“PAVEL VASSILYEVITCH, there’s a lady here, asking for you,” Luka announced. “She’s been waiting a good hour. . . .”
Pavel Vassilyevitch had only just finished lunch. Hearing of the lady, he frowned and said:
“Oh, damn her! Tell her I’m busy.”
“She has been here five times already, Pavel Vassilyevitch. She says she really must see you. . . . She’s almost crying.”
“H’m . . . very well, then, ask her into the study.”
Without haste Pavel Vassilyevitch put on his coat, took a pen in one hand, and a book in the other, and trying to look as though he were very busy he went into the study. There the visitor was awaiting him—a large stout lady with a red, beefy face, in spectacles. She looked very respectable, and her dress was more than fashionable (she had on a crinolette of four storeys and a high hat with a reddish bird in it). On seeing him she turned up her eyes and folded her hands in supplication1.
“You don’t remember me, of course,” she began in a high masculine tenor2, visibly agitated3. “I . . . I have had the pleasure of meeting you at the Hrutskys. . . . I am Mme. Murashkin. . . .”
“A. . . a . . . a . . . h’m . . . Sit down! What can I do for you?”
“You . . . you see . . . I . . . I . . .” the lady went on, sitting down and becoming still more agitated. “You don’t remember me. . . . I’m Mme. Murashkin. . . . You see I’m a great admirer of your talent and always read your articles with great enjoyment4. . . . Don’t imagine I’m flattering you—God forbid!—I’m only giving honour where honour is due. . . . I am always reading you . . . always! To some extent I am myself not a stranger to literature— that is, of course . . . I will not venture to call myself an authoress, but . . . still I have added my little quota5 . . . I have published at different times three stories for children. . . . You have not read them, of course. . . . I have translated a good deal and . . . and my late brother used to write for The Cause.”
“To be sure . . . er—er—er——What can I do for you?”
“You see . . . (the lady cast down her eyes and turned redder) I know your talents . . . your views, Pavel Vassilyevitch, and I have been longing6 to learn your opinion, or more exactly . . . to ask your advice. I must tell you I have perpetrated a play, my first-born —pardon pour l’expression!—and before sending it to the Censor7 I should like above all things to have your opinion on it.”
Nervously8, with the flutter of a captured bird, the lady fumbled9 in her skirt and drew out a fat manuscript.
Pavel Vassilyevitch liked no articles but his own. When threatened with the necessity of reading other people’s, or listening to them, he felt as though he were facing the cannon’s mouth. Seeing the manuscript he took fright and hastened to say:
“Very good, . . . leave it, . . . I’ll read it.”
“Pavel Vassilyevitch,” the lady said languishingly10, clasping her hands and raising them in supplication, “I know you’re busy. . . . Your every minute is precious, and I know you’re inwardly cursing me at this moment, but . . . Be kind, allow me to read you my play . . . . Do be so very sweet!”
“I should be delighted . . .” faltered12 Pavel Vassilyevitch; “but, Madam, I’m . . . I’m very busy . . . . I’m . . . I’m obliged to set off this minute.”
“Pavel Vassilyevitch,” moaned the lady and her eyes filled with tears, “I’m asking a sacrifice! I am insolent13, I am intrusive14, but be magnanimous. To-morrow I’m leaving for Kazan and I should like to know your opinion to-day. Grant me half an hour of your attention . . . only one half-hour . . . I implore15 you!”
Pavel Vassilyevitch was cotton-wool at core, and could not refuse. When it seemed to him that the lady was about to burst into sobs16 and fall on her knees, he was overcome with confusion and muttered helplessly.
“Very well; certainly . . . I will listen . . . I will give you half an hour.”
