“I was unhappy. At home, in the fields, in the barn, I thought of her; I tried to understand the mystery of a beautiful, intelligent young woman’s marrying some one so uninteresting, almost an old man (her husband was over forty), and having children by him; to understand the mystery of this uninteresting, good, simple-hearted man, who argued with such wearisome good sense, at balls and evening parties kept near the more solid people, looking listless and superfluous, with a submissive, uninterested expression, as though he had been brought there for sale, who yet believed in his right to be happy, to have children by her; and I kept trying to understand why she had met him first and not me, and why such a terrible mistake in our lives need have happened.

“我去城里时每次都从她的目光里看到她在期待着我，并且她会亲自对我承认在所有的那些天里她有一种特殊的感觉猜想我应该来了。我们长时间地交谈，沉默，但是都不承认爱着对方，而是胆怯猜疑地隐藏起对对方的爱。我们害怕可能向我们自己暴露出我们秘密的任何事情。我温柔地深深地爱着她，但是我一直在细想这份爱，一直在问自己如果我们没有力量抗拒这份爱，这份爱能通往何方。似乎难以置信我温柔、悲伤的爱可能突然粗暴地打破她的丈夫，她的孩子，以及我如此热爱和信赖的这个家庭的平静的生活进程。这是合乎名誉的吗？如果她愿意跟我走，可是能走到哪儿去呢？我能带她去哪里呢？如果我有一份美好、有趣的生活就是另一回事了——例如，要是我一直在努力摆脱农村，或者要是我是一个著名的学问家，或者艺术家或者画家就好了。可是那样就将意味着把她从每天的单调生活里带到另一种单调甚至可能更加单调的生活里。而我们的幸福会持续多久呢？万一我病了，万一我死了，或者如果我们只是对彼此变得冷漠了，她将会怎么样呢？

“And when I went to the town I saw every time from her eyes that she was expecting me, and she would confess to me herself that she had had a peculiar feeling all that day guessed that I should come. We talked a long time, and were silent, yet we did not confess our love to each other, but timidly and jealously concealed it. We were afraid of everything that might reveal our secret to ourselves. I loved her tenderly, deeply, but I reflected and kept asking myself what our love could lead to if we had not the strength to fight against it. It seemed to be incredible that my gentle, sad love could all at once coarsely break up the even tenor of the life of her husband, her children, and all the household in which I was so loved and trusted. Would it be honourable? She would go away with me, but where? Where could I take her? It would have been a different matter if I had had a beautiful, interesting life—if, for instance, I had been struggling for the emancipation of my country, or had been a celebrated man of science, an artist or a painter; but as it was it would mean taking her from one everyday humdrum life to another as humdrum or perhaps more so. And how long would our happiness last? What would happen to her in case I was ill, in case I died, or if we simply grew cold to one another?

“同样地，显然她也有充分的理由。她要考虑她的丈夫，孩子，还有她的母亲，她母亲爱她父亲就像爱孩子一样。如果她放纵自己到感情里她将不得不说谎，要不然说出事实真相，以她的地位这两种后果都同样糟糕和不便。且她还要受到她的爱是否将带我给幸福这个问题的折磨——事实上，我的生活已经够辛苦和困难重重了，她不会使我的生活更复杂吗？她认为对我来说她不够年轻了，要开始一种新生活她既不勤奋也没有足够的精力。她常常跟她丈夫说娶一个聪明的好女孩对我来说很重要，她会成为我的助手，成为一个能干的主妇，不过她会立刻补充说要在全城找到一个这样的女孩子并不容易。

“And she apparently reasoned in the same way. She thought of her husband, her children, and of her mother, who loved the husband like a son. If she abandoned herself to her feelings she would have to lie, or else to tell the truth, and in her position either would have been equally terrible and inconvenient. And she was tormented by the question whether her love would bring me happiness—would she not complicate my life, which, as it was, was hard enough and full of all sorts of trouble? She fancied she was not young enough for me, that she was not industrious nor energetic enough to begin a new life, and she often talked to her husband of the importance of my marrying a girl of intelligence and merit who would be a capable housewife and a help to me—and she would immediately add that it would be difficult to find such a girl in the whole town.

