"RUDIN\n\nA Novel\n\n\nBy Ivan Turgenev\n\nTranslated from the Russian By Constance Garnett\n\n[With an introduction by S. Stepniak]\n\nLONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1894\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nI\n\n\nTurgenev is an author who no longer belongs to Russia only. During the\nlast fifteen years of his life he won for himself the reading public,\nfirst in France, then in Germany and America, and finally in England.\n\nIn his funeral oration the spokesman of the most artistic and critical\nof European nations, Ernest Renan, hailed him as one of the greatest\nwriters of our times: 'The Master, whose exquisite works have charmed\nour century, stands more than any other man as the incarnation of a\nwhole race,' because 'a whole world lived in him and spoke through his\nmouth.' Not the Russian world only, we may add, but the whole Slavonic\nworld, to which it was 'an honour to have been expressed by so great a\nMaster.'\n\nThis recognition was, however, of slow growth. It had nothing in it of\nthe sudden wave of curiosity and gushing enthusiasm which in a few years\nlifted Count Tolstoi to world-wide fame. Neither in the personality of\nTurgenev, nor in his talent, was there anything to strike and carry away\npopular imagination.\n\nBy the fecundity of his creative talent Turgenev stands with the\ngreatest authors of all times. The gallery of living people, men, and\nespecially women, each different and perfectly individualised, yet all\nthe creatures of actual life, whom Turgenev introduces to us; the vast\nbody of psychological truths he discovers, the subtle shades of men's\nfeelings he reveals to us, is such as only the greatest among the great\nhave succeeded in leaving as their artistic inheritance to their country\nand to the world.\n\nAs regards his method of dealing with his material and shaping it into\nmould, he stands even higher than as a pure creator. Tolstoi is more\nplastical, and certainly as deep and original and rich in creative power\nas Turgenev, and Dostoevsky is more intense, fervid, and dramatic.\nBut as an _artist_, as master of the combination of details into a\nharmonious whole, as an architect of imaginative work, he surpasses all\nthe prose writers of his country, and has but few equals among the\ngreat novelists of other lands. Twenty-five years ago, on reading the\ntranslation of one of his short stories (_Assya_), George Sand, who was\nthen at the apogee of her fame, wrote to him: 'Master, all of us have\nto go to study at your school.' This was, indeed, a generous compliment,\ncoming from the representative of French literature which is so\neminently artistic. But it was not flattery. As an artist, Turgenev\nin reality stands with the classics who may be studied and admired\nfor their perfect form long after the interest of their subject has\ndisappeared. But it seems that in his very devotion to art and beauty he\nhas purposely restricted the range of his creations.\n\nTo one familiar with all Turgenev's works it is evident that he\npossessed the keys of all human emotions, all human feelings, the\nhighest and the lowest, the noble as well as the base. From the height\nof his superiority he saw all, understood all: Nature and men had no\nsecrets hidden from his calm, penetrating eyes. In his latter days,\nsketches such as _Clara Militch_, _The Song of Triumphant Love_, _The\nDream_, and the incomparable _Phantoms_, he showed that he could equal\nEdgar Poe, Hofmann, and Dostoevsky in the mastery of the fantastical,\nthe horrible, the mysterious, and the incomprehensible, which live\nsomewhere in human nerves, though not to be defined by reason.\n\nBut there was in him such a love of light, sunshine, and living human\npoetry, such an organic aversion for all that is ugly, or coarse and\ndiscordant, that he made himself almost exclusively the poet of the\ngentler side of human nature. On the fringe of his pictures or in their\nbackground, just for the sake of contrast, he will show us the vices,\nthe cruelties, even the mire of life. But he cannot stay in these gloomy\nregions, and he hastens back to the realms of the sun and flowers, or to\nthe poetical moonlight of melancholy, which he loves best because in it\nhe can find expression for his own great sorrowing heart.\n\nEven jealousy, which is the black shadow of the most poetical of human\nfeelings, is avoided by the gentle artist. He hardly ever describes it,\nonly alluding to it cursorily. But there is no novelist who gives so\nmuch room to the pure, crystalline, eternally youthful feeling of love.