The lady uttered a shriek17 of joy, took off her hat and settling herself, began to read. At first she read a scene in which a footman and a house maid, tidying up a sumptuous18 drawing-room, talked at length about their young lady, Anna Sergyevna, who was building a school and a hospital in the village. When the footman had left the room, the maidservant pronounced a monologue19 to the effect that education is light and ignorance is darkness; then Mme. Murashkin brought the footman back into the drawing-room and set him uttering a long monologue concerning his master, the General, who disliked his daughter’s views, intended to marry her to a rich kammer junker, and held that the salvation20 of the people lay in unadulterated ignorance. Then, when the servants had left the stage, the young lady herself appeared and informed the audience that she had not slept all night, but had been thinking of Valentin Ivanovitch, who was the son of a poor teacher and assisted his sick father gratuitously21. Valentin had studied all the sciences, but had no faith in friendship nor in love; he had no object in life and longed for death, and therefore she, the young lady, must save him.
Pavel Vassilyevitch listened, and thought with yearning22 anguish11 of his sofa. He scanned the lady viciously, felt her masculine tenor thumping23 on his eardrums, understood nothing, and thought:
“The devil sent you . . . as though I wanted to listen to your tosh! It’s not my fault you’ve written a play, is it? My God! what a thick manuscript! What an infliction24!”
Pavel Vassilyevitch glanced at the wall where the portrait of his wife was hanging and remembered that his wife had asked him to buy and bring to their summer cottage five yards of tape, a pound of cheese, and some tooth-powder.
“I hope I’ve not lost the pattern of that tape,” he thought, “where did I put it? I believe it’s in my blue reefer jacket. . . . Those wretched flies have covered her portrait with spots already, I must tell Olga to wash the glass. . . . She’s reading the twelfth scene, so we must soon be at the end of the first act. As though inspiration were possible in this heat and with such a mountain of flesh, too! Instead of writing plays she’d much better eat cold vinegar hash and sleep in a cellar. . . .”
“You don’t think that monologue’s a little too long?” the lady asked suddenly, raising her eyes.
Pavel Vassilyevitch had not heard the monologue, and said in a voice as guilty as though not the lady but he had written that monologue:
“No, no, not at all. It’s very nice. . . .”
The lady beamed with happiness and continued reading:
ANNA: You are consumed by analysis. Too early you have ceased to live in the heart and have put your faith in the intellect.
VALENTIN: What do you mean by the heart? That is a concept of anatomy25. As a conventional term for what are called the feelings, I do not admit it.
ANNA (confused): And love? Surely that is not merely a product of the association of ideas? Tell me frankly26, have you ever loved?
VALENTIN (bitterly): Let us not touch on old wounds not yet healed. (A pause.) What are you thinking of?
ANNA: I believe you are unhappy.
During the sixteenth scene Pavel Vassilyevitch yawned, and accidently made with his teeth the sound dogs make when they catch a fly. He was dismayed at this unseemly sound, and to cover it assumed an expression of rapt attention.
“Scene seventeen! When will it end?” he thought. “Oh, my God! If this torture is prolonged another ten minutes I shall shout for the police. It’s insufferable.”
But at last the lady began reading more loudly and more rapidly, and finally raising her voice she read “Curtain.”
Pavel Vassilyevitch uttered a faint sigh and was about to get up, but the lady promptly27 turned the page and went on reading.
ACT II.—Scene, a village street. On right, School. On left, Hospital. Villagers, male and female, sitting on the hospital steps.
“Excuse me,” Pavel Vassilyevitch broke in, “how many acts are there?”
“Five,” answered the lady, and at once, as though fearing her audience might escape her, she went on rapidly.
VALENTIN is looking out of the schoolhouse window. In the background Villagers can be seen taking their goods to the Inn.
Like a man condemned28 to be executed and convinced of the impossibility of a reprieve29, Pavel Vassilyevitch gave up expecting the end, abandoned all hope, and simply tried to prevent his eyes from closing, and to retain an expression of attention on his face. . . . The future when the lady would finish her play and depart seemed to him so remote that he did not even think of it.
“Trooo—too—too—too . . .” the lady’s voice sounded in his ears. “Troo—too—too . . . sh—sh—sh—sh . . .”
