Chapter XIII

During the first fortnight of Insarov’s stay in the Kuntsovo neighbourhood, he did not visit the Stahovs more than four or five times; Bersenyev went to see them every day. Elena was always pleased to see him, lively and interesting talk always sprang up between them, and yet he often went home with a gloomy face. Shubin scarcely showed himself; he was working with feverish¹ energy at his art; he either stayed locked up in his room, from which he would emerge in a blouse, smeared² all over with clay, or else he spent days in Moscow where he had a studio, to which models and Italian sculptors³, his friends and teachers, used to come to see him. Elena did not once succeed in talking with Insarov, as she would have liked to do; in his absence she prepared questions to ask him about many things, but when he came she felt ashamed of her plans. Insarov’s very tranquillity⁴ embarrassed her; it seemed to her that she had not the right to force him to speak out; and she resolved to wait; for all that, she felt that at every visit however trivial might be the words that passed between them, he attracted her more and more; but she never happened to be left alone with him — and to grow intimate with any one, one must have at least one conversation alone with him. She talked a great deal about him to Bersenyev. Bersenyev realised that Elena’s imagination had been struck by Insarov, and was glad that his friend had not ‘missed fire’ as Shubin had asserted. He told her cordially all he knew of him down to the minutest details (we often, when we want to please some one, bring our friends into our conversation, hardly ever suspecting that we are praising ourselves in that way), and only at times, when Elena’s pale cheeks flushed a little and her eyes grew bright and wide, he felt a pang⁵ in his heart of that evil pain which he had felt before.

One day Bersenyev came to the Stahovs, not at the customary time, but at eleven o’clock in the morning. Elena came down to him in the parlour.

‘Fancy,’ he began with a constrained⁶ smile, ‘our Insarov has disappeared.’

‘Disappeared?’ said Elena.

‘He has disappeared. The day before yesterday he went off somewhere and nothing has been seen of him since.’

‘He did not tell you where he was going?’

‘No.’

Elena sank into a chair.

‘He has most likely gone to Moscow,’ she commented, trying to seem indifferent and at the same time wondering that she should try to seem indifferent.

‘I don’t think so,’ rejoined Bersenyev. ‘He did not go alone.’

‘With whom then?’

‘Two people of some sort — his countrymen they must have been — came to him the day before yesterday, before dinner.’

‘Bulgarians! what makes you think so?’

‘Why as far as I could hear, they talked to him in some language I did not know, but Slavonic . . . You are always saying, Elena Nikolaevna, that there’s so little mystery about Insarov; what could be more mysterious than this visit? Imagine, they came to him — and then there was shouting and quarrelling, and such savage⁷, angry disputing. . . . And he shouted too.’

‘He shouted too?’

‘Yes. He shouted at them. They seemed to be accusing each other. And if you could have had a peep at these visitors. They had swarthy, heavy faces with high cheek bones and hook noses, both about forty years old, shabbily dressed, hot and dusty, looking like workmen — not workmen, and not gentlemen — goodness knows what sort of people they were.’

‘And he went away with them?’

‘Yes. He gave them something to eat and went off with them. The woman of the house told me they ate a whole huge pot of porridge between the two of them. They outdid one another, she said, and gobbled it up like wolves.’

Elena gave a faint smile.

‘You will see,’ she said, ‘all this will be explained into something very prosaic⁸.’

‘I hope it may! But you need not use that word. There is nothing prosaic about Insarov, though Shubin does maintain ——’

‘Shubin!’ Elena broke in, shrugging her shoulders. ‘But you must confess these two good men gobbling up porridge ——’

‘Even Themistocles had his supper on the eve of Salamis,’ observed Bersenyev with a smile.

‘Yes; but then there was a battle next day. Any way you will let me know when he comes back,’ said Elena, and she tried to change the subject, but the conversation made little progress. Zoya made her appearance and began walking about the room on tip-toe, giving them thereby⁹ to understand that Anna Vassilyevna was not yet awake.

Bersenyev went away.

In the evening of the same day a note from him was brought to Elena. ‘He has come back,’ he wrote to her, ‘sunburnt and dusty to his very eyebrows¹⁰; but where and why he went I don’t know; won’t you find out?’

‘Won’t you find out!’ Elena whispered, ‘as though he talked to me!’

1 feverish   

adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的

参考例句：

• He is too feverish to rest.他兴奋得安静不下来。
• They worked with feverish haste to finish the job.为了完成此事他们以狂热的速度工作着。

2 smeared   

弄脏； 玷污； 涂抹； 擦上

参考例句：

• The children had smeared mud on the walls. 那几个孩子往墙上抹了泥巴。
• A few words were smeared. 有写字被涂模糊了。

3 sculptors   

雕刻家，雕塑家( sculptor的名词复数 )； [天]玉夫座

参考例句：

• He is one of Britain's best-known sculptors. 他是英国最有名的雕塑家之一。
• Painters and sculptors are indexed separately. 画家和雕刻家被分开，分别做了索引。

4 tranquillity   

n. 平静, 安静

参考例句：

• The phenomenon was so striking and disturbing that his philosophical tranquillity vanished. 这个令人惶惑不安的现象，扰乱了他的旷达宁静的心境。
• My value for domestic tranquillity should much exceed theirs. 我应该远比他们重视家庭的平静生活。

5 pang   

n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷

参考例句：

• She experienced a sharp pang of disappointment.她经历了失望的巨大痛苦。
• She was beginning to know the pang of disappointed love.她开始尝到了失恋的痛苦。

6 constrained   

adj.束缚的,节制的

参考例句：

• The evidence was so compelling that he felt constrained to accept it. 证据是那样的令人折服，他觉得不得不接受。
• I feel constrained to write and ask for your forgiveness. 我不得不写信请你原谅。

7 savage   

adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人

参考例句：

• The poor man received a savage beating from the thugs.那可怜的人遭到暴徒的痛打。
• He has a savage temper.他脾气粗暴。

8 prosaic   

adj.单调的，无趣的

参考例句：

• The truth is more prosaic.真相更加乏味。
• It was a prosaic description of the scene.这是对场景没有想象力的一个描述。

9 thereby   

adv.因此，从而

参考例句：

• I have never been to that city,,ereby I don't know much about it.我从未去过那座城市，因此对它不怎么熟悉。
• He became a British citizen,thereby gaining the right to vote.他成了英国公民，因而得到了投票权。

10 eyebrows   

眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Eyebrows stop sweat from coming down into the eyes. 眉毛挡住汗水使其不能流进眼睛。
• His eyebrows project noticeably. 他的眉毛特别突出。