Princess Sophia Vasilievna, Missy’s mother, had finished her very elaborate and nourishing dinner. (She had it always alone, that no one should see her performing this unpoetical function.) By her couch stood a small table with her coffee, and she was smoking a pachitos. Princess Sophia Vasilievna was a long, thin woman, with dark hair, large black eyes and long teeth, and still pretended to be young.
Her intimacy with the doctor was being talked about. Nekhludoff had known that for some time; but when he saw the doctor sitting by her couch, his oily, glistening beard parted in the middle, he not only remembered the rumours about them, but felt greatly disgusted.
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沙斐雅公爵夫人身边的矮沙发上坐着柯洛索夫,他正在搅动小桌上的咖啡。小桌上还放着一杯甜酒。
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By the table, on a low, soft, easy chair, next to Sophia Vasilievna, sat Kolosoff, stirring his coffee. A glass of liqueur stood on the table.
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米西陪聂赫留朵夫走到母亲屋里,但她自己没有留下来。
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Missy came in with Nekhludoff, but did not remain in the room.
"When mamma gets tired of you and drives you away, then come to me," she said, turning to Kolosoff and Nekhludoff, speaking as if nothing had occurred; then she went away, smiling merrily and stepping noiselessly on the thick carpet.
"How do you do, dear friend? Sit down and talk," said Princess Sophia Vasilievna, with her affected but very naturally-acted smile, showing her fine, long teeth--a splendid imitation of what her own had once been. "I hear that you have come from the Law Courts very much depressed. I think it must be very trying to a person with a heart," she added in French.
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7
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“对,这话一点也不错,”聂赫留朵夫说,“你会常常感到你没有……你没有权利去审判……”
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"Yes, that is so," said Nekhludoff. "One often feels one’s own de--one feels one has no right to judge."
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8
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“这话说得太对了!”她仿佛因为他的话正确而深受感动,其实她一向就是这样巧妙地讨好同她谈话的人的。
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"Comme, c’est vrai," she cried, as if struck by the truth of this remark. She was in the habit of artfully flattering all those with whom she conversed.
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“那么,您那幅画怎么样了?我对它很感兴趣,”她又说。
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9
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"Well, and what of your picture? It does interest me so. If I were not such a sad invalid I should have been to see it long ago," she said.
"I have quite given it up," Nekhludoff replied drily. The falseness of her flattery seemed as evident to him to-day as her age, which she was trying to conceal, and he could not put himself into the right state to behave politely.
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11
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“这可不行!不瞒您说,列宾亲口对我说过,他很有才能,”她对柯洛索夫说。
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"Oh, that _is_ a pity! Why, he has a real talent for art; I have it from Repin’s own lips," she added, turning to Kolosoff.
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“她这样撒谎怎么不害臊,”聂赫留朵夫皱着眉头暗想。
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"Why is it she is not ashamed of lying so?" Nekhludoff thought, and frowned.
When she had convinced herself that Nekhludoff was in a bad temper and that one could not get him into an agreeable and clever conversation, Sophia Vasilievna turned to Kolosoff, asking his opinion of a new play. She asked it in a tone as if Kolosoff’s opinion would decide all doubts, and each word of this opinion be worthy of being immortalised.
Kolosoff found fault both with the play and its author, and that led him to express his views on art. Princess Sophia Vasilievna, while trying at the same time to defend the play, seemed impressed by the truth of his arguments, either giving in at once, or at least modifying her opinion. Nekhludoff looked and listened, but neither saw nor heard what was going on before him.
Listening now to Sophia Vasilievna, now to Kolosoff, Nekhludoff noticed that neither he nor she cared anything about the play or each other, and that if they talked it was only to gratify the physical desire to move the muscles of the throat and tongue after having eaten; and that Kolosoff, having drunk vodka, wine and liqueur, was a little tipsy. Not tipsy like the peasants who drink seldom, but like people to whom drinking wine has become a habit.
He did not reel about or talk nonsense, but he was in a state that was not normal; excited and self-satisfied. Nekhludoff also noticed that during the conversation Princess Sophia Vasilievna kept glancing uneasily at the window, through which a slanting ray of sunshine, which might vividly light up her aged face, was beginning to creep up.
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“这话真对,”她就柯洛索夫的一句评语说,接着按了按床边的电铃。
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"How true," she said in reference to some remark of Kolosoff’s, touching the button of an electric bell by the side of her couch.
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这时医生站起身来,一句话不说就走了出去,仿佛是家里人一样。沙斐雅公爵夫人边说话边目送他出去。
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The doctor rose, and, like one who is at home, left the room without saying anything. Sophia Vasilievna followed him with her eyes and continued the conversation.
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“菲利浦,请您把这窗帘放下来,”那个模样漂亮的侍仆听到铃声走进来,公爵夫人用眼睛示意那窗帘说。
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"Please, Philip, draw these curtains," she said, pointing to the window, when the handsome footman came in answer to the bell.