“I forgot to take my soda30,” he thought. “What am I thinking about? Oh—my soda. . . . Most likely I shall have a bilious31 attack. . . . It’s extraordinary, Smirnovsky swills32 vodka all day long and yet he never has a bilious attack. . . . There’s a bird settled on the window . . . a sparrow. . . .”
Pavel Vassilyevitch made an effort to unglue his strained and closing eyelids33, yawned without opening his mouth, and stared at Mme. Murashkin. She grew misty34 and swayed before his eyes, turned into a triangle and her head pressed against the ceiling. . . .
VALENTIN No, let me depart.
ANNA (in dismay): Why?
VALENTIN (aside): She has turned pale! (To her) Do not force me to explain. Sooner would I die than you should know the reason.
ANNA (after a pause): You cannot go away. . . .
The lady began to swell35, swelled36 to an immense size, and melted into the dingy37 atmosphere of the study—only her moving mouth was visible; then she suddenly dwindled38 to the size of a bottle, swayed from side to side, and with the table retreated to the further end of the room . . .
VALENTIN (holding ANNA in his arms): You have given me new life! You have shown me an object to live for! You have renewed me as the Spring rain renews the awakened39 earth! But . . . it is too late, too late! The ill that gnaws40 at my heart is beyond cure. . . .
Pavel Vassilyevitch started and with dim and smarting eyes stared at the reading lady; for a minute he gazed fixedly41 as though understanding nothing. . . .
VALENTIN: Take me!
ANNA: I am his! Take me too! Yes, take me too! I love him, I love him more than life!
BARON: Anna Sergyevna, you forget that you are ruining your father . . . .
The lady began swelling44 again. . . . Looking round him wildly Pavel Vassilyevitch got up, yelled in a deep, unnatural45 voice, snatched from the table a heavy paper-weight, and beside himself, brought it down with all his force on the authoress’s head. . . .
“Give me in charge, I’ve killed her!” he said to the maidservant who ran in, a minute later.
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收听单词发音
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1
supplication
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| n.恳求，祈愿，哀求 | |
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2
tenor
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| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
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3
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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5
quota
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| n.（生产、进出口等的）配额，（移民的）限额 | |
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6
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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7
censor
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| n./vt.审查，审查员；删改 | |
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8
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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9
fumbled
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| （笨拙地）摸索或处理（某事物）( fumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱摸，笨拙地弄； 使落下 | |
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10
languishingly
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| 渐渐变弱地，脉脉含情地 | |
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11
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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12
faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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13
insolent
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| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
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14
intrusive
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| adj.打搅的；侵扰的 | |
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15
implore
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| vt.乞求，恳求，哀求 | |
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16
sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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17
shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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18
sumptuous
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| adj.豪华的，奢侈的，华丽的 | |
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19
monologue
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| n.长篇大论，（戏剧等中的）独白 | |
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20
salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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21
gratuitously
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| 平白 | |
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22
yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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23
thumping
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| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
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24
infliction
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| n.（强加于人身的）痛苦，刑罚 | |
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25
anatomy
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| n.解剖学，解剖；功能，结构，组织 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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28
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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29
reprieve
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| n.暂缓执行（死刑）；v.缓期执行；给…带来缓解 | |
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30
soda
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| n.苏打水；汽水 | |
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31
bilious
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| adj.胆汁过多的；易怒的 | |
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32
swills
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| v.冲洗( swill的第三人称单数 )；猛喝；大口喝；（使）液体流动 | |
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33
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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34
misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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35
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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36
swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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37
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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38
dwindled
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| v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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39
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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40
gnaws
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| 咬( gnaw的第三人称单数 )； （长时间） 折磨某人； （使）苦恼； （长时间）危害某事物 | |
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41
fixedly
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| adv.固定地；不屈地，坚定不移地 | |
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42
baron
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| n.男爵；(商业界等)巨头，大王 | |
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43
inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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44
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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45
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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46
acquitted
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| 宣判…无罪( acquit的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（自己）作出某种表现 | |
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