“We Russians of the educated class have a partiality for these questions that remain unanswered. Love is usually poeticized, decorated with roses, nightingales; we Russians decorate our loves with these momentous questions, and select the most uninteresting of them, too. In Moscow, when I was a student, I had a friend who shared my life, a charming lady, and every time I took her in my arms she was thinking what I would allow her a month for housekeeping and what was the price of beef a pound. In the same way, when we are in love we are never tired of asking ourselves questions: whether it is honourable or dishonourable, sensible or stupid, what this love is leading up to, and so on. Whether it is a good thing or not I don’t know, but that it is in the way, unsatisfactory, and irritating, I do know.”
看来阿列恒想吐透一些心事。过着孤独生活的人们心底总会有些渴望倾诉的事。在城里，单身汉们去澡堂和饭馆的目的就是为了跟人说说话，澡堂和饭馆的服务员们不时能从他们那里听到最有趣的事。而通常，在乡下，单身汉们向客人敞开心扉。此时窗外的天空灰蒙蒙的，所有的树木在雨中都湿透了，这样的天气我们哪儿都不能去，除了说故事或者聆听之外无事可做。
It looked as though he wanted to tell some story. People who lead a solitary existence always have something in their hearts which they are eager to talk about. In town bachelors visit the baths and the restaurants on purpose to talk, and sometimes tell the most interesting things to bath attendants and waiters; in the country, as a rule, they unbosom themselves to their guests. Now from the window we could see a grey sky, trees drenched in the rain; in such weather we could go nowhere, and there was nothing for us to do but to tell stories and to listen.
“离开大学后，我在沙非诺生活和务农了很长一段时间。”阿列恒开始了他的故事，“我是一个受过教育的懒散的绅士，一个随性热心的人。可是当我来到这儿时庄园欠下了一大笔债，而我父亲之所以负债部分原因是我花费不小的学费。我决定不走了，而是开始工作直到还清这笔债。我下定决心这么做并开始工作，坦白说，不是一点不动摇的。这里的土地收益并不大，一个人经营农场如果想不赔本必须使用农奴或雇用劳工，这几乎是一码子事；或者把自己等同于农民，就是说，亲自带着一家人下地干活。此外，没有折中的路子。不过那时我还没有探究到这些微妙关系。我不漏过一块未翻耕的土地，把附近村子里所有的农民，无论男人女人都聚到了一起，工作以极大的速度进展着。我亲自耕地，播种，收割，可是烦透了做这一切，就像村子里的猫饿得去吃菜园里的黄瓜一样厌恶得焦眉烂额。我全身疼痛，走路都打瞌睡。起先似乎我能轻易调和这种辛苦的生活与我有教养的习惯，我认为要做到这一点在生活中有必要维持一种固定的表面形式。我把自己安置到楼上这儿最好的房间里，我指示仆人们午饭和晚饭后给我把咖啡和酒端到楼上，每晚上床睡觉时我都要看Vyestnik Evropi。可是一天，我们的牧师伊凡神父来了，一口气喝完了我所有的酒，Vyestnik Evropi也到牧师的女儿们手里去了。夏季，特别是割晒牧草的时候，我根本连床都挨不到，有时睡在谷仓的雪撬上，有时睡在某个森林人的小屋里，哪还有看书的机会？慢慢地我搬到楼下来了，开始在仆人的厨房里吃饭，除了我服侍父亲的仆人，解雇他们会令他们痛苦万分，我之前的奢侈荡然无存。
“I have lived at Sofino and been farming for a long time,” Alehin began, “ever since I left the University. I am an idle gentleman by education, a studious person by disposition; but there was a big debt owing on the estate when I came here, and as my father was in debt partly because he had spent so much on my education, I resolved not to go away, but to work till I paid off the debt. I made up my mind to this and set to work, not, I must confess, without some repugnance. The land here does not yield much, and if one is not to farm at a loss one must employ serf labour or hired labourers, which is almost the same thing, or put it on a peasant footing—that is, work the fields oneself and with one’s family. There is no middle path. But in those days I did not go into such subtleties. I did not leave a clod of earth unturned; I gathered together all the peasants, men and women, from the neighbouring villages; the work went on at a tremendous pace. I myself ploughed and sowed and reaped, and was bored doing it, and frowned with disgust, like a village cat driven by hunger to eat cucumbers in the kitchen-garden. My body ached, and I slept as I walked. At first it seemed to me that I could easily reconcile this life of toil with my cultured habits; to do so, I thought, all that is necessary is to maintain a certain external order in life. I established myself upstairs here in the best rooms, and ordered them to bring me there coffee and liquor after lunch and dinner, and when I went to bed I read every night the Vyestnik Evropi. But one day our priest, Father Ivan, came and drank up all my liquor at one sitting; and the Vyestnik Evropi went to the priest’s daughters; as in the summer, especially at the haymaking, I did not succeed in getting to my bed at all, and slept in the sledge in the barn, or somewhere in the forester’s lodge, what chance was there of reading? Little by little I moved downstairs, began dining in the servants’ kitchen, and of my former luxury nothing is left but the servants who were in my father’s service, and whom it would be painful to turn away.
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