AT first the weather was fine and still. The thrushes were calling, and in the swamps close by something alive droned pitifully with a sound like blowing into an empty bottle. —
开始天气晴朗而平静。画眉鸟在叫唤，在附近的沼泽里，有什么东西无奈地发出像往空瓶里吹气的声音。 —

A snipe flew by, and the shot aimed at it rang out with a gay, resounding note in the spring air. —
一只戴胜飞过，朝它射出的子弹在春天的空气中发出欢快、响亮的声音。 —

But when it began to get dark in the forest a cold, penetrating wind blew inappropriately from the east, and everything sank into silence. —
但是当森林开始变暗时，一股寒冷、刺骨的东风突然吹来，一切陷入寂静。 —

Needles of ice stretched across the pools, and it felt cheerless, remote, and lonely in the forest. —
冰针延伸到池塘上，森林里感到冷清、偏僻和孤寂。 —

There was a whiff of winter.
有一丝冬天的气息。

Ivan Velikopolsky, the son of a sacristan, and a student of the clerical academy, returning home from shooting, walked all the time by the path in the water-side meadow. —
伊万·韦利科波尔斯基，一个圣堂辅祭的儿子，也是一个神职学院的学生，从打猎归来，一直在水边的草地小径上走着。 —

His fingers were numb and his face was burning with the wind. —
他的手指冻麻，脸庞被风吹得发烫。 —

It seemed to him that the cold that had suddenly come on had destroyed the order and harmony of things, that nature itself felt ill at ease, and that was why the evening darkness was falling more rapidly than usual. —
他觉得这突然来临的寒冷摧毁了事物的秩序和和谐，自然本身感到不适，所以夜幕比往常更快地降临了。 —

All around it was deserted and peculiarly gloomy. —
到处都荒凉而异常阴郁。 —

The only light was one gleaming in the widows’ gardens near the river; —
唯一的光亮是在靠近河边的寡妇们的花园里闪烁着； —

the village, over three miles away, and everything in the distance all round was plunged in the cold evening mist. —
距离三英里外的村庄以及四面八方所有的一切都笼罩在寒冷的夜雾中。 —

The student remembered that, as he went out from the house, his mother was sitting barefoot on the floor in the entry, cleaning the samovar, while his father lay on the stove coughing; —
学生记得当他走出房子时，他的母亲赤足坐在门口地板上，正在清洗热水瓶，他的父亲躺在炉上咳嗽； —

as it was Good Friday nothing had been cooked, and the student was terribly hungry. —
因为是耶稣受难日，所以什么都没有煮，学生非常饥饿。 —

And now, shrinking from the cold, he thought that just such a wind had blown in the days of Rurik and in the time of Ivan the Terrible and Peter, and in their time there had been just the same desperate poverty and hunger, the same thatched roofs with holes in them, ignorance, misery, the same desolation around, the same darkness, the same feeling of oppression—all these had existed, did exist, and would exist, and the lapse of a thousand years would make life no better. —
现在，他因寒冷而退缩，他觉得像这样的一阵风曾在古代的鲁里克王朝，以及伊凡雷帝和彼得大帝的时代吹过，并且那个时候也存在着同样绝望的贫困和饥饿，那些顶着有洞的茅草屋，无知、悲惨，四周荒凉，黑暗笼罩，沉重的压抑感一直存在，存在，而且会一直存在，千年后的生活也不会更好。 —

And he did not want to go home.
他不想回家。

The gardens were called the widows’ because they were kept by two widows, mother and daughter. —
花园被称为寡妇花园，因为它们是由两个寡妇，母亲和女儿来打理。 —

A camp fire was burning brightly with a crackling sound, throwing out light far around on the ploughed earth. —
一个篝火正旺烈地燃烧着，发出啪啪的声音，将光亮投射到翻耕过的土地上。 —

The widow Vasilisa, a tall, fat old woman in a man’s coat, was standing by and looking thoughtfully into the fire; —
寡妇瓦西莉莎，一个高大肥胖的老妇人穿着男士外套，站在旁边，若有所思地望着火； —

her daughter Lukerya, a little pock-marked woman with a stupid-looking face, was sitting on the ground, washing a caldron and spoons. —
她的女儿鲁克艾娅，一个脸上布满麻子、看起来有点呆的女人，正坐在地上，洗着一个大锅和勺子。 —

Apparently they had just had supper. There was a sound of men’s voices; —
显然他们刚刚吃过晚饭。有男人的声音传了过来； —

it was the labourers watering their horses at the river.
那是劳动者们在河边喂水给他们的马。

“Here you have winter back again,” said the student, going up to the camp fire. —
“又是冬天回来了，”学生走向篝火说。 —

“Good evening.”
“晚上好。”

Vasilisa started, but at once recognized him and smiled cordially.
瓦西莉莎吓了一跳，但立刻认出了他，热情地笑了。

