Anna Karenina — Chapter 31 in French
By Leo Tolstoy
Vronskï, de toute cette nuit, n’avait pas même essayé de s’endormir. Vronsky also had not even attempted to sleep all that night. Assis dans son fauteuil, tantôt il regardait fixement devant lui, tantôt il examinait les gens qui entraient et sortaient, et si, autrefois, il étonnait les gens par son calme imperturbable, il semblait maintenant encore plus hautain et plus impassible. He sat in his arm-chair, now gazing straight forward, now looking at those who came in and went out, and if before he had impressed strangers and irritated them by his imperturbable dignity, now he would have seemed to them far more haughty and self-contained. Il regardait les gens comme s’ils étaient des choses. He looked at men as if they were things. Un jeune homme nerveux, appartenant à la magistrature, qui était assis en face de lui, était agacé de son air. A nervous young man, employed in the district court, was sitting opposite him in the carriage, and came to hate him on account of this aspect. Il essaya de lui demander du feu, d’entamer la conversation, et même le bouscula pour lui faire comprendre qu’il n’était pas un objet mais un homme, mais Vronskï le regardait toujours du même air qu’il aurait eu en face d’un bec de gaz, et le jeune homme faisait des grimaces, sentant son sang-froid l’abandonner, trouvant humiliante cette obstination à ne pas le prendre pour un être animé. The young man asked for a light, and spoke to him, and even touched him, in order to make him perceive that he was not a thing but a man; yet Vronsky looked at him exactly as he looked at the carriage-lamp. Et le jeune homme fit une grimace, sentant qu'il perdrait contenance à être ainsi méprisé par un homme. And the young man made a grimace, feeling that he should lose command of himself to be so scorned by a man.
Rien au monde n’existait plus pour Vronskï. Vronsky saw nothing, saw no one. Il se sentait un héros ; non qu’il pensât avoir fait impression sur Anna, il ne le croyait pas encore, mais parce que l’effet qu’elle avait produit sur lui le remplissait de joie et d’orgueil. He felt as if he were a tsar, not because he believed that he had made an impression upon Anna,—he did not fully realize that, as yet,—but because the impression which she had made on him filled him with happiness and pride.
Qu’en adviendrait-il, il l’ignorait et ne s’en faisait même pas une idée. Il sentait que toutes ses forces, jusqu’ici dispersées, étaient maintenant réunies et tendaient, avec une incommensurable énergie, vers un but unique. What would be the outcome of all this he did not know, and did not even consider; but he felt that all his hitherto dissipated and scattered powers were now concentrating and converging with frightful rapidity toward one beatific focus. Et il en était heureux. And he was happy in this thought. Il ne savait qu’une chose, qu’il lui avait dit la vérité — qu’il allait où elle était, qu’il ne comprenait d’autre bonheur, n’éprouvait d’autre désir que de la voir et de l’entendre. He knew only that he had told her the truth when he said he was going where she was, that all the happiness of life, the sole significance of life, he found now in seeing and hearing her. Et quand il sortit du wagon à Bologoïé pour prendre un verre d’eau de seltz et qu’il aperçut Anna, malgré lui, dès le premier mot, il lui exprima cette pensée, la seule qu’il eût. And when he left his compartment at Bologovo to get a glass of seltzer, and he saw Anna, involuntarily his first word told her what he thought. Et il était satisfait de le lui avoir dit, content qu’elle le sût. And he was glad that he had spoken as he did; glad that she knew all now, and was thinking about it. Il ne dormit pas de la nuit. He did not sleep all night. Revenu dans son wagon, il se rappelait sans cesse l’attitude dans laquelle il l’avait vue, ainsi que toutes ses paroles ; et son imagination lui laissait entrevoir la possibilité d’un avenir qui bouleversa son cœur. Returning to his carriage he did not cease recalling all his memories of her, the words that she had spoken, and in his imagination glowed the pictures of a possible future which overwhelmed his heart.
Quand, à Pétersbourg il descendit du train, il se sentit, malgré cette nuit sans sommeil, aussi frais et aussi dispos qu’après un bain froid. When, on reaching Petersburg, he left the carriage, after his sleepless night he felt as fresh and vigorous as if he had just had a cold bath. Il s’arrêta près de son wagon, attendant sa sortie. He stood near his carriage, waiting to see her pass. — Je la verrai encore une fois, se dit-il en souriant malgré lui ; je verrai son allure, sa physionomie ; elle parlera, tournera la tête, sourira peut-être. "Once more I shall see her," he said to himself, with a smile. "I shall see her graceful bearing, her face; she will speak a word to me, will turn her head, will look at me, perhaps she will smile on me."