🔊 When Oblonsky asked Levin what had brought him to town, Levin blushed, and was furious with himself for blushing, because he could not answer, "I have come to make your sister-in-law an offer," though that was precisely what he had come for. The families of the Levins and the Shtcherbatskys were old, noble Moscow families, and had always been on intimate and friendly terms. This intimacy had grown still closer during Levin's student days. He had both prepared for the university with the young Prince Shtcherbatsky, the brother of Kitty and Dolly, and had entered at the same time with him. In those days Levin used often to be in the Shtcherbatskys' house, and he was in love with the Shtcherbatsky household. Strange as it may appear, it was with the household, the family, that Konstantin Levin was in love, especially with the feminine half of the household. Levin did not remember his own mother, and his only sister was older than he was, so that it was in the Shtcherbatskys' house that he saw for the first time that inner life of an old, noble, cultivated, and honorable family of which he had been deprived by the death of his father and mother. All the members of that family, especially the feminine half, were pictured by him, as it were, wrapped about with a mysterious poetical veil, and he not only perceived no defects whatever in them, but under the poetical veil that shrouded them he assumed the existence of the loftiest sentiments and every possible perfection. Why it was the three young ladies had one day to speak French, and the next English; why it was that at certain hours they played by turns on the piano, the sounds of which were audible in their brother's room above, where the students used to work; why they were visited by those professors of French literature, of music, of drawing, of dancing; why at certain hours all the three young ladies, with Mademoiselle Linon, drove in the coach to the Tversky boulevard, dressed in their satin cloaks, Dolly in a long one, Natalia in a half-long one, and Kitty in one so short that her shapely legs in tightly-drawn red stockings were visible to all beholders; why it was they had to walk about the Tversky boulevard escorted by a footman with a gold cockade in his hat- all this and much more that was done in their mysterious world he did not understand, but he was sure that everything that was done there was very good, and he was in love precisely with the mystery of the proceedings. In his student days he had all but been in love with the eldest, Dolly, but she was soon married to Oblonsky. Then he began being in love with the second. He felt, as it were, that he had to be in love with one of the sisters, only he could not quite make out which.

当奥布隆斯基问起列文为何进城时,列文面红了,并且因为脸红而对自己大为光火--因为他无法回答“我是来向您的小姨子求婚的”,尽管这恰恰是他此行的目的。列文家和谢尔巴茨基家都是莫斯科古老显贵的世家,向来亲密友好。这种亲密在列文求学期间变得更为深厚:他曾与基蒂和多莉的兄长--年轻的谢尔巴茨基公爵一同备考大学,又同时入学。那时列文常常出入谢尔巴茨基家,而他所爱上的,是整个谢尔巴茨基家族。说来奇怪,他爱上的竟是那个家庭、那个家族,尤其家中的女性成员。列文记不清自己的母亲,唯一的姐姐又年长于他,因此,在谢尔巴茨基家里,他第一次见识了一个古老、高贵、有教养且体面人家的内在生活--那种因父母双亡而被他错过的生活。这个家族的所有成员,尤其是女性的一半,在他想象中仿佛蒙着一层神秘的诗意面纱；他不仅看不到她们身上有任何缺陷,反而相信在那诗意的面纱之后,存在着最崇高的情感与一切可能的完美。为什么三位年轻小姐某天说法语,隔天又说英语？为什么在特定时刻她们轮流弹钢琴,琴声传到他兄长楼上的房间里--学生们常在那儿学习？为什么那些教授法国文学、音乐、绘画和舞蹈的老师会来造访？为什么在特定时刻,三位小姐在利农小姐的陪同下,身披缎面斗篷--多莉穿长款,纳塔利娅穿中款,而基蒂穿短款,使其匀称的双腿裹着紧身红色长袜暴露在所有路人眼前--乘着马车前往特维尔林荫道？为什么她们必须由一名帽上缀着金色帽徽的仆从陪同,在林荫道上散步？所有这些,以及她们那个神秘世界里发生的更多事情,他都不明白；但他确信,那里所做的一切都极其美好,而他爱上的,恰恰是这些事务的神秘性。大学时代,他几乎爱上了长女多莉,可她很快就嫁给了奥布隆斯基。随后他又开始爱上二女儿。他仿佛觉得自己必须爱上其中一位姐妹,只是拿不定究竟是哪一个。

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blushed /blʌʃt/

v. 脸红➕

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furious /ˈfjʊriəs/

adj. 狂怒的➕

🔊 But Natalia, too, had hardly made her appearance in the world when she married the diplomat Lvov. Kitty was still a child when Levin left the university. Young Shtcherbatsky went into the navy, was drowned in the Baltic, and Levin's relations with the Shtcherbatskys, in spite of his friendship with Oblonsky, became less intimate. But when early in the winter of this year Levin came to Moscow, after a year in the country, and saw the Shtcherbatskys, he realized which of the three sisters he was indeed destined to love. One would have thought that nothing could be simpler than for him, a man of good family, rather rich than poor, and thirty-two years old, to make the young Princess Shtcherbatskaya an offer of marriage; in all likelihood he would at once have been looked upon as a good match. But Levin was in love, and so it seemed to him that Kitty was so perfect in every respect that she was a creature far above everything earthly; and that he was a creature so low and so earthly that it could not even be conceived that other people and she herself could regard him as worthy of her.