“I did not know you; God bless you,” she said.
“我没认出你来；上帝保佑你，”她说。

“You’ll be rich.”
“你会变得富有。”

They talked. Vasilisa, a woman of experience, who had been in service with the gentry, first as a wet-nurse, afterwards as a children’s nurse, expressed herself with refinement, and a soft, sedate smile never left her face; —
他们聊了起来。瓦西莉莎是一个富有经验的妇人，曾在上流社会做过护士，之后又当过孩子的保姆，说话举止文雅，脸上总带着柔和、沉静的微笑； —

her daughter Lukerya, a village peasant woman, who had been beaten by her husband, simply screwed up her eyes at the student and said nothing, and she had a strange expression like that of a deaf mute.
她的女儿鲁克艾娅是一个村妇，曾被丈夫打过，对着学生眯起眼睛，一言不发，带着一种像聋哑人的奇怪表情。

“At just such a fire the Apostle Peter warmed himself,” said the student, stretching out his hands to the fire, “so it must have been cold then, too. —
“使徒彼得就是在这样的篝火旁烤暖自己的，”学生伸出手放到火边说，“那时候肯定也很冷。 —

Ah, what a terrible night it must have been, granny! —
啊，奶奶，那一夜肯定是多么可怕啊！ —

An utterly dismal long night!”
一个极其阴郁漫长的夜晚！

He looked round at the darkness, shook his head abruptly and asked:
他环顾四周黑暗，突然摇了摇头，问道：

“No doubt you have been at the reading of the Twelve Gospels?”
“毫无疑问，你参加过读十二福音吧？”

“Yes, I have,” answered Vasilisa.
“是的，我参加过，”瓦西莉莎回答道。

“If you remember at the Last Supper Peter said to Jesus, ‘I am ready to go with Thee into darkness and unto death. —
“如果你还记得在最后的晚餐上，彼得对耶稣说：‘主啊，我愿意跟随你到黑暗和死亡之中。 —

’ And our Lord answered him thus: ‘I say unto thee, Peter, before the cock croweth thou wilt have denied Me thrice. —
’而我们的主则这样回答他：‘我告诉你，彼得，鸡叫以前，你要三次不认我。 —

’ After the supper Jesus went through the agony of death in the garden and prayed, and poor Peter was weary in spirit and faint, his eyelids were heavy and he could not struggle against sleep. —
’在晚餐后，耶稣在园中经历了死亡的苦痛，祈祷着，而可怜的彼得精神疲惫，昏昏欲睡，他无法抵抗睡意。 —

He fell asleep. Then you heard how Judas the same night kissed Jesus and betrayed Him to His tormentors. —
他睡着了。然后你听到犹大在同一夜亲吻了耶稣并将他出卖给折磨他的人。 —

They took Him bound to the high priest and beat Him, while Peter, exhausted, worn out with misery and alarm, hardly awake, you know, feeling that something awful was just going to happen on earth, followed behind. —
他们把他带到大祭司那里并鞭打他，而彼得，疲倦、痛苦和惊恐的他几乎没有清醒，感觉到地上即将发生一些可怕的事情，跟在后面。 —

… He loved Jesus passionately, intensely, and now he saw from far off how He was beaten…”
“他热烈、激烈地爱着耶稣，现在他从远处看到他被鞭打……”

Lukerya left the spoons and fixed an immovable stare upon the student.
露客丽娅把勺子放下，望着这位学生，目光坚定。

“They came to the high priest’s,” he went on; —
“他们到了大祭司那里，”他继续说道； —

“they began to question Jesus, and meantime the labourers made a fire in the yard as it was cold, and warmed themselves. —
“他们开始盘问耶稣，与此同时，工人们在院子里生了火，因为天冷，大家取暖。 —

Peter, too, stood with them near the fire and warmed himself as I am doing. —
彼得也和他们站在火旁烤火，就像我现在这样。 —

A woman, seeing him, said: ‘He was with Jesus, too’—that is as much as to say that he, too, should be taken to be questioned. —
一个女人看见他，说：‘他也和耶稣在一起’，这基本上是在说他也应该被带去被审问。 —

And all the labourers that were standing near the fire must have looked sourly and suspiciously at him, because he was confused and said: —
所有站在火旁的工人一定都怀疑他，他感到困惑，说： —

‘I don’t know Him.’ A little while after again someone recognized him as one of Jesus’ disciples and said: —
‘我不认识他。’不一会儿，又有人认出他是耶稣的门徒之一，并说： —

‘Thou, too, art one of them,’ but again he denied it. —
‘你也是他们中的一个’，但他又否认了。 —

And for the third time someone turned to him: —
第三次有人对他说： —

‘Why, did I not see thee with Him in the garden to-day?’ For the third time he denied it. —
‘我不是看见你今天在园子里跟他在一起吗？’第三次他还是否认了。 —

