世界最好的短篇小说家最好的短篇小说
Rachmaninov PianoConcerto No.3-Adagio(Martha Argerich/Radio Symphonie Orchester Berlin/Riccardo Chailly)
契诃夫本人认为，他最好的小说是那篇只有三页的《大学生》。写这篇小说时，他三十三岁，按传统说法，也正好是耶稣死去的年龄。跟莎士比亚一样，契诃夫既不能被称作信徒，也不能被称作怀疑者；他们都太大了， 这种分类无法容纳他们。《大学生》是极其简单的，但安排得很美。一个年轻的神学院学生，又冷又饿，在耶稣受难日遇到两个寡妇，她们是母女。他在她们的篝火旁一边取暖，一边给她们讲述使徒彼得如何三次否认他认识耶稣，如同耶稣所预言的。彼得恢复神智之后，痛苦地哭了，那个寡妇母亲也哭了。学生走后，思考使徒的眼泪与那个母亲的眼泪之间的关系，他觉得，两者似乎被一条未断的链联系在一起。学生心中突然涌起一阵欢乐，因为他感到真与美长存于这条链并由这条链维系着，它连结过去与现在。就这么多；故事结束时，学生突然而来的快乐转化成一种期待，期待他未来人生的幸福。“他只有二十二岁，”契诃夫淡淡地说，也许隐约意识到他本人三十三岁，已走完四分之三的人生（他四十四岁死于肺结核）。
读者可以省思一下学生的欢乐的微妙转化，从一条过去到现在的真与美之链，到一个二十二岁青年对并非不可能的个人幸福的期待。那是耶稣受难日，而故事中的故事是讲述耶稣和西门·彼得，然而两种喜悦【译注：指悟到那条链的喜悦和对幸福生活的期待的喜悦。】都没有任何真正笃信或拯救的痕迹。契诃夫，这位自莎士比亚本人以来最微妙的戏剧心理学家，写的是一首关于受苦与转变的浓郁抒情诗。耶稣的出现，仅仅是作为受苦与转变的最高体现，而这正是莎士比亚（在他那个危险的时代）敏锐地并自始至终回避的。
为什么契诃夫独钟这个短篇小说，而不是数十篇在他很多崇拜者看来远远更为重要和更不可或缺的小说？我没有明确的答案，但我觉得这个问题值得深思。《大学生》中，除了主人公的内心活动外，什么也没有，只有令人不快的凄凉。使契诃夫本人感动的，似乎是从寒冷和悲惨中非理性地升起的非个人欢乐和个人希望，以及背叛的泪水。（布鲁姆《如何读，为什么读》）
他（布鲁姆）是少数几位我对其推荐的作家不敢掉以轻心的批评家之一。
而我这不敢掉以轻心，有一次就即时获得回报，而且就是从这本《如何读，为什么读》。话说契诃夫是我最喜欢的小说家，但我多年来都仅停留于反复阅读他的后期作品，尤其是人人文库版康斯坦丝·加内特译本《契诃夫选集》（The Chekhov Omnibus）。 这部选集厚六百余页，由唐纳德·雷菲尔德编辑及校订，收录契诃夫十八篇后期作品，篇篇都是杰作。我不是没读过契诃夫的早期小说和篇幅极短的小说，但总觉得它们的吸引力远远比不上他后期那些中篇和近于中篇的小说。可布鲁姆提到契诃夫本人最喜欢的作品，是只有三页篇幅的《大学生》。我立即上网下载加内特译的《大学生》来读。我不知道如何形容我的感动，应该说，我的灵魂的提升，我的存在的连根拔起。
我的幸福和喜悦，与大学生完全一样。我不仅为小说中所说的一切所感动，而且为人类在悲苦中的哀婉所感动；不仅感到小说中所说的那条链，而且感到文学艺术中那条相同的链，并由此而感到一股受其恩泽的喜悦，以及被这股喜悦所带动起来的感到自己也能做点跟这条链联系起来的事情的喜悦，而这与大学生对幸福未来的憧憬是一致的，尽管他憧憬的画面未必跟我相同。
后来我才发现这篇《大学生》就收录在我常读的那本《契诃夫选集》里。就是说，这本小说选并不像我原来以为的那样，只收录契诃夫的中篇和近于中篇的小说。我甚至怀疑我可能不止一次读过这篇小说却可能因为没感觉而完全忘了。类似的阅读经验相信很多人都有过，例如对自己常常翻阅的某本诗集中某一首诗，长期以来视而不见，等到它收录在某个选本里，或别人在文章里提醒之后，才发现它是那么好。这既是阅读的盲点，也是阅读的成熟的一种表现：愿意接受别人的提示。布鲁姆显然是这方面的高手。他两次读品钦的《拍卖第四十九批》才读进去，三次读麦卡锡的《血色子午线》才读进去。（黄灿然《大作家式的批评家》）
契诃夫: 大学生
汝龙 译
译者按: 《大学生》最初发表在1894年4月16日的《俄罗斯新闻》上，原来的题名是《在黄昏》。1894年，该小说由作者改换题名，并加修改（增添几句话）后，收入契诃夫的小说集《中篇和短篇小说》。 后来，该小说由作者收入他自编的文集第8卷。 契诃夫在修改小说的过程中一般都是删节原作，像这篇小说那样非但不删节，反而增补的情况是不多见的。契诃夫的朋友们在回忆录中证明，契诃夫喜爱这篇小说，认为它写得最出色。例如，俄国作家布宁在回忆录中说，契诃夫的这个作品曾受到不公正的评价，契诃夫知道后反驳道：“我哪里是‘悲观主义者’呢？要知道，在我的作品中我最喜爱的一个短篇就是《大学生》。”又如，有人询问作家的弟弟伊凡·契诃夫：契诃夫在自己的作品中间最看重的是哪一篇，后者回答说：“是《大学生》，他认为写得最出色。”
起初天气很好，没有风。鸫鸟噪鸣，附近沼泽里有个什么活东西在发出悲凉的声音，像是往一个空瓶子里吹气。有一只山鹬飞过，向它打过去的那一枪，在春天的空气里，发出轰隆一声欢畅的音响。然而临到树林里黑下来，却大煞风景，有一股冷冽刺骨的风从东方刮来，一切声音就都停息了。水洼的浮面上铺开一层冰针，树林里变得不舒服、荒凉、阴森了。这就有了冬天的意味。
教堂诵经士的儿子，神学院的大学生伊凡·韦里科波尔斯基打完山鹬，步行回家，一直沿着水淹的草地上一条小径走着。他手指头冻僵，脸给风刮得发烧。他觉得这种突如其来的寒冷破坏了万物的秩序与和谐，就连大自然本身也似乎觉得害怕，因此傍晚的昏暗比往常来得快。四下里冷清清的，不知怎的，显得特别阴森。只有河边的寡妇菜园里有亮光，远方以及大约四俄里外的村子都沉浸在傍晚寒冷的幽暗里。大学生想起，先前他从家里出来的时候，他母亲正光着脚，坐在前堂里的地板上擦茶炊，他父亲躺在灶台上咳嗽。这天是受难节①，他家里没烧饭，他饿得难受。现在，大学生冷得缩起身子，心里暗想：不论在留里克②的时代也好，在伊凡雷帝③的时代也好，在彼得④的时代也好，都刮过这样的风，在那些时代也有这种严酷的贫穷和饥饿，也有这种破了窟窿的草房顶，也有愚昧、苦恼，也有这种满目荒凉、黑暗、抑郁的心情，这一切可怕的现象从前有过，现在还有，以后也会有，因此再过一千年，生活也不会变好。想到这些，他都不想回家了。
那菜园所以叫做寡妇菜园，是因为它归母女两个寡妇所有。一堆篝火烧得很旺，噼噼啪啪地响，火光照亮了周围远处的耕地。寡妇瓦西里萨是个又高又胖的老太婆，穿一件男人的短皮袄，站在一旁，瞧着火光想心事；她的女儿路凯利雅身材矮小，脸上有麻斑，样子有点蠢，她坐在地上，正在洗一口锅和几把汤勺。显然她们刚刚吃过晚饭。旁边传来男人的说话声，那是此地的工人在河边饮马。
“嘿，冬天又回来了，”大学生走到篝火跟前说，“你们好！”
瓦西里萨打了个哆嗦，不过她立刻认出他来，就客气地笑了笑。
“我刚才没认出您来，求主保佑您，”她说，“您要发财啦⑤。”
他们攀谈起来。瓦西里萨是个见过世面的女人，以前在一位老爷家里当乳母，后来做保姆。她谈吐文雅，脸上始终挂着温和而庄重的笑容。她的女儿路凯利雅却是个村妇，受尽丈夫的折磨，这时候光是眯细眼睛看着大学生，一句话也没说，她脸上的表情古怪，就像一个又聋又哑的人。
“当初使徒彼得恰好就在这样一个寒冷的夜晚在篝火旁边取暖，”大学生说着，把手伸到火跟前，“可见那时候天也很冷。啊，那是多么可怕的一夜啊，老大娘！非常悲惨而漫长的一夜啊⑥！”
他朝黑魆魆的四周望了望，使劲摇一下头，问道：
“你大概听人读过十二节福音吧？”
“听过。”瓦西里萨回答说。
“那你会记得，在进最后的晚餐时，彼得对耶稣说：‘我就是同你下监，同你受死，也是甘心。’主却回答他说：‘彼得，我告诉你，今日鸡还没有叫，你要三次说不认得我。’傍晚以后，耶稣在花园里愁闷得要命，就祷告，可怜的彼得心神劳顿，身体衰弱，眼皮发重，怎么也压不下他的睡意。他睡着了。后来，你听人读过，犹大就在那天晚上吻耶稣，把他出卖给折磨他的人了。他们把他绑上，带他去见大司祭，打他。彼得呢，累极了，又受着苦恼和惊恐的煎熬，而且你知道，他没有睡足，不过他预感到人世间马上要出一件惨事，就跟着走去。……他热烈地，全心全意地爱耶稣，这时候他远远看见耶稣在挨打。……”
路凯利雅放下汤勺，定睛瞧着大学生。