\nWe may say that the description of love is Turgenev's speciality. What\nFrancesco Petrarca did for one kind of love--the romantic, artificial,\nhot-house love of the times of chivalry--Turgenev did for the natural,\nspontaneous, modern love in all its variety of forms, kinds, and\nmanifestations: the slow and gradual as well as the sudden and\ninstantaneous; the spiritual, the admiring and inspiring, as well as\nthe life-poisoning, terrible kind of love, which infects a man as a\nprolonged disease. There is something prodigious in Turgenev's insight\ninto, and his inexhaustible richness, truthfulness, and freshness in the\nrendering of those emotions which have been the theme of all poets and\nnovelists for two thousand years.\n\nIn the well-known memoirs of Caroline Bauer one comes across a curious\nlegend about Paganini. She tells that the great enchanter owed his\nunique command over the emotions of his audiences to a peculiar use of\none single string, G, which he made sing and whisper, cry and thunder,\nat the touch of his marvellous bow.\n\nThere is something of this in Turgenev's description of love. He has\nmany other strings at his harp, but his greatest effect he obtains in\ntouching this one. His stories are not love poems. He only prefers to\npresent his people in the light of that feeling in which a man's soul\ngathers up all its highest energies, and melts as in a crucible, showing\nits dross and its pure metal.\n\n\nTurgenev began his literary career and won an enormous popularity in\nRussia by his sketches from peasant life. His _Diary of a Sportsman_\ncontains some of the best of his short stories, and his _Country Inn,_\nwritten a few years later, in the maturity of his talent, is as good as\nTolstoi's little masterpiece, _Polikushka_.\n\nHe was certainly able to paint all classes and conditions of Russian\npeople. But in his greater works Turgenev lays the action exclusively\nwith one class of Russian people. There is nothing of the enormous\ncanvas of Count Tolstoi, in which the whole of Russia seems to pass in\nreview before the readers. In Turgenev's novels we see only educated\nRussia, or rather the more advanced thinking part of it, which he knew\nbest, because he was a part of it himself.\n\nWe are far from regretting this specialisation. Quality can sometimes\nhold its own against quantity. Although small numerically, the section\nof Russian society which Turgenev represents is enormously interesting,\nbecause it is the brain of the nation, the living ferment which alone\ncan leaven the huge unformed masses. It is upon them that depend the\ndestinies of their country. Besides, the artistic value of his works\ncould only be enhanced by his concentrating his genius upon a field\nso familiar to him, and engrossing so completely his mind and his\nsympathies. What he loses in dimensions he gains in correctness, depth,\nwonderful subtlety and effectiveness of every minute detail, and the\nsurpassing beauty of the whole. The jewels of art he left us are like\nthose which nations store in the sanctuaries of their museums and\ngalleries to be admired, the longer they are studied. But we must look\nto Tolstoi for the huge and towering monuments, hewn in massive granite,\nto be put upon some cross way of nations as an object of wonder and\nadmiration for all who come from the four winds of heaven.\n\nTurgenev did not write for the masses but for the _elite_ among men. The\nfact that he has won such a fame among foreigners, and that the\nnumber of his readers is widening every year, proves that great art\nis international, and also, I may say, that artistic taste and\nunderstanding is growing everywhere.\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nIt is written that no man is a prophet in his own country, and from time\nimmemorial all the unsuccessful aspirants to the profession have found\ntheir consolation in this proverbial truth. But for aught we know this\nhard limitation has never been applied to artists. Indeed it seems\nabsurd on the face of it that the artist's countrymen, for whom\nand about whom he writes, should be less fit to recognise him than\nstrangers. Yet in certain special and peculiar conditions, the most\nunlikely things will sometimes occur, as is proved in the case of\nTurgenev.\n\nThe fact is that _as an artist_ he was appreciated to his full value\nfirst by foreigners. The Russians have begun to understand him, and to\nassign to him his right place in this respect only now, after his death,\nwhilst in his lifetime his _artistic genius_ was comparatively little\ncared for, save by a handful of his personal friends.\n\nThis supreme art told upon the Russian public unconsciously, as it was\nbound to tell upon a nation so richly endowed with natural artistic\ninstinct. Turgenev was always the most widely read of Russian authors,\nnot excepting Tolstoi, who came to the front only after his death. But\nfull recognition he had not, because he happened to produce his works in\na troubled epoch of political and social strife, when the best men were\nabsorbed in other interests and pursuits, and could not and would not\nappreciate and enjoy pure art. This was the painful, almost tragic,\nposition of an artist, who lived in a most inartistic epoch, and whose\nhighest aspirations and noblest efforts wounded and irritated those\namong his countrymen whom he was most devoted to, and whom he desired\nmost ardently to serve.