The child Agrenev had vividly4 pictured to himself how Nina Kallistratovna had walked, holding her daughter with one hand, an attaché-case in the other: of course her bearing must have been singular, as she was going to the flat to administer a slap in the face; no doubt she had walked either in a squatting5 or a bandy-legged fashion. The family hearth must have been something extremely valuable, as she was going to deliver a slap in the face on its account—perhaps it was some kind of stove.
It was highly interesting—in the child's imagination—to picture Nina Kallistratovna entering the flat, swinging back her arm, and delivering the slap: her gait, her arms, the flat—all had a sudden hidden and exceedingly curious meaning for the child.
This had remained out of his childhood memories of the little town and province, where all had seemed unusual as childhood itself.
Now in the Wolf's Ravine Agrenev recalled this incident, and he brooded bitterly over the certainty that no one would ever deliver a slap in the face on his account! What vulgarity—slaps in the face!… and a slap in the face was no solution.
It was now autumn, and as he stood in the ravine waiting for Olya, the cranes flew low over his head, stretching themselves out like arrows and crying discordantly6. A wintry sulphurous light overspread the eastern sky, and the blue crest7 of the Vega shone out above him tremendous and triumphant8, sweeping9 up into the very heart of the flaming sunset.
On a sudden, Olya arrived, her figure darkly silhouetted10 an instant— a tiny insignificant11 atom—against the vastness of the hill and sky as she stood poised12 on the brink13 of the ravine; then she clambered down its precipitous side to Agrenev.
Alexander Alexandrovitch Agrenev, mining engineer and married man, and Olya Andreevna Golovkina!
She was a school teacher, who, after passing through the eight classes of her college, now resided with her aunt. She was always known as Olya Golovkina, although she bore the ancient Russian surname made famous in the time of Peter the Great by Senator Golovkin. But even in the time of Peter the Great this name had sunk into the gutter14 and had left in this town a street Golovkinskaya, and in that same Golovkinskaya Street a house, by the letting of which Olya's aunt made her living.
Agrenev knew that the aunt—whose name he had never heard—was an old maid, and that she had one joy—Olya. He knew she sat at her window without a lamp throughout the evenings, waiting for Olya; and that for this reason her niece, on leaving him, went round by the back- way, in order to obviate15 suspicion.
Nothing was ever said of the aunt in a personal way; the name was uttered only indirectly16, as though applying to a substance and not to a human being.
Olya was a very charming girl, of whom it was difficult to say anything definite: such a pretty provincial17 maid, like a slender willow-reed.
The town lay over hillocks and fields and the ancient quarries18, all its energies flowing out from the factory at the further end—and a casual conversation which occured in the spring at the beginning of Agrenev's acquaintance with Olya was characteristic alike of the town and of her. Agrenev had said apropos19 of something:
"Balmont, Blok, Brusov, Sologub…"
She interrupted him hastily—a slender little reed: "As a whole I know little of foreign writers …"
In the town—neither in the high-school, the library, nor the newspapers—did they know of Balmont or Blok, but Olya loved to declaim by rote20 from Kozlov, and she spoke21 French.
The factory lived its dark, noisy, unwholesome life sunk in poverty beneath the surface, steeped in luxury above; the little town lived amid the fields, scared and pressed down by the factory, but still carrying on its own individual life.
Beyond it, on the side away from the factory, lay the pass called the Wolf's Ravine. On the right, close to the river, was a grove22 where couples walked. They never descended23 to the ravine, because it was so unpoetic, a treeless, shallow, dull, unterrifying spot. Yet it skirted the hills, dominated the surrounding country; and people lying flat in the channel at its summit could survey the locality for a mile round without being seen themselves.
Alexander Alexandrovitch was a married man. The shepherd lads tending their herds24 at pasture began to notice how every evening a man on a bicycle turned off the main road into the ravine, and how—soon after—a girl hurried past them following in his steps, like a reed blown in the wind. As befitted their kind, the shepherds cried out every abomination after her.
All the summer Olya had begged Agrenev to bring her books to read; she did not notice, however, that he had never once brought her any!
Then one evening, early in September, after a spell of rain which had prevented their meeting for some days, there happened that which was bound to happen—which happens to a maiden25 only once in her life. They used always to meet at eight, but eight in September was not like eight in June. The rain was over, but a chill, desolating26, autumnal wind remained. The sky was laden27 with heavy, leaden clouds; it was cold and wretched. That evening the cranes flew southward, gabbling in the sky. The grass in the ravine was yellow and withered28. There was sunshine there in the daytime, and Olya wore a white dress. It was there the two of them, Agrenev and Olya, usually bade each other adieu.
But on that evening, Agrenev accompanied Olya to her home, and both were absorbed by the same thought—the aunt! Was she sitting by the window without a lamp waiting for her niece, or had she already lighted it in order to prepare the supper? Olya hoped desperately29 that her aunt would be in her usual place and the lamp unlit, so that she could slip by into her room unseen and secretly change her clothes.
Not only did Olya and Alexander Alexandrovitch walk arm-in-arm but they pressed close together, their heads bent30 the one to the other— whispering … only of the aunt. Olya could not think of the pain or the joy or the suffering—she was only thinking how she could pass her aunt unnoticed; Agrenev felt cold and sickened at the thought of a possible scandal.
They discovered there was a light at the aunt's window, and Olya began to tremble like a reed, whispering hoarsely—almost crying:
"I won't go in! I won't go in!"
But all the same she did—a willow-reed blown in the wind. Agrenev arranged to meet her the next day in the factory office, so that he might hear whether the aunt had created a scene or not, although he did not admit that reason, even to himself.