“他们到了大司祭那儿，”他接着说，“耶稣就开始受审，而众人因为天冷，在院子里燃起一堆火，烤火取暖。彼得跟他们一块儿站在火旁，也烤火取暖，像我现在一样。有一个女人看见他，就说：‘这个人素来也是同耶稣一伙的。’那就是说，也得把他拉去受审。所有那些站在火旁的人想必怀疑而严厉地瞧着他，因为他心慌了，说：‘我不认得他。’过了一会儿，又有一个人认出他是耶稣的门徒，就说：‘你也是他们一党的。’可是他又否认。有人第三次对他说：‘我今天看见跟他一块儿在花园里的，不就是你吗？’他又第三次否认。正说话之间，鸡就叫了，彼得远远地瞧着耶稣，想起昨天进晚餐时耶稣对他说过的话。……他回想着，醒悟过来，就走出院子，伤心地哭泣。福音书上写着：‘他就出去痛哭。’我能想出当时的情景：一个安安静静、一片漆黑的花园，在寂静中隐约传来一种低沉的啜泣声。……”
大学生叹口气，沉思起来。瓦西里萨虽然仍旧赔着笑脸，却忽然哽咽一声，大颗的泪珠接连不断地从她的脸上流下来，她用衣袖遮着脸，想挡住火光，似乎在为自己的眼泪害臊似的；而路凯利雅呆望着大学生，涨红脸，神情沉闷而紧张，像是一个隐忍着剧烈痛苦的人。
工人们从河边回来了，其中一个骑着马，已经走近，篝火的光在他身上颤抖。大学生对两个寡妇道过晚安，便往前走去。黑暗又降临了，他的手渐渐冻僵。吹来一阵刺骨的风，冬天真的回来了，使人感觉不到后天就是复活节。
这时候大学生想到瓦西里萨：既然她哭起来，可见彼得在那个可怕的夜晚所经历的一切都跟她有某种关系。……
他回过头去看。那堆孤零零的火在黑地里安静地摇闪，看不见火旁有人。大学生又想：既然瓦西里萨哭，她的女儿也难过，那么显然，刚才他所讲的一千九百年前发生过的事就跟现在，跟这两个女人，大概也跟这个荒凉的村子有关系，而且跟他自己，跟一切人都有关系。既然老太婆哭起来，那就不是因为他善于把故事讲得动人，而是因为她觉得彼得是亲切的，因为她全身心关怀彼得的灵魂里发生的事情。
他的灵魂里忽然掀起欢乐，他甚至停住脚站一会儿，好喘一口气。“过去同现在，”他暗想，“是由连绵不断、前呼后应的一长串事件联系在一起的。”他觉得他刚才似乎看见这条链子的两头：只要碰碰这一头，那一头就会颤动。
他坐着渡船过河，后来爬上山坡，瞧着他自己的村子，瞧着西方，看见一条狭长的、冷冷的紫霞在发光，这时候他暗想：真理和美过去在花园里和大司祭的院子里指导过人的生活，而且至今一直连续不断地指导着生活，看来会永远成为人类生活中以及整个人世间的主要东西。于是青春、健康、力量的感觉（他刚二十二岁），对于幸福，对于奥妙而神秘的幸福那种难于形容的甜蜜的向往，渐渐抓住他的心，于是生活依他看来，显得美妙、神奇，充满高尚的意义了。
注释：
①基督教节日，复活节前的星期五守此节 。
②据编年史记载，留里克为公元9世纪的诺夫哥罗德大公，其子伊戈尔为俄罗斯国家的第一个王朝留里克王朝的建立者。
③即俄国沙皇伊凡四世（1530—1584）。
④即俄国沙皇彼得一世（1672—1725）。
⑤俄罗斯习俗，熟人相遇，一时未能认出对方，在认出后，即用此语解嘲。
⑥指《圣经》上所载耶稣被捕的那一夜，详见《路加福音》。
Anton Chekhov: The Student
tr. Constance Garnett
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. A snipe flew by, and the shot aimed at it rang out with a gay, resounding note in the spring air. But when it began to get dark in the forest a cold, penetrating wind blew inappropriately from the east, and everything sank into silence. Needles of ice stretched across the pools, and it felt cheerless, remote, and lonely in the forest. There was a whiff of winter.
