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124 pages

English

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pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. All is quiet in Moscow. The squeak of wheels is seldom heard in the snow-covered street. There are no lights left in the windows and the street lamps have been extinguished. Only the sound of bells, borne over the city from the church towers, suggests the approach of morning. The streets are deserted. At rare intervals a night-cabman's sledge kneads up the snow and sand in the street as the driver makes his way to another corner where he falls asleep while waiting for a fare. An old woman passes by on her way to church, where a few wax candles burn with a red light reflected on the gilt mountings of the icons. Workmen are already getting up after the long winter night and going to their work - but for the gentlefolk it is still evening.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	23 octobre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819918080
Langue	English

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Chapter I
All is quiet in Moscow. The squeak of wheels isseldom heard in the snow-covered street. There are no lights leftin the windows and the street lamps have been extinguished. Onlythe sound of bells, borne over the city from the church towers,suggests the approach of morning. The streets are deserted. At rareintervals a night-cabman's sledge kneads up the snow and sand inthe street as the driver makes his way to another corner where hefalls asleep while waiting for a fare. An old woman passes by onher way to church, where a few wax candles burn with a red lightreflected on the gilt mountings of the icons. Workmen are alreadygetting up after the long winter night and going to their work -but for the gentlefolk it is still evening.
From a window in Chevalier's Restaurant a light -illegal at that hour - is still to be seen through a chink in theshutter. At the entrance a carriage, a sledge, and a cabman'ssledge, stand close together with their backs to the curbstone. Athree-horse sledge from the post-station is there also. Ayard-porter muffled up and pinched with cold is sheltering behindthe corner of the house.
'And what's the good of all this jawing?' thinks thefootman who sits in the hall weary and haggard. 'This alwayshappens when I'm on duty.' From the adjoining room are heard thevoices of three young men, sitting there at a table on which arewine and the remains of supper. One, a rather plain, thin, neatlittle man, sits looking with tired kindly eyes at his friend, whois about to start on a journey. Another, a tall man, lies on a sofabeside a table on which are empty bottles, and plays with hiswatch-key. A third, wearing a short, fur-lined coat, is pacing upand down the room stopping now and then to crack an almond betweenhis strong, rather thick, but well-tended fingers. He keeps smilingat something and his face and eyes are all aglow. He speaks warmlyand gesticulates, but evidently does not find the words he wantsand those that occur to him seem to him inadequate to express whathas risen to his heart.
'Now I can speak out fully,' said the traveller. 'Idon't want to defend myself, but I should like you at least tounderstand me as I understand myself, and not look at the mattersuperficially. You say I have treated her badly,' he continued,addressing the man with the kindly eyes who was watching him.
'Yes, you are to blame,' said the latter, and hislook seemed to express still more kindliness and weariness.
'I know why you say that,' rejoined the one who wasleaving. 'To be loved is in your opinion as great a happiness as tolove, and if a man obtains it, it is enough for his wholelife.'
'Yes, quite enough, my dear fellow, more thanenough!' confirmed the plain little man, opening and shutting hiseyes.
'But why shouldn't the man love too?' said thetraveller thoughtfully, looking at his friend with something likepity. 'Why shouldn't one love? Because love doesn't come ... No, tobe beloved is a misfortune. It is a misfortune to feel guiltybecause you do not give something you cannot give. O my God!' headded, with a gesture of his arm. 'If it all happened reasonably,and not all topsy-turvy - not in our way but in a way of its own!Why, it's as if I had stolen that love! You think so too, don'tdeny it. You must think so. But will you believe it, of all thehorrid and stupid things I have found time to do in my life - andthere are many - this is one I do not and cannot repent of. Neitherat the beginning nor afterwards did I lie to myself or to her. Itseemed to me that I had at last fallen in love, but then I saw thatit was an involuntary falsehood, and that that was not the way tolove, and I could not go on, but she did. Am I to blame that Icouldn't? What was I to do?'
'Well, it's ended now!' said his friend, lighting acigar to master his sleepiness. 'The fact is that you have not yetloved and do not know what love is.'
The man in the fur-lined coat was going to speakagain, and put his hands to his head, but could not express what hewanted to say.
'Never loved! ... Yes, quite true, I never have! Butafter all, I have within me a desire to love, and nothing could bestronger than that desire! But then, again, does such love exist?There always remains something incomplete. Ah well! What's the useof talking? I've made an awful mess of life! But anyhow it's allover now; you are quite right. And I feel that I am beginning a newlife.'
