all! How humiliating it was to recognise it!
Startsev thought this, and at the same time he wanted to cry out that he wanted love, that he was eager for it at all costs. To his eyes they were not slabs33 of marble, but fair white bodies in the moonlight; he saw shapes hiding bashfully in the shadows of the trees, felt their warmth, and the languor34 was oppressive....
And as though a curtain were lowered, the moon went behind a cloud, and suddenly all was darkness. Startsev could scarcely find the gate—by now it was as dark as it is on an autumn night. Then he wandered about for an hour and a half, looking for the side-street in which he had left his horses.
"I am tired; I can scarcely stand on my legs," he said to Panteleimon.
And settling himself with relief in his carriage, he thought: "Och! I ought not to get fat!"
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1
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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2
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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commotion
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| n.骚动，动乱 | |
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agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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entreat
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| v.恳求，恳请 | |
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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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8
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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9
perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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beseech
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| v.祈求，恳求 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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12
maple
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| n.槭树，枫树，槭木 | |
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13
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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15
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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16
enthralled
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| 迷住，吸引住( enthrall的过去式和过去分词 )； 使感到非常愉快 | |
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17
supplicate
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| v.恳求；adv.祈求地，哀求地，恳求地 | |
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18
cemetery
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| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
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19
prank
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| n.开玩笑，恶作剧；v.装饰；打扮；炫耀自己 | |
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20
cemeteries
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| n.（非教堂的）墓地，公墓( cemetery的名词复数 ) | |
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21
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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22
intoxicated
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| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
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23
streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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24
slumbering
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的现在分词形式） | |
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25
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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26
inscriptions
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| （作者）题词( inscription的名词复数 )； 献词； 碑文； 证劵持有人的登记 | |
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27
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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28
tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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29
stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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30
dreariness
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| 沉寂，可怕，凄凉 | |
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31
shrine
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| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
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32
caresses
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| 爱抚，抚摸( caress的名词复数 ) | |
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33
slabs
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| n.厚板，平板，厚片( slab的名词复数 )；厚胶片 | |
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34
languor
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| n.无精力，倦怠 | |
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