第四十六章 第十二章
第十二章
列文从莫斯科回来之后的最初日子里，每当想起遭到拒绝的耻辱，他就不由得浑身战栗、面红耳赤，心中暗想：“当年物理考试不及格、留级的时候，我也曾这样颤抖、脸红，以为自己一切都完了。后来受姐姐委托办事，却出了差错，那时我也觉得自己彻底完蛋了。然而，事隔多年，如今回想起来，反倒觉得奇怪：当时怎么会那样痛不欲生？这次的烦心事也会一样的。过些日子，我就会不在乎了。”
可是三个月过去了，他仍然没有不在乎。想起这件事，他仍然和最初几天一样痛苦。他之所以不能平静，是因为他那么久以来一直梦想着家庭生活，觉得自己已经足够成熟，可以成家了，却仍然没有结婚，而且离婚姻越来越远。他自己痛苦地感觉到，他周围的人也都有同感：像他这样年纪的人，独身一人是不好的。他想起动身去莫斯科之前，有一次对他喜欢的淳朴农民——饲养员尼古拉说：“喂，尼古拉！我打算结婚了。”尼古拉立刻像回答一件毋庸置疑的事情那样回答说：“也该到时候了，康斯坦丁·德米特里奇。”可是现在，结婚比以前更遥遥无期了。那个位置已经被人占据了，现在他试图把任何一个他认识的姑娘放在那个位置上时，都觉得是完全不可能的。此外，被拒绝的回忆以及他在那件事中所扮演的角色，使他羞愧难当。尽管他一再对自己说，这件事他没有任何过错，可是这个回忆，就像其他类似的令人屈辱的回忆一样，使他感到刺痛和脸红。在他的过去，像每个人一样，有过他认为是坏的行为，他的良心本应为此感到痛苦；但是，对这些坏行为的记忆远不如那些微不足道却令人屈辱的回忆使他痛苦。这些伤口从未愈合。而现在，在这些回忆中又加上了他的被拒绝以及那天晚上他在别人眼中可能显得很可怜的样子。不过，时间和工作起了作用。痛苦的回忆越来越多地被乡村生活中那些在他看来微不足道、但实际上却很重要的事情所掩盖。他每周想起吉娣的次数越来越少。他焦急地等待着有关她结婚或即将结婚的消息，希望这样的消息能像拔掉一颗牙一样，彻底地治愈他。
与此同时，春天来了，美好而温和，没有任何春天的拖延和反复无常——这是那种罕见的春天之一，植物、动物和人都同样地欢欣鼓舞。这个可爱的春天进一步唤醒了列文，坚定了他抛弃过去一切、坚定而独立地建立自己孤独生活的决心。虽然他回到乡下时所制定的许多计划都没有实现，但他最重要的决心——保持纯洁——却遵守了。他不再有那种通常在堕落之后困扰他的羞耻感；他可以坦然地直视每个人的眼睛了。二月里，他收到玛丽亚·尼古拉耶夫娜的来信，告诉他哥哥尼古拉的身体越来越不好，但他不肯听劝。由于这封信，列文去了莫斯科找他哥哥，并成功地说服他去看医生，去国外一个疗养地疗养。他如此成功地劝说了哥哥，并且在不惹他生气的情况下借钱给他做路费，以至于他在这方面对自己很满意。除了农业——春天需要特别关注——和读书之外，列文在那个冬天开始着手写一部关于农业的著作，其计划是把农场雇工的特性作为问题的一个不变数据来考虑，如同气候和土壤一样，因此，所有科学耕作的原则，不仅仅是从土壤和气候的数据中推导出来，而且是从土壤、气候和雇工的一定不变的特性中推导出来。因此，尽管他离群索居，或者说正是因为离群索居，他的生活异常充实。只是偶尔，他会有一种难以满足的渴望，想把他零散的想法告诉除阿加菲娅·米哈伊洛夫娜以外的什么人。事实上，他经常和她讨论物理学、农业理论，尤其是哲学；哲学是阿加菲娅·米哈伊洛夫娜最喜欢的课题。
春天来得很慢。最近几个星期，天气一直是晴好而寒冷。白天，雪在阳光下融化，但夜间甚至还有零下七度的严寒。雪上结了冰壳，马车可以在任何地方离开道路行驶。复活节是在雪中度过的。然后，在复活节后的星期一，突然刮起了暖风，暴风云袭来，连续三天三夜，温暖的倾盆大雨如注般地下着。星期四，风停了，浓密的灰色迷雾笼罩着大地，仿佛隐藏着大自然中正在进行的变化的秘密。迷雾后面是流水的潺潺声，冰块的碎裂和漂流声，浑浊的、泡沫翻滚的急流奔腾声；下一个星期一晚上，迷雾散去，暴风云分裂成许多卷曲的云峰，天空放晴，真正的春天到来了。早晨，太阳灿烂地升起，很快融化了覆盖在水面上的薄冰，温暖的空气中充满了从苏醒的大地上升起的水汽，微微颤抖着。老草看起来更绿了，新草也冒出了细小的叶片；荚蒾、醋栗的蓓蕾和粘稠的白桦树蓓蕾都因树液而膨胀；一只探路的蜜蜂在柳树那点点金黄色的花朵上嗡嗡地叫着。云雀在翠绿的田野和冰封的麦茬地上空看不见地啁啾着；凤头麦鸡在积水的低地和沼泽上空哀鸣；鹤和野鹅高高地飞过天空，发出春天的鸣叫。那些新毛尚未长齐、身上一块块光秃的牛，在牧场上哞哞地叫着；弯腿的羊羔在咩咩叫唤的母羊周围蹦蹦跳跳。敏捷的孩子们在布满赤脚印的干燥小路上奔跑着。池塘边传来农妇们洗衣时快活的谈笑声，院子里传来农民修理犁耙的斧头声。真正的春天来了。
In the early days after his return from Moscow, whenever Levin
shuddered and grew red, remembering the disgrace of his rejection, he
said to himself: “This was just how I used to shudder and blush,
thinking myself utterly lost, when I was plucked in physics and did not
get my remove; and how I thought myself utterly ruined after I had
mismanaged that affair of my sister’s that was entrusted to me. And
yet, now that years have passed, I recall it and wonder that it could
distress me so much. It will be the same thing too with this trouble.
