Chapter XXXII

The day of departure drew near. November was already over; the latest date for starting had come. Insarov had long ago made his preparations, and was burning with anxiety to get out of Moscow as soon as possible. And the doctor was urging him on. ‘You need a warm climate,’ he told him; ‘you will not get well here.’ Elena, too, was fretting¹ with impatience²; she was worried by Insarov’s pallor, and his emaciation³. She often looked with involuntary terror at his changed face. Her position in her parents’ house had become insupportable. Her mother mourned over her, as over the dead, while her father treated her with contemptuous coldness; the approaching separation secretly pained him too, but he regarded it as his duty — the duty of an offended father — to disguise his feelings, his weakness. Anna Vassilyevna at last expressed a wish to see Insarov. He was taken up to her secretly by the back stairs. After he had entered her room, for a long time she could not speak to him, she could not even bring herself to look at him; he sat down near her chair, and waited, with quiet respectfulness, for her first word. Elena sat down close, and held her mother’s hand in hers. At last Anna Vassilyevna raised her eyes, saying: ‘God is your judge, Dmitri Nikanorovitch’— she stopped short: the reproaches died away on her lips. ‘Why, you are ill,’ she cried: ‘Elena, your husband’s ill!’

‘I have been unwell, Anna Vassilyevna,’ answered Insarov; ‘and even now I am not quite strong yet: but I hope my native air will make me perfectly⁴ well again.’

‘Ah — Bulgaria!’ murmured Anna Vassilyevna, and she thought: ‘Good God, a Bulgarian, and dying; a voice as hollow as a drum; and eyes like saucers, a perfect skeleton; his coat hanging loose on his shoulders, his face as yellow as a guinea, and she’s his wife — she loves him — it must be a bad dream. But ——’ she checked herself at once: ‘Dmitri Nikanorovitch,’ she said, ‘are you absolutely, absolutely bound to go away?’

‘Absolutely, Anna Vassilyevna.’

Anna Vassilyevna looked at him.

‘Ah, Dmitri Nikanorovitch, God grant you never have to go through what I am going through now. But you will promise me to take care of her — to love her. You will not have to face poverty while I an, living!’

Tears choked her voice. She opened her arms, and Elena and Insarov flung themselves into her embrace.

The fatal day had come at last. It had been arranged that Elena should say good-bye to her parents at home, and should start on the journey from Insarov’s lodgings⁵. The departure was fixed⁶ for twelve o’clock. About a quarter of an hour before the appointed time Bersenyev arrived. He had expected to find Insarov’s compatriots at his lodgings, anxious to see him off; but they had already gone before; and with them the two mysterious persons known to the reader (they had been witnesses at Insarov’s wedding). The tailor met the ‘kind gentlemen’ with a bow; he, presumably, to drown his grief, but possibly to celebrate his delight at getting the furniture, had been drinking heavily; his wife soon led him away. In the room everything was by this time ready; a trunk, tied up with cord, stood on the floor. Bersenyev sank into thought: many memories came rushing upon him.

Twelve o’clock had long ago struck; and the driver had already brought round the horses, but the ‘young people’ still did not appear. At last hurrying steps were heard on the stairs, and Elena came out escorted by Insarov and Shubin. Elena’s eyes were red; she had left her mother lying unconscious; the parting had been terrible. Elena had not seen Bersenyev for more than a week: he had been seldom of late at the Stahovs’. She had not expected to meet him; and crying, ‘You! thank you!’ she threw herself on his neck; Insarov, too, embraced him. A painful silence followed. What could these three say to one another? what were they feeling in their hearts? Shubin realised the necessity of cutting short everything painful with light words.

‘Our trio has come together again,’ he began, ‘for the last time. Let us submit to the decrees of fate; speak of the past with kindness; and in God’s name go forward to the new life! In God’s name, on our distant way,’ he began to hum, and stopped short. He felt suddenly ashamed and awkward. It is a sin to sing where the dead are lying: and at that instant, in that room, the past of which he had spoken was dying, the past of the people met together in it. It was dying to be born again in a new life — doubtless — still it was death.

