IT was a bright winter midday… . There was a sharp snapping frost and the curls on Nadenka’s temples and the down on her upper lip were covered with silvery frost. —
这是一个明亮的冬日正午……冰雪清冷，娜杰丁卡的太阳穴上的卷发和上唇上的细毛被银白霜覆盖着。 —

She was holding my arm and we were standing on a high hill. —
她挽着我的胳膊，我们站在一个高高的山坡上。 —

From where we stood to the ground below there stretched a smooth sloping descent in which the sun was reflected as in a looking- glass. —
我们站立之处到下面的地面，有一个平缓的倾斜坡道，阳光在其中反射，好像镜子一般。 —

Beside us was a little sledge lined with bright red cloth.
在我们旁边是一辆用鲜红布料衬里的小雪橇。

“Let us go down, Nadyezhda Petrovna!” I besought her. “Only once! —
“让我们下去，娜捷日达·彼得罗夫娜！”我恳求她。“只须一次！ —

I assure you we shall be all right and not hurt.”
我向你保证我们会没事的，不会受伤。”

But Nadenka was afraid. The slope from her little goloshes to the bottom of the ice hill seemed to her a terrible, immensely deep abyss. —
但娜杰丁卡害怕了。从她的小鞋到冰山底部的斜坡对她来说像是一个可怕的、无底深渊。 —

Her spirit failed her, and she held her breath as she looked down, when I merely suggested her getting into the sledge, but what would it be if she were to risk flying into the abyss! —
她心灰意冷，当我只是建议她坐进雪橇时，她居然屏住了呼吸，但如果她冒险飞入深渊会怎样！ —

She would die, she would go out of her mind.
她会死去，她会发疯。

“I entreat you!” I said. “You mustn’t be afraid! —
“我恳求你！”我说。“你不要害怕！ —

You know it’s poor- spirited, it’s cowardly!”
你知道这是懦弱的，是胆小的！”

Nadenka gave way at last, and from her face I saw that she gave way in mortal dread. —
最终娜杰丁卡让步了，从她的脸上我看到她屈服在死亡的恐惧中。 —

I sat her in the sledge, pale and trembling, put my arm round her and with her cast myself down the precipice.
我把她安置在雪橇中，她脸色苍白，颤抖着，搂着她的肩膀，与她一起投入到悬崖下。

The sledge flew like a bullet. The air cleft by our flight beat in our faces, roared, whistled in our ears, tore at us, nipped us cruelly in its anger, tried to tear our heads off our shoulders. —
雪橇飞逝而下，犹如子弹般。我们飞行路径上卷起的空气拍打在我们的脸上，轰鸣、呼啸在我们的耳朵里，撕裂着我们，愤怒中咬掠着我们，试图把我们的头从肩上撕下来。 —

We had hardly strength to breathe from the pressure of the wind. —
我们几乎没有力气呼吸，受不住风吹的压力。 —

It seemed as though the devil himself had caught us in his claws and was dragging us with a roar to hell. —
看起来好像魔鬼本人抓住了我们，用一声咆哮将我们拖向地狱。 —

Surrounding objects melted into one long furiously racing streak … —
周围的物体融化成一条长长的狂奔的斑纹…… —

another moment and it seemed we should perish.
又过了一会儿，仿佛我们要灭亡。

“I love you, Nadya!” I said in a low voice.
“我爱你，娜迪亚！”我低声说道。

The sledge began moving more and more slowly, the roar of the wind and the whirr of the runners was no longer so terrible, it was easier to breathe, and at last we were at the bottom. —
雪橇开始变得越来越慢，风声和滑雪板的嗡嗡声不再那么可怕，呼吸也变得轻松了，最后我们到了底部。 —

Nadenka was more dead than alive. She was pale and scarcely breathing. —
娜德卡比活着还要虚弱。她脸色苍白，几乎停止呼吸。 —

… I helped her to get up.
……我帮助她站了起来。

“Nothing would induce me to go again,” she said, looking at me with wide eyes full of horror. —
“任何事都不能说服我再去一次，”她看着我，眼中充满恐惧。 —