In the ravine when Olya—after yielding all—wept and clung to his knees, Agrenev's heart had been pierced with pangs31 of remorse32. In the pitchblack darkness overhead the wild-geese could be heard rustling33 their wings as they flew southward, scared by his cigarette—the tenth in succession.
"Southward, geese, southward!… But you shall go nowhere, slave, useless among the useless!" Then he remembered that slap in the face Nina Kallistratovna had given for her husband—nobody would give Olya Golovkina one for him! "Olya is a useless accidental burden," he thought.
Then Agrenev dismissed her from his mind; and, as he bicycled from Golovkinskaya Street through the whole length of the town, past the factory to the engineers' quarters—there was no need to hide now it was dark—he thought only of Olya's aunt: of how she was an old maid with nothing else in her life but her niece, and that Olya was hiding her tragedy from her; of how she spent the entire evenings sitting alone by the window in the dark—assuredly not on Olya's account, but because she was dying; all her life she had been dying, as the town was dying where Kozlov was read; as he, Agrenev, was dying; as the maidenhood34 of Olya had died. How powerful is the onward35 rush of life! What tragedy lay in those evenings by the window in the darkness!
Every morning the housemaid used to bring Alexander Alexandrovitch in his study a cup of lukewarm coffee on a tray. Then he went out to the factory—the rest of the household was still asleep. There he came into contact with the workmen, and saw their hopeless, wretched, impoverished36 lives; listened to Bitska's jests, and to the rumbling37 of the wagonettes—identified himself with the life of the factory, which dominated all like some fabulous38 brooding monster.
During the luncheon39 interval40 he went home, washed himself, and listened to his wife rattling41 spoons on the other side of the wall. And this made up the entire substance of his life! Yes, it was certainly interesting how Nina Kallistratovna had entered that flat, swung back her hand—which hand had it been?—was it the one in which she held the attaché-case or was that transferred to the other hand first?—and delivered the smack42 to Madame Chasovnikova. Then there was Olya, darling Olya Golovkina, from whom—as from them all—he desired nothing.
That night, when he reached home at last, his daughter came in and made him a curtsey, saying:
"Goodnight, daddy."
Alexander Alexandrovitch caught her in his arms, placed her on his knees—his beloved, his only little daughter.
"Well, little Asya, what have you been doing?" he asked.
"When you went out to Olya Golovkina Mummy and I played tig."
"My aunt has not found out anything. She opened the door for me without lighting44 the lamp, and as she groped through the passage I ran quickly past her. Then I changed my clothes and appeared at supper as though nothing had happened!"
A willow-reed blown by the wind!
In the office were many telephone calls and the rattling of counting- boards. Agrenev and Olya sat together and arranged when to meet again. She did not want to go to the Ravine because of the shepherd boys' rude remarks. Alexander Alexandrovitch did not tell her all was known at home. As she said goodby she clung to him like a reed in the wind and whispered:
"I have been awake all night. You have noticed surely that I have not called you by any name; I have no name for you."
And she begged him not to forget to bring her some books.
All that was known of the town was that it lay at the intersection45 of such and such a latitude46 and longitude47. But articles on the factory were printed each year in the industrial magazines, and also occasionally in the newspapers, as when the workmen struck or were buried under a fall of limestone48. The factory was run by a limited company. Alexander Alexandrovitch Agrenev made out the returns for his department; these were duly printed—not to be read, but so that beneath them might appear the signature: "A. A. Agrenev, Engineer." Olya only kept a report-book and the name-rolls, placing in her reports so many marks opposite the pupil's names.
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1
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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liaison
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| n.联系，（未婚男女间的）暖昧关系，私通 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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squatting
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 )；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。 | |
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discordantly
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| adv.不一致地，不和谐地 | |
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crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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silhouetted
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| 显出轮廓的，显示影像的 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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gutter
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| n.沟，街沟，水槽，檐槽，贫民窟 | |
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obviate
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| v.除去，排除，避免，预防 | |
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indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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quarries
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| n.（采）石场( quarry的名词复数 )；猎物（指鸟，兽等）；方形石；（格窗等的）方形玻璃v.从采石场采得( quarry的第三人称单数 )；从（书本等中）努力发掘（资料等）；在采石场采石 | |
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apropos
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| adv.恰好地；adj.恰当的；关于 | |
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rote
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| n.死记硬背，生搬硬套 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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herds
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| 兽群( herd的名词复数 )； 牧群； 人群； 群众 | |
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maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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desolating
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| 毁坏( desolate的现在分词 )； 极大地破坏； 使沮丧； 使痛苦 | |
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laden
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| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
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28
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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pangs
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| 突然的剧痛( pang的名词复数 )； 悲痛 | |
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remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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maidenhood
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| n. 处女性, 处女时代 | |
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onward
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| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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impoverished
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| adj.穷困的，无力的，用尽了的v.使（某人）贫穷( impoverish的过去式和过去分词 )；使（某物）贫瘠或恶化 | |
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37
rumbling
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| n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词 | |
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38
fabulous
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| adj.极好的；极为巨大的；寓言中的，传说中的 | |
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39
luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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40
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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41
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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42
smack
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| vt.拍，打，掴；咂嘴；vi.含有…意味；n.拍 | |
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43
joyfully
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| adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地 | |
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44
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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45
intersection
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| n.交集，十字路口，交叉点；[计算机] 交集 | |
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46
latitude
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| n.纬度，行动或言论的自由(范围)，(pl.)地区 | |
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47
longitude
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| n.经线，经度 | |
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48
limestone
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| n.石灰石 | |
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