The happy pair were seen off at the station. The crowd of relations and colleagues in the service stood, with glasses in their hands, waiting for the train to start to shout “Hurrah!” and the bride’s father, Pyotr Leontyitch, wearing a top-hat and the uniform of a teacher, already drunk and very pale, kept craning towards the window, glass in hand and saying in an imploring6 voice:
“Anyuta! Anya, Anya! one word!”
Anna bent7 out of the window to him, and he whispered something to her, enveloping8 her in a stale smell of alcohol, blew into her ear — she could make out nothing — and made the sign of the cross over her face, her bosom9, and her hands; meanwhile he was breathing in gasps10 and tears were shining in his eyes. And the schoolboys, Anna’s brothers, Petya and Andrusha, pulled at his coat from behind, whispering in confusion:
“Father, hush11! . . . Father, that’s enough . . . .”
When the train started, Anna saw her father run a little way after the train, staggering and spilling his wine, and what a kind, guilty, pitiful face he had:
“Hurra — ah!” he shouted.
The happy pair were left alone. Modest Alexeitch looked about the compartment12, arranged their things on the shelves, and sat down, smiling, opposite his young wife. He was an official of medium height, rather stout13 and puffy, who looked exceedingly well nourished, with long whiskers and no moustache. His clean-shaven, round, sharply defined chin looked like the heel of a foot. The most characteristic point in his face was the absence of moustache, the bare, freshly shaven place, which gradually passed into the fat cheeks, quivering like jelly. His deportment was dignified14, his movements were deliberate, his manner was soft.
“I cannot help remembering now one circumstance,” he said, smiling. “When, five years ago, Kosorotov received the order of St. Anna of the second grade, and went to thank His Excellency, His Excellency expressed himself as follows: ‘So now you have three Annas: one in your buttonhole and two on your neck.’ And it must be explained that at that time Kosorotov’s wife, a quarrelsome and frivolous15 person, had just returned to him, and that her name was Anna. I trust that when I receive the Anna of the second grade His Excellency will not have occasion to say the same thing to me.”
He smiled with his little eyes. And she, too, smiled, troubled at the thought that at any moment this man might kiss her with his thick damp lips, and that she had no right to prevent his doing so. The soft movements of his fat person frightened her; she felt both fear and disgust. He got up, without haste took off the order from his neck, took off his coat and waistcoat, and put on his dressing-gown.
“That’s better,” he said, sitting down beside Anna.
Anna remembered what agony the wedding had been, when it had seemed to her that the priest, and the guests, and every one in church had been looking at her sorrowfully and asking why, why was she, such a sweet, nice girl, marrying such an elderly, uninteresting gentleman. Only that morning she was delighted that everything had been satisfactorily arranged, but at the time of the wedding, and now in the railway carriage, she felt cheated, guilty, and ridiculous. Here she had married a rich man and yet she had no money, her wedding-dress had been bought on credit, and when her father and brothers had been saying good-bye, she could see from their faces that they had not a farthing. Would they have any supper that day? And tomorrow? And for some reason it seemed to her that her father and the boys were sitting tonight hungry without her, and feeling the same misery16 as they had the day after their mother’s funeral.
“Oh, how unhappy I am!” she thought. “Why am I so unhappy?”
With the awkwardness of a man with settled habits, unaccustomed to deal with women, Modest Alexeitch touched her on the waist and patted her on the shoulder, while she went on thinking about money, about her mother and her mother’s death. When her mother died, her father, Pyotr Leontyitch, a teacher of drawing and writing in the high school, had taken to drink, impoverishment17 had followed, the boys had not had boots or goloshes, their father had been hauled up before the magistrate18, the warrant officer had come and made an inventory19 of the furniture. . . . What a disgrace! Anna had had to look after her drunken father, darn her brothers’ stockings, go to market, and when she was complimented on her youth, her beauty, and her elegant manners, it seemed to her that every one was looking at her cheap hat and the holes in her boots that were inked over. And at night there had been tears and a haunting dread20 that her father would soon, very soon, be dismissed from the school for his weakness, and that he would not survive it, but would die, too, like their mother. But ladies of their acquaintance had taken the matter in hand and looked about for a good match for Anna. This Modest Alexevitch, who was neither young nor good-looking but had money, was soon found. He had a hundred thousand in the bank and the family estate, which he had let on lease. He was a man of principle and stood well with His Excellency; it would be nothing to him, so they told Anna, to get a note from His Excellency to the directors of the high school, or even to the Education Commissioner21, to prevent Pyotr Leontyitch from being dismissed.
While she was recalling these details, she suddenly heard strains of music which floated in at the window, together with the sound of voices. The train was stopping at a station. In the crowd beyond the platform an accordion22 and a cheap squeaky fiddle23 were being briskly played, and the sound of a military band came from beyond the villas24 and the tall birches and poplars that lay bathed in the moonlight; there must have been a dance in the place. Summer visitors and townspeople, who used to come out here by train in fine weather for a breath of fresh air, were parading up and down on the platform. Among them was the wealthy owner of all the summer villas — a tall, stout, dark man called Artynov. He had prominent eyes and looked like an Armenian. He wore a strange costume; his shirt was unbuttoned, showing his chest; he wore high boots with spurs, and a black cloak hung from his shoulders and dragged on the ground like a train. Two boar-hounds followed him with their sharp noses to the ground.