“Nothing in the world! I almost died!”
“世界上没有任何事！我差点丧命！”

A little later she recovered herself and looked enquiringly into my eyes, wondering had I really uttered those four words or had she fancied them in the roar of the hurricane. —
过了一会儿，她恢复过来，怀疑地看着我的眼睛，想知道我是否真的说了那四个字，还是她在飓风的咆哮声中产生了幻觉。 —

And I stood beside her smoking and looking attentively at my glove.
我站在她身边抽烟，专心地看着我的手套。

She took my arm and we spent a long while walking near the ice-hill. —
她挽着我的胳膊，我们在滑冰场附近散步了很长一段时间。 —

The riddle evidently would not let her rest… . Had those words been uttered or not? … —
这个谜团显然让她无法安宁……那几个字是不是说出口了？…… —

Yes or no? Yes or no? It was the question of pride, or honour, of life—a very important question, the most important question in the world. —
是还是不是？是还是不是？这是骄傲、荣誉、生命的问题——是世界上最重要的问题。 —

Nadenka kept impatiently, sorrowfully looking into my face with a penetrating glance; —
娜迪亚不耐烦地、悲伤地看着我的脸，用一种穿透的眼神注视着； —

she answered at random, waiting to see whether I would not speak. —
她随机地回答，等待看看我是否不说话。 —

Oh, the play of feeling on that sweet face! —
哦，那张甜蜜面容上的情感交错！ —

I saw that she was struggling with herself, that she wanted to say something, to ask some question, but she could not find the words; —
我看到她在和自己搏斗，她想说些什么，提出一些问题，但她找不到词语； —

she felt awkward and frightened and troubled by her joy… .
她感到尴尬、害怕，被自己的喜悦困扰…

“Do you know what,” she said without looking at me.
“你知道吗，”她说，不看着我。

“Well?” I asked.
“嗯？”我问。

“Let us … slide down again.”
“让我们… 再滑一次下去。”

We clambered up the ice-hill by the steps again. I sat Nadenka, pale and trembling, in the sledge; —
我们再次从台阶上爬上冰山。我把纳德尼卡，脸色苍白、颤抖着，安置在雪橇上； —

again we flew into the terrible abyss, again the wind roared and the runners whirred, and again when the flight of our sledge was at its swiftest and noisiest, I said in a low voice:
再次我们飞驰进入可怕的深渊，再次风声呼啸，轮滑器呼啸，再次当雪橇的飞行达到最快、最喧嚣的时候，我低声说：

“I love you, Nadenka!”
“我爱你，纳德尼卡！”

When the sledge stopped, Nadenka flung a glance at the hill down which we had both slid, then bent a long look upon my face, listened to my voice which was unconcerned and passionless, and the whole of her little figure, every bit of it, even her muff and her hood expressed the utmost bewilderment, and on her face was written: —
当雪橇停下来时，纳德尼卡朝着我们俩都滑下去的那座山丘一瞥，然后长时间凝视着我的脸，倾听我毫不关切、毫无激情的声音，她整个小身躯，每一寸，甚至她的手套和兜帽都表达出极度的困惑，她的脸上写着： —

“What does it mean? Who uttered those words? —
“这是什么意思？是谁说出这些话来的？ —

Did he, or did I only fancy it?”
是他说的，还是我只是想象出来的？”

The uncertainty worried her and drove her out of all patience. —
这种不确定感让她感到不安，使她失去了所有耐心。 —

The poor girl did not answer my questions, frowned, and was on the point of tears.
可怜的女孩没有回答我的问题，皱起眉头，快要哭了。

“Hadn’t we better go home?” I asked.
“我们不是该回家了吗？”我问道。

“Well, I … I like this tobogganning,” she said, flushing. “Shall we go down once more?”
“嗯，我……我喜欢这种雪橇运动，”她说着，脸红了。“我们再下一次吧？”

She “liked” the tobogganning, and yet as she got into the sledge she was, as both times before, pale, trembling, hardly able to breathe for terror.
尽管她“喜欢”雪橇运动，但当她坐进雪橇时，和之前两次一样，她脸色苍白，颤抖，几乎因恐惧而无法呼吸。

We went down for the third time, and I saw she was looking at my face and watching my lips. —
我们第三次下坡时，我注意到她在看着我的脸，留意我的嘴唇。 —

But I put my handkerchief to my lips, coughed, and when we reached the middle of the hill I succeeded in bringing out:
但我拿手绢捂住嘴唇，咳嗽了一下，在我们到达山坡中间时成功地说出：

“I love you, Nadya!”
“我爱你，娜杰达！”

And the mystery remained a mystery! Nadenka was silent, pondering on something… . —
然而，这个谜团依然是谜团！娜杰达沉默着，思考着什么…… —

I saw her home, she tried to walk slowly, slackened her pace and kept waiting to see whether I would not say those words to her, and I saw how her soul was suffering, what effort she was making not to say to herself:
我把她送回家，她试图慢慢走，放慢了步伐，并等待着看我是否会对她说出那些话，我看到她的灵魂在受苦，她为了不对自己说的话而努力，我看到她在尽力不对自己说：

“It cannot be that the wind said them! And I don’t want it to be the wind that said them!”
“不可能是风说的吧！我不希望是风说的！”

Next morning I got a little note:
第二天早上，我收到一张小纸条：

“If you are tobogganning to-day, come for me.—N.”
“如果你今天要滑雪橇，来接我吧。——娜杰达。”

And from that time I began going every day tobogganning with Nadenka, and as we flew down in the sledge, every time I pronounced in a low voice the same words: —
从那时起，我开始每天和娜杰达一起滑雪橇，当我们在雪坡上飞驰时，每次我低声说着同样的话： —

“I love you, Nadya!”
“我爱你，娜杰达！”

Soon Nadenka grew used to that phrase as to alcohol or morphia. She could not live without it. —
很快，娜杰达就习惯了那句话，就像对酒精或吗啡一样。她离不开它。 —

It is true that flying down the ice-hill terrified her as before, but now the terror and danger gave a peculiar fascination to words of love—words which as before were a mystery and tantalized the soul. —
下坡依旧让她感到恐惧，但现在恐惧和危险给爱的话语带来了一种独特的魅力——这些话语像之前一样是个谜，折磨着灵魂。 —

The same two—the wind and I were still suspected… . —
同样的我和风仍然受到怀疑… . —

Which of the two was making love to her she did not know, but apparently by now she did not care; —
她不知道是哪一个在和她做爱，但显然到现在她不在乎; —

from which goblet one drinks matters little if only the beverage is intoxicating.
无论从哪种高脚杯中饮酒都无关紧要，只要饮料令人陶醉。

It happened I went to the skating-ground alone at midday; —
我去了溜冰场，中午时分独自一人; —

mingling with the crowd I saw Nadenka go up to the ice-hill and look about for me … —
我和人群混在一起，看到娜丹卡走向冰丘寻找我… —

then she timidly mounted the steps… . She was frightened of going alone—oh, how frightened! —
然后她胆怯地上了涅维里ны丘楼梯… 。她害怕一个人去 - 噢，多么害怕！ —

She was white as the snow, she was trembling, she went as though to the scaffold, but she went, she went without looking back, resolutely. —
她白得像雪，颤抖着，她走得像上刑台，但她走了，她没回头，坚决地走了。 —

She had evidently determined to put it to the test at last: —
显然她决定最后要把它验证一下： —

would those sweet amazing words be heard when I was not there? —
那些甜蜜令人惊讶的话会不会在我不在场时被听到？ —

I saw her, pale, her lips parted with horror, get into the sledge, shut her eyes and saying good-bye for ever to the earth, set off. —
我看到她苍白的脸，惊恐地张开嘴唇，坐上雪橇，闭上眼睛，向着地球永别，启程。 —

… “Whrrr!” whirred the runners. Whether Nadenka heard those words I do not know. —
“呼——”雪橇的滑雪板呼啸着，娜丹卡是否听到那些话我不知道。 —