\n\nThis strife embittered Turgenev's life.\n\nAt one crucial epoch of his literary career the conflict became so\nvehement, and the outcry against him, set in motion by his very artistic\ntruthfulness and objectiveness, became so loud and unanimous, that he\ncontemplated giving up literature altogether. He could not possibly\nhave held to this resolution. But it is surely an open question whether,\nsensitive and modest as he was, and prone to despondency and diffidence,\nhe would have done so much for the literature of his country without the\nenthusiastic encouragement of various great foreign novelists, who were\nhis friends and admirers: George Sand, Gustave Flaubert, in France;\nAuerbach, in Germany; W. D. Howells, in America; George Eliot, in\nEngland.\n\nWe will tell the story of his troubled life piece by piece as far as\nspace will allow, as his works appear in succession. Here we will only\ngive a few biographical traits which bear particularly upon the novel\nbefore us, and account for his peculiar hold over the minds of his\ncountrymen.\n\nTurgenev, who was born in 1818, belonged to a set of Russians very small\nin his time, who had received a thoroughly European education in no way\ninferior to that of the best favoured young German or Englishman. It\nhappened, moreover, that his paternal uncle, Nicholas Turgenev, the\nfamous 'Decembrist,' after the failure of that first attempt (December\n14, 1825) to gain by force of arms a constitutional government for\nRussia, succeeded in escaping the vengeance of the Tsar Nicholas I., and\nsettled in France, where he published in French the first vindication of\nRussian revolution.\n\nWhilst studying philosophy in the Berlin University, Turgenev paid short\nvisits to his uncle, who initiated him in the ideas of liberty, from\nwhich he never swerved throughout his long life.\n\nIn the sixties, when Alexander Hertzen, one of the most gifted writers\nof our land, a sparkling, witty, pathetic, and powerful journalist and\nbrilliant essayist, started in London his _Kolokol_, a revolutionary,\nor rather radical paper, which had a great influence in Russia, Turgenev\nbecame one of his most active contributors and advisers,--almost a\nmember of the editorial staff.\n\nThis fact has been revealed a few years ago by the publication, which\nwe owe to Professor Dragomanov, of the private correspondence between\nTurgenev and Hertzen. This most interesting little volume throws quite a\nnew light upon Turgenev, showing that our great novelist was at the same\ntime one of the strongest--perhaps the strongest--and most clear-sighted\npolitical thinkers of his time. However surprising such a versatility\nmay appear, it is proved to demonstration by a comparison of his views,\nhis attitude, and his forecasts, some of which have been verified only\nlately, with those of the acknowledged leaders and spokesmen of the\nvarious political parties of his day, including Alexander Hertzen\nhimself. Turgenev's are always the soundest, the most correct and\nfar-sighted judgments, as latter-day history has proved.\n\nA man with so ardent a love of liberty, and such radical views, could\nnot possibly banish them from his literary works, no matter how great\nhis devotion to pure art. He would have been a poor artist had he\ninflicted upon himself such a mutilation, because freedom from all\nrestraints, the frank, sincere expression of the artist's individuality,\nis the life and soul of all true art.\n\nTurgenev gave to his country the whole of himself, the best of his mind\nand of his creative fancy. He appeared at the same time as a teacher, a\nprophet of new ideas, and as a poet and artist. But his own countrymen\nhailed him in the first capacity, remaining for a long time obtuse to\nthe latter and greater.\n\nThus, during one of the most important and interesting periods of our\nnational history, Turgenev was the standard-bearer and inspirer of\nthe Liberal, the thinking Russia. Although the two men stand at\ndiametrically opposite poles, Turgenev's position can be compared to\nthat of Count Tolstoi nowadays, with a difference, this time in favour\nof the author of _Dmitri Rudin_. With Turgenev the thinker and the\nartist are not at war, spoiling and sometimes contradicting each other's\nefforts. They go hand in hand, because he never preaches any doctrine\nwhatever, but gives us, with an unimpeachable, artistic objectiveness,\nthe living men and women in whom certain ideas, doctrines, and\naspirations were embodied. And he never evolves these ideas and\ndoctrines from his inner consciousness, but takes them from real life,\ncatching with his unfailing artistic instinct an incipient movement just\nat the moment when it was to become a historic feature of the time. Thus\nhis novels are a sort of artistic epitome of the intellectual history\nof modern Russia, and also a powerful instrument of her intellectual\nprogress.