Ever since, by his beloved brother’s deathbed, Levin had first glanced into the questions of life and death in the light of these new convictions, as he called them, which had during the period from his twentieth to his thirty-fourth year imperceptibly replaced his childish and youthful beliefs–he had been stricken with horror, not so much of death, as of life, without any knowledge of whence, and why, and how, and what it was. —
自从列文第一次在深爱的兄弟临终的病床前透过新的信念的光中，眺望生与死的问题，那些在他二十岁到三十四岁期间悄然取代了他幼稚且青春的信仰的信念，他就被一种恐惧所笼罩，这种恐惧不仅仅是对死亡，更是对一个无从得知其来处、原因、方式以及它是什么的生命。 —

The physical organization, its decay, the indestructibility of matter, the law of the conservation of energy, evolution, were the words which usurped the place of his old belief. —
物理结构、其腐朽、物质的不可毁灭性、能量守恒定律、进化，这些词汇取代了他过去的信仰。 —

These words and the ideas associated with them were very well for intellectual purposes. —
这些词汇及与之相关的概念在知识上是无可非议的。 —

But for life they yielded nothing, and Levin felt suddenly like a man who has changed his warm fur cloak for a muslin garment, and going for the first time into the frost is immediately convinced, not by reason, but by his whole nature that he is as good as naked, and that he must infallibly perish miserably.
但是对于生活，他们毫无回报，列文突然感到自己像是把暖和的皮裘换成了纱衣，第一次进入寒风中时，他的整个本性不由自主地感到自己一丝不挂，注定要可怜地死去。

From that moment, though he did not distinctly face it, and still went on living as before, Levin had never lost this sense of terror at his lack of knowledge.
自那时起，虽然他没有明确地面对它，仍然像以前一样过着生活，但列文从未失去对自己知识缺乏的恐惧感。

He vaguely felt, too, that what he called his new convictions were not merely lack of knowledge, but that they were part of a whole order of ideas, in which no knowledge of what he needed was possible.
他也隐约感到，他所谓的新信念不仅仅是知识上的缺乏，而是他所需知识所属的一整套思想体系中的一部分，这无法得知他所需要的。

At first, marriage, with the new joys and duties bound up with it, had completely crowded out these thoughts. —
起初，婚姻和与之相关的新的喜悦和责任完全排挤了这些思想。 —

But of late, while he was staying in Moscow after his wife’s confinement, with nothing to do, the question that clamored for solution had more and more often, more and more insistently, haunted Levin’s mind.
但是最近，在他在莫斯科逗留期间，伴随着妻子分娩后的无所事事，这个问题越来越频繁、越来越迫切地困扰着列文的思绪。

The question was summed up for him thus: “If I do not accept the answers Christianity gives to the problems of my life, what answers do I accept?” —
他被概括的问题是：“如果我不接受基督教对我生活中的问题提供的答案，我接受什么答案呢？” —

And in the whole arsenal of his convictions, so far from finding any satisfactory answers, he was utterly unable to find anything at all like an answer.
在他所有的信念中，完全找不到令他满意的答案，甚至找不到任何像答案一样的东西。

He was in the position of a man seeking food in toy shops and tool shops.
他就像是在玩具店和工具店里寻找食物的人一样。

Istinctively, unconsciously, with every book, with every conversation, with every man he met, he was on the lookout for light on these questions and their solution.
本能地、不自觉地，他在每本书、每次谈话以及与每个他遇到的人之间都在寻找这些问题的光芒和解决办法。

What puzzled and distracted him above everything was that the majority of men of his age and circle had, like him, exchanged their old beliefs for the same new convictions, and yet saw nothing to lament in this, and were perfectly satisfied and serene. —
最困扰他并使他分心的是，和他一样年纪和社交圈的大部分人，已经和他一样摒弃了他们旧有的信仰，接受了同样的新信念，却对此毫无悔意，满足而安宁。 —

So that, apart from the principal question, Levin was tortured by other questions too. —
所以，除了主要问题外，列文还受到其他问题的折磨。 —

Were these people sincere? he asked himself, or were they playing a part? —
这些人是真诚的吗？他问自己，还是他们在演戏？ —

or was it that they understood the answers science gave to these problems in some different, clearer sense than he did? —
或者是他们以某种不同、更清晰的方式理解了科学对这些问题的答案，而他自己并没有。 —

And he assiduously studied both these men’s opinions and the books which treated of these scientific explanations.
他勤奋地研究了这两个人的观点，以及讨论这些科学解释的书籍。

One fact he had found out since these questions had engrossed his mind, was that he had been quite wrong in supposing from the recollections of the circle of his young days at college, that religion had outlived its day, and that it was now practically non-existent. —
自从这些问题占据了他的脑海以来，他发现了一个事实，即他曾从在大学的年轻时代的圈子的回忆中错误地认为宗教已经过时，现在几乎不存在。 —

All the people nearest to him who were good in their lives were believers. —
他身边所有善良的人都是信徒。 —

The old prince, and Lvov, whom he liked so much, and Sergey Ivanovitch, and all the women believed, and his wife believed as simply as he had believed in his earliest childhood, and ninety-nine hundredths of the Russian people, all the working people for whose life he felt the deepest respect, believed.
老王子和他非常喜欢的列沃夫，还有谢尔盖·伊万诺维奇，以及所有的妇女，都相信，并且他的妻子就像他童年时期一样简单地相信，而九十九个百分点的俄罗斯民众，所有的劳动人民，他对他们的生活充满了最深的尊重，他们都相信。

Another fact of which he became convinced, after reading many scientific books, was that the men who shared his views had no other construction to put on them, and that they gave no explanation of the questions which he felt he could not live without answering, but simply ignored their existence and attempted to explain other questions of no possible interest to him, such as the evolution of organisms, the materialistic theory of consciousness, and so forth.
经过阅读许多科学书籍，他确信了另一个事实：与他持相同观点的人对这些观点没有其他解释，他们忽视了他认为无法回避的问题，并试图解释其他对他毫无兴趣的问题，如有机体的进化、唯物主义意识论等。

Moreover, during his wife’s confinement, something had happened that seemed extraordinary to him. —
此外，在他妻子临盆期间，发生了一件他觉得非常不可思议的事情。 —

He, an unbeliever, had fallen into praying, and at the moment he prayed, he believed. —
作为一个无神论者，他突然开始祈祷，并且在那一刻，他相信了。 —

But that moment had passed, and he could not make his state of mind at that moment fit into the rest of his life.
但那一刻已经过去，他无法使那一刻的心境与他生活中的其他时间相符。

He could not admit that at that moment he knew the truth, and that now he was wrong; —
他无法承认在那一刻他知道了真理，而现在他是错误的； —

for as soon as he began thinking calmly about it, it all fell to pieces. —
因为一旦他开始冷静思考，一切都崩溃了。 —

He could not admit that he was mistaken then, for his spiritual condition then was precious to him, and to admit that it was a proof of weakness would have been to desecrate those moments. —
他那时无法承认自己当时的错误，因为对他来说，他的精神状态是宝贵的，承认这是一种软弱的证明将是对那些时刻的亵渎。 —

He was miserably divided against himself, and strained all his spiritual forces to the utmost to escape from this condition.
他内心极度纠结，竭尽全力斗争着，想要摆脱这种状态。