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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/6900-0.txt b/6900-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..96dbdaf --- /dev/null +++ b/6900-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6585 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rudin, by Ivan Turgenev + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Rudin + +Author: Ivan Turgenev + +Translator: Constance Garnett + +Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6900] +Posting Date: June 1, 2009 +[Last updated: November 17, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUDIN *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred + + + + + +RUDIN + +A Novel + + +By Ivan Turgenev + +Translated from the Russian By Constance Garnett + +[With an introduction by S. Stepniak] + +LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1894 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +I + + +Turgenev is an author who no longer belongs to Russia only. During the +last fifteen years of his life he won for himself the reading public, +first in France, then in Germany and America, and finally in England. + +In his funeral oration the spokesman of the most artistic and critical +of European nations, Ernest Renan, hailed him as one of the greatest +writers of our times: ‘The Master, whose exquisite works have charmed +our century, stands more than any other man as the incarnation of a +whole race,’ because ‘a whole world lived in him and spoke through his +mouth.’ Not the Russian world only, we may add, but the whole Slavonic +world, to which it was ‘an honour to have been expressed by so great a +Master.’ + +This recognition was, however, of slow growth. It had nothing in it of +the sudden wave of curiosity and gushing enthusiasm which in a few years +lifted Count Tolstoi to world-wide fame. Neither in the personality of +Turgenev, nor in his talent, was there anything to strike and carry away +popular imagination. + +By the fecundity of his creative talent Turgenev stands with the +greatest authors of all times. The gallery of living people, men, and +especially women, each different and perfectly individualised, yet all +the creatures of actual life, whom Turgenev introduces to us; the vast +body of psychological truths he discovers, the subtle shades of men’s +feelings he reveals to us, is such as only the greatest among the great +have succeeded in leaving as their artistic inheritance to their country +and to the world. + +As regards his method of dealing with his material and shaping it into +mould, he stands even higher than as a pure creator. Tolstoi is more +plastical, and certainly as deep and original and rich in creative power +as Turgenev, and Dostoevsky is more intense, fervid, and dramatic. +But as an _artist_, as master of the combination of details into a +harmonious whole, as an architect of imaginative work, he surpasses all +the prose writers of his country, and has but few equals among the +great novelists of other lands. Twenty-five years ago, on reading the +translation of one of his short stories (_Assya_), George Sand, who was +then at the apogee of her fame, wrote to him: ‘Master, all of us have +to go to study at your school.’ This was, indeed, a generous compliment, +coming from the representative of French literature which is so +eminently artistic. But it was not flattery. As an artist, Turgenev +in reality stands with the classics who may be studied and admired +for their perfect form long after the interest of their subject has +disappeared. But it seems that in his very devotion to art and beauty he +has purposely restricted the range of his creations. + +To one familiar with all Turgenev’s works it is evident that he +possessed the keys of all human emotions, all human feelings, the +highest and the lowest, the noble as well as the base. From the height +of his superiority he saw all, understood all: Nature and men had no +secrets hidden from his calm, penetrating eyes. In his latter days, +sketches such as _Clara Militch_, _The Song of Triumphant Love_, _The +Dream_, and the incomparable _Phantoms_, he showed that he could equal +Edgar Poe, Hofmann, and Dostoevsky in the mastery of the fantastical, +the horrible, the mysterious, and the incomprehensible, which live +somewhere in human nerves, though not to be defined by reason. + +But there was in him such a love of light, sunshine, and living human +poetry, such an organic aversion for all that is ugly, or coarse and +discordant, that he made himself almost exclusively the poet of the +gentler side of human nature. On the fringe of his pictures or in their +background, just for the sake of contrast, he will show us the vices, +the cruelties, even the mire of life. But he cannot stay in these gloomy +regions, and he hastens back to the realms of the sun and flowers, or to +the poetical moonlight of melancholy, which he loves best because in it +he can find expression for his own great sorrowing heart. + +Even jealousy, which is the black shadow of the most poetical of human +feelings, is avoided by the gentle artist. He hardly ever describes it, +only alluding to it cursorily. But there is no novelist who gives so +much room to the pure, crystalline, eternally youthful feeling of love. +We may say that the description of love is Turgenev’s speciality. What +Francesco Petrarca did for one kind of love--the romantic, artificial, +hot-house love of the times of chivalry--Turgenev did for the natural, +spontaneous, modern love in all its variety of forms, kinds, and +manifestations: the slow and gradual as well as the sudden and +instantaneous; the spiritual, the admiring and inspiring, as well as +the life-poisoning, terrible kind of love, which infects a man as a +prolonged disease. There is something prodigious in Turgenev’s insight +into, and his inexhaustible richness, truthfulness, and freshness in the +rendering of those emotions which have been the theme of all poets and +novelists for two thousand years. + +In the well-known memoirs of Caroline Bauer one comes across a curious +legend about Paganini. She tells that the great enchanter owed his +unique command over the emotions of his audiences to a peculiar use of +one single string, G, which he made sing and whisper, cry and thunder, +at the touch of his marvellous bow. + +There is something of this in Turgenev’s description of love. He has +many other strings at his harp, but his greatest effect he obtains in +touching this one. His stories are not love poems. He only prefers to +present his people in the light of that feeling in which a man’s soul +gathers up all its highest energies, and melts as in a crucible, showing +its dross and its pure metal. + + +Turgenev began his literary career and won an enormous popularity in +Russia by his sketches from peasant life. His _Diary of a Sportsman_ +contains some of the best of his short stories, and his _Country Inn,_ +written a few years later, in the maturity of his talent, is as good as +Tolstoi’s little masterpiece, _Polikushka_. + +He was certainly able to paint all classes and conditions of Russian +people. But in his greater works Turgenev lays the action exclusively +with one class of Russian people. There is nothing of the enormous +canvas of Count Tolstoi, in which the whole of Russia seems to pass in +review before the readers. In Turgenev’s novels we see only educated +Russia, or rather the more advanced thinking part of it, which he knew +best, because he was a part of it himself. + +We are far from regretting this specialisation. Quality can sometimes +hold its own against quantity. Although small numerically, the section +of Russian society which Turgenev represents is enormously interesting, +because it is the brain of the nation, the living ferment which alone +can leaven the huge unformed masses. It is upon them that depend the +destinies of their country. Besides, the artistic value of his works +could only be enhanced by his concentrating his genius upon a field +so familiar to him, and engrossing so completely his mind and his +sympathies. What he loses in dimensions he gains in correctness, depth, +wonderful subtlety and effectiveness of every minute detail, and the +surpassing beauty of the whole. The jewels of art he left us are like +those which nations store in the sanctuaries of their museums and +galleries to be admired, the longer they are studied. But we must look +to Tolstoi for the huge and towering monuments, hewn in massive granite, +to be put upon some cross way of nations as an object of wonder and +admiration for all who come from the four winds of heaven. + +Turgenev did not write for the masses but for the _elite_ among men. The +fact that he has won such a fame among foreigners, and that the +number of his readers is widening every year, proves that great art +is international, and also, I may say, that artistic taste and +understanding is growing everywhere. + + + +II + + +It is written that no man is a prophet in his own country, and from time +immemorial all the unsuccessful aspirants to the profession have found +their consolation in this proverbial truth. But for aught we know this +hard limitation has never been applied to artists. Indeed it seems +absurd on the face of it that the artist’s countrymen, for whom +and about whom he writes, should be less fit to recognise him than +strangers. Yet in certain special and peculiar conditions, the most +unlikely things will sometimes occur, as is proved in the case of +Turgenev. + +The fact is that _as an artist_ he was appreciated to his full value +first by foreigners. The Russians have begun to understand him, and to +assign to him his right place in this respect only now, after his death, +whilst in his lifetime his _artistic genius_ was comparatively little +cared for, save by a handful of his personal friends. + +This supreme art told upon the Russian public unconsciously, as it was +bound to tell upon a nation so richly endowed with natural artistic +instinct. Turgenev was always the most widely read of Russian authors, +not excepting Tolstoi, who came to the front only after his death. But +full recognition he had not, because he happened to produce his works in +a troubled epoch of political and social strife, when the best men were +absorbed in other interests and pursuits, and could not and would not +appreciate and enjoy pure art. This was the painful, almost tragic, +position of an artist, who lived in a most inartistic epoch, and whose +highest aspirations and noblest efforts wounded and irritated those +among his countrymen whom he was most devoted to, and whom he desired +most ardently to serve. + +This strife embittered Turgenev’s life. + +At one crucial epoch of his literary career the conflict became so +vehement, and the outcry against him, set in motion by his very artistic +truthfulness and objectiveness, became so loud and unanimous, that he +contemplated giving up literature altogether. He could not possibly +have held to this resolution. But it is surely an open question whether, +sensitive and modest as he was, and prone to despondency and diffidence, +he would have done so much for the literature of his country without the +enthusiastic encouragement of various great foreign novelists, who were +his friends and admirers: George Sand, Gustave Flaubert, in France; +Auerbach, in Germany; W. D. Howells, in America; George Eliot, in +England. + +We will tell the story of his troubled life piece by piece as far as +space will allow, as his works appear in succession. Here we will only +give a few biographical traits which bear particularly upon the novel +before us, and account for his peculiar hold over the minds of his +countrymen. + +Turgenev, who was born in 1818, belonged to a set of Russians very small +in his time, who had received a thoroughly European education in no way +inferior to that of the best favoured young German or Englishman. It +happened, moreover, that his paternal uncle, Nicholas Turgenev, the +famous ‘Decembrist,’ after the failure of that first attempt (December +14, 1825) to gain by force of arms a constitutional government for +Russia, succeeded in escaping the vengeance of the Tsar Nicholas I., and +settled in France, where he published in French the first vindication of +Russian revolution. + +Whilst studying philosophy in the Berlin University, Turgenev paid short +visits to his uncle, who initiated him in the ideas of liberty, from +which he never swerved throughout his long life. + +In the sixties, when Alexander Hertzen, one of the most gifted writers +of our land, a sparkling, witty, pathetic, and powerful journalist and +brilliant essayist, started in London his _Kolokol_, a revolutionary, +or rather radical paper, which had a great influence in Russia, Turgenev +became one of his most active contributors and advisers,--almost a +member of the editorial staff. + +This fact has been revealed a few years ago by the publication, which +we owe to Professor Dragomanov, of the private correspondence between +Turgenev and Hertzen. This most interesting little volume throws quite a +new light upon Turgenev, showing that our great novelist was at the same +time one of the strongest--perhaps the strongest--and most clear-sighted +political thinkers of his time. However surprising such a versatility +may appear, it is proved to demonstration by a comparison of his views, +his attitude, and his forecasts, some of which have been verified only +lately, with those of the acknowledged leaders and spokesmen of the +various political parties of his day, including Alexander Hertzen +himself. Turgenev’s are always the soundest, the most correct and +far-sighted judgments, as latter-day history has proved. + +A man with so ardent a love of liberty, and such radical views, could +not possibly banish them from his literary works, no matter how great +his devotion to pure art. He would have been a poor artist had he +inflicted upon himself such a mutilation, because freedom from all +restraints, the frank, sincere expression of the artist’s individuality, +is the life and soul of all true art. + +Turgenev gave to his country the whole of himself, the best of his mind +and of his creative fancy. He appeared at the same time as a teacher, a +prophet of new ideas, and as a poet and artist. But his own countrymen +hailed him in the first capacity, remaining for a long time obtuse to +the latter and greater. + +Thus, during one of the most important and interesting periods of our +national history, Turgenev was the standard-bearer and inspirer of +the Liberal, the thinking Russia. Although the two men stand at +diametrically opposite poles, Turgenev’s position can be compared to +that of Count Tolstoi nowadays, with a difference, this time in favour +of the author of _Dmitri Rudin_. With Turgenev the thinker and the +artist are not at war, spoiling and sometimes contradicting each other’s +efforts. They go hand in hand, because he never preaches any doctrine +whatever, but gives us, with an unimpeachable, artistic objectiveness, +the living men and women in whom certain ideas, doctrines, and +aspirations were embodied. And he never evolves these ideas and +doctrines from his inner consciousness, but takes them from real life, +catching with his unfailing artistic instinct an incipient movement just +at the moment when it was to become a historic feature of the time. Thus +his novels are a sort of artistic epitome of the intellectual history +of modern Russia, and also a powerful instrument of her intellectual +progress. + + + +III + + +_Rudin_ is the first of Turgenev’s social novels, and is a sort of +artistic introduction to those that follow, because it refers to the +epoch anterior to that when the present social and political movements +began. This epoch is being fast forgotten, and without his novel it +would be difficult for us to fully realise it, but it is well worth +studying, because we find in it the germ of future growths. + +It was a gloomy time. The ferocious despotism of Nicholas +I.--overweighing the country like the stone lid of a coffin, +crushed every word, every thought, which did not fit with its narrow +conceptions. But this was not the worst. The worst was that progressive +Russia was represented by a mere handful of men, who were so immensely +in advance of their surroundings, that in their own country they felt +more isolated, helpless, and out of touch with the realities of life +than if they had lived among strangers. + +But men must have some outlet for their spiritual energies, and these +men, unable to take part in the sordid or petty pursuits of those around +them, created for themselves artificial life, artificial pursuits and +interests. + +The isolation in which they lived drew them naturally together. The +‘circle,’ something between an informal club and a debating society, +became the form in which these cravings of mind or heart could be +satisfied. These people met and talked; that was all they were able to +do. + +The passage in which one of the heroes, Lezhnyov, tells the woman he +loves about the circle of which Dmitri Rudin and himself were members, +is historically one of the most suggestive. It refers to a circle of +young students. But it has a wider application. All prominent men of +the epoch--Stankevitch, who served as model to the poetic and +touching figure of Pokorsky; Alexander Hertzen, and the great critic, +Belinsky--all had their ‘circles,’ or their small chapels, in which +these enthusiasts met to offer worship to the ‘goddess of truth, art, +and morality.’ + +They were the best men of their time, full of high aspirations and +knowledge, and their disinterested search after truth was certainly a +noble pursuit. They had full right to look down upon their neighbours +wallowing in the mire of sordid and selfish materialism. But by living +in that spiritual hothouse of dreams, philosophical speculations, and +abstractions, these men unfitted themselves only the more completely for +participation in real life; the absorption in interests having nothing +to do with the life of their own country, estranged them still more from +it. The overwhelming stream of words drained them of the natural sources +of spontaneous emotion, and these men almost grew out of feeling by dint +of constantly analysing their feelings. + +Dmitri Rudin is the typical man of that generation, both the victim and +the hero of his time--a man who is almost a Titan in word and a pigmy in +deed. He is eloquent as a young Demosthenes. An irresistible debater, +he carries everything before him the moment he appears. But he fails +ignominiously when put to the hard test of action. Yet he is not an +impostor. His enthusiasm is contagious because it is sincere, and his +eloquence is convincing because devotion to his ideals is an absorbing +passion with him. He would die for them, and, what is more rare, he +would not swerve a hair’s-breadth from them for any worldly advantage, +or for fear of any hardship. Only this passion and this enthusiasm +spring with him entirely from the head. The heart, the deep emotional +power of human love and pity, lay dormant in him. Humanity, which +he would serve to the last drop of his blood, is for him a body of +foreigners--French, English, Germans--whom he has studied from books, +and whom he has met only in hotels and watering-places during his +foreign travels as a student or as a tourist. + +Towards such an abstract, alien humanity, a man cannot feel any real +attachment. With all his outward ardour, Rudin is cold as ice at the +bottom of his heart. His is an enthusiasm which glows without warmth, +like the aurora borealis of the Polar regions. A poor substitute for the +bountiful sun. But what would have become of a God-forsaken land if +the Arctic nights were deprived of that substitute? With all their +weaknesses, Rudin and the men of his stamp--in other words, the men +of the generation of 1840--have rendered an heroic service to their +country. They inculcated in it the religion of the ideal; they brought +in the seeds, which had only to be thrown into the warm furrow of their +native soil to bring forth the rich crops of the future. + +The shortcomings and the impotence of these men were due to their having +no organic ties with their own country, no roots in the Russian soil. +They hardly knew the Russian people, who appeared to them as nothing +more than an historic abstraction. They were really cosmopolitan, as a +poor makeshift for something better, and Turgenev, in making his hero +die on a French barricade, was true to life as well as to art. + +The inward growth of the country has remedied this defect in the course +of the three generations which have followed. But has the remedy been +complete? No; far from it, unfortunately. There are still thousands of +barriers preventing the Russians from doing something useful for their +countrymen and mixing freely with them. The spiritual energies of the +most ardent are still compelled--partially at least--to run into the +artificial channels described in Turgenev’s novel. + +Hence the perpetuation of Rudin’s type, which acquires more than an +historical interest. + +In discussing the character of Hlestakov, the hero of his great comedy, +Gogol declared that this type is pretty nigh universal, because ‘every +Russian,’ he says, ‘has a bit of Hlestakov in him.’ This not very +flattering opinion has been humbly indorsed and repeated since, out of +reverence to Gogol’s great authority, although it is untrue on the +face of it. Hlestakov is a sort of Tartarin in Russian dress, whilst +simplicity and sincerity are the fundamental traits of all that is +Russian in character, manner, art, literature. But it may be truly said +that every educated Russian of our time has a bit of Dmitri Rudin in +him. + +This figure is undoubtedly one of the finest in Turgenev’s gallery, +and it is at the same time one of the most brilliant examples of his +artistic method. + +Turgenev does not give us at one stroke sculptured figures made from one +block, such as rise before us from Tolstoi’s pages. His art is rather +that of a painter or musical composer than of a sculptor. He has more +colour, a deeper perspective, a greater variety of lights and shadows--a +more complete portraiture of the spiritual man. Tolstoi’s people stand +so living and concrete that one feels one can recognise them in the +street. Turgenev’s are like people whose intimate confessions and +private correspondence, unveiling all the secrets of their spiritual +life, have been submitted to one. + +Every scene, almost every line, opens up new deep horizons, throwing +upon his people some new unexpected light. + +The extremely complex and difficult character of the hero of this story, +shows at its highest this subtle psychological many-sidedness. Dmitri +Rudin is built up of contradictions, yet not for a moment does he cease +to be perfectly real, living, and concrete. + +Hardly less remarkable is the character of the heroine, Natalya, the +quiet, sober, matter-of-fact girl, who at the bottom is an enthusiastic +and heroic nature. She is but a child fresh to all impressions of life, +and as yet undeveloped. To have used the searching, analytical method +in painting her would have spoiled this beautiful creation. Turgenev +describes her synthetically by a few masterly lines, which show us, +however, the secrets of her spirit; revealing what she is and also what +she might have become under other circumstances. + +This character deserves more attention than we can give it here. +Turgenev, like George Meredith, is a master in painting women, and his +Natalya is the first poetical revelation of a very striking fact in +modern Russian history; the appearance of women possessing a strength +of mind more finely masculine than that of the men of their time. By the +side of weak, irresolute, though highly intellectual men we see in his +first three novels energetic, earnest, impassioned women, who take +the lead in action, whilst they are but the man’s modest pupils in the +domain of ideas. Only later on, in _Fathers and Children_, does Turgenev +show us in Bazarov a man essentially masculine. But of this interesting +peculiarity of Russian intellectual life, in the years 1840 to 1860, +I will speak more fully when analysing another of Turgenev’s novels in +which this contrast is most conspicuous. + +I will say nothing of the minor characters of the story before us: +Lezhnyov, Pigasov, Madame Lasunsky, Pandalevsky, who are all excellent +examples of what may be called miniature-painting. + +As to the novel as a whole, I will make here only one observation, not +to forestall the reader’s own impressions. + +Turgenev is a realist in the sense that he keeps close to reality, +truth, and nature. But in the pursuit of photographic faithfulness to +life, he never allows himself to be tedious and dull, as some of the +best representatives of the school think it incumbent upon them to be. +His descriptions are never overburdened with wearisome details; his +action is rapid; the events are never to be foreseen a hundred pages +beforehand; he keeps his readers in constant suspense. And it seems +to me in so doing he shows himself a better realist than the gifted +representatives of the orthodox realism in France, England, and America. +Life is not dull; life is full of the unforeseen, full of suspense. A +novelist, however natural and logical, must contrive to have it in his +novels if he is not to sacrifice the soul of art for the merest show of +fidelity. + +The plot of Dmitri Rudin is so exceedingly simple that an English +novel-reader would say that there is hardly any plot at all. Turgenev +disdained the tricks of the sensational novelists. Yet, for a Russian at +least, it is easier to lay down before the end a novel by Victor Hugo or +Alexander Dumas than Dmitri Rudin, or, indeed, any of Turgenev’s great +novels. What the novelists of the romantic school obtain by the charm +of unexpected adventures and thrilling situations, Turgenev succeeds in +obtaining by the brisk admirably concentrated action, and, above all, by +the simplest and most precious of a novelist’s gifts: his unique command +over the sympathies and emotions of his readers. In this he can be +compared to a musician who works upon the nerves and the souls of his +audience without the intermediary of the mind; or, better still, to a +poet who combines the power of the word with the magic spell of harmony. +One does not read his novels; one lives in them. + +Much of this peculiar gift of fascination is certainly due to Turgenev’s +mastery over all the resources of our rich, flexible, and musical +language. The poet Lermontov alone wrote as splendid a prose as +Turgenev. A good deal of its charm is unavoidably lost in translation. +But I am happy to say that the present one is as near an approach to the +elegance and poetry of the original as I have ever come across. + + + S. STEPNIAK. + + BEDFORD PARK, April 20, 1894. + + + + + +THE NAMES OF THE CHARACTERS IN THE BOOK + +DMITRI NIKOLA’ITCH RU’DIN. + +DAR-YA MIHA’ILOVNA LASU’NSKY. + +NATA’L-YA ALEX-YE’VNA. + +MIHA’ILO MIHA’ILITCH LE’ZH-NYOV (MISHA). + +ALEXANDRA PA’VLOVNA LI’PIN (SASHA). + +SERGEI (pron, Sergay) PA’VLITCH VOLI’NT-SEV (SEREZHA). + +KONSTANTIN DIOMIDITCH PANDALE’VSKY. + +AFRICAN SEME’NITCH PIGA’SOV. + +BASSI’STOFF. + +MLLE. BONCOURT. + + +In transcribing the Russian names into English-- + +a has the sound of a in father. er,, air. i,, ee. u,, oo. y is always +consonantal except when it is the last letter of the word. g is always +hard. + + + + + + + + + +I + + +IT was a quiet summer morning. The sun stood already pretty high in the +clear sky but the fields were still sparkling with dew; a fresh breeze +blew fragrantly from the scarce awakened valleys and in the forest, +still damp and hushed, the birds were merrily carolling their morning +song. On the ridge of a swelling upland, which was covered from base +to summit with blossoming rye, a little village was to be seen. Along +a narrow by-road to this little village a young woman was walking in a +white muslin gown, and a round straw hat, with a parasol in her hand. A +page boy followed her some distance behind. + +She moved without haste and as though she were enjoying the walk. The +high nodding rye all round her moved in long softly rustling waves, +taking here a shade of silvery green and there a ripple of red; the +larks were trilling overhead. The young woman had come from her own +estate, which was not more than a mile from the village to which she +was turning her steps. Her name was Alexandra Pavlovna Lipin. She was +a widow, childless, and fairly well off, and lived with her brother, a +retired cavalry officer, Sergei Pavlitch Volintsev. He was unmarried and +looked after her property. + +Alexandra Pavlovna reached the village and, stopping at the last hut, +a very old and low one, she called up the boy and told him to go in and +ask after the health of its mistress. He quickly came back accompanied +by a decrepit old peasant with a white beard. + +‘Well, how is she?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna. + +‘Well, she is still alive,’ began the old man. + +‘Can I go in?’ + +‘Of course; yes.’ + +Alexandra Pavlovna went into the hut. It was narrow, stifling, and smoky +inside. Some one stirred and began to moan on the stove which formed the +bed. Alexandra Pavlovna looked round and discerned in the half +darkness the yellow wrinkled face of the old woman tied up in a checked +handkerchief. Covered to the very throat with a heavy overcoat she was +breathing with difficulty, and her wasted hands were twitching. + +Alexandra Pavlovna went close up to the old woman and laid her fingers +on her forehead; it was burning hot. + +‘How do you feel, Matrona?’ she inquired, bending over the bed. + +‘Oh, oh!’ groaned the old woman, trying to make her out, ‘bad, very bad, +my dear! My last hour has come, my darling!’ + +‘God is merciful, Matrona; perhaps you will be better soon. Did you take +the medicine I sent you?’ + +The old woman groaned painfully, and did not answer. She had hardly +heard the question. + +‘She has taken it,’ said the old man who was standing at the door. + +Alexandra Pavlovna turned to him. + +‘Is there no one with her but you?’ she inquired. + +‘There is the girl--her granddaughter, but she always keeps away. She +won’t sit with her; she’s such a gad-about. To give the old woman a +drink of water is too much trouble for her. And I am old; what use can I +be?’ + +‘Shouldn’t she be taken to me--to the hospital?’ + +‘No. Why take her to the hospital? She would die just the same. She has +lived her life; it’s God’s will now seemingly. She will never get up +again. How could she go to the hospital? If they tried to lift her up, +she would die.’ + +‘Oh!’ moaned the sick woman, ‘my pretty lady, don’t abandon my little +orphan; our master is far away, but you----’ + +She could not go on, she had spent all her strength in saying so much. + +‘Do not worry yourself,’ replied Alexandra Pavlovna, ‘everything shall +be done. Here is some tea and sugar I have brought you. If you can +fancy it you must drink some. Have you a samovar, I wonder?’ she added, +looking at the old man. + +‘A samovar? We haven’t a samovar, but we could get one.’ + +‘Then get one, or I will send you one. And tell your granddaughter not +to leave her like this. Tell her it’s shameful.’ + +The old man made no answer but took the parcel of tea and sugar with +both hands. + +‘Well, good-bye, Matrona!’ said Alexandra Pavlovna, ‘I will come and +see you again; and you must not lose heart but take your medicine +regularly.’ + +The old woman raised her head and drew herself a little towards +Alexandra Pavlovna. + +‘Give me your little hand, dear lady,’ she muttered. + +Alexandra Pavlovna did not give her hand; she bent over her and kissed +her on the forehead. + +‘Take care, now,’ she said to the old man as she went out, ‘and give her +the medicine without fail, as it is written down, and give her some tea +to drink.’ + +Again the old man made no reply, but only bowed. + +Alexandra Pavlovna breathed more freely when she came out into the +fresh air. She put up her parasol and was about to start homewards, when +suddenly there appeared round the corner of a little hut a man about +thirty, driving a low racing droshky and wearing an old overcoat of +grey linen, and a foraging cap of the same. Catching sight of Alexandra +Pavlovna he at once stopped his horse and turned round towards her. +His broad and colourless face with its small light grey eyes and almost +white moustache seemed all in the same tone of colour as his clothes. + +‘Good-morning!’ he began, with a lazy smile; ‘what are you doing here, +if I may ask?’ + +‘I have been visiting a sick woman... And where have you come from, +Mihailo Mihailitch?’ + +The man addressed as Mihailo Mihailitch looked into her eyes and smiled +again. + +‘You do well,’ he said, ‘to visit the sick, but wouldn’t it be better +for you to take her into the hospital?’ + +‘She is too weak; impossible to move her.’ + +‘But don’t you intend to give up your hospital?’ + +‘Give it up? Why?’ + +‘Oh, I thought so.’ + +‘What a strange notion! What put such an idea into your head?’ + +‘Oh, you are always with Madame Lasunsky now, you know, and seem to be +under her influence. And in her words--hospitals, schools, and all that +sort of things, are mere waste of time--useless fads. Philanthropy +ought to be entirely personal, and education too, all that is the soul’s +work... that’s how she expresses herself, I believe. From whom did she +pick up that opinion I should like to know?’ + +Alexandra Pavlovna laughed. + +‘Darya Mihailovna is a clever woman, I like and esteem her very much; +but she may make mistakes, and I don’t put faith in everything she +says.’ + +‘And it’s a very good thing you don’t,’ rejoined Mihailo Mihailitch, who +all the while remained sitting in his droshky, ‘for she doesn’t put much +faith in what she says herself. I’m very glad I met you.’ + +‘Why?’ + +‘That’s a nice question! As though it wasn’t always delightful to meet +you? To-day you look as bright and fresh as this morning.’ + +Alexandra Pavlovna laughed again. + +‘What are you laughing at?’ + +‘What, indeed! If you could see with what a cold and indifferent face +you brought out your compliment! I wonder you didn’t yawn over the last +word!’ + +‘A cold face.... You always want fire; but fire is of no use at all. It +flares and smokes and goes out.’ + +‘And warms,’... put in Alexandra Pavlovna. + +‘Yes... and burns.’ + +‘Well, what if it does burn! That’s no great harm either! It’s better +anyway than----’ + +‘Well, we shall see what you will say when you do get nicely burnt one +day,’ Mihailo Mihailitch interrupted her in a tone of vexation and made +a cut at the horse with the reins, ‘Good-bye.’ + +‘Mihailo Mihailitch, stop a minute!’ cried Alexandra Pavlovna, ‘when are +you coming to see us?’ + +‘To-morrow; my greetings to your brother.’ + +And the droshky rolled away. + +Alexandra Pavlovna looked after Mihailo Mihailitch. + +‘What a sack!’ she thought. Sitting huddled up and covered with dust, +his cap on the back of his head and tufts of flaxen hair straggling from +beneath it, he looked strikingly like a huge sack of flour. + +Alexandra Pavlovna turned tranquilly back along the path homewards. She +was walking with downcast eyes. The tramp of a horse near made her stop +and raise her head.... Her brother had come on horseback to meet her; +beside him was walking a young man of medium height, wearing a light +open coat, a light tie, and a light grey hat, and carrying a cane in his +hand. He had been smiling for a long time at Alexandra Pavlovna, even +though he saw that she was absorbed in thought and noticing nothing, and +when she stopped he went up to her and in a tone of delight, almost of +emotion, cried: + +‘Good-morning, Alexandra Pavlovna, good-morning!’ + +‘Ah! Konstantin Diomiditch! good-morning!’ she replied. ‘You have come +from Darya Mihailovna?’ + +‘Precisely so, precisely so,’ rejoined the young man with a radiant +face, ‘from Darya Mihailovna. Darya Mihailovna sent me to you; I +preferred to walk.... It’s such a glorious morning, and the distance +is only three miles. When I arrived, you were not at home. Your brother +told me you had gone to Semenovka; and he was just going out to the +fields; so you see I walked with him to meet you. Yes, yes. How very +delightful!’ + +The young man spoke Russian accurately and grammatically but with a +foreign accent, though it was difficult to determine exactly what accent +it was. In his features there was something Asiatic. His long hook +nose, his large expressionless prominent eyes, his thick red lips, +and retreating forehead, and his jet black hair,--everything about him +suggested an Oriental extraction; but the young man gave his surname as +Pandalevsky and spoke of Odessa as his birthplace, though he was brought +up somewhere in White Russia at the expense of a rich and benevolent +widow. + +Another widow had obtained a government post for him. Middle-aged ladies +were generally ready to befriend Konstantin Diomiditch; he knew well how +to court them and was successful in coming across them. He was at +this very time living with a rich lady, a landowner, Darya Mihailovna +Lasunsky, in a position between that of a guest and of a dependant. He +was very polite and obliging, full of sensibility and secretly given to +sensuality, he had a pleasant voice, played well on the piano, and had +the habit of gazing intently into the eyes of any one he was speaking +to. He dressed very neatly, and wore his clothes a very long time, +shaved his broad chin carefully, and arranged his hair curl by curl. + +Alexandra Pavlovna heard his speech to the end and turned to her +brother. + +‘I keep meeting people to-day; I have just been talking to Lezhnyov.’ + +‘Oh, Lezhnyov! was he driving somewhere?’ + +‘Yes, and fancy; he was in a racing droshky, and dressed in a kind of +linen sack, all covered with dust.... What a queer creature he is!’ + +‘Perhaps so; but he’s a capital fellow.’ + +‘Who? Mr. Lezhnyov?’ inquired Pandalevsky, as though he were surprised. + +‘Yes, Mihailo Mihailitch Lezhnyov,’ replied Volintsev. ‘Well, good-bye; +it’s time I was off to the field; they are sowing your buckwheat. Mr. +Pandalevsky will escort you home.’ And Volintsev rode off at a trot. + +‘With the greatest of pleasure!’ cried Konstantin Diomiditch, offering +Alexandra Pavlovna his arm. + +She took it and they both turned along the path to her house. + +Walking with Alexandra Pavlovna on his arm seemed to afford Konstantin +Diomiditch great delight; he moved with little steps, smiling, and his +Oriental eyes were even be-dimmed by a slight moisture, though this +indeed was no rare occurrence with them; it did not mean much for +Konstantin Diomiditch to be moved and dissolve into tears. And who would +not have been pleased to have on his arm a pretty, young and graceful +woman? Of Alexandra Pavlovna the whole of her district was unanimous +in declaring that she was charming, and the district was not wrong. Her +straight, ever so slightly tilted nose would have been enough alone +to drive any man out of his senses, to say nothing of her velvety dark +eyes, her golden brown hair, the dimples in her smoothly curved cheeks, +and her other beauties. But best of all was the sweet expression of her +face; confiding, good and gentle, it touched and attracted at the same +time. Alexandra Pavlovna had the glance and the smile of a child; other +ladies found her a little simple.... Could one wish for anything more? + +‘Darya Mihailovna sent you to me, did you say?’ she asked Pandalevsky. + +‘Yes; she sent me,’ he answered, pronouncing the letter _s_ like the +English _th_. ‘She particularly wishes and told me to beg you very +urgently to be so good as to dine with her to-day. She is expecting a +new guest whom she particularly wishes you to meet.’ + +‘Who is it?’ + +‘A certain Muffel, a baron, a gentleman of the bed-chamber from +Petersburg. Darya Mihailovna made his acquaintance lately at the Prince +Garin’s, and speaks of him in high terms as an agreeable and cultivated +young man. His Excellency the baron is interested, too, in literature, +or more strictly speaking----ah! what an exquisite butterfly! pray look +at it!----more strictly speaking, in political economy. He has written +an essay on some very interesting question, and wants to submit it to +Darya Mihailovna’s criticism.’ + +‘An article on political economy?’ + +‘From the literary point of view, Alexandra Pavlovna, from the literary +point of view. You are well aware, I suppose, that in that line Darya +Mihailovna is an authority. Zhukovsky used to ask her advice, and +my benefactor, who lives at Odessa, that benevolent old man, Roxolan +Mediarovitch Ksandrika----No doubt you know the name of that eminent +man?’ + +‘No; I have never heard of him.’ + +‘You never heard of such a man? surprising! I was going to say that +Roxolan Mediarovitch always had the very highest opinion of Darya +Mihailovna’s knowledge of Russian! + +‘Is this baron a pedant then?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna. + +‘Not in the very least. Darya Mihailovna says, on the contrary, that you +see that he belongs to the best society at once. He spoke of Beethoven +with such eloquence that even the old prince was quite delighted by it. +That, I own, I should like to have heard; you know that is in my line. +Allow me to offer you this lovely wild-flower.’ + +Alexandra Pavlovna took the flower, and when she had walked a few steps +farther, let it drop on the path. They were not more than two hundred +paces from her house. It had been recently built and whitewashed, and +looked out hospitably with its wide light windows from the thick foliage +of the old limes and maples. + +‘So what message do you give me for Darya Mihailovna?’ began +Pandalevsky, slightly hurt at the fate of the flower he had given her. +‘Will you come to dinner? She invites your brother too.’ + +‘Yes; we will come, most certainly. And how is Natasha?’ + +‘Natalya Alexyevna is well, I am glad to say. But we have already passed +the road that turns off to Darya Mihailovna’s. Allow me to bid you +good-bye.’ + +Alexandra Pavlovna stopped. ‘But won’t you come in?’ she said in a +hesitating voice. + +‘I should like to, indeed, but I am afraid it is late. Darya Mihailovna +wishes to hear a new étude of Thalberg’s, so I must practise and have +it ready. Besides, I am doubtful, I must confess, whether my visit could +afford you any pleasure.’ + +‘Oh, no! why?’ + +Pandalevsky sighed and dropped his eyes expressively. + +‘Good-bye, Alexandra Pavlovna!’ he said after a slight pause; then he +bowed and turned back. + +Alexandra Pavlovna turned round and went home. + +Konstantin Diomiditch, too, walked homewards. All softness had vanished +at once from his face; a self-confident, almost hard expression came +into it. Even his walk was changed; his steps were longer and he trod +more heavily. He had walked about two miles, carelessly swinging his +cane, when all at once he began to smile again: he saw by the roadside a +young, rather pretty peasant girl, who was driving some calves out of an +oat-field. Konstantin Diomiditch approached the girl as warily as a cat, +and began to speak to her. She said nothing at first, only blushed and +laughed, but at last she hid her face in her sleeve, turned away, and +muttered: + +‘Go away, sir; upon my word...’ + +Konstantin Diomiditch shook his finger at her and told her to bring him +some cornflowers. + +‘What do you want with cornflowers?--to make a wreath?’ replied the +girl; ‘come now, go along then.’ + +‘Stop a minute, my pretty little dear,’ Konstantin Diomiditch was +beginning. + +‘There now, go along,’ the girl interrupted him, ‘there are the young +gentlemen coming.’ + +Konstantin Diomiditch looked round. There really were Vanya and Petya, +Darya Mihailovna’s sons, running along the road; after them walked their +tutor, Bassistoff, a young man of two-and-twenty, who had only just left +college. Bassistoff was a well-grown youth, with a simple face, a large +nose, thick lips, and small pig’s eyes, plain and awkward, but kind, +good, and upright. He dressed untidily and wore his hair long--not from +affectation, but from laziness; he liked eating and he liked sleeping, +but he also liked a good book, and an earnest conversation, and he hated +Pandalevsky from the depths of his soul. + +Darya Mihailovna’s children worshipped Bassistoff, and yet were not in +the least afraid of him; he was on a friendly footing with all the +rest of the household, a fact which was not altogether pleasing to +its mistress, though she was fond of declaring that for her social +prejudices did not exist. + +‘Good-morning, my dears,’ began Konstantin Diomiditch, ‘how early you +have come for your walk to-day! But I,’ he added, turning to Bassistoff, +‘have been out a long while already; it’s my passion--to enjoy nature.’ + +‘We saw how you were enjoying nature,’ muttered Bassistoff. + +‘You are a materialist, God knows what you are imagining! I know +you.’ When Pandalevsky spoke to Bassistoff or people like him, he grew +slightly irritated, and pronounced the letter _s_ quite clearly, even +with a slight hiss. + +‘Why, were you asking your way of that girl, am I to suppose?’ said +Bassistoff, shifting his eyes to right and to left. + +He felt that Pandalevsky was looking him straight in the face, and this +fact was exceedingly unpleasant to him. ‘I repeat, a materialist and +nothing more.’ + +‘You certainly prefer to see only the prosaic side in everything.’ + +‘Boys!’ cried Bassistoff suddenly, ‘do you see that willow at the +corner? let’s see who can get to it first. One! two! three! and away!’ + +The boys set off at full speed to the willow. Bassistoff rushed after +them. + +‘What a lout!’ thought Pandalevsky, ‘he is spoiling those boys. A +perfect peasant!’ + +And looking with satisfaction at his own neat and elegant figure, +Konstantin Diomiditch struck his coat-sleeve twice with his open hand, +pulled up his collar, and went on his way. When he had reached his own +room, he put on an old dressing-gown and sat down with an anxious face +to the piano. + + + + +II + + +Darya Mihailovna’s house was regarded as almost the first in the whole +province. It was a huge stone mansion, built after designs of Rastrelli +in the taste of last century, and in a commanding position on the summit +of a hill, at whose base flowed one of the principal rivers of central +Russia. Darya Mihailovna herself was a wealthy and distinguished lady, +the widow of a privy councillor. Pandalevsky said of her, that she +knew all Europe and all Europe knew her! However, Europe knew her very +little; even at Petersburg she had not played a very prominent part; +but on the other hand at Moscow every one knew her and visited her. She +belonged to the highest society, and was spoken of as a rather eccentric +woman, not wholly good-natured, but excessively clever. In her youth +she had been very pretty. Poets had written verses to her, young men +had been in love with her, distinguished men had paid her homage. But +twenty-five or thirty years had passed since those days and not a trace +of her former charms remained. Every one who saw her now for the first +time was impelled to ask himself, if this woman--skinny, sharp-nosed, +and yellow-faced, though still not old in years--could once have been a +beauty, if she was really the same woman who had been the inspiration of +poets.... And every one marvelled inwardly at the mutability of earthly +things. It is true that Pandalevsky discovered that Darya Mihailovna +had preserved her magnificent eyes in a marvellous way; but we have seen +that Pandalevsky also maintained that all Europe knew her. + +Darya Mihailovna went every summer to her country place with her +children (she had three: a daughter of seventeen, Natalya, and two sons +of nine and ten years old). She kept open house in the country, that is, +she received men, especially unmarried ones; provincial ladies she could +not endure. But what of the treatment she received from those ladies in +return? + +Darya Mihailovna, according to them, was a haughty, immoral, and +insufferable tyrant, and above all--she permitted herself such liberties +in conversation, it was shocking! Darya Mihailovna certainly did not +care to stand on ceremony in the country, and in the unconstrained +frankness of her manners there was perceptible a slight shade of +the contempt of the lioness of the capital for the petty and obscure +creatures who surrounded her. She had a careless, and even a sarcastic +manner with her own set; but the shade of contempt was not there. + +By the way, reader, have you observed that a person who is exceptionally +nonchalant with his inferiors, is never nonchalant with persons of a +higher rank? Why is that? But such questions lead to nothing. + +When Konstantin Diomiditch, having at last learnt by heart the _etude_ +of Thalberg, went down from his bright and cheerful room to the +drawing-room, he already found the whole household assembled. The salon +was already beginning. The lady of the house was reposing on a wide +couch, her feet gathered up under her, and a new French pamphlet in her +hand; at the window behind a tambour frame, sat on one side the daughter +of Darya Mihailovna, on the other, Mlle. Boncourt, the governess, a +dry old maiden lady of sixty, with a false front of black curls under a +parti-coloured cap and cotton wool in her ears; in the corner near the +door was huddled Bassistoff reading a paper, near him were Petya and +Vanya playing draughts, and leaning by the stove, his hands clasped +behind his back, was a gentleman of low stature, with a swarthy face +covered with bristling grey hair, and fiery black eyes--a certain +African Semenitch Pigasov. + +This Pigasov was a strange person. Full of acerbity against everything +and every one--especially against women--he was railing from morning to +night, sometimes very aptly, sometimes rather stupidly, but always with +gusto. His ill-humour almost approached puerility; his laugh, the sound +of his voice, his whole being seemed steeped in venom. Darya Mihailovna +gave Pigasov a cordial reception; he amused her with his sallies. They +were certainly absurd enough. He took delight in perpetual exaggeration. +For example, if he were told of any disaster, that a village had been +struck by lightning, or that a mill had been carried away by floods, or +that a peasant had cut his hand with an axe, he invariably asked with +concentrated bitterness, ‘And what’s her name?’ meaning, what is the +name of the woman responsible for this calamity, for according to his +convictions, a woman was the cause of every misfortune, if you only +looked deep enough into the matter. He once threw himself on his knees +before a lady he hardly knew at all, who had been effusive in her +hospitality to him and began tearfully, but with wrath written on his +face, to entreat her to have compassion on him, saying that he had done +her no harm and never would come to see her for the future. Once a horse +had bolted with one of Darya Mihailovna’s maids, thrown her into a ditch +and almost killed her. From that time Pigasov never spoke of that horse +except as the ‘good, good horse,’ and he even came to regard the hill +and the ditch as specially picturesque spots. Pigasov had failed in +life and had adopted this whimsical craze. He came of poor parents. +His father had filled various petty posts, and could scarcely read and +write, and did not trouble himself about his son’s education; he fed +and clothed him and nothing more. His mother spoiled him, but she died +early. Pigasov educated himself, sent himself to the district school and +then to the gymnasium, taught himself French, German, and even Latin, +and, leaving the gymnasiums with an excellent certificate, went to +Dorpat, where he maintained a perpetual struggle with poverty, but +succeeded in completing his three years’ course. Pigasov’s abilities did +not rise above the level of mediocrity; patience and perseverance were +his strong points, but the most powerful sentiment in him was ambition, +the desire to get into good society, not to be inferior to others in +spite of fortune. He had studied diligently and gone to the Dorpat +University from ambition. Poverty exasperated him, and made him watchful +and cunning. He expressed himself with originality; from his youth he +had adopted a special kind of stinging and exasperated eloquence. His +ideas did not rise above the common level; but his way of speaking made +him seem not only a clever, but even a very clever, man. Having taken +his degree as candidate, Pigasov decided to devote himself to the +scholastic profession; he understood that in any other career he could +not possibly be the equal of his associates. He tried to select them +from a higher rank and knew how to gain their good graces; even by +flattery, though he was always abusing them. But to do this he had not, +to speak plainly, enough raw material. Having educated himself through +no love for study, Pigasov knew very little thoroughly. He broke down +miserably in the public disputation, while another student who had +shared the same room with him, and who was constantly the subject of his +ridicule, a man of very limited ability who had received a careful and +solid education, gained a complete triumph. Pigasov was infuriated by +this failure, he threw all his books and manuscripts into the fire and +went into a government office. At first he did not get on badly, he made +a fair official, not very active, extremely self-confident and bold, +however; but he wanted to make his way more quickly, he made a false +step, got into trouble, and was obliged to retire from the service. He +spent three years on the property he had bought himself and suddenly +married a wealthy half-educated woman who was captivated by his +unceremonious and sarcastic manners. But Pigasov’s character had become +so soured and irritable that family life was unendurable to him. After +living with him a few years, his wife went off secretly to Moscow and +sold her estate to an enterprising speculator; Pigasov had only just +finished building a house on it. Utterly crushed by this last blow, +Pigasov began a lawsuit with his wife, but gained nothing by it. After +this he lived in solitude, and went to see his neighbours, whom he +abused behind their backs and even to their faces, and who welcomed him +with a kind of constrained half-laugh, though he did not inspire them +with any serious dread. He never took a book in his hand. He had about a +hundred serfs; his peasants were not badly off. + +‘Ah! _Constantin_,’ said Darya Mihailovna, when Pandalevsky came into +the drawing-room, ‘is _Alexandrine_ coming?’ + +‘Alexandra Pavlovna asked me to thank you, and they will be extremely +delighted,’ replied Konstantin Diomiditch, bowing affably in all +directions, and running his plump white hand with its triangular cut +nails through his faultlessly arranged hair. + +‘And is Volintsev coming too?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘So, according to you, African Semenitch,’ continued Darya Mihailovna, +turning to Pigasov, ‘all young ladies are affected?’ + +Pigasov’s mouth twitched, and he plucked nervously at his elbow. + +‘I say,’ he began in a measured voice--in his most violent moods of +exasperation he always spoke slowly and precisely. ‘I say that young +ladies, in general--of present company, of course, I say nothing.’ + +‘But that does not prevent your thinking of them,’ put in Darya +Mihailovna. + +‘I say nothing of them,’ repeated Pigasov. ‘All young ladies, in +general, are affected to the most extreme point--affected in the +expression of their feelings. If a young lady is frightened, for +instance, or pleased with anything, or distressed, she is certain first +to throw her person into some such elegant attitude (and Pigasov threw +his figure into an unbecoming pose and spread out his hands) and then +she shrieks--ah! or she laughs or cries. I did once though (and here +Pigasov smiled complacently) succeed in eliciting a genuine, unaffected +expression of emotion from a remarkably affected young lady!’ + +‘How did you do that?’ + +Pigasov’s eyes sparkled. + +‘I poked her in the side with an aspen stake, from behind. She did +shriek, and I said to her, “Bravo, bravo! that’s the voice of nature, +that was a genuine shriek! Always do like that for the future!”’ + +Every one in the room laughed. + +‘What nonsense you talk, African Semenitch,’ cried Darya Mihailovna. ‘Am +I to believe that you would poke a girl in the side with a stake!’ + +‘Yes, indeed, with a stake, a very big stake, like those that are used +in the defence of a fort.’ + +‘_Mais c’est un horreur ce que vous dites là, Monsieur_,’ cried Mlle. +Boncourt, looking angrily at the boys, who were in fits of laughter. + +‘Oh, you mustn’t believe him,’ said Darya Mihailovna. ‘Don’t you know +him?’ + +But the offended French lady could not be pacified for a long while, and +kept muttering something to herself. + +‘You need not believe me,’ continued Pigasov coolly, ‘but I assure you I +told the simple truth. Who should know if not I? After that perhaps you +won’t believe that our neighbour, Madame Tchepuz, Elena Antonovna, told +me herself, mind _herself_, that she had murdered her nephew?’ + +‘What an invention!’ + +‘Wait a minute, wait a minute! Listen and judge for yourselves. Mind, +I don’t want to slander her, I even like her as far as one can like a +woman. She hasn’t a single book in her house except a calendar, and she +can’t read except aloud, and that exercise throws her into a violent +perspiration, and she complains then that her eyes feel bursting out of +her head.... In short, she’s a capital woman, and her servant girls grow +fat. Why should I slander her?’ + +‘You see,’ observed Darya Mihailovna, ‘African Semenitch has got on his +hobbyhorse, now he will not be off it to-night.’ + +‘My hobby! But women have three at least, which they are never off, +except, perhaps, when they’re asleep.’ + +‘What three hobbies are those?’ + +‘Reproof, reproach, recrimination.’ + +‘Do you know, African Semenitch,’ began Darya Mihailovna, ‘you cannot be +so bitter against women for nothing. Some woman or other must have----’ + +‘Done me an injury, you mean?’ Pigasov interrupted. + +Darya Mihailovna was rather embarrassed; she remembered Pigasov’s +unlucky marriage, and only nodded. + +‘One woman certainly did me an injury,’ said Pigasov, ‘though she was a +good, very good one.’ + +‘Who was that?’ + +‘My mother,’ said Pigasov, dropping his voice. + +‘Your mother? What injury could she have done you?’ + +‘She brought me into the world.’ + +Darya Mihailovna frowned. + +‘Our conversation,’ she said, ‘seems to have taken a gloomy turn. +_Constantin_, play us Thalberg’s new _etude_. I daresay the music will +soothe African Semenitch. Orpheus soothed savage beasts.’ + +Konstantin Diomiditch took his seat at the piano, and played the étude +very fairly well. Natalya Alexyevna at first listened attentively, then +she bent over her work again. + +‘_Merci, c’est charmant_,’ observed Darya Mihailovna, ‘I love Thalberg. +_Il est si distingué_. What are you thinking of, African Semenitch?’ + +‘I thought,’ began African Semenitch slowly, ‘that there are three kinds +of egoists; the egoists who live themselves and let others live; the +egoists who live themselves and don’t let others live; and the egoists +who don’t live themselves and don’t let others live. Women, for the most +part, belong to the third class.’ + +‘That’s polite! I am very much astonished at one thing, African +Semenitch; your confidence in your convictions; of course you can never +be mistaken.’ + +‘Who says so? I make mistakes; a man, too, may be mistaken. But do you +know the difference between a man’s mistakes and a woman’s? Don’t you +know? Well, here it is; a man may say, for example, that twice two makes +not four, but five, or three and a half; but a woman will say that twice +two makes a wax candle.’ + +‘I fancy I’ve heard you say that before. But allow me to ask what +connection had your idea of the three kinds of egoists with the music +you have just been hearing?’ + +‘None at all, but I did not listen to the music.’ + +‘Well, “incurable I see you are, and that is all about it,”’ answered +Darya Mihailovna, slightly altering Griboyedov’s line. ‘What do you +like, since you don’t care for music? Literature?’ + +‘I like literature, only not our contemporary literature.’ + +‘Why?’ + +‘I’ll tell you why. I crossed the Oka lately in a ferry boat with a +gentleman. The ferry got fixed in a narrow place; they had to drag the +carriages ashore by hand. This gentleman had a very heavy coach. While +the ferrymen were straining themselves to drag the coach on to the bank, +the gentleman groaned so, standing in the ferry, that one felt quite +sorry for him.... Well, I thought, here’s a fresh illustration of the +system of division of labour! That’s just like our modern literature; +other people do the work, and it does the groaning.’ + +Darya Mihailovna smiled. + +‘And that is called expressing contemporary life,’ continued Pigasov +indefatigably, ‘profound sympathy with the social question and so on. +... Oh, how I hate those grand words!’ + +‘Well, the women you attack so--they at least don’t use grand words.’ + +Pigasov shrugged his shoulders. + +‘They don’t use them because they don’t understand them.’ + +Darya Mihailovna flushed slightly. + +‘You are beginning to be impertinent, African Semenitch!’ she remarked +with a forced smile. + +There was complete stillness in the room. + +‘Where is Zolotonosha?’ asked one of the boys suddenly of Bassistoff. + +‘In the province of Poltava, my dear boy,’ replied Pigasov, ‘in the +centre of Little Russia.’ (He was glad of an opportunity of changing the +conversation.) ‘We were talking of literature,’ he continued, ‘if I had +money to spare, I would at once become a Little Russian poet.’ + +‘What next? a fine poet you would make!’ retorted Darya Mihailovna. ‘Do +you know Little Russian?’ + +‘Not a bit; but it isn’t necessary.’ + +‘Not necessary?’ + +‘Oh no, it’s not necessary. You need only take a sheet of paper and +write at the top “A Ballad,” then begin like this, “Heigho, alack, my +destiny!” or “the Cossack Nalivaiko was sitting on a hill and then on +the mountain, under the green tree the birds are singing, grae, voropae, +gop, gop!” or something of that kind. And the thing’s done. Print it +and publish it. The Little Russian will read it, drop his head into his +hands and infallibly burst into tears--he is such a sensitive soul!’ + +‘Good heavens!’ cried Bassistoff. ‘What are you saying? It’s too absurd +for anything. I have lived in Little Russia, I love it and know the +language... “grae, grae, voropae” is absolute nonsense.’ + +‘It may be, but the Little Russian will weep all the same. You speak +of the “language.”... But is there a Little Russian language? Is it a +language, in your opinion? an independent language? I would pound my +best friend in a mortar before I’d agree to that.’ + +Bassistoff was about to retort. + +‘Leave him alone!’ said Darya Mihailovna, ‘you know that you will hear +nothing but paradoxes from him.’ + +Pigasov smiled ironically. A footman came in and announced the arrival +of Alexandra Pavlovna and her brother. + +Darya Mihailovna rose to meet her guests. + +‘How do you do, Alexandrine?’ she began, going up to her, ‘how good of +you to come!... How are you, Sergei Pavlitch?’ + +Volintsev shook hands with Darya Mihailovna and went up to Natalya +Alexyevna. + +‘But how about that baron, your new acquaintance, is he coming to-day?’ +asked Pigasov. + +‘Yes, he is coming.’ + +‘He is a great philosopher, they say; he is just brimming over with +Hegel, I suppose?’ + +Darya Mihailovna made no reply, and making Alexandra Pavlovna sit down +on the sofa, established herself near her. + +‘Philosophies,’ continued Pigasov, ‘are elevated points of view! That’s +another abomination of mine; these elevated points of view. And what can +one see from above? Upon my soul, if you want to buy a horse, you don’t +look at it from a steeple!’ + +‘This baron was going to bring you an essay?’ said Alexandra Pavlovna. + +‘Yes, an essay,’ replied Darya Mihailovna, with exaggerated +carelessness, ‘on the relation of commerce to manufactures in Russia. +... But don’t be afraid; we will not read it here.... I did not invite +you for that. _Le baron est aussi aimable que savant_. And he speaks +Russian beautifully! _C’est un vrai torrent... il vous entraîne_. + +‘He speaks Russian so beautifully,’ grumbled Pigasov, ‘that he deserves +a eulogy in French.’ + +‘You may grumble as you please, African Semenitch.... It’s in keeping +with your ruffled locks.... I wonder, though, why he does not come. Do +you know what, _messieurs et mesdames_’ added Darya Mihailovna, looking +round, ‘we will go into the garden. There is still nearly an hour to +dinner-time and the weather is glorious.’ + +All the company rose and went into the garden. + +Darya Mihailovna’s garden stretched right down to the river. There were +many alleys of old lime-trees in it, full of sunlight and shade and +fragrance and glimpses of emerald green at the ends of the walks, and +many arbours of acacias and lilacs. + +Volintsev turned into the thickest part of the garden with Natalya and +Mlle. Boncourt. He walked beside Natalya in silence. Mlle. Boncourt +followed a little behind. + +‘What have you been doing to-day?’ asked Volintsev at last, pulling the +ends of his handsome dark brown moustache. + +In features he resembled his sister strikingly; but there was less +movement and life in his expression, and his soft beautiful eyes had a +melancholy look. + +‘Oh! nothing,’ answered Natalya, ‘I have been listening to Pigasov’s +sarcasms, I have done some embroidery on canvas, and I’ve been reading.’ + +‘And what have you been reading?’ + +‘Oh! I read--a history of the Crusades,’ said Natalya, with some +hesitation. + +Volintsev looked at her. + +‘Ah!’ he ejaculated at last, ‘that must be interesting.’ + +He picked a twig and began to twirl it in the air. They walked another +twenty paces. + +‘What is this baron whom your mother has made acquaintance with?’ began +Volintsev again. + +‘A Gentleman of the Bedchamber, a new arrival; _maman_ speaks very +highly of him.’ + +‘Your mother is quick to take fancies to people.’ + +‘That shows that her heart is still young,’ observed Natalya. + +‘Yes. I shall soon bring you your mare. She is almost quite broken in +now. I want to teach her to gallop, and I shall manage it soon.’ + +‘_Merci_!... But I’m quite ashamed. You are breaking her in yourself ... +and they say it’s so hard!’ + +‘To give you the least pleasure, you know, Natalya Alexyevna, I am +ready... I... not in such trifles----’ + +Volintsev grew confused. + +Natalya looked at him with friendly encouragement, and again said +‘_merci_!’ + +‘You know,’ continued Sergei Pavlitch after a long pause, ‘that not such +things.... But why am I saying this? you know everything, of course.’ + +At that instant a bell rang in the house. + +‘Ah! _la cloche du diner_!’ cried Mlle. Boncourt, ‘_rentrons_.’ + +‘_Quel dommage_,’ thought the old French lady to herself as she mounted +the balcony steps behind Volintsev and Natalya, ‘_quel dommage que ce +charmant garçon ait si peu de ressources dans la conversation_,’ which +may be translated, ‘you are a good fellow, my dear boy, but rather a +fool.’ + +The baron did not arrive to dinner. They waited half-an-hour for him. +Conversation flagged at the table. Sergei Pavlitch did nothing but gaze +at Natalya, near whom he was sitting, and zealously filled up her +glass with water. Pandalevsky tried in vain to entertain his neighbour, +Alexandra Pavlovna; he was bubbling over with sweetness, but she hardly +refrained from yawning. + +Bassistoff was rolling up pellets of bread and thinking of nothing at +all; even Pigasov was silent, and when Darya Mihailovna remarked to him +that he had not been very polite to-day, he replied crossly, ‘When am +I polite? that’s not in my line;’ and smiling grimly he added, ‘have a +little patience; I am only kvas, you know, _du simple_ Russian kvas; but +your Gentleman of the Bedchamber----’ + +‘Bravo!’ cried Darya Mihailovna, ‘Pigasov is jealous, he is jealous +already!’ + +But Pigasov made her no rejoinder, and only gave her a rather cross +look. + +Seven o’clock struck, and they were all assembled again in the +drawing-room. + +‘He is not coming, clearly,’ said Darya Mihailovna. + +But, behold, the rumble of a carriage was heard: a small tarantass +drove into the court, and a few instants later a footman entered the +drawing-room and gave Darya Mihailovna a note on a silver salver. She +glanced through it, and turning to the footman asked: + +‘But where is the gentleman who brought this letter?’ + +‘He is sitting in the carriage. Shall I ask him to come up?’ + +‘Ask him to do so.’ + +The man went out. + +‘Fancy, how vexatious!’ continued Darya Mihailovna, ‘the baron has +received a summons to return at once to Petersburg. He has sent me +his essay by a certain Mr. Rudin, a friend of his. The baron wanted to +introduce him to me--he speaks very highly of him. But how vexatious it +is! I had hoped the baron would stay here for some time.’ + +‘Dmitri Nikolaitch Rudin,’ announced the servant + + + + + +III + + +A man of about thirty-five entered, of a tall, somewhat stooping +figure, with crisp curly hair and swarthy complexion, an irregular but +expressive and intelligent face, a liquid brilliance in his quick, dark +blue eyes, a straight, broad nose, and well-curved lips. His clothes +were not new, and were somewhat small, as though he had outgrown them. + +He walked quickly up to Darya Mihailovna, and with a slight bow told her +that he had long wished to have the honour of an introduction to her, +and that his friend the baron greatly regretted that he could not take +leave of her in person. + +The thin sound of Rudin’s voice seemed out of keeping with his tall +figure and broad chest. + +‘Pray be seated... very delighted,’ murmured Darya Mihailovna, and, +after introducing him to the rest of the company, she asked him whether +he belonged to those parts or was a visitor. + +‘My estate is in the T---- province,’ replied Rudin, holding his hat on +his knees. ‘I have not been here long. I came on business and stayed for +a while in your district town.’ + +‘With whom?’ + +‘With the doctor. He was an old chum of mine at the university.’ + +‘Ah! the doctor. He is highly spoken of. He is skilful in his work, they +say. But have you known the baron long?’ + +‘I met him last winter in Moscow, and I have just been spending about a +week with him.’ + +‘He is a very clever man, the baron.’ + +‘Yes.’ + +Darya Mihailovna sniffed at her little crushed-up handkerchief steeped +in _eau de cologne_. + +‘Are you in the government service?’ she asked. + +‘Who? I?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘No. I have retired.’ + +There followed a brief pause. The general conversation was resumed. + +‘If you will allow me to be inquisitive,’ began Pigasov, turning to +Rudin, ‘do you know the contents of the essay which his excellency the +baron has sent?’ + +‘Yes, I do.’ + +‘This essay deals with the relations to commerce--or no, of manufactures +to commerce in our country.... That was your expression, I think, Darya +Mihailovna?’ + +‘Yes, it deals with’... began Darya Mihailovna, pressing her hand to her +forehead. + +‘I am, of course, a poor judge of such matters,’ continued Pigasov, ‘but +I must confess that to me even the title of the essay seems excessively +(how could I put it delicately?) excessively obscure and complicated.’ + +‘Why does it seem so to you?’ + +Pigasov smiled and looked across at Darya Mihailovna. + +‘Why, is it clear to you?’ he said, turning his foxy face again towards +Rudin. + +‘To me? Yes.’ + +‘H’m. No doubt you must know better.’ + +‘Does your head ache?’ Alexandra Pavlovna inquired of Darya Mihailovna. + +‘No. It is only my--_c’est nerveux_.’ + +‘Allow me to inquire,’ Pigasov was beginning again in his nasal tones, +‘your friend, his excellency Baron Muffel--I think that’s his name?’ + +‘Precisely.’ + +‘Does his excellency Baron Muffel make a special study of political +economy, or does he only devote to that interesting subject the hours of +leisure left over from his social amusements and his official duties?’ + +Rudin looked steadily at Pigasov. + +‘The baron is an amateur on this subject,’ he replied, growing rather +red, ‘but in his essay there is much that is interesting and just.’ + +‘I am not able to dispute it with you; I have not read the essay. But I +venture to ask--the work of your friend Baron Muffel is no doubt founded +more upon general propositions than upon facts?’ + +‘It contains both facts and propositions founded upon the facts.’ + +‘Yes, yes. I must tell you that, in my opinion--and I’ve a right to give +my opinion, on occasion; I spent three years at Dorpat... all these, +so-called general propositions, hypotheses, these systems--excuse me, +I am a provincial, I speak the truth bluntly--are absolutely worthless. +All that’s only theorising--only good for misleading people. Give us +facts, sir, and that’s enough!’ + +‘Really!’ retorted Rudin, ‘why, but ought not one to give the +significance of the facts?’ + +‘General propositions,’ continued Pigasov, ‘they’re my abomination, +these general propositions, theories, conclusions. All that’s based on +so-called convictions; every one is talking about his convictions, and +attaches importance to them, prides himself on them. Ah!’ + +And Pigasov shook his fist in the air. Pandalevsky laughed. + +‘Capital!’ put in Rudin, ‘it follows that there is no such thing as +conviction according to you?’ + +‘No, it doesn’t exist.’ + +‘Is that your conviction?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘How do you say that there are none then? Here you have one at the very +first turn.’ + +All in the room smiled and looked at one another. + +‘One minute, one minute, but----,’ Pigasov was beginning. + +But Darya Mihailovna clapped her hands crying, ‘Bravo, bravo, Pigasov’s +beaten!’ and she gently took Rudin’s hat from his hand. + +‘Defer your delight a little, madam; there’s plenty of time!’ Pigasov +began with annoyance. ‘It’s not sufficient to say a witty word, with a +show of superiority; you must prove, refute. We had wandered from the +subject of our discussion.’ + +‘With your permission,’ remarked Rudin, coolly, ‘the matter is very +simple. You do not believe in the value of general propositions--you do +not believe in convictions?’ + +‘I don’t believe in them, I don’t believe in anything!’ + +‘Very good. You are a sceptic.’ + +‘I see no necessity for using such a learned word. However----’ + +‘Don’t interrupt!’ interposed Darya Mihailovna. + +‘At him, good dog!’ Pandalevsky said to himself at the same instant, and +smiled all over. + +‘That word expresses my meaning,’ pursued Rudin. ‘You understand it; why +not make use of it? You don’t believe in anything. Why do you believe in +facts?’ + +‘Why? That’s good! Facts are matters of experience, every one knows what +facts are. I judge of them by experience, by my own senses.’ + +‘But may not your senses deceive you? Your senses tell you that the sun +goes round the earth,... but perhaps you don’t agree with Copernicus? +You don’t even believe in him?’ + +Again a smile passed over every one’s face, and all eyes were fastened +on Rudin. ‘He’s by no means a fool,’ every one was thinking. + +‘You are pleased to keep on joking,’ said Pigasov. ‘Of course that’s +very original, but it’s not to the point.’ + +‘In what I have said hitherto,’ rejoined Rudin, ‘there is, +unfortunately, too little that’s original. All that has been well known +a very long time, and has been said a thousand times. That is not the +pith of the matter.’ + +‘What is then?’ asked Pigasov, not without insolence. + +In discussions he always first bantered his opponent, then grew cross, +and finally sulked and was silent. + +‘Here it is,’ continued Rudin. ‘I cannot help, I own, feeling sincere +regret when I hear sensible people attack----’ + +‘Systems?’ interposed Pigasov. + +‘Yes, with your leave, even systems. What frightens you so much in that +word? Every system is founded on a knowledge of fundamental laws, the +principles of life----’ + +‘But there is no knowing them, no discovering them.’ + +‘One minute. Doubtless they are not easy for every one to get at, and to +make mistakes is natural to man. However, you will certainly agree +with me that Newton, for example, discovered some at least of these +fundamental laws? He was a genius, we grant you; but the grandeur of +the discoveries of genius is that they become the heritage of all. The +effort to discover universal principles in the multiplicity of phenomena +is one of the radical characteristics of human thought, and all our +civilisation----’ + +‘That’s what you’re driving at!’ Pigasov broke in in a drawling tone. ‘I +am a practical man and all these metaphysical subtleties I don’t enter +into and don’t want to enter into.’ + +‘Very good! That’s as you prefer. But take note that your very desire +to be exclusively a practical man is itself your sort of system--your +theory.’ + +‘Civilisation you talk about!’ blurted in Pigasov; ‘that’s another +admirable notion of yours! Much use in it, this vaunted civilisation! I +would not give a brass farthing for your civilisation!’ + +‘But what a poor sort of argument, African Semenitch!’ observed +Darya Mihailovna, inwardly much pleased by the calmness and perfect +good-breeding of her new acquaintance. ‘_C’est un homme comme il faut_,’ +she thought, looking with well-disposed scrutiny at Rudin; ‘we must be +nice to him!’ Those last words she mentally pronounced in Russian. + +‘I will not champion civilisation,’ continued Rudin after a short pause, +‘it does not need my championship. You don’t like it, every one to his +own taste. Besides, that would take us too far. Allow me only to remind +you of the old saying, “Jupiter, you are angry; therefore you are in the +wrong.” I meant to say that all those onslaughts upon systems--general +propositions--are especially distressing, because together with these +systems men repudiate knowledge in general, and all science and faith in +it, and consequently also faith in themselves, in their own powers. But +this faith is essential to men; they cannot exist by their sensations +alone, they are wrong to fear ideas and not to trust in them. Scepticism +is always characterised by barrenness and impotence.’ + +‘That’s all words!’ muttered Pigasov. + +‘Perhaps so. But allow me to point out to you that when we say “that’s +all words!” we often wish ourselves to avoid the necessity of saying +anything more substantial than mere words.’ + +‘What?’ said Pigasov, winking his eyes. + +‘You understood what I meant,’ retorted Rudin, with involuntary, +but instantly repressed impatience. ‘I repeat, if man has no steady +principle in which he trusts, no ground on which he can take a firm +stand, how can he form a just estimate of the needs, the tendencies and +the future of his country? How can he know what he ought to do, if----’ + +‘I leave you the field,’ ejaculated Pigasov abruptly, and with a bow he +turned away without looking at any one. + +Rudin stared at him, and smiled slightly, saying nothing. + +‘Aha! he has taken to flight!’ said Darya Mihailovna. ‘Never mind, +Dmitri...! I beg your pardon,’ she added with a cordial smile, ‘what is +your paternal name?’ + +‘Nikolaitch.’ + +‘Never mind, my dear Dmitri Nikolaitch, he did not deceive any of us. He +wants to make a show of not _wishing_ to argue any more. He is conscious +that he _cannot_ argue with you. But you had better sit nearer to us and +let us have a little talk.’ + +Rudin moved his chair up. + +‘How is it we have not met till now?’ was Darya Mihailovna’s question. +‘That is what surprises me. Have you read this book? _C’est de +Tocqueville, vous savez_?’ + +And Darya Mihailovna held out the French pamphlet to Rudin. + +Rudin took the thin volume in his hand, turned over a few pages of +it, and laying it down on the table, replied that he had not read that +particular work of M. de Tocqueville, but that he had often reflected +on the question treated by him. A conversation began to spring up. Rudin +seemed uncertain at first, and not disposed to speak out freely; his +words did not come readily, but at last he grew warm and began to speak. +In a quarter of an hour his voice was the only sound in the room, All +were crowding in a circle round him. + +Only Pigasov remained aloof, in a corner by the fireplace. Rudin spoke +with intelligence, with fire and with judgment; he showed much learning, +wide reading. No one had expected to find in him a remarkable man. His +clothes were so shabby, so little was known of him. Every one felt it +strange and incomprehensible that such a clever man should have suddenly +made his appearance in the country. He seemed all the more wonderful +and, one may even say, fascinating to all of them, beginning with +Darya Mihailovna. She was pluming herself on having discovered him, and +already at this early date was dreaming of how she would introduce Rudin +into the world. In her quickness to receive impressions there was much +that was almost childish, in spite of her years. Alexandra Pavlovna, to +tell the truth, understood little of all that Rudin said, but was full +of wonder and delight; her brother too was admiring him. Pandalevsky was +watching Darya Mihailovna and was filled with envy. Pigasov thought, +‘If I have to give five hundred roubles I will get a nightingale to +sing better than that!’ But the most impressed of all the party were +Bassistoff and Natalya. Scarcely a breath escaped Bassistoff; he sat the +whole time with open mouth and round eyes and listened--listened as +he had never listened to any one in his life--while Natalya’s face was +suffused by a crimson flush, and her eyes, fastened unwaveringly on +Rudin, were both dimmed and shining. + +‘What splendid eyes he has!’ Volintsev whispered to her. + +‘Yes, they are.’ + +‘It’s only a pity his hands are so big and red.’ + +Natalya made no reply. + +Tea was brought in. The conversation became more general, but still by +the sudden unanimity with which every one was silent, directly Rudin +opened his mouth, one could judge of the strength of the impression he +had produced. Darya Mihailovna suddenly felt inclined to tease Pigasov. +She went up to him and said in an undertone, ‘Why don’t you speak +instead of doing nothing but smile sarcastically? Make an effort, +challenge him again,’ and without waiting for him to answer, she +beckoned to Rudin. + +‘There’s one thing more you don’t know about him,’ she said to him, +with a gesture towards Pigasov,--‘he is a terrible hater of women, he is +always attacking them; pray, show him the true path.’ + +Rudin involuntarily looked down upon Pigasov; he was a head and +shoulders taller. Pigasov almost withered up with fury, and his sour +face grew pale. + +‘Darya Mihailovna is mistaken,’ he said in an unsteady voice, ‘I do not +only attack women; I am not a great admirer of the whole human species.’ + +‘What can have given you such a poor opinion of them?’ inquired Rudin. + +Pigasov looked him straight in the face. + +‘The study of my own heart, no doubt, in which I find every day more +and more that is base. I judge of others by myself. Possibly this too is +erroneous, and I am far worse than others, but what am I to do? it’s a +habit!’ + +‘I understand you and sympathise with you!’ was Rudin’s rejoinder. ‘What +generous soul has not experienced a yearning for self-humiliation? But +one ought not to remain in that condition from which there is no outlet +beyond.’ + +‘I am deeply indebted for the certificate of generosity you confer on +my soul,’ retorted Pigasov. ‘As for my condition, there’s not much amiss +with it, so that even if there were an outlet from it, it might go to +the deuce, I shouldn’t look for it!’ + +‘But that means--pardon the expression--to prefer the gratification of +your own pride to the desire to be and live in the truth.’ + +‘Undoubtedly,’ cried Pigasov, ‘pride--that I understand, and you, I +expect, understand, and every one understands; but truth, what is truth? +Where is it, this truth?’ + +‘You are repeating yourself, let me warn you,’ remarked Darya +Mihailovna. + +Pigasov shrugged his shoulders. + +‘Well, where’s the harm if I do? I ask: where is truth? Even the +philosophers don’t know what it is. Kant says it is one thing; but +Hegel--no, you’re wrong, it’s something else.’ + +‘And do you know what Hegel says of it?’ asked Rudin, without raising +his voice. + +‘I repeat,’ continued Pigasov, flying into a passion, ‘that I cannot +understand what truth means. According to my idea, it doesn’t exist +at all in the world, that is to say, the word exists but not the thing +itself.’ + +‘Fie, fie!’ cried Darya Mihailovna, ‘I wonder you’re not ashamed to say +so, you old sinner! No truth? What is there to live for in the world +after that?’ + +‘Well, I go so far as to think, Darya Mihailovna,’ retorted Pigasov, in +a tone of annoyance, ‘that it would be much easier for you, in any case, +to live without truth than without your cook, Stepan, who is such a +master hand at soups! And what do you want with truth, kindly tell me? +you can’t trim a bonnet with it!’ + +‘A joke is not an argument,’ observed Darya Mihailovna, ‘especially when +you descend to personal insult.’ + +‘I don’t know about truth, but I see speaking it does not answer,’ +muttered Pigasov, and he turned angrily away. + +And Rudin began to speak of pride, and he spoke well. He showed that man +without pride is worthless, that pride is the lever by which the earth +can be moved from its foundations, but that at the same time he alone +deserves the name of man who knows how to control his pride, as the +rider does his horse, who offers up his own personality as a sacrifice +to the general good. + +‘Egoism,’ so he ended, ‘is suicide. The egoist withers like a solitary +barren tree; but pride, ambition, as the active effort after perfection, +is the source of all that is great.... Yes! a man must prune away +the stubborn egoism of his personality to give it the right of +self-expression.’ + +‘Can you lend me a pencil?’ Pigasov asked Bassistoff. + +Bassistoff did not at once understand what Pigasov had asked him. + +‘What do you want a pencil for?’ he said at last + +‘I want to write down Mr. Rudin’s last sentence. If one doesn’t write it +down, one might forget it, I’m afraid! But you will own, a sentence like +that is such a handful of trumps.’ + +‘There are things which it is a shame to laugh at and make fun of, +African Semenitch!’ said Bassistoff warmly, turning away from Pigasov. + +Meanwhile Rudin had approached Natalya. She got up; her face expressed +her confusion. Volintsev, who was sitting near her, got up too. + +‘I see a piano,’ began Rudin, with the gentle courtesy of a travelling +prince; ‘don’t you play on it?’ + +‘Yes, I play,’ replied Natalya, ‘but not very well. Here is Konstantin +Diomiditch plays much better than I do.’ + +Pandalevsky put himself forward with a simper. ‘You should not say that, +Natalya Alexyevna; your playing is not at all inferior to mine.’ + +‘Do you know Schubert’s “Erlkonig”?’ asked Rudin. + +‘He knows it, he knows it!’ interposed Darya Mihailovna. ‘Sit down, +Konstantin. You are fond of music, Dmitri Nikolaitch?’ + +Rudin only made a slight motion of the head and ran his hand through his +hair, as though disposing himself to listen. Pandalevsky began to play. + +Natalya was standing near the piano, directly facing Rudin. At the first +sound his face was transfigured. His dark blue eyes moved slowly about, +from time to time resting upon Natalya. Pandalevsky finished playing. + +Rudin said nothing and walked up to the open window. A fragrant mist +lay like a soft shroud over the garden; a drowsy scent breathed from +the trees near. The stars shed a mild radiance. The summer night was +soft--and softened all. Rudin gazed into the dark garden, and looked +round. + +‘That music and this night,’ he began, ‘reminded me of my student days +in Germany; our meetings, our serenades.’ + +‘You have been in Germany then?’ said Darya Mihailovna. + +‘I spent a year at Heidelberg, and nearly a year at Berlin.’ + +‘And did you dress as a student? They say they wear a special dress +there.’ + +‘At Heidelberg I wore high boots with spurs, and a hussar’s jacket +with braid on it, and I let my hair grow to my shoulders. In Berlin the +students dress like everybody else.’ + +‘Tell us something of your student life,’ said Alexandra Pavlovna. + +Rudin complied. He was not altogether successful in narrative. There +was a lack of colour in his descriptions. He did not know how to be +humorous. However, from relating his own adventures abroad, Rudin soon +passed to general themes, the special value of education and science, +universities, and university life generally. He sketched in a large and +comprehensive picture in broad and striking lines. All listened to him +with profound attention. His eloquence was masterly and attractive, not +altogether clear, but even this want of clearness added a special charm +to his words. + +The exuberance of his thought hindered Rudin from expressing himself +definitely and exactly. Images followed upon images; comparisons started +up one after another--now startlingly bold, now strikingly true. It was +not the complacent effort of the practised speaker, but the very breath +of inspiration that was felt in his impatient improvising. He did not +seek out his words; they came obediently and spontaneously to his lips, +and each word seemed to flow straight from his soul, and was burning +with all the fire of conviction. Rudin was the master of almost the +greatest secret--the music of eloquence. He knew how in striking +one chord of the heart to set all the others vaguely quivering and +resounding. Many of his listeners, perhaps, did not understand very +precisely what his eloquence was about; but their bosoms heaved, it +seemed as though veils were lifted before their eyes, something radiant, +glorious, seemed shimmering in the distance. + +All Rudin’s thoughts seemed centred on the future; this lent him +something of the impetuous dash of youth... Standing at the window, not +looking at any one in special, he spoke, and inspired by the general +sympathy and attention, the presence of young women, the beauty of the +night, carried along by the tide of his own emotions, he rose to the +height of eloquence, of poetry.... The very sound of his voice, intense +and soft, increased the fascination; it seemed as though some higher +power were speaking through his lips, startling even to himself.... +Rudin spoke of what lends eternal significance to the fleeting life of +man. + +‘I remember a Scandinavian legend,’ thus he concluded, ‘a king is +sitting with his warriors round the fire in a long dark barn. It was +night and winter. Suddenly a little bird flew in at the open door and +flew out again at the other. The king spoke and said that this bird +is like man in the world; it flew in from darkness and out again into +darkness, and was not long in the warmth and light.... “King,” replies +the oldest of the warriors, “even in the dark the bird is not lost, but +finds her nest.” Even so our life is short and worthless; but all that +is great is accomplished through men. The consciousness of being the +instrument of these higher powers ought to outweigh all other joys for +man; even in death he finds his life, his nest.’ + +Rudin stopped and dropped his eyes with a smile of involuntary +embarrassment. + +‘_Vous êtes un poète_,’ was Darya Mihailovna’s comment in an undertone. +And all were inwardly agreeing with her--all except Pigasov. Without +waiting for the end of Rudin’s long speech, he quietly took his hat and +as he went out whispered viciously to Pandalevsky who was standing near +the door: + +‘No! Fools are more to my taste.’ + +No one, however, tried to detain him or even noticed his absence. + +The servants brought in supper, and half an hour later, all had taken +leave and separated. Darya Mihailovna begged Rudin to remain the night. +Alexandra Pavlovna, as she went home in the carriage with her brother, +several times fell to exclaiming and marvelling at the extraordinary +cleverness of Rudin. Volintsev agreed with her, though he observed that +he sometimes expressed himself somewhat obscurely--that is to say, not +altogether intelligibly, he added,--wishing, no doubt, to make his own +thought clear, but his face was gloomy, and his eyes, fixed on a corner +of the carriage, seemed even more melancholy than usual. + +Pandalevsky went to bed, and as he took off his daintily embroidered +braces, he said aloud ‘A very smart fellow!’ and suddenly, looking +harshly at his page, ordered him out of the room. Bassistoff did not +sleep the whole night and did not undress--he was writing till morning +a letter to a comrade of his in Moscow; and Natalya, too, though she +undressed and lay down in her bed, had not an instant’s sleep and never +closed her eyes. With her head propped on her arm, she gazed fixedly +into the darkness; her veins were throbbing feverishly and her bosom +often heaved with a deep sigh. + + + + +IV + + +The next morning Rudin had only just finished dressing when a servant +came to him with an invitation from Darya Mihailovna to come to her +boudoir and drink tea with her. Rudin found her alone. She greeted him +very cordially, inquired whether he had passed a good night, poured him +out a cup of tea with her own hands, asked him whether there was sugar +enough in it, offered him a cigarette, and twice again repeated that she +was surprised that she had not met him long before. Rudin was about to +take a seat some distance away; but Darya Mihailovna motioned him to an +easy chair, which stood near her lounge, and bending a little towards +him began to question him about his family, his plans and intentions. +Darya Mihailovna spoke carelessly and listened with an air of +indifference; but it was perfectly evident to Rudin that she was laying +herself out to please him, even to flatter him. It was not for nothing +that she had arranged this morning interview, and had dressed so simply +yet elegantly _a la Madame Récamier_! But Darya Mihailovna soon left off +questioning him. She began to tell him about herself, her youth, and +the people she had known. Rudin gave a sympathetic attention to +her lucubrations, though--a curious fact--whatever personage Darya +Mihailovna might be talking about, she always stood in the foreground, +she alone, and the personage seemed to be effaced, to slink away in the +background, and to disappear. But to make up for that, Rudin learnt +in full detail precisely what Darya Mihailovna had said to a certain +distinguished statesman, and what influence she had had on such and such +a celebrated poet. To judge from Darya Mihailovna’s accounts, one might +fancy that all the distinguished men of the last five-and-twenty years +had dreamt of nothing but how they could make her acquaintance, and +gain her good opinion. She spoke of them simply, without particular +enthusiasm or admiration, as though they were her daily associates, +calling some of them queer fellows. As she talked of them, like a rich +setting round a worthless stone, their names ranged themselves in a +brilliant circlet round the principal name--around Darya Mihailovna. + +Rudin listened, smoking a cigarette, and said little. He could speak +well and liked speaking; carrying on a conversation was not in his line, +though he was also a good listener. All men--if only they had not been +intimidated by him to begin with--opened their hearts with confidence +in his presence; he followed the thread of another man’s narrative so +readily and sympathetically. He had a great deal of good-nature--that +special good-nature of which men are full, who are accustomed to feel +themselves superior to others. In arguments he seldom allowed his +antagonist to express himself fully, he crushed him by his eager, +vehement and passionate dialectic. + +Darya Mihailovna expressed herself in Russian. She prided herself on her +knowledge of her own language, though French words and expressions +often escaped her. She intentionally made use of simple popular terms of +speech; but not always successfully. Rudin’s ear was not outraged by the +strange medley of language on Darya Mihailovna’s lips, indeed he hardly +had an ear for it. + +Darya Mihailovna was exhausted at last and letting her head fall on the +cushions of her easy-chair she fixed her eyes on Rudin and was silent. + +‘I understand now,’ began Rudin, speaking slowly, ‘I understand why you +come every summer into the country. This period of rest is essential for +you; the peace of the country after your life in the capital refreshes +and strengthens you. I am convinced that you must be profoundly +sensitive to the beauties of nature.’ + +Darya Mihailovna gave Rudin a sidelong look. + +‘Nature--yes--yes--of course.... I am passionately fond of it; but do +you know, Dmitri Nikolaitch, even in the country one cannot do without +society. And here there is practically none. Pigasov is the most +intelligent person here.’ + +‘The cross old gentleman who was here last night?’ inquired Rudin. + +‘Yes.... In the country though, even he is of use--he sometimes makes +one laugh.’ + +‘He is by no means stupid,’ returned Rudin, ‘but he is on the wrong +path. I don’t know whether you will agree with me, Darya Mihailovna, but +in negation--in complete and universal negation--there is no salvation +to be found? Deny everything and you will easily pass for a man of +ability; it’s a well-known trick. Simple-hearted people are quite ready +to conclude that you are worth more than what you deny. And that’s +often an error. In the first place, you can pick holes in anything; and +secondly, even if you are right in what you say, it’s the worse for +you; your intellect, directed by simple negation, grows colourless and +withers up. While you gratify your vanity, you are deprived of the true +consolations of thought; life--the essence of life--evades your +petty and jaundiced criticism, and you end by scolding and becoming +ridiculous. Only one who loves has the right to censure and find fault.’ + +‘_Voilà, Monsieur Pigasov enterré_,’ observed Darya Mihailovna. ‘What a +genius you have for defining a man! But Pigasov certainly would not have +even understood you. He loves nothing but his own individuality.’ + +‘And he finds fault with that so as to have the right to find fault with +others,’ Rudin put in. + +Darya Mihailovna laughed. + +‘“He judges the sound,” as the saying is, “the sound by the sick.” By +the way, what do you think of the baron?’ + +‘The baron? He is an excellent man, with a good heart and a knowledge +... but he has no character... and he will remain all his life half a +savant, half a man of the world, that is to say, a dilettante, that is +to say, to speak plainly,--neither one thing nor the other. ... But it’s +a pity!’ + +‘That was my own idea,’ observed Darya Mihailovna. ‘I read his +article.... _Entre nous... cela a assez peu de fond!_’ + +‘Who else have you here?’ asked Rudin, after a pause. + +Darya Mihailovna knocked off the ash of her cigarette with her little +finger. + +‘Oh, there is hardly any one else. Madame Lipin, Alexandra Pavlovna, +whom you saw yesterday; she is very sweet--but that is all. Her brother +is also a capital fellow--_un parfait honnête homme_. The Prince Garin +you know. Those are all. There are two or three neighbours besides, but +they are really good for nothing. They either give themselves airs or +are unsociable, or else quite unsuitably free and easy. The ladies, as +you know, I see nothing of. There is one other of our neighbours said +to be a very cultivated, even a learned, man, but a dreadfully queer +creature, a whimsical character. _Alexandrine_ knows him, and I fancy +is not indifferent to him.... Come, you ought to talk to her, Dmitri +Nikolaitch; she’s a sweet creature. She only wants developing.’ + +‘I liked her very much,’ remarked Rudin. + +‘A perfect child, Dmitri Nikolaitch, an absolute baby. She has been +married, _mais c’est tout comme_.... If I were a man, I should only fall +in love with women like that.’ + +‘Really?’ + +‘Certainly. Such women are at least fresh, and freshness cannot be put +on.’ + +‘And can everything else?’ Rudin asked, and he laughed--a thing which +rarely happened with him. When he laughed his face assumed a strange, +almost aged appearance, his eyes disappeared, his nose was wrinkled up. + +‘And who is this queer creature, as you call him, to whom Madame Lipin +is not indifferent?’ he asked. + +‘A certain Lezhnyov, Mihailo Mihailitch, a landowner here.’ + +Rudin seemed astonished; he raised his head. + +‘Lezhnyov--Mihailo Mihailitch?’ he questioned. ‘Is he a neighbour of +yours?’ + +‘Yes. Do you know him?’ + +Rudin did not speak for a minute. + +‘I used to know him long ago. He is a rich man, I suppose?’ he added, +pulling the fringe on his chair. + +‘Yes, he is rich, though he dresses shockingly, and drives in a racing +droshky like a bailiff. I have been anxious to get him to come here; +he is spoken of as clever; I have some business with him.... You know I +manage my property myself.’ + +Rudin bowed assent. + +‘Yes; I manage it myself,’ Darya Mihailovna continued. ‘I don’t +introduce any foreign crazes, but prefer what is our own, what is +Russian, and, as you see, things don’t seem to do badly,’ she added, +with a wave of her hand. + +‘I have always been persuaded,’ observed Rudin urbanely, ‘of the +absolutely mistaken position of those people who refuse to admit the +practical intelligence of women.’ + +Darya Mihailovna smiled affably. + +‘You are very good to us,’ was her comment ‘But what was I going to say? +What were we speaking of? Oh, yes; Lezhnyov: I have some business with +him about a boundary. I have several times invited him here, and even +to-day I am expecting him; but there’s no knowing whether he’ll come... +he’s such a strange creature.’ + +The curtain before the door was softly moved aside and the steward came +in, a tall man, grey and bald, in a black coat, a white cravat, and a +white waistcoat. + +‘What is it?’ inquired Darya Mihailovna, and, turning a little towards +Rudin, she added in a low voice, ‘_n’est ce pas, comme il ressemble à +Canning?_’ + +‘Mihailo Mihailitch Lezhnyov is here,’ announced the steward. ‘Will you +see him?’ + +‘Good Heavens!’ exclaimed Darya Mihailovna, ‘speak of the devil----ask +him up.’ + +The steward went away. + +‘He’s such an awkward creature. Now he has come, it’s at the wrong +moment; he has interrupted our talk.’ + +Rudin got up from his seat, but Darya Mihailovna stopped him. + +‘Where are you going? We can discuss the matter as well before you. And +I want you to analyse him too, as you did Pigasov. When you talk, _vous +gravez comme avec un burin_. Please stay.’ Rudin was going to protest, +but after a moment’s thought he sat down. + +Mihailo Mihailitch, whom the reader already knows, came into the room. +He wore the same grey overcoat, and in his sunburnt hands he carried the +same old foraging cap. He bowed tranquilly to Darya Mihailovna, and came +up to the tea-table. + +‘At last you have favoured me with a visit, Monsieur Lezhnyov!’ began +Darya Mihailovna. ‘Pray sit down. You are already acquainted, I hear,’ +she continued, with a gesture in Rudin’s direction. + +Lezhnyov looked at Rudin and smiled rather queerly. + +‘I know Mr. Rudin,’ he assented, with a slight bow. + +‘We were together at the university,’ observed Rudin in a low voice, +dropping his eyes. + +‘And we met afterwards also,’ remarked Lezhnyov coldly. + +Darya Mihailovna looked at both in some perplexity and asked Lezhnyov to +sit down. He sat down. + +‘You wanted to see me,’ he began, ‘on the subject of the boundary?’ + +‘Yes; about the boundary. But I also wished to see you in any case. We +are near neighbours, you know, and all but relations.’ + +‘I am much obliged to you,’ returned Lezhnyov. ‘As regards the boundary, +we have perfectly arranged that matter with your manager; I have agreed +to all his proposals.’ + +‘I knew that. But he told me that the contract could not be signed +without a personal interview with you.’ + +‘Yes; that is my rule. By the way, allow me to ask: all your peasants, I +believe, pay rent?’ + +‘Just so.’ + +‘And you trouble yourself about boundaries! That’s very praiseworthy.’ + +Lezhnyov did not speak for a minute. + +‘Well, I have come for a personal interview,’ he said at last. + +Darya Mihailovna smiled. + +‘I see you have come. You say that in such a tone.... You could not have +been very anxious to come to see me.’ + +‘I never go anywhere,’ rejoined Lezhnyov phlegmatically. + +‘Not anywhere? But you go to see Alexandra Pavlovna.’ + +‘I am an old friend of her brother’s.’ + +‘Her brother’s! However, I never wish to force any one.... But pardon +me, Mihailo Mihailitch, I am older than you, and I may be allowed to +give you advice; what charm do you find in such an unsociable way of +living? Or is my house in particular displeasing to you? You dislike +me?’ + +‘I don’t know you, Darya Mihailovna, and so I can’t dislike you. You +have a splendid house; but I will confess to you frankly I don’t like to +have to stand on ceremony. And I haven’t a respectable suit, I haven’t +any gloves, and I don’t belong to your set.’ + +‘By birth, by education, you belong to it, Mihailo Mihailitch! _vous +êtes des notres_.’ + +‘Birth and education are all very well, Darya Mihailovna; that’s not the +question.’ + +‘A man ought to live with his fellows, Mihailo Mihailitch! What pleasure +is there in sitting like Diogenes in his tub?’ + +‘Well, to begin with, he was very well off there, and besides, how do +you know I don’t live with my fellows?’ + +Darya Mihailovna bit her lip. + +‘That’s a different matter! It only remains for me to express my regret +that I have not the honour of being included in the number of your +friends.’ + +‘Monsieur Lezhnyov,’ put in Rudin, ‘seems to carry to excess a laudable +sentiment--the love of independence.’ + +Lezhnyov made no reply, he only looked at Rudin. A short silence +followed. + +‘And so,’ began Lezhnyov, getting up, ‘I may consider our business as +concluded, and tell your manager to send me the papers.’ + +‘You may,... though I confess you are so uncivil I ought really to +refuse you.’ + +‘But you know this rearrangement of the boundary is far more in your +interest than in mine.’ + +Darya Mihailovna shrugged her shoulders. + +‘You will not even have luncheon here?’ she asked. + +‘Thank you; I never take luncheon, and I am in a hurry to get home.’ + +Darya Mihailovna got up. + +‘I will not detain you,’ she said, going to the window. ‘I will not +venture to detain you.’ + +Lezhnyov began to take leave. + +‘Good-bye, Monsieur Lezhnyov! Pardon me for having troubled you.’ + +‘Oh, not at all!’ said Lezhnyov, and he went away. + +‘Well, what do you say to that?’ Darya Mihailovna asked of Rudin. ‘I had +heard he was eccentric, but really that was beyond everything!’ + +‘His is the same disease as Pigasov’s,’ observed Rudin, ‘the desire of +being original. One affects to be a Mephistopheles--the other a cynic. +In all that, there is much egoism, much vanity, but little truth, little +love. Indeed, there is even calculation of a sort in it. A man puts on +a mask of indifference and indolence so that some one will be sure to +think. “Look at that man; what talents he has thrown away!” But if +you come to look at him more attentively, there is no talent in him +whatever.’ + +‘_Et de deux!_’ was Darya Mihailovna’s comment. ‘You are a terrible man +at hitting people off. One can hide nothing from you.’ + +‘Do you think so?’ said Rudin.... ‘However,’ he continued, ‘I ought not +really to speak about Lezhnyov; I loved him, loved him as a friend... +but afterwards, through various misunderstandings...’ + +‘You quarrelled?’ + +‘No. But we parted, and parted, it seems, for ever.’ + +‘Ah, I noticed that the whole time of his visit you were not quite +yourself.... But I am much indebted to you for this morning. I have +spent my time extremely pleasantly. But one must know where to stop. +I will let you go till lunch time and I will go and look after my +business. My secretary, you saw him--Constantin, _c’est lui qui est mon +secrétaire_--must be waiting for me by now. I commend him to you; he is +an excellent, obliging young man, and quite enthusiastic about you. +_Au revoir, cher_ Dmitri Nikolaitch! How grateful I am to the baron for +having made me acquainted with you!’ + +And Darya Mihailovna held out her hand to Rudin. He first pressed it, +then raised it to his lips and went away to the drawing-room and from +there to the terrace. On the terrace he met Natalya. + + + + +V + + +Darya Mihailovna’s daughter, Natalya Alexyevna, at a first glance might +fail to please. She had not yet had time to develop; she was thin, and +dark, and stooped slightly. But her features were fine and regular, +though too large for a girl of seventeen. Specially beautiful was her +pure, smooth forehead above fine eyebrows, which seemed broken in the +middle. She spoke little, but listened to others, and fixed her eyes +on them as though she were forming her own conclusions. She would often +stand with listless hands, motionless and deep in thought; her face +at such moments showed that her mind was at work within.... A scarcely +perceptible smile would suddenly appear on her lips and vanish again; +then she would slowly raise her large dark eyes. ‘_Qu’avez vous?_’ +Mlle. Boncourt would ask her, and then she would begin to scold her, +saying that it was improper for a young girl to be absorbed and +to appear absent-minded. But Natalya was not absent-minded; on the +contrary, she studied diligently; she read and worked eagerly. Her +feelings were strong and deep, but reserved; even as a child she seldom +cried, and now she seldom even sighed and only grew slightly pale when +anything distressed her. Her mother considered her a sensible, good sort +of girl, calling her in a joke ‘_mon honnête homme de fille_’ but had +not a very high opinion of her intellectual abilities. ‘My Natalya +happily is cold,’ she used to say, ‘not like me--and it is better so. +She will be happy.’ Darya Mihailovna was mistaken. But few mothers +understand their daughters. + +Natalya loved Darya Mihailovna, but did not fully confide in her. + +‘You have nothing to hide from me,’ Darya Mihailovna said to her once, +‘or else you would be very reserved about it; you are rather a close +little thing.’ + +Natalya looked her mother in the face and thought, ‘Why shouldn’t I be +reserved?’ + +When Rudin met her on the terrace she was just going indoors with Mlle. +Boncourt to put on her hat and go out into the garden. Her morning +occupations were over. Natalya was not treated as a school-girl now. +Mlle. Boncourt had not given her lessons in mythology and geography for +a long while; but Natalya had every morning to read historical books, +travels, or other instructive works with her. Darya Mihailovna selected +them, ostensibly on a special system of her own. In reality she simply +gave Natalya everything which the French bookseller forwarded her from +Petersburg, except, of course, the novels of Dumas Fils and Co. These +novels Darya Mihailovna read herself. Mlle. Boncourt looked specially +severely and sourly through her spectacles when Natalya was reading +historical books; according to the old French lady’s ideas all history +was filled with _impermissible_ things, though for some reason or other +of all the great men of antiquity she herself knew only one--Cambyses, +and of modern times--Louis XIV. and Napoleon, whom she could not endure. +But Natalya read books too, the existence of which Mlle. Boncourt did +not suspect; she knew all Pushkin by heart. + +Natalya flushed slightly at meeting Rudin. + +‘Are you going for a walk?’ he asked her. + +‘Yes. We are going into the garden.’ + +‘May I come with you?’ + +Natalya looked at Mlle. Boncourt + +‘_Mais certainement, monsieur; avec plaisir_,’ said the old lady +promptly. + +Rudin took his hat and walked with them. + +Natalya at first felt some awkwardness in walking side by side with +Rudin on the same little path; afterwards she felt more at ease. He +began to question her about her occupations and how she liked the +country. She replied not without timidity, but without that hasty +bashfulness which is so often taken for modesty. Her heart was beating. + +‘You are not bored in the country?’ asked Rudin, taking her in with a +sidelong glance. + +‘How can one be bored in the country? I am very glad we are here. I am +very happy here.’ + +‘You are happy--that is a great word. However, one can understand it; +you are young.’ + +Rudin pronounced this last phrase rather strangely; either he envied +Natalya or he was sorry for her. + +‘Yes! youth!’ he continued, ‘the whole aim of science is to reach +consciously what is bestowed on youth for nothing.’ + +Natalya looked attentively at Rudin; she did not understand him. + +‘I have been talking all this morning with your mother,’ he went on; +‘she is an extraordinary woman. I understand why all our poets sought +her friendship. Are you fond of poetry?’ he added, after a pause. + +‘He is putting me through an examination,’ thought Natalya, and aloud: +‘Yes, I am very fond of it.’ + +‘Poetry is the language of the gods. I love poems myself. But poetry is +not only in poems; it is diffused everywhere, it is around us. Look at +those trees, that sky--on all sides there is the breath of beauty, and of +life, and where there is life and beauty, there is poetry also.’ + +‘Let us sit down. Here on this bench,’ he added. ‘Here--so. I somehow +fancy that when you are more used to me (and he looked her in the face +with a smile) ‘we shall be friends, you and I. What do you think?’ + +‘He treats me like a school-girl,’ Natalya reflected again, and, not +knowing what to say, she asked him whether he intended to remain long in +the country. + +‘All the summer and autumn, and perhaps the winter too. I am a very poor +man, you know; my affairs are in confusion, and, besides, I am tired now +of wandering from place to place. The time has come to rest.’ + +Natalya was surprised. + +‘Is it possible you feel that it is time for you to rest?’ she asked him +timidly. + +Rudin turned so as to face Natalya. + +‘What do you mean by that?’ + +‘I mean,’ she replied in some embarrassment, ‘that others may rest; but +you... you ought to work, to try to be useful. Who, if not you----’ + +‘I thank you for your flattering opinion,’ Rudin interrupted her. ‘To be +useful... it is easy to say!’ (He passed his hand over his face.) ‘To be +useful!’ he repeated. ‘Even if I had any firm conviction, how could I +be useful?--even if I had faith in my own powers, where is one to find +true, sympathetic souls?’ + +And Rudin waved his hand so hopelessly, and let his head sink so +gloomily, that Natalya involuntarily asked herself, were those really +his--those enthusiastic words full of the breath of hope, she had heard +the evening before. + +‘But no,’ he said, suddenly tossing back his lion-like mane, ‘that is +all folly, and you are right. I thank you, Natalya Alexyevna, I thank +you truly.’ (Natalya absolutely did not know what he was thanking her +for.) ‘Your single phrase has recalled to me my duty, has pointed out +to me my path.... Yes, I must act. I must not bury my talent, if I have +any; I must not squander my powers on talk alone--empty, profitless +talk--on mere words,’ and his words flowed in a stream. He spoke nobly, +ardently, convincingly, of the sin of cowardice and indolence, of the +necessity of action. He lavished reproaches on himself, maintained that +to discuss beforehand what you mean to do is as unwise as to prick with +a pin the swelling fruit, that it is only a vain waste of strength +and sap. He declared that there was no noble idea which would not gain +sympathy, that the only people who remained misunderstood were those who +either did not know themselves what they wanted, or were not worthy +to be understood. He spoke at length, and ended by once more thanking +Natalya Alexyevna, and utterly unexpectedly pressed her hand, +exclaiming. ‘You are a noble, generous creature!’ + +This outburst horrified Mlle. Boncourt, who in spite of her forty years’ +residence in Russia understood Russian with difficulty, and was only +moved to admiration by the splendid rapidity and flow of words on +Rudin’s lips. In her eyes, however, he was something of the nature of +a virtuoso or artist; and from people of that kind, according to her +notions, it was impossible to demand a strict adherence to propriety. + +She got up and drew her skirts with a jerk around her, observed to +Natalya that it was time to go in, especially as M. Volinsoff (so she +spoke of Volintsev) was to be there to lunch. + +‘And here he is,’ she added, looking up one of the avenues which led to +the house, and in fact Volintsev appeared not far off. + +He came up with a hesitating step, greeted all of them from a distance, +and with an expression of pain on his face he turned to Natalya and +said: + +‘Oh, you are having a walk?’ + +‘Yes,’ answered Natalya, ‘we were just going home.’ + +‘Ah!’ was Volintsev’s reply. ‘Well, let us go,’ and they all walked +towards the house. + +‘How is your sister?’ Rudin inquired, in a specially cordial tone, of +Volintsev. The evening before, too, he had been very gracious to him. + +‘Thank you; she is quite well. She will perhaps be here to-day.... I +think you were discussing something when I came up?’ + +‘Yes; I have had a conversation with Natalya Alexyevna. She said one +thing to me which affected me strongly.’ + +Volintsev did not ask what the one thing was, and in profound silence +they all returned to Darya Mihailovna’s house. + +Before dinner the party was again assembled in the drawing-room. +Pigasov, however, did not come. Rudin was not at his best; he did +nothing but press Pandalevsky to play Beethoven. Volintsev was silent +and stared at the floor. Natalya did not leave her mother’s side, and +was at times lost in thought, and then bent over her work. Bassistoff +did not take his eyes off Rudin, constantly on the alert for him to say +something brilliant. About three hours were passed in this way rather +monotonously. Alexandra Pavlovna did not come to dinner, and when they +rose from table Volintsev at once ordered his carriage to be ready, and +slipped away without saying good-bye to any one. + +His heart was heavy. He had long loved Natalya, and was repeatedly +resolving to make her an offer.... She was kindly disposed to him,--but +her heart remained unmoved; he saw that clearly. He did not hope to +inspire in her a tenderer sentiment, and was only waiting for the time +when she should be perfectly at home with him and intimate with him. +What could have disturbed him? what change had he noticed in these two +days? Natalya had behaved to him exactly the same as before.... + +Whether it was that some idea had come upon him that he perhaps did not +know Natalya’s character at all--that she was more a stranger to him +than he had thought,--or jealousy had begun to work in him, or he had +some dim presentiment of ill... anyway, he suffered, though he tried to +reason with himself. + +When he came in to his sister’s room, Lezhnyov was sitting with her. + +‘Why have you come back so early?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna. + +‘Oh! I was bored.’ + +‘Was Rudin there?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +Volintsev flung down his cap and sat down. Alexandra Pavlovna turned +eagerly to him. + +‘Please, Serezha, help me to convince this obstinate man (she signified +Lezhnyov) that Rudin is extraordinarily clever and eloquent.’ + +Volintsev muttered something. + +‘But I am not disputing at all with you,’ Lezhnyov began. ‘I have no +doubt of the cleverness and eloquence of Mr. Rudin; I only say that I +don’t like him.’ + +‘But have you seen him?’ inquired Volintsev. + +‘I saw him this morning at Darya Mihallovna’s. You know he is her +first favourite now. The time will come when she will part with +him--Pandalevsky is the only man she will never part with--but now he is +supreme. I saw him, to be sure! He was sitting there,--and she showed me +off to him, “see, my good friend, what queer fish we have here!” But I +am not a prize horse, to be trotted out on show, so I took myself off.’ + +‘But how did you come to be there?’ + +‘About a boundary; but that was all nonsense; she simply wanted to +have a look at my physiognomy. She’s a fine lady,--that’s explanation +enough!’ + +‘His superiority is what offends you--that’s what it is!’ began +Alexandra Pavlovna warmly, ‘that’s what you can’t forgive. But I am +convinced that besides his cleverness he must have an excellent heart as +well. You should see his eyes when he----’ + +‘“Of purity exalted speaks,”’ quoted Lezhnyov. + +‘You make me angry, and I shall cry. I am heartily sorry I did not go +to Darya Mihailovna’s, but stopped with you. You don’t deserve it. Leave +off teasing me,’ she added, in an appealing voice, ‘You had much better +tell me about his youth.’ + +‘Rudin’s youth?’ + +‘Yes, of course. Didn’t you tell me you knew him well, and had known him +a long time?’ + +Lezhnyov got up and walked up and down the room. + +‘Yes,’ he began, ‘I do know him well. You want me to tell you about +his youth? Very well. He was born in T----, and was the son of a poor +landowner, who died soon after. He was left alone with his mother. She +was a very good woman, and she idolised him; she lived on nothing but +oatmeal, and every penny she had she spent on him. He was educated in +Moscow, first at the expense of some uncle, and afterwards, when he was +grown up and fully fledged, at the expense of a rich prince whose favour +he had courted--there, I beg your pardon, I won’t do it again--with whom +he had made friends. Then he went to the university. At the university +I got to know him and we became intimate friends. I will tell you +about our life in those days some other time, I can’t now. Then he went +abroad....’ + +Lezhnyov continued to walk up and down the room; Alexandra Pavlovna +followed him with her eyes. + +‘While he was abroad,’ he continued, ‘Rudin wrote very rarely to his +mother, and paid her altogether only one visit for ten days.... The old +lady died without him, cared for by strangers; but up to her death +she never took her eyes off his portrait. I went to see her when I was +staying in T----. She was a kind and hospitable woman; she always used +to feast me on cherry jam. She loved her Mitya devotedly. People of the +Petchorin type tell us that we always love those who are least capable +of feeling love themselves; but it’s my idea that all mothers love their +children especially when they are absent. Afterwards I met Rudin +abroad. Then he was connected with a lady, one of our countrywomen, a +bluestocking, no longer young, and plain, as a bluestocking is bound to +be. He lived a good while with her, and at last threw her over--or no, I +beg pardon,--she threw him over. It was then that I too threw him over. +That’s all.’ + +Lezhnyov ceased speaking, passed his hand over his brow, and dropped +into a chair as if he were exhausted. + +‘Do you know, Mihailo Mihailitch,’ began Alexandra Pavlovna, ‘you are +a spiteful person, I see; indeed you are no better than Pigasov. I am +convinced that all you have told me is true, that you have not made up +anything, and yet in what an unfavourable light you have put it all! The +poor old mother, her devotion, her solitary death, and that lady--What +does it all amount to? You know that it’s easy to put the life of the +best of men in such colours--and without adding anything, observe--that +every one would be shocked! But that too is slander of a kind!’ + +Lezhnyov got up and again walked about the room. + +‘I did not want to shock you at all, Alexandra Pavlovna,’ he brought +out at last, ‘I am not given to slander. However,’ he added, after a +moment’s thought, ‘in reality there is a foundation of fact in what you +said. I did not mean to slander Rudin; but--who knows! very likely he +has had time to change since those days--very possibly I am unjust to +him.’ + +‘Ah! you see. So promise me that you will renew your acquaintance with +him, and will get to know him thoroughly and then report your final +opinion of him to me.’ + +‘As you please. But why are you so quiet, Sergei Pavlitch?’ + +Volintsev started and raised his head, as though he had just waked up. + +‘What can I say? I don’t know him. Besides, my head aches to-day.’ + +‘Yes, you look rather pale this evening,’ remarked Alexandra Pavlovna; +‘are you unwell?’ + +‘My head aches,’ repeated Volintsev, and he went away. + +Alexandra Pavlovna and Lezhnyov looked after him, and exchanged glances, +though they said nothing. What was passing in Volintsev’s heart was no +mystery to either of them. + + + + +VI + + +More than two months had passed; during the whole of that period Rudin +had scarcely been away from Darya Mihailovna’s house. She could not +get on without him. To talk to him about herself and to listen to his +eloquence became a necessity for her. He would have taken his leave on +one occasion, on the ground that all his money was spent; she gave +him five hundred roubles. He borrowed two hundred roubles more from +Volintsev. Pigasov visited Darya Mihailovna much less frequently than +before; Rudin crushed him by his presence. And indeed it was not only +Pigasov who was conscious of an oppression. + +‘I don’t like that prig,’ Pigasov used to say, ‘he expresses himself so +affectedly like a hero of a romance. If he says “I,” he stops in rapt +admiration, “I, yes, I!” and the phrases he uses are all so drawn-out; +if you sneeze, he will begin at once to explain to you exactly why you +sneezed and did not cough. If he praises you, it’s just as if he were +creating you a prince. If he begins to abuse himself, he humbles himself +into the dust--come, one thinks, he will never dare to face the light +of day after that. Not a bit of it! It only cheers him up, as if he’d +treated himself to a glass of grog.’ + +Pandalevsky was a little afraid of Rudin, and cautiously tried to win +his favour. Volintsev had got on to curious terms with him. Rudin called +him a knight-errant, and sang his praises to his face and behind his +back; but Volintsev could not bring himself to like him and always felt +an involuntary impatience and annoyance when Rudin devoted himself to +enlarging on his good points in his presence. ‘Is he making fun of me?’ +he thought, and he felt a throb of hatred in his heart. He tried to keep +his feelings in check, but in vain; he was jealous of him on Natalya’s +account. And Rudin himself, though he always welcomed Volintsev with +effusion, though he called him a knight-errant, and borrowed money from +him, did not feel exactly friendly towards him. It would be difficult +to define the feelings of these two men when they pressed each other’s +hands like friends and looked into each other’s eyes. + +Bassistoff continued to adore Rudin, and to hang on every word he +uttered. Rudin paid him very little attention. Once he spent a whole +morning with him, discussing the weightiest problems of life, and +awakening his keenest enthusiasm, but afterwards he took no further +notice of him. Evidently it was only a phrase when he said that he was +seeking for pure and devoted souls. With Lezhnyov, who began to be a +frequent visitor at the house, Rudin did not enter into discussion; +he seemed even to avoid him. Lezhnyov, on his part, too, treated him +coldly. He did not, however, report his final conclusions about him, +which somewhat disquieted Alexandra Pavlovna. She was fascinated +by Rudin, but she had confidence in Lezhnyov. Every one in Darya +Mihailovna’s house humoured Rudin’s fancies; his slightest preferences +were carried out. He determined the plans for the day. Not a single +_partie de plaisir_ was arranged without his co-operation. + +He was not, however, very fond of any kind of impromptu excursion or +picnic, and took part in them rather as grown-up people take part +in children’s games, with an air of kindly, but rather wearied, +friendliness. He took interest in everything else, however. He discussed +with Darya Mihailovna her plans for the estate, the education of her +children, her domestic arrangements, and her affairs generally; he +listened to her schemes, and was not bored by petty details, and, in his +turn, proposed reforms and made suggestions. Darya Mihailovna agreed to +them in words--and that was all. In matters of business she was really +guided by the advice of her bailiff--an elderly, one-eyed Little +Russian, a good-natured and crafty old rogue. ‘What is old is fat, +what is new is thin,’ he used to say, with a quiet smile, winking his +solitary eye. + +Next to Darya Mihailovna, it was Natalya to whom Rudin used to talk +most often and at most length. He used privately to give her books, to +confide his plans to her, and to read her the first pages of the essays +and other works he had in his mind. Natalya did not always fully grasp +the significance of them. + +But Rudin did not seem to care much about her understanding, so long +as she listened to him. His intimacy with Natalya was not altogether +pleasing to Darya Mihailovna. ‘However,’ she thought, ‘let her chatter +away with him in the country. She amuses him as a little girl now. There +is no great harm in it, and, at any rate, it will improve her mind. At +Petersburg I will soon put a stop to it.’ + +Darya Mihailovna was mistaken. Natalya did not chatter to Rudin like a +school-girl; she eagerly drank in his words, she tried to penetrate to +their full significance; she submitted her thoughts, her doubts to him; +he became her leader, her guide. So far, it was only the brain that +was stirred, but in the young the brain is not long stirred alone. What +sweet moments Natalya passed when at times in the garden on the seat, +in the transparent shade of the aspen tree, Rudin began to read Goethe’s +_Faust_, Hoffman, or Bettina’s letters, or Novalis, constantly stopping +and explaining what seemed obscure to her. Like almost all Russian +girls, she spoke German badly, but she understood it well, and Rudin was +thoroughly imbued with German poetry, German romanticism and philosophy, +and he drew her after him into these forbidden lands. Unimagined +splendours were revealed there to her earnest eyes from the pages of the +book which Rudin held on his knee; a stream of divine visions, of new, +illuminating ideas, seemed to flow in rhythmic music into her soul, and +in her heart, moved with the high delight of noble feeling, slowly was +kindled and fanned into a flame the holy spark of enthusiasm. + +‘Tell me, Dmitri Nikolaitch,’ she began one day, sitting by the window +at her embroidery-frame, ‘shall you be in Petersburg in the winter?’ + +‘I don’t know,’ replied Rudin, as he let the book he had been glancing +through fall upon his knee; ‘if I can find the means, I shall go.’ + +He spoke dejectedly; he felt tired, and had done nothing all day. + +‘I think you are sure to find the means.’ + +Rudin shook his head. + +‘You think so!’ + +And he looked away expressively. + +Natalya was on the point of replying, but she checked herself. + +‘Look.’ began Rudin, with a gesture towards the window, ‘do you see that +apple-tree? It is broken by the weight and abundance of its own fruit. +True emblem of genius.’ + +‘It is broken because it had no support,’ replied Natalya. + +‘I understand you, Natalya Alexyevna, but it is not so easy for a man to +find such a support.’ + +‘I should think the sympathy of others... in any case isolation +always....’ + +Natalya was rather confused, and flushed a little. + +‘And what will you do in the country in the winter?’ she added +hurriedly. + +‘What shall I do? I shall finish my larger essay--you know it--on +“Tragedy in Life and in Art.” I described to you the outline of it the +day before yesterday, and shall send it to you.’ + +‘And you will publish it?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘No? For whose sake will you work then?’ + +‘And if it were for you?’ + +Natalya dropped her eyes. + +‘It would be far above me.’ + +‘What, may I ask, is the subject of the essay?’ Bassistoff inquired +modestly. He was sitting a little distance away. + +‘“Tragedy in Life and in Art,”’ repeated Rudin. ‘Mr. Bassistoff too will +read it. But I have not altogether settled on the fundamental motive. I +have not so far worked out for myself the tragic significance of love.’ + +Rudin liked to talk of love, and frequently did so. At first, at the +word ‘love,’ Mlle. Boncourt started, and pricked up her eyes like an old +war-horse at the sound of the trumpet; but afterwards she had grown used +to it, and now only pursed up her lips and took snuff at intervals. + +‘It seems to me,’ said Natalya timidly, ‘that the tragic in love is +unrequited love.’ + +‘Not at all!’ replied Rudin; ‘that is rather the comic side of love. +... The question must be put in an altogether different way... one must +attack it more deeply.... Love!’ he pursued, ‘all is mystery in love; +how it comes, how it develops, how it passes away. Sometimes it comes +all at once, undoubting, glad as day; sometimes it smoulders like fire +under ashes, and only bursts into a flame in the heart when all is over; +sometimes it winds its way into the heart like a serpent, and suddenly +slips out of it again.... Yes, yes; it is the great problem. But who +does love in our days? Who is so bold as to love?’ + +And Rudin grew pensive. + +‘Why is it we have not seen Sergei Pavlitch for so long?’ he asked +suddenly. + +Natalya blushed, and bent her head over her embroidery frame. + +‘I don’t know,’ she murmured. + +‘What a splendid, generous fellow he is!’ Rudin declared, standing up. +‘It is one of the best types of a Russian gentleman.’ + +Mlle. Boncourt gave him a sidelong look out of her little French eyes. + +Rudin walked up and down the room. + +‘Have you noticed,’ he began, turning sharply round on his heels, ‘that +on the oak--and the oak is a strong tree--the old leaves only fall off +when the new leaves begin to grow?’ + +‘Yes,’ answered Natalya slowly, ‘I have noticed it.’ + +‘That is what happens to an old love in a strong heart; it is dead +already, but still it holds its place; only another new love can drive +it out.’ + +Natalya made no reply. + +‘What does that mean?’ she was thinking. + +Rudin stood still, tossed his hair back, and walked away. + +Natalya went to her own room. She sat a long while on her little bed in +perplexity, pondering over Rudin’s last words. All at once she clasped +her hands and began to weep bitterly. What she was weeping for--who can +tell? She herself could not tell why her tears were falling so fast. +She dried them; but they flowed afresh, like water from a long-pent-up +source. + +On this same day Alexandra Pavlovna had a conversation with Lezhnyov +about Rudin. At first he bore all her attacks in silence; but at last +she succeeded in rousing him into talk. + +‘I see,’ she said to him, ‘you dislike Dmitri Nikolaitch, as you did +before. I purposely refrained from questioning you till now; but now you +have had time to make up your mind whether there is any change in him, +and I want to know why you don’t like him.’ + +‘Very well,’ answered Lezhnyov with his habitual phlegm, ‘since your +patience is exhausted; only look here, don’t get angry.’ + +‘Come, begin, begin.’ + +‘And let me have my say to the end.’ + +‘Of course, of course; begin.’ + +‘Very well,’ said Lezhnyov, dropping lazily on to the sofa; ‘I admit +that I certainly don’t like Rudin. He is a clever fellow.’ + +‘I should think so.’ + +‘He is a remarkably clever man, though in reality essentially shallow.’ + +‘It’s easy to say that.’ + +‘Though essentially shallow,’ repeated Lezhnyov; ‘but there’s no great +harm in that; we are all shallow. I will not even quarrel with him for +being a tyrant at heart, lazy, ill-informed!’ + +Alexandra Pavlovna clasped her hands. + +‘Rudin--ill-informed!’ she cried. + +‘Ill-informed!’ repeated Lezhnyov in precisely the same voice, ‘that he +likes to live at other people’s expense, to cut a good figure, and so +forth--all that’s natural enough. But what’s wrong is, that he is as +cold as ice.’ + +‘He cold! that fiery soul cold!’ interrupted Alexandra Pavlovna. + +‘Yes, cold as ice, and he knows it, and pretends to be fiery. What’s +bad,’ pursued Lezhnyov, gradually growing warm, ‘he is playing a +dangerous game--not dangerous for him, of course; he does not risk a +farthing, not a straw on it--but others stake their soul.’ + +‘Whom and what are you talking of? I don’t understand you,’ said +Alexandra Pavlovna. + +‘What’s bad, he isn’t honest. He’s a clever man, certainly; he ought to +know the value of his own words, and he brings them out as if they were +worth something to him. I don’t dispute that he’s a fine speaker, +but not in the Russian style. And indeed, after all, fine speaking is +pardonable in a boy, but at his years it is disgraceful to take pleasure +in the sound of his own voice, and to show off!’ + +‘I think, Mihailo Mihailitch, it’s all the same for those who hear him, +whether he is showing off or not.’ + +‘Excuse me, Alexandra Pavlovna, it is not all the same. One man says a +word to me and it thrills me all over, another may say the same thing, +or something still finer--and I don’t prick up my ears. Why is that?’ + +‘_You_ don’t, perhaps,’ put in Alexandra Pavlovna. + +‘I don’t,’ retorted Lezhnyov, ‘though perhaps my ears are long enough. +The point is, that Rudin’s words seem to remain mere words, and never to +pass into deeds--and meanwhile even words may trouble a young heart, may +be the ruin of it.’ + +‘But whom do you mean, Mihailo Mihailitch?’ + +Lezhnyov paused. + +‘Do you want to know whom I mean, Natalya Alexyevna?’ + +Alexandra Pavlovna was taken aback for a moment, but she began to smile +the instant after. + +‘Really,’ she began, ‘what queer ideas you always have! Natalya is still +a child; and besides, if there were anything in what you say, do you +suppose Darya Mihailovna----’ + +‘Darya Mihailovna is an egoist to begin with, and lives for herself; and +then she is so convinced of her own skill in educating her children that +it does not even enter her head to feel uneasy about them. Nonsense! how +is it possible: she has but to give one nod, one majestic glance--and +all is over, all is obedience again. That’s what that lady imagines; she +fancies herself a female Maecenas, a learned woman, and God knows what, +but in fact she is nothing more than a silly, worldly old woman. But +Natalya is not a baby; believe me, she thinks more, and more profoundly +too, than you and I do. And that her true, passionate, ardent nature +must fall in with an actor, a flirt like this! But of course that’s in +the natural order of things.’ + +‘A flirt! Do you mean that he is a flirt?’ + +‘Of course he is. And tell me yourself, Alexandra Pavlovna, what is his +position in Darya Mihailovna’s house? To be the idol, the oracle of +the household, to meddle in the arrangements, all the gossip and petty +trifles of the house--is that a dignified position for a man to be in?’ + +Alexandra Pavlovna looked at Lezhnyov in surprise. + +‘I don’t know you, Mihailo Mihailitch,’ she began to say. ‘You are +flushed and excited. I believe there must be something else hidden under +this.’ + +‘Oh, so that’s it! Tell a woman the truth from conviction, and she will +never rest easy till she has invented some petty outside cause quite +beside the point which has made you speak in precisely that manner and +no other.’ + +Alexandra Pavlovna began to get angry. + +‘Bravo, Monsieur Lezhnyov! You begin to be as bitter against women as +Mr. Pigasov; but you may say what you like, penetrating as you are, it’s +hard for me to believe that you understand every one and everything. +I think you are mistaken. According to your ideas, Rudin is a kind of +Tartuffe.’ + +‘No, the point is, that he is not even a Tartuffe. Tartuffe at least +knew what he was aiming at; but this fellow, for all his cleverness----’ + +‘Well, well, what of him? Finish your sentence, you unjust, horrid man!’ + +Lezhnyov got up. + +‘Listen, Alexandra Pavlovna,’ he began, ‘it is you who are unjust, not +I. You are cross with me for my harsh criticism of Rudin; I have the +right to speak harshly of him! I have paid dearly enough, perhaps, for +that privilege. I know him well: I lived a long while with him. You +remember I promised to tell you some time about our life at Moscow. It +is clear that I must do so now. But will you have the patience to hear +me out?’ + +‘Tell me, tell me!’ + +‘Very well, then.’ + +Lezhnyov began walking with measured steps about the room, coming to a +standstill at times with his head bent. + +‘You know, perhaps,’ he began, ‘or perhaps you don’t know, that I was +left an orphan at an early age, and by the time I was seventeen I had no +one in authority over me. I lived at my aunt’s at Moscow, and did just +as I liked. As a boy I was rather silly and conceited, and liked to +brag and show off. After my entrance at the university I behaved like +a regular schoolboy, and soon got into a scrape. I won’t tell you +about it; it’s not worth while. But I told a lie about it, and rather +a shameful lie. It all came out, and I was put to open shame. I lost my +head and cried like a child. It happened at a friend’s rooms before a +lot of fellow-students. They all began to laugh at me, all except one +student, who, observe, had been more indignant with me than any, so long +as I had been obstinate and would not confess my deceit. He took pity +on me, perhaps; anyway, he took me by the arm and led me away to his +lodging.’ + +‘Was that Rudin?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna. + +‘No, it was not Rudin... it was a man... he is dead now... he was an +extraordinary man. His name was Pokorsky. To describe him in a few words +is beyond my powers, but directly one begins to speak of him, one does +not want to speak of any one else. He had a noble, pure heart, and an +intelligence such as I have never met since. Pokorsky lived in a little, +low-pitched room, in an attic of an old wooden house. He was very poor, +and supported himself somehow by giving lessons. Sometimes he had not +even a cup of tea to offer to his friends, and his only sofa was so +shaky that it was like being on board ship. But in spite of these +discomforts a great many people used to go to see him. Every one loved +him; he drew all hearts to him. You would not believe what sweetness and +happiness there was in sitting in his poor little room! It was in his +room I met Rudin. He had already parted from his prince before then.’ + +‘What was there so exceptional in this Pokorsky?’ asked Alexandra +Pavlovna. + +‘How can I tell you? Poetry and truth--that was what drew all of us to +him. For all his clear, broad intellect he was as sweet and simple as a +child. Even now I have his bright laugh ringing in my ears, and at the +same time he + + Burnt his midnight lamp + Before the holy and the true, + +as a dear half-cracked fellow, the poet of our set, expressed it.’ + +‘And how did he talk?’ Alexandra Pavlovna questioned again. + +‘He talked well when he was in the mood, but not remarkably so. Rudin +even then was twenty times as eloquent as he.’ + +Lezhnyov stood still and folded his arms. + +‘Pokorsky and Rudin were very unlike. There was more flash and +brilliance about Rudin, more fluency, and perhaps more enthusiasm. He +appeared far more gifted than Pokorsky, and yet all the while he was a +poor creature by comparison. Rudin was excellent at developing any idea, +he was capital in argument, but his ideas did not come from his own +brain; he borrowed them from others, especially from Pokorsky. Pokorsky +was quiet and soft--even weak in appearance--and he was fond of women to +distraction, and fond of dissipation, and he would never take an insult +from any one. Rudin seemed full of fire, and courage, and life, but at +heart he was cold and almost a coward, until his vanity was touched, +then he would not stop at anything. He always tried to get an ascendency +over people, but he got it in the name of general principles and ideas, +and certainly had a great influence over many. To tell the truth, no one +loved him; I was the only one, perhaps, who was attached to him. They +submitted to his yoke, but all were devoted to Pokorsky. Rudin never +refused to argue and discuss with any one he met. He did not read very +much, though far more anyway than Pokorsky and all the rest of us; +besides, he had a well-arranged intellect, and a prodigious memory, and +what an effect that has on young people! They must have generalisations, +conclusions, incorrect if you like, perhaps, but still conclusions! A +perfectly sincere man never suits them. Try to tell young people that +you cannot give them the whole truth, and they will not listen to you. +But you mustn’t deceive them either. You want to half believe yourself +that you are in possession of the truth. That was why Rudin had such a +powerful effect on all of us. I told you just now, you know, that he +had not read much, but he read philosophical books, and his brain was +so constructed that he extracted at once from what he had read all the +general principles, penetrated to the very root of the thing, and then +made deductions from it in all directions--consecutive, brilliant, +sound ideas, throwing up a wide horizon to the soul. Our set consisted +then--it’s only fair to say--of boys, and not well-informed boys. +Philosophy, art, science, and even life itself were all mere words +to us--ideas if you like, fascinating and magnificent ideas, but +disconnected and isolated. The general connection of those ideas, the +general principle of the universe we knew nothing of, and had had no +contact with, though we discussed it vaguely, and tried to form an idea +of it for ourselves. As we listened to Rudin, we felt for the first time +as if we had grasped it at last, this general connection, as if a veil +had been lifted at last! Even admitting he was not uttering an original +thought--what of that! Order and harmony seemed to be established in all +we knew; all that had been disconnected seemed to fall into a whole, +to take shape and grow like a building before our eyes, all was full of +light and inspiration everywhere.... Nothing remained meaningless +and undesigned, in everything wise design and beauty seemed apparent, +everything took a clear and yet mystic significance; every isolated +event of life fell into harmony, and with a kind of holy awe and +reverence and sweet emotion we felt ourselves to be, as it were, the +living vessels of eternal truth, her instruments destined for some +great... Doesn’t it all seem very ridiculous to you?’ + +‘Not the least!’ replied Alexandra Pavlovna slowly; ‘why should you +think so? I don’t altogether understand you, but I don’t think it +ridiculous.’ + +‘We have had time to grow wiser since then, of course,’ Lezhnyov +continued, ‘all that may seem childish to us now.... But, I repeat, we +all owed a great deal to Rudin then. Pokorsky was incomparably nobler +than he, no question about it; Pokorsky breathed fire and strength into +all of us; but he was often depressed and silent. He was nervous and not +robust; but when he did stretch his wings--good heavens!--what a flight! +up to the very height of the blue heavens! And there was a great deal +of pettiness in Rudin, handsome and stately as he was; he was a gossip, +indeed, and he loved to have a hand in everything, arranging and +explaining everything. His fussy activity was inexhaustible--he was a +diplomatist by nature. I speak of him as I knew him then. But unluckily +he has not altered. On the other hand, his ideals haven’t altered at +five-and-thirty! It’s not every one who can say that of himself!’ + +‘Sit down,’ said Alexandra Pavlovna, ‘why do you keep moving about like +a pendulum?’ + +‘I like it better,’ answered Lezhnyov. ‘Well, after I had come into +Pokorsky’s set, I may tell you, Alexandra Pavlovna, I was quite +transformed; I grew humble and anxious to learn; I studied, and was +happy and reverent--in a word, I felt just as though I had entered a +holy temple. And really, when I recall our gatherings, upon my word +there was much that was fine, even touching, in them. Imagine a party of +five or six lads gathered together, one tallow candle burning. The tea +was dreadful stuff, and the cake was stale, very stale; but you should +have seen our faces, you should have heard our talk! Eyes were sparkling +with enthusiasm, cheeks flushed, and hearts beating, while we talked of +God, and truth, of the future of humanity, and poetry ... often what +we said was absurd, and we were in ecstasies over nonsense; but what of +that?... Pokorsky sat with crossed legs, his pale cheek on his hand, and +his eyes seemed to shed light. Rudin stood in the middle of the room and +spoke, spoke splendidly, for all the world like the young Demosthenes +by the resounding sea; our poet, Subotin of the dishevelled locks, would +now and then throw out some abrupt exclamation as though in his sleep, +while Scheller, a student forty years old, the son of a German pastor, +who had the reputation among us of a profound thinker, thanks to his +eternal, inviolable silence, held his peace with more rapt solemnity +than usual; even the lively Shtchitof, the Aristophanes of our reunions, +was subdued and did no more than smile, while two or three novices +listened with reverent transports.... And the night seemed to fly by on +wings. It was already the grey morning when we separated, moved, happy, +aspiring and sober (there was no question of wine among us at such +times) with a kind of sweet weariness in our souls... and one even +looked up at the stars with a kind of confidence, as though they had +become nearer and more comprehensible. Ah! that was a glorious time, and +I can’t bear to believe that it was altogether wasted! And it was not +wasted--not even for those whose lives were sordid afterwards. How often +have I chanced to come across such old college friends! You would think +the man had sunk altogether to the brute, but one had only to utter +Pokorsky’s name before him and every trace of noble feeling in him was +stirred at once; it was like uncorking a forgotten phial of fragrance in +some dark and dirty room.’ + +Lezhnyov stopped; his colourless face was flushed. + +‘And what was the cause of your quarrel with Rudin?’ said Alexandra +Pavlovna, looking wonderingly at Lezhnyov. + +‘I did not quarrel with him, but I parted from him when I came to know +him thoroughly abroad. But I might well have quarrelled with him in +Moscow, he did me a bad turn there.’ + +‘What was that?’ + +‘It was like this. I--how can I tell you?--it does not accord very well +with my appearance, but I was always much given to falling in love.’ + +‘You?’ + +‘Yes, I was indeed. That’s a curious idea, isn’t it? But, anyway, it +was so. Well, so I fell in love in those days with a very pretty young +girl.... But why do you look at me like that? I could tell you something +about myself a great deal more extraordinary than that!’ + +‘And what is that something, if I may know?’ + +‘Oh, just this. In those Moscow days I used to have a tryst at +nights--with whom, would you imagine? with a young lime-tree at the +bottom of my garden. I used to embrace its slender and graceful trunk, +and I felt as though I were embracing all nature, and my heart melted +and expanded as though it really were taking in the whole of nature. +That’s what I was then. And do you think, perhaps, I didn’t write +verses? Why, I even composed a whole drama in imitation of Manfred. +Among the characters was a ghost with blood on his breast, and not his +own blood, observe, but the blood of all humanity.... Yes, yes, you +need not wonder at that. But I was beginning to tell you about my love +affair. I made the acquaintance of a girl----’ + +‘And you gave up your trysts with the lime-tree?’ inquired Alexandra +Pavlovna. + +‘Yes; I gave them up. This girl was a sweet, good creature, with clear, +lively eyes and a ringing voice.’ + +‘You give an excellent description of her,’ commented Alexandra Pavlovna +with a smile. + +‘You are such a severe critic,’ retorted Lezhnyov. ‘Well, this girl +lived with her old father.... But I will not enter into details; I will +only tell you that this girl was so kind-hearted, if you only asked +her for half a cup of tea she would give it you brimming over! Two days +after first meeting her I was wild over her, and on the seventh day I +could hold out no longer, and confessed it in full to Rudin. At that +time I was completely under his influence, and his influence, I will +tell you frankly, was beneficial in many things. He was the first person +who did not treat me with contempt, but tried to lick me into shape. I +loved Pokorsky passionately, and felt a kind of awe before his purity of +soul, but I came closer to Rudin. When he heard about my love, he fell +into an indescribable ecstasy, congratulated me, embraced me, and at +once fell to disserting and enlarging upon all the dignity of my new +position. I pricked up my ears.... Well, you know how he can talk. His +words had an extraordinary effect on me. I at once assumed an amazing +consequence in my own eyes, and I put on a serious exterior and left off +laughing. I remember I used even to go about at that time with a kind +of circumspection, as though I had a sacred chalice within me, full of +a priceless liquid, which I was afraid of spilling over.... I was very +happy, especially as I found favour in her eyes. Rudin wanted to make my +beloved’s acquaintance, and I myself almost insisted on presenting him.’ + +‘Ah! I see, I see now what it is,’ interrupted Alexandra Pavlovna. +‘Rudin cut you out with your charmer, and you have never been able to +forgive him.... I am ready to take a wager I am right!’ + +‘You would lose your wager, Alexandra Pavlovna; you are wrong. Rudin did +not cut me out; he did not even try to cut me out; but, all the same, +he put an end to my happiness, though, looking at it in cool blood, I am +ready to thank him for it now. But I nearly went out of my mind at the +time. Rudin did not in the least wish to injure me--quite the contrary! +But through his cursed habit of pinning every emotion--his own and other +people’s--with a phrase, as one pins butterflies in a case, he set to +making clear to ourselves our relations to one another, and how we ought +to treat each other, and arbitrarily compelled us to take stock of +our feelings and ideas, praised us and blamed us, even entered into +a correspondence with us--fancy! Well, he succeeded in completely +disconcerting us! I should hardly, even then, have married the young +lady (I had so much sense still left), but, at least, we might have +spent some months happily a _la Paul et Virginie_; but now came strained +relations, misunderstandings of every kind. It ended by Rudin, one fine +morning, arriving at the conviction that it was his sacred duty as a +friend to acquaint the old father with everything--and he did so.’ + +‘Is it possible?’ cried Alexandra Pavlovna. + +‘Yes, and did it with my consent, observe. That’s where the wonder comes +in!... I remember even now what a chaos my brain was in; everything +was simply turning round--things looked as they do in a camera +obscura--white seemed black and black white; falsehood was truth, and a +whim was duty.... Ah! even now I feel shame at the recollection of it! +Rudin--he never flagged--not a bit of it! He soared through all sorts of +misunderstandings and perplexities, like a swallow over a pond.’ + +‘And so you parted from the girl?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna, naively +bending her head on one side, and raising her eyebrows. + +‘We parted--and it was a horrible parting--outrageously awkward and +public, quite unnecessarily public.... I wept myself, and she wept, and +I don’t know what passed.... It seemed as though a kind of Gordian knot +had been tied. It had to be cut, but it was painful! However, everything +in the world is ordered for the best. She has married an excellent man, +and is well off now.’ + +‘But confess, you have never been able to forgive Rudin, all the same,’ +Alexandra Pavlovna was beginning. + +‘Not at all!’ interposed Lezhnyov, ‘why, I cried like a child when he +was going abroad. Still, to tell the truth, even then there was the germ +in my heart. And when I met him later abroad... well, by that time I had +grown older.... Rudin struck me in his true light.’ + +‘What was it exactly you discovered in him?’ + +‘Why, all I have been telling you the last hour. But enough of him. +Perhaps everything will turn out all right. I only wanted to show you +that, if I do judge him hardly, it is not because I don’t know him. +... As far as concerns Natalya Alexyevna, I won’t say any more, but you +should observe your brother.’ + +‘My brother! Why?’ + +‘Why, look at him. Do you really notice nothing?’ + +Alexandra Pavlovna looked down. + +‘You are right,’ she assented. ‘Certainly--my brother--for some time he +has not been himself.... But do you really think----’ + +‘Hush! I think he is coming,’ whispered Lezhnyov. ‘But Natalya is not a +child, believe me, though unluckily she is as inexperienced as a child. +You will see, that girl will astonish us all.’ + +‘In what way?’ + +‘Oh! in this way.... Do you know it’s precisely girls like that who +drown themselves, take poison, and so forth? Don’t be misled by +her looking so calm. Her passions are strong, and her character--my +goodness!’ + +‘Come! I think you are indulging in a flight of fancy now. To a +phlegmatic person like you, I suppose even I seem a volcano?’ + +‘Oh, no!’ answered Lezhnyov, with a smile. ‘And as for character--you +have no character at all, thank God!’ + +‘What impertinence is that?’ + +‘That? It’s the highest compliment, believe me.’ + +Volintsev came in and looked suspiciously at Lezhnyov and his sister. He +had grown thin of late. They both began to talk to him, but he scarcely +smiled in response to their jests, and looked, as Pigasov once said of +him, like a melancholy hare. But there has certainly never been a man in +the world who, at some time in his life, has not looked worse than that. +Volintsev felt that Natalya was drifting away from him, and with her it +seemed as if the earth was giving way under his feet. + + + + +VII + + +The next day was Sunday, and Natalya got up late. The day before she had +been very silent all day; she was secretly ashamed of her tears, and she +slept very badly. Sitting half-dressed at her little piano, at times she +played some chords, hardly audibly for fear of waking Mlle. Boncourt, +and then let her forehead fall on the cold keys and remained a long +while motionless. She kept thinking, not of Rudin himself, but of some +word he had uttered, and she was wholly buried in her own thought. +Sometimes she recollected Volintsev. She knew that he loved her. But her +mind did not dwell on him more than an instant.... She felt a strange +agitation. In the morning she dressed hurriedly and went down, and after +saying good-morning to her mother, seized an opportunity and went out +alone into the garden.... It was a hot day, bright and sunny in spite of +occasional showers of rain. Slight vapoury clouds sailed smoothly over +the clear sky, scarcely obscuring the sun, and at times a downpour +of rain fell suddenly in sheets, and was as quickly over. The thickly +falling drops, flashing like diamonds, fell swiftly with a kind of dull +thud; the sunshine glistened through their sparkling drops; the grass, +that had been rustling in the wind, was still, thirstily drinking in the +moisture; the drenched trees were languidly shaking all their leaves; +the birds were busily singing, and it was pleasant to hear their +twittering chatter mingling with the fresh gurgle and murmur of the +running rain-water. The dusty roads were steaming and slightly spotted +by the smart strokes of the thick drops. Then the clouds passed over, +a slight breeze began to stir, and the grass began to take tints of +emerald and gold. The trees seemed more transparent with their wet +leaves clinging together. A strong scent arose from all around. + +The sky was almost cloudless again when Natalya came into the garden. It +was full of sweetness and peace--that soothing, blissful peace in which +the heart of man is stirred by a sweet languor of undefined desire and +secret emotion. + +Natalya walked along a long line of silver poplars beside the pond; +suddenly, as if he had sprung out of the earth, Rudin stood before her. +She was confused. He looked her in the face. + +‘You are alone?’ he inquired. + +‘Yes, I am alone,’ replied Natalya, ‘but I was going back directly. It +is time I was home.’ + +‘I will go with you.’ + +And he walked along beside her. + +‘You seem melancholy,’ he said. + +‘I--I was just going to say that I thought you were out of spirits.’ + +‘Very likely--it is often so with me. It is more excusable in me than in +you.’ + +‘Why? Do you suppose I have nothing to be melancholy about?’ + +‘At your age you ought to find happiness in life.’ + +Natalya walked some steps in silence. + +‘Dmitri Nikolaitch!’ she said. + +‘Well?’ + +‘Do you remember--the comparison you made yesterday--do you remember--of +the oak?’ + +‘Yes, I remember. Well?’ + +Natalya stole a look at Rudin. + +‘Why did you--what did you mean by that comparison?’ + +Rudin bent his head and fastened his eyes on the distance. + +‘Natalya Alexyevna!’ he began with the intense and pregnant intonation +peculiar to him, which always made the listener believe that Rudin +was not expressing even the tenth part of what he held locked in his +heart--‘Natalya Alexyevna! you may have noticed that I speak little of +my own past. There are some chords which I do not touch upon at all. My +heart--who need know what has passed in it? To expose that to view has +always seemed sacrilege to me. But with you I cast aside reserve; you +win my confidence.... I cannot conceal from you that I too have loved +and have suffered like all men.... When and how? it’s useless to speak +of that; but my heart has known much bliss and much pain....’ + +Rudin made a brief pause. + +‘What I said to you yesterday,’ he went on, ‘might be applied in a +degree to me in my present position. But again it is useless to speak +of this. That side of life is over for me now. What remains for me is +a tedious and fatiguing journey along the parched and dusty road from +point to point... When I shall arrive--whether I arrive at all--God +knows.... Let us rather talk of you.’ + +‘Can it be, Dmitri Nikolaitch,’ Natalya interrupted him, ‘you expect +nothing from life?’ + +‘Oh, no! I expect much, but not for myself.... Usefulness, the content +that comes from activity, I shall never renounce; but I have renounced +happiness. My hopes, my dreams, and my own happiness have nothing in +common. Love’--(at this word he shrugged his shoulders)--‘love is not +for me; I am not worthy of it; a woman who loves has a right to demand +the whole of a man, and I can never now give the whole of myself. +Besides, it is for youth to win love; I am too old. How could I turn any +one’s head? God grant I keep my own head on my shoulders.’ + +‘I understand,’ said Natalya, ‘that one who is bent on a lofty aim must +not think of himself; but cannot a woman be capable of appreciating such +a man? I should have thought, on the contrary, that a woman would be +sooner repelled by an egoist.... All young men--the youth you speak +of--all are egoists, they are all occupied only with themselves, +even when they love. Believe me, a woman is not only able to value +self-sacrifice; she can sacrifice herself.’ + +Natalya’s cheeks were slightly flushed and her eyes shining. Before her +friendship with Rudin she would never have succeeded in uttering such a +long and ardent speech. + +‘You have heard my views on woman’s mission more than once,’ replied +Rudin with a condescending smile. ‘You know that I consider that Joan of +Arc alone could have saved France.... but that’s not the point. I wanted +to speak of you. You are standing on the threshold of life.... To dwell +on your future is both pleasant and not unprofitable.... Listen: you +know I am your friend; I take almost a brother’s interest in you. And so +I hope you will not think my question indiscreet; tell me, is your heart +so far quite untouched?’ + +Natalya grew hot all over and said nothing, Rudin stopped, and she +stopped too. + +‘You are not angry with me?’ he asked. + +‘No,’ she answered, ‘but I did not expect----’ + +‘However,’ he went on, ‘you need not answer me. I know your secret.’ + +Natalya looked at him almost with dismay. + +‘Yes, yes, I know who has won your heart. And I must say that you could +not have made a better choice. He is a splendid man; he knows how +to value you; he has not been crushed by life--he is simple and +pure-hearted in soul... he will make your happiness.’ + +‘Of whom are you speaking, Dmitri Niklaitch?’ + +‘Is it possible you don’t understand? Of Volintsev, of course. What? +isn’t it true?’ + +Natalya turned a little away from Rudin. She was completely overwhelmed. + +‘Do you imagine he doesn’t love you? Nonsense! he does not take his eyes +off you, and follows every movement of yours; indeed, can love ever be +concealed? And do not you yourself look on him with favour? So far as I +can observe, your mother, too, likes him.... Your choice----’ + +‘Dmitri Nikolaitch,’ Natalya broke in, stretching out her hand in her +confusion towards a bush near her, ‘it is so difficult, really, for me +to speak of this; but I assure you... you are mistaken.’ + +‘I am mistaken!’ repeated Rudin. ‘I think not. I have not known you very +long, but I already know you well. What is the meaning of the change I +see in you? I see it clearly. Are you just the same as when I met you +first, six weeks ago? No, Natalya Alexyevna, your heart is not free.’ + +‘Perhaps not,’ answered Natalya, hardly audibly, ‘but all the same you +are mistaken.’ + +‘How is that?’ asked Rudin. + +‘Let me go! don’t question me!’ replied Natalya, and with swift steps +she turned towards the house. + +She was frightened herself by the feelings of which she was suddenly +conscious in herself. + +Rudin overtook her and stopped her. + +‘Natalya Alexyevna,’ he said, ‘this conversation cannot end like this; +it is too important for me too.... How am I to understand you?’ + +‘Let me go!’ repeated Natalya. + +‘Natalya Alexyevna, for mercy’s sake!’ + +Rudin’s face showed his agitation. He grew pale. + +‘You understand everything, you must understand me too!’ said Natalya; +she snatched away her hand and went on, not looking round. + +‘Only one word!’ cried Rudin after her + +She stood still, but did not turn round. + +‘You asked me what I meant by that comparison yesterday. Let me tell +you, I don’t want to deceive you. I spoke of myself, of my past,--and of +you.’ + +‘How? of me?’ + +‘Yes, of you; I repeat, I will not deceive you. You know now what was +the feeling, the new feeling I spoke of then.... Till to-day I should +not have ventured...’ + +Natalya suddenly hid her face in her hands, and ran towards the house. + +She was so distracted by the unexpected conclusion of her conversation +with Rudin, that she ran past Volintsev without even noticing him. He +was standing motionless with his back against a tree. He had arrived at +the house a quarter of an hour before, and found Darya Mihailovna in the +drawing-room; and after exchanging a few words got away unobserved and +went in search of Natalya. Led by a lover’s instinct, he went straight +into the garden and came upon her and Rudin at the very instant when she +snatched her hand away from him. Darkness seemed to fall upon his eyes. +Gazing after Natalya, he left the tree and took two strides, not knowing +whither or wherefore. Rudin saw him as he came up to him. Both looked +each other in the face, bowed, and separated in silence. + +‘This won’t be the end of it,’ both were thinking. + +Volintsev went to the very end of the garden. He felt sad and sick; +a load lay on his heart, and his blood throbbed in sudden stabs at +intervals. The rain began to fall a little again. Rudin turned into +his own room. He, too, was disturbed; his thoughts were in a whirl. The +trustful, unexpected contact of a young true heart is agitating for any +one. + +At table everything went somehow wrong. Natalya, pale all over, could +scarcely sit in her place and did not raise her eyes. Volintsev sat as +usual next her, and from time to time began to talk in a constrained way +to her. It happened that Pigasov was dining at Darya Mihailovna’s that +day. He talked more than any one at table. Among other things he began +to maintain that men, like dogs, can be divided into the short-tailed +and the long-tailed. People are short-tailed, he said, either from birth +or through their own fault. The short-tailed are in a sorry plight; +nothing succeeds with them--they have no confidence in themselves. +But the man who has a long furry tail is happy. He may be weaker and +inferior to the short-tailed; but he believes in himself; he displays +his tail and every one admires it. And this is a fit subject for wonder; +the tail, of course, is a perfectly useless part of the body, you admit; +of what use can a tail be? but all judge of their abilities by their +tail. ‘I myself,’ he concluded with a sigh, ‘belong to the number of the +short-tailed, and what is most annoying, I cropped my tail myself.’ + +‘By which you mean to say,’ commented Rudin carelessly, ‘what La +Rochefoucauld said long before you: Believe in yourself and others will +believe in you. Why the tail was brought in, I fail to understand.’ + +‘Let every one,’ Volintsev began sharply and with flashing eyes, ‘let +every one express himself according to his fancy. Talk of despotism! ... +I consider there is none worse than the despotism of so-called clever +men; confound them!’ + +Everyone was astonished at this outbreak from Volintsev; it was received +in silence. Rudin tried to look at him, but he could not control his +eyes, and turned away smiling without opening his lips. + +‘Aha! so you too have lost your tail!’ thought Pigasov; and Natalya’s +heart sank in terror. Darya Mihailovna gave Volintsev a long puzzled +stare and at last was the first to speak; she began to describe an +extraordinary dog belonging to a minister So-and-So. + +Volintsev went away soon after dinner. As he bade Natalya good-bye he +could not resist saying to her: + +‘Why are you confused, as though you had done wrong? You cannot have +done wrong to any one!’ + +Natalya did not understand at all, and could only gaze after him. Before +tea Rudin went up to her, and bending over the table as though he were +examining the papers, whispered: + +‘It is all like a dream, isn’t it? I absolutely must see you alone--if +only for a minute.’ He turned to Mlle. Boncourt. ‘Here,’ he said to her, +‘this is the article you were looking for,’ and again bending towards +Natalya, he added in a whisper, ‘Try to be near the terrace in the lilac +arbour about ten o’clock; I will wait for you.’ + +Pigasov was the hero of the evening. Rudin left him in possession of the +field. He afforded Darya Mihailovna much entertainment; first he told +a story of one of his neighbours who, having been henpecked by his +wife for thirty years, had grown so womanish that one day in crossing a +little puddle when Pigasov was present, he put out his hand and picked +up the skirt of his coat, as women do with their petticoats. Then he +turned to another gentleman who to begin with had been a freemason, then +a hypochondriac, and then wanted to be a banker. + +‘How were you a freemason, Philip Stepanitch?’ Pigasov asked him. + +‘You know how; I wore the nail of my little finger long.’ + +But what most diverted Darya Mihailovna was when Pigasov set off on a +dissertation upon love, and maintained that even he had been sighed +for, that one ardent German lady had even given him the nickname of her +‘dainty little African’ and her ‘hoarse little crow.’ Darya Mihailovna +laughed, but Pigasov spoke the truth; he really was in a position to +boast of his conquests. He maintained that nothing could be easier than +to make any woman you chose fall in love with you; you only need repeat +to her for ten days in succession that heaven is on her lips and bliss +in her eyes, and that the rest of womankind are all simply rag-bags +beside her; and on the eleventh day she will be ready to say herself +that there is heaven on her lips and bliss in her eyes, and will be +in love with you. Everything comes to pass in the world; so who knows, +perhaps Pigasov was right? + +At half-past nine Rudin was already in the arbour. The stars had come +out in the pale, distant depths of the heaven; there was still a red +glow where the sun had set, and there the horizon seemed brighter and +clearer; a semi-circular moon shone golden through the black network +of the weeping birch-tree. The other trees stood like grim giants, with +thousands of chinks looking like eyes, or fell into compact masses of +darkness. Not a leaf was stirring; the topmost branches of the lilacs +and acacias seemed to stretch upwards into the warm air, as though +listening for something. The house was a dark mass now; patches of red +light showed where the long windows were lighted up. It was a soft and +peaceful evening, but under this peace was felt the secret breath of +passion. + +Rudin stood, his arms folded on his breast, and listened with strained +attention. His heart beat violently, and involuntarily he held his +breath. At last he caught the sound of light, hurrying footsteps, and +Natalya came into the arbour. + +Rudin rushed up to her, and took her hands. They were cold as ice. + +‘Natalya Alexyevna!’ he began, in an agitated whisper, ‘I wanted to see +you.... I could not wait till to-morrow. I must tell you what I did not +suspect--what I did not realise even this morning. I love you!’ + +Natalya’s hands trembled feebly in his. + +‘I love you!’ he repeated, ‘and how could I have deceived myself so +long? How was it I did not guess long ago that I love you? And you? +Natalya Alexyevna, tell me!’ + +Natalya could scarcely draw her breath. + +‘You see I have come here,’ she uttered, at last. + +‘No, say that you love me!’ + +‘I think--yes,’ she whispered. + +Rudin pressed her hands still more warmly, and tried to draw her to him. + +Natalya looked quickly round. + +‘Let me go--I am frightened.... I think some one is listening to us.... +For God’s sake, be on your guard. Volintsev suspects.’ + +‘Never mind him! You saw I did not even answer him to-day.... Ah, +Natalya Alexyevna, how happy I am! Nothing shall sever us now!’ + +Natalya looked into his eyes. + +‘Let me go,’ she whispered; ‘it’s time.’ + +‘One instant,’ began Rudin. + +‘No, let me go, let me go.’ + +‘You seem afraid of me.’ + +‘No, but it’s time.’ + +‘Repeat, then, at least once more.’... + +‘You say you are happy?’ asked Natalya. + +‘I? No man in the world is happier than I am! Can you doubt it?’ + +Natalya lifted up her head. Very beautiful was her pale, noble, young +face, transformed by passion, in the mysterious shadows of the arbour, +in the faint light reflected from the evening sky. + +‘I tell you then,’ she said, ‘I will be yours.’ + +‘Oh, my God!’ cried Rudin. + +But Natalya made her escape, and was gone. + +Rudin stood still a little while, then walked slowly out of the arbour. +The moon threw a light on his face; there was a smile on his lips. + +‘I am happy,’ he uttered in a half whisper. ‘Yes, I am happy,’ he +repeated, as though he wanted to convince himself. + +He straightened his tall figure, shook back his locks, and walked +quickly into the garden, with a happy gesture of his hands. + +Meanwhile the bushes of the lilac arbour moved apart, and Pandalevsky +appeared. He looked around warily, shook his head, pursed up his mouth, +and said, significantly, ‘So that’s how it is. That must be brought to +Darya Mihailovna’s knowledge.’ And he vanished. + + + + +VIII + + +On his return home, Volintsev was so gloomy and dejected, he gave his +sister such listless answers, and so quickly locked himself up in his +room, that she decided to send a messenger to Lezhnyov. She always had +recourse to him in times of difficulty. Lezhnyov sent her word that he +would come in the next day. + +Volintsev was no more cheerful in the morning. After tea he was starting +to superintend the work on the estate, but he stayed at home instead, +lay on the sofa, and took up a book--a thing he did not often do. +Volintsev had no taste for literature, and poetry simply alarmed +him. ‘This is as incomprehensible as poetry,’ he used to say, and, in +confirmation of his words, he used to quote the following lines from a +Russian poet:-- + + ‘And till his gloomy lifetime’s close + Nor reason nor experience proud + Will crush nor crumple Destiny’s + Ensanguined forget-me-nots.’ + +Alexandra Pavlovna kept looking uneasily at her brother, but she did not +worry him with questions. A carriage drew up at the steps. + +‘Ah!’ she thought, ‘Lezhnyov, thank goodness!’ + +A servant came in and announced the arrival of Rudin. + +Volintsev flung his book on the floor, and raised his head. ‘Who has +come?’ he asked. + +‘Rudin, Dmitri Nikolaitch,’ repeated the man. Volintsev got up. + +‘Ask him in,’ he said, ‘and you, sister,’ he added, turning to Alexandra +Pavlovna, ‘leave us alone.’ + +‘But why?’ she was beginning. + +‘I have a good reason,’ he interrupted, passionately. ‘I beg you to +leave us.’ + +Rudin entered. Volintsev, standing in the middle of the room, received +him with a chilly bow, without offering his hand. + +‘Confess you did not expect me,’ began Rudin, and he laid his hat down +by the window. His lips were slightly twitching. He was ill at ease, but +tried to conceal his embarrassment. + +‘I did not expect you, certainly,’ replied Volintsev, ‘after yesterday. +I should have more readily expected some one with a special message from +you.’ + +‘I understand what you mean,’ said Rudin, taking a seat, ‘and am very +grateful for your frankness. It is far better so. I have come myself to +you, as to a man of honour.’ + +‘Cannot we dispense with compliments?’ observed Volintsev. + +‘I want to explain to you why I have come.’ + +‘We are acquainted; why should you not come? Besides, this is not the +first time you have honoured me with a visit.’ + +‘I came to you as one man of honour to another,’ repeated Rudin, ‘and +I want now to appeal to your sense of justice.... I have complete +confidence in you.’ + +‘What is the matter?’ said Volintsev, who all this time was still +standing in his original position, staring sullenly at Rudin, and +sometimes pulling the ends of his moustache. + +‘If you would kindly... I came here to make an explanation, certainly, +but all the same it cannot be done off-hand.’ + +‘Why not?’ + +‘A third person is involved in this matter.’ + +‘What third person?’ + +‘Sergei Pavlitch, you understand me?’ + +‘Dmitri Nikolaitch, I don’t understand you in the least.’ + +‘You prefer----’ + +‘I prefer you should speak plainly!’ broke in Volintsev. + +He was beginning to be angry in earnest. + +Rudin frowned. + +‘Permit... we are alone... I must tell you--though you certainly are +aware of it already (Volintsev shrugged his shoulders impatiently)--I +must tell you that I love Natalya Alexyevna, and I have the right to +believe that she loves me.’ + +Volintsev turned white, but made no reply. He walked to the window and +stood with his back turned. + +‘You understand, Sergei Pavlitch,’ continued Rudin, ‘that if I were not +convinced...’ + +‘Upon my word!’ interrupted Volintsev, ‘I don’t doubt it in the +least.... Well! so be it! Good luck to you! Only I wonder what the devil +induced you to come with this news to me.... What have I to do with it? +What is it to me whom you love, or who loves you? It simply passes my +comprehension.’ + +Volintsev continued to stare out of the window. His voice sounded +choked. + +Rudin got up. + +‘I will tell you, Sergei Pavlitch, why I decided to come to you, why +I did not even think I had the right to hide from you our--our mutual +feelings. I have too profound an esteem for you--that is why I have +come; I did not want... we both did not wish to play a part before you. +Your feeling for Natalya Alexyevna was known to me.... Believe me, I +have no illusions about myself; I know how little I deserve to supplant +you in her heart, but if it was fated this should be, is it made any +better by pretence, hypocrisy, and deceit? Is it any better to expose +ourselves to misunderstandings, or even to the possibilities of such +a scene as took place yesterday at dinner? Sergei Pavlitch, tell me +yourself, is it?’ + +Volintsev folded his arms on his chest, as though he were trying to hold +himself in. + +‘Sergei Pavlitch!’ Rudin continued, ‘I have given you pain, I feel +it--but understand us--understand that we had no other means of proving +our respect to you, of proving that we know how to value your honour and +uprightness. Openness, complete openness with any other man would have +been misplaced; but with you it took the form of duty. We are happy to +think our secret is in your hands.’ + +Volintsev gave vent to a forced laugh. + +‘Many thanks for your confidence in me!’ he exclaimed, ‘though, pray +observe, I neither wished to know your secret, nor to tell you mine, +though you treat it as if it were your property. But excuse me, you +speak as though for two. Does it follow I am to suppose that Natalya +Alexyevna knows of your visit, and the object of it?’ + +Rudin was a little taken aback. + +‘No, I did not communicate my intention to Natalya Alexyevna; but I know +she would share my views.’ + +‘That’s all very fine indeed,’ Volintsev began after a short pause, +drumming on the window pane with his fingers, ‘though I must confess it +would have been far better if you had had rather less respect for me. I +don’t care a hang for your respect, to tell you the truth; but what do +you want of me now?’ + +‘I want nothing--or--no! I want one thing; I want you not to regard me +as treacherous or hypocritical, to understand me... I hope that now you +cannot doubt of my sincerity... I want us, Sergei Pavlitch, to part as +friends... you to give me your hand as you once did.’ + +And Rudin went up to Volintsev. + +‘Excuse me, my good sir,’ said Volintsev, turning round and stepping +back a few paces, ‘I am ready to do full justice to your intentions, all +that’s very fine, I admit, very exalted, but we are simple people, we do +not gild our gingerbread, we are not capable of following the flight +of great minds like yours.... What you think sincere, we regard as +impertinent and disingenuous and indiscreet.... What is clear and +simple to you, is involved and obscure to us.... You boast of what +we conceal.... How are we to understand you! Excuse me, I can neither +regard you as a friend, nor will I give you my hand.... That is petty, +perhaps, but I am only a petty person.’ + +Rudin took his hat from the window seat. + +‘Sergei Pavlitch!’ he said sorrowfully, ‘goodbye; I was mistaken in my +expectations. My visit certainly was rather a strange one... but I had +hoped that you... (Volintsev made a movement of impatience). ... Excuse +me, I will say no more of this. Reflecting upon it all, I see indeed, +you are right, you could not have behaved otherwise. Good-bye, and allow +me, at least once more, for the last time, to assure you of the purity +of my intentions.... I am convinced of your discretion.’ + +‘That is too much!’ cried Volintsev, shaking with anger, ‘I never asked +for your confidence; and so you have no right whatever to reckon on my +discretion!’ + +Rudin was about to say something, but he only waved his hands, bowed and +went away, and Volintsev flung himself on the sofa and turned his face +to the wall. + +‘May I come in?’ Alexandra Pavlovna’s voice was heard saying at the +door. + +Volintsev did not answer at once, and stealthily passed his hand over +his face. ‘No, Sasha,’ he said, in a slightly altered voice, ‘wait a +little longer.’ + +Half an hour later, Alexandra Pavlovna again came to the door. + +‘Mihailo Mihailitch is here,’ she said, ‘will you see him?’ + +‘Yes,’ answered Volintsev, ‘let them show him up here.’ + +Lezhnyov came in. + +‘What, aren’t you well?’ he asked, seating himself in a chair near the +sofa. + +Volintsev raised himself, and, leaning on his elbow gazed a long, +long while into his friend’s face, and then repeated to him his whole +conversation with Rudin word for word. He had never before given +Lezhnyov a hint of his sentiments towards Natalya, though he guessed +they were no secret to him. + +‘Well, brother, you have surprised me!’ Lezhnyov said, as soon as +Volintsev had finished his story. ‘I expected many strange things from +him, but this is----Still I can see him in it.’ + +‘Upon my honour!’ cried Volintsev, in great excitement, ‘it is simply +insolence! Why, I almost threw him out of the window. Did he want to +boast to me or was he afraid? What was the object of it? How could he +make up his mind to come to a man----?’ + +Volintsev clasped his hands over his head and was speechless. + +‘No, brother, that’s not it,’ replied Lezhnyov tranquilly; ‘you won’t +believe me, but he really did it from a good motive. Yes, indeed. It +was generous, do you see, and candid, to be sure, and it would offer an +opportunity of speechifying and giving vent to his fine talk, and, of +course, that’s what he wants, what he can’t live without. Ah! his tongue +is his enemy. Though it’s a good servant to him too.’ + +‘With what solemnity he came in and talked, you can’t imagine!’ + +‘Well, he can’t do anything without that. He buttons his great-coat +as if he were fulfilling a sacred duty. I should like to put him on a +desert island and look round a corner to see how he would behave there. +And he discourses on simplicity!’ + +‘But tell me, my dear fellow,’ asked Volintsev, ‘what is it, philosophy +or what?’ + +‘How can I tell you? On one side it is philosophy, I daresay, and on the +other something altogether different. It is not right to put every folly +down to philosophy.’ + +Volintsev looked at him. + +‘Wasn’t he lying then, do you imagine?’ + +‘No, my son, he wasn’t lying. But, do you know, we’ve talked enough of +this. Let’s light our pipes and call Alexandra Pavlovna in here. It’s +easier to talk when she’s with us and easier to be silent. She shall +make us some tea.’ + +‘Very well,’ replied Volintsev. ‘Sasha, come in,’ he cried aloud. + +Alexandra Pavlovna came in. He grasped her hand and pressed it warmly to +his lips. + +Rudin returned in a curious and mingled frame of mind. He was annoyed +with himself, he reproached himself for his unpardonable precipitancy, +his boyish impulsiveness. Some one has justly said: there is nothing +more painful than the consciousness of having just done something +stupid. + +Rudin was devoured by regret. + +‘What evil genius drove me,’ he muttered between his teeth, ‘to call on +that squire! What an idea it was! Only to expose myself to insolence!’ + +But in Darya Mihailovna’s house something extraordinary had been +happening. The lady herself did not appear the whole morning, and did +not come in to dinner; she had a headache, declared Pandalevsky, the +only person who had been admitted to her room. Natalya, too, Rudin +scarcely got a glimpse of: she sat in her room with Mlle. Boncourt. When +she met him at the dinner-table she looked at him so mournfully that +his heart sank. Her face was changed as though a load of sorrow had +descended upon her since the day before. Rudin began to be oppressed by +a vague presentiment of trouble. In order to distract his mind in some +way he occupied himself with Bassistoff, had much conversation with him, +and found him an ardent, eager lad, full of enthusiastic hopes and still +untarnished faith. In the evening Darya Mihailovna appeared for a couple +of hours in the drawing-room. She was polite to Rudin, but kept him +somehow at a distance, and smiled and frowned, talking through her nose, +and in hints more than ever. Everything about her had the air of the +society lady of the court. She had seemed of late rather cooler to +Rudin. ‘What is the secret of it?’ he thought, with a sidelong look at +her haughtily-lifted head. + +He had not long to wait for the solution of the enigma. As he was +returning at twelve o’clock at night to his room, along a dark corridor, +some one suddenly thrust a note into his hand. He looked round; a girl +was hurrying away in the distance, Natalya’s maid, he fancied. He went +into his room, dismissed the servant, tore open the letter, and read the +following lines in Natalya’s handwriting:-- + +‘Come to-morrow at seven o’clock in the morning, not later, to Avduhin +pond, beyond the oak copse. Any other time will be impossible. It will +be our last meeting, all will be over, unless... Come. We must make +our decision.--P.S. If I don’t come, it will mean we shall not see each +other again; then I will let you know.’ + +Rudin turned the letter over in his hands, musing upon it, then laid it +under his pillow, undressed, and lay down. For a long while he could not +get to sleep, and then he slept very lightly, and it was not yet five +o’clock when he woke up. + + + + +IX + + +The Avduhin pond, near which Natalya had fixed the place of meeting, had +long ceased to be a pond. Thirty years before it had burst through +its banks and it had been given up since then. Only by the smooth flat +surface of the hollow, once covered with slimy mud, and the traces of +the banks, could one guess that it had been a pond. A farm-house +had stood near it. It had long ago passed away. Two huge pine-trees +preserved its memory; the wind was for ever droning and sullenly +murmuring in their high gaunt green tops. There were mysterious tales +among the people of a fearful crime supposed to have been committed +under them; they used to tell, too, that not one of them would fall +without bringing death to some one; that a third had once stood there, +which had fallen in a storm and crushed a girl. + +The whole place near the old pond was supposed to be haunted; it was +a barren wilderness, dark and gloomy, even on a sunny day--it seemed +darker and gloomier still from the old, old forest of dead and withered +oak-trees which was near it. A few huge trees lifted their grey heads +above the low undergrowth of bushes like weary giants. They were a +sinister sight; it seemed as though wicked old men had met together bent +on some evil design. A narrow path almost indistinguishable wandered +beside it. No one went near the Avduhin pond without some urgent reason. +Natalya intentionally chose this solitary place. It was not more than +half-a-mile from Darya Mihailovna’s house. + +The sun had already risen some time when Rudin reached the Avduhin pond, +but it was not a bright morning. Thick clouds of the colour of milk +covered the whole sky, and were driven flying before the whistling, +shrieking wind. Rudin began to walk up and down along the bank, which +was covered with clinging burdocks and blackened nettles. He was not +easy in his mind. These interviews, these new emotions had a charm for +him, but they also troubled him, especially after the note of the +night before. He felt that the end was drawing near, and was in secret +perplexity of spirit, though none would have imagined it, seeing with +what concentrated determination he folded his arms across his chest and +looked around him. Pigasov had once said truly of him, that he was like +a Chinese idol, his head was constantly overbalancing him. But with the +head alone, however strong it may be, it is hard for a man to know even +what is passing in himself.... Rudin, the clever, penetrating Rudin, was +not capable of saying certainly whether he loved Natalya, whether he was +suffering, and whether he would suffer at parting from her. Why then, +since he had not the least disposition to play the Lovelace--one must do +him that credit--had he turned the poor girl’s head? Why was he awaiting +her with a secret tremor? To this the only answer is that there are none +so easily carried away as those who are without passion. + +He walked on the bank, while Natalya was hurrying to him straight across +country through the wet grass. + +‘Natalya Alexyevna, you’ll get your feet wet!’ said her maid Masha, +scarcely able to keep up with her. + +Natalya did not hear and ran on without looking round. + +‘Ah, supposing they’ve seen us!’ cried Masha; ‘indeed it’s surprising +how we got out of the house... and ma’mselle may wake up... It’s a +mercy it’s not far.... Ah, the gentleman’s waiting already,’ she +added, suddenly catching sight of Rudin’s majestic figure, standing out +picturesquely on the bank; ‘but what does he want to stand on that mound +for--he ought to have kept in the hollow.’ + +Natalya stopped. + +‘Wait here, Masha, by the pines,’ she said, and went on to the pond. + +Rudin went up to her; he stopped short in amazement. He had never seen +such an expression on her face before. Her brows were contracted, her +lips set, her eyes looked sternly straight before her. + +‘Dmitri Nikolaitch,’ she began, ‘we have no time to lose. I have come +for five minutes. I must tell you that my mother knows everything. Mr. +Pandalevsky saw us the day before yesterday, and he told her of our +meeting. He was always mamma’s spy. She called me in to her yesterday.’ + +‘Good God!’ cried Rudin, ‘this is terrible.... What did your mother +say?’ + +‘She was not angry with me, she did not scold me, but she reproached me +for my want of discretion.’ + +‘That was all?’ + +‘Yes, and she declared she would sooner see me dead than your wife!’ + +‘Is it possible she said that?’ + +‘Yes; and she said too that you yourself did not want to marry me at +all, that you had only been flirting with me because you were bored, and +that she had not expected this of you; but that she herself was to blame +for having allowed me to see so much of you... that she relied on my +good sense, that I had very much surprised her... and I don’t remember +now all she said to me.’ + +Natalya uttered all this in an even, almost expressionless voice. + +‘And you, Natalya Alexyevna, what did you answer?’ asked Rudin. + +‘What did I answer?’ repeated Natalya.... ‘What do _you_ intend to do +now?’ + +‘Good God, good God!’ replied Rudin, ‘it is cruel! So soon... such a +sudden blow!... And is your mother in such indignation?’ + +‘Yes, yes, she will not hear of you.’ + +‘It is terrible! You mean there is no hope?’ + +‘None.’ + +‘Why should we be so unhappy! That abominable Pandalevsky!... You ask +me, Natalya Alexyevna, what I intend to do? My head is going round--I +cannot take in anything... I can feel nothing but my unhappiness... I am +amazed that you can preserve such self-possession!’ + +‘Do you think it is easy for me?’ said Natalya. + +Rudin began to walk along the bank. Natalya did not take her eyes off +him. + +‘Your mother did not question you?’ he said at last. + +‘She asked me whether I love you.’ + +‘Well... and you?’ + +Natalya was silent a moment. ‘I told the truth.’ + +Rudin took her hand. + +‘Always, in all things generous, noble-hearted! Oh, the heart of a +girl--it’s pure gold! But did your mother really declare her decision so +absolutely on the impossibility of our marriage?’ + +‘Yes, absolutely. I have told you already; she is convinced that you +yourself don’t think of marrying me.’ + +‘Then she regards me as a traitor! What have I done to deserve it?’ And +Rudin clutched his head in his hands. + +‘Dmitri Nikolaitch!’ said Natalya, ‘we are losing our time. Remember I +am seeing you for the last time. I came here not to weep and lament--you +see I am not crying--I came for advice.’ + +‘And what advice can I give you, Natalya Alexyevna?’ + +‘What advice? You are a man; I am used to trusting to you, I shall trust +you to the end. Tell me, what are your plans?’ + +‘My plans.... Your mother certainly will turn me out of the house.’ + +‘Perhaps. She told me yesterday that she must break off all acquaintance +with you.... But you do not answer my question?’ + +‘What question?’ + +‘What do you think we must do now?’ + +‘What we must do?’ replied Rudin; ‘of course submit.’ + +‘Submit,’ repeated Natalya slowly, and her lips turned white. + +‘Submit to destiny,’ continued Rudin. ‘What is to be done? I know +very well how bitter it is, how painful, how unendurable. But consider +yourself, Natalya Alexyevna; I am poor. It is true I could work; but +even if I were a rich man, could you bear a violent separation from your +family, your mother’s anger?... No, Natalya Alexyevna; it is useless +even to think of it. It is clear it was not fated for us to live +together, and the happiness of which I dreamed is not for me!’ + +All at once Natalya hid her face in her hands and began to weep. Rudin +went up to her. + +‘Natalya Alexyevna! dear Natalya!’ he said with warmth, ‘do not cry, for +God’s sake, do not torture me, be comforted.’ + +Natalya raised her head. + +‘You tell me to be comforted,’ she began, and her eyes blazed through +her tears; ‘I am not weeping for what you suppose--I am not sad for +that; I am sad because I have been deceived in you.... What! I come to +you for counsel, and at such a moment!--and your first word is, submit! +submit! So this is how you translate your talk of independence, of +sacrifice, which...’ + +Her voice broke down. + +‘But, Natalya Alexyevna,’ began Rudin in confusion, ‘remember--I do not +disown my words--only----’ + +‘You asked me,’ she continued with new force, ‘what I answered my +mother, when she declared she would sooner agree to my death than my +marriage to you; I answered that I would sooner die than marry any other +man... And you say, “Submit!” It must be that she is right; you must, +through having nothing to do, through being bored, have been playing +with me.’ + +‘I swear to you, Natalya Alexyevna--I assure you,’ maintained Rudin. + +But she did not listen to him. + +‘Why did you not stop me? Why did you yourself--or did you not reckon +upon obstacles? I am ashamed to speak of this--but I see it is all over +now.’ + +‘You must be calm, Natalya Alexyevna,’ Rudin was beginning; ‘we must +think together what means----’ + +‘You have so often talked of self-sacrifice,’ she broke in, ‘but do you +know, if you had said to me to-day at once, “I love you, but I cannot +marry you, I will not answer for the future, give me your hand and come +with me”--do you know, I would have come with you; do you know, I would +have risked everything? But there’s all the difference between word and +deed, and you were afraid now, just as you were afraid the day before +yesterday at dinner of Volintsev.’ + +The colour rushed to Rudin’s face. Natalya’s unexpected energy had +astounded him; but her last words wounded his vanity. + +‘You are too angry now, Natalya Alexyevna,’ he began; ‘you cannot +realise how bitterly you wound me. I hope that in time you will do +me justice; you will understand what it has cost me to renounce the +happiness which you have said yourself would have laid upon me no +obligations. Your peace is dearer to me than anything in the world, +and I should have been the basest of men, if I could have taken +advantage----’ + +‘Perhaps, perhaps,’ interrupted Natalya, ‘perhaps you are right; I don’t +know what I am saying. But up to this time I believed in you, believed +in every word you said.... For the future, pray keep a watch upon your +words, do not fling them about at hazard. When I said to you, “I love +you,” I knew what that word meant; I was ready for everything.... Now I +have only to thank you for a lesson--and to say good-bye.’ + +‘Stop, for God’s sake, Natalya Alexyevna, I beseech you. I do not +deserve your contempt, I swear to you. Put yourself in my position. I am +responsible for you and for myself. If I did not love you with the most +devoted love--why, good God! I should have at once proposed you should +run away with me.... Sooner or later your mother would forgive us--and +then... But before thinking of my own happiness----’ + +He stopped. Natalya’s eyes fastened directly upon him put him to +confusion. + +‘You try to prove to me that you are an honourable man, Dmitri +Nikolaitch,’ she said. ‘I do not doubt that. You are not capable of +acting from calculation; but did I want to be convinced of that? did I +come here for that?’ + +‘I did not expect, Natalya Alexyevna----’ + +‘Ah! you have said it at last! Yes, you did not expect all this--you did +not know me. Do not be uneasy... you do not love me, and I will never +force myself on any one.’ + +‘I love you!’ cried Rudin. + +Natalya drew herself up. + +‘Perhaps; but how do you love me? Remember all your words, Dmitri +Nikolaitch. You told me: “Without complete equality there is no +love.”... You are too exalted for me; I am no match for you.... I am +punished as I deserve. There are duties before you more worthy of you. I +shall not forget this day.... Good-bye.’ + +‘Natalya Alexyevna, are you going? Is it possible for us to part like +this?’ + +He stretched out his hand to her. She stopped. His supplicating voice +seemed to make her waver. + +‘No,’ she uttered at last. ‘I feel that something in me is broken. ... I +came here, I have been talking to you as if it were in delirium; I must +try to recollect. It must not be, you yourself said, it will not be. +Good God, when I came out here, I mentally took a farewell of my home, +of my past--and what? whom have I met here?--a coward... and how did you +know I was not able to bear a separation from my family? “Your mother +will not consent... It is terrible!” That was all I heard from you, that +you, you, Rudin?--No! good-bye.... Ah! if you had loved me, I should +have felt it now, at this moment.... No, no, goodbye!’ + +She turned swiftly and ran towards Masha, who had begun to be uneasy and +had been making signs to her a long while. + +‘It is _you_ who are afraid, not I!’ cried Rudin after Natalya. + +She paid no attention to him, and hastened homewards across the fields. +She succeeded in getting back to her bedroom; but she had scarcely +crossed the threshold when her strength failed her, and she fell +senseless into Masha’s arms. + +But Rudin remained a long while still standing on the bank. At last +he shivered, and with slow steps made his way to the little path and +quietly walked along it. He was deeply ashamed... and wounded. ‘What a +girl!’ he thought, ‘at seventeen!... No, I did not know her!... She is +a remarkable girl. What strength of will!... She is right; she deserves +another love than what I felt for her. I felt for her?’ he asked +himself. ‘Can it be I already feel no more love for her? So this is how +it was all to end! What a pitiful wretch I was beside her!’ + +The slight rattle of a racing droshky made Rudin raise his head. +Lezhnyov was driving to meet him with his invariable trotting pony. +Rudin bowed to him without speaking, and as though struck with a sudden +thought, turned out of the road and walked quickly in the direction of +Darya Mihailovna’s house. + +Lezhnyov let him pass, looked after him, and after a moment’s thought he +too turned his horse’s head round, and drove back to Volintsev’s, where +he had spent the night. He found him asleep, and giving orders he should +not be waked, he sat down on the balcony to wait for some tea and smoked +a pipe. + + + + +X + + +Volintsev got up at ten o’clock. When he heard that Lezhnyov was sitting +in the balcony, he was much surprised, and sent to ask him to come to +him. + +‘What has happened?’ he asked him. ‘I thought you meant to drive home?’ + +‘Yes; I did mean to, but I met Rudin.... He was wandering about the +country with such a distracted countenance. So I turned back at once.’ + +‘You came back because you met Rudin?’ + +‘That’s to say,--to tell the truth, I don’t know why I came back myself, +I suppose because I was reminded of you; I wanted to be with you, and I +have plenty of time before I need go home.’ + +Volintsev smiled bitterly. + +‘Yes; one cannot think of Rudin now without thinking of me.... Boy!’ he +cried harshly, ‘bring us some tea.’ + +The friends began to drink tea. Lezhnyov talked of agricultural +matters,--of a new method of roofing barns with paper.... + +Suddenly Volintsev leaped up from his chair and struck the table with +such force that the cups and saucers rang. + +‘No!’ he cried, ‘I cannot bear this any longer! I will call out this +witty fellow, and let him shoot me,--at least I will try to put a bullet +through his learned brains!’ + +‘What are you talking about? Upon my word!’ grumbled Lezhnyov, ‘how can +you scream like that? I dropped my pipe.... What’s the matter with you?’ + +‘The matter is, that I can’t hear his name and keep calm; it sets all my +blood boiling!’ + +‘Hush, my dear fellow, hush! aren’t you ashamed?’ rejoined Lezhnyov, +picking up his pipe from the ground. ‘Leave off! Let him alone!’ + +‘He has insulted me,’ pursued Volintsev, walking up and down the room. +‘Yes! he has insulted me. You must admit that yourself. At first I was +not sharp enough; he took me by surprise; and who could have expected +this? But I will show him that he cannot make a fool of me. ... I will +shoot him, the damned philosopher, like a partridge.’ + +‘Much you will gain by that, indeed! I won’t speak of your sister now. +I can see you’re in a passion... how could you think of your sister! +But in relation to another individual--what! do you imagine, when you’ve +killed the philosopher, you can improve your own chances?’ + +Volintsev flung himself into a chair. + +‘Then I must go away somewhere! For here my heart is simply being +crushed by misery; only I can find no place to go.’ + +‘Go away... that’s another matter! That I am ready to agree to. And do +you know what I should suggest? Let us go together--to the Caucasus, or +simply to Little Russia to eat dumplings. That’s a capital idea, my dear +fellow!’ + +‘Yes; but whom shall we leave my sister with?’ + +‘And why should not Alexandra Pavlovna come with us? Upon my soul, it +will be splendid. As for looking after her--yes, I’ll undertake that! +There will be no difficulty in getting anything we want: if she likes, +I will arrange a serenade under her window every night; I will sprinkle +the coachmen with _eau de cologne_ and strew flowers along the roads. +And we shall both be simply new men, my dear boy; we shall enjoy +ourselves so, we shall come back so fat that we shall be proof against +the darts of love!’ + +‘You are always joking, Misha!’ + +‘I’m not joking at all. It was a brilliant idea of yours.’ + +‘No; nonsense!’ Volintsev shouted again. ‘I want to fight him, to fight +him!...’ + +‘Again! What a rage you are in!’ + +A servant entered with a letter in his hand. + +‘From whom?’ asked Lezhnyov. + +‘From Rudin, Dmitri Nikolaitch. The Lasunsky’s servant brought it.’ + +‘From Rudin?’ repeated Volintsev, ‘to whom?’ + +‘To you.’ + +‘To me!... give it me!’ + +Volintsev seized the letter, quickly tore it open, and began to read. +Lezhnyov watched him attentively; a strange, almost joyful amazement was +expressed on Volintsev’s face; he let his hands fall by his side. + +‘What is it?’ asked Lezhnyov. + +‘Read it,’ Volintsev said in a low voice, and handed him the letter. + +Lezhnyov began to read. This is what Rudin wrote: + +‘SIR-- + +‘I am going away from Darya Mihailovna’s house to-day, and leaving it +for ever. This will certainly be a surprise to you, especially after +what passed yesterday. I cannot explain to you what exactly obliges me +to act in this way; but it seems to me for some reason that I ought to +let you know of my departure. You do not like me, and even regard me as +a bad man. I do not intend to justify myself; time will justify me. In +my opinion it is even undignified in a man and quite unprofitable to +try to prove to a prejudiced man the injustice of his prejudice. Whoever +wishes to understand me will not blame me, and as for any one who does +not wish, or cannot do so,--his censure does not pain me. I was mistaken +in you. In my eyes you remain as before a noble and honourable man, but +I imagined you were able to be superior to the surroundings in which you +were brought up. I was mistaken. What of that? It is not the first, nor +will it be the last time. I repeat to you, I am going away. I wish you +all happiness. Confess that this wish is completely disinterested, and +I hope that now you will be happy. Perhaps in time you will change your +opinion of me. Whether we shall ever meet again, I don’t know, but in +any case I remain your sincere well-wisher, + +‘D. R. + +‘P.S. The two hundred roubles I owe you I will send directly I reach +my estate in T---- province. Also I beg you not to speak to Darya +Mihailovna of this letter. + +‘P.P.S. One last, but important request more; since I am going away, I +hope you will not allude before Natalya Alexyevna to my visit to you.’ + +‘Well, what do you say to that?’ asked Volintsev, directly Lezhnyov had +finished the letter. + +‘What is one to say?’ replied Lezhnyov, ‘Cry “Allah! Allah!” like a +Mussulman and sit gaping with astonishment--that’s all one can do.... +Well, a good riddance! But it’s curious: you see he thought it his +_duty_ to write you this letter, and he came to see you from a sense +of _duty_... these gentlemen find a duty at every step, some duty they +owe... or some debt,’ added Lezhnyov, pointing with a smile to the +postscript. + +‘And what phrases he rounds off!’ cried Volintsev. ‘He was mistaken +in me. He expected I would be superior to my surroundings. What a +rigmarole! Good God! it’s worse than poetry!’ + +Lezhnyov made no reply, but his eyes were smiling. Volintsev got up. + +‘I want to go to Darya Mihailovna’s,’ he announced. ‘I want to find out +what it all means.’ + +‘Wait a little, my dear boy; give him time to get off. What’s the good +of running up against him again? He is to vanish, it seems. What more do +you want? Better go and lie down and get a little sleep; you have been +tossing about all night, I expect. But everything will be smooth for +you.’ + +‘What leads you to that conclusion?’ + +‘Oh, I think so. There, go and have a nap; I will go and see your +sister. I will keep her company.’ + +‘I don’t want to sleep in the least. What’s the object of my going to +bed? I had rather go out to the fields,’ said Volintsev, putting on his +out-of-door coat. + +‘Well, that’s a good thing too. Go along, and look at the fields....’ + +And Lezhnyov betook himself to the apartments of Alexandra Pavlovna. +He found her in the drawing-room. She welcomed him effusively. She was +always pleased when he came; but her face still looked sorrowful. She +was uneasy about Rudin’s visit the day before. + +‘You have seen my brother?’ she asked Lezhnyov. ‘How is he to-day?’ + +‘All right, he has gone to the fields.’ + +Alexandra Favlovna did not speak for a minute. + +‘Tell me, please,’ she began, gazing earnestly at the hem of her +pocket-handkerchief, ‘don’t you know why...’ + +‘Rudin came here?’ put in Lezhnyov. ‘I know, he came to say good-bye.’ + +Alexandra Pavlovna lifted up her head. + +‘What, to say good-bye!’ + +‘Yes. Haven’t you heard? He is leaving Darya Mihailovna’s.’ + +‘He is leaving?’ + +‘For ever; at least he says so.’ + +‘But pray, how is one to explain it, after all?...’ + +‘Oh, that’s a different matter! To explain it is impossible, but it is +so. Something must have happened with them. He pulled the string too +tight--and it has snapped.’ + +‘Mihailo Mihailitch!’ began Alexandra Pavlovna, ‘I don’t understand; you +are laughing at me, I think....’ + +‘No indeed! I tell you he is going away, and he even let his friends +know by letter. It’s just as well, I daresay, from one point of view; +but his departure has prevented one surprising enterprise from being +carried out that I had begun to talk to your brother about.’ + +‘What do you mean? What enterprise?’ + +‘Why, I proposed to your brother that we should go on our travels, to +distract his mind, and take you with us. To look after you especially I +would take on myself....’ + +‘That’s capital!’ cried Alexandra Pavlovna. ‘I can fancy how you would +look after me. Why, you would let me die of hunger.’ + +‘You say so, Alexandra Pavlovna, because you don’t know me. You think I +am a perfect blockhead, a log; but do you know I am capable of melting +like sugar, of spending whole days on my knees?’ + +‘I should like to see that, I must say!’ + +Lezhnyov suddenly got up. ‘Well, marry me, Alexandra Pavlovna, and you +will see all that’ + +Alexandra Pavlovna blushed up to her ears. + +‘What did you say, Mihailo Mihailitch?’ she murmured in confusion. + +‘I said what it has been for ever so long,’ answered Lezhnyov, ‘on the +tip of my tongue to say a thousand times over. I have brought it out at +last, and you must act as you think best. But I will go away now, so as +not to be in your way. If you will be my wife... I will walk away... if +you don’t dislike the idea, you need only send to call me in; I shall +understand....’ + +Alexandra Pavlovna tried to keep Lezhnyov, but he went quickly away, and +going into the garden without his cap, he leaned on a little gate and +began looking about him. + +‘Mihailo Mihailitch!’ sounded the voice of a maid-servant behind him, +‘please come in to my lady. She sent me to call you.’ + +Mihailo Mihailitch turned round, took the girl’s head in both his hands, +to her great astonishment, and kissed her on the forehead, then he went +in to Alexandra Pavlovna. + + + + +XI + + +On returning home, directly after his meeting with Lezhnyov, Rudin shut +himself up in his room, and wrote two letters; one to Volintsev (already +known to the reader) and the other to Natalya. He sat a very long time +over this second letter, crossed out and altered a great deal in it, +and, copying it carefully on a fine sheet of note-paper, folded it up as +small as possible, and put it in his pocket. With a look of pain on his +face he paced several times up and down his room, sat down in the chair +before the window, leaning on his arm; a tear slowly appeared upon his +eyelashes. He got up, buttoned himself up, called a servant and told him +to ask Darya Mihailovna if he could see her. + +The man returned quickly, answering that Darya Mihailovna would be +delighted to see him. Rudin went to her. + +She received him in her study, as she had that first time, two months +before. But now she was not alone; with her was sitting Pandalevsky, +unassuming, fresh, neat, and agreeable as ever. + +Darya Mihailovna met Rudin affably, and Rudin bowed affably to her; but +at the first glance at the smiling faces of both, any one of even small +experience would have understood that something of an unpleasant nature +had passed between them, even if it had not been expressed. Rudin knew +that Darya Mihailovna was angry with him. Darya Mihailovna suspected +that he was now aware of all that had happened. + +Pandalevsky’s disclosure had greatly disturbed her. It touched on the +worldly pride in her. Rudin, a poor man without rank, and so far +without distinction, had presumed to make a secret appointment with her +daughter--the daughter of Darya Mihailovna Lasunsky. + +‘Granting he is clever, he is a genius!’ she said, ‘what does that +prove? Why, any one may hope to be my son-in-law after that?’ + +‘For a long time I could not believe my eyes,’ put in Pandalevsky. ‘I am +surprised at his not understanding his position!’ + +Darya Mihailovna was very much agitated, and Natalya suffered for it + +She asked Rudin to sit down. He sat down, but not like the old Rudin, +almost master of the house, not even like an old friend, but like a +guest, and not even a very intimate guest. All this took place in a +single instant... so water is suddenly transformed into solid ice. + +‘I have come to you, Darya Mihailovna,’ began Rudin, ‘to thank you for +your hospitality. I have had some news to-day from my little estate, and +it is absolutely necessary for me to set off there to-day.’ + +Darya Mihailovna looked attentively at Rudin. + +‘He has anticipated me; it must be because he has some suspicion,’ she +thought. ‘He spares one a disagreeable explanation. So much the better. +Ah! clever people for ever!’ + +‘Really?’ she replied aloud. ‘Ah! how disappointing! Well, I suppose +there’s no help for it. I shall hope to see you this winter in Moscow. +We shall soon be leaving here.’ + +‘I don’t know, Darya Mihailovna, whether I shall succeed in getting to +Moscow, but, if I can manage it, I shall regard it as a duty to call on +you.’ + +‘Aha, my good sir!’ Pandalevsky in his turn reflected; ‘it’s not long +since you behaved like the master here, and now this is how you have to +express yourself!’ + +‘Then I suppose you have unsatisfactory news from your estate?’ he +articulated, with his customary ease. + +‘Yes,’ replied Rudin drily. + +‘Some failure of crops, I suppose?’ + +‘No; something else. Believe me, Darya Mihailovna,’ added Rudin, ‘I +shall never forget the time I have spent in your house.’ + +‘And I, Dmitri Nikolaitch, shall always look back upon our acquaintance +with you with pleasure. When must you start?’ + +‘To-day, after dinner.’ + +‘So soon!... Well, I wish you a successful journey. But, if your affairs +do not detain you, perhaps you will look us up again here.’ + +‘I shall scarcely have time,’ replied Rudin, getting up. ‘Excuse me,’ +he added; ‘I cannot at once repay you my debt, but directly I reach my +place----’ + +‘Nonsense, Dmitri Nikolaitch!’ Darya Mihailovna cut him short. ‘I wonder +you’re not ashamed to speak of it!... What o’clock is it?’ she asked. + +Pandalevsky drew a gold and enamel watch out of his waistcoat pocket, +and looked at it carefully, bending his rosy cheek over his stiff, white +collar. + +‘Thirty-three minutes past two,’ he announced. + +‘It is time to dress,’ observed Darya Mihailovna. ‘Good-bye for the +present, Dmitri Nikolaitch!’ + +Rudin got up. The whole conversation between him and Darya Mihailovna +had a special character. In the same way actors repeat their parts, and +diplomatic dignitaries interchange their carefully-worded phrases. + +Rudin went away. He knew by now through experience that men and women of +the world do not even break with a man who is of no further use to them, +but simply let him drop, like a kid glove after a ball, like the paper +that has wrapped up sweets, like an unsuccessful ticket for a lottery. + +He packed quickly, and began to await with impatience the moment of his +departure. Every one in the house was very much surprised to hear of +his intentions; even the servants looked at him with a puzzled air. +Bassistoff did not conceal his sorrow. Natalya evidently avoided Rudin. +She tried not to meet his eyes. He succeeded, however, in slipping his +note into her hand. After dinner Darya Mihailovna repeated once more +that she hoped to see him before they left for Moscow, but Rudin made +her no reply. Pandalevsky addressed him more frequently than any one. +More than once Rudin felt a longing to fall upon him and give him a slap +on his rosy, blooming face. Mlle. Boncourt often glanced at Rudin with +a peculiarly stealthy expression in her eyes; in old setter dogs one may +sometimes see the same expression. + +‘Aha!’ she seemed to be saying to herself, ‘so you’re caught!’ + +At last six o’clock struck, and Rudin’s carriage was brought to the +door. He began to take a hurried farewell of all. He had a feeling of +nausea at his heart. He had not expected to leave this house like this; +it seemed as though they were turning him out. ‘What a way to do it all! +and what was the object of being in such a hurry? Still, it is better +so.’ That was what he was thinking as he bowed in all directions with +a forced smile. For the last time he looked at Natalya, and his heart +throbbed; her eyes were bent upon him in sad, reproachful farewell. + +He ran quickly down the steps, and jumped into his carriage. Bassistoff +had offered to accompany him to the next station, and he took his seat +beside him. + +‘Do you remember,’ began Rudin, directly the carriage had driven from +the courtyard into the broad road bordered with fir-trees, ‘do you +remember what Don Quixote says to his squire when he is leaving the +court of the duchess? “Freedom,” he says, “my friend Sancho, is one of +the most precious possessions of man, and happy is he to whom Heaven has +given a bit of bread, and who need not be indebted to any one!” What Don +Quixote felt then, I feel now.... God grant, my dear Bassistoff, that +you too may some day experience this feeling!’ + +Bassistoff pressed Rudin’s hand, and the honest boy’s heart beat +violently with emotion. Till they reached the station Rudin spoke of +the dignity of man, of the meaning of true independence. He spoke nobly, +fervently, and justly, and when the moment of separation had come, +Bassistoff could not refrain from throwing himself on his neck and +sobbing. Rudin himself shed tears too, but he was not weeping because he +was parting from Bassistoff. His tears were the tears of wounded vanity. + +Natalya had gone to her own room, and there she read Rudin’s letter. + +‘Dear Natalya Alexyevna,’ he wrote her, ‘I have decided to depart. There +is no other course open to me. I have decided to leave before I am told +plainly to go. By my departure all difficulties will be put an end to, +and there will be scarcely any one who will regret me. What else did I +expect?... It is always so, but why am I writing to you? + +‘I am parting from you probably for ever, and it would be too painful to +me to leave you with a worse recollection of me than I deserve. This is +why I am writing to you. I do not want either to justify myself or to +blame any one whatever except myself; I want, as far as possible, to +explain myself.... The events of the last days have been so unexpected, +so sudden.... + +‘Our interview to-day will be a memorable lesson to me. Yes, you are +right; I did not know you, and I thought I knew you! In the course of my +life I have had to do with people of all kinds. I have known many women +and young girls, but in you I met for the first time an absolutely true +and upright soul. This was something I was not used to, and I did not +know how to appreciate you fittingly. I felt an attraction to you from +the first day of our acquaintance; you may have observed it. I spent +with you hour after hour without learning to know you; I scarcely even +tried to know you--and I could imagine that I loved you! For this sin I +am punished now. + +‘Once before I loved a woman, and she loved me. My feeling for her was +complex, like hers for me; but, as she was not simple herself, it was +all the better for her. Truth was not told to me then, and now I did not +recognise it when it was offered me.... I have recognised it at last, +when it is too late.... What is past cannot be recalled.... Our lives +might have become united, and they never will be united now. How can I +prove to you that I might have loved you with real love--the love of the +heart, not of the fancy--when I do not know myself whether I am capable +of such love? + +‘Nature has given me much. I know it, and I will not disguise it from +you through false modesty, especially now at a moment so bitter, so +humiliating for me.... Yes, Nature has given me much, but I shall die +without doing anything worthy of my powers, without leaving any trace +behind me. All my wealth is dissipated idly; I do not see the fruits of +the seeds I sow. I am wanting in something. I cannot say myself exactly +what it is I am wanting in.... I am wanting, certainly, in something +without which one cannot move men’s hearts, or wholly win a woman’s +heart; and to sway men’s minds alone is precarious, and an empire ever +unprofitable. A strange, almost farcical fate is mine; I would devote +myself--eagerly and wholly to some cause,--and I cannot devote myself. I +shall end by sacrificing myself to some folly or other in which I shall +not even believe.... Alas! at thirty-five to be still preparing for +something!... + +‘I have never spoken so openly of myself to any one before--this is my +confession. + +‘But enough of me. I should like to speak of you, to give you some +advice; I can be no use to you further.... You are still young; but as +long as you live, always follow the impulse of your heart, do not let +it be subordinated to your mind or the mind of others. Believe me, the +simpler, the narrower the circle in which life is passed the better; +the great thing is not to open out new sides, but that all the phases of +life should reach perfection in their own time. “Blessed is he who has +been young in his youth.” But I see that this advice applies far more to +myself than to you. + +‘I confess, Natalya Alexyevna, I am very unhappy. I never deceived +myself as to the nature of the feeling which I inspired in Darya +Mihailovna; but I hoped I had found at least a temporary home.... Now I +must take the chances of the rough world again. What will replace for +me your conversation, your presence, your attentive and intelligent +face?... I myself am to blame; but admit that fate seems to have +designed a jest at my expense. A week ago I did not even myself suspect +that I loved you. The day before yesterday, that evening in the garden, +I for the first time heard from your lips,... but why remind you of +what you said then? and now I am going away to-day. I am going away +disgraced, after a cruel explanation with you, carrying with me no +hope.... And you do not know yet to what a degree I am to blame as +regards you... I have such a foolish lack of reserve, such a weak habit +of confiding. But why speak of this? I am leaving you for ever!’ + +(Here Rudin had related to Natalya his visit to Volintsev, but on second +thoughts he erased all that part, and added the second postscript to his +letter to Volintsev.) + +‘I remain alone upon earth to devote myself, as you said to me this +morning with bitter irony, to other interests more congenial to me. +Alas! if I could really devote myself to these interests, if I could +at last conquer my inertia.... But no! I shall remain to the end the +incomplete creature I have always been.... The first obstacle, ... and +I collapse entirely; what has passed with you has shown me that. If I had +but sacrificed my love to my future work, to my vocation; but I simply +was afraid of the responsibility that had fallen upon me, and therefore +I am, truly, unworthy of you. I do not deserve that you should be torn +out of your sphere for me.... And indeed all this, perhaps, is for the +best. I shall perhaps be the stronger and the purer for this experience. + +‘I wish you all happiness. Farewell! Think sometimes of me. I hope that +you may still hear of me. + +‘RUDIN.’ + + +Natalya let Rudin’s letter drop on to her lap, and sat a long time +motionless, her eyes fixed on the ground. This letter proved to her +clearer than all possible arguments that she had been right, when in the +morning, at her parting with Rudin, she had involuntarily cried out that +he did not love her! But that made things no easier for her. She sat +perfectly still; it seemed as though waves of darkness without a ray of +light had closed over her head, and she had gone down cold and dumb to +the depths. The first disillusionment is painful for every one; but for +a sincere heart, averse to self-deception and innocent of frivolity +or exaggeration, it is almost unendurable. Natalya remembered her +childhood, how, when walking in the evening, she always tried to go in +the direction of the setting sun, where there was light in the sky, and +not toward the darkened half of the heavens. Life now stood in darkness +before her, and she had turned her back on the light for ever.... + +Tears started into Natalya’s eyes. Tears do not always bring relief. +They are comforting and salutary when, after being long pent up in the +breast, they flow at last--at first with violence, and then more easily, +more softly; the dumb agony of sorrow is over with the tears. ... But +there are cold tears, tears that flow sparingly, wrung out drop by drop +from the heart by the immovable, weary weight of pain laid upon it: they +are not comforting, and bring no relief. Poverty weeps such tears; and +the man has not yet been unhappy who has not shed them. Natalya knew +them on that day. + +Two hours passed. Natalya pulled herself together, got up, wiped her +eyes, and, lighting a candle, she burnt Rudin’s letter in the flame, and +threw the ash out of window. Then she opened Pushkin at random, and +read the first lines that met her. (She often made it her oracle in this +way.) This is what she saw: + + ‘When he has known its pang, for him + The torturing ghost of days that are no more, + For him no more illusion, but remorse + And memory’s serpent gnawing at his heart.’ + +She stopped, and with a cold smile looked at herself in the glass, +slightly nodded her head, and went down to the drawing-room. + +Darya Mihailovna, directly she saw her, called her into her study, made +her sit near her, and caressingly stroked her cheek. Meanwhile she gazed +attentively, almost with curiosity, into her eyes. Darya Mihailovna was +secretly perplexed; for the first time it struck her that she did not +really understand her daughter. When she had heard from Pandalevsky of +her meeting with Rudin, she was not so much displeased as amazed that +her sensible Natalya could resolve upon such a step. But when she had +sent for her, and fell to upbraiding her--not at all as one would +have expected from a lady of European renown, but with loud and vulgar +abuse--Natalya’s firm replies, and the resolution of her looks and +movements, had confused and even intimidated her. + +Rudin’s sudden, and wholly unexplained, departure had taken a great load +off her heart, but she had expected tears, and hysterics.... Natalya’s +outward composure threw her out of her reckoning again. + +‘Well, child,’ began Darya Mihailovna, ‘how are you to-day?’ Natalya +looked at her mother. ‘He is gone, you see... your hero. Do you know why +he decided on going so quickly?’ + +‘Mamma!’ said Natalya in a low voice, ‘I give you my word, if you will +not mention him, you shall never hear his name from me.’ + +‘Then you acknowledge how wrongly you behaved to me?’ + +Natalya looked down and repeated: + +‘You shall never hear his name from me.’ + +‘Well, well,’ answered Darya Mihailovna with a smile, ‘I believe you. +But the day before yesterday, do you remember how--There, we will pass +that over. It is all over and buried and forgotten. Isn’t it? Come, I +know you again now; but I was altogether puzzled then. There, kiss me +like a sensible girl!’ + +Natalya lifted Darya Mihailovna’s hand to her lips, and Darya Mihailovna +kissed her stooping head. + +‘Always listen to my advice. Do not forget that you are a Lasunsky and +my daughter,’ she added, ‘and you will be happy. And now you may go.’ + +Natalya went away in silence. Darya Mihailovna looked after her and +thought: ‘She is like me--she too will let herself be carried away by +her feelings; _mais ella aura moins d’abandon_.’ And Darya Mihailovna +fell to musing over memories of the past... of the distant past. + +Then she summoned Mlle. Boncourt and remained a long while closeted with +her. + +When she had dismissed her she sent for Pandalevsky. She wanted at +all hazards to discover the real cause of Rudin’s departure... but +Pandalevsky succeeded in completely satisfying her. It was what he was +there for. + + + +The next day Volintsev and his sister came to dinner. Darya Mihailovna +was always very affable to him, but this time she was especially +cordial to him. Natalya felt unbearably miserable; but Volintsev was +so respectful, and addressed her so timidly, that she could not but be +grateful to him in her heart. The day passed quietly, rather tediously, +but all felt as they separated that they had fallen back into the old +order of things; and that means much, very much. + +Yes, all had fallen back into their old order--all except Natalya. When +at last she was able to be alone, she dragged herself with difficulty +into her bed, and, weary and worn out, fell with her face on the pillow. +Life seemed so cruel, so hateful, and so sordid, she was so ashamed of +herself, her love, and her sorrow, that at that moment she would have +been glad to die.... There were many sorrowful days in store for her, +and sleepless nights and torturing emotions; but she was young--life +had scarcely begun for her, and sooner or later life asserts its claims. +Whatever blow has fallen on a man, he must--forgive the coarseness of +the expression--eat that day or at least the next, and that is the first +step to consolation. + +Natalya suffered terribly, she suffered for the first time.... But the +first sorrow, like first love, does not come again--and thank God for +it! + + + + +XII + + +About two years had passed. The first days of May had come. Alexandra +Pavlovna, no longer Lipin but Lezhnyov, was sitting on the balcony of +her house; she had been married to Mihailo Mihailitch for more than a +year. She was as charming as ever, and had only grown a little stouter +of late. In front of the balcony, from which there were steps leading +into the garden, a nurse was walking about carrying a rosy-cheeked baby +in her arms, in a white cloak, with a white cap on his head. Alexandra +Pavlovna kept her eyes constantly on him. The baby did not cry, but +sucked his thumb gravely and looked about him. He was already showing +himself a worthy son of Mihailo Mihailitch. + +On the balcony, near Alexandra Pavlovna, was sitting our old friend, +Pigasov. He had grown noticeably greyer since we parted from him, and +was bent and thin, and he lisped when he spoke; one of his front teeth +had gone; and this lisp gave still greater asperity to his words.... +His spitefulness had not decreased with years, but his sallies were less +lively, and he more frequently repeated himself. Mihailo Mihailitch was +not at home; they were expecting him in to tea. The sun had already +set. Where it had gone down, a streak of pale gold and of lemon colour +stretched across the distant horizon; on the opposite quarter of the sky +was a stretch of dove-colour below and crimson lilac above. Light clouds +seemed melting away overhead. There was every promise of prolonged fine +weather. + +Suddenly Pigasov burst out laughing. + +‘What is it, African Semenitch?’ inquired Alexandra Pavlovna. + +‘Oh, yesterday I heard a peasant say to his wife--she had been +chattering away--“don’t squeak!” I liked that immensely. And after +all, what can a woman talk about? I never, you know, speak of present +company. Our ancestors were wiser than we. The beauty in their stories +always sits at the window with a star on her brow and never utters +a syllable. That’s how it ought to be. Think of it! the day before +yesterday, our marshal’s wife--she might have sent a pistol-shot into +my head!--says to me she doesn’t like my tendencies! Tendencies! Come, +wouldn’t it be better for her and for every one if by some beneficent +ordinance of nature she were suddenly deprived of the use of her +tongue?’ + +‘Oh, you are always like that, African Semenitch; you are always +attacking us poor... Do you know it’s a misfortune of a sort, really? I +am sorry for you.’ + +‘A misfortune! Why do you say that? To begin with, in my opinion, there +are only three misfortunes: to live in winter in cold lodgings, in +summer to wear tight shoes, and to spend the night in a room where a +baby cries whom you can’t get rid of with Persian powder; and secondly, +I am now the most peaceable of men. Why, I’m a model! You know how +properly I behave!’ + +‘Fine behaviour, indeed! Only yesterday Elena Antonovna complained to me +of you.’ + +‘Well! And what did she tell you, if I may know?’ + +‘She told me that for one whole morning you would make no reply to all +her questions but “what? what?” and always in the same squeaking voice.’ + +Pigasov laughed. + +‘But that was a happy idea, you’ll allow, Alexandra Pavlovna, eh?’ + +‘Admirable, indeed! Can you really have behaved so rudely to a lady, +African Semenitch?’ + +‘What! Do you regard Elena Antonovna as a lady?’ + +‘What do you regard her as?’ + +‘A drum, upon my word, an ordinary drum such as they beat with sticks.’ + +‘Oh,’ interrupted Alexandra Pavlovna, anxious to change the +conversation, ‘they tell me one may congratulate you.’ + +‘Upon what?’ + +‘The end of your lawsuit. The Glinovsky meadows are yours.’ + +‘Yes, they are mine,’ replied Pigasov gloomily. + +‘You have been trying to gain this so many years, and now you seem +discontented.’ + +‘I assure you, Alexandra Pavlovna,’ said Pigasov slowly, ‘nothing can +be worse and more injurious than good-fortune that comes too late. +It cannot give you pleasure in any way, and it deprives you of the +right--the precious right--of complaining and cursing Providence. Yes, +madam, it’s a cruel and insulting trick--belated fortune.’ + +Alexandra Pavlovna only shrugged her shoulders. + +‘Nurse,’ she began, ‘I think it’s time to put Misha to bed. Give him to +me.’ + +While Alexandra Pavlovna busied herself with her son, Pigasov walked off +muttering to the other corner of the balcony. + +Suddenly, not far off on the road that ran the length of the garden, +Mihailo Mihailitch made his appearance driving his racing droshky. Two +huge house-dogs ran before the horse, one yellow, the other grey, both +only lately obtained. They incessantly quarrelled, and were inseparable +companions. An old pug-dog came out of the gate to meet them. He opened +his mouth as if he were going to bark, but ended by yawning and turning +back again with a friendly wag of the tail. + +‘Look here, Sasha,’ cried Lezhnyov, from the distance, to his wife, +‘whom I am bringing you.’ + +Alexandra Pavlovna did not at once recognise the man who was sitting +behind her husband’s back. + +‘Ah! Mr. Bassistoff!’ she cried at last. + +‘It’s he,’ answered Lezhnyov; ‘and he has brought such glorious news. +Wait a minute, you shall know directly.’ + +And he drove into the courtyard. + +Some minutes later he came with Bassistoff into the balcony. + +‘Hurrah!’ he cried, embracing his wife, ‘Serezha is going to be +married.’ + +‘To whom?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna, much agitated. + +‘To Natalya, of course. Our friend has brought the news from Moscow, and +there is a letter for you.’ + +‘Do you hear, Misha,’ he went on, snatching his son into his arms, ‘your +uncle’s going to be married? What criminal indifference! he only blinks +his eyes!’ + +‘He is sleepy,’ remarked the nurse. + +‘Yes,’ said Bassistoff, going up to Alexandra Pavlovna, ‘I have come +to-day from Moscow on business for Darya Mihailovna--to go over the +accounts on the estate. And here is the letter.’ + +Alexandra Pavlovna opened her brother’s letter in haste. It consisted of +a few lines only. In the first transport of joy he informed his sister +that he had made Natalya an offer, and received her consent and Darya +Mihailovna’s; and he promised to write more by the next post, and sent +embraces and kisses to all. It was clear he was writing in a state of +delirium. + +Tea was served, Bassistoff sat down. Questions were showered upon him. +Every one, even Pigasov, was delighted at the news he had brought. + +‘Tell me, please,’ said Lezhnyov among the rest, ‘rumours reached us of +a certain Mr. Kortchagin. That was all nonsense, I suppose?’ + +Kortchagin was a handsome young man, a society lion, excessively +conceited and important; he behaved with extraordinary dignity, just +as if he had not been a living man, but his own statue set up by public +subscription. + +‘Well, no, not altogether nonsense,’ replied Bassistoff with a smile; +‘Darya Mihailovna was very favourable to him; but Natalya Alexyevna +would not even hear of him.’ + +‘I know him,’ put in Pigasov, ‘he’s a double dummy, a noisy dummy, if +you like! If all people were like that, it would need a large sum of +money to induce one to consent to live--upon my word!’ + +‘Very likely,’ answered Bassistoff; ‘but he plays a leading part in +society.’ + +‘Well, never mind him!’ cried Alexandra Pavlovna. ‘Peace be with him! +Ah! how glad I am for my brother! And Natalya, is she bright and +happy?’ + +‘Yes. She is quiet, as she always is. You know her--but she seems +contented.’ + +The evening was spent in friendly and lively talk. They sat down to +supper. + +‘Oh, by the way,’ inquired Lezhnyov of Bassistoff, as he poured him out +some Lafitte, ‘do you know where Rudin is?’ + +‘I don’t know for certain now. He came last winter to Moscow for a short +time, and then went with a family to Simbirsk. I corresponded with +him for some time; in his last letter he informed me he was leaving +Simbirsk--he did not say where he was going--and since then I have heard +nothing of him.’ + +‘He is all right!’ put in Pigasov. ‘He is staying somewhere sermonising. +That gentleman will always find two or three adherents everywhere, to +listen to him open-mouthed and lend him money. You will see he will end +by dying in some out-of-the-way corner in the arms of an old maid in a +wig, who will believe he is the greatest genius in the world.’ + +‘You speak very harshly of him,’ remarked Bassistoff, in a displeased +undertone. + +‘Not a bit harshly,’ replied Pigasov; ‘but perfectly fairly. In my +opinion, he is simply nothing else than a sponge. I forgot to tell you,’ +he continued, turning to Lezhnyov, ‘that I have made the acquaintance of +that Terlahov, with whom Rudin travelled abroad. Yes! Yes! What he told +me of him, you cannot imagine--it’s simply screaming! It’s a remarkable +fact that all Rudin’s friends and admirers become in time his enemies.’ + +‘I beg you to except me from the number of such friends!’ interposed +Bassistoff warmly. + +‘Oh, you--that’s a different thing! I was not speaking of you.’ + +‘But what did Terlahov tell you?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna. + +‘Oh, he told me a great deal; there’s no remembering it all. But +the best of all was an anecdote of what happened to Rudin. As he was +incessantly developing (these gentlemen always are developing; other +people simply sleep and eat; but they manage their sleeping and eating +in the intervals of development; isn’t that it, Mr. Bassistoff?’ +Bassistoff made no reply.) ‘And so, as he was continually developing, +Rudin arrived at the conclusion, by means of philosophy, that he ought +to fall in love. He began to look about for a sweetheart worthy of +such an astonishing conclusion. Fortune smiled upon him. He made the +acquaintance of a very pretty French dressmaker. The whole incident +occurred in a German town on the Rhine, observe. He began to go and see +her, to take her various books, to talk to her of Nature and Hegel. +Can you fancy the position of the dressmaker? She took him for an +astronomer. However, you know he’s not a bad-looking fellow--and a +foreigner, a Russian, of course--he took her fancy. Well, at last he +invited her to a rendezvous, and a very poetical rendezvous, in a boat +on the river. The Frenchwoman agreed; dressed herself in her best and +went out with him in a boat. So they spent two hours. How do you think +he was occupied all that time? He patted the Frenchwoman on the head, +gazed thoughtfully at the sky, and frequently repeated that he felt +for her the tenderness of a father. The Frenchwoman went back home in a +fury, and she herself told the story to Terlahov afterwards! That’s the +kind of fellow he is.’ + +And Pigasov broke into a loud laugh. + +‘You old cynic!’ said Alexandra Pavlovna in a tone of annoyance, ‘but I +am more and more convinced that even those who attack Rudin cannot find +any harm to say of him.’ + +‘No harm? Upon my word! and his perpetual living at other people’s +expense, his borrowing money.... Mihailo Mihailitch, he borrowed of you +too, no doubt, didn’t he?’ + +‘Listen, African Semenitch!’ began Lezhnyov, and his face assumed a +serious expression, ‘listen; you know, and my wife knows, that the last +time I saw him I felt no special attachment for Rudin, and I even often +blamed him. For all that (Lezhnyov filled up the glasses with champagne) +this is what I suggest to you now; we have just drunk to the health of +my dear brother and his future bride; I propose that you drink now to +the health of Dmitri Rudin!’ + +Alexandra Pavlovna and Pigasov looked in astonishment at Lezhnyov, but +Bassistoff sat wide-eyed, blushing and trembling all over with delight. + +‘I know him well,’ continued Lezhnyov, ‘I am well aware of his faults. +They are the more conspicuous because he himself is not on a small +scale.’ + +‘Rudin has character, genius!’ cried Bassistoff. + +‘Genius, very likely he has!’ replied Lezhnyov, ‘but as for character +... That’s just his misfortune, that there’s no character in him... But +that’s not the point. I want to speak of what is good, of what is rare +in him. He has enthusiasm; and believe me, who am a phlegmatic person +enough, that is the most precious quality in our times. We have all +become insufferably reasonable, indifferent, and slothful; we are asleep +and cold, and thanks to any one who will wake us up and warm us! It is +high time! Do you remember, Sasha, once when I was talking to you about +him, I blamed him for coldness? I was right, and wrong too, then. The +coldness is in his blood--that is not his fault--and not in his head. He +is not an actor, as I called him, nor a cheat, nor a scoundrel; he lives +at other people’s expense, not like a swindler, but like a child.... +Yes; no doubt he will die somewhere in poverty and want; but are we to +throw stones at him for that? He never does anything himself precisely, +he has no vital force, no blood; but who has the right to say that he +has not been of use? that his words have not scattered good seeds in +young hearts, to whom nature has not denied, as she has to him, powers +for action, and the faculty of carrying out their own ideas? Indeed, +I myself, to begin with, have gained all that from him.... Sasha knows +what Rudin did for me in my youth. I also maintained, I recollect, that +Rudin’s words could not produce an effect on men; but I was speaking +then of men like myself, at my present age, of men who have already +lived and been broken in by life. One false note in a man’s eloquence, +and the whole harmony is spoiled for us; but a young man’s ear, happily, +is not so over-fine, not so trained. If the substance of what he +hears seems fine to him, what does he care about the intonation! The +intonation he will supply for himself!’ + +‘Bravo, bravo!’ cried Bassistoff, ‘that is justly spoken! And as regards +Rudin’s influence, I swear to you, that man not only knows how to move +you, he lifts you up, he does not let you stand still, he stirs you to +the depths and sets you on fire!’ + +‘You hear?’ continued Lezhnyov, turning to Pigasov; ‘what further proof +do you want? You attack philosophy; speaking of it, you cannot find +words contemptuous enough. I myself am not excessively devoted to it, +and I know little enough about it; but our principal misfortunes do +not come from philosophy! The Russian will never be infected with +philosophical hair-splittings and nonsense; he has too much common-sense +for that; but we must not let every sincere effort after truth and +knowledge be attacked under the name of philosophy. Rudin’s misfortune +is that he does not understand Russia, and that, certainly, is a great +misfortune. Russia can do without every one of us, but not one of us can +do without her. Woe to him who thinks he can, and woe twofold to him +who actually does do without her! Cosmopolitanism is all twaddle, the +cosmopolitan is a nonentity--worse than a nonentity; without nationality +is no art, nor truth, nor life, nor anything. You cannot even have an +ideal face without individual expression; only a vulgar face can be +devoid of it. But I say again, that is not Rudin’s fault; it is his +fate--a cruel and unhappy fate--for which we cannot blame him. It would +take us too far if we tried to trace why Rudins spring up among us. But +for what is fine in him, let us be grateful to him. That is pleasanter +than being unfair to him, and we have been unfair to him. It’s not our +business to punish him, and it’s not needed; he has punished himself far +more cruelly than he deserved. And God grant that unhappiness may have +blotted out all the harm there was in him, and left only what was fine! +I drink to the health of Rudin! I drink to the comrade of my best years, +I drink to youth, to its hopes, its endeavours, its faith, and its +honesty, to all that our hearts beat for at twenty; we have known, and +shall know, nothing better than that in life.... I drink to that golden +time--to the health of Rudin!’ + +All clinked glasses with Lezhnyov. Bassistoff, in his enthusiasm, almost +cracked his glass and drained it off at a draught. Alexandra Pavlovna +pressed Lezhnyov’s hand. + +‘Why, Mihailo Mihailitch, I did not suspect you were an orator,’ +remarked Pigasov; ‘it was equal to Mr. Rudin himself; even I was moved +by it.’ + +‘I am not at all an orator,’ replied Lezhnyov, not without annoyance, +‘but to move you, I fancy, would be difficult. But enough of Rudin; let +us talk of something else. What of--what’s his name--Pandalevsky? is +he still living at Darya Mihailovna’s?’ he concluded, turning to +Bassistoff. + +‘Oh yes, he is still there. She has managed to get him a very profitable +place.’ + +Lezhnyov smiled. + +‘That’s a man who won’t die in want, one can count upon that.’ + +Supper was over. The guests dispersed. When she was left alone with her +husband, Alexandra Pavlovna looked smiling into his face. + +‘How splendid you were this evening, Misha,’ she said, stroking +his forehead, ‘how cleverly and nobly you spoke! But confess, you +exaggerated a little in Rudin’s praise, as in old days you did in +attacking him.’ + +‘I can’t let them hit a man when he’s down. And in those days I was +afraid he was turning your head.’ + +‘No,’ replied Alexandra Pavlovna naively, ‘he always seemed too learned +for me. I was afraid of him, and never knew what to say in his presence. +But wasn’t Pigasov nasty in his ridicule of him to-day?’ + +‘Pigasov?’ responded Lezhnyov. ‘That was just why I stood up for Rudin +so warmly, because Pigasov was here. He dare to call Rudin a sponge +indeed! Why, I consider the part he plays--Pigasov I mean--is a hundred +times worse! He has an independent property, and he sneers at every one, +and yet see how he fawns upon wealthy or distinguished people! Do you +know that that fellow, who abuses everything and every one with such +scorn, and attacks philosophy and women, do you know that when he was in +the service, he took bribes and that sort of thing! Ugh! That’s what he +is!’ + +‘Is it possible?’ cried Alexandra Pavlovna, ‘I should never have +expected that! Misha,’ she added, after a short pause, ‘I want to ask +you----’ + +‘What?’ + +‘What do you think, will my brother be happy with Natalya?’ + +‘How can I tell you?... there’s every likelihood of it. She will take +the lead... there’s no reason to hide the fact between us... she is +cleverer than he is; but he’s a capital fellow, and loves her with all +his soul. What more would you have? You see we love one another and are +happy, aren’t we?’ + +Alexandra Pavlovna smiled and pressed his hand. + + +On the same day on which all that has been described took place in +Alexandra Pavlovna’s house, in one of the remote districts of Russia, a +wretched little covered cart, drawn by three village horses was crawling +along the high road in the sultry heat. On the front seat was perched +a grizzled peasant in a ragged cloak, with his legs hanging slanting +on the shaft; he kept flicking with the reins, which were of cord, +and shaking the whip. Inside the cart there was sitting on a shaky +portmanteau a tall man in a cap and old dusty cloak. It was Rudin. +He sat with bent head, the peak of his cap pulled over his eyes. The +jolting of the cart threw him from side to side; but he seemed utterly +unconscious, as though he were asleep. At last he drew himself up. + +‘When are we coming to a station?’ he inquired of the peasant sitting in +front. + +‘Just over the hill, little father,’ said the peasant, with a still more +violent shaking of the reins. ‘There’s a mile and a half farther to go, +not more.... Come! there! look about you.... I’ll teach you,’ he added +in a shrill voice, setting to work to whip the right-hand horse. + +‘You seem to drive very badly,’ observed Rudin; ‘we have been crawling +along since early morning, and we have not succeeded in getting there +yet. You should have sung something.’ + +‘Well, what would you have, little father? The horses, you see +yourself, are overdone... and then the heat; and I can’t sing. I’m not +a coachman.... Hullo, you little sheep!’ cried the peasant, suddenly +turning to a man coming along in a brown smock and bark shoes +downtrodden at heel. ‘Get out of the way!’ + +‘You’re a nice driver!’ muttered the man after him, and stood still. +‘You wretched Muscovite,’ he added in a voice full of contempt, shook +his head and limped away. + +‘What are you up to?’ sang out the peasant at intervals, pulling at the +shaft-horse. ‘Ah, you devil! Get on!’ + +The jaded horses dragged themselves at last up to the posting-station. +Rudin crept out of the cart, paid the peasant (who did not bow to +him, and kept shaking the coins in the palm of his hand a long +while--evidently there was too little drink-money) and himself carried +the portmanteau into the posting-station. + +A friend of mine who has wandered a great deal about Russia in his time +made the observation that if the pictures hanging on the walls of a +posting-station represent scenes from ‘the Prisoner of the Caucasus,’ +or Russian generals, you may get horses soon; but if the pictures depict +the life of the well-known gambler George de Germany, the traveller need +not hope to get off quickly; he will have time to admire to the full +the hair _à la cockatoo_, the white open waistcoat, and the exceedingly +short and narrow trousers of the gambler in his youth, and his +exasperated physiognomy, when in his old age he kills his son, waving a +chair above him, in a cottage with a narrow staircase. In the room into +which Rudin walked precisely these pictures were hanging out of +‘Thirty Years, or the Life of a Gambler.’ In response to his call the +superintendent appeared, who had just waked up (by the way, did any one +ever see a superintendent who had not just been asleep?), and without +even waiting for Rudin’s question, informed him in a sleepy voice that +there were no horses. + +‘How can you say there are no horses,’ said Rudin, ‘when you don’t even +know where I am going? I came here with village horses.’ + +‘We have no horses for anywhere,’ answered the superintendent. ‘But +where are you going?’ + +‘To Sk----.’ + +‘We have no horses,’ repeated the superintendent, and he went away. + +Rudin, vexed, went up to the window and threw his cap on the table. He +was not much changed, but had grown rather yellow in the last two years; +silver threads shone here and there in his curls, and his eyes, still +magnificent, seemed somehow dimmed, fine lines, the traces of bitter and +disquieting emotions, lay about his lips and on his temples. His clothes +were shabby and old, and he had no linen visible anywhere. His best days +were clearly over: as the gardeners say, he had gone to seed. + +He began reading the inscriptions on the walls--the ordinary distraction +of weary travellers; suddenly the door creaked and the superintendent +came in. + +‘There are no horses for Sk----, and there won’t be any for a long +time,’ he said, ‘but here are some ready to go to V----.’ + +‘To V----?’ said Rudin. ‘Why, that’s not on my road at all. I am going +to Penza, and V---- lies, I think, in the direction of Tamboff.’ + +‘What of that? you can get there from Tamboff, and from V---- you won’t +be at all out of your road.’ + +Rudin thought a moment. + +‘Well, all right,’ he said at last, ‘tell them to put the horses to. It +is the same to me; I will go to Tamboff.’ + +The horses were soon ready. Rudin carried his own portmanteau, climbed +into the cart, and took his seat, his head hanging as before. There was +something helpless and pathetically submissive in his bent figure.... +And the three horses went off at a slow trot. + + + + +EPILOGUE + + +Some years had passed by. + +It was a cold autumn day. A travelling carriage drew up at the steps of +the principal hotel of the government town of C----; a gentleman yawning +and stretching stepped out of it. He was not elderly, but had had time +to acquire that fulness of figure which habitually commands respect. He +went up the staircase to the second story, and stopped at the entrance +to a wide corridor. Seeing no one before him he called out in a loud +voice asking for a room. A door creaked somewhere, and a long waiter +jumped up from behind a low screen, and came forward with a quick flank +movement, an apparition of a glossy back and tucked-up sleeves in +the half-dark corridor. The traveller went into the room and at once +throwing off his cloak and scarf, sat down on the sofa, and with his +fists propped on his knees, he first looked round as though he were +hardly awake yet, and then gave the order to send up his servant. The +hotel waiter made a bow and disappeared. The traveller was no other than +Lezhnyov. He had come from the country to C---- about some conscription +business. + +Lezhnyov’s servant, a curly-headed, rosy-cheeked youth in a grey cloak, +with a blue sash round the waist, and soft felt shoes, came into the +room. + +‘Well, my boy, here we are,’ Lezhnyov said, ‘and you were afraid all the +while that a wheel would come off.’ + +‘We are here,’ replied the boy, trying to smile above the high collar of +his cloak, ‘but the reason why the wheel did not come off----’ + +‘Is there no one in here?’ sounded a voice in the corridor. + +Lezhnyov started and listened. + +‘Eh? who is there?’ repeated the voice. + +Lezhnyov got up, walked to the door, and quickly threw it open. + +Before him stood a tall man, bent and almost completely grey, in an old +frieze coat with bronze buttons. + +‘Rudin!’ he cried in an excited voice. + +Rudin turned round. He could not distinguish Lezhnyov’s features, as he +stood with his back to the light, and he looked at him in bewilderment. + +‘You don’t know me?’ said Lezhnyov. + +‘Mihailo Mihailitch!’ cried Rudin, and held out his hand, but drew it +back again in confusion. Lezhnyov made haste to snatch it in both of +his. + +‘Come, come in!’ he said to Rudin, and drew him into the room. + +‘How you have changed!’ exclaimed Lezhnyov after a brief silence, +involuntarily dropping his voice. + +‘Yes, they say so!’ replied Rudin, his eyes straying about the room. +‘The years... and you not much. How is Alexandra--your wife?’ + +‘She is very well, thank you. But what fate brought you here?’ + +‘It is too long a story. Strictly speaking, I came here by chance. I was +looking for a friend. But I am very glad...’ + +‘Where are you going to dine?’ + +‘Oh, I don’t know. At some restaurant. I must go away from here to-day.’ + +‘You must.’ + +Rudin smiled significantly. + +‘Yes, I must. They are sending me off to my own place, to my home.’ + +‘Dine with me.’ + +Rudin for the first time looked Lezhnyov straight in the face. + +‘You invite me to dine with you?’ he said. + +‘Yes, Rudin, for the sake of old times and old comradeship. Will you? +I did not expect to meet you, and God only knows when we shall see each +other again. I cannot part from you like this!’ + +‘Very well, I agree!’ + +Lezhnyov pressed Rudin’s hand, and calling his servant, ordered dinner, +and told him to have a bottle of champagne put in ice. + +In the course of dinner, Lezhnyov and Rudin, as though by agreement, +kept talking of their student days, recalling many things and many +friends--dead and living. At first Rudin spoke with little interest, but +when he had drunk a few glasses of wine his blood grew warmer. At last +the waiter took away the last dish, Lezhnyov got up, closed the door, +and coming back to the table, sat down facing Rudin, and quietly rested +his chin on his hands. + +‘Now, then,’ he began, ‘tell me all that has happened to you since I saw +you last.’ + +Rudin looked at Lezhnyov. + +‘Good God!’ thought Lezhnyov, ‘how he has changed, poor fellow!’ + +Rudin’s features had undergone little change since we saw him last at +the posting-station, though approaching old age had had time to set its +mark upon them; but their expression had become different. His eyes had +a changed look; his whole being, his movements, which were at one time +slow, at another abrupt and disconnected, his crushed, benumbed +manner of speaking, all showed an utter exhaustion, a quiet and secret +dejection, very different from the half-assumed melancholy which he had +affected once, as it is generally affected by youth, when full of hopes +and confident vanity. + +‘Tell you all that has happened to me?’ he said; ‘I could not tell you +all, and it is not worth while. I am worn out; I have wandered far--in +spirit as well as in flesh. What friends I have made--good God! How +many things, how many men I have lost faith in! Yes, how many!’ repeated +Rudin, noticing that Lezhnyov was looking in his face with a kind of +special sympathy. ‘How many times have my own words grown hateful to +me! I don’t mean now on my own lips, but on the lips of those who had +adopted my opinions! How many times have I passed from the petulance of +a child to the dull insensibility of a horse who does not lash his tail +when the whip cuts him!... How many times I have been happy and hopeful, +and have made enemies and humbled myself for nothing! How many times +I have taken flight like an eagle--and returned crawling like a snail +whose shell has been crushed!... Where have I not been! What roads +have I not travelled!... And the roads are often dirty,’ added Rudin, +slightly turning away. ‘You know ...’ he was continuing.... ‘Listen,’ +interrupted Lezhnyov. ‘We used once to say “Dmitri and Mihail” to one +another. Let us revive the old habit,... will you? Let us drink to those +days!’ + +Rudin started and drew himself up a little, and there was a gleam in his +eyes of something no word can express. + +‘Let us drink to them,’ he said. ‘I thank you, brother, we will drink to +them!’ + +Lezhnyov and Rudin drained their glasses. + +‘You know, Mihail,’ Rudin began again with a smile and a stress on the +name, ‘there is a worm in me which gnaws and worries me and never +lets me be at peace till the end. It brings me into collision with +people,--at first they fall under my influence, but afterwards...’ + +Rudin waved his hand in the air. + +‘Since I parted from you, Mihail, I have seen much, have experienced +many changes.... I have begun life, have started on something new twenty +times--and here--you see!’ + +‘You had no stability,’ said Lezhnyov, as though to himself. + +‘As you say, I had no stability. I never was able to construct anything; +and it’s a difficult thing, brother, to construct when one has to create +the very ground under one’s feet, to make one’s own foundation for one’s +self! All my adventures--that is, speaking accurately, all my failures, +I will not describe. I will tell of two or three incidents--those +incidents of my life when it seemed as if success were smiling on me, +or rather when I began to hope for success--which is not altogether the +same thing...’ + +Rudin pushed back his grey and already sparse locks with the same +gesture which he used once to toss back his thick, dark curls. + +‘Well, I will tell you, Mihail,’ he began. ‘In Moscow I came across a +rather strange man. He was very wealthy and was the owner of extensive +estates. His chief and only passion was love of science, universal +science. I have never yet been able to arrive at how this passion arose +in him! It fitted him about as well as a saddle on a cow. He managed +with difficulty to maintain himself at his mental elevation, he was +almost without the power of speech, he only rolled his eyes with +expression and shook his head significantly. I never met, brother, a +poorer and less gifted nature than his.... In the Smolensk province +there are places like that--nothing but sand and a few tufts of grass +which no animal can eat. Nothing succeeded in his hands; everything +seemed to slip away from him; but he was still mad on making everything +plain complicated. If it had depended on his arrangements, his people +would have eaten standing on their heads. He worked, and wrote, and read +indefatigably. He devoted himself to science with a kind of stubborn +perseverance, a terrible patience; his vanity was immense, and he had a +will of iron. He lived alone, and had the reputation of an eccentric. +I made friends with him... and he liked me. I quickly, I must own, saw +through him; but his zeal attracted me. Besides, he was the master of +such resources; so much good might be done, so much real usefulness +through him.... I was installed in his house and went with him to the +country. My plans, brother, were on a vast scale; I dreamed of various +reforms, innovations...’ + +‘Just as at the Lasunsky’s, do you remember, Dmitri?’ responded +Lezhnyov, with an indulgent smile. + +‘Ah, but then I knew in my heart that nothing would come of my words; +but this time... an altogether different field of activity lay open +before me.... I took with me books on agriculture... to tell the truth, +I did not read one of them through.... Well, I set to work. At first it +did not progress as I had expected; but afterwards it did get on in a +way. My new friend looked on and said nothing; he did not interfere with +me, at least not to any noticeable extent. He accepted my suggestions, +and carried them out, but with a stubborn sullenness, a secret want of +faith; and he bent everything his own way. He prized extremely every +idea of his own. He got to it with difficulty, like a ladybird on a +blade of grass, and he would sit and sit upon it, as though pluming his +wings and getting ready for a flight, and suddenly he would fall off +and begin crawling again.... Don’t be surprised at these comparisons; at +that time they were always crowding on my imagination. So I struggled on +there for two years. The work did not progress much in spite of all my +efforts. I began to be tired of it, my friend bored me; I had come to +sneer at him, and he stifled me like a featherbed; his want of faith had +changed into a dumb resentment; a feeling of hostility had laid hold +of both of us; we could scarcely now speak of anything; he quietly but +incessantly tried to show me that he was not under my influence; +my arrangements were either set aside or altogether transformed. I +realised, at last, that I was playing the part of a toady in the noble +landowner’s house by providing him with intellectual amusement. It was +very bitter to me to have wasted my time and strength for nothing, +most bitter to feel that I had again and again been deceived in my +expectations. I knew very well what I was losing if I went away; but +I could not control myself, and one day after a painful and revolting +scene of which I was a witness, and which showed my friend in a most +disadvantageous light, I quarrelled with him finally, went away, and +threw up this newfangled pedant, made of a queer compound of our native +flour kneaded up with German treacle.’ + +‘That is, you threw up your daily bread, Dmitri,’ said Lezhnyov, laying +both hands on Rudin’s shoulders. + +‘Yes, and again I was turned adrift, empty-handed and penniless, to fly +whither I listed. Ah! let us drink!’ + +‘To your health!’ said Lezhnyov, getting up and kissing Rudin on the +forehead. ‘To your health and to the memory of Pokorsky. He, too, knew +how to be poor.’ + +‘Well, that was number one of my adventures,’ began Rudin, after a short +pause. ‘Shall I go on?’ + +‘Go on, please.’ + +‘Ah! I have no wish for talking. I am tired of talking, brother.... +However, so be it. After knocking about in various parts--by the way, I +might tell you how I became the secretary of a benevolent dignitary, and +what came of that; but that would take me too long.... After knocking +about in various parts, I resolved to become at last--don’t smile, +please--a practical business man. The opportunity came in this way. I +became friendly with--he was much talked of at one time--a man called +Kurbyev.’ + +‘Oh, I never heard of him. But, really, Dmitri, with your intelligence, +how was it you did not suspect that to be a business man was not the +business for you?’ + +‘I know, brother, that it was not; but, then, what is the business +for me? But if you had seen Kurbyev! Do not, pray, fancy him as some +empty-headed chatterer. They say I was eloquent once. I was +simply nothing beside him. He was a man of wonderful learning and +knowledge,--an intellect, brother, a creative intellect, for business +and commercial enterprises. His brain seemed seething with the boldest, +the most unexpected schemes. I joined him and we decided to turn our +powers to a work of public utility.’ + +‘What was it, may I know?’ + +Rudin dropped his eyes. + +‘You will laugh at it, Mihail.’ + +‘Why should I? No, I will not laugh.’ + +‘We resolved to make a river in the K---- province fit for navigation,’ +said Rudin with an embarrassed smile. + +‘Really! This Kurbyev was a capitalist, then?’ + +‘He was poorer than I,’ responded Rudin, and his grey head sank on his +breast. + +Lezhnyov began to laugh, but he stopped suddenly and took Rudin by the +hand. + +‘Pardon me, brother, I beg,’ he said, ‘but I did not expect that. Well, +so I suppose your enterprise did not get further than paper?’ + +‘Not so. A beginning was made. We hired workmen, and set to work. But +then we were met by various obstacles. In the first place the millowners +would not meet us favourably at all; and more than that, we could not +turn the water out of its course without machinery, and we had not money +enough for machinery. For six months we lived in mud huts. Kurbyev lived +on dry bread, and I, too, had not much to eat. However, I don’t complain +of that; the scenery there is something magnificent. We struggled and +struggled on, appealing to merchants, writing letters and circulars. It +ended in my spending my last farthing on the project.’ + +‘Well!’ observed Lezhnyov, ‘I imagine to spend your last farthing, +Dmitri, was not a difficult matter?’ + +‘It was not difficult, certainly.’ + +Rudin looked out of the window. + +‘But the project really was not a bad one, and it might have been of +immense service.’ + +‘And where did Kurbyev go to?’ asked Lezhnyov. + +‘Oh, he is now in Siberia, he has become a gold-digger. And you will see +he will make himself a position; he will get on.’ + +‘Perhaps; but then you will not be likely to make a position for +yourself, it seems.’ + +‘Well, that can’t be helped! But I know I was always a frivolous +creature in your eyes.’ + +‘Hush, brother; there was a time, certainly, when I saw your weak side; +but now, believe me, I have learnt to value you. You will not make +yourself a position. And I love you, Dmitri, for that, indeed I do!’ + +Rudin smiled faintly. + +‘Truly?’ + +‘I respect you for it!’ repeated Lezhnyov. ‘Do you understand me?’ + +Both were silent for a little. + +‘Well, shall I proceed to number three?’ asked Rudin. + +‘Please do.’ + +‘Very well. The third and last. I have only now got clear of number +three. But am I not boring you, Mihail?’ + +‘Go on, go on.’ + +‘Well,’ began Rudin, ‘once the idea occurred to me at some leisure +moment--I always had plenty of leisure moments--the idea occurred to me; +I have knowledge enough, my intentions are good. I suppose even you will +not deny me good intentions?’ + +‘I should think not!’ + +‘In all other directions I had failed more or less... why should I not +become an instructor, or speaking simply a teacher... rather than waste +my life?’ + +Rudin stopped and sighed. + +‘Rather than waste my life, would it not be better to try to pass on to +others what I know; perhaps they may extract at least some use from my +knowledge. My abilities are above the ordinary anyway, I am a master +of language. So I resolved to devote myself to this new work. I had +difficulty in obtaining a post; I did not want to give private lessons; +there was nothing I could do in the lower schools. At last I succeeded +in getting an appointment as professor in the gymnasium here.’ + +‘As professor of what?’ asked Lezhnyov. + +‘Professor of literature. I can tell you I never started on any work +with such zest as I did on this. The thought of producing an effect upon +the young inspired me. I spent three weeks over the composition of my +opening lecture.’ + +‘Have you got it, Dmitri?’ interrupted Lezhnyov. + +‘No! I lost it somewhere. It went off fairly well, and was liked. I can +see now the faces of my listeners--good young faces, with an expression +of pure-souled attention and sympathy, and even of amazement. I mounted +the platform and read my lecture in a fever; I thought it would +fill more than an hour, but I had finished it in twenty minutes. The +inspector was sitting there--a dry old man in silver spectacles and +a short wig--he sometimes turned his head in my direction. When I had +finished, he jumped up from his seat and said to me, “Good, but rather +over their heads, obscure, and too little said about the subject.” But +the pupils followed me with appreciation in their looks--indeed they +did. Ah, that is how youth is so precious! I gave a second written +lecture, and a third. After that I began to lecture extempore.’ + +‘And you had success?’ asked Lezhnyov. + +‘I had a great success. I gave my audience all that was in my soul. +Among them were two or three really remarkable boys; the rest did +not understand me much. I must confess though that even those who did +understand me sometimes embarrassed me by their questions. But I did +not lose heart. They all loved me; I gave them all full marks in +examinations. But then an intrigue was started against me--or no! it +was not an intrigue at all; it simply was, that I was not in my proper +place. I was a hindrance to the others, and they were a hindrance to me. +I lectured to the gymnasium pupils in a way lectures are not given +every day, even to students; they carried away very little from my +lectures.... I myself did not know the facts enough. Besides, I was +not satisfied with the limited sphere assigned to me--you know that is +always my weakness. I wanted radical reforms, and I swear to you that +these reforms were both sensible and easy to carry out. I hoped to carry +them through the director, a good and honest man, over whom I had at +first some influence. His wife aided me. I have not, brother, met many +women like her in my life. She was about forty; but she believed in +goodness, and loved everything fine with the enthusiasm of a girl of +fifteen, and was not afraid to give utterance to her convictions before +any one whatever. I shall never forget her generous enthusiasm and +goodness. By her advice I drew up a plan.... But then my influence +was undermined, I was misrepresented to her. My chief enemy was the +professor of mathematics, a little sour, bilious man who believed in +nothing, a character like Pigasov, but far more able than he was.... By +the way, how is Pigasov, is he living?’ + +‘Oh, yes; and only fancy, he is married to a peasant woman, who, they +say, beats him.’ + +‘Serve him right! And Natalya Alexyevna--is she well?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘Is she happy?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +Rudin was silent for a little. + +‘What was I talking about?... Oh yes! about the professor of +mathematics. He perfectly hated me; he compared my lectures to +fireworks, pounced upon every expression of mine that was not altogether +clear, once even put me to confusion over some monument of the +sixteenth century.... But the most important thing was, he suspected my +intentions; my last soap-bubble struck on him as on a spike, and burst. +The inspector, whom I had not got on with from the first, set the +director against me. A scene followed. I was not ready to give in; I got +hot; the matter came to the knowledge of the authorities; I was forced +to resign. I did not stop there; I wanted to prove that they could not +treat me like that.... But they could treat me as they liked.... Now I +am forced to leave the town.’ + +A silence followed. Both the friends sat with bowed heads. + +Rudin was the first to speak. + +‘Yes, brother,’ he began, ‘I can say now, in the words of Koltsov, +“Thou hast led me astray, my youth, till there is nowhere I can turn +my steps.”... And yet can it be that I was fit for nothing, that for me +there was, as it were, no work on earth to do? I have often put myself +this question, and, however much I tried to humble myself in my own +eyes, I could not but feel the existence of faculties within me which +are not given to every one! Why have these faculties remained fruitless? +And let me say more; you know, when I was with you abroad, Mihail, I +was conceited and full of erroneous ideas.... Certainly I did not then +realise clearly what I wanted; I lived upon words, and believed in +phantoms. But now, I swear to you, I could speak out before all men +every desire I feel. I have absolutely nothing to hide; I am absolutely, +in the fullest meaning of the word, a well-intentioned man. I am humble, +I am ready to adapt myself to circumstances; I want little; I want to +do the good that lies nearest, to be even a little use. But no! I never +succeed. What does it mean? What hinders me from living and working like +others?... I am only dreaming of it now. But no sooner do I get into +any definite position when fate throws the dice from me. I have come to +dread it--my destiny.... Why is it so? Explain this enigma to me!’ + +‘An enigma!’ repeated Lezhnyov. ‘Yes, that’s true; you have always been +an enigma for me. Even in our young days, when, after some trifling +prank, you would suddenly speak as though you were pierced to the heart, +and then you would begin again... well you know what I mean... even then +I did not understand. That is why I grew apart from you.... You have so +much power, such unwearying striving after the ideal.’ + +‘Words, all words! There was nothing done!’ Rudin broke in. + +‘Nothing done! What is there to do?’ + +‘What is there to do! To keep an old blind woman and all her family +by one’s work, as, do you remember, Mihail, Pryazhentsov did... That’s +doing something.’ + +‘Yes, but a good word--is also something done.’ + +Rudin looked at Lezhnyov without speaking and faintly shook his head. + +Lezhnyov wanted to say something, and he passed his hand over his face. + +‘And so you are going to your country place?’ he asked at last. + +‘Yes.’ + +‘There you have some property left?’ + +‘Something is left me there. Two souls and a half. It is a corner to +die in. You are thinking perhaps at this moment: “Even now he cannot do +without fine words!” Words indeed have been my ruin; they have consumed +me, and to the end I cannot be free of them. But what I have said was +not mere words. These white hairs, brother, these wrinkles, these +ragged elbows--they are not mere words. You have always been hard on me, +Mihail, and you were right; but now is not a time to be hard, when all +is over, when there’s no oil left in the lamp, and the lamp itself is +broken, and the wick is just smouldering out. Death, brother, should +reconcile at last...’ + +Lezhnyov jumped up. + +‘Rudin!’ he cried, ‘why do you speak like that to me? How have I +deserved it from you? Am I such a judge, and what kind of a man should +I be, if at the sight of your hollow cheeks and wrinkles, “mere words” + could occur to my mind? Do you want to know what I think of you, Dmitri? +Well! I think: here is a man--with his abilities, what might he not have +attained to, what worldly advantages might he not have possessed by now, +if he had liked!... and I meet him hungry and homeless....’ + +‘I rouse your compassion,’ Rudin murmured in a choked voice. + +‘No, you are wrong. You inspire respect in me--that is what I feel. Who +prevented you from spending year after year at that landowner’s, who was +your friend, and who would, I am fully persuaded, have made provision +for you, if you had only been willing to humour him? Why could you not +live harmoniously at the gymnasium, why have you--strange man!--with +whatever ideas you have entered upon an undertaking, infallibly every +time ended by sacrificing your personal interests, ever refusing to take +root in any but good ground, however profitable it might be?’ + +‘I was born a rolling stone,’ Rudin said, with a weary smile. ‘I cannot +stop myself.’ + +‘That is true; but you cannot stop, not because there is a worm gnawing +you, as you said to me at first.... It is not a worm, not the spirit +of idle restlessness--it is the fire of the love of truth that burns in +you, and clearly, in spite of your failings; it burns in you more hotly +than in many who do not consider themselves egoists and dare to call +you a humbug perhaps. I, for one, in your place should long ago have +succeeded in silencing that worm in me, and should have given in to +everything; and you have not even been embittered by it, Dmitri. You are +ready, I am sure, to-day, to set to some new work again like a boy.’ + +‘No, brother, I am tired now,’ said Rudin. ‘I have had enough.’ + +‘Tired! Any other man would have been dead long ago. You say that death +reconciles; but does not life, don’t you think, reconcile? A man who has +lived and has not grown tolerant towards others does not deserve to meet +with tolerance himself. And who can say he does not need tolerance? You +have done what you could, Dmitri... you have struggled so long as you +could... what more? Our paths lay apart,’... + +‘You were utterly different from me,’ Rudin put in with a sigh. + +‘Our paths lay apart,’ continued Lezhnyov, ‘perhaps exactly because, +thanks to my position, my cool blood, and other fortunate circumstances, +nothing hindered me from being a stay-at-home, and remaining a spectator +with folded hands; but you had to go out into the world, to turn up your +shirt-sleeves, to toil and labour. Our paths lay apart--but see how near +one another we are. We speak almost the same language, with half a hint +we understand one another, we grew up on the same ideas. There is little +left us now, brother; we are the last of the Mohicans! We might differ +and even quarrel in old days, when so much life still remained before +us; but now, when the ranks are thinned about us, when the younger +generation is coming upon us with other aims than ours, we ought to keep +close to one another! Let us clink glasses, Dmitri, and sing as of old, +_Gaudeamus igitur_!’ + +The friends clinked their glasses, and sang the old student song in +strained voices, all out of tune, in the true Russian style. + +‘So you are going now to your country place,’ Lezhnyov began again. ‘I +don’t think you will stay there long, and I cannot imagine where and how +you will end.... But remember, whatever happens to you, you have always +a place, a nest where you can hide yourself. That is my home,--do you +hear, old fellow? Thought, too, has its veterans; they, too, ought to +have their home.’ + +Rudin got up. + +‘Thanks, brother,’ he said, ‘thanks! I will not forget this in you. +Only I do not deserve a home. I have wasted my life, and have not served +thought, as I ought.’ + +‘Hush!’ said Lezhnyov. ‘Every man remains what Nature has made him, +and one cannot ask more of him! You have called yourself the Wandering +Jew.... But how do you know,--perhaps it was right for you to be ever +wandering, perhaps in that way you are fulfilling a higher calling than +you know; popular wisdom says truly that we are all in God’s hands. You +are going, Dmitri,’ continued Lezhnyov, seeing that Rudin was taking his +hat ‘You will not stop the night?’ + +‘Yes, I am going! Good-bye. Thanks.... I shall come to a bad end.’ + +‘God only knows.... You are resolved to go?’ + +‘Yes, I am going. Good-bye. Do not remember evil against me.’ + +‘Well, do not remember evil against me either,--and don’t forget what I +said to you. Good-bye.’... + +The friends embraced one another. Rudin went quickly away. + +Lezhnyov walked up and down the room a long while, stopped before the +window thinking, and murmured half aloud, ‘Poor fellow!’ Then sitting +down to the table, he began to write a letter to his wife. + +But outside a wind had risen, and was howling with ill-omened moans, and +wrathfully shaking the rattling window-panes. The long autumn night came +on. Well for the man on such a night who sits under the shelter of +home, who has a warm corner in safety.... And the Lord help all homeless +wanderers! + + + +On a sultry afternoon on the 26th of July in 1848 in Paris, when +the Revolution of the _ateliers nationaux_ had already been almost +suppressed, a line battalion was taking a barricade in one of the narrow +alleys of the Faubourg St Antoine. A few gunshots had already broken it; +its surviving defenders abandoned it, and were only thinking of their +own safety, when suddenly on the very top of the barricade, on the frame +of an overturned omnibus, appeared a tall man in an old overcoat, with +a red sash, and a straw hat on his grey dishevelled hair. In one hand he +held a red flag, in the other a blunt curved sabre, and as he scrambled +up, he shouted something in a shrill strained voice, waving his flag +and sabre. A Vincennes tirailleur took aim at him--fired. The tall man +dropped the flag--and like a sack he toppled over face downwards, as +though he were falling at some one’s feet. The bullet had passed through +his heart. + +‘_Tiens_!’ said one of the escaping revolutionists to another, ‘_on +vient de tuer le Polonais_!’ + +‘_Bigre_!’ answered the other, and both ran into the cellar of a house, +the shutters of which were all closed, and its wall streaked with traces +of powder and shot. + +This ‘Polonais’ was Dmitri Rudin. + + +THE END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rudin, by Ivan Turgenev + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUDIN *** + +***** This file should be named 6900-0.txt or 6900-9.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/9/0/6900/ + +Produced by Eric Eldred + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Rudin + +Author: Ivan Turgenev + +Translator: Constance Garnett + +Release Date: June 1, 2009 [EBook #6900] +[Last updated: November 17, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUDIN *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred, and David Widger + + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + RUDIN + </h1> + <h2> + A Novel + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Ivan Turgenev + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h3> + Translated from the Russian By Constance Garnett + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h4> + [With an introduction by S. Stepniak] + </h4> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h5> + LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1894 + </h5> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + Contents + </h2> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_INTR"> INTRODUCTION </a><br /><br /> <a + href="#link2H_4_0002"> THE NAMES OF THE CHARACTERS IN THE BOOK </a><br /> + </p> + <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + <tr> + <td> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> VI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> VII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> VIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> IX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> X </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> XI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> XII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_EPIL"> EPILOGUE </a> + </p> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_INTR" id="link2H_INTR"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + INTRODUCTION + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + Turgenev is an author who no longer belongs to Russia only. During the + last fifteen years of his life he won for himself the reading public, + first in France, then in Germany and America, and finally in England. + </p> + <p> + In his funeral oration the spokesman of the most artistic and critical of + European nations, Ernest Renan, hailed him as one of the greatest writers + of our times: ‘The Master, whose exquisite works have charmed our century, + stands more than any other man as the incarnation of a whole race,’ + because ‘a whole world lived in him and spoke through his mouth.’ Not the + Russian world only, we may add, but the whole Slavonic world, to which it + was ‘an honour to have been expressed by so great a Master.’ + </p> + <p> + This recognition was, however, of slow growth. It had nothing in it of the + sudden wave of curiosity and gushing enthusiasm which in a few years + lifted Count Tolstoi to world-wide fame. Neither in the personality of + Turgenev, nor in his talent, was there anything to strike and carry away + popular imagination. + </p> + <p> + By the fecundity of his creative talent Turgenev stands with the greatest + authors of all times. The gallery of living people, men, and especially + women, each different and perfectly individualised, yet all the creatures + of actual life, whom Turgenev introduces to us; the vast body of + psychological truths he discovers, the subtle shades of men’s feelings he + reveals to us, is such as only the greatest among the great have succeeded + in leaving as their artistic inheritance to their country and to the + world. + </p> + <p> + As regards his method of dealing with his material and shaping it into + mould, he stands even higher than as a pure creator. Tolstoi is more + plastical, and certainly as deep and original and rich in creative power + as Turgenev, and Dostoevsky is more intense, fervid, and dramatic. But as + an <i>artist</i>, as master of the combination of details into a + harmonious whole, as an architect of imaginative work, he surpasses all + the prose writers of his country, and has but few equals among the great + novelists of other lands. Twenty-five years ago, on reading the + translation of one of his short stories (<i>Assya</i>), George Sand, who + was then at the apogee of her fame, wrote to him: ‘Master, all of us have + to go to study at your school.’ This was, indeed, a generous compliment, + coming from the representative of French literature which is so eminently + artistic. But it was not flattery. As an artist, Turgenev in reality + stands with the classics who may be studied and admired for their perfect + form long after the interest of their subject has disappeared. But it + seems that in his very devotion to art and beauty he has purposely + restricted the range of his creations. + </p> + <p> + To one familiar with all Turgenev’s works it is evident that he possessed + the keys of all human emotions, all human feelings, the highest and the + lowest, the noble as well as the base. From the height of his superiority + he saw all, understood all: Nature and men had no secrets hidden from his + calm, penetrating eyes. In his latter days, sketches such as <i>Clara + Militch</i>, <i>The Song of Triumphant Love</i>, <i>The Dream</i>, and the + incomparable <i>Phantoms</i>, he showed that he could equal Edgar Poe, + Hofmann, and Dostoevsky in the mastery of the fantastical, the horrible, + the mysterious, and the incomprehensible, which live somewhere in human + nerves, though not to be defined by reason. + </p> + <p> + But there was in him such a love of light, sunshine, and living human + poetry, such an organic aversion for all that is ugly, or coarse and + discordant, that he made himself almost exclusively the poet of the + gentler side of human nature. On the fringe of his pictures or in their + background, just for the sake of contrast, he will show us the vices, the + cruelties, even the mire of life. But he cannot stay in these gloomy + regions, and he hastens back to the realms of the sun and flowers, or to + the poetical moonlight of melancholy, which he loves best because in it he + can find expression for his own great sorrowing heart. + </p> + <p> + Even jealousy, which is the black shadow of the most poetical of human + feelings, is avoided by the gentle artist. He hardly ever describes it, + only alluding to it cursorily. But there is no novelist who gives so much + room to the pure, crystalline, eternally youthful feeling of love. We may + say that the description of love is Turgenev’s speciality. What Francesco + Petrarca did for one kind of love—the romantic, artificial, + hot-house love of the times of chivalry—Turgenev did for the + natural, spontaneous, modern love in all its variety of forms, kinds, and + manifestations: the slow and gradual as well as the sudden and + instantaneous; the spiritual, the admiring and inspiring, as well as the + life-poisoning, terrible kind of love, which infects a man as a prolonged + disease. There is something prodigious in Turgenev’s insight into, and his + inexhaustible richness, truthfulness, and freshness in the rendering of + those emotions which have been the theme of all poets and novelists for + two thousand years. + </p> + <p> + In the well-known memoirs of Caroline Bauer one comes across a curious + legend about Paganini. She tells that the great enchanter owed his unique + command over the emotions of his audiences to a peculiar use of one single + string, G, which he made sing and whisper, cry and thunder, at the touch + of his marvellous bow. + </p> + <p> + There is something of this in Turgenev’s description of love. He has many + other strings at his harp, but his greatest effect he obtains in touching + this one. His stories are not love poems. He only prefers to present his + people in the light of that feeling in which a man’s soul gathers up all + its highest energies, and melts as in a crucible, showing its dross and + its pure metal. + </p> + <p> + Turgenev began his literary career and won an enormous popularity in + Russia by his sketches from peasant life. His <i>Diary of a Sportsman</i> + contains some of the best of his short stories, and his <i>Country Inn,</i> + written a few years later, in the maturity of his talent, is as good as + Tolstoi’s little masterpiece, <i>Polikushka</i>. + </p> + <p> + He was certainly able to paint all classes and conditions of Russian + people. But in his greater works Turgenev lays the action exclusively with + one class of Russian people. There is nothing of the enormous canvas of + Count Tolstoi, in which the whole of Russia seems to pass in review before + the readers. In Turgenev’s novels we see only educated Russia, or rather + the more advanced thinking part of it, which he knew best, because he was + a part of it himself. + </p> + <p> + We are far from regretting this specialisation. Quality can sometimes hold + its own against quantity. Although small numerically, the section of + Russian society which Turgenev represents is enormously interesting, + because it is the brain of the nation, the living ferment which alone can + leaven the huge unformed masses. It is upon them that depend the destinies + of their country. Besides, the artistic value of his works could only be + enhanced by his concentrating his genius upon a field so familiar to him, + and engrossing so completely his mind and his sympathies. What he loses in + dimensions he gains in correctness, depth, wonderful subtlety and + effectiveness of every minute detail, and the surpassing beauty of the + whole. The jewels of art he left us are like those which nations store in + the sanctuaries of their museums and galleries to be admired, the longer + they are studied. But we must look to Tolstoi for the huge and towering + monuments, hewn in massive granite, to be put upon some cross way of + nations as an object of wonder and admiration for all who come from the + four winds of heaven. + </p> + <p> + Turgenev did not write for the masses but for the <i>elite</i> among men. + The fact that he has won such a fame among foreigners, and that the number + of his readers is widening every year, proves that great art is + international, and also, I may say, that artistic taste and understanding + is growing everywhere. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + It is written that no man is a prophet in his own country, and from time + immemorial all the unsuccessful aspirants to the profession have found + their consolation in this proverbial truth. But for aught we know this + hard limitation has never been applied to artists. Indeed it seems absurd + on the face of it that the artist’s countrymen, for whom and about whom he + writes, should be less fit to recognise him than strangers. Yet in certain + special and peculiar conditions, the most unlikely things will sometimes + occur, as is proved in the case of Turgenev. + </p> + <p> + The fact is that <i>as an artist</i> he was appreciated to his full value + first by foreigners. The Russians have begun to understand him, and to + assign to him his right place in this respect only now, after his death, + whilst in his lifetime his <i>artistic genius</i> was comparatively little + cared for, save by a handful of his personal friends. + </p> + <p> + This supreme art told upon the Russian public unconsciously, as it was + bound to tell upon a nation so richly endowed with natural artistic + instinct. Turgenev was always the most widely read of Russian authors, not + excepting Tolstoi, who came to the front only after his death. But full + recognition he had not, because he happened to produce his works in a + troubled epoch of political and social strife, when the best men were + absorbed in other interests and pursuits, and could not and would not + appreciate and enjoy pure art. This was the painful, almost tragic, + position of an artist, who lived in a most inartistic epoch, and whose + highest aspirations and noblest efforts wounded and irritated those among + his countrymen whom he was most devoted to, and whom he desired most + ardently to serve. + </p> + <p> + This strife embittered Turgenev’s life. + </p> + <p> + At one crucial epoch of his literary career the conflict became so + vehement, and the outcry against him, set in motion by his very artistic + truthfulness and objectiveness, became so loud and unanimous, that he + contemplated giving up literature altogether. He could not possibly have + held to this resolution. But it is surely an open question whether, + sensitive and modest as he was, and prone to despondency and diffidence, + he would have done so much for the literature of his country without the + enthusiastic encouragement of various great foreign novelists, who were + his friends and admirers: George Sand, Gustave Flaubert, in France; + Auerbach, in Germany; W. D. Howells, in America; George Eliot, in England. + </p> + <p> + We will tell the story of his troubled life piece by piece as far as space + will allow, as his works appear in succession. Here we will only give a + few biographical traits which bear particularly upon the novel before us, + and account for his peculiar hold over the minds of his countrymen. + </p> + <p> + Turgenev, who was born in 1818, belonged to a set of Russians very small + in his time, who had received a thoroughly European education in no way + inferior to that of the best favoured young German or Englishman. It + happened, moreover, that his paternal uncle, Nicholas Turgenev, the famous + ‘Decembrist,’ after the failure of that first attempt (December 14, 1825) + to gain by force of arms a constitutional government for Russia, succeeded + in escaping the vengeance of the Tsar Nicholas I., and settled in France, + where he published in French the first vindication of Russian revolution. + </p> + <p> + Whilst studying philosophy in the Berlin University, Turgenev paid short + visits to his uncle, who initiated him in the ideas of liberty, from which + he never swerved throughout his long life. + </p> + <p> + In the sixties, when Alexander Hertzen, one of the most gifted writers of + our land, a sparkling, witty, pathetic, and powerful journalist and + brilliant essayist, started in London his <i>Kolokol</i>, a revolutionary, + or rather radical paper, which had a great influence in Russia, Turgenev + became one of his most active contributors and advisers,—almost a + member of the editorial staff. + </p> + <p> + This fact has been revealed a few years ago by the publication, which we + owe to Professor Dragomanov, of the private correspondence between + Turgenev and Hertzen. This most interesting little volume throws quite a + new light upon Turgenev, showing that our great novelist was at the same + time one of the strongest—perhaps the strongest—and most + clear-sighted political thinkers of his time. However surprising such a + versatility may appear, it is proved to demonstration by a comparison of + his views, his attitude, and his forecasts, some of which have been + verified only lately, with those of the acknowledged leaders and spokesmen + of the various political parties of his day, including Alexander Hertzen + himself. Turgenev’s are always the soundest, the most correct and + far-sighted judgments, as latter-day history has proved. + </p> + <p> + A man with so ardent a love of liberty, and such radical views, could not + possibly banish them from his literary works, no matter how great his + devotion to pure art. He would have been a poor artist had he inflicted + upon himself such a mutilation, because freedom from all restraints, the + frank, sincere expression of the artist’s individuality, is the life and + soul of all true art. + </p> + <p> + Turgenev gave to his country the whole of himself, the best of his mind + and of his creative fancy. He appeared at the same time as a teacher, a + prophet of new ideas, and as a poet and artist. But his own countrymen + hailed him in the first capacity, remaining for a long time obtuse to the + latter and greater. + </p> + <p> + Thus, during one of the most important and interesting periods of our + national history, Turgenev was the standard-bearer and inspirer of the + Liberal, the thinking Russia. Although the two men stand at diametrically + opposite poles, Turgenev’s position can be compared to that of Count + Tolstoi nowadays, with a difference, this time in favour of the author of + <i>Dmitri Rudin</i>. With Turgenev the thinker and the artist are not at + war, spoiling and sometimes contradicting each other’s efforts. They go + hand in hand, because he never preaches any doctrine whatever, but gives + us, with an unimpeachable, artistic objectiveness, the living men and + women in whom certain ideas, doctrines, and aspirations were embodied. And + he never evolves these ideas and doctrines from his inner consciousness, + but takes them from real life, catching with his unfailing artistic + instinct an incipient movement just at the moment when it was to become a + historic feature of the time. Thus his novels are a sort of artistic + epitome of the intellectual history of modern Russia, and also a powerful + instrument of her intellectual progress. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + <i>Rudin</i> is the first of Turgenev’s social novels, and is a sort of + artistic introduction to those that follow, because it refers to the epoch + anterior to that when the present social and political movements began. + This epoch is being fast forgotten, and without his novel it would be + difficult for us to fully realise it, but it is well worth studying, + because we find in it the germ of future growths. + </p> + <p> + It was a gloomy time. The ferocious despotism of Nicholas I.—overweighing + the country like the stone lid of a coffin, crushed every word, every + thought, which did not fit with its narrow conceptions. But this was not + the worst. The worst was that progressive Russia was represented by a mere + handful of men, who were so immensely in advance of their surroundings, + that in their own country they felt more isolated, helpless, and out of + touch with the realities of life than if they had lived among strangers. + </p> + <p> + But men must have some outlet for their spiritual energies, and these men, + unable to take part in the sordid or petty pursuits of those around them, + created for themselves artificial life, artificial pursuits and interests. + </p> + <p> + The isolation in which they lived drew them naturally together. The + ‘circle,’ something between an informal club and a debating society, + became the form in which these cravings of mind or heart could be + satisfied. These people met and talked; that was all they were able to do. + </p> + <p> + The passage in which one of the heroes, Lezhnyov, tells the woman he loves + about the circle of which Dmitri Rudin and himself were members, is + historically one of the most suggestive. It refers to a circle of young + students. But it has a wider application. All prominent men of the epoch—Stankevitch, + who served as model to the poetic and touching figure of Pokorsky; + Alexander Hertzen, and the great critic, Belinsky—all had their + ‘circles,’ or their small chapels, in which these enthusiasts met to offer + worship to the ‘goddess of truth, art, and morality.’ + </p> + <p> + They were the best men of their time, full of high aspirations and + knowledge, and their disinterested search after truth was certainly a + noble pursuit. They had full right to look down upon their neighbours + wallowing in the mire of sordid and selfish materialism. But by living in + that spiritual hothouse of dreams, philosophical speculations, and + abstractions, these men unfitted themselves only the more completely for + participation in real life; the absorption in interests having nothing to + do with the life of their own country, estranged them still more from it. + The overwhelming stream of words drained them of the natural sources of + spontaneous emotion, and these men almost grew out of feeling by dint of + constantly analysing their feelings. + </p> + <p> + Dmitri Rudin is the typical man of that generation, both the victim and + the hero of his time—a man who is almost a Titan in word and a pigmy + in deed. He is eloquent as a young Demosthenes. An irresistible debater, + he carries everything before him the moment he appears. But he fails + ignominiously when put to the hard test of action. Yet he is not an + impostor. His enthusiasm is contagious because it is sincere, and his + eloquence is convincing because devotion to his ideals is an absorbing + passion with him. He would die for them, and, what is more rare, he would + not swerve a hair’s-breadth from them for any worldly advantage, or for + fear of any hardship. Only this passion and this enthusiasm spring with + him entirely from the head. The heart, the deep emotional power of human + love and pity, lay dormant in him. Humanity, which he would serve to the + last drop of his blood, is for him a body of foreigners—French, + English, Germans—whom he has studied from books, and whom he has met + only in hotels and watering-places during his foreign travels as a student + or as a tourist. + </p> + <p> + Towards such an abstract, alien humanity, a man cannot feel any real + attachment. With all his outward ardour, Rudin is cold as ice at the + bottom of his heart. His is an enthusiasm which glows without warmth, like + the aurora borealis of the Polar regions. A poor substitute for the + bountiful sun. But what would have become of a God-forsaken land if the + Arctic nights were deprived of that substitute? With all their weaknesses, + Rudin and the men of his stamp—in other words, the men of the + generation of 1840—have rendered an heroic service to their country. + They inculcated in it the religion of the ideal; they brought in the + seeds, which had only to be thrown into the warm furrow of their native + soil to bring forth the rich crops of the future. + </p> + <p> + The shortcomings and the impotence of these men were due to their having + no organic ties with their own country, no roots in the Russian soil. They + hardly knew the Russian people, who appeared to them as nothing more than + an historic abstraction. They were really cosmopolitan, as a poor + makeshift for something better, and Turgenev, in making his hero die on a + French barricade, was true to life as well as to art. + </p> + <p> + The inward growth of the country has remedied this defect in the course of + the three generations which have followed. But has the remedy been + complete? No; far from it, unfortunately. There are still thousands of + barriers preventing the Russians from doing something useful for their + countrymen and mixing freely with them. The spiritual energies of the most + ardent are still compelled—partially at least—to run into the + artificial channels described in Turgenev’s novel. + </p> + <p> + Hence the perpetuation of Rudin’s type, which acquires more than an + historical interest. + </p> + <p> + In discussing the character of Hlestakov, the hero of his great comedy, + Gogol declared that this type is pretty nigh universal, because ‘every + Russian,’ he says, ‘has a bit of Hlestakov in him.’ This not very + flattering opinion has been humbly indorsed and repeated since, out of + reverence to Gogol’s great authority, although it is untrue on the face of + it. Hlestakov is a sort of Tartarin in Russian dress, whilst simplicity + and sincerity are the fundamental traits of all that is Russian in + character, manner, art, literature. But it may be truly said that every + educated Russian of our time has a bit of Dmitri Rudin in him. + </p> + <p> + This figure is undoubtedly one of the finest in Turgenev’s gallery, and it + is at the same time one of the most brilliant examples of his artistic + method. + </p> + <p> + Turgenev does not give us at one stroke sculptured figures made from one + block, such as rise before us from Tolstoi’s pages. His art is rather that + of a painter or musical composer than of a sculptor. He has more colour, a + deeper perspective, a greater variety of lights and shadows—a more + complete portraiture of the spiritual man. Tolstoi’s people stand so + living and concrete that one feels one can recognise them in the street. + Turgenev’s are like people whose intimate confessions and private + correspondence, unveiling all the secrets of their spiritual life, have + been submitted to one. + </p> + <p> + Every scene, almost every line, opens up new deep horizons, throwing upon + his people some new unexpected light. + </p> + <p> + The extremely complex and difficult character of the hero of this story, + shows at its highest this subtle psychological many-sidedness. Dmitri + Rudin is built up of contradictions, yet not for a moment does he cease to + be perfectly real, living, and concrete. + </p> + <p> + Hardly less remarkable is the character of the heroine, Natalya, the + quiet, sober, matter-of-fact girl, who at the bottom is an enthusiastic + and heroic nature. She is but a child fresh to all impressions of life, + and as yet undeveloped. To have used the searching, analytical method in + painting her would have spoiled this beautiful creation. Turgenev + describes her synthetically by a few masterly lines, which show us, + however, the secrets of her spirit; revealing what she is and also what + she might have become under other circumstances. + </p> + <p> + This character deserves more attention than we can give it here. Turgenev, + like George Meredith, is a master in painting women, and his Natalya is + the first poetical revelation of a very striking fact in modern Russian + history; the appearance of women possessing a strength of mind more finely + masculine than that of the men of their time. By the side of weak, + irresolute, though highly intellectual men we see in his first three + novels energetic, earnest, impassioned women, who take the lead in action, + whilst they are but the man’s modest pupils in the domain of ideas. Only + later on, in <i>Fathers and Children</i>, does Turgenev show us in Bazarov + a man essentially masculine. But of this interesting peculiarity of + Russian intellectual life, in the years 1840 to 1860, I will speak more + fully when analysing another of Turgenev’s novels in which this contrast + is most conspicuous. + </p> + <p> + I will say nothing of the minor characters of the story before us: + Lezhnyov, Pigasov, Madame Lasunsky, Pandalevsky, who are all excellent + examples of what may be called miniature-painting. + </p> + <p> + As to the novel as a whole, I will make here only one observation, not to + forestall the reader’s own impressions. + </p> + <p> + Turgenev is a realist in the sense that he keeps close to reality, truth, + and nature. But in the pursuit of photographic faithfulness to life, he + never allows himself to be tedious and dull, as some of the best + representatives of the school think it incumbent upon them to be. His + descriptions are never overburdened with wearisome details; his action is + rapid; the events are never to be foreseen a hundred pages beforehand; he + keeps his readers in constant suspense. And it seems to me in so doing he + shows himself a better realist than the gifted representatives of the + orthodox realism in France, England, and America. Life is not dull; life + is full of the unforeseen, full of suspense. A novelist, however natural + and logical, must contrive to have it in his novels if he is not to + sacrifice the soul of art for the merest show of fidelity. + </p> + <p> + The plot of Dmitri Rudin is so exceedingly simple that an English + novel-reader would say that there is hardly any plot at all. Turgenev + disdained the tricks of the sensational novelists. Yet, for a Russian at + least, it is easier to lay down before the end a novel by Victor Hugo or + Alexander Dumas than Dmitri Rudin, or, indeed, any of Turgenev’s great + novels. What the novelists of the romantic school obtain by the charm of + unexpected adventures and thrilling situations, Turgenev succeeds in + obtaining by the brisk admirably concentrated action, and, above all, by + the simplest and most precious of a novelist’s gifts: his unique command + over the sympathies and emotions of his readers. In this he can be + compared to a musician who works upon the nerves and the souls of his + audience without the intermediary of the mind; or, better still, to a poet + who combines the power of the word with the magic spell of harmony. One + does not read his novels; one lives in them. + </p> + <p> + Much of this peculiar gift of fascination is certainly due to Turgenev’s + mastery over all the resources of our rich, flexible, and musical + language. The poet Lermontov alone wrote as splendid a prose as Turgenev. + A good deal of its charm is unavoidably lost in translation. But I am + happy to say that the present one is as near an approach to the elegance + and poetry of the original as I have ever come across. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + S. STEPNIAK. + + BEDFORD PARK, April 20, 1894. +</pre> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + THE NAMES OF THE CHARACTERS IN THE BOOK + </h2> + + <p class="nind"> + DMITRI NIKOLA’ITCH RU’DIN. +<br /> +DAR-YA MIHA’ILOVNA LASU’NSKY. +<br /> +NATA’L-YA ALEX-YE’VNA. +<br /> +MIHA’ILO MIHA’ILITCH LE’ZH-NYOV (MISHA). +<br /> +ALEXANDRA PA’VLOVNA LI’PIN (SASHA). +<br /> +SERGEI (pron, Sergay) PA’VLITCH VOLI’NT-SEV (SEREZHA). +<br /> +KONSTANTIN DIOMIDITCH PANDALE’VSKY. +<br /> +AFRICAN SEME’NITCH PIGA’SOV. +<br /> +BASSI’STOFF. +<br /> +MLLE. BONCOURT. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <div class="mynote"> + <p> + In transcribing the Russian names into English— + </p> + <p> + a has the sound of a in father. er,, air. i,, ee. u,, oo. y is always + consonantal except when it is the last letter of the word. g is always + hard. + </p> + <br /> + </div> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + IT was a quiet summer morning. The sun stood already pretty high in the + clear sky but the fields were still sparkling with dew; a fresh breeze + blew fragrantly from the scarce awakened valleys and in the forest, still + damp and hushed, the birds were merrily carolling their morning song. On + the ridge of a swelling upland, which was covered from base to summit with + blossoming rye, a little village was to be seen. Along a narrow by-road to + this little village a young woman was walking in a white muslin gown, and + a round straw hat, with a parasol in her hand. A page boy followed her + some distance behind. + </p> + <p> + She moved without haste and as though she were enjoying the walk. The high + nodding rye all round her moved in long softly rustling waves, taking here + a shade of silvery green and there a ripple of red; the larks were + trilling overhead. The young woman had come from her own estate, which was + not more than a mile from the village to which she was turning her steps. + Her name was Alexandra Pavlovna Lipin. She was a widow, childless, and + fairly well off, and lived with her brother, a retired cavalry officer, + Sergei Pavlitch Volintsev. He was unmarried and looked after her property. + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna reached the village and, stopping at the last hut, a + very old and low one, she called up the boy and told him to go in and ask + after the health of its mistress. He quickly came back accompanied by a + decrepit old peasant with a white beard. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, how is she?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, she is still alive,’ began the old man. + </p> + <p> + ‘Can I go in?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course; yes.’ + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna went into the hut. It was narrow, stifling, and smoky + inside. Some one stirred and began to moan on the stove which formed the + bed. Alexandra Pavlovna looked round and discerned in the half darkness + the yellow wrinkled face of the old woman tied up in a checked + handkerchief. Covered to the very throat with a heavy overcoat she was + breathing with difficulty, and her wasted hands were twitching. + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna went close up to the old woman and laid her fingers on + her forehead; it was burning hot. + </p> + <p> + ‘How do you feel, Matrona?’ she inquired, bending over the bed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, oh!’ groaned the old woman, trying to make her out, ‘bad, very bad, + my dear! My last hour has come, my darling!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘God is merciful, Matrona; perhaps you will be better soon. Did you take + the medicine I sent you?’ + </p> + <p> + The old woman groaned painfully, and did not answer. She had hardly heard + the question. + </p> + <p> + ‘She has taken it,’ said the old man who was standing at the door. + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna turned to him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Is there no one with her but you?’ she inquired. + </p> + <p> + ‘There is the girl—her granddaughter, but she always keeps away. She + won’t sit with her; she’s such a gad-about. To give the old woman a drink + of water is too much trouble for her. And I am old; what use can I be?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Shouldn’t she be taken to me—to the hospital?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No. Why take her to the hospital? She would die just the same. She has + lived her life; it’s God’s will now seemingly. She will never get up + again. How could she go to the hospital? If they tried to lift her up, she + would die.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh!’ moaned the sick woman, ‘my pretty lady, don’t abandon my little + orphan; our master is far away, but you——’ + </p> + <p> + She could not go on, she had spent all her strength in saying so much. + </p> + <p> + ‘Do not worry yourself,’ replied Alexandra Pavlovna, ‘everything shall be + done. Here is some tea and sugar I have brought you. If you can fancy it + you must drink some. Have you a samovar, I wonder?’ she added, looking at + the old man. + </p> + <p> + ‘A samovar? We haven’t a samovar, but we could get one.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then get one, or I will send you one. And tell your granddaughter not to + leave her like this. Tell her it’s shameful.’ + </p> + <p> + The old man made no answer but took the parcel of tea and sugar with both + hands. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, good-bye, Matrona!’ said Alexandra Pavlovna, ‘I will come and see + you again; and you must not lose heart but take your medicine regularly.’ + </p> + <p> + The old woman raised her head and drew herself a little towards Alexandra + Pavlovna. + </p> + <p> + ‘Give me your little hand, dear lady,’ she muttered. + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna did not give her hand; she bent over her and kissed her + on the forehead. + </p> + <p> + ‘Take care, now,’ she said to the old man as she went out, ‘and give her + the medicine without fail, as it is written down, and give her some tea to + drink.’ + </p> + <p> + Again the old man made no reply, but only bowed. + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna breathed more freely when she came out into the fresh + air. She put up her parasol and was about to start homewards, when + suddenly there appeared round the corner of a little hut a man about + thirty, driving a low racing droshky and wearing an old overcoat of grey + linen, and a foraging cap of the same. Catching sight of Alexandra + Pavlovna he at once stopped his horse and turned round towards her. His + broad and colourless face with its small light grey eyes and almost white + moustache seemed all in the same tone of colour as his clothes. + </p> + <p> + ‘Good-morning!’ he began, with a lazy smile; ‘what are you doing here, if + I may ask?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I have been visiting a sick woman... And where have you come from, + Mihailo Mihailitch?’ + </p> + <p> + The man addressed as Mihailo Mihailitch looked into her eyes and smiled + again. + </p> + <p> + ‘You do well,’ he said, ‘to visit the sick, but wouldn’t it be better for + you to take her into the hospital?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She is too weak; impossible to move her.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But don’t you intend to give up your hospital?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Give it up? Why?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, I thought so.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What a strange notion! What put such an idea into your head?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, you are always with Madame Lasunsky now, you know, and seem to be + under her influence. And in her words—hospitals, schools, and all + that sort of things, are mere waste of time—useless fads. + Philanthropy ought to be entirely personal, and education too, all that is + the soul’s work... that’s how she expresses herself, I believe. From whom + did she pick up that opinion I should like to know?’ + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna laughed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Darya Mihailovna is a clever woman, I like and esteem her very much; but + she may make mistakes, and I don’t put faith in everything she says.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And it’s a very good thing you don’t,’ rejoined Mihailo Mihailitch, who + all the while remained sitting in his droshky, ‘for she doesn’t put much + faith in what she says herself. I’m very glad I met you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s a nice question! As though it wasn’t always delightful to meet + you? To-day you look as bright and fresh as this morning.’ + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna laughed again. + </p> + <p> + ‘What are you laughing at?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What, indeed! If you could see with what a cold and indifferent face you + brought out your compliment! I wonder you didn’t yawn over the last word!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A cold face.... You always want fire; but fire is of no use at all. It + flares and smokes and goes out.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And warms,’... put in Alexandra Pavlovna. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes... and burns.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, what if it does burn! That’s no great harm either! It’s better + anyway than——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, we shall see what you will say when you do get nicely burnt one + day,’ Mihailo Mihailitch interrupted her in a tone of vexation and made a + cut at the horse with the reins, ‘Good-bye.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Mihailo Mihailitch, stop a minute!’ cried Alexandra Pavlovna, ‘when are + you coming to see us?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To-morrow; my greetings to your brother.’ + </p> + <p> + And the droshky rolled away. + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna looked after Mihailo Mihailitch. + </p> + <p> + ‘What a sack!’ she thought. Sitting huddled up and covered with dust, his + cap on the back of his head and tufts of flaxen hair straggling from + beneath it, he looked strikingly like a huge sack of flour. + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna turned tranquilly back along the path homewards. She + was walking with downcast eyes. The tramp of a horse near made her stop + and raise her head.... Her brother had come on horseback to meet her; + beside him was walking a young man of medium height, wearing a light open + coat, a light tie, and a light grey hat, and carrying a cane in his hand. + He had been smiling for a long time at Alexandra Pavlovna, even though he + saw that she was absorbed in thought and noticing nothing, and when she + stopped he went up to her and in a tone of delight, almost of emotion, + cried: + </p> + <p> + ‘Good-morning, Alexandra Pavlovna, good-morning!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah! Konstantin Diomiditch! good-morning!’ she replied. ‘You have come + from Darya Mihailovna?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Precisely so, precisely so,’ rejoined the young man with a radiant face, + ‘from Darya Mihailovna. Darya Mihailovna sent me to you; I preferred to + walk.... It’s such a glorious morning, and the distance is only three + miles. When I arrived, you were not at home. Your brother told me you had + gone to Semenovka; and he was just going out to the fields; so you see I + walked with him to meet you. Yes, yes. How very delightful!’ + </p> + <p> + The young man spoke Russian accurately and grammatically but with a + foreign accent, though it was difficult to determine exactly what accent + it was. In his features there was something Asiatic. His long hook nose, + his large expressionless prominent eyes, his thick red lips, and + retreating forehead, and his jet black hair,—everything about him + suggested an Oriental extraction; but the young man gave his surname as + Pandalevsky and spoke of Odessa as his birthplace, though he was brought + up somewhere in White Russia at the expense of a rich and benevolent + widow. + </p> + <p> + Another widow had obtained a government post for him. Middle-aged ladies + were generally ready to befriend Konstantin Diomiditch; he knew well how + to court them and was successful in coming across them. He was at this + very time living with a rich lady, a landowner, Darya Mihailovna Lasunsky, + in a position between that of a guest and of a dependant. He was very + polite and obliging, full of sensibility and secretly given to sensuality, + he had a pleasant voice, played well on the piano, and had the habit of + gazing intently into the eyes of any one he was speaking to. He dressed + very neatly, and wore his clothes a very long time, shaved his broad chin + carefully, and arranged his hair curl by curl. + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna heard his speech to the end and turned to her brother. + </p> + <p> + ‘I keep meeting people to-day; I have just been talking to Lezhnyov.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, Lezhnyov! was he driving somewhere?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, and fancy; he was in a racing droshky, and dressed in a kind of + linen sack, all covered with dust.... What a queer creature he is!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Perhaps so; but he’s a capital fellow.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Who? Mr. Lezhnyov?’ inquired Pandalevsky, as though he were surprised. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, Mihailo Mihailitch Lezhnyov,’ replied Volintsev. ‘Well, good-bye; + it’s time I was off to the field; they are sowing your buckwheat. Mr. + Pandalevsky will escort you home.’ And Volintsev rode off at a trot. + </p> + <p> + ‘With the greatest of pleasure!’ cried Konstantin Diomiditch, offering + Alexandra Pavlovna his arm. + </p> + <p> + She took it and they both turned along the path to her house. + </p> + <p> + Walking with Alexandra Pavlovna on his arm seemed to afford Konstantin + Diomiditch great delight; he moved with little steps, smiling, and his + Oriental eyes were even be-dimmed by a slight moisture, though this indeed + was no rare occurrence with them; it did not mean much for Konstantin + Diomiditch to be moved and dissolve into tears. And who would not have + been pleased to have on his arm a pretty, young and graceful woman? Of + Alexandra Pavlovna the whole of her district was unanimous in declaring + that she was charming, and the district was not wrong. Her straight, ever + so slightly tilted nose would have been enough alone to drive any man out + of his senses, to say nothing of her velvety dark eyes, her golden brown + hair, the dimples in her smoothly curved cheeks, and her other beauties. + But best of all was the sweet expression of her face; confiding, good and + gentle, it touched and attracted at the same time. Alexandra Pavlovna had + the glance and the smile of a child; other ladies found her a little + simple.... Could one wish for anything more? + </p> + <p> + ‘Darya Mihailovna sent you to me, did you say?’ she asked Pandalevsky. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; she sent me,’ he answered, pronouncing the letter <i>s</i> like the + English <i>th</i>. ‘She particularly wishes and told me to beg you very + urgently to be so good as to dine with her to-day. She is expecting a new + guest whom she particularly wishes you to meet.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Who is it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A certain Muffel, a baron, a gentleman of the bed-chamber from + Petersburg. Darya Mihailovna made his acquaintance lately at the Prince + Garin’s, and speaks of him in high terms as an agreeable and cultivated + young man. His Excellency the baron is interested, too, in literature, or + more strictly speaking——ah! what an exquisite butterfly! pray + look at it!——more strictly speaking, in political economy. He + has written an essay on some very interesting question, and wants to + submit it to Darya Mihailovna’s criticism.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘An article on political economy?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘From the literary point of view, Alexandra Pavlovna, from the literary + point of view. You are well aware, I suppose, that in that line Darya + Mihailovna is an authority. Zhukovsky used to ask her advice, and my + benefactor, who lives at Odessa, that benevolent old man, Roxolan + Mediarovitch Ksandrika——No doubt you know the name of that + eminent man?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No; I have never heard of him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You never heard of such a man? surprising! I was going to say that + Roxolan Mediarovitch always had the very highest opinion of Darya + Mihailovna’s knowledge of Russian! + </p> + <p> + ‘Is this baron a pedant then?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna. + </p> + <p> + ‘Not in the very least. Darya Mihailovna says, on the contrary, that you + see that he belongs to the best society at once. He spoke of Beethoven + with such eloquence that even the old prince was quite delighted by it. + That, I own, I should like to have heard; you know that is in my line. + Allow me to offer you this lovely wild-flower.’ + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna took the flower, and when she had walked a few steps + farther, let it drop on the path. They were not more than two hundred + paces from her house. It had been recently built and whitewashed, and + looked out hospitably with its wide light windows from the thick foliage + of the old limes and maples. + </p> + <p> + ‘So what message do you give me for Darya Mihailovna?’ began Pandalevsky, + slightly hurt at the fate of the flower he had given her. ‘Will you come + to dinner? She invites your brother too.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; we will come, most certainly. And how is Natasha?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Natalya Alexyevna is well, I am glad to say. But we have already passed + the road that turns off to Darya Mihailovna’s. Allow me to bid you + good-bye.’ + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna stopped. ‘But won’t you come in?’ she said in a + hesitating voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘I should like to, indeed, but I am afraid it is late. Darya Mihailovna + wishes to hear a new étude of Thalberg’s, so I must practise and have it + ready. Besides, I am doubtful, I must confess, whether my visit could + afford you any pleasure.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, no! why?’ + </p> + <p> + Pandalevsky sighed and dropped his eyes expressively. + </p> + <p> + ‘Good-bye, Alexandra Pavlovna!’ he said after a slight pause; then he + bowed and turned back. + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna turned round and went home. + </p> + <p> + Konstantin Diomiditch, too, walked homewards. All softness had vanished at + once from his face; a self-confident, almost hard expression came into it. + Even his walk was changed; his steps were longer and he trod more heavily. + He had walked about two miles, carelessly swinging his cane, when all at + once he began to smile again: he saw by the roadside a young, rather + pretty peasant girl, who was driving some calves out of an oat-field. + Konstantin Diomiditch approached the girl as warily as a cat, and began to + speak to her. She said nothing at first, only blushed and laughed, but at + last she hid her face in her sleeve, turned away, and muttered: + </p> + <p> + ‘Go away, sir; upon my word...’ + </p> + <p> + Konstantin Diomiditch shook his finger at her and told her to bring him + some cornflowers. + </p> + <p> + ‘What do you want with cornflowers?—to make a wreath?’ replied the + girl; ‘come now, go along then.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Stop a minute, my pretty little dear,’ Konstantin Diomiditch was + beginning. + </p> + <p> + ‘There now, go along,’ the girl interrupted him, ‘there are the young + gentlemen coming.’ + </p> + <p> + Konstantin Diomiditch looked round. There really were Vanya and Petya, + Darya Mihailovna’s sons, running along the road; after them walked their + tutor, Bassistoff, a young man of two-and-twenty, who had only just left + college. Bassistoff was a well-grown youth, with a simple face, a large + nose, thick lips, and small pig’s eyes, plain and awkward, but kind, good, + and upright. He dressed untidily and wore his hair long—not from + affectation, but from laziness; he liked eating and he liked sleeping, but + he also liked a good book, and an earnest conversation, and he hated + Pandalevsky from the depths of his soul. + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna’s children worshipped Bassistoff, and yet were not in the + least afraid of him; he was on a friendly footing with all the rest of the + household, a fact which was not altogether pleasing to its mistress, + though she was fond of declaring that for her social prejudices did not + exist. + </p> + <p> + ‘Good-morning, my dears,’ began Konstantin Diomiditch, ‘how early you have + come for your walk to-day! But I,’ he added, turning to Bassistoff, ‘have + been out a long while already; it’s my passion—to enjoy nature.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘We saw how you were enjoying nature,’ muttered Bassistoff. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are a materialist, God knows what you are imagining! I know you.’ + When Pandalevsky spoke to Bassistoff or people like him, he grew slightly + irritated, and pronounced the letter <i>s</i> quite clearly, even with a + slight hiss. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, were you asking your way of that girl, am I to suppose?’ said + Bassistoff, shifting his eyes to right and to left. + </p> + <p> + He felt that Pandalevsky was looking him straight in the face, and this + fact was exceedingly unpleasant to him. ‘I repeat, a materialist and + nothing more.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You certainly prefer to see only the prosaic side in everything.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Boys!’ cried Bassistoff suddenly, ‘do you see that willow at the corner? + let’s see who can get to it first. One! two! three! and away!’ + </p> + <p> + The boys set off at full speed to the willow. Bassistoff rushed after + them. + </p> + <p> + ‘What a lout!’ thought Pandalevsky, ‘he is spoiling those boys. A perfect + peasant!’ + </p> + <p> + And looking with satisfaction at his own neat and elegant figure, + Konstantin Diomiditch struck his coat-sleeve twice with his open hand, + pulled up his collar, and went on his way. When he had reached his own + room, he put on an old dressing-gown and sat down with an anxious face to + the piano. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna’s house was regarded as almost the first in the whole + province. It was a huge stone mansion, built after designs of Rastrelli in + the taste of last century, and in a commanding position on the summit of a + hill, at whose base flowed one of the principal rivers of central Russia. + Darya Mihailovna herself was a wealthy and distinguished lady, the widow + of a privy councillor. Pandalevsky said of her, that she knew all Europe + and all Europe knew her! However, Europe knew her very little; even at + Petersburg she had not played a very prominent part; but on the other hand + at Moscow every one knew her and visited her. She belonged to the highest + society, and was spoken of as a rather eccentric woman, not wholly + good-natured, but excessively clever. In her youth she had been very + pretty. Poets had written verses to her, young men had been in love with + her, distinguished men had paid her homage. But twenty-five or thirty + years had passed since those days and not a trace of her former charms + remained. Every one who saw her now for the first time was impelled to ask + himself, if this woman—skinny, sharp-nosed, and yellow-faced, though + still not old in years—could once have been a beauty, if she was + really the same woman who had been the inspiration of poets.... And every + one marvelled inwardly at the mutability of earthly things. It is true + that Pandalevsky discovered that Darya Mihailovna had preserved her + magnificent eyes in a marvellous way; but we have seen that Pandalevsky + also maintained that all Europe knew her. + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna went every summer to her country place with her children + (she had three: a daughter of seventeen, Natalya, and two sons of nine and + ten years old). She kept open house in the country, that is, she received + men, especially unmarried ones; provincial ladies she could not endure. + But what of the treatment she received from those ladies in return? + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna, according to them, was a haughty, immoral, and + insufferable tyrant, and above all—she permitted herself such + liberties in conversation, it was shocking! Darya Mihailovna certainly did + not care to stand on ceremony in the country, and in the unconstrained + frankness of her manners there was perceptible a slight shade of the + contempt of the lioness of the capital for the petty and obscure creatures + who surrounded her. She had a careless, and even a sarcastic manner with + her own set; but the shade of contempt was not there. + </p> + <p> + By the way, reader, have you observed that a person who is exceptionally + nonchalant with his inferiors, is never nonchalant with persons of a + higher rank? Why is that? But such questions lead to nothing. + </p> + <p> + When Konstantin Diomiditch, having at last learnt by heart the <i>étude</i> + of Thalberg, went down from his bright and cheerful room to the + drawing-room, he already found the whole household assembled. The salon + was already beginning. The lady of the house was reposing on a wide couch, + her feet gathered up under her, and a new French pamphlet in her hand; at + the window behind a tambour frame, sat on one side the daughter of Darya + Mihailovna, on the other, Mlle. Boncourt, the governess, a dry old maiden + lady of sixty, with a false front of black curls under a parti-coloured + cap and cotton wool in her ears; in the corner near the door was huddled + Bassistoff reading a paper, near him were Petya and Vanya playing + draughts, and leaning by the stove, his hands clasped behind his back, was + a gentleman of low stature, with a swarthy face covered with bristling + grey hair, and fiery black eyes—a certain African Semenitch Pigasov. + </p> + <p> + This Pigasov was a strange person. Full of acerbity against everything and + every one—especially against women—he was railing from morning + to night, sometimes very aptly, sometimes rather stupidly, but always with + gusto. His ill-humour almost approached puerility; his laugh, the sound of + his voice, his whole being seemed steeped in venom. Darya Mihailovna gave + Pigasov a cordial reception; he amused her with his sallies. They were + certainly absurd enough. He took delight in perpetual exaggeration. For + example, if he were told of any disaster, that a village had been struck + by lightning, or that a mill had been carried away by floods, or that a + peasant had cut his hand with an axe, he invariably asked with + concentrated bitterness, ‘And what’s her name?’ meaning, what is the name + of the woman responsible for this calamity, for according to his + convictions, a woman was the cause of every misfortune, if you only looked + deep enough into the matter. He once threw himself on his knees before a + lady he hardly knew at all, who had been effusive in her hospitality to + him and began tearfully, but with wrath written on his face, to entreat + her to have compassion on him, saying that he had done her no harm and + never would come to see her for the future. Once a horse had bolted with + one of Darya Mihailovna’s maids, thrown her into a ditch and almost killed + her. From that time Pigasov never spoke of that horse except as the ‘good, + good horse,’ and he even came to regard the hill and the ditch as + specially picturesque spots. Pigasov had failed in life and had adopted + this whimsical craze. He came of poor parents. His father had filled + various petty posts, and could scarcely read and write, and did not + trouble himself about his son’s education; he fed and clothed him and + nothing more. His mother spoiled him, but she died early. Pigasov educated + himself, sent himself to the district school and then to the gymnasium, + taught himself French, German, and even Latin, and, leaving the gymnasiums + with an excellent certificate, went to Dorpat, where he maintained a + perpetual struggle with poverty, but succeeded in completing his three + years’ course. Pigasov’s abilities did not rise above the level of + mediocrity; patience and perseverance were his strong points, but the most + powerful sentiment in him was ambition, the desire to get into good + society, not to be inferior to others in spite of fortune. He had studied + diligently and gone to the Dorpat University from ambition. Poverty + exasperated him, and made him watchful and cunning. He expressed himself + with originality; from his youth he had adopted a special kind of stinging + and exasperated eloquence. His ideas did not rise above the common level; + but his way of speaking made him seem not only a clever, but even a very + clever, man. Having taken his degree as candidate, Pigasov decided to + devote himself to the scholastic profession; he understood that in any + other career he could not possibly be the equal of his associates. He + tried to select them from a higher rank and knew how to gain their good + graces; even by flattery, though he was always abusing them. But to do + this he had not, to speak plainly, enough raw material. Having educated + himself through no love for study, Pigasov knew very little thoroughly. He + broke down miserably in the public disputation, while another student who + had shared the same room with him, and who was constantly the subject of + his ridicule, a man of very limited ability who had received a careful and + solid education, gained a complete triumph. Pigasov was infuriated by this + failure, he threw all his books and manuscripts into the fire and went + into a government office. At first he did not get on badly, he made a fair + official, not very active, extremely self-confident and bold, however; but + he wanted to make his way more quickly, he made a false step, got into + trouble, and was obliged to retire from the service. He spent three years + on the property he had bought himself and suddenly married a wealthy + half-educated woman who was captivated by his unceremonious and sarcastic + manners. But Pigasov’s character had become so soured and irritable that + family life was unendurable to him. After living with him a few years, his + wife went off secretly to Moscow and sold her estate to an enterprising + speculator; Pigasov had only just finished building a house on it. Utterly + crushed by this last blow, Pigasov began a lawsuit with his wife, but + gained nothing by it. After this he lived in solitude, and went to see his + neighbours, whom he abused behind their backs and even to their faces, and + who welcomed him with a kind of constrained half-laugh, though he did not + inspire them with any serious dread. He never took a book in his hand. He + had about a hundred serfs; his peasants were not badly off. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah! <i>Constantin</i>,’ said Darya Mihailovna, when Pandalevsky came into + the drawing-room, ‘is <i>Alexandrine</i> coming?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Alexandra Pavlovna asked me to thank you, and they will be extremely + delighted,’ replied Konstantin Diomiditch, bowing affably in all + directions, and running his plump white hand with its triangular cut nails + through his faultlessly arranged hair. + </p> + <p> + ‘And is Volintsev coming too?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘So, according to you, African Semenitch,’ continued Darya Mihailovna, + turning to Pigasov, ‘all young ladies are affected?’ + </p> + <p> + Pigasov’s mouth twitched, and he plucked nervously at his elbow. + </p> + <p> + ‘I say,’ he began in a measured voice—in his most violent moods of + exasperation he always spoke slowly and precisely. ‘I say that young + ladies, in general—of present company, of course, I say nothing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But that does not prevent your thinking of them,’ put in Darya + Mihailovna. + </p> + <p> + ‘I say nothing of them,’ repeated Pigasov. ‘All young ladies, in general, + are affected to the most extreme point—affected in the expression of + their feelings. If a young lady is frightened, for instance, or pleased + with anything, or distressed, she is certain first to throw her person + into some such elegant attitude (and Pigasov threw his figure into an + unbecoming pose and spread out his hands) and then she shrieks—ah! + or she laughs or cries. I did once though (and here Pigasov smiled + complacently) succeed in eliciting a genuine, unaffected expression of + emotion from a remarkably affected young lady!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How did you do that?’ + </p> + <p> + Pigasov’s eyes sparkled. + </p> + <p> + ‘I poked her in the side with an aspen stake, from behind. She did shriek, + and I said to her, “Bravo, bravo! that’s the voice of nature, that was a + genuine shriek! Always do like that for the future!”’ + </p> + <p> + Every one in the room laughed. + </p> + <p> + ‘What nonsense you talk, African Semenitch,’ cried Darya Mihailovna. ‘Am I + to believe that you would poke a girl in the side with a stake!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, indeed, with a stake, a very big stake, like those that are used in + the defence of a fort.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘<i>Mais c’est un horreur ce que vous dites là, Monsieur</i>,’ cried Mlle. + Boncourt, looking angrily at the boys, who were in fits of laughter. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, you mustn’t believe him,’ said Darya Mihailovna. ‘Don’t you know + him?’ + </p> + <p> + But the offended French lady could not be pacified for a long while, and + kept muttering something to herself. + </p> + <p> + ‘You need not believe me,’ continued Pigasov coolly, ‘but I assure you I + told the simple truth. Who should know if not I? After that perhaps you + won’t believe that our neighbour, Madame Tchepuz, Elena Antonovna, told me + herself, mind <i>herself</i>, that she had murdered her nephew?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What an invention!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute! Listen and judge for yourselves. Mind, I + don’t want to slander her, I even like her as far as one can like a woman. + She hasn’t a single book in her house except a calendar, and she can’t + read except aloud, and that exercise throws her into a violent + perspiration, and she complains then that her eyes feel bursting out of + her head.... In short, she’s a capital woman, and her servant girls grow + fat. Why should I slander her?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You see,’ observed Darya Mihailovna, ‘African Semenitch has got on his + hobbyhorse, now he will not be off it to-night.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘My hobby! But women have three at least, which they are never off, + except, perhaps, when they’re asleep.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What three hobbies are those?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Reproof, reproach, recrimination.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you know, African Semenitch,’ began Darya Mihailovna, ‘you cannot be + so bitter against women for nothing. Some woman or other must have——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Done me an injury, you mean?’ Pigasov interrupted. + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna was rather embarrassed; she remembered Pigasov’s unlucky + marriage, and only nodded. + </p> + <p> + ‘One woman certainly did me an injury,’ said Pigasov, ‘though she was a + good, very good one.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Who was that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘My mother,’ said Pigasov, dropping his voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘Your mother? What injury could she have done you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She brought me into the world.’ + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna frowned. + </p> + <p> + ‘Our conversation,’ she said, ‘seems to have taken a gloomy turn. <i>Constantin</i>, + play us Thalberg’s new <i>étude</i>. I daresay the music will soothe + African Semenitch. Orpheus soothed savage beasts.’ + </p> + <p> + Konstantin Diomiditch took his seat at the piano, and played the étude + very fairly well. Natalya Alexyevna at first listened attentively, then + she bent over her work again. + </p> + <p> + ‘<i>Merci, c’est charmant</i>,’ observed Darya Mihailovna, ‘I love + Thalberg. <i>Il est si distingué</i>. What are you thinking of, African + Semenitch?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I thought,’ began African Semenitch slowly, ‘that there are three kinds + of egoists; the egoists who live themselves and let others live; the + egoists who live themselves and don’t let others live; and the egoists who + don’t live themselves and don’t let others live. Women, for the most part, + belong to the third class.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s polite! I am very much astonished at one thing, African Semenitch; + your confidence in your convictions; of course you can never be mistaken.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Who says so? I make mistakes; a man, too, may be mistaken. But do you + know the difference between a man’s mistakes and a woman’s? Don’t you + know? Well, here it is; a man may say, for example, that twice two makes + not four, but five, or three and a half; but a woman will say that twice + two makes a wax candle.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I fancy I’ve heard you say that before. But allow me to ask what + connection had your idea of the three kinds of egoists with the music you + have just been hearing?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘None at all, but I did not listen to the music.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, “incurable I see you are, and that is all about it,”’ answered + Darya Mihailovna, slightly altering Griboyedov’s line. ‘What do you like, + since you don’t care for music? Literature?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I like literature, only not our contemporary literature.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll tell you why. I crossed the Oka lately in a ferry boat with a + gentleman. The ferry got fixed in a narrow place; they had to drag the + carriages ashore by hand. This gentleman had a very heavy coach. While the + ferrymen were straining themselves to drag the coach on to the bank, the + gentleman groaned so, standing in the ferry, that one felt quite sorry for + him.... Well, I thought, here’s a fresh illustration of the system of + division of labour! That’s just like our modern literature; other people + do the work, and it does the groaning.’ + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna smiled. + </p> + <p> + ‘And that is called expressing contemporary life,’ continued Pigasov + indefatigably, ‘profound sympathy with the social question and so on. ... + Oh, how I hate those grand words!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, the women you attack so—they at least don’t use grand words.’ + </p> + <p> + Pigasov shrugged his shoulders. + </p> + <p> + ‘They don’t use them because they don’t understand them.’ + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna flushed slightly. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are beginning to be impertinent, African Semenitch!’ she remarked + with a forced smile. + </p> + <p> + There was complete stillness in the room. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where is Zolotonosha?’ asked one of the boys suddenly of Bassistoff. + </p> + <p> + ‘In the province of Poltava, my dear boy,’ replied Pigasov, ‘in the centre + of Little Russia.’ (He was glad of an opportunity of changing the + conversation.) ‘We were talking of literature,’ he continued, ‘if I had + money to spare, I would at once become a Little Russian poet.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What next? a fine poet you would make!’ retorted Darya Mihailovna. ‘Do + you know Little Russian?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not a bit; but it isn’t necessary.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not necessary?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no, it’s not necessary. You need only take a sheet of paper and write + at the top “A Ballad,” then begin like this, “Heigho, alack, my destiny!” + or “the Cossack Nalivaiko was sitting on a hill and then on the mountain, + under the green tree the birds are singing, grae, voropae, gop, gop!” or + something of that kind. And the thing’s done. Print it and publish it. The + Little Russian will read it, drop his head into his hands and infallibly + burst into tears—he is such a sensitive soul!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Good heavens!’ cried Bassistoff. ‘What are you saying? It’s too absurd + for anything. I have lived in Little Russia, I love it and know the + language... “grae, grae, voropae” is absolute nonsense.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It may be, but the Little Russian will weep all the same. You speak of + the “language.”... But is there a Little Russian language? Is it a + language, in your opinion? an independent language? I would pound my best + friend in a mortar before I’d agree to that.’ + </p> + <p> + Bassistoff was about to retort. + </p> + <p> + ‘Leave him alone!’ said Darya Mihailovna, ‘you know that you will hear + nothing but paradoxes from him.’ + </p> + <p> + Pigasov smiled ironically. A footman came in and announced the arrival of + Alexandra Pavlovna and her brother. + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna rose to meet her guests. + </p> + <p> + ‘How do you do, Alexandrine?’ she began, going up to her, ‘how good of you + to come!... How are you, Sergei Pavlitch?’ + </p> + <p> + Volintsev shook hands with Darya Mihailovna and went up to Natalya + Alexyevna. + </p> + <p> + ‘But how about that baron, your new acquaintance, is he coming to-day?’ + asked Pigasov. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, he is coming.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He is a great philosopher, they say; he is just brimming over with Hegel, + I suppose?’ + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna made no reply, and making Alexandra Pavlovna sit down on + the sofa, established herself near her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Philosophies,’ continued Pigasov, ‘are elevated points of view! That’s + another abomination of mine; these elevated points of view. And what can + one see from above? Upon my soul, if you want to buy a horse, you don’t + look at it from a steeple!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘This baron was going to bring you an essay?’ said Alexandra Pavlovna. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, an essay,’ replied Darya Mihailovna, with exaggerated carelessness, + ‘on the relation of commerce to manufactures in Russia. ... But don’t be + afraid; we will not read it here.... I did not invite you for that. <i>Le + baron est aussi aimable que savant</i>. And he speaks Russian beautifully! + <i>C’est un vrai torrent... il vous entraîne</i>. + </p> + <p> + ‘He speaks Russian so beautifully,’ grumbled Pigasov, ‘that he deserves a + eulogy in French.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You may grumble as you please, African Semenitch.... It’s in keeping with + your ruffled locks.... I wonder, though, why he does not come. Do you know + what, <i>messieurs et mesdames</i>’ added Darya Mihailovna, looking round, + ‘we will go into the garden. There is still nearly an hour to dinner-time + and the weather is glorious.’ + </p> + <p> + All the company rose and went into the garden. + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna’s garden stretched right down to the river. There were + many alleys of old lime-trees in it, full of sunlight and shade and + fragrance and glimpses of emerald green at the ends of the walks, and many + arbours of acacias and lilacs. + </p> + <p> + Volintsev turned into the thickest part of the garden with Natalya and + Mlle. Boncourt. He walked beside Natalya in silence. Mlle. Boncourt + followed a little behind. + </p> + <p> + ‘What have you been doing to-day?’ asked Volintsev at last, pulling the + ends of his handsome dark brown moustache. + </p> + <p> + In features he resembled his sister strikingly; but there was less + movement and life in his expression, and his soft beautiful eyes had a + melancholy look. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh! nothing,’ answered Natalya, ‘I have been listening to Pigasov’s + sarcasms, I have done some embroidery on canvas, and I’ve been reading.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And what have you been reading?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh! I read—a history of the Crusades,’ said Natalya, with some + hesitation. + </p> + <p> + Volintsev looked at her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah!’ he ejaculated at last, ‘that must be interesting.’ + </p> + <p> + He picked a twig and began to twirl it in the air. They walked another + twenty paces. + </p> + <p> + ‘What is this baron whom your mother has made acquaintance with?’ began + Volintsev again. + </p> + <p> + ‘A Gentleman of the Bedchamber, a new arrival; <i>maman</i> speaks very + highly of him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Your mother is quick to take fancies to people.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That shows that her heart is still young,’ observed Natalya. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. I shall soon bring you your mare. She is almost quite broken in now. + I want to teach her to gallop, and I shall manage it soon.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘<i>Merci</i>!... But I’m quite ashamed. You are breaking her in yourself + ... and they say it’s so hard!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To give you the least pleasure, you know, Natalya Alexyevna, I am + ready... I... not in such trifles——’ + </p> + <p> + Volintsev grew confused. + </p> + <p> + Natalya looked at him with friendly encouragement, and again said ‘<i>merci</i>!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You know,’ continued Sergei Pavlitch after a long pause, ‘that not such + things.... But why am I saying this? you know everything, of course.’ + </p> + <p> + At that instant a bell rang in the house. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah! <i>la cloche du diner</i>!’ cried Mlle. Boncourt, ‘<i>rentrons</i>.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘<i>Quel dommage</i>,’ thought the old French lady to herself as she + mounted the balcony steps behind Volintsev and Natalya, ‘<i>quel dommage + que ce charmant garçon ait si peu de ressources dans la conversation</i>,’ + which may be translated, ‘you are a good fellow, my dear boy, but rather a + fool.’ + </p> + <p> + The baron did not arrive to dinner. They waited half-an-hour for him. + Conversation flagged at the table. Sergei Pavlitch did nothing but gaze at + Natalya, near whom he was sitting, and zealously filled up her glass with + water. Pandalevsky tried in vain to entertain his neighbour, Alexandra + Pavlovna; he was bubbling over with sweetness, but she hardly refrained + from yawning. + </p> + <p> + Bassistoff was rolling up pellets of bread and thinking of nothing at all; + even Pigasov was silent, and when Darya Mihailovna remarked to him that he + had not been very polite to-day, he replied crossly, ‘When am I polite? + that’s not in my line;’ and smiling grimly he added, ‘have a little + patience; I am only kvas, you know, <i>du simple</i> Russian kvas; but + your Gentleman of the Bedchamber——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Bravo!’ cried Darya Mihailovna, ‘Pigasov is jealous, he is jealous + already!’ + </p> + <p> + But Pigasov made her no rejoinder, and only gave her a rather cross look. + </p> + <p> + Seven o’clock struck, and they were all assembled again in the + drawing-room. + </p> + <p> + ‘He is not coming, clearly,’ said Darya Mihailovna. + </p> + <p> + But, behold, the rumble of a carriage was heard: a small tarantass drove + into the court, and a few instants later a footman entered the + drawing-room and gave Darya Mihailovna a note on a silver salver. She + glanced through it, and turning to the footman asked: + </p> + <p> + ‘But where is the gentleman who brought this letter?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He is sitting in the carriage. Shall I ask him to come up?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ask him to do so.’ + </p> + <p> + The man went out. + </p> + <p> + ‘Fancy, how vexatious!’ continued Darya Mihailovna, ‘the baron has + received a summons to return at once to Petersburg. He has sent me his + essay by a certain Mr. Rudin, a friend of his. The baron wanted to + introduce him to me—he speaks very highly of him. But how vexatious + it is! I had hoped the baron would stay here for some time.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Dmitri Nikolaitch Rudin,’ announced the servant + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + A man of about thirty-five entered, of a tall, somewhat stooping figure, + with crisp curly hair and swarthy complexion, an irregular but expressive + and intelligent face, a liquid brilliance in his quick, dark blue eyes, a + straight, broad nose, and well-curved lips. His clothes were not new, and + were somewhat small, as though he had outgrown them. + </p> + <p> + He walked quickly up to Darya Mihailovna, and with a slight bow told her + that he had long wished to have the honour of an introduction to her, and + that his friend the baron greatly regretted that he could not take leave + of her in person. + </p> + <p> + The thin sound of Rudin’s voice seemed out of keeping with his tall figure + and broad chest. + </p> + <p> + ‘Pray be seated... very delighted,’ murmured Darya Mihailovna, and, after + introducing him to the rest of the company, she asked him whether he + belonged to those parts or was a visitor. + </p> + <p> + ‘My estate is in the T—— province,’ replied Rudin, holding his + hat on his knees. ‘I have not been here long. I came on business and + stayed for a while in your district town.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘With whom?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘With the doctor. He was an old chum of mine at the university.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah! the doctor. He is highly spoken of. He is skilful in his work, they + say. But have you known the baron long?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I met him last winter in Moscow, and I have just been spending about a + week with him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He is a very clever man, the baron.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna sniffed at her little crushed-up handkerchief steeped in + <i>eau de cologne</i>. + </p> + <p> + ‘Are you in the government service?’ she asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Who? I?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No. I have retired.’ + </p> + <p> + There followed a brief pause. The general conversation was resumed. + </p> + <p> + ‘If you will allow me to be inquisitive,’ began Pigasov, turning to Rudin, + ‘do you know the contents of the essay which his excellency the baron has + sent?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I do.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘This essay deals with the relations to commerce—or no, of + manufactures to commerce in our country.... That was your expression, I + think, Darya Mihailovna?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, it deals with’... began Darya Mihailovna, pressing her hand to her + forehead. + </p> + <p> + ‘I am, of course, a poor judge of such matters,’ continued Pigasov, ‘but I + must confess that to me even the title of the essay seems excessively (how + could I put it delicately?) excessively obscure and complicated.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why does it seem so to you?’ + </p> + <p> + Pigasov smiled and looked across at Darya Mihailovna. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, is it clear to you?’ he said, turning his foxy face again towards + Rudin. + </p> + <p> + ‘To me? Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘H’m. No doubt you must know better.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Does your head ache?’ Alexandra Pavlovna inquired of Darya Mihailovna. + </p> + <p> + ‘No. It is only my—<i>c’est nerveux</i>.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Allow me to inquire,’ Pigasov was beginning again in his nasal tones, + ‘your friend, his excellency Baron Muffel—I think that’s his name?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Precisely.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Does his excellency Baron Muffel make a special study of political + economy, or does he only devote to that interesting subject the hours of + leisure left over from his social amusements and his official duties?’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin looked steadily at Pigasov. + </p> + <p> + ‘The baron is an amateur on this subject,’ he replied, growing rather red, + ‘but in his essay there is much that is interesting and just.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am not able to dispute it with you; I have not read the essay. But I + venture to ask—the work of your friend Baron Muffel is no doubt + founded more upon general propositions than upon facts?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It contains both facts and propositions founded upon the facts.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, yes. I must tell you that, in my opinion—and I’ve a right to + give my opinion, on occasion; I spent three years at Dorpat... all these, + so-called general propositions, hypotheses, these systems—excuse me, + I am a provincial, I speak the truth bluntly—are absolutely + worthless. All that’s only theorising—only good for misleading + people. Give us facts, sir, and that’s enough!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Really!’ retorted Rudin, ‘why, but ought not one to give the significance + of the facts?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘General propositions,’ continued Pigasov, ‘they’re my abomination, these + general propositions, theories, conclusions. All that’s based on so-called + convictions; every one is talking about his convictions, and attaches + importance to them, prides himself on them. Ah!’ + </p> + <p> + And Pigasov shook his fist in the air. Pandalevsky laughed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Capital!’ put in Rudin, ‘it follows that there is no such thing as + conviction according to you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, it doesn’t exist.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Is that your conviction?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How do you say that there are none then? Here you have one at the very + first turn.’ + </p> + <p> + All in the room smiled and looked at one another. + </p> + <p> + ‘One minute, one minute, but——,’ Pigasov was beginning. + </p> + <p> + But Darya Mihailovna clapped her hands crying, ‘Bravo, bravo, Pigasov’s + beaten!’ and she gently took Rudin’s hat from his hand. + </p> + <p> + ‘Defer your delight a little, madam; there’s plenty of time!’ Pigasov + began with annoyance. ‘It’s not sufficient to say a witty word, with a + show of superiority; you must prove, refute. We had wandered from the + subject of our discussion.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘With your permission,’ remarked Rudin, coolly, ‘the matter is very + simple. You do not believe in the value of general propositions—you + do not believe in convictions?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t believe in them, I don’t believe in anything!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very good. You are a sceptic.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I see no necessity for using such a learned word. However——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t interrupt!’ interposed Darya Mihailovna. + </p> + <p> + ‘At him, good dog!’ Pandalevsky said to himself at the same instant, and + smiled all over. + </p> + <p> + ‘That word expresses my meaning,’ pursued Rudin. ‘You understand it; why + not make use of it? You don’t believe in anything. Why do you believe in + facts?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why? That’s good! Facts are matters of experience, every one knows what + facts are. I judge of them by experience, by my own senses.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But may not your senses deceive you? Your senses tell you that the sun + goes round the earth,... but perhaps you don’t agree with Copernicus? You + don’t even believe in him?’ + </p> + <p> + Again a smile passed over every one’s face, and all eyes were fastened on + Rudin. ‘He’s by no means a fool,’ every one was thinking. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are pleased to keep on joking,’ said Pigasov. ‘Of course that’s very + original, but it’s not to the point.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘In what I have said hitherto,’ rejoined Rudin, ‘there is, unfortunately, + too little that’s original. All that has been well known a very long time, + and has been said a thousand times. That is not the pith of the matter.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What is then?’ asked Pigasov, not without insolence. + </p> + <p> + In discussions he always first bantered his opponent, then grew cross, and + finally sulked and was silent. + </p> + <p> + ‘Here it is,’ continued Rudin. ‘I cannot help, I own, feeling sincere + regret when I hear sensible people attack——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Systems?’ interposed Pigasov. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, with your leave, even systems. What frightens you so much in that + word? Every system is founded on a knowledge of fundamental laws, the + principles of life——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But there is no knowing them, no discovering them.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘One minute. Doubtless they are not easy for every one to get at, and to + make mistakes is natural to man. However, you will certainly agree with me + that Newton, for example, discovered some at least of these fundamental + laws? He was a genius, we grant you; but the grandeur of the discoveries + of genius is that they become the heritage of all. The effort to discover + universal principles in the multiplicity of phenomena is one of the + radical characteristics of human thought, and all our civilisation——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s what you’re driving at!’ Pigasov broke in in a drawling tone. ‘I + am a practical man and all these metaphysical subtleties I don’t enter + into and don’t want to enter into.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very good! That’s as you prefer. But take note that your very desire to + be exclusively a practical man is itself your sort of system—your + theory.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Civilisation you talk about!’ blurted in Pigasov; ‘that’s another + admirable notion of yours! Much use in it, this vaunted civilisation! I + would not give a brass farthing for your civilisation!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But what a poor sort of argument, African Semenitch!’ observed Darya + Mihailovna, inwardly much pleased by the calmness and perfect + good-breeding of her new acquaintance. ‘<i>C’est un homme comme il faut</i>,’ + she thought, looking with well-disposed scrutiny at Rudin; ‘we must be + nice to him!’ Those last words she mentally pronounced in Russian. + </p> + <p> + ‘I will not champion civilisation,’ continued Rudin after a short pause, + ‘it does not need my championship. You don’t like it, every one to his own + taste. Besides, that would take us too far. Allow me only to remind you of + the old saying, “Jupiter, you are angry; therefore you are in the wrong.” + I meant to say that all those onslaughts upon systems—general + propositions—are especially distressing, because together with these + systems men repudiate knowledge in general, and all science and faith in + it, and consequently also faith in themselves, in their own powers. But + this faith is essential to men; they cannot exist by their sensations + alone, they are wrong to fear ideas and not to trust in them. Scepticism is + always characterised by barrenness and impotence.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s all words!’ muttered Pigasov. + </p> + <p> + ‘Perhaps so. But allow me to point out to you that when we say “that’s all + words!” we often wish ourselves to avoid the necessity of saying anything + more substantial than mere words.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What?’ said Pigasov, winking his eyes. + </p> + <p> + ‘You understood what I meant,’ retorted Rudin, with involuntary, but + instantly repressed impatience. ‘I repeat, if man has no steady principle + in which he trusts, no ground on which he can take a firm stand, how can + he form a just estimate of the needs, the tendencies and the future of his + country? How can he know what he ought to do, if——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I leave you the field,’ ejaculated Pigasov abruptly, and with a bow he + turned away without looking at any one. + </p> + <p> + Rudin stared at him, and smiled slightly, saying nothing. + </p> + <p> + ‘Aha! he has taken to flight!’ said Darya Mihailovna. ‘Never mind, + Dmitri...! I beg your pardon,’ she added with a cordial smile, ‘what is + your paternal name?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nikolaitch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Never mind, my dear Dmitri Nikolaitch, he did not deceive any of us. He + wants to make a show of not <i>wishing</i> to argue any more. He is conscious + that he <i>cannot</i> argue with you. But you had better sit nearer to us and let + us have a little talk.’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin moved his chair up. + </p> + <p> + ‘How is it we have not met till now?’ was Darya Mihailovna’s question. + ‘That is what surprises me. Have you read this book? <i>C’est de + Tocqueville, vous savez</i>?’ + </p> + <p> + And Darya Mihailovna held out the French pamphlet to Rudin. + </p> + <p> + Rudin took the thin volume in his hand, turned over a few pages of it, and + laying it down on the table, replied that he had not read that particular + work of M. de Tocqueville, but that he had often reflected on the question + treated by him. A conversation began to spring up. Rudin seemed uncertain + at first, and not disposed to speak out freely; his words did not come + readily, but at last he grew warm and began to speak. In a quarter of an + hour his voice was the only sound in the room, All were crowding in a + circle round him. + </p> + <p> + Only Pigasov remained aloof, in a corner by the fireplace. Rudin spoke + with intelligence, with fire and with judgment; he showed much learning, + wide reading. No one had expected to find in him a remarkable man. His + clothes were so shabby, so little was known of him. Every one felt it + strange and incomprehensible that such a clever man should have suddenly + made his appearance in the country. He seemed all the more wonderful and, + one may even say, fascinating to all of them, beginning with Darya + Mihailovna. She was pluming herself on having discovered him, and already + at this early date was dreaming of how she would introduce Rudin into the + world. In her quickness to receive impressions there was much that was + almost childish, in spite of her years. Alexandra Pavlovna, to tell the + truth, understood little of all that Rudin said, but was full of wonder + and delight; her brother too was admiring him. Pandalevsky was watching + Darya Mihailovna and was filled with envy. Pigasov thought, ‘If I have to + give five hundred roubles I will get a nightingale to sing better than + that!’ But the most impressed of all the party were Bassistoff and + Natalya. Scarcely a breath escaped Bassistoff; he sat the whole time with + open mouth and round eyes and listened—listened as he had never + listened to any one in his life—while Natalya’s face was suffused by + a crimson flush, and her eyes, fastened unwaveringly on Rudin, were both + dimmed and shining. + </p> + <p> + ‘What splendid eyes he has!’ Volintsev whispered to her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, they are.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s only a pity his hands are so big and red.’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya made no reply. + </p> + <p> + Tea was brought in. The conversation became more general, but still by the + sudden unanimity with which every one was silent, directly Rudin opened + his mouth, one could judge of the strength of the impression he had + produced. Darya Mihailovna suddenly felt inclined to tease Pigasov. She + went up to him and said in an undertone, ‘Why don’t you speak instead of + doing nothing but smile sarcastically? Make an effort, challenge him + again,’ and without waiting for him to answer, she beckoned to Rudin. + </p> + <p> + ‘There’s one thing more you don’t know about him,’ she said to him, with a + gesture towards Pigasov,—‘he is a terrible hater of women, he is + always attacking them; pray, show him the true path.’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin involuntarily looked down upon Pigasov; he was a head and shoulders + taller. Pigasov almost withered up with fury, and his sour face grew pale. + </p> + <p> + ‘Darya Mihailovna is mistaken,’ he said in an unsteady voice, ‘I do not + only attack women; I am not a great admirer of the whole human species.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What can have given you such a poor opinion of them?’ inquired Rudin. + </p> + <p> + Pigasov looked him straight in the face. + </p> + <p> + ‘The study of my own heart, no doubt, in which I find every day more and + more that is base. I judge of others by myself. Possibly this too is + erroneous, and I am far worse than others, but what am I to do? it’s a + habit!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I understand you and sympathise with you!’ was Rudin’s rejoinder. ‘What + generous soul has not experienced a yearning for self-humiliation? But one + ought not to remain in that condition from which there is no outlet + beyond.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am deeply indebted for the certificate of generosity you confer on my + soul,’ retorted Pigasov. ‘As for my condition, there’s not much amiss with + it, so that even if there were an outlet from it, it might go to the + deuce, I shouldn’t look for it!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But that means—pardon the expression—to prefer the + gratification of your own pride to the desire to be and live in the + truth.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Undoubtedly,’ cried Pigasov, ‘pride—that I understand, and you, I + expect, understand, and every one understands; but truth, what is truth? + Where is it, this truth?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You are repeating yourself, let me warn you,’ remarked Darya Mihailovna. + </p> + <p> + Pigasov shrugged his shoulders. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, where’s the harm if I do? I ask: where is truth? Even the + philosophers don’t know what it is. Kant says it is one thing; but Hegel—no, + you’re wrong, it’s something else.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And do you know what Hegel says of it?’ asked Rudin, without raising his + voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘I repeat,’ continued Pigasov, flying into a passion, ‘that I cannot + understand what truth means. According to my idea, it doesn’t exist at all + in the world, that is to say, the word exists but not the thing itself.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Fie, fie!’ cried Darya Mihailovna, ‘I wonder you’re not ashamed to say + so, you old sinner! No truth? What is there to live for in the world after + that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, I go so far as to think, Darya Mihailovna,’ retorted Pigasov, in a + tone of annoyance, ‘that it would be much easier for you, in any case, to + live without truth than without your cook, Stepan, who is such a master + hand at soups! And what do you want with truth, kindly tell me? you can’t + trim a bonnet with it!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A joke is not an argument,’ observed Darya Mihailovna, ‘especially when + you descend to personal insult.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know about truth, but I see speaking it does not answer,’ + muttered Pigasov, and he turned angrily away. + </p> + <p> + And Rudin began to speak of pride, and he spoke well. He showed that man + without pride is worthless, that pride is the lever by which the earth can + be moved from its foundations, but that at the same time he alone deserves + the name of man who knows how to control his pride, as the rider does his + horse, who offers up his own personality as a sacrifice to the general + good. + </p> + <p> + ‘Egoism,’ so he ended, ‘is suicide. The egoist withers like a solitary + barren tree; but pride, ambition, as the active effort after perfection, + is the source of all that is great.... Yes! a man must prune away the + stubborn egoism of his personality to give it the right of + self-expression.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Can you lend me a pencil?’ Pigasov asked Bassistoff. + </p> + <p> + Bassistoff did not at once understand what Pigasov had asked him. + </p> + <p> + ‘What do you want a pencil for?’ he said at last + </p> + <p> + ‘I want to write down Mr. Rudin’s last sentence. If one doesn’t write it + down, one might forget it, I’m afraid! But you will own, a sentence like + that is such a handful of trumps.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There are things which it is a shame to laugh at and make fun of, African + Semenitch!’ said Bassistoff warmly, turning away from Pigasov. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile Rudin had approached Natalya. She got up; her face expressed her + confusion. Volintsev, who was sitting near her, got up too. + </p> + <p> + ‘I see a piano,’ began Rudin, with the gentle courtesy of a travelling + prince; ‘don’t you play on it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I play,’ replied Natalya, ‘but not very well. Here is Konstantin + Diomiditch plays much better than I do.’ + </p> + <p> + Pandalevsky put himself forward with a simper. ‘You should not say that, + Natalya Alexyevna; your playing is not at all inferior to mine.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you know Schubert’s “Erlkonig”?’ asked Rudin. + </p> + <p> + ‘He knows it, he knows it!’ interposed Darya Mihailovna. ‘Sit down, + Konstantin. You are fond of music, Dmitri Nikolaitch?’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin only made a slight motion of the head and ran his hand through his + hair, as though disposing himself to listen. Pandalevsky began to play. + </p> + <p> + Natalya was standing near the piano, directly facing Rudin. At the first + sound his face was transfigured. His dark blue eyes moved slowly about, + from time to time resting upon Natalya. Pandalevsky finished playing. + </p> + <p> + Rudin said nothing and walked up to the open window. A fragrant mist lay + like a soft shroud over the garden; a drowsy scent breathed from the trees + near. The stars shed a mild radiance. The summer night was soft—and + softened all. Rudin gazed into the dark garden, and looked round. + </p> + <p> + ‘That music and this night,’ he began, ‘reminded me of my student days in + Germany; our meetings, our serenades.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You have been in Germany then?’ said Darya Mihailovna. + </p> + <p> + ‘I spent a year at Heidelberg, and nearly a year at Berlin.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And did you dress as a student? They say they wear a special dress + there.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘At Heidelberg I wore high boots with spurs, and a hussar’s jacket with + braid on it, and I let my hair grow to my shoulders. In Berlin the + students dress like everybody else.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell us something of your student life,’ said Alexandra Pavlovna. + </p> + <p> + Rudin complied. He was not altogether successful in narrative. There was a + lack of colour in his descriptions. He did not know how to be humorous. + However, from relating his own adventures abroad, Rudin soon passed to + general themes, the special value of education and science, universities, + and university life generally. He sketched in a large and comprehensive + picture in broad and striking lines. All listened to him with profound + attention. His eloquence was masterly and attractive, not altogether + clear, but even this want of clearness added a special charm to his words. + </p> + <p> + The exuberance of his thought hindered Rudin from expressing himself + definitely and exactly. Images followed upon images; comparisons started + up one after another—now startlingly bold, now strikingly true. It + was not the complacent effort of the practised speaker, but the very + breath of inspiration that was felt in his impatient improvising. He did + not seek out his words; they came obediently and spontaneously to his + lips, and each word seemed to flow straight from his soul, and was burning + with all the fire of conviction. Rudin was the master of almost the + greatest secret—the music of eloquence. He knew how in striking one + chord of the heart to set all the others vaguely quivering and resounding. + Many of his listeners, perhaps, did not understand very precisely what his + eloquence was about; but their bosoms heaved, it seemed as though veils + were lifted before their eyes, something radiant, glorious, seemed + shimmering in the distance. + </p> + <p> + All Rudin’s thoughts seemed centred on the future; this lent him something + of the impetuous dash of youth... Standing at the window, not looking at + any one in special, he spoke, and inspired by the general sympathy and + attention, the presence of young women, the beauty of the night, carried + along by the tide of his own emotions, he rose to the height of eloquence, + of poetry.... The very sound of his voice, intense and soft, increased the + fascination; it seemed as though some higher power were speaking through + his lips, startling even to himself.... Rudin spoke of what lends eternal + significance to the fleeting life of man. + </p> + <p> + ‘I remember a Scandinavian legend,’ thus he concluded, ‘a king is sitting + with his warriors round the fire in a long dark barn. It was night and + winter. Suddenly a little bird flew in at the open door and flew out again + at the other. The king spoke and said that this bird is like man in the + world; it flew in from darkness and out again into darkness, and was not + long in the warmth and light.... “King,” replies the oldest of the + warriors, “even in the dark the bird is not lost, but finds her nest.” + Even so our life is short and worthless; but all that is great is + accomplished through men. The consciousness of being the instrument of + these higher powers ought to outweigh all other joys for man; even in + death he finds his life, his nest.’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin stopped and dropped his eyes with a smile of involuntary + embarrassment. + </p> + <p> + ‘<i>Vous êtes un poète</i>,’ was Darya Mihailovna’s comment in an + undertone. And all were inwardly agreeing with her—all except + Pigasov. Without waiting for the end of Rudin’s long speech, he quietly + took his hat and as he went out whispered viciously to Pandalevsky who was + standing near the door: + </p> + <p> + ‘No! Fools are more to my taste.’ + </p> + <p> + No one, however, tried to detain him or even noticed his absence. + </p> + <p> + The servants brought in supper, and half an hour later, all had taken + leave and separated. Darya Mihailovna begged Rudin to remain the night. + Alexandra Pavlovna, as she went home in the carriage with her brother, + several times fell to exclaiming and marvelling at the extraordinary + cleverness of Rudin. Volintsev agreed with her, though he observed that he + sometimes expressed himself somewhat obscurely—that is to say, not + altogether intelligibly, he added,—wishing, no doubt, to make his + own thought clear, but his face was gloomy, and his eyes, fixed on a + corner of the carriage, seemed even more melancholy than usual. + </p> + <p> + Pandalevsky went to bed, and as he took off his daintily embroidered + braces, he said aloud ‘A very smart fellow!’ and suddenly, looking harshly + at his page, ordered him out of the room. Bassistoff did not sleep the + whole night and did not undress—he was writing till morning a letter + to a comrade of his in Moscow; and Natalya, too, though she undressed and + lay down in her bed, had not an instant’s sleep and never closed her eyes. + With her head propped on her arm, she gazed fixedly into the darkness; her + veins were throbbing feverishly and her bosom often heaved with a deep + sigh. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV + </h2> + <p> + The next morning Rudin had only just finished dressing when a servant came + to him with an invitation from Darya Mihailovna to come to her boudoir and + drink tea with her. Rudin found her alone. She greeted him very cordially, + inquired whether he had passed a good night, poured him out a cup of tea + with her own hands, asked him whether there was sugar enough in it, + offered him a cigarette, and twice again repeated that she was surprised + that she had not met him long before. Rudin was about to take a seat some + distance away; but Darya Mihailovna motioned him to an easy chair, which + stood near her lounge, and bending a little towards him began to question + him about his family, his plans and intentions. Darya Mihailovna spoke + carelessly and listened with an air of indifference; but it was perfectly + evident to Rudin that she was laying herself out to please him, even to + flatter him. It was not for nothing that she had arranged this morning + interview, and had dressed so simply yet elegantly <i>a la Madame Récamier</i>! + But Darya Mihailovna soon left off questioning him. She began to tell him + about herself, her youth, and the people she had known. Rudin gave a + sympathetic attention to her lucubrations, though—a curious fact—whatever + personage Darya Mihailovna might be talking about, she always stood in the + foreground, she alone, and the personage seemed to be effaced, to slink + away in the background, and to disappear. But to make up for that, Rudin + learnt in full detail precisely what Darya Mihailovna had said to a + certain distinguished statesman, and what influence she had had on such + and such a celebrated poet. To judge from Darya Mihailovna’s accounts, one + might fancy that all the distinguished men of the last five-and-twenty + years had dreamt of nothing but how they could make her acquaintance, and + gain her good opinion. She spoke of them simply, without particular + enthusiasm or admiration, as though they were her daily associates, + calling some of them queer fellows. As she talked of them, like a rich + setting round a worthless stone, their names ranged themselves in a + brilliant circlet round the principal name—around Darya Mihailovna. + </p> + <p> + Rudin listened, smoking a cigarette, and said little. He could speak well + and liked speaking; carrying on a conversation was not in his line, though + he was also a good listener. All men—if only they had not been + intimidated by him to begin with—opened their hearts with confidence + in his presence; he followed the thread of another man’s narrative so + readily and sympathetically. He had a great deal of good-nature—that + special good-nature of which men are full, who are accustomed to feel + themselves superior to others. In arguments he seldom allowed his + antagonist to express himself fully, he crushed him by his eager, vehement + and passionate dialectic. + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna expressed herself in Russian. She prided herself on her + knowledge of her own language, though French words and expressions often + escaped her. She intentionally made use of simple popular terms of speech; + but not always successfully. Rudin’s ear was not outraged by the strange + medley of language on Darya Mihailovna’s lips, indeed he hardly had an ear + for it. + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna was exhausted at last and letting her head fall on the + cushions of her easy-chair she fixed her eyes on Rudin and was silent. + </p> + <p> + ‘I understand now,’ began Rudin, speaking slowly, ‘I understand why you + come every summer into the country. This period of rest is essential for + you; the peace of the country after your life in the capital refreshes and + strengthens you. I am convinced that you must be profoundly sensitive to + the beauties of nature.’ + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna gave Rudin a sidelong look. + </p> + <p> + ‘Nature—yes—yes—of course.... I am passionately fond of + it; but do you know, Dmitri Nikolaitch, even in the country one cannot do + without society. And here there is practically none. Pigasov is the most + intelligent person here.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The cross old gentleman who was here last night?’ inquired Rudin. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.... In the country though, even he is of use—he sometimes makes + one laugh.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He is by no means stupid,’ returned Rudin, ‘but he is on the wrong path. + I don’t know whether you will agree with me, Darya Mihailovna, but in + negation—in complete and universal negation—there is no + salvation to be found? Deny everything and you will easily pass for a man + of ability; it’s a well-known trick. Simple-hearted people are quite ready + to conclude that you are worth more than what you deny. And that’s often + an error. In the first place, you can pick holes in anything; and + secondly, even if you are right in what you say, it’s the worse for you; + your intellect, directed by simple negation, grows colourless and withers + up. While you gratify your vanity, you are deprived of the true + consolations of thought; life—the essence of life—evades your + petty and jaundiced criticism, and you end by scolding and becoming + ridiculous. Only one who loves has the right to censure and find fault.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘<i>Voilà, Monsieur Pigasov enteré</i>,’ observed Darya Mihailovna. ‘What a + genius you have for defining a man! But Pigasov certainly would not have + even understood you. He loves nothing but his own individuality.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And he finds fault with that so as to have the right to find fault with + others,’ Rudin put in. + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna laughed. + </p> + <p> + ‘“He judges the sound,” as the saying is, “the sound by the sick.” By the + way, what do you think of the baron?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The baron? He is an excellent man, with a good heart and a knowledge ... + but he has no character... and he will remain all his life half a savant, + half a man of the world, that is to say, a dilettante, that is to say, to + speak plainly,—neither one thing nor the other. ... But it’s a + pity!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That was my own idea,’ observed Darya Mihailovna. ‘I read his article.... + <i>Entre nous... cela a assez peu de fond!</i>’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Who else have you here?’ asked Rudin, after a pause. + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna knocked off the ash of her cigarette with her little + finger. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, there is hardly any one else. Madame Lipin, Alexandra Pavlovna, whom + you saw yesterday; she is very sweet—but that is all. Her brother is + also a capital fellow—<i>un parfait honnête homme</i>. The Prince + Garin you know. Those are all. There are two or three neighbours besides, + but they are really good for nothing. They either give themselves airs or + are unsociable, or else quite unsuitably free and easy. The ladies, as you + know, I see nothing of. There is one other of our neighbours said to be a + very cultivated, even a learned, man, but a dreadfully queer creature, a + whimsical character. <i>Alexandrine</i> knows him, and I fancy is not + indifferent to him.... Come, you ought to talk to her, Dmitri Nikolaitch; + she’s a sweet creature. She only wants developing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I liked her very much,’ remarked Rudin. + </p> + <p> + ‘A perfect child, Dmitri Nikolaitch, an absolute baby. She has been + married, <i>mais c’est tout comme</i>.... If I were a man, I should only + fall in love with women like that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Really?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Certainly. Such women are at least fresh, and freshness cannot be put + on.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And can everything else?’ Rudin asked, and he laughed—a thing which + rarely happened with him. When he laughed his face assumed a strange, + almost aged appearance, his eyes disappeared, his nose was wrinkled up. + </p> + <p> + ‘And who is this queer creature, as you call him, to whom Madame Lipin is + not indifferent?’ he asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘A certain Lezhnyov, Mihailo Mihailitch, a landowner here.’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin seemed astonished; he raised his head. + </p> + <p> + ‘Lezhnyov—Mihailo Mihailitch?’ he questioned. ‘Is he a neighbour of + yours?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. Do you know him?’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin did not speak for a minute. + </p> + <p> + ‘I used to know him long ago. He is a rich man, I suppose?’ he added, + pulling the fringe on his chair. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, he is rich, though he dresses shockingly, and drives in a racing + droshky like a bailiff. I have been anxious to get him to come here; he is + spoken of as clever; I have some business with him.... You know I manage + my property myself.’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin bowed assent. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; I manage it myself,’ Darya Mihailovna continued. ‘I don’t introduce + any foreign crazes, but prefer what is our own, what is Russian, and, as + you see, things don’t seem to do badly,’ she added, with a wave of her + hand. + </p> + <p> + ‘I have always been persuaded,’ observed Rudin urbanely, ‘of the + absolutely mistaken position of those people who refuse to admit the + practical intelligence of women.’ + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna smiled affably. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are very good to us,’ was her comment ‘But what was I going to say? + What were we speaking of? Oh, yes; Lezhnyov: I have some business with him + about a boundary. I have several times invited him here, and even to-day I + am expecting him; but there’s no knowing whether he’ll come... he’s such a + strange creature.’ + </p> + <p> + The curtain before the door was softly moved aside and the steward came + in, a tall man, grey and bald, in a black coat, a white cravat, and a + white waistcoat. + </p> + <p> + ‘What is it?’ inquired Darya Mihailovna, and, turning a little towards + Rudin, she added in a low voice, ‘<i>n’est ce pas, comme il ressemble à + Canning?</i>’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Mihailo Mihailitch Lezhnyov is here,’ announced the steward. ‘Will you + see him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Good Heavens!’ exclaimed Darya Mihailovna, ‘speak of the devil——ask + him up.’ + </p> + <p> + The steward went away. + </p> + <p> + ‘He’s such an awkward creature. Now he has come, it’s at the wrong moment; + he has interrupted our talk.’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin got up from his seat, but Darya Mihailovna stopped him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where are you going? We can discuss the matter as well before you. And I + want you to analyse him too, as you did Pigasov. When you talk, <i>vous + gravez comme avec un burin</i>. Please stay.’ Rudin was going to protest, + but after a moment’s thought he sat down. + </p> + <p> + Mihailo Mihailitch, whom the reader already knows, came into the room. He + wore the same grey overcoat, and in his sunburnt hands he carried the same + old foraging cap. He bowed tranquilly to Darya Mihailovna, and came up to + the tea-table. + </p> + <p> + ‘At last you have favoured me with a visit, Monsieur Lezhnyov!’ began + Darya Mihailovna. ‘Pray sit down. You are already acquainted, I hear,’ she + continued, with a gesture in Rudin’s direction. + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov looked at Rudin and smiled rather queerly. + </p> + <p> + ‘I know Mr. Rudin,’ he assented, with a slight bow. + </p> + <p> + ‘We were together at the university,’ observed Rudin in a low voice, + dropping his eyes. + </p> + <p> + ‘And we met afterwards also,’ remarked Lezhnyov coldly. + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna looked at both in some perplexity and asked Lezhnyov to + sit down. He sat down. + </p> + <p> + ‘You wanted to see me,’ he began, ‘on the subject of the boundary?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; about the boundary. But I also wished to see you in any case. We are + near neighbours, you know, and all but relations.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am much obliged to you,’ returned Lezhnyov. ‘As regards the boundary, + we have perfectly arranged that matter with your manager; I have agreed to + all his proposals.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I knew that. But he told me that the contract could not be signed without + a personal interview with you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; that is my rule. By the way, allow me to ask: all your peasants, I + believe, pay rent?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Just so.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And you trouble yourself about boundaries! That’s very praiseworthy.’ + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov did not speak for a minute. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, I have come for a personal interview,’ he said at last. + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna smiled. + </p> + <p> + ‘I see you have come. You say that in such a tone.... You could not have + been very anxious to come to see me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I never go anywhere,’ rejoined Lezhnyov phlegmatically. + </p> + <p> + ‘Not anywhere? But you go to see Alexandra Pavlovna.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am an old friend of her brother’s.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Her brother’s! However, I never wish to force any one.... But pardon me, + Mihailo Mihailitch, I am older than you, and I may be allowed to give you + advice; what charm do you find in such an unsociable way of living? Or is + my house in particular displeasing to you? You dislike me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know you, Darya Mihailovna, and so I can’t dislike you. You have + a splendid house; but I will confess to you frankly I don’t like to have + to stand on ceremony. And I haven’t a respectable suit, I haven’t any + gloves, and I don’t belong to your set.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘By birth, by education, you belong to it, Mihailo Mihailitch! <i>vous + êtes des notres</i>.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Birth and education are all very well, Darya Mihailovna; that’s not the + question.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A man ought to live with his fellows, Mihailo Mihailitch! What pleasure + is there in sitting like Diogenes in his tub?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, to begin with, he was very well off there, and besides, how do you + know I don’t live with my fellows?’ + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna bit her lip. + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s a different matter! It only remains for me to express my regret + that I have not the honour of being included in the number of your + friends.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Monsieur Lezhnyov,’ put in Rudin, ‘seems to carry to excess a laudable + sentiment—the love of independence.’ + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov made no reply, he only looked at Rudin. A short silence followed. + </p> + <p> + ‘And so,’ began Lezhnyov, getting up, ‘I may consider our business as + concluded, and tell your manager to send me the papers.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You may,... though I confess you are so uncivil I ought really to refuse + you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But you know this rearrangement of the boundary is far more in your + interest than in mine.’ + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna shrugged her shoulders. + </p> + <p> + ‘You will not even have luncheon here?’ she asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Thank you; I never take luncheon, and I am in a hurry to get home.’ + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna got up. + </p> + <p> + ‘I will not detain you,’ she said, going to the window. ‘I will not + venture to detain you.’ + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov began to take leave. + </p> + <p> + ‘Good-bye, Monsieur Lezhnyov! Pardon me for having troubled you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, not at all!’ said Lezhnyov, and he went away. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, what do you say to that?’ Darya Mihailovna asked of Rudin. ‘I had + heard he was eccentric, but really that was beyond everything!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘His is the same disease as Pigasov’s,’ observed Rudin, ‘the desire of + being original. One affects to be a Mephistopheles—the other a + cynic. In all that, there is much egoism, much vanity, but little truth, + little love. Indeed, there is even calculation of a sort in it. A man puts + on a mask of indifference and indolence so that some one will be sure to + think. “Look at that man; what talents he has thrown away!” But if you + come to look at him more attentively, there is no talent in him whatever.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘<i>Et de deux!</i>’ was Darya Mihailovna’s comment. ‘You are a terrible + man at hitting people off. One can hide nothing from you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you think so?’ said Rudin.... ‘However,’ he continued, ‘I ought not + really to speak about Lezhnyov; I loved him, loved him as a friend... but + afterwards, through various misunderstandings...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You quarrelled?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No. But we parted, and parted, it seems, for ever.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, I noticed that the whole time of his visit you were not quite + yourself.... But I am much indebted to you for this morning. I have spent + my time extremely pleasantly. But one must know where to stop. I will let + you go till lunch time and I will go and look after my business. My + secretary, you saw him—Constantin, <i>c’est lui qui est mon + secrétaire</i>—must be waiting for me by now. I commend him to you; + he is an excellent, obliging young man, and quite enthusiastic about you. + <i>Au revoir, cher</i> Dmitri Nikolaitch! How grateful I am to the baron + for having made me acquainted with you!’ + </p> + <p> + And Darya Mihailovna held out her hand to Rudin. He first pressed it, then + raised it to his lips and went away to the drawing-room and from there to + the terrace. On the terrace he met Natalya. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V + </h2> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna’s daughter, Natalya Alexyevna, at a first glance might + fail to please. She had not yet had time to develop; she was thin, and + dark, and stooped slightly. But her features were fine and regular, though + too large for a girl of seventeen. Specially beautiful was her pure, + smooth forehead above fine eyebrows, which seemed broken in the middle. + She spoke little, but listened to others, and fixed her eyes on them as + though she were forming her own conclusions. She would often stand with + listless hands, motionless and deep in thought; her face at such moments + showed that her mind was at work within.... A scarcely perceptible smile + would suddenly appear on her lips and vanish again; then she would slowly + raise her large dark eyes. ‘<i>Qu’avez-vous?</i>’ Mlle. Boncourt would + ask her, and then she would begin to scold her, saying that it was + improper for a young girl to be absorbed and to appear absent-minded. But + Natalya was not absent-minded; on the contrary, she studied diligently; + she read and worked eagerly. Her feelings were strong and deep, but + reserved; even as a child she seldom cried, and now she seldom even sighed + and only grew slightly pale when anything distressed her. Her mother + considered her a sensible, good sort of girl, calling her in a joke ‘<i>mon + honnête homme de fille</i>’ but had not a very high opinion of her + intellectual abilities. ‘My Natalya happily is cold,’ she used to say, + ‘not like me—and it is better so. She will be happy.’ Darya + Mihailovna was mistaken. But few mothers understand their daughters. + </p> + <p> + Natalya loved Darya Mihailovna, but did not fully confide in her. + </p> + <p> + ‘You have nothing to hide from me,’ Darya Mihailovna said to her once, ‘or + else you would be very reserved about it; you are rather a close little + thing.’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya looked her mother in the face and thought, ‘Why shouldn’t I be + reserved?’ + </p> + <p> + When Rudin met her on the terrace she was just going indoors with Mlle. + Boncourt to put on her hat and go out into the garden. Her morning + occupations were over. Natalya was not treated as a school-girl now. Mlle. + Boncourt had not given her lessons in mythology and geography for a long + while; but Natalya had every morning to read historical books, travels, or + other instructive works with her. Darya Mihailovna selected them, + ostensibly on a special system of her own. In reality she simply gave + Natalya everything which the French bookseller forwarded her from + Petersburg, except, of course, the novels of Dumas Fils and Co. These + novels Darya Mihailovna read herself. Mlle. Boncourt looked specially + severely and sourly through her spectacles when Natalya was reading + historical books; according to the old French lady’s ideas all history was + filled with <i>impermissible</i> things, though for some reason or other + of all the great men of antiquity she herself knew only one—Cambyses, + and of modern times—Louis XIV. and Napoleon, whom she could not + endure. But Natalya read books too, the existence of which Mlle. Boncourt + did not suspect; she knew all Pushkin by heart. + </p> + <p> + Natalya flushed slightly at meeting Rudin. + </p> + <p> + ‘Are you going for a walk?’ he asked her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. We are going into the garden.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘May I come with you?’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya looked at Mlle. Boncourt + </p> + <p> + ‘<i>Mais certainement, monsieur; avec plaisir</i>,’ said the old lady + promptly. + </p> + <p> + Rudin took his hat and walked with them. + </p> + <p> + Natalya at first felt some awkwardness in walking side by side with Rudin + on the same little path; afterwards she felt more at ease. He began to + question her about her occupations and how she liked the country. She + replied not without timidity, but without that hasty bashfulness which is + so often taken for modesty. Her heart was beating. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are not bored in the country?’ asked Rudin, taking her in with a + sidelong glance. + </p> + <p> + ‘How can one be bored in the country? I am very glad we are here. I am + very happy here.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You are happy—that is a great word. However, one can understand it; + you are young.’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin pronounced this last phrase rather strangely; either he envied + Natalya or he was sorry for her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes! youth!’ he continued, ‘the whole aim of science is to reach + consciously what is bestowed on youth for nothing.’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya looked attentively at Rudin; she did not understand him. + </p> + <p> + ‘I have been talking all this morning with your mother,’ he went on; ‘she + is an extraordinary woman. I understand why all our poets sought her + friendship. Are you fond of poetry?’ he added, after a pause. + </p> + <p> + ‘He is putting me through an examination,’ thought Natalya, and aloud: + ‘Yes, I am very fond of it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Poetry is the language of the gods. I love poems myself. But poetry is + not only in poems; it is diffused everywhere, it is around us. Look at + those trees, that sky—on all sides there is the breath of beauty, and of + life, and where there is life and beauty, there is poetry also.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Let us sit down. Here on this bench,’ he added. ‘Here—so. I somehow + fancy that when you are more used to me (and he looked her in the face + with a smile) ‘we shall be friends, you and I. What do you think?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He treats me like a school-girl,’ Natalya reflected again, and, not + knowing what to say, she asked him whether he intended to remain long in + the country. + </p> + <p> + ‘All the summer and autumn, and perhaps the winter too. I am a very poor + man, you know; my affairs are in confusion, and, besides, I am tired now + of wandering from place to place. The time has come to rest.’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya was surprised. + </p> + <p> + ‘Is it possible you feel that it is time for you to rest?’ she asked him + timidly. + </p> + <p> + Rudin turned so as to face Natalya. + </p> + <p> + ‘What do you mean by that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I mean,’ she replied in some embarrassment, ‘that others may rest; but + you... you ought to work, to try to be useful. Who, if not you——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I thank you for your flattering opinion,’ Rudin interrupted her. ‘To be + useful... it is easy to say!’ (He passed his hand over his face.) ‘To be + useful!’ he repeated. ‘Even if I had any firm conviction, how could I be + useful?—even if I had faith in my own powers, where is one to find + true, sympathetic souls?’ + </p> + <p> + And Rudin waved his hand so hopelessly, and let his head sink so gloomily, + that Natalya involuntarily asked herself, were those really his—those + enthusiastic words full of the breath of hope, she had heard the evening + before. + </p> + <p> + ‘But no,’ he said, suddenly tossing back his lion-like mane, ‘that is all + folly, and you are right. I thank you, Natalya Alexyevna, I thank you + truly.’ (Natalya absolutely did not know what he was thanking her for.) + ‘Your single phrase has recalled to me my duty, has pointed out to me my + path.... Yes, I must act. I must not bury my talent, if I have any; I must + not squander my powers on talk alone—empty, profitless talk—on + mere words,’ and his words flowed in a stream. He spoke nobly, ardently, + convincingly, of the sin of cowardice and indolence, of the necessity of + action. He lavished reproaches on himself, maintained that to discuss + beforehand what you mean to do is as unwise as to prick with a pin the + swelling fruit, that it is only a vain waste of strength and sap. He + declared that there was no noble idea which would not gain sympathy, that + the only people who remained misunderstood were those who either did not + know themselves what they wanted, or were not worthy to be understood. He + spoke at length, and ended by once more thanking Natalya Alexyevna, and + utterly unexpectedly pressed her hand, exclaiming. ‘You are a noble, + generous creature!’ + </p> + <p> + This outburst horrified Mlle. Boncourt, who in spite of her forty years’ + residence in Russia understood Russian with difficulty, and was only moved + to admiration by the splendid rapidity and flow of words on Rudin’s lips. + In her eyes, however, he was something of the nature of a virtuoso or + artist; and from people of that kind, according to her notions, it was + impossible to demand a strict adherence to propriety. + </p> + <p> + She got up and drew her skirts with a jerk around her, observed to Natalya + that it was time to go in, especially as M. Volinsoff (so she spoke of + Volintsev) was to be there to lunch. + </p> + <p> + ‘And here he is,’ she added, looking up one of the avenues which led to + the house, and in fact Volintsev appeared not far off. + </p> + <p> + He came up with a hesitating step, greeted all of them from a distance, + and with an expression of pain on his face he turned to Natalya and said: + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, you are having a walk?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ answered Natalya, ‘we were just going home.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah!’ was Volintsev’s reply. ‘Well, let us go,’ and they all walked + towards the house. + </p> + <p> + ‘How is your sister?’ Rudin inquired, in a specially cordial tone, of + Volintsev. The evening before, too, he had been very gracious to him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Thank you; she is quite well. She will perhaps be here to-day.... I think + you were discussing something when I came up?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; I have had a conversation with Natalya Alexyevna. She said one thing + to me which affected me strongly.’ + </p> + <p> + Volintsev did not ask what the one thing was, and in profound silence they + all returned to Darya Mihailovna’s house. + </p> + <p> + Before dinner the party was again assembled in the drawing-room. Pigasov, + however, did not come. Rudin was not at his best; he did nothing but press + Pandalevsky to play Beethoven. Volintsev was silent and stared at the + floor. Natalya did not leave her mother’s side, and was at times lost in + thought, and then bent over her work. Bassistoff did not take his eyes off + Rudin, constantly on the alert for him to say something brilliant. About + three hours were passed in this way rather monotonously. Alexandra + Pavlovna did not come to dinner, and when they rose from table Volintsev + at once ordered his carriage to be ready, and slipped away without saying + good-bye to any one. + </p> + <p> + His heart was heavy. He had long loved Natalya, and was repeatedly + resolving to make her an offer.... She was kindly disposed to him,—but + her heart remained unmoved; he saw that clearly. He did not hope to + inspire in her a tenderer sentiment, and was only waiting for the time + when she should be perfectly at home with him and intimate with him. What + could have disturbed him? what change had he noticed in these two days? + Natalya had behaved to him exactly the same as before.... + </p> + <p> + Whether it was that some idea had come upon him that he perhaps did not + know Natalya’s character at all—that she was more a stranger to him + than he had thought,—or jealousy had begun to work in him, or he had + some dim presentiment of ill... anyway, he suffered, though he tried to + reason with himself. + </p> + <p> + When he came in to his sister’s room, Lezhnyov was sitting with her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why have you come back so early?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh! I was bored.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Was Rudin there?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + Volintsev flung down his cap and sat down. Alexandra Pavlovna turned + eagerly to him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Please, Serezha, help me to convince this obstinate man (she signified + Lezhnyov) that Rudin is extraordinarily clever and eloquent.’ + </p> + <p> + Volintsev muttered something. + </p> + <p> + ‘But I am not disputing at all with you,’ Lezhnyov began. ‘I have no doubt + of the cleverness and eloquence of Mr. Rudin; I only say that I don’t like + him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But have you seen him?’ inquired Volintsev. + </p> + <p> + ‘I saw him this morning at Darya Mihallovna’s. You know he is her first + favourite now. The time will come when she will part with him—Pandalevsky + is the only man she will never part with—but now he is supreme. I + saw him, to be sure! He was sitting there,—and she showed me off to + him, “see, my good friend, what queer fish we have here!” But I am not a + prize horse, to be trotted out on show, so I took myself off.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But how did you come to be there?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘About a boundary; but that was all nonsense; she simply wanted to have a + look at my physiognomy. She’s a fine lady,—that’s explanation + enough!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘His superiority is what offends you—that’s what it is!’ began + Alexandra Pavlovna warmly, ‘that’s what you can’t forgive. But I am + convinced that besides his cleverness he must have an excellent heart as + well. You should see his eyes when he——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘“Of purity exalted speaks,”’ quoted Lezhnyov. + </p> + <p> + ‘You make me angry, and I shall cry. I am heartily sorry I did not go to + Darya Mihailovna’s, but stopped with you. You don’t deserve it. Leave off + teasing me,’ she added, in an appealing voice, ‘You had much better tell + me about his youth.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Rudin’s youth?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, of course. Didn’t you tell me you knew him well, and had known him a + long time?’ + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov got up and walked up and down the room. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ he began, ‘I do know him well. You want me to tell you about his + youth? Very well. He was born in T——, and was the son of a + poor landowner, who died soon after. He was left alone with his mother. + She was a very good woman, and she idolised him; she lived on nothing but + oatmeal, and every penny she had she spent on him. He was educated in + Moscow, first at the expense of some uncle, and afterwards, when he was + grown up and fully fledged, at the expense of a rich prince whose favour + he had courted—there, I beg your pardon, I won’t do it again—with + whom he had made friends. Then he went to the university. At the + university I got to know him and we became intimate friends. I will tell + you about our life in those days some other time, I can’t now. Then he + went abroad....’ + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov continued to walk up and down the room; Alexandra Pavlovna + followed him with her eyes. + </p> + <p> + ‘While he was abroad,’ he continued, ‘Rudin wrote very rarely to his + mother, and paid her altogether only one visit for ten days.... The old + lady died without him, cared for by strangers; but up to her death she + never took her eyes off his portrait. I went to see her when I was staying + in T——. She was a kind and hospitable woman; she always used + to feast me on cherry jam. She loved her Mitya devotedly. People of the + Petchorin type tell us that we always love those who are least capable of + feeling love themselves; but it’s my idea that all mothers love their + children especially when they are absent. Afterwards I met Rudin abroad. + Then he was connected with a lady, one of our countrywomen, a + bluestocking, no longer young, and plain, as a bluestocking is bound to + be. He lived a good while with her, and at last threw her over—or + no, I beg pardon,—she threw him over. It was then that I too threw + him over. That’s all.’ + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov ceased speaking, passed his hand over his brow, and dropped into + a chair as if he were exhausted. + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you know, Mihailo Mihailitch,’ began Alexandra Pavlovna, ‘you are a + spiteful person, I see; indeed you are no better than Pigasov. I am + convinced that all you have told me is true, that you have not made up + anything, and yet in what an unfavourable light you have put it all! The + poor old mother, her devotion, her solitary death, and that lady—What + does it all amount to? You know that it’s easy to put the life of the best + of men in such colours—and without adding anything, observe—that + every one would be shocked! But that too is slander of a kind!’ + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov got up and again walked about the room. + </p> + <p> + ‘I did not want to shock you at all, Alexandra Pavlovna,’ he brought out + at last, ‘I am not given to slander. However,’ he added, after a moment’s + thought, ‘in reality there is a foundation of fact in what you said. I did + not mean to slander Rudin; but—who knows! very likely he has had + time to change since those days—very possibly I am unjust to him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah! you see. So promise me that you will renew your acquaintance with + him, and will get to know him thoroughly and then report your final + opinion of him to me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘As you please. But why are you so quiet, Sergei Pavlitch?’ + </p> + <p> + Volintsev started and raised his head, as though he had just waked up. + </p> + <p> + ‘What can I say? I don’t know him. Besides, my head aches to-day.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, you look rather pale this evening,’ remarked Alexandra Pavlovna; + ‘are you unwell?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘My head aches,’ repeated Volintsev, and he went away. + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna and Lezhnyov looked after him, and exchanged glances, + though they said nothing. What was passing in Volintsev’s heart was no + mystery to either of them. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI + </h2> + <p> + More than two months had passed; during the whole of that period Rudin had + scarcely been away from Darya Mihailovna’s house. She could not get on + without him. To talk to him about herself and to listen to his eloquence + became a necessity for her. He would have taken his leave on one occasion, + on the ground that all his money was spent; she gave him five hundred + roubles. He borrowed two hundred roubles more from Volintsev. Pigasov + visited Darya Mihailovna much less frequently than before; Rudin crushed + him by his presence. And indeed it was not only Pigasov who was conscious + of an oppression. + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t like that prig,’ Pigasov used to say, ‘he expresses himself so + affectedly like a hero of a romance. If he says “I,” he stops in rapt + admiration, “I, yes, I!” and the phrases he uses are all so drawn-out; if + you sneeze, he will begin at once to explain to you exactly why you + sneezed and did not cough. If he praises you, it’s just as if he were + creating you a prince. If he begins to abuse himself, he humbles himself + into the dust—come, one thinks, he will never dare to face the light + of day after that. Not a bit of it! It only cheers him up, as if he’d + treated himself to a glass of grog.’ + </p> + <p> + Pandalevsky was a little afraid of Rudin, and cautiously tried to win his + favour. Volintsev had got on to curious terms with him. Rudin called him a + knight-errant, and sang his praises to his face and behind his back; but + Volintsev could not bring himself to like him and always felt an + involuntary impatience and annoyance when Rudin devoted himself to + enlarging on his good points in his presence. ‘Is he making fun of me?’ he + thought, and he felt a throb of hatred in his heart. He tried to keep his + feelings in check, but in vain; he was jealous of him on Natalya’s + account. And Rudin himself, though he always welcomed Volintsev with + effusion, though he called him a knight-errant, and borrowed money from + him, did not feel exactly friendly towards him. It would be difficult to + define the feelings of these two men when they pressed each other’s hands + like friends and looked into each other’s eyes. + </p> + <p> + Bassistoff continued to adore Rudin, and to hang on every word he uttered. + Rudin paid him very little attention. Once he spent a whole morning with + him, discussing the weightiest problems of life, and awakening his keenest + enthusiasm, but afterwards he took no further notice of him. Evidently it + was only a phrase when he said that he was seeking for pure and devoted + souls. With Lezhnyov, who began to be a frequent visitor at the house, + Rudin did not enter into discussion; he seemed even to avoid him. + Lezhnyov, on his part, too, treated him coldly. He did not, however, + report his final conclusions about him, which somewhat disquieted + Alexandra Pavlovna. She was fascinated by Rudin, but she had confidence in + Lezhnyov. Every one in Darya Mihailovna’s house humoured Rudin’s fancies; + his slightest preferences were carried out. He determined the plans for the + day. Not a single <i>partie de plaisir</i> was arranged without his + co-operation. + </p> + <p> + He was not, however, very fond of any kind of impromptu excursion or + picnic, and took part in them rather as grown-up people take part in + children’s games, with an air of kindly, but rather wearied, friendliness. + He took interest in everything else, however. He discussed with Darya + Mihailovna her plans for the estate, the education of her children, her + domestic arrangements, and her affairs generally; he listened to her + schemes, and was not bored by petty details, and, in his turn, proposed + reforms and made suggestions. Darya Mihailovna agreed to them in words—and + that was all. In matters of business she was really guided by the advice + of her bailiff—an elderly, one-eyed Little Russian, a good-natured + and crafty old rogue. ‘What is old is fat, what is new is thin,’ he used + to say, with a quiet smile, winking his solitary eye. + </p> + <p> + Next to Darya Mihailovna, it was Natalya to whom Rudin used to talk most + often and at most length. He used privately to give her books, to confide + his plans to her, and to read her the first pages of the essays and other + works he had in his mind. Natalya did not always fully grasp the + significance of them. + </p> + <p> + But Rudin did not seem to care much about her understanding, so long as + she listened to him. His intimacy with Natalya was not altogether pleasing + to Darya Mihailovna. ‘However,’ she thought, ‘let her chatter away with + him in the country. She amuses him as a little girl now. There is no great + harm in it, and, at any rate, it will improve her mind. At Petersburg I + will soon put a stop to it.’ + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna was mistaken. Natalya did not chatter to Rudin like a + school-girl; she eagerly drank in his words, she tried to penetrate to + their full significance; she submitted her thoughts, her doubts to him; he + became her leader, her guide. So far, it was only the brain that was + stirred, but in the young the brain is not long stirred alone. What sweet + moments Natalya passed when at times in the garden on the seat, in the + transparent shade of the aspen tree, Rudin began to read Goethe’s <i>Faust</i>, + Hoffman, or Bettina’s letters, or Novalis, constantly stopping and + explaining what seemed obscure to her. Like almost all Russian girls, she + spoke German badly, but she understood it well, and Rudin was thoroughly + imbued with German poetry, German romanticism and philosophy, and he drew + her after him into these forbidden lands. Unimagined splendours were + revealed there to her earnest eyes from the pages of the book which Rudin + held on his knee; a stream of divine visions, of new, illuminating ideas, + seemed to flow in rhythmic music into her soul, and in her heart, moved + with the high delight of noble feeling, slowly was kindled and fanned into + a flame the holy spark of enthusiasm. + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell me, Dmitri Nikolaitch,’ she began one day, sitting by the window at + her embroidery-frame, ‘shall you be in Petersburg in the winter?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know,’ replied Rudin, as he let the book he had been glancing + through fall upon his knee; ‘if I can find the means, I shall go.’ + </p> + <p> + He spoke dejectedly; he felt tired, and had done nothing all day. + </p> + <p> + ‘I think you are sure to find the means.’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin shook his head. + </p> + <p> + ‘You think so!’ + </p> + <p> + And he looked away expressively. + </p> + <p> + Natalya was on the point of replying, but she checked herself. + </p> + <p> + ‘Look.’ began Rudin, with a gesture towards the window, ‘do you see that + apple-tree? It is broken by the weight and abundance of its own fruit. + True emblem of genius.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It is broken because it had no support,’ replied Natalya. + </p> + <p> + ‘I understand you, Natalya Alexyevna, but it is not so easy for a man to + find such a support.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I should think the sympathy of others... in any case isolation + always....’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya was rather confused, and flushed a little. + </p> + <p> + ‘And what will you do in the country in the winter?’ she added hurriedly. + </p> + <p> + ‘What shall I do? I shall finish my larger essay—you know it—on + “Tragedy in Life and in Art.” I described to you the outline of it the day + before yesterday, and shall send it to you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And you will publish it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No? For whose sake will you work then?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And if it were for you?’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya dropped her eyes. + </p> + <p> + ‘It would be far above me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What, may I ask, is the subject of the essay?’ Bassistoff inquired + modestly. He was sitting a little distance away. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Tragedy in Life and in Art,”’ repeated Rudin. ‘Mr. Bassistoff too will + read it. But I have not altogether settled on the fundamental motive. I + have not so far worked out for myself the tragic significance of love.’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin liked to talk of love, and frequently did so. At first, at the word + ‘love,’ Mlle. Boncourt started, and pricked up her eyes like an old + war-horse at the sound of the trumpet; but afterwards she had grown used + to it, and now only pursed up her lips and took snuff at intervals. + </p> + <p> + ‘It seems to me,’ said Natalya timidly, ‘that the tragic in love is + unrequited love.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not at all!’ replied Rudin; ‘that is rather the comic side of love. ... + The question must be put in an altogether different way... one must attack + it more deeply.... Love!’ he pursued, ‘all is mystery in love; how it + comes, how it develops, how it passes away. Sometimes it comes all at + once, undoubting, glad as day; sometimes it smoulders like fire under + ashes, and only bursts into a flame in the heart when all is over; + sometimes it winds its way into the heart like a serpent, and suddenly + slips out of it again.... Yes, yes; it is the great problem. But who does + love in our days? Who is so bold as to love?’ + </p> + <p> + And Rudin grew pensive. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why is it we have not seen Sergei Pavlitch for so long?’ he asked + suddenly. + </p> + <p> + Natalya blushed, and bent her head over her embroidery frame. + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know,’ she murmured. + </p> + <p> + ‘What a splendid, generous fellow he is!’ Rudin declared, standing up. ‘It + is one of the best types of a Russian gentleman.’ + </p> + <p> + Mlle. Boncourt gave him a sidelong look out of her little French eyes. + </p> + <p> + Rudin walked up and down the room. + </p> + <p> + ‘Have you noticed,’ he began, turning sharply round on his heels, ‘that on + the oak—and the oak is a strong tree—the old leaves only fall + off when the new leaves begin to grow?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ answered Natalya slowly, ‘I have noticed it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That is what happens to an old love in a strong heart; it is dead + already, but still it holds its place; only another new love can drive it + out.’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya made no reply. + </p> + <p> + ‘What does that mean?’ she was thinking. + </p> + <p> + Rudin stood still, tossed his hair back, and walked away. + </p> + <p> + Natalya went to her own room. She sat a long while on her little bed in + perplexity, pondering over Rudin’s last words. All at once she clasped her + hands and began to weep bitterly. What she was weeping for—who can + tell? She herself could not tell why her tears were falling so fast. She + dried them; but they flowed afresh, like water from a long-pent-up source. + </p> + <p> + On this same day Alexandra Pavlovna had a conversation with Lezhnyov about + Rudin. At first he bore all her attacks in silence; but at last she + succeeded in rousing him into talk. + </p> + <p> + ‘I see,’ she said to him, ‘you dislike Dmitri Nikolaitch, as you did + before. I purposely refrained from questioning you till now; but now you + have had time to make up your mind whether there is any change in him, and + I want to know why you don’t like him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very well,’ answered Lezhnyov with his habitual phlegm, ‘since your + patience is exhausted; only look here, don’t get angry.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Come, begin, begin.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And let me have my say to the end.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course, of course; begin.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very well,’ said Lezhnyov, dropping lazily on to the sofa; ‘I admit that + I certainly don’t like Rudin. He is a clever fellow.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I should think so.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He is a remarkably clever man, though in reality essentially shallow.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s easy to say that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Though essentially shallow,’ repeated Lezhnyov; ‘but there’s no great + harm in that; we are all shallow. I will not even quarrel with him for + being a tyrant at heart, lazy, ill-informed!’ + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna clasped her hands. + </p> + <p> + ‘Rudin—ill-informed!’ she cried. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ill-informed!’ repeated Lezhnyov in precisely the same voice, ‘that he + likes to live at other people’s expense, to cut a good figure, and so + forth—all that’s natural enough. But what’s wrong is, that he is as + cold as ice.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He cold! that fiery soul cold!’ interrupted Alexandra Pavlovna. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, cold as ice, and he knows it, and pretends to be fiery. What’s bad,’ + pursued Lezhnyov, gradually growing warm, ‘he is playing a dangerous game—not + dangerous for him, of course; he does not risk a farthing, not a straw on + it—but others stake their soul.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Whom and what are you talking of? I don’t understand you,’ said Alexandra + Pavlovna. + </p> + <p> + ‘What’s bad, he isn’t honest. He’s a clever man, certainly; he ought to + know the value of his own words, and he brings them out as if they were + worth something to him. I don’t dispute that he’s a fine speaker, but not + in the Russian style. And indeed, after all, fine speaking is pardonable + in a boy, but at his years it is disgraceful to take pleasure in the sound + of his own voice, and to show off!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I think, Mihailo Mihailitch, it’s all the same for those who hear him, + whether he is showing off or not.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Excuse me, Alexandra Pavlovna, it is not all the same. One man says a + word to me and it thrills me all over, another may say the same thing, or + something still finer—and I don’t prick up my ears. Why is that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘<i>You</i> don’t, perhaps,’ put in Alexandra Pavlovna. + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t,’ retorted Lezhnyov, ‘though perhaps my ears are long enough. The + point is, that Rudin’s words seem to remain mere words, and never to pass + into deeds—and meanwhile even words may trouble a young heart, may + be the ruin of it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But whom do you mean, Mihailo Mihailitch?’ + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov paused. + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you want to know whom I mean, Natalya Alexyevna?’ + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna was taken aback for a moment, but she began to smile + the instant after. + </p> + <p> + ‘Really,’ she began, ‘what queer ideas you always have! Natalya is still a + child; and besides, if there were anything in what you say, do you suppose + Darya Mihailovna——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Darya Mihailovna is an egoist to begin with, and lives for herself; and + then she is so convinced of her own skill in educating her children that + it does not even enter her head to feel uneasy about them. Nonsense! how + is it possible: she has but to give one nod, one majestic glance—and + all is over, all is obedience again. That’s what that lady imagines; she + fancies herself a female Maecenas, a learned woman, and God knows what, + but in fact she is nothing more than a silly, worldly old woman. But + Natalya is not a baby; believe me, she thinks more, and more profoundly + too, than you and I do. And that her true, passionate, ardent nature must + fall in with an actor, a flirt like this! But of course that’s in the + natural order of things.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A flirt! Do you mean that he is a flirt?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course he is. And tell me yourself, Alexandra Pavlovna, what is his + position in Darya Mihailovna’s house? To be the idol, the oracle of the + household, to meddle in the arrangements, all the gossip and petty trifles + of the house—is that a dignified position for a man to be in?’ + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna looked at Lezhnyov in surprise. + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know you, Mihailo Mihailitch,’ she began to say. ‘You are flushed + and excited. I believe there must be something else hidden under this.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, so that’s it! Tell a woman the truth from conviction, and she will + never rest easy till she has invented some petty outside cause quite + beside the point which has made you speak in precisely that manner and no + other.’ + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna began to get angry. + </p> + <p> + ‘Bravo, Monsieur Lezhnyov! You begin to be as bitter against women as Mr. + Pigasov; but you may say what you like, penetrating as you are, it’s hard + for me to believe that you understand every one and everything. I think + you are mistaken. According to your ideas, Rudin is a kind of Tartuffe.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, the point is, that he is not even a Tartuffe. Tartuffe at least knew + what he was aiming at; but this fellow, for all his cleverness——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, well, what of him? Finish your sentence, you unjust, horrid man!’ + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov got up. + </p> + <p> + ‘Listen, Alexandra Pavlovna,’ he began, ‘it is you who are unjust, not I. + You are cross with me for my harsh criticism of Rudin; I have the right to + speak harshly of him! I have paid dearly enough, perhaps, for that + privilege. I know him well: I lived a long while with him. You remember I + promised to tell you some time about our life at Moscow. It is clear that + I must do so now. But will you have the patience to hear me out?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell me, tell me!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very well, then.’ + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov began walking with measured steps about the room, coming to a + standstill at times with his head bent. + </p> + <p> + ‘You know, perhaps,’ he began, ‘or perhaps you don’t know, that I was left + an orphan at an early age, and by the time I was seventeen I had no one in + authority over me. I lived at my aunt’s at Moscow, and did just as I + liked. As a boy I was rather silly and conceited, and liked to brag and + show off. After my entrance at the university I behaved like a regular + schoolboy, and soon got into a scrape. I won’t tell you about it; it’s not + worth while. But I told a lie about it, and rather a shameful lie. It all + came out, and I was put to open shame. I lost my head and cried like a + child. It happened at a friend’s rooms before a lot of fellow-students. + They all began to laugh at me, all except one student, who, observe, had + been more indignant with me than any, so long as I had been obstinate and + would not confess my deceit. He took pity on me, perhaps; anyway, he took + me by the arm and led me away to his lodging.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Was that Rudin?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, it was not Rudin... it was a man... he is dead now... he was an + extraordinary man. His name was Pokorsky. To describe him in a few words + is beyond my powers, but directly one begins to speak of him, one does not + want to speak of any one else. He had a noble, pure heart, and an + intelligence such as I have never met since. Pokorsky lived in a little, + low-pitched room, in an attic of an old wooden house. He was very poor, + and supported himself somehow by giving lessons. Sometimes he had not even + a cup of tea to offer to his friends, and his only sofa was so shaky that + it was like being on board ship. But in spite of these discomforts a great + many people used to go to see him. Every one loved him; he drew all hearts + to him. You would not believe what sweetness and happiness there was in + sitting in his poor little room! It was in his room I met Rudin. He had + already parted from his prince before then.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What was there so exceptional in this Pokorsky?’ asked Alexandra + Pavlovna. + </p> + <p> + ‘How can I tell you? Poetry and truth—that was what drew all of us + to him. For all his clear, broad intellect he was as sweet and simple as a + child. Even now I have his bright laugh ringing in my ears, and at the + same time he + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Burnt his midnight lamp + Before the holy and the true, +</pre> + <p> + as a dear half-cracked fellow, the poet of our set, expressed it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And how did he talk?’ Alexandra Pavlovna questioned again. + </p> + <p> + ‘He talked well when he was in the mood, but not remarkably so. Rudin even + then was twenty times as eloquent as he.’ + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov stood still and folded his arms. + </p> + <p> + ‘Pokorsky and Rudin were very unlike. There was more flash and brilliance + about Rudin, more fluency, and perhaps more enthusiasm. He appeared far + more gifted than Pokorsky, and yet all the while he was a poor creature by + comparison. Rudin was excellent at developing any idea, he was capital in + argument, but his ideas did not come from his own brain; he borrowed them + from others, especially from Pokorsky. Pokorsky was quiet and soft—even + weak in appearance—and he was fond of women to distraction, and fond + of dissipation, and he would never take an insult from any one. Rudin + seemed full of fire, and courage, and life, but at heart he was cold and + almost a coward, until his vanity was touched, then he would not stop at + anything. He always tried to get an ascendency over people, but he got it + in the name of general principles and ideas, and certainly had a great + influence over many. To tell the truth, no one loved him; I was the only + one, perhaps, who was attached to him. They submitted to his yoke, but all + were devoted to Pokorsky. Rudin never refused to argue and discuss with + any one he met. He did not read very much, though far more anyway than + Pokorsky and all the rest of us; besides, he had a well-arranged + intellect, and a prodigious memory, and what an effect that has on young + people! They must have generalisations, conclusions, incorrect if you + like, perhaps, but still conclusions! A perfectly sincere man never suits + them. Try to tell young people that you cannot give them the whole truth, + and they will not listen to you. But you mustn’t deceive them either. You + want to half believe yourself that you are in possession of the truth. + That was why Rudin had such a powerful effect on all of us. I told you + just now, you know, that he had not read much, but he read philosophical + books, and his brain was so constructed that he extracted at once from + what he had read all the general principles, penetrated to the very root + of the thing, and then made deductions from it in all directions—consecutive, + brilliant, sound ideas, throwing up a wide horizon to the soul. Our set + consisted then—it’s only fair to say—of boys, and not + well-informed boys. Philosophy, art, science, and even life itself were + all mere words to us—ideas if you like, fascinating and magnificent + ideas, but disconnected and isolated. The general connection of those + ideas, the general principle of the universe we knew nothing of, and had + had no contact with, though we discussed it vaguely, and tried to form an + idea of it for ourselves. As we listened to Rudin, we felt for the first + time as if we had grasped it at last, this general connection, as if a + veil had been lifted at last! Even admitting he was not uttering an + original thought—what of that! Order and harmony seemed to be + established in all we knew; all that had been disconnected seemed to fall + into a whole, to take shape and grow like a building before our eyes, all + was full of light and inspiration everywhere.... Nothing remained + meaningless and undesigned, in everything wise design and beauty seemed + apparent, everything took a clear and yet mystic significance; every + isolated event of life fell into harmony, and with a kind of holy awe and + reverence and sweet emotion we felt ourselves to be, as it were, the + living vessels of eternal truth, her instruments destined for some + great... Doesn’t it all seem very ridiculous to you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not the least!’ replied Alexandra Pavlovna slowly; ‘why should you think + so? I don’t altogether understand you, but I don’t think it ridiculous.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘We have had time to grow wiser since then, of course,’ Lezhnyov + continued, ‘all that may seem childish to us now.... But, I repeat, we all + owed a great deal to Rudin then. Pokorsky was incomparably nobler than he, + no question about it; Pokorsky breathed fire and strength into all of us; + but he was often depressed and silent. He was nervous and not robust; but + when he did stretch his wings—good heavens!—what a flight! up + to the very height of the blue heavens! And there was a great deal of + pettiness in Rudin, handsome and stately as he was; he was a gossip, + indeed, and he loved to have a hand in everything, arranging and + explaining everything. His fussy activity was inexhaustible—he was a + diplomatist by nature. I speak of him as I knew him then. But unluckily he + has not altered. On the other hand, his ideals haven’t altered at + five-and-thirty! It’s not every one who can say that of himself!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Sit down,’ said Alexandra Pavlovna, ‘why do you keep moving about like a + pendulum?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I like it better,’ answered Lezhnyov. ‘Well, after I had come into + Pokorsky’s set, I may tell you, Alexandra Pavlovna, I was quite + transformed; I grew humble and anxious to learn; I studied, and was happy + and reverent—in a word, I felt just as though I had entered a holy + temple. And really, when I recall our gatherings, upon my word there was + much that was fine, even touching, in them. Imagine a party of five or six + lads gathered together, one tallow candle burning. The tea was dreadful + stuff, and the cake was stale, very stale; but you should have seen our + faces, you should have heard our talk! Eyes were sparkling with + enthusiasm, cheeks flushed, and hearts beating, while we talked of God, + and truth, of the future of humanity, and poetry ... often what we said + was absurd, and we were in ecstasies over nonsense; but what of that?... + Pokorsky sat with crossed legs, his pale cheek on his hand, and his eyes + seemed to shed light. Rudin stood in the middle of the room and spoke, + spoke splendidly, for all the world like the young Demosthenes by the + resounding sea; our poet, Subotin of the dishevelled locks, would now and + then throw out some abrupt exclamation as though in his sleep, while + Scheller, a student forty years old, the son of a German pastor, who had + the reputation among us of a profound thinker, thanks to his eternal, + inviolable silence, held his peace with more rapt solemnity than usual; + even the lively Shtchitof, the Aristophanes of our reunions, was subdued + and did no more than smile, while two or three novices listened with + reverent transports.... And the night seemed to fly by on wings. It was + already the grey morning when we separated, moved, happy, aspiring and + sober (there was no question of wine among us at such times) with a kind + of sweet weariness in our souls... and one even looked up at the stars + with a kind of confidence, as though they had become nearer and more + comprehensible. Ah! that was a glorious time, and I can’t bear to believe + that it was altogether wasted! And it was not wasted—not even for + those whose lives were sordid afterwards. How often have I chanced to come + across such old college friends! You would think the man had sunk + altogether to the brute, but one had only to utter Pokorsky’s name before + him and every trace of noble feeling in him was stirred at once; it was + like uncorking a forgotten phial of fragrance in some dark and dirty + room.’ + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov stopped; his colourless face was flushed. + </p> + <p> + ‘And what was the cause of your quarrel with Rudin?’ said Alexandra + Pavlovna, looking wonderingly at Lezhnyov. + </p> + <p> + ‘I did not quarrel with him, but I parted from him when I came to know him + thoroughly abroad. But I might well have quarrelled with him in Moscow, he + did me a bad turn there.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What was that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It was like this. I—how can I tell you?—it does not accord + very well with my appearance, but I was always much given to falling in + love.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I was indeed. That’s a curious idea, isn’t it? But, anyway, it was + so. Well, so I fell in love in those days with a very pretty young + girl.... But why do you look at me like that? I could tell you something + about myself a great deal more extraordinary than that!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And what is that something, if I may know?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, just this. In those Moscow days I used to have a tryst at nights—with + whom, would you imagine? with a young lime-tree at the bottom of my + garden. I used to embrace its slender and graceful trunk, and I felt as + though I were embracing all nature, and my heart melted and expanded as + though it really were taking in the whole of nature. That’s what I was + then. And do you think, perhaps, I didn’t write verses? Why, I even + composed a whole drama in imitation of Manfred. Among the characters was a + ghost with blood on his breast, and not his own blood, observe, but the + blood of all humanity.... Yes, yes, you need not wonder at that. But I was + beginning to tell you about my love affair. I made the acquaintance of a + girl——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And you gave up your trysts with the lime-tree?’ inquired Alexandra + Pavlovna. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; I gave them up. This girl was a sweet, good creature, with clear, + lively eyes and a ringing voice.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You give an excellent description of her,’ commented Alexandra Pavlovna + with a smile. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are such a severe critic,’ retorted Lezhnyov. ‘Well, this girl lived + with her old father.... But I will not enter into details; I will only + tell you that this girl was so kind-hearted, if you only asked her for + half a cup of tea she would give it you brimming over! Two days after + first meeting her I was wild over her, and on the seventh day I could hold + out no longer, and confessed it in full to Rudin. At that time I was + completely under his influence, and his influence, I will tell you + frankly, was beneficial in many things. He was the first person who did + not treat me with contempt, but tried to lick me into shape. I loved + Pokorsky passionately, and felt a kind of awe before his purity of soul, + but I came closer to Rudin. When he heard about my love, he fell into an + indescribable ecstasy, congratulated me, embraced me, and at once fell to + disserting and enlarging upon all the dignity of my new position. I + pricked up my ears.... Well, you know how he can talk. His words had an + extraordinary effect on me. I at once assumed an amazing consequence in my + own eyes, and I put on a serious exterior and left off laughing. I + remember I used even to go about at that time with a kind of + circumspection, as though I had a sacred chalice within me, full of a + priceless liquid, which I was afraid of spilling over.... I was very + happy, especially as I found favour in her eyes. Rudin wanted to make my + beloved’s acquaintance, and I myself almost insisted on presenting him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah! I see, I see now what it is,’ interrupted Alexandra Pavlovna. ‘Rudin + cut you out with your charmer, and you have never been able to forgive + him.... I am ready to take a wager I am right!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You would lose your wager, Alexandra Pavlovna; you are wrong. Rudin did + not cut me out; he did not even try to cut me out; but, all the same, he + put an end to my happiness, though, looking at it in cool blood, I am + ready to thank him for it now. But I nearly went out of my mind at the + time. Rudin did not in the least wish to injure me—quite the + contrary! But through his cursed habit of pinning every emotion—his + own and other people’s—with a phrase, as one pins butterflies in a + case, he set to making clear to ourselves our relations to one another, + and how we ought to treat each other, and arbitrarily compelled us to take + stock of our feelings and ideas, praised us and blamed us, even entered + into a correspondence with us—fancy! Well, he succeeded in + completely disconcerting us! I should hardly, even then, have married the + young lady (I had so much sense still left), but, at least, we might have + spent some months happily a <i>la Paul et Virginie</i>; but now came + strained relations, misunderstandings of every kind. It ended by Rudin, + one fine morning, arriving at the conviction that it was his sacred duty + as a friend to acquaint the old father with everything—and he did + so.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Is it possible?’ cried Alexandra Pavlovna. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, and did it with my consent, observe. That’s where the wonder comes + in!... I remember even now what a chaos my brain was in; everything was + simply turning round—things looked as they do in a camera obscura—white + seemed black and black white; falsehood was truth, and a whim was duty.... + Ah! even now I feel shame at the recollection of it! Rudin—he never + flagged—not a bit of it! He soared through all sorts of + misunderstandings and perplexities, like a swallow over a pond.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And so you parted from the girl?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna, naively + bending her head on one side, and raising her eyebrows. + </p> + <p> + ‘We parted—and it was a horrible parting—outrageously awkward + and public, quite unnecessarily public.... I wept myself, and she wept, + and I don’t know what passed.... It seemed as though a kind of Gordian + knot had been tied. It had to be cut, but it was painful! However, + everything in the world is ordered for the best. She has married an + excellent man, and is well off now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But confess, you have never been able to forgive Rudin, all the same,’ + Alexandra Pavlovna was beginning. + </p> + <p> + ‘Not at all!’ interposed Lezhnyov, ‘why, I cried like a child when he was + going abroad. Still, to tell the truth, even then there was the germ in my + heart. And when I met him later abroad... well, by that time I had grown + older.... Rudin struck me in his true light.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What was it exactly you discovered in him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, all I have been telling you the last hour. But enough of him. + Perhaps everything will turn out all right. I only wanted to show you + that, if I do judge him hardly, it is not because I don’t know him. ... As + far as concerns Natalya Alexyevna, I won’t say any more, but you should + observe your brother.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘My brother! Why?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, look at him. Do you really notice nothing?’ + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna looked down. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are right,’ she assented. ‘Certainly—my brother—for some + time he has not been himself.... But do you really think——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Hush! I think he is coming,’ whispered Lezhnyov. ‘But Natalya is not a + child, believe me, though unluckily she is as inexperienced as a child. + You will see, that girl will astonish us all.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘In what way?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh! in this way.... Do you know it’s precisely girls like that who drown + themselves, take poison, and so forth? Don’t be misled by her looking so + calm. Her passions are strong, and her character—my goodness!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Come! I think you are indulging in a flight of fancy now. To a phlegmatic + person like you, I suppose even I seem a volcano?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, no!’ answered Lezhnyov, with a smile. ‘And as for character—you + have no character at all, thank God!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What impertinence is that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That? It’s the highest compliment, believe me.’ + </p> + <p> + Volintsev came in and looked suspiciously at Lezhnyov and his sister. He + had grown thin of late. They both began to talk to him, but he scarcely + smiled in response to their jests, and looked, as Pigasov once said of + him, like a melancholy hare. But there has certainly never been a man in + the world who, at some time in his life, has not looked worse than that. + Volintsev felt that Natalya was drifting away from him, and with her it + seemed as if the earth was giving way under his feet. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VII + </h2> + <p> + The next day was Sunday, and Natalya got up late. The day before she had + been very silent all day; she was secretly ashamed of her tears, and she + slept very badly. Sitting half-dressed at her little piano, at times she + played some chords, hardly audibly for fear of waking Mlle. Boncourt, and + then let her forehead fall on the cold keys and remained a long while + motionless. She kept thinking, not of Rudin himself, but of some word he + had uttered, and she was wholly buried in her own thought. Sometimes she + recollected Volintsev. She knew that he loved her. But her mind did not + dwell on him more than an instant.... She felt a strange agitation. In the + morning she dressed hurriedly and went down, and after saying good-morning + to her mother, seized an opportunity and went out alone into the + garden.... It was a hot day, bright and sunny in spite of occasional + showers of rain. Slight vapoury clouds sailed smoothly over the clear sky, + scarcely obscuring the sun, and at times a downpour of rain fell suddenly + in sheets, and was as quickly over. The thickly falling drops, flashing + like diamonds, fell swiftly with a kind of dull thud; the sunshine + glistened through their sparkling drops; the grass, that had been rustling + in the wind, was still, thirstily drinking in the moisture; the drenched + trees were languidly shaking all their leaves; the birds were busily + singing, and it was pleasant to hear their twittering chatter mingling + with the fresh gurgle and murmur of the running rain-water. The dusty + roads were steaming and slightly spotted by the smart strokes of the thick + drops. Then the clouds passed over, a slight breeze began to stir, and the + grass began to take tints of emerald and gold. The trees seemed more + transparent with their wet leaves clinging together. A strong scent arose + from all around. + </p> + <p> + The sky was almost cloudless again when Natalya came into the garden. It + was full of sweetness and peace—that soothing, blissful peace in + which the heart of man is stirred by a sweet languor of undefined desire + and secret emotion. + </p> + <p> + Natalya walked along a long line of silver poplars beside the pond; + suddenly, as if he had sprung out of the earth, Rudin stood before her. + She was confused. He looked her in the face. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are alone?’ he inquired. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I am alone,’ replied Natalya, ‘but I was going back directly. It is + time I was home.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I will go with you.’ + </p> + <p> + And he walked along beside her. + </p> + <p> + ‘You seem melancholy,’ he said. + </p> + <p> + ‘I—I was just going to say that I thought you were out of spirits.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very likely—it is often so with me. It is more excusable in me than + in you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why? Do you suppose I have nothing to be melancholy about?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘At your age you ought to find happiness in life.’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya walked some steps in silence. + </p> + <p> + ‘Dmitri Nikolaitch!’ she said. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you remember—the comparison you made yesterday—do you + remember—of the oak?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I remember. Well?’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya stole a look at Rudin. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why did you—what did you mean by that comparison?’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin bent his head and fastened his eyes on the distance. + </p> + <p> + ‘Natalya Alexyevna!’ he began with the intense and pregnant intonation + peculiar to him, which always made the listener believe that Rudin was not + expressing even the tenth part of what he held locked in his heart—‘Natalya + Alexyevna! you may have noticed that I speak little of my own past. There + are some chords which I do not touch upon at all. My heart—who need + know what has passed in it? To expose that to view has always seemed + sacrilege to me. But with you I cast aside reserve; you win my + confidence.... I cannot conceal from you that I too have loved and have + suffered like all men.... When and how? it’s useless to speak of that; but + my heart has known much bliss and much pain....’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin made a brief pause. + </p> + <p> + ‘What I said to you yesterday,’ he went on, ‘might be applied in a degree + to me in my present position. But again it is useless to speak of this. + That side of life is over for me now. What remains for me is a tedious and + fatiguing journey along the parched and dusty road from point to point... + When I shall arrive—whether I arrive at all—God knows.... Let + us rather talk of you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Can it be, Dmitri Nikolaitch,’ Natalya interrupted him, ‘you expect + nothing from life?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, no! I expect much, but not for myself.... Usefulness, the content + that comes from activity, I shall never renounce; but I have renounced + happiness. My hopes, my dreams, and my own happiness have nothing in + common. Love’—(at this word he shrugged his shoulders)—‘love + is not for me; I am not worthy of it; a woman who loves has a right to + demand the whole of a man, and I can never now give the whole of myself. + Besides, it is for youth to win love; I am too old. How could I turn any + one’s head? God grant I keep my own head on my shoulders.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I understand,’ said Natalya, ‘that one who is bent on a lofty aim must + not think of himself; but cannot a woman be capable of appreciating such a + man? I should have thought, on the contrary, that a woman would be sooner + repelled by an egoist.... All young men—the youth you speak of—all + are egoists, they are all occupied only with themselves, even when they + love. Believe me, a woman is not only able to value self-sacrifice; she + can sacrifice herself.’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya’s cheeks were slightly flushed and her eyes shining. Before her + friendship with Rudin she would never have succeeded in uttering such a + long and ardent speech. + </p> + <p> + ‘You have heard my views on woman’s mission more than once,’ replied Rudin + with a condescending smile. ‘You know that I consider that Joan of Arc + alone could have saved France.... but that’s not the point. I wanted to + speak of you. You are standing on the threshold of life.... To dwell on + your future is both pleasant and not unprofitable.... Listen: you know I + am your friend; I take almost a brother’s interest in you. And so I hope + you will not think my question indiscreet; tell me, is your heart so far + quite untouched?’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya grew hot all over and said nothing, Rudin stopped, and she stopped + too. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are not angry with me?’ he asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘No,’ she answered, ‘but I did not expect——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘However,’ he went on, ‘you need not answer me. I know your secret.’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya looked at him almost with dismay. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, yes, I know who has won your heart. And I must say that you could + not have made a better choice. He is a splendid man; he knows how to value + you; he has not been crushed by life—he is simple and pure-hearted + in soul... he will make your happiness.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of whom are you speaking, Dmitri Niklaitch?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Is it possible you don’t understand? Of Volintsev, of course. What? isn’t + it true?’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya turned a little away from Rudin. She was completely overwhelmed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you imagine he doesn’t love you? Nonsense! he does not take his eyes + off you, and follows every movement of yours; indeed, can love ever be + concealed? And do not you yourself look on him with favour? So far as I + can observe, your mother, too, likes him.... Your choice——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Dmitri Nikolaitch,’ Natalya broke in, stretching out her hand in her + confusion towards a bush near her, ‘it is so difficult, really, for me to + speak of this; but I assure you... you are mistaken.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am mistaken!’ repeated Rudin. ‘I think not. I have not known you very + long, but I already know you well. What is the meaning of the change I see + in you? I see it clearly. Are you just the same as when I met you first, + six weeks ago? No, Natalya Alexyevna, your heart is not free.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Perhaps not,’ answered Natalya, hardly audibly, ‘but all the same you are + mistaken.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How is that?’ asked Rudin. + </p> + <p> + ‘Let me go! don’t question me!’ replied Natalya, and with swift steps she + turned towards the house. + </p> + <p> + She was frightened herself by the feelings of which she was suddenly + conscious in herself. + </p> + <p> + Rudin overtook her and stopped her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Natalya Alexyevna,’ he said, ‘this conversation cannot end like this; it + is too important for me too.... How am I to understand you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Let me go!’ repeated Natalya. + </p> + <p> + ‘Natalya Alexyevna, for mercy’s sake!’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin’s face showed his agitation. He grew pale. + </p> + <p> + ‘You understand everything, you must understand me too!’ said Natalya; she + snatched away her hand and went on, not looking round. + </p> + <p> + ‘Only one word!’ cried Rudin after her + </p> + <p> + She stood still, but did not turn round. + </p> + <p> + ‘You asked me what I meant by that comparison yesterday. Let me tell you, + I don’t want to deceive you. I spoke of myself, of my past,—and of + you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How? of me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, of you; I repeat, I will not deceive you. You know now what was the + feeling, the new feeling I spoke of then.... Till to-day I should not have + ventured...’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya suddenly hid her face in her hands, and ran towards the house. + </p> + <p> + She was so distracted by the unexpected conclusion of her conversation + with Rudin, that she ran past Volintsev without even noticing him. He was + standing motionless with his back against a tree. He had arrived at the + house a quarter of an hour before, and found Darya Mihailovna in the + drawing-room; and after exchanging a few words got away unobserved and + went in search of Natalya. Led by a lover’s instinct, he went straight + into the garden and came upon her and Rudin at the very instant when she + snatched her hand away from him. Darkness seemed to fall upon his eyes. + Gazing after Natalya, he left the tree and took two strides, not knowing + whither or wherefore. Rudin saw him as he came up to him. Both looked each + other in the face, bowed, and separated in silence. + </p> + <p> + ‘This won’t be the end of it,’ both were thinking. + </p> + <p> + Volintsev went to the very end of the garden. He felt sad and sick; a load + lay on his heart, and his blood throbbed in sudden stabs at intervals. The + rain began to fall a little again. Rudin turned into his own room. He, + too, was disturbed; his thoughts were in a whirl. The trustful, unexpected + contact of a young true heart is agitating for any one. + </p> + <p> + At table everything went somehow wrong. Natalya, pale all over, could + scarcely sit in her place and did not raise her eyes. Volintsev sat as + usual next her, and from time to time began to talk in a constrained way + to her. It happened that Pigasov was dining at Darya Mihailovna’s that + day. He talked more than any one at table. Among other things he began to + maintain that men, like dogs, can be divided into the short-tailed and the + long-tailed. People are short-tailed, he said, either from birth or + through their own fault. The short-tailed are in a sorry plight; nothing + succeeds with them—they have no confidence in themselves. But the + man who has a long furry tail is happy. He may be weaker and inferior to + the short-tailed; but he believes in himself; he displays his tail and + every one admires it. And this is a fit subject for wonder; the tail, of + course, is a perfectly useless part of the body, you admit; of what use + can a tail be? but all judge of their abilities by their tail. ‘I myself,’ + he concluded with a sigh, ‘belong to the number of the short-tailed, and + what is most annoying, I cropped my tail myself.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘By which you mean to say,’ commented Rudin carelessly, ‘what La + Rochefoucauld said long before you: Believe in yourself and others will + believe in you. Why the tail was brought in, I fail to understand.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Let every one,’ Volintsev began sharply and with flashing eyes, ‘let + every one express himself according to his fancy. Talk of despotism! ... I + consider there is none worse than the despotism of so-called clever men; + confound them!’ + </p> + <p> + Everyone was astonished at this outbreak from Volintsev; it was received + in silence. Rudin tried to look at him, but he could not control his eyes, + and turned away smiling without opening his lips. + </p> + <p> + ‘Aha! so you too have lost your tail!’ thought Pigasov; and Natalya’s + heart sank in terror. Darya Mihailovna gave Volintsev a long puzzled stare + and at last was the first to speak; she began to describe an extraordinary + dog belonging to a minister So-and-So. + </p> + <p> + Volintsev went away soon after dinner. As he bade Natalya good-bye he + could not resist saying to her: + </p> + <p> + ‘Why are you confused, as though you had done wrong? You cannot have done + wrong to any one!’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya did not understand at all, and could only gaze after him. Before + tea Rudin went up to her, and bending over the table as though he were + examining the papers, whispered: + </p> + <p> + ‘It is all like a dream, isn’t it? I absolutely must see you alone—if + only for a minute.’ He turned to Mlle. Boncourt. ‘Here,’ he said to her, + ‘this is the article you were looking for,’ and again bending towards + Natalya, he added in a whisper, ‘Try to be near the terrace in the lilac + arbour about ten o’clock; I will wait for you.’ + </p> + <p> + Pigasov was the hero of the evening. Rudin left him in possession of the + field. He afforded Darya Mihailovna much entertainment; first he told a + story of one of his neighbours who, having been henpecked by his wife for + thirty years, had grown so womanish that one day in crossing a little + puddle when Pigasov was present, he put out his hand and picked up the + skirt of his coat, as women do with their petticoats. Then he turned to + another gentleman who to begin with had been a freemason, then a + hypochondriac, and then wanted to be a banker. + </p> + <p> + ‘How were you a freemason, Philip Stepanitch?’ Pigasov asked him. + </p> + <p> + ‘You know how; I wore the nail of my little finger long.’ + </p> + <p> + But what most diverted Darya Mihailovna was when Pigasov set off on a + dissertation upon love, and maintained that even he had been sighed for, + that one ardent German lady had even given him the nickname of her ‘dainty + little African’ and her ‘hoarse little crow.’ Darya Mihailovna laughed, + but Pigasov spoke the truth; he really was in a position to boast of his + conquests. He maintained that nothing could be easier than to make any + woman you chose fall in love with you; you only need repeat to her for ten + days in succession that heaven is on her lips and bliss in her eyes, and + that the rest of womankind are all simply rag-bags beside her; and on the + eleventh day she will be ready to say herself that there is heaven on her + lips and bliss in her eyes, and will be in love with you. Everything comes + to pass in the world; so who knows, perhaps Pigasov was right? + </p> + <p> + At half-past nine Rudin was already in the arbour. The stars had come out + in the pale, distant depths of the heaven; there was still a red glow + where the sun had set, and there the horizon seemed brighter and clearer; + a semi-circular moon shone golden through the black network of the weeping + birch-tree. The other trees stood like grim giants, with thousands of + chinks looking like eyes, or fell into compact masses of darkness. Not a + leaf was stirring; the topmost branches of the lilacs and acacias seemed + to stretch upwards into the warm air, as though listening for something. + The house was a dark mass now; patches of red light showed where the long + windows were lighted up. It was a soft and peaceful evening, but under + this peace was felt the secret breath of passion. + </p> + <p> + Rudin stood, his arms folded on his breast, and listened with strained + attention. His heart beat violently, and involuntarily he held his breath. + At last he caught the sound of light, hurrying footsteps, and Natalya came + into the arbour. + </p> + <p> + Rudin rushed up to her, and took her hands. They were cold as ice. + </p> + <p> + ‘Natalya Alexyevna!’ he began, in an agitated whisper, ‘I wanted to see + you.... I could not wait till to-morrow. I must tell you what I did not + suspect—what I did not realise even this morning. I love you!’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya’s hands trembled feebly in his. + </p> + <p> + ‘I love you!’ he repeated, ‘and how could I have deceived myself so long? + How was it I did not guess long ago that I love you? And you? Natalya + Alexyevna, tell me!’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya could scarcely draw her breath. + </p> + <p> + ‘You see I have come here,’ she uttered, at last. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, say that you love me!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I think—yes,’ she whispered. + </p> + <p> + Rudin pressed her hands still more warmly, and tried to draw her to him. + </p> + <p> + Natalya looked quickly round. + </p> + <p> + ‘Let me go—I am frightened.... I think some one is listening to + us.... For God’s sake, be on your guard. Volintsev suspects.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Never mind him! You saw I did not even answer him to-day.... Ah, Natalya + Alexyevna, how happy I am! Nothing shall sever us now!’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya looked into his eyes. + </p> + <p> + ‘Let me go,’ she whispered; ‘it’s time.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘One instant,’ began Rudin. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, let me go, let me go.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You seem afraid of me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, but it’s time.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Repeat, then, at least once more.’... + </p> + <p> + ‘You say you are happy?’ asked Natalya. + </p> + <p> + ‘I? No man in the world is happier than I am! Can you doubt it?’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya lifted up her head. Very beautiful was her pale, noble, young + face, transformed by passion, in the mysterious shadows of the arbour, in + the faint light reflected from the evening sky. + </p> + <p> + ‘I tell you then,’ she said, ‘I will be yours.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, my God!’ cried Rudin. + </p> + <p> + But Natalya made her escape, and was gone. + </p> + <p> + Rudin stood still a little while, then walked slowly out of the arbour. + The moon threw a light on his face; there was a smile on his lips. + </p> + <p> + ‘I am happy,’ he uttered in a half whisper. ‘Yes, I am happy,’ he + repeated, as though he wanted to convince himself. + </p> + <p> + He straightened his tall figure, shook back his locks, and walked quickly + into the garden, with a happy gesture of his hands. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile the bushes of the lilac arbour moved apart, and Pandalevsky + appeared. He looked around warily, shook his head, pursed up his mouth, + and said, significantly, ‘So that’s how it is. That must be brought to + Darya Mihailovna’s knowledge.’ And he vanished. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VIII + </h2> + <p> + On his return home, Volintsev was so gloomy and dejected, he gave his + sister such listless answers, and so quickly locked himself up in his + room, that she decided to send a messenger to Lezhnyov. She always had + recourse to him in times of difficulty. Lezhnyov sent her word that he + would come in the next day. + </p> + <p> + Volintsev was no more cheerful in the morning. After tea he was starting + to superintend the work on the estate, but he stayed at home instead, lay + on the sofa, and took up a book—a thing he did not often do. + Volintsev had no taste for literature, and poetry simply alarmed him. + ‘This is as incomprehensible as poetry,’ he used to say, and, in + confirmation of his words, he used to quote the following lines from a + Russian poet:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘And till his gloomy lifetime’s close + Nor reason nor experience proud + Will crush nor crumple Destiny’s + Ensanguined forget-me-nots.’ +</pre> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna kept looking uneasily at her brother, but she did not + worry him with questions. A carriage drew up at the steps. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah!’ she thought, ‘Lezhnyov, thank goodness!’ + </p> + <p> + A servant came in and announced the arrival of Rudin. + </p> + <p> + Volintsev flung his book on the floor, and raised his head. ‘Who has + come?’ he asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Rudin, Dmitri Nikolaitch,’ repeated the man. Volintsev got up. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ask him in,’ he said, ‘and you, sister,’ he added, turning to Alexandra + Pavlovna, ‘leave us alone.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But why?’ she was beginning. + </p> + <p> + ‘I have a good reason,’ he interrupted, passionately. ‘I beg you to leave + us.’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin entered. Volintsev, standing in the middle of the room, received him + with a chilly bow, without offering his hand. + </p> + <p> + ‘Confess you did not expect me,’ began Rudin, and he laid his hat down by + the window. His lips were slightly twitching. He was ill at ease, but tried + to conceal his embarrassment. + </p> + <p> + ‘I did not expect you, certainly,’ replied Volintsev, ‘after yesterday. I + should have more readily expected some one with a special message from + you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I understand what you mean,’ said Rudin, taking a seat, ‘and am very + grateful for your frankness. It is far better so. I have come myself to + you, as to a man of honour.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Cannot we dispense with compliments?’ observed Volintsev. + </p> + <p> + ‘I want to explain to you why I have come.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘We are acquainted; why should you not come? Besides, this is not the + first time you have honoured me with a visit.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I came to you as one man of honour to another,’ repeated Rudin, ‘and I + want now to appeal to your sense of justice.... I have complete confidence + in you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What is the matter?’ said Volintsev, who all this time was still standing + in his original position, staring sullenly at Rudin, and sometimes pulling + the ends of his moustache. + </p> + <p> + ‘If you would kindly... I came here to make an explanation, certainly, but + all the same it cannot be done off-hand.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why not?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A third person is involved in this matter.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What third person?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Sergei Pavlitch, you understand me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Dmitri Nikolaitch, I don’t understand you in the least.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You prefer——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I prefer you should speak plainly!’ broke in Volintsev. + </p> + <p> + He was beginning to be angry in earnest. + </p> + <p> + Rudin frowned. + </p> + <p> + ‘Permit... we are alone... I must tell you—though you certainly are + aware of it already (Volintsev shrugged his shoulders impatiently)—I + must tell you that I love Natalya Alexyevna, and I have the right to + believe that she loves me.’ + </p> + <p> + Volintsev turned white, but made no reply. He walked to the window and + stood with his back turned. + </p> + <p> + ‘You understand, Sergei Pavlitch,’ continued Rudin, ‘that if I were not + convinced...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Upon my word!’ interrupted Volintsev, ‘I don’t doubt it in the least.... + Well! so be it! Good luck to you! Only I wonder what the devil induced you + to come with this news to me.... What have I to do with it? What is it to + me whom you love, or who loves you? It simply passes my comprehension.’ + </p> + <p> + Volintsev continued to stare out of the window. His voice sounded choked. + </p> + <p> + Rudin got up. + </p> + <p> + ‘I will tell you, Sergei Pavlitch, why I decided to come to you, why I did + not even think I had the right to hide from you our—our mutual + feelings. I have too profound an esteem for you—that is why I have + come; I did not want... we both did not wish to play a part before you. + Your feeling for Natalya Alexyevna was known to me.... Believe me, I have + no illusions about myself; I know how little I deserve to supplant you in + her heart, but if it was fated this should be, is it made any better by + pretence, hypocrisy, and deceit? Is it any better to expose ourselves to + misunderstandings, or even to the possibilities of such a scene as took + place yesterday at dinner? Sergei Pavlitch, tell me yourself, is it?’ + </p> + <p> + Volintsev folded his arms on his chest, as though he were trying to hold + himself in. + </p> + <p> + ‘Sergei Pavlitch!’ Rudin continued, ‘I have given you pain, I feel it—but + understand us—understand that we had no other means of proving our + respect to you, of proving that we know how to value your honour and + uprightness. Openness, complete openness with any other man would have + been misplaced; but with you it took the form of duty. We are happy to + think our secret is in your hands.’ + </p> + <p> + Volintsev gave vent to a forced laugh. + </p> + <p> + ‘Many thanks for your confidence in me!’ he exclaimed, ‘though, pray + observe, I neither wished to know your secret, nor to tell you mine, + though you treat it as if it were your property. But excuse me, you speak + as though for two. Does it follow I am to suppose that Natalya Alexyevna + knows of your visit, and the object of it?’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin was a little taken aback. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I did not communicate my intention to Natalya Alexyevna; but I know + she would share my views.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s all very fine indeed,’ Volintsev began after a short pause, + drumming on the window pane with his fingers, ‘though I must confess it + would have been far better if you had had rather less respect for me. I + don’t care a hang for your respect, to tell you the truth; but what do you + want of me now?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I want nothing—or—no! I want one thing; I want you not to + regard me as treacherous or hypocritical, to understand me... I hope that + now you cannot doubt of my sincerity... I want us, Sergei Pavlitch, to + part as friends... you to give me your hand as you once did.’ + </p> + <p> + And Rudin went up to Volintsev. + </p> + <p> + ‘Excuse me, my good sir,’ said Volintsev, turning round and stepping back + a few paces, ‘I am ready to do full justice to your intentions, all that’s + very fine, I admit, very exalted, but we are simple people, we do not gild + our gingerbread, we are not capable of following the flight of great minds + like yours.... What you think sincere, we regard as impertinent and + disingenuous and indiscreet.... What is clear and simple to you, is + involved and obscure to us.... You boast of what we conceal.... How are we + to understand you! Excuse me, I can neither regard you as a friend, nor + will I give you my hand.... That is petty, perhaps, but I am only a petty + person.’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin took his hat from the window seat. + </p> + <p> + ‘Sergei Pavlitch!’ he said sorrowfully, ‘goodbye; I was mistaken in my + expectations. My visit certainly was rather a strange one... but I had + hoped that you... (Volintsev made a movement of impatience). ... Excuse + me, I will say no more of this. Reflecting upon it all, I see indeed, you + are right, you could not have behaved otherwise. Good-bye, and allow me, + at least once more, for the last time, to assure you of the purity of my + intentions.... I am convinced of your discretion.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That is too much!’ cried Volintsev, shaking with anger, ‘I never asked + for your confidence; and so you have no right whatever to reckon on my + discretion!’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin was about to say something, but he only waved his hands, bowed and + went away, and Volintsev flung himself on the sofa and turned his face to + the wall. + </p> + <p> + ‘May I come in?’ Alexandra Pavlovna’s voice was heard saying at the door. + </p> + <p> + Volintsev did not answer at once, and stealthily passed his hand over his + face. ‘No, Sasha,’ he said, in a slightly altered voice, ‘wait a little + longer.’ + </p> + <p> + Half an hour later, Alexandra Pavlovna again came to the door. + </p> + <p> + ‘Mihailo Mihailitch is here,’ she said, ‘will you see him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ answered Volintsev, ‘let them show him up here.’ + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov came in. + </p> + <p> + ‘What, aren’t you well?’ he asked, seating himself in a chair near the + sofa. + </p> + <p> + Volintsev raised himself, and, leaning on his elbow gazed a long, long + while into his friend’s face, and then repeated to him his whole + conversation with Rudin word for word. He had never before given Lezhnyov + a hint of his sentiments towards Natalya, though he guessed they were no + secret to him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, brother, you have surprised me!’ Lezhnyov said, as soon as + Volintsev had finished his story. ‘I expected many strange things from + him, but this is——Still I can see him in it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Upon my honour!’ cried Volintsev, in great excitement, ‘it is simply + insolence! Why, I almost threw him out of the window. Did he want to boast + to me or was he afraid? What was the object of it? How could he make up + his mind to come to a man——?’ + </p> + <p> + Volintsev clasped his hands over his head and was speechless. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, brother, that’s not it,’ replied Lezhnyov tranquilly; ‘you won’t + believe me, but he really did it from a good motive. Yes, indeed. It was + generous, do you see, and candid, to be sure, and it would offer an + opportunity of speechifying and giving vent to his fine talk, and, of + course, that’s what he wants, what he can’t live without. Ah! his tongue + is his enemy. Though it’s a good servant to him too.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘With what solemnity he came in and talked, you can’t imagine!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, he can’t do anything without that. He buttons his great-coat as if + he were fulfilling a sacred duty. I should like to put him on a desert + island and look round a corner to see how he would behave there. And he + discourses on simplicity!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But tell me, my dear fellow,’ asked Volintsev, ‘what is it, philosophy or + what?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How can I tell you? On one side it is philosophy, I daresay, and on the + other something altogether different. It is not right to put every folly + down to philosophy.’ + </p> + <p> + Volintsev looked at him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Wasn’t he lying then, do you imagine?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, my son, he wasn’t lying. But, do you know, we’ve talked enough of + this. Let’s light our pipes and call Alexandra Pavlovna in here. It’s + easier to talk when she’s with us and easier to be silent. She shall make + us some tea.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very well,’ replied Volintsev. ‘Sasha, come in,’ he cried aloud. + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna came in. He grasped her hand and pressed it warmly to + his lips. + </p> + <p> + Rudin returned in a curious and mingled frame of mind. He was annoyed with + himself, he reproached himself for his unpardonable precipitancy, his + boyish impulsiveness. Some one has justly said: there is nothing more + painful than the consciousness of having just done something stupid. + </p> + <p> + Rudin was devoured by regret. + </p> + <p> + ‘What evil genius drove me,’ he muttered between his teeth, ‘to call on + that squire! What an idea it was! Only to expose myself to insolence!’ + </p> + <p> + But in Darya Mihailovna’s house something extraordinary had been + happening. The lady herself did not appear the whole morning, and did not + come in to dinner; she had a headache, declared Pandalevsky, the only + person who had been admitted to her room. Natalya, too, Rudin scarcely got + a glimpse of: she sat in her room with Mlle. Boncourt. When she met him at + the dinner-table she looked at him so mournfully that his heart sank. Her + face was changed as though a load of sorrow had descended upon her since + the day before. Rudin began to be oppressed by a vague presentiment of + trouble. In order to distract his mind in some way he occupied himself + with Bassistoff, had much conversation with him, and found him an ardent, + eager lad, full of enthusiastic hopes and still untarnished faith. In the + evening Darya Mihailovna appeared for a couple of hours in the + drawing-room. She was polite to Rudin, but kept him somehow at a distance, + and smiled and frowned, talking through her nose, and in hints more than + ever. Everything about her had the air of the society lady of the court. + She had seemed of late rather cooler to Rudin. ‘What is the secret of it?’ + he thought, with a sidelong look at her haughtily-lifted head. + </p> + <p> + He had not long to wait for the solution of the enigma. As he was + returning at twelve o’clock at night to his room, along a dark corridor, + some one suddenly thrust a note into his hand. He looked round; a girl was + hurrying away in the distance, Natalya’s maid, he fancied. He went into + his room, dismissed the servant, tore open the letter, and read the + following lines in Natalya’s handwriting:— + </p> + <p> + ‘Come to-morrow at seven o’clock in the morning, not later, to Avduhin + pond, beyond the oak copse. Any other time will be impossible. It will be + our last meeting, all will be over, unless... Come. We must make our + decision.—P.S. If I don’t come, it will mean we shall not see each + other again; then I will let you know.’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin turned the letter over in his hands, musing upon it, then laid it + under his pillow, undressed, and lay down. For a long while he could not + get to sleep, and then he slept very lightly, and it was not yet five + o’clock when he woke up. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IX + </h2> + <p> + The Avduhin pond, near which Natalya had fixed the place of meeting, had + long ceased to be a pond. Thirty years before it had burst through its + banks and it had been given up since then. Only by the smooth flat surface + of the hollow, once covered with slimy mud, and the traces of the banks, + could one guess that it had been a pond. A farm-house had stood near it. + It had long ago passed away. Two huge pine-trees preserved its memory; the + wind was for ever droning and sullenly murmuring in their high gaunt green + tops. There were mysterious tales among the people of a fearful crime + supposed to have been committed under them; they used to tell, too, that + not one of them would fall without bringing death to some one; that a + third had once stood there, which had fallen in a storm and crushed a + girl. + </p> + <p> + The whole place near the old pond was supposed to be haunted; it was a + barren wilderness, dark and gloomy, even on a sunny day—it seemed + darker and gloomier still from the old, old forest of dead and withered + oak-trees which was near it. A few huge trees lifted their grey heads + above the low undergrowth of bushes like weary giants. They were a + sinister sight; it seemed as though wicked old men had met together bent + on some evil design. A narrow path almost indistinguishable wandered + beside it. No one went near the Avduhin pond without some urgent reason. + Natalya intentionally chose this solitary place. It was not more than + half-a-mile from Darya Mihailovna’s house. + </p> + <p> + The sun had already risen some time when Rudin reached the Avduhin pond, + but it was not a bright morning. Thick clouds of the colour of milk + covered the whole sky, and were driven flying before the whistling, + shrieking wind. Rudin began to walk up and down along the bank, which was + covered with clinging burdocks and blackened nettles. He was not easy in + his mind. These interviews, these new emotions had a charm for him, but + they also troubled him, especially after the note of the night before. He + felt that the end was drawing near, and was in secret perplexity of + spirit, though none would have imagined it, seeing with what concentrated + determination he folded his arms across his chest and looked around him. + Pigasov had once said truly of him, that he was like a Chinese idol, his + head was constantly overbalancing him. But with the head alone, however + strong it may be, it is hard for a man to know even what is passing in + himself.... Rudin, the clever, penetrating Rudin, was not capable of + saying certainly whether he loved Natalya, whether he was suffering, and + whether he would suffer at parting from her. Why then, since he had not + the least disposition to play the Lovelace—one must do him that + credit—had he turned the poor girl’s head? Why was he awaiting her + with a secret tremor? To this the only answer is that there are none so + easily carried away as those who are without passion. + </p> + <p> + He walked on the bank, while Natalya was hurrying to him straight across + country through the wet grass. + </p> + <p> + ‘Natalya Alexyevna, you’ll get your feet wet!’ said her maid Masha, + scarcely able to keep up with her. + </p> + <p> + Natalya did not hear and ran on without looking round. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, supposing they’ve seen us!’ cried Masha; ‘indeed it’s surprising how + we got out of the house... and ma’mselle may wake up... It’s a mercy it’s + not far.... Ah, the gentleman’s waiting already,’ she added, suddenly + catching sight of Rudin’s majestic figure, standing out picturesquely on + the bank; ‘but what does he want to stand on that mound for—he ought + to have kept in the hollow.’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya stopped. + </p> + <p> + ‘Wait here, Masha, by the pines,’ she said, and went on to the pond. + </p> + <p> + Rudin went up to her; he stopped short in amazement. He had never seen + such an expression on her face before. Her brows were contracted, her lips + set, her eyes looked sternly straight before her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Dmitri Nikolaitch,’ she began, ‘we have no time to lose. I have come for + five minutes. I must tell you that my mother knows everything. Mr. + Pandalevsky saw us the day before yesterday, and he told her of our + meeting. He was always mamma’s spy. She called me in to her yesterday.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Good God!’ cried Rudin, ‘this is terrible.... What did your mother say?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She was not angry with me, she did not scold me, but she reproached me + for my want of discretion.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That was all?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, and she declared she would sooner see me dead than your wife!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Is it possible she said that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; and she said too that you yourself did not want to marry me at all, + that you had only been flirting with me because you were bored, and that + she had not expected this of you; but that she herself was to blame for + having allowed me to see so much of you... that she relied on my good + sense, that I had very much surprised her... and I don’t remember now all + she said to me.’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya uttered all this in an even, almost expressionless voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘And you, Natalya Alexyevna, what did you answer?’ asked Rudin. + </p> + <p> + ‘What did I answer?’ repeated Natalya.... ‘What do <i>you</i> intend to do now?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Good God, good God!’ replied Rudin, ‘it is cruel! So soon... such a + sudden blow!... And is your mother in such indignation?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, yes, she will not hear of you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It is terrible! You mean there is no hope?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘None.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why should we be so unhappy! That abominable Pandalevsky!... You ask me, + Natalya Alexyevna, what I intend to do? My head is going round—I + cannot take in anything... I can feel nothing but my unhappiness... I am + amazed that you can preserve such self-possession!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you think it is easy for me?’ said Natalya. + </p> + <p> + Rudin began to walk along the bank. Natalya did not take her eyes off him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Your mother did not question you?’ he said at last. + </p> + <p> + ‘She asked me whether I love you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well... and you?’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya was silent a moment. ‘I told the truth.’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin took her hand. + </p> + <p> + ‘Always, in all things generous, noble-hearted! Oh, the heart of a girl—it’s + pure gold! But did your mother really declare her decision so absolutely + on the impossibility of our marriage?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, absolutely. I have told you already; she is convinced that you + yourself don’t think of marrying me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then she regards me as a traitor! What have I done to deserve it?’ And + Rudin clutched his head in his hands. + </p> + <p> + ‘Dmitri Nikolaitch!’ said Natalya, ‘we are losing our time. Remember I am + seeing you for the last time. I came here not to weep and lament—you + see I am not crying—I came for advice.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And what advice can I give you, Natalya Alexyevna?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What advice? You are a man; I am used to trusting to you, I shall trust + you to the end. Tell me, what are your plans?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘My plans.... Your mother certainly will turn me out of the house.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Perhaps. She told me yesterday that she must break off all acquaintance + with you.... But you do not answer my question?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What question?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What do you think we must do now?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What we must do?’ replied Rudin; ‘of course submit.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Submit,’ repeated Natalya slowly, and her lips turned white. + </p> + <p> + ‘Submit to destiny,’ continued Rudin. ‘What is to be done? I know very + well how bitter it is, how painful, how unendurable. But consider + yourself, Natalya Alexyevna; I am poor. It is true I could work; but even + if I were a rich man, could you bear a violent separation from your + family, your mother’s anger?... No, Natalya Alexyevna; it is useless even + to think of it. It is clear it was not fated for us to live together, and + the happiness of which I dreamed is not for me!’ + </p> + <p> + All at once Natalya hid her face in her hands and began to weep. Rudin + went up to her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Natalya Alexyevna! dear Natalya!’ he said with warmth, ‘do not cry, for + God’s sake, do not torture me, be comforted.’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya raised her head. + </p> + <p> + ‘You tell me to be comforted,’ she began, and her eyes blazed through her + tears; ‘I am not weeping for what you suppose—I am not sad for that; + I am sad because I have been deceived in you.... What! I come to you for + counsel, and at such a moment!—and your first word is, submit! + submit! So this is how you translate your talk of independence, of + sacrifice, which...’ + </p> + <p> + Her voice broke down. + </p> + <p> + ‘But, Natalya Alexyevna,’ began Rudin in confusion, ‘remember—I do + not disown my words—only——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You asked me,’ she continued with new force, ‘what I answered my mother, + when she declared she would sooner agree to my death than my marriage to + you; I answered that I would sooner die than marry any other man... And + you say, “Submit!” It must be that she is right; you must, through having + nothing to do, through being bored, have been playing with me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I swear to you, Natalya Alexyevna—I assure you,’ maintained Rudin. + </p> + <p> + But she did not listen to him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why did you not stop me? Why did you yourself—or did you not reckon + upon obstacles? I am ashamed to speak of this—but I see it is all + over now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You must be calm, Natalya Alexyevna,’ Rudin was beginning; ‘we must think + together what means——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You have so often talked of self-sacrifice,’ she broke in, ‘but do you + know, if you had said to me to-day at once, “I love you, but I cannot + marry you, I will not answer for the future, give me your hand and come + with me”—do you know, I would have come with you; do you know, I + would have risked everything? But there’s all the difference between word + and deed, and you were afraid now, just as you were afraid the day before + yesterday at dinner of Volintsev.’ + </p> + <p> + The colour rushed to Rudin’s face. Natalya’s unexpected energy had + astounded him; but her last words wounded his vanity. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are too angry now, Natalya Alexyevna,’ he began; ‘you cannot realise + how bitterly you wound me. I hope that in time you will do me justice; you + will understand what it has cost me to renounce the happiness which you + have said yourself would have laid upon me no obligations. Your peace is + dearer to me than anything in the world, and I should have been the basest + of men, if I could have taken advantage——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Perhaps, perhaps,’ interrupted Natalya, ‘perhaps you are right; I don’t + know what I am saying. But up to this time I believed in you, believed in + every word you said.... For the future, pray keep a watch upon your words, + do not fling them about at hazard. When I said to you, “I love you,” I + knew what that word meant; I was ready for everything.... Now I have only + to thank you for a lesson—and to say good-bye.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Stop, for God’s sake, Natalya Alexyevna, I beseech you. I do not deserve + your contempt, I swear to you. Put yourself in my position. I am + responsible for you and for myself. If I did not love you with the most + devoted love—why, good God! I should have at once proposed you + should run away with me.... Sooner or later your mother would forgive us—and + then... But before thinking of my own happiness——’ + </p> + <p> + He stopped. Natalya’s eyes fastened directly upon him put him to + confusion. + </p> + <p> + ‘You try to prove to me that you are an honourable man, Dmitri + Nikolaitch,’ she said. ‘I do not doubt that. You are not capable of acting + from calculation; but did I want to be convinced of that? did I come here + for that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I did not expect, Natalya Alexyevna——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah! you have said it at last! Yes, you did not expect all this—you + did not know me. Do not be uneasy... you do not love me, and I will never + force myself on any one.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I love you!’ cried Rudin. + </p> + <p> + Natalya drew herself up. + </p> + <p> + ‘Perhaps; but how do you love me? Remember all your words, Dmitri + Nikolaitch. You told me: “Without complete equality there is no love.”... + You are too exalted for me; I am no match for you.... I am punished as I + deserve. There are duties before you more worthy of you. I shall not + forget this day.... Good-bye.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Natalya Alexyevna, are you going? Is it possible for us to part like + this?’ + </p> + <p> + He stretched out his hand to her. She stopped. His supplicating voice + seemed to make her waver. + </p> + <p> + ‘No,’ she uttered at last. ‘I feel that something in me is broken. ... I + came here, I have been talking to you as if it were in delirium; I must + try to recollect. It must not be, you yourself said, it will not be. Good + God, when I came out here, I mentally took a farewell of my home, of my + past—and what? whom have I met here?—a coward... and how did + you know I was not able to bear a separation from my family? “Your mother + will not consent... It is terrible!” That was all I heard from you, that + you, you, Rudin?—No! good-bye.... Ah! if you had loved me, I should + have felt it now, at this moment.... No, no, goodbye!’ + </p> + <p> + She turned swiftly and ran towards Masha, who had begun to be uneasy and + had been making signs to her a long while. + </p> + <p> + ‘It is <i>you</i> who are afraid, not I!’ cried Rudin after Natalya. + </p> + <p> + She paid no attention to him, and hastened homewards across the fields. + She succeeded in getting back to her bedroom; but she had scarcely crossed + the threshold when her strength failed her, and she fell senseless into + Masha’s arms. + </p> + <p> + But Rudin remained a long while still standing on the bank. At last he + shivered, and with slow steps made his way to the little path and quietly + walked along it. He was deeply ashamed... and wounded. ‘What a girl!’ he + thought, ‘at seventeen!... No, I did not know her!... She is a remarkable + girl. What strength of will!... She is right; she deserves another love + than what I felt for her. I felt for her?’ he asked himself. ‘Can it be I + already feel no more love for her? So this is how it was all to end! What + a pitiful wretch I was beside her!’ + </p> + <p> + The slight rattle of a racing droshky made Rudin raise his head. Lezhnyov + was driving to meet him with his invariable trotting pony. Rudin bowed to + him without speaking, and as though struck with a sudden thought, turned + out of the road and walked quickly in the direction of Darya Mihailovna’s + house. + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov let him pass, looked after him, and after a moment’s thought he + too turned his horse’s head round, and drove back to Volintsev’s, where he + had spent the night. He found him asleep, and giving orders he should not + be waked, he sat down on the balcony to wait for some tea and smoked a + pipe. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + X + </h2> + <p> + Volintsev got up at ten o’clock. When he heard that Lezhnyov was sitting + in the balcony, he was much surprised, and sent to ask him to come to him. + </p> + <p> + ‘What has happened?’ he asked him. ‘I thought you meant to drive home?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; I did mean to, but I met Rudin.... He was wandering about the + country with such a distracted countenance. So I turned back at once.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You came back because you met Rudin?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s to say,—to tell the truth, I don’t know why I came back + myself, I suppose because I was reminded of you; I wanted to be with you, + and I have plenty of time before I need go home.’ + </p> + <p> + Volintsev smiled bitterly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; one cannot think of Rudin now without thinking of me.... Boy!’ he + cried harshly, ‘bring us some tea.’ + </p> + <p> + The friends began to drink tea. Lezhnyov talked of agricultural matters,—of + a new method of roofing barns with paper.... + </p> + <p> + Suddenly Volintsev leaped up from his chair and struck the table with such + force that the cups and saucers rang. + </p> + <p> + ‘No!’ he cried, ‘I cannot bear this any longer! I will call out this witty + fellow, and let him shoot me,—at least I will try to put a bullet + through his learned brains!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What are you talking about? Upon my word!’ grumbled Lezhnyov, ‘how can + you scream like that? I dropped my pipe.... What’s the matter with you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The matter is, that I can’t hear his name and keep calm; it sets all my + blood boiling!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Hush, my dear fellow, hush! aren’t you ashamed?’ rejoined Lezhnyov, + picking up his pipe from the ground. ‘Leave off! Let him alone!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He has insulted me,’ pursued Volintsev, walking up and down the room. + ‘Yes! he has insulted me. You must admit that yourself. At first I was not + sharp enough; he took me by surprise; and who could have expected this? + But I will show him that he cannot make a fool of me. ... I will shoot + him, the damned philosopher, like a partridge.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Much you will gain by that, indeed! I won’t speak of your sister now. I + can see you’re in a passion... how could you think of your sister! But in + relation to another individual—what! do you imagine, when you’ve + killed the philosopher, you can improve your own chances?’ + </p> + <p> + Volintsev flung himself into a chair. + </p> + <p> + ‘Then I must go away somewhere! For here my heart is simply being crushed + by misery; only I can find no place to go.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Go away... that’s another matter! That I am ready to agree to. And do you + know what I should suggest? Let us go together—to the Caucasus, or + simply to Little Russia to eat dumplings. That’s a capital idea, my dear + fellow!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; but whom shall we leave my sister with?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And why should not Alexandra Pavlovna come with us? Upon my soul, it will + be splendid. As for looking after her—yes, I’ll undertake that! + There will be no difficulty in getting anything we want: if she likes, I + will arrange a serenade under her window every night; I will sprinkle the + coachmen with <i>eau de cologne</i> and strew flowers along the roads. And + we shall both be simply new men, my dear boy; we shall enjoy ourselves so, + we shall come back so fat that we shall be proof against the darts of + love!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You are always joking, Misha!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m not joking at all. It was a brilliant idea of yours.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No; nonsense!’ Volintsev shouted again. ‘I want to fight him, to fight + him!...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Again! What a rage you are in!’ + </p> + <p> + A servant entered with a letter in his hand. + </p> + <p> + ‘From whom?’ asked Lezhnyov. + </p> + <p> + ‘From Rudin, Dmitri Nikolaitch. The Lasunsky’s servant brought it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘From Rudin?’ repeated Volintsev, ‘to whom?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To me!... give it me!’ + </p> + <p> + Volintsev seized the letter, quickly tore it open, and began to read. + Lezhnyov watched him attentively; a strange, almost joyful amazement was + expressed on Volintsev’s face; he let his hands fall by his side. + </p> + <p> + ‘What is it?’ asked Lezhnyov. + </p> + <p> + ‘Read it,’ Volintsev said in a low voice, and handed him the letter. + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov began to read. This is what Rudin wrote: + </p> + <p> + ‘SIR— + </p> + <p> + ‘I am going away from Darya Mihailovna’s house to-day, and leaving it for + ever. This will certainly be a surprise to you, especially after what + passed yesterday. I cannot explain to you what exactly obliges me to act + in this way; but it seems to me for some reason that I ought to let you + know of my departure. You do not like me, and even regard me as a bad man. + I do not intend to justify myself; time will justify me. In my opinion it + is even undignified in a man and quite unprofitable to try to prove to a + prejudiced man the injustice of his prejudice. Whoever wishes to + understand me will not blame me, and as for any one who does not wish, or + cannot do so,—his censure does not pain me. I was mistaken in you. + In my eyes you remain as before a noble and honourable man, but I imagined + you were able to be superior to the surroundings in which you were brought + up. I was mistaken. What of that? It is not the first, nor will it be the + last time. I repeat to you, I am going away. I wish you all happiness. + Confess that this wish is completely disinterested, and I hope that now + you will be happy. Perhaps in time you will change your opinion of me. + Whether we shall ever meet again, I don’t know, but in any case I remain + your sincere well-wisher, + </p> + <p> + ‘D. R. + </p> + <p> + ‘P.S. The two hundred roubles I owe you I will send directly I reach my + estate in T—— province. Also I beg you not to speak to Darya + Mihailovna of this letter. + </p> + <p> + ‘P.P.S. One last, but important request more; since I am going away, I + hope you will not allude before Natalya Alexyevna to my visit to you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, what do you say to that?’ asked Volintsev, directly Lezhnyov had + finished the letter. + </p> + <p> + ‘What is one to say?’ replied Lezhnyov, ‘Cry “Allah! Allah!” like a + Mussulman and sit gaping with astonishment—that’s all one can do.... + Well, a good riddance! But it’s curious: you see he thought it his <i>duty</i> + to write you this letter, and he came to see you from a sense of <i>duty</i>... + these gentlemen find a duty at every step, some duty they owe... or some + debt,’ added Lezhnyov, pointing with a smile to the postscript. + </p> + <p> + ‘And what phrases he rounds off!’ cried Volintsev. ‘He was mistaken in me. + He expected I would be superior to my surroundings. What a rigmarole! Good + God! it’s worse than poetry!’ + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov made no reply, but his eyes were smiling. Volintsev got up. + </p> + <p> + ‘I want to go to Darya Mihailovna’s,’ he announced. ‘I want to find out + what it all means.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Wait a little, my dear boy; give him time to get off. What’s the good of + running up against him again? He is to vanish, it seems. What more do you + want? Better go and lie down and get a little sleep; you have been tossing + about all night, I expect. But everything will be smooth for you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What leads you to that conclusion?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, I think so. There, go and have a nap; I will go and see your sister. + I will keep her company.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t want to sleep in the least. What’s the object of my going to bed? + I had rather go out to the fields,’ said Volintsev, putting on his + out-of-door coat. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, that’s a good thing too. Go along, and look at the fields....’ + </p> + <p> + And Lezhnyov betook himself to the apartments of Alexandra Pavlovna. He + found her in the drawing-room. She welcomed him effusively. She was always + pleased when he came; but her face still looked sorrowful. She was uneasy + about Rudin’s visit the day before. + </p> + <p> + ‘You have seen my brother?’ she asked Lezhnyov. ‘How is he to-day?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘All right, he has gone to the fields.’ + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Favlovna did not speak for a minute. + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell me, please,’ she began, gazing earnestly at the hem of her + pocket-handkerchief, ‘don’t you know why...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Rudin came here?’ put in Lezhnyov. ‘I know, he came to say good-bye.’ + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna lifted up her head. + </p> + <p> + ‘What, to say good-bye!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. Haven’t you heard? He is leaving Darya Mihailovna’s.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He is leaving?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘For ever; at least he says so.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But pray, how is one to explain it, after all?...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, that’s a different matter! To explain it is impossible, but it is so. + Something must have happened with them. He pulled the string too tight—and + it has snapped.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Mihailo Mihailitch!’ began Alexandra Pavlovna, ‘I don’t understand; you + are laughing at me, I think....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No indeed! I tell you he is going away, and he even let his friends know + by letter. It’s just as well, I daresay, from one point of view; but his + departure has prevented one surprising enterprise from being carried out + that I had begun to talk to your brother about.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What do you mean? What enterprise?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, I proposed to your brother that we should go on our travels, to + distract his mind, and take you with us. To look after you especially I + would take on myself....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s capital!’ cried Alexandra Pavlovna. ‘I can fancy how you would + look after me. Why, you would let me die of hunger.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You say so, Alexandra Pavlovna, because you don’t know me. You think I am + a perfect blockhead, a log; but do you know I am capable of melting like + sugar, of spending whole days on my knees?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I should like to see that, I must say!’ + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov suddenly got up. ‘Well, marry me, Alexandra Pavlovna, and you + will see all that’ + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna blushed up to her ears. + </p> + <p> + ‘What did you say, Mihailo Mihailitch?’ she murmured in confusion. + </p> + <p> + ‘I said what it has been for ever so long,’ answered Lezhnyov, ‘on the tip + of my tongue to say a thousand times over. I have brought it out at last, + and you must act as you think best. But I will go away now, so as not to + be in your way. If you will be my wife... I will walk away... if you don’t + dislike the idea, you need only send to call me in; I shall + understand....’ + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna tried to keep Lezhnyov, but he went quickly away, and + going into the garden without his cap, he leaned on a little gate and + began looking about him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Mihailo Mihailitch!’ sounded the voice of a maid-servant behind him, + ‘please come in to my lady. She sent me to call you.’ + </p> + <p> + Mihailo Mihailitch turned round, took the girl’s head in both his hands, + to her great astonishment, and kissed her on the forehead, then he went in + to Alexandra Pavlovna. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XI + </h2> + <p> + On returning home, directly after his meeting with Lezhnyov, Rudin shut + himself up in his room, and wrote two letters; one to Volintsev (already + known to the reader) and the other to Natalya. He sat a very long time + over this second letter, crossed out and altered a great deal in it, and, + copying it carefully on a fine sheet of note-paper, folded it up as small + as possible, and put it in his pocket. With a look of pain on his face he + paced several times up and down his room, sat down in the chair before the + window, leaning on his arm; a tear slowly appeared upon his eyelashes. He + got up, buttoned himself up, called a servant and told him to ask Darya + Mihailovna if he could see her. + </p> + <p> + The man returned quickly, answering that Darya Mihailovna would be + delighted to see him. Rudin went to her. + </p> + <p> + She received him in her study, as she had that first time, two months + before. But now she was not alone; with her was sitting Pandalevsky, + unassuming, fresh, neat, and agreeable as ever. + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna met Rudin affably, and Rudin bowed affably to her; but at + the first glance at the smiling faces of both, any one of even small + experience would have understood that something of an unpleasant nature + had passed between them, even if it had not been expressed. Rudin knew + that Darya Mihailovna was angry with him. Darya Mihailovna suspected that + he was now aware of all that had happened. + </p> + <p> + Pandalevsky’s disclosure had greatly disturbed her. It touched on the + worldly pride in her. Rudin, a poor man without rank, and so far without + distinction, had presumed to make a secret appointment with her daughter—the + daughter of Darya Mihailovna Lasunsky. + </p> + <p> + ‘Granting he is clever, he is a genius!’ she said, ‘what does that prove? + Why, any one may hope to be my son-in-law after that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘For a long time I could not believe my eyes,’ put in Pandalevsky. ‘I am + surprised at his not understanding his position!’ + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna was very much agitated, and Natalya suffered for it + </p> + <p> + She asked Rudin to sit down. He sat down, but not like the old Rudin, + almost master of the house, not even like an old friend, but like a guest, + and not even a very intimate guest. All this took place in a single + instant... so water is suddenly transformed into solid ice. + </p> + <p> + ‘I have come to you, Darya Mihailovna,’ began Rudin, ‘to thank you for + your hospitality. I have had some news to-day from my little estate, and + it is absolutely necessary for me to set off there to-day.’ + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna looked attentively at Rudin. + </p> + <p> + ‘He has anticipated me; it must be because he has some suspicion,’ she + thought. ‘He spares one a disagreeable explanation. So much the better. + Ah! clever people for ever!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Really?’ she replied aloud. ‘Ah! how disappointing! Well, I suppose + there’s no help for it. I shall hope to see you this winter in Moscow. We + shall soon be leaving here.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know, Darya Mihailovna, whether I shall succeed in getting to + Moscow, but, if I can manage it, I shall regard it as a duty to call on + you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Aha, my good sir!’ Pandalevsky in his turn reflected; ‘it’s not long + since you behaved like the master here, and now this is how you have to + express yourself!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then I suppose you have unsatisfactory news from your estate?’ he + articulated, with his customary ease. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ replied Rudin drily. + </p> + <p> + ‘Some failure of crops, I suppose?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No; something else. Believe me, Darya Mihailovna,’ added Rudin, ‘I shall + never forget the time I have spent in your house.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And I, Dmitri Nikolaitch, shall always look back upon our acquaintance + with you with pleasure. When must you start?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To-day, after dinner.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘So soon!... Well, I wish you a successful journey. But, if your affairs + do not detain you, perhaps you will look us up again here.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I shall scarcely have time,’ replied Rudin, getting up. ‘Excuse me,’ he + added; ‘I cannot at once repay you my debt, but directly I reach my place——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nonsense, Dmitri Nikolaitch!’ Darya Mihailovna cut him short. ‘I wonder + you’re not ashamed to speak of it!... What o’clock is it?’ she asked. + </p> + <p> + Pandalevsky drew a gold and enamel watch out of his waistcoat pocket, and + looked at it carefully, bending his rosy cheek over his stiff, white + collar. + </p> + <p> + ‘Thirty-three minutes past two,’ he announced. + </p> + <p> + ‘It is time to dress,’ observed Darya Mihailovna. ‘Good-bye for the + present, Dmitri Nikolaitch!’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin got up. The whole conversation between him and Darya Mihailovna had + a special character. In the same way actors repeat their parts, and + diplomatic dignitaries interchange their carefully-worded phrases. + </p> + <p> + Rudin went away. He knew by now through experience that men and women of + the world do not even break with a man who is of no further use to them, + but simply let him drop, like a kid glove after a ball, like the paper + that has wrapped up sweets, like an unsuccessful ticket for a lottery. + </p> + <p> + He packed quickly, and began to await with impatience the moment of his + departure. Every one in the house was very much surprised to hear of his + intentions; even the servants looked at him with a puzzled air. Bassistoff + did not conceal his sorrow. Natalya evidently avoided Rudin. She tried not + to meet his eyes. He succeeded, however, in slipping his note into her + hand. After dinner Darya Mihailovna repeated once more that she hoped to + see him before they left for Moscow, but Rudin made her no reply. + Pandalevsky addressed him more frequently than any one. More than once + Rudin felt a longing to fall upon him and give him a slap on his rosy, + blooming face. Mlle. Boncourt often glanced at Rudin with a peculiarly + stealthy expression in her eyes; in old setter dogs one may sometimes see + the same expression. + </p> + <p> + ‘Aha!’ she seemed to be saying to herself, ‘so you’re caught!’ + </p> + <p> + At last six o’clock struck, and Rudin’s carriage was brought to the door. + He began to take a hurried farewell of all. He had a feeling of nausea at + his heart. He had not expected to leave this house like this; it seemed as + though they were turning him out. ‘What a way to do it all! and what was + the object of being in such a hurry? Still, it is better so.’ That was + what he was thinking as he bowed in all directions with a forced smile. + For the last time he looked at Natalya, and his heart throbbed; her eyes + were bent upon him in sad, reproachful farewell. + </p> + <p> + He ran quickly down the steps, and jumped into his carriage. Bassistoff + had offered to accompany him to the next station, and he took his seat + beside him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you remember,’ began Rudin, directly the carriage had driven from the + courtyard into the broad road bordered with fir-trees, ‘do you remember + what Don Quixote says to his squire when he is leaving the court of the + duchess? “Freedom,” he says, “my friend Sancho, is one of the most + precious possessions of man, and happy is he to whom Heaven has given a + bit of bread, and who need not be indebted to any one!” What Don Quixote + felt then, I feel now.... God grant, my dear Bassistoff, that you too may + some day experience this feeling!’ + </p> + <p> + Bassistoff pressed Rudin’s hand, and the honest boy’s heart beat violently + with emotion. Till they reached the station Rudin spoke of the dignity of + man, of the meaning of true independence. He spoke nobly, fervently, and + justly, and when the moment of separation had come, Bassistoff could not + refrain from throwing himself on his neck and sobbing. Rudin himself shed + tears too, but he was not weeping because he was parting from Bassistoff. + His tears were the tears of wounded vanity. + </p> + <p> + Natalya had gone to her own room, and there she read Rudin’s letter. + </p> + <p> + ‘Dear Natalya Alexyevna,’ he wrote her, ‘I have decided to depart. There + is no other course open to me. I have decided to leave before I am told + plainly to go. By my departure all difficulties will be put an end to, and + there will be scarcely any one who will regret me. What else did I + expect?... It is always so, but why am I writing to you? + </p> + <p> + ‘I am parting from you probably for ever, and it would be too painful to + me to leave you with a worse recollection of me than I deserve. This is + why I am writing to you. I do not want either to justify myself or to + blame any one whatever except myself; I want, as far as possible, to + explain myself.... The events of the last days have been so unexpected, so + sudden.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Our interview to-day will be a memorable lesson to me. Yes, you are + right; I did not know you, and I thought I knew you! In the course of my + life I have had to do with people of all kinds. I have known many women + and young girls, but in you I met for the first time an absolutely true + and upright soul. This was something I was not used to, and I did not know + how to appreciate you fittingly. I felt an attraction to you from the + first day of our acquaintance; you may have observed it. I spent with you + hour after hour without learning to know you; I scarcely even tried to + know you—and I could imagine that I loved you! For this sin I am + punished now. + </p> + <p> + ‘Once before I loved a woman, and she loved me. My feeling for her was + complex, like hers for me; but, as she was not simple herself, it was all + the better for her. Truth was not told to me then, and now I did not + recognise it when it was offered me.... I have recognised it at last, when + it is too late.... What is past cannot be recalled.... Our lives might + have become united, and they never will be united now. How can I prove to + you that I might have loved you with real love—the love of the + heart, not of the fancy—when I do not know myself whether I am + capable of such love? + </p> + <p> + ‘Nature has given me much. I know it, and I will not disguise it from you + through false modesty, especially now at a moment so bitter, so + humiliating for me.... Yes, Nature has given me much, but I shall die + without doing anything worthy of my powers, without leaving any trace + behind me. All my wealth is dissipated idly; I do not see the fruits of + the seeds I sow. I am wanting in something. I cannot say myself exactly + what it is I am wanting in.... I am wanting, certainly, in something + without which one cannot move men’s hearts, or wholly win a woman’s heart; + and to sway men’s minds alone is precarious, and an empire ever + unprofitable. A strange, almost farcical fate is mine; I would devote + myself—eagerly and wholly to some cause,—and I cannot devote + myself. I shall end by sacrificing myself to some folly or other in which + I shall not even believe.... Alas! at thirty-five to be still preparing + for something!... + </p> + <p> + ‘I have never spoken so openly of myself to any one before—this is + my confession. + </p> + <p> + ‘But enough of me. I should like to speak of you, to give you some advice; + I can be no use to you further.... You are still young; but as long as you + live, always follow the impulse of your heart, do not let it be + subordinated to your mind or the mind of others. Believe me, the simpler, + the narrower the circle in which life is passed the better; the great + thing is not to open out new sides, but that all the phases of life should + reach perfection in their own time. “Blessed is he who has been young in + his youth.” But I see that this advice applies far more to myself than to + you. + </p> + <p> + ‘I confess, Natalya Alexyevna, I am very unhappy. I never deceived myself + as to the nature of the feeling which I inspired in Darya Mihailovna; but + I hoped I had found at least a temporary home.... Now I must take the + chances of the rough world again. What will replace for me your + conversation, your presence, your attentive and intelligent face?... I + myself am to blame; but admit that fate seems to have designed a jest at + my expense. A week ago I did not even myself suspect that I loved you. The + day before yesterday, that evening in the garden, I for the first time + heard from your lips,... but why remind you of what you said then? and now + I am going away to-day. I am going away disgraced, after a cruel + explanation with you, carrying with me no hope.... And you do not know yet + to what a degree I am to blame as regards you... I have such a foolish + lack of reserve, such a weak habit of confiding. But why speak of this? I + am leaving you for ever!’ + </p> + <p> + (Here Rudin had related to Natalya his visit to Volintsev, but on second + thoughts he erased all that part, and added the second postscript to his + letter to Volintsev.) + </p> + <p> + ‘I remain alone upon earth to devote myself, as you said to me this + morning with bitter irony, to other interests more congenial to me. Alas! + if I could really devote myself to these interests, if I could at last + conquer my inertia.... But no! I shall remain to the end the incomplete + creature I have always been.... The first obstacle, ... and I collapse + entirely; what has passed with you has shown me that. If I had but + sacrificed my love to my future work, to my vocation; but I simply was + afraid of the responsibility that had fallen upon me, and therefore I am, + truly, unworthy of you. I do not deserve that you should be torn out of + your sphere for me.... And indeed all this, perhaps, is for the best. I + shall perhaps be the stronger and the purer for this experience. + </p> + <p> + ‘I wish you all happiness. Farewell! Think sometimes of me. I hope that + you may still hear of me. + </p> + <p> + ‘RUDIN.’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya let Rudin’s letter drop on to her lap, and sat a long time + motionless, her eyes fixed on the ground. This letter proved to her + clearer than all possible arguments that she had been right, when in the + morning, at her parting with Rudin, she had involuntarily cried out that + he did not love her! But that made things no easier for her. She sat + perfectly still; it seemed as though waves of darkness without a ray of + light had closed over her head, and she had gone down cold and dumb to the + depths. The first disillusionment is painful for every one; but for a + sincere heart, averse to self-deception and innocent of frivolity or + exaggeration, it is almost unendurable. Natalya remembered her childhood, + how, when walking in the evening, she always tried to go in the direction + of the setting sun, where there was light in the sky, and not toward the + darkened half of the heavens. Life now stood in darkness before her, and + she had turned her back on the light for ever.... + </p> + <p> + Tears started into Natalya’s eyes. Tears do not always bring relief. They + are comforting and salutary when, after being long pent up in the breast, + they flow at last—at first with violence, and then more easily, more + softly; the dumb agony of sorrow is over with the tears. ... But there are + cold tears, tears that flow sparingly, wrung out drop by drop from the + heart by the immovable, weary weight of pain laid upon it: they are not + comforting, and bring no relief. Poverty weeps such tears; and the man has + not yet been unhappy who has not shed them. Natalya knew them on that day. + </p> + <p> + Two hours passed. Natalya pulled herself together, got up, wiped her eyes, + and, lighting a candle, she burnt Rudin’s letter in the flame, and threw + the ash out of window. Then she opened Pushkin at random, and read the + first lines that met her. (She often made it her oracle in this way.) This + is what she saw: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘When he has known its pang, for him + The torturing ghost of days that are no more, + For him no more illusion, but remorse + And memory’s serpent gnawing at his heart.’ +</pre> + <p> + She stopped, and with a cold smile looked at herself in the glass, + slightly nodded her head, and went down to the drawing-room. + </p> + <p> + Darya Mihailovna, directly she saw her, called her into her study, made + her sit near her, and caressingly stroked her cheek. Meanwhile she gazed + attentively, almost with curiosity, into her eyes. Darya Mihailovna was + secretly perplexed; for the first time it struck her that she did not + really understand her daughter. When she had heard from Pandalevsky of her + meeting with Rudin, she was not so much displeased as amazed that her + sensible Natalya could resolve upon such a step. But when she had sent for + her, and fell to upbraiding her—not at all as one would have + expected from a lady of European renown, but with loud and vulgar abuse—Natalya’s + firm replies, and the resolution of her looks and movements, had confused + and even intimidated her. + </p> + <p> + Rudin’s sudden, and wholly unexplained, departure had taken a great load + off her heart, but she had expected tears, and hysterics.... Natalya’s + outward composure threw her out of her reckoning again. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, child,’ began Darya Mihailovna, ‘how are you to-day?’ Natalya + looked at her mother. ‘He is gone, you see... your hero. Do you know why + he decided on going so quickly?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Mamma!’ said Natalya in a low voice, ‘I give you my word, if you will not + mention him, you shall never hear his name from me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then you acknowledge how wrongly you behaved to me?’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya looked down and repeated: + </p> + <p> + ‘You shall never hear his name from me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, well,’ answered Darya Mihailovna with a smile, ‘I believe you. But + the day before yesterday, do you remember how—There, we will pass + that over. It is all over and buried and forgotten. Isn’t it? Come, I know + you again now; but I was altogether puzzled then. There, kiss me like a + sensible girl!’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya lifted Darya Mihailovna’s hand to her lips, and Darya Mihailovna + kissed her stooping head. + </p> + <p> + ‘Always listen to my advice. Do not forget that you are a Lasunsky and my + daughter,’ she added, ‘and you will be happy. And now you may go.’ + </p> + <p> + Natalya went away in silence. Darya Mihailovna looked after her and + thought: ‘She is like me—she too will let herself be carried away by + her feelings; <i>mais ella aura moins d’abandon</i>.’ And Darya Mihailovna + fell to musing over memories of the past... of the distant past. + </p> + <p> + Then she summoned Mlle. Boncourt and remained a long while closeted with + her. + </p> + <p> + When she had dismissed her she sent for Pandalevsky. She wanted at all + hazards to discover the real cause of Rudin’s departure... but Pandalevsky + succeeded in completely satisfying her. It was what he was there for. + </p> + <p> + The next day Volintsev and his sister came to dinner. Darya Mihailovna was + always very affable to him, but this time she was especially cordial to + him. Natalya felt unbearably miserable; but Volintsev was so respectful, + and addressed her so timidly, that she could not but be grateful to him in + her heart. The day passed quietly, rather tediously, but all felt as they + separated that they had fallen back into the old order of things; and that + means much, very much. + </p> + <p> + Yes, all had fallen back into their old order—all except Natalya. + When at last she was able to be alone, she dragged herself with difficulty + into her bed, and, weary and worn out, fell with her face on the pillow. + Life seemed so cruel, so hateful, and so sordid, she was so ashamed of + herself, her love, and her sorrow, that at that moment she would have been + glad to die.... There were many sorrowful days in store for her, and + sleepless nights and torturing emotions; but she was young—life had + scarcely begun for her, and sooner or later life asserts its claims. + Whatever blow has fallen on a man, he must—forgive the coarseness of + the expression—eat that day or at least the next, and that is the + first step to consolation. + </p> + <p> + Natalya suffered terribly, she suffered for the first time.... But the + first sorrow, like first love, does not come again—and thank God for + it! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XII + </h2> + <p> + About two years had passed. The first days of May had come. Alexandra + Pavlovna, no longer Lipin but Lezhnyov, was sitting on the balcony of her + house; she had been married to Mihailo Mihailitch for more than a year. + She was as charming as ever, and had only grown a little stouter of late. + In front of the balcony, from which there were steps leading into the + garden, a nurse was walking about carrying a rosy-cheeked baby in her + arms, in a white cloak, with a white cap on his head. Alexandra Pavlovna + kept her eyes constantly on him. The baby did not cry, but sucked his + thumb gravely and looked about him. He was already showing himself a + worthy son of Mihailo Mihailitch. + </p> + <p> + On the balcony, near Alexandra Pavlovna, was sitting our old friend, + Pigasov. He had grown noticeably greyer since we parted from him, and was + bent and thin, and he lisped when he spoke; one of his front teeth had + gone; and this lisp gave still greater asperity to his words.... His + spitefulness had not decreased with years, but his sallies were less + lively, and he more frequently repeated himself. Mihailo Mihailitch was + not at home; they were expecting him in to tea. The sun had already set. + Where it had gone down, a streak of pale gold and of lemon colour + stretched across the distant horizon; on the opposite quarter of the sky + was a stretch of dove-colour below and crimson lilac above. Light clouds + seemed melting away overhead. There was every promise of prolonged fine + weather. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly Pigasov burst out laughing. + </p> + <p> + ‘What is it, African Semenitch?’ inquired Alexandra Pavlovna. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, yesterday I heard a peasant say to his wife—she had been + chattering away—“don’t squeak!” I liked that immensely. And after + all, what can a woman talk about? I never, you know, speak of present + company. Our ancestors were wiser than we. The beauty in their stories + always sits at the window with a star on her brow and never utters a + syllable. That’s how it ought to be. Think of it! the day before + yesterday, our marshal’s wife—she might have sent a pistol-shot into + my head!—says to me she doesn’t like my tendencies! Tendencies! + Come, wouldn’t it be better for her and for every one if by some + beneficent ordinance of nature she were suddenly deprived of the use of + her tongue?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, you are always like that, African Semenitch; you are always attacking + us poor... Do you know it’s a misfortune of a sort, really? I am sorry for + you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A misfortune! Why do you say that? To begin with, in my opinion, there + are only three misfortunes: to live in winter in cold lodgings, in summer + to wear tight shoes, and to spend the night in a room where a baby cries + whom you can’t get rid of with Persian powder; and secondly, I am now the + most peaceable of men. Why, I’m a model! You know how properly I behave!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Fine behaviour, indeed! Only yesterday Elena Antonovna complained to me + of you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well! And what did she tell you, if I may know?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She told me that for one whole morning you would make no reply to all her + questions but “what? what?” and always in the same squeaking voice.’ + </p> + <p> + Pigasov laughed. + </p> + <p> + ‘But that was a happy idea, you’ll allow, Alexandra Pavlovna, eh?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Admirable, indeed! Can you really have behaved so rudely to a lady, + African Semenitch?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What! Do you regard Elena Antonovna as a lady?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What do you regard her as?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A drum, upon my word, an ordinary drum such as they beat with sticks.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh,’ interrupted Alexandra Pavlovna, anxious to change the conversation, + ‘they tell me one may congratulate you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Upon what?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The end of your lawsuit. The Glinovsky meadows are yours.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, they are mine,’ replied Pigasov gloomily. + </p> + <p> + ‘You have been trying to gain this so many years, and now you seem + discontented.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I assure you, Alexandra Pavlovna,’ said Pigasov slowly, ‘nothing can be + worse and more injurious than good-fortune that comes too late. It cannot + give you pleasure in any way, and it deprives you of the right—the + precious right—of complaining and cursing Providence. Yes, madam, + it’s a cruel and insulting trick—belated fortune.’ + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna only shrugged her shoulders. + </p> + <p> + ‘Nurse,’ she began, ‘I think it’s time to put Misha to bed. Give him to + me.’ + </p> + <p> + While Alexandra Pavlovna busied herself with her son, Pigasov walked off + muttering to the other corner of the balcony. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly, not far off on the road that ran the length of the garden, + Mihailo Mihailitch made his appearance driving his racing droshky. Two + huge house-dogs ran before the horse, one yellow, the other grey, both + only lately obtained. They incessantly quarrelled, and were inseparable + companions. An old pug-dog came out of the gate to meet them. He opened + his mouth as if he were going to bark, but ended by yawning and turning + back again with a friendly wag of the tail. + </p> + <p> + ‘Look here, Sasha,’ cried Lezhnyov, from the distance, to his wife, ‘whom + I am bringing you.’ + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna did not at once recognise the man who was sitting + behind her husband’s back. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah! Mr. Bassistoff!’ she cried at last. + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s he,’ answered Lezhnyov; ‘and he has brought such glorious news. Wait + a minute, you shall know directly.’ + </p> + <p> + And he drove into the courtyard. + </p> + <p> + Some minutes later he came with Bassistoff into the balcony. + </p> + <p> + ‘Hurrah!’ he cried, embracing his wife, ‘Serezha is going to be married.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To whom?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna, much agitated. + </p> + <p> + ‘To Natalya, of course. Our friend has brought the news from Moscow, and + there is a letter for you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you hear, Misha,’ he went on, snatching his son into his arms, ‘your + uncle’s going to be married? What criminal indifference! he only blinks + his eyes!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He is sleepy,’ remarked the nurse. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ said Bassistoff, going up to Alexandra Pavlovna, ‘I have come + to-day from Moscow on business for Darya Mihailovna—to go over the + accounts on the estate. And here is the letter.’ + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna opened her brother’s letter in haste. It consisted of a + few lines only. In the first transport of joy he informed his sister that + he had made Natalya an offer, and received her consent and Darya + Mihailovna’s; and he promised to write more by the next post, and sent + embraces and kisses to all. It was clear he was writing in a state of + delirium. + </p> + <p> + Tea was served, Bassistoff sat down. Questions were showered upon him. + Every one, even Pigasov, was delighted at the news he had brought. + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell me, please,’ said Lezhnyov among the rest, ‘rumours reached us of a + certain Mr. Kortchagin. That was all nonsense, I suppose?’ + </p> + <p> + Kortchagin was a handsome young man, a society lion, excessively conceited + and important; he behaved with extraordinary dignity, just as if he had + not been a living man, but his own statue set up by public subscription. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, no, not altogether nonsense,’ replied Bassistoff with a smile; + ‘Darya Mihailovna was very favourable to him; but Natalya Alexyevna would + not even hear of him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I know him,’ put in Pigasov, ‘he’s a double dummy, a noisy dummy, if you + like! If all people were like that, it would need a large sum of money to + induce one to consent to live—upon my word!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very likely,’ answered Bassistoff; ‘but he plays a leading part in + society.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, never mind him!’ cried Alexandra Pavlovna. ‘Peace be with him! Ah! + how glad I am for my brother! And Natalya, is she bright and happy?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. She is quiet, as she always is. You know her—but she seems + contented.’ + </p> + <p> + The evening was spent in friendly and lively talk. They sat down to + supper. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, by the way,’ inquired Lezhnyov of Bassistoff, as he poured him out + some Lafitte, ‘do you know where Rudin is?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know for certain now. He came last winter to Moscow for a short + time, and then went with a family to Simbirsk. I corresponded with him for + some time; in his last letter he informed me he was leaving Simbirsk—he + did not say where he was going—and since then I have heard nothing + of him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He is all right!’ put in Pigasov. ‘He is staying somewhere sermonising. + That gentleman will always find two or three adherents everywhere, to + listen to him open-mouthed and lend him money. You will see he will end by + dying in some out-of-the-way corner in the arms of an old maid in a wig, + who will believe he is the greatest genius in the world.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You speak very harshly of him,’ remarked Bassistoff, in a displeased + undertone. + </p> + <p> + ‘Not a bit harshly,’ replied Pigasov; ‘but perfectly fairly. In my + opinion, he is simply nothing else than a sponge. I forgot to tell you,’ + he continued, turning to Lezhnyov, ‘that I have made the acquaintance of + that Terlahov, with whom Rudin travelled abroad. Yes! Yes! What he told me + of him, you cannot imagine—it’s simply screaming! It’s a remarkable + fact that all Rudin’s friends and admirers become in time his enemies.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I beg you to except me from the number of such friends!’ interposed + Bassistoff warmly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, you—that’s a different thing! I was not speaking of you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But what did Terlahov tell you?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, he told me a great deal; there’s no remembering it all. But the best + of all was an anecdote of what happened to Rudin. As he was incessantly + developing (these gentlemen always are developing; other people simply + sleep and eat; but they manage their sleeping and eating in the intervals + of development; isn’t that it, Mr. Bassistoff?’ Bassistoff made no reply.) + ‘And so, as he was continually developing, Rudin arrived at the + conclusion, by means of philosophy, that he ought to fall in love. He + began to look about for a sweetheart worthy of such an astonishing + conclusion. Fortune smiled upon him. He made the acquaintance of a very + pretty French dressmaker. The whole incident occurred in a German town on + the Rhine, observe. He began to go and see her, to take her various books, + to talk to her of Nature and Hegel. Can you fancy the position of the + dressmaker? She took him for an astronomer. However, you know he’s not a + bad-looking fellow—and a foreigner, a Russian, of course—he + took her fancy. Well, at last he invited her to a rendezvous, and a very + poetical rendezvous, in a boat on the river. The Frenchwoman agreed; + dressed herself in her best and went out with him in a boat. So they spent + two hours. How do you think he was occupied all that time? He patted the + Frenchwoman on the head, gazed thoughtfully at the sky, and frequently + repeated that he felt for her the tenderness of a father. The Frenchwoman + went back home in a fury, and she herself told the story to Terlahov + afterwards! That’s the kind of fellow he is.’ + </p> + <p> + And Pigasov broke into a loud laugh. + </p> + <p> + ‘You old cynic!’ said Alexandra Pavlovna in a tone of annoyance, ‘but I am + more and more convinced that even those who attack Rudin cannot find any + harm to say of him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No harm? Upon my word! and his perpetual living at other people’s + expense, his borrowing money.... Mihailo Mihailitch, he borrowed of you + too, no doubt, didn’t he?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Listen, African Semenitch!’ began Lezhnyov, and his face assumed a + serious expression, ‘listen; you know, and my wife knows, that the last + time I saw him I felt no special attachment for Rudin, and I even often + blamed him. For all that (Lezhnyov filled up the glasses with champagne) + this is what I suggest to you now; we have just drunk to the health of my + dear brother and his future bride; I propose that you drink now to the + health of Dmitri Rudin!’ + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna and Pigasov looked in astonishment at Lezhnyov, but + Bassistoff sat wide-eyed, blushing and trembling all over with delight. + </p> + <p> + ‘I know him well,’ continued Lezhnyov, ‘I am well aware of his faults. + They are the more conspicuous because he himself is not on a small scale.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Rudin has character, genius!’ cried Bassistoff. + </p> + <p> + ‘Genius, very likely he has!’ replied Lezhnyov, ‘but as for character ... + That’s just his misfortune, that there’s no character in him... But that’s + not the point. I want to speak of what is good, of what is rare in him. He + has enthusiasm; and believe me, who am a phlegmatic person enough, that is + the most precious quality in our times. We have all become insufferably + reasonable, indifferent, and slothful; we are asleep and cold, and thanks + to any one who will wake us up and warm us! It is high time! Do you + remember, Sasha, once when I was talking to you about him, I blamed him + for coldness? I was right, and wrong too, then. The coldness is in his + blood—that is not his fault—and not in his head. He is not an + actor, as I called him, nor a cheat, nor a scoundrel; he lives at other + people’s expense, not like a swindler, but like a child.... Yes; no doubt + he will die somewhere in poverty and want; but are we to throw stones at + him for that? He never does anything himself precisely, he has no vital + force, no blood; but who has the right to say that he has not been of use? + that his words have not scattered good seeds in young hearts, to whom + nature has not denied, as she has to him, powers for action, and the + faculty of carrying out their own ideas? Indeed, I myself, to begin with, + have gained all that from him.... Sasha knows what Rudin did for me in my + youth. I also maintained, I recollect, that Rudin’s words could not + produce an effect on men; but I was speaking then of men like myself, at + my present age, of men who have already lived and been broken in by life. + One false note in a man’s eloquence, and the whole harmony is spoiled for + us; but a young man’s ear, happily, is not so over-fine, not so trained. + If the substance of what he hears seems fine to him, what does he care + about the intonation! The intonation he will supply for himself!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Bravo, bravo!’ cried Bassistoff, ‘that is justly spoken! And as regards + Rudin’s influence, I swear to you, that man not only knows how to move + you, he lifts you up, he does not let you stand still, he stirs you to the + depths and sets you on fire!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You hear?’ continued Lezhnyov, turning to Pigasov; ‘what further proof do + you want? You attack philosophy; speaking of it, you cannot find words + contemptuous enough. I myself am not excessively devoted to it, and I know + little enough about it; but our principal misfortunes do not come from + philosophy! The Russian will never be infected with philosophical + hair-splittings and nonsense; he has too much common-sense for that; but + we must not let every sincere effort after truth and knowledge be attacked + under the name of philosophy. Rudin’s misfortune is that he does not + understand Russia, and that, certainly, is a great misfortune. Russia can + do without every one of us, but not one of us can do without her. Woe to + him who thinks he can, and woe twofold to him who actually does do without + her! Cosmopolitanism is all twaddle, the cosmopolitan is a nonentity—worse + than a nonentity; without nationality is no art, nor truth, nor life, nor + anything. You cannot even have an ideal face without individual + expression; only a vulgar face can be devoid of it. But I say again, that + is not Rudin’s fault; it is his fate—a cruel and unhappy fate—for + which we cannot blame him. It would take us too far if we tried to trace + why Rudins spring up among us. But for what is fine in him, let us be + grateful to him. That is pleasanter than being unfair to him, and we have + been unfair to him. It’s not our business to punish him, and it’s not + needed; he has punished himself far more cruelly than he deserved. And God + grant that unhappiness may have blotted out all the harm there was in him, + and left only what was fine! I drink to the health of Rudin! I drink to + the comrade of my best years, I drink to youth, to its hopes, its + endeavours, its faith, and its honesty, to all that our hearts beat for at + twenty; we have known, and shall know, nothing better than that in + life.... I drink to that golden time—to the health of Rudin!’ + </p> + <p> + All clinked glasses with Lezhnyov. Bassistoff, in his enthusiasm, almost + cracked his glass and drained it off at a draught. Alexandra Pavlovna + pressed Lezhnyov’s hand. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, Mihailo Mihailitch, I did not suspect you were an orator,’ remarked + Pigasov; ‘it was equal to Mr. Rudin himself; even I was moved by it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am not at all an orator,’ replied Lezhnyov, not without annoyance, ‘but + to move you, I fancy, would be difficult. But enough of Rudin; let us talk + of something else. What of—what’s his name—Pandalevsky? is he + still living at Darya Mihailovna’s?’ he concluded, turning to Bassistoff. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes, he is still there. She has managed to get him a very profitable + place.’ + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov smiled. + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s a man who won’t die in want, one can count upon that.’ + </p> + <p> + Supper was over. The guests dispersed. When she was left alone with her + husband, Alexandra Pavlovna looked smiling into his face. + </p> + <p> + ‘How splendid you were this evening, Misha,’ she said, stroking his + forehead, ‘how cleverly and nobly you spoke! But confess, you exaggerated + a little in Rudin’s praise, as in old days you did in attacking him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I can’t let them hit a man when he’s down. And in those days I was afraid + he was turning your head.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No,’ replied Alexandra Pavlovna naively, ‘he always seemed too learned + for me. I was afraid of him, and never knew what to say in his presence. + But wasn’t Pigasov nasty in his ridicule of him to-day?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Pigasov?’ responded Lezhnyov. ‘That was just why I stood up for Rudin so + warmly, because Pigasov was here. He dare to call Rudin a sponge indeed! + Why, I consider the part he plays—Pigasov I mean—is a hundred + times worse! He has an independent property, and he sneers at every one, + and yet see how he fawns upon wealthy or distinguished people! Do you know + that that fellow, who abuses everything and every one with such scorn, and + attacks philosophy and women, do you know that when he was in the service, + he took bribes and that sort of thing! Ugh! That’s what he is!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Is it possible?’ cried Alexandra Pavlovna, ‘I should never have expected + that! Misha,’ she added, after a short pause, ‘I want to ask you——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What do you think, will my brother be happy with Natalya?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How can I tell you?... there’s every likelihood of it. She will take the + lead... there’s no reason to hide the fact between us... she is cleverer + than he is; but he’s a capital fellow, and loves her with all his soul. + What more would you have? You see we love one another and are happy, + aren’t we?’ + </p> + <p> + Alexandra Pavlovna smiled and pressed his hand. + </p> + <p> + On the same day on which all that has been described took place in + Alexandra Pavlovna’s house, in one of the remote districts of Russia, a + wretched little covered cart, drawn by three village horses was crawling + along the high road in the sultry heat. On the front seat was perched a + grizzled peasant in a ragged cloak, with his legs hanging slanting on the + shaft; he kept flicking with the reins, which were of cord, and shaking + the whip. Inside the cart there was sitting on a shaky portmanteau a tall + man in a cap and old dusty cloak. It was Rudin. He sat with bent head, the + peak of his cap pulled over his eyes. The jolting of the cart threw him + from side to side; but he seemed utterly unconscious, as though he were + asleep. At last he drew himself up. + </p> + <p> + ‘When are we coming to a station?’ he inquired of the peasant sitting in + front. + </p> + <p> + ‘Just over the hill, little father,’ said the peasant, with a still more + violent shaking of the reins. ‘There’s a mile and a half farther to go, + not more.... Come! there! look about you.... I’ll teach you,’ he added in + a shrill voice, setting to work to whip the right-hand horse. + </p> + <p> + ‘You seem to drive very badly,’ observed Rudin; ‘we have been crawling + along since early morning, and we have not succeeded in getting there yet. + You should have sung something.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, what would you have, little father? The horses, you see yourself, + are overdone... and then the heat; and I can’t sing. I’m not a + coachman.... Hullo, you little sheep!’ cried the peasant, suddenly turning + to a man coming along in a brown smock and bark shoes downtrodden at heel. + ‘Get out of the way!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You’re a nice driver!’ muttered the man after him, and stood still. ‘You + wretched Muscovite,’ he added in a voice full of contempt, shook his head + and limped away. + </p> + <p> + ‘What are you up to?’ sang out the peasant at intervals, pulling at the + shaft-horse. ‘Ah, you devil! Get on!’ + </p> + <p> + The jaded horses dragged themselves at last up to the posting-station. + Rudin crept out of the cart, paid the peasant (who did not bow to him, and + kept shaking the coins in the palm of his hand a long while—evidently + there was too little drink-money) and himself carried the portmanteau into + the posting-station. + </p> + <p> + A friend of mine who has wandered a great deal about Russia in his time + made the observation that if the pictures hanging on the walls of a + posting-station represent scenes from ‘the Prisoner of the Caucasus,’ or + Russian generals, you may get horses soon; but if the pictures depict the + life of the well-known gambler George de Germany, the traveller need not + hope to get off quickly; he will have time to admire to the full the hair + <i>à la cockatoo</i>, the white open waistcoat, and the exceedingly short + and narrow trousers of the gambler in his youth, and his exasperated + physiognomy, when in his old age he kills his son, waving a chair above + him, in a cottage with a narrow staircase. In the room into which Rudin + walked precisely these pictures were hanging out of ‘Thirty Years, or the + Life of a Gambler.’ In response to his call the superintendent appeared, + who had just waked up (by the way, did any one ever see a superintendent + who had not just been asleep?), and without even waiting for Rudin’s + question, informed him in a sleepy voice that there were no horses. + </p> + <p> + ‘How can you say there are no horses,’ said Rudin, ‘when you don’t even + know where I am going? I came here with village horses.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘We have no horses for anywhere,’ answered the superintendent. ‘But where + are you going?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To Sk——.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘We have no horses,’ repeated the superintendent, and he went away. + </p> + <p> + Rudin, vexed, went up to the window and threw his cap on the table. He was + not much changed, but had grown rather yellow in the last two years; + silver threads shone here and there in his curls, and his eyes, still + magnificent, seemed somehow dimmed, fine lines, the traces of bitter and + disquieting emotions, lay about his lips and on his temples. His clothes + were shabby and old, and he had no linen visible anywhere. His best days + were clearly over: as the gardeners say, he had gone to seed. + </p> + <p> + He began reading the inscriptions on the walls—the ordinary + distraction of weary travellers; suddenly the door creaked and the + superintendent came in. + </p> + <p> + ‘There are no horses for Sk——, and there won’t be any for a + long time,’ he said, ‘but here are some ready to go to V——.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To V——?’ said Rudin. ‘Why, that’s not on my road at all. I am + going to Penza, and V—— lies, I think, in the direction of + Tamboff.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What of that? you can get there from Tamboff, and from V—— + you won’t be at all out of your road.’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin thought a moment. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, all right,’ he said at last, ‘tell them to put the horses to. It is + the same to me; I will go to Tamboff.’ + </p> + <p> + The horses were soon ready. Rudin carried his own portmanteau, climbed + into the cart, and took his seat, his head hanging as before. There was + something helpless and pathetically submissive in his bent figure.... And + the three horses went off at a slow trot. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_EPIL" id="link2H_EPIL"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + EPILOGUE + </h2> + <p> + Some years had passed by. + </p> + <p> + It was a cold autumn day. A travelling carriage drew up at the steps of + the principal hotel of the government town of C——; a gentleman + yawning and stretching stepped out of it. He was not elderly, but had had + time to acquire that fulness of figure which habitually commands respect. + He went up the staircase to the second story, and stopped at the entrance + to a wide corridor. Seeing no one before him he called out in a loud voice + asking for a room. A door creaked somewhere, and a long waiter jumped up + from behind a low screen, and came forward with a quick flank movement, an + apparition of a glossy back and tucked-up sleeves in the half-dark + corridor. The traveller went into the room and at once throwing off his + cloak and scarf, sat down on the sofa, and with his fists propped on his + knees, he first looked round as though he were hardly awake yet, and then + gave the order to send up his servant. The hotel waiter made a bow and + disappeared. The traveller was no other than Lezhnyov. He had come from + the country to C—— about some conscription business. + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov’s servant, a curly-headed, rosy-cheeked youth in a grey cloak, + with a blue sash round the waist, and soft felt shoes, came into the room. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, my boy, here we are,’ Lezhnyov said, ‘and you were afraid all the + while that a wheel would come off.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘We are here,’ replied the boy, trying to smile above the high collar of + his cloak, ‘but the reason why the wheel did not come off——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Is there no one in here?’ sounded a voice in the corridor. + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov started and listened. + </p> + <p> + ‘Eh? who is there?’ repeated the voice. + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov got up, walked to the door, and quickly threw it open. + </p> + <p> + Before him stood a tall man, bent and almost completely grey, in an old + frieze coat with bronze buttons. + </p> + <p> + ‘Rudin!’ he cried in an excited voice. + </p> + <p> + Rudin turned round. He could not distinguish Lezhnyov’s features, as he + stood with his back to the light, and he looked at him in bewilderment. + </p> + <p> + ‘You don’t know me?’ said Lezhnyov. + </p> + <p> + ‘Mihailo Mihailitch!’ cried Rudin, and held out his hand, but drew it back + again in confusion. Lezhnyov made haste to snatch it in both of his. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come, come in!’ he said to Rudin, and drew him into the room. + </p> + <p> + ‘How you have changed!’ exclaimed Lezhnyov after a brief silence, + involuntarily dropping his voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, they say so!’ replied Rudin, his eyes straying about the room. ‘The + years... and you not much. How is Alexandra—your wife?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She is very well, thank you. But what fate brought you here?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It is too long a story. Strictly speaking, I came here by chance. I was + looking for a friend. But I am very glad...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Where are you going to dine?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, I don’t know. At some restaurant. I must go away from here to-day.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You must.’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin smiled significantly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I must. They are sending me off to my own place, to my home.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Dine with me.’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin for the first time looked Lezhnyov straight in the face. + </p> + <p> + ‘You invite me to dine with you?’ he said. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, Rudin, for the sake of old times and old comradeship. Will you? I + did not expect to meet you, and God only knows when we shall see each + other again. I cannot part from you like this!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very well, I agree!’ + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov pressed Rudin’s hand, and calling his servant, ordered dinner, + and told him to have a bottle of champagne put in ice. + </p> + <p> + In the course of dinner, Lezhnyov and Rudin, as though by agreement, kept + talking of their student days, recalling many things and many friends—dead + and living. At first Rudin spoke with little interest, but when he had + drunk a few glasses of wine his blood grew warmer. At last the waiter took + away the last dish, Lezhnyov got up, closed the door, and coming back to + the table, sat down facing Rudin, and quietly rested his chin on his + hands. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now, then,’ he began, ‘tell me all that has happened to you since I saw + you last.’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin looked at Lezhnyov. + </p> + <p> + ‘Good God!’ thought Lezhnyov, ‘how he has changed, poor fellow!’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin’s features had undergone little change since we saw him last at the + posting-station, though approaching old age had had time to set its mark + upon them; but their expression had become different. His eyes had a + changed look; his whole being, his movements, which were at one time slow, + at another abrupt and disconnected, his crushed, benumbed manner of + speaking, all showed an utter exhaustion, a quiet and secret dejection, + very different from the half-assumed melancholy which he had affected + once, as it is generally affected by youth, when full of hopes and + confident vanity. + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell you all that has happened to me?’ he said; ‘I could not tell you + all, and it is not worth while. I am worn out; I have wandered far—in + spirit as well as in flesh. What friends I have made—good God! How + many things, how many men I have lost faith in! Yes, how many!’ repeated + Rudin, noticing that Lezhnyov was looking in his face with a kind of + special sympathy. ‘How many times have my own words grown hateful to me! I + don’t mean now on my own lips, but on the lips of those who had adopted my + opinions! How many times have I passed from the petulance of a child to + the dull insensibility of a horse who does not lash his tail when the whip + cuts him!... How many times I have been happy and hopeful, and have made + enemies and humbled myself for nothing! How many times I have taken flight + like an eagle—and returned crawling like a snail whose shell has + been crushed!... Where have I not been! What roads have I not + travelled!... And the roads are often dirty,’ added Rudin, slightly + turning away. ‘You know ...’ he was continuing.... ‘Listen,’ interrupted + Lezhnyov. ‘We used once to say “Dmitri and Mihail” to one another. Let us + revive the old habit,... will you? Let us drink to those days!’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin started and drew himself up a little, and there was a gleam in his + eyes of something no word can express. + </p> + <p> + ‘Let us drink to them,’ he said. ‘I thank you, brother, we will drink to + them!’ + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov and Rudin drained their glasses. + </p> + <p> + ‘You know, Mihail,’ Rudin began again with a smile and a stress on the + name, ‘there is a worm in me which gnaws and worries me and never lets me + be at peace till the end. It brings me into collision with people,—at + first they fall under my influence, but afterwards...’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin waved his hand in the air. + </p> + <p> + ‘Since I parted from you, Mihail, I have seen much, have experienced many + changes.... I have begun life, have started on something new twenty times—and + here—you see!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You had no stability,’ said Lezhnyov, as though to himself. + </p> + <p> + ‘As you say, I had no stability. I never was able to construct anything; + and it’s a difficult thing, brother, to construct when one has to create + the very ground under one’s feet, to make one’s own foundation for one’s + self! All my adventures—that is, speaking accurately, all my + failures, I will not describe. I will tell of two or three incidents—those + incidents of my life when it seemed as if success were smiling on me, or + rather when I began to hope for success—which is not altogether the + same thing...’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin pushed back his grey and already sparse locks with the same gesture + which he used once to toss back his thick, dark curls. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, I will tell you, Mihail,’ he began. ‘In Moscow I came across a + rather strange man. He was very wealthy and was the owner of extensive + estates. His chief and only passion was love of science, universal + science. I have never yet been able to arrive at how this passion arose in + him! It fitted him about as well as a saddle on a cow. He managed with + difficulty to maintain himself at his mental elevation, he was almost + without the power of speech, he only rolled his eyes with expression and + shook his head significantly. I never met, brother, a poorer and less + gifted nature than his.... In the Smolensk province there are places like + that—nothing but sand and a few tufts of grass which no animal can + eat. Nothing succeeded in his hands; everything seemed to slip away from + him; but he was still mad on making everything plain complicated. If it + had depended on his arrangements, his people would have eaten standing on + their heads. He worked, and wrote, and read indefatigably. He devoted + himself to science with a kind of stubborn perseverance, a terrible + patience; his vanity was immense, and he had a will of iron. He lived + alone, and had the reputation of an eccentric. I made friends with him... + and he liked me. I quickly, I must own, saw through him; but his zeal + attracted me. Besides, he was the master of such resources; so much good + might be done, so much real usefulness through him.... I was installed in + his house and went with him to the country. My plans, brother, were on a + vast scale; I dreamed of various reforms, innovations...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Just as at the Lasunsky’s, do you remember, Dmitri?’ responded Lezhnyov, + with an indulgent smile. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, but then I knew in my heart that nothing would come of my words; but + this time... an altogether different field of activity lay open before + me.... I took with me books on agriculture... to tell the truth, I did not + read one of them through.... Well, I set to work. At first it did not + progress as I had expected; but afterwards it did get on in a way. My new + friend looked on and said nothing; he did not interfere with me, at least + not to any noticeable extent. He accepted my suggestions, and carried them + out, but with a stubborn sullenness, a secret want of faith; and he bent + everything his own way. He prized extremely every idea of his own. He got + to it with difficulty, like a ladybird on a blade of grass, and he would + sit and sit upon it, as though pluming his wings and getting ready for a + flight, and suddenly he would fall off and begin crawling again.... Don’t + be surprised at these comparisons; at that time they were always crowding + on my imagination. So I struggled on there for two years. The work did not + progress much in spite of all my efforts. I began to be tired of it, my + friend bored me; I had come to sneer at him, and he stifled me like a + featherbed; his want of faith had changed into a dumb resentment; a + feeling of hostility had laid hold of both of us; we could scarcely now + speak of anything; he quietly but incessantly tried to show me that he was + not under my influence; my arrangements were either set aside or + altogether transformed. I realised, at last, that I was playing the part + of a toady in the noble landowner’s house by providing him with + intellectual amusement. It was very bitter to me to have wasted my time + and strength for nothing, most bitter to feel that I had again and again + been deceived in my expectations. I knew very well what I was losing if I + went away; but I could not control myself, and one day after a painful and + revolting scene of which I was a witness, and which showed my friend in a + most disadvantageous light, I quarrelled with him finally, went away, and + threw up this newfangled pedant, made of a queer compound of our native + flour kneaded up with German treacle.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That is, you threw up your daily bread, Dmitri,’ said Lezhnyov, laying + both hands on Rudin’s shoulders. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, and again I was turned adrift, empty-handed and penniless, to fly + whither I listed. Ah! let us drink!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To your health!’ said Lezhnyov, getting up and kissing Rudin on the + forehead. ‘To your health and to the memory of Pokorsky. He, too, knew how + to be poor.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, that was number one of my adventures,’ began Rudin, after a short + pause. ‘Shall I go on?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Go on, please.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah! I have no wish for talking. I am tired of talking, brother.... + However, so be it. After knocking about in various parts—by the way, + I might tell you how I became the secretary of a benevolent dignitary, and + what came of that; but that would take me too long.... After knocking + about in various parts, I resolved to become at last—don’t smile, + please—a practical business man. The opportunity came in this way. I + became friendly with—he was much talked of at one time—a man + called Kurbyev.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, I never heard of him. But, really, Dmitri, with your intelligence, + how was it you did not suspect that to be a business man was not the + business for you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I know, brother, that it was not; but, then, what is the business for me? + But if you had seen Kurbyev! Do not, pray, fancy him as some empty-headed + chatterer. They say I was eloquent once. I was simply nothing beside him. + He was a man of wonderful learning and knowledge,—an intellect, + brother, a creative intellect, for business and commercial enterprises. + His brain seemed seething with the boldest, the most unexpected schemes. I + joined him and we decided to turn our powers to a work of public utility.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What was it, may I know?’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin dropped his eyes. + </p> + <p> + ‘You will laugh at it, Mihail.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why should I? No, I will not laugh.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘We resolved to make a river in the K—— province fit for + navigation,’ said Rudin with an embarrassed smile. + </p> + <p> + ‘Really! This Kurbyev was a capitalist, then?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He was poorer than I,’ responded Rudin, and his grey head sank on his + breast. + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov began to laugh, but he stopped suddenly and took Rudin by the + hand. + </p> + <p> + ‘Pardon me, brother, I beg,’ he said, ‘but I did not expect that. Well, so + I suppose your enterprise did not get further than paper?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not so. A beginning was made. We hired workmen, and set to work. But then + we were met by various obstacles. In the first place the millowners would + not meet us favourably at all; and more than that, we could not turn the + water out of its course without machinery, and we had not money enough for + machinery. For six months we lived in mud huts. Kurbyev lived on dry + bread, and I, too, had not much to eat. However, I don’t complain of that; + the scenery there is something magnificent. We struggled and struggled on, + appealing to merchants, writing letters and circulars. It ended in my + spending my last farthing on the project.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well!’ observed Lezhnyov, ‘I imagine to spend your last farthing, Dmitri, + was not a difficult matter?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It was not difficult, certainly.’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin looked out of the window. + </p> + <p> + ‘But the project really was not a bad one, and it might have been of + immense service.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And where did Kurbyev go to?’ asked Lezhnyov. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, he is now in Siberia, he has become a gold-digger. And you will see + he will make himself a position; he will get on.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Perhaps; but then you will not be likely to make a position for yourself, + it seems.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, that can’t be helped! But I know I was always a frivolous creature + in your eyes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Hush, brother; there was a time, certainly, when I saw your weak side; + but now, believe me, I have learnt to value you. You will not make + yourself a position. And I love you, Dmitri, for that, indeed I do!’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin smiled faintly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Truly?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I respect you for it!’ repeated Lezhnyov. ‘Do you understand me?’ + </p> + <p> + Both were silent for a little. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, shall I proceed to number three?’ asked Rudin. + </p> + <p> + ‘Please do.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very well. The third and last. I have only now got clear of number three. + But am I not boring you, Mihail?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Go on, go on.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well,’ began Rudin, ‘once the idea occurred to me at some leisure moment—I + always had plenty of leisure moments—the idea occurred to me; I have + knowledge enough, my intentions are good. I suppose even you will not deny + me good intentions?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I should think not!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘In all other directions I had failed more or less... why should I not + become an instructor, or speaking simply a teacher... rather than waste my + life?’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin stopped and sighed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Rather than waste my life, would it not be better to try to pass on to + others what I know; perhaps they may extract at least some use from my + knowledge. My abilities are above the ordinary anyway, I am a master of + language. So I resolved to devote myself to this new work. I had + difficulty in obtaining a post; I did not want to give private lessons; + there was nothing I could do in the lower schools. At last I succeeded in + getting an appointment as professor in the gymnasium here.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘As professor of what?’ asked Lezhnyov. + </p> + <p> + ‘Professor of literature. I can tell you I never started on any work with + such zest as I did on this. The thought of producing an effect upon the + young inspired me. I spent three weeks over the composition of my opening + lecture.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Have you got it, Dmitri?’ interrupted Lezhnyov. + </p> + <p> + ‘No! I lost it somewhere. It went off fairly well, and was liked. I can + see now the faces of my listeners—good young faces, with an + expression of pure-souled attention and sympathy, and even of amazement. I + mounted the platform and read my lecture in a fever; I thought it would + fill more than an hour, but I had finished it in twenty minutes. The + inspector was sitting there—a dry old man in silver spectacles and a + short wig—he sometimes turned his head in my direction. When I had + finished, he jumped up from his seat and said to me, “Good, but rather + over their heads, obscure, and too little said about the subject.” But the + pupils followed me with appreciation in their looks—indeed they did. + Ah, that is how youth is so precious! I gave a second written lecture, and + a third. After that I began to lecture extempore.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And you had success?’ asked Lezhnyov. + </p> + <p> + ‘I had a great success. I gave my audience all that was in my soul. Among + them were two or three really remarkable boys; the rest did not understand + me much. I must confess though that even those who did understand me + sometimes embarrassed me by their questions. But I did not lose heart. + They all loved me; I gave them all full marks in examinations. But then an + intrigue was started against me—or no! it was not an intrigue at + all; it simply was, that I was not in my proper place. I was a hindrance + to the others, and they were a hindrance to me. I lectured to the + gymnasium pupils in a way lectures are not given every day, even to + students; they carried away very little from my lectures.... I myself did + not know the facts enough. Besides, I was not satisfied with the limited + sphere assigned to me—you know that is always my weakness. I wanted + radical reforms, and I swear to you that these reforms were both sensible + and easy to carry out. I hoped to carry them through the director, a good + and honest man, over whom I had at first some influence. His wife aided + me. I have not, brother, met many women like her in my life. She was about + forty; but she believed in goodness, and loved everything fine with the + enthusiasm of a girl of fifteen, and was not afraid to give utterance to + her convictions before any one whatever. I shall never forget her generous + enthusiasm and goodness. By her advice I drew up a plan.... But then my + influence was undermined, I was misrepresented to her. My chief enemy was + the professor of mathematics, a little sour, bilious man who believed in + nothing, a character like Pigasov, but far more able than he was.... By + the way, how is Pigasov, is he living?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, yes; and only fancy, he is married to a peasant woman, who, they say, + beats him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Serve him right! And Natalya Alexyevna—is she well?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Is she happy?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin was silent for a little. + </p> + <p> + ‘What was I talking about?... Oh yes! about the professor of mathematics. + He perfectly hated me; he compared my lectures to fireworks, pounced upon + every expression of mine that was not altogether clear, once even put me + to confusion over some monument of the sixteenth century.... But the most + important thing was, he suspected my intentions; my last soap-bubble + struck on him as on a spike, and burst. The inspector, whom I had not got + on with from the first, set the director against me. A scene followed. I + was not ready to give in; I got hot; the matter came to the knowledge of + the authorities; I was forced to resign. I did not stop there; I wanted to + prove that they could not treat me like that.... But they could treat me + as they liked.... Now I am forced to leave the town.’ + </p> + <p> + A silence followed. Both the friends sat with bowed heads. + </p> + <p> + Rudin was the first to speak. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, brother,’ he began, ‘I can say now, in the words of Koltsov, “Thou + hast led me astray, my youth, till there is nowhere I can turn my + steps.”... And yet can it be that I was fit for nothing, that for me there + was, as it were, no work on earth to do? I have often put myself this + question, and, however much I tried to humble myself in my own eyes, I + could not but feel the existence of faculties within me which are not + given to every one! Why have these faculties remained fruitless? And let + me say more; you know, when I was with you abroad, Mihail, I was conceited + and full of erroneous ideas.... Certainly I did not then realise clearly + what I wanted; I lived upon words, and believed in phantoms. But now, I + swear to you, I could speak out before all men every desire I feel. I have + absolutely nothing to hide; I am absolutely, in the fullest meaning of the + word, a well-intentioned man. I am humble, I am ready to adapt myself to + circumstances; I want little; I want to do the good that lies nearest, to + be even a little use. But no! I never succeed. What does it mean? What + hinders me from living and working like others?... I am only dreaming of + it now. But no sooner do I get into any definite position when fate throws + the dice from me. I have come to dread it—my destiny.... Why is it + so? Explain this enigma to me!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘An enigma!’ repeated Lezhnyov. ‘Yes, that’s true; you have always been an + enigma for me. Even in our young days, when, after some trifling prank, + you would suddenly speak as though you were pierced to the heart, and then + you would begin again... well you know what I mean... even then I did not + understand. That is why I grew apart from you.... You have so much power, + such unwearying striving after the ideal.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Words, all words! There was nothing done!’ Rudin broke in. + </p> + <p> + ‘Nothing done! What is there to do?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What is there to do! To keep an old blind woman and all her family by + one’s work, as, do you remember, Mihail, Pryazhentsov did... That’s doing + something.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, but a good word—is also something done.’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin looked at Lezhnyov without speaking and faintly shook his head. + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov wanted to say something, and he passed his hand over his face. + </p> + <p> + ‘And so you are going to your country place?’ he asked at last. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There you have some property left?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Something is left me there. Two souls and a half. It is a corner to die + in. You are thinking perhaps at this moment: “Even now he cannot do + without fine words!” Words indeed have been my ruin; they have consumed + me, and to the end I cannot be free of them. But what I have said was not + mere words. These white hairs, brother, these wrinkles, these ragged + elbows—they are not mere words. You have always been hard on me, + Mihail, and you were right; but now is not a time to be hard, when all is + over, when there’s no oil left in the lamp, and the lamp itself is broken, + and the wick is just smouldering out. Death, brother, should reconcile at + last...’ + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov jumped up. + </p> + <p> + ‘Rudin!’ he cried, ‘why do you speak like that to me? How have I deserved + it from you? Am I such a judge, and what kind of a man should I be, if at + the sight of your hollow cheeks and wrinkles, “mere words” could occur to + my mind? Do you want to know what I think of you, Dmitri? Well! I think: + here is a man—with his abilities, what might he not have attained + to, what worldly advantages might he not have possessed by now, if he had + liked!... and I meet him hungry and homeless....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I rouse your compassion,’ Rudin murmured in a choked voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, you are wrong. You inspire respect in me—that is what I feel. + Who prevented you from spending year after year at that landowner’s, who + was your friend, and who would, I am fully persuaded, have made provision + for you, if you had only been willing to humour him? Why could you not + live harmoniously at the gymnasium, why have you—strange man!—with + whatever ideas you have entered upon an undertaking, infallibly every time + ended by sacrificing your personal interests, ever refusing to take root + in any but good ground, however profitable it might be?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I was born a rolling stone,’ Rudin said, with a weary smile. ‘I cannot + stop myself.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That is true; but you cannot stop, not because there is a worm gnawing + you, as you said to me at first.... It is not a worm, not the spirit of + idle restlessness—it is the fire of the love of truth that burns in + you, and clearly, in spite of your failings; it burns in you more hotly + than in many who do not consider themselves egoists and dare to call you a + humbug perhaps. I, for one, in your place should long ago have succeeded + in silencing that worm in me, and should have given in to everything; and + you have not even been embittered by it, Dmitri. You are ready, I am sure, + to-day, to set to some new work again like a boy.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, brother, I am tired now,’ said Rudin. ‘I have had enough.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Tired! Any other man would have been dead long ago. You say that death + reconciles; but does not life, don’t you think, reconcile? A man who has + lived and has not grown tolerant towards others does not deserve to meet + with tolerance himself. And who can say he does not need tolerance? You + have done what you could, Dmitri... you have struggled so long as you + could... what more? Our paths lay apart,’... + </p> + <p> + ‘You were utterly different from me,’ Rudin put in with a sigh. + </p> + <p> + ‘Our paths lay apart,’ continued Lezhnyov, ‘perhaps exactly because, + thanks to my position, my cool blood, and other fortunate circumstances, + nothing hindered me from being a stay-at-home, and remaining a spectator + with folded hands; but you had to go out into the world, to turn up your + shirt-sleeves, to toil and labour. Our paths lay apart—but see how + near one another we are. We speak almost the same language, with half a + hint we understand one another, we grew up on the same ideas. There is + little left us now, brother; we are the last of the Mohicans! We might + differ and even quarrel in old days, when so much life still remained + before us; but now, when the ranks are thinned about us, when the younger + generation is coming upon us with other aims than ours, we ought to keep + close to one another! Let us clink glasses, Dmitri, and sing as of old, <i>Gaudeamus + igitur</i>!’ + </p> + <p> + The friends clinked their glasses, and sang the old student song in + strained voices, all out of tune, in the true Russian style. + </p> + <p> + ‘So you are going now to your country place,’ Lezhnyov began again. ‘I + don’t think you will stay there long, and I cannot imagine where and how + you will end.... But remember, whatever happens to you, you have always a + place, a nest where you can hide yourself. That is my home,—do you + hear, old fellow? Thought, too, has its veterans; they, too, ought to have + their home.’ + </p> + <p> + Rudin got up. + </p> + <p> + ‘Thanks, brother,’ he said, ‘thanks! I will not forget this in you. Only I + do not deserve a home. I have wasted my life, and have not served thought, + as I ought.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Hush!’ said Lezhnyov. ‘Every man remains what Nature has made him, and + one cannot ask more of him! You have called yourself the Wandering Jew.... + But how do you know,—perhaps it was right for you to be ever + wandering, perhaps in that way you are fulfilling a higher calling than + you know; popular wisdom says truly that we are all in God’s hands. You + are going, Dmitri,’ continued Lezhnyov, seeing that Rudin was taking his + hat ‘You will not stop the night?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I am going! Good-bye. Thanks.... I shall come to a bad end.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘God only knows.... You are resolved to go?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I am going. Good-bye. Do not remember evil against me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, do not remember evil against me either,—and don’t forget what + I said to you. Good-bye.’... + </p> + <p> + The friends embraced one another. Rudin went quickly away. + </p> + <p> + Lezhnyov walked up and down the room a long while, stopped before the + window thinking, and murmured half aloud, ‘Poor fellow!’ Then sitting down + to the table, he began to write a letter to his wife. + </p> + <p> + But outside a wind had risen, and was howling with ill-omened moans, and + wrathfully shaking the rattling window-panes. The long autumn night came + on. Well for the man on such a night who sits under the shelter of home, + who has a warm corner in safety.... And the Lord help all homeless + wanderers! + </p> + <p> + On a sultry afternoon on the 26th of July in 1848 in Paris, when the + Revolution of the <i>ateliers nationaux</i> had already been almost + suppressed, a line battalion was taking a barricade in one of the narrow + alleys of the Faubourg St Antoine. A few gunshots had already broken it; + its surviving defenders abandoned it, and were only thinking of their own + safety, when suddenly on the very top of the barricade, on the frame of an + overturned omnibus, appeared a tall man in an old overcoat, with a red + sash, and a straw hat on his grey dishevelled hair. In one hand he held a + red flag, in the other a blunt curved sabre, and as he scrambled up, he + shouted something in a shrill strained voice, waving his flag and sabre. A + Vincennes tirailleur took aim at him—fired. The tall man dropped the + flag—and like a sack he toppled over face downwards, as though he + were falling at some one’s feet. The bullet had passed through his heart. + </p> + <p> + ‘<i>Tiens</i>!’ said one of the escaping revolutionists to another, ‘<i>on + vient de tuer le Polonais</i>!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘<i>Bigre</i>!’ answered the other, and both ran into the cellar of a + house, the shutters of which were all closed, and its wall streaked with + traces of powder and shot. + </p> + <p> + This ‘Polonais’ was Dmitri Rudin. + </p> + <p> + THE END. <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rudin, by Ivan Turgenev + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUDIN *** + +***** This file should be named 6900-h.htm or 6900-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/9/0/6900/ + +Produced by Eric Eldred, and David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Rudin + +Author: Ivan Turgenev + +Translator: Constance Garnett + +Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6900] +Posting Date: June 1, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUDIN *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred + + + + + +RUDIN + +A Novel + + +By Ivan Turgenev + +Translated from the Russian By Constance Garnett + +[With an introduction by S. Stepniak] + +LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1894 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +I + + +Turgenev is an author who no longer belongs to Russia only. During the +last fifteen years of his life he won for himself the reading public, +first in France, then in Germany and America, and finally in England. + +In his funeral oration the spokesman of the most artistic and critical +of European nations, Ernest Renan, hailed him as one of the greatest +writers of our times: 'The Master, whose exquisite works have charmed +our century, stands more than any other man as the incarnation of a +whole race,' because 'a whole world lived in him and spoke through his +mouth.' Not the Russian world only, we may add, but the whole Slavonic +world, to which it was 'an honour to have been expressed by so great a +Master.' + +This recognition was, however, of slow growth. It had nothing in it of +the sudden wave of curiosity and gushing enthusiasm which in a few years +lifted Count Tolstoi to world-wide fame. Neither in the personality of +Turgenev, nor in his talent, was there anything to strike and carry away +popular imagination. + +By the fecundity of his creative talent Turgenev stands with the +greatest authors of all times. The gallery of living people, men, and +especially women, each different and perfectly individualised, yet all +the creatures of actual life, whom Turgenev introduces to us; the vast +body of psychological truths he discovers, the subtle shades of men's +feelings he reveals to us, is such as only the greatest among the great +have succeeded in leaving as their artistic inheritance to their country +and to the world. + +As regards his method of dealing with his material and shaping it into +mould, he stands even higher than as a pure creator. Tolstoi is more +plastical, and certainly as deep and original and rich in creative power +as Turgenev, and Dostoevsky is more intense, fervid, and dramatic. +But as an _artist_, as master of the combination of details into a +harmonious whole, as an architect of imaginative work, he surpasses all +the prose writers of his country, and has but few equals among the +great novelists of other lands. Twenty-five years ago, on reading the +translation of one of his short stories (_Assya_), George Sand, who was +then at the apogee of her fame, wrote to him: 'Master, all of us have +to go to study at your school.' This was, indeed, a generous compliment, +coming from the representative of French literature which is so +eminently artistic. But it was not flattery. As an artist, Turgenev +in reality stands with the classics who may be studied and admired +for their perfect form long after the interest of their subject has +disappeared. But it seems that in his very devotion to art and beauty he +has purposely restricted the range of his creations. + +To one familiar with all Turgenev's works it is evident that he +possessed the keys of all human emotions, all human feelings, the +highest and the lowest, the noble as well as the base. From the height +of his superiority he saw all, understood all: Nature and men had no +secrets hidden from his calm, penetrating eyes. In his latter days, +sketches such as _Clara Militch_, _The Song of Triumphant Love_, _The +Dream_, and the incomparable _Phantoms_, he showed that he could equal +Edgar Poe, Hofmann, and Dostoevsky in the mastery of the fantastical, +the horrible, the mysterious, and the incomprehensible, which live +somewhere in human nerves, though not to be defined by reason. + +But there was in him such a love of light, sunshine, and living human +poetry, such an organic aversion for all that is ugly, or coarse and +discordant, that he made himself almost exclusively the poet of the +gentler side of human nature. On the fringe of his pictures or in their +background, just for the sake of contrast, he will show us the vices, +the cruelties, even the mire of life. But he cannot stay in these gloomy +regions, and he hastens back to the realms of the sun and flowers, or to +the poetical moonlight of melancholy, which he loves best because in it +he can find expression for his own great sorrowing heart. + +Even jealousy, which is the black shadow of the most poetical of human +feelings, is avoided by the gentle artist. He hardly ever describes it, +only alluding to it cursorily. But there is no novelist who gives so +much room to the pure, crystalline, eternally youthful feeling of love. +We may say that the description of love is Turgenev's speciality. What +Francesco Petrarca did for one kind of love--the romantic, artificial, +hot-house love of the times of chivalry--Turgenev did for the natural, +spontaneous, modern love in all its variety of forms, kinds, and +manifestations: the slow and gradual as well as the sudden and +instantaneous; the spiritual, the admiring and inspiring, as well as +the life-poisoning, terrible kind of love, which infects a man as a +prolonged disease. There is something prodigious in Turgenev's insight +into, and his inexhaustible richness, truthfulness, and freshness in the +rendering of those emotions which have been the theme of all poets and +novelists for two thousand years. + +In the well-known memoirs of Caroline Bauer one comes across a curious +legend about Paganini. She tells that the great enchanter owed his +unique command over the emotions of his audiences to a peculiar use of +one single string, G, which he made sing and whisper, cry and thunder, +at the touch of his marvellous bow. + +There is something of this in Turgenev's description of love. He has +many other strings at his harp, but his greatest effect he obtains in +touching this one. His stories are not love poems. He only prefers to +present his people in the light of that feeling in which a man's soul +gathers up all its highest energies, and melts as in a crucible, showing +its dross and its pure metal. + + +Turgenev began his literary career and won an enormous popularity in +Russia by his sketches from peasant life. His _Diary of a Sportsman_ +contains some of the best of his short stories, and his _Country Inn,_ +written a few years later, in the maturity of his talent, is as good as +Tolstoi's little masterpiece, _Polikushka_. + +He was certainly able to paint all classes and conditions of Russian +people. But in his greater works Turgenev lays the action exclusively +with one class of Russian people. There is nothing of the enormous +canvas of Count Tolstoi, in which the whole of Russia seems to pass in +review before the readers. In Turgenev's novels we see only educated +Russia, or rather the more advanced thinking part of it, which he knew +best, because he was a part of it himself. + +We are far from regretting this specialisation. Quality can sometimes +hold its own against quantity. Although small numerically, the section +of Russian society which Turgenev represents is enormously interesting, +because it is the brain of the nation, the living ferment which alone +can leaven the huge unformed masses. It is upon them that depend the +destinies of their country. Besides, the artistic value of his works +could only be enhanced by his concentrating his genius upon a field +so familiar to him, and engrossing so completely his mind and his +sympathies. What he loses in dimensions he gains in correctness, depth, +wonderful subtlety and effectiveness of every minute detail, and the +surpassing beauty of the whole. The jewels of art he left us are like +those which nations store in the sanctuaries of their museums and +galleries to be admired, the longer they are studied. But we must look +to Tolstoi for the huge and towering monuments, hewn in massive granite, +to be put upon some cross way of nations as an object of wonder and +admiration for all who come from the four winds of heaven. + +Turgenev did not write for the masses but for the _elite_ among men. The +fact that he has won such a fame among foreigners, and that the +number of his readers is widening every year, proves that great art +is international, and also, I may say, that artistic taste and +understanding is growing everywhere. + + + +II + + +It is written that no man is a prophet in his own country, and from time +immemorial all the unsuccessful aspirants to the profession have found +their consolation in this proverbial truth. But for aught we know this +hard limitation has never been applied to artists. Indeed it seems +absurd on the face of it that the artist's countrymen, for whom +and about whom he writes, should be less fit to recognise him than +strangers. Yet in certain special and peculiar conditions, the most +unlikely things will sometimes occur, as is proved in the case of +Turgenev. + +The fact is that _as an artist_ he was appreciated to his full value +first by foreigners. The Russians have begun to understand him, and to +assign to him his right place in this respect only now, after his death, +whilst in his lifetime his _artistic genius_ was comparatively little +cared for, save by a handful of his personal friends. + +This supreme art told upon the Russian public unconsciously, as it was +bound to tell upon a nation so richly endowed with natural artistic +instinct. Turgenev was always the most widely read of Russian authors, +not excepting Tolstoi, who came to the front only after his death. But +full recognition he had not, because he happened to produce his works in +a troubled epoch of political and social strife, when the best men were +absorbed in other interests and pursuits, and could not and would not +appreciate and enjoy pure art. This was the painful, almost tragic, +position of an artist, who lived in a most inartistic epoch, and whose +highest aspirations and noblest efforts wounded and irritated those +among his countrymen whom he was most devoted to, and whom he desired +most ardently to serve. + +This strife embittered Turgenev's life. + +At one crucial epoch of his literary career the conflict became so +vehement, and the outcry against him, set in motion by his very artistic +truthfulness and objectiveness, became so loud and unanimous, that he +contemplated giving up literature altogether. He could not possibly +have held to this resolution. But it is surely an open question whether, +sensitive and modest as he was, and prone to despondency and diffidence, +he would have done so much for the literature of his country without the +enthusiastic encouragement of various great foreign novelists, who were +his friends and admirers: George Sand, Gustave Flaubert, in France; +Auerbach, in Germany; W. D. Howells, in America; George Eliot, in +England. + +We will tell the story of his troubled life piece by piece as far as +space will allow, as his works appear in succession. Here we will only +give a few biographical traits which bear particularly upon the novel +before us, and account for his peculiar hold over the minds of his +countrymen. + +Turgenev, who was born in 1818, belonged to a set of Russians very small +in his time, who had received a thoroughly European education in no way +inferior to that of the best favoured young German or Englishman. It +happened, moreover, that his paternal uncle, Nicholas Turgenev, the +famous 'Decembrist,' after the failure of that first attempt (December +14, 1825) to gain by force of arms a constitutional government for +Russia, succeeded in escaping the vengeance of the Tsar Nicholas I., and +settled in France, where he published in French the first vindication of +Russian revolution. + +Whilst studying philosophy in the Berlin University, Turgenev paid short +visits to his uncle, who initiated him in the ideas of liberty, from +which he never swerved throughout his long life. + +In the sixties, when Alexander Hertzen, one of the most gifted writers +of our land, a sparkling, witty, pathetic, and powerful journalist and +brilliant essayist, started in London his _Kolokol_, a revolutionary, +or rather radical paper, which had a great influence in Russia, Turgenev +became one of his most active contributors and advisers,--almost a +member of the editorial staff. + +This fact has been revealed a few years ago by the publication, which +we owe to Professor Dragomanov, of the private correspondence between +Turgenev and Hertzen. This most interesting little volume throws quite a +new light upon Turgenev, showing that our great novelist was at the same +time one of the strongest--perhaps the strongest--and most clear-sighted +political thinkers of his time. However surprising such a versatility +may appear, it is proved to demonstration by a comparison of his views, +his attitude, and his forecasts, some of which have been verified only +lately, with those of the acknowledged leaders and spokesmen of the +various political parties of his day, including Alexander Hertzen +himself. Turgenev's are always the soundest, the most correct and +far-sighted judgments, as latter-day history has proved. + +A man with so ardent a love of liberty, and such radical views, could +not possibly banish them from his literary works, no matter how great +his devotion to pure art. He would have been a poor artist had he +inflicted upon himself such a mutilation, because freedom from all +restraints, the frank, sincere expression of the artist's individuality, +is the life and soul of all true art. + +Turgenev gave to his country the whole of himself, the best of his mind +and of his creative fancy. He appeared at the same time as a teacher, a +prophet of new ideas, and as a poet and artist. But his own countrymen +hailed him in the first capacity, remaining for a long time obtuse to +the latter and greater. + +Thus, during one of the most important and interesting periods of our +national history, Turgenev was the standard-bearer and inspirer of +the Liberal, the thinking Russia. Although the two men stand at +diametrically opposite poles, Turgenev's position can be compared to +that of Count Tolstoi nowadays, with a difference, this time in favour +of the author of _Dmitri Rudin_. With Turgenev the thinker and the +artist are not at war, spoiling and sometimes contradicting each other's +efforts. They go hand in hand, because he never preaches any doctrine +whatever, but gives us, with an unimpeachable, artistic objectiveness, +the living men and women in whom certain ideas, doctrines, and +aspirations were embodied. And he never evolves these ideas and +doctrines from his inner consciousness, but takes them from real life, +catching with his unfailing artistic instinct an incipient movement just +at the moment when it was to become a historic feature of the time. Thus +his novels are a sort of artistic epitome of the intellectual history +of modern Russia, and also a powerful instrument of her intellectual +progress. + + + +III + + +_Rudin_ is the first of Turgenev's social novels, and is a sort of +artistic introduction to those that follow, because it refers to the +epoch anterior to that when the present social and political movements +began. This epoch is being fast forgotten, and without his novel it +would be difficult for us to fully realise it, but it is well worth +studying, because we find in it the germ of future growths. + +It was a gloomy time. The ferocious despotism of Nicholas +I.--overweighing the country like the stone lid of a coffin, +crushed every word, every thought, which did not fit with its narrow +conceptions. But this was not the worst. The worst was that progressive +Russia was represented by a mere handful of men, who were so immensely +in advance of their surroundings, that in their own country they felt +more isolated, helpless, and out of touch with the realities of life +than if they had lived among strangers. + +But men must have some outlet for their spiritual energies, and these +men, unable to take part in the sordid or petty pursuits of those around +them, created for themselves artificial life, artificial pursuits and +interests. + +The isolation in which they lived drew them naturally together. The +'circle,' something between an informal club and a debating society, +became the form in which these cravings of mind or heart could be +satisfied. These people met and talked; that was all they were able to +do. + +The passage in which one of the heroes, Lezhnyov, tells the woman he +loves about the circle of which Dmitri Rudin and himself were members, +is historically one of the most suggestive. It refers to a circle of +young students. But it has a wider application. All prominent men of +the epoch--Stankevitch, who served as model to the poetic and +touching figure of Pokorsky; Alexander Hertzen, and the great critic, +Belinsky--all had their 'circles,' or their small chapels, in which +these enthusiasts met to offer worship to the 'goddess of truth, art, +and morality.' + +They were the best men of their time, full of high aspirations and +knowledge, and their disinterested search after truth was certainly a +noble pursuit. They had full right to look down upon their neighbours +wallowing in the mire of sordid and selfish materialism. But by living +in that spiritual hothouse of dreams, philosophical speculations, and +abstractions, these men unfitted themselves only the more completely for +participation in real life; the absorption in interests having nothing +to do with the life of their own country, estranged them still more from +it. The overwhelming stream of words drained them of the natural sources +of spontaneous emotion, and these men almost grew out of feeling by dint +of constantly analysing their feelings. + +Dmitri Rudin is the typical man of that generation, both the victim and +the hero of his time--a man who is almost a Titan in word and a pigmy in +deed. He is eloquent as a young Demosthenes. An irresistible debater, +he carries everything before him the moment he appears. But he fails +ignominiously when put to the hard test of action. Yet he is not an +impostor. His enthusiasm is contagious because it is sincere, and his +eloquence is convincing because devotion to his ideals is an absorbing +passion with him. He would die for them, and, what is more rare, he +would not swerve a hair's-breadth from them for any worldly advantage, +or for fear of any hardship. Only this passion and this enthusiasm +spring with him entirely from the head. The heart, the deep emotional +power of human love and pity, lay dormant in him. Humanity, which +he would serve to the last drop of his blood, is for him a body of +foreigners--French, English, Germans--whom he has studied from books, +and whom he has met only in hotels and watering-places during his +foreign travels as a student or as a tourist. + +Towards such an abstract, alien humanity, a man cannot feel any real +attachment. With all his outward ardour, Rudin is cold as ice at the +bottom of his heart. His is an enthusiasm which glows without warmth, +like the aurora borealis of the Polar regions. A poor substitute for the +bountiful sun. But what would have become of a God-forsaken land if +the Arctic nights were deprived of that substitute? With all their +weaknesses, Rudin and the men of his stamp--in other words, the men +of the generation of 1840--have rendered an heroic service to their +country. They inculcated in it the religion of the ideal; they brought +in the seeds, which had only to be thrown into the warm furrow of their +native soil to bring forth the rich crops of the future. + +The shortcomings and the impotence of these men were due to their having +no organic ties with their own country, no roots in the Russian soil. +They hardly knew the Russian people, who appeared to them as nothing +more than an historic abstraction. They were really cosmopolitan, as a +poor makeshift for something better, and Turgenev, in making his hero +die on a French barricade, was true to life as well as to art. + +The inward growth of the country has remedied this defect in the course +of the three generations which have followed. But has the remedy been +complete? No; far from it, unfortunately. There are still thousands of +barriers preventing the Russians from doing something useful for their +countrymen and mixing freely with them. The spiritual energies of the +most ardent are still compelled--partially at least--to run into the +artificial channels described in Turgenev's novel. + +Hence the perpetuation of Rudin's type, which acquires more than an +historical interest. + +In discussing the character of Hlestakov, the hero of his great comedy, +Gogol declared that this type is pretty nigh universal, because 'every +Russian,' he says, 'has a bit of Hlestakov in him.' This not very +flattering opinion has been humbly indorsed and repeated since, out of +reverence to Gogol's great authority, although it is untrue on the +face of it. Hlestakov is a sort of Tartarin in Russian dress, whilst +simplicity and sincerity are the fundamental traits of all that is +Russian in character, manner, art, literature. But it may be truly said +that every educated Russian of our time has a bit of Dmitri Rudin in +him. + +This figure is undoubtedly one of the finest in Turgenev's gallery, +and it is at the same time one of the most brilliant examples of his +artistic method. + +Turgenev does not give us at one stroke sculptured figures made from one +block, such as rise before us from Tolstoi's pages. His art is rather +that of a painter or musical composer than of a sculptor. He has more +colour, a deeper perspective, a greater variety of lights and shadows--a +more complete portraiture of the spiritual man. Tolstoi's people stand +so living and concrete that one feels one can recognise them in the +street. Turgenev's are like people whose intimate confessions and +private correspondence, unveiling all the secrets of their spiritual +life, have been submitted to one. + +Every scene, almost every line, opens up new deep horizons, throwing +upon his people some new unexpected light. + +The extremely complex and difficult character of the hero of this story, +shows at its highest this subtle psychological many-sidedness. Dmitri +Rudin is built up of contradictions, yet not for a moment does he cease +to be perfectly real, living, and concrete. + +Hardly less remarkable is the character of the heroine, Natalya, the +quiet, sober, matter-of-fact girl, who at the bottom is an enthusiastic +and heroic nature. She is but a child fresh to all impressions of life, +and as yet undeveloped. To have used the searching, analytical method +in painting her would have spoiled this beautiful creation. Turgenev +describes her synthetically by a few masterly lines, which show us, +however, the secrets of her spirit; revealing what she is and also what +she might have become under other circumstances. + +This character deserves more attention than we can give it here. +Turgenev, like George Meredith, is a master in painting women, and his +Natalya is the first poetical revelation of a very striking fact in +modern Russian history; the appearance of women possessing a strength +of mind more finely masculine than that of the men of their time. By the +side of weak, irresolute, though highly intellectual men we see in his +first three novels energetic, earnest, impassioned women, who take +the lead in action, whilst they are but the man's modest pupils in the +domain of ideas. Only later on, in _Fathers and Children_, does Turgenev +show us in Bazarov a man essentially masculine. But of this interesting +peculiarity of Russian intellectual life, in the years 1840 to 1860, +I will speak more fully when analysing another of Turgenev's novels in +which this contrast is most conspicuous. + +I will say nothing of the minor characters of the story before us: +Lezhnyov, Pigasov, Madame Lasunsky, Pandalevsky, who are all excellent +examples of what may be called miniature-painting. + +As to the novel as a whole, I will make here only one observation, not +to forestall the reader's own impressions. + +Turgenev is a realist in the sense that he keeps close to reality, +truth, and nature. But in the pursuit of photographic faithfulness to +life, he never allows himself to be tedious and dull, as some of the +best representatives of the school think it incumbent upon them to be. +His descriptions are never overburdened with wearisome details; his +action is rapid; the events are never to be foreseen a hundred pages +beforehand; he keeps his readers in constant suspense. And it seems +to me in so doing he shows himself a better realist than the gifted +representatives of the orthodox realism in France, England, and America. +Life is not dull; life is full of the unforeseen, full of suspense. A +novelist, however natural and logical, must contrive to have it in his +novels if he is not to sacrifice the soul of art for the merest show of +fidelity. + +The plot of Dmitri Rudin is so exceedingly simple that an English +novel-reader would say that there is hardly any plot at all. Turgenev +disdained the tricks of the sensational novelists. Yet, for a Russian at +least, it is easier to lay down before the end a novel by Victor Hugo or +Alexander Dumas than Dmitri Rudin, or, indeed, any of Turgenev's great +novels. What the novelists of the romantic school obtain by the charm +of unexpected adventures and thrilling situations, Turgenev succeeds in +obtaining by the brisk admirably concentrated action, and, above all, by +the simplest and most precious of a novelist's gifts: his unique command +over the sympathies and emotions of his readers. In this he can be +compared to a musician who works upon the nerves and the souls of his +audience without the intermediary of the mind; or, better still, to a +poet who combines the power of the word with the magic spell of harmony. +One does not read his novels; one lives in them. + +Much of this peculiar gift of fascination is certainly due to Turgenev's +mastery over all the resources of our rich, flexible, and musical +language. The poet Lermontov alone wrote as splendid a prose as +Turgenev. A good deal of its charm is unavoidably lost in translation. +But I am happy to say that the present one is as near an approach to the +elegance and poetry of the original as I have ever come across. + + + S. STEPNIAK. + + BEDFORD PARK, April 20, 1894. + + + + + +THE NAMES OF THE CHARACTERS IN THE BOOK + +DMITRI NIKOLA'ITCH RU'DIN. + +DAR-YA MIHA'ILOVNA LASU'NSKY. + +NATA'L-YA ALEX-YE'VNA. + +MIHA'ILO MIHA'ILITCH LE'ZH-NYOV (MISHA). + +ALEXANDRA PA'VLOVNA LI'PIN (SASHA). + +SERGEI (pron, Sergay) PA'VLITCH VOLI'NT-SEV (SEREZHA). + +KONSTANTIN DIOMIDITCH PANDALE'VSKY. + +AFRICAN SEME'NITCH PIGA'SOV. + +BASSI'STOFF. + +MLLE. BONCOURT. + + +In transcribing the Russian names into English-- + +a has the sound of a in father. er,, air. i,, ee. u,, oo. y is always +consonantal except when it is the last letter of the word. g is always +hard. + + + + + + + + + +I + + +IT was a quiet summer morning. The sun stood already pretty high in the +clear sky but the fields were still sparkling with dew; a fresh breeze +blew fragrantly from the scarce awakened valleys and in the forest, +still damp and hushed, the birds were merrily carolling their morning +song. On the ridge of a swelling upland, which was covered from base +to summit with blossoming rye, a little village was to be seen. Along +a narrow by-road to this little village a young woman was walking in a +white muslin gown, and a round straw hat, with a parasol in her hand. A +page boy followed her some distance behind. + +She moved without haste and as though she were enjoying the walk. The +high nodding rye all round her moved in long softly rustling waves, +taking here a shade of silvery green and there a ripple of red; the +larks were trilling overhead. The young woman had come from her own +estate, which was not more than a mile from the village to which she +was turning her steps. Her name was Alexandra Pavlovna Lipin. She was +a widow, childless, and fairly well off, and lived with her brother, a +retired cavalry officer, Sergei Pavlitch Volintsev. He was unmarried and +looked after her property. + +Alexandra Pavlovna reached the village and, stopping at the last hut, +a very old and low one, she called up the boy and told him to go in and +ask after the health of its mistress. He quickly came back accompanied +by a decrepit old peasant with a white beard. + +'Well, how is she?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'Well, she is still alive,' began the old man. + +'Can I go in?' + +'Of course; yes.' + +Alexandra Pavlovna went into the hut. It was narrow, stifling, and smoky +inside. Some one stirred and began to moan on the stove which formed the +bed. Alexandra Pavlovna looked round and discerned in the half +darkness the yellow wrinkled face of the old woman tied up in a checked +handkerchief. Covered to the very throat with a heavy overcoat she was +breathing with difficulty, and her wasted hands were twitching. + +Alexandra Pavlovna went close up to the old woman and laid her fingers +on her forehead; it was burning hot. + +'How do you feel, Matrona?' she inquired, bending over the bed. + +'Oh, oh!' groaned the old woman, trying to make her out, 'bad, very bad, +my dear! My last hour has come, my darling!' + +'God is merciful, Matrona; perhaps you will be better soon. Did you take +the medicine I sent you?' + +The old woman groaned painfully, and did not answer. She had hardly +heard the question. + +'She has taken it,' said the old man who was standing at the door. + +Alexandra Pavlovna turned to him. + +'Is there no one with her but you?' she inquired. + +'There is the girl--her granddaughter, but she always keeps away. She +won't sit with her; she's such a gad-about. To give the old woman a +drink of water is too much trouble for her. And I am old; what use can I +be?' + +'Shouldn't she be taken to me--to the hospital?' + +'No. Why take her to the hospital? She would die just the same. She has +lived her life; it's God's will now seemingly. She will never get up +again. How could she go to the hospital? If they tried to lift her up, +she would die.' + +'Oh!' moaned the sick woman, 'my pretty lady, don't abandon my little +orphan; our master is far away, but you----' + +She could not go on, she had spent all her strength in saying so much. + +'Do not worry yourself,' replied Alexandra Pavlovna, 'everything shall +be done. Here is some tea and sugar I have brought you. If you can +fancy it you must drink some. Have you a samovar, I wonder?' she added, +looking at the old man. + +'A samovar? We haven't a samovar, but we could get one.' + +'Then get one, or I will send you one. And tell your granddaughter not +to leave her like this. Tell her it's shameful.' + +The old man made no answer but took the parcel of tea and sugar with +both hands. + +'Well, good-bye, Matrona!' said Alexandra Pavlovna, 'I will come and +see you again; and you must not lose heart but take your medicine +regularly.' + +The old woman raised her head and drew herself a little towards +Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'Give me your little hand, dear lady,' she muttered. + +Alexandra Pavlovna did not give her hand; she bent over her and kissed +her on the forehead. + +'Take care, now,' she said to the old man as she went out, 'and give her +the medicine without fail, as it is written down, and give her some tea +to drink.' + +Again the old man made no reply, but only bowed. + +Alexandra Pavlovna breathed more freely when she came out into the +fresh air. She put up her parasol and was about to start homewards, when +suddenly there appeared round the corner of a little hut a man about +thirty, driving a low racing droshky and wearing an old overcoat of +grey linen, and a foraging cap of the same. Catching sight of Alexandra +Pavlovna he at once stopped his horse and turned round towards her. +His broad and colourless face with its small light grey eyes and almost +white moustache seemed all in the same tone of colour as his clothes. + +'Good-morning!' he began, with a lazy smile; 'what are you doing here, +if I may ask?' + +'I have been visiting a sick woman... And where have you come from, +Mihailo Mihailitch?' + +The man addressed as Mihailo Mihailitch looked into her eyes and smiled +again. + +'You do well,' he said, 'to visit the sick, but wouldn't it be better +for you to take her into the hospital?' + +'She is too weak; impossible to move her.' + +'But don't you intend to give up your hospital?' + +'Give it up? Why?' + +'Oh, I thought so.' + +'What a strange notion! What put such an idea into your head?' + +'Oh, you are always with Madame Lasunsky now, you know, and seem to be +under her influence. And in her words--hospitals, schools, and all that +sort of things, are mere waste of time--useless fads. Philanthropy +ought to be entirely personal, and education too, all that is the soul's +work... that's how she expresses herself, I believe. From whom did she +pick up that opinion I should like to know?' + +Alexandra Pavlovna laughed. + +'Darya Mihailovna is a clever woman, I like and esteem her very much; +but she may make mistakes, and I don't put faith in everything she +says.' + +'And it's a very good thing you don't,' rejoined Mihailo Mihailitch, who +all the while remained sitting in his droshky, 'for she doesn't put much +faith in what she says herself. I'm very glad I met you.' + +'Why?' + +'That's a nice question! As though it wasn't always delightful to meet +you? To-day you look as bright and fresh as this morning.' + +Alexandra Pavlovna laughed again. + +'What are you laughing at?' + +'What, indeed! If you could see with what a cold and indifferent face +you brought out your compliment! I wonder you didn't yawn over the last +word!' + +'A cold face.... You always want fire; but fire is of no use at all. It +flares and smokes and goes out.' + +'And warms,'... put in Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'Yes... and burns.' + +'Well, what if it does burn! That's no great harm either! It's better +anyway than----' + +'Well, we shall see what you will say when you do get nicely burnt one +day,' Mihailo Mihailitch interrupted her in a tone of vexation and made +a cut at the horse with the reins, 'Good-bye.' + +'Mihailo Mihailitch, stop a minute!' cried Alexandra Pavlovna, 'when are +you coming to see us?' + +'To-morrow; my greetings to your brother.' + +And the droshky rolled away. + +Alexandra Pavlovna looked after Mihailo Mihailitch. + +'What a sack!' she thought. Sitting huddled up and covered with dust, +his cap on the back of his head and tufts of flaxen hair straggling from +beneath it, he looked strikingly like a huge sack of flour. + +Alexandra Pavlovna turned tranquilly back along the path homewards. She +was walking with downcast eyes. The tramp of a horse near made her stop +and raise her head.... Her brother had come on horseback to meet her; +beside him was walking a young man of medium height, wearing a light +open coat, a light tie, and a light grey hat, and carrying a cane in his +hand. He had been smiling for a long time at Alexandra Pavlovna, even +though he saw that she was absorbed in thought and noticing nothing, and +when she stopped he went up to her and in a tone of delight, almost of +emotion, cried: + +'Good-morning, Alexandra Pavlovna, good-morning!' + +'Ah! Konstantin Diomiditch! good-morning!' she replied. 'You have come +from Darya Mihailovna?' + +'Precisely so, precisely so,' rejoined the young man with a radiant +face, 'from Darya Mihailovna. Darya Mihailovna sent me to you; I +preferred to walk.... It's such a glorious morning, and the distance +is only three miles. When I arrived, you were not at home. Your brother +told me you had gone to Semenovka; and he was just going out to the +fields; so you see I walked with him to meet you. Yes, yes. How very +delightful!' + +The young man spoke Russian accurately and grammatically but with a +foreign accent, though it was difficult to determine exactly what accent +it was. In his features there was something Asiatic. His long hook +nose, his large expressionless prominent eyes, his thick red lips, +and retreating forehead, and his jet black hair,--everything about him +suggested an Oriental extraction; but the young man gave his surname as +Pandalevsky and spoke of Odessa as his birthplace, though he was brought +up somewhere in White Russia at the expense of a rich and benevolent +widow. + +Another widow had obtained a government post for him. Middle-aged ladies +were generally ready to befriend Konstantin Diomiditch; he knew well how +to court them and was successful in coming across them. He was at +this very time living with a rich lady, a landowner, Darya Mihailovna +Lasunsky, in a position between that of a guest and of a dependant. He +was very polite and obliging, full of sensibility and secretly given to +sensuality, he had a pleasant voice, played well on the piano, and had +the habit of gazing intently into the eyes of any one he was speaking +to. He dressed very neatly, and wore his clothes a very long time, +shaved his broad chin carefully, and arranged his hair curl by curl. + +Alexandra Pavlovna heard his speech to the end and turned to her +brother. + +'I keep meeting people to-day; I have just been talking to Lezhnyov.' + +'Oh, Lezhnyov! was he driving somewhere?' + +'Yes, and fancy; he was in a racing droshky, and dressed in a kind of +linen sack, all covered with dust.... What a queer creature he is!' + +'Perhaps so; but he's a capital fellow.' + +'Who? Mr. Lezhnyov?' inquired Pandalevsky, as though he were surprised. + +'Yes, Mihailo Mihailitch Lezhnyov,' replied Volintsev. 'Well, good-bye; +it's time I was off to the field; they are sowing your buckwheat. Mr. +Pandalevsky will escort you home.' And Volintsev rode off at a trot. + +'With the greatest of pleasure!' cried Konstantin Diomiditch, offering +Alexandra Pavlovna his arm. + +She took it and they both turned along the path to her house. + +Walking with Alexandra Pavlovna on his arm seemed to afford Konstantin +Diomiditch great delight; he moved with little steps, smiling, and his +Oriental eyes were even be-dimmed by a slight moisture, though this +indeed was no rare occurrence with them; it did not mean much for +Konstantin Diomiditch to be moved and dissolve into tears. And who would +not have been pleased to have on his arm a pretty, young and graceful +woman? Of Alexandra Pavlovna the whole of her district was unanimous +in declaring that she was charming, and the district was not wrong. Her +straight, ever so slightly tilted nose would have been enough alone +to drive any man out of his senses, to say nothing of her velvety dark +eyes, her golden brown hair, the dimples in her smoothly curved cheeks, +and her other beauties. But best of all was the sweet expression of her +face; confiding, good and gentle, it touched and attracted at the same +time. Alexandra Pavlovna had the glance and the smile of a child; other +ladies found her a little simple.... Could one wish for anything more? + +'Darya Mihailovna sent you to me, did you say?' she asked Pandalevsky. + +'Yes; she sent me,' he answered, pronouncing the letter _s_ like the +English _th_. 'She particularly wishes and told me to beg you very +urgently to be so good as to dine with her to-day. She is expecting a +new guest whom she particularly wishes you to meet.' + +'Who is it?' + +'A certain Muffel, a baron, a gentleman of the bed-chamber from +Petersburg. Darya Mihailovna made his acquaintance lately at the Prince +Garin's, and speaks of him in high terms as an agreeable and cultivated +young man. His Excellency the baron is interested, too, in literature, +or more strictly speaking----ah! what an exquisite butterfly! pray look +at it!----more strictly speaking, in political economy. He has written +an essay on some very interesting question, and wants to submit it to +Darya Mihailovna's criticism.' + +'An article on political economy?' + +'From the literary point of view, Alexandra Pavlovna, from the literary +point of view. You are well aware, I suppose, that in that line Darya +Mihailovna is an authority. Zhukovsky used to ask her advice, and +my benefactor, who lives at Odessa, that benevolent old man, Roxolan +Mediarovitch Ksandrika----No doubt you know the name of that eminent +man?' + +'No; I have never heard of him.' + +'You never heard of such a man? surprising! I was going to say that +Roxolan Mediarovitch always had the very highest opinion of Darya +Mihailovna's knowledge of Russian! + +'Is this baron a pedant then?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'Not in the very least. Darya Mihailovna says, on the contrary, that you +see that he belongs to the best society at once. He spoke of Beethoven +with such eloquence that even the old prince was quite delighted by it. +That, I own, I should like to have heard; you know that is in my line. +Allow me to offer you this lovely wild-flower.' + +Alexandra Pavlovna took the flower, and when she had walked a few steps +farther, let it drop on the path. They were not more than two hundred +paces from her house. It had been recently built and whitewashed, and +looked out hospitably with its wide light windows from the thick foliage +of the old limes and maples. + +'So what message do you give me for Darya Mihailovna?' began +Pandalevsky, slightly hurt at the fate of the flower he had given her. +'Will you come to dinner? She invites your brother too.' + +'Yes; we will come, most certainly. And how is Natasha?' + +'Natalya Alexyevna is well, I am glad to say. But we have already passed +the road that turns off to Darya Mihailovna's. Allow me to bid you +good-bye.' + +Alexandra Pavlovna stopped. 'But won't you come in?' she said in a +hesitating voice. + +'I should like to, indeed, but I am afraid it is late. Darya Mihailovna +wishes to hear a new etude of Thalberg's, so I must practise and have +it ready. Besides, I am doubtful, I must confess, whether my visit could +afford you any pleasure.' + +'Oh, no! why?' + +Pandalevsky sighed and dropped his eyes expressively. + +'Good-bye, Alexandra Pavlovna!' he said after a slight pause; then he +bowed and turned back. + +Alexandra Pavlovna turned round and went home. + +Konstantin Diomiditch, too, walked homewards. All softness had vanished +at once from his face; a self-confident, almost hard expression came +into it. Even his walk was changed; his steps were longer and he trod +more heavily. He had walked about two miles, carelessly swinging his +cane, when all at once he began to smile again: he saw by the roadside a +young, rather pretty peasant girl, who was driving some calves out of an +oat-field. Konstantin Diomiditch approached the girl as warily as a cat, +and began to speak to her. She said nothing at first, only blushed and +laughed, but at last she hid her face in her sleeve, turned away, and +muttered: + +'Go away, sir; upon my word...' + +Konstantin Diomiditch shook his finger at her and told her to bring him +some cornflowers. + +'What do you want with cornflowers?--to make a wreath?' replied the +girl; 'come now, go along then.' + +'Stop a minute, my pretty little dear,' Konstantin Diomiditch was +beginning. + +'There now, go along,' the girl interrupted him, 'there are the young +gentlemen coming.' + +Konstantin Diomiditch looked round. There really were Vanya and Petya, +Darya Mihailovna's sons, running along the road; after them walked their +tutor, Bassistoff, a young man of two-and-twenty, who had only just left +college. Bassistoff was a well-grown youth, with a simple face, a large +nose, thick lips, and small pig's eyes, plain and awkward, but kind, +good, and upright. He dressed untidily and wore his hair long--not from +affectation, but from laziness; he liked eating and he liked sleeping, +but he also liked a good book, and an earnest conversation, and he hated +Pandalevsky from the depths of his soul. + +Darya Mihailovna's children worshipped Bassistoff, and yet were not in +the least afraid of him; he was on a friendly footing with all the +rest of the household, a fact which was not altogether pleasing to +its mistress, though she was fond of declaring that for her social +prejudices did not exist. + +'Good-morning, my dears,' began Konstantin Diomiditch, 'how early you +have come for your walk to-day! But I,' he added, turning to Bassistoff, +'have been out a long while already; it's my passion--to enjoy nature.' + +'We saw how you were enjoying nature,' muttered Bassistoff. + +'You are a materialist, God knows what you are imagining! I know +you.' When Pandalevsky spoke to Bassistoff or people like him, he grew +slightly irritated, and pronounced the letter _s_ quite clearly, even +with a slight hiss. + +'Why, were you asking your way of that girl, am I to suppose?' said +Bassistoff, shifting his eyes to right and to left. + +He felt that Pandalevsky was looking him straight in the face, and this +fact was exceedingly unpleasant to him. 'I repeat, a materialist and +nothing more.' + +'You certainly prefer to see only the prosaic side in everything.' + +'Boys!' cried Bassistoff suddenly, 'do you see that willow at the +corner? let's see who can get to it first. One! two! three! and away!' + +The boys set off at full speed to the willow. Bassistoff rushed after +them. + +'What a lout!' thought Pandalevsky, 'he is spoiling those boys. A +perfect peasant!' + +And looking with satisfaction at his own neat and elegant figure, +Konstantin Diomiditch struck his coat-sleeve twice with his open hand, +pulled up his collar, and went on his way. When he had reached his own +room, he put on an old dressing-gown and sat down with an anxious face +to the piano. + + + + +II + + +Darya Mihailovna's house was regarded as almost the first in the whole +province. It was a huge stone mansion, built after designs of Rastrelli +in the taste of last century, and in a commanding position on the summit +of a hill, at whose base flowed one of the principal rivers of central +Russia. Darya Mihailovna herself was a wealthy and distinguished lady, +the widow of a privy councillor. Pandalevsky said of her, that she +knew all Europe and all Europe knew her! However, Europe knew her very +little; even at Petersburg she had not played a very prominent part; +but on the other hand at Moscow every one knew her and visited her. She +belonged to the highest society, and was spoken of as a rather eccentric +woman, not wholly good-natured, but excessively clever. In her youth +she had been very pretty. Poets had written verses to her, young men +had been in love with her, distinguished men had paid her homage. But +twenty-five or thirty years had passed since those days and not a trace +of her former charms remained. Every one who saw her now for the first +time was impelled to ask himself, if this woman--skinny, sharp-nosed, +and yellow-faced, though still not old in years--could once have been a +beauty, if she was really the same woman who had been the inspiration of +poets.... And every one marvelled inwardly at the mutability of earthly +things. It is true that Pandalevsky discovered that Darya Mihailovna +had preserved her magnificent eyes in a marvellous way; but we have seen +that Pandalevsky also maintained that all Europe knew her. + +Darya Mihailovna went every summer to her country place with her +children (she had three: a daughter of seventeen, Natalya, and two sons +of nine and ten years old). She kept open house in the country, that is, +she received men, especially unmarried ones; provincial ladies she could +not endure. But what of the treatment she received from those ladies in +return? + +Darya Mihailovna, according to them, was a haughty, immoral, and +insufferable tyrant, and above all--she permitted herself such liberties +in conversation, it was shocking! Darya Mihailovna certainly did not +care to stand on ceremony in the country, and in the unconstrained +frankness of her manners there was perceptible a slight shade of +the contempt of the lioness of the capital for the petty and obscure +creatures who surrounded her. She had a careless, and even a sarcastic +manner with her own set; but the shade of contempt was not there. + +By the way, reader, have you observed that a person who is exceptionally +nonchalant with his inferiors, is never nonchalant with persons of a +higher rank? Why is that? But such questions lead to nothing. + +When Konstantin Diomiditch, having at last learnt by heart the _etude_ +of Thalberg, went down from his bright and cheerful room to the +drawing-room, he already found the whole household assembled. The salon +was already beginning. The lady of the house was reposing on a wide +couch, her feet gathered up under her, and a new French pamphlet in her +hand; at the window behind a tambour frame, sat on one side the daughter +of Darya Mihailovna, on the other, Mlle. Boncourt, the governess, a +dry old maiden lady of sixty, with a false front of black curls under a +parti-coloured cap and cotton wool in her ears; in the corner near the +door was huddled Bassistoff reading a paper, near him were Petya and +Vanya playing draughts, and leaning by the stove, his hands clasped +behind his back, was a gentleman of low stature, with a swarthy face +covered with bristling grey hair, and fiery black eyes--a certain +African Semenitch Pigasov. + +This Pigasov was a strange person. Full of acerbity against everything +and every one--especially against women--he was railing from morning to +night, sometimes very aptly, sometimes rather stupidly, but always with +gusto. His ill-humour almost approached puerility; his laugh, the sound +of his voice, his whole being seemed steeped in venom. Darya Mihailovna +gave Pigasov a cordial reception; he amused her with his sallies. They +were certainly absurd enough. He took delight in perpetual exaggeration. +For example, if he were told of any disaster, that a village had been +struck by lightning, or that a mill had been carried away by floods, or +that a peasant had cut his hand with an axe, he invariably asked with +concentrated bitterness, 'And what's her name?' meaning, what is the +name of the woman responsible for this calamity, for according to his +convictions, a woman was the cause of every misfortune, if you only +looked deep enough into the matter. He once threw himself on his knees +before a lady he hardly knew at all, who had been effusive in her +hospitality to him and began tearfully, but with wrath written on his +face, to entreat her to have compassion on him, saying that he had done +her no harm and never would come to see her for the future. Once a horse +had bolted with one of Darya Mihailovna's maids, thrown her into a ditch +and almost killed her. From that time Pigasov never spoke of that horse +except as the 'good, good horse,' and he even came to regard the hill +and the ditch as specially picturesque spots. Pigasov had failed in +life and had adopted this whimsical craze. He came of poor parents. +His father had filled various petty posts, and could scarcely read and +write, and did not trouble himself about his son's education; he fed +and clothed him and nothing more. His mother spoiled him, but she died +early. Pigasov educated himself, sent himself to the district school and +then to the gymnasium, taught himself French, German, and even Latin, +and, leaving the gymnasiums with an excellent certificate, went to +Dorpat, where he maintained a perpetual struggle with poverty, but +succeeded in completing his three years' course. Pigasov's abilities did +not rise above the level of mediocrity; patience and perseverance were +his strong points, but the most powerful sentiment in him was ambition, +the desire to get into good society, not to be inferior to others in +spite of fortune. He had studied diligently and gone to the Dorpat +University from ambition. Poverty exasperated him, and made him watchful +and cunning. He expressed himself with originality; from his youth he +had adopted a special kind of stinging and exasperated eloquence. His +ideas did not rise above the common level; but his way of speaking made +him seem not only a clever, but even a very clever, man. Having taken +his degree as candidate, Pigasov decided to devote himself to the +scholastic profession; he understood that in any other career he could +not possibly be the equal of his associates. He tried to select them +from a higher rank and knew how to gain their good graces; even by +flattery, though he was always abusing them. But to do this he had not, +to speak plainly, enough raw material. Having educated himself through +no love for study, Pigasov knew very little thoroughly. He broke down +miserably in the public disputation, while another student who had +shared the same room with him, and who was constantly the subject of his +ridicule, a man of very limited ability who had received a careful and +solid education, gained a complete triumph. Pigasov was infuriated by +this failure, he threw all his books and manuscripts into the fire and +went into a government office. At first he did not get on badly, he made +a fair official, not very active, extremely self-confident and bold, +however; but he wanted to make his way more quickly, he made a false +step, got into trouble, and was obliged to retire from the service. He +spent three years on the property he had bought himself and suddenly +married a wealthy half-educated woman who was captivated by his +unceremonious and sarcastic manners. But Pigasov's character had become +so soured and irritable that family life was unendurable to him. After +living with him a few years, his wife went off secretly to Moscow and +sold her estate to an enterprising speculator; Pigasov had only just +finished building a house on it. Utterly crushed by this last blow, +Pigasov began a lawsuit with his wife, but gained nothing by it. After +this he lived in solitude, and went to see his neighbours, whom he +abused behind their backs and even to their faces, and who welcomed him +with a kind of constrained half-laugh, though he did not inspire them +with any serious dread. He never took a book in his hand. He had about a +hundred serfs; his peasants were not badly off. + +'Ah! _Constantin_,' said Darya Mihailovna, when Pandalevsky came into +the drawing-room, 'is _Alexandrine_ coming?' + +'Alexandra Pavlovna asked me to thank you, and they will be extremely +delighted,' replied Konstantin Diomiditch, bowing affably in all +directions, and running his plump white hand with its triangular cut +nails through his faultlessly arranged hair. + +'And is Volintsev coming too?' + +'Yes.' + +'So, according to you, African Semenitch,' continued Darya Mihailovna, +turning to Pigasov, 'all young ladies are affected?' + +Pigasov's mouth twitched, and he plucked nervously at his elbow. + +'I say,' he began in a measured voice--in his most violent moods of +exasperation he always spoke slowly and precisely. 'I say that young +ladies, in general--of present company, of course, I say nothing.' + +'But that does not prevent your thinking of them,' put in Darya +Mihailovna. + +'I say nothing of them,' repeated Pigasov. 'All young ladies, in +general, are affected to the most extreme point--affected in the +expression of their feelings. If a young lady is frightened, for +instance, or pleased with anything, or distressed, she is certain first +to throw her person into some such elegant attitude (and Pigasov threw +his figure into an unbecoming pose and spread out his hands) and then +she shrieks--ah! or she laughs or cries. I did once though (and here +Pigasov smiled complacently) succeed in eliciting a genuine, unaffected +expression of emotion from a remarkably affected young lady!' + +'How did you do that?' + +Pigasov's eyes sparkled. + +'I poked her in the side with an aspen stake, from behind. She did +shriek, and I said to her, "Bravo, bravo! that's the voice of nature, +that was a genuine shriek! Always do like that for the future!"' + +Every one in the room laughed. + +'What nonsense you talk, African Semenitch,' cried Darya Mihailovna. 'Am +I to believe that you would poke a girl in the side with a stake!' + +'Yes, indeed, with a stake, a very big stake, like those that are used +in the defence of a fort.' + +'_Mais c'est un horreur ce que vous dites la, Monsieur_,' cried Mlle. +Boncourt, looking angrily at the boys, who were in fits of laughter. + +'Oh, you mustn't believe him,' said Darya Mihailovna. 'Don't you know +him?' + +But the offended French lady could not be pacified for a long while, and +kept muttering something to herself. + +'You need not believe me,' continued Pigasov coolly, 'but I assure you I +told the simple truth. Who should know if not I? After that perhaps you +won't believe that our neighbour, Madame Tchepuz, Elena Antonovna, told +me herself, mind _herself_, that she had murdered her nephew?' + +'What an invention!' + +'Wait a minute, wait a minute! Listen and judge for yourselves. Mind, +I don't want to slander her, I even like her as far as one can like a +woman. She hasn't a single book in her house except a calendar, and she +can't read except aloud, and that exercise throws her into a violent +perspiration, and she complains then that her eyes feel bursting out of +her head.... In short, she's a capital woman, and her servant girls grow +fat. Why should I slander her?' + +'You see,' observed Darya Mihailovna, 'African Semenitch has got on his +hobbyhorse, now he will not be off it to-night.' + +'My hobby! But women have three at least, which they are never off, +except, perhaps, when they're asleep.' + +'What three hobbies are those?' + +'Reproof, reproach, recrimination.' + +'Do you know, African Semenitch,' began Darya Mihailovna, 'you cannot be +so bitter against women for nothing. Some woman or other must have----' + +'Done me an injury, you mean?' Pigasov interrupted. + +Darya Mihailovna was rather embarrassed; she remembered Pigasov's +unlucky marriage, and only nodded. + +'One woman certainly did me an injury,' said Pigasov, 'though she was a +good, very good one.' + +'Who was that?' + +'My mother,' said Pigasov, dropping his voice. + +'Your mother? What injury could she have done you?' + +'She brought me into the world.' + +Darya Mihailovna frowned. + +'Our conversation,' she said, 'seems to have taken a gloomy turn. +_Constantin_, play us Thalberg's new _etude_. I daresay the music will +soothe African Semenitch. Orpheus soothed savage beasts.' + +Konstantin Diomiditch took his seat at the piano, and played the etude +very fairly well. Natalya Alexyevna at first listened attentively, then +she bent over her work again. + +'_Merci, c'est charmant_,' observed Darya Mihailovna, 'I love Thalberg. +_Il est si distingue_. What are you thinking of, African Semenitch?' + +'I thought,' began African Semenitch slowly, 'that there are three kinds +of egoists; the egoists who live themselves and let others live; the +egoists who live themselves and don't let others live; and the egoists +who don't live themselves and don't let others live. Women, for the most +part, belong to the third class.' + +'That's polite! I am very much astonished at one thing, African +Semenitch; your confidence in your convictions; of course you can never +be mistaken.' + +'Who says so? I make mistakes; a man, too, may be mistaken. But do you +know the difference between a man's mistakes and a woman's? Don't you +know? Well, here it is; a man may say, for example, that twice two makes +not four, but five, or three and a half; but a woman will say that twice +two makes a wax candle.' + +'I fancy I've heard you say that before. But allow me to ask what +connection had your idea of the three kinds of egoists with the music +you have just been hearing?' + +'None at all, but I did not listen to the music.' + +'Well, "incurable I see you are, and that is all about it,"' answered +Darya Mihailovna, slightly altering Griboyedov's line. 'What do you +like, since you don't care for music? Literature?' + +'I like literature, only not our contemporary literature.' + +'Why?' + +'I'll tell you why. I crossed the Oka lately in a ferry boat with a +gentleman. The ferry got fixed in a narrow place; they had to drag the +carriages ashore by hand. This gentleman had a very heavy coach. While +the ferrymen were straining themselves to drag the coach on to the bank, +the gentleman groaned so, standing in the ferry, that one felt quite +sorry for him.... Well, I thought, here's a fresh illustration of the +system of division of labour! That's just like our modern literature; +other people do the work, and it does the groaning.' + +Darya Mihailovna smiled. + +'And that is called expressing contemporary life,' continued Pigasov +indefatigably, 'profound sympathy with the social question and so on. +... Oh, how I hate those grand words!' + +'Well, the women you attack so--they at least don't use grand words.' + +Pigasov shrugged his shoulders. + +'They don't use them because they don't understand them.' + +Darya Mihailovna flushed slightly. + +'You are beginning to be impertinent, African Semenitch!' she remarked +with a forced smile. + +There was complete stillness in the room. + +'Where is Zolotonosha?' asked one of the boys suddenly of Bassistoff. + +'In the province of Poltava, my dear boy,' replied Pigasov, 'in the +centre of Little Russia.' (He was glad of an opportunity of changing the +conversation.) 'We were talking of literature,' he continued, 'if I had +money to spare, I would at once become a Little Russian poet.' + +'What next? a fine poet you would make!' retorted Darya Mihailovna. 'Do +you know Little Russian?' + +'Not a bit; but it isn't necessary.' + +'Not necessary?' + +'Oh no, it's not necessary. You need only take a sheet of paper and +write at the top "A Ballad," then begin like this, "Heigho, alack, my +destiny!" or "the Cossack Nalivaiko was sitting on a hill and then on +the mountain, under the green tree the birds are singing, grae, voropae, +gop, gop!" or something of that kind. And the thing's done. Print it +and publish it. The Little Russian will read it, drop his head into his +hands and infallibly burst into tears--he is such a sensitive soul!' + +'Good heavens!' cried Bassistoff. 'What are you saying? It's too absurd +for anything. I have lived in Little Russia, I love it and know the +language... "grae, grae, voropae" is absolute nonsense.' + +'It may be, but the Little Russian will weep all the same. You speak +of the "language."... But is there a Little Russian language? Is it a +language, in your opinion? an independent language? I would pound my +best friend in a mortar before I'd agree to that.' + +Bassistoff was about to retort. + +'Leave him alone!' said Darya Mihailovna, 'you know that you will hear +nothing but paradoxes from him.' + +Pigasov smiled ironically. A footman came in and announced the arrival +of Alexandra Pavlovna and her brother. + +Darya Mihailovna rose to meet her guests. + +'How do you do, Alexandrine?' she began, going up to her, 'how good of +you to come!... How are you, Sergei Pavlitch?' + +Volintsev shook hands with Darya Mihailovna and went up to Natalya +Alexyevna. + +'But how about that baron, your new acquaintance, is he coming to-day?' +asked Pigasov. + +'Yes, he is coming.' + +'He is a great philosopher, they say; he is just brimming over with +Hegel, I suppose?' + +Darya Mihailovna made no reply, and making Alexandra Pavlovna sit down +on the sofa, established herself near her. + +'Philosophies,' continued Pigasov, 'are elevated points of view! That's +another abomination of mine; these elevated points of view. And what can +one see from above? Upon my soul, if you want to buy a horse, you don't +look at it from a steeple!' + +'This baron was going to bring you an essay?' said Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'Yes, an essay,' replied Darya Mihailovna, with exaggerated +carelessness, 'on the relation of commerce to manufactures in Russia. +... But don't be afraid; we will not read it here.... I did not invite +you for that. _Le baron est aussi aimable que savant_. And he speaks +Russian beautifully! _C'est un vrai torrent... il vous entraine_! + +'He speaks Russian so beautifully,' grumbled Pigasov, 'that he deserves +a eulogy in French.' + +'You may grumble as you please, African Semenitch.... It's in keeping +with your ruffled locks.... I wonder, though, why he does not come. Do +you know what, _messieurs et mesdames_' added Darya Mihailovna, looking +round, 'we will go into the garden. There is still nearly an hour to +dinner-time and the weather is glorious.' + +All the company rose and went into the garden. + +Darya Mihailovna's garden stretched right down to the river. There were +many alleys of old lime-trees in it, full of sunlight and shade and +fragrance and glimpses of emerald green at the ends of the walks, and +many arbours of acacias and lilacs. + +Volintsev turned into the thickest part of the garden with Natalya and +Mlle. Boncourt. He walked beside Natalya in silence. Mlle. Boncourt +followed a little behind. + +'What have you been doing to-day?' asked Volintsev at last, pulling the +ends of his handsome dark brown moustache. + +In features he resembled his sister strikingly; but there was less +movement and life in his expression, and his soft beautiful eyes had a +melancholy look. + +'Oh! nothing,' answered Natalya, 'I have been listening to Pigasov's +sarcasms, I have done some embroidery on canvas, and I've been reading.' + +'And what have you been reading?' + +'Oh! I read--a history of the Crusades,' said Natalya, with some +hesitation. + +Volintsev looked at her. + +'Ah!' he ejaculated at last, 'that must be interesting.' + +He picked a twig and began to twirl it in the air. They walked another +twenty paces. + +'What is this baron whom your mother has made acquaintance with?' began +Volintsev again. + +'A Gentleman of the Bedchamber, a new arrival; _maman_ speaks very +highly of him.' + +'Your mother is quick to take fancies to people.' + +'That shows that her heart is still young,' observed Natalya. + +'Yes. I shall soon bring you your mare. She is almost quite broken in +now. I want to teach her to gallop, and I shall manage it soon.' + +'_Merci_!... But I'm quite ashamed. You are breaking her in yourself ... +and they say it's so hard!' + +'To give you the least pleasure, you know, Natalya Alexyevna, I am +ready... I... not in such trifles----' + +Volintsev grew confused. + +Natalya looked at him with friendly encouragement, and again said +'_merci_!' + +'You know,' continued Sergei Pavlitch after a long pause, 'that not such +things.... But why am I saying this? you know everything, of course.' + +At that instant a bell rang in the house. + +'Ah! _la cloche du diner_!' cried Mlle. Boncourt, '_rentrons_.' + +'_Quel dommage_,' thought the old French lady to herself as she mounted +the balcony steps behind Volintsev and Natalya, '_quel dommage que ce +charmant garcon ait si peu de ressources dans la conversation_,' which +may be translated, 'you are a good fellow, my dear boy, but rather a +fool.' + +The baron did not arrive to dinner. They waited half-an-hour for him. +Conversation flagged at the table. Sergei Pavlitch did nothing but gaze +at Natalya, near whom he was sitting, and zealously filled up her +glass with water. Pandalevsky tried in vain to entertain his neighbour, +Alexandra Pavlovna; he was bubbling over with sweetness, but she hardly +refrained from yawning. + +Bassistoff was rolling up pellets of bread and thinking of nothing at +all; even Pigasov was silent, and when Darya Mihailovna remarked to him +that he had not been very polite to-day, he replied crossly, 'When am +I polite? that's not in my line;' and smiling grimly he added, 'have a +little patience; I am only kvas, you know, _du simple_ Russian kvas; but +your Gentleman of the Bedchamber----' + +'Bravo!' cried Darya Mihailovna, 'Pigasov is jealous, he is jealous +already!' + +But Pigasov made her no rejoinder, and only gave her a rather cross +look. + +Seven o'clock struck, and they were all assembled again in the +drawing-room. + +'He is not coming, clearly,' said Darya Mihailovna. + +But, behold, the rumble of a carriage was heard: a small tarantass +drove into the court, and a few instants later a footman entered the +drawing-room and gave Darya Mihailovna a note on a silver salver. She +glanced through it, and turning to the footman asked: + +'But where is the gentleman who brought this letter?' + +'He is sitting in the carriage. Shall I ask him to come up?' + +'Ask him to do so.' + +The man went out. + +'Fancy, how vexatious!' continued Darya Mihailovna, 'the baron has +received a summons to return at once to Petersburg. He has sent me +his essay by a certain Mr. Rudin, a friend of his. The baron wanted to +introduce him to me--he speaks very highly of him. But how vexatious it +is! I had hoped the baron would stay here for some time.' + +'Dmitri Nikolaitch Rudin,' announced the servant + + + + + +III + + +A man of about thirty-five entered, of a tall, somewhat stooping +figure, with crisp curly hair and swarthy complexion, an irregular but +expressive and intelligent face, a liquid brilliance in his quick, dark +blue eyes, a straight, broad nose, and well-curved lips. His clothes +were not new, and were somewhat small, as though he had outgrown them. + +He walked quickly up to Darya Mihailovna, and with a slight bow told her +that he had long wished to have the honour of an introduction to her, +and that his friend the baron greatly regretted that he could not take +leave of her in person. + +The thin sound of Rudin's voice seemed out of keeping with his tall +figure and broad chest. + +'Pray be seated... very delighted,' murmured Darya Mihailovna, and, +after introducing him to the rest of the company, she asked him whether +he belonged to those parts or was a visitor. + +'My estate is in the T---- province,' replied Rudin, holding his hat on +his knees. 'I have not been here long. I came on business and stayed for +a while in your district town.' + +'With whom?' + +'With the doctor. He was an old chum of mine at the university.' + +'Ah! the doctor. He is highly spoken of. He is skilful in his work, they +say. But have you known the baron long?' + +'I met him last winter in Moscow, and I have just been spending about a +week with him.' + +'He is a very clever man, the baron.' + +'Yes.' + +Darya Mihailovna sniffed at her little crushed-up handkerchief steeped +in _eau de cologne_. + +'Are you in the government service?' she asked. + +'Who? I?' + +'Yes.' + +'No. I have retired.' + +There followed a brief pause. The general conversation was resumed. + +'If you will allow me to be inquisitive,' began Pigasov, turning to +Rudin, 'do you know the contents of the essay which his excellency the +baron has sent?' + +'Yes, I do.' + +'This essay deals with the relations to commerce--or no, of manufactures +to commerce in our country.... That was your expression, I think, Darya +Mihailovna?' + +'Yes, it deals with'... began Darya Mihailovna, pressing her hand to her +forehead. + +'I am, of course, a poor judge of such matters,' continued Pigasov, 'but +I must confess that to me even the title of the essay seems excessively +(how could I put it delicately?) excessively obscure and complicated.' + +'Why does it seem so to you?' + +Pigasov smiled and looked across at Darya Mihailovna. + +'Why, is it clear to you?' he said, turning his foxy face again towards +Rudin. + +'To me? Yes.' + +'H'm. No doubt you must know better.' + +'Does your head ache?' Alexandra Pavlovna inquired of Darya Mihailovna. + +'No. It is only my--_c'est nerveux_.' + +'Allow me to inquire,' Pigasov was beginning again in his nasal tones, +'your friend, his excellency Baron Muffel--I think that's his name?' + +'Precisely.' + +'Does his excellency Baron Muffel make a special study of political +economy, or does he only devote to that interesting subject the hours of +leisure left over from his social amusements and his official duties?' + +Rudin looked steadily at Pigasov. + +'The baron is an amateur on this subject,' he replied, growing rather +red, 'but in his essay there is much that is interesting and just.' + +'I am not able to dispute it with you; I have not read the essay. But I +venture to ask--the work of your friend Baron Muffel is no doubt founded +more upon general propositions than upon facts?' + +'It contains both facts and propositions founded upon the facts.' + +'Yes, yes. I must tell you that, in my opinion--and I've a right to give +my opinion, on occasion; I spent three years at Dorpat... all these, +so-called general propositions, hypotheses, these systems--excuse me, +I am a provincial, I speak the truth bluntly--are absolutely worthless. +All that's only theorising--only good for misleading people. Give us +facts, sir, and that's enough!' + +'Really!' retorted Rudin, 'why, but ought not one to give the +significance of the facts?' + +'General propositions,' continued Pigasov, 'they're my abomination, +these general propositions, theories, conclusions. All that's based on +so-called convictions; every one is talking about his convictions, and +attaches importance to them, prides himself on them. Ah!' + +And Pigasov shook his fist in the air. Pandalevsky laughed. + +'Capital!' put in Rudin, 'it follows that there is no such thing as +conviction according to you?' + +'No, it doesn't exist.' + +'Is that your conviction?' + +'Yes.' + +'How do you say that there are none then? Here you have one at the very +first turn.' + +All in the room smiled and looked at one another. + +'One minute, one minute, but----,' Pigasov was beginning. + +But Darya Mihailovna clapped her hands crying, 'Bravo, bravo, Pigasov's +beaten!' and she gently took Rudin's hat from his hand. + +'Defer your delight a little, madam; there's plenty of time!' Pigasov +began with annoyance. 'It's not sufficient to say a witty word, with a +show of superiority; you must prove, refute. We had wandered from the +subject of our discussion.' + +'With your permission,' remarked Rudin, coolly, 'the matter is very +simple. You do not believe in the value of general propositions--you do +not believe in convictions?' + +'I don't believe in them, I don't believe in anything!' + +'Very good. You are a sceptic.' + +'I see no necessity for using such a learned word. However----' + +'Don't interrupt!' interposed Darya Mihailovna. + +'At him, good dog!' Pandalevsky said to himself at the same instant, and +smiled all over. + +'That word expresses my meaning,' pursued Rudin. 'You understand it; why +not make use of it? You don't believe in anything. Why do you believe in +facts?' + +'Why? That's good! Facts are matters of experience, every one knows what +facts are. I judge of them by experience, by my own senses.' + +'But may not your senses deceive you? Your senses tell you that the sun +goes round the earth,... but perhaps you don't agree with Copernicus? +You don't even believe in him?' + +Again a smile passed over every one's face, and all eyes were fastened +on Rudin. 'He's by no means a fool,' every one was thinking. + +'You are pleased to keep on joking,' said Pigasov. 'Of course that's +very original, but it's not to the point.' + +'In what I have said hitherto,' rejoined Rudin, 'there is, +unfortunately, too little that's original. All that has been well known +a very long time, and has been said a thousand times. That is not the +pith of the matter.' + +'What is then?' asked Pigasov, not without insolence. + +In discussions he always first bantered his opponent, then grew cross, +and finally sulked and was silent. + +'Here it is,' continued Rudin. 'I cannot help, I own, feeling sincere +regret when I hear sensible people attack----' + +'Systems?' interposed Pigasov. + +'Yes, with your leave, even systems. What frightens you so much in that +word? Every system is founded on a knowledge of fundamental laws, the +principles of life----' + +'But there is no knowing them, no discovering them.' + +'One minute. Doubtless they are not easy for every one to get at, and to +make mistakes is natural to man. However, you will certainly agree +with me that Newton, for example, discovered some at least of these +fundamental laws? He was a genius, we grant you; but the grandeur of +the discoveries of genius is that they become the heritage of all. The +effort to discover universal principles in the multiplicity of phenomena +is one of the radical characteristics of human thought, and all our +civilisation----' + +'That's what you're driving at!' Pigasov broke in in a drawling tone. 'I +am a practical man and all these metaphysical subtleties I don't enter +into and don't want to enter into.' + +'Very good! That's as you prefer. But take note that your very desire +to be exclusively a practical man is itself your sort of system--your +theory.' + +'Civilisation you talk about!' blurted in Pigasov; 'that's another +admirable notion of yours! Much use in it, this vaunted civilisation! I +would not give a brass farthing for your civilisation!' + +'But what a poor sort of argument, African Semenitch!' observed +Darya Mihailovna, inwardly much pleased by the calmness and perfect +good-breeding of her new acquaintance. '_Cest un homme comme il faut_,' +she thought, looking with well-disposed scrutiny at Rudin; 'we must be +nice to him!' Those last words she mentally pronounced in Russian. + +'I will not champion civilisation,' continued Rudin after a short pause, +'it does not need my championship. You don't like it, every one to his +own taste. Besides, that would take us too far. Allow me only to remind +you of the old saying, "Jupiter, you are angry; therefore you are in the +wrong." I meant to say that all those onslaughts upon systems--general +propositions--are especially distressing, because together with these +systems men repudiate knowledge in general, and all science and faith in +it, and consequently also faith in themselves, in their own powers. But +this faith is essential to men; they cannot exist by their sensations +alone they are wrong to fear ideas and not to trust in them. Scepticism +is always characterised by barrenness and impotence.' + +'That's all words!' muttered Pigasov. + +'Perhaps so. But allow me to point out to you that when we say "that's +all words!" we often wish ourselves to avoid the necessity of saying +anything more substantial than mere words.' + +'What?' said Pigasov, winking his eyes. + +'You understood what I meant,' retorted Rudin, with involuntary, +but instantly repressed impatience. 'I repeat, if man has no steady +principle in which he trusts, no ground on which he can take a firm +stand, how can he form a just estimate of the needs, the tendencies and +the future of his country? How can he know what he ought to do, if----' + +'I leave you the field,' ejaculated Pigasov abruptly, and with a bow he +turned away without looking at any one. + +Rudin stared at him, and smiled slightly, saying nothing. + +'Aha! he has taken to flight!' said Darya Mihailovna. 'Never mind, +Dmitri...! I beg your pardon,' she added with a cordial smile, 'what is +your paternal name?' + +'Nikolaitch.' + +'Never mind, my dear Dmitri Nikolaitch, he did not deceive any of us. He +wants to make a show of not wishing to argue any more. He is conscious +that he cannot argue with you. But you had better sit nearer to us and +let us have a little talk.' + +Rudin moved his chair up. + +'How is it we have not met till now?' was Darya Mihailovna's question. +'That is what surprises me. Have you read this book? _C'est de +Tocqueville, vous savez_?' + +And Darya Mihailovna held out the French pamphlet to Rudin. + +Rudin took the thin volume in his hand, turned over a few pages of +it, and laying it down on the table, replied that he had not read that +particular work of M. de Tocqueville, but that he had often reflected +on the question treated by him. A conversation began to spring up. Rudin +seemed uncertain at first, and not disposed to speak out freely; his +words did not come readily, but at last he grew warm and began to speak. +In a quarter of an hour his voice was the only sound in the room, All +were crowding in a circle round him. + +Only Pigasov remained aloof, in a corner by the fireplace. Rudin spoke +with intelligence, with fire and with judgment; he showed much learning, +wide reading. No one had expected to find in him a remarkable man. His +clothes were so shabby, so little was known of him. Every one felt it +strange and incomprehensible that such a clever man should have suddenly +made his appearance in the country. He seemed all the more wonderful +and, one may even say, fascinating to all of them, beginning with +Darya Mihailovna. She was pluming herself on having discovered him, and +already at this early date was dreaming of how she would introduce Rudin +into the world. In her quickness to receive impressions there was much +that was almost childish, in spite of her years. Alexandra Pavlovna, to +tell the truth, understood little of all that Rudin said, but was full +of wonder and delight; her brother too was admiring him. Pandalevsky was +watching Darya Mihailovna and was filled with envy. Pigasov thought, +'If I have to give five hundred roubles I will get a nightingale to +sing better than that!' But the most impressed of all the party were +Bassistoff and Natalya. Scarcely a breath escaped Bassistoff; he sat the +whole time with open mouth and round eyes and listened--listened as +he had never listened to any one in his life--while Natalya's face was +suffused by a crimson flush, and her eyes, fastened unwaveringly on +Rudin, were both dimmed and shining. + +'What splendid eyes he has!' Volintsev whispered to her. + +'Yes, they are.' + +'It's only a pity his hands are so big and red.' + +Natalya made no reply. + +Tea was brought in. The conversation became more general, but still by +the sudden unanimity with which every one was silent, directly Rudin +opened his mouth, one could judge of the strength of the impression he +had produced. Darya Mihailovna suddenly felt inclined to tease Pigasov. +She went up to him and said in an undertone, 'Why don't you speak +instead of doing nothing but smile sarcastically? Make an effort, +challenge him again,' and without waiting for him to answer, she +beckoned to Rudin. + +'There's one thing more you don't know about him,' she said to him, +with a gesture towards Pigasov,--'he is a terrible hater of women, he is +always attacking them; pray, show him the true path.' + +Rudin involuntarily looked down upon Pigasov; he was a head and +shoulders taller. Pigasov almost withered up with fury, and his sour +face grew pale. + +'Darya Mihailovna is mistaken,' he said in an unsteady voice, 'I do not +only attack women; I am not a great admirer of the whole human species.' + +'What can have given you such a poor opinion of them?' inquired Rudin. + +Pigasov looked him straight in the face. + +'The study of my own heart, no doubt, in which I find every day more +and more that is base. I judge of others by myself. Possibly this too is +erroneous, and I am far worse than others, but what am I to do? it's a +habit!' + +'I understand you and sympathise with you!' was Rudin's rejoinder. 'What +generous soul has not experienced a yearning for self-humiliation? But +one ought not to remain in that condition from which there is no outlet +beyond.' + +'I am deeply indebted for the certificate of generosity you confer on +my soul,' retorted Pigasov. 'As for my condition, there's not much amiss +with it, so that even if there were an outlet from it, it might go to +the deuce, I shouldn't look for it!' + +'But that means--pardon the expression--to prefer the gratification of +your own pride to the desire to be and live in the truth.' + +'Undoubtedly,' cried Pigasov, 'pride--that I understand, and you, I +expect, understand, and every one understands; but truth, what is truth? +Where is it, this truth?' + +'You are repeating yourself, let me warn you,' remarked Darya +Mihailovna. + +Pigasov shrugged his shoulders. + +'Well, where's the harm if I do? I ask: where is truth? Even the +philosophers don't know what it is. Kant says it is one thing; but +Hegel--no, you're wrong, it's something else.' + +'And do you know what Hegel says of it?' asked Rudin, without raising +his voice. + +'I repeat,' continued Pigasov, flying into a passion, 'that I cannot +understand what truth means. According to my idea, it doesn't exist +at all in the world, that is to say, the word exists but not the thing +itself.' + +'Fie, fie!' cried Darya Mihailovna, 'I wonder you're not ashamed to say +so, you old sinner! No truth? What is there to live for in the world +after that?' + +'Well, I go so far as to think, Darya Mihailovna,' retorted Pigasov, in +a tone of annoyance, 'that it would be much easier for you, in any case, +to live without truth than without your cook, Stepan, who is such a +master hand at soups! And what do you want with truth, kindly tell me? +you can't trim a bonnet with it!' + +'A joke is not an argument,' observed Darya Mihailovna, 'especially when +you descend to personal insult.' + +'I don't know about truth, but I see speaking it does not answer,' +muttered Pigasov, and he turned angrily away. + +And Rudin began to speak of pride, and he spoke well. He showed that man +without pride is worthless, that pride is the lever by which the earth +can be moved from its foundations, but that at the same time he alone +deserves the name of man who knows how to control his pride, as the +rider does his horse, who offers up his own personality as a sacrifice +to the general good. + +'Egoism,' so he ended, 'is suicide. The egoist withers like a solitary +barren tree; but pride, ambition, as the active effort after perfection, +is the source of all that is great.... Yes! a man must prune away +the stubborn egoism of his personality to give it the right of +self-expression.' + +'Can you lend me a pencil?' Pigasov asked Bassistoff. + +Bassistoff did not at once understand what Pigasov had asked him. + +'What do you want a pencil for?' he said at last + +'I want to write down Mr. Rudin's last sentence. If one doesn't write it +down, one might forget it, I'm afraid! But you will own, a sentence like +that is such a handful of trumps.' + +'There are things which it is a shame to laugh at and make fun of, +African Semenitch!' said Bassistoff warmly, turning away from Pigasov. + +Meanwhile Rudin had approached Natalya. She got up; her face expressed +her confusion. Volintsev, who was sitting near her, got up too. + +'I see a piano,' began Rudin, with the gentle courtesy of a travelling +prince; 'don't you play on it?' + +'Yes, I play,' replied Natalya, 'but not very well. Here is Konstantin +Diomiditch plays much better than I do.' + +Pandalevsky put himself forward with a simper. 'You should not say that, +Natalya Alexyevna; your playing is not at all inferior to mine.' + +'Do you know Schubert's "Erlkonig"?' asked Rudin. + +'He knows it, he knows it!' interposed Darya Mihailovna. 'Sit down, +Konstantin. You are fond of music, Dmitri Nikolaitch?' + +Rudin only made a slight motion of the head and ran his hand through his +hair, as though disposing himself to listen. Pandalevsky began to play. + +Natalya was standing near the piano, directly facing Rudin. At the first +sound his face was transfigured. His dark blue eyes moved slowly about, +from time to time resting upon Natalya. Pandalevsky finished playing. + +Rudin said nothing and walked up to the open window. A fragrant mist +lay like a soft shroud over the garden; a drowsy scent breathed from +the trees near. The stars shed a mild radiance. The summer night was +soft--and softened all. Rudin gazed into the dark garden, and looked +round. + +'That music and this night,' he began, 'reminded me of my student days +in Germany; our meetings, our serenades.' + +'You have been in Germany then?' said Darya Mihailovna. + +'I spent a year at Heidelberg, and nearly a year at Berlin.' + +'And did you dress as a student? They say they wear a special dress +there.' + +'At Heidelberg I wore high boots with spurs, and a hussar's jacket +with braid on it, and I let my hair grow to my shoulders. In Berlin the +students dress like everybody else.' + +'Tell us something of your student life,' said Alexandra Pavlovna. + +Rudin complied. He was not altogether successful in narrative. There +was a lack of colour in his descriptions. He did not know how to be +humorous. However, from relating his own adventures abroad, Rudin soon +passed to general themes, the special value of education and science, +universities, and university life generally. He sketched in a large and +comprehensive picture in broad and striking lines. All listened to him +with profound attention. His eloquence was masterly and attractive, not +altogether clear, but even this want of clearness added a special charm +to his words. + +The exuberance of his thought hindered Rudin from expressing himself +definitely and exactly. Images followed upon images; comparisons started +up one after another--now startlingly bold, now strikingly true. It was +not the complacent effort of the practised speaker, but the very breath +of inspiration that was felt in his impatient improvising. He did not +seek out his words; they came obediently and spontaneously to his lips, +and each word seemed to flow straight from his soul, and was burning +with all the fire of conviction. Rudin was the master of almost the +greatest secret--the music of eloquence. He knew how in striking +one chord of the heart to set all the others vaguely quivering and +resounding. Many of his listeners, perhaps, did not understand very +precisely what his eloquence was about; but their bosoms heaved, it +seemed as though veils were lifted before their eyes, something radiant, +glorious, seemed shimmering in the distance. + +All Rudin's thoughts seemed centred on the future; this lent him +something of the impetuous dash of youth... Standing at the window, not +looking at any one in special, he spoke, and inspired by the general +sympathy and attention, the presence of young women, the beauty of the +night, carried along by the tide of his own emotions, he rose to the +height of eloquence, of poetry.... The very sound of his voice, intense +and soft, increased the fascination; it seemed as though some higher +power were speaking through his lips, startling even to himself.... +Rudin spoke of what lends eternal significance to the fleeting life of +man. + +'I remember a Scandinavian legend,' thus he concluded, 'a king is +sitting with his warriors round the fire in a long dark barn. It was +night and winter. Suddenly a little bird flew in at the open door and +flew out again at the other. The king spoke and said that this bird +is like man in the world; it flew in from darkness and out again into +darkness, and was not long in the warmth and light.... "King," replies +the oldest of the warriors, "even in the dark the bird is not lost, but +finds her nest." Even so our life is short and worthless; but all that +is great is accomplished through men. The consciousness of being the +instrument of these higher powers ought to outweigh all other joys for +man; even in death he finds his life, his nest.' + +Rudin stopped and dropped his eyes with a smile of involuntary +embarrassment. + +'_Vous etes un poete_,' was Darya Mihailovna's comment in an undertone. +And all were inwardly agreeing with her--all except Pigasov. Without +waiting for the end of Rudin's long speech, he quietly took his hat and +as he went out whispered viciously to Pandalevsky who was standing near +the door: + +'No! Fools are more to my taste.' + +No one, however, tried to detain him or even noticed his absence. + +The servants brought in supper, and half an hour later, all had taken +leave and separated. Darya Mihailovna begged Rudin to remain the night. +Alexandra Pavlovna, as she went home in the carriage with her brother, +several times fell to exclaiming and marvelling at the extraordinary +cleverness of Rudin. Volintsev agreed with her, though he observed that +he sometimes expressed himself somewhat obscurely--that is to say, not +altogether intelligibly, he added,--wishing, no doubt, to make his own +thought clear, but his face was gloomy, and his eyes, fixed on a corner +of the carriage, seemed even more melancholy than usual. + +Pandalevsky went to bed, and as he took off his daintily embroidered +braces, he said aloud 'A very smart fellow!' and suddenly, looking +harshly at his page, ordered him out of the room. Bassistoff did not +sleep the whole night and did not undress--he was writing till morning +a letter to a comrade of his in Moscow; and Natalya, too, though she +undressed and lay down in her bed, had not an instant's sleep and never +closed her eyes. With her head propped on her arm, she gazed fixedly +into the darkness; her veins were throbbing feverishly and her bosom +often heaved with a deep sigh. + + + + +IV + + +The next morning Rudin had only just finished dressing when a servant +came to him with an invitation from Darya Mihailovna to come to her +boudoir and drink tea with her. Rudin found her alone. She greeted him +very cordially, inquired whether he had passed a good night, poured him +out a cup of tea with her own hands, asked him whether there was sugar +enough in it, offered him a cigarette, and twice again repeated that she +was surprised that she had not met him long before. Rudin was about to +take a seat some distance away; but Darya Mihailovna motioned him to an +easy chair, which stood near her lounge, and bending a little towards +him began to question him about his family, his plans and intentions. +Darya Mihailovna spoke carelessly and listened with an air of +indifference; but it was perfectly evident to Rudin that she was laying +herself out to please him, even to flatter him. It was not for nothing +that she had arranged this morning interview, and had dressed so simply +yet elegantly _a la Madame Recamier_! But Darya Mihailovna soon left off +questioning him. She began to tell him about herself, her youth, and +the people she had known. Rudin gave a sympathetic attention to +her lucubrations, though--a curious fact--whatever personage Darya +Mihailovna might be talking about, she always stood in the foreground, +she alone, and the personage seemed to be effaced, to slink away in the +background, and to disappear. But to make up for that, Rudin learnt +in full detail precisely what Darya Mihailovna had said to a certain +distinguished statesman, and what influence she had had on such and such +a celebrated poet. To judge from Darya Mihailovna's accounts, one might +fancy that all the distinguished men of the last five-and-twenty years +had dreamt of nothing but how they could make her acquaintance, and +gain her good opinion. She spoke of them simply, without particular +enthusiasm or admiration, as though they were her daily associates, +calling some of them queer fellows. As she talked of them, like a rich +setting round a worthless stone, their names ranged themselves in a +brilliant circlet round the principal name--around Darya Mihailovna. + +Rudin listened, smoking a cigarette, and said little. He could speak +well and liked speaking; carrying on a conversation was not in his line, +though he was also a good listener. All men--if only they had not been +intimidated by him to begin with--opened their hearts with confidence +in his presence; he followed the thread of another man's narrative so +readily and sympathetically. He had a great deal of good-nature--that +special good-nature of which men are full, who are accustomed to feel +themselves superior to others. In arguments he seldom allowed his +antagonist to express himself fully, he crushed him by his eager, +vehement and passionate dialectic. + +Darya Mihailovna expressed herself in Russian. She prided herself on her +knowledge of her own language, though French words and expressions +often escaped her. She intentionally made use of simple popular terms of +speech; but not always successfully. Rudin's ear was not outraged by the +strange medley of language on Darya Mihailovna's lips, indeed he hardly +had an ear for it. + +Darya Mihailovna was exhausted at last and letting her head fall on the +cushions of her easy-chair she fixed her eyes on Rudin and was silent. + +'I understand now,' began Rudin, speaking slowly, 'I understand why you +come every summer into the country. This period of rest is essential for +you; the peace of the country after your life in the capital refreshes +and strengthens you. I am convinced that you must be profoundly +sensitive to the beauties of nature.' + +Darya Mihailovna gave Rudin a sidelong look. + +'Nature--yes--yes--of course.... I am passionately fond of it; but do +you know, Dmitri Nikolaitch, even in the country one cannot do without +society. And here there is practically none. Pigasov is the most +intelligent person here.' + +'The cross old gentleman who was here last night?' inquired Rudin. + +'Yes.... In the country though, even he is of use--he sometimes makes +one laugh.' + +'He is by no means stupid,' returned Rudin, 'but he is on the wrong +path. I don't know whether you will agree with me, Darya Mihailovna, but +in negation--in complete and universal negation--there is no salvation +to be found? Deny everything and you will easily pass for a man of +ability; it's a well-known trick. Simple-hearted people are quite ready +to conclude that you are worth more than what you deny. And that's +often an error. In the first place, you can pick holes in anything; and +secondly, even if you are right in what you say, it's the worse for +you; your intellect, directed by simple negation, grows colourless and +withers up. While you gratify your vanity, you are deprived of the true +consolations of thought; life--the essence of life--evades your +petty and jaundiced criticism, and you end by scolding and becoming +ridiculous. Only one who loves has the right to censure and find fault.' + +'Voila, Monsieur Pigasov enterre,' observed Darya Mihailovna. 'What a +genius you have for defining a man! But Pigasov certainly would not have +even understood you. He loves nothing but his own individuality.' + +'And he finds fault with that so as to have the right to find fault with +others,' Rudin put in. + +Darya Mihailovna laughed. + +'"He judges the sound," as the saying is, "the sound by the sick." By +the way, what do you think of the baron?' + +'The baron? He is an excellent man, with a good heart and a knowledge +... but he has no character... and he will remain all his life half a +savant, half a man of the world, that is to say, a dilettante, that is +to say, to speak plainly,--neither one thing nor the other. ... But it's +a pity!' + +'That was my own idea,' observed Darya Mihailovna. 'I read his +article.... _Entre nous... cela a assez peu de fond!_' + +'Who else have you here?' asked Rudin, after a pause. + +Darya Mihailovna knocked off the ash of her cigarette with her little +finger. + +'Oh, there is hardly any one else. Madame Lipin, Alexandra Pavlovna, +whom you saw yesterday; she is very sweet--but that is all. Her brother +is also a capital fellow--_un parfait honnete homme_. The Prince Garin +you know. Those are all. There are two or three neighbours besides, but +they are really good for nothing. They either give themselves airs or +are unsociable, or else quite unsuitably free and easy. The ladies, as +you know, I see nothing of. There is one other of our neighbours said +to be a very cultivated, even a learned, man, but a dreadfully queer +creature, a whimsical character. _Alexandrine_, knows him, and I fancy +is not indifferent to him.... Come, you ought to talk to her, Dmitri +Nikolaitch; she's a sweet creature. She only wants developing.' + +'I liked her very much,' remarked Rudin. + +'A perfect child, Dmitri Nikolaitch, an absolute baby. She has been +married, _mais c'est tout comme_.... If I were a man, I should only fall +in love with women like that.' + +'Really?' + +'Certainly. Such women are at least fresh, and freshness cannot be put +on.' + +'And can everything else?' Rudin asked, and he laughed--a thing which +rarely happened with him. When he laughed his face assumed a strange, +almost aged appearance, his eyes disappeared, his nose was wrinkled up. + +'And who is this queer creature, as you call him, to whom Madame Lipin +is not indifferent?' he asked. + +'A certain Lezhnyov, Mihailo Mihailitch, a landowner here.' + +Rudin seemed astonished; he raised his head. + +'Lezhnyov--Mihailo Mihailitch?' he questioned. 'Is he a neighbour of +yours?' + +'Yes. Do you know him?' + +Rudin did not speak for a minute. + +'I used to know him long ago. He is a rich man, I suppose?' he added, +pulling the fringe on his chair. + +'Yes, he is rich, though he dresses shockingly, and drives in a racing +droshky like a bailiff. I have been anxious to get him to come here; +he is spoken of as clever; I have some business with him.... You know I +manage my property myself.' + +Rudin bowed assent. + +'Yes; I manage it myself,' Darya Mihailovna continued. 'I don't +introduce any foreign crazes, but prefer what is our own, what is +Russian, and, as you see, things don't seem to do badly,' she added, +with a wave of her hand. + +'I have always been persuaded,' observed Rudin urbanely, 'of the +absolutely mistaken position of those people who refuse to admit the +practical intelligence of women.' + +Darya Mihailovna smiled affably. + +'You are very good to us,' was her comment 'But what was I going to say? +What were we speaking of? Oh, yes; Lezhnyov: I have some business with +him about a boundary. I have several times invited him here, and even +to-day I am expecting him; but there's no knowing whether he'll come... +he's such a strange creature.' + +The curtain before the door was softly moved aside and the steward came +in, a tall man, grey and bald, in a black coat, a white cravat, and a +white waistcoat. + +'What is it?' inquired Darya Mihailovna, and, turning a little towards +Rudin, she added in a low voice, '_n'est ce pas, comme il ressemble a +Canning?_' + +'Mihailo Mihailitch Lezhnyov is here,' announced the steward. 'Will you +see him?' + +'Good Heavens!' exclaimed Darya Mihailovna, 'speak of the devil----ask +him up.' + +The steward went away. + +'He's such an awkward creature. Now he has come, it's at the wrong +moment; he has interrupted our talk.' + +Rudin got up from his seat, but Darya Mihailovna stopped him. + +'Where are you going? We can discuss the matter as well before you. And +I want you to analyse him too, as you did Pigasov. When you talk, _vous +gravez comme avec un burin_. Please stay.' Rudin was going to protest, +but after a moment's thought he sat down. + +Mihailo Mihailitch, whom the reader already knows, came into the room. +He wore the same grey overcoat, and in his sunburnt hands he carried the +same old foraging cap. He bowed tranquilly to Darya Mihailovna, and came +up to the tea-table. + +'At last you have favoured me with a visit, Monsieur Lezhnyov!' began +Darya Mihailovna. 'Pray sit down. You are already acquainted, I hear,' +she continued, with a gesture in Rudin's direction. + +Lezhnyov looked at Rudin and smiled rather queerly. + +'I know Mr. Rudin,' he assented, with a slight bow. + +'We were together at the university,' observed Rudin in a low voice, +dropping his eyes. + +'And we met afterwards also,' remarked Lezhnyov coldly. + +Darya Mihailovna looked at both in some perplexity and asked Lezhnyov to +sit down He sat down. + +'You wanted to see me,' he began, 'on the subject of the boundary?' + +'Yes; about the boundary. But I also wished to see you in any case. We +are near neighbours, you know, and all but relations.' + +'I am much obliged to you,' returned Lezhnyov. 'As regards the boundary, +we have perfectly arranged that matter with your manager; I have agreed +to all his proposals.' + +'I knew that. But he told me that the contract could not be signed +without a personal interview with you.' + +'Yes; that is my rule. By the way, allow me to ask: all your peasants, I +believe, pay rent?' + +'Just so.' + +'And you trouble yourself about boundaries! That's very praiseworthy.' + +Lezhnyov did not speak for a minute. + +'Well, I have come for a personal interview,' he said at last. + +Darya Mihailovna smiled. + +'I see you have come. You say that in such a tone.... You could not have +been very anxious to come to see me.' + +'I never go anywhere,' rejoined Lezhnyov phlegmatically. + +'Not anywhere? But you go to see Alexandra Pavlovna.' + +'I am an old friend of her brother's.' + +'Her brother's! However, I never wish to force any one.... But pardon +me, Mihailo Mihailitch, I am older than you, and I may be allowed to +give you advice; what charm do you find in such an unsociable way of +living? Or is my house in particular displeasing to you? You dislike +me?' + +'I don't know you, Darya Mihailovna, and so I can't dislike you. You +have a splendid house; but I will confess to you frankly I don't like to +have to stand on ceremony. And I haven't a respectable suit, I haven't +any gloves, and I don't belong to your set.' + +'By birth, by education, you belong to it, Mihailo Mihailitch! _vous +etes des notres_.' + +'Birth and education are all very well, Darya Mihailovna; that's not the +question.' + +'A man ought to live with his fellows, Mihailo Mihailitch! What pleasure +is there in sitting like Diogenes in his tub?' + +'Well, to begin with, he was very well off there, and besides, how do +you know I don't live with my fellows?' + +Darya Mihailovna bit her lip. + +'That's a different matter! It only remains for me to express my regret +that I have not the honour of being included in the number of your +friends.' + +'Monsieur Lezhnyov,' put in Rudin, 'seems to carry to excess a laudable +sentiment--the love of independence.' + +Lezhnyov made no reply, he only looked at Rudin. A short silence +followed. + +'And so,' began Lezhnyov, getting up, 'I may consider our business as +concluded, and tell your manager to send me the papers.' + +'You may,... though I confess you are so uncivil I ought really to +refuse you.' + +'But you know this rearrangement of the boundary is far more in your +interest than in mine.' + +Darya Mihailovna shrugged her shoulders. + +'You will not even have luncheon here?' she asked. + +'Thank you; I never take luncheon, and I am in a hurry to get home.' + +Darya Mihailovna got up. + +'I will not detain you,' she said, going to the window. 'I will not +venture to detain you.' + +Lezhnyov began to take leave. + +'Good-bye, Monsieur Lezhnyov! Pardon me for having troubled you.' + +'Oh, not at all!' said Lezhnyov, and he went away. + +'Well, what do you say to that?' Darya Mihailovna asked of Rudin. 'I had +heard he was eccentric, but really that was beyond everything!' + +'His is the same disease as Pigasov's,' observed Rudin, 'the desire of +being original. One affects to be a Mephistopheles--the other a cynic. +In all that, there is much egoism, much vanity, but little truth, little +love. Indeed, there is even calculation of a sort in it. A man puts on +a mask of indifference and indolence so that some one will be sure to +think. "Look at that man; what talents he has thrown away!" But if +you come to look at him more attentively, there is no talent in him +whatever.' + +'_Et de deux!_' was Darya Mihailovna's comment. 'You are a terrible man +at hitting people off. One can hide nothing from you.' + +'Do you think so?' said Rudin.... 'However,' he continued, 'I ought not +really to speak about Lezhnyov; I loved him, loved him as a friend... +but afterwards, through various misunderstandings...' + +'You quarrelled?' + +'No. But we parted, and parted, it seems, for ever.' + +'Ah, I noticed that the whole time of his visit you were not quite +yourself.... But I am much indebted to you for this morning. I have +spent my time extremely pleasantly. But one must know where to stop. +I will let you go till lunch time and I will go and look after my +business. My secretary, you saw him--Constantin, _c'est lui qui est mon +secretaire_--must be waiting for me by now. I commend him to you; he is +an excellent, obliging young man, and quite enthusiastic about you. +_Au revoir, cher_ Dmitri Nikolaitch! How grateful I am to the baron for +having made me acquainted with you!' + +And Darya Mihailovna held out her hand to Rudin. He first pressed it, +then raised it to his lips and went away to the drawing-room and from +there to the terrace. On the terrace he met Natalya. + + + + +V + + +Darya Mihailovna's daughter, Natalya Alexyevna, at a first glance might +fail to please. She had not yet had time to develop; she was thin, and +dark, and stooped slightly. But her features were fine and regular, +though too large for a girl of seventeen. Specially beautiful was her +pure, smooth forehead above fine eyebrows, which seemed broken in the +middle. She spoke little, but listened to others, and fixed her eyes +on them as though she were forming her own conclusions. She would often +stand with listless hands, motionless and deep in thought; her face +at such moments showed that her mind was at work within.... A scarcely +perceptible smile would suddenly appear on her lips and vanish again; +then she would slowly raise her large dark eyes. '_Qu'a-vez-vous?_' +Mlle, Boncourt would ask her, and then she would begin to scold her, +saying that it was improper for a young girl to be absorbed and +to appear absent-minded. But Natalya was not absent-minded; on the +contrary, she studied diligently; she read and worked eagerly. Her +feelings were strong and deep, but reserved; even as a child she seldom +cried, and now she seldom even sighed and only grew slightly pale when +anything distressed her. Her mother considered her a sensible, good sort +of girl, calling her in a joke '_mon honnete homme de fille_' but had +not a very high opinion of her intellectual abilities. 'My Natalya +happily is cold,' she used to say, 'not like me--and it is better so. +She will be happy.' Darya Mihailovna was mistaken. But few mothers +understand their daughters. + +Natalya loved Darya Mihailovna, but did not fully confide in her. + +'You have nothing to hide from me,' Darya Mihailovna said to her once, +'or else you would be very reserved about it; you are rather a close +little thing.' + +Natalya looked her mother in the face and thought, 'Why shouldn't I be +reserved?' + +When Rudin met her on the terrace she was just going indoors with Mlle, +Boncourt to put on her hat and go out into the garden. Her morning +occupations were over. Natalya was not treated as a school-girl now. +Mlle, Boncourt had not given her lessons in mythology and geography for +a long while; but Natalya had every morning to read historical books, +travels, or other instructive works with her. Darya Mihailovna selected +them, ostensibly on a special system of her own. In reality she simply +gave Natalya everything which the French bookseller forwarded her from +Petersburg, except, of course, the novels of Dumas Fils and Co. These +novels Darya Mihailovna read herself. Mlle, Boncourt looked specially +severely and sourly through her spectacles when Natalya was reading +historical books; according to the old French lady's ideas all history +was filled with _impermissible_ things, though for some reason or other +of all the great men of antiquity she herself knew only one--Cambyses, +and of modern times--Louis XIV. and Napoleon, whom she could not endure. +But Natalya read books too, the existence of which Mlle, Boncourt did +not suspect; she knew all Pushkin by heart. + +Natalya flushed slightly at meeting Rudin. + +'Are you going for a walk?' he asked her. + +'Yes. We are going into the garden.' + +'May I come with you?' + +Natalya looked at Mlle, Boncourt + +'_Mais certainement, monsieur; avec plaisir_,' said the old lady +promptly. + +Rudin took his hat and walked with them. + +Natalya at first felt some awkwardness in walking side by side with +Rudin on the same little path; afterwards she felt more at ease. He +began to question her about her occupations and how she liked the +country. She replied not without timidity, but without that hasty +bashfulness which is so often taken for modesty. Her heart was beating. + +'You are not bored in the country?' asked Rudin, taking her in with a +sidelong glance. + +'How can one be bored in the country? I am very glad we are here. I am +very happy here.' + +'You are happy--that is a great word. However, one can understood it; +you are young.' + +Rudin pronounced this last phrase rather strangely; either he envied +Natalya or he was sorry for her. + +'Yes! youth!' he continued, 'the whole aim of science is to reach +consciously what is bestowed on youth for nothing.' + +Natalya looked attentively at Rudin; she did not understand him. + +'I have been talking all this morning with your mother,' he went on; +'she is an extraordinary woman. I understand why all our poets sought +her friendship. Are you fond of poetry?' he added, after a pause. + +'He is putting me through an examination,' thought Natalya, and aloud: +'Yes, I am very fond of it.' + +'Poetry is the language of the gods. I love poems myself. But poetry is +not only in poems; it is diffused everywhere, it is around us. Look at +those trees, that sky on all sides there is the breath of beauty, and of +life, and where there is life and beauty, there is poetry also.' + +'Let us sit down here on this bench,' he added. 'Here--so. I somehow +fancy that when you are more used to me (and he looked her in the face +with a smile) 'we shall be friends, you and I. What do you think?' + +'He treats me like a school-girl,' Natalya reflected again, and, not +knowing what to say, she asked him whether he intended to remain long in +the country. + +'All the summer and autumn, and perhaps the winter too. I am a very poor +man, you know; my affairs are in confusion, and, besides, I am tired now +of wandering from place to place. The time has come to rest.' + +Natalya was surprised. + +'Is it possible you feel that it is time for you to rest?' she asked him +timidly. + +Rudin turned so as to face Natalya. + +'What do you mean by that?' + +'I mean,' she replied in some embarrassment, 'that others may rest; but +you... you ought to work, to try to be useful. Who, if not you----' + +'I thank you for your flattering opinion,' Rudin interrupted her. 'To be +useful... it is easy to say!' (He passed his hand over his face.) 'To be +useful!' he repeated. 'Even if I had any firm conviction, how could I +be useful?--even if I had faith in my own powers, where is one to find +true, sympathetic souls?' + +And Rudin waved his hand so hopelessly, and let his head sink so +gloomily, that Natalya involuntarily asked herself, were those really +his--those enthusiastic words full of the breath of hope, she had heard +the evening before. + +'But no,' he said, suddenly tossing back his lion-like mane, 'that is +all folly, and you are right. I thank you, Natalya Alexyevna, I thank +you truly.' (Natalya absolutely did not know what he was thanking her +for.) 'Your single phrase has recalled to me my duty, has pointed out +to me my path.... Yes, I must act. I must not bury my talent, if I have +any; I must not squander my powers on talk alone--empty, profitless +talk--on mere words,' and his words flowed in a stream. He spoke nobly, +ardently, convincingly, of the sin of cowardice and indolence, of the +necessity of action. He lavished reproaches on himself, maintained that +to discuss beforehand what you mean to do is as unwise as to prick with +a pin the swelling fruit, that it is only a vain waste of strength +and sap. He declared that there was no noble idea which would not gain +sympathy, that the only people who remained misunderstood were those who +either did not know themselves what they wanted, or were not worthy +to be understood. He spoke at length, and ended by once more thanking +Natalya Alexyevna, and utterly unexpectedly pressed her hand, +exclaiming. 'You are a noble, generous creature!' + +This outburst horrified Mlle, Boncourt, who in spite of her forty years' +residence in Russia understood Russian with difficulty, and was only +moved to admiration by the splendid rapidity and flow of words on +Rudin's lips. In her eyes, however, he was something of the nature of +a virtuoso or artist; and from people of that kind, according to her +notions, it was impossible to demand a strict adherence to propriety. + +She got up and drew her skirts with a jerk around her, observed to +Natalya that it was time to go in, especially as M. Volinsoff (so she +spoke of Volintsev) was to be there to lunch. + +'And here he is,' she added, looking up one of the avenues which led to +the house, and in fact Volintsev appeared not far off. + +He came up with a hesitating step, greeted all of them from a distance, +and with an expression of pain on his face he turned to Natalya and +said: + +'Oh, you are having a walk?' + +'Yes,' answered Natalya, 'we were just going home.' + +'Ah!' was Volintsev's reply. 'Well, let us go,' and they all walked +towards the house. + +'How is your sister?' Rudin inquired, in a specially cordial tone, of +Volintsev. The evening before, too, he had been very gracious to him. + +'Thank you; she is quite well. She will perhaps be here to-day.... I +think you were discussing something when I came up?' + +'Yes; I have had a conversation with Natalya Alexyevna. She said one +thing to me which affected me strongly.' + +Volintsev did not ask what the one thing was, and in profound silence +they all returned to Darya Mihailovna's house. + +Before dinner the party was again assembled in the drawing-room. +Pigasov, however, did not come. Rudin was not at his best; he did +nothing but press Pandalevsky to play Beethoven. Volintsev was silent +and stared at the floor. Natalya did not leave her mother's side, and +was at times lost in thought, and then bent over her work. Bassistoff +did not take his eyes off Rudin, constantly on the alert for him to say +something brilliant. About three hours were passed in this way rather +monotonously. Alexandra Pavlovna did not come to dinner, and when they +rose from table Volintsev at once ordered his carriage to be ready, and +slipped away without saying good-bye to any one. + +His heart was heavy. He had long loved Natalya, and was repeatedly +resolving to make her an offer.... She was kindly disposed to him,--but +her heart remained unmoved; he saw that clearly. He did not hope to +inspire in her a tenderer sentiment, and was only waiting for the time +when she should be perfectly at home with him and intimate with him. +What could have disturbed him? what change had he noticed in these two +days? Natalya had behaved to him exactly the same as before.... + +Whether it was that some idea had come upon him that he perhaps did not +know Natalya's character at all--that she was more a stranger to him +than he had thought,--or jealousy had begun to work in him, or he had +some dim presentiment of ill... anyway, he suffered, though he tried to +reason with himself. + +When he came in to his sister's room, Lezhnyov was sitting with her. + +'Why have you come back so early?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'Oh! I was bored.' + +'Was Rudin there?' + +'Yes.' + +Volintsev flung down his cap and sat down. Alexandra Pavlovna turned +eagerly to him. + +'Please, Serezha, help me to convince this obstinate man (she signified +Lezhnyov) that Rudin is extraordinarily clever and eloquent.' + +Volintsev muttered something. + +'But I am not disputing at all with you,' Lezhnyov began. 'I have no +doubt of the cleverness and eloquence of Mr. Rudin; I only say that I +don't like him.' + +'But have you seen him?' inquired Volintsev. + +'I saw him this morning at Darya Mihallovna's. You know he is her +first favourite now. The time will come when she will part with +him--Pandalevsky is the only man she will never part with--but now he is +supreme. I saw him, to be sure! He was sitting there,--and she showed me +off to him, "see, my good friend, what queer fish we have here!" But I +am not a prize horse, to be trotted out on show, so I took myself off.' + +'But how did you come to be there?' + +'About a boundary; but that was all nonsense; she simply wanted to +have a look at my physiognomy. She's a fine lady,--that's explanation +enough!' + +'His superiority is what offends you--that's what it is!' began +Alexandra Pavlovna warmly, 'that's what you can't forgive. But I am +convinced that besides his cleverness he must have an excellent heart as +well. You should see his eyes when he----' + +'"Of purity exalted speaks,"' quoted Lezhnyov. + +'You make me angry, and I shall cry. I am heartily sorry I did not go +to Darya Mihailovna's, but stopped with you. You don't deserve it. Leave +off teasing me,' she added, in an appealing voice, 'You had much better +tell me about his youth.' + +'Rudin's youth?' + +'Yes, of course. Didn't you tell me you knew him well, and had known him +a long time?' + +Lezhnyov got up and walked up and down the room. + +'Yes,' he began, 'I do know him well. You want me to tell you about +his youth? Very well. He was born in T----, and was the son of a poor +landowner, who died soon after. He was left alone with his mother. She +was a very good woman, and she idolised him; she lived on nothing but +oatmeal, and every penny she had she spent on him. He was educated in +Moscow, first at the expense of some uncle, and afterwards, when he was +grown up and fully fledged, at the expense of a rich prince whose favour +he had courted--there, I beg your pardon, I won't do it again--with whom +he had made friends. Then he went to the university. At the university +I got to know him and we became intimate friends. I will tell you +about our life in those days some other time, I can't now. Then he went +abroad....' + +Lezhnyov continued to walk up and down the room; Alexandra Pavlovna +followed him with her eyes. + +'While he was abroad,' he continued, 'Rudin wrote very rarely to his +mother, and paid her altogether only one visit for ten days.... The old +lady died without him, cared for by strangers; but up to her death +she never took her eyes off his portrait. I went to see her when I was +staying in T----. She was a kind and hospitable woman; she always used +to feast me on cherry jam. She loved her Mitya devotedly. People of the +Petchorin type tell us that we always love those who are least capable +of feeling love themselves; but it's my idea that all mothers love their +children especially when they are absent. Afterwards I met Rudin +abroad. Then he was connected with a lady, one of our countrywomen, a +bluestocking, no longer young, and plain, as a bluestocking is bound to +be. He lived a good while with her, and at last threw her over--or no, I +beg pardon,--she threw him over. It was then that I too threw him over. +That's all.' + +Lezhnyov ceased speaking, passed his hand over his brow, and dropped +into a chair as if he were exhausted. + +'Do you know, Mihailo Mihailitch,' began Alexandra Pavlovna, 'you are +a spiteful person, I see; indeed you are no better than Pigasov. I am +convinced that all you have told me is true, that you have not made up +anything, and yet in what an unfavourable light you have put it all! The +poor old mother, her devotion, her solitary death, and that lady--What +does it all amount to? You know that it's easy to put the life of the +best of men in such colours--and without adding anything, observe--that +every one would be shocked! But that too is slander of a kind!' + +Lezhnyov got up and again walked about the room. + +'I did not want to shock you at all, Alexandra Pavlovna,' he brought +out at last, 'I am not given to slander. However,' he added, after a +moment's thought, 'in reality there is a foundation of fact in what you +said. I did not mean to slander Rudin; but--who knows! very likely he +has had time to change since those days--very possibly I am unjust to +him.' + +'Ah! you see. So promise me that you will renew your acquaintance with +him, and will get to know him thoroughly and then report your final +opinion of him to me.' + +'As you please. But why are you so quiet, Sergei Pavlitch?' + +Volintsev started and raised his head, as though he had just waked up. + +'What can I say? I don't know him. Besides, my head aches to-day.' + +'Yes, you look rather pale this evening,' remarked Alexandra Pavlovna; +'are you unwell?' + +'My head aches,' repeated Volintsev, and he went away. + +Alexandra Pavlovna and Lezhnyov looked after him, and exchanged glances, +though they said nothing. What was passing in Volintsev's heart was no +mystery to either of them. + + + + +VI + + +More than two months had passed; during the whole of that period Rudin +had scarcely been away from Darya Mihailovna's house. She could not +get on without him. To talk to him about herself and to listen to his +eloquence became a necessity for her. He would have taken his leave on +one occasion, on the ground that all his money was spent; she gave +him five hundred roubles. He borrowed two hundred roubles more from +Volintsev. Pigasov visited Darya Mihailovna much less frequently than +before; Rudin crushed him by his presence. And indeed it was not only +Pigasov who was conscious of an oppression. + +'I don't like that prig,' Pigasov used to say, 'he expresses himself so +affectedly like a hero of a romance. If he says "I," he stops in rapt +admiration, "I, yes, I!" and the phrases he uses are all so drawn-out; +if you sneeze, he will begin at once to explain to you exactly why you +sneezed and did not cough. If he praises you, it's just as if he were +creating you a prince. If he begins to abuse himself, he humbles himself +into the dust--come, one thinks, he will never dare to face the light +of day after that. Not a bit of it! It only cheers him up, as if he'd +treated himself to a glass of grog.' + +Pandalevsky was a little afraid of Rudin, and cautiously tried to win +his favour. Volintsev had got on to curious terms with him. Rudin called +him a knight-errant, and sang his praises to his face and behind his +back; but Volintsev could not bring himself to like him and always felt +an involuntary impatience and annoyance when Rudin devoted himself to +enlarging on his good points in his presence. 