Tears were still shining in Anna’s eyes, but she was not thinking now of her mother, nor of money, nor of her marriage; but shaking hands with schoolboys and officers she knew, she laughed gaily25 and said quickly:
“How do you do? How are you?”
She went out on to the platform between the carriages into the moonlight, and stood so that they could all see her in her new splendid dress and hat.
“Why are we stopping here?” she asked.
“This is a junction26. They are waiting for the mail train to pass.”
Seeing that Artynov was looking at her, she screwed up her eyes coquettishly and began talking aloud in French; and because her voice sounded so pleasant, and because she heard music and the moon was reflected in the pond, and because Artynov, the notorious Don Juan and spoiled child of fortune, was looking at her eagerly and with curiosity, and because every one was in good spirits — she suddenly felt joyful27, and when the train started and the officers of her acquaintance saluted28 her, she was humming the polka the strains of which reached her from the military band playing beyond the trees; and she returned to her compartment feeling as though it had been proved to her at the station that she would certainly be happy in spite of everything.
The happy pair spent two days at the monastery, then went back to town. They lived in a rent-free flat. When Modest Alexevitch had gone to the office, Anna played the piano, or shed tears of depression, or lay down on a couch and read novels or looked through fashion papers. At dinner Modest Alexevitch ate a great deal and talked about politics, about appointments, transfers, and promotions29 in the service, about the necessity of hard work, and said that, family life not being a pleasure but a duty, if you took care of the kopecks the roubles would take care of themselves, and that he put religion and morality before everything else in the world. And holding his knife in his fist as though it were a sword, he would say:
“Every one ought to have his duties!”
And Anna listened to him, was frightened, and could not eat, and she usually got up from the table hungry. After dinner her husband lay down for a nap and snored loudly, while Anna went to see her own people. Her father and the boys looked at her in a peculiar30 way, as though just before she came in they had been blaming her for having married for money a tedious, wearisome man she did not love; her rustling31 skirts, her bracelets32, and her general air of a married lady, offended them and made them uncomfortable. In her presence they felt a little embarrassed and did not know what to talk to her about; but yet they still loved her as before, and were not used to having dinner without her. She sat down with them to cabbage soup, porridge, and fried potatoes, smelling of mutton dripping. Pyotr Leontyitch filled his glass from the decanter with a trembling hand and drank it off hurriedly, greedily, with repulsion, then poured out a second glass and then a third. Petya and Andrusha, thin, pale boys with big eyes, would take the decanter and say desperately33:
“You mustn’t, father. . . . Enough, father . . . .”
And Anna, too, was troubled and entreated34 him to drink no more; and he would suddenly fly into a rage and beat the table with his fists:
“I won’t allow any one to dictate35 to me!” he would shout. “Wretched boys! wretched girl! I’ll turn you all out!”
But there was a note of weakness, of good-nature in his voice, and no one was afraid of him. After dinner he usually dressed in his best. Pale, with a cut on his chin from shaving, craning his thin neck, he would stand for half an hour before the glass, prinking, combing his hair, twisting his black moustache, sprinkling himself with scent36, tying his cravat37 in a bow; then he would put on his gloves and his top-hat, and go off to give his private lessons. Or if it was a holiday he would stay at home and paint, or play the harmonium, which wheezed38 and growled39; he would try to wrest40 from it pure harmonious41 sounds and would sing to it; or would storm at the boys:
“Wretches! Good-for-nothing boys! You have spoiled the instrument!”
In the evening Anna’s husband played cards with his colleagues, who lived under the same roof in the government quarters. The wives of these gentlemen would come in-ugly, tastelessly dressed women, as coarse as cooks — and gossip would begin in the flat as tasteless and unattractive as the ladies themselves. Sometimes Modest Alexevitch would take Anna to the theatre. In the intervals42 he would never let her stir a step from his side, but walked about arm in arm with her through the corridors and the foyer. When he bowed to some one, he immediately whispered to Anna: “A civil councillor . . . visits at His Excellency’s”; or, “A man of means . . . has a house of his own.” When they passed the buffet43 Anna had a great longing44 for something sweet; she was fond of chocolate and apple cakes, but she had no money, and she did not like to ask her husband. He would take a pear, pinch it with his fingers, and ask uncertainly:
“How much?”
“Twenty-five kopecks!”
“I say!” he would reply, and put it down; but as it was awkward to leave the buffet without buying anything, he would order some seltzer-water and drink the whole bottle himself, and tears would come into his eyes. And Anna hated him at such times.
And suddenly flushing crimson45, he would say to her rapidly:
“Bow to that old lady!”
“But I don’t know her.”
“No matter. That’s the wife of the director of the local treasury46! Bow, I tell you,” he would grumble47 insistently48. “Your head won’t drop off.”
