Chapter 4

 Yegor Semyonitch and Tanya often quarrelled and said nasty things to each other.

They quarrelled about something that morning. Tanya burst out crying and went to her room. She would not come down to dinner nor to tea. At first Yegor Semyonitch went about looking sulky and dignified¹, as though to give every one to understand that for him the claims of justice and good order were more important than anything else in the world; but he could not keep it up for long, and soon sank into depression. He walked about the park dejectedly, continually sighing: "Oh, my God! My God!" and at dinner did not eat a morsel². At last, guilty and conscience-stricken, he knocked at the locked door and called timidly:

"Tanya! Tanya!"

And from behind the door came a faint voice, weak with crying but still determined³:

"Leave me alone, if you please."

The depression of the master and mistress was reflected in the whole household, even in the labourers working in the garden. Kovrin was absorbed in his interesting work, but at last he, too, felt dreary⁴ and uncomfortable. To dissipate the general ill-humour in some way, he made up his mind to intervene, and towards evening he knocked at Tanya's door. He was admitted.

"Fie, fie, for shame!" he began playfully, looking with surprise at Tanya's tear-stained, woebegone face, flushed in patches with crying. "Is it really so serious? Fie, fie!"

"But if you knew how he tortures me!" she said, and floods of scalding tears streamed from her big eyes. "He torments⁵ me to death," she went on, wringing⁶ her hands. "I said nothing to him ... nothing ... I only said that there was no need to keep ... too many labourers ... if we could hire them by the day when we wanted them. You know ... you know the labourers have been doing nothing for a whole week.... I ... I ... only said that, and he shouted and ... said ... a lot of horrible insulting things to me. What for?"

"There, there," said Kovrin, smoothing her hair. "You've quarrelled with each other, you've cried, and that's enough. You must not be angry for long—that's wrong ... all the more as he loves you beyond everything."

"He has ... has spoiled my whole life," Tanya went on, sobbing⁷. "I hear nothing but abuse and ... insults. He thinks I am of no use in the house. Well! He is right. I shall go away to-morrow; I shall become a telegraph clerk.... I don't care...."

"Come, come, come.... You mustn't cry, Tanya. You mustn't, dear.... You are both hot-tempered and irritable⁸, and you are both to blame. Come along; I will reconcile you."

Kovrin talked affectionately and persuasively⁹, while she went on crying, twitching¹⁰ her shoulders and wringing her hands, as though some terrible misfortune had really befallen her. He felt all the sorrier for her because her grief was not a serious one, yet she suffered extremely. What trivialities were enough to make this little creature miserable¹¹ for a whole day, perhaps for her whole life! Comforting Tanya, Kovrin thought that, apart from this girl and her father, he might hunt the world over and would not find people who would love him as one of themselves, as one of their kindred. If it had not been for those two he might very likely, having lost his father and mother in early childhood, never to the day of his death have known what was meant by genuine affection and that na?ve, uncritical love which is only lavished¹² on very close blood relations; and he felt that the nerves of this weeping, shaking girl responded to his half-sick, overstrained nerves like iron to a magnet. He never could have loved a healthy, strong, rosy-cheeked woman, but pale, weak, unhappy Tanya attracted him.

And he liked stroking her hair and her shoulders, pressing her hand and wiping away her tears.... At last she left off crying. She went on for a long time complaining of her father and her hard, insufferable life in that house, entreating¹³ Kovrin to put himself in her place; then she began, little by little, smiling, and sighing that God had given her such a bad temper. At last, laughing aloud, she called herself a fool, and ran out of the room.

When a little later Kovrin went into the garden, Yegor Semyonitch and Tanya were walking side by side along an avenue as though nothing had happened, and both were eating rye bread with salt on it, as both were hungry.

1 dignified   

a.可敬的，高贵的

参考例句：

• Throughout his trial he maintained a dignified silence. 在整个审讯过程中，他始终沉默以保持尊严。
• He always strikes such a dignified pose before his girlfriend. 他总是在女友面前摆出这种庄严的姿态。

2 morsel   

n.一口，一点点

参考例句：

• He refused to touch a morsel of the food they had brought.他们拿来的东西他一口也不吃。
• The patient has not had a morsel of food since the morning.从早上起病人一直没有进食。

3 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

4 dreary   

adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的

参考例句：

• They live such dreary lives.他们的生活如此乏味。
• She was tired of hearing the same dreary tale of drunkenness and violence.她听够了那些关于酗酒和暴力的乏味故事。

5 torments   

（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]

参考例句：

• He released me from my torments. 他解除了我的痛苦。
• He suffered torments from his aching teeth. 他牙痛得难受。

6 wringing   

淋湿的，湿透的

参考例句：

• He was wringing wet after working in the field in the hot sun. 烈日下在田里干活使他汗流满面。
• He is wringing out the water from his swimming trunks. 他正在把游泳裤中的水绞出来。

7 sobbing   

<主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的

参考例句：

• I heard a child sobbing loudly. 我听见有个孩子在呜呜地哭。
• Her eyes were red with recent sobbing. 她的眼睛因刚哭过而发红。

8 irritable   

adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的

参考例句：

• He gets irritable when he's got toothache.他牙一疼就很容易发脾气。
• Our teacher is an irritable old lady.She gets angry easily.我们的老师是位脾气急躁的老太太。她很容易生气。

9 persuasively   

adv.口才好地；令人信服地

参考例句：

• Students find that all historians argue reasonably and persuasively. 学生们发现所有的历史学家都争论得有条有理，并且很有说服力。 来自辞典例句
• He spoke a very persuasively but I smelled a rat and refused his offer. 他说得头头是道，但我觉得有些可疑，于是拒绝了他的建议。 来自辞典例句

10 twitching   

n.颤搐

参考例句：

• The child in a spasm kept twitching his arms and legs. 那个害痉挛的孩子四肢不断地抽搐。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• My eyelids keep twitching all the time. 我眼皮老是跳。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

11 miserable   

adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的

参考例句：

• It was miserable of you to make fun of him.你取笑他，这是可耻的。
• Her past life was miserable.她过去的生活很苦。

12 lavished   

v.过分给予，滥施( lavish的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• I lavished all the warmth of my pent-up passion. 我把憋在心里那一股热烈的情感尽量地倾吐出来。 来自辞典例句
• An enormous amount of attention has been lavished on these problems. 在这些问题上，我们已经花费了大量的注意力。 来自辞典例句

13 entreating   

恳求，乞求( entreat的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• We have not bound your feet with our entreating arms. 我们不曾用恳求的手臂来抱住你的双足。
• The evening has come. Weariness clings round me like the arms of entreating love. 夜来到了，困乏像爱的恳求用双臂围抱住我。