\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\n_Rudin_ is the first of Turgenev's social novels, and is a sort of\nartistic introduction to those that follow, because it refers to the\nepoch anterior to that when the present social and political movements\nbegan. This epoch is being fast forgotten, and without his novel it\nwould be difficult for us to fully realise it, but it is well worth\nstudying, because we find in it the germ of future growths.\n\nIt was a gloomy time. The ferocious despotism of Nicholas\nI.--overweighing the country like the stone lid of a coffin,\ncrushed every word, every thought, which did not fit with its narrow\nconceptions. But this was not the worst. The worst was that progressive\nRussia was represented by a mere handful of men, who were so immensely\nin advance of their surroundings, that in their own country they felt\nmore isolated, helpless, and out of touch with the realities of life\nthan if they had lived among strangers.\n\nBut men must have some outlet for their spiritual energies, and these\nmen, unable to take part in the sordid or petty pursuits of those around\nthem, created for themselves artificial life, artificial pursuits and\ninterests.\n\nThe isolation in which they lived drew them naturally together. The\n'circle,' something between an informal club and a debating society,\nbecame the form in which these cravings of mind or heart could be\nsatisfied. These people met and talked; that was all they were able to\ndo.\n\nThe passage in which one of the heroes, Lezhnyov, tells the woman he\nloves about the circle of which Dmitri Rudin and himself were members,\nis historically one of the most suggestive. It refers to a circle of\nyoung students. But it has a wider application. All prominent men of\nthe epoch--Stankevitch, who served as model to the poetic and\ntouching figure of Pokorsky; Alexander Hertzen, and the great critic,\nBelinsky--all had their 'circles,' or their small chapels, in which\nthese enthusiasts met to offer worship to the 'goddess of truth, art,\nand morality.'\n\nThey were the best men of their time, full of high aspirations and\nknowledge, and their disinterested search after truth was certainly a\nnoble pursuit. They had full right to look down upon their neighbours\nwallowing in the mire of sordid and selfish materialism. But by living\nin that spiritual hothouse of dreams, philosophical speculations, and\nabstractions, these men unfitted themselves only the more completely for\nparticipation in real life; the absorption in interests having nothing\nto do with the life of their own country, estranged them still more from\nit. The overwhelming stream of words drained them of the natural sources\nof spontaneous emotion, and these men almost grew out of feeling by dint\nof constantly analysing their feelings.\n\nDmitri Rudin is the typical man of that generation, both the victim and\nthe hero of his time--a man who is almost a Titan in word and a pigmy in\ndeed. He is eloquent as a young Demosthenes. An irresistible debater,\nhe carries everything before him the moment he appears. But he fails\nignominiously when put to the hard test of action. Yet he is not an\nimpostor. His enthusiasm is contagious because it is sincere, and his\neloquence is convincing because devotion to his ideals is an absorbing\npassion with him. He would die for them, and, what is more rare, he\nwould not swerve a hair's-breadth from them for any worldly advantage,\nor for fear of any hardship. Only this passion and this enthusiasm\nspring with him entirely from the head. The heart, the deep emotional\npower of human love and pity, lay dormant in him. Humanity, which\nhe would serve to the last drop of his blood, is for him a body of\nforeigners--French, English, Germans--whom he has studied from books,\nand whom he has met only in hotels and watering-places during his\nforeign travels as a student or as a tourist.\n\nTowards such an abstract, alien humanity, a man cannot feel any real\nattachment. With all his outward ardour, Rudin is cold as ice at the\nbottom of his heart. His is an enthusiasm which glows without warmth,\nlike the aurora borealis of the Polar regions. A poor substitute for the\nbountiful sun. But what would have become of a God-forsaken land if\nthe Arctic nights were deprived of that substitute? With all their\nweaknesses, Rudin and the men of his stamp--in other words, the men\nof the generation of 1840--have rendered an heroic service to their\ncountry. They inculcated in it the religion of the ideal; they brought\nin the seeds, which had only to be thrown into the warm furrow of their\nnative soil to bring forth the rich crops of the future.\n\nThe shortcomings and the impotence of these men were due to their having\nno organic ties with their own country, no roots in the Russian soil.\nThey hardly knew the Russian people, who appeared to them as nothing\nmore than an historic abstraction. They were really cosmopolitan, as a\npoor makeshift for something better, and Turgenev, in making his hero\ndie on a French barricade, was true to life as well as to art.\n\nThe inward growth of the country has remedied this defect in the course\nof the three generations which have followed. But has the remedy been\ncomplete? No; far from it, unfortunately. There are still thousands of\nbarriers preventing the Russians from doing something useful for their\ncountrymen and mixing freely with them. The spiritual energies of the\nmost ardent are still compelled--partially at least--to run into the\nartificial channels described in Turgenev's novel.\n\nHence the perpetuation of Rudin's type, which acquires more than an\nhistorical interest.\n\nIn discussing the character of Hlestakov, the hero of his great comedy,\nGogol declared that this type is pretty nigh universal, because 'every\nRussian,' he says, 'has a bit of Hlestakov in him.' This not very\nflattering opinion has been humbly indorsed and repeated since, out of\nreverence to Gogol's great authority, although it is untrue on the\nface of it. Hlestakov is a sort of Tartarin in Russian dress, whilst\nsimplicity and sincerity are the fundamental traits of all that is\nRussian in character, manner, art, literature. But it may be truly said\nthat every educated Russian of our time has a bit of Dmitri Rudin in\nhim.\n\nThis figure is undoubtedly one of the finest in Turgenev's gallery,\nand it is at the same time one of the most brilliant examples of his\nartistic method.\n\nTurgenev does not give us at one stroke sculptured figures made from one\nblock, such as rise before us from Tolstoi's pages. His art is rather\nthat of a painter or musical composer than of a sculptor. He has more\ncolour, a deeper perspective, a greater variety of lights and shadows--a\nmore complete portraiture of the spiritual man. Tolstoi's people stand\nso living and concrete that one feels one can recognise them in the\nstreet. Turgenev's are like people whose intimate confessions and\nprivate correspondence, unveiling all the secrets of their spiritual\nlife, have been submitted to one.\n\nEvery scene, almost every line, opens up new deep horizons, throwing\nupon his people some new unexpected light.\n\nThe extremely complex and difficult character of the hero of this story,\nshows at its highest this subtle psychological many-sidedness. Dmitri\nRudin is built up of contradictions, yet not for a moment does he cease\nto be perfectly real, living, and concrete.\n\nHardly less remarkable is the character of the heroine, Natalya, the\nquiet, sober, matter-of-fact girl, who at the bottom is an enthusiastic\nand heroic nature. She is but a child fresh to all impressions of life,\nand as yet undeveloped. To have used the searching, analytical method\nin painting her would have spoiled this beautiful creation. Turgenev\ndescribes her synthetically by a few masterly lines, which show us,\nhowever, the secrets of her spirit; revealing what she is and also what\nshe might have become under other circumstances.\n\nThis character deserves more attention than we can give it here.\nTurgenev, like George Meredith, is a master in painting women, and his\nNatalya is the first poetical revelation of a very striking fact in\nmodern Russian history; the appearance of women possessing a strength\nof mind more finely masculine than that of the men of their time. By the\nside of weak, irresolute, though highly intellectual men we see in his\nfirst three novels energetic, earnest, impassioned women, who take\nthe lead in action, whilst they are but the man's modest pupils in the\ndomain of ideas. Only later on, in _Fathers and Children_, does Turgenev\nshow us in Bazarov a man essentially masculine. But of this interesting\npeculiarity of Russian intellectual life, in the years 1840 to 1860,\nI will speak more fully when analysing another of Turgenev's novels in\nwhich this contrast is most conspicuous.\n\nI will say nothing of the minor characters of the story before us:\nLezhnyov, Pigasov, Madame Lasunsky, Pandalevsky, who are all excellent\nexamples of what may be called miniature-painting.\n\nAs to the novel as a whole, I will make here only one observation, not\nto forestall the reader's own impressions.\n\nTurgenev is a realist in the sense that he keeps close to reality,\ntruth, and nature. But in the pursuit of photographic faithfulness to\nlife, he never allows himself to be tedious and dull, as some of the\nbest representatives of the school think it incumbent upon them to be.