‘Come, Elena,’ began Insarov, turning to his wife, ‘I think everything is done? Everything paid, and everything packed. There’s nothing more except to take the box down.’ He called his landlord.

The tailor came into the room, together with his wife and daughter. He listened, slightly reeling, to Insarov’s instructions, dragged the box up on to his shoulders, and ran quickly down the staircases, tramping heavily with his boots.

‘Now, after the Russian custom, we must sit down,’ observed Insarov.

They all sat down; Bersenyev seated himself on the old sofa, Elena sat next him; the landlady⁷ and her daughter squatted⁸ in the doorway⁹. All were silent; all smiled constrainedly¹⁰, though no one knew why he was smiling; each of them wanted to say something at parting, and each (except, of course, the landlady and her daughter, they were simply rolling their eyes) felt that at such moments it is only permissible¹¹ to utter common-places, that any word of importance, of sense, or even of deep feeling, would be somehow out of place, almost insincere. Insarov was the first to get up, and he began crossing himself. ‘Farewell, our little room!’ he cried.

Then came kisses, the sounding but cold kisses of leave-taking, good wishes — half expressed — for the journey, promises to write, the last, half-smothered words of farewell.

Elena, all in tears, had already taken her seat in the sledge¹²; Insarov had carefully wrapped her feet up in a rug; Shubin, Bersenyev, the landlord, his wife, the little daughter, with the inevitable¹³ kerchief on her head, the doorkeeper, a workman in a striped bedgown, were all standing¹⁴ on the steps, when suddenly a splendid sledge, harnessed with spirited horses, flew into the courtyard, and from the sledge, shaking the snow off the collar of his cloak, leapt Nikolai Artemyevitch.

‘I am not too late, thank God,’ he cried, running up to their sledge. ‘Here, Elena, is our last parental¹⁵ benediction,’ he said, bending down under the hood¹⁶, and taking from his pocket a little holy image, sewn in a velvet¹⁷ bag, he put it round her neck. She began to sob¹⁸, and kiss his hands; and the coachman meantime pulled out of the forepart of the sledge a half bottle of champagne¹⁹, and three glasses.

‘Come!’ said Nikolai Artemyevitch — and his own tears were trickling²⁰ on to the beaver²¹ collar of his cloak —‘we must drink to — good journey — good wishes ——’ He began pouring out the champagne: his hands were shaking, the foam²² rose over the edge and fell on to the snow. He took one glass, and gave the other two to Elena and Insarov, who by now was seated beside hen ‘God give you ——’ began Nikolai Artemyevitch, and he could not go on: he drank off the wine; they, too, drank off their glasses. ‘Now you should drink, gentlemen,’ he added, turning to Shubin and Bersenyev, but at that instant the driver started the horses. Nikolai Artemyevitch ran beside the sledge. ‘Mind and write to us,’ he said in a broken voice. Elena put out her head, saying: ‘Good-bye, papa, Andrei Petrovitch, Pavel Yakovlitch, good-bye all, good-bye, Russia!’ and dropped back in her place. The driver flourished his whip, and gave a whistle; the sledge, its runners crunching²³ on the snow, turned out of the gates to the right and disappeared.

1 fretting   

n. 微振磨损 adj. 烦躁的, 焦虑的

参考例句：

• Fretting about it won't help. 苦恼于事无补。
• The old lady is always fretting over something unimportant. 那位老妇人总是为一些小事焦虑不安。

2 impatience   

n.不耐烦，急躁

参考例句：

• He expressed impatience at the slow rate of progress.进展缓慢，他显得不耐烦。
• He gave a stamp of impatience.他不耐烦地跺脚。

3 emaciation   

n.消瘦，憔悴，衰弱

参考例句：

• His face was hollowed out to the point of emaciation. 他的脸瘦削到了憔悴的地步。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• These photographs show extremes of obesity and emaciation. 这些照片展现了肥胖与消瘦两个极端。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