Anna bowed and her head certainly did not drop off, but it was agonizing49. She did everything her husband wanted her to, and was furious with herself for having let him deceive her like the veriest idiot. She had only married him for his money, and yet she had less money now than before her marriage. In old days her father would sometimes give her twenty kopecks, but now she had not a farthing.
To take money by stealth or ask for it, she could not; she was afraid of her husband, she trembled before him. She felt as though she had been afraid of him for years. In her childhood the director of the high school had always seemed the most impressive and terrifying force in the world, sweeping50 down like a thunderstorm or a steam-engine ready to crush her; another similar force of which the whole family talked, and of which they were for some reason afraid, was His Excellency; then there were a dozen others, less formidable, and among them the teachers at the high school, with shaven upper lips, stern, implacable; and now finally, there was Modest Alexeitch, a man of principle, who even resembled the director in the face. And in Anna’s imagination all these forces blended together into one, and, in the form of a terrible, huge white bear, menaced the weak and erring51 such as her father. And she was afraid to say anything in opposition52 to her husband, and gave a forced smile, and tried to make a show of pleasure when she was coarsely caressed53 and defiled54 by embraces that excited her terror. Only once Pyotr Leontyitch had the temerity55 to ask for a loan of fifty roubles in order to pay some very irksome debt, but what an agony it had been!
“Very good; I’ll give it to you,” said Modest Alexeitch after a moment’s thought; “but I warn you I won’t help you again till you give up drinking. Such a failing is disgraceful in a man in the government service! I must remind you of the well-known fact that many capable people have been ruined by that passion, though they might possibly, with temperance, have risen in time to a very high.”
And long-winded phrases followed: “inasmuch as . . .”, “following upon which proposition . . .”, “in view of the aforesaid contention56 . . .”; and Pyotr Leontyitch was in agonies of humiliation57 and felt an intense craving58 for alcohol.
And when the boys came to visit Anna, generally in broken boots and threadbare trousers, they, too, had to listen to sermons.
“Every man ought to have his duties!” Modest Alexeitch would say to them.
And he did not give them money. But he did give Anna bracelets, rings, and brooches, saying that these things would come in useful for a rainy day. And he often unlocked her drawer and made an inspection59 to see whether they were all safe.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
refreshments
|
|
| n.点心,便餐;(会议后的)简单茶点招 待 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
champagne
|
|
| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
shrine
|
|
| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
dreary
|
|
| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
monastery
|
|
| n.修道院，僧院，寺院 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
imploring
|
|
| 恳求的，哀求的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
bent
|
|
| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
enveloping
|
|
| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
bosom
|
|
| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
gasps
|
|
| v.喘气( gasp的第三人称单数 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
hush
|
|
| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
compartment
|
|
| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
dignified
|
|
| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
frivolous
|
|
| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
misery
|
|
| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
impoverishment
|
|
| n.贫穷，穷困；贫化 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
magistrate
|
|
| n.地方行政官，地方法官，治安官 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
inventory
|
|
| n.详细目录，存货清单 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
dread
|
|
| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
commissioner
|
|
| n.（政府厅、局、处等部门）专员，长官，委员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
accordion
|
|
| n.手风琴；adj.可折叠的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
fiddle
|
|
| n.小提琴；vi.拉提琴；不停拨弄，乱动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
villas
|
|
| 别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
gaily
|
|
| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
junction
|
|
| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
joyful
|
|
| adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
saluted
|
|
| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
promotions
|
|
| 促进( promotion的名词复数 )； 提升； 推广； 宣传 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
peculiar
|
|
| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
rustling
|
|
| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
bracelets
|
|
| n.手镯，臂镯( bracelet的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
desperately
|
|
| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
entreated
|
|
| 恳求，乞求( entreat的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
dictate
|
|
| v.口授；(使)听写；指令，指示，命令 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
scent
|
|
| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
cravat
|
|
| n.领巾，领结；v.使穿有领结的服装，使结领结 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
wheezed
|
|
| v.喘息，发出呼哧呼哧的喘息声( wheeze的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
growled
|
|
| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
wrest
|
|
| n.扭，拧，猛夺；v.夺取，猛扭，歪曲 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
harmonious
|
|
| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
intervals
|
|
| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
buffet
|
|
| n.自助餐；饮食柜台；餐台 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
longing
|
|
| n.（for）渴望 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
crimson
|
|
| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
treasury
|
|
| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
grumble
|
|
| vi.抱怨；咕哝；n.抱怨，牢骚；咕哝，隆隆声 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
insistently
|
|
| ad.坚持地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
agonizing
|
|
| adj.痛苦难忍的；使人苦恼的v.使极度痛苦；折磨(agonize的ing形式) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
sweeping
|
|
| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
erring
|
|
| 做错事的，错误的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
opposition
|
|
| n.反对，敌对 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
caressed
|
|
| 爱抚或抚摸…( caress的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
defiled
|
|
| v.玷污( defile的过去式和过去分词 )；污染；弄脏；纵列行进 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
temerity
|
|
| n.鲁莽，冒失 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
contention
|
|
| n.争论，争辩，论战；论点，主张 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
humiliation
|
|
| n.羞辱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
craving
|
|
| n.渴望,热望 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
inspection
|
|
| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |