|
| Nasanski again went up to the little cupboard, poured out and swallowed a "nip," after which he shut the cupboard door with much ceremony and an expression on his face as if he had fulfilled a religious duty. | Назанский опять подошел к поставцу и, выпив, аккуратно притворил дверцы. |
| Romashov walked listlessly up from the window to the cupboard, the life-giving contents of which he sampled with a gloomy and blas? air. This done, he returned to his seat on the window-bench. | Ромашов лениво, почти бессознательно, встал и сделал то же самое. |
| "What were you thinking about just before I came, Vasili Nilich?" asked Romashov, as he made himself as comfortable as possible. | - О чем же вы думали перед моим приходом, Василий Нилыч? - спросил он, садясь по-прежнему на подоконник. |
| Nasanski, however, did not hear his question. | Но Назанский почти не слыхал его вопроса. |
| "How sweet it is to dream of women!" he exclaimed with a grand and eloquent gesture. | - Какое, например, наслаждение мечтать о женщинах! - воскликнул он, дойдя до дальнего угла и обращаясь к этому углу с широким, убедительным жестом. |
| "But away with all unclean thoughts! | - Нет, не грязно думать. |
| And why? | Зачем? |
| Ah! because no one has any right, even in imagination, to make a human being a culprit in what is low, sinful, and impure. | Никогда не надо делать человека, даже в мыслях, участником зла, а тем более грязи. |
| How often I think of chaste, tender, loving women, of their bright tears and gracious smiles; of young, devoted, self-sacrificing mothers, of all those who have faced death for love; of proud, bewitching maidens with souls as pure as snow, knowing all, yet afraid of nothing. | Я думаю часто о нежных, чистых, изящных женщинах, об их светлых и прелестных улыбках, думаю о молодых, целомудренных матерях, о любовницах, идущих ради любви на смерть, о прекрасных, невинных и гордых девушках с белоснежной душой, знающих все и ничего не боящихся. |
| But such women do not exist-yet I am wrong, Romashov; such women do exist although neither you nor I have seen them. | Таких женщин нет. Впрочем, я не прав. Наверно, Ромашов, такие женщины есть, но мы с вами их никогда не увидим. |
| This may possibly be vouchsafed you; but to me-never!" | Вы еще, может быть, увидите, но я - нет. |
| He was now standing right in front of Romashov and staring him straight in the face, but by the far-off expression in his eyes, by the enigmatical smile that played on his lips, any one could observe that he did not even see to whom he was talking. |