'Which you will again make a mess of,' said the manwho lay on the sofa playing with his watch-key. But the travellerdid not listen to him.
'I am sad and yet glad to go,' he continued. 'Why Iam sad I don't know.'
And the traveller went on talking about himself,without noticing that this did not interest the others as much asit did him. A man is never such an egotist as at moments ofspiritual ecstasy. At such times it seems to him that there isnothing on earth more splendid and interesting than himself.
'Dmitri Andreich! The coachman won't wait anylonger!' said a young serf, entering the room in a sheepskin coat,with a scarf tied round his head. 'The horses have been standingsince twelve, and it's now four o'clock!'
Dmitri Andreich looked at his serf, Vanyusha. Thescarf round Vanyusha's head, his felt boots and sleepy face, seemedto be calling his master to a new life of labour, hardship, andactivity.
'True enough! Good-bye!' said he, feeling for theunfastened hook and eye on his coat.
In spite of advice to mollify the coachman byanother tip, he put on his cap and stood in the middle of the room.The friends kissed once, then again, and after a pause, a thirdtime. The man in the fur-lined coat approached the table andemptied a champagne glass, then took the plain little man's handand blushed.
'Ah well, I will speak out all the same ... I mustand will be frank with you because I am fond of you ... Of courseyou love her - I always thought so - don't you?'
'Yes,' answered his friend, smiling still moregently.
'And perhaps...'
'Please sir, I have orders to put out the candles,'said the sleepy attendant, who had been listening to the last partof the conversation and wondering why gentlefolk always talk aboutone and the same thing. 'To whom shall I make out the bill? To you,sir?' he added, knowing whom to address and turning to the tallman.
'To me,' replied the tall man. 'How much?'
'Twenty-six rubles.'
The tall man considered for a moment, but saidnothing and put the bill in his pocket.
The other two continued their talk.
'Good-bye, you are a capital fellow!' said the shortplain man with the mild eyes. Tears filled the eyes of both. Theystepped into the porch.
'Oh, by the by,' said the traveller, turning with ablush to the tall man, 'will you settle Chevalier's bill and writeand let me know?'
'All right, all right!' said the tall man, pullingon his gloves. 'How I envy you!' he added quite unexpectedly whenthey were out in the porch.
The traveller got into his sledge, wrapped his coatabout him, and said: 'Well then, come along!' He even moved alittle to make room in the sledge for the man who said he enviedhim - his voice trembled.
'Good-bye, Mitya! I hope that with God's helpyou...' said the tall one. But his wish was that the other would goaway quickly, and so he could not finish the sentence.
They were silent a moment. Then someone again said,'Good-bye,' and a voice cried, 'Ready,' and the coachman touched upthe horses.
'Hy, Elisar!' One of the friends called out, and theother coachman and the sledge-drivers began moving, clicking theirtongues and pulling at the reins. Then the stiffened carriage-wheels rolled squeaking over the frozen snow.
'A fine fellow, that Olenin!' said one of thefriends. 'But what an idea to go to the Caucasus - as a cadet, too!I wouldn't do it for anything. ... Are you dining at the clubto-morrow?'
'Yes.'
They separated.
The traveller felt warm, his fur coat seemed toohot. He sat on the bottom of the sledge and unfastened his coat,and the three shaggy post-horses dragged themselves out of one darkstreet into another, past houses he had never before seen. Itseemed to Olenin that only travellers starting on a long journeywent through those streets. All was dark and silent and dull aroundhim, but his soul was full of memories, love, regrets, and apleasant tearful feeling.
Chapter II
'I'm fond of them, very fond! ... First-ratefellows! ... Fine!' he kept repeating, and felt ready to cry. Butwhy he wanted to cry, who were the first-rate fellows he was sofond of - was more than he quite knew. Now and then he looked roundat some house and wondered why it was so curiously built; sometimeshe began wondering why the post-boy and Vanyusha, who were sodifferent from himself, sat so near, and together with him werebeing jerked about and swayed by the tugs the side-horses gave atthe frozen traces, and again he repeated: 'First rate ... veryfond!' and once he even said: 'And how it seizes one ...excellent!' and wondered what made him say it. 'Dear me, am Idrunk?' he asked himself. He had had a couple of bottles of wine,but it was not the wine alone that was having this effect onOlenin. He remembered all the words of friendship heartily,bashfully, spontaneously (as he believed) addressed to him on hisdeparture. He remembered the clasp of hands, glances, the momentsof silence, and the sound of a voice saying, 'Good-bye, Mitya!'when he was already in the sledge. He remembered his own deliberatefrankness. And all this had a touching significance for him. Notonly friends and relatives, not only people who had beenindifferent to him, but even those who did not like him, seemed tohave agreed to become fonder of him, or to forgive him, before hisdeparture, as people do before confession or death. 'Perhaps Ishall not return from the Caucasus,' he thought. And he felt thathe loved his friends and some one besides. He was sorry forhimself. But it was not love for his friends that so stirred anduplifted his heart that he