\nHis descriptions are never overburdened with wearisome details; his\naction is rapid; the events are never to be foreseen a hundred pages\nbeforehand; he keeps his readers in constant suspense. And it seems\nto me in so doing he shows himself a better realist than the gifted\nrepresentatives of the orthodox realism in France, England, and America.\nLife is not dull; life is full of the unforeseen, full of suspense. A\nnovelist, however natural and logical, must contrive to have it in his\nnovels if he is not to sacrifice the soul of art for the merest show of\nfidelity.\n\nThe plot of Dmitri Rudin is so exceedingly simple that an English\nnovel-reader would say that there is hardly any plot at all. Turgenev\ndisdained the tricks of the sensational novelists. Yet, for a Russian at\nleast, it is easier to lay down before the end a novel by Victor Hugo or\nAlexander Dumas than Dmitri Rudin, or, indeed, any of Turgenev's great\nnovels. What the novelists of the romantic school obtain by the charm\nof unexpected adventures and thrilling situations, Turgenev succeeds in\nobtaining by the brisk admirably concentrated action, and, above all, by\nthe simplest and most precious of a novelist's gifts: his unique command\nover the sympathies and emotions of his readers. In this he can be\ncompared to a musician who works upon the nerves and the souls of his\naudience without the intermediary of the mind; or, better still, to a\npoet who combines the power of the word with the magic spell of harmony.\nOne does not read his novels; one lives in them.\n\nMuch of this peculiar gift of fascination is certainly due to Turgenev's\nmastery over all the resources of our rich, flexible, and musical\nlanguage. The poet Lermontov alone wrote as splendid a prose as\nTurgenev. A good deal of its charm is unavoidably lost in translation.\nBut I am happy to say that the present one is as near an approach to the\nelegance and poetry of the original as I have ever come across.\n\n\n  S. STEPNIAK.\n\n  BEDFORD PARK, April 20, 1894.\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE NAMES OF THE CHARACTERS IN THE BOOK\n\nDMITRI NIKOLA'ITCH RU'DIN.\n\nDAR-YA MIHA'ILOVNA LASU'NSKY.\n\nNATA'L-YA ALEX-YE'VNA.\n\nMIHA'ILO MIHA'ILITCH LE'ZH-NYOV (MISHA).\n\nALEXANDRA PA'VLOVNA LI'PIN (SASHA).\n\nSERGEI (pron, Sergay) PA'VLITCH VOLI'NT-SEV (SEREZHA).\n\nKONSTANTIN DIOMIDITCH PANDALE'VSKY.\n\nAFRICAN SEME'NITCH PIGA'SOV.\n\nBASSI'STOFF.\n\nMLLE. BONCOURT.\n\n\nIn transcribing the Russian names into English--\n\na has the sound of a in father. er,, air. i,, ee. u,, oo. y is always\nconsonantal except when it is the last letter of the word. g is always\nhard.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nIT was a quiet summer morning. The sun stood already pretty high in the\nclear sky but the fields were still sparkling with dew; a fresh breeze\nblew fragrantly from the scarce awakened valleys and in the forest,\nstill damp and hushed, the birds were merrily carolling their morning\nsong. On the ridge of a swelling upland, which was covered from base\nto summit with blossoming rye, a little village was to be seen. Along\na narrow by-road to this little village a young woman was walking in a\nwhite muslin gown, and a round straw hat, with a parasol in her hand. A\npage boy followed her some distance behind.\n\nShe moved without haste and as though she were enjoying the walk. The\nhigh nodding rye all round her moved in long softly rustling waves,\ntaking here a shade of silvery green and there a ripple of red; the\nlarks were trilling overhead. The young woman had come from her own\nestate, which was not more than a mile from the village to which she\nwas turning her steps. Her name was Alexandra Pavlovna Lipin. She was\na widow, childless, and fairly well off, and lived with her brother, a\nretired cavalry officer, Sergei Pavlitch Volintsev. He was unmarried and\nlooked after her property.\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna reached the village and, stopping at the last hut,\na very old and low one, she called up the boy and told him to go in and\nask after the health of its mistress. He quickly came back accompanied\nby a decrepit old peasant with a white beard.\n\n'Well, how is she?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna.\n\n'Well, she is still alive,' began the old man.\n\n'Can I go in?'\n\n'Of course; yes.'\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna went into the hut. It was narrow, stifling, and smoky\ninside. Some one stirred and began to moan on the stove which formed the\nbed. Alexandra Pavlovna looked round and discerned in the half\ndarkness the yellow wrinkled face of the old woman tied up in a checked\nhandkerchief. Covered to the very throat with a heavy overcoat she was\nbreathing with difficulty, and her wasted hands were twitching.\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna went close up to the old woman and laid her fingers\non her forehead; it was burning hot.