The Student

Ivan Velikopolsky, the son of a sacristan, and a student of the clerical academy, returning home from shooting, walked all the time by the path in the water-side meadow. His fingers were numb and his face was burning with the wind. It seemed to him that the cold that had suddenly come on had destroyed the order and harmony of things, that nature itself felt ill at ease, and that was why the evening darkness was falling more rapidly than usual. All around it was deserted and peculiarly gloomy. The only light was one gleaming in the widows’ gardens near the river; the village, over three miles away, and everything in the distance all round was plunged in the cold evening mist. The student remembered that, as he went out from the house, his mother was sitting barefoot on the floor in the entry, cleaning the samovar, while his father lay on the stove coughing; as it was Good Friday nothing had been cooked, and the student was terribly hungry. And now, shrinking from the cold, he thought that just such a wind had blown in the days of Rurik and in the time of Ivan the Terrible and Peter, and in their time there had been just the same desperate poverty and hunger, the same thatched roofs with holes in them, ignorance, misery, the same desolation around, the same darkness, the same feeling of oppression—all these had existed, did exist, and would exist, and the lapse of a thousand years would make life no better. And he did not want to go home.

伊万·韦利科波尔斯基，一个教堂执事的儿子，神学院的学生，打猎回家，一直沿着河边草地上的小路走。他的手指冻僵了，脸被风吹得发烫。他觉得，这突然袭来的寒冷破坏了万物的秩序与和谐，连大自然本身也感到不安，所以夜色才比平常降得更快。四周荒无人烟，显得格外阴沉。唯一的光亮，是河边寡妇菜园里闪着的一点火光；那座村子在三英里多以外，远处的一切都沉没在寒冷的暮霭里。学生想起，他出门的时候，母亲光着脚坐在门廊的地上擦茶炊，父亲躺在炉炕上咳嗽；因为是耶稣受难日，家里什么也没有煮，他饿得厉害。此刻，他冷得缩成一团，心想：在留里克的时代，在伊凡雷帝和彼得的时代，也刮过这样的风；在他们的时代，也有同样极度的贫穷和饥饿，同样漏着窟窿的草屋顶，同样的愚昧、苦难，四周同样的荒凉，同样的黑暗，同样压抑的感觉——这一切过去有过，现在有着，将来还会有，再过一千年，生活也不会好起来。他不想回家了。

The gardens were called the widows’ because they were kept by two widows, mother and daughter. A camp fire was burning brightly with a crackling sound, throwing out light far around on the ploughed earth. The widow Vasilisa, a tall, fat old woman in a man’s coat, was standing by and looking thoughtfully into the fire; her daughter Lukerya, a little pock-marked woman with a stupid-looking face, was sitting on the ground, washing a caldron and spoons. Apparently they had just had supper. There was a sound of men’s voices; it was the labourers watering their horses at the river.

那片菜园之所以叫寡妇菜园，是因为由两个寡妇照管着，一对母女。一堆篝火烧得正旺，噼啪作响，把光远远地投在翻耕过的土地上。寡妇瓦西丽莎，一个高大肥胖的老太婆，穿着一件男人的外衣，站在旁边，若有所思地望着火；她的女儿卢克丽娅，一个身材矮小、满脸麻点、神情呆滞的女人，坐在地上洗一口锅和几把勺子。看样子她们刚吃过晚饭。传来男人们的说话声；是雇工们在河边饮马。

“Here you have winter back again,” said the student, going up to the camp fire. “Good evening.”

“冬天又回来了，”学生走到篝火旁说。“晚上好。”

Vasilisa started, but at once recognized him and smiled cordially.

瓦西丽莎吃了一惊，但马上认出了他，亲切地笑了。

“I did not know you; God bless you,” she said.

“我没认出您来；上帝保佑您，”她说。

“You’ll be rich.”

“您要发财了。”

They talked. Vasilisa, a woman of experience, who had been in service with the gentry, first as a wet-nurse, afterwards as a children’s nurse, expressed herself with refinement, and a soft, sedate smile never left her face; her daughter Lukerya, a village peasant woman, who had been beaten by her husband, simply screwed up her eyes at the student and said nothing, and she had a strange expression like that of a deaf mute.

他们聊了起来。瓦西丽莎是个见过世面的女人，在老爷家里当过差，先做奶妈，后来做保姆，说起话来很文雅，脸上始终带着温和庄重的微笑；她的女儿卢克丽娅是个乡下农妇，挨过丈夫的打，只是眯起眼睛望着学生，一言不发，脸上有一种奇怪的神情，像个聋哑人。

“At just such a fire the Apostle Peter warmed himself,” said the student, stretching out his hands to the fire, “so it must have been cold then, too. Ah, what a terrible night it must have been, granny! An utterly dismal long night!”

“使徒彼得也是在这样一堆火旁取暖的，”学生把手伸向火说，“可见那时候天也很冷。啊，那该是多么可怕的一夜啊，老大娘！那是极其凄凉的漫漫长夜！”

He looked round at the darkness, shook his head abruptly and asked:

他朝四周的黑暗望了望，猛地摇了摇头，问道：

“No doubt you have been at the reading of the Twelve Gospels?”

“您大概去听过十二福音的诵读吧？”

“Yes, I have,” answered Vasilisa.