'Is he making fun of me?' +he thought, and he felt a throb of hatred in his heart. He tried to keep +his feelings in check, but in vain; he was jealous of him on Natalya's +account. And Rudin himself, though he always welcomed Volintsev with +effusion, though he called him a knight-errant, and borrowed money from +him, did not feel exactly friendly towards him. It would be difficult +to define the feelings of these two men when they pressed each other's +hands like friends and looked into each other's eyes. + +Bassistoff continued to adore Rudin, and to hang on every word he +uttered. Rudin paid him very little attention. Once he spent a whole +morning with him, discussing the weightiest problems of life, and +awakening his keenest enthusiasm, but afterwards he took no further +notice of him. Evidently it was only a phrase when he said that he was +seeking for pure and devoted souls. With Lezhnyov, who began to be a +frequent visitor at the house, Rudin did not enter into discussion; +he seemed even to avoid him. Lezhnyov, on his part, too, treated him +coldly. He did not, however, report his final conclusions about him, +which somewhat disquieted Alexandra Pavlovna. She was fascinated +by Rudin, but she had confidence in Lezhnyov. Every one in Darya +Mihailovna's house humoured Rudin's fancies; his slightest preferences +were carried out He determined the plans for the day. Not a single +_partie de plaisir_ was arranged without his co-operation. + +He was not, however, very fond of any kind of impromptu excursion or +picnic, and took part in them rather as grown-up people take part +in children's games, with an air of kindly, but rather wearied, +friendliness. He took interest in everything else, however. He discussed +with Darya Mihailovna her plans for the estate, the education of her +children, her domestic arrangements, and her affairs generally; he +listened to her schemes, and was not bored by petty details, and, in his +turn, proposed reforms and made suggestions. Darya Mihailovna agreed to +them in words--and that was all. In matters of business she was really +guided by the advice of her bailiff--an elderly, one-eyed Little +Russian, a good-natured and crafty old rogue. 'What is old is fat, +what is new is thin,' he used to say, with a quiet smile, winking his +solitary eye. + +Next to Darya Mihailovna, it was Natalya to whom Rudin used to talk +most often and at most length. He used privately to give her books, to +confide his plans to her, and to read her the first pages of the essays +and other works he had in his mind. Natalya did not always fully grasp +the significance of them. + +But Rudin did not seem to care much about her understanding, so long +as she listened to him. His intimacy with Natalya was not altogether +pleasing to Darya Mihailovna. 'However,' she thought, 'let her chatter +away with him in the country. She amuses him as a little girl now. There +is no great harm in it, and, at any rate, it will improve her mind. At +Petersburg I will soon put a stop to it.' + +Darya Mihailovna was mistaken. Natalya did not chatter to Rudin like a +school-girl; she eagerly drank in his words, she tried to penetrate to +their full significance; she submitted her thoughts, her doubts to him; +he became her leader, her guide. So far, it was only the brain that +was stirred, but in the young the brain is not long stirred alone. What +sweet moments Natalya passed when at times in the garden on the seat, +in the transparent shade of the aspen tree, Rudin began to read Goethe's +_Faust_, Hoffman, or Bettina's letters, or Novalis, constantly stopping +and explaining what seemed obscure to her. Like almost all Russian +girls, she spoke German badly, but she understood it well, and Rudin was +thoroughly imbued with German poetry, German romanticism and philosophy, +and he drew her after him into these forbidden lands. Unimagined +splendours were revealed there to her earnest eyes from the pages of the +book which Rudin held on his knee; a stream of divine visions, of new, +illuminating ideas, seemed to flow in rhythmic music into her soul, and +in her heart, moved with the high delight of noble feeling, slowly was +kindled and fanned into a flame the holy spark of enthusiasm. + +'Tell me, Dmitri Nikolaitch,' she began one day, sitting by the window +at her embroidery-frame, 'shall you be in Petersburg in the winter?' + +'I don't know,' replied Rudin, as he let the book he had been glancing +through fall upon his knee; 'if I can find the means, I shall go.' + +He spoke dejectedly; he felt tired, and had done nothing all day. + +'I think you are sure to find the means.' + +Rudin shook his head. + +'You think so!' + +And he looked away expressively. + +Natalya was on the point of replying, but she checked herself. + +'Look.' began Rudin, with a gesture towards the window, 'do you see that +apple-tree? It is broken by the weight and abundance of its own fruit. +True emblem of genius.' + +'It is broken because it had no support,' replied Natalya + +'I understand you, Natalya Alexyevna, but it is not so easy for a man to +find such a support.' + +'I should think the sympathy of others... in any case isolation +always....' + +Natalya was rather confused, and flushed a little. + +'And what will you do in the country in the winter?' she added +hurriedly. + +'What shall I do? I shall finish my larger essay--you know it--on +"Tragedy in Life and in Art." I described to you the outline of it the +day before yesterday, and shall send it to you.' + +'And you will publish it?' + +'No.' + +'No? For whose sake will you work then?' + +'And if it were for you?' + +Natalya dropped her eyes. + +'It would be far above me.' + +'What, may I ask, is the subject of the essay?' Bassistoff inquired +modestly. He was sitting a little distance away. + +'"Tragedy in Life and in Art,"' repeated Rudin. 'Mr. Bassistoff too will +read it. But I have not altogether settled on the fundamental motive. I +have not so far worked out for myself the tragic significance of love.' + +Rudin liked to talk of love, and frequently did so. At first, at the +word 'love,' Mlle, Boncourt started, and pricked up her eyes like an old +war-horse at the sound of the trumpet; but afterwards she had grown used +to it, and now only pursed up her lips and took snuff at intervals. + +'It seems to me,' said Natalya timidly, 'that the tragic in love is +unrequited love.' + +'Not at all!' replied Rudin; 'that is rather the comic side of love. +... The question must be put in an altogether different way... one must +attack it more deeply.... Love!' he pursued, 'all is mystery in love; +how it comes, how it develops, how it passes away. Sometimes it comes +all at once, undoubting, glad as day; sometimes it smoulders like fire +under ashes, and only bursts into a flame in the heart when all is over; +sometimes it winds its way into the heart like a serpent, and suddenly +slips out of it again.... Yes, yes; it is the great problem. But who +does love in our days? Who is so bold as to love?' + +And Rudin grew pensive. + +'Why is it we have not seen Sergei Pavlitch for so long?' he asked +suddenly. + +Natalya blushed, and bent her head over her embroidery frame. + +'I don't know,' she murmured. + +'What a splendid, generous fellow he is!' Rudin declared, standing up. +'It is one of the best types of a Russian gentleman.' + +Mlle, Boncourt gave him a sidelong look out of her little French eyes. + +Rudin walked up and down the room. + +'Have you noticed,' he began, turning sharply round on his heels, 'that +on the oak--and the oak is a strong tree--the old leaves only fall off +when the new leaves begin to grow?' + +'Yes,' answered Natalya slowly, 'I have noticed it' + +'That is what happens to an old love in a strong heart; it is dead +already, but still it holds its place; only another new love can drive +it out.' + +Natalya made no reply. + +'What does that mean?' she was thinking. + +Rudin stood still, tossed his hair back, and walked away. + +Natalya went to her own room. She sat a long while on her little bed in +perplexity, pondering over Rudin's last words. All at once she clasped +her hands and began to weep bitterly. What she was weeping for--who can +tell? She herself could not tell why her tears were falling so fast. +She dried them; but they flowed afresh, like water from a long-pent-up +source. + +On this same day Alexandra Pavlovna had a conversation with Lezhnyov +about Rudin. At first he bore all her attacks in silence; but at last +she succeeded in rousing him into talk. + +'I see,' she said to him, 'you dislike Dmitri Nikolaitch, as you did +before. I purposely refrained from questioning you till now; but now you +have had time to make up your mind whether there is any change in him, +and I want to know why you don't like him.' + +'Very well,' answered Lezhnyov with his habitual phlegm, 'since your +patience is exhausted; only look here, don't get angry.' + +'Come, begin, begin.' + +'And let me have my say to the end.' + +'Of course, of course; begin.' + +'Very well,' said Lezhnyov, dropping lazily on to the sofa; 'I admit +that I certainly don't like Rudin. He is a clever fellow.' + +'I should think so.' + +'He is a remarkably clever man, though in reality essentially shallow.' + +'It's easy to say that.' + +'Though essentially shallow,' repeated Lezhnyov; 'but there's no great +harm in that; we are all shallow. I will not even quarrel with him for +being a tyrant at heart, lazy, ill-informed!' + +Alexandra Pavlovna clasped her hands. + +'Rudin--ill-informed!' she cried. + +'Ill-informed!' repeated Lezhnyov in precisely the same voice, 'that he +likes to live at other people's expanse, to cut a good figure, and so +forth--all that's natural enough. But what's wrong is, that he is as +cold as ice.' + +'He cold! that fiery soul cold!' interrupted Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'Yes, cold as ice, and he knows it, and pretends to be fiery. What's +bad,' pursued Lezhnyov, gradually growing warm, 'he is playing a +dangerous game--not dangerous for him, of course; he does not risk a +farthing, not a straw on it--but others stake their soul.' + +'Whom and what are you talking of? I don't understand you,' said +Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'What's bad, he isn't honest. He's a clever man, certainly; he ought to +know the value of his own words, and he brings them out as if they were +worth something to him. I don't dispute that he's a fine speaker, +but not in the Russian style. And indeed, after all, fine speaking is +pardonable in a boy, but at his years it is disgraceful to take pleasure +in the sound of his own voice, and to show off!' + +'I think, Mihailo Mihailitch, it's all the same for those who hear him, +whether he is showing off or not.' + +'Excuse me, Alexandra Pavlovna, it is not all the same. One man says a +word to me and it thrills me all over, another may say the same thing, +or something still finer--and I don't prick up my ears. Why is that?' + +'You don't, perhaps,' put in Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'I don't,' retorted Lezhnyov, 'though perhaps my ears are long enough. +The point is, that Rudin's words seem to remain mere words, and never to +pass into deeds--and meanwhile even words may trouble a young heart, may +be the ruin of it.' + +'But whom do you mean, Mihailo Mihailitch?' + +Lezhnyov paused. + +'Do you want to know whom I mean, Natalya Alexyevna?' + +Alexandra Pavlovna was taken aback for a moment, but she began to smile +the instant after. + +'Really,' she began, 'what queer ideas you always have! Natalya is still +a child; and besides, if there were anything in what you say, do you +suppose Darya Mihailovna----' + +'Darya Mihailovna is an egoist to begin with, and lives for herself; and +then she is so convinced of her own skill in educating her children that +it does not even enter her head to feel uneasy about them. Nonsense! how +is it possible: she has but to give one nod, one majestic glance--and +all is over, all is obedience again. That's what that lady imagines; she +fancies herself a female Maecenas, a learned woman, and God knows what, +but in fact she is nothing more than a silly, worldly old woman. But +Natalya is not a baby; believe me, she thinks more, and more profoundly +too, than you and I do. And that her true, passionate, ardent nature +must fall in with an actor, a flirt like this! But of course that's in +the natural order of things.' + +'A flirt! Do you mean that he is a flirt?' + +'Of course he is. And tell me yourself, Alexandra Pavlovna, what is his +position in Darya Mihailovna's house? To be the idol, the oracle of +the household, to meddle in the arrangements, all the gossip and petty +trifles of the house--is that a dignified position for a man to be in?' + +Alexandra Pavlovna looked at Lezhnyov in surprise. + +'I don't know you, Mihailo Mihailitch,' she began to say. 'You are +flushed and excited. I believe there must be something else hidden under +this.' + +'Oh, so that's it! Tell a woman the truth from conviction, and she will +never rest easy till she has invented some petty outside cause quite +beside the point which has made you speak in precisely that manner and +no other.' + +Alexandra Pavlovna began to get angry. + +'Bravo, Monsieur Lezhnyov! You begin to be as bitter against women as +Mr. Pigasov; but you may say what you like, penetrating as you are, it's +hard for me to believe that you understand every one and everything. +I think you are mistaken. According to your ideas, Rudin is a kind of +Tartuffe.' + +'No, the point is, that he is not even a Tartuffe. Tartuffe at least +knew what he was aiming at; but this fellow, for all his cleverness----' + +'Well, well, what of him? Finish your sentence, you unjust, horrid man!' + +Lezhnyov got up. + +'Listen, Alexandra Pavlovna,' he began, 'it is you who are unjust, not +I. You are cross with me for my harsh criticism of Rudin; I have the +right to speak harshly of him! I have paid dearly enough, perhaps, for +that privilege. I know him well: I lived a long while with him. You +remember I promised to tell you some time about our life at Moscow. It +is clear that I must do so now. But will you have the patience to hear +me out?' + +'Tell me, tell me!' + +'Very well, then.' + +Lezhnyov began walking with measured steps about the room, coming to a +standstill at times with his head bent. + +'You know, perhaps,' he began, 'or perhaps you don't know, that I was +left an orphan at an early age, and by the time I was seventeen I had no +one in authority over me. I lived at my aunt's at Moscow, and did just +as I liked. As a boy I was rather silly and conceited, and liked to +brag and show off. After my entrance at the university I behaved like +a regular schoolboy, and soon got into a scrape. I won't tell you +about it; it's not worth while. But I told a lie about it, and rather +a shameful lie. It all came out, and I was put to open shame. I lost my +head and cried like a child. It happened at a friend's rooms before a +lot of fellow-students. They all began to laugh at me, all except one +student, who, observe, had been more indignant with me than any, so long +as I had been obstinate and would not confess my deceit. He took pity +on me, perhaps; anyway, he took me by the arm and led me away to his +lodging.' + +'Was that Rudin?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'No, it was not Rudin... it was a man... he is dead now... he was an +extraordinary man. His name was Pokorsky. To describe him in a few words +is beyond my powers, but directly one begins to speak of him, one does +not want to speak of any one else. He had a noble, pure heart, and an +intelligence such as I have never met since. Pokorsky lived in a little, +low-pitched room, in an attic of an old wooden house. He was very poor, +and supported himself somehow by giving lessons. Sometimes he had not +even a cup of tea to offer to his friends, and his only sofa was so +shaky that it was like being on board ship. But in spite of these +discomforts a great many people used to go to see him. Every one loved +him; he drew all hearts to him. You would not believe what sweetness and +happiness there was in sitting in his poor little room! It was in his +room I met Rudin. He had already parted from his prince before then.' + +'What was there so exceptional in this Pokorsky?' asked Alexandra +Pavlovna. + +'How can I tell you? Poetry and truth--that was what drew all of us to +him. For all his clear, broad intellect he was as sweet and simple as a +child. Even now I have his bright laugh ringing in my ears, and at the +same time he + + Burnt his midnight lamp + Before the holy and the true, + +as a dear half-cracked fellow, the poet of our set, expressed it.' + +'And how did he talk?' Alexandra Pavlovna questioned again. + +'He talked well when he was in the mood, but not remarkably so. Rudin +even then was twenty times as eloquent as he.' + +Lezhnyov stood still and folded his arms. + +'Pokorsky and Rudin were very unlike. There was more flash and +brilliance about Rudin, more fluency, and perhaps more enthusiasm. He +appeared far more gifted than Pokorsky, and yet all the while he was a +poor creature by comparison. Rudin was excellent at developing any idea, +he was capital in argument, but his ideas did not come from his own +brain; he borrowed them from others, especially from Pokorsky. Pokorsky +was quiet and soft--even weak in appearance--and he was fond of women to +distraction, and fond of dissipation, and he would never take an insult +from any one. Rudin seemed full of fire, and courage, and life, but at +heart he was cold and almost a coward, until his vanity was touched, +then he would not stop at anything. He always tried to get an ascendency +over people, but he got it in the name of general principles and ideas, +and certainly had a great influence over many. To tell the truth, no one +loved him; I was the only one, perhaps, who was attached to him. They +submitted to his yoke, but all were devoted to Pokorsky. Rudin never +refused to argue and discuss with any one he met. He did not read very +much, though far more anyway than Pokorsky and all the rest of us; +besides, he had a well-arranged intellect, and a prodigious memory, and +what an effect that has on young people! They must have generalisations, +conclusions, incorrect if you like, perhaps, but still conclusions! A +perfectly sincere man never suits them. Try to tell young people that +you cannot give them the whole truth, and they will not listen to you. +But you mustn't deceive them either. You want to half believe yourself +that you are in possession of the truth. That was why Rudin had such a +powerful effect on all of us. I told you just now, you know, that he +had not read much, but he read philosophical books, and his brain was +so constructed that he extracted at once from what he had read all the +general principles, penetrated to the very root of the thing, and then +made deductions from it in all directions--consecutive, brilliant, +sound ideas, throwing up a wide horizon to the soul. Our set consisted +then--it's only fair to say--of boys, and not well-informed boys. +Philosophy, art, science, and even life itself were all mere words +to us--ideas if you like, fascinating and magnificent ideas, but +disconnected and isolated. The general connection of those ideas, the +general principle of the universe we knew nothing of, and had had no +contact with, though we discussed it vaguely, and tried to form an idea +of it for ourselves. As we listened to Rudin, we felt for the first time +as if we had grasped it at last, this general connection, as if a veil +had been lifted at last! Even admitting he was not uttering an original +thought--what of that! Order and harmony seemed to be established in all +we knew; all that had been disconnected seemed to fall into a whole, +to take shape and grow like a building before our eyes, all was full of +light and inspiration everywhere.... Nothing remained meaningless +and undesigned, in everything wise design and beauty seemed apparent, +everything took a clear and yet mystic significance; every isolated +event of life fell into harmony, and with a kind of holy awe and +reverence and sweet emotion we felt ourselves to be, as it were, the +living vessels of eternal truth, her instruments destined for some +great... Doesn't it all seem very ridiculous to you?' + +'Not the least!' replied Alexandra Pavlovna slowly; 'why should you +think so? I don't altogether understand you, but I don't think it +ridiculous.' + +'We have had time to grow wiser since then, of course,' Lezhnyov +continued, 'all that may seem childish to us now.... But, I repeat, we +all owed a great deal to Rudin then. Pokorsky was incomparably nobler +than he, no question about it; Pokorsky breathed fire and strength into +all of us; but he was often depressed and silent. He was nervous and not +robust; but when he did stretch his wings--good heavens!--what a flight! +up to the very height of the blue heavens! And there was a great deal +of pettiness in Rudin, handsome and stately as he was; he was a gossip, +indeed, and he loved to have a hand in everything, arranging and +explaining everything. His fussy activity was inexhaustible--he was a +diplomatist by nature. I speak of him as I knew him then. But unluckily +he has not altered. On the other hand, his ideals haven't altered at +five-and-thirty! It's not every one who can say that of himself!' + +'Sit down,' said Alexandra Pavlovna, 'why do you keep moving about like +a pendulum?' + +'I like it better,' answered Lezhnyov. 'Well, after I had come into +Pokorsky's set, I may tell you, Alexandra Pavlovna, I was quite +transformed; I grew humble and anxious to learn; I studied, and was +happy and reverent--in a word, I felt just as though I had entered a +holy temple. And really, when I recall our gatherings, upon my word +there was much that was fine, even touching, in them. Imagine a party of +five or six lads gathered together, one tallow candle burning. The tea +was dreadful stuff, and the cake was stale, very stale; but you should +have seen our faces, you should have heard our talk! Eyes were sparkling +with enthusiasm, cheeks flushed, and hearts beating, while we talked of +God, and truth, of the future of humanity, and poetry ... often what +we said was absurd, and we were in ecstasies over nonsense; but what of +that?... Pokorsky sat with crossed legs, his pale cheek on his hand, and +his eyes seemed to shed light. Rudin stood in the middle of the room and +spoke, spoke splendidly, for all the world like the young Demosthenes +by the resounding sea; our poet, Subotin of the dishevelled locks, would +now and then throw out some abrupt exclamation as though in his sleep, +while Scheller, a student forty years old, the son of a German pastor, +who had the reputation among us of a profound thinker, thanks to his +eternal, inviolable silence, held his peace with more rapt solemnity +than usual; even the lively Shtchitof, the Aristophanes of our reunions, +was subdued and did no more than smile, while two or three novices +listened with reverent transports.... And the night seemed to fly by on +wings. It was already the grey morning when we separated, moved, happy, +aspiring and sober (there was no question of wine among us at such +times) with a kind of sweet weariness in our souls... and one even +looked up at the stars with a kind of confidence, as though they had +become nearer and more comprehensible. Ah! that was a glorious time, and +I can't bear to believe that it was altogether wasted! And it was not +wasted--not even for those whose lives were sordid afterwards. How often +have I chanced to come across such old college friends! You would think +the man had sunk altogether to the brute, but one had only to utter +Pokorsky's name before him and every trace of noble feeling in him was +stirred at once; it was like uncorking a forgotten phial of fragrance in +some dark and dirty room.' + +Lezhnyov stopped; his colourless face was flushed. + +'And what was the cause of your quarrel with Rudin?' said Alexandra +Pavlovna, looking wonderingly at Lezhnyov. + +'I did not quarrel with him, but I parted from him when I came to know +him thoroughly abroad. But I might well have quarrelled with him in +Moscow, he did me a bad turn there.' + +'What was that?' + +'It was like this. I--how can I tell you?--it does not accord very well +with my appearance, but I was always much given to falling in love.' + +'You?' + +'Yes, I was indeed. That's a curious idea, isn't it? But, anyway, it +was so. Well, so I fell in love in those days with a very pretty young +girl.... But why do you look at me like that? I could tell you something +about myself a great deal more extraordinary than that!' + +'And what is that something, if I may know?' + +'Oh, just this. In those Moscow days I used to have a tryst at +nights--with whom, would you imagine? with a young lime-tree at the +bottom of my garden. I used to embrace its slender and graceful trunk, +and I felt as though I were embracing all nature, and my heart melted +and expanded as though it really were taking in the whole of nature. +That's what I was then. And do you think, perhaps, I didn't write +verses? Why, I even composed a whole drama in imitation of Manfred. +Among the characters was a ghost with blood on his breast, and not his +own blood, observe, but the blood of all humanity.... Yes, yes, you +need not wonder at that. But I was beginning to tell you about my love +affair. I made the acquaintance of a girl----' + +'And you gave up your trysts with the lime-tree?' inquired Alexandra +Pavlovna. + +'Yes; I gave them up. This girl was a sweet, good creature, with clear, +lively eyes and a ringing voice.' + +'You give an excellent description of her,' commented Alexandra Pavlovna +with a smile. + +'You are such a severe critic,' retorted Lezhnyov. 'Well, this girl +lived with her old father.... But I will not enter into details; I will +only tell you that this girl was so kind-hearted, if you only asked +her for half a cup of tea she would give it you brimming over! Two days +after first meeting her I was wild over her, and on the seventh day I +could hold out no longer, and confessed it in full to Rudin. At that +time I was completely under his influence, and his influence, I will +tell you frankly, was beneficial in many things. He was the first person +who did not treat me with contempt, but tried to lick me into shape. I +loved Pokorsky passionately, and felt a kind of awe before his purity of +soul, but I came closer to Rudin. When he heard about my love, he fell +into an indescribable ecstasy, congratulated me, embraced me, and at +once fell to disserting and enlarging upon all the dignity of my new +position. I pricked up my ears.... Well, you know how he can talk. His +words had an extraordinary effect on me. I at once assumed an amazing +consequence in my own eyes, and I put on a serious exterior and left off +laughing. I remember I used even to go about at that time with a kind +of circumspection, as though I had a sacred chalice within me, full of +a priceless liquid, which I was afraid of spilling over.... I was very +happy, especially as I found favour in her eyes. Rudin wanted to make my +beloved's acquaintance, and I myself almost insisted on presenting him.' + +'Ah! I see, I see now what it is,' interrupted Alexandra Pavlovna. +'Rudin cut you out with your charmer, and you have never been able to +forgive him.... I am ready to take a wager I am right!' + +'You would lose your wager, Alexandra Pavlovna; you are wrong. Rudin did +not cut me out; he did not even try to cut me out; but, all the same, +he put an end to my happiness, though, looking at it in cool blood, I am +ready to thank him for it now. But I nearly went out of my mind at the +time. Rudin did not in the least wish to injure me--quite the contrary! +But through his cursed habit of pinning every emotion--his own and other +people's--with a phrase, as one pins butterflies in a case, he set to +making clear to ourselves our relations to one another, and how we ought +to treat each other, and arbitrarily compelled us to take stock of +our feelings and ideas, praised us and blamed us, even entered into +a correspondence with us--fancy! Well, he succeeded in completely +disconcerting us! I should hardly, even then, have married the young +lady (I had so much sense still left), but, at least, we might have +spent some months happily a _la Paul et Virginie_; but now came strained +relations, misunderstandings of every kind. It ended by Rudin, one fine +morning, arriving at the conviction that it was his sacred duty as a +friend to acquaint the old father with everything--and he did so.' + +'Is it possible?' cried Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'Yes, and did it with my consent, observe. That's where the wonder comes +in!... I remember even now what a chaos my brain was in; everything +was simply turning round--things looked as they do in a camera +obscura--white seemed black and black white; falsehood was truth, and a +whim was duty.... Ah! even now I feel shame at the recollection of it! +Rudin--he never flagged--not a bit of it! He soared through all sorts of +misunderstandings and perplexities, like a swallow over a pond.' + +'And so you parted from the girl?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna, naively +bending her head on one side, and raising her eyebrows. + +'We parted--and it was a horrible parting--outrageously awkward and +public, quite unnecessarily public.... I wept myself, and she wept, and +I don't know what passed.... It seemed as though a kind of Gordian knot +had been tied. It had to be cut, but it was painful! However, everything +in the world is ordered for the best. She has married an excellent man, +and is well off now.' + +'But confess, you have never been able to forgive Rudin, all the same,' +Alexandra Pavlovna was beginning. + +'Not at all!' interposed Lezhnyov, 'why, I cried like a child when he +was going abroad. Still, to tell the truth, even then there was the germ +in my heart. And when I met him later abroad... well, by that time I had +grown older.... Rudin struck me in his true light.' + +'What was it exactly you discovered in him?' + +'Why, all I have been telling you the last hour. But enough of him. +Perhaps everything will turn out all right. I only wanted to show you +that, if I do judge him hardly, it is not because I don't know him. +... As far as concerns Natalya Alexyevna, I won't say any more, but you +should observe your brother.' + +'My brother! Why?' + +'Why, look at him. Do you really notice nothing?' + +Alexandra Pavlovna looked down. + +'You are right,' she assented. 'Certainly--my brother--for some time he +has not been himself.... But do you really think----' + +'Hush! I think he is coming,' whispered Lezhnyov. 'But Natalya is not a +child, believe me, though unluckily she is as inexperienced as a child. +You will see, that girl will astonish us all.' + +'In what way?' + +'Oh! in this way.... Do you know it's precisely girls like that who +drown themselves, take poison, and so forth? Don't be misled by +her looking so calm. Her passions are strong, and her character--my +goodness!' + +'Come! I think you are indulging in a flight of fancy now. To a +phlegmatic person like you, I suppose even I seem a volcano?' + +'Oh, no!' answered Lezhnyov, with a smile. 'And as for character--you +have no character at all, thank God!' + +'What impertinence is that?' + +'That? It's the highest compliment, believe me.' + +Volintsev came in and looked suspiciously at Lezhnyov and his sister. He +had grown thin of late. They both began to talk to him, but he scarcely +smiled in response to their jests, and looked, as Pigasov once said of +him, like a melancholy hare. But there has certainly never been a man in +the world who, at some time in his life, has not looked worse than that. +Volintsev felt that Natalya was drifting away from him, and with her it +seemed as if the earth was giving way under his feet. + + + + +VII + + +The next day was Sunday, and Natalya got up late. The day before she had +been very silent all day; she was secretly ashamed of her tears, and she +slept very badly. Sitting half-dressed at her little piano, at times she +played some chords, hardly audibly for fear of waking Mlle. Boncourt, +and then let her forehead fall on the cold keys and remained a long +while motionless. She kept thinking, not of Rudin himself, but of some +word he had uttered, and she was wholly buried in her own thought. +Sometimes she recollected Volintsev. She knew that he loved her. But her +mind did not dwell on him more than an instant.... She felt a strange +agitation. In the morning she dressed hurriedly and went down, and after +saying good-morning to her mother, seized an opportunity and went out +alone into the garden.... It was a hot day, bright and sunny in spite of +occasional showers of rain. Slight vapoury clouds sailed smoothly over +the clear sky, scarcely obscuring the sun, and at times a downpour +of rain fell suddenly in sheets, and was as quickly over. The thickly +falling drops, flashing like diamonds, fell swiftly with a kind of dull +thud; the sunshine glistened through their sparkling drops; the grass, +that had been rustling in the wind, was still, thirstily drinking in the +moisture; the drenched trees were languidly shaking all their leaves; +the birds were busily singing, and it was pleasant to hear their +twittering chatter mingling with the fresh gurgle and murmur of the +running rain-water. The dusty roads were steaming and slightly spotted +by the smart strokes of the thick drops. Then the clouds passed over, +a slight breeze began to stir, and the grass began to take tints of +emerald and gold. The trees seemed more transparent with their wet +leaves clinging together. A strong scent arose from all around. + +The sky was almost cloudless again when Natalya came into the garden. It +was full of sweetness and peace--that soothing, blissful peace in which +the heart of man is stirred by a sweet languor of undefined desire and +secret emotion. + +Natalya walked along a long line of silver poplars beside the pond; +suddenly, as if he had sprung out of the earth, Rudin stood before her. +She was confused. He looked her in the face. + +'You are alone?' he inquired. + +'Yes, I am alone,' replied Natalya, 'but I was going back directly. It +is time I was home.' + +'I will go with you.' + +And he walked along beside her. + +'You seem melancholy,' he said. + +'I--I was just going to say that I thought you were out of spirits.' + +'Very likely--it is often so with me. It is more excusable in me than in +you.' + +'Why? Do you suppose I have nothing to be melancholy about?' + +'At your age you ought to find happiness in life.' + +Natalya walked some steps in silence. + +'Dmitri Nikolaitch!' she said. + +'Well?' + +'Do you remember--the comparison you made yesterday--do you remember--of +the oak?' + +'Yes, I remember. Well?' + +Natalya stole a look at Rudin. + +'Why did you--what did you mean by that comparison?' + +Rudin bent his head and fastened his eyes on the distance. + +'Natalya Alexyevna!' he began with the intense and pregnant intonation +peculiar to him, which always made the listener believe that Rudin +was not expressing even the tenth part of what he held locked in his +heart--'Natalya Alexyevna! you may have noticed that I speak little of +my own past. There are some chords which I do not touch upon at all. My +heart--who need know what has passed in it? To expose that to view has +always seemed sacrilege to me. But with you I cast aside reserve; you +win my confidence.... I cannot conceal from you that I too have loved +and have suffered like all men.... When and how? it's useless to speak +of that; but my heart has known much bliss and much pain....' + +Rudin made a brief pause. + +'What I said to you yesterday,' he went on, 'might be applied in a +degree to me in my present position. But again it is useless to speak +of this. That side of life is over for me now. What remains for me is +a tedious and fatiguing journey along the parched and dusty road from +point to point... When I shall arrive--whether I arrive at all--God +knows.... Let us rather talk of you.' + +'Can it be, Dmitri Nikolaitch,' Natalya interrupted him, 'you expect +nothing from life?' + +'Oh, no! I expect much, but not for myself.... Usefulness, the content +that comes from activity, I shall never renounce; but I have renounced +happiness. My hopes, my dreams, and my own happiness have nothing in +common. Love'--(at this word he shrugged his shoulders)--'love is not +for me; I am not worthy of it; a woman who loves has a right to demand +the whole of a man, and I can never now give the whole of myself. +Besides, it is for youth to win love; I am too old. How could I turn any +one's head? God grant I keep my own head on my shoulders.' + +'I understand,' said Natalya, 'that one who is bent on a lofty aim must +not think of himself; but cannot a woman be capable of appreciating such +a man? I should have thought, on the contrary, that a woman would be +sooner repelled by an egoist.... All young men--the youth you speak +of--all are egoists, they are all occupied only with themselves, +even when they love. Believe me, a woman is not only able to value +self-sacrifice; she can sacrifice herself.' + +Natalya's cheeks were slightly flushed and her eyes shining. Before her +friendship with Rudin she would never have succeeded in uttering such a +long and ardent speech. + +'You have heard my views on woman's mission more than once,' replied +Rudin with a condescending smile. 'You know that I consider that Joan of +Arc alone could have saved France.... but that's not the point. I wanted +to speak of you. You are standing on the threshold of life.... To dwell +on your future is both pleasant and not unprofitable.... Listen: you +know I am your friend; I take almost a brother's interest in you. And so +I hope you will not think my question indiscreet; tell me, is your heart +so far quite untouched?' + +Natalya grew hot all over and said nothing, Rudin stopped, and she +stopped too. + +'You are not angry with me?' he asked. + +'No,' she answered, 'but I did not expect----' + +'However,' he went on, 'you need not answer me. I know your secret.' + +Natalya looked at him almost with dismay. + +'Yes, yes, I know who has won your heart. And I must say that you could +not have made a better choice. He is a splendid man; he knows how +to value you; he has not been crushed by life--he is simple and +pure-hearted in soul... he will make your happiness.' + +'Of whom are you speaking, Dmitri Niklaitch?' + +'Is it possible you don't understand? Of Volintsev, of course. What? +isn't it true?' + +Natalya turned a little away from Rudin. She was completely overwhelmed. + +'Do you imagine he doesn't love you? Nonsense! he does not take his eyes +off you, and follows every movement of yours; indeed, can love ever be +concealed? And do not you yourself look on him with favour? So far as I +can observe, your mother, too, likes him.... Your choice----' + +'Dmitri Nikolaitch,' Natalya broke in, stretching out her hand in her +confusion towards a bush near her, 'it is so difficult, really, for me +to speak of this; but I assure you... you are mistaken.' + +'I am mistaken!' repeated Rudin. 'I think not. I have not known you very +long, but I already know you well. What is the meaning of the change I +see in you? I see it clearly. Are you just the same as when I met you +first, six weeks ago? No, Natalya Alexyevna, your heart is not free.' + +'Perhaps not,' answered Natalya, hardly audibly, 'but all the same you +are mistaken.' + +'How is that?' asked Rudin. + +'Let me go! don't question me!' replied Natalya, and with swift steps +she turned towards the house. + +She was frightened herself by the feelings of which she was suddenly +conscious in herself. + +Rudin overtook her and stopped her. + +'Natalya Alexyevna,' he said, 'this conversation cannot end like this; +it is too important for me too.... How am I to understand you?' + +'Let me go!' repeated Natalya. + +'Natalya Alexyevna, for mercy's sake!' + +Rudin's face showed his agitation. He grew pale. + +'You understand everything, you must understand me too!' said Natalya; +she snatched away her hand and went on, not looking round. + +'Only one word!' cried Rudin after her + +She stood still, but did not turn round. + +'You asked me what I meant by that comparison yesterday. Let me tell +you, I don't want to deceive you. I spoke of myself, of my past,--and of +you.' + +'How? of me?' + +'Yes, of you; I repeat, I will not deceive you. You know now what was +the feeling, the new feeling I spoke of then.... Till to-day I should +not have ventured...' + +Natalya suddenly hid her face in her hands, and ran towards the house. + +She was so distracted by the unexpected conclusion of her conversation +with Rudin, that she ran past Volintsev without even noticing him. He +was standing motionless with his back against a tree. He had arrived at +the house a quarter of an hour before, and found Darya Mihailovna in the +drawing-room; and after exchanging a few words got away unobserved and +went in search of Natalya. Led by a lover's instinct, he went straight +into the garden and came upon her and Rudin at the very instant when she +snatched her hand away from him. Darkness seemed to fall upon his eyes. +Gazing after Natalya, he left the tree and took two strides, not knowing +whither or wherefore. Rudin saw him as he came up to him. Both looked +each other in the face, bowed, and separated in silence. + +'This won't be the end of it,' both were thinking. + +Volintsev went to the very end of the garden. He felt sad and sick; +a load lay on his heart, and his blood throbbed in sudden stabs at +intervals. The rain began to fall a little again. Rudin turned into +his own room. He, too, was disturbed; his thoughts were in a whirl. The +trustful, unexpected contact of a young true heart is agitating for any +one. + +At table everything went somehow wrong. Natalya, pale all over, could +scarcely sit in her place and did not raise her eyes. Volintsev sat as +usual next her, and from time to time began to talk in a constrained way +to her. It happened that Pigasov was dining at Darya Mihailovna's that +day. He talked more than any one at table. Among other things he began +to maintain that men, like dogs, can be divided into the short-tailed +and the long-tailed. People are short-tailed, he said, either from birth +or through their own fault. The short-tailed are in a sorry plight; +nothing succeeds with them--they have no confidence in themselves. +But the man who has a long furry tail is happy. He may be weaker and +inferior to the short-tailed; but he believes in himself; he displays +his tail and every one admires it. And this is a fit subject for wonder; +the tail, of course, is a perfectly useless part of the body, you admit; +of what use can a tail be? but all judge of their abilities by their +tail. 'I myself,' he concluded with a sigh, 'belong to the number of the +short-tailed, and what is most annoying, I cropped my tail myself.' + +'By which you mean to say,' commented Rudin carelessly, 'what La +Rochefoucauld said long before you: Believe in yourself and others will +believe in you. Why the tail was brought in, I fail to understand.' + +'Let every one,' Volintsev began sharply and with flashing eyes, 'let +every one express himself according to his fancy. Talk of despotism! ... +I consider there is none worse than the despotism of so-called clever +men; confound them!' + +Everyone was astonished at this outbreak from Volintsev; it was received +in silence. Rudin tried to look at him, but he could not control his +eyes, and turned away smiling without opening his lips. + +'Aha! so you too have lost your tail!' thought Pigasov; and Natalya's +heart sank in terror. Darya Mihailovna gave Volintsev a long puzzled +stare and at last was the first to speak; she began to describe an +extraordinary dog belonging to a minister So-and-So. + +Volintsev went away soon after dinner. As he bade Natalya good-bye he +could not resist saying to her: + +'Why are you confused, as though you had done wrong? You cannot have +done wrong to any one!' + +Natalya did not understand at all, and could only gaze after him. Before +tea Rudin went up to her, and bending over the table as though he were +examining the papers, whispered: + +'It is all like a dream, isn't it? I absolutely must see you alone--if +only for a minute.' He turned to Mlle, Boncourt 'Here,' he said to her, +'this is the article you were looking for,' and again bending towards +Natalya, he added in a whisper, 'Try to be near the terrace in the lilac +arbour about ten o'clock; I will wait for you.' + +Pigasov was the hero of the evening. Rudin left him in possession of the +field. He afforded Darya Mihailovna much entertainment; first he told +a story of one of his neighbours who, having been henpecked by his +wife for thirty years, had grown so womanish that one day in crossing a +little puddle when Pigasov was present, he put out his hand and picked +up the skirt of his coat, as women do with their petticoats. Then he +turned to another gentleman who to begin with had been a freemason, then +a hypochondriac, and then wanted to be a banker. + +'How were you a freemason, Philip Stepanitch?' Pigasov asked him. + +'You know how; I wore the nail of my little finger long.' + +But what most diverted Darya Mihailovna was when Pigasov set off on a +dissertation upon love, and maintained that even he had been sighed +for, that one ardent German lady had even given him the nickname of her +'dainty little African' and her 'hoarse little crow.' Darya Mihailovna +laughed, but Pigasov spoke the truth; he really was in a position to +boast of his conquests. He maintained that nothing could be easier than +to make any woman you chose fall in love with you; you only need repeat +to her for ten days in succession that heaven is on her lips and bliss +in her eyes, and that the rest of womankind are all simply rag-bags +beside her; and on the eleventh day she will be ready to say herself +that there is heaven on her lips and bliss in her eyes, and will be +in love with you. Everything comes to pass in the world; so who knows, +perhaps Pigasov was right? + +At half-past nine Rudin was already in the arbour. The stars had come +out in the pale, distant depths of the heaven; there was still a red +glow where the sun had set, and there the horizon seemed brighter and +clearer; a semi-circular moon shone golden through the black network +of the weeping birch-tree. The other trees stood like grim giants, with +thousands of chinks looking like eyes, or fell into compact masses of +darkness. Not a leaf was stirring; the topmost branches of the lilacs +and acacias seemed to stretch upwards into the warm air, as though +listening for something. The house was a dark mass now; patches of red +light showed where the long windows were lighted up. It was a soft and +peaceful evening, but under this peace was felt the secret breath of +passion. + +Rudin stood, his arms folded on his breast, and listened with strained +attention. His heart beat violently, and involuntarily he held his +breath. At last he caught the sound of light, hurrying footsteps, and +Natalya came into the arbour. + +Rudin rushed up to her, and took her hands. They were cold as ice. + +'Natalya Alexyevna!' he began, in an agitated whisper, 'I wanted to see +you.... I could not wait till to-morrow. I must tell you what I did not +suspect--what I did not realise even this morning. I love you!' + +Natalya's hands trembled feebly in his. + +'I love you!' he repeated, 'and how could I have deceived myself so +long? How was it I did not guess long ago that I love you? And you? +Natalya Alexyevna, tell me!' + +Natalya could scarcely draw her breath. + +'You see I have come here,' she uttered, at last + +'No, say that you love me!' + +'I think--yes,' she whispered. + +Rudin pressed her hands still more warmly, and tried to draw her to him. + +Natalya looked quickly round. + +'Let me go--I am frightened.... I think some one is listening to us.... +For God's sake, be on your guard. Volintsev suspects.' + +'Never mind him! You saw I did not even answer him to-day.... Ah, +Natalya Alexyevna, how happy I am! Nothing shall sever us now!' + +Natalya looked into his eyes. + +'Let me go,' she whispered; 'it's time.' + +'One instant,' began Rudin. + +'No, let me go, let me go.' + +'You seem afraid of me.' + +'No, but it's time.' + +'Repeat, then, at least once more.'... + +'You say you are happy?' asked Natalya. + +'I? No man in the world is happier than I am! Can you doubt it?' + +Natalya lifted up her head. Very beautiful was her pale, noble, young +face, transformed by passion, in the mysterious shadows of the arbour, +in the faint light reflected from the evening sky. + +'I tell you then,' she said, 'I will be yours.' + +'Oh, my God!' cried Rudin. + +But Natalya made her escape, and was gone. + +Rudin stood still a little while, then walked slowly out of the arbour. +The moon threw a light on his face; there was a smile on his lips. + +'I am happy,' he uttered in a half whisper. 'Yes, I am happy,' he +repeated, as though he wanted to convince himself. + +He straightened his tall figure, shook back his locks, and walked +quickly into the garden, with a happy gesture of his hands. + +Meanwhile the bushes of the lilac arbour moved apart, and Pandalevsky +appeared. He looked around warily, shook his head, pursed up his mouth, +and said, significantly, 'So that's how it is. That must be brought to +Darya Mihailovna's knowledge.' And he vanished. + + + + +VIII + + +On his return home, Volintsev was so gloomy and dejected, he gave his +sister such listless answers, and so quickly locked himself up in his +room, that she decided to send a messenger to Lezhnyov. She always had +recourse to him in times of difficulty. Lezhnyov sent her word that he +would come in the next day. + +Volintsev was no more cheerful in the morning. After tea he was starting +to superintend the work on the estate, but he stayed at home instead, +lay on the sofa, and took up a book--a thing he did not often do. +Volintsev had no taste for literature, and poetry simply alarmed +him. 'This is as incomprehensible as poetry,' he used to say, and, in +confirmation of his words, he used to quote the following lines from a +Russian poet:-- + + 'And till his gloomy lifetime's close + Nor reason nor experience proud + Will crush nor crumple Destiny's + Ensanguined forget-me-nots.' + +Alexandra Pavlovna kept looking uneasily at her brother, but she did not +worry him with questions. A carriage drew up at the steps. + +'Ah!' she thought, 'Lezhnyov, thank goodness!' + +A servant came in and announced the arrival of Rudin. + +Volintsev flung his book on the floor, and raised his head. 'Who has +come?' he asked. + +'Rudin, Dmitri Nikolaitch,' repeated the man. Volintsev got up. + +'Ask him in,' he said, 'and you, sister,' he added, turning to Alexandra +Pavlovna, 'leave us alone.' + +'But why?' she was beginning. + +'I have a good reason,' he interrupted, passionately. 'I beg you to +leave us.' + +Rudin entered. Volintsev, standing in the middle of the room, received +him with a chilly bow, without offering his hand. + +'Confess you did not expect me,' began Rudin, and he laid his hat down +by the window His lips were slightly twitching. He was ill at ease, but +tried to conceal his embarrassment. + +'I did not expect you, certainly,' replied Volintsev, 'after yesterday. +I should have more readily expected some one with a special message from +you.' + +'I understand what you mean,' said Rudin, taking a seat, 'and am very +grateful for your frankness. It is far better so. I have come myself to +you, as to a man of honour.' + +'Cannot we dispense with compliments?' observed Volintsev. + +'I want to explain to you why I have come.' + +'We are acquainted; why should you not come? Besides, this is not the +first time you have honoured me with a visit.' + +'I came to you as one man of honour to another,' repeated Rudin, 'and +I want now to appeal to your sense of justice.... I have complete +confidence in you.' + +'What is the matter?' said Volintsev, who all this time was still +standing in his original position, staring sullenly at Rudin, and +sometimes pulling the ends of his moustache. + +'If you would kindly... I came here to make an explanation, certainly, +but all the same it cannot be done off-hand.' + +'Why not?' + +'A third person is involved in this matter.' + +'What third person?' + +'Sergei Pavlitch, you understand me?' + +'Dmitri Nikolaitch, I don't understand you in the least.' + +'You prefer----' + +'I prefer you should speak plainly!' broke in Volintsev. + +He was beginning to be angry in earnest. + +Rudin frowned. + +'Permit... we are alone... I must tell you--though you certainly are +aware of it already (Volintsev shrugged his shoulders impatiently)--I +must tell you that I love Natalya Alexyevna, and I have the right to +believe that she loves me.' + +Volintsev turned white, but made no reply. He walked to the window and +stood with his back turned. + +'You understand, Sergei Pavlitch,' continued Rudin, 'that if I were not +convinced...' + +'Upon my word!' interrupted Volintsev, 'I don't doubt it in the +least.... Well! so be it! Good luck to you! Only I wonder what the devil +induced you to come with this news to me.... What have I to do with it? +What is it to me whom you love, or who loves you? It simply passes my +comprehension.' + +Volintsev continued to stare out of the window. His voice sounded +choked. + +Rudin got up. + +'I will tell you, Sergei Pavlitch, why I decided to come to you, why +I did not even think I had the right to hide from you our--our mutual +feelings. I have too profound an esteem for you--that is why I have +come; I did not want... we both did not wish to play a part before you. +Your feeling for Natalya Alexyevna was known to me.... Believe me, I +have no illusions about myself; I know how little I deserve to supplant +you in her heart, but if it was fated this should be, is it made any +better by pretence, hypocrisy, and deceit? Is it any better to expose +ourselves to misunderstandings, or even to the possibilities of such +a scene as took place yesterday at dinner? Sergei Pavlitch, tell me +yourself, is it?' + +Volintsev folded his arms on his chest, as though he were trying to hold +himself in. + +'Sergei Pavlitch!' Rudin continued, 'I have given you pain, I feel +it--but understand us--understand that we had no other means of proving +our respect to you, of proving that we know how to value your honour and +uprightness. Openness, complete openness with any other man would have +been misplaced; but with you it took the form of duty. We are happy to +think our secret is in your hands.' + +Volintsev gave vent to a forced laugh. + +'Many thanks for your confidence in me!' he exclaimed, 'though, pray +observe, I neither wished to know your secret, nor to tell you mine, +though you treat it as if it were your property. But excuse me, you +speak as though for two. Does it follow I am to suppose that Natalya +Alexyevna knows of your visit, and the object of it?' + +Rudin was a little taken aback. + +'No, I did not communicate my intention to Natalya Alexyevna; but I know +she would share my views.' + +'That's all very fine indeed,' Volintsev began after a short pause, +drumming on the window pane with his fingers, 'though I must confess it +would have been far better if you had had rather less respect for me. I +don't care a hang for your respect, to tell you the truth; but what do +you want of me now?' + +'I want nothing--or--no! I want one thing; I want you not to regard me +as treacherous or hypocritical, to understand me... I hope that now you +cannot doubt of my sincerity... I want us, Sergei Pavlitch, to part as +friends... you to give me your hand as you once did.' + +And Rudin went up to Volintsev. + +'Excuse me, my good sir,' said Volintsev, turning round and stepping +back a few paces, 'I am ready to do full justice to your intentions, all +that's very fine, I admit, very exalted, but we are simple people, we do +not gild our gingerbread, we are not capable of following the flight +of great minds like yours.... What you think sincere, we regard as +impertinent and disingenuous and indiscreet.... What is clear and +simple to you, is involved and obscure to us.... You boast of what +we conceal.... How are we to understand you! Excuse me, I can neither +regard you as a friend, nor will I give you my hand.... That is petty, +perhaps, but I am only a petty person.' + +Rudin took his hat from the window seat. + +'Sergei Pavlitch!' he said sorrowfully, 'goodbye; I was mistaken in my +expectations. My visit certainly was rather a strange one... but I had +hoped that you... (Volintsev made a movement of impatience). ... Excuse +me, I will say no more of this. Reflecting upon it all, I see indeed, +you are right, you could not have behaved otherwise. Good-bye, and allow +me, at least once more, for the last time, to assure you of the purity +of my intentions.... I am convinced of your discretion.' + +'That is too much!' cried Volintsev, shaking with anger, 'I never asked +for your confidence; and so you have no right whatever to reckon on my +discretion!' + +Rudin was about to say something, but he only waved his hands, bowed and +went away, and Volintsev flung himself on the sofa and turned his face +to the wall. + +'May I come in?' Alexandra Pavlovna's voice was heard saying at the +door. + +Volintsev did not answer at once, and stealthily passed his hand over +his face. 'No, Sasha,' he said, in a slightly altered voice, 'wait a +little longer.' + +Half an hour later, Alexandra Pavlovna again came to the door. + +'Mihailo Mihailitch is here,' she said, 'will you see him?' + +'Yes,' answered Volintsev, 'let them show him up here.' + +Lezhnyov came in. + +'What, aren't you well?' he asked, seating himself in a chair near the +sofa. + +Volintsev raised himself, and, leaning on his elbow gazed a long, +long while into his friend's face, and then repeated to him his whole +conversation with Rudin word for word. He had never before given +Lezhnyov a hint of his sentiments towards Natalya, though he guessed +they were no secret to him. + +'Well, brother, you have surprised me!' Lezhnyov said, as soon as +Volintsev had finished his story. 'I expected many strange things from +him, but this is----Still I can see him in it.' + +'Upon my honour!' cried Volintsev, in great excitement, 'it is simply +insolence! Why, I almost threw him out of the window. Did he want to +boast to me or was he afraid? What was the object of it? How could he +make up his mind to come to a man----?' + +Volintsev clasped his hands over his head and was speechless. + +'No, brother, that's not it,' replied Lezhnyov tranquilly; 'you won't +believe me, but he really did it from a good motive. Yes, indeed. It +was generous, do you see, and candid, to be sure, and it would offer an +opportunity of speechifying and giving vent to his fine talk, and, of +course, that's what he wants, what he can't live without. Ah! his tongue +is his enemy. Though it's a good servant to him too.' + +'With what solemnity he came in and talked, you can't imagine!' + +'Well, he can't do anything without that. He buttons his great-coat +as if he were fulfilling a sacred duty. I should like to put him on a +desert island and look round a corner to see how he would behave there. +And he discourses on simplicity!' + +'But tell me, my dear fellow,' asked Volintsev, 'what is it, philosophy +or what?' + +'How can I tell you? On one side it is philosophy, I daresay, and on the +other something altogether different It is not right to put every folly +down to philosophy.' + +Volintsev looked at him. + +'Wasn't he lying then, do you imagine?' + +'No, my son, he wasn't lying. But, do you know, we've talked enough of +this. Let's light our pipes and call Alexandra Pavlovna in here. It's +easier to talk when she's with us and easier to be silent. She shall +make us some tea.' + +'Very well,' replied Volintsev. 'Sasha, come in,' he cried aloud. + +Alexandra Pavlovna came in. He grasped her hand and pressed it warmly to +his lips. + +Rudin returned in a curious and mingled frame of mind. He was annoyed +with himself, he reproached himself for his unpardonable precipitancy, +his boyish impulsiveness. Some one has justly said: there is nothing +more painful than the consciousness of having just done something +stupid. + +Rudin was devoured by regret. + +'What evil genius drove me,' he muttered between his teeth, 'to call on +that squire! What an idea it was! Only to expose myself to insolence!' + +But in Darya Mihailovna's house something extraordinary had been +happening. The lady herself did not appear the whole morning, and did +not come in to dinner; she had a headache, declared Pandalevsky, the +only person who had been admitted to her room. Natalya, too, Rudin +scarcely got a glimpse of: she sat in her room with Mlle. Boncourt When +she met him at the dinner-table she looked at him so mournfully that +his heart sank. Her face was changed as though a load of sorrow had +descended upon her since the day before. Rudin began to be oppressed by +a vague presentiment of trouble. In order to distract his mind in some +way he occupied himself with Bassistoff, had much conversation with him, +and found him an ardent, eager lad, full of enthusiastic hopes and still +untarnished faith. In the evening Darya Mihailovna appeared for a couple +of hours in the drawing-room. She was polite to Rudin, but kept him +somehow at a distance, and smiled and frowned, talking through her nose, +and in hints more than ever. Everything about her had the air of the +society lady of the court. She had seemed of late rather cooler to +Rudin. 'What is the secret of it?' he thought, with a sidelong look at +her haughtily-lifted head. + +He had not long to wait for the solution of the enigma. As he was +returning at twelve o'clock at night to his room, along a dark corridor, +some one suddenly thrust a note into his hand. He looked round; a girl +was hurrying away in the distance, Natalya's maid, he fancied. He went +into his room, dismissed the servant, tore open the letter, and read the +following lines in Natalya's handwriting:-- + +'Come to-morrow at seven o'clock in the morning, not later, to Avduhin +pond, beyond the oak copse. Any other time will be impossible. It will +be our last meeting, all will be over, unless... Come. We must make +our decision.--P.S. If I don't come, it will mean we shall not see each +other again; then I will let you know.' + +Rudin turned the letter over in his hands, musing upon it, then laid it +under his pillow, undressed, and lay down. For a long while he could not +get to sleep, and then he slept very lightly, and it was not yet five +o'clock when he woke up. + + + + +IX + + +The Avduhin pond, near which Natalya had fixed the place of meeting, had +long ceased to be a pond. Thirty years before it had burst through +its banks and it had been given up since then. Only by the smooth flat +surface of the hollow, once covered with slimy mud, and the traces of +the banks, could one guess that it had been a pond. A farm-house +had stood near it. It had long ago passed away. Two huge pine-trees +preserved its memory; the wind was for ever droning and sullenly +murmuring in their high gaunt green tops. There were mysterious tales +among the people of a fearful crime supposed to have been committed +under them; they used to tell, too, that not one of them would fall +without bringing death to some one; that a third had once stood there, +which had fallen in a storm and crushed a girl. + +The whole place near the old pond was supposed to be haunted; it was +a barren wilderness, dark and gloomy, even on a sunny day--it seemed +darker and gloomier still from the old, old forest of dead and withered +oak-trees which was near it. A few huge trees lifted their grey heads +above the low undergrowth of bushes like weary giants. They were a +sinister sight; it seemed as though wicked old men had met together bent +on some evil design. A narrow path almost indistinguishable wandered +beside it. No one went near the Avduhin pond without some urgent reason. +Natalya intentionally chose this solitary place. It was not more than +half-a-mile from Darya Mihailovna's house. + +The sun had already risen some time when Rudin reached the Avduhin pond, +but it was not a bright morning. Thick clouds of the colour of milk +covered the whole sky, and were driven flying before the whistling, +shrieking wind. Rudin began to walk up and down along the bank, which +was covered with clinging burdocks and blackened nettles. He was not +easy in his mind. These interviews, these new emotions had a charm for +him, but they also troubled him, especially after the note of the +night before. He felt that the end was drawing near, and was in secret +perplexity of spirit, though none would have imagined it, seeing with +what concentrated determination he folded his arms across his chest and +looked around him. Pigasov had once said truly of him, that he was like +a Chinese idol, his head was constantly overbalancing him. But with the +head alone, however strong it may be, it is hard for a man to know even +what is passing in himself.... Rudin, the clever, penetrating Rudin, was +not capable of saying certainly whether he loved Natalya, whether he was +suffering, and whether he would suffer at parting from her. Why then, +since he had not the least disposition to play the Lovelace--one must do +him that credit--had he turned the poor girl's head? Why was he awaiting +her with a secret tremor? To this the only answer is that there are none +so easily carried away as those who are without passion. + +He walked on the bank, while Natalya was hurrying to him straight across +country through the wet grass. + +'Natalya Alexyevna, you'll get your feet wet!' said her maid Masha, +scarcely able to keep up with her. + +Natalya did not hear and ran on without looking round. + +'Ah, supposing they've seen us!' cried Masha; 'indeed it's surprising +how we got out of the house... and ma'mselle may wake up... It's a +mercy it's not far.... Ah, the gentleman's waiting already,' she +added, suddenly catching sight of Rudin's majestic figure, standing out +picturesquely on the bank; 'but what does he want to stand on that mound +for--he ought to have kept in the hollow.' + +Natalya stopped. + +'Wait here, Masha, by the pines,' she said, and went on to the pond. + +Rudin went up to her; he stopped short in amazement. He had never seen +such an expression on her face before. Her brows were contracted, her +lips set, her eyes looked sternly straight before her. + +'Dmitri Nikolaitch,' she began, 'we have no time to lose. I have come +for five minutes. I must tell you that my mother knows everything. Mr. +Pandalevsky saw us the day before yesterday, and he told her of our +meeting. He was always mamma's spy. She called me in to her yesterday.' + +'Good God!' cried Rudin, 'this is terrible.... What did your mother +say?' + +'She was not angry with me, she did not scold me, but she reproached me +for my want of discretion.' + +'That was all?' + +'Yes, and she declared she would sooner see me dead than your wife!' + +'Is it possible she said that?' + +'Yes; and she said too that you yourself did not want to marry me at +all, that you had only been flirting with me because you were bored, and +that she had not expected this of you; but that she herself was to blame +for having allowed me to see so much of you... that she relied on my +good sense, that I had very much surprised her... and I don't remember +now all she said to me.' + +Natalya uttered all this in an even, almost expressionless voice. + +'And you, Natalya Alexyevna, what did you answer?' asked Rudin. + +'What did I answer?' repeated Natalya.... 'What do you intend to do +now?' + +'Good God, good God!' replied Rudin, 'it is cruel! So soon... such a +sudden blow!... And is your mother in such indignation?' + +'Yes, yes, she will not hear of you.' + +'It is terrible! You mean there is no hope? + +'None.' + +'Why should we be so unhappy! That abominable Pandalevsky!... You ask +me, Natalya Alexyevna, what I intend to do? My head is going round--I +cannot take in anything... I can feel nothing but my unhappiness... I am +amazed that you can preserve such self-possession!' + +'Do you think it is easy for me?' said Natalya. + +Rudin began to walk along the bank. Natalya did not take her eyes off +him. + +'Your mother did not question you?' he said at last. + +'She asked me whether I love you.' + +'Well... and you?' + +Natalya was silent a moment. 'I told the truth.' + +Rudin took her hand. + +'Always, in all things generous, noble-hearted! Oh, the heart of a +girl--it's pure gold! But did your mother really declare her decision so +absolutely on the impossibility of our marriage?' + +'Yes, absolutely. I have told you already; she is convinced that you +yourself don't think of marrying me.' + +'Then she regards me as a traitor! What have I done to deserve it?' And +Rudin clutched his head in his hands. + +'Dmitri Nikolaitch!' said Natalya, 'we are losing our time. Remember I +am seeing you for the last time. I came here not to weep and lament--you +see I am not crying--I came for advice.' + +'And what advice can I give you, Natalya Alexyevna?' + +'What advice? You are a man; I am used to trusting to you, I shall trust +you to the end. Tell me, what are your plans?' + +'My plans.... Your mother certainly will turn me out of the house.' + +'Perhaps. She told me yesterday that she must break off all acquaintance +with you.... But you do not answer my question?' + +'What question?' + +'What do you think we must do now?' + +'What we must do?' replied Rudin; 'of course submit.' + +'Submit,' repeated Natalya slowly, and her lips turned white. + +'Submit to destiny,' continued Rudin. 'What is to be done? I know +very well how bitter it is, how painful, how unendurable. But consider +yourself, Natalya Alexyevna; I am poor. It is true I could work; but +even if I were a rich man, could you bear a violent separation from your +family, your mother's anger?... No, Natalya Alexyevna; it is useless +even to think of it. It is clear it was not fated for us to live +together, and the happiness of which I dreamed is not for me!' + +All at once Natalya hid her face in her hands and began to weep. Rudin +went up to her. + +'Natalya Alexyevna! dear Natalya!' he said with warmth, 'do not cry, for +God's sake, do not torture me, be comforted.' + +Natalya raised her head. + +'You tell me to be comforted,' she began, and her eyes blazed through +her tears; 'I am not weeping for what you suppose--I am not sad for +that; I am sad because I have been deceived in you.... What! I come to +you for counsel, and at such a moment!--and your first word is, submit! +submit! So this is how you translate your talk of independence, of +sacrifice, which...' + +Her voice broke down. + +'But, Natalya Alexyevna,' began Rudin in confusion, 'remember--I do not +disown my words--only----' + +'You asked me,' she continued with new force, 'what I answered my +mother, when she declared she would sooner agree to my death than my +marriage to you; I answered that I would sooner die than marry any other +man... And you say, "Submit!" It must be that she is right; you must, +through having nothing to do, through being bored, have been playing +with me.' + +'I swear to you, Natalya Alexyevna--I assure you,' maintained Rudin. + +But she did not listen to him. + +'Why did you not stop me? Why did you yourself--or did you not reckon +upon obstacles? I am ashamed to speak of this--but I see it is all over +now.' + +'You must be calm, Natalya Alexyevna,' Rudin was beginning; 'we must +think together what means----' + +'You have so often talked of self-sacrifice,' she broke in, 'but do you +know, if you had said to me to-day at once, "I love you, but I cannot +marry you, I will not answer for the future, give me your hand and come +with me"--do you know, I would have come with you; do you know, I would +have risked everything? But there's all the difference between word and +deed, and you were afraid now, just as you were afraid the day before +yesterday at dinner of Volintsev.' + +The colour rushed to Rudin's face. Natalya's unexpected energy had +astounded him; but her last words wounded his vanity. + +'You are too angry now, Natalya Alexyevna,' he began; 'you cannot +realise how bitterly you wound me. I hope that in time you will do +me justice; you will understand what it has cost me to renounce the +happiness which you have said yourself would have laid upon me no +obligations. Your peace is dearer to me than anything in the world, +and I should have been the basest of men, if I could have taken +advantage----' + +'Perhaps, perhaps,' interrupted Natalya, 'perhaps you are right; I don't +know what I am saying. But up to this time I believed in you, believed +in every word you said.... For the future, pray keep a watch upon your +words, do not fling them about at hazard. When I said to you, "I love +you," I knew what that word meant; I was ready for everything.... Now I +have only to thank you for a lesson--and to say good-bye.' + +'Stop, for God's sake, Natalya Alexyevna, I beseech you. I do not +deserve your contempt, I swear to you. Put yourself in my position. I am +responsible for you and for myself. If I did not love you with the most +devoted love--why, good God! I should have at once proposed you should +run away with me.... Sooner or later your mother would forgive us--and +then... But before thinking of my own happiness----' + +He stopped. Natalya's eyes fastened directly upon him put him to +confusion. + +'You try to prove to me that you are an honourable man, Dmitri +Nikolaitch,' she said. 'I do not doubt that. You are not capable of +acting from calculation; but did I want to be convinced of that? did I +come here for that?' + +'I did not expect, Natalya Alexyevna----' + +'Ah! you have said it at last! Yes, you did not expect all this--you did +not know me. Do not be uneasy... you do not love me, and I will never +force myself on any one.' + +'I love you!' cried Rudin. + +Natalya drew herself up. + +'Perhaps; but how do you love me? Remember all your words, Dmitri +Nikolaitch. You told me: "Without complete equality there is no +love."... You are too exalted for me; I am no match for you.... I am +punished as I deserve. There are duties before you more worthy of you. I +shall not forget this day.... Good-bye.' + +'Natalya Alexyevna, are you going? Is it possible for us to part like +this?' + +He stretched out his hand to her. She stopped. His supplicating voice +seemed to make her waver. + +'No,' she uttered at last. 'I feel that something in me is broken. ... I +came here, I have been talking to you as if it were in delirium; I must +try to recollect. It must not be, you yourself said, it will not be. +Good God, when I came out here, I mentally took a farewell of my home, +of my past--and what? whom have I met here?--a coward... and how did you +know I was not able to bear a separation from my family? "Your mother +will not consent... It is terrible!" That was all I heard from you, that +you, you, Rudin?--No! good-bye.... Ah! if you had loved me, I should +have felt it now, at this moment.... No, no, goodbye!' + +She turned swiftly and ran towards Masha, who had begun to be uneasy and +had been making signs to her a long while. + +'It is _you_ who are afraid, not I!' cried Rudin after Natalya. + +She paid no attention to him, and hastened homewards across the fields. +She succeeded in getting back to her bedroom; but she had scarcely +crossed the threshold when her strength failed her, and she fell +senseless into Masha's arms. + +But Rudin remained a long while still standing on the bank. At last +he shivered, and with slow steps made his way to the little path and +quietly walked along it. He was deeply ashamed... and wounded. 'What a +girl!' he thought, 'at seventeen!... No, I did not know her!... She is +a remarkable girl. What strength of will!... She is right; she deserves +another love than what I felt for her. I felt for her?' he asked +himself. 'Can it be I already feel no more love for her? So this is how +it was all to end! What a pitiful wretch I was beside her!' + +The slight rattle of a racing droshky made Rudin raise his head. +Lezhnyov was driving to meet him with his invariable trotting pony. +Rudin bowed to him without speaking, and as though struck with a sudden +thought, turned out of the road and walked quickly in the direction of +Darya Mihailovna's house. + +Lezhnyov let him pass, looked after him, and after a moment's thought he +too turned his horse's head round, and drove back to Volintsev's, where +he had spent the night. He found him asleep, and giving orders he should +not be waked, he sat down on the balcony to wait for some tea and smoked +a pipe. + + + + +X + + +Volintsev got up at ten o'clock. When he heard that Lezhnyov was sitting +in the balcony, he was much surprised, and sent to ask him to come to +him. + +'What has happened?' he asked him. 'I thought you meant to drive home?' + +'Yes; I did mean to, but I met Rudin.... He was wandering about the +country with such a distracted countenance. So I turned back at once.' + +'You came back because you met Rudin?' + +'That's to say,--to tell the truth, I don't know why I came back myself, +I suppose because I was reminded of you; I wanted to be with you, and I +have plenty of time before I need go home.' + +Volintsev smiled bitterly. + +'Yes; one cannot think of Rudin now without thinking of me.... Boy!' he +cried harshly, 'bring us some tea.' + +The friends began to drink tea. Lezhnyov talked of agricultural +matters,--of a new method of roofing barns with paper.... + +Suddenly Volintsev leaped up from his chair and struck the table with +such force that the cups and saucers rang. + +'No!' he cried, 'I cannot bear this any longer! I will call out this +witty fellow, and let him shoot me,--at least I will try to put a bullet +through his learned brains!' + +'What are you talking about? Upon my word!' grumbled Lezhnyov, 'how can +you scream like that? I dropped my pipe.... What's the matter with you?' + +'The matter is, that I can't hear his name and keep calm; it sets all my +blood boiling!' + +'Hush, my dear fellow, hush! aren't you ashamed?' rejoined Lezhnyov, +picking up his pipe from the ground. 'Leave off! Let him alone!' + +'He has insulted me,' pursued Volintsev, walking up and down the room. +'Yes! he has insulted me. You must admit that yourself. At first I was +not sharp enough; he took me by surprise; and who could have expected +this? But I will show him that he cannot make a fool of me. ... I will +shoot him, the damned philosopher, like a partridge.' + +'Much you will gain by that, indeed! I won't speak of your sister now. +I can see you're in a passion... how could you think of your sister! +But in relation to another individual--what! do you imagine, when you've +killed the philosopher, you can improve your own chances?' + +Volintsev flung himself into a chair. + +'Then I must go away somewhere! For here my heart is simply being +crushed by misery; only I can find no place to go.' + +'Go away... that's another matter! That I am ready to agree to. And do +you know what I should suggest? Let us go together--to the Caucasus, or +simply to Little Russia to eat dumplings. That's a capital idea, my dear +fellow!' + +'Yes; but whom shall we leave my sister with?' + +'And why should not Alexandra Pavlovna come with us? Upon my soul, it +will be splendid. As for looking after her--yes, I'll undertake that! +There will be no difficulty in getting anything we want: if she likes, +I will arrange a serenade under her window every night; I will sprinkle +the coachmen with _eau de cologne_ and strew flowers along the roads. +And we shall both be simply new men, my dear boy; we shall enjoy +ourselves so, we shall come back so fat that we shall be proof against +the darts of love!' + +'You are always joking, Misha!' + +'I'm not joking at all. It was a brilliant idea of yours.' + +'No; nonsense!' Volintsev shouted again. 'I want to fight him, to fight +him!...' + +'Again! What a rage you are in!' + +A servant entered with a letter in his hand. + +'From whom?' asked Lezhnyov. + +'From Rudin, Dmitri Nikolaitch. The Lasunsky's servant brought it.' + +'From Rudin?' repeated Volintsev, 'to whom?' + +'To you.' + +'To me!... give it me!' + +Volintsev seized the letter, quickly tore it open, and began to read. +Lezhnyov watched him attentively; a strange, almost joyful amazement was +expressed on Volintsev's face; he let his hands fall by his side. + +'What is it?' asked Lezhnyov. + +'Read it,' Volintsev said in a low voice, and handed him the letter. + +Lezhnyov began to read. This is what Rudin wrote: + +'SIR-- + +'I am going away from Darya Mihailovna's house to-day, and leaving it +for ever. This will certainly be a surprise to you, especially after +what passed yesterday. I cannot explain to you what exactly obliges me +to act in this way; but it seems to me for some reason that I ought to +let you know of my departure. You do not like me, and even regard me as +a bad man. I do not intend to justify myself; time will justify me. In +my opinion it is even undignified in a man and quite unprofitable to +try to prove to a prejudiced man the injustice of his prejudice. Whoever +wishes to understand me will not blame me, and as for any one who does +not wish, or cannot do so,--his censure does not pain me. I was mistaken +in you. In my eyes you remain as before a noble and honourable man, but +I imagined you were able to be superior to the surroundings in which you +were brought up. I was mistaken. What of that? It is not the first, nor +will it be the last time. I repeat to you, I am going away. I wish you +all happiness. Confess that this wish is completely disinterested, and +I hope that now you will be happy. Perhaps in time you will change your +opinion of me. Whether we shall ever meet again, I don't know, but in +any case I remain your sincere well-wisher, + +'D. R. + +'P.S. The two hundred roubles I owe you I will send directly I reach +my estate in T---- province. Also I beg you not to speak to Darya +Mihailovna of this letter. + +'P.P.S. One last, but important request more; since I am going away, I +hope you will not allude before Natalya Alexyevna to my visit to you.' + +'Well, what do you say to that?' asked Volintsev, directly Lezhnyov had +finished the letter. + +'What is one to say?' replied Lezhnyov, 'Cry "Allah! Allah!" like a +Mussulman and sit gaping with astonishment--that's all one can do.... +Well, a good riddance! But it's curious: you see he thought it his +_duty_ to write you this letter, and he came to see you from a sense +of _duty_... these gentlemen find a duty at every step, some duty they +owe... or some debt,' added Lezhnyov, pointing with a smile to the +postscript. + +'And what phrases he rounds off!' cried Volintsev. 'He was mistaken +in me. He expected I would be superior to my surroundings. What a +rigmarole! Good God! it's worse than poetry!' + +Lezhnyov made no reply, but his eyes were smiling. Volintsev got up. + +'I want to go to Darya Mihailovna's,' he announced. 'I want to find out +what it all means.' + +'Wait a little, my dear boy; give him time to get off. What's the good +of running up against him again? He is to vanish, it seems. What more do +you want? Better go and lie down and get a little sleep; you have been +tossing about all night, I expect. But everything will be smooth for +you.' + +'What leads you to that conclusion?' + +'Oh, I think so. There, go and have a nap; I will go and see your +sister. I will keep her company.' + +'I don't want to sleep in the least. What's the object of my going to +bed? I had rather go out to the fields,' said Volintsev, putting on his +out-of-door coat. + +'Well, that's a good thing too. Go along, and look at the fields....' + +And Lezhnyov betook himself to the apartments of Alexandra Pavlovna. +He found her in the drawing-room. She welcomed him effusively. She was +always pleased when he came; but her face still looked sorrowful. She +was uneasy about Rudin's visit the day before. + +'You have seen my brother?' she asked Lezhnyov. 'How is he to-day?' + +'All right, he has gone to the fields.' + +Alexandra Favlovna did not speak for a minute. + +'Tell me, please,' she began, gazing earnestly at the hem of her +pocket-handkerchief, 'don't you know why...' + +'Rudin came here?' put in Lezhnyov. 'I know, he came to say good-bye.' + +Alexandra Pavlovna lifted up her head. + +'What, to say good-bye!' + +'Yes. Haven't you heard? He is leaving Darya Mihailovna's.' + +'He is leaving?' + +'For ever; at least he says so.' + +'But pray, how is one to explain it, after all?...' + +'Oh, that's a different matter! To explain it is impossible, but it is +so. Something must have happened with them. He pulled the string too +tight--and it has snapped.' + +'Mihailo Mihailitch!' began Alexandra Pavlovna, 'I don't understand; you +are laughing at me, I think....' + +'No indeed! I tell you he is going away, and he even let his friends +know by letter. It's just as well, I daresay, from one point of view; +but his departure has prevented one surprising enterprise from being +carried out that I had begun to talk to your brother about.' + +'What do you mean? What enterprise?' + +'Why, I proposed to your brother that we should go on our travels, to +distract his mind, and take you with us. To look after you especially I +would take on myself....' + +'That's capital!' cried Alexandra Pavlovna. 'I can fancy how you would +look after me. Why, you would let me die of hunger.' + +'You say so, Alexandra Pavlovna, because you don't know me. You think I +am a perfect blockhead, a log; but do you know I am capable of melting +like sugar, of spending whole days on my knees?' + +'I should like to see that, I must say!' + +Lezhnyov suddenly got up. 'Well, marry me, Alexandra Pavlovna, and you +will see all that' + +Alexandra Pavlovna blushed up to her ears. + +'What did you say, Mihailo Mihailitch?' she murmured in confusion. + +'I said what it has been for ever so long,' answered Lezhnyov, 'on the +tip of my tongue to say a thousand times over. I have brought it out at +last, and you must act as you think best. But I will go away now, so as +not to be in your way. If you will be my wife... I will walk away... if +you don't dislike the idea, you need only send to call me in; I shall +understand....' + +Alexandra Pavlovna tried to keep Lezhnyov, but he went quickly away, and +going into the garden without his cap, he leaned on a little gate and +began looking about him. + +'Mihailo Mihailitch!' sounded the voice of a maid-servant behind him, +'please come in to my lady. She sent me to call you.' + +Mihailo Mihailitch turned round, took the girl's head in both his hands, +to her great astonishment, and kissed her on the forehead, then he went +in to Alexandra Pavlovna. + + + + +XI + + +On returning home, directly after his meeting with Lezhnyov, Rudin shut +himself up in his room, and wrote two letters; one to Volintsev (already +known to the reader) and the other to Natalya. He sat a very long time +over this second letter, crossed out and altered a great deal in it, +and, copying it carefully on a fine sheet of note-paper, folded it up as +small as possible, and put it in his pocket. With a look of pain on his +face he paced several times up and down his room, sat down in the chair +before the window, leaning on his arm; a tear slowly appeared upon his +eyelashes. He got up, buttoned himself up, called a servant and told him +to ask Darya Mihailovna if he could see her. + +The man returned quickly, answering that Darya Mihailovna would be +delighted to see him. Rudin went to her. + +She received him in her study, as she had that first time, two months +before. But now she was not alone; with her was sitting Pandalevsky, +unassuming, fresh, neat, and agreeable as ever. + +Darya Mihailovna met Rudin affably, and Rudin bowed affably to her; but +at the first glance at the smiling faces of both, any one of even small +experience would have understood that something of an unpleasant nature +had passed between them, even if it had not been expressed. Rudin knew +that Darya Mihailovna was angry with him. Darya Mihailovna suspected +that he was now aware of all that had happened. + +Pandalevsky's disclosure had greatly disturbed her. It touched on the +worldly pride in her. Rudin, a poor man without rank, and so far +without distinction, had presumed to make a secret appointment with her +daughter--the daughter of Darya Mihailovna Lasunsky. + +'Granting he is clever, he is a genius!' she said, 'what does that +prove? Why, any one may hope to be my son-in-law after that?' + +'For a long time I could not believe my eyes.' put in Pandalevsky. 'I am +surprised at his not understanding his position!' + +Darya Mihailovna was very much agitated, and Natalya suffered for it + +She asked Rudin to sit down. He sat down, but not like the old Rudin, +almost master of the house, not even like an old friend, but like a +guest, and not even a very intimate guest. All this took place in a +single instant... so water is suddenly transformed into solid ice. + +'I have come to you, Darya Mihailovna,' began Rudin, 'to thank you for +your hospitality. I have had some news to-day from my little estate, and +it is absolutely necessary for me to set off there to-day.' + +Darya Mihailovna looked attentively at Rudin. + +'He has anticipated me; it must be because he has some suspicion,' she +thought. 'He spares one a disagreeable explanation. So much the better. +Ah! clever people for ever!' + +'Really?' she replied aloud. 'Ah! how disappointing! Well, I suppose +there's no help for it. I shall hope to see you this winter in Moscow. +We shall soon be leaving here.' + +'I don't know, Darya Mihailovna, whether I shall succeed in getting to +Moscow, but, if I can manage it, I shall regard it as a duty to call on +you.' + +'Aha, my good sir!' Pandalevsky in his turn reflected; 'it's not long +since you behaved like the master here, and now this is how you have to +express yourself!' + +'Then I suppose you have unsatisfactory news from your estate?' he +articulated, with his customary ease. + +'Yes,' replied Rudin drily. + +'Some failure of crops, I suppose?' + +'No; something else. Believe me, Darya Mihailovna,' added Rudin, 'I +shall never forget the time I have spent in your house.' + +'And I, Dmitri Nikolaitch, shall always look back upon our acquaintance +with you with pleasure. When must you start?' + +'To-day, after dinner.' + +'So soon!... Well, I wish you a successful journey. But, if your affairs +do not detain you, perhaps you will look us up again here.' + +'I shall scarcely have time,' replied Rudin, getting up. 'Excuse me,' +he added; 'I cannot at once repay you my debt, but directly I reach my +place----' + +'Nonsense, Dmitri Nikolaitch!' Darya Mihailovna cut him short. 'I wonder +you're not ashamed to speak of it!... What o'clock is it?' she asked. + +Pandalevsky drew a gold and enamel watch out of his waistcoat pocket, +and looked at it carefully, bending his rosy cheek over his stiff, white +collar. + +'Thirty-three minutes past two,' he announced. + +'It is time to dress,' observed Darya Mihailovna. 'Good-bye for the +present, Dmitri Nikolaitch!' + +Rudin got up. The whole conversation between him and Darya Mihailovna +had a special character. In the same way actors repeat their parts, and +diplomatic dignitaries interchange their carefully-worded phrases. + +Rudin went away. He knew by now through experience that men and women of +the world do not even break with a man who is of no further use to them, +but simply let him drop, like a kid glove after a ball, like the paper +that has wrapped up sweets, like an unsuccessful ticket for a lottery. + +He packed quickly, and began to await with impatience the moment of his +departure. Every one in the house was very much surprised to hear of +his intentions; even the servants looked at him with a puzzled air. +Bassistoff did not conceal his sorrow. Natalya evidently avoided Rudin. +She tried not to meet his eyes. He succeeded, however, in slipping his +note into her hand. After dinner Darya Mihailovna repeated once more +that she hoped to see him before they left for Moscow, but Rudin made +her no reply. Pandalevsky addressed him more frequently than any one. +More than once Rudin felt a longing to fall upon him and give him a slap +on his rosy, blooming face. Mlle. Boncourt often glanced at Rudin with +a peculiarly stealthy expression in her eyes; in old setter dogs one may +sometimes see the same expression. + +'Aha!' she seemed to be saying to herself, 'so you're caught!' + +At last six o'clock struck, and Rudin's carriage was brought to the +door. He began to take a hurried farewell of all. He had a feeling of +nausea at his heart. He had not expected to leave this house like this; +it seemed as though they were turning him out. 'What a way to do it all! +and what was the object of being in such a hurry? Still, it is better +so.' That was what he was thinking as he bowed in all directions with +a forced smile. For the last time he looked at Natalya, and his heart +throbbed; her eyes were bent upon him in sad, reproachful farewell. + +He ran quickly down the steps, and jumped into his carriage. Bassistoff +had offered to accompany him to the next station, and he took his seat +beside him. + +'Do you remember,' began Rudin, directly the carriage had driven from +the courtyard into the broad road bordered with fir-trees, 'do you +remember what Don Quixote says to his squire when he is leaving the +court of the duchess? "Freedom," he says, "my friend Sancho, is one of +the most precious possessions of man, and happy is he to whom Heaven has +given a bit of bread, and who need not be indebted to any one!" What Don +Quixote felt then, I feel now.... God grant, my dear Bassistoff, that +you too may some day experience this feeling!' + +Bassistoff pressed Rudin's hand, and the honest boy's heart beat +violently with emotion. Till they reached the station Rudin spoke of +the dignity of man, of the meaning of true independence. He spoke nobly, +fervently, and justly, and when the moment of separation had come, +Bassistoff could not refrain from throwing himself on his neck and +sobbing. Rudin himself shed tears too, but he was not weeping because he +was parting from Bassistoff. His tears were the tears of wounded vanity. + +Natalya had gone to her own room, and there she read Rudin's letter. + +'Dear Natalya Alexyevna,' he wrote her, 'I have decided to depart. There +is no other course open to me. I have decided to leave before I am told +plainly to go. By my departure all difficulties will be put an end to, +and there will be scarcely any one who will regret me. What else did I +expect?... It is always so, but why am I writing to you? + +'I am parting from you probably for ever, and it would be too painful to +me to leave you with a worse recollection of me than I deserve. This is +why I am writing to you. I do not want either to justify myself or to +blame any one whatever except myself; I want, as far as possible, to +explain myself.... The events of the last days have been so unexpected, +so sudden.... + +'Our interview to-day will be a memorable lesson to me. Yes, you are +right; I did not know you, and I thought I knew you! In the course of my +life I have had to do with people of all kinds. I have known many women +and young girls, but in you I met for the first time an absolutely true +and upright soul. This was something I was not used to, and I did not +know how to appreciate you fittingly. I felt an attraction to you from +the first day of our acquaintance; you may have observed it. I spent +with you hour after hour without learning to know you; I scarcely even +tried to know you--and I could imagine that I loved you! For this sin I +am punished now. + +'Once before I loved a woman, and she loved me. My feeling for her was +complex, like hers for me; but, as she was not simple herself, it was +all the better for her. Truth was not told to me then, and now I did not +recognise it when it was offered me.... I have recognised it at last, +when it is too late.... What is past cannot be recalled.... Our lives +might have become united, and they never will be united now. How can I +prove to you that I might have loved you with real love--the love of the +heart, not of the fancy--when I do not know myself whether I am capable +of such love? + +'Nature has given me much. I know it, and I will not disguise it from +you through false modesty, especially now at a moment so bitter, so +humiliating for me.... Yes, Nature has given me much, but I shall die +without doing anything worthy of my powers, without leaving any trace +behind me. All my wealth is dissipated idly; I do not see the fruits of +the seeds I sow. I am wanting in something. I cannot say myself exactly +what it is I am wanting in.... I am wanting, certainly, in something +without which one cannot move men's hearts, or wholly win a woman's +heart; and to sway men's minds alone is precarious, and an empire ever +unprofitable. A strange, almost farcical fate is mine; I would devote +myself--eagerly and wholly to some cause,--and I cannot devote myself. I +shall end by sacrificing myself to some folly or other in which I shall +not even believe.... Alas! at thirty-five to be still preparing for +something!... + +'I have never spoken so openly of myself to any one before--this is my +confession. + +'But enough of me. I should like to speak of you, to give you some +advice; I can be no use to you further.... You are still young; but as +long as you live, always follow the impulse of your heart, do not let +it be subordinated to your mind or the mind of others. Believe me, the +simpler, the narrower the circle in which life is passed the better; +the great thing is not to open out new sides, but that all the phases of +life should reach perfection in their own time. "Blessed is he who has +been young in his youth." But I see that this advice applies far more to +myself than to you. + +'I confess, Natalya Alexyevna, I am very unhappy. I never deceived +myself as to the nature of the feeling which I inspired in Darya +Mihailovna; but I hoped I had found at least a temporary home.... Now I +must take the chances of the rough world again. What will replace for +me your conversation, your presence, your attentive and intelligent +face?... I myself am to blame; but admit that fate seems to have +designed a jest at my expense. A week ago I did not even myself suspect +that I loved you. The day before yesterday, that evening in the garden, +I for the first time heard from your lips,... but why remind you of +what you said then? and now I am going away to-day. I am going away +disgraced, after a cruel explanation with you, carrying with me no +hope.... And you do not know yet to what a degree I am to blame as +regards you... I have such a foolish lack of reserve, such a weak habit +of confiding. But why speak of this? I am leaving you for ever!' + +(Here Rudin had related to Natalya his visit to Volintsev, but on second +thoughts he erased all that part, and added the second postscript to his +letter to Volintsev.) + +'I remain alone upon earth to devote myself, as you said to me this +morning with bitter irony, to other interests more congenial to me. +Alas! if I could really devote myself to these interests, if I could +at last conquer my inertia.... But no! I shall remain to the end the +incomplete creature I have always been.... The first obstacle, ... and +I collapse entirely; what has passed with you has shown me that If I had +but sacrificed my love to my future work, to my vocation; but I simply +was afraid of the responsibility that had fallen upon me, and therefore +I am, truly, unworthy of you. I do not deserve that you should be torn +out of your sphere for me.... And indeed all this, perhaps, is for the +best. I shall perhaps be the stronger and the purer for this experience. + +'I wish you all happiness. Farewell! Think sometimes of me. I hope that +you may still hear of me. + +'RUDIN.' + + +Natalya let Rudin's letter drop on to her lap, and sat a long time +motionless, her eyes fixed on the ground. This letter proved to her +clearer than all possible arguments that she had been right, when in the +morning, at her parting with Rudin, she had involuntarily cried out that +he did not love her! But that made things no easier for her. She sat +perfectly still; it seemed as though waves of darkness without a ray of +light had closed over her head, and she had gone down cold and dumb to +the depths. The first disillusionment is painful for every one; but for +a sincere heart, averse to self-deception and innocent of frivolity +or exaggeration, it is almost unendurable. Natalya remembered her +childhood, how, when walking in the evening, she always tried to go in +the direction of the setting sun, where there was light in the sky, and +not toward the darkened half of the heavens. Life now stood in darkness +before her, and she had turned her back on the light for ever.... + +Tears started into Natalya's eyes. Tears do not always bring relief. +They are comforting and salutary when, after being long pent up in the +breast, they flow at last--at first with violence, and then more easily, +more softly; the dumb agony of sorrow is over with the tears. ... But +there are cold tears, tears that flow sparingly, wrung out drop by drop +from the heart by the immovable, weary weight of pain laid upon it: they +are not comforting, and bring no relief. Poverty weeps such tears; and +the man has not yet been unhappy who has not shed them. Natalya knew +them on that day. + +Two hours passed. Natalya pulled herself together, got up, wiped her +eyes, and, lighting a candle, she burnt Rudin's letter in the flame, and +threw the ash out of window. Then she opened Pushkin at random, and +read the first lines that met her. (She often made it her oracle in this +way.) This is what she saw: + + 'When he has known its pang, for him + The torturing ghost of days that are no more, + For him no more illusion, but remorse + And memory's serpent gnawing at his heart.' + +She stopped, and with a cold smile looked at herself in the glass, +slightly nodded her head, and went down to the drawing-room. + +Darya Mihailovna, directly she saw her, called her into her study, made +her sit near her, and caressingly stroked her cheek. Meanwhile she gazed +attentively, almost with curiosity, into her eyes. Darya Mihailovna was +secretly perplexed; for the first time it struck her that she did not +really understand her daughter. When she had heard from Pandalevsky of +her meeting with Rudin, she was not so much displeased as amazed that +her sensible Natalya could resolve upon such a step. But when she had +sent for her, and fell to upbraiding her--not at all as one would +have expected from a lady of European renown, but with loud and vulgar +abuse--Natalya's firm replies, and the resolution of her looks and +movements, had confused and even intimidated her. + +Rudin's sudden, and wholly unexplained, departure had taken a great load +off her heart, but she had expected tears, and hysterics.... Natalya's +outward composure threw her out of her reckoning again. + +'Well, child,' began Darya Mihailovna, 'how are you to-day?' Natalya +looked at her mother. 'He is gone, you see... your hero. Do you know why +he decided on going so quickly?' + +'Mamma!' said Natalya in a low voice, 'I give you my word, if you will +not mention him, you shall never hear his name from me.' + +'Then you acknowledge how wrongly you behaved to me?' + +Natalya looked down and repeated: + +'You shall never hear his name from me.' + +'Well, well,' answered Darya Mihailovna with a smile, 'I believe you. +But the day before yesterday, do you remember how--There, we will pass +that over. It is all over and buried and forgotten. Isn't it? Come, I +know you again now; but I was altogether puzzled then. There, kiss me +like a sensible girl!' + +Natalya lifted Darya Mihailovna's hand to her lips, and Darya Mihailovna +kissed her stooping head. + +'Always listen to my advice. Do not forget that you are a Lasunsky and +my daughter,' she added, 'and you will be happy. And now you may go.' + +Natalya went away in silence. Darya Mihailovna looked after her and +thought: 'She is like me--she too will let herself be carried away by +her feelings; _mais ella aura moins d'abandon_.' And Darya Mihailovna +fell to musing over memories of the past... of the distant past. + +Then she summoned Mlle. Boncourt and remained a long while closeted with +her. + +When she had dismissed her she sent for Pandalevsky. She wanted at +all hazards to discover the real cause of Rudin's departure... but +Pandalevsky succeeded in completely satisfying her. It was what he was +there for. + + + +The next day Volintsev and his sister came to dinner. Darya Mihailovna +was always very affable to him, but this time she was especially +cordial to him. Natalya felt unbearably miserable; but Volintsev was +so respectful, and addressed her so timidly, that she could not but be +grateful to him in her heart. The day passed quietly, rather tediously, +but all felt as they separated that they had fallen back into the old +order of things; and that means much, very much. + +Yes, all had fallen back into their old order--all except Natalya. When +at last she was able to be alone, she dragged herself with difficulty +into her bed, and, weary and worn out, fell with her face on the pillow. +Life seemed so cruel, so hateful, and so sordid, she was so ashamed of +herself, her love, and her sorrow, that at that moment she would have +been glad to die.... There were many sorrowful days in store for her, +and sleepless nights and torturing emotions; but she was young--life +had scarcely begun for her, and sooner or later life asserts its claims. +Whatever blow has fallen on a man, he must--forgive the coarseness of +the expression--eat that day or at least the next, and that is the first +step to consolation. + +Natalya suffered terribly, she suffered for the first time.... But the +first sorrow, like first love, does not come again--and thank God for +it! + + + + +XII + + +About two years had passed. The first days of May had come. Alexandra +Pavlovna, no longer Lipin but Lezhnyov, was sitting on the balcony of +her house; she had been married to Mihailo Mihailitch for more than a +year. She was as charming as ever, and had only grown a little stouter +of late. In front of the balcony, from which there were steps leading +into the garden, a nurse was walking about carrying a rosy-cheeked baby +in her arms, in a white cloak, with a white cap on his head. Alexandra +Pavlovna kept her eyes constantly on him. The baby did not cry, but +sucked his thumb gravely and looked about him. He was already showing +himself a worthy son of Mihailo Mihailitch. + +On the balcony, near Alexandra Pavlovna, was sitting our old friend, +Pigasov. He had grown noticeably greyer since we parted from him, and +was bent and thin, and he lisped when he spoke; one of his front teeth +had gone; and this lisp gave still greater asperity to his words.... +His spitefulness had not decreased with years, but his sallies were less +lively, and he more frequently repeated himself. Mihailo Mihailitch was +not at home; they were expecting him in to tea. The sun had already +set. Where it had gone down, a streak of pale gold and of lemon colour +stretched across the distant horizon; on the opposite quarter of the sky +was a stretch of dove-colour below and crimson lilac above. Light clouds +seemed melting away overhead. There was every promise of prolonged fine +weather. + +Suddenly Pigasov burst out laughing. + +'What is it, African Semenitch?' inquired Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'Oh, yesterday I heard a peasant say to his wife--she had been +chattering away--"don't squeak!" I liked that immensely. And after +all, what can a woman talk about? I never, you know, speak of present +company. Our ancestors were wiser than we. The beauty in their stories +always sits at the window with a star on her brow and never utters +a syllable. That's how it ought to be. Think of it! the day before +yesterday, our marshal's wife--she might have sent a pistol-shot into +my head!--says to me she doesn't like my tendencies! Tendencies! Come, +wouldn't it be better for her and for every one if by some beneficent +ordinance of nature she were suddenly deprived of the use of her +tongue?' + +'Oh, you are always like that, African Semenitch; you are always +attacking us poor... Do you know it's a misfortune of a sort, really? I +am sorry for you.' + +'A misfortune! Why do you say that? To begin with, in my opinion, there +are only three misfortunes: to live in winter in cold lodgings, in +summer to wear tight shoes, and to spend the night in a room where a +baby cries whom you can't get rid of with Persian powder; and secondly, +I am now the most peaceable of men. Why, I'm a model! You know how +properly I behave!' + +'Fine behaviour, indeed! Only yesterday Elena Antonovna complained to me +of you.' + +'Well! And what did she tell you, if I may know?' + +'She told me that far one whole morning you would make no reply to all +her questions but "what? what?" and always in the same squeaking voice.' + +Pigasov laughed. + +'But that was a happy idea, you'll allow, Alexandra Pavlovna, eh?' + +'Admirable, indeed! Can you really have behaved so rudely to a lady, +African Semenitch?' + +'What! Do you regard Elena Antonovna as a lady?' + +'What do you regard her as?' + +'A drum, upon my word, an ordinary drum such as they beat with sticks.' + +'Oh,' interrupted Alexandra Pavlovna, anxious to change the +conversation, 'they tell me one may congratulate you.' + +'Upon what?' + +'The end of your lawsuit. The Glinovsky meadows are yours.' + +'Yes, they are mine,' replied Pigasov gloomily. + +'You have been trying to gain this so many years, and now you seem +discontented.' + +'I assure you, Alexandra Pavlovna,' said Pigasov slowly, 'nothing can +be worse and more injurious than good-fortune that comes too late. +It cannot give you pleasure in any way, and it deprives you of the +right--the precious right--of complaining and cursing Providence. Yes, +madam, it's a cruel and insulting trick--belated fortune.' + +Alexandra Pavlovna only shrugged her shoulders. + +'Nurse,' she began, 'I think it's time to put Misha to bed. Give him to +me.' + +While Alexandra Pavlovna busied herself with her son, Pigasov walked off +muttering to the other corner of the balcony. + +Suddenly, not far off on the road that ran the length of the garden, +Mihailo Mihailitch made his appearance driving his racing droshky. Two +huge house-dogs ran before the horse, one yellow, the other grey, both +only lately obtained. They incessantly quarrelled, and were inseparable +companions. An old pug-dog came out of the gate to meet them. He opened +his mouth as if he were going to bark, but ended by yawning and turning +back again with a friendly wag of the tail. + +'Look here, Sasha,' cried Lezhnyov, from the distance, to his wife, +'whom I am bringing you.' + +Alexandra Pavlovna did not at once recognise the man who was sitting +behind her husband's back. + +'Ah! Mr. Bassistoff!' she cried at last + +'It's he,' answered Lezhnyov; 'and he has brought such glorious news. +Wait a minute, you shall know directly.' + +And he drove into the courtyard. + +Some minutes later he came with Bassistoff into the balcony. + +'Hurrah!' he cried, embracing his wife, 'Serezha is going to be +married.' + +'To whom?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna, much agitated. + +'To Natalya, of course. Our friend has brought the news from Moscow, and +there is a letter for you.' + +'Do you hear, Misha,' he went on, snatching his son into his arms, 'your +uncle's going to be married? What criminal indifference! he only blinks +his eyes!' + +'He is sleepy,' remarked the nurse. + +'Yes,' said Bassistoff, going up to Alexandra Pavlovna, 'I have come +to-day from Moscow on business for Darya Mihailovna--to go over the +accounts on the estate. And here is the letter.' + +Alexandra Pavlovna opened her brother's letter in haste. It consisted of +a few lines only. In the first transport of joy he informed his sister +that he had made Natalya an offer, and received her consent and Darya +Mihailovna's; and he promised to write more by the next post, and sent +embraces and kisses to all. It was clear he was writing in a state of +delirium. + +Tea was served, Bassistoff sat down. Questions were showered upon him. +Every one, even Pigasov, was delighted at the news he had brought. + +'Tell me, please,' said Lezhnyov among the rest, 'rumours reached us of +a certain Mr. Kortchagin. That was all nonsense, I suppose?' + +Kortchagin was a handsome young man, a society lion, excessively +conceited and important; he behaved with extraordinary dignity, just +as if he had not been a living man, but his own statue set up by public +subscription. + +'Well, no, not altogether nonsense,' replied Bassistoff with a smile; +'Darya Mihailovna was very favourable to him; but Natalya Alexyevna +would not even hear of him.' + +'I know him,' put in Pigasov, 'he's a double dummy, a noisy dummy, if +you like! If all people were like that, it would need a large sum of +money to induce one to consent to live--upon my word!' + +'Very likely,' answered Bassistoff; 'but he plays a leading part in +society.' + +'Well, never mind him!' cried Alexandra Pavlovna. 'Peace be with him! +Ah! how glad I am for my brother I And Natalya, is she bright and +happy?' + +'Yes. She is quiet, as she always is. You know her--but she seems +contented.' + +The evening was spent in friendly and lively talk. They sat down to +supper. + +'Oh, by the way,' inquired Lezhnyov of Bassistoff, as he poured him out +some Lafitte, 'do you know where Rudin is?' + +'I don't know for certain now. He came last winter to Moscow for a short +time, and then went with a family to Simbirsk. I corresponded with +him for some time; in his last letter he informed me he was leaving +Simbirsk--he did not say where he was going--and since then I have heard +nothing of him.' + +'He is all right!' put in Pigasov. 'He is staying somewhere sermonising. +That gentleman will always find two or three adherents everywhere, to +listen to him open-mouthed and lend him money. You will see he will end +by dying in some out-of-the-way corner in the arms of an old maid in a +wig, who will believe he is the greatest genius in the world.' + +'You speak very harshly of him,' remarked Bassistoff, in a displeased +undertone. + +'Not a bit harshly,' replied Pigasov; 'but perfectly fairly. In my +opinion, he is simply nothing else than a sponge. I forgot to tell you,' +he continued, turning to Lezhnyov, 'that I have made the acquaintance of +that Terlahov, with whom Rudin travelled abroad. Yes! Yes! What he told +me of him, you cannot imagine--it's simply screaming! It's a remarkable +fact that all Rudin's friends and admirers become in time his enemies.' + +'I beg you to except me from the number of such friends!' interposed +Bassistoff warmly. + +'Oh, you--that's a different thing! I was not speaking of you.' + +'But what did Terlahov tell you?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'Oh, he told me a great deal; there's no remembering it all. But +the best of all was an anecdote of what happened to Rudin. As he was +incessantly developing (these gentlemen always are developing; other +people simply sleep and eat; but they manage their sleeping and eating +in the intervals of development; isn't that it, Mr. Bassistoff?' +Bassistoff made no reply.) 'And so, as he was continually developing, +Rudin arrived at the conclusion, by means of philosophy, that he ought +to fall in love. He began to look about for a sweetheart worthy of +such an astonishing conclusion. Fortune smiled upon him. He made the +acquaintance of a very pretty French dressmaker. The whole incident +occurred in a German town on the Rhine, observe. He began to go and see +her, to take her various books, to talk to her of Nature and Hegel. +Can you fancy the position of the dressmaker? She took him for an +astronomer. However, you know he's not a bad-looking fellow--and a +foreigner, a Russian, of course--he took her fancy. Well, at last he +invited her to a rendezvous, and a very poetical rendezvous, in a boat +on the river. The Frenchwoman agreed; dressed herself in her best and +went out with him in a boat. So they spent two hours. How do you think +he was occupied all that time? He patted the Frenchwoman on the head, +gazed thoughtfully at the sky, and frequently repeated that he felt +for her the tenderness of a father. The Frenchwoman went back home in a +fury, and she herself told the story to Terlahov afterwards! That's the +kind of fellow he is.' + +And Pigasov broke into a loud laugh. + +'You old cynic!' said Alexandra Pavlovna in a tone of annoyance, 'but I +am more and more convinced that even those who attack Rudin cannot find +any harm to say of him.' + +'No harm? Upon my word! and his perpetual living at other people's +expense, his borrowing money.... Mihailo Mihailitch, he borrowed of you +too, no doubt, didn't he?' + +'Listen, African Semenitch!' began Lezhnyov, and his face assumed a +serious expression, 'listen; you know, and my wife knows, that the last +time I saw him I felt no special attachment for Rudin, and I even often +blamed him. For all that (Lezhnyov filled up the glasses with champagne) +this is what I suggest to you now; we have just drunk to the health of +my dear brother and his future bride; I propose that you drink now to +the health of Dmitri Rudin!' + +Alexandra Pavlovna and Pigasov looked in astonishment at Lezhnyov, but +Bassistoff sat wide-eyed, blushing and trembling all over with delight. + +'I know him well,' continued Lezhnyov, 'I am well aware of his faults. +They are the more conspicuous because he himself is not on a small +scale.' + +'Rudin has character, genius!' cried Bassistoff. + +'Genius, very likely he has!' replied Lezhnyov, 'but as for character +... That's just his misfortune, that there's no character in him... But +that's not the point. I want to speak of what is good, of what is rare +in him. He has enthusiasm; and believe me, who am a phlegmatic person +enough, that is the most precious quality in our times. We have all +become insufferably reasonable, indifferent, and slothful; we are asleep +and cold, and thanks to any one who will wake us up and warm us! It is +high time! Do you remember, Sasha, once when I was talking to you about +him, I blamed him for coldness? I was right, and wrong too, then. The +coldness is in his blood--that is not his fault--and not in his head. He +is not an actor, as I called him, nor a cheat, nor a scoundrel; he lives +at other people's expense, not like a swindler, but like a child.... +Yes; no doubt he will die somewhere in poverty and want; but are we to +throw stones at him for that? He never does anything himself precisely, +he has no vital force, no blood; but who has the right to say that he +has not been of use? that his words have not scattered good seeds in +young hearts, to whom nature has not denied, as she has to him, powers +for action, and the faculty of carrying out their own ideas? Indeed, +I myself, to begin with, have gained all that from him.... Sasha knows +what Rudin did for me in my youth. I also maintained, I recollect, that +Rudin's words could not produce an effect on men; but I was speaking +then of men like myself, at my present age, of men who have already +lived and been broken in by life. One false note in a man's eloquence, +and the whole harmony is spoiled for us; but a young man's ear, happily, +is not so over-fine, not so trained. If the substance of what he +hears seems fine to him, what does he care about the intonation! The +intonation he will supply for himself!' + +'Bravo, bravo!' cried Bassistoff, 'that is justly spoken! And as regards +Rudin's influence, I swear to you, that man not only knows how to move +you, he lifts you up, he does not let you stand still, he stirs you to +the depths and sets you on fire!' + +'You hear?' continued Lezhnyov, turning to Pigasov; 'what further proof +do you want? You attack philosophy; speaking of it, you cannot find +words contemptuous enough. I myself am not excessively devoted to it, +and I know little enough about it; but our principal misfortunes do +not come from philosophy! The Russian will never be infected with +philosophical hair-splittings and nonsense; he has too much common-sense +for that; but we must not let every sincere effort after truth and +knowledge be attacked under the name of philosophy. Rudin's misfortune +is that he does not understand Russia, and that, certainly, is a great +misfortune. Russia can do without every one of us, but not one of us can +do without her. Woe to him who thinks he can, and woe twofold to him +who actually does do without her! Cosmopolitanism is all twaddle, the +cosmopolitan is a nonentity--worse than a nonentity; without nationality +is no art, nor truth, nor life, nor anything. You cannot even have an +ideal face without individual expression; only a vulgar face can be +devoid of it. But I say again, that is not Rudin's fault; it is his +fate--a cruel and unhappy fate--for which we cannot blame him. It would +take us too far if we tried to trace why Rudins spring up among us. But +for what is fine in him, let us be grateful to him. That is pleasanter +than being unfair to him, and we have been unfair to him. It's not our +business to punish him, and it's not needed; he has punished himself far +more cruelly than he deserved. And God grant that unhappiness may have +blotted out all the harm there was in him, and left only what was fine! +I drink to the health of Rudin! I drink to the comrade of my best years, +I drink to youth, to its hopes, its endeavours, its faith, and its +honesty, to all that our hearts beat for at twenty; we have known, and +shall know, nothing better than that in life.... I drink to that golden +time--to the health of Rudin!' + +All clinked glasses with Lezhnyov. Bassistoff, in his enthusiasm, almost +cracked his glass and drained it off at a draught. Alexandra Pavlovna +pressed Lezhnyov's hand. + +'Why, Mihailo Mihailitch, I did not suspect you were an orator,' +remarked Pigasov; 'it was equal to Mr. Rudin himself; even I was moved +by it.' + +'I am not at all an orator,' replied Lezhnyov, not without annoyance, +'but to move you, I fancy, would be difficult. But enough of Rudin; let +us talk of something else. What of--what's his name--Pandalevsky? is +he still living at Darya Mihailovna's?' he concluded, turning to +Bassistoff. + +'Oh yes, he is still there. She has managed to get him a very profitable +place.' + +Lezhnyov smiled. + +'That's a man who won't die in want, one can count upon that.' + +Supper was over. The guests dispersed. When she was left alone with her +husband, Alexandra Pavlovna looked smiling into his face. + +'How splendid you were this evening, Misha,' she said, stroking +his forehead, 'how cleverly and nobly you spoke! But confess, you +exaggerated a little in Rudin's praise, as in old days you did in +attacking him.' + +'I can't let them hit a man when he's down. And in those days I was +afraid he was turning your head.' + +'No,' replied Alexandra Pavlovna naively, 'he always seemed too learned +for me. I was afraid of him, and never knew what to say in his presence. +But wasn't Pigasov nasty in his ridicule of him to-day?' + +'Pigasov?' responded Lezhnyov. 'That was just why I stood up for Rudin +so warmly, because Pigasov was here. He dare to call Rudin a sponge +indeed! Why, I consider the part he plays--Pigasov I mean--is a hundred +times worse! He has an independent property, and he sneers at every one, +and yet see how he fawns upon wealthy or distinguished people! Do you +know that that fellow, who abuses everything and every one with such +scorn, and attacks philosophy and women, do you know that when he was in +the service, he took bribes and that sort of thing! Ugh! That's what he +is!' + +'Is it possible?' cried Alexandra Pavlovna, 'I should never have +expected that! Misha,' she added, after a short pause, 'I want to ask +you----' + +'What?' + +'What do you think, will my brother be happy with Natalya?' + +'How can I tell you?... there's every likelihood of it. She will take +the lead... there's no reason to hide the fact between us... she is +cleverer than he is; but he's a capital fellow, and loves her with all +his soul. What more would you have? You see we love one another and are +happy, aren't we?' + +Alexandra Pavlovna smiled and pressed his hand. + + +On the same day on which all that has been described took place in +Alexandra Pavlovna's house, in one of the remote districts of Russia, a +wretched little covered cart, drawn by three village horses was crawling +along the high road in the sultry heat. On the front seat was perched +a grizzled peasant in a ragged cloak, with his legs hanging slanting +on the shaft; he kept flicking with the reins, which were of cord, +and shaking the whip. Inside the cart there was sitting on a shaky +portmanteau a tall man in a cap and old dusty cloak. It was Rudin. +He sat with bent head, the peak of his cap pulled over his eyes. The +jolting of the cart threw him from side to side; but he seemed utterly +unconscious, as though he were asleep. At last he drew himself up. + +'When are we coming to a station?' he inquired of the peasant sitting in +front. + +'Just over the hill, little father,' said the peasant, with a still more +violent shaking of the reins. 'There's a mile and a half farther to go, +not more.... Come! there! look about you.... I'll teach you,' he added +in a shrill voice, setting to work to whip the right-hand horse. + +'You seem to drive very badly,' observed Rudin; 'we have been crawling +along since early morning, and we have not succeeded in getting there +yet. You should have sung something.' + +'Well, what would you have, little father? The horses, you see +yourself, are overdone... and then the heat; and I can't sing. I'm not +a coachman.... Hullo, you little sheep!' cried the peasant, suddenly +turning to a man coming along in a brown smock and bark shoes +downtrodden at heel. 'Get out of the way!' + +'You're a nice driver!' muttered the man after him, and stood still. +'You wretched Muscovite,' he added in a voice full of contempt, shook +his head and limped away. + +'What are you up to?' sang out the peasant at intervals, pulling at the +shaft-horse. 'Ah, you devil! Get on!' + +The jaded horses dragged themselves at last up to the posting-station. +Rudin crept out of the cart, paid the peasant (who did not bow to +him, and kept shaking the coins in the palm of his hand a long +while--evidently there was too little drink-money) and himself carried +the portmanteau into the posting-station. + +A friend of mine who has wandered a great deal about Russia in his time +made the observation that if the pictures hanging on the walls of a +posting-station represent scenes from 'the Prisoner of the Caucasus,' +or Russian generals, you may get horses soon; but if the pictures depict +the life of the well-known gambler George de Germany, the traveller need +not hope to get off quickly; he will have time to admire to the full +the hair _a la cockatoo_, the white open waistcoat, and the exceedingly +short and narrow trousers of the gambler in his youth, and his +exasperated physiognomy, when in his old age he kills his son, waving a +chair above him, in a cottage with a narrow staircase. In the room into +which Rudin walked precisely these pictures were hanging out of +'Thirty Years, or the Life of a Gambler.' In response to his call the +superintendent appeared, who had just waked up (by the way, did any one +ever see a superintendent who had not just been asleep?), and without +even waiting for Rudin's question, informed him in a sleepy voice that +there were no horses. + +'How can you say there are no horses,' said Rudin, 'when you don't even +know where I am going? I came here with village horses.' + +'We have no horses for anywhere,' answered the superintendent. 'But +where are you going?' + +'To Sk----.' + +'We have no horses,' repeated the superintendent, and he went away. + +Rudin, vexed, went up to the window and threw his cap on the table. He +was not much changed, but had grown rather yellow in the last two years; +silver threads shone here and there in his curls, and his eyes, still +magnificent, seemed somehow dimmed, fine lines, the traces of bitter and +disquieting emotions, lay about his lips and on his temples. His clothes +were shabby and old, and he had no linen visible anywhere. His best days +were clearly over: as the gardeners say, he had gone to seed. + +He began reading the inscriptions on the walls--the ordinary distraction +of weary travellers; suddenly the door creaked and the superintendent +came in. + +'There are no horses for Sk----, and there won't be any for a long +time,' he said, 'but here are some ready to go to V----.' + +'To V----?' said Rudin. 'Why, that's not on my road at all. I am going +to Penza, and V---- lies, I think, in the direction of Tamboff.' + +'What of that? you can get there from Tamboff, and from V---- you won't +be at all out of your road.' + +Rudin thought a moment. + +'Well, all right,' he said at last, 'tell them to put the horses to. It +is the same to me; I will go to Tamboff.' + +The horses were soon ready. Rudin carried his own portmanteau, climbed +into the cart, and took his seat, his head hanging as before. There was +something helpless and pathetically submissive in his bent figure.... +And the three horses went off at a slow trot. + + + + +EPILOGUE + + +Some years had passed by. + +It was a cold autumn day. A travelling carriage drew up at the steps of +the principal hotel of the government town of C----; a gentleman yawning +and stretching stepped out of it. He was not elderly, but had had time +to acquire that fulness of figure which habitually commands respect. He +went up the staircase to the second story, and stopped at the entrance +to a wide corridor. Seeing no one before him he called out in a loud +voice asking for a room. A door creaked somewhere, and a long waiter +jumped up from behind a low screen, and came forward with a quick flank +movement, an apparition of a glossy back and tucked-up sleeves in +the half-dark corridor. The traveller went into the room and at once +throwing off his cloak and scarf, sat down on the sofa, and with his +fists propped on his knees, he first looked round as though he were +hardly awake yet, and then gave the order to send up his servant. The +hotel waiter made a bow and disappeared. The traveller was no other than +Lezhnyov. He had come from the country to C---- about some conscription +business. + +Lezhnyov's servant, a curly-headed, rosy-cheeked youth in a grey cloak, +with a blue sash round the waist, and soft felt shoes, came into the +room. + +'Well, my boy, here we are,' Lezhnyov said, 'and you were afraid all the +while that a wheel would come off.' + +'We are here,' replied the boy, trying to smile above the high collar of +his cloak, 'but the reason why the wheel did not come off----' + +'Is there no one in here?' sounded a voice in the corridor. + +Lezhnyov started and listened. + +'Eh? who is there?' repeated the voice. + +Lezhnyov got up, walked to the door, and quickly threw it open. + +Before him stood a tall man, bent and almost completely grey, in an old +frieze coat with bronze buttons. + +'Rudin!' he cried in an excited voice. + +Rudin turned round. He could not distinguish Lezhnyov's features, as he +stood with his back to the light, and he looked at him in bewilderment. + +'You don't know me?' said Lezhnyov. + +'Mihailo Mihailitch!' cried Rudin, and held out his hand, but drew it +back again in confusion. Lezhnyov made haste to snatch it in both of +his. + +'Come, come in!' he said to Rudin, and drew him into the room. + +'How you have changed!' exclaimed Lezhnyov after a brief silence, +involuntarily dropping his voice. + +'Yes, they say so!' replied Rudin, his eyes straying about the room. +'The years... and you not much. How is Alexandra--your wife?' + +'She is very well, thank you. But what fate brought you here?' + +'It is too long a story. Strictly speaking, I came here by chance. I was +looking for a friend. But I am very glad...' + +'Where are you going to dine?' + +'Oh, I don't know. At some restaurant. I must go away from here to-day.' + +'You must.' + +Rudin smiled significantly. + +'Yes, I must. They are sending me off to my own place, to my home.' + +'Dine with me.' + +Rudin for the first time looked Lezhnyov straight in the face. + +'You invite me to dine with you?' he said. + +'Yes, Rudin, for the sake of old times and old comradeship. Will you? +I did not expect to meet you, and God only knows when we shall see each +other again. I cannot part from you like this!' + +'Very well, I agree!' + +Lezhnyov pressed Rudin's hand, and calling his servant, ordered dinner, +and told him to have a bottle of champagne put in ice. + +In the course of dinner, Lezhnyov and Rudin, as though by agreement, +kept talking of their student days, recalling many things and many +friends--dead and living. At first Rudin spoke with little interest, but +when he had drunk a few glasses of wine his blood grew warmer. At last +the waiter took away the last dish, Lezhnyov got up, closed the door, +and coming back to the table, sat down facing Rudin, and quietly rested +his chin on his hands. + +'Now, then,' he began, 'tell me all that has happened to you since I saw +you last.' + +Rudin looked at Lezhnyov. + +'Good God!' thought Lezhnyov, 'how he has changed, poor fellow!' + +Rudin's features had undergone little change since we saw him last at +the posting-station, though approaching old age had had time to set its +mark upon them; but their expression had become different. His eyes had +a changed look; his whole being, his movements, which were at one time +slow, at another abrupt and disconnected, his crushed, benumbed +manner of speaking, all showed an utter exhaustion, a quiet and secret +dejection, very different from the half-assumed melancholy which he had +affected once, as it is generally affected by youth, when full of hopes +and confident vanity. + +'Tell you all that has happened to me?' he said; 'I could not tell you +all, and it is not worth while. I am worn out; I have wandered far--in +spirit as well as in flesh. What friends I have made--good God! How +many things, how many men I have lost faith in! Yes, how many!' repeated +Rudin, noticing that Lezhnyov was looking in his face with a kind of +special sympathy. 'How many times have my own words grown hateful to +me! I don't mean now on my own lips, but on the lips of those who had +adopted my opinions! How many times have I passed from the petulance of +a child to the dull insensibility of a horse who does not lash his tail +when the whip cuts him!... How many times I have been happy and hopeful, +and have made enemies and humbled myself for nothing! How many times +I have taken flight like an eagle--and returned crawling like a snail +whose shell has been crushed!... Where have I not been! What roads +have I not travelled!... And the roads are often dirty,' added Rudin, +slightly turning away. 'You know ...' he was continuing.... 'Listen,' +interrupted Lezhnyov. 'We used once to say "Dmitri and Mihail" to one +another. Let us revive the old habit,... will you? Let us drink to those +days!' + +Rudin started and drew himself up a little, and there was a gleam in his +eyes of something no word can express. + +'Let us drink to them,' he said. 'I thank you, brother, we will drink to +them!' + +Lezhnyov and Rudin drained their glasses. + +'You know, Mihail,' Rudin began again with a smile and a stress on the +name, 'there is a worm in me which gnaws and worries me and never +lets me be at peace till the end. It brings me into collision with +people,--at first they fall under my influence, but afterwards...' + +Rudin waved his hand in the air. + +'Since I parted from you, Mihail, I have seen much, have experienced +many changes.... I have begun life, have started on something new twenty +times--and here--you see!' + +'You had no stability,' said Lezhnyov, as though to himself. + +'As you say, I had no stability. I never was able to construct anything; +and it's a difficult thing, brother, to construct when one has to create +the very ground under one's feet, to make one's own foundation for one's +self! All my adventures--that is, speaking accurately, all my failures, +I will not describe. I will tell of two or three incidents--those +incidents of my life when it seemed as if success were smiling on me, +or rather when I began to hope for success--which is not altogether the +same thing...' + +Rudin pushed back his grey and already sparse locks with the same +gesture which he used once to toss back his thick, dark curls. + +'Well, I will tell you, Mihail,' he began. 'In Moscow I came across a +rather strange man. He was very wealthy and was the owner of extensive +estates. His chief and only passion was love of science, universal +science. I have never yet been able to arrive at how this passion arose +in him! It fitted him about as well as a saddle on a cow. He managed +with difficulty to maintain himself at his mental elevation, he was +almost without the power of speech, he only rolled his eyes with +expression and shook his head significantly. I never met, brother, a +poorer and less gifted nature than his.... In the Smolensk province +there are places like that--nothing but sand and a few tufts of grass +which no animal can eat. Nothing succeeded in his hands; everything +seemed to slip away from him; but he was still mad on making everything +plain complicated. If it had depended on his arrangements, his people +would have eaten standing on their heads. He worked, and wrote, and read +indefatigably. He devoted himself to science with a kind of stubborn +perseverance, a terrible patience; his vanity was immense, and he had a +will of iron. He lived alone, and had the reputation of an eccentric. +I made friends with him... and he liked me. I quickly, I must own, saw +through him; but his zeal attracted me. Besides, he was the master of +such resources; so much good might be done, so much real usefulness +through him.... I was installed in his house and went with him to the +country. My plans, brother, were on a vast scale; I dreamed of various +reforms, innovations...' + +'Just as at the Lasunsky's, do you remember, Dmitri?' responded +Lezhnyov, with an indulgent smile. + +'Ah, but then I knew in my heart that nothing would come of my words; +but this time... an altogether different field of activity lay open +before me.... I took with me books on agriculture... to tell the truth, +I did not read one of them through.... Well, I set to work. At first it +did not progress as I had expected; but afterwards it did get on in a +way. My new friend looked on and said nothing; he did not interfere with +me, at least not to any noticeable extent. He accepted my suggestions, +and carried them out, but with a stubborn sullenness, a secret want of +faith; and he bent everything his own way. He prized extremely every +idea of his own. He got to it with difficulty, like a ladybird on a +blade of grass, and he would sit and sit upon it, as though pluming his +wings and getting ready for a flight, and suddenly he would fall off +and begin crawling again.... Don't be surprised at these comparisons; at +that time they were always crowding on my imagination. So I struggled on +there for two years. The work did not progress much in spite of all my +efforts. I began to be tired of it, my friend bored me; I had come to +sneer at him, and he stifled me like a featherbed; his want of faith had +changed into a dumb resentment; a feeling of hostility had laid hold +of both of us; we could scarcely now speak of anything; he quietly but +incessantly tried to show me that he was not under my influence; +my arrangements were either set aside or altogether transformed. I +realised, at last, that I was playing the part of a toady in the noble +landowner's house by providing him with intellectual amusement. It was +very bitter to me to have wasted my time and strength for nothing, +most bitter to feel that I had again and again been deceived in my +expectations. I knew very well what I was losing if I went away; but +I could not control myself, and one day after a painful and revolting +scene of which I was a witness, and which showed my friend in a most +disadvantageous light, I quarrelled with him finally, went away, and +threw up this newfangled pedant, made of a queer compound of our native +flour kneaded up with German treacle.' + +'That is, you threw up your daily bread, Dmitri,' said Lezhnyov, laying +both hands on Rudin's shoulders. + +'Yes, and again I was turned adrift, empty-handed and penniless, to fly +whither I listed. Ah! let us drink!' + +'To your health!' said Lezhnyov, getting up and kissing Rudin on the +forehead. 'To your health and to the memory of Pokorsky. He, too, knew +how to be poor.' + +'Well, that was number one of my adventures,' began Rudin, after a short +pause. 'Shall I go on?' + +'Go on, please.' + +'Ah! I have no wish for talking. I am tired of talking, brother.... +However, so be it. After knocking about in various parts--by the way, I +might tell you how I became the secretary of a benevolent dignitary, and +what came of that; but that would take me too long.... After knocking +about in various parts, I resolved to become at last--don't smile, +please--a practical business man. The opportunity came in this way. I +became friendly with--he was much talked of at one time--a man called +Kurbyev.' + +'Oh, I never heard of him. But, really, Dmitri, with your intelligence, +how was it you did not suspect that to be a business man was not the +business for you?' + +'I know, brother, that it was not; but, then, what is the business +for me? But if you had seen Kurbyev! Do not, pray, fancy him as some +empty-headed chatterer. They say I was eloquent once. I was +simply nothing beside him. He was a man of wonderful learning and +knowledge,--an intellect, brother, a creative intellect, for business +and commercial enterprises. His brain seemed seething with the boldest, +the most unexpected schemes. I joined him and we decided to turn our +powers to a work of public utility.' + +'What was it, may I know?' + +Rudin dropped his eyes. + +'You will laugh at it, Mihail. + +'Why should I? No, I will not laugh.' + +'We resolved to make a river in the K---- province fit for navigation,' +said Rudin with an embarrassed smile. + +'Really! This Kurbyev was a capitalist, then?' + +'He was poorer than I,' responded Rudin, and his grey head sank on his +breast. + +Lezhnyov began to laugh, but he stopped suddenly and took Rudin by the +hand. + +'Pardon me, brother, I beg,' he said, 'but I did not expect that. Well, +so I suppose your enterprise did not get further than paper?' + +'Not so. A beginning was made. We hired workmen, and set to work. But +then we were met by various obstacles. In the first place the millowners +would not meet us favourably at all; and more than that, we could not +turn the water out of its course without machinery, and we had not money +enough for machinery. For six months we lived in mud huts. Kurbyev lived +on dry bread, and I, too, had not much to eat. However, I don't complain +of that; the scenery there is something magnificent. We struggled and +struggled on, appealing to merchants, writing letters and circulars. It +ended in my spending my last farthing on the project.' + +'Well!' observed Lezhnyov, 'I imagine to spend your last farthing, +Dmitri, was not a difficult matter?' + +'It was not difficult, certainly.' + +Rudin looked out of the window. + +'But the project really was not a bad one, and it might have been of +immense service.' + +'And where did Kurbyev go to?' asked Lezhnyov. + +'Oh, he is now in Siberia, he has become a gold-digger. And you will see +he will make himself a position; he will get on.' + +'Perhaps; but then you will not be likely to make a position for +yourself, it seems.' + +'Well, that can't be helped! But I know I was always a frivolous +creature in your eyes.' + +'Hush, brother; there was a time, certainly, when I saw your weak side; +but now, believe me, I have learnt to value you. You will not make +yourself a position. And I love you, Dmitri, for that, indeed I do!' + +Rudin smiled faintly. + +'Truly?' + +'I respect you for it!' repeated Lezhnyov. 'Do you understand me?' + +Both were silent for a little. + +'Well, shall I proceed to number three?' asked Rudin. + +'Please do.' + +'Very well. The third and last. I have only now got clear of number +three. But am I not boring you, Mihail?' + +'Go on, go on.' + +'Well,' began Rudin, 'once the idea occurred to me at some leisure +moment--I always had plenty of leisure moments--the idea occurred to me; +I have knowledge enough, my intentions are good. I suppose even you will +not deny me good intentions?' + +'I should think not!' + +'In all other directions I had failed more or less... why should I not +become an instructor, or speaking simply a teacher... rather than waste +my life?' + +Rudin stopped and sighed. + +'Rather than waste my life, would it not be better to try to pass on to +others what I know; perhaps they may extract at least some use from my +knowledge. My abilities are above the ordinary anyway, I am a master +of language. So I resolved to devote myself to this new work. I had +difficulty in obtaining a post; I did not want to give private lessons; +there was nothing I could do in the lower schools. At last I succeeded +in getting an appointment as professor in the gymnasium here.' + +'As professor of what?' asked Lezhnyov. + +'Professor of literature. I can tell you I never started on any work +with such zest as I did on this. The thought of producing an effect upon +the young inspired me. I spent three weeks over the composition of my +opening lecture.' + +'Have you got it, Dmitri?' interrupted Lezhnyov. + +'No! I lost it somewhere. It went off fairly well, and was liked. I can +see now the faces of my listeners--good young faces, with an expression +of pure-souled attention and sympathy, and even of amazement. I mounted +the platform and read my lecture in a fever; I thought it would +fill more than an hour, but I had finished it in twenty minutes. The +inspector was sitting there--a dry old man in silver spectacles and +a short wig--he sometimes turned his head in my direction. When I had +finished, he jumped up from his seat and said to me, "Good, but rather +over their heads, obscure, and too little said about the subject." But +the pupils followed me with appreciation in their looks--indeed they +did. Ah, that is how youth is so precious! I gave a second written +lecture, and a third. After that I began to lecture extempore.' + +'And you had success?' asked Lezhnyov. + +'I had a great success. I gave my audience all that was in my soul. +Among them were two or three really remarkable boys; the rest did +not understand me much. I must confess though that even those who did +understand me sometimes embarrassed me by their questions. But I did +not lose heart. They all loved me; I gave them all full marks in +examinations. But then an intrigue was started against me--or no! it +was not an intrigue at all; it simply was, that I was not in my proper +place. I was a hindrance to the others, and they were a hindrance to me. +I lectured to the gymnasium pupils in a way lectures are not given +every day, even to students; they carried away very little from my +lectures.... I myself did not know the facts enough. Besides, I was +not satisfied with the limited sphere assigned to me--you know that is +always my weakness. I wanted radical reforms, and I swear to you that +these reforms were both sensible and easy to carry out. I hoped to carry +them through the director, a good and honest man, over whom I had at +first some influence. His wife aided me. I have not, brother, met many +women like her in my life. She was about forty; but she believed in +goodness, and loved everything fine with the enthusiasm of a girl of +fifteen, and was not afraid to give utterance to her convictions before +any one whatever. I shall never forget her generous enthusiasm and +goodness. By her advice I drew up a plan.... But then my influence +was undermined, I was misrepresented to her. My chief enemy was the +professor of mathematics, a little sour, bilious man who believed in +nothing, a character like Pigasov, but far more able than he was.... By +the way, how is Pigasov, is he living?' + +'Oh, yes; and only fancy, he is married to a peasant woman, who, they +say, beats him.' + +'Serve him right! And Natalya Alexyevna--is she well?' + +'Yes.' + +'Is she happy?' + +'Yes.' + +Rudin was silent for a little. + +'What was I talking about?... Oh yes! about the professor of +mathematics. He perfectly hated me; he compared my lectures to +fireworks, pounced upon every expression of mine that was not altogether +clear, once even put me to confusion over some monument of the +sixteenth century.... But the most important thing was, he suspected my +intentions; my last soap-bubble struck on him as on a spike, and burst. +The inspector, whom I had not got on with from the first, set the +director against me. A scene followed. I was not ready to give in; I got +hot; the matter came to the knowledge of the authorities; I was forced +to resign. I did not stop there; I wanted to prove that they could not +treat me like that.... But they could treat me as they liked.... Now I +am forced to leave the town.' + +A silence followed. Both the friends sat with bowed heads. + +Rudin was the first to speak. + +'Yes, brother,' he began, 'I can say now, in the words of Koltsov, +"Thou hast led me astray, my youth, till there is nowhere I can turn +my steps."