\n\n'How do you feel, Matrona?' she inquired, bending over the bed.\n\n'Oh, oh!' groaned the old woman, trying to make her out, 'bad, very bad,\nmy dear! My last hour has come, my darling!'\n\n'God is merciful, Matrona; perhaps you will be better soon. Did you take\nthe medicine I sent you?'\n\nThe old woman groaned painfully, and did not answer. She had hardly\nheard the question.\n\n'She has taken it,' said the old man who was standing at the door.\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna turned to him.\n\n'Is there no one with her but you?' she inquired.\n\n'There is the girl--her granddaughter, but she always keeps away. She\nwon't sit with her; she's such a gad-about. To give the old woman a\ndrink of water is too much trouble for her. And I am old; what use can I\nbe?'\n\n'Shouldn't she be taken to me--to the hospital?'\n\n'No. Why take her to the hospital? She would die just the same. She has\nlived her life; it's God's will now seemingly. She will never get up\nagain. How could she go to the hospital? If they tried to lift her up,\nshe would die.'\n\n'Oh!' moaned the sick woman, 'my pretty lady, don't abandon my little\norphan; our master is far away, but you----'\n\nShe could not go on, she had spent all her strength in saying so much.\n\n'Do not worry yourself,' replied Alexandra Pavlovna, 'everything shall\nbe done. Here is some tea and sugar I have brought you. If you can\nfancy it you must drink some. Have you a samovar, I wonder?' she added,\nlooking at the old man.\n\n'A samovar? We haven't a samovar, but we could get one.'\n\n'Then get one, or I will send you one. And tell your granddaughter not\nto leave her like this. Tell her it's shameful.'\n\nThe old man made no answer but took the parcel of tea and sugar with\nboth hands.\n\n'Well, good-bye, Matrona!' said Alexandra Pavlovna, 'I will come and\nsee you again; and you must not lose heart but take your medicine\nregularly.'\n\nThe old woman raised her head and drew herself a little towards\nAlexandra Pavlovna.\n\n'Give me your little hand, dear lady,' she muttered.\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna did not give her hand; she bent over her and kissed\nher on the forehead.\n\n'Take care, now,' she said to the old man as she went out, 'and give her\nthe medicine without fail, as it is written down, and give her some tea\nto drink.'\n\nAgain the old man made no reply, but only bowed.\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna breathed more freely when she came out into the\nfresh air. She put up her parasol and was about to start homewards, when\nsuddenly there appeared round the corner of a little hut a man about\nthirty, driving a low racing droshky and wearing an old overcoat of\ngrey linen, and a foraging cap of the same. Catching sight of Alexandra\nPavlovna he at once stopped his horse and turned round towards her.\nHis broad and colourless face with its small light grey eyes and almost\nwhite moustache seemed all in the same tone of colour as his clothes.\n\n'Good-morning!' he began, with a lazy smile; 'what are you doing here,\nif I may ask?'\n\n'I have been visiting a sick woman... And where have you come from,\nMihailo Mihailitch?'\n\nThe man addressed as Mihailo Mihailitch looked into her eyes and smiled\nagain.\n\n'You do well,' he said, 'to visit the sick, but wouldn't it be better\nfor you to take her into the hospital?'\n\n'She is too weak; impossible to move her.'\n\n'But don't you intend to give up your hospital?'\n\n'Give it up? Why?'\n\n'Oh, I thought so.'\n\n'What a strange notion! What put such an idea into your head?'\n\n'Oh, you are always with Madame Lasunsky now, you know, and seem to be\nunder her influence. And in her words--hospitals, schools, and all that\nsort of things, are mere waste of time--useless fads. Philanthropy\nought to be entirely personal, and education too, all that is the soul's\nwork... that's how she expresses herself, I believe. From whom did she\npick up that opinion I should like to know?'\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna laughed.\n\n'Darya Mihailovna is a clever woman, I like and esteem her very much;\nbut she may make mistakes, and I don't put faith in everything she\nsays.'\n\n'And it's a very good thing you don't,' rejoined Mihailo Mihailitch, who\nall the while remained sitting in his droshky, 'for she doesn't put much\nfaith in what she says herself. I'm very glad I met you.'\n\n'Why?'\n\n'That's a nice question! As though it wasn't always delightful to meet\nyou? To-day you look as bright and fresh as this morning.'\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna laughed again.\n\n'What are you laughing at?'\n\n'What, indeed! If you could see with what a cold and indifferent face\nyou brought out your compliment! I wonder you didn't yawn over the last\nword!'\n\n'A cold face.... You always want fire; but fire is of no use at all. It\nflares and smokes and goes out.'