“去过，”瓦西丽莎回答。

“If you remember at the Last Supper Peter said to Jesus, ‘I am ready to go with Thee into darkness and unto death.’ And our Lord answered him thus: ‘I say unto thee, Peter, before the cock croweth thou wilt have denied Me thrice.’ After the supper Jesus went through the agony of death in the garden and prayed, and poor Peter was weary in spirit and faint, his eyelids were heavy and he could not struggle against sleep. He fell asleep. Then you heard how Judas the same night kissed Jesus and betrayed Him to His tormentors. They took Him bound to the high priest and beat Him, while Peter, exhausted, worn out with misery and alarm, hardly awake, you know, feeling that something awful was just going to happen on earth, followed behind.... He loved Jesus passionately, intensely, and now he saw from far off how He was beaten...”

“您要是记得，最后的晚餐时，彼得对耶稣说：‘我愿意跟你同去，下监，同死。’我们的主这样回答他：‘彼得，我告诉你，今日鸡还没有叫，你要三次说不认得我。’晚餐以后，耶稣在园子里经受着死前的痛苦，祷告着，可怜的彼得心里疲乏，身体虚弱，眼皮沉重，抵挡不住睡意。他睡着了。后来您听过的，就在那一夜，犹大亲了耶稣，把他出卖给折磨他的人。他们把他捆着带到大祭司那里，打他，而彼得精疲力竭，被痛苦和惊恐折磨着，您知道，几乎是半睡半醒的，感到地上就要发生什么可怕的事，就跟在后面……他热烈地、深深地爱着耶稣，现在却远远地看着他们怎样打他……”

Lukerya left the spoons and fixed an immovable stare upon the student.

卢克丽娅放下勺子，目不转睛地盯着学生。

“They came to the high priest’s,” he went on; “they began to question Jesus, and meantime the labourers made a fire in the yard as it was cold, and warmed themselves. Peter, too, stood with them near the fire and warmed himself as I am doing. A woman, seeing him, said: ‘He was with Jesus, too’—that is as much as to say that he, too, should be taken to be questioned. And all the labourers that were standing near the fire must have looked sourly and suspiciously at him, because he was confused and said: ‘I don’t know Him.’ A little while after again someone recognized him as one of Jesus’ disciples and said: ‘Thou, too, art one of them,’ but again he denied it. And for the third time someone turned to him: ‘Why, did I not see thee with Him in the garden to-day?’ For the third time he denied it. And immediately after that time the cock crowed, and Peter, looking from afar off at Jesus, remembered the words He had said to him in the evening.... He remembered, he came to himself, went out of the yard and wept bitterly—bitterly. In the Gospel it is written: ‘He went out and wept bitterly.’ I imagine it: the still, still, dark, dark garden, and in the stillness, faintly audible, smothered sobbing...”

“他们到了大祭司那里，”他接着说，“开始审问耶稣，这时雇工们因为天冷，在院子里生了一堆火取暖。彼得也和他们一起站在火旁取暖，就像我现在这样。有个女人看见他，说：‘这个人素来也是同那耶稣一伙的’——意思就是说，他也该被带去审问。站在火旁的雇工们，想必都阴沉而怀疑地看着他，因为他慌了，说：‘我不认得他。’过了一会儿，又有人认出他是耶稣的门徒之一，说：‘你也是他们一党的，’可他又不承认。第三次，又有人转向他说：‘我今天不是看见你同他在园子里吗？’他第三次不承认。就在那一刻，鸡叫了，彼得远远地望着耶稣，想起了耶稣晚上对他说过的话……他想起来了，醒悟过来，走出院子，痛哭起来——痛哭。福音书上写着：‘他就出去痛哭。’我想象得出来：那寂静的、寂静的、黑暗的、黑暗的园子，在那寂静里，隐约传来压抑着的抽泣声……”

The student sighed and sank into thought. Still smiling, Vasilisa suddenly gave a gulp, big tears flowed freely down her cheeks, and she screened her face from the fire with her sleeve as though ashamed of her tears, and Lukerya, staring immovably at the student, flushed crimson, and her expression became strained and heavy like that of someone enduring intense pain.

学生叹了口气，陷入了沉思。瓦西丽莎仍然微笑着，却忽然哽咽了一下，大颗的眼泪顺着脸颊流了下来，她用袖子挡住脸，不让火光照着，仿佛为自己的眼泪害羞；而卢克丽娅一动不动地盯着学生，脸涨得通红，神情变得紧张而沉重，像一个忍受着剧痛的人。

The labourers came back from the river, and one of them riding a horse was quite near, and the light from the fire quivered upon him. The student said good-night to the widows and went on. And again the darkness was about him and his fingers began to be numb. A cruel wind was blowing, winter really had come back and it did not feel as though Easter would be the day after to-morrow.

雇工们从河边回来了，其中一个骑着马，已经走得很近，火光在他身上颤动。学生向两个寡妇道了晚安，继续往前走。黑暗又包围了他，他的手指又开始冻僵。刮着凛冽的寒风，冬天真的回来了，一点也不像后天就是复活节的样子。

Now the student was thinking about Vasilisa: since she had shed tears all that had happened to Peter the night before the Crucifixion must have some relation to her....

现在学生想着瓦西丽莎：既然她流了泪，那么，在耶稣受难前那一夜发生在彼得身上的一切，一定与她有某种关系……

And joy suddenly stirred in his soul, and he even stopped for a minute to take breath. “The past,” he thought, “is linked with the present by an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of another.” And it seemed to him that he had just seen both ends of that chain; that when he touched one end the other quivered.

于是喜悦忽然在他心里涌动起来，他甚至停下来喘了一分钟气。“过去，”他想，“是由一条连绵不断、一件接着一件流出来的事件之链，与现在连在一起的。”他觉得，他刚才仿佛看见了这条链子的两端；他碰了碰这一端，那一端就颤动了。