And immediately after that time the cock crowed, and Peter, looking from afar off at Jesus, remembered the words He had said to him in the evening. —
那时公鸡叫了，彼得从远处看着耶稣，记起他晚上对他说的话。 —

… He remembered, he came to himself, went out of the yard and wept bitterly—bitterly. —
他记起来，恍然大悟，走出院子，痛哭流涕—痛哭流涕。 —

In the Gospel it is written: ‘He went out and wept bitterly.’ I imagine it: —
在福音书中写道：“他走出去，伤心痛哭。” —

the still, still, dark, dark garden, and in the stillness, faintly audible, smothered sobbing…”
在寂静、黑暗的花园里，隐约可听见抑制不住的啜泣声……

T he student sighed and sank into thought. —
学生叹了口气，陷入了沉思之中。 —

Still smiling, Vasilisa suddenly gave a gulp, big tears flowed freely down her cheeks, and she screened her face from the fire with her sleeve as though ashamed of her tears, and Lukerya, staring immovably at the student, flushed crimson, and her expression became strained and heavy like that of someone enduring intense pain.
瓦西莉莎依然微笑着，突然吸了口气，大泪如泉涌下，她用衣袖掩住脸，仿佛为自己的眼泪感到羞愧，而鲁凯利娅则固定地凝视着学生，脸涨得通红，表情变得苦涩沉重，犹如忍受着剧痛。

The labourers came back from the river, and one of them riding a horse was quite near, and the light from the fire quivered upon him. —
劳动者们从河边回来了，其中一人骑着马，离得很近，篝火上的光线在他身上摇曳。 —

The student said good-night to the widows and went on. —
学生向寡妇们道了晚安，然后继续前行。 —

And again the darkness was about him and his fingers began to be numb. —
黑暗再次笼罩着他，手指开始发麻。 —

A cruel wind was blowing, winter really had come back and it did not feel as though Easter would be the day after to-morrow.
一阵残酷的风刮来，冬天真正回来了，仿佛明天就不会是复活节。

Now the student was thinking about Vasilisa: —
现在学生想起了瓦西莉莎： —

since she had shed tears all that had happened to Peter the night before the Crucifixion must have some relation to her….
因为她流泪，所以发生在彼得在受难前一晚的事情一定与她有关….

He looked round. The solitary light was still gleaming in the darkness and no figures could be seen near it now. —
他环顾四周。在黑暗中，孤灯依然闪烁着，现在附近再也看不到任何人影。 —

The student thought again that if Vasilisa had shed tears, and her daughter had been troubled, it was evident that what he had just been telling them about, which had happened nineteen centuries ago, had a relation to the present—to both women, to the desolate village, to himself, to all people. —
学生再次想到，如果瓦西莉莎流泪了，她的女儿又被困扰，那么刚才告诉她们的关于十九个世纪前发生的事情显然与现在有关——与两位妇女、这个荒凉的村庄、他自己、以及所有人都有关。 —

The old woman had wept, not because he could tell the story touchingly, but because Peter was near to her, because her whole being was interested in what was passing in Peter’s soul.
老妇人流泪，不是因为他能动情地讲故事，而是因为彼得就在她身边，因为她的整个存在都对彼得内心发生的事情感兴趣。

And joy suddenly stirred in his soul, and he even stopped for a minute to take breath. —
忽然有喜悦激荡在他的灵魂深处，甚至停下来喘口气。 —

“The past,” he thought, “is linked with the present by an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of another. —
“过去”，他想，“与现在通过一系列相互影响的事件紧密相连。 —

” And it seemed to him that he had just seen both ends of that chain; —
“他觉得自己刚刚看到了那条链的两端； —

that when he touched one end the other quivered.
当他触摸一端时，另一端就会颤抖。

When he crossed the river by the ferry boat and afterwards, mounting the hill, looked at his village and towards the west where the cold crimson sunset lay a narrow streak of light, he thought that truth and beauty which had guided human life there in the garden and in the yard of the high priest had continued without interruption to this day, and had evidently always been the chief thing in human life and in all earthly life, indeed; —
当他乘坐渡船过河后，登上山坡，看着自己的村庄，朝着西边那冷冷的深红色夕阳照耀的窄光带，他认为真理和美丽一直在引导人类的生活，无论是在花园里还是在高级祭司的院子里，都持续至今，显然一直是人类生活和所有地球生活中最重要的事物； —

and the feeling of youth, health, vigour—he was only twenty-two—and the inexpressible sweet expectation of happiness, of unknown mysterious happiness, took possession of him little by little, and life seemed to him enchanting, marvellous, and full of lofty meaning.
青春、健康、活力的感觉——他只有22岁——以及莫名的幸福预期、未知神秘的幸福开始逐渐占据他的内心，生活对他而言变得迷人、神奇而丰富深邃的意义。”