然而纳塔利娅刚踏入社交界,就嫁给了外交官利沃夫。列文大学毕业时,基蒂还是个孩子。年轻的谢尔巴茨基去了海军,在波罗的海溺亡,于是列文与谢尔巴茨基家的关系--尽管他与奥布隆斯基的友谊依然如故--变得疏远了。但就在今年初冬,当列文在乡下住了一年后回到莫斯科,再次见到谢尔巴茨基家时,他终于意识到自己注定要爱上的究竟是三姐妹中的哪一位。照理说,像他这样家世良好、家境殷实（而非贫穷）、年届三十二岁的男子,向年轻的谢尔巴茨卡娅公爵夫人求婚,本该是再简单不过的事；十有八九,他会被视为一门好亲事。然而列文正陷于热恋,因此在他看来,基蒂在各方面都完美无瑕,是个超凡脱俗的生物；而他自己却如此低微、如此凡俗,以至于别人乃至她本人,都不可能认为他配得上她。

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appearance /əˈpɪərəns/

n. 出现；外貌➕

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diplomat /ˈdɪpləmæt/

n. 外交官➕

🔊 After spending two months in Moscow in a state of enchantment, seeing Kitty almost every day in society, into which he went so as to meet her, he abruptly decided that it could not be, and went back to the country.

在莫斯科陶醉地度过了两个月,几乎天天在社交场合见到基蒂（他出入社交界正是为了遇见她）之后,他突然断定此事绝无可能,于是回到了乡下。

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enchantment /ɪnˈtʃɑːntmənt/

n. 着迷；魅力➕

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abruptly /əˈbrʌptli/

adv. 突然地➕

🔊 Levin's conviction that it could not be was founded on the idea that in the eyes of her family he was a disadvantageous and worthless match for the charming Kitty, and that Kitty herself could not love him. In her family's eyes he had no ordinary, definite career and position in society, while his contemporaries by this time, when he was thirty-two, were already, one a colonel, and another a professor, another director of a bank and railways, or president of a board like Oblonsky. But he (he knew very well how he must appear to others) was a country gentleman, occupied in breeding cattle, shooting game, and building barns; in other words, a fellow of no ability, who had not turned out well, and who was doing just what, according to the ideas of the world, is done by people fit for nothing else.

列文之所以认定此事绝无可能,是基于这样的想法:在她家人眼里,他配不上迷人的基蒂,是个不利的、毫无价值的对象；而基蒂本人也不可能爱他。在她家人看来,他没有寻常而明确的职业和社会地位,而他的同龄人（在他三十二岁这个年纪）早已有人当了上校,有人做了教授,有人当了银行和铁路公司的董事,或是像奥布隆斯基那样担任委员会主席。可他呢--他非常清楚自己在别人眼中是怎样的--不过是个乡绅,整天忙着养牛、打猎、建谷仓；换句话说,是个没有出息、一事无成的家伙,做的正是世人心目中那些一无所长之人才会干的事情。

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conviction /kənˈvɪkʃn/

n. 信念；定罪➕

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disadvantageous /ˌdɪsædvɑːnˈteɪdʒəs/

adj. 不利的➕

🔊 The mysterious, enchanting Kitty herself could not love such an ugly person as he conceived himself to be, and, above all, such an ordinary, in no way striking person. Moreover, his attitude to Kitty in the past-the attitude of a grown-up person to a child, arising from his friendship with her brother-seemed to him yet another obstacle to love. An ugly, good-natured man, as he considered himself, might, he supposed, be liked as a friend; but to be loved with such a love as that with which he loved Kitty, one would need to be a handsome and, still more, a distinguished man.

神秘而迷人的基蒂本人也不可能爱上像他这样自认为丑陋的人,更何况,他如此平凡、毫无出众之处。此外,他过去对基蒂的态度--因与她兄长的友谊而产生的、成年人对孩子的态度--在他看来又成了爱情的又一重障碍。他自认是个丑陋而善良的人,也许可以被人当作朋友来喜欢；但要想获得像他爱基蒂那样深沉的爱情,那得是个英俊的、尤其是出类拔萃的人才行。

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obstacle /ˈɒbstəkl/

n. 障碍➕

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striking /ˈstraɪkɪŋ/

adj. 引人注目的➕

🔊 He had heard that women often did care for ugly and ordinary men, but he did not believe it, for he judged by himself, and he could not himself have loved any but beautiful, mysterious, and exceptional women.

他曾听说,女人常常会爱上丑陋而平凡的男人,但他不信,因为他凭自己的体会来判断:他自己除了美丽、神秘而超凡脱俗的女人,是绝不会爱别人的。

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exceptional /ɪkˈsepʃənl/

adj. 例外的；杰出的➕

🔊 But after spending two months alone in the country, he was convinced that this was not one of those passions of which he had had experience in his early youth; that this feeling gave him not an instant's rest; that he could not live without deciding the question, would she or would she not be his wife, and that his despair had arisen only from his own imaginings, that he had no sort of proof that he would be rejected. And he had now come to Moscow with a firm determination to make an offer, and get married if he were accepted. Or ... he could not conceive what would become of him if he were rejected.

然而,在乡下独自住了两个月后,他确信,这并非他年轻时经历过的那种激情；这种感觉让他片刻不得安宁；若不解决那个问题--她会不会成为他的妻子--他便无法活下去；他的绝望只是源于自己的臆想,他根本没有丝毫证据表明自己会被拒绝。于是他现在来到莫斯科,下定决心要向她求婚:如果被接受,就结婚；否则……他简直不敢想象,如果被拒绝,他将会怎样。

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despair /dɪˈspeər/

n. 绝望➕

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determination /dɪˌtɜːmɪˈneɪʃn/

n. 决心➕

Part 1 – Chapter six (第六章)

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