«Зеркало» на английском языке

IN the year in which my story begins I had a job at a little station onone of our southwestern railways. Whether I had a gay or a dull life atthe station you can judge from the fact that for fifteen miles round therewas not one human habitation, not one woman, not one decent tavern; and inthose days I was young, strong, hot-headed, giddy, and foolish. The onlydistraction I could possibly find was in the windows of the passengertrains, and in the vile vodka which the Jews drugged with thorn-apple.Sometimes there would be a glimpse of a woman's head at a carriage window,and one would stand like a statue without breathing and stare at it untilthe train turned into an almost invisible speck; or one would drink allone could of the loathsome vodka till one was stupefied and did not feelthe passing of the long hours and days. Upon me, a native of the north,the steppe produced the effect of a deserted Tatar cemetery. In the summerthe steppe with its solemn calm, the monotonous chur of the grasshoppers,the transparent moonlight from which one could not hide, reduced me tolistless melancholy; and in the winter the irreproachable whiteness of thesteppe, its cold distance, long nights, and howling wolves oppressed melike a heavy nightmare. There were several people living at the station:my wife and I, a deaf and scrofulous telegraph clerk, and three watchmen.My assistant, a young man who was in consumption, used to go for treatmentto the town, where he stayed for months at a time, leaving his duties tome together with the right of pocketing his salary. I had no children, nocake would have tempted visitors to come and see me, and I could onlyvisit other officials on the line, and that no oftener than once a month.

I remember my wife and I saw the New Year in. We sat at table, chewedlazily, and heard the deaf telegraph clerk monotonously tapping on hisapparatus in the next room. I had already drunk five glasses of druggedvodka, and, propping my heavy head on my fist, thought of my overpoweringboredom from which there was no escape, while my wife sat beside me anddid not take her eyes off me. She looked at me as no one can look but awoman who has nothing in this world but a handsome husband. She loved memadly, slavishly, and not merely my good looks, or my soul, but my sins,my ill-humor and boredom, and even my cruelty when, in drunken fury, notknowing how to vent my ill-humor, I tormented her with reproaches.

In spite of the boredom which was consuming me, we were preparing to seethe New Year in with exceptional festiveness, and were awaiting midnightwith some impatience. The fact is, we had in reserve two bottles ofchampagne, the real thing, with the label of Veuve Clicquot; this treasureI had won the previous autumn in a bet with the station-master of D. whenI was drinking with him at a christening. It sometimes happens during alesson in mathematics, when the very air is still with boredom, abutterfly flutters into the class-room; the boys toss their heads andbegin watching its flight with interest, as though they saw before themnot a butterfly but something new and strange; in the same way ordinarychampagne, chancing to come into our dreary station, roused us. We sat insilence looking alternately at the clock and at the bottles.