“这几年时间就这么过去了。安娜·阿列克丝耶夫娜已经有了两个孩子。当我来到卢格诺维奇家时，仆人们都对我露出亲切的笑容，孩子们大叫着帕韦尔·康斯坦蒂诺维奇叔叔来了，吊到我脖子上，每个人都欣喜若狂。他们不知道我的内心在经历怎样的挣扎，认为我也是高兴的。每个人都把我看作一个贵族。大人们和孩子们都觉得一个高贵的人正穿梭在他们的家里，这使得他们对我的态度有一种特殊的吸引力，仿佛他们的生活有了我也更纯净和更美好了。安娜·阿列克丝耶夫娜和我经常一起去剧院，总是走着去。我们常常肩膀擦着肩膀，并排坐在前排座位里。我会一言不发地从她手里拿过观剧望远镜，感觉那一刻她就在我身旁，她就是我的，没有对方我们将活不下去。可是由于某些奇怪的误解，走出剧院我们总是仿佛陌生人一样说再见分手了。天知道镇上已经有些什么人在谈论我们了，可是完全没有一句真话！

“Meanwhile the years were passing. Anna Alexyevna already had two children. When I arrived at the Luganovitchs’ the servants smiled cordially, the children shouted that Uncle Pavel Konstantinovitch had come, and hung on my neck; every one was overjoyed. They did not understand what was passing in my soul, and thought that I, too, was happy. Every one looked on me as a noble being. And grown-ups and children alike felt that a noble being was walking about their rooms, and that gave a peculiar charm to their manner towards me, as though in my presence their life, too, was purer and more beautiful. Anna Alexyevna and I used to go to the theatre together, always walking there; we used to sit side by side in the stalls, our shoulders touching. I would take the opera-glass from her hands without a word, and feel at that minute that she was near me, that she was mine, that we could not live without each other; but by some strange misunderstanding, when we came out of the theatre we always said good- bye and parted as though we were strangers. Goodness knows what people were saying about us in the town already, but there was not a word of truth in it all!

“后来的几年里安娜·阿列克丝耶夫娜开始时常去看望她母亲或去她姐姐那。她开始情绪低落，开始认为她的生活被扰乱，并感到不满了，她有时不再关心她的丈夫，也不关心她的孩子了。她已开始接受神经衰弱的治疗。

“我们在一起时除了沉默还是沉默。而在外人面前她对我表现出一种奇怪的愤怒，不管我说什么，她都跟我唱反调，要是我与人争论，她就支持我的对手。如果我掉了什么东西，她会冷冷地说：

“‘恭喜你了。’

“去剧院时如果我忘了拿观剧望远镜，过后她会说：

“‘我知道你会忘记的。’

“In the latter years Anna Alexyevna took to going away for frequent visits to her mother or to her sister; she began to suffer from low spirits, she began to recognize that her life was spoilt and unsatisfied, and at times she did not care to see her husband nor her children. She was already being treated for neurasthenia.

“We were silent and still silent, and in the presence of outsiders she displayed a strange irritation in regard to me; whatever I talked about, she disagreed with me, and if I had an argument she sided with my opponent. If I dropped anything, she would say coldly:

“ ‘I congratulate you.’

“If I forgot to take the opera-glass when we were going to the theatre, she would say afterwards:

“ ‘I knew you would forget it.’

“不知道是幸运还是不幸，在我们的生活中没有不散的筵席。因为卢格诺维奇被指派为西部一个省份的主席，离别的日子终于到来了。他们不得不卖掉他们的家具，马，和夏季别墅。当他们驾车去别墅时，然后回想到他们是最后一次去看看那花园，那绿色的屋顶，每个人都很难过，而我知道我不得不说再见的不只是别墅而已。已经安排好八月底我们给安娜·阿列克丝耶夫娜送行，她去克里米亚，那里的医生正在照看她。紧接着卢格诺维奇和孩子们动身去西部省份

“Luckily or unluckily, there is nothing in our lives that does not end sooner or later. The time of parting came, as Luganovitch was appointed president in one of the western provinces. They had to sell their furniture, their horses, their summer villa. When they drove out to the villa, and afterwards looked back as they were going away, to look for the last time at the garden, at the green roof, every one was sad, and I realized that I had to say good-bye not only to the villa. It was arranged that at the end of August we should see Anna Alexyevna off to the Crimea, where the doctors were sending her, and that a little later Luganovitch and the children would set off for the western province.

