Ever since, by his beloved brother's deathbed, Levin had first glanced into the questions of life and death in the light of these new convictions, as he called them, which had during the period from his twentieth to his thirty-fourth year imperceptibly replaced his childish and youthful beliefs--he had been stricken with horror, not so much of death, as of life, without any knowledge of whence, and why, and how, and what it was. The physical organization, its decay, the indestructibility of matter, the law of the conservation of energy, evolution, were the words which usurped¹ the place of his old belief. These words and the ideas associated with them were very well for intellectual purposes. But for life they yielded nothing, and Levin felt suddenly like a man who has changed his warm fur cloak for a muslin garment, and going for the first time into the frost is immediately convinced, not by reason, but by his whole nature that he is as good as naked, and that he must infallibly perish miserably².

From that moment, though he did not distinctly face it, and still went on living as before, Levin had never lost this sense of terror at his lack of knowledge.

He vaguely³ felt, too, that what he called his new convictions were not merely lack of knowledge, but that they were part of a whole order of ideas, in which no knowledge of what he needed was possible.

At first, marriage, with the new joys and duties bound up with it, had completely crowded out these thoughts. But of late, while he was staying in Moscow after his wife's confinement⁴, with nothing to do, the question that clamored for solution had more and more often, more and more insistently⁵, haunted Levin's mind.

The question was summed up for him thus: "If I do not accept the answers Christianity gives to the problems of my life, what answers do I accept?" And in the whole arsenal⁶ of his convictions, so far from finding any satisfactory answers, he was utterly⁷ unable to find anything at all like an answer.

点击收听单词发音  

1 usurped
篡夺，霸占( usurp的过去式和过去分词 )； 盗用； 篡夺，篡权
参考例句：
That magazine usurped copyrighted material. 那杂志盗用了版权为他人所有的素材。 The expression'social engineering'has been usurped by the Utopianist without a shadow of light. “社会工程”这个词已被乌托邦主义者毫无理由地盗用了。

2 miserably
adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地
参考例句：
The little girl was wailing miserably. 那小女孩难过得号啕大哭。 It was drizzling, and miserably cold and damp. 外面下着毛毛细雨，天气又冷又湿，令人难受。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 vaguely
adv.含糊地，暖昧地
参考例句：
He had talked vaguely of going to work abroad.他含糊其词地说了到国外工作的事。 He looked vaguely before him with unseeing eyes.他迷迷糊糊的望着前面，对一切都视而不见。

4 confinement
n.幽禁，拘留，监禁；分娩；限制，局限
参考例句：
He spent eleven years in solitary confinement.他度过了11年的单独监禁。 The date for my wife's confinement was approaching closer and closer.妻子分娩的日子越来越近了。

5 insistently
ad.坚持地
参考例句：
Still Rhett did not look at her. His eyes were bent insistently on Melanie's white face. 瑞德还是看也不看她，他的眼睛死死地盯着媚兰苍白的脸。 These are the questions which we should think and explore insistently. 怎样实现这一主体性等问题仍要求我们不断思考、探索。

6 arsenal
n.兵工厂，军械库
参考例句：
Even the workers at the arsenal have got a secret organization.兵工厂工人暗中也有组织。 We must be the great arsenal of democracy.我们必须成为民主的大军火库。

7 utterly
adv.完全地，绝对地
参考例句：
Utterly devoted to the people,he gave his life in saving his patients.他忠于人民，把毕生精力用于挽救患者的生命。 I was utterly ravished by the way she smiled.她的微笑使我完全陶醉了。

8 lookout
n.注意，前途，瞭望台
参考例句：
You can see everything around from the lookout.从了望台上你可以看清周围的一切。 It's a bad lookout for the company if interest rates don't come down.如果利率降不下来，公司的前景可就不妙了。

9 lament
n.悲叹，悔恨，恸哭；v.哀悼，悔恨，悲叹
参考例句：
Her face showed lament.她的脸上露出悲伤的样子。 We lament the dead.我们哀悼死者。

10 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。

11 serene
adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的
参考例句：
He has entered the serene autumn of his life.他已进入了美好的中年时期。 He didn't speak much,he just smiled with that serene smile of his.他话不多，只是脸上露出他招牌式的淡定的微笑。

12 engrossed
adj.全神贯注的
参考例句：
The student is engrossed in his book.这名学生正在专心致志地看书。 No one had ever been quite so engrossed in an evening paper.没人会对一份晚报如此全神贯注。

13 materialistic
a.唯物主义的，物质享乐主义的
参考例句：
She made him both soft and materialistic. 她把他变成女性化而又实际化。 Materialistic dialectics is an important part of constituting Marxism. 唯物辩证法是马克思主义的重要组成部分。

14 forth
adv.向前；向外，往外
参考例句：
The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。 He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

15 desecrate
v.供俗用，亵渎，污辱
参考例句：
The enemy desecrate the church by using it as a stable.敌人亵渎这所教堂,把它当做马厩。 It's a crime to desecrate the country's flag.玷污国旗是犯罪。