|
| I was preparing for the university, but did not work much and was in no hurry. | Я готовился в университет, но работал очень мало и не торопясь. |
| No one interfered with my freedom. | Никто не стеснял моей свободы. |
| I did what I liked, especially after parting with my last tutor, a Frenchman who had never been able to get used to the idea that he had fallen 'like a bomb' (comme une bombe) into Russia, and would lie sluggishly in bed with an expression of exasperation on his face for days together. | Я делал что хотел, особенно с тех пор, как я расстался с последним моим гувернером-французом, который никак не мог привыкнуть к мысли, что он упал "как бомба" (comme un bombe) в Россию, и с ожесточенным выражением на лице по целым дням валялся на постели. |
| My father treated me with careless kindness; my mother scarcely noticed me, though she had no children except me; other cares completely absorbed her. | Отец обходился со мной равнодушно-ласково; матушка почти не обращала на меня внимания, хотя у ней, кроме меня, не было детей: другие заботы ее поглощали. |
| My father, a man still young and very handsome, had married her from mercenary considerations; she was ten years older than he. | Мой отец, человек еще молодой и очень красивый, женился на ней по расчету; она была старше его десятью годами. |
| My mother led a melancholy life; she was for ever agitated, jealous and angry, but not in my father's presence; she was very much afraid of him, and he was severe, cold, and distant in his behaviour.... | Матушка моя вела печальную жизнь: беспрестанно волновалась, ревновала, сердилась -- но не в присутствии отца; она очень его боялась, а он держался строго, холодно, отдаленно... |
| I have never seen a man more elaborately serene, self-confident, and commanding. | Я не видал человека более изысканно спокойного, самоуверенного и самовластного. |
| I shall never forget the first weeks I spent at the country house. | Я никогда не забуду первых недель, проведенных мною на даче. |
| The weather was magnificent; we left town on the 9th of May, on St. Nicholas's day. I used to walk about in our garden, in the Neskutchny gardens, and beyond the town gates; I would take some book with me-Keidanov's Course, for instance-but I rarely looked into it, and more often than anything declaimed verses aloud; I knew a great deal of poetry by heart; my blood was in a ferment and my heart ached-so sweetly and absurdly; I was all hope and anticipation, was a little frightened of something, and full of wonder at everything, and was on the tiptoe of expectation; my imagination played continually, fluttering rapidly about the same fancies, like martins about a bell-tower at dawn; I dreamed, was sad, even wept; but through the tears and through the sadness, inspired by a musical verse, or the beauty of evening, shot up like grass in spring the delicious sense of youth and effervescent life. |
