The load was tied on. Ivan jumped down and took the quiet, sleek1 horse by the bridle2. The young wife flung the rake up on the load, and with a bold step, swinging her arms, she went to join the women, who were forming a ring for the haymakers' dance. Ivan drove off to the road and fell into line with the other loaded carts. The peasant women, with their rakes on their shoulders, gay with bright flowers, and chattering3 with ringing, merry voices, walked behind the hay cart. One wild untrained female voice broke into a song, and sang it alone through a verse, and then the same verse was taken up and repeated by half a hundred strong healthy voices, of all sorts, coarse and fine, singing in unison4.
The women, all singing, began to come close to Levin, and he felt as though a storm were swooping5 down upon him with a thunder of merriment. The storm swooped6 down, enveloped7 him and the haycock on which he was lying, and the other haycocks, and the wagon-loads, and the whole meadow and distant fields all seemed to be shaking and singing to the measures of this wild merry song with its shouts and whistles and clapping. Levin felt envious8 of this health and mirthfulness; he longed to take part in the expression of this joy of life. But he could do nothing, and had to lie and look on and listen. When the peasants, with their singing, had vanished out of sight and hearing, a weary feeling of despondency at his own isolation9, his physical inactivity, his alienation10 from this world, came over Levin.
Some of the very peasants who had been most active in wrangling11 with him over the hay, some whom he had treated with contumely, and who had tried to cheat him, those very peasants had greeted him goodhumoredly, and evidently had not, were incapable12 of having any feeling of rancor13 against him, any regret, any recollection even of having tried to deceive him. All that was drowned in a sea of merry common labor14. God gave the day, God gave the strength. And the day and the strength were consecrated15 to labor, and that labor was its own reward. For whom the labor? What would be its fruits? These were idle considerations-- beside the point.
Often Levin had admired this life, often he had a sense of envy of the men who led this life; but today for the first time, especially under the influence of what he had seen in the attitude of Ivan Parmenov to his young wife, the idea presented itself definitely to his mind that it was in his power to exchange the dreary16, artificial, idle, and individualistic life he was leading for this laborious17, pure, and socially delightful18 life.
The old man who had been sitting beside him had long ago gone home; the people had all separated. Those who lived near had gone home, while those who came from far were gathered into a group for supper, and to spend the night in the meadow. Levin, unobserved by the peasants, still lay on the haycock, and still looked on and listened and mused19. The peasants who remained for the night in the meadow scarcely slept all the short summer night. At first there was the sound of merry talk and laughing all together over the supper, then singing again and laughter.
All the long day of toil20 had left no trace in them but lightness of heart. Before the early dawn all was hushed. Nothing was to be heard but the night sounds of the frogs that never ceased in the marsh21, and the horses snorting in the mist that rose over the meadow before the morning. Rousing himself, Levin got up from the haycock, and looking at the stars, he saw that the night was over.
"Well, what am I going to do? How am I to set about it?" he said to himself, trying to express to himself all the thoughts and feelings he had passed through in that brief night. All the thoughts and feelings he had passed through fell into three separate trains of thought. One was the renunciation of his old life, of his utterly22 useless education. This renunciation gave him satisfaction, and was easy and simple. Another series of thoughts and mental images related to the life he longed to live now. The simplicity23, the purity, the sanity24 of this life he felt clearly, and he was convinced he would find in it the content, the peace, and the dignity, of the lack of which he was so miserably25 conscious. But a third series of ideas turned upon the question how to effect this transition from the old life to the new. And there nothing took clear shape for him. "Have a wife? Have work and the necessity of work? Leave Pokrovskoe? Buy land? Become a member of a peasant community? Marry a peasant girl? How am I to set about it?" he asked himself again, and could not find an answer. "I haven't slept all night, though, and I can't think it out clearly," he said to himself. "I'll work it out later. One thing's certain, this night has decided26 my fate. All my old dreams of home life were absurd, not the real thing," he told himself. "It's all ever so much simpler and better..."
"How beautiful!" he thought, looking at the strange, as it were, mother-of-pearl shell of white fleecy cloudless resting right over his head in the middle of the sky. "How exquisite27 it all is in this exquisite night! And when was there time for that cloud-shell to form? Just now I looked at the sky, and there was nothing in it--only two white streaks28. Yes, and so imperceptibly too my views of life changed!"
He went out of the meadow and walked along the highroad towards the village. A slight wind arose, and the sky looked gray and sullen29. The gloomy moment had come that usually precedes the dawn, the full triumph of light over darkness.