Ivan Velikopolsky, the son of a sacristan, and a student of the clerical academy, returning home from shooting, kept walking on the path by the water-logged meadows. His fingers were numb and his face was burning with the wind. 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. All around it was deserted and peculiarly gloomy. The only light was one gleaming in the widows' gardens near the river; the village, over three miles away, and everything in the distance all round was plunged in the cold evening mist. The student remembered that, as he had left the house, his mother was sitting barefoot on the floor in the entryway, cleaning the samovar, while his father lay on the stove coughing; as it was Good Friday nothing had been cooked, and the student was terribly hungry. 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. And he did not want to go home.
The gardens were called the widows' because they were kept by two widows, mother and daughter. A campfire was burning brightly with a crackling sound, throwing out light far around on the ploughed earth. The widow Vasilisa, a tall, fat old woman in a man's coat, was standing by and looking thoughtfully into the fire; her daughter Lukerya, a little pockmarked woman with a stupid-looking face, was sitting on the ground, washing a cauldron and spoons. Apparently they had just had supper. There was a sound of men's voices; it was the laborers watering their horses at the river.
"Here you have winter back again," said the student, going up to the campfire. "Good evening."
Vasilisa started, but at once recognized him and smiled cordially.
"I did not know you; God bless you," she said. "You'll be rich."
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; 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.
"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. Ah, what a terrible night it must have been, granny! An utterly dismal long night!"
He looked round at the darkness, shook his head abruptly and asked:
"No doubt you have heard the reading of the Twelve Apostles?"
"Yes, I have," answered Vasilisa.
"If you remember, at the Last Supper Peter said to Jesus, 'I am ready to go with Thee into darkness and unto death.' And our Lord answered him thus: 'I say unto thee, Peter, before the cock croweth thou wilt have denied Me thrice.' 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. He fell asleep. Then you heard how Judas the same night kissed Jesus and betrayed Him to His tormentors. 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. . .. He loved Jesus passionately, intensely, and now he saw from far off how He was beaten. . . . "
Lukerya left the spoons and fixed an immovable stare upon the student.
"They came to the high priest's," he went on; "they began to question Jesus, and meantime the laborers made a fire in the yard as it was cold, and warmed themselves. Peter, too, stood with them near the fire and warmed himself as I am doing. 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. And all the laborers that were standing near the fire must have looked sourly and suspiciously at him, because he was confused and said: 'I don't know Him.' A little while after again someone recognized him as one of Jesus' disciples and said: 'Thou, too, art one of them,' but again he denied it. And for the third time someone turned to him: 'Why, did I not see thee with Him in the garden today?' For the third time he denied it. 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. . . . He remembered, he came to himself, went out of the yard and wept bitterly--bitterly. In the Gospel it is written: 'He went out and wept bitterly.' I imagine it: the still, still, dark, dark garden, and in the stillness, faintly audible, smothered sobbing.. . . ."
The student sighed and sank into thought. 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.
The laborers came back from the river, and one of them riding a horse was quite near, and the light from the fire quivered upon him. The student said good-night to the widows and went on. And again the darkness was about him and his fingers began to be numb. A cruel wind was blowing, winter really had come back and it did not feel as though Easter would be the day after tomorrow.
Now the student was thinking about Vasilisa: since she had shed tears all that had happened to Peter the night before the Crucifixion must have some relation to her. . . .
He looked round. The solitary light was still gleaming in the darkness and no figures could be seen near it now. 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. 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.
And joy suddenly stirred in his soul, and he even stopped for a minute to take breath. "The past," he thought, "is linked with the present by an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of another." And it seemed to him that he had just seen both ends of that chain; that when he touched one end the other quivered.
When he crossed the river by the ferryboat 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; and the feeling of youth, health, vigor--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.
-1894-
选自《契诃夫小说全集》（第9卷），汝龙译，人民文学出版社， 2016
预读/校对：yiyi、zzj、胡江涛、Turquoise、俱言、陈涛、桃之夭夭、老摇、陶雅婷、皓+皓
整理：胡江涛
执编：郑春娇
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