“我们一大群人去给安娜·阿列克丝耶夫娜送行。当她跟她的丈夫和孩子们道完别后，还有一分钟第三次铃就要响了。我跑进她的车厢把一个篮子——她差点忘记了——放上行李架，然后我不得不跟她说再见了。在车厢里四目相对时我们精神上的坚韧土崩瓦解，我把她抱进怀里，她把脸庞压到我的胸膛上，泪如雨下。我吻她的脸庞，她的肩头，她被泪水打湿了的双手——唉，多么悲痛欲绝啊！——承认了对她的爱。在强烈的心痛中我意识到那阻止我们相爱的所有问题是多么多余，多么微不足道而虚伪。我懂得了当爱上一个人时必须在你对那份爱的评价中，认为那份爱是最高尚的开始去爱；或者在幸福或不幸，过失或美德的众所公认的意义中，认为爱比它们更重要地开始去爱。或者根本不必想什么，只管大胆去爱。

We were a great crowd to see Anna Alexyevna off. When she had said good-bye to her husband and her children and there was only a minute left before the third bell, I ran into her compartment to put a basket, which she had almost forgotten, on the rack, and I had to say good-bye. When our eyes met in the compartment our spiritual fortitude deserted us both; I took her in my arms, she pressed her face to my breast, and tears flowed from her eyes. Kissing her face, her shoulders, her hands wet with tears—oh, how unhappy were!—I confessed my love for her, and with a burning pain in my heart I realized how unnecessary, how petty, and how deceptive all that had hindered us from loving was. I understood that when you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, or you must not reason at all.

“我最后一次吻了她，紧握了一下她的手，然后永远地离开了。火车已经开了，我走进下一个车厢里——那是一个空车厢——一直坐在那儿哭直到火车抵达下一个站。然后回到沙非诺的家……。”

“I kissed her for the last time, pressed her hand, and parted for ever. The train had already started. I went into the next compartment—it was empty—and until I reached the next station I sat there crying. Then I walked home to Sofino….”

在阿列恒讲述他的故事时，雨停了，太阳出来了。伯京和伊凡·伊凡诺维奇去了阳台，从那儿能看到花园和磨坊池塘那边的美丽景色，磨坊池塘此刻在阳光下像镜子一样闪闪发光。他们赞赏这美丽的景色，同时伤感目光亲切睿智的阿列恒——他饱含真情地给他们讲述了这个故事——一直像轮子上的松鼠一样旋转不息地在这个巨大的庄园里奔忙，而不去做学问或从事其它将使他的生活更舒心的工作；他们还想到了当阿列恒在火车上跟她道别并亲吻她的脸庞和肩头时安娜·阿列克丝耶夫娜必定悲痛欲绝的脸。他们两人都在城里见过她，伯京还认识安娜·阿列克丝耶夫娜，认为她真是一个美人。

While Alehin was telling his story, the rain left off and the sun came out. Burkin and Ivan Ivanovitch went out on the balcony, from which there was a beautiful view over the garden and the mill-pond, which was shining now in the sunshine like a mirror. They admired it, and at the same time they were sorry that this man with the kind, clever eyes, who had told them this story with such genuine feeling, should be rushing round and round this huge estate like a squirrel on a wheel instead of devoting himself to science or something else which would have made his life more pleasant; and they thought what a sorrowful face Anna Alexyevna must have had when he said good-bye to her in the railway-carriage and kissed her face and shoulders. Both of them had met her in the town, and Burkin knew her and thought her beautiful.