5 lodgings   

n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍

参考例句：

• When he reached his lodgings the sun had set. 他到达公寓房间时，太阳已下山了。
• I'm on the hunt for lodgings. 我正在寻找住所。

6 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

7 landlady   

n.女房东，女地主

参考例句：

• I heard my landlady creeping stealthily up to my door.我听到我的女房东偷偷地来到我的门前。
• The landlady came over to serve me.女店主过来接待我。

8 squatted   

v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。

参考例句：

• He squatted down beside the footprints and examined them closely. 他蹲在脚印旁仔细地观察。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He squatted in the grass discussing with someone. 他蹲在草地上与一个人谈话。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 doorway   

n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径

参考例句：

• They huddled in the shop doorway to shelter from the rain.他们挤在商店门口躲雨。
• Mary suddenly appeared in the doorway.玛丽突然出现在门口。

10 constrainedly   

不自然地，勉强地，强制地

参考例句：

• Very constrainedly,she agreed a young doctor to operate on her. 她非常勉强地同意让一位年轻的医生为她做手术。

11 permissible   

adj.可允许的，许可的

参考例句：

• Is smoking permissible in the theatre?在剧院里允许吸烟吗？
• Delay is not permissible,even for a single day.不得延误，即使一日亦不可。

12 sledge   

n.雪橇，大锤；v.用雪橇搬运，坐雪橇往

参考例句：

• The sledge gained momentum as it ran down the hill.雪橇从山上下冲时的动力越来越大。
• The sledge slid across the snow as lightly as a boat on the water.雪橇在雪原上轻巧地滑行，就象船在水上行驶一样。

13 inevitable   

adj.不可避免的，必然发生的

参考例句：

• Mary was wearing her inevitable large hat.玛丽戴着她总是戴的那顶大帽子。
• The defeat had inevitable consequences for British policy.战败对英国政策不可避免地产生了影响。

14 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

15 parental   

adj.父母的；父的；母的

参考例句：

• He encourages parental involvement in the running of school.他鼓励学生家长参与学校的管理。
• Children always revolt against parental disciplines.孩子们总是反抗父母的管束。

16 hood   

n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖

参考例句：

• She is wearing a red cloak with a hood.她穿着一件红色带兜帽的披风。
• The car hood was dented in.汽车的发动机罩已凹了进去。

17 velvet   

n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的

参考例句：

• This material feels like velvet.这料子摸起来像丝绒。
• The new settlers wore the finest silk and velvet clothing.新来的移民穿着最华丽的丝绸和天鹅绒衣服。

18 sob   

n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣

参考例句：

• The child started to sob when he couldn't find his mother.孩子因找不到他妈妈哭了起来。
• The girl didn't answer,but continued to sob with her head on the table.那个女孩不回答，也不抬起头来。她只顾低声哭着。

19 champagne   

n.香槟酒；微黄色

参考例句：

• There were two glasses of champagne on the tray.托盘里有两杯香槟酒。
• They sat there swilling champagne.他们坐在那里大喝香槟酒。

20 trickling   

n.油画底色含油太多而成泡沫状突起v.滴( trickle的现在分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动

参考例句：

• Tears were trickling down her cheeks. 眼泪顺着她的面颊流了下来。
• The engine was trickling oil. 发动机在滴油。 来自《简明英汉词典》

21 beaver   

n.海狸，河狸

参考例句：

• The hat is made of beaver.这顶帽子是海狸毛皮制的。
• A beaver is an animals with big front teeth.海狸是一种长着大门牙的动物。

22 foam   

v./n.泡沫，起泡沫

参考例句：

• The glass of beer was mostly foam.这杯啤酒大部分是泡沫。
• The surface of the water is full of foam.水面都是泡沫。

23 crunching   

v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的现在分词 )；嘎吱作响；（快速大量地）处理信息；数字捣弄

参考例句：

• The horses were crunching their straw at their manger. 这些马在嘎吱嘎吱地吃槽里的草。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The dog was crunching a bone. 狗正嘎吱嘎吱地嚼骨头。 来自《简明英汉词典》