... And yet can it be that I was fit for nothing, that for me +there was, as it were, no work on earth to do? I have often put myself +this question, and, however much I tried to humble myself in my own +eyes, I could not but feel the existence of faculties within me which +are not given to every one! Why have these faculties remained fruitless? +And let me say more; you know, when I was with you abroad, Mihail, I +was conceited and full of erroneous ideas.... Certainly I did not then +realise clearly what I wanted; I lived upon words, and believed in +phantoms. But now, I swear to you, I could speak out before all men +every desire I feel. I have absolutely nothing to hide; I am absolutely, +in the fullest meaning of the word, a well-intentioned man. I am humble, +I am ready to adapt myself to circumstances; I want little; I want to +do the good that lies nearest, to be even a little use. But no! I never +succeed. What does it mean? What hinders me from living and working like +others?... I am only dreaming of it now. But no sooner do I get into +any definite position when fate throws the dice from me. I have come to +dread it--my destiny.... Why is it so? Explain this enigma to me!' + +'An enigma!' repeated Lezhnyov. 'Yes, that's true; you have always been +an enigma for me. Even in our young days, when, after some trifling +prank, you would suddenly speak as though you were pierced to the heart, +and then you would begin again... well you know what I mean... even then +I did not understand. That is why I grew apart from you.... You have so +much power, such unwearying striving after the ideal.' + +'Words, all words! There was nothing done!' Rudin broke in. + +'Nothing done! What is there to do?' + +'What is there to do! To keep an old blind woman and all her family +by one's work, as, do you remember, Mihail, Pryazhentsov did... That's +doing something.' + +'Yes, but a good word--is also something done.' + +Rudin looked at Lezhnyov without speaking and faintly shook his head. + +Lezhnyov wanted to say something, and he passed his hand over his face. + +'And so you are going to your country place?' he asked at last + +'Yes.' + +'There you have some property left?' + +'Something is left me there. Two souls and a half. It is a corner to +die in. You are thinking perhaps at this moment: "Even now he cannot do +without fine words!" Words indeed have been my ruin; they have consumed +me, and to the end I cannot be free of them. But what I have said was +not mere words. These white hairs, brother, these wrinkles, these +ragged elbows--they are not mere words. You have always been hard on me, +Mihail, and you were right; but now is not a time to be hard, when all +is over, when there's no oil left in the lamp, and the lamp itself is +broken, and the wick is just smouldering out. Death, brother, should +reconcile at last...' + +Lezhnyov jumped up. + +'Rudin!' he cried, 'why do you speak like that to me? How have I +deserved it from you? Am I such a judge, and what kind of a man should +I be, if at the sight of your hollow cheeks and wrinkles, "mere words" +could occur to my mind? Do you want to know what I think of you, Dmitri? +Well! I think: here is a man--with his abilities, what might he not have +attained to, what worldly advantages might he not have possessed by now, +if he had liked!... and I meet him hungry and homeless....' + +'I rouse your compassion,' Rudin murmured in a choked voice. + +'No, you are wrong. You inspire respect in me--that is what I feel. Who +prevented you from spending year after year at that landowner's, who was +your friend, and who would, I am fully persuaded, have made provision +for you, if you had only been willing to humour him? Why could you not +live harmoniously at the gymnasium, why have you--strange man!--with +whatever ideas you have entered upon an undertaking, infallibly every +time ended by sacrificing your personal interests, ever refusing to take +root in any but good ground, however profitable it might be?' + +'I was born a rolling stone,' Rudin said, with a weary smile. 'I cannot +stop myself.' + +'That is true; but you cannot stop, not because there is a worm gnawing +you, as you said to me at first.... It is not a worm, not the spirit +of idle restlessness--it is the fire of the love of truth that burns in +you, and clearly, in spite of your failings; it burns in you more hotly +than in many who do not consider themselves egoists and dare to call +you a humbug perhaps. I, for one, in your place should long ago have +succeeded in silencing that worm in me, and should have given in to +everything; and you have not even been embittered by it, Dmitri. You are +ready, I am sure, to-day, to set to some new work again like a boy.' + +'No, brother, I am tired now,' said Rudin. 'I have had enough.' + +'Tired! Any other man would have been dead long ago. You say that death +reconciles; but does not life, don't you think, reconcile? A man who has +lived and has not grown tolerant towards others does not deserve to meet +with tolerance himself. And who can say he does not need tolerance? You +have done what you could, Dmitri... you have struggled so long as you +could... what more? Our paths lay apart,'... + +'You were utterly different from me,' Rudin put in with a sigh. + +'Our paths lay apart,' continued Lezhnyov, 'perhaps exactly because, +thanks to my position, my cool blood, and other fortunate circumstances, +nothing hindered me from being a stay-at-home, and remaining a spectator +with folded hands; but you had to go out into the world, to turn up your +shirt-sleeves, to toil and labour. Our paths lay apart--but see how near +one another we are. We speak almost the same language, with half a hint +we understand one another, we grew up on the same ideas. There is little +left us now, brother; we are the last of the Mohicans! We might differ +and even quarrel in old days, when so much life still remained before +us; but now, when the ranks are thinned about us, when the younger +generation is coming upon us with other aims than ours, we ought to keep +close to one another! Let us clink glasses, Dmitri, and sing as of old, +_Gaudeamus igitur_!' + +The friends clinked their glasses, and sang the old student song in +strained voices, all out of tune, in the true Russian style. + +'So you are going now to your country place,' Lezhnyov began again. 'I +don't think you will stay there long, and I cannot imagine where and how +you will end.... But remember, whatever happens to you, you have always +a place, a nest where you can hide yourself. That is my home,--do you +hear, old fellow? Thought, too, has its veterans; they, too, ought to +have their home.' + +Rudin got up. + +'Thanks, brother,' he said, 'thanks! I will not forget this in you. +Only I do not deserve a home. I have wasted my life, and have not served +thought, as I ought.' + +'Hush!' said Lezhnyov. 'Every man remains what Nature has made him, +and one cannot ask more of him! You have called yourself the Wandering +Jew.... But how do you know,--perhaps it was right for you to be ever +wandering, perhaps in that way you are fulfilling a higher calling than +you know; popular wisdom says truly that we are all in God's hands. You +are going, Dmitri,' continued Lezhnyov, seeing that Rudin was taking his +hat 'You will not stop the night?' + +'Yes, I am going! Good-bye. Thanks.... I shall come to a bad end.' + +'God only knows.... You are resolved to go?' + +'Yes, I am going. Good-bye. Do not remember evil against me.' + +'Well, do not remember evil against me either,--and don't forget what I +said to you. Good-bye.'... + +The friends embraced one another. Rudin went quickly away. + +Lezhnyov walked up and down the room a long while, stopped before the +window thinking, and murmured half aloud, 'Poor fellow!' Then sitting +down to the table, he began to write a letter to his wife. + +But outside a wind had risen, and was howling with ill-omened moans, and +wrathfully shaking the rattling window-panes. The long autumn night came +on. Well for the man on such a night who sits under the shelter of +home, who has a warm corner in safety.... And the Lord help all homeless +wanderers! + + + +On a sultry afternoon on the 26th of July in 1848 in Paris, when +the Revolution of the _ateliers nationaux_ had already been almost +suppressed, a line battalion was taking a barricade in one of the narrow +alleys of the Faubourg St Antoine. A few gunshots had already broken it; +its surviving defenders abandoned it, and were only thinking of their +own safety, when suddenly on the very top of the barricade, on the frame +of an overturned omnibus, appeared a tall man in an old overcoat, with +a red sash, and a straw hat on his grey dishevelled hair. In one hand he +held a red flag, in the other a blunt curved sabre, and as he scrambled +up, he shouted something in a shrill strained voice, waving his flag +and sabre. A Vincennes tirailleur took aim at him--fired. The tall man +dropped the flag--and like a sack he toppled over face downwards, as +though he were falling at some one's feet. The bullet had passed through +his heart. + +'_Tiens_!' said one of the escaping revolutionists to another, '_on +vient de tuer le Polonais_! + +'_Bigre_!' answered the other, and both ran into the cellar of a house, +the shutters of which were all closed, and its wall streaked with traces +of powder and shot. + +This 'Polonais' was Dmitri Rudin. + + +THE END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rudin, by Ivan Turgenev + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUDIN *** + +***** This file should be named 6900.txt or 6900.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/9/0/6900/ + +Produced by Eric Eldred + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Rudin + +Author: Ivan Turgenev +Translated by Constance Garnett + +Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6900] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on February 9, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUDIN *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred. + + + + + + + +RUDIN + +a novel + +BY + +IVAN TURGENEV + +Translated from the Russian By CONSTANCE GARNETT + +[With an introduction by S. Stepniak] + +LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1894 + + + +INTRODUCTION + +I + + +Turgenev is an author who no longer belongs to Russia only. During the +last fifteen years of his life he won for himself the reading public, +first in France, then in Germany and America, and finally in England. + +In his funeral oration the spokesman of the most artistic and critical +of European nations, Ernest Renan, hailed him as one of the greatest +writers of our times: 'The Master, whose exquisite works have charmed +our century, stands more than any other man as the incarnation of a +whole race,' because 'a whole world lived in him and spoke through his +mouth.' Not the Russian world only, we may add, but the whole Slavonic +world, to which it was 'an honour to have been expressed by so great a +Master.' + +This recognition was, however, of slow growth. It had nothing in it of +the sudden wave of curiosity and gushing enthusiasm which in a few +years lifted Count Tolstoi to world-wide fame. Neither in the +personality of Turgenev, nor in his talent, was there anything to +strike and carry away popular imagination. + +By the fecundity of his creative talent Turgenev stands with the +greatest authors of all times. The gallery of living people, men, and +especially women, each different and perfectly individualised, yet all +the creatures of actual life, whom Turgenev introduces to us; the vast +body of psychological truths he discovers, the subtle shades of men's +feelings he reveals to us, is such as only the greatest among the +great have succeeded in leaving as their artistic inheritance to their +country and to the world. + +As regards his method of dealing with his material and shaping it into +mould, he stands even higher than as a pure creator. Tolstoi is more +plastical, and certainly as deep and original and rich in creative +power as Turgenev, and Dostoevsky is more intense, fervid, and +dramatic. But as an _artist_, as master of the combination of details +into a harmonious whole, as an architect of imaginative work, he +surpasses all the prose writers of his country, and has but few equals +among the great novelists of other lands. Twenty-five years ago, on +reading the translation of one of his short stories (_Assya_), George +Sand, who was then at the apogee of her fame, wrote to him: 'Master, +all of us have to go to study at your school.' This was, indeed, a +generous compliment, coming from the representative of French +literature which is so eminently artistic. But it was not flattery. +As an artist, Turgenev in reality stands with the classics who may be +studied and admired for their perfect form long after the interest of +their subject has disappeared. But it seems that in his very devotion +to art and beauty he has purposely restricted the range of his +creations. + +To one familiar with all Turgenev's works it is evident that he +possessed the keys of all human emotions, all human feelings, the +highest and the lowest, the noble as well as the base. From the height +of his superiority he saw all, understood all: Nature and men had no +secrets hidden from his calm, penetrating eyes. In his latter days, +sketches such as _Clara Militch_, _The Song of Triumphant Love_, _The +Dream_, and the incomparable _Phantoms_, he showed that he could equal +Edgar Poe, Hofmann, and Dostoevsky in the mastery of the fantastical, +the horrible, the mysterious, and the incomprehensible, which live +somewhere in human nerves, though not to be defined by reason. + +But there was in him such a love of light, sunshine, and living human +poetry, such an organic aversion for all that is ugly, or coarse and +discordant, that he made himself almost exclusively the poet of the +gentler side of human nature. On the fringe of his pictures or in +their background, just for the sake of contrast, he will show us the +vices, the cruelties, even the mire of life. But he cannot stay in +these gloomy regions, and he hastens back to the realms of the sun and +flowers, or to the poetical moonlight of melancholy, which he loves +best because in it he can find expression for his own great sorrowing +heart. + +Even jealousy, which is the black shadow of the most poetical of human +feelings, is avoided by the gentle artist. He hardly ever describes +it, only alluding to it cursorily. But there is no novelist who gives +so much room to the pure, crystalline, eternally youthful feeling of +love. We may say that the description of love is Turgenev's +speciality. What Francesco Petrarca did for one kind of love--the +romantic, artificial, hot-house love of the times of +chivalry--Turgenev did for the natural, spontaneous, modern love in +all its variety of forms, kinds, and manifestations: the slow and +gradual as well as the sudden and instantaneous; the spiritual, the +admiring and inspiring, as well as the life-poisoning, terrible kind +of love, which infects a man as a prolonged disease. There is +something prodigious in Turgenev's insight into, and his inexhaustible +richness, truthfulness, and freshness in the rendering of those +emotions which have been the theme of all poets and novelists for two +thousand years. + +In the well-known memoirs of Caroline Bauer one comes across a curious +legend about Paganini. She tells that the great enchanter owed his +unique command over the emotions of his audiences to a peculiar use of +one single string, G, which he made sing and whisper, cry and thunder, +at the touch of his marvellous bow. + +There is something of this in Turgenev's description of love. He has +many other strings at his harp, but his greatest effect he obtains in +touching this one. His stories are not love poems. He only prefers to +present his people in the light of that feeling in which a man's soul +gathers up all its highest energies, and melts as in a crucible, +showing its dross and its pure metal. + + + +Turgenev began his literary career and won an enormous popularity in +Russia by his sketches from peasant life. His _Diary of a Sportsman_ +contains some of the best of his short stories, and his _Country Inn,_ +written a few years later, in the maturity of his talent, is as good +as Tolstoi's little masterpiece, _Polikushka_. + +He was certainly able to paint all classes and conditions of Russian +people. But in his greater works Turgenev lays the action exclusively +with one class of Russian people. There is nothing of the enormous +canvas of Count Tolstoi, in which the whole of Russia seems to pass in +review before the readers. In Turgenev's novels we see only educated +Russia, or rather the more advanced thinking part of it, which he knew +best, because he was a part of it himself. + +We are far from regretting this specialisation. Quality can sometimes +hold its own against quantity. Although small numerically, the section +of Russian society which Turgenev represents is enormously +interesting, because it is the brain of the nation, the living ferment +which alone can leaven the huge unformed masses. It is upon them that +depend the destinies of their country. Besides, the artistic value of +his works could only be enhanced by his concentrating his genius upon +a field so familiar to him, and engrossing so completely his mind and +his sympathies. What he loses in dimensions he gains in correctness, +depth, wonderful subtlety and effectiveness of every minute detail, +and the surpassing beauty of the whole. The jewels of art he left us +are like those which nations store in the sanctuaries of their museums +and galleries to be admired, the longer they are studied. But we must +look to Tolstoi for the huge and towering monuments, hewn in massive +granite, to be put upon some cross way of nations as an object of +wonder and admiration for all who come from the four winds of heaven. + +Turgenev did not write for the masses but for the _elite_ among men. The +fact that .he has won such a fame among foreigners, and that the +number of his readers is widening every year, proves that great art is +international, and also, I may say, that artistic taste and +understanding is growing everywhere. + + + + +II + + +It is written that no man is a prophet in his own country, and from +time immemorial all the unsuccessful aspirants to the profession have +found their consolation in this proverbial truth. But for aught we +know this hard limitation has never been applied to artists. Indeed it +seems absurd on the face of it that the artist's countrymen, for whom +and about whom he writes, should be less fit to recognise him than +strangers. Yet in certain special and peculiar conditions, the most +unlikely things will sometimes occur, as is proved in the case of +Turgenev. + +The fact is that _as an artist_ he was appreciated to his full value +first by foreigners. The Russians have begun to understand him, and +to assign to him his right place in this respect only now, after his +death, whilst in his lifetime his _artistic genius_ was comparatively +little cared for, save by a handful of his personal friends. + +This supreme art told upon the Russian public unconsciously, as it was +bound to tell upon a nation so richly endowed with natural artistic +instinct. Turgenev was always the most widely read of Russian authors, +not excepting Tolstoi, who came to the front only after his death. But +full recognition he had not, because he happened to produce his works +in a troubled epoch of political and social strife, when the best men +were absorbed in other interests and pursuits, and could not and would +not appreciate and enjoy pure art. This was the painful, almost +tragic, position of an artist, who lived in a most inartistic epoch, +and whose highest aspirations and noblest efforts wounded and +irritated those among his countrymen whom he was most devoted to, and +whom he desired most ardently to serve. + +This strife embittered Turgenev's life. + +At one crucial epoch of his literary career the conflict became so +vehement, and the outcry against him, set in motion by his very +artistic truthfulness and objectiveness, became so loud and unanimous, +that he contemplated giving up literature altogether. He could not +possibly have held to this resolution. But it is surely an open +question whether, sensitive and modest as he was, and prone to +despondency and diffidence, he would have done so much for the +literature of his country without the enthusiastic encouragement of +various great foreign novelists, who were his friends and admirers: +George Sand, Gustave Flaubert, in France; Auerbach, in Germany; W. D. +Howells, in America; George Eliot, in England. + +We will tell the story of his troubled life piece by piece as far as +space will allow, as his works appear in succession. Here we will only +give a few biographical traits which bear particularly upon the novel +before us, and account for his peculiar hold over the minds of his +countrymen. + +Turgenev, who was born in 1818, belonged to a set of Russians very +small in his time, who had received a thoroughly European education in +no way inferior to that of the best favoured young German or +Englishman. It happened, moreover, that his paternal uncle, Nicholas +Turgenev, the famous 'Decembrist,' after the failure of that first +attempt (December 14, 1825) to gain by force of arms a constitutional +government for Russia, succeeded in escaping the vengeance of the Tsar +Nicholas I., and settled in France, where he published in French the +first vindication of Russian revolution. + +Whilst studying philosophy in the Berlin University, Turgenev paid +short visits to his uncle, who initiated him in the ideas of liberty, +from which he never swerved throughout his long life. + +In the sixties, when Alexander Hertzen, one of the most gifted writers +of our land, a sparkling, witty, pathetic, and powerful journalist and +brilliant essayist, started in London his _Kolokol_, a revolutionary, +or rather radical paper, which had a great influence in Russia, +Turgenev became one of his most active contributors and +advisers,--almost a member of the editorial staff. + +This fact has been revealed a few years ago by the publication, which +we owe to Professor Dragomanov, of the private correspondence between +Turgenev and Hertzen. This most interesting little volume throws quite +a new light upon Turgenev, showing that our great novelist was at the +same time one of the strongest--perhaps the strongest--and most +clear-sighted political thinkers of his time. However surprising such +a versatility may appear, it is proved to demonstration by a +comparison of his views, his attitude, and his forecasts, some of +which have been verified only lately, with those of the acknowledged +leaders and spokesmen of the various political parties of his day, +including Alexander Hertzen himself. Turgenev's are always the +soundest, the most correct and far-sighted judgments, as latter-day +history has proved. + +A man with so ardent a love of liberty, and such radical views, could +not possibly banish them from his literary works, no matter how great +his devotion to pure art. He would have been a poor artist had he +inflicted upon himself such a mutilation, because freedom from all +restraints, the frank, sincere expression of the artist's +individuality, is the life and soul of all true art. + +Turgenev gave to his country the whole of himself, the best of his +mind and of his creative fancy. He appeared at the same time as a +teacher, a prophet of new ideas, and as a poet and artist. But his own +countrymen hailed him in the first capacity, remaining for a long time +obtuse to the latter and greater. + +Thus, during one of the most important and interesting periods of our +national history, Turgenev was the standard-bearer and inspirer of +the Liberal, the thinking Russia. Although the two men stand at +diametrically opposite poles, Turgenev's position can be compared to +that of Count Tolstoi nowadays, with a difference, this time in favour +of the author of _Dmitri Rudin_. With Turgenev the thinker and the +artist are not at war, spoiling and sometimes contradicting each +other's efforts. They go hand in hand, because he never preaches any +doctrine whatever, but gives us, with an unimpeachable, artistic +objectiveness, the living men and women in whom certain ideas, +doctrines, and aspirations were embodied. And he never evolves these +ideas and doctrines from his inner consciousness, but takes them from +real life, catching with his unfailing artistic instinct an incipient +movement just at the moment when it was to become a historic feature +of the time. Thus his novels are a sort of artistic epitome of the +intellectual history of modern Russia, and also a powerful instrument +of her intellectual progress. + + + + +III + + +_Rudin_ is the first of Turgenev's social novels, and is a sort of +artistic introduction to those that follow, because it refers to the +epoch anterior to that when the present social and political movements +began. This epoch is being fast forgotten, and without his novel it +would be difficult for us to fully realise it, but it is well worth +studying, because we find in it the germ of future growths. + +It was a gloomy time. The ferocious despotism of Nicholas +I.--overweighing the country like the stone lid of a coffin, crushed +every word, every thought, which did not fit with its narrow +conceptions. But this was not the worst. The worst was that +progressive Russia was represented by a mere handful of men, who were +so immensely in advance of their surroundings, that in their own +country they felt more isolated, helpless, and out of touch with the +realities of life than if they had lived among strangers. + +But men must have some outlet for their spiritual energies, and these +men, unable to take part in the sordid or petty pursuits of those +around them, created for themselves artificial life, artificial +pursuits and interests. + +The isolation in which they lived drew them naturally together. The +'circle,' something between an informal club and a debating society, +became the form in which these cravings of mind or heart could be +satisfied. These people met and talked; that was all they were able to +do. + +The passage in which one of the heroes, Lezhnyov, tells the woman he +loves about the circle of which Dmitri Rudin and himself were members, +is historically one of the most suggestive. It refers to a circle of +young students. But it has a wider application. All prominent men of +the epoch--Stankevitch, who served as model to the poetic and touching +figure of Pokorsky; Alexander Hertzen, and the great critic, +Belinsky--all had their 'circles,' or their small chapels, in which +these enthusiasts met to offer worship to the 'goddess of truth, art, +and morality.' + +They were the best men of their time, full of high aspirations and +knowledge, and their disinterested search after truth was certainly a +noble pursuit. They had full right to look down upon their neighbours +wallowing in the mire of sordid and selfish materialism. But by living +in that spiritual hothouse of dreams, philosophical speculations, and +abstractions, these men unfitted themselves only the more completely +for participation in real life; the absorption in interests having +nothing to do with the life of their own country, estranged them still +more from it. The overwhelming stream of words drained them of the +natural sources of spontaneous emotion, and these men almost grew out +of feeling by dint of constantly analysing their feelings. + +Dmitri Rudin is the typical man of that generation, both the victim +and the hero of his time--a man who is almost a Titan in word and a +pigmy in deed. He is eloquent as a young Demosthenes. An irresistible +debater, he carries everything before him the moment he appears. But +he fails ignominiously when put to the hard test of action. Yet he is +not an impostor. His enthusiasm is contagious because it is sincere, +and his eloquence is convincing because devotion to his ideals is an +absorbing passion with him. He would die for them, and, what is more +rare, he would not swerve a hair's-breadth from them for any worldly +advantage, or for fear of any hardship. Only this passion and this +enthusiasm spring with him entirely from the head. The heart, the deep +emotional power of human love and pity, lay dormant in him. Humanity, +which he would serve to the last drop of his blood, is for him a body +of foreigners--French, English, Germans--whom he has studied from +books, and whom he has met only in hotels and watering-places during +his foreign travels as a student or as a tourist. + +Towards such an abstract, alien humanity, a man cannot feel any real +attachment. With all his outward ardour, Rudin is cold as ice at the +bottom of his heart. His is an enthusiasm which glows without warmth, +like the aurora borealis of the Polar regions. A poor substitute for +the bountiful sun. But what would have become of a God-forsaken land +if the Arctic nights were deprived of that substitute? With all their +weaknesses, Rudin and the men of his stamp--in other words, the men of +the generation of 1840--have rendered an heroic service to their +country. They inculcated in it the religion of the ideal; they brought +in the seeds, which had only to be thrown into the warm furrow of +their native soil to bring forth the rich crops of the future. + +The shortcomings and the impotence of these men were due to their +having no organic ties with their own country, no roots in the Russian +soil. They hardly knew the Russian people, who appeared to them as +nothing more than an historic abstraction. They were really +cosmopolitan, as a poor makeshift for something better, and Turgenev, +in making his hero die on a French barricade, was true to life as well +as to art. + +The inward growth of the country has remedied this defect in the +course of the three generations which have followed. But has the +remedy been complete? No; far from it, unfortunately. There are still +thousands of barriers preventing the Russians from doing something +useful for their countrymen and mixing freely with them. The +spiritual energies of the most ardent are still compelled--partially +at least--to run into the artificial channels described in Turgenev's +novel. + +Hence the perpetuation of Rudin's type, which acquires more than an +historical interest. + +In discussing the character of Hlestakov, the hero of his great +comedy, Gogol declared that this type is pretty nigh universal, +because 'every Russian,' he says, 'has a bit of Hlestakov in him.' +This not very flattering opinion has been humbly indorsed and repeated +since, out of reverence to Gogol's great authority, although it is +untrue on the face of it. Hlestakov is a sort of Tartarin in Russian +dress, whilst simplicity and sincerity are the fundamental traits of +all that is Russian in character, manner, art, literature. But it may +be truly said that every educated Russian of our time has a bit of +Dmitri Rudin in him. + +This figure is undoubtedly one of the finest in Turgenev's gallery, +and it is at the same time one of the most brilliant examples of his +artistic method. + +Turgenev does not give us at one stroke sculptured figures made from +one block, such as rise before us from Tolstoi's pages. His art is +rather that of a painter or musical composer than of a sculptor. He +has more colour, a deeper perspective, a greater variety of lights and +shadows--a more complete portraiture of the spiritual man. Tolstoi's +people stand so living and concrete that one feels one can recognise +them in the street. Turgenev's are like people whose intimate +confessions and private correspondence, unveiling all the secrets of +their spiritual life, have been submitted to one. + +Every scene, almost every line, opens up new deep horizons, throwing +upon his people some new unexpected light. + +The extremely complex and difficult character of the hero of this +story, shows at its highest this subtle psychological many-sidedness. +Dmitri Rudin is built up of contradictions, yet not for a moment does +he cease to be perfectly real, living, and concrete. + +Hardly less remarkable is the character of the heroine, Natalya, the +quiet, sober, matter-of-fact girl, who at the bottom is an +enthusiastic and heroic nature. She is but a child fresh to all +impressions of life, and as yet undeveloped. To have used the +searching, analytical method in painting her would have spoiled this +beautiful creation. Turgenev describes her synthetically by a few +masterly lines, which show us, however, the secrets of her spirit; +revealing what she is and also what she might have become under other +circumstances. + +This character deserves more attention than we can give it here. +Turgenev, like George Meredith, is a master in painting women, and his +Natalya is the first poetical revelation of a very striking fact in +modern Russian history; the appearance of women possessing a strength +of mind more finely masculine than that of the men of their time. By +the side of weak, irresolute, though highly intellectual men we see in +his first three novels energetic, earnest, impassioned women, who take +the lead in action, whilst they are but the man's modest pupils in the +domain of ideas. Only later on, in _Fathers and Children_, does +Turgenev show us in Bazarov a man essentially masculine. But of this +interesting peculiarity of Russian intellectual life, in the years +1840 to 1860, I will speak more fully when analysing another of +Turgenev's novels in which this contrast is most conspicuous. + +I will say nothing of the minor characters of the story before us: +Lezhnyov, Pigasov, Madame Lasunsky, Pandalevsky, who are all excellent +examples of what may be called miniature-painting. + +As to the novel as a whole, I will make here only one observation, not +to forestall the reader's own impressions. + +Turgenev is a realist in the sense that he keeps close to reality, +truth, and nature. But in the pursuit of photographic faithfulness to +life, he never allows himself to be tedious and dull, as some of the +best representatives of the school think it incumbent upon them to be. +His descriptions are never overburdened with wearisome details; his +action is rapid; the events are never to be foreseen a hundred pages +beforehand; he keeps his readers in constant suspense. And it seems to +me in so doing he shows himself a better realist than the gifted +representatives of the orthodox realism in France, England, and +America. Life is not dull; life is full of the unforeseen, full of +suspense. A novelist, however natural and logical, must contrive to +have it in his novels if he is not to sacrifice the soul of art for +the merest show of fidelity. + +The plot of Dmitri Rudin is so exceedingly simple that an English +novel-reader would say that there is hardly any plot at all. Turgenev +disdained the tricks of the sensational novelists. Yet, for a Russian +at least, it is easier to lay down before the end a novel by Victor +Hugo or Alexander Dumas than Dmitri Rudin, or, indeed, any of +Turgenev's great novels. What the novelists of the romantic school +obtain by the charm of unexpected adventures and thrilling situations, +Turgenev succeeds in obtaining by the brisk admirably concentrated +action, and, above all, by the simplest and most precious of a +novelist's gifts: his unique command over the sympathies and emotions +of his readers. In this he can be compared to a musician who works +upon the nerves and the souls of his audience without the intermediary +of the mind; or, better still, to a poet who combines the power of the +word with the magic spell of harmony. One does not read his novels; +one lives in them. + +Much of this peculiar gift of fascination is certainly due to +Turgenev's mastery over all the resources of our rich, flexible, and +musical language. The poet Lermontov alone wrote as splendid a prose +as Turgenev. A good deal of its charm is unavoidably lost in +translation. But I am happy to say that the present one is as near an +approach to the elegance and poetry of the original as I have ever +come across. + + + S. STEPNIAK. + + BEDFORD PARK, April 20, 1894. + + + + +THE NAMES OF THE CHARACTERS IN THE BOOK + +DMITRI NIKOLA'ITCH RU'DIN. + +DAR-YA MIHA'ILOVNA LASU'NSKY. + +NATA'L-YA ALEX-YE'VNA. + +MIHA'ILO MIHA'ILITCH LE'ZH-NYOV (MISHA). + +ALEXANDRA PA'VLOVNA LI'PIN (SASHA). + +SERGEI (pron, Sergay) PA'VLITCH VOLI'NT-SEV (SEREZHA). + +KONSTANTIN DIOMIDITCH PANDALE'VSKY. + +AFRICAN SEME'NITCH PIGA'SOV. + +BASSI'STOFF. + +MLLE. BONCOURT. + + + + +In transcribing the Russian names into English-- + +a has the sound of a in father. +er , , air. +i , , ee. +u , , oo. +y is always consonantal except when it is the last letter of the word. +g is always hard. + + + + + + + + + +I + + +IT was a quiet summer morning. The sun stood already pretty high in +the clear sky but the fields were still sparkling with dew; a fresh +breeze blew fragrantly from the scarce awakened valleys and in the +forest, still damp and hushed, the birds were merrily carolling their +morning song. On the ridge of a swelling upland, which was covered +from base to summit with blossoming rye, a little village was to be +seen. Along a narrow by-road to this little village a young woman was +walking in a white muslin gown, and a round straw hat, with a parasol +in her hand. A page boy followed her some distance behind. + +She moved without haste and as though she were enjoying the walk. The +high nodding rye all round her moved in long softly rustling waves, +taking here a shade of silvery green and there a ripple of red; the +larks were trilling overhead. The young woman had come from her own +estate, which was not more than a mile from the village to which she +was turning her steps. Her name was Alexandra Pavlovna Lipin. She was +a widow, childless, and fairly well off, and lived with her brother, a +retired cavalry officer, Sergei Pavlitch Volintsev. He was unmarried +and looked after her property. + +Alexandra Pavlovna reached the village and, stopping at the last hut, +a very old and low one, she called up the boy and told him to go in +and ask after the health of its mistress. He quickly came back +accompanied by a decrepit old peasant with a white beard. + +'Well, how is she?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'Well, she is still alive,' began the old man. + +'Can I go in?' + +'Of course; yes.' + +Alexandra Pavlovna went into the hut. It was narrow, stifling, and +smoky inside. Some one stirred and began to moan on the stove which +formed the bed. Alexandra Pavlovna looked round and discerned in the +half darkness the yellow wrinkled face of the old woman tied up in a +checked handkerchief. Covered to the very throat with a heavy overcoat +she was breathing with difficulty, and her wasted hands were +twitching. + +Alexandra Pavlovna went close up to the old woman and laid her fingers +on her forehead; it was burning hot. + +'How do you feel, Matrona?' she inquired, bending over the bed. + +'Oh, oh!' groaned the old woman, trying to make her out, 'bad, very +bad, my dear! My last hour has come, my darling!' + +'God is merciful, Matrona; perhaps you will be better soon. Did you +take the medicine I sent you?' + +The old woman groaned painfully, and did not answer. She had hardly +heard the question. + +'She has taken it,' said the old man who was standing at the door. + +Alexandra Pavlovna turned to him. + +'Is there no one with her but you?' she inquired. + +'There is the girl--her granddaughter, but she always keeps away. She +won't sit with her; she's such a gad-about. To give the old woman a +drink of water is too much trouble for her. And I am old; what use can +I be?' + +'Shouldn't she be taken to me--to the hospital?' + +'No. Why take her to the hospital? She would die just the same. She +has lived her life; it's God's will now seemingly. She will never get +up again. How could she go to the hospital? If they tried to lift her +up, she would die.' + +'Oh!' moaned the sick woman, 'my pretty lady, don't abandon my +little orphan; our master is far away, but you----' + +She could not go on, she had spent all her strength in saying so much. + +'Do not worry yourself,' replied Alexandra Pavlovna, 'everything shall +be done. Here is some tea and sugar I have brought you. If you can +fancy it you must drink some. Have you a samovar, I wonder?' she +added, looking at the old man. + +'A samovar? We haven't a samovar, but we could get one.' + +'Then get one, or I will send you one. And tell your granddaughter not +to leave her like this. Tell her it's shameful.' + +The old man made no answer but took the parcel of tea and sugar with +both hands. + +'Well, good-bye, Matrona!' said Alexandra Pavlovna, 'I will come and +see you again; and you must not lose heart but take your medicine +regularly.' + +The old woman raised her head and drew herself a little towards +Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'Give me your little hand, dear lady,' she muttered. + +Alexandra Pavlovna did not give her hand; she bent over her and kissed +her on the forehead. + +'Take care, now,' she said to the old man as she went out, 'and give +her the medicine without fail, as it is written down, and give her +some tea to drink.' + +Again the old man made no reply, but only bowed. + +Alexandra Pavlovna breathed more freely when she came out into the +fresh air. She put up her parasol and was about to start homewards, +when suddenly there appeared round the corner of a little hut a man +about thirty, driving a low racing droshky and wearing an old overcoat +of grey linen, and a foraging cap of the same. Catching sight of +Alexandra Pavlovna he at once stopped his horse and turned round +towards her. His broad and colourless face with its small light grey +eyes and almost white moustache seemed all in the same tone of colour +as his clothes. + +'Good-morning!' he began, with a lazy smile; 'what are you doing +here, if I may ask?' + +'I have been visiting a sick woman . . . And where have you come from, +Mihailo Mihailitch?' + +The man addressed as Mihailo Mihailitch looked into her eyes and +smiled again. + +'You do well,' he said, 'to visit the sick, but wouldn't it be better +for you to take her into the hospital?' + +'She is too weak; impossible to move her.' + +'But don't you intend to give up your hospital?' + +'Give it up? Why?' + +'Oh, I thought so.' + +'What a strange notion! What put such an idea into your head?' + +'Oh, you are always with Madame Lasunsky now, you know, and seem to be +under her influence. And in her words--hospitals, schools, and all +that sort of things, are mere waste of time--useless fads. +Philanthropy ought to be entirely personal, and education too, all +that is the soul's work . . . that's how she expresses herself, I +believe. From whom did she pick up that opinion I should like to +know?' + +Alexandra Pavlovna laughed. + +'Darya Mihailovna is a clever woman, I like and esteem her very much; +but she may make mistakes, and I don't put faith in everything she +says.' + +'And it's a very good thing you don't,' rejoined Mihailo Mihailitch, +who all the while remained sitting in his droshky, 'for she doesn't +put much faith in what she says herself. I'm very glad I met you.' + +'Why?' + +'That's a nice question! As though it wasn't always delightful to meet +you? To-day you look as bright and fresh as this morning.' + +Alexandra Pavlovna laughed again. + +'What are you laughing at?' + +'What, indeed! If you could see with what a cold and indifferent face +you brought out your compliment! I wonder you didn't yawn over the +last word!' + +'A cold face. . . . You always want fire; but fire is of no use at +all. It flares and smokes and goes out.' + +'And warms,' . . . put in Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'Yes . . . and burns.' + +'Well, what if it does burn! That's no great harm either! It's +better anyway than----' + +'Well, we shall see what you will say when you do get nicely burnt one +day,' Mihailo Mihailitch interrupted her in a tone of vexation and +made a cut at the horse with the reins, 'Good-bye.' + +'Mihailo Mihailitch, stop a minute!' cried Alexandra Pavlovna, 'when +are you coming to see us?' + +'To-morrow; my greetings to your brother.' + +And the droshky rolled away. + +Alexandra Pavlovna looked after Mihailo Mihailitch. + +'What a sack!' she thought. Sitting huddled up and covered with dust, +his cap on the back of his head and tufts of flaxen hair straggling +from beneath it, he looked strikingly like a huge sack of flour. + +Alexandra Pavlovna turned tranquilly back along the path homewards. +She was walking with downcast eyes. The tramp of a horse near made her +stop and raise her head. . . . Her brother had come on horseback to +meet her; beside him was walking a young man of medium height, wearing +a light open coat, a light tie, and a light grey hat, and carrying a +cane in his hand. He had been smiling for a long time at Alexandra +Pavlovna, even though he saw that she was absorbed in thought and +noticing nothing, and when she stopped he went up to her and in a tone +of delight, almost of emotion, cried: + +'Good-morning, Alexandra Pavlovna, good-morning!' + +'Ah! Konstantin Diomiditch! good-morning!' she replied. 'You have +come from Darya Mihailovna?' + +'Precisely so, precisely so,' rejoined the young man with a radiant +face, 'from Darya Mihailovna. Darya Mihailovna sent me to you; I +preferred to walk. . . . It's such a glorious morning, and the distance +is only three miles. When I arrived, you were not at home. Your +brother told me you had gone to Semenovka; and he was just going out +to the fields; so you see I walked with him to meet you. Yes, yes. +How very delightful!' + +The young man spoke Russian accurately and grammatically but with a +foreign accent, though it was difficult to determine exactly what +accent it was. In his features there was something Asiatic. His long +hook nose, his large expressionless prominent eyes, his thick red +lips, and retreating forehead, and his jet black hair,--everything +about him suggested an Oriental extraction; but the young man gave his +surname as Pandalevsky and spoke of Odessa as his birthplace, though +he was brought up somewhere in White Russia at the expense of a rich +and benevolent widow. + +Another widow had obtained a government post for him. Middle-aged +ladies were generally ready to befriend Konstantin Diomiditch; he knew +well how to court them and was successful in coming across them. He +was at this very time living with a rich lady, a landowner, Darya +Mihailovna Lasunsky, in a position between that of a guest and of a +dependant. He was very polite and obliging, full of sensibility and +secretly given to sensuality, he had a pleasant voice, played well on +the piano, and had the habit of gazing intently into the eyes of any +one he was speaking to. He dressed very neatly, and wore his clothes a +very long time, shaved his broad chin carefully, and arranged his hair +curl by curl. + +Alexandra Pavlovna heard his speech to the end and turned to her +brother. + +'I keep meeting people to-day; I have just been talking to Lezhnyov.' + +'Oh, Lezhnyov! was he driving somewhere?' + +'Yes, and fancy; he was in a racing droshky, and dressed in a kind of +linen sack, all covered with dust. . . . What a queer creature he is!' + +'Perhaps so; but he's a capital fellow.' + +'Who? Mr. Lezhnyov?' inquired Pandalevsky, as though he were surprised. + +'Yes, Mihailo Mihailitch Lezhnyov,' replied Volintsev. 'Well, +good-bye; it's time I was off to the field; they are sowing your +buckwheat. Mr. Pandalevsky will escort you home.' And Volintsev rode +off at a trot. + +'With the greatest of pleasure!' cried Konstantin Diomiditch, +offering Alexandra Pavlovna his arm. + +She took it and they both turned along the path to her house. + +Walking with Alexandra Pavlovna on his arm seemed to afford Konstantin +Diomiditch great delight; he moved with little steps, smiling, and his +Oriental eyes were even be-dimmed by a slight moisture, though this +indeed was no rare occurrence with them; it did not mean much for +Konstantin Diomiditch to be moved and dissolve into tears. And who +would not have been pleased to have on his arm a pretty, young and +graceful woman? Of Alexandra Pavlovna the whole of her district was +unanimous in declaring that she was charming, and the district was not +wrong. Her straight, ever so slightly tilted nose would have been +enough alone to drive any man out of his senses, to say nothing of her +velvety dark eyes, her golden brown hair, the dimples in her smoothly +curved cheeks, and her other beauties. But best of all was the sweet +expression of her face; confiding, good and gentle, it touched and +attracted at the same time. Alexandra Pavlovna had the glance and the +smile of a child; other ladies found her a little simple. . . . Could +one wish for anything more? + +'Darya Mihailovna sent you to me, did you say?' she asked Pandalevsky. + +'Yes; she sent me,' he answered, pronouncing the letter _s_ like the +English _th_. 'She particularly wishes and told me to beg you very +urgently to be so good as to dine with her to-day. She is expecting a +new guest whom she particularly wishes you to meet' + +'Who is it?' + +'A certain Muffel, a baron, a gentleman of the bed-chamber from +Petersburg. Darya Mihailovna made his acquaintance lately at the +Prince Garin's, and speaks of him in high terms as an agreeable and +cultivated young man. His Excellency the baron is interested, too, in +literature, or more strictly speaking----ah! what an exquisite +butterfly! pray look at it!----more strictly speaking, in political +economy. He has written an essay on some very interesting question, +and wants to submit it to Darya Mihailovna's criticism.' + +'An article on political economy?' + +'From the literary point of view, Alexandra Pavlovna, from the +literary point of view. You are well aware, I suppose, that in that +line Darya Mihailovna is an authority. Zhukovsky used to ask her +advice, and my benefactor, who lives at Odessa, that benevolent old +man, Roxolan Mediarovitch Ksandrika----No doubt you know the name of +that eminent man?' + +'No; I have never heard of him.' + +'You never heard of such a man? surprising! I was going to say that +Roxolan Mediarovitch always had the very highest opinion of Darya +Mihailovna's knowledge of Russian! + +'Is this baron a pedant then?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'Not in the very least. Darya Mihailovna says, on the contrary, that +you see that he belongs to the best society at once. He spoke of +Beethoven with such eloquence that even the old prince was quite +delighted by it. That, I own, I should like to have heard; you know +that is in my line. Allow me to offer you this lovely wild-flower.' + +Alexandra Pavlovna took the flower, and when she had walked a few +steps farther, let it drop on the path. They were not more than two +hundred paces from her house. It had been recently built and +whitewashed, and looked out hospitably with its wide light windows +from the thick foliage of the old limes and maples. + +'So what message do you give me for Darya Mihailovna?' began +Pandalevsky, slightly hurt at the fate of the flower he had given her. +'Will you come to dinner? She invites your brother too.' + +'Yes; we will come, most certainly. And how is Natasha?' + +'Natalya Alexyevna is well, I am glad to say. But we have already +passed the road that turns off to Darya Mihailovna's. Allow me to bid +you good-bye.' + +Alexandra Pavlovna stopped. 'But won't you come in?' she said in a +hesitating voice. + +'I should like to, indeed, but I am afraid it is late. Darya +Mihailovna wishes to hear a new etude of Thalberg's, so I must +practise and have it ready. Besides, I am doubtful, I must confess, +whether my visit could afford you any pleasure.' + +'Oh, no! why?' + +Pandalevsky sighed and dropped his eyes expressively. + +'Good-bye, Alexandra Pavlovna!' he said after a slight pause; then he +bowed and turned back. + +Alexandra Pavlovna turned round and went home. + +Konstantin Diomiditch, too, walked homewards. All softness had +vanished at once from his face; a self-confident, almost hard +expression came into it. Even his walk was changed; his steps were +longer and he trod more heavily. He had walked about two miles, +carelessly swinging his cane, when all at once he began to smile +again: he saw by the roadside a young, rather pretty peasant girl, who +was driving some calves out of an oat-field. Konstantin Diomiditch +approached the girl as warily as a cat, and began to speak to her. She +said nothing at first, only blushed and laughed, but at last she hid +her face in her sleeve, turned away, and muttered: + +'Go away, sir; upon my word . . .' + +Konstantin Diomiditch shook his finger at her and told her to bring +him some cornflowers. + +'What do you want with cornflowers?--to make a wreath?' replied the +girl; 'come now, go along then.' + +'Stop a minute, my pretty little dear,' Konstantin Diomiditch was +beginning. + +'There now, go along,' the girl interrupted him, 'there are the young +gentlemen coming.' + +Konstantin Diomiditch looked round. There really were Vanya and Petya, +Darya Mihailovna's sons, running along the road; after them walked +their tutor, Bassistoff, a young man of two-and-twenty, who had only +just left college. Bassistoff was a well-grown youth, with a simple +face, a large nose, thick lips, and small pig's eyes, plain and +awkward, but kind, good, and upright. He dressed untidily and wore his +hair long--not from affectation, but from laziness; he liked eating +and he liked sleeping, but he also liked a good book, and an earnest +conversation, and he hated Pandalevsky from the depths of his soul. + +Darya Mihailovna's children worshipped Bassistoff, and yet were not in +the least afraid of him; he was on a friendly footing with all the +rest of the household, a fact which was not altogether pleasing to its +mistress, though she was fond of declaring that for her social +prejudices did not exist. + +'Good-morning, my dears,' began Konstantin Diomiditch, 'how early you +have come for your walk to-day! But I,' he added, turning to +Bassistoff, 'have been out a long while already; it's my passion--to +enjoy nature.' + +'We saw how you were enjoying nature,' muttered Bassistoff. + +'You are a materialist, God knows what you are imagining! I know you.' +When Pandalevsky spoke to Bassistoff or people like him, he grew +slightly irritated, and pronounced the letter _s_ quite clearly, even +with a slight hiss. + +'Why, were you asking your way of that girl, am I to suppose?' said +Bassistoff, shifting his eyes to right and to left. + +He felt that Pandalevsky was looking him straight in the face, and +this fact was exceedingly unpleasant to him. 'I repeat, a materialist +and nothing more.' + +'You certainly prefer to see only the prosaic side in everything.' + +'Boys!' cried Bassistoff suddenly, 'do you see that willow at the +corner? let's see who can get to it first. One! two! three! and away!' + +The boys set off at full speed to the willow. Bassistoff rushed after +them. + +'What a lout!' thought Pandalevsky, 'he is spoiling those boys. A +perfect peasant!' + +And looking with satisfaction at his own neat and elegant figure, +Konstantin Diomiditch struck his coat-sleeve twice with his open hand, +pulled up his collar, and went on his way. When he had reached his own +room, he put on an old dressing-gown and sat down with an anxious face +to the piano. + + + + +II + + +Darya Mihailovna's house was regarded as almost the first in the whole +province. It was a huge stone mansion, built after designs of +Rastrelli in the taste of last century, and in a commanding position +on the summit of a hill, at whose base flowed one of the principal +rivers of central Russia. Darya Mihailovna herself was a wealthy and +distinguished lady, the widow of a privy councillor. Pandalevsky said +of her, that she knew all Europe and all Europe knew her! However, +Europe knew her very little; even at Petersburg she had not played a +very prominent part; but on the other hand at Moscow every one knew +her and visited her. She belonged to the highest society, and was +spoken of as a rather eccentric woman, not wholly good-natured, but +excessively clever. In her youth she had been very pretty. Poets +had written verses to her, young men had been in love with her, +distinguished men had paid her homage. But twenty-five or thirty years +had passed since those days and not a trace of her former charms +remained. Every one who saw her now for the first time was impelled to +ask himself, if this woman--skinny, sharp-nosed, and yellow-faced, +though still not old in years--could once have been a beauty, if she +was really the same woman who had been the inspiration of poets . . . . +And every one marvelled inwardly at the mutability of earthly things. +It is true that Pandalevsky discovered that Darya Mihailovna had +preserved her magnificent eyes in a marvellous way; but we have seen +that Pandalevsky also maintained that all Europe knew her. + +Darya Mihailovna went every summer to her country place with her +children (she had three: a daughter of seventeen, Natalya, and two +sons of nine and ten years old). She kept open house in the country, +that is, she received men, especially unmarried ones; provincial +ladies she could not endure. But what of the treatment she received +from those ladies in return? + +Darya Mihailovna, according to them, was a haughty, immoral, and +insufferable tyrant, and above all--she permitted herself such +liberties in conversation, it was shocking! Darya Mihailovna certainly +did not care to stand on ceremony in the country, and in the +unconstrained frankness of her manners there was perceptible a slight +shade of the contempt of the lioness of the capital for the petty and +obscure creatures who surrounded her. She had a careless, and even a +sarcastic manner with her own set; but the shade of contempt was not +there. + +By the way, reader, have you observed that a person who is +exceptionally nonchalant with his inferiors, is never nonchalant with +persons of a higher rank? Why is that? But such questions lead to +nothing. + +When Konstantin Diomiditch, having at last learnt by heart the _etude_ +of Thalberg, went down from his bright and cheerful room to the +drawing-room, he already found the whole household assembled. The +salon was already beginning. The lady of the house was reposing on a +wide couch, her feet gathered up under her, and a new French pamphlet +in her hand; at the window behind a tambour frame, sat on one side the +daughter of Darya Mihailovna, on the other, Mlle. Boncourt, the +governess, a dry old maiden lady of sixty, with a false front of black +curls under a parti-coloured cap and cotton wool in her ears; in the +corner near the door was huddled Bassistoff reading a paper, near him +were Petya and Vanya playing draughts, and leaning by the stove, his +hands clasped behind his back, was a gentleman of low stature, with a +swarthy face covered with bristling grey hair, and fiery black eyes--a +certain African Semenitch Pigasov. + +This Pigasov was a strange person. Full of acerbity against everything +and every one--especially against women--he was railing from morning +to night, sometimes very aptly, sometimes rather stupidly, but always +with gusto. His ill-humour almost approached puerility; his laugh, the +sound of his voice, his whole being seemed steeped in venom. Darya +Mihailovna gave Pigasov a cordial reception; he amused her with his +sallies. They were certainly absurd enough. He took delight in +perpetual exaggeration. For example, if he were told of any +disaster, that a village had been struck by lightning, or that a mill +had been carried away by floods, or that a peasant had cut his hand +with an axe, he invariably asked with concentrated bitterness, 'And +what's her name?' meaning, what is the name of the woman responsible +for this calamity, for according to his convictions, a woman was the +cause of every misfortune, if you only looked deep enough into the +matter. He once threw himself on his knees before a lady he hardly +knew at all, who had been effusive in her hospitality to him and began +tearfully, but with wrath written on his face, to entreat her to have +compassion on him, saying that he had done her no harm and never would +come to see her for the future. Once a horse had bolted with one of +Darya Mihailovna's maids, thrown her into a ditch and almost killed +her. From that time Pigasov never spoke of that horse except as the +'good, good horse,' and he even came to regard the hill and the ditch +as specially picturesque spots. Pigasov had failed in life and had +adopted this whimsical craze. He came of poor parents. His father had +filled various petty posts, and could scarcely read and write, and did +not trouble himself about his son's education; he fed and clothed him +and nothing more. His mother spoiled him, but she died early. Pigasov +educated himself, sent himself to the district school and then to the +gymnasium, taught himself French, German, and even Latin, and, leaving +the gymnasiums with an excellent certificate, went to Dorpat, where he +maintained a perpetual struggle with poverty, but succeeded in +completing his three years' course. Pigasov's abilities did not rise +above the level of mediocrity; patience and perseverance were his +strong points, but the most powerful sentiment in him was ambition, +the desire to get into good society, not to be inferior to others in +spite of fortune. He had studied diligently and gone to the Dorpat +University from ambition. Poverty exasperated him, and made him +watchful and cunning. He expressed himself with originality; from his +youth he had adopted a special kind of stinging and exasperated +eloquence. His ideas did not rise above the common level; but his way +of speaking made him seem not only a clever, but even a very clever, +man. Having taken his degree as candidate, Pigasov decided to devote +himself to the scholastic profession; he understood that in any other +career he could not possibly be the equal of his associates. He tried +to select them from a higher rank and knew how to gain their good +graces; even by flattery, though he was always abusing them. But to do +this he had not, to speak plainly, enough raw material. Having +educated himself through no love for study, Pigasov knew very little +thoroughly. He broke down miserably in the public disputation, while +another student who had shared the same room with him, and who was +constantly the subject of his ridicule, a man of very limited ability +who had received a careful and solid education, gained a complete +triumph. Pigasov was infuriated by this failure, he threw all his +books and manuscripts into the fire and went into a government office. +At first he did not get on badly, he made a fair official, not very +active, extremely self-confident and bold, however; but he wanted to +make his way more quickly, he made a false step, got into trouble, and +was obliged to retire from the service. He spent three years on the +property he had bought himself and suddenly married a wealthy +half-educated woman who was captivated by his unceremonious and +sarcastic manners. But Pigasov's character had become so soured and +irritable that family life was unendurable to him. After living with +him a few years, his wife went off secretly to Moscow and sold her +estate to an enterprising speculator; Pigasov had only just finished +building a house on it. Utterly crushed by this last blow, Pigasov +began a lawsuit with his wife, but gained nothing by it. After this he +lived in solitude, and went to see his neighbours, whom he abused +behind their backs and even to their faces, and who welcomed him with +a kind of constrained half-laugh, though he did not inspire them with +any serious dread. He never took a book in his hand. He had about a +hundred serfs; his peasants were not badly off. + +'Ah! _Constantin_,' said Darya Mihailovna, when Pandalevsky came into +the drawing-room, 'is _Alexandrine_ coming?' + +'Alexandra Pavlovna asked me to thank you, and they will be extremely +delighted,' replied Konstantin Diomiditch, bowing affably in all +directions, and running his plump white hand with its triangular cut +nails through his faultlessly arranged hair. + +'And is Volintsev coming too?' + +'Yes.' + +'So, according to you, African Semenitch,' continued Darya Mihailovna, +turning to Pigasov, 'all young ladies are affected?' + +Pigasov's mouth twitched, and he plucked nervously at his elbow. + +'I say,' he began in a measured voice--in his most violent moods of +exasperation he always spoke slowly and precisely. 'I say that young +ladies, in general--of present company, of course, I say nothing.' + +'But that does not prevent your thinking of them,' put in Darya +Mihailovna. + +'I say nothing of them,' repeated Pigasov. 'All young ladies, in +general, are affected to the most extreme point--affected in the +expression of their feelings. If a young lady is frightened, for +instance, or pleased with anything, or distressed, she is certain +first to throw her person into some such elegant attitude (and +Pigasov threw his figure into an unbecoming pose and spread out his +hands) and then she shrieks--ah! or she laughs or cries. I did once +though (and here Pigasov smiled complacently) succeed in eliciting a +genuine, unaffected expression of emotion from a remarkably affected +young lady!' + +'How did you do that?' + +Pigasov's eyes sparkled. + +'I poked her in the side with an aspen stake, from behind. She did +shriek, and I said to her, "Bravo, bravo! that's the voice of nature, +that was a genuine shriek! Always do like that for the future!"' + +Every one in the room laughed. + +'What nonsense you talk, African Semenitch,' cried Darya Mihailovna. +'Am I to believe that you would poke a girl in the side with a stake!' + +'Yes, indeed, with a stake, a very big stake, like those that are used +in the defence of a fort.' + +'_Mais c'est un horreur ce que vous dites la, Monsieur_,' cried Mlle. +Boncourt, looking angrily at the boys, who were in fits of laughter. + +'Oh, you mustn't believe him,' said Darya Mihailovna. 'Don't you know +him?' + +But the offended French lady could not be pacified for a long while, +and kept muttering something to herself. + +'You need not believe me,' continued Pigasov coolly, 'but I assure you +I told the simple truth. Who should know if not I? After that perhaps +you won't believe that our neighbour, Madame Tchepuz, Elena Antonovna, +told me herself, mind _herself_, that she had murdered her nephew?' + +'What an invention!' + +'Wait a minute, wait a minute! Listen and judge for yourselves. Mind, +I don't want to slander her, I even like her as far as one can like a +woman. She hasn't a single book in her house except a calendar, and +she can't read except aloud, and that exercise throws her into a +violent perspiration, and she complains then that her eyes feel +bursting out of her head. . . . In short, she's a capital woman, and +her servant girls grow fat. Why should I slander her?' + +'You see,' observed Darya Mihailovna, 'African Semenitch has got on +his hobbyhorse, now he will not be off it to-night.' + +'My hobby! But women have three at least, which they are never off, +except, perhaps, when they're asleep.' + +'What three hobbies are those?' + +'Reproof, reproach, recrimination.' + +'Do you know, African Semenitch,' began Darya Mihailovna, 'you cannot +be so bitter against women for nothing. Some woman or other must +have----' + +'Done me an injury, you mean?' Pigasov interrupted. + +Darya Mihailovna was rather embarrassed; she remembered Pigasov's +unlucky marriage, and only nodded. + +'One woman certainly did me an injury,' said Pigasov, 'though she was +a good, very good one.' + +'Who was that?' + +'My mother,' said Pigasov, dropping his voice. + +'Your mother? What injury could she have done you?' + +'She brought me into the world.' + +Darya Mihailovna frowned. + +'Our conversation,' she said, 'seems to have taken a gloomy turn. +_Constantin_, play us Thalberg's new _etude_. I daresay the music will +soothe African Semenitch. Orpheus soothed savage beasts.' + +Konstantin Diomiditch took his seat at the piano, and played the etude +very fairly well. Natalya Alexyevna at first listened attentively, +then she bent over her work again. + +'_Merci, c'est charmant_,' observed Darya Mihailovna, 'I love Thalberg. +_Il est si distingue_. What are you thinking of, African Semenitch?' + +'I thought,' began African Semenitch slowly, 'that there are three +kinds of egoists; the egoists who live themselves and let others live; +the egoists who live themselves and don't let others live; and the +egoists who don't live themselves and don't let others live. Women, +for the most part, belong to the third class.' + +'That's polite! I am very much astonished at one thing, African +Semenitch; your confidence in your convictions; of course you can +never be mistaken.' + +'Who says so? I make mistakes; a man, too, may be mistaken. But do you +know the difference between a man's mistakes and a woman's? Don't you +know? Well, here it is; a man may say, for example, that twice two +makes not four, but five, or three and a half; but a woman will say +that twice two makes a wax candle.' + +'I fancy I've heard you say that before. But allow me to ask what +connection had your idea of the three kinds of egoists with the music +you have just been hearing?' + +'None at all, but I did not listen to the music.' + +'Well, "incurable I see you are, and that is all about it,"' answered +Darya Mihailovna, slightly altering Griboyedov's line. 'What do you +like, since you don't care for music? Literature?' + +'I like literature, only not our contemporary literature.' + +'Why?' + +'I'll tell you why. I crossed the Oka lately in a ferry boat with a +gentleman. The ferry got fixed in a narrow place; they had to drag the +carriages ashore by hand. This gentleman had a very heavy coach. +While the ferrymen were straining themselves to drag the coach on to +the bank, the gentleman groaned so, standing in the ferry, that one +felt quite sorry for him. . . . Well, I thought, here's a fresh +illustration of the system of division of labour! That's just like +our modern literature; other people do the work, and it does the +groaning.' + +Darya Mihailovna smiled. + +'And that is called expressing contemporary life,' continued Pigasov +indefatigably, 'profound sympathy with the social question and so on. +. . . Oh, how I hate those grand words!' + +'Well, the women you attack so--they at least don't use grand words.' + +Pigasov shrugged his shoulders. + +'They don't use them because they don't understand them.' + +Darya Mihailovna flushed slightly. + +'You are beginning to be impertinent, African Semenitch!' she remarked +with a forced smile. + +There was complete stillness in the room. + +'Where is Zolotonosha?' asked one of the boys suddenly of Bassistoff. + +'In the province of Poltava, my dear boy,' replied Pigasov, 'in the +centre of Little Russia.' (He was glad of an opportunity of changing +the conversation.) 'We were talking of literature,' he continued, 'if +I had money to spare, I would at once become a Little Russian poet' + +'What next? a fine poet you would make!' retorted Darya Mihailovna. +'Do you know Little Russian?' + +'Not a bit; but it isn't necessary.' + +'Not necessary?' + +'Oh no, it's not necessary. You need only take a sheet of paper and +write at the top "A Ballad," then begin like this, "Heigho, alack, +my destiny!" or "the Cossack Nalivaiko was sitting on a hill and then +on the mountain, under the green tree the birds are singing, grae, +voropae, gop, gop!" or something of that kind. And the thing's done. +Print it and publish it. The Little Russian will read it, drop his +head into his hands and infallibly burst into tears--he is such a +sensitive soul!' + +'Good heavens!' cried Bassistoff. 'What are you saying? It's too +absurd for anything. I have lived in Little Russia, I love it and know +the language . . . "grae, grae, voropae" is absolute nonsense.' + +'It may be, but the Little Russian will weep all the same. You speak +of the "language." . . . But is there a Little Russian language? Is it +a language, in your opinion? an independent language? I would pound my +best friend in a mortar before I'd agree to that.' + +Bassistoff was about to retort. + +'Leave him alone!' said Darya Mihailovna, 'you know that you will hear +nothing but paradoxes from him.' + +Pigasov smiled ironically. A footman came in and announced the arrival +of Alexandra Pavlovna and her brother. + +Darya Mihailovna rose to meet her guests. + +'How do you do, Alexandrine?' she began, going up to her, 'how good +of you to come! . . . How are you, Sergei Pavlitch?' + +Volintsev shook hands with Darya Mihailovna and went up to Natalya +Alexyevna. + +'But how about that baron, your new acquaintance, is he coming +to-day?' asked Pigasov. + +'Yes, he is coming.' + +'He is a great philosopher, they say; he is just brimming over with +Hegel, I suppose?' + +Darya Mihailovna made no reply, and making Alexandra Pavlovna sit down +on the sofa, established herself near her. + +'Philosophies,' continued Pigasov, 'are elevated points of view! +That's another abomination of mine; these elevated points of view. +And what can one see from above? Upon my soul, if you want to buy a +horse, you don't look at it from a steeple!' + +'This baron was going to bring you an essay?' said Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'Yes, an essay,' replied Darya Mihailovna, with exaggerated +carelessness, 'on the relation of commerce to manufactures in Russia. +. . . But don't be afraid; we will not read it here. . . . I did not +invite you for that. _Le baron est aussi aimable que savant_. And he +speaks Russian beautifully! _C'est un vrai torrent . . . il vous +entraine_! + +'He speaks Russian so beautifully,' grumbled Pigasov, 'that he +deserves a eulogy in French.' + +'You may grumble as you please, African Semenitch. . . . It's in keeping +with your ruffled locks. . . . I wonder, though, why he does not come. +Do you know what, _messieurs et mesdames_' added Darya Mihailovna, +looking round, 'we will go into the garden. There is still nearly an +hour to dinner-time and the weather is glorious.' + +All the company rose and went into the garden. + +Darya Mihailovna's garden stretched right down to the river. There +were many alleys of old lime-trees in it, full of sunlight and shade +and fragrance and glimpses of emerald green at the ends of the walks, +and many arbours of acacias and lilacs. + +Volintsev turned into the thickest part of the garden with Natalya and +Mlle. Boncourt. He walked beside Natalya in silence. Mlle. Boncourt +followed a little behind. + +'What have you been doing to-day?' asked Volintsev at last, pulling +the ends of his handsome dark brown moustache. + +In features he resembled his sister strikingly; but there was less +movement and life in his expression, and his soft beautiful eyes had a +melancholy look. + +'Oh! nothing,' answered Natalya, 'I have been listening to Pigasov's +sarcasms, I have done some embroidery on canvas, and I've been +reading.' + +'And what have you been reading?' + +'Oh! I read--a history of the Crusades,' said Natalya, with some +hesitation, + +Volintsev looked at her. + +'Ah!' he ejaculated at last, 'that must be interesting.' + +He picked a twig and began to twirl it in the air. They walked another +twenty paces. + +'What is this baron whom your mother has made acquaintance with?' +began Volintsev again. + +'A Gentleman of the Bedchamber, a new arrival; _maman_ speaks very +highly of him.' + +'Your mother is quick to take fancies to people.' + +'That shows that her heart is still young,' observed Natalya. + +'Yes. I shall soon bring you your mare. She is almost quite broken in +now. I want to teach her to gallop, and I shall manage it soon.' + +'_Merci_! . . . But I'm quite ashamed. You are breaking her in yourself +. . . and they say it's so hard!' + +'To give you the least pleasure, you know, Natalya Alexyevna, I am +ready . . . I . . . not in such trifles----' + +Volintsev grew confused. + +Natalya looked at him with friendly encouragement, and again said +'_merci_!' + +'You know,' continued Sergei Pavlitch after a long pause, 'that not +such things. . . . But why am I saying this? you know everything, of +course.' + +At that instant a bell rang in the house. + +'Ah! _la cloche du diner_!' cried Mlle. Boncourt, '_rentrons_.' + +'_Quel dommage_,' thought the old French lady to herself as she mounted +the balcony steps behind Volintsev and Natalya, '_quel dommage que ce +charmant garcon ait si peu de ressources dans la conversation_,' which +may be translated, 'you are a good fellow, my dear boy, but rather a +fool.' + +The baron did not arrive to dinner. They waited half-an-hour for him. +Conversation flagged at the table. Sergei Pavlitch did nothing but +gaze at Natalya, near whom he was sitting, and zealously filled up her +glass with water. Pandalevsky tried in vain to entertain his +neighbour, Alexandra Pavlovna; he was bubbling over with sweetness, +but she hardly refrained from yawning. + +Bassistoff was rolling up pellets of bread and thinking of nothing at +all; even Pigasov was silent, and when Darya Mihailovna remarked to +him that he had not been very polite to-day, he replied crossly, 'When +am I polite? that's not in my line;' and smiling grimly he added, +'have a little patience; I am only kvas, you know, _du simple_ Russian +kvas; but your Gentleman of the Bedchamber----' + +'Bravo!' cried Darya Mihailovna, 'Pigasov is jealous, he is jealous +already!' + +But Pigasov made her no rejoinder, and only gave her a rather cross +look. + +Seven o'clock struck, and they were all assembled again in the +drawing-room. + +'He is not coming, clearly,' said Darya Mihailovna. + +But, behold, the rumble of a carriage was heard: a small tarantass +drove into the court, and a few instants later a footman entered the +drawing-room and gave Darya Mihailovna a note on a silver salver. She +glanced through it, and turning to the footman asked: + +'But where is the gentleman who brought this letter?' + +'He is sitting in the carriage. Shall I ask him to come up?' + +'Ask him to do so.' + +The man went out. + +'Fancy, how vexatious!' continued Darya Mihailovna, 'the baron has +received a summons to return at once to Petersburg. He has sent me his +essay by a certain Mr. Rudin, a friend of his. The baron wanted to +introduce him to me--he speaks very highly of him. But how vexatious +it is! I had hoped the baron would stay here for some time.' + +'Dmitri Nikolaitch Rudin,' announced the servant + + + + + +III + + +A man of about thirty-five entered, of a tall, somewhat stooping +figure, with crisp curly hair and swarthy complexion, an irregular but +expressive and intelligent face, a liquid brilliance in his quick, +dark blue eyes, a straight, broad nose, and well-curved lips. His +clothes were not new, and were somewhat small, as though he had +outgrown them. + +He walked quickly up to Darya Mihailovna, and with a slight bow told +her that he had long wished to have the honour of an introduction to +her, and that his friend the baron greatly regretted that he could not +take leave of her in person. + +The thin sound of Rudin's voice seemed out of keeping with his tall +figure and broad chest. + +'Pray be seated . . . very delighted,' murmured Darya Mihailovna, and, +after introducing him to the rest of the company, she asked him +whether he belonged to those parts or was a visitor. + +'My estate is in the T---- province,' replied Rudin, holding his hat +on his knees. 'I have not been here long. I came on business and +stayed for a while in your district town.' + +'With whom?' + +'With the doctor. He was an old chum of mine at the university.' + +'Ah! the doctor. He is highly spoken of. He is skilful in his work, +they say. But have you known the baron long?' + +'I met him last winter in Moscow, and I have just been spending about +a week with him.' + +'He is a very clever man, the baron.' + +'Yes.' + +Darya Mihailovna sniffed at her little crushed-up handkerchief steeped +in _eau de cologne_. + +'Are you in the government service?' she asked. + +'Who? I?' + +'Yes.' + +'No. I have retired.' + +There followed a brief pause. The general conversation was resumed. + +'If you will allow me to be inquisitive,' began Pigasov, turning to +Rudin, 'do you know the contents of the essay which his excellency +the baron has sent?' + +'Yes, I do.' + +'This essay deals with the relations to commerce--or no, of +manufactures to commerce in our country. . . . That was your +expression, I think, Darya Mihailovna?' + +'Yes, it deals with'. . . began Darya Mihailovna, pressing her hand to +her forehead. + +'I am, of course, a poor judge of such matters,' continued Pigasov, +'but I must confess that to me even the title of the essay seems +excessively (how could I put it delicately?) excessively obscure and +complicated.' + +'Why does it seem so to you?' + +Pigasov smiled and looked across at Darya Mihailovna. + +'Why, is it clear to you?' he said, turning his foxy face again +towards Rudin. + +'To me? Yes.' + +'H'm. No doubt you must know better.' + +'Does your head ache?' Alexandra Pavlovna inquired of Darya +Mihailovna. + +'No. It is only my--_c'est nerveux_.' + +'Allow me to inquire,' Pigasov was beginning again in his nasal tones, +'your friend, his excellency Baron Muffel--I think that's his name?' + +'Precisely.' + +'Does his excellency Baron Muffel make a special study of political +economy, or does he only devote to that interesting subject the hours +of leisure left over from his social amusements and his official +duties?' + +Rudin looked steadily at Pigasov. + +'The baron is an amateur on this subject,' he replied, growing rather +red, 'but in his essay there is much that is interesting and just.' + +'I am not able to dispute it with you; I have not read the essay. But +I venture to ask--the work of your friend Baron Muffel is no doubt +founded more upon general propositions than upon facts?' + +'It contains both facts and propositions founded upon the facts.' + +'Yes, yes. I must tell you that, in my opinion--and I've a right to +give my opinion, on occasion; I spent three years at Dorpat . . . all +these, so-called general propositions, hypotheses, these +systems--excuse me, I am a provincial, I speak the truth bluntly--are +absolutely worthless. All that's only theorising--only good for +misleading people. Give us facts, sir, and that's enough!' + +'Really!' retorted Rudin, 'why, but ought not one to give the +significance of the facts?' + +'General propositions,' continued Pigasov, 'they're my abomination, +these general propositions, theories, conclusions. All that's based on +so-called convictions; every one is talking about his convictions, and +attaches importance to them, prides himself on them. Ah!' + +And Pigasov shook his fist in the air. Pandalevsky laughed. + +'Capital!' put in Rudin, 'it follows that there is no such thing as +conviction according to you?' + +'No, it doesn't exist.' + +'Is that your conviction?' + +'Yes.' + +'How do you say that there are none then? Here you have one at the +very first turn.' + +All in the room smiled and looked at one another. + +'One minute, one minute, but----,' Pigasov was beginning. + +But Darya Mihailovna clapped her hands crying, 'Bravo, bravo, Pigasov's +beaten!' and she gently took Rudin's hat from his hand. + +'Defer your delight a little, madam; there's plenty of time!' +Pigasov began with annoyance. 'It's not sufficient to say a witty +word, with a show of superiority; you must prove, refute. We had +wandered from the subject of our discussion.' + +'With your permission,' remarked Rudin, coolly, 'the matter is very +simple. You do not believe in the value of general propositions--you +do not believe in convictions?' + +'I don't believe in them, I don't believe in anything!' + +'Very good. You are a sceptic.' + +'I see no necessity for using such a learned word. However----' + +'Don't interrupt!' interposed Darya Mihailovna. + +'At him, good dog!' Pandalevsky said to himself at the same instant, +and smiled all over. + +'That word expresses my meaning,' pursued Rudin. 'You understand it; +why not make use of it? You don't believe in anything. Why do you +believe in facts?' + +'Why? That's good! Facts are matters of experience, every one knows +what facts are. I judge of them by experience, by my own senses.' + +'But may not your senses deceive you? Your senses tell you that the +sun goes round the earth, . . . but perhaps you don't agree with +Copernicus? You don't even believe in him?' + +Again a smile passed over every one's face, and all eyes were fastened +on Rudin. 'He's by no means a fool,' every one was thinking. + +'You are pleased to keep on joking,' said Pigasov. 'Of course that's +very original, but it's not to the point.' + +'In what I have said hitherto,' rejoined Rudin, 'there is, +unfortunately, too little that's original. All that has been well +known a very long time, and has been said a thousand times. That is +not the pith of the matter.' + +'What is then?' asked Pigasov, not without insolence. + +In discussions he always first bantered his opponent, then grew cross, +and finally sulked and was silent. + +'Here it is,' continued Rudin. 'I cannot help, I own, feeling sincere +regret when I hear sensible people attack----' + +'Systems?' interposed Pigasov. + +'Yes, with your leave, even systems. What frightens you so much in +that word? Every system is founded on a knowledge of fundamental laws, +the principles of life----' + +'But there is no knowing them, no discovering them.' + +'One minute. Doubtless they are not easy for every one to get at, and +to make mistakes is natural to man. However, you will certainly agree +with me that Newton, for example, discovered some at least of these +fundamental laws? He was a genius, we grant you; but the grandeur of +the discoveries of genius is that they become the heritage of all. The +effort to discover universal principles in the multiplicity of +phenomena is one of the radical characteristics of human thought, and +all our civilisation----' + +'That's what you're driving at!' Pigasov broke in in a drawling tone. +'I am a practical man and all these metaphysical subtleties I don't +enter into and don't want to enter into.' + +'Very good! That's as you prefer. But take note that your very desire +to be exclusively a practical man is itself your sort of system--your +theory.' + +'Civilisation you talk about!' blurted in Pigasov; 'that's another +admirable notion of yours! Much use in it, this vaunted civilisation! +I would not give a brass farthing for your civilisation!' + +'But what a poor sort of argument, African Semenitch!' observed Darya +Mihailovna, inwardly much pleased by the calmness and perfect +good-breeding of her new acquaintance. '_Cest un homme comme il faut_,' +she thought, looking with well-disposed scrutiny at Rudin; 'we must +be nice to him!' Those last words she mentally pronounced in Russian. + +'I will not champion civilisation,' continued Rudin after a short +pause, 'it does not need my championship. You don't like it, every one +to his own taste. Besides, that would take us too far. Allow me only +to remind you of the old saying, "Jupiter, you are angry; therefore +you are in the wrong." I meant to say that all those onslaughts upon +systems--general propositions--are especially distressing, because +together with these systems men repudiate knowledge in general, and +all science and faith in it, and consequently also faith in +themselves, in their own powers. But this faith is essential to men; +they cannot exist by their sensations alone they are wrong to fear +ideas and not to trust in them. Scepticism is always characterised by +barrenness and impotence.' + +'That's all words!' muttered Pigasov. + +'Perhaps so. But allow me to point out to you that when we say "that's +all words!" we often wish ourselves to avoid the necessity of +saying anything more substantial than mere words.' + +'What?' said Pigasov, winking his eyes. + +'You understood what I meant,' retorted Rudin, with involuntary, but +instantly repressed impatience. 'I repeat, if man has no steady +principle in which he trusts, no ground on which he can take a firm +stand, how can he form a just estimate of the needs, the tendencies +and the future of his country? How can he know what he ought to do, +if----' + +'I leave you the field,' ejaculated Pigasov abruptly, and with a bow +he turned away without looking at any one. + +Rudin stared at him, and smiled slightly, saying nothing. + +'Aha! he has taken to flight!' said Darya Mihailovna. 'Never mind, +Dmitri. . .! I beg your pardon,' she added with a cordial smile, +'what is your paternal name?' + +'Nikolaitch.' + +'Never mind, my dear Dmitri Nikolaitch, he did not deceive any of us. +He wants to make a show of not wishing to argue any more. He is +conscious that he cannot argue with you. But you had better sit nearer +to us and let us have a little talk.' + +Rudin moved his chair up. + +'How is it we have not met till now?' was Darya Mihailovna's question. +'That is what surprises me. Have you read this book? _C'est de +Tocqueville, vous savez_?' + +And Darya Mihailovna held out the French pamphlet to Rudin. + +Rudin took the thin volume in his hand, turned over a few pages of it, +and laying it down on the table, replied that he had not read that +particular work of M. de Tocqueville, but that he had often reflected +on the question treated by him. A conversation began to spring up. +Rudin seemed uncertain at first, and not disposed to speak out freely; +his words did not come readily, but at last he grew warm and began to +speak. In a quarter of an hour his voice was the only sound in the +room, All were crowding in a circle round him. + +Only Pigasov remained aloof, in a corner by the fireplace. Rudin spoke +with intelligence, with fire and with judgment; he showed much +learning, wide reading. No one had expected to find in him a +remarkable man. His clothes were so shabby, so little was known of +him. Every one felt it strange and incomprehensible that such a clever +man should have suddenly made his appearance in the country. He seemed +all the more wonderful and, one may even say, fascinating to all of +them, beginning with Darya Mihailovna. She was pluming herself on +having discovered him, and already at this early date was dreaming of +how she would introduce Rudin into the world. In her quickness to +receive impressions there was much that was almost childish, in spite +of her years. Alexandra Pavlovna, to tell the truth, understood little +of all that Rudin said, but was full of wonder and delight; her +brother too was admiring him. Pandalevsky was watching Darya +Mihailovna and was filled with envy. Pigasov thought, 'If I have to +give five hundred roubles I will get a nightingale to sing better than +that!' But the most impressed of all the party were Bassistoff and +Natalya. Scarcely a breath escaped Bassistoff; he sat the whole time +with open mouth and round eyes and listened--listened as he had never +listened to any one in his life--while Natalya's face was suffused by +a crimson flush, and her eyes, fastened unwaveringly on Rudin, were +both dimmed and shining. + +'What splendid eyes he has!' Volintsev whispered to her. + +'Yes, they are.' + +'It's only a pity his hands are so big and red.' + +Natalya made no reply. + +Tea was brought in. The conversation became more general, but still by +the sudden unanimity with which every one was silent, directly Rudin +opened his mouth, one could judge of the strength of the impression he +had produced. Darya Mihailovna suddenly felt inclined to tease +Pigasov. She went up to him and said in an undertone, 'Why don't you +speak instead of doing nothing but smile sarcastically? Make an +effort, challenge him again,' and without waiting for him to answer, +she beckoned to Rudin. + +'There's one thing more you don't know about him,' she said to him, +with a gesture towards Pigasov,--'he is a terrible hater of women, he +is always attacking them; pray, show him the true path.' + +Rudin involuntarily looked down upon Pigasov; he was a head and +shoulders taller. Pigasov almost withered up with fury, and his sour +face grew pale. + +'Darya Mihailovna is mistaken,' he said in an unsteady voice, 'I do +not only attack women; I am not a great admirer of the whole human +species.' + +'What can have given you such a poor opinion of them?' inquired +Rudin. + +Pigasov looked him straight in the face. + +'The study of my own heart, no doubt, in which I find every day more +and more that is base. I judge of others by myself. Possibly this too +is erroneous, and I am far worse than others, but what am I to do? +it's a habit!' + +'I understand you and sympathise with you!' was Rudin's rejoinder. +'What generous soul has not experienced a yearning for +self-humiliation? But one ought not to remain in that condition from +which there is no outlet beyond.' + +'I am deeply indebted for the certificate of generosity you confer on +my soul,' retorted Pigasov. 'As for my condition, there's not much +amiss with it, so that even if there were an outlet from it, it might +go to the deuce, I shouldn't look for it!' + +'But that means--pardon the expression--to prefer the gratification +of your own pride to the desire to be and live in the truth.' + +'Undoubtedly,' cried Pigasov, 'pride--that I understand, and you, I +expect, understand, and every one understands; but truth, what is +truth? Where is it, this truth?' + +'You are repeating yourself, let me warn you,' remarked Darya +Mihailovna. + +Pigasov shrugged his shoulders. + +'Well, where's the harm if I do? I ask: where is truth? Even the +philosophers don't know what it is. Kant says it is one thing; but +Hegel--no, you're wrong, it's something else.' + +'And do you know what Hegel says of it?' asked Rudin, without raising +his voice. + +'I repeat,' continued Pigasov, flying into a passion, 'that I cannot +understand what truth means. According to my idea, it doesn't exist at +all in the world, that is to say, the word exists but not the thing +itself.' + +'Fie, fie!' cried Darya Mihailovna, 'I wonder you're not ashamed to +say so, you old sinner! No truth? What is there to live for in the +world after that?' + +'Well, I go so far as to think, Darya Mihailovna,' retorted Pigasov, +in a tone of annoyance, 'that it would be much easier for you, in any +case, to live without truth than without your cook, Stepan, who is +such a master hand at soups! And what do you want with truth, kindly +tell me? you can't trim a bonnet with it!' + +'A joke is not an argument,' observed Darya Mihailovna, 'especially +when you descend to personal insult.' + +'I don't know about truth, but I see speaking it does not answer,' +muttered Pigasov, and he turned angrily away. + +And Rudin began to speak of pride, and he spoke well. He showed that +man without pride is worthless, that pride is the lever by which the +earth can be moved from its foundations, but that at the same time he +alone deserves the name of man who knows how to control his pride, as +the rider does his horse, who offers up his own personality as a +sacrifice to the general good. + +'Egoism,' so he ended, 'is suicide. The egoist withers like a solitary +barren tree; but pride, ambition, as the active effort after +perfection, is the source of all that is great. . . . Yes! a man must +prune away the stubborn egoism of his personality to give it the right +of self-expression.' + +'Can you lend me a pencil?' Pigasov asked Bassistoff. + +Bassistoff did not at once understand what Pigasov had asked him. + +'What do you want a pencil for?' he said at last + +'I want to write down Mr. Rudin's last sentence. If one doesn't write +it down, one might forget it, I'm afraid! But you will own, a +sentence like that is such a handful of trumps.' + +'There are things which it is a shame to laugh at and make fun of, +African Semenitch!' said Bassistoff warmly, turning away from Pigasov. + +Meanwhile Rudin had approached Natalya. She got up; her face expressed +her confusion. Volintsev, who was sitting near her, got up too. + +'I see a piano,' began Rudin, with the gentle courtesy of a travelling +prince; 'don't you play on it?' + +'Yes, I play,' replied Natalya, 'but not very well. Here is +Konstantin Diomiditch plays much better than I do.' + +Pandalevsky put himself forward with a simper. 'You should not say +that, Natalya Alexyevna; your playing is not at all inferior to mine.' + +'Do you know Schubert's "Erlkonig"?' asked Rudin. + +'He knows it, he knows it!' interposed Darya Mihailovna. 'Sit down, +Konstantin. You are fond of music, Dmitri Nikolaitch?' + +Rudin only made a slight motion of the head and ran his hand through +his hair, as though disposing himself to listen. Pandalevsky began to +play. + +Natalya was standing near the piano, directly facing Rudin. At the +first sound his face was transfigured. His dark blue eyes moved slowly +about, from time to time resting upon Natalya. Pandalevsky finished +playing. + +Rudin said nothing and walked up to the open window. A fragrant mist +lay like a soft shroud over the garden; a drowsy scent breathed from +the trees near. The stars shed a mild radiance. The summer night was +soft--and softened all. Rudin gazed into the dark garden, and looked +round. + +'That music and this night,' he began, 'reminded me of my student days +in Germany; our meetings, our serenades.' + +'You have been in Germany then?' said Darya Mihailovna. + +'I spent a year at Heidelberg, and nearly a year at Berlin.' + +'And did you dress as a student? They say they wear a special dress +there.' + +'At Heidelberg I wore high boots with spurs, and a hussar's jacket +with braid on it, and I let my hair grow to my shoulders. In Berlin +the students dress like everybody else.' + +'Tell us something of your student life,' said Alexandra Pavlovna. + +Rudin complied. He was not altogether successful in narrative. There +was a lack of colour in his descriptions. He did not know how to be +humorous. However, from relating his own adventures abroad, Rudin soon +passed to general themes, the special value of education and science, +universities, and university life generally. He sketched in a large +and comprehensive picture in broad and striking lines. All listened to +him with profound attention. His eloquence was masterly and +attractive, not altogether clear, but even this want of clearness +added a special charm to his words. + +The exuberance of his thought hindered Rudin from expressing himself +definitely and exactly. Images followed upon images; comparisons +started up one after another--now startlingly bold, now strikingly +true. It was not the complacent effort of the practised speaker, but +the very breath of inspiration that was felt in his impatient +improvising. He did not seek out his words; they came obediently and +spontaneously to his lips, and each word seemed to flow straight from +his soul, and was burning with all the fire of conviction. Rudin was +the master of almost the greatest secret--the music of eloquence. He +knew how in striking one chord of the heart to set all the others +vaguely quivering and resounding. Many of his listeners, perhaps, did +not understand very precisely what his eloquence was about; but their +bosoms heaved, it seemed as though veils were lifted before their +eyes, something radiant, glorious, seemed shimmering in the distance. + +All Rudin's thoughts seemed centred on the future; this lent him +something of the impetuous dash of youth . . . Standing at the window, +not looking at any one in special, he spoke, and inspired by the +general sympathy and attention, the presence of young women, the +beauty of the night, carried along by the tide of his own emotions, he +rose to the height of eloquence, of poetry. . . . The very sound of +his voice, intense and soft, increased the fascination; it seemed as +though some higher power were speaking through his lips, startling +even to himself. . . . Rudin spoke of what lends eternal significance +to the fleeting life of man. + +'I remember a Scandinavian legend,' thus he concluded, 'a king is +sitting with his warriors round the fire in a long dark barn. It was +night and winter. Suddenly a little bird flew in at the open door and +flew out again at the other. The king spoke and said that this bird is +like man in the world; it flew in from darkness and out again into +darkness, and was not long in the warmth and light. . . . "King," +replies the oldest of the warriors, "even in the dark the bird is not +lost, but finds her nest." Even so our life is short and worthless; +but all that is great is accomplished through men. The consciousness +of being the instrument of these higher powers ought to outweigh all +other joys for man; even in death he finds his life, his nest.' + +Rudin stopped and dropped his eyes with a smile of involuntary +embarrassment. + +'_Vous etes un poete_,' was Darya Mihailovna's comment in an undertone. +And all were inwardly agreeing with her--all except Pigasov. Without +waiting for the end of Rudin's long speech, he quietly took his hat +and as he went out whispered viciously to Pandalevsky who was standing +near the door: + +'No! Fools are more to my taste.' + +No one, however, tried to detain him or even noticed his absence. + +The servants brought in supper, and half an hour later, all had taken +leave and separated. Darya Mihailovna begged Rudin to remain the +night. Alexandra Pavlovna, as she went home in the carriage with her +brother, several times fell to exclaiming and marvelling at the +extraordinary cleverness of Rudin. Volintsev agreed with her, though +he observed that he sometimes expressed himself somewhat +obscurely--that is to say, not altogether intelligibly, he +added,--wishing, no doubt, to make his own thought clear, but his face +was gloomy, and his eyes, fixed on a corner of the carriage, seemed +even more melancholy than usual. + +Pandalevsky went to bed, and as he took off his daintily embroidered +braces, he said aloud 'A very smart fellow!' and suddenly, looking +harshly at his page, ordered him out of the room. Bassistoff did not +sleep the whole night and did not undress--he was writing till +morning a letter to a comrade of his in Moscow; and Natalya, too, +though she undressed and lay down in her bed, had not an instant's +sleep and never closed her eyes. With her head propped on her arm, she +gazed fixedly into the darkness; her veins were throbbing feverishly +and her bosom often heaved with a deep sigh. + + + + +IV + + +The next morning Rudin had only just finished dressing when a servant +came to him with an invitation from Darya Mihailovna to come to her +boudoir and drink tea with her. Rudin found her alone. She greeted him +very cordially, inquired whether he had passed a good night, poured +him out a cup of tea with her own hands, asked him whether there was +sugar enough in it, offered him a cigarette, and twice again repeated +that she was surprised that she had not met him long before. Rudin was +about to take a seat some distance away; but Darya Mihailovna motioned +him to an easy chair, which stood near her lounge, and bending a +little towards him began to question him about his family, his plans +and intentions. Darya Mihailovna spoke carelessly and listened with an +air of indifference; but it was perfectly evident to Rudin that she +was laying herself out to please him, even to flatter him. It was not +for nothing that she had arranged this morning interview, and had +dressed so simply yet elegantly _a la Madame Recamier_! But Darya +Mihailovna soon left off questioning him. She began to tell him about +herself, her youth, and the people she had known. Rudin gave a +sympathetic attention to her lucubrations, though--a curious +fact--whatever personage Darya Mihailovna might be talking about, she +always stood in the foreground, she alone, and the personage seemed to +be effaced, to slink away in the background, and to disappear. But to +make up for that, Rudin learnt in full detail precisely what Darya +Mihailovna had said to a certain distinguished statesman, and what +influence she had had on such and such a celebrated poet. To judge +from Darya Mihailovna's accounts, one might fancy that all the +distinguished men of the last five-and-twenty years had dreamt of +nothing but how they could make her acquaintance, and gain her good +opinion. She spoke of them simply, without particular enthusiasm or +admiration, as though they were her daily associates, calling some of +them queer fellows. As she talked of them, like a rich setting round a +worthless stone, their names ranged themselves in a brilliant circlet +round the principal name--around Darya Mihailovna. + +Rudin listened, smoking a cigarette, and said little. He could speak +well and liked speaking; carrying on a conversation was not in his +line, though he was also a good listener. All men--if only they had +not been intimidated by him to begin with--opened their hearts with +confidence in his presence; he followed the thread of another man's +narrative so readily and sympathetically. He had a great deal of +good-nature--that special good-nature of which men are full, who are +accustomed to feel themselves superior to others. In arguments he +seldom allowed his antagonist to express himself fully, he crushed him +by his eager, vehement and passionate dialectic. + +Darya Mihailovna expressed herself in Russian. She prided herself on +her knowledge of her own language, though French words and expressions +often escaped her. She intentionally made use of simple popular terms +of speech; but not always successfully. Rudin's ear was not outraged +by the strange medley of language on Darya Mihailovna's lips, indeed +he hardly had an ear for it. + +Darya Mihailovna was exhausted at last and letting her head fall on +the cushions of her easy-chair she fixed her eyes on Rudin and was +silent. + +'I understand now,' began Rudin, speaking slowly, 'I understand why +you come every summer into the country. This period of rest is +essential for you; the peace of the country after your life in the +capital refreshes and strengthens you. I am convinced that you must be +profoundly sensitive to the beauties of nature.' + +Darya Mihailovna gave Rudin a sidelong look. + +'Nature--yes--yes--of course. . . . I am passionately fond of it; +but do you know, Dmitri Nikolaitch, even in the country one cannot do +without society. And here there is practically none. Pigasov is the +most intelligent person here.' + +'The cross old gentleman who was here last night?' inquired Rudin. + +'Yes. . . . In the country though, even he is of use--he sometimes makes +one laugh.' + +'He is by no means stupid,' returned Rudin, 'but he is on the wrong +path. I don't know whether you will agree with me, Darya Mihailovna, +but in negation--in complete and universal negation--there is no +salvation to be found? Deny everything and you will easily pass for a +man of ability; it's a well-known trick. Simple-hearted people are +quite ready to conclude that you are worth more than what you deny. +And that's often an error. In the first place, you can pick holes in +anything; and secondly, even if you are right in what you say, it's +the worse for you; your intellect, directed by simple negation, grows +colourless and withers up. While you gratify your vanity, you are +deprived of the true consolations of thought; life--the essence of +life--evades your petty and jaundiced criticism, and you end by +scolding and becoming ridiculous. Only one who loves has the right to +censure and find fault.' + +'Voila, Monsieur Pigasov enterre,' observed Darya Mihailovna. 'What a +genius you have for defining a man! But Pigasov certainly would not +have even understood you. He loves nothing but his own individuality.' + +'And he finds fault with that so as to have the right to find fault +with others,' Rudin put in. + +Darya Mihailovna laughed. + +'"He judges the sound," as the saying is, "the sound by the sick." By +the way, what do you think of the baron?' + +'The baron? He is an excellent man, with a good heart and a knowledge +. . . but he has no character . . . and he will remain all his life +half a savant, half a man of the world, that is to say, a dilettante, +that is to say, to speak plainly,--neither one thing nor the other. +. . . But it's a pity!' + +'That was my own idea,' observed Darya Mihailovna. 'I read his +article. . . . _Entre nous . . . cela a assez peu de fond!_' + +'Who else have you here?' asked Rudin, after a pause. + +Darya Mihailovna knocked off the ash of her cigarette with her little +finger. + +'Oh, there is hardly any one else. Madame Lipin, Alexandra Pavlovna, +whom you saw yesterday; she is very sweet--but that is all. Her +brother is also a capital fellow--_un parfait honnete homme_. The +Prince Garin you know. Those are all. There are two or three +neighbours besides, but they are really good for nothing. They either +give themselves airs or are unsociable, or else quite unsuitably free +and easy. The ladies, as you know, I see nothing of. There is one +other of our neighbours said to be a very cultivated, even a learned, +man, but a dreadfully queer creature, a whimsical character. +_Alexandrine_, knows him, and I fancy is not indifferent to him. . . . +Come, you ought to talk to her, Dmitri Nikolaitch; she's a sweet +creature. She only wants developing.' + +'I liked her very much,' remarked Rudin. + +'A perfect child, Dmitri Nikolaitch, an absolute baby. She has been +married, _mais c'est tout comme_. . . . If I were a man, I should only +fall in love with women like that.' + +'Really?' + +'Certainly. Such women are at least fresh, and freshness cannot be +put on.' + +'And can everything else?' Rudin asked, and he laughed--a thing which +rarely happened with him. When he laughed his face assumed a strange, +almost aged appearance, his eyes disappeared, his nose was wrinkled +up. + +'And who is this queer creature, as you call him, to whom Madame Lipin +is not indifferent?' he asked. + +'A certain Lezhnyov, Mihailo Mihailitch, a landowner here.' + +Rudin seemed astonished; he raised his head. + +'Lezhnyov--Mihailo Mihailitch?' he questioned. 'Is he a neighbour +of yours?' + +'Yes. Do you know him?' + +Rudin did not speak for a minute. + +'I used to know him long ago. He is a rich man, I suppose?' he added, +pulling the fringe on his chair. + +'Yes, he is rich, though he dresses shockingly, and drives in a racing +droshky like a bailiff. I have been anxious to get him to come here; +he is spoken of as clever; I have some business with him. . . . You +know I manage my property myself.' + +Rudin bowed assent. + +'Yes; I manage it myself,' Darya Mihailovna continued. 'I don't +introduce any foreign crazes, but prefer what is our own, what is +Russian, and, as you see, things don't seem to do badly,' she added, +with a wave of her hand. + +'I have always been persuaded,' observed Rudin urbanely, 'of the +absolutely mistaken position of those people who refuse to admit the +practical intelligence of women.' + +Darya Mihailovna smiled affably. + +'You are very good to us,' was her comment 'But what was I going to +say? What were we speaking of? Oh, yes; Lezhnyov: I have some business +with him about a boundary. I have several times invited him here, and +even to-day I am expecting him; but there's no knowing whether he'll +come . . . he's such a strange creature.' + +The curtain before the door was softly moved aside and the steward +came in, a tall man, grey and bald, in a black coat, a white cravat, +and a white waistcoat. + +'What is it?' inquired Darya Mihailovna, and, turning a little +towards Rudin, she added in a low voice, '_n'est ce pas, comme il +ressemble a Canning?_' + +'Mihailo Mihailitch Lezhnyov is here,' announced the steward. 'Will +you see him?' + +'Good Heavens!' exclaimed Darya Mihailovna, 'speak of the +devil----ask him up.' + +The steward went away. + +'He's such an awkward creature. Now he has come, it's at the wrong +moment; he has interrupted our talk.' + +Rudin got up from his seat, but Darya Mihailovna stopped him. + +'Where are you going? We can discuss the matter as well before you. +And I want you to analyse him too, as you did Pigasov. When you talk, +_vous gravez comme avec un burin_. Please stay.' Rudin was going to +protest, but after a moment's thought he sat down. + +Mihailo Mihailitch, whom the reader already knows, came into the room. +He wore the same grey overcoat, and in his sunburnt hands he carried +the same old foraging cap. He bowed tranquilly to Darya Mihailovna, +and came up to the tea-table. + +'At last you have favoured me with a visit, Monsieur Lezhnyov!' began +Darya Mihailovna. 'Pray sit down. You are already acquainted, +I hear,' she continued, with a gesture in Rudin's direction. + +Lezhnyov looked at Rudin and smiled rather queerly. + +'I know Mr. Rudin,' he assented, with a slight bow. + +'We were together at the university,' observed Rudin in a low voice, +dropping his eyes. + +'And we met afterwards also,' remarked Lezhnyov coldly. + +Darya Mihailovna looked at both in some perplexity and asked Lezhnyov +to sit down He sat down. + +'You wanted to see me,' he began, 'on the subject of the boundary?' + +'Yes; about the boundary. But I also wished to see you in any case. We +are near neighbours, you know, and all but relations.' + +'I am much obliged to you,' returned Lezhnyov. 'As regards the +boundary, we have perfectly arranged that matter with your manager; I +have agreed to all his proposals.' + +'I knew that. But he told me that the contract could not be signed +without a personal interview with you.' + +'Yes; that is my rule. By the way, allow me to ask: all your peasants, +I believe, pay rent?' + +'Just so.' + +'And you trouble yourself about boundaries! That's very praiseworthy.' + +Lezhnyov did not speak for a minute. + +'Well, I have come for a personal interview,' he said at last. + +Darya Mihailovna smiled. + +'I see you have come. You say that in such a tone. . . . You could not +have been very anxious to come to see me.' + +'I never go anywhere,' rejoined Lezhnyov phlegmatically. + +'Not anywhere? But you go to see Alexandra Pavlovna.' + +'I am an old friend of her brother's.' + +'Her brother's! However, I never wish to force any one. . . . But +pardon me, Mihailo Mihailitch, I am older than you, and I may be +allowed to give you advice; what charm do you find in such an +unsociable way of living? Or is my house in particular displeasing to +you? You dislike me?' + +'I don't know you, Darya Mihailovna, and so I can't dislike you. You +have a splendid house; but I will confess to you frankly I don't like +to have to stand on ceremony. And I haven't a respectable suit, I +haven't any gloves, and I don't belong to your set.' + +'By birth, by education, you belong to it, Mihailo Mihailitch! _vous +etes des notres_.' + +'Birth and education are all very well, Darya Mihailovna; that's not +the question.' + +'A man ought to live with his fellows, Mihailo Mihailitch! What +pleasure is there in sitting like Diogenes in his tub?' + +'Well, to begin with, he was very well off there, and besides, how do +you know I don't live with my fellows?' + +Darya Mihailovna bit her lip. + +'That's a different matter! It only remains for me to express my +regret that I have not the honour of being included in the number of +your friends.' + +'Monsieur Lezhnyov,' put in Rudin, 'seems to carry to excess a +laudable sentiment--the love of independence.' + +Lezhnyov made no reply, he only looked at Rudin. A short silence +followed. + +'And so,' began Lezhnyov, getting up, 'I may consider our business as +concluded, and tell your manager to send me the papers.' + +'You may, . . . though I confess you are so uncivil I ought really to +refuse you.' + +'But you know this rearrangement of the boundary is far more in your +interest than in mine.' + +Darya Mihailovna shrugged her shoulders. + +'You will not even have luncheon here?' she asked. + +'Thank you; I never take luncheon, and I am in a hurry to get home.' + +Darya Mihailovna got up. + +'I will not detain you,' she said, going to the window. 'I will not +venture to detain you.' + +Lezhnyov began to take leave. + +'Good-bye, Monsieur Lezhnyov! Pardon me for having troubled you.' + +'Oh, not at all!' said Lezhnyov, and he went away. + +'Well, what do you say to that?' Darya Mihailovna asked of Rudin. 'I +had heard he was eccentric, but really that was beyond everything!' + +'His is the same disease as Pigasov's,' observed Rudin, 'the desire of +being original. One affects to be a Mephistopheles--the other a +cynic. In all that, there is much egoism, much vanity, but little +truth, little love. Indeed, there is even calculation of a sort in it. +A man puts on a mask of indifference and indolence so that some one +will be sure to think. "Look at that man; what talents he has thrown +away!" But if you come to look at him more attentively, there is no +talent in him whatever.' + +'_Et de deux!_' was Darya Mihailovna's comment. 'You are a terrible man +at hitting people off. One can hide nothing from you.' + +'Do you think so?' said Rudin. . . . 'However,' he continued, 'I +ought not really to speak about Lezhnyov; I loved him, loved him as a +friend . . . but afterwards, through various misunderstandings . . .' + +'You quarrelled?' + +'No. But we parted, and parted, it seems, for ever.' + +'Ah, I noticed that the whole time of his visit you were not quite +yourself. . . . But I am much indebted to you for this morning. I have +spent my time extremely pleasantly. But one must know where to stop. I +will let you go till lunch time and I will go and look after my +business. My secretary, you saw him--Constantin, _c'est lui qui est +mon secretaire_--must be waiting for me by now. I commend him to you; +he is an excellent, obliging young man, and quite enthusiastic about +you. _Au revoir, cher_ Dmitri Nikolaitch! How grateful I am to the +baron for having made me acquainted with you!' + +And Darya Mihailovna held out her hand to Rudin. He first pressed it, +then raised it to his lips and went away to the drawing-room and from +there to the terrace. On the terrace he met Natalya. + + + + +V + + +Darya Mihailovna's daughter, Natalya Alexyevna, at a first glance +might fail to please. She had not yet had time to develop; she was +thin, and dark, and stooped slightly. But her features were fine and +regular, though too large for a girl of seventeen. Specially beautiful +was her pure, smooth forehead above fine eyebrows, which seemed broken +in the middle. She spoke little, but listened to others, and fixed her +eyes on them as though she were forming her own conclusions. She would +often stand with listless hands, motionless and deep in thought; her +face at such moments showed that her mind was at work within. . . . A +scarcely perceptible smile would suddenly appear on her lips and +vanish again; then she would slowly raise her large dark eyes. +'_Qu'a-vez-vous?_' Mlle, Boncourt would ask her, and then she would +begin to scold her, saying that it was improper for a young girl to be +absorbed and to appear absent-minded. But Natalya was not +absent-minded; on the contrary, she studied diligently; she read and +worked eagerly. Her feelings were strong and deep, but reserved; even +as a child she seldom cried, and now she seldom even sighed and only +grew slightly pale when anything distressed her. Her mother considered +her a sensible, good sort of girl, calling her in a joke '_mon honnete +homme de fille_' but had not a very high opinion of her intellectual +abilities. 'My Natalya happily is cold,' she used to say, 'not like +me--and it is better so. She will be happy.' Darya Mihailovna was +mistaken. But few mothers understand their daughters. + +Natalya loved Darya Mihailovna, but did not fully confide in her. + +'You have nothing to hide from me,' Darya Mihailovna said to her once, +'or else you would be very reserved about it; you are rather a close +little thing.' + +Natalya looked her mother in the face and thought, 'Why shouldn't I +be reserved?' + +When Rudin met her on the terrace she was just going indoors with +Mlle, Boncourt to put on her hat and go out into the garden. Her +morning occupations were over. Natalya was not treated as a +school-girl now. Mlle, Boncourt had not given her lessons in mythology +and geography for a long while; but Natalya had every morning to read +historical books, travels, or other instructive works with her. Darya +Mihailovna selected them, ostensibly on a special system of her own. +In reality she simply gave Natalya everything which the French +bookseller forwarded her from Petersburg, except, of course, the +novels of Dumas Fils and Co. These novels Darya Mihailovna read +herself. Mlle, Boncourt looked specially severely and sourly through +her spectacles when Natalya was reading historical books; according to +the old French lady's ideas all history was filled with _impermissible_ +things, though for some reason or other of all the great men of +antiquity she herself knew only one--Cambyses, and of modern +times--Louis XIV. and Napoleon, whom she could not endure. But Natalya +read books too, the existence of which Mlle, Boncourt did not suspect; +she knew all Pushkin by heart. + +Natalya flushed slightly at meeting Rudin. + +'Are you going for a walk?' he asked her, + +'Yes. We are going into the garden.' + +'May I come with you?' + +Natalya looked at Mlle, Boncourt + +'_Mais certainement, monsieur; avec plaisir_,' said the old lady +promptly. + +Rudin took his hat and walked with them. + +Natalya at first felt some awkwardness in walking side by side with +Rudin on the same little path; afterwards she felt more at ease. He +began to question her about her occupations and how she liked the +country. She replied not without timidity, but without that hasty +bashfulness which is so often taken for modesty. Her heart was +beating. + +'You are not bored in the country?' asked Rudin, taking her in with a +sidelong glance. + +'How can one be bored in the country? I am very glad we are here. I am +very happy here.' + +'You are happy--that is a great word. However, one can understood +it; you are young.' + +Rudin pronounced this last phrase rather strangely; either he envied +Natalya or he was sorry for her. + +'Yes! youth!' he continued, 'the whole aim of science is to reach +consciously what is bestowed on youth for nothing.' + +Natalya looked attentively at Rudin; she did not understand him. + +'I have been talking all this morning with your mother,' he went on; +'she is an extraordinary woman. I understand why all our poets sought +her friendship. Are you fond of poetry?' he added, after a pause. + +'He is putting me through an examination,' thought Natalya, and aloud: +'Yes, I am very fond of it' + +'Poetry is the language of the gods. I love poems myself. But poetry +is not only in poems; it is diffused everywhere, it is around us. Look +at those trees, that sky on all sides there is the breath of beauty, +and of life, and where there is life and beauty, there is poetry +also.' + +'Let us sit down here on this bench,' he added. 'Here--so. I somehow +fancy that when you are more used to me (and he looked her in the face +with a smile) 'we shall be friends, you and I. What do you think?' + +'He treats me like a school-girl,' Natalya reflected again, and, not +knowing what to say, she asked him whether he intended to remain long +in the country. + +'All the summer and autumn, and perhaps the winter too. I am a very +poor man, you know; my affairs are in confusion, and, besides, I am +tired now of wandering from place to place. The time has come to +rest.' + +Natalya was surprised. + +'Is it possible you feel that it is time for you to rest?' she asked +him timidly. + +Rudin turned so as to face Natalya. + +'What do you mean by that?' + +'I mean,' she replied in some embarrassment, 'that others may rest; +but you . . . you ought to work, to try to be useful. Who, if not +you----' + +'I thank you for your flattering opinion,' Rudin interrupted her. 'To +be useful . . . it is easy to say!' (He passed his hand over his face.) +'To be useful!' he repeated. 'Even if I had any firm conviction, how +could I be useful?--even if I had faith in my own powers, where is one +to find true, sympathetic souls?' + +And Rudin waved his hand so hopelessly, and let his head sink so +gloomily, that Natalya involuntarily asked herself, were those really +his--those enthusiastic words full of the breath of hope, she had +heard the evening before. + +'But no,' he said, suddenly tossing back his lion-like mane, 'that is +all folly, and you are right. I thank you, Natalya Alexyevna, I thank +you truly.' (Natalya absolutely did not know what he was thanking her +for.) 'Your single phrase has recalled to me my duty, has pointed out +to me my path. . . . Yes, I must act. I must not bury my talent, if I +have any; I must not squander my powers on talk alone--empty, +profitless talk--on mere words,' and his words flowed in a stream. He +spoke nobly, ardently, convincingly, of the sin of cowardice and +indolence, of the necessity of action. He lavished reproaches on +himself, maintained that to discuss beforehand what you mean to do is +as unwise as to prick with a pin the swelling fruit, that it is only a +vain waste of strength and sap. He declared that there was no noble +idea which would not gain sympathy, that the only people who remained +misunderstood were those who either did not know themselves what they +wanted, or were not worthy to be understood. He spoke at length, and +ended by once more thanking Natalya Alexyevna, and utterly +unexpectedly pressed her hand, exclaiming. 'You are a noble, generous +creature!' + +This outburst horrified Mlle, Boncourt, who in spite of her forty +years' residence in Russia understood Russian with difficulty, and was +only moved to admiration by the splendid rapidity and flow of words on +Rudin's lips. In her eyes, however, he was something of the nature of +a virtuoso or artist; and from people of that kind, according to her +notions, it was impossible to demand a strict adherence to propriety. + +She got up and drew her skirts with a jerk around her, observed to +Natalya that it was time to go in, especially as M. Volinsoff (so she +spoke of Volintsev) was to be there to lunch. + +'And here he is,' she added, looking up one of the avenues which led +to the house, and in fact Volintsev appeared not far off. + +He came up with a hesitating step, greeted all of them from a +distance, and with an expression of pain on his face he turned to +Natalya and said: + +'Oh, you are having a walk?' + +'Yes,' answered Natalya, 'we were just going home.' + +'Ah!' was Volintsev's reply. 'Well, let us go,' and they all walked +towards the house. + +'How is your sister?' Rudin inquired, in a specially cordial tone, of +Volintsev. The evening before, too, he had been very gracious to him. + +'Thank you; she is quite well. She will perhaps be here to-day. . . . I +think you were discussing something when I came up?' + +'Yes; I have had a conversation with Natalya Alexyevna. She said one +thing to me which affected me strongly.' + +Volintsev did not ask what the one thing was, and in profound silence +they all returned to Darya Mihailovna's house. + +Before dinner the party was again assembled in the drawing-room. +Pigasov, however, did not come. Rudin was not at his best; he did +nothing but press Pandalevsky to play Beethoven. Volintsev was silent +and stared at the floor. Natalya did not leave her mother's side, and +was at times lost in thought, and then bent over her work. Bassistoff +did not take his eyes off Rudin, constantly on the alert for him to +say something brilliant. About three hours were passed in this way +rather monotonously. Alexandra Pavlovna did not come to dinner, and +when they rose from table Volintsev at once ordered his carriage to be +ready, and slipped away without saying good-bye to any one. + +His heart was heavy. He had long loved Natalya, and was repeatedly +resolving to make her an offer. . . . She was kindly disposed to +him,--but her heart remained unmoved; he saw that clearly. He did not +hope to inspire in her a tenderer sentiment, and was only waiting for +the time when she should be perfectly at home with him and intimate +with him. What could have disturbed him? what change had he noticed +in these two days? Natalya had behaved to him exactly the same as +before. . . . + +Whether it was that some idea had come upon him that he perhaps did +not know Natalya's character at all--that she was more a stranger to +him than he had thought,--or jealousy had begun to work in him, or he +had some dim presentiment of ill . . . anyway, he suffered, though he +tried to reason with himself. + +When he came in to his sister's room, Lezhnyov was sitting with her. + +'Why have you come back so early?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'Oh! I was bored.' + +'Was Rudin there?' + +'Yes.' + +Volintsev flung down his cap and sat down. Alexandra Pavlovna turned +eagerly to him. + +'Please, Serezha, help me to convince this obstinate man (she +signified Lezhnyov) that Rudin is extraordinarily clever and +eloquent.' + +Volintsev muttered something. + +'But I am not disputing at all with you,' Lezhnyov began. 'I have no +doubt of the cleverness and eloquence of Mr. Rudin; I only say that I +don't like him.' + +'But have you seen him?' inquired Volintsev. + +'I saw him this morning at Darya Mihallovna's. You know he is her +first favourite now. The time will come when she will part with +him--Pandalevsky is the only man she will never part with--but now he +is supreme. I saw him, to be sure! He was sitting there,--and she +showed me off to him, "see, my good friend, what queer fish we have +here!" But I am not a prize horse, to be trotted out on show, so I +took myself off.' + +'But how did you come to be there?' + +'About a boundary; but that was all nonsense; she simply wanted to +have a look at my physiognomy. She's a fine lady,--that's explanation +enough!' + +'His superiority is what offends you--that's what it is!' began +Alexandra Pavlovna warmly, 'that's what you can't forgive. But I am +convinced that besides his cleverness he must have an excellent heart +as well. You should see his eyes when he----' + +'"Of purity exalted speaks,"' quoted Lezhnyov. + +'You make me angry, and I shall cry. I am heartily sorry I did not go +to Darya Mihailovna's, but stopped with you. You don't deserve it. +Leave off teasing me,' she added, in an appealing voice, 'You had much +better tell me about his youth.' + +'Rudin's youth?' + +'Yes, of course. Didn't you tell me you knew him well, and had known +him a long time?' + +Lezhnyov got up and walked up and down the room. + +'Yes,' he began, 'I do know him well. You want me to tell you about +his youth? Very well. He was born in T----, and was the son of a poor +landowner, who died soon after. He was left alone with his mother. She +was a very good woman, and she idolised him; she lived on nothing but +oatmeal, and every penny she had she spent on him. He was educated in +Moscow, first at the expense of some uncle, and afterwards, when he +was grown up and fully fledged, at the expense of a rich prince whose +favour he had courted--there, I beg your pardon, I won't do it +again--with whom he had made friends. Then he went to the university. +At the university I got to know him and we became intimate friends. I +will tell you about our life in those days some other time, I can't +now. Then he went abroad. . . .' + +Lezhnyov continued to walk up and down the room; Alexandra Pavlovna +followed him with her eyes. + +'While he was abroad,' he continued, 'Rudin wrote very rarely to his +mother, and paid her altogether only one visit for ten days. . . . The +old lady died without him, cared for by strangers; but up to her death +she never took her eyes off his portrait. I went to see her when I was +staying in T----. She was a kind and hospitable woman; she always used +to feast me on cherry jam. She loved her Mitya devotedly. People of +the Petchorin type tell us that we always love those who are least +capable of feeling love themselves; but it's my idea that all mothers +love their children especially when they are absent. Afterwards I met +Rudin abroad. Then he was connected with a lady, one of our +countrywomen, a bluestocking, no longer young, and plain, as a +bluestocking is bound to be. He lived a good while with her, and at +last threw her over--or no, I beg pardon,--she threw him over. It +was then that I too threw him over. That's all.' + +Lezhnyov ceased speaking, passed his hand over his brow, and dropped +into a chair as if he were exhausted. + +'Do you know, Mihailo Mihailitch,' began Alexandra Pavlovna, 'you are +a spiteful person, I see; indeed you are no better than Pigasov. I am +convinced that all you have told me is true, that you have not made up +anything, and yet in what an unfavourable light you have put it all! +The poor old mother, her devotion, her solitary death, and that +lady--What does it all amount to? You know that it's easy to put the +life of the best of men in such colours--and without adding anything, +observe--that every one would be shocked! But that too is slander of +a kind!' + +Lezhnyov got up and again walked about the room. + +'I did not want to shock you at all, Alexandra Pavlovna,' he brought +out at last, 'I am not given to slander. However,' he added, after a +moment's thought, 'in reality there is a foundation of fact in what +you said. I did not mean to slander Rudin; but--who knows! very likely +he has had time to change since those days--very possibly I am unjust +to him.' + +'Ah! you see. So promise me that you will renew your acquaintance with +him, and will get to know him thoroughly and then report your final +opinion of him to me.' + +'As you please. But why are you so quiet, Sergei Pavlitch?' + +Volintsev started and raised his head, as though he had just waked up. + +'What can I say? I don't know him. Besides, my head aches to-day.' + +'Yes, you look rather pale this evening,' remarked Alexandra Pavlovna; +'are you unwell?' + +'My head aches,' repeated Volintsev, and he went away. + +Alexandra Pavlovna and Lezhnyov looked after him, and exchanged +glances, though they said nothing. What was passing in Volintsev's +heart was no mystery to either of them. + + + + +VI + + +More than two months had passed; during the whole of that period Rudin +had scarcely been away from Darya Mihailovna's house. She could not +get on without him. To talk to him about herself and to listen to his +eloquence became a necessity for her. He would have taken his leave on +one occasion, on the ground that all his money was spent; she gave him +five hundred roubles. He borrowed two hundred roubles more from +Volintsev. Pigasov visited Darya Mihailovna much less frequently than +before; Rudin crushed him by his presence. And indeed it was not only +Pigasov who was conscious of an oppression. + +'I don't like that prig,' Pigasov used to say, 'he expresses himself +so affectedly like a hero of a romance. If he says "I," he stops in +rapt admiration, "I, yes, I!" and the phrases he uses are all so +drawn-out; if you sneeze, he will begin at once to explain to you +exactly why you sneezed and did not cough. If he praises you, it's +just as if he were creating you a prince. If he begins to abuse +himself, he humbles himself into the dust--come, one thinks, he will +never dare to face the light of day after that. Not a bit of it! It +only cheers him up, as if he'd treated himself to a glass of grog.' + +Pandalevsky was a little afraid of Rudin, and cautiously tried to win +his favour. Volintsev had got on to curious terms with him. Rudin +called him a knight-errant, and sang his praises to his face and +behind his back; but Volintsev could not bring himself to like him and +always felt an involuntary impatience and annoyance when Rudin devoted +himself to enlarging on his good points in his presence. 'Is he +making fun of me?' he thought, and he felt a throb of hatred in his +heart. He tried to keep his feelings in check, but in vain; he was +jealous of him on Natalya's account. And Rudin himself, though he +always welcomed Volintsev with effusion, though he called him a +knight-errant, and borrowed money from him, did not feel exactly +friendly towards him. It would be difficult to define the feelings of +these two men when they pressed each other's hands like friends and +looked into each other's eyes. + +Bassistoff continued to adore Rudin, and to hang on every word he +uttered. Rudin paid him very little attention. Once he spent a whole +morning with him, discussing the weightiest problems of life, and +awakening his keenest enthusiasm, but afterwards he took no further +notice of him. Evidently it was only a phrase when he said that he was +seeking for pure and devoted souls. With Lezhnyov, who began to be a +frequent visitor at the house, Rudin did not enter into discussion; he +seemed even to avoid him. Lezhnyov, on his part, too, treated him +coldly. He did not, however, report his final conclusions about him, +which somewhat disquieted Alexandra Pavlovna. She was fascinated by +Rudin, but she had confidence in Lezhnyov. Every one in Darya +Mihailovna's house humoured Rudin's fancies; his slightest preferences +were carried out He determined the plans for the day. Not a single +_partie de plaisir_ was arranged without his co-operation. + +He was not, however, very fond of any kind of impromptu excursion or +picnic, and took part in them rather as grown-up people take part in +children's games, with an air of kindly, but rather wearied, +friendliness. He took interest in everything else, however. He +discussed with Darya Mihailovna her plans for the estate, the +education of her children, her domestic arrangements, and her affairs +generally; he listened to her schemes, and was not bored by petty +details, and, in his turn, proposed reforms and made suggestions. +Darya Mihailovna agreed to them in words--and that was all. In +matters of business she was really guided by the advice of her +bailiff--an elderly, one-eyed Little Russian, a good-natured and +crafty old rogue. 'What is old is fat, what is new is thin,' he used +to say, with a quiet smile, winking his solitary eye. + +Next to Darya Mihailovna, it was Natalya to whom Rudin used to talk +most often and at most length. He used privately to give her books, to +confide his plans to her, and to read her the first pages of the +essays and other works he had in his mind. Natalya did not always +fully grasp the significance of them. + +But Rudin did not seem to care much about her understanding, so long +as she listened to him. His intimacy with Natalya was not altogether +pleasing to Darya Mihailovna. 'However,' she thought, 'let her chatter +away with him in the country. She amuses him as a little girl now. +There is no great harm in it, and, at any rate, it will improve her +mind. At Petersburg I will soon put a stop to it.' + +Darya Mihailovna was mistaken. Natalya did not chatter to Rudin like a +school-girl; she eagerly drank in his words, she tried to penetrate to +their full significance; she submitted her thoughts, her doubts to +him; he became her leader, her guide. So far, it was only the brain +that was stirred, but in the young the brain is not long stirred +alone. What sweet moments Natalya passed when at times in the garden +on the seat, in the transparent shade of the aspen tree, Rudin began +to read Goethe's _Faust_, Hoffman, or Bettina's letters, or Novalis, +constantly stopping and explaining what seemed obscure to her. Like +almost all Russian girls, she spoke German badly, but she understood +it well, and Rudin was thoroughly imbued with German poetry, German +romanticism and philosophy, and he drew her after him into these +forbidden lands. Unimagined splendours were revealed there to her +earnest eyes from the pages of the book which Rudin held on his knee; +a stream of divine visions, of new, illuminating ideas, seemed to +flow in rhythmic music into her soul, and in her heart, moved with the +high delight of noble feeling, slowly was kindled and fanned into a +flame the holy spark of enthusiasm. + +'Tell me, Dmitri Nikolaitch,' she began one day, sitting by the window +at her embroidery-frame, 'shall you be in Petersburg in the winter?' + +'I don't know,' replied Rudin, as he let the book he had been glancing +through fall upon his knee; 'if I can find the means, I shall go.' + +He spoke dejectedly; he felt tired, and had done nothing all day. + +'I think you are sure to find the means.' + +Rudin shook his head. + +'You think so!' + +And he looked away expressively. + +Natalya was on the point of replying, but she checked herself. + +'Look.' began Rudin, with a gesture towards the window, 'do you see +that apple-tree? It is broken by the weight and abundance of its own +fruit. True emblem of genius.' + +'It is broken because it had no support,' replied Natalya + +'I understand you, Natalya Alexyevna, but it is not so easy for a man +to find such a support.' + +'I should think the sympathy of others . . . in any case isolation +always. . . .' + +Natalya was rather confused, and flushed a little. + +'And what will you do in the country in the winter?' she added +hurriedly. + +'What shall I do? I shall finish my larger essay--you know it--on +"Tragedy in Life and in Art." I described to you the outline of it the +day before yesterday, and shall send it to you.' + +'And you will publish it?' + +'No.' + +'No? For whose sake will you work then?' + +'And if it were for you?' + +Natalya dropped her eyes. + +'It would be far above me.' + +'What, may I ask, is the subject of the essay?' Bassistoff inquired +modestly. He was sitting a little distance away. + +'"Tragedy in Life and in Art,"' repeated Rudin. 'Mr. Bassistoff too +will read it. But I have not altogether settled on the fundamental +motive. I have not so far worked out for myself the tragic +significance of love.' + +Rudin liked to talk of love, and frequently did so. At first, at the +word 'love,' Mlle, Boncourt started, and pricked up her eyes like +an old war-horse at the sound of the trumpet; but afterwards she had +grown used to it, and now only pursed up her lips and took snuff at +intervals. + +'It seems to me,' said Natalya timidly, 'that the tragic in love is +unrequited love.' + +'Not at all!' replied Rudin; 'that is rather the comic side of love. +. . . The question must be put in an altogether different way . . . +one must attack it more deeply. . . . Love!' he pursued, 'all is +mystery in love; how it comes, how it develops, how it passes away. +Sometimes it comes all at once, undoubting, glad as day; sometimes it +smoulders like fire under ashes, and only bursts into a flame in the +heart when all is over; sometimes it winds its way into the heart like +a serpent, and suddenly slips out of it again. . . . Yes, yes; it is +the great problem. But who does love in our days? Who is so bold as to +love?' + +And Rudin grew pensive. + +'Why is it we have not seen Sergei Pavlitch for so long?' he asked +suddenly. + +Natalya blushed, and bent her head over her embroidery frame. + +'I don't know,' she murmured. + +'What a splendid, generous fellow he is!' Rudin declared, standing up. +'It is one of the best types of a Russian gentleman.' + +Mlle, Boncourt gave him a sidelong look out of her little French eyes. + +Rudin walked up and down the room. + +'Have you noticed,' he began, turning sharply round on his heels, +'that on the oak--and the oak is a strong tree--the old leaves only +fall off when the new leaves begin to grow?' + +'Yes,' answered Natalya slowly, 'I have noticed it' + +'That is what happens to an old love in a strong heart; it is dead +already, but still it holds its place; only another new love can drive +it out.' + +Natalya made no reply. + +'What does that mean?' she was thinking. + +Rudin stood still, tossed his hair back, and walked away. + +Natalya went to her own room. She sat a long while on her little bed +in perplexity, pondering over Rudin's last words. All at once she +clasped her hands and began to weep bitterly. What she was weeping +for--who can tell? She herself could not tell why her tears were +falling so fast. She dried them; but they flowed afresh, like water +from a long-pent-up source. + +On this same day Alexandra Pavlovna had a conversation with Lezhnyov +about Rudin. At first he bore all her attacks in silence; but at last +she succeeded in rousing him into talk. + +'I see,' she said to him, 'you dislike Dmitri Nikolaitch, as you did +before. I purposely refrained from questioning you till now; but +now you have had time to make up your mind whether there is any change +in him, and I want to know why you don't like him.' + +'Very well,' answered Lezhnyov with his habitual phlegm, 'since your +patience is exhausted; only look here, don't get angry.' + +'Come, begin, begin.' + +'And let me have my say to the end.' + +'Of course, of course; begin.' + +'Very well,' said Lezhnyov, dropping lazily on to the sofa; 'I admit +that I certainly don't like Rudin. He is a clever fellow.' + +'I should think so.' + +'He is a remarkably clever man, though in reality essentially +shallow.' + +'It's easy to say that.' + +'Though essentially shallow,' repeated Lezhnyov; 'but there's no +great harm in that; we are all shallow. I will not even quarrel with +him for being a tyrant at heart, lazy, ill-informed!' + +Alexandra Pavlovna clasped her hands. + +'Rudin--ill-informed!' she cried. + +'Ill-informed!' repeated Lezhnyov in precisely the same voice, 'that +he likes to live at other people's expanse, to cut a good figure, and +so forth--all that's natural enough. But what's wrong is, that he is as +cold as ice.' + +'He cold! that fiery soul cold!' interrupted Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'Yes, cold as ice, and he knows it, and pretends to be fiery. What's +bad,' pursued Lezhnyov, gradually growing warm, 'he is playing a +dangerous game--not dangerous for him, of course; he does not risk a +farthing, not a straw on it--but others stake their soul.' + +'Whom and what are you talking of? I don't understand you,' said +Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'What's bad, he isn't honest. He's a clever man, certainly; he ought +to know the value of his own words, and he brings them out as if they +were worth something to him. I don't dispute that he's a fine speaker, +but not in the Russian style. And indeed, after all, fine speaking is +pardonable in a boy, but at his years it is disgraceful to take +pleasure in the sound of his own voice, and to show off!' + +'I think, Mihailo Mihailitch, it's all the same for those who hear +him, whether he is showing off or not.' + +'Excuse me, Alexandra Pavlovna, it is not all the same. One man says a +word to me and it thrills me all over, another may say the same thing, +or something still finer--and I don't prick up my ears. Why is that?' + +'You don't, perhaps,' put in Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'I don't,' retorted Lezhnyov, 'though perhaps my ears are long enough. +The point is, that Rudin's words seem to remain mere words, and never +to pass into deeds--and meanwhile even words may trouble a young +heart, may be the ruin of it' + +'But whom do you mean, Mihailo Mihailitch?' + +Lezhnyov paused. + +'Do you want to know whom I mean, Natalya Alexyevna?' + +Alexandra Pavlovna was taken aback for a moment, but she began to +smile the instant after. + +'Really,' she began, 'what queer ideas you always have! Natalya is +still a child; and besides, if there were anything in what you say, do +you suppose Darya Mihailovna----' + +'Darya Mihailovna is an egoist to begin with, and lives for herself; +and then she is so convinced of her own skill in educating her +children that it does not even enter her head to feel uneasy about +them. Nonsense! how is it possible: she has but to give one nod, one +majestic glance--and all is over, all is obedience again. That's what +that lady imagines; she fancies herself a female Maecenas, a learned +woman, and God knows what, but in fact she is nothing more than a +silly, worldly old woman. But Natalya is not a baby; believe me, she +thinks more, and more profoundly too, than you and I do. And that her +true, passionate, ardent nature must fall in with an actor, a flirt +like this! But of course that's in the natural order of things.' + +'A flirt! Do you mean that he is a flirt?' + +'Of course he is. And tell me yourself, Alexandra Pavlovna, what is +his position in Darya Mihailovna's house? To be the idol, the oracle +of the household, to meddle in the arrangements, all the gossip and +petty trifles of the house--is that a dignified position for a man +to be in?' + +Alexandra Pavlovna looked at Lezhnyov in surprise. + +'I don't know you, Mihailo Mihailitch,' she began to say. 