I only saw her getting up from the sledge looking faint and exhausted. —
我只看到她从雪橇上站起来，看起来虚弱和疲惫。 —

And one could tell from her face that she could not tell herself whether she had heard anything or not. —
从她的脸上可以看出，她自己也搞不清她是否听到了什么。 —

Her terror while she had been flying down had deprived of her all power of hearing, of discriminating sounds, of understanding.
当她飞驰而下时的恐惧让她失去了听力、分辨声音、理解的所有能力。

But then the month of March arrived … the spring sunshine was more kindly… . —
但随后三月来了… 春天的阳光更为温和… 。 —

Our ice-hill turned dark, lost its brilliance and finally melted. We gave up tobogganning. —
我们的冰山变暗了，失去了它的光辉，最终融化了。我们放弃了乘肩悬滑行。 —

There was nowhere now where poor Nadenka could hear those words, and indeed no one to utter them, since there was no wind and I was going to Petersburg—for long, perhaps for ever.
没有地方可以让可怜的娜德卡听到那些话，事实上也没有人可以说那些话，因为那儿没有风，我即将前往彼得堡，也许是长久的，也许是永远的。

It happened two days before my departure I was sitting in the dusk in the little garden which was separated from the yard of Nadenka’s house by a high fence with nails in it. —
离我离开的前两天，我坐在微光中的小花园里，这个花园与娜德卡家的院子被一道带钉子的高栅栏隔开。 —

… It was still pretty cold, there was still snow by the manure heap, the trees looked dead but there was already the scent of spring and the rooks were cawing loudly as they settled for their night’s rest. —
… 天气仍然相当冷，堆肥堆旁边还有雪，树看起来已经枯死了，但春天的气息已经飘来，乌鸦正大声地啼叫着准备休息过夜。 —

I went up to the fence and stood for a long while peeping through a chink. —
我走到篱笆边，站了很久很久往缝隙里偷看。 —

I saw Nadenka come out into the porch and fix a mournful yearning gaze on the sky… . —
我看见娜德卡走出门廊，目不转睛地凝视着天空……。 —

The spring wind was blowing straight into her pale dejected face… . —
春风直吹到她苍白沮丧的脸上……。 —

It reminded her of the wind which roared at us on the ice-hill when she heard those four words, and her face became very, very sorrowful, a tear trickled down her cheek, and the poor child held out both arms as though begging the wind to bring her those words once more. —
它让她想起那个在我们在冰山上听到那四个字的风，她的脸变得十分悲伤，一滴泪水顺着她的脸颊滑落，那可怜的孩子伸出双臂仿佛央求风再次带来那些话。 —

And waiting for the wind I said in a low voice:
等待风来，我轻声说：

“I love you, Nadya!”
“我爱你，娜迪娅！”

Mercy! The change that came over Nadenka! —
天哪！娜德卡面容上发生的变化！ —

She uttered a cry, smiled all over her face and looking joyful, happy and beautiful, held out her arms to meet the wind.
她发出一声尖叫，脸上全是笑容，看起来快乐、幸福和美丽，她伸出双臂迎风而去。

And I went off to pack up… .
我去收拾行装……

That was long ago. Now Nadenka is married; —
那是很久之前的事了。现在娜德卡结婚了； —

she married—whether of her own choice or not does not matter—a secretary of the Nobility Wardenship and now she has three children. —
她嫁给了——不管是出于自愿还是其他原因都不重要——一个城市贵族看守处的秘书，现在她有三个孩子。 —

That we once went tobogganning together, and that the wind brought her the words “I love you, Nadenka,” is not forgotten; —
我们曾一起乘雪橇，风吹来了“我爱你，纳杰娜”的语言，这件事并未被遗忘； —

it is for her now the happiest, most touching, and beautiful memory in her life… .
对她来说，这是她生命中最幸福、最触动人心、最美好的回忆… .

But now that I am older I cannot understand why I uttered those words, what was my motive in that joke… .
但如今我年岁渐长，我不明白当时为什么会说出那些话，我开这个玩笑是出于什么动机… .