Time will go by and I shall not mind about this either.”
But three months had passed and he had not left off minding about it;
and it was as painful for him to think of it as it had been those first
days. He could not be at peace because after dreaming so long of family
life, and feeling himself so ripe for it, he was still not married, and
was further than ever from marriage. He was painfully conscious
himself, as were all about him, that at his years it is not well for
man to be alone. He remembered how before starting for Moscow he had
once said to his cowman Nikolay, a simple-hearted peasant, whom he
liked talking to: “Well, Nikolay! I mean to get married,” and how
Nikolay had promptly answered, as of a matter on which there could be
no possible doubt: “And high time too, Konstantin Dmitrievitch.” But
marriage had now become further off than ever. The place was taken, and
whenever he tried to imagine any of the girls he knew in that place, he
felt that it was utterly impossible. Moreover, the recollection of the
rejection and the part he had played in the affair tortured him with
shame. However often he told himself that he was in no wise to blame in
it, that recollection, like other humiliating reminiscences of a
similar kind, made him twinge and blush. There had been in his past, as
in every man’s, actions, recognized by him as bad, for which his
conscience ought to have tormented him; but the memory of these evil
actions was far from causing him so much suffering as those trivial but
humiliating reminiscences. These wounds never healed. And with these
memories was now ranged his rejection and the pitiful position in which
he must have appeared to others that evening. But time and work did
their part. Bitter memories were more and more covered up by the
incidents—paltry in his eyes, but really important—of his country life.
Every week he thought less often of Kitty. He was impatiently looking
forward to the news that she was married, or just going to be married,
hoping that such news would, like having a tooth out, completely cure
him.
Meanwhile spring came on, beautiful and kindly, without the delays and
treacheries of spring,—one of those rare springs in which plants,
beasts, and man rejoice alike. This lovely spring roused Levin still
more, and strengthened him in his resolution of renouncing all his past
and building up his lonely life firmly and independently. Though many
of the plans with which he had returned to the country had not been
carried out, still his most important resolution—that of purity—had
been kept by him. He was free from that shame, which had usually
harassed him after a fall; and he could look everyone straight in the
face. In February he had received a letter from Marya Nikolaevna
telling him that his brother Nikolay’s health was getting worse, but
that he would not take advice, and in consequence of this letter Levin
went to Moscow to his brother’s and succeeded in persuading him to see
a doctor and to go to a watering-place abroad. He succeeded so well in
persuading his brother, and in lending him money for the journey
without irritating him, that he was satisfied with himself in that
matter. In addition to his farming, which called for special attention
in spring, and in addition to reading, Levin had begun that winter a
work on agriculture, the plan of which turned on taking into account
the character of the laborer on the land as one of the unalterable data
of the question, like the climate and the soil, and consequently
deducing all the principles of scientific culture, not simply from the
data of soil and climate, but from the data of soil, climate, and a
certain unalterable character of the laborer. Thus, in spite of his
solitude, or in consequence of his solitude, his life was exceedingly
full. Only rarely he suffered from an unsatisfied desire to communicate
his stray ideas to someone besides Agafea Mihalovna. With her indeed he
not infrequently fell into discussion upon physics, the theory of
agriculture, and especially philosophy; philosophy was Agafea
Mihalovna’s favorite subject.
Spring was slow in unfolding. For the last few weeks it had been
steadily fine frosty weather. In the daytime it thawed in the sun, but
at night there were even seven degrees of frost. There was such a
frozen surface on the snow that they drove the wagons anywhere off the
roads. Easter came in the snow. Then all of a sudden, on Easter Monday,
a warm wind sprang up, storm clouds swooped down, and for three days
and three nights the warm, driving rain fell in streams. On Thursday
the wind dropped, and a thick gray fog brooded over the land as though
hiding the mysteries of the transformations that were being wrought in
nature. Behind the fog there was the flowing of water, the cracking and
floating of ice, the swift rush of turbid, foaming torrents; and on the
following Monday, in the evening, the fog parted, the storm clouds
split up into little curling crests of cloud, the sky cleared, and the
real spring had come. In the morning the sun rose brilliant and quickly
wore away the thin layer of ice that covered the water, and all the
warm air was quivering with the steam that rose up from the quickened
earth. The old grass looked greener, and the young grass thrust up its
tiny blades; the buds of the guelder-rose and of the currant and the
sticky birch-buds were swollen with sap, and an exploring bee was
humming about the golden blossoms that studded the willow. Larks
trilled unseen above the velvety green fields and the ice-covered
stubble-land; peewits wailed over the low lands and marshes flooded by
the pools; cranes and wild geese flew high across the sky uttering
their spring calls. The cattle, bald in patches where the new hair had
not grown yet, lowed in the pastures; the bowlegged lambs frisked round
their bleating mothers. Nimble children ran about the drying paths,
covered with the prints of bare feet. There was a merry chatter of
peasant women over their linen at the pond, and the ring of axes in the
yard, where the peasants were repairing ploughs and harrows. The real
spring had come.