'You are +flushed and excited. I believe there must be something else hidden +under this.' + +'Oh, so that's it! Tell a woman the truth from conviction, and she +will never rest easy till she has invented some petty outside cause +quite beside the point which has made you speak in precisely that +manner and no other.' + +Alexandra Pavlovna began to get angry. + +'Bravo, Monsieur Lezhnyov! You begin to be as bitter against women as +Mr. Pigasov; but you may say what you like, penetrating as you +are, it's hard for me to believe that you understand every one and +everything. I think you are mistaken. According to your ideas, Rudin +is a kind of Tartuffe.' + +'No, the point is, that he is not even a Tartuffe. Tartuffe at least +knew what he was aiming at; but this fellow, for all his +cleverness----' + +'Well, well, what of him? Finish your sentence, you unjust, horrid +man!' + +Lezhnyov got up. + +'Listen, Alexandra Pavlovna,' he began, 'it is you who are unjust, not +I. You are cross with me for my harsh criticism of Rudin; I have the +right to speak harshly of him! I have paid dearly enough, perhaps, for +that privilege. I know him well: I lived a long while with him. You +remember I promised to tell you some time about our life at Moscow. It +is clear that I must do so now. But will you have the patience to hear +me out?' + +'Tell me, tell me!' + +'Very well, then.' + +Lezhnyov began walking with measured steps about the room, coming to a +standstill at times with his head bent. + +'You know, perhaps,' he began, 'or perhaps you don't know, that I was +left an orphan at an early age, and by the time I was seventeen I had +no one in authority over me. I lived at my aunt's at Moscow, and did +just as I liked. As a boy I was rather silly and conceited, and liked +to brag and show off. After my entrance at the university I behaved +like a regular schoolboy, and soon got into a scrape. I won't +tell you about it; it's not worth while. But I told a lie about it, +and rather a shameful lie. It all came out, and I was put to open +shame. I lost my head and cried like a child. It happened at a +friend's rooms before a lot of fellow-students. They all began to +laugh at me, all except one student, who, observe, had been more +indignant with me than any, so long as I had been obstinate and would +not confess my deceit. He took pity on me, perhaps; anyway, he took me +by the arm and led me away to his lodging.' + +'Was that Rudin?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'No, it was not Rudin . . . it was a man . . . he is dead now . . . he was +an extraordinary man. His name was Pokorsky. To describe him in a few +words is beyond my powers, but directly one begins to speak of him, +one does not want to speak of any one else. He had a noble, pure +heart, and an intelligence such as I have never met since. Pokorsky +lived in a little, low-pitched room, in an attic of an old wooden +house. He was very poor, and supported himself somehow by giving +lessons. Sometimes he had not even a cup of tea to offer to his +friends, and his only sofa was so shaky that it was like being on +board ship. But in spite of these discomforts a great many people used +to go to see him. Every one loved him; he drew all hearts to him. You +would not believe what sweetness and happiness there was in sitting in +his poor little room! It was in his room I met Rudin. He had already +parted from his prince before then.' + +'What was there so exceptional in this Pokorsky?' asked Alexandra +Pavlovna. + +'How can I tell you? Poetry and truth--that was what drew all of us +to him. For all his clear, broad intellect he was as sweet and simple +as a child. Even now I have his bright laugh ringing in my ears, and +at the same time he + + Burnt his midnight lamp + Before the holy and the true, + +as a dear half-cracked fellow, the poet of our set, expressed it.' + +'And how did he talk?' Alexandra Pavlovna questioned again. + +'He talked well when he was in the mood, but not remarkably so. Rudin +even then was twenty times as eloquent as he.' + +Lezhnyov stood still and folded his arms. + +'Pokorsky and Rudin were very unlike. There was more flash and +brilliance about Rudin, more fluency, and perhaps more enthusiasm. He +appeared far more gifted than Pokorsky, and yet all the while he was a +poor creature by comparison. Rudin was excellent at developing any +idea, he was capital in argument, but his ideas did not come from his +own brain; he borrowed them from others, especially from Pokorsky. +Pokorsky was quiet and soft--even weak in appearance--and he was fond +of women to distraction, and fond of dissipation, and he would never +take an insult from any one. Rudin seemed full of fire, and courage, +and life, but at heart he was cold and almost a coward, until his +vanity was touched, then he would not stop at anything. He always +tried to get an ascendency over people, but he got it in the name of +general principles and ideas, and certainly had a great influence over +many. To tell the truth, no one loved him; I was the only one, +perhaps, who was attached to him. They submitted to his yoke, but all +were devoted to Pokorsky. Rudin never refused to argue and discuss +with any one he met. He did not read very much, though far more anyway +than Pokorsky and all the rest of us; besides, he had a well-arranged +intellect, and a prodigious memory, and what an effect that has on +young people! They must have generalisations, conclusions, incorrect +if you like, perhaps, but still conclusions! A perfectly sincere man +never suits them. Try to tell young people that you cannot give them +the whole truth, and they will not listen to you. But you mustn't +deceive them either. You want to half believe yourself that you are in +possession of the truth. That was why Rudin had such a powerful effect +on all of us. I told you just now, you know, that he had not read +much, but he read philosophical books, and his brain was so +constructed that he extracted at once from what he had read all +the general principles, penetrated to the very root of the thing, and +then made deductions from it in all directions--consecutive, +brilliant, sound ideas, throwing up a wide horizon to the soul. Our +set consisted then--it's only fair to say--of boys, and not +well-informed boys. Philosophy, art, science, and even life itself +were all mere words to us--ideas if you like, fascinating and +magnificent ideas, but disconnected and isolated. The general +connection of those ideas, the general principle of the universe we +knew nothing of, and had had no contact with, though we discussed it +vaguely, and tried to form an idea of it for ourselves. As we +listened to Rudin, we felt for the first time as if we had grasped it +at last, this general connection, as if a veil had been lifted at +last! Even admitting he was not uttering an original thought--what of +that! Order and harmony seemed to be established in all we knew; all +that had been disconnected seemed to fall into a whole, to take shape +and grow like a building before our eyes, all was full of light and +inspiration everywhere. . . . Nothing remained meaningless and +undesigned, in everything wise design and beauty seemed apparent, +everything took a clear and yet mystic significance; every isolated +event of life fell into harmony, and with a kind of holy awe and +reverence and sweet emotion we felt ourselves to be, as it were, the +living vessels of eternal truth, her instruments destined for some +great . . . Doesn't it all seem very ridiculous to you?' + +'Not the least!' replied Alexandra Pavlovna slowly; 'why should you +think so? I don't altogether understand you, but I don't think it +ridiculous.' + +'We have had time to grow wiser since then, of course,' Lezhnyov +continued, 'all that may seem childish to us now. . . . But, I repeat, +we all owed a great deal to Rudin then. Pokorsky was incomparably +nobler than he, no question about it; Pokorsky breathed fire and +strength into all of us; but he was often depressed and silent. He was +nervous and not robust; but when he did stretch his wings--good +heavens!--what a flight! up to the very height of the blue heavens! +And there was a great deal of pettiness in Rudin, handsome and stately +as he was; he was a gossip, indeed, and he loved to have a hand in +everything, arranging and explaining everything. His fussy activity +was inexhaustible--he was a diplomatist by nature. I speak of him as I +knew him then. But unluckily he has not altered. On the other hand. +his ideals haven't altered at five-and-thirty! It's not every one who +can say that of himself!' + +'Sit down,' said Alexandra Pavlovna, 'why do you keep moving about +like a pendulum?' + +'I like it better,' answered Lezhnyov. 'Well, after I had come into +Pokorsky's set, I may tell you, Alexandra Pavlovna, I was quite +transformed; I grew humble and anxious to learn; I studied, and was +happy and reverent--in a word, I felt just as though I had entered a +holy temple. And really, when I recall our gatherings, upon my word +there was much that was fine, even touching, in them. Imagine a party +of five or six lads gathered together, one tallow candle burning. The +tea was dreadful stuff, and the cake was stale, very stale; but you +should have seen our faces, you should have heard our talk! Eyes were +sparkling with enthusiasm, cheeks flushed, and hearts beating, while +we talked of God, and truth, of the future of humanity, and poetry +. . . often what we said was absurd, and we were in ecstasies over +nonsense; but what of that? . . . Pokorsky sat with crossed legs, his +pale cheek on his hand, and his eyes seemed to shed light. Rudin stood +in the middle of the room and spoke, spoke splendidly, for all the +world like the young Demosthenes by the resounding sea; our poet, +Subotin of the dishevelled locks, would now and then throw out some +abrupt exclamation as though in his sleep, while Scheller, a student +forty years old, the son of a German pastor, who had the reputation +among us of a profound thinker, thanks to his eternal, inviolable +silence, held his peace with more rapt solemnity than usual; even the +lively Shtchitof, the Aristophanes of our reunions, was subdued and +did no more than smile, while two or three novices listened with +reverent transports. . . . And the night seemed to fly by on wings. It +was already the grey morning when we separated, moved, happy, aspiring +and sober (there was no question of wine among us at such times) with +a kind of sweet weariness in our souls . . . and one even looked up +at the stars with a kind of confidence, as though they had become +nearer and more comprehensible. Ah! that was a glorious time, and I +can't bear to believe that it was altogether wasted! And it was not +wasted--not even for those whose lives were sordid afterwards. How +often have I chanced to come across such old college friends! You +would think the man had sunk altogether to the brute, but one had only +to utter Pokorsky's name before him and every trace of noble feeling +in him was stirred at once; it was like uncorking a forgotten phial of +fragrance in some dark and dirty room.' + +Lezhnyov stopped; his colourless face was flushed. + +'And what was the cause of your quarrel with Rudin?' said Alexandra +Pavlovna, looking wonderingly at Lezhnyov. + +'I did not quarrel with him, but I parted from him when I came to know +him thoroughly abroad. But I might well have quarrelled with him in +Moscow, he did me a bad turn there.' + +'What was that?' + +'It was like this. I--how can I tell you?--it does not accord very +well with my appearance, but I was always much given to falling in +love.' + +'You?' + +'Yes, I was indeed. That's a curious idea, isn't it? But, anyway, it +was so. Well, so I fell in love in those days with a very pretty young +girl. . . . But why do you look at me like that? I could tell you +something about myself a great deal more extraordinary than that!' + +'And what is that something, if I may know?' + +'Oh, just this. In those Moscow days I used to have a tryst at +nights--with whom, would you imagine? with a young lime-tree at the +bottom of my garden. I used to embrace its slender and graceful trunk, +and I felt as though I were embracing all nature, and my heart melted +and expanded as though it really were taking in the whole of nature. +That's what I was then. And do you think, perhaps, I didn't write +verses? Why, I even composed a whole drama in imitation of Manfred. +Among the characters was a ghost with blood on his breast, and not his +own blood, observe, but the blood of all humanity. . . . Yes, yes, you +need not wonder at that. But I was beginning to tell you about my love +affair. I made the acquaintance of a girl----' + +'And you gave up your trysts with the lime-tree?' inquired Alexandra +Pavlovna. + +'Yes; I gave them up. This girl was a sweet, good creature, with +clear, lively eyes and a ringing voice.' + +'You give an excellent description of her,' commented Alexandra +Pavlovna with a smile. + +'You are such a severe critic,' retorted Lezhnyov. 'Well, this girl +lived with her old father. . . . But I will not enter into details; I +will only tell you that this girl was so kind-hearted, if you only +asked her for half a cup of tea she would give it you brimming over! +Two days after first meeting her I was wild over her, and on the +seventh day I could hold out no longer, and confessed it in full to +Rudin. At that time I was completely under his influence, and his +influence, I will tell you frankly, was beneficial in many things. He +was the first person who did not treat me with contempt, but tried to +lick me into shape. I loved Pokorsky passionately, and felt a kind of +awe before his purity of soul, but I came closer to Rudin. When he +heard about my love, he fell into an indescribable ecstasy, +congratulated me, embraced me, and at once fell to disserting and +enlarging upon all the dignity of my new position. I pricked up my +ears. . . . Well, you know how he can talk. His words had an +extraordinary effect on me. I at once assumed an amazing consequence +in my own eyes, and I put on a serious exterior and left off laughing. +I remember I used even to go about at that time with a kind of +circumspection, as though I had a sacred chalice within me, full of a +priceless liquid, which I was afraid of spilling over. . . . I was +very happy, especially as I found favour in her eyes. Rudin wanted to +make my beloved's acquaintance, and I myself almost insisted on +presenting him.' + +'Ah! I see, I see now what it is,' interrupted Alexandra Pavlovna. +'Rudin cut you out with your charmer, and you have never been able to +forgive him. . . . I am ready to take a wager I am right!' + +'You would lose your wager, Alexandra Pavlovna; you are wrong. Rudin +did not cut me out; he did not even try to cut me out; but, all the +same, he put an end to my happiness, though, looking at it in cool +blood, I am ready to thank him for it now. But I nearly went out of +my mind at the time. Rudin did not in the least wish to injure +me--quite the contrary! But through his cursed habit of pinning every +emotion--his own and other people's--with a phrase, as one pins +butterflies in a case, he set to making clear to ourselves our +relations to one another, and how we ought to treat each other, and +arbitrarily compelled us to take stock of our feelings and ideas, +praised us and blamed us, even entered into a correspondence with +us--fancy! Well, he succeeded in completely disconcerting us! I should +hardly, even then, have married the young lady (I had so much sense +still left), but, at least, we might have spent some months happily a +_la Paul et Virginie_; but now came strained relations, +misunderstandings of every kind. It ended by Rudin, one fine morning, +arriving at the conviction that it was his sacred duty as a friend to +acquaint the old father with everything--and he did so.' + +'Is it possible?' cried Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'Yes, and did it with my consent, observe. That's where the wonder +comes in! . . . I remember even now what a chaos my brain was in; +everything was simply turning round--things looked as they do in a +camera obscura--white seemed black and black white; falsehood was +truth, and a whim was duty. . . . Ah! even now I feel shame at the +recollection of it! Rudin--he never flagged--not a bit of it! He +soared through all sorts of misunderstandings and perplexities, like a +swallow over a pond.' + +'And so you parted from the girl?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna, naively +bending her head on one side, and raising her eyebrows. + +'We parted--and it was a horrible parting--outrageously awkward +and public, quite unnecessarily public. . . . I wept myself, and she +wept, and I don't know what passed. . . . It seemed as though a kind of +Gordian knot had been tied. It had to be cut, but it was painful! +However, everything in the world is ordered for the best. She has +married an excellent man, and is well off now.' + +'But confess, you have never been able to forgive Rudin, all the +same,' Alexandra Pavlovna was beginning. + +'Not at all!' interposed Lezhnyov, 'why, I cried like a child when +he was going abroad. Still, to tell the truth, even then there was the +germ in my heart. And when I met him later abroad . . . well, by that +time I had grown older. . . . Rudin struck me in his true light.' + +'What was it exactly you discovered in him?' + +'Why, all I have been telling you the last hour. But enough of him. +Perhaps everything will turn out all right. I only wanted to show you +that, if I do judge him hardly, it is not because I don't know him. +. . . As far as concerns Natalya Alexyevna, I won't say any more, but +you should observe your brother.' + +'My brother! Why?' + +'Why, look at him. Do you really notice nothing?' + +Alexandra Pavlovna looked down. + +'You are right,' she assented. 'Certainly--my brother--for some time +he has not been himself. . . . But do you really think----' + +'Hush! I think he is coming,' whispered Lezhnyov. 'But Natalya is not +a child, believe me, though unluckily she is as inexperienced as a +child. You will see, that girl will astonish us all.' + +'In what way?' + +'Oh! in this way. . . . Do you know it's precisely girls like that who +drown themselves, take poison, and so forth? Don't be misled by +her looking so calm. Her passions are strong, and her character--my +goodness!' + +'Come! I think you are indulging in a flight of fancy now. To a +phlegmatic person like you, I suppose even I seem a volcano?' + +'Oh, no!' answered Lezhnyov, with a smile. 'And as for character--you +have no character at all, thank God!' + +'What impertinence is that?' + +'That? It's the highest compliment, believe me.' + +Volintsev came in and looked suspiciously at Lezhnyov and his sister. +He had grown thin of late. They both began to talk to him, but he +scarcely smiled in response to their jests, and looked, as Pigasov +once said of him, like a melancholy hare. But there has certainly +never been a man in the world who, at some time in his life, has not +looked worse than that. Volintsev felt that Natalya was drifting away +from him, and with her it seemed as if the earth was giving way under +his feet. + + + + +VII + + +The next day was Sunday, and Natalya got up late. The day before she +had been very silent all day; she was secretly ashamed of her tears, +and she slept very badly. Sitting half-dressed at her little piano, +at times she played some chords, hardly audibly for fear of waking +Mlle. Boncourt, and then let her forehead fall on the cold keys and +remained a long while motionless. She kept thinking, not of Rudin +himself, but of some word he had uttered, and she was wholly buried in +her own thought. Sometimes she recollected Volintsev. She knew that he +loved her. But her mind did not dwell on him more than an instant. . . . +She felt a strange agitation. In the morning she dressed hurriedly +and went down, and after saying good-morning to her mother, seized an +opportunity and went out alone into the garden. . . . It was a hot day, +bright and sunny in spite of occasional showers of rain. Slight +vapoury clouds sailed smoothly over the clear sky, scarcely obscuring +the sun, and at times a downpour of rain fell suddenly in sheets, and +was as quickly over. The thickly falling drops, flashing like +diamonds, fell swiftly with a kind of dull thud; the sunshine +glistened through their sparkling drops; the grass, that had been +rustling in the wind, was still, thirstily drinking in the moisture; +the drenched trees were languidly shaking all their leaves; the birds +were busily singing, and it was pleasant to hear their twittering +chatter mingling with the fresh gurgle and murmur of the running +rain-water. The dusty roads were steaming and slightly spotted by the +smart strokes of the thick drops. Then the clouds passed over, a +slight breeze began to stir, and the grass began to take tints of +emerald and gold. The trees seemed more transparent with their wet +leaves clinging together. A strong scent arose from all around. + +The sky was almost cloudless again when Natalya came into the garden. +It was full of sweetness and peace--that soothing, blissful peace in +which the heart of man is stirred by a sweet languor of undefined +desire and secret emotion. + +Natalya walked along a long line of silver poplars beside the pond; +suddenly, as if he had sprung out of the earth, Rudin stood before +her. She was confused. He looked her in the face. + +'You are alone?' he inquired. + +'Yes, I am alone,' replied Natalya, 'but I was going back directly. It +is time I was home.' + +'I will go with you.' + +And he walked along beside her. + +'You seem melancholy,' he said. + +'I--I was just going to say that I thought you were out of spirits.' + +'Very likely--it is often so with me. It is more excusable in me than +in you.' + +'Why? Do you suppose I have nothing to be melancholy about?' + +'At your age you ought to find happiness in life.' + +Natalya walked some steps in silence. + +'Dmitri Nikolaitch!' she said. + +'Well?' + +'Do you remember--the comparison you made yesterday--do you +remember--of the oak?' + +'Yes, I remember. Well?' + +Natalya stole a look at Rudin. + +'Why did you--what did you mean by that comparison?' + +Rudin bent his head and fastened his eyes on the distance. + +'Natalya Alexyevna!' he began with the intense and pregnant +intonation peculiar to him, which always made the listener believe +that Rudin was not expressing even the tenth part of what he held +locked in his heart--'Natalya Alexyevna! you may have noticed that +I speak little of my own past. There are some chords which I do not +touch upon at all. My heart--who need know what has passed in it? To +expose that to view has always seemed sacrilege to me. But with you I +cast aside reserve; you win my confidence. . . . I cannot conceal from +you that I too have loved and have suffered like all men. . . . When +and how? it's useless to speak of that; but my heart has known much +bliss and much pain. . . .' + +Rudin made a brief pause. + +'What I said to you yesterday,' he went on, 'might be applied in a +degree to me in my present position. But again it is useless to speak +of this. That side of life is over for me now. What remains for me is +a tedious and fatiguing journey along the parched and dusty road from +point to point . . . When I shall arrive--whether I arrive at all--God +knows. . . . Let us rather talk of you.' + +'Can it be, Dmitri Nikolaitch,' Natalya interrupted him, 'you expect +nothing from life?' + +'Oh, no! I expect much, but not for myself. . . . Usefulness, the +content that comes from activity, I shall never renounce; but I have +renounced happiness. My hopes, my dreams, and my own happiness have +nothing in common. Love'--(at this word he shrugged his +shoulders)--'love is not for me; I am not worthy of it; a woman who +loves has a right to demand the whole of a man, and I can never now +give the whole of myself. Besides, it is for youth to win love; I am +too old. How could I turn any one's head? God grant I keep my own head +on my shoulders.' + +'I understand,' said Natalya, 'that one who is bent on a lofty aim +must not think of himself; but cannot a woman be capable of +appreciating such a man? I should have thought, on the contrary, that +a woman would be sooner repelled by an egoist. . . . All young +men--the youth you speak of--all are egoists, they are all occupied +only with themselves, even when they love. Believe me, a woman is not +only able to value self-sacrifice; she can sacrifice herself.' + +Natalya's cheeks were slightly flushed and her eyes shining. Before +her friendship with Rudin she would never have succeeded in uttering +such a long and ardent speech. + +'You have heard my views on woman's mission more than once,' replied +Rudin with a condescending smile. 'You know that I consider that +Joan of Arc alone could have saved France. . . . but that's not the +point. I wanted to speak of you. You are standing on the threshold +of life. . . . To dwell on your future is both pleasant and not +unprofitable. . . . Listen: you know I am your friend; I take almost +a brother's interest in you. And so I hope you will not think my +question indiscreet; tell me, is your heart so far quite untouched?' + +Natalya grew hot all over and said nothing, Rudin stopped, and she +stopped too. + +'You are not angry with me?' he asked. + +'No,' she answered, 'but I did not expect----' + +'However,' he went on, 'you need not answer me. I know your secret.' + +Natalya looked at him almost with dismay. + +'Yes, yes, I know who has won your heart. And I must say that you +could not have made a better choice. He is a splendid man; he knows +how to value you; he has not been crushed by life--he is simple and +pure-hearted in soul . . . he will make your happiness.' + +'Of whom are you speaking, Dmitri Niklaitch?' + +'Is it possible you don't understand? Of Volintsev, of course. What? +isn't it true?' + +Natalya turned a little away from Rudin. She was completely +overwhelmed. + +'Do you imagine he doesn't love you? Nonsense! he does not take his +eyes off you, and follows every movement of yours; indeed, can love +ever be concealed? And do not you yourself look on him with favour? So +far as I can observe, your mother, too, likes him. . . . Your +choice----' + +'Dmitri Nikolaitch,' Natalya broke in, stretching out her hand in her +confusion towards a bush near her, 'it is so difficult, really, for me +to speak of this; but I assure you . . . you are mistaken.' + +'I am mistaken!' repeated Rudin. 'I think not. I have not known you +very long, but I already know you well. What is the meaning of the +change I see in you? I see it clearly. Are you just the same as when I +met you first, six weeks ago? No, Natalya Alexyevna, your heart is not +free.' + +'Perhaps not,' answered Natalya, hardly audibly, 'but all the same you +are mistaken.' + +'How is that?' asked Rudin. + +'Let me go! don't question me!' replied Natalya, and with swift steps +she turned towards the house. + +She was frightened herself by the feelings of which she was suddenly +conscious in herself. + +Rudin overtook her and stopped her. + +'Natalya Alexyevna,' he said, 'this conversation cannot end like +this; it is too important for me too. . . . How am I to understand you?' + +'Let me go!' repeated Natalya. + +'Natalya Alexyevna, for mercy's sake!' + +Rudin's face showed his agitation. He grew pale. + +'You understand everything, you must understand me too!' said Natalya; +she snatched away her hand and went on, not looking round. + +'Only one word!' cried Rudin after her + +She stood still, but did not turn round. + +'You asked me what I meant by that comparison yesterday. Let me tell +you, I don't want to deceive you. I spoke of myself, of my past,--and +of you.' + +'How? of me?' + +'Yes, of you; I repeat, I will not deceive you. You know now what was +the feeling, the new feeling I spoke of then. . . . Till to-day I +should not have ventured . . .' + +Natalya suddenly hid her face in her hands, and ran towards the house. + +She was so distracted by the unexpected conclusion of her conversation +with Rudin, that she ran past Volintsev without even noticing him. He +was standing motionless with his back against a tree. He had arrived +at the house a quarter of an hour before, and found Darya Mihailovna +in the drawing-room; and after exchanging a few words got away +unobserved and went in search of Natalya. Led by a lover's instinct, +he went straight into the garden and came upon her and Rudin at the +very instant when she snatched her hand away from him. Darkness seemed +to fall upon his eyes. Gazing after Natalya, he left the tree and took +two strides, not knowing whither or wherefore. Rudin saw him as he +came up to him. Both looked each other in the face, bowed, and +separated in silence. + +'This won't be the end of it,' both were thinking. + +Volintsev went to the very end of the garden. He felt sad and sick; a +load lay on his heart, and his blood throbbed in sudden stabs at +intervals. The rain began to fall a little again. Rudin turned into +his own room. He, too, was disturbed; his thoughts were in a whirl. +The trustful, unexpected contact of a young true heart is agitating +for any one. + +At table everything went somehow wrong. Natalya, pale all over, could +scarcely sit in her place and did not raise her eyes. Volintsev sat as +usual next her, and from time to time began to talk in a constrained +way to her. It happened that Pigasov was dining at Darya Mihailovna's +that day. He talked more than any one at table. Among other things he +began to maintain that men, like dogs, can be divided into the +short-tailed and the long-tailed. People are short-tailed, he said, +either from birth or through their own fault. The short-tailed are in +a sorry plight; nothing succeeds with them--they have no confidence in +themselves. But the man who has a long furry tail is happy. He may be +weaker and inferior to the short-tailed; but he believes in himself; +he displays his tail and every one admires it. And this is a fit +subject for wonder; the tail, of course, is a perfectly useless part +of the body, you admit; of what use can a tail be? but all judge of +their abilities by their tail. 'I myself,' he concluded with a sigh, +'belong to the number of the short-tailed, and what is most annoying, +I cropped my tail myself.' + +'By which you mean to say,' commented Rudin carelessly, 'what La +Rochefoucauld said long before you: Believe in yourself and others +will believe in you. Why the tail was brought in, I fail to +understand.' + +'Let every one,' Volintsev began sharply and with flashing eyes, 'let +every one express himself according to his fancy. Talk of despotism! +. . . I consider there is none worse than the despotism of so-called +clever men; confound them!' + +Everyone was astonished at this outbreak from Volintsev; it was +received in silence. Rudin tried to look at him, but he could not +control his eyes, and turned away smiling without opening his lips. + +'Aha! so you too have lost your tail!' thought Pigasov; and Natalya's +heart sank in terror. Darya Mihailovna gave Volintsev a long puzzled +stare and at last was the first to speak; she began to describe an +extraordinary dog belonging to a minister So-and-So. + +Volintsev went away soon after dinner. As he bade Natalya good-bye he +could not resist saying to her: + +'Why are you confused, as though you had done wrong? You cannot have +done wrong to any one!' + +Natalya did not understand at all, and could only gaze after him. +Before tea Rudin went up to her, and bending over the table as though +he were examining the papers, whispered: + +'It is all like a dream, isn't it? I absolutely must see you alone--if +only for a minute.' He turned to Mlle, Boncourt 'Here,' he said to +her, 'this is the article you were looking for,' and again bending +towards Natalya, he added in a whisper, 'Try to be near the terrace in +the lilac arbour about ten o'clock; I will wait for you.' + +Pigasov was the hero of the evening. Rudin left him in possession of +the field. He afforded Darya Mihailovna much entertainment; first he +told a story of one of his neighbours who, having been henpecked by +his wife for thirty years, had grown so womanish that one day in +crossing a little puddle when Pigasov was present, he put out his hand +and picked up the skirt of his coat, as women do with their +petticoats. Then he turned to another gentleman who to begin with had +been a freemason, then a hypochondriac, and then wanted to be a +banker. + +'How were you a freemason, Philip Stepanitch?' Pigasov asked him. + +'You know how; I wore the nail of my little finger long.' + +But what most diverted Darya Mihailovna was when Pigasov set off on a +dissertation upon love, and maintained that even he had been sighed +for, that one ardent German lady had even given him the nickname of +her 'dainty little African' and her 'hoarse little crow.' Darya +Mihailovna laughed, but Pigasov spoke the truth; he really was in a +position to boast of his conquests. He maintained that nothing could +be easier than to make any woman you chose fall in love with you; you +only need repeat to her for ten days in succession that heaven is on +her lips and bliss in her eyes, and that the rest of womankind are all +simply rag-bags beside her; and on the eleventh day she will be ready +to say herself that there is heaven on her lips and bliss in her eyes, +and will be in love with you. Everything comes to pass in the world; +so who knows, perhaps Pigasov was right? + +At half-past nine Rudin was already in the arbour. The stars had come +out in the pale, distant depths of the heaven; there was still a red +glow where the sun had set, and there the horizon seemed brighter and +clearer; a semi-circular moon shone golden through the black network +of the weeping birch-tree. The other trees stood like grim giants, +with thousands of chinks looking like eyes, or fell into compact +masses of darkness. Not a leaf was stirring; the topmost branches of +the lilacs and acacias seemed to stretch upwards into the warm air, as +though listening for something. The house was a dark mass now; patches +of red light showed where the long windows were lighted up. It was a +soft and peaceful evening, but under this peace was felt the secret +breath of passion. + +Rudin stood, his arms folded on his breast, and listened with strained +attention. His heart beat violently, and involuntarily he held his +breath. At last he caught the sound of light, hurrying footsteps, and +Natalya came into the arbour. + +Rudin rushed up to her, and took her hands. They were cold as ice. + +'Natalya Alexyevna!' he began, in an agitated whisper, 'I wanted to +see you. . . . I could not wait till to-morrow. I must tell you what I +did not suspect--what I did not realise even this morning. I love +you!' + +Natalya's hands trembled feebly in his. + +'I love you!' he repeated, 'and how could I have deceived myself so +long? How was it I did not guess long ago that I love you? And you? +Natalya Alexyevna, tell me!' + +Natalya could scarcely draw her breath. + +'You see I have come here,' she uttered, at last + +'No, say that you love me!' + +'I think--yes,' she whispered. + +Rudin pressed her hands still more warmly, and tried to draw her to +him. + +Natalya looked quickly round. + +'Let me go--I am frightened. . . . I think some one is listening to +us. . . . For God's sake, be on your guard. Volintsev suspects.' + +'Never mind him! You saw I did not even answer him to-day. . . . Ah, +Natalya Alexyevna, how happy I am! Nothing shall sever us now!' + +Natalya looked into his eyes. + +'Let me go,' she whispered; 'it's time.' + +'One instant,' began Rudin. + +'No, let me go, let me go.' + +'You seem afraid of me.' + +'No, but it's time.' + +'Repeat, then, at least once more.' . . . + +'You say you are happy?' asked Natalya. + +'I? No man in the world is happier than I am! Can you doubt it?' + +Natalya lifted up her head. Very beautiful was her pale, noble, young +face, transformed by passion, in the mysterious shadows of the arbour, +in the faint light reflected from the evening sky. + +'I tell you then,' she said, 'I will be yours.' + +'Oh, my God!' cried Rudin. + +But Natalya made her escape, and was gone. + +Rudin stood still a little while, then walked slowly out of the +arbour. The moon threw a light on his face; there was a smile on his +lips. + +'I am happy,' he uttered in a half whisper. 'Yes, I am happy,' he +repeated, as though he wanted to convince himself. + +He straightened his tall figure, shook back his locks, and walked +quickly into the garden, with a happy gesture of his hands. + +Meanwhile the bushes of the lilac arbour moved apart, and Pandalevsky +appeared. He looked around warily, shook his head, pursed up his +mouth, and said, significantly, 'So that's how it is. That must be +brought to Darya Mihailovna's knowledge.' And he vanished. + + + + +VIII + + +On his return home, Volintsev was so gloomy and dejected, he gave his +sister such listless answers, and so quickly locked himself up in his +room, that she decided to send a messenger to Lezhnyov. She always had +recourse to him in times of difficulty. Lezhnyov sent her word that he +would come in the next day. + +Volintsev was no more cheerful in the morning. After tea he was +starting to superintend the work on the estate, but he stayed at home +instead, lay on the sofa, and took up a book--a thing he did not often +do. Volintsev had no taste for literature, and poetry simply alarmed +him. 'This is as incomprehensible as poetry,' he used to say, and, in +confirmation of his words, he used to quote the following lines +from a Russian poet:-- + + 'And till his gloomy lifetime's close + Nor reason nor experience proud + Will crush nor crumple Destiny's + Ensanguined forget-me-nots.' + +Alexandra Pavlovna kept looking uneasily at her brother, but she did +not worry him with questions. A carriage drew up at the steps. + +'Ah!' she thought, 'Lezhnyov, thank goodness!' + +A servant came in and announced the arrival of Rudin. + +Volintsev flung his book on the floor, and raised his head. 'Who has +come?' he asked. + +'Rudin, Dmitri Nikolaitch,' repeated the man. Volintsev got up. + +'Ask him in,' he said, 'and you, sister,' he added, turning to +Alexandra Pavlovna, 'leave us alone.' + +'But why?' she was beginning. + +'I have a good reason,' he interrupted, passionately. 'I beg you to +leave us.' + +Rudin entered. Volintsev, standing in the middle of the room, received +him with a chilly bow, without offering his hand. + +'Confess you did not expect me,' began Rudin, and he laid his hat down +by the window His lips were slightly twitching. He was ill at ease, +but tried to conceal his embarrassment. + +'I did not expect you, certainly,' replied Volintsev, 'after +yesterday. I should have more readily expected some one with a special +message from you.' + +'I understand what you mean,' said Rudin, taking a seat, 'and am very +grateful for your frankness. It is far better so. I have come myself +to you, as to a man of honour.' + +'Cannot we dispense with compliments?' observed Volintsev. + +'I want to explain to you why I have come.' + +'We are acquainted; why should you not come? Besides, this is not the +first time you have honoured me with a visit.' + +'I came to you as one man of honour to another,' repeated Rudin, 'and +I want now to appeal to your sense of justice. . . . I have complete +confidence in you.' + +'What is the matter?' said Volintsev, who all this time was still +standing in his original position, staring sullenly at Rudin, and +sometimes pulling the ends of his moustache. + +'If you would kindly . . . I came here to make an explanation, +certainly, but all the same it cannot be done off-hand.' + +'Why not?' + +'A third person is involved in this matter.' + +'What third person?' + +'Sergei Pavlitch, you understand me?' + +'Dmitri Nikolaitch, I don't understand you in the least.' + +'You prefer----' + +'I prefer you should speak plainly!' broke in Volintsev. + +He was beginning to be angry in earnest. + +Rudin frowned. + +'Permit . . . we are alone . . . I must tell you--though you certainly +are aware of it already (Volintsev shrugged his shoulders +impatiently)--I must tell you that I love Natalya Alexyevna, and I +have the right to believe that she loves me.' + +Volintsev turned white, but made no reply. He walked to the window and +stood with his back turned. + +'You understand, Sergei Pavlitch,' continued Rudin, 'that if I were +not convinced . . .' + +'Upon my word!' interrupted Volintsev, 'I don't doubt it in the +least. . . . Well! so be it! Good luck to you! Only I wonder what the +devil induced you to come with this news to me. . . . What have I to +do with it? What is it to me whom you love, or who loves you? It +simply passes my comprehension.' + +Volintsev continued to stare out of the window. His voice sounded +choked. + +Rudin got up. + +'I will tell you, Sergei Pavlitch, why I decided to come to you, why +I did not even think I had the right to hide from you our--our mutual +feelings. I have too profound an esteem for you--that is why I have +come; I did not want . . . we both did not wish to play a part before +you. Your feeling for Natalya Alexyevna was known to me. . . . Believe +me, I have no illusions about myself; I know how little I deserve to +supplant you in her heart, but if it was fated this should be, is it +made any better by pretence, hypocrisy, and deceit? Is it any better +to expose ourselves to misunderstandings, or even to the possibilities +of such a scene as took place yesterday at dinner? Sergei Pavlitch, +tell me yourself, is it?' + +Volintsev folded his arms on his chest, as though he were trying to +hold himself in. + +'Sergei Pavlitch!' Rudin continued, 'I have given you pain, I feel +it--but understand us--understand that we had no other means of +proving our respect to you, of proving that we know how to value your +honour and uprightness. Openness, complete openness with any other +man would have been misplaced; but with you it took the form of duty. +We are happy to think our secret is in your hands.' + +Volintsev gave vent to a forced laugh. + +'Many thanks for your confidence in me!' he exclaimed, 'though, pray +observe, I neither wished to know your secret, nor to tell you mine, +though you treat it as if it were your property. But excuse me, you +speak as though for two. Does it follow I am to suppose that Natalya +Alexyevna knows of your visit, and the object of it?' + +Rudin was a little taken aback. + +'No, I did not communicate my intention to Natalya Alexyevna; but I +know she would share my views.' + +'That's all very fine indeed,' Volintsev began after a short pause, +drumming on the window pane with his fingers, 'though I must confess +it would have been far better if you had had rather less respect for +me. I don't care a hang for your respect, to tell you the truth; but +what do you want of me now?' + +'I want nothing--or--no! I want one thing; I want you not to regard me +as treacherous or hypocritical, to understand me . . . I hope that now +you cannot doubt of my sincerity . . . I want us, Sergei Pavlitch, to +part as friends . . . you to give me your hand as you once did.' + +And Rudin went up to Volintsev. + +'Excuse me, my good sir,' said Volintsev, turning round and stepping +back a few paces, 'I am ready to do full justice to your intentions, +all that's very fine, I admit, very exalted, but we are simple people, +we do not gild our gingerbread, we are not capable of following the +flight of great minds like yours. . . . What you think sincere, we +regard as impertinent and disingenuous and indiscreet. . . . What is +clear and simple to you, is involved and obscure to us. . . . You boast +of what we conceal. . . . How are we to understand you! Excuse me, I +can neither regard you as a friend, nor will I give you my hand. . . . +That is petty, perhaps, but I am only a petty person.' + +Rudin took his hat from the window seat. + +'Sergei Pavlitch!' he said sorrowfully, 'goodbye; I was mistaken in +my expectations. My visit certainly was rather a strange one . . . but +I had hoped that you . . . (Volintsev made a movement of impatience). +. . . Excuse me, I will say no more of this. Reflecting upon it all, I +see indeed, you are right, you could not have behaved otherwise. +Good-bye, and allow me, at least once more, for the last time, to +assure you of the purity of my intentions. . . . I am convinced of your +discretion.' + +'That is too much!' cried Volintsev, shaking with anger, 'I never +asked for your confidence; and so you have no right whatever to reckon +on my discretion!' + +Rudin was about to say something, but he only waved his hands, bowed +and went away, and Volintsev flung himself on the sofa and turned his +face to the wall. + +'May I come in?' Alexandra Pavlovna's voice was heard saying at the +door. + +Volintsev did not answer at once, and stealthily passed his hand over +his face. 'No, Sasha,' he said, in a slightly altered voice, 'wait a +little longer.' + +Half an hour later, Alexandra Pavlovna again came to the door. + +'Mihailo Mihailitch is here,' she said, 'will you see him?' + +'Yes,' answered Volintsev, 'let them show him up here.' + +Lezhnyov came in. + +'What, aren't you well?' he asked, seating himself in a chair near the +sofa. + +Volintsev raised himself, and, leaning on his elbow gazed a long, long +while into his friend's face, and then repeated to him his whole +conversation with Rudin word for word. He had never before given +Lezhnyov a hint of his sentiments towards Natalya, though he guessed +they were no secret to him. + +'Well, brother, you have surprised me!' Lezhnyov said, as soon as +Volintsev had finished his story. 'I expected many strange things +from him, but this is----Still I can see him in it.' + +'Upon my honour!' cried Volintsev, in great excitement, 'it is simply +insolence! Why, I almost threw him out of the window. Did he want to +boast to me or was he afraid? What was the object of it? How could he +make up his mind to come to a man----?' + +Volintsev clasped his hands over his head and was speechless. + +'No, brother, that's not it,' replied Lezhnyov tranquilly; 'you +won't believe me, but he really did it from a good motive. Yes, +indeed. It was generous, do you see, and candid, to be sure, and it +would offer an opportunity of speechifying and giving vent to his fine +talk, and, of course, that's what he wants, what he can't live +without. Ah! his tongue is his enemy. Though it's a good servant to +him too.' + +'With what solemnity he came in and talked, you can't imagine!' + +'Well, he can't do anything without that. He buttons his great-coat as +if he were fulfilling a sacred duty. I should like to put him on a +desert island and look round a corner to see how he would behave +there. And he discourses on simplicity!' + +'But tell me, my dear fellow,' asked Volintsev, 'what is it, +philosophy or what?' + +'How can I tell you? On one side it is philosophy, I daresay, and on +the other something altogether different It is not right to put every +folly down to philosophy.' + +Volintsev looked at him. + +'Wasn't he lying then, do you imagine?' + +'No, my son, he wasn't lying. But, do you know, we've talked enough of +this. Let's light our pipes and call Alexandra Pavlovna in here. It's +easier to talk when she's with us and easier to be silent. She shall +make us some tea.' + +'Very well,' replied Volintsev. 'Sasha, come in,' he cried aloud. + +Alexandra Pavlovna came in. He grasped her hand and pressed it warmly +to his lips. + +Rudin returned in a curious and mingled frame of mind. He was annoyed +with himself, he reproached himself for his unpardonable precipitancy, +his boyish impulsiveness. Some one has justly said: there is nothing +more painful than the consciousness of having just done something +stupid. + +Rudin was devoured by regret. + +'What evil genius drove me,' he muttered between his teeth, 'to call +on that squire! What an idea it was! Only to expose myself to +insolence!' + +But in Darya Mihailovna's house something extraordinary had been +happening. The lady herself did not appear the whole morning, and did +not come in to dinner; she had a headache, declared Pandalevsky, the +only person who had been admitted to her room. Natalya, too, Rudin +scarcely got a glimpse of: she sat in her room with Mlle. Boncourt +When she met him at the dinner-table she looked at him so mournfully +that his heart sank. Her face was changed as though a load of sorrow +had descended upon her since the day before. Rudin began to be +oppressed by a vague presentiment of trouble. In order to distract his +mind in some way he occupied himself with Bassistoff, had much +conversation with him, and found him an ardent, eager lad, full of +enthusiastic hopes and still untarnished faith. In the evening Darya +Mihailovna appeared for a couple of hours in the drawing-room. She +was polite to Rudin, but kept him somehow at a distance, and smiled +and frowned, talking through her nose, and in hints more than ever. +Everything about her had the air of the society lady of the court. She +had seemed of late rather cooler to Rudin. 'What is the secret of it?' +he thought, with a sidelong look at her haughtily-lifted head. + +He had not long to wait for the solution of the enigma. As he was +returning at twelve o'clock at night to his room, along a dark +corridor, some one suddenly thrust a note into his hand. He looked +round; a girl was hurrying away in the distance, Natalya's maid, he +fancied. He went into his room, dismissed the servant, tore open the +letter, and read the following lines in Natalya's handwriting:-- + +'Come to-morrow at seven o'clock in the morning, not later, to Avduhin +pond, beyond the oak copse. Any other time will be impossible. It +will be our last meeting, all will be over, unless . . . Come. We must +make our decision.--P.S. If I don't come, it will mean we shall not +see each other again; then I will let you know.' + +Rudin turned the letter over in his hands, musing upon it, then laid +it under his pillow, undressed, and lay down. For a long while he +could not get to sleep, and then he slept very lightly, and it was not +yet five o'clock when he woke up. + + + + +IX + + +The Avduhin pond, near which Natalya had fixed the place of meeting, +had long ceased to be a pond. Thirty years before it had burst through +its banks and it had been given up since then. Only by the smooth flat +surface of the hollow, once covered with slimy mud, and the traces of +the banks, could one guess that it had been a pond. A farm-house had +stood near it. It had long ago passed away. Two huge pine-trees +preserved its memory; the wind was for ever droning and sullenly +murmuring in their high gaunt green tops. There were mysterious tales +among the people of a fearful crime supposed to have been committed +under them; they used to tell, too, that not one of them would fall +without bringing death to some one; that a third had once stood there, +which had fallen in a storm and crushed a girl. + +The whole place near the old pond was supposed to be haunted; it was a +barren wilderness, dark and gloomy, even on a sunny day--it seemed +darker and gloomier still from the old, old forest of dead and +withered oak-trees which was near it. A few huge trees lifted their +grey heads above the low undergrowth of bushes like weary giants. They +were a sinister sight; it seemed as though wicked old men had met +together bent on some evil design. A narrow path almost +indistinguishable wandered beside it. No one went near the Avduhin +pond without some urgent reason. Natalya intentionally chose this +solitary place. It was not more than half-a-mile from Darya +Mihailovna's house. + +The sun had already risen some time when Rudin reached the Avduhin +pond, but it was not a bright morning. Thick clouds of the colour of +milk covered the whole sky, and were driven flying before the +whistling, shrieking wind. Rudin began to walk up and down along the +bank, which was covered with clinging burdocks and blackened nettles. +He was not easy in his mind. These interviews, these new emotions had +a charm for him, but they also troubled him, especially after the note +of the night before. He felt that the end was drawing near, and was in +secret perplexity of spirit, though none would have imagined it, +seeing with what concentrated determination he folded his arms across +his chest and looked around him. Pigasov had once said truly of him, +that he was like a Chinese idol, his head was constantly overbalancing +him. But with the head alone, however strong it may be, it is hard for +a man to know even what is passing in himself. . . . Rudin, the +clever, penetrating Rudin, was not capable of saying certainly whether +he loved Natalya, whether he was suffering, and whether he would +suffer at parting from her. Why then, since he had not the least +disposition to play the Lovelace--one must do him that credit--had he +turned the poor girl's head? Why was he awaiting her with a secret +tremor? To this the only answer is that there are none so easily +carried away as those who are without passion. + +He walked on the bank, while Natalya was hurrying to him straight +across country through the wet grass. + +'Natalya Alexyevna, you'll get your feet wet!' said her maid Masha, +scarcely able to keep up with her. + +Natalya did not hear and ran on without looking round. + +'Ah, supposing they've seen us!' cried Masha; 'indeed it's +surprising how we got out of the house . . . and ma'mselle may wake +up. . . It's a mercy it's not far. . . . Ah, the gentleman's +waiting already,' she added, suddenly catching sight of Rudin's +majestic figure, standing out picturesquely on the bank; 'but what +does he want to stand on that mound for--he ought to have kept in +the hollow.' + +Natalya stopped. + +'Wait here, Masha, by the pines,' she said, and went on to the pond. + +Rudin went up to her; he stopped short in amazement. He had never seen +such an expression on her face before. Her brows were contracted, her +lips set, her eyes looked sternly straight before her. + +'Dmitri Nikolaitch,' she began, 'we have no time to lose. I have come +for five minutes. I must tell you that my mother knows everything. Mr. +Pandalevsky saw us the day before yesterday, and he told her of our +meeting. He was always mamma's spy. She called me in to her +yesterday.' + +'Good God!' cried Rudin, 'this is terrible . . . . What did your mother +say?' + +'She was not angry with me, she did not scold me, but she reproached +me for my want of discretion.' + +'That was all?' + +'Yes, and she declared she would sooner see me dead than your wife!' + +'Is it possible she said that?' + +'Yes; and she said too that you yourself did not want to marry me at +all, that you had only been flirting with me because you were bored, +and that she had not expected this of you; but that she herself was to +blame for having allowed me to see so much of you . . . that she +relied on my good sense, that I had very much surprised her . . . and +I don't remember now all she said to me.' + +Natalya uttered all this in an even, almost expressionless voice. + +'And you, Natalya Alexyevna, what did you answer?' asked Rudin. + +'What did I answer?' repeated Natalya. . . . 'What do you intend to +do now?' + +'Good God, good God!' replied Rudin, 'it is cruel! So soon . . . such +a sudden blow! . . . And is your mother in such indignation?' + +'Yes, yes, she will not hear of you.' + +'It is terrible! You mean there is no hope? + +'None.' + +'Why should we be so unhappy! That abominable Pandalevsky! . . . You +ask me, Natalya Alexyevna, what I intend to do? My head is going +round--I cannot take in anything . . . I can feel nothing but my +unhappiness . . . I am amazed that you can preserve such +self-possession!' + +'Do you think it is easy for me?' said Natalya. + +Rudin began to walk along the bank. Natalya did not take her eyes off +him. + +'Your mother did not question you?' he said at last. + +'She asked me whether I love you.' + +'Well. . . and you?' + +Natalya was silent a moment. 'I told the truth.' + +Rudin took her hand. + +'Always, in all things generous, noble-hearted! Oh, the heart of a +girl--it's pure gold! But did your mother really declare her decision +so absolutely on the impossibility of our marriage?' + +'Yes, absolutely. I have told you already; she is convinced that you +yourself don't think of marrying me.' + +'Then she regards me as a traitor! What have I done to deserve it?' +And Rudin clutched his head in his hands. + +'Dmitri Nikolaitch!' said Natalya, 'we are losing our time. Remember I +am seeing you for the last time. I came here not to weep and +lament--you see I am not crying--I came for advice.' + +'And what advice can I give you, Natalya Alexyevna?' + +'What advice? You are a man; I am used to trusting to you, I shall +trust you to the end. Tell me, what are your plans?' + +'My plans. . . . Your mother certainly will turn me out of the house.' + +'Perhaps. She told me yesterday that she must break off all +acquaintance with you. . . . But you do not answer my question?' + +'What question?' + +'What do you think we must do now?' + +'What we must do?' replied Rudin; 'of course submit.' + +'Submit,' repeated Natalya slowly, and her lips turned white. + +'Submit to destiny,' continued Rudin. 'What is to be done? I know +very well how bitter it is, how painful, how unendurable. But consider +yourself, Natalya Alexyevna; I am poor. It is true I could work; but +even if I were a rich man, could you bear a violent separation from +your family, your mother's anger? . . . No, Natalya Alexyevna; it is +useless even to think of it. It is clear it was not fated for us to +live together, and the happiness of which I dreamed is not for me!' + +All at once Natalya hid her face in her hands and began to weep. Rudin +went up to her. + +'Natalya Alexyevna! dear Natalya!' he said with warmth, 'do not cry, +for God's sake, do not torture me, be comforted.' + +Natalya raised her head. + +'You tell me to be comforted,' she began, and her eyes blazed through +her tears; 'I am not weeping for what you suppose--I am not sad for +that; I am sad because I have been deceived in you. . . . What! I come +to you for counsel, and at such a moment!--and your first word is, +submit! submit! So this is how you translate your talk of +independence, of sacrifice, which . . .' + +Her voice broke down. + +'But, Natalya Alexyevna,' began Rudin in confusion, 'remember--I do +not disown my words--only----' + +'You asked me,' she continued with new force, 'what I answered my +mother, when she declared she would sooner agree to my death than my +marriage to you; I answered that I would sooner die than marry any +other man . . . And you say, "Submit!" It must be that she is right; +you must, through having nothing to do, through being bored, have been +playing with me.' + +'I swear to you, Natalya Alexyevna--I assure you,' maintained Rudin. + +But she did not listen to him. + +'Why did you not stop me? Why did you yourself--or did you not reckon +upon obstacles? I am ashamed to speak of this--but I see it is all +over now.' + +'You must be calm, Natalya Alexyevna,' Rudin was beginning; 'we must +think together what means----' + +'You have so often talked of self-sacrifice,' she broke in, 'but do +you know, if you had said to me to-day at once, "I love you, but I +cannot marry you, I will not answer for the future, give me your hand +and come with me"--do you know, I would have come with you; do you +know, I would have risked everything? But there's all the difference +between word and deed, and you were afraid now, just as you were +afraid the day before yesterday at dinner of Volintsev.' + +The colour rushed to Rudin's face. Natalya's unexpected energy had +astounded him; but her last words wounded his vanity. + +'You are too angry now, Natalya Alexyevna,' he began; 'you cannot +realise how bitterly you wound me. I hope that in time you will do me +justice; you will understand what it has cost me to renounce the +happiness which you have said yourself would have laid upon me no +obligations. Your peace is dearer to me than anything in the world, +and I should have been the basest of men, if I could have taken +advantage----' + +'Perhaps, perhaps,' interrupted Natalya, 'perhaps you are right; I +don't know what I am saying. But up to this time I believed in you, +believed in every word you said. . . . For the future, pray keep a +watch upon your words, do not fling them about at hazard. When I said +to you, "I love you," I knew what that word meant; I was ready for +everything. . . . Now I have only to thank you for a lesson--and to +say good-bye.' + +'Stop, for God's sake, Natalya Alexyevna, I beseech you. I do not +deserve your contempt, I swear to you. Put yourself in my position. I +am responsible for you and for myself. If I did not love you with the +most devoted love--why, good God! I should have at once proposed you +should run away with me. . . . Sooner or later your mother would +forgive us--and then . . . But before thinking of my own happiness----' + +He stopped. Natalya's eyes fastened directly upon him put him to +confusion. + +'You try to prove to me that you are an honourable man, Dmitri +Nikolaitch,' she said. 'I do not doubt that. You are not capable of +acting from calculation; but did I want to be convinced of that? did I +come here for that?' + +'I did not expect, Natalya Alexyevna----' + +'Ah! you have said it at last! Yes, you did not expect all this--you +did not know me. Do not be uneasy . . . you do not love me, and I will +never force myself on any one.' + +'I love you!' cried Rudin. + +Natalya drew herself up. + +'Perhaps; but how do you love me? Remember all your words, Dmitri +Nikolaitch. You told me: "Without complete equality there is no +love." . . . You are too exalted for me; I am no match for you. . . . I am +punished as I deserve. There are duties before you more worthy of you. +I shall not forget this day . . . . Good-bye.' + +'Natalya Alexyevna, are you going? Is it possible for us to part like +this?' + +He stretched out his hand to her. She stopped. His supplicating voice +seemed to make her waver. + +'No,' she uttered at last. 'I feel that something in me is broken. +. . . I came here, I have been talking to you as if it were in delirium; +I must try to recollect. It must not be, you yourself said, it will +not be. Good God, when I came out here, I mentally took a farewell of +my home, of my past--and what? whom have I met here?--a coward . . . +and how did you know I was not able to bear a separation from my +family? "Your mother will not consent . . . It is terrible!" That was +all I heard from you, that you, you, Rudin?--No! good-bye. . . . Ah! if +you had loved me, I should have felt it now, at this moment. . . . No, +no, goodbye!' + +She turned swiftly and ran towards Masha, who had begun to be uneasy +and had been making signs to her a long while. + +'It is _you_ who are afraid, not I!' cried Rudin after Natalya. + +She paid no attention to him, and hastened homewards across the +fields. She succeeded in getting back to her bedroom; but she had +scarcely crossed the threshold when her strength failed her, and she +fell senseless into Masha's arms. + +But Rudin remained a long while still standing on the bank. At last he +shivered, and with slow steps made his way to the little path and +quietly walked along it. He was deeply ashamed . . . and wounded. +'What a girl!' he thought, 'at seventeen! . . . No, I did not know +her! . . . She is a remarkable girl. What strength of will! . . . She +is right; she deserves another love than what I felt for her. I felt +for her?' he asked himself. 'Can it be I already feel no more love for +her? So this is how it was all to end! What a pitiful wretch I was +beside her!' + +The slight rattle of a racing droshky made Rudin raise his head. +Lezhnyov was driving to meet him with his invariable trotting pony. +Rudin bowed to him without speaking, and as though struck with a +sudden thought, turned out of the road and walked quickly in the +direction of Darya Mihailovna's house. + +Lezhnyov let him pass, looked after him, and after a moment's thought +he too turned his horse's head round, and drove back to Volintsev's, +where he had spent the night. He found him asleep, and giving orders +he should not be waked, he sat down on the balcony to wait for some +tea and smoked a pipe. + + + + +X + + +Volintsev got up at ten o'clock. When he heard that Lezhnyov was +sitting in the balcony, he was much surprised, and sent to ask him to +come to him. + +'What has happened?' he asked him. 'I thought you meant to drive +home?' + +'Yes; I did mean to, but I met Rudin. . . . He was wandering about the +country with such a distracted countenance. So I turned back at once.' + +'You came back because you met Rudin?' + +'That's to say,--to tell the truth, I don't know why I came back +myself, I suppose because I was reminded of you; I wanted to be with +you, and I have plenty of time before I need go home.' + +Volintsev smiled bitterly. + +'Yes; one cannot think of Rudin now without thinking of me. . . . +Boy!' he cried harshly, 'bring us some tea.' + +The friends began to drink tea. Lezhnyov talked of agricultural +matters,--of a new method of roofing barns with paper. . . . + +Suddenly Volintsev leaped up from his chair and struck the table with +such force that the cups and saucers rang. + +'No!' he cried, 'I cannot bear this any longer! I will call out this +witty fellow, and let him shoot me,--at least I will try to put a +bullet through his learned brains!' + +'What are you talking about? Upon my word!' grumbled Lezhnyov, 'how +can you scream like that? I dropped my pipe. . . . What's the matter +with you?' + +'The matter is, that I can't hear his name and keep calm; it sets all +my blood boiling!' + +'Hush, my dear fellow, hush! aren't you ashamed?' rejoined +Lezhnyov, picking up his pipe from the ground. 'Leave off! Let him +alone!' + +'He has insulted me,' pursued Volintsev, walking up and down the room. +'Yes! he has insulted me. You must admit that yourself. At first I +was not sharp enough; he took me by surprise; and who could have +expected this? But I will show him that he cannot make a fool of me. +. . . I will shoot him, the damned philosopher, like a partridge.' + +'Much you will gain by that, indeed! I won't speak of your sister now. +I can see you're in a passion . . . how could you think of your +sister! But in relation to another individual--what! do you imagine, +when you've killed the philosopher, you can improve your own chances?' + +Volintsev flung himself into a chair. + +'Then I must go away somewhere! For here my heart is simply being +crushed by misery; only I can find no place to go.' + +'Go away . . . that's another matter! That I am ready to agree to. And +do you know what I should suggest? Let us go together--to the +Caucasus, or simply to Little Russia to eat dumplings. That's a +capital idea, my dear fellow!' + +'Yes; but whom shall we leave my sister with?' + +'And why should not Alexandra Pavlovna come with us? Upon my soul, it +will be splendid. As for looking after her--yes, I'll undertake +that! There will be no difficulty in getting anything we want: if she +likes, I will arrange a serenade under her window every night; I will +sprinkle the coachmen with _eau de cologne_ and strew flowers along the +roads. And we shall both be simply new men, my dear boy; we shall +enjoy ourselves so, we shall come back so fat that we shall be proof +against the darts of love!' + +'You are always joking, Misha!' + +'I'm not joking at all. It was a brilliant idea of yours.' + +'No; nonsense!' Volintsev shouted again. 'I want to fight him, to +fight him! . . .' + +'Again! What a rage you are in!' + +A servant entered with a letter in his hand. + +'From whom?' asked Lezhnyov. + +'From Rudin, Dmitri Nikolaitch. The Lasunsky's servant brought it.' + +'From Rudin?' repeated Volintsev, 'to whom?' + +'To you.' + +'To me! . . . give it me!' + +Volintsev seized the letter, quickly tore it open, and began to read. +Lezhnyov watched him attentively; a strange, almost joyful amazement +was expressed on Volintsev's face; he let his hands fall by his side. + +'What is it?' asked Lezhnyov. + +'Read it,' Volintsev said in a low voice, and handed him the letter. + +Lezhnyov began to read. This is what Rudin wrote: + +'SIR-- + +'I am going away from Darya Mihailovna's house to-day, and leaving it +for ever. This will certainly be a surprise to you, especially after +what passed yesterday. I cannot explain to you what exactly obliges me +to act in this way; but it seems to me for some reason that I ought to +let you know of my departure. You do not like me, and even regard me +as a bad man. I do not intend to justify myself; time will justify me. +In my opinion it is even undignified in a man and quite unprofitable +to try to prove to a prejudiced man the injustice of his prejudice. +Whoever wishes to understand me will not blame me, and as for any one +who does not wish, or cannot do so,--his censure does not pain me. I +was mistaken in you. In my eyes you remain as before a noble and +honourable man, but I imagined you were able to be superior to the +surroundings in which you were brought up. I was mistaken. What of +that? It is not the first, nor will it be the last time. I repeat to +you, I am going away. I wish you all happiness. Confess that this wish +is completely disinterested, and I hope that now you will be happy. +Perhaps in time you will change your opinion of me. Whether we shall +ever meet again, I don't know, but in any case I remain your sincere +well-wisher, + +'D. R. + +'P.S. The two hundred roubles I owe you I will send directly I reach +my estate in T---- province. Also I beg you not to speak to Darya +Mihailovna of this letter. + +'P.P.S. One last, but important request more; since I am going away, I +hope you will not allude before Natalya Alexyevna to my visit to you.' + +'Well, what do you say to that?' asked Volintsev, directly Lezhnyov +had finished the letter. + +'What is one to say?' replied Lezhnyov, 'Cry "Allah! Allah!" like a +Mussulman and sit gaping with astonishment--that's all one can do. . . . +Well, a good riddance! But it's curious: you see he thought it his +_duty_ to write you this letter, and he came to see you from a sense of +_duty_ . . . these gentlemen find a duty at every step, some duty they +owe . . . or some debt,' added Lezhnyov, pointing with a smile to the +postscript. + +'And what phrases he rounds off!' cried Volintsev. 'He was mistaken +in me. He expected I would be superior to my surroundings. What a +rigmarole! Good God! it's worse than poetry!' + +Lezhnyov made no reply, but his eyes were smiling. Volintsev got up. + +'I want to go to Darya Mihailovna's,' he announced. 'I want to find +out what it all means.' + +'Wait a little, my dear boy; give him time to get off. What's the good +of running up against him again? He is to vanish, it seems. What more +do you want? Better go and lie down and get a little sleep; you have +been tossing about all night, I expect. But everything will be smooth +for you.' + +'What leads you to that conclusion?' + +'Oh, I think so. There, go and have a nap; I will go and see your +sister. I will keep her company.' + +'I don't want to sleep in the least. What's the object of my going to +bed? I had rather go out to the fields,' said Volintsev, putting on +his out-of-door coat. + +'Well, that's a good thing too. Go along, and look at the fields. . . .' + +And Lezhnyov betook himself to the apartments of Alexandra Pavlovna. +He found her in the drawing-room. She welcomed him effusively. She was +always pleased when he came; but her face still looked sorrowful. She +was uneasy about Rudin's visit the day before. + +'You have seen my brother?' she asked Lezhnyov. 'How is he to-day?' + +'All right, he has gone to the fields.' + +Alexandra Favlovna did not speak for a minute. + +'Tell me, please,' she began, gazing earnestly at the hem of her +pocket-handkerchief, 'don't you know why . . .' + +'Rudin came here?' put in Lezhnyov. 'I know, he came to say good-bye.' + +Alexandra Pavlovna lifted up her head. + +'What, to say good-bye!' + +'Yes. Haven't you heard? He is leaving Darya Mihailovna's.' + +'He is leaving?' + +'For ever; at least he says so.' + +'But pray, how is one to explain it, after all? . . .' + +'Oh, that's a different matter! To explain it is impossible, but it +is so. Something must have happened with them. He pulled the string +too tight--and it has snapped.' + +'Mihailo Mihailitch!' began Alexandra Pavlovna, 'I don't understand; +you are laughing at me, I think. . . .' + +'No indeed! I tell you he is going away, and he even let his friends +know by letter. It's just as well, I daresay, from one point of view; +but his departure has prevented one surprising enterprise from being +carried out that I had begun to talk to your brother about.' + +'What do you mean? What enterprise?' + +'Why, I proposed to your brother that we should go on our travels, to +distract his mind, and take you with us. To look after you especially +I would take on myself. . . .' + +'That's capital!' cried Alexandra Pavlovna. 'I can fancy how you would +look after me. Why, you would let me die of hunger.' + +'You say so, Alexandra Pavlovna, because you don't know me. You think +I am a perfect blockhead, a log; but do you know I am capable of +melting like sugar, of spending whole days on my knees?' + +'I should like to see that, I must say!' + +Lezhnyov suddenly got up. 'Well, marry me, Alexandra Pavlovna, and +you will see all that' + +Alexandra Pavlovna blushed up to her ears. + +'What did you say, Mihailo Mihailitch?' she murmured in confusion. + +'I said what it has been for ever so long,' answered Lezhnyov, 'on +the tip of my tongue to say a thousand times over. I have brought it +out at last, and you must act as you think best. But I will go away +now, so as not to be in your way. If you will be my wife . . . I +will walk away . . . if you don't dislike the idea, you need only send +to call me in; I shall understand. . . .' + +Alexandra Pavlovna tried to keep Lezhnyov, but he went quickly away, +and going into the garden without his cap, he leaned on a little gate +and began looking about him. + +'Mihailo Mihailitch!' sounded the voice of a maid-servant behind him, +'please come in to my lady. She sent me to call you.' + +Mihailo Mihailitch turned round, took the girl's head in both his +hands, to her great astonishment, and kissed her on the forehead, then +he went in to Alexandra Pavlovna. + + + + +XI + + +On returning home, directly after his meeting with Lezhnyov, Rudin +shut himself up in his room, and wrote two letters; one to Volintsev +(already known to the reader) and the other to Natalya. He sat a very +long time over this second letter, crossed out and altered a great +deal in it, and, copying it carefully on a fine sheet of note-paper, +folded it up as small as possible, and put it in his pocket. With a +look of pain on his face he paced several times up and down his room, +sat down in the chair before the window, leaning on his arm; a tear +slowly appeared upon his eyelashes. He got up, buttoned himself up, +called a servant and told him to ask Darya Mihailovna if he could see +her. + +The man returned quickly, answering that Darya Mihailovna would be +delighted to see him. Rudin went to her. + +She received him in her study, as she had that first time, two months +before. But now she was not alone; with her was sitting Pandalevsky, +unassuming, fresh, neat, and agreeable as ever. + +Darya Mihailovna met Rudin affably, and Rudin bowed affably to her; +but at the first glance at the smiling faces of both, any one of even +small experience would have understood that something of an unpleasant +nature had passed between them, even if it had not been expressed. +Rudin knew that Darya Mihailovna was angry with him. Darya Mihailovna +suspected that he was now aware of all that had happened. + +Pandalevsky's disclosure had greatly disturbed her. It touched on the +worldly pride in her. Rudin, a poor man without rank, and so far +without distinction, had presumed to make a secret appointment with +her daughter--the daughter of Darya Mihailovna Lasunsky. + +'Granting he is clever, he is a genius!' she said, 'what does that +prove? Why, any one may hope to be my son-in-law after that?' + +'For a long time I could not believe my eyes.' put in Pandalevsky. 'I +am surprised at his not understanding his position!' + +Darya Mihailovna was very much agitated, and Natalya suffered for it + +She asked Rudin to sit down. He sat down, but not like the old Rudin, +almost master of the house, not even like an old friend, but like a +guest, and not even a very intimate guest. All this took place in a +single instant . . . so water is suddenly transformed into solid ice. + +'I have come to you, Darya Mihailovna,' began Rudin, 'to thank you for +your hospitality. I have had some news to-day from my little estate, +and it is absolutely necessary for me to set off there to-day.' + +Darya Mihailovna looked attentively at Rudin. + +'He has anticipated me; it must be because he has some suspicion,' she +thought. 'He spares one a disagreeable explanation. So much the +better. Ah! clever people for ever!' + +'Really?' she replied aloud. 'Ah! how disappointing! Well, I suppose +there's no help for it. I shall hope to see you this winter in +Moscow. We shall soon be leaving here.' + +'I don't know, Darya Mihailovna, whether I shall succeed in +getting to Moscow, but, if I can manage it, I shall regard it as a +duty to call on you.' + +'Aha, my good sir!' Pandalevsky in his turn reflected; 'it's not long +since you behaved like the master here, and now this is how you have +to express yourself!' + +'Then I suppose you have unsatisfactory news from your estate?' he +articulated, with his customary ease. + +'Yes,' replied Rudin drily. + +'Some failure of crops, I suppose?' + +'No; something else. Believe me, Darya Mihailovna,' added Rudin, 'I +shall never forget the time I have spent in your house.' + +'And I, Dmitri Nikolaitch, shall always look back upon our +acquaintance with you with pleasure. When must you start?' + +'To-day, after dinner.' + +'So soon! . . . Well, I wish you a successful journey. But, if your +affairs do not detain you, perhaps you will look us up again here.' + +'I shall scarcely have time,' replied Rudin, getting up. 'Excuse me,' +he added; 'I cannot at once repay you my debt, but directly I reach my +place----' + +'Nonsense, Dmitri Nikolaitch!' Darya Mihailovna cut him short. 'I +wonder you're not ashamed to speak of it! . . . What o'clock is it?' +she asked. + +Pandalevsky drew a gold and enamel watch out of his waistcoat pocket, +and looked at it carefully, bending his rosy cheek over his stiff, +white collar. + +'Thirty-three minutes past two,' he announced. + +'It is time to dress,' observed Darya Mihailovna. 'Good-bye for the +present, Dmitri Nikolaitch!' + +Rudin got up. The whole conversation between him and Darya Mihailovna +had a special character. In the same way actors repeat their parts, +and diplomatic dignitaries interchange their carefully-worded phrases. + +Rudin went away. He knew by now through experience that men and women +of the world do not even break with a man who is of no further use to +them, but simply let him drop, like a kid glove after a ball, like the +paper that has wrapped up sweets, like an unsuccessful ticket for a +lottery. + +He packed quickly, and began to await with impatience the moment of +his departure. Every one in the house was very much surprised to hear +of his intentions; even the servants looked at him with a puzzled air. +Bassistoff did not conceal his sorrow. Natalya evidently avoided +Rudin. She tried not to meet his eyes. He succeeded, however, in +slipping his note into her hand. After dinner Darya Mihailovna +repeated once more that she hoped to see him before they left for +Moscow, but Rudin made her no reply. Pandalevsky addressed him more +frequently than any one. More than once Rudin felt a longing to fall +upon him and give him a slap on his rosy, blooming face. Mlle. +Boncourt often glanced at Rudin with a peculiarly stealthy expression +in her eyes; in old setter dogs one may sometimes see the same +expression. + +'Aha!' she seemed to be saying to herself, 'so you're caught!' + +At last six o'clock struck, and Rudin's carriage was brought to the +door. He began to take a hurried farewell of all. He had a feeling +of nausea at his heart. He had not expected to leave this house like +this; it seemed as though they were turning him out. 'What a way to do +it all! and what was the object of being in such a hurry? Still, it is +better so.' That was what he was thinking as he bowed in all +directions with a forced smile. For the last time he looked at +Natalya, and his heart throbbed; her eyes were bent upon him in sad, +reproachful farewell. + +He ran quickly down the steps, and jumped into his carriage. +Bassistoff had offered to accompany him to the next station, and he +took his seat beside him. + +'Do you remember,' began Rudin, directly the carriage had driven from +the courtyard into the broad road bordered with fir-trees, 'do you +remember what Don Quixote says to his squire when he is leaving the +court of the duchess? "Freedom," he says, "my friend Sancho, is one +of the most precious possessions of man, and happy is he to whom +Heaven has given a bit of bread, and who need not be indebted to any +one!" What Don Quixote felt then, I feel now. . . . God grant, my dear +Bassistoff, that you too may some day experience this feeling!' + +Bassistoff pressed Rudin's hand, and the honest boy's heart beat +violently with emotion. Till they reached the station Rudin spoke of +the dignity of man, of the meaning of true independence. He spoke +nobly, fervently, and justly, and when the moment of separation had +come, Bassistoff could not refrain from throwing himself on his neck +and sobbing. Rudin himself shed tears too, but he was not weeping +because he was parting from Bassistoff. His tears were the tears of +wounded vanity. + +Natalya had gone to her own room, and there she read Rudin's letter. + +'Dear Natalya Alexyevna,' he wrote her, 'I have decided to depart. +There is no other course open to me. I have decided to leave before I +am told plainly to go. By my departure all difficulties will be put an +end to, and there will be scarcely any one who will regret me. What +else did I expect? . . . It is always so, but why am I writing to you? + +'I am parting from you probably for ever, and it would be too painful +to me to leave you with a worse recollection of me than I deserve. +This is why I am writing to you. I do not want either to justify +myself or to blame any one whatever except myself; I want, as far as +possible, to explain myself. . . . The events of the last days have +been so unexpected, so sudden. . . . + +'Our interview to-day will be a memorable lesson to me. Yes, you are +right; I did not know you, and I thought I knew you! In the course of +my life I have had to do with people of all kinds. I have known many +women and young girls, but in you I met for the first time an +absolutely true and upright soul. This was something I was not used +to, and I did not know how to appreciate you fittingly. I felt an +attraction to you from the first day of our acquaintance; you may have +observed it. I spent with you hour after hour without learning to know +you; I scarcely even tried to know you--and I could imagine that I +loved you! For this sin I am punished now. + +'Once before I loved a woman, and she loved me. My feeling for her was +complex, like hers for me; but, as she was not simple herself, it was +all the better for her. Truth was not told to me then, and now I did +not recognise it when it was offered me. . . . I have recognised it at +last, when it is too late. . . . What is past cannot be recalled. . . . +Our lives might have become united, and they never will be united +now. How can I prove to you that I might have loved you with real +love--the love of the heart, not of the fancy--when I do not know +myself whether I am capable of such love? + +'Nature has given me much. I know it, and I will not disguise it from +you through false modesty, especially now at a moment so bitter, so +humiliating for me. . . . Yes, Nature has given me much, but I shall +die without doing anything worthy of my powers, without leaving any +trace behind me. All my wealth is dissipated idly; I do not see the +fruits of the seeds I sow. I am wanting in something. I cannot say +myself exactly what it is I am wanting in. . . . I am wanting, +certainly, in something without which one cannot move men's hearts, or +wholly win a woman's heart; and to sway men's minds alone is +precarious, and an empire ever unprofitable. A strange, almost +farcical fate is mine; I would devote myself--eagerly and wholly to +some cause,--and I cannot devote myself. I shall end by sacrificing +myself to some folly or other in which I shall not even believe. . . . +Alas! at thirty-five to be still preparing for something! . . . + +'I have never spoken so openly of myself to any one before--this is my +confession. + +'But enough of me. I should like to speak of you, to give you some +advice; I can be no use to you further. . . . You are still young; but +as long as you live, always follow the impulse of your heart, do not +let it be subordinated to your mind or the mind of others. Believe me, +the simpler, the narrower the circle in which life is passed the +better; the great thing is not to open out new sides, but that all the +phases of life should reach perfection in their own time. "Blessed is +he who has been young in his youth." But I see that this advice +applies far more to myself than to you. + +'I confess, Natalya Alexyevna, I am very unhappy. I never deceived +myself as to the nature of the feeling which I inspired in Darya +Mihailovna; but I hoped I had found at least a temporary home. . . . +Now I must take the chances of the rough world again. What will +replace for me your conversation, your presence, your attentive and +intelligent face? . . . I myself am to blame; but admit that fate +seems to have designed a jest at my expense. A week ago I did not even +myself suspect that I loved you. The day before yesterday, that +evening in the garden, I for the first time heard from your lips, . . . +but why remind you of what you said then? and now I am going away +to-day. I am going away disgraced, after a cruel explanation with you, +carrying with me no hope. . . . And you do not know yet to what a +degree I am to blame as regards you. . . I have such a foolish lack of +reserve, such a weak habit of confiding. But why speak of this? I am +leaving you for ever!' + +(Here Rudin had related to Natalya his visit to Volintsev, but on +second thoughts he erased all that part, and added the second +postscript to his letter to Volintsev.) + +'I remain alone upon earth to devote myself, as you said to me this +morning with bitter irony, to other interests more congenial to me. +Alas! if I could really devote myself to these interests, if I could +at last conquer my inertia. . . . But no! I shall remain to the end +the incomplete creature I have always been. . . . The first obstacle, +. . . and I collapse entirely; what has passed with you has shown me +that If I had but sacrificed my love to my future work, to my +vocation; but I simply was afraid of the responsibility that had +fallen upon me, and therefore I am, truly, unworthy of you. I do not +deserve that you should be torn out of your sphere for me. . . . And +indeed all this, perhaps, is for the best. I shall perhaps be the +stronger and the purer for this experience. + +'I wish you all happiness. Farewell! Think sometimes of me. I hope +that you may still hear of me. + +'RUDIN.' + + +Natalya let Rudin's letter drop on to her lap, and sat a long time +motionless, her eyes fixed on the ground. This letter proved to her +clearer than all possible arguments that she had been right, when in +the morning, at her parting with Rudin, she had involuntarily cried +out that he did not love her! But that made things no easier for her. +She sat perfectly still; it seemed as though waves of darkness without +a ray of light had closed over her head, and she had gone down cold +and dumb to the depths. The first disillusionment is painful for every +one; but for a sincere heart, averse to self-deception and innocent of +frivolity or exaggeration, it is almost unendurable. Natalya +remembered her childhood, how, when walking in the evening, she always +tried to go in the direction of the setting sun, where there was light +in the sky, and not toward the darkened half of the heavens. Life now +stood in darkness before her, and she had turned her back on the light +for ever. . . . + +Tears started into Natalya's eyes. Tears do not always bring relief. +They are comforting and salutary when, after being long pent up in the +breast, they flow at last--at first with violence, and then more +easily, more softly; the dumb agony of sorrow is over with the tears. +. . . But there are cold tears, tears that flow sparingly, wrung out +drop by drop from the heart by the immovable, weary weight of +pain laid upon it: they are not comforting, and bring no relief. +Poverty weeps such tears; and the man has not yet been unhappy who has +not shed them. Natalya knew them on that day. + +Two hours passed. Natalya pulled herself together, got up, wiped her +eyes, and, lighting a candle, she burnt Rudin's letter in the flame, +and threw the ash out of window. Then she opened Pushkin at random, +and read the first lines that met her. (She often made it her oracle +in this way.) This is what she saw: + + 'When he has known its pang, for him + The torturing ghost of days that are no more, + For him no more illusion, but remorse + And memory's serpent gnawing at his heart.' + +She stopped, and with a cold smile looked at herself in the glass, +slightly nodded her head, and went down to the drawing-room. + +Darya Mihailovna, directly she saw her, called her into her study, +made her sit near her, and caressingly stroked her cheek. Meanwhile +she gazed attentively, almost with curiosity, into her eyes. Darya +Mihailovna was secretly perplexed; for the first time it struck her +that she did not really understand her daughter. When she had heard +from Pandalevsky of her meeting with Rudin, she was not so much +displeased as amazed that her sensible Natalya could resolve upon such +a step. But when she had sent for her, and fell to upbraiding her--not +at all as one would have expected from a lady of European renown, but +with loud and vulgar abuse--Natalya's firm replies, and the resolution +of her looks and movements, had confused and even intimidated her. + +Rudin's sudden, and wholly unexplained, departure had taken a great +load off her heart, but she had expected tears, and hysterics. . . . +Natalya's outward composure threw her out of her reckoning again. + +'Well, child,' began Darya Mihailovna, 'how are you to-day?' Natalya +looked at her mother. 'He is gone, you see . . . your hero. Do you +know why he decided on going so quickly?' + +'Mamma!' said Natalya in a low voice, 'I give you my word, if you will +not mention him, you shall never hear his name from me.' + +'Then you acknowledge how wrongly you behaved to me?' + +Natalya looked down and repeated: + +'You shall never hear his name from me.' + +'Well, well,' answered Darya Mihailovna with a smile, 'I believe you. +But the day before yesterday, do you remember how--There, we will pass +that over. It is all over and buried and forgotten. Isn't it? Come, I +know you again now; but I was altogether puzzled then. There, kiss me +like a sensible girl!' + +Natalya lifted Darya Mihailovna's hand to her lips, and Darya +Mihailovna kissed her stooping head. + +'Always listen to my advice. Do not forget that you are a Lasunsky and +my daughter,' she added, 'and you will be happy. And now you may go.' + +Natalya went away in silence. Darya Mihailovna looked after her and +thought: 'She is like me--she too will let herself be carried away by +her feelings; _mais ella aura moins d'abandon_.' And Darya Mihailovna +fell to musing over memories of the past . . . of the distant past. + +Then she summoned Mlle. Boncourt and remained a long while closeted +with her. + +When she had dismissed her she sent for Pandalevsky. She wanted at all +hazards to discover the real cause of Rudin's departure . . . but +Pandalevsky succeeded in completely satisfying her. It was what he was +there for. + + + +The next day Volintsev and his sister came to dinner. Darya Mihailovna +was always very affable to him, but this time she was especially +cordial to him. Natalya felt unbearably miserable; but Volintsev was +so respectful, and addressed her so timidly, that she could not but be +grateful to him in her heart. The day passed quietly, rather +tediously, but all felt as they separated that they had fallen back +into the old order of things; and that means much, very much. + +Yes, all had fallen back into their old order--all except Natalya. +When at last she was able to be alone, she dragged herself with +difficulty into her bed, and, weary and worn out, fell with her face +on the pillow. Life seemed so cruel, so hateful, and so sordid, she +was so ashamed of herself, her love, and her sorrow, that at that +moment she would have been glad to die. . . . There were many +sorrowful days in store for her, and sleepless nights and torturing +emotions; but she was young--life had scarcely begun for her, and +sooner or later life asserts its claims. Whatever blow has fallen on +a man, he must--forgive the coarseness of the expression--eat that day +or at least the next, and that is the first step to consolation. + +Natalya suffered terribly, she suffered for the first time. . . . But +the first sorrow, like first love, does not come again--and thank God +for it! + + + + +XII + + +About two years had passed. The first days of May had come. Alexandra +Pavlovna, no longer Lipin but Lezhnyov, was sitting on the balcony of +her house; she had been married to Mihailo Mihailitch for more than a +year. She was as charming as ever, and had only grown a little stouter +of late. In front of the balcony, from which there were steps leading +into the garden, a nurse was walking about carrying a rosy-cheeked +baby in her arms, in a white cloak, with a white cap on his head. +Alexandra Pavlovna kept her eyes constantly on him. The baby did not +cry, but sucked his thumb gravely and looked about him. He was already +showing himself a worthy son of Mihailo Mihailitch. + +On the balcony, near Alexandra Pavlovna, was sitting our old friend, +Pigasov. He had grown noticeably greyer since we parted from him, and +was bent and thin, and he lisped when he spoke; one of his front teeth +had gone; and this lisp gave still greater asperity to his words. . . . +His spitefulness had not decreased with years, but his sallies were +less lively, and he more frequently repeated himself. Mihailo +Mihailitch was not at home; they were expecting him in to tea. The sun +had already set. Where it had gone down, a streak of pale gold and of +lemon colour stretched across the distant horizon; on the opposite +quarter of the sky was a stretch of dove-colour below and crimson +lilac above. Light clouds seemed melting away overhead. There was +every promise of prolonged fine weather. + +Suddenly Pigasov burst out laughing. + +'What is it, African Semenitch?' inquired Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'Oh, yesterday I heard a peasant say to his wife--she had been +chattering away--"don't squeak!" I liked that immensely. And after +all, what can a woman talk about? I never, you know, speak of present +company. Our ancestors were wiser than we. The beauty in their +stories always sits at the window with a star on her brow and never +utters a syllable. That's how it ought to be. Think of it! the day +before yesterday, our marshal's wife--she might have sent a +pistol-shot into my head!--says to me she doesn't like my tendencies! +Tendencies! Come, wouldn't it be better for her and for every one if +by some beneficent ordinance of nature she were suddenly deprived of +the use of her tongue?' + +'Oh, you are always like that, African Semenitch; you are always +attacking us poor . . . Do you know it's a misfortune of a sort, +really? I am sorry for you.' + +'A misfortune! Why do you say that? To begin with, in my opinion, +there are only three misfortunes: to live in winter in cold lodgings, +in summer to wear tight shoes, and to spend the night in a room where +a baby cries whom you can't get rid of with Persian powder; and +secondly, I am now the most peaceable of men. Why, I'm a model! You +know how properly I behave!' + +'Fine behaviour, indeed! Only yesterday Elena Antonovna complained to +me of you,' + +'Well! And what did she tell you, if I may know?' + +'She told me that far one whole morning you would make no reply to all +her questions but "what? what?" and always in the same squeaking +voice.' + +Pigasov laughed. + +'But that was a happy idea, you'll allow, Alexandra Pavlovna, eh?' + +'Admirable, indeed! Can you really have behaved so rudely to a lady, +African Semenitch?' + +'What! Do you regard Elena Antonovna as a lady?' + +'What do you regard her as?' + +'A drum, upon my word, an ordinary drum such as they beat with +sticks.' + +'Oh,' interrupted Alexandra Pavlovna, anxious to change the +conversation, 'they tell me one may congratulate you.' + +'Upon what?' + +'The end of your lawsuit. The Glinovsky meadows are yours.' + +'Yes, they are mine,' replied Pigasov gloomily. + +'You have been trying to gain this so many years, and now you seem +discontented.' + +'I assure you, Alexandra Pavlovna,' said Pigasov slowly, 'nothing can +be worse and more injurious than good-fortune that comes too late. It +cannot give you pleasure in any way, and it deprives you of the +right--the precious right--of complaining and cursing Providence. Yes, +madam, it's a cruel and insulting trick--belated fortune.' + +Alexandra Pavlovna only shrugged her shoulders. + +'Nurse,' she began, 'I think it's time to put Misha to bed. Give him +to me.' + +While Alexandra Pavlovna busied herself with her son, Pigasov walked +off muttering to the other corner of the balcony. + +Suddenly, not far off on the road that ran the length of the garden, +Mihailo Mihailitch made his appearance driving his racing droshky. Two +huge house-dogs ran before the horse, one yellow, the other grey, both +only lately obtained. They incessantly quarrelled, and were +inseparable companions. An old pug-dog came out of the gate to meet +them. He opened his mouth as if he were going to bark, bat ended by +yawning and turning back again with a friendly wag of the tail. + +'Look here, Sasha,' cried Lezhnyov, from the distance, to his wife, +'whom I am bringing you.' + +Alexandra Pavlovna did not at once recognise the man who was sitting +behind her husband's back. + +'Ah! Mr. Bassistoff!' she cried at last + +'It's he,' answered Lezhnyov; 'and he has brought such glorious news. +Wait a minute, you shall know directly.' + +And he drove into the courtyard. + +Some minutes later he came with Bassistoff into the balcony. + +'Hurrah!' he cried, embracing his wife, 'Serezha is going to be +married.' + +'To whom?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna, much agitated. + +'To Natalya, of course. Our friend has brought the news from Moscow, +and there is a letter for you.' + +'Do you hear, Misha,' he went on, snatching his son into his arms, +'your uncle's going to be married? What criminal indifference! he only +blinks his eyes!' + +'He is sleepy,' remarked the nurse. + +'Yes,' said Bassistoff, going up to Alexandra Pavlovna, 'I have come +to-day from Moscow on business for Darya Mihailovna--to go over the +accounts on the estate. And here is the letter.' + +Alexandra Pavlovna opened her brother's letter in haste. It consisted +of a few lines only. In the first transport of joy he informed his +sister that he had made Natalya an offer, and received her consent and +Darya Mihailovna's; and he promised to write more by the next post, +and sent embraces and kisses to all. It was clear he was writing in a +state of delirium. + +Tea was served, Bassistoff sat down. Questions were showered upon him. +Every one, even Pigasov, was delighted at the news he had brought. + +'Tell me, please,' said Lezhnyov among the rest, 'rumours reached us +of a certain Mr. Kortchagin. That was all nonsense, I suppose?' + +Kortchagin was a handsome young man, a society lion, excessively +conceited and important; he behaved with extraordinary dignity, just +as if he had not been a living man, but his own statue set up by +public subscription. + +'Well, no, not altogether nonsense,' replied Bassistoff with a smile; +'Darya Mihailovna was very favourable to him; but Natalya Alexyevna +would not even hear of him.' + +'I know him,' put in Pigasov, 'he's a double dummy, a noisy dummy, if +you like! If all people were like that, it would need a large sum of +money to induce one to consent to live--upon my word!' + +'Very likely,' answered Bassistoff; 'but he plays a leading part in +society.' + +'Well, never mind him!' cried Alexandra Pavlovna. 'Peace be with him! +Ah! how glad I am for my brother I And Natalya, is she bright and +happy?' + +'Yes. She is quiet, as she always is. You know her--but she seems +contented.' + +The evening was spent in friendly and lively talk. They sat down to +supper. + +'Oh, by the way,' inquired Lezhnyov of Bassistoff, as he poured him +out some Lafitte, 'do you know where Rudin is?' + +'I don't know for certain now. He came last winter to Moscow for a +short time, and then went with a family to Simbirsk. I corresponded +with him for some time; in his last letter he informed me he was +leaving Simbirsk--he did not say where he was going--and since then I +have heard nothing of him.' + +'He is all right!' put in Pigasov. 'He is staying somewhere +sermonising. That gentleman will always find two or three adherents +everywhere, to listen to him open-mouthed and lend him money. You will +see he will end by dying in some out-of-the-way corner in the arms of +an old maid in a wig, who will believe he is the greatest genius in +the world.' + +'You speak very harshly of him,' remarked Bassistoff, in a displeased +undertone. + +'Not a bit harshly,' replied Pigasov; 'but perfectly fairly. In my +opinion, he is simply nothing else than a sponge. I forgot to tell +you,' he continued, turning to Lezhnyov, 'that I have made the +acquaintance of that Terlahov, with whom Rudin travelled abroad. Yes! +Yes! What he told me of him, you cannot imagine--it's simply +screaming! It's a remarkable fact that all Rudin's friends and +admirers become in time his enemies.' + +'I beg you to except me from the number of such friends!' interposed +Bassistoff warmly. + +'Oh, you--that's a different thing! I was not speaking of you.' + +'But what did Terlahov tell you?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna. + +'Oh, he told me a great deal; there's no remembering it all. But the +best of all was an anecdote of what happened to Rudin. As he was +incessantly developing (these gentlemen always are developing; other +people simply sleep and eat; but they manage their sleeping and eating +in the intervals of development; isn't that it, Mr. Bassistoff?' +Bassistoff made no reply.) 'And so, as he was continually developing, +Rudin arrived at the conclusion, by means of philosophy, that he ought +to fall in love. He began to look about for a sweetheart worthy of +such an astonishing conclusion. Fortune smiled upon him. He made the +acquaintance of a very pretty French dressmaker. The whole incident +occurred in a German town on the Rhine, observe. He began to go and +see her, to take her various books, to talk to her of Nature and +Hegel. Can you fancy the position of the dressmaker? She took him for +an astronomer. However, you know he's not a bad-looking fellow--and a +foreigner, a Russian, of course--he took her fancy. Well, at last he +invited her to a rendezvous, and a very poetical rendezvous, in a boat +on the river. The Frenchwoman agreed; dressed herself in her best and +went out with him in a boat. So they spent two hours. How do you think +he was occupied all that time? He patted the Frenchwoman on the head, +gazed thoughtfully at the sky, and frequently repeated that he felt +for her the tenderness of a father. The Frenchwoman went back home in +a fury, and she herself told the story to Terlahov afterwards! That's +the kind of fellow he is.' + +And Pigasov broke into a loud laugh. + +'You old cynic!' said Alexandra Pavlovna in a tone of annoyance, 'but +I am more and more convinced that even those who attack Rudin cannot +find any harm to say of him.' + +'No harm? Upon my word! and his perpetual living at other people's +expense, his borrowing money. . . . Mihailo Mihailitch, he borrowed of +you too, no doubt, didn't he?' + +'Listen, African Semenitch!' began Lezhnyov, and his face assumed a +serious expression, 'listen; you know, and my wife knows, that the +last time I saw him I felt no special attachment for Rudin, and I even +often blamed him. For all that (Lezhnyov filled up the glasses with +champagne) this is what I suggest to you now; we have just drunk to +the health of my dear brother and his future bride; I propose that you +drink now to the health of Dmitri Rudin!' + +Alexandra Pavlovna and Pigasov looked in astonishment at Lezhnyov, but +Bassistoff sat wide-eyed, blushing and trembling all over with delight. + +'I know him well,' continued Lezhnyov, 'I am well aware of his +faults. They are the more conspicuous because he himself is not +on a small scale.' + +'Rudin has character, genius!' cried Bassistoff. + +'Genius, very likely he has!' replied Lezhnyov, 'but as for character +. . . That's just his misfortune, that there's no character in him. . . +But that's not the point. I want to speak of what is good, of what +is rare in him. He has enthusiasm; and believe me, who am a phlegmatic +person enough, that is the most precious quality in our times. We have +all become insufferably reasonable, indifferent, and slothful; we are +asleep and cold, and thanks to any one who will wake us up and warm +us! It is high time! Do you remember, Sasha, once when I was talking +to you about him, I blamed him for coldness? I was right, and wrong +too, then. The coldness is in his blood--that is not his fault--and +not in his head. He is not an actor, as I called him, nor a cheat, nor +a scoundrel; he lives at other people's expense, not like a swindler, +but like a child. . . . Yes; no doubt he will die somewhere in poverty +and want; but are we to throw stones at him for that? He never does +anything himself precisely, he has no vital force, no blood; but who +has the right to say that he has not been of use? that his words have +not scattered good seeds in young hearts, to whom nature has not +denied, as she has to him, powers for action, and the faculty of +carrying out their own ideas? Indeed, I myself, to begin with, have +gained all that from him. . . . Sasha knows what Rudin did for me in +my youth. I also maintained, I recollect, that Rudin's words could not +produce an effect on men; but I was speaking then of men like myself, +at my present age, of men who have already lived and been broken in by +life. One false note in a man's eloquence, and the whole harmony is +spoiled for us; but a young man's ear, happily, is not so over-fine, +not so trained. If the substance of what he hears seems fine to him, +what does he care about the intonation! The intonation he will supply +for himself!' + +'Bravo, bravo!' cried Bassistoff, 'that is justly spoken! And as +regards Rudin's influence, I swear to you, that man not only knows how +to move you, he lifts you up, he does not let you stand still, he +stirs you to the depths and sets you on fire!' + +'You hear?' continued Lezhnyov, turning to Pigasov; 'what further +proof do you want? You attack philosophy; speaking of it, you cannot +find words contemptuous enough. I myself am not excessively devoted to +it, and I know little enough about it; but our principal misfortunes +do not come from philosophy! The Russian will never be infected with +philosophical hair-splittings and nonsense; he has too much +common-sense for that; but we must not let every sincere effort after +truth and knowledge be attacked under the name of philosophy. Rudin's +misfortune is that he does not understand Russia, and that, certainly, +is a great misfortune. Russia can do without every one of us, but not +one of us can do without her. Woe to him who thinks he can, and woe +twofold to him who actually does do without her! Cosmopolitanism is +all twaddle, the cosmopolitan is a nonentity--worse than a nonentity; +without nationality is no art, nor truth, nor life, nor anything. You +cannot even have an ideal face without individual expression; only a +vulgar face can be devoid of it. But I say again, that is not Rudin's +fault; it is his fate--a cruel and unhappy fate--for which we cannot +blame him. It would take us too far if we tried to trace why Rudins +spring up among us. But for what is fine in him, let us be grateful to +him. That is pleasanter than being unfair to him, and we have been +unfair to him. It's not our business to punish him, and it's not +needed; he has punished himself far more cruelly than he deserved. And +God grant that unhappiness may have blotted out all the harm there was +in him, and left only what was fine! I drink to the health of Rudin! I +drink to the comrade of my best years, I drink to youth, to its hopes, +its endeavours, its faith, and its honesty, to all that our hearts +beat for at twenty; we have known, and shall know, nothing better than +that in life. . . . I drink to that golden time--to the health of +Rudin!' + +All clinked glasses with Lezhnyov. Bassistoff, in his enthusiasm, +almost cracked his glass and drained it off at a draught. Alexandra +Pavlovna pressed Lezhnyov's hand. + +'Why, Mihailo Mihailitch, I did not suspect you were an orator,' +remarked Pigasov; 'it was equal to Mr. Rudin himself; even I was moved +by it.' + +'I am not at all an orator,' replied Lezhnyov, not without annoyance, +'but to move you, I fancy, would be difficult. But enough of Rudin; +let us talk of something else. What of--what's his name--Pandalevsky? +is he still living at Darya Mihailovna's?' he concluded, turning to +Bassistoff. + +'Oh yes, he is still there. She has managed to get him a very +profitable place.' + +Lezhnyov smiled. + +'That's a man who won't die in want, one can count upon that.' + +Supper was over. The guests dispersed. When she was left alone with +her husband, Alexandra Pavlovna looked smiling into his face. + +'How splendid you were this evening, Misha,' she said, stroking his +forehead, 'how cleverly and nobly you spoke! But confess, you +exaggerated a little in Rudin's praise, as in old days you did in +attacking him.' + +'I can't let them hit a man when he's down. And in those days I was +afraid he was turning your head.' + +'No,' replied Alexandra Pavlovna naively, 'he always seemed too +learned for me. I was afraid of him, and never knew what to say in his +presence. But wasn't Pigasov nasty in his ridicule of him to-day?' + +'Pigasov?' responded Lezhnyov. 'That was just why I stood up for Rudin +so warmly, because Pigasov was here. He dare to call Rudin a sponge +indeed! Why, I consider the part he plays--Pigasov I mean--is a +hundred times worse! He has an independent property, and he sneers at +every one, and yet see how he fawns upon wealthy or distinguished +people! Do you know that that fellow, who abuses everything and every +one with such scorn, and attacks philosophy and women, do you know +that when he was in the service, he took bribes and that sort of +thing! Ugh! That's what he is!' + +'Is it possible?' cried Alexandra Pavlovna, 'I should never have +expected that! Misha,' she added, after a short pause, 'I want to ask +you----' + +'What?' + +'What do you think, will my brother be happy with Natalya?' + +'How can I tell you? . . . there's every likelihood of it. She will +take the lead . . . there's no reason to hide the fact between us . . . +she is cleverer than he is; but he's a capital fellow, and loves her +with all his soul. What more would you have? You see we love one +another and are happy, aren't we?' + +Alexandra Pavlovna smiled and pressed his hand. + + + + +On the same day on which all that has been described took place in +Alexandra Pavlovna's house, in one of the remote districts of Russia, +a wretched little covered cart, drawn by three village horses was +crawling along the high road in the sultry heat. On the front seat was +perched a grizzled peasant in a ragged cloak, with his legs hanging +slanting on the shaft; he kept flicking with the reins, which were of +cord, and shaking the whip. Inside the cart there was sitting on a +shaky portmanteau a tall man in a cap and old dusty cloak. It was +Rudin. He sat with bent head, the peak of his cap pulled over his +eyes. The jolting of the cart threw him from side to side; but he +seemed utterly unconscious, as though he were asleep. At last he drew +himself up. + +'When are we coming to a station?' he inquired of the peasant sitting +in front. + +'Just over the hill, little father,' said the peasant, with a still +more violent shaking of the reins. 'There's a mile and a half farther +to go, not more. . . . Come! there! look about you. . . . I'll teach +you,' he added in a shrill voice, setting to work to whip the +right-hand horse. + +'You seem to drive very badly,' observed Rudin; 'we have been +crawling along since early morning, and we have not succeeded in +getting there yet. You should have sung something.' + +'Well, what would you have, little father? The horses, you see +yourself, are overdone . . . and then the heat; and I can't sing. I'm +not a coachman. . . . Hullo, you little sheep!' cried the peasant, +suddenly turning to a man coming along in a brown smock and bark shoes +downtrodden at heel. 'Get out of the way!' + +'You're a nice driver!' muttered the man after him, and stood still. +'You wretched Muscovite,' he added in a voice full of contempt, shook +his head and limped away. + +'What are you up to?' sang out the peasant at intervals, pulling at +the shaft-horse. 'Ah, you devil! Get on!' + +The jaded horses dragged themselves at last up to the posting-station. +Rudin crept out of the cart, paid the peasant (who did not bow to him, +and kept shaking the coins in the palm of his hand a long +while--evidently there was too little drink-money) and himself carried +the portmanteau into the posting-station. + +A friend of mine who has wandered a great deal about Russia in his +time made the observation that if the pictures hanging on the walls of +a posting-station represent scenes from 'the Prisoner of the +Caucasus,' or Russian generals, you may get horses soon; but if the +pictures depict the life of the well-known gambler George de Germany, +the traveller need not hope to get off quickly; he will have time to +admire to the full the hair _a la cockatoo_, the white open waistcoat, +and the exceedingly short and narrow trousers of the gambler in his +youth, and his exasperated physiognomy, when in his old age he kills +his son, waving a chair above him, in a cottage with a narrow +staircase. In the room into which Rudin walked precisely these +pictures were hanging out of 'Thirty Years, or the Life of a +Gambler.' In response to his call the superintendent appeared, who had +just waked up (by the way, did any one ever see a superintendent who +had not just been asleep?), and without even waiting for Rudin's +question, informed him in a sleepy voice that there were no horses. + +'How can you say there are no horses,' said Rudin, 'when you don't +even know where I am going? I came here with village horses.' + +'We have no horses for anywhere,' answered the superintendent. 'But +where are you going?' + +'To Sk----.' + +'We have no horses,' repeated the superintendent, and he went away. + +Rudin, vexed, went up to the window and threw his cap on the table. He +was not much changed, but had grown rather yellow in the last two +years; silver threads shone here and there in his curls, and his eyes, +still magnificent, seemed somehow dimmed, fine lines, the traces of +bitter and disquieting emotions, lay about his lips and on his +temples. His clothes were shabby and old, and he had no linen visible +anywhere. His best days were clearly over: as the gardeners say, he +had gone to seed. + +He began reading the inscriptions on the walls--the ordinary +distraction of weary travellers; suddenly the door creaked and the +superintendent came in. + +'There are no horses for Sk----, and there won't be any for a long +time,' he said, 'but here are some ready to go to V----.' + +'To V----?' said Rudin. 'Why, that's not on my road at all. I am going +to Penza, and V---- lies, I think, in the direction of Tamboff.' + +'What of that? you can get there from Tamboff, and from V---- you +won't be at all out of your road.' + +Rudin thought a moment. + +'Well, all right,' he said at last, 'tell them to put the horses to. +It is the same to me; I will go to Tamboff.' + +The horses were soon ready. Rudin carried his own portmanteau, climbed +into the cart, and took his seat, his head hanging as before. There +was something helpless and pathetically submissive in his bent +figure . . . . And the three horses went off at a slow trot. + + + + +EPILOGUE + + +Some years had passed by. + +It was a cold autumn day. A travelling carriage drew up at the steps +of the principal hotel of the government town of C----; a gentleman +yawning and stretching stepped out of it. He was not elderly, but had +had time to acquire that fulness of figure which habitually commands +respect. He went up the staircase to the second story, and stopped at +the entrance to a wide corridor. Seeing no one before him he called +out in a loud voice asking for a room. A door creaked somewhere, and a +long waiter jumped up from behind a low screen, and came forward with +a quick flank movement, an apparition of a glossy back and tucked-up +sleeves in the half-dark corridor. The traveller went into the room +and at once throwing off his cloak and scarf, sat down on the sofa, +and with his fists propped on his knees, he first looked round as +though he were hardly awake yet, and then gave the order to send up +his servant. The hotel waiter made a bow and disappeared. The +traveller was no other than Lezhnyov. He had come from the country to +C---- about some conscription business. + +Lezhnyov's servant, a curly-headed, rosy-cheeked youth in a grey +cloak, with a blue sash round the waist, and soft felt shoes, came +into the room. + +'Well, my boy, here we are,' Lezhnyov said, 'and you were afraid all +the while that a wheel would come off.' + +'We are here,' replied the boy, trying to smile above the high collar +of his cloak, 'but the reason why the wheel did not come off----' + +'Is there no one in here?' sounded a voice in the corridor. + +Lezhnyov started and listened. + +'Eh? who is there?' repeated the voice. + +Lezhnyov got up, walked to the door, and quickly threw it open. + +Before him stood a tall man, bent and almost completely grey, in an +old frieze coat with bronze buttons. + +'Rudin!' he cried in an excited voice. + +Rudin turned round. He could not distinguish Lezhnyov's features, as +he stood with his back to the light, and he looked at him in +bewilderment. + +'You don't know me?' said Lezhnyov. + +'Mihailo Mihailitch!' cried Rudin, and held out his hand, but drew it +back again in confusion. Lezhnyov made haste to snatch it in both of +his. + +'Come, come in!' he said to Rudin, and drew him into the room. + +'How you have changed!' exclaimed Lezhnyov after a brief silence, +involuntarily dropping his voice. + +'Yes, they say so!' replied Rudin, his eyes straying about the room. +'The years . . . and you not much. How is Alexandra--your wife?' + +'She is very well, thank you. But what fate brought you here?' + +'It is too long a story. Strictly speaking, I came here by chance. I +was looking for a friend. But I am very glad . . .' + +'Where are you going to dine?' + +'Oh, I don't know. At some restaurant. I must go away from here +to-day.' + +'You must.' + +Rudin smiled significantly. + +'Yes, I must. They are sending me off to my own place, to my home.' + +'Dine with me.' + +Rudin for the first time looked Lezhnyov straight in the face. + +'You invite me to dine with you?' he said. + +'Yes, Rudin, for the sake of old times and old comradeship. Will you? +I did not expect to meet you, and God only knows when we shall see +each other again. I cannot part from you like this!' + +'Very well, I agree!' + +Lezhnyov pressed Rudin's hand, and calling his servant, ordered +dinner, and told him to have a bottle of champagne put in ice. + +In the course of dinner, Lezhnyov and Rudin, as though by agreement, +kept talking of their student days, recalling many things and many +friends--dead and living. At first Rudin spoke with little interest, +but when he had drunk a few glasses of wine his blood grew warmer. At +last the waiter took away the last dish, Lezhnyov got up, closed the +door, and coming back to the table, sat down facing Rudin, and quietly +rested his chin on his hands. + +'Now, then,' he began, 'tell me all that has happened to you since I +saw you last' + +Rudin looked at Lezhnyov. + +'Good God!' thought Lezhnyov, 'how he has changed, poor fellow!' + +Rudin's features had undergone little change since we saw him last at +the posting-station, though approaching old age had had time to set +its mark upon them; but their expression had become different. His +eyes had a changed look; his whole being, his movements, which were at +one time slow, at another abrupt and disconnected, his crushed, +benumbed manner of speaking, all showed an utter exhaustion, a quiet +and secret dejection, very different from the half-assumed melancholy +which he had affected once, as it is generally affected by youth, when +full of hopes and confident vanity. + +'Tell you all that has happened to me?' he said; 'I could not tell +you all, and it is not worth while. I am worn out; I have wandered +far--in spirit as well as in flesh. What friends I have made--good +God! How many things, how many men I have lost faith in! Yes, how +many!' repeated Rudin, noticing that Lezhnyov was looking in his face +with a kind of special sympathy. 'How many times have my own words +grown hateful to me! I don't mean now on my own lips, but on the lips +of those who had adopted my opinions! How many times have I passed +from the petulance of a child to the dull insensibility of a horse who +does not lash his tail when the whip cuts him! . . . How many times I +have been happy and hopeful, and have made enemies and humbled myself +for nothing! How many times I have taken flight like an eagle--and +returned crawling like a snail whose shell has been crushed! . . . +Where have I not been! What roads have I not travelled! . . . And the +roads are often dirty,' added Rudin, slightly turning away. 'You know +. . .' he was continuing. . . . 'Listen,' interrupted Lezhnyov. 'We +used once to say "Dmitri and Mihail" to one another. Let us revive the +old habit, . . . will you? Let us drink to those days!' + +Rudin started and drew himself up a little, and there was a gleam in +his eyes of something no word can express. + +'Let us drink to them,' he said. 'I thank you, brother, we will drink +to them!' + +Lezhnyov and Rudin drained their glasses. + +'You know, Mihail,' Rudin began again with a smile and a stress on the +name, 'there is a worm in me which gnaws and worries me and never lets +me be at peace till the end. It brings me into collision with +people,--at first they fall under my influence, but afterwards . . .' + +Rudin waved his hand in the air. + +'Since I parted from you, Mihail, I have seen much, have experienced +many changes. . . . I have begun life, have started on something new +twenty times--and here--you see!' + +'You had no stability,' said Lezhnyov, as though to himself. + +'As you say, I had no stability. I never was able to construct +anything; and it's a difficult thing, brother, to construct when one +has to create the very ground under one's feet, to make one's own +foundation for one's self! All my adventures--that is, speaking +accurately, all my failures, I will not describe. I will tell of two +or three incidents--those incidents of my life when it seemed as if +success were smiling on me, or rather when I began to hope for +success--which is not altogether the same thing . . .' + +Rudin pushed back his grey and already sparse locks with the same +gesture which he used once to toss back his thick, dark curls. + +'Well, I will tell you, Mihail,' he began. 'In Moscow I came across a +rather strange man. He was very wealthy and was the owner of extensive +estates. His chief and only passion was love of science, universal +science. I have never yet been able to arrive at how this passion +arose in him! It fitted him about as well as a saddle on a cow. He +managed with difficulty to maintain himself at his mental elevation, +he was almost without the power of speech, he only rolled his eyes +with expression and shook his head significantly. I never met, +brother, a poorer and less gifted nature than his. . . . In the Smolensk +province there are places like that--nothing but sand and a few tufts +of grass which no animal can eat. Nothing succeeded in his hands; +everything seemed to slip away from him; but he was still mad on +making everything plain complicated. If it had depended on his +arrangements, his people would have eaten standing on their heads. He +worked, and wrote, and read indefatigably. He devoted himself to +science with a kind of stubborn perseverance, a terrible patience; his +vanity was immense, and he had a will of iron. He lived alone, and had +the reputation of an eccentric. I made friends with him . . . and he +liked me. I quickly, I must own, saw through him; but his zeal +attracted me. Besides, he was the master of such resources; so much +good might be done, so much real usefulness through him. . . . I was +installed in his house and went with him to the country. My plans, +brother, were on a vast scale; I dreamed of various reforms, +innovations . . .' + +'Just as at the Lasunsky's, do you remember, Dmitri?' responded +Lezhnyov, with an indulgent smile. + +'Ah, but then I knew in my heart that nothing would come of my words; +but this time . . . an altogether different field of activity lay open +before me. . . . I took with me books on agriculture . . . to tell the +truth, I did not read one of them through. . . . Well, I set to work. +At first it did not progress as I had expected; but afterwards it did +get on in a way. My new friend looked on and said nothing; he did not +interfere with me, at least not to any noticeable extent. He accepted +my suggestions, and carried them out, but with a stubborn sullenness, +a secret want of faith; and he bent everything his own way. He prized +extremely every idea of his own. He got to it with difficulty, like a +ladybird on a blade of grass, and he would sit and sit upon it, as +though pluming his wings and getting ready for a flight, and suddenly +he would fall off and begin crawling again. . . . Don't be surprised +at these comparisons; at that time they were always crowding on my +imagination. So I struggled on there for two years. The work did not +progress much in spite of all my efforts. I began to be tired of it, +my friend bored me; I had come to sneer at him, and he stifled me like +a featherbed; his want of faith had changed into a dumb resentment; a +feeling of hostility had laid hold of both of us; we could scarcely +now speak of anything; he quietly but incessantly tried to show me +that he was not under my influence; my arrangements were either set +aside or altogether transformed. I realised, at last, that I was +playing the part of a toady in the noble landowner's house by +providing him with intellectual amusement. It was very bitter to me to +have wasted my time and strength for nothing, most bitter to feel that +I had again and again been deceived in my expectations. I knew very +well what I was losing if I went away; but I could not control myself, +and one day after a painful and revolting scene of which I was a +witness, and which showed my friend in a most disadvantageous light, I +quarrelled with him finally, went away, and threw up this newfangled +pedant, made of a queer compound of our native flour kneaded up with +German treacle.' + +'That is, you threw up your daily bread, Dmitri,' said Lezhnyov, +laying both hands on Rudin's shoulders. + +'Yes, and again I was turned adrift, empty-handed and penniless, to +fly whither I listed. Ah! let us drink!' + +'To your health!' said Lezhnyov, getting up and kissing Rudin on the +forehead. 'To your health and to the memory of Pokorsky. He, too, +knew how to be poor.' + +'Well, that was number one of my adventures,' began Rudin, after a +short pause. 'Shall I go on?' + +'Go on, please.' + +'Ah! I have no wish for talking. I am tired of talking, brother. . . . +However, so be it. After knocking about in various parts--by the way, +I might tell you how I became the secretary of a benevolent dignitary, +and what came of that; but that would take me too long. . . . After +knocking about in various parts, I resolved to become at last--don't +smile, please--a practical business man. The opportunity came in this +way. I became friendly with--he was much talked of at one time--a man +called Kurbyev.' + +'Oh, I never heard of him. But, really, Dmitri, with your +intelligence, how was it you did not suspect that to be a business man +was not the business for you?' + +'I know, brother, that it was not; but, then, what is the business for +me? But if you had seen Kurbyev! Do not, pray, fancy him as some +empty-headed chatterer. They say I was eloquent once. I was simply +nothing beside him. He was a man of wonderful learning and +knowledge,--an intellect, brother, a creative intellect, for business +and commercial enterprises. His brain seemed seething with the +boldest, the most unexpected schemes. I joined him and we decided to +turn our powers to a work of public utility.' + +'What was it, may I know?' + +Rudin dropped his eyes. + +'You will laugh at it, Mihail. + +'Why should I? No, I will not laugh.' + +'We resolved to make a river in the K---- province fit for +navigation,' said Rudin with an embarrassed smile. + +'Really! This Kurbyev was a capitalist, then?' + +'He was poorer than I,' responded Rudin, and his grey head sank on +his breast. + +Lezhnyov began to laugh, but he stopped suddenly and took Rudin by the +hand. + +'Pardon me, brother, I beg,' he said, 'but I did not expect that. +Well, so I suppose your enterprise did not get further than paper?' + +'Not so. A beginning was made. We hired workmen, and set to work. But +then we were met by various obstacles. In the first place the +millowners would not meet us favourably at all; and more than that, we +could not turn the water out of its course without machinery, and we +had not money enough for machinery. For six months we lived in mud +huts. Kurbyev lived on dry bread, and I, too, had not much to eat. +However, I don't complain of that; the scenery there is something +magnificent. We struggled and struggled on, appealing to merchants, +writing letters and circulars. It ended in my spending my last +farthing on the project.' + +'Well!' observed Lezhnyov, 'I imagine to spend your last farthing, +Dmitri, was not a difficult matter?' + +'It was not difficult, certainly.' + +Rudin looked out of the window. + +'But the project really was not a bad one, and it might have been of +immense service.' + +'And where did Kurbyev go to?' asked Lezhnyov. + +'Oh, he is now in Siberia, he has become a gold-digger. And you will +see he will make himself a position; he will get on.' + +'Perhaps; but then you will not be likely to make a position for +yourself, it seems.' + +'Well, that can't be helped! But I know I was always a frivolous +creature in your eyes.' + +'Hush, brother; there was a time, certainly, when I saw your weak +side; but now, believe me, I have learnt to value you. You will not +make yourself a position. And I love you, Dmitri, for that, indeed I +do!' + +Rudin smiled faintly. + +'Truly?' + +'I respect you for it!' repeated Lezhnyov. 'Do you understand me?' + +Both were silent for a little. + +'Well, shall I proceed to number three?' asked Rudin. + +'Please do.' + +'Very well. The third and last. I have only now got clear of number +three. But am I not boring you, Mihail?' + +'Go on, go on.' + +'Well,' began Rudin, 'once the idea occurred to me at some leisure +moment--I always had plenty of leisure moments--the idea occurred to +me; I have knowledge enough, my intentions are good. I suppose even +you will not deny me good intentions?' + +'I should think not!' + +'In all other directions I had failed more or less . . . why should I +not become an instructor, or speaking simply a teacher . . . rather +than waste my life?' + +Rudin stopped and sighed. + +'Rather than waste my life, would it not be better to try to pass on +to others what I know; perhaps they may extract at least some use from +my knowledge. My abilities are above the ordinary anyway, I am a +master of language. So I resolved to devote myself to this new work. I +had difficulty in obtaining a post; I did not want to give private +lessons; there was nothing I could do in the lower schools. At last I +succeeded in getting an appointment as professor in the gymnasium +here.' + +'As professor of what?' asked Lezhnyov. + +'Professor of literature. I can tell you I never started on any work +with such zest as I did on this. The thought of producing an effect +upon the young inspired me. I spent three weeks over the composition +of my opening lecture.' + +'Have you got it, Dmitri?' interrupted Lezhnyov. + +'No! I lost it somewhere. It went off fairly well, and was liked. I +can see now the faces of my listeners--good young faces, with an +expression of pure-souled attention and sympathy, and even of +amazement. I mounted the platform and read my lecture in a fever; I +thought it would fill more than an hour, but I had finished it in +twenty minutes. The inspector was sitting there--a dry old man in +silver spectacles and a short wig--he sometimes turned his head in my +direction. When I had finished, he jumped up from his seat and said to +me, "Good, but rather over their heads, obscure, and too little said +about the subject." But the pupils followed me with appreciation in +their looks--indeed they did. Ah, that is how youth is so precious! I +gave a second written lecture, and a third. After that I began to +lecture extempore.' + +'And you had success?' asked Lezhnyov. + +'I had a great success. I gave my audience all that was in my soul. +Among them were two or three really remarkable boys; the rest did not +understand me much. I must confess though that even those who did +understand me sometimes embarrassed me by their questions. But I did +not lose heart. They all loved me; I gave them all full marks in +examinations. But then an intrigue was started against me--or no! it +was not an intrigue at all; it simply was, that I was not in my proper +place. I was a hindrance to the others, and they were a hindrance to +me. I lectured to the gymnasium pupils in a way lectures are not given +every day, even to students; they carried away very little from my +lectures. . . . I myself did not know the facts enough. Besides, I was +not satisfied with the limited sphere assigned to me--you know that is +always my weakness. I wanted radical reforms, and I swear to you +that these reforms were both sensible and easy to carry out. I hoped +to carry them through the director, a good and honest man, over whom I +had at first some influence. His wife aided me. I have not, brother, +met many women like her in my life. She was about forty; but she +believed in goodness, and loved everything fine with the enthusiasm of +a girl of fifteen, and was not afraid to give utterance to her +convictions before any one whatever. I shall never forget her generous +enthusiasm and goodness. By her advice I drew up a plan. . . . But +then my influence was undermined, I was misrepresented to her. My +chief enemy was the professor of mathematics, a little sour, bilious +man who believed in nothing, a character like Pigasov, but far more +able than he was . . . . By the way, how is Pigasov, is he living?' + +'Oh, yes; and only fancy, he is married to a peasant woman, who, they +say, beats him.' + +'Serve him right! And Natalya Alexyevna--is she well?' + +'Yes.' + +'Is she happy?' + +'Yes.' + +Rudin was silent for a little. + +'What was I talking about? . . . Oh yes! about the professor of +mathematics. He perfectly hated me; he compared my lectures to +fireworks, pounced upon every expression of mine that was not +altogether clear, once even put me to confusion over some monument of +the sixteenth century. . . . But the most important thing was, he +suspected my intentions; my last soap-bubble struck on him as on a +spike, and burst. The inspector, whom I had not got on with from the +first, set the director against me. A scene followed. I was not ready +to give in; I got hot; the matter came to the knowledge of the +authorities; I was forced to resign. I did not stop there; I wanted to +prove that they could not treat me like that. . . . But they could +treat me as they liked. . . . Now I am forced to leave the town.' + +A silence followed. Both the friends sat with bowed heads. + +Rudin was the first to speak. + +'Yes, brother,' he began, 'I can say now, in the words of Koltsov, +"Thou hast led me astray, my youth, till there is nowhere I can +turn my steps." . . . And yet can it be that I was fit for nothing, +that for me there was, as it were, no work on earth to do? I have +often put myself this question, and, however much I tried to humble +myself in my own eyes, I could not but feel the existence of faculties +within me which are not given to every one! Why have these faculties +remained fruitless? And let me say more; you know, when I was with you +abroad, Mihail, I was conceited and full of erroneous ideas. . . . +Certainly I did not then realise clearly what I wanted; I lived upon +words, and believed in phantoms. But now, I swear to you, I could +speak out before all men every desire I feel. I have absolutely +nothing to hide; I am absolutely, in the fullest meaning of the word, +a well-intentioned man. I am humble, I am ready to adapt myself to +circumstances; I want little; I want to do the good that lies nearest, +to be even a little use. But no! I never succeed. What does it mean? +What hinders me from living and working like others? . . . I am only +dreaming of it now. But no sooner do I get into any definite position +when fate throws the dice from me. I have come to dread it--my +destiny. . . . Why is it so? Explain this enigma to me!' + +'An enigma!' repeated Lezhnyov. 'Yes, that's true; you have always +been an enigma for me. Even in our young days, when, after some +trifling prank, you would suddenly speak as though you were pierced to +the heart, and then you would begin again . . . well you know what I +mean . . . even then I did not understand. That is why I grew apart +from you. . . . You have so much power, such unwearying striving after +the ideal.' + +'Words, all words! There was nothing done!' Rudin broke in. + +'Nothing done! What is there to do?' + +'What is there to do! To keep an old blind woman and all her family by +one's work, as, do you remember, Mihail, Pryazhentsov did. . . That's +doing something.' + +'Yes, but a good word--is also something done.' + +Rudin looked at Lezhnyov without speaking and faintly shook his head. + +Lezhnyov wanted to say something, and he passed his hand over his +face. + +'And so you are going to your country place?' he asked at last + +'Yes.' + +'There you have some property left?' + +'Something is left me there. Two souls and a half. It is a corner to +die in. You are thinking perhaps at this moment: "Even now he cannot +do without fine words!" Words indeed have been my ruin; they have +consumed me, and to the end I cannot be free of them. But what I have +said was not mere words. These white hairs, brother, these wrinkles, +these ragged elbows--they are not mere words. You have always been +hard on me, Mihail, and you were right; but now is not a time to be +hard, when all is over, when there's no oil left in the lamp, and the +lamp itself is broken, and the wick is just smouldering out. Death, +brother, should reconcile at last . . .' + +Lezhnyov jumped up. + +'Rudin!' he cried, 'why do you speak like that to me? How have I +deserved it from you? Am I such a judge, and what kind of a man should +I be, if at the sight of your hollow cheeks and wrinkles, "mere words" +could occur to my mind? Do you want to know what I think of you, +Dmitri? Well! I think: here is a man--with his abilities, what might +he not have attained to, what worldly advantages might he not have +possessed by now, if he had liked! . . . and I meet him hungry and +homeless . . . .' + +'I rouse your compassion,' Rudin murmured in a choked voice. + +'No, you are wrong. You inspire respect in me--that is what I feel. +Who prevented you from spending year after year at that landowner's, +who was your friend, and who would, I am fully persuaded, have made +provision for you, if you had only been willing to humour him? Why +could you not live harmoniously at the gymnasium, why have +you--strange man!--with whatever ideas you have entered upon an +undertaking, infallibly every time ended by sacrificing your personal +interests, ever refusing to take root in any but good ground, however +profitable it might be?' + +'I was born a rolling stone,' Rudin said, with a weary smile. 'I +cannot stop myself.' + +'That is true; but you cannot stop, not because there is a worm +gnawing you, as you said to me at first. . . . It is not a worm, not the +spirit of idle restlessness--it is the fire of the love of truth that +burns in you, and clearly, in spite of your failings; it burns in you +more hotly than in many who do not consider themselves egoists and +dare to call you a humbug perhaps. I, for one, in your place should +long ago have succeeded in silencing that worm in me, and should have +given in to everything; and you have not even been embittered by it, +Dmitri. You are ready, I am sure, to-day, to set to some new work +again like a boy.' + +'No, brother, I am tired now,' said Rudin. 'I have had enough.' + +'Tired! Any other man would have been dead long ago. You say that +death reconciles; but does not life, don't you think, reconcile? A man +who has lived and has not grown tolerant towards others does not +deserve to meet with tolerance himself. And who can say he does not +need tolerance? You have done what you could, Dmitri . . . you have +struggled so long as you could . . . what more? Our paths lay apart,' . . . + +'You were utterly different from me,' Rudin put in with a sigh. + +'Our paths lay apart,' continued Lezhnyov, 'perhaps exactly because, +thanks to my position, my cool blood, and other fortunate +circumstances, nothing hindered me from being a stay-at-home, and +remaining a spectator with folded hands; but you had to go out into +the world, to turn up your shirt-sleeves, to toil and labour. Our +paths lay apart--but see how near one another we are. We speak almost +the same language, with half a hint we understand one another, we grew +up on the same ideas. There is little left us now, brother; we are the +last of the Mohicans! We might differ and even quarrel in old days, +when so much life still remained before us; but now, when the ranks +are thinned about us, when the younger generation is coming upon us +with other aims than ours, we ought to keep close to one another! Let +us clink glasses, Dmitri, and sing as of old, _Gaudeamus igitur_!' + +The friends clinked their glasses, and sang the old student song in +strained voices, all out of tune, in the true Russian style. + +'So you are going now to your country place,' Lezhnyov began again. +'I don't think you will stay there long, and I cannot imagine where and +how you will end. . . . But remember, whatever happens to you, you +have always a place, a nest where you can hide yourself. That is my +home,--do you hear, old fellow? Thought, too, has its veterans; they, +too, ought to have their home.' + +Rudin got up. + +'Thanks, brother,' he said, 'thanks! I will not forget this in you. +Only I do not deserve a home. I have wasted my life, and have not +served thought, as I ought.' + +'Hush!' said Lezhnyov. 'Every man remains what Nature has made him, +and one cannot ask more of him! You have called yourself the Wandering +Jew. . . . But how do you know,--perhaps it was right for you to be +ever wandering, perhaps in that way you are fulfilling a higher +calling than you know; popular wisdom says truly that we are all in +God's hands. You are going, Dmitri,' continued Lezhnyov, seeing that +Rudin was taking his hat 'You will not stop the night?' + +'Yes, I am going! Good-bye. Thanks. . . . I shall come to a bad end.' + +'God only knows. . . . You are resolved to go?' + +'Yes, I am going. Good-bye. Do not remember evil against me.' + +'Well, do not remember evil against me either,--and don't forget what +I said to you. Good-bye.' . . . + +The friends embraced one another. Rudin went quickly away. + +Lezhnyov walked up and down the room a long while, stopped before the +window thinking, and murmured half aloud, 'Poor fellow!' Then sitting +down to the table, he began to write a letter to his wife. + +But outside a wind had risen, and was howling with ill-omened moans, +and wrathfully shaking the rattling window-panes. The long autumn +night came on. Well for the man on such a night who sits under the +shelter of home, who has a warm corner in safety. . . . And the Lord +help all homeless wanderers! + + + + + +On a sultry afternoon on the 26th of July in 1848 in Paris, when the +Revolution of the _ateliers nationaux_ had already been almost +suppressed, a line battalion was taking a barricade in one of the +narrow alleys of the Faubourg St Antoine. A few gunshots had already +broken it; its surviving defenders abandoned it, and were only +thinking of their own safety, when suddenly on the very top of the +barricade, on the frame of an overturned omnibus, appeared a tall man +in an old overcoat, with a red sash, and a straw hat on his grey +dishevelled hair. In one hand he held a red flag, in the other a blunt +curved sabre, and as he scrambled up, he shouted something in a shrill +strained voice, waving his flag and sabre. A Vincennes tirailleur took +aim at him--fired. The tall man dropped the flag--and like a sack he +toppled over face downwards, as though he were falling at some one's +feet. The bullet had passed through his heart. + +'_Tiens_!' said one of the escaping revolutionists to another, '_on +vient de tuer le Polonais_! + +'_Bigre_!' answered the other, and both ran into the cellar of a house, +the shutters of which were all closed, and its wall streaked with +traces of powder and shot. + +This 'Polonais' was Dmitri Rudin. + + + + +THE END, + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rudin +by Ivan Turgenev +Translated by Constance Garnett + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUDIN *** + +This file should be named rudin10.txt or rudin10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, rudin11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, rudin10a.txt + +Produced by Eric Eldred. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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