-
(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
Chapter 22 - Pierre and Natásha
That same evening Pierre went to the Rostovs’ to fulfill1 the commission entrusted2 to him. Natasha was in bed, the count at the Club, and Pierre, after giving the letters to Sonya, went to Marya Dmitrievna who was interested to know how Prince Andrey had taken the news. Ten minutes later Sonya came to Marya Dmitrievna.
“Natasha insists on seeing Count Peter Kirilovich,” said she.
“But how? Are we to take him up to her? The room there has not been tidied up.”
“No, she has dressed and gone into the drawing room,” said Sonya.
“When will her mother come? She has worried me to death! Now mind, don’t tell her everything!” said she to Pierre. “One hasn’t the heart to scold her, she is so much to be pitied, so much to be pitied.”
Natasha was standing4 in the middle of the drawing room, emaciated5, with a pale set face, but not at all shamefaced as Pierre expected to find her. When he appeared at the door she grew flurried, evidently undecided whether to go to meet him or to wait till he came up.
Pierre hastened to her. He thought she would give him her hand as usual; but she, stepping up to him, stopped, breathing heavily, her arms hanging lifelessly just in the pose she used to stand in when she went to the middle of the ballroom6 to sing, but with quite a different expression of face.
“Peter Kirilovich,” she began rapidly, “Prince Bolkonsky was your friend — is your friend,” she corrected herself. (It seemed to her that everything that had once been must now be different.) “He told me once to apply to you . . . ”
Pierre sniffed7 as he looked at her, but did not speak. Till then he had reproached her in his heart and tried to despise her, but he now felt so sorry for her that there was no room in his soul for reproach.
“He is here now: tell him . . . to for . . . forgive me!” She stopped and breathed still more quickly, but did not shed tears.
“Yes . . . I will tell him,” answered Pierre; “but . . . ”
He did not know what to say.
Natasha was evidently dismayed at the thought of what he might think she had meant.
“No, I know all is over,” she said hurriedly. “No, that can never be. I’m only tormented8 by the wrong I have done him. Tell him only that I beg him to forgive, forgive, forgive me for everything. . . . ”
She trembled all over and sat down on a chair.
A sense of pity he had never before known overflowed9 Pierre’s heart.
“I will tell him, I will tell him everything once more,” said Pierre. “But . . . I should like to know one thing. . . . ”
“Know what?” Natasha’s eyes asked.
“I should like to know, did you love . . . ” Pierre did not know how to refer to Anatole and flushed at the thought of him — “did you love that bad man?”
“Don’t call him bad!” said Natasha. “But I don’t know, don’t know at all. . . . ”
She began to cry and a still greater sense of pity, tenderness, and love welled up in Pierre. He felt the tears trickle10 under his spectacles and hoped they would not be noticed.
“We won’t speak of it any more, my dear,” said Pierre, and his gentle, cordial tone suddenly seemed very strange to Natasha.
“We won’t speak of it, my dear — I’ll tell him everything; but one thing I beg of you, consider me your friend and if you want help, advice, or simply to open your heart to someone — not now, but when your mind is clearer think of me!” He took her hand and kissed it. “I shall be happy if it’s in my power . . . ”
Pierre grew confused.
“Don’t speak to me like that. I am not worth it!” exclaimed Natasha and turned to leave the room, but Pierre held her hand.
He knew he had something more to say to her. But when he said it he was amazed at his own words.
“Stop, stop! You have your whole life before you,” said he to her.
“Before me? No! All is over for me,” she replied with shame and self-abasement.
“All over?” he repeated. “If I were not myself, but the handsomest, cleverest, and best man in the world, and were free, I would this moment ask on my knees for your hand and your love!”
For the first time for many days Natasha wept tears of gratitude11 and tenderness, and glancing at Pierre she went out of the room.
Pierre too when she had gone almost ran into the anteroom, restraining tears of tenderness and joy that choked him, and without finding the sleeves of his fur cloak threw it on and got into his sleigh.
“Where to now, your excellency?” asked the coachman.
“Where to?” Pierre asked himself. “Where can I go now? Surely not to the Club or to pay calls?” All men seemed so pitiful, so poor, in comparison with this feeling of tenderness and love he experienced: in comparison with that softened12, grateful, last look she had given him through her tears.
“Home!” said Pierre, and despite twenty-two degrees of frost Fahrenheit13 he threw open the bearskin cloak from his broad chest and inhaled14 the air with joy.
It was clear and frosty. Above the dirty, ill-lit streets, above the black roofs, stretched the dark starry15 sky. Only looking up at the sky did Pierre cease to feel how sordid16 and humiliating were all mundane17 things compared with the heights to which his soul had just been raised. At the entrance to the Arbat Square an immense expanse of dark starry sky presented itself to his eyes. Almost in the center of it, above the Prechistenka Boulevard, surrounded and sprinkled on all sides by stars but distinguished18 from them all by its nearness to the earth, its white light, and its long uplifted tail, shone the enormous and brilliant comet of 18l2 — the comet which was said to portend19 all kinds of woes20 and the end of the world. In Pierre, however, that comet with its long luminous21 tail aroused no feeling of fear. On the contrary he gazed joyfully22, his eyes moist with tears, at this bright comet which, having traveled in its orbit with inconceivable velocity24 through immeasurable space, seemed suddenly — like an arrow piercing the earth — to remain fixed25 in a chosen spot, vigorously holding its tail erect26, shining and displaying its white light amid countless27 other scintillating28 stars. It seemed to Pierre that this comet fully23 responded to what was passing in his own softened and uplifted soul, now blossoming into a new life.
点击收听单词发音
1 fulfill | |
vt.履行,实现,完成;满足,使满意 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2 entrusted | |
v.委托,托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3 shrugged | |
vt.耸肩(shrug的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5 emaciated | |
adj.衰弱的,消瘦的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6 ballroom | |
n.舞厅 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7 sniffed | |
v.以鼻吸气,嗅,闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 );抽鼻子(尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气);抱怨,不以为然地说 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8 tormented | |
饱受折磨的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9 overflowed | |
溢出的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10 trickle | |
vi.淌,滴,流出,慢慢移动,逐渐消散 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11 gratitude | |
adj.感激,感谢 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12 softened | |
(使)变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 ); 缓解打击; 缓和; 安慰 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13 Fahrenheit | |
n./adj.华氏温度;华氏温度计(的) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14 inhaled | |
v.吸入( inhale的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15 starry | |
adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
16 sordid | |
adj.肮脏的,不干净的,卑鄙的,暗淡的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
17 mundane | |
adj.平凡的;尘世的;宇宙的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
18 distinguished | |
adj.卓越的,杰出的,著名的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
19 portend | |
v.预兆,预示;给…以警告 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
20 woes | |
困境( woe的名词复数 ); 悲伤; 我好苦哇; 某人就要倒霉 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
21 luminous | |
adj.发光的,发亮的;光明的;明白易懂的;有启发的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
22 joyfully | |
adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
23 fully | |
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
24 velocity | |
n.速度,速率 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
25 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
26 erect | |
n./v.树立,建立,使竖立;adj.直立的,垂直的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
27 countless | |
adj.无数的,多得不计其数的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
28 scintillating | |
adj.才气横溢的,闪闪发光的; 闪烁的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|