Shrinking from the cold, Levin walked rapidly, looking at the ground. "What's that? Someone coming," he thought, catching30 the tinkle31 of bells, and lifting his head. Forty paces from him a carriage with four horses harnessed abreast32 was driving towards him along the grassy33 road on which he was walking. The shaft34-horses were tilted35 against the shafts36 by the ruts, but the dexterous37 driver sitting on the box held the shaft over the ruts, so that the wheels ran on the smooth part of the road.
This was all Levin noticed, and without wondering who it could be, he gazed absently at the coach.
In the coach was an old lady dozing38 in one corner, and at the window, evidently only just awake, sat a young girl holding in both hands the ribbons of a white cap. With a face full of light and thought, full of a subtle, complex inner life, that was remote from Levin, she was gazing beyond him at the glow of the sunrise.
At the very instant when this apparition39 was vanishing, the truthful40 eyes glanced at him. She recognized him, and her face lighted up with wondering delight.
He could not be mistaken. There were no other eyes like those in the world. There was only one creature in the world that could concentrate for him all the brightness and meaning of life. It was she. It was Kitty. He understood that she was driving to Ergushovo from the railway station. And everything that had been stirring Levin during that sleepless41 night, all the resolutions he had made, all vanished at once. He recalled with horror his dreams of marrying a peasant girl. There only, in the carriage that had crossed over to the other side of the road, and was rapidly disappearing, there only could he find the solution of the riddle42 of his life, which had weighed so agonizingly upon him of late.
She did not look out again. The sound of the carriage-springs was no longer audible, the bells could scarcely be heard. The barking of dogs showed the carriage had reached the village, and all that was left was the empty fields all round, the village in front, and he himself isolated43 and apart from it all, wandering lonely along the deserted44 highroad.
He glanced at the sky, expecting to find there the cloud shell he had been admiring and taking as the symbol of the ideas and feelings of that night. There was nothing in the sky in the least like a shell. There, in the remote heights above, a mysterious change had been accomplished45. There was no trace of shell, and there was stretched over fully46 half the sky an even cover of tiny and ever tinier cloudlets. The sky had grown blue and bright; and with the same softness, but with the same remoteness, it met his questioning gaze.
"No," he said to himself, "however good that life of simplicity and toil may be, I cannot go back to it. I love HER."
收听单词发音 |
1
sleek
|
|
| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
bridle
|
|
| n.笼头，束缚；vt.抑制，约束；动怒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
chattering
|
|
| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
unison
|
|
| n.步调一致，行动一致 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
swooping
|
|
| 俯冲，猛冲( swoop的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
swooped
|
|
| 俯冲，猛冲( swoop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
enveloped
|
|
| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
envious
|
|
| adj.嫉妒的，羡慕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
isolation
|
|
| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
alienation
|
|
| n.疏远；离间；异化 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
wrangling
|
|
| v.争吵，争论，口角( wrangle的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
incapable
|
|
| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
rancor
|
|
| n.深仇，积怨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
labor
|
|
| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
consecrated
|
|
| adj.神圣的，被视为神圣的v.把…奉为神圣，给…祝圣( consecrate的过去式和过去分词 )；奉献 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
dreary
|
|
| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
laborious
|
|
| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
delightful
|
|
| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
mused
|
|
| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
toil
|
|
| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
marsh
|
|
| n.沼泽，湿地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
utterly
|
|
| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
simplicity
|
|
| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
sanity
|
|
| n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
miserably
|
|
| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
exquisite
|
|
| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
streaks
|
|
| n.（与周围有所不同的）条纹( streak的名词复数 )；（通常指不好的）特征（倾向）；（不断经历成功或失败的）一段时期v.快速移动( streak的第三人称单数 )；使布满条纹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
sullen
|
|
| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
catching
|
|
| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
tinkle
|
|
| vi.叮当作响；n.叮当声 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
abreast
|
|
| adv.并排地；跟上(时代)的步伐，与…并进地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
grassy
|
|
| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
shaft
|
|
| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
tilted
|
|
| v. 倾斜的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
shafts
|
|
| n.轴( shaft的名词复数 )；（箭、高尔夫球棒等的）杆；通风井；一阵（疼痛、害怕等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
dexterous
|
|
| adj.灵敏的；灵巧的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
dozing
|
|
| v.打瞌睡,假寐 n.瞌睡 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
apparition
|
|
| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
truthful
|
|
| adj.真实的，说实话的，诚实的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
sleepless
|
|
| adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
riddle
|
|
| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
isolated
|
|
| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
deserted
|
|
| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
accomplished
|
|
| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
fully
|
|
| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |