"I leave you my false passport," I began. "I beg you to keep it as a memento2, you false man, you Petersburg official!
"To steal into another man's house under a false name, to watch under the mask of a flunkey this person's intimate life, to hear everything, to see everything in order later on, unasked, to accuse a man of lying—all this, you will say, is on a level with theft. Yes, but I care nothing for fine feelings now. I have endured dozens of your dinners and suppers when you said and did what you liked, and I had to hear, to look on, and be silent. I don't want to make you a present of my silence. Besides, if there is not a living soul at hand who dares to tell you the truth without flattery, let your flunkey Stepan wash your magnificent countenance3 for you."
I did not like this beginning, but I did not care to alter it. Besides, what did it matter?
The big windows with their dark curtains, the bed, the crumpled4 dress coat on the floor, and my wet footprints, looked gloomy and forbidding. And there was a peculiar5 stillness.
Possibly because I had run out into the street without my cap and goloshes I was in a high fever. My face burned, my legs ached.... My heavy head drooped6 over the table, and there was that kind of division in my thought when every idea in the brain seemed dogged by its shadow.
"I am ill, weak, morally cast down," I went on; "I cannot write to you as I should like to. From the first moment I desired to insult and humiliate7 you, but now I do not feel that I have the right to do so. You and I have both fallen, and neither of us will ever rise up again; and even if my letter were eloquent8, terrible, and passionate9, it would still seem like beating on the lid of a coffin10: however one knocks upon it, one will not wake up the dead! No efforts could warm your accursed cold blood, and you know that better than I do. Why write? But my mind and heart are burning, and I go on writing; for some reason I am moved as though this letter still might save you and me. I am so feverish11 that my thoughts are disconnected, and my pen scratches the paper without meaning; but the question I want to put to you stands before me as clear as though in letters of flame.
"Why I am prematurely12 weak and fallen is not hard to explain. Like Samson of old, I have taken the gates of Gaza on my shoulders to carry them to the top of the mountain, and only when I was exhausted13, when youth and health were quenched14 in me forever, I noticed that that burden was not for my shoulders, and that I had deceived myself. I have been, moreover, in cruel and continual pain. I have endured cold, hunger, illness, and loss of liberty. Of personal happiness I know and have known nothing. I have no home; my memories are bitter, and my conscience is often in dread15 of them. But why have you fallen—you? What fatal, diabolical16 causes hindered your life from blossoming into full flower? Why, almost before beginning life, were you in such haste to cast off the image and likeness17 of God, and to become a cowardly beast who backs and scares others because he is afraid himself? You are afraid of life—as afraid of it as an Oriental who sits all day on a cushion smoking his hookah. Yes, you read a great deal, and a European coat fits you well, but yet with what tender, purely18 Oriental, pasha-like care you protect yourself from hunger, cold, physical effort, from pain and uneasiness! How early your soul has taken to its dressing-gown! What a cowardly part you have played towards real life and nature, with which every healthy and normal man struggles! How soft, how snug19, how warm, how comfortable—and how bored you are! Yes, it is deathly boredom20, unrelieved by one ray of light, as in solitary21 confinement22; but you try to hide from that enemy, too, you play cards eight hours out of twenty-four.
"And your irony23? Oh, but how well I understand it! Free, bold, living thought is searching and dominating; for an indolent, sluggish24 mind it is intolerable. That it may not disturb your peace, like thousands of your contemporaries, you made haste in youth to put it under bar and bolt. Your ironical25 attitude to life, or whatever you like to call it, is your armour26; and your thought, fettered27 and frightened, dare not leap over the fence you have put round it; and when you jeer28 at ideas which you pretend to know all about, you are like the deserter fleeing from the field of battle, and, to stifle29 his shame, sneering30 at war and at valour. Cynicism stifles31 pain. In some novel of Dostoevsky's an old man tramples32 underfoot the portrait of his dearly loved daughter because he had been unjust to her, and you vent33 your foul34 and vulgar jeers35 upon the ideas of goodness and truth because you have not the strength to follow them. You are frightened of every honest and truthful36 hint at your degradation37, and you purposely surround yourself with people who do nothing but flatter your weaknesses. And you may well, you may well dread the sight of tears!
"By the way, your attitude to women. Shamelessness has been handed down to us in our flesh and blood, and we are trained to shamelessness; but that is what we are men for—to subdue38 the beast in us. When you reached manhood and all ideas became known to you, you could not have failed to see the truth; you knew it, but you did not follow it; you were afraid of it, and to deceive your conscience you began loudly assuring yourself that it was not you but woman that was to blame, that she was as degraded as your attitude to her. Your cold, scabrous39 anecdotes40, your coarse laughter, all your innumerable theories concerning the underlying41 reality of marriage and the definite demands made upon it, concerning the ten sous the French workman pays his woman; your everlasting42 attacks on female logic43, lying, weakness and so on—doesn't it all look like a desire at all costs to force woman down into the mud that she may be on the same level as your attitude to her? You are a weak, unhappy, unpleasant person!"
Zinaida Fyodorovna began playing the piano in the drawing-room, trying to recall the song of Saint Sa?ns that Gruzin had played. I went and lay on my bed, but remembering that it was time for me to go, I got up with an effort and with a heavy, burning head went to the table again.
"But this is the question," I went on. "Why are we worn out? Why are we, at first so passionate, so bold, so noble, and so full of faith, complete bankrupts at thirty or thirty-five? Why does one waste in consumption, another put a bullet through his brains, a third seeks forgetfulness in vodka and cards, while the fourth tries to stifle his fear and misery44 by cynically45 trampling46 underfoot the pure image of his fair youth? Why is it that, having once fallen, we do not try to rise up again, and, losing one thing, do not seek something else? Why is it?
"The thief hanging on the Cross could bring back the joy of life and the courage of confident hope, though perhaps he had not more than an hour to live. You have long years before you, and I shall probably not die so soon as one might suppose. What if by a miracle the present turned out to be a dream, a horrible nightmare, and we should wake up renewed, pure, strong, proud of our righteousness? Sweet visions fire me, and I am almost breathless with emotion. I have a terrible longing47 to live. I long for our life to be holy, lofty, and majestic48 as the heavens above. Let us live! The sun doesn't rise twice a day, and life is not given us again—clutch at what is left of your life and save it...."
I did not write another word. I had a multitude of thoughts in my mind, but I could not connect them and get them on to paper. Without finishing the letter, I signed it with my name and rank, and went into the study. It was dark. I felt for the table and put the letter on it. I must have stumbled against the furniture in the dark and made a noise.
"Who is there?" I heard an alarmed voice in the drawing-room.
And the clock on the table softly struck one at the moment.
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1
gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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2
memento
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| n.纪念品，令人回忆的东西 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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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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5
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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6
drooped
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| 弯曲或下垂，发蔫( droop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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7
humiliate
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| v.使羞辱，使丢脸[同]disgrace | |
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8
eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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10
coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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11
feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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12
prematurely
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| adv.过早地，贸然地 | |
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13
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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14
quenched
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| 解（渴）( quench的过去式和过去分词 )； 终止（某事物）； （用水）扑灭（火焰等）； 将（热物体）放入水中急速冷却 | |
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15
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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16
diabolical
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| adj.恶魔似的，凶暴的 | |
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17
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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18
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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19
snug
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| adj.温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的；v.使整洁干净，舒适地依靠，紧贴；n.（英）酒吧里的私房 | |
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20
boredom
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| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
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21
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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22
confinement
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| n.幽禁，拘留，监禁；分娩；限制，局限 | |
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23
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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24
sluggish
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| adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的 | |
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25
ironical
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| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
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26
armour
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| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
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27
fettered
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| v.给…上脚镣，束缚( fetter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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28
jeer
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| vi.嘲弄，揶揄；vt.奚落；n.嘲笑，讥评 | |
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29
stifle
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| vt.使窒息；闷死；扼杀；抑止，阻止 | |
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30
sneering
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| 嘲笑的，轻蔑的 | |
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31
stifles
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的第三人称单数 )； 镇压，遏制 | |
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32
tramples
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| 踩( trample的第三人称单数 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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33
vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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34
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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35
jeers
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| n.操纵帆桁下部（使其上下的）索具；嘲讽( jeer的名词复数 )v.嘲笑( jeer的第三人称单数 ) | |
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36
truthful
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| adj.真实的，说实话的，诚实的 | |
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37
degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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38
subdue
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| vt.制服，使顺从，征服；抑制，克制 | |
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39
scabrous
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| adj.有疤的，粗糙的 | |
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40
anecdotes
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| n.掌故，趣闻，轶事( anecdote的名词复数 ) | |
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41
underlying
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| adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的 | |
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42
everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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43
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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44
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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45
cynically
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| adv.爱嘲笑地，冷笑地 | |
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46
trampling
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| 踩( trample的现在分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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47
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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48
majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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