"No; whatever you may say, there is some mysticism in him; without mysticism there can be no poetry," she said, with one of her black eyes angrily following the footman’s movements as he was drawing the curtains.
"Without poetry, mysticism is superstition; without mysticism, poetry is--prose," she continued, with a sorrowful smile, still not losing sight of the footman and the curtains.
"Philip, not that curtain; the one on the large window," she exclaimed, in a suffering tone. Sophia Vasilievna was evidently pitying herself for having to make the effort of saying these words; and, to soothe her feelings, she raised to her lips a scented, smoking cigarette with her jewel- bedecked fingers.
The broad-chested, muscular, handsome Philip bowed slightly, as if begging pardon; and stepping lightly across the carpet with his broad-calved, strong, legs, obediently and silently went to the other window, and, looking at the princess, carefully began to arrange the curtain so that not a single ray dared fall on her.
But again he did not satisfy her, and again she had to interrupt the conversation about mysticism, and correct in a martyred tone the unintelligent Philip, who was tormenting her so pitilessly. For a moment a light flashed in Philip’s eyes.
"’The devil take you! What do you want?’ was probably what he said to himself," thought Nekhludoff, who had been observing all this scene. But the strong, handsome Philip at once managed to conceal the signs of his impatience, and went on quietly carrying out the orders of the worn, weak, false Sophia Vasilievna.
"Of course, there is a good deal of truth in Lombroso’s teaching," said Kolosoff, lolling back in the low chair and looking at Sophia Vasilievna with sleepy eyes; "but he over-stepped the mark. Oh, yes."
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“那么您相信遗传吗?”沙斐雅公爵夫人问聂赫留朵夫,对他的沉默感到难受。
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"And you? Do you believe in heredity?" asked Sophia Vasilievna, turning to Nekhludoff, whose silence annoyed her.
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“遗传?”聂赫留朵夫反问道。“不,不信,”他嘴里这样说,头脑里不知怎的却充满了各种古怪的形象。
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"In heredity?" he asked. "No, I don’t." At this moment his whole mind was taken up by strange images that in some unaccountable way rose up in his imagination.
By the side of this strong and handsome Philip he seemed at this minute to see the nude figure of Kolosoff as an artist’s model; with his stomach like a melon, his bald head, and his arms without muscle, like pestles. In the same dim way the limbs of Sophia Vasilievna, now covered with silks and velvets, rose up in his mind as they must be in reality; but this mental picture was too horrid and he tried to drive it away.
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“米西可在等您了,”她说。“您到她那里去吧,她要给您弹舒曼的新作呢……挺有意思。”
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"Well, you know Missy is waiting for you," she said. "Go and find her. She wants to play a new piece by Grieg to you; it is most interesting."
"She did not mean to play anything; the woman is simply lying, for some reason or other," thought Nekhludoff, rising and pressing Sophia Vasilievna’s transparent and bony, ringed hand.
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卡吉琳娜在客厅里迎接他,立刻就同他谈了起来。
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Katerina Alexeevna met him in the drawing-room, and at once began, in French, as usual:
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“我看得出来,陪审员的职务可把您累坏了,”她照例用法语说。
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"I see the duties of a juryman act depressingly upon you."
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“哦,对不起,我今天情绪不好,可我也没有权利使别人难受,”聂赫留朵夫说。
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"Yes; pardon me, I am in low spirits to-day, and have no right to weary others by my presence," said Nekhludoff.
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“您为什么情绪不好哇?”
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"Why are you in low spirits?"
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“我不愿意说,请您原谅,”他一面说,一面找他的帽子。
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"Allow me not to speak about that," he said, looking round for his hat.
"Don’t you remember how you used to say that we must always tell the truth? And what cruel truths you used to tell us all! Why do you not wish to speak out now? Don’t you remember, Missy?" she said, turning to Missy, who had just come in.
"We were playing a game then," said Nekhludoff, seriously; "one may tell the truth in a game, but in reality we are so bad--I mean I am so bad--that I, at least, cannot tell the truth."
"Oh, do not correct yourself, but rather tell us why _we_ are so bad," said Katerina Alexeevna, playing with her words and pretending not to notice how serious Nekhludoff was.
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“再没有比承认自己情绪不好更糟的事了,”米西说。“我就从来不承认,因此情绪总是很好。”
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"Nothing is worse than to confess to being in low spirits," said Missy. "I never do it, and therefore am always in good spirits."
"What is it? _Comme cela m’intrigue_," said Katerina Alexeevna. "I must find it out. I suppose it is some _affaire d’amour propre; il est tres susceptible, notre cher Mitia_."
"_Plutot une affaire d’amour sale_," Missy was going to say, but stopped and looked down with a face from which all the light had gone--a very different face from the one with which she had looked at him. She would not mention to Katerina Alexeevna even, so vulgar a pun, but only said, "We all have our good and our bad days."