\n\n'And warms,'... put in Alexandra Pavlovna.\n\n'Yes... and burns.'\n\n'Well, what if it does burn! That's no great harm either! It's better\nanyway than----'\n\n'Well, we shall see what you will say when you do get nicely burnt one\nday,' Mihailo Mihailitch interrupted her in a tone of vexation and made\na cut at the horse with the reins, 'Good-bye.'\n\n'Mihailo Mihailitch, stop a minute!' cried Alexandra Pavlovna, 'when are\nyou coming to see us?'\n\n'To-morrow; my greetings to your brother.'\n\nAnd the droshky rolled away.\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna looked after Mihailo Mihailitch.\n\n'What a sack!' she thought. Sitting huddled up and covered with dust,\nhis cap on the back of his head and tufts of flaxen hair straggling from\nbeneath it, he looked strikingly like a huge sack of flour.\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna turned tranquilly back along the path homewards. She\nwas walking with downcast eyes. The tramp of a horse near made her stop\nand raise her head.... Her brother had come on horseback to meet her;\nbeside him was walking a young man of medium height, wearing a light\nopen coat, a light tie, and a light grey hat, and carrying a cane in his\nhand. He had been smiling for a long time at Alexandra Pavlovna, even\nthough he saw that she was absorbed in thought and noticing nothing, and\nwhen she stopped he went up to her and in a tone of delight, almost of\nemotion, cried:\n\n'Good-morning, Alexandra Pavlovna, good-morning!'\n\n'Ah! Konstantin Diomiditch! good-morning!' she replied. 'You have come\nfrom Darya Mihailovna?'\n\n'Precisely so, precisely so,' rejoined the young man with a radiant\nface, 'from Darya Mihailovna. Darya Mihailovna sent me to you; I\npreferred to walk.... It's such a glorious morning, and the distance\nis only three miles. When I arrived, you were not at home. Your brother\ntold me you had gone to Semenovka; and he was just going out to the\nfields; so you see I walked with him to meet you. Yes, yes. How very\ndelightful!'\n\nThe young man spoke Russian accurately and grammatically but with a\nforeign accent, though it was difficult to determine exactly what accent\nit was. In his features there was something Asiatic. His long hook\nnose, his large expressionless prominent eyes, his thick red lips,\nand retreating forehead, and his jet black hair,--everything about him\nsuggested an Oriental extraction; but the young man gave his surname as\nPandalevsky and spoke of Odessa as his birthplace, though he was brought\nup somewhere in White Russia at the expense of a rich and benevolent\nwidow.\n\nAnother widow had obtained a government post for him. Middle-aged ladies\nwere generally ready to befriend Konstantin Diomiditch; he knew well how\nto court them and was successful in coming across them. He was at\nthis very time living with a rich lady, a landowner, Darya Mihailovna\nLasunsky, in a position between that of a guest and of a dependant. He\nwas very polite and obliging, full of sensibility and secretly given to\nsensuality, he had a pleasant voice, played well on the piano, and had\nthe habit of gazing intently into the eyes of any one he was speaking\nto. He dressed very neatly, and wore his clothes a very long time,\nshaved his broad chin carefully, and arranged his hair curl by curl.\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna heard his speech to the end and turned to her\nbrother.\n\n'I keep meeting people to-day; I have just been talking to Lezhnyov.'\n\n'Oh, Lezhnyov! was he driving somewhere?'\n\n'Yes, and fancy; he was in a racing droshky, and dressed in a kind of\nlinen sack, all covered with dust.... What a queer creature he is!'\n\n'Perhaps so; but he's a capital fellow.'\n\n'Who? Mr. Lezhnyov?' inquired Pandalevsky, as though he were surprised.\n\n'Yes, Mihailo Mihailitch Lezhnyov,' replied Volintsev. 'Well, good-bye;\nit's time I was off to the field; they are sowing your buckwheat. Mr.\nPandalevsky will escort you home.' And Volintsev rode off at a trot.\n\n'With the greatest of pleasure!' cried Konstantin Diomiditch, offering\nAlexandra Pavlovna his arm.\n\nShe took it and they both turned along the path to her house.\n\nWalking with Alexandra Pavlovna on his arm seemed to afford Konstantin\nDiomiditch great delight; he moved with little steps, smiling, and his\nOriental eyes were even be-dimmed by a slight moisture, though this\nindeed was no rare occurrence with them; it did not mean much for\nKonstantin Diomiditch to be moved and dissolve into tears. And who would\nnot have been pleased to have on his arm a pretty, young and graceful\nwoman? Of Alexandra Pavlovna the whole of her district was unanimous\nin declaring that she was charming, and the district was not wrong. Her\nstraight, ever so slightly tilted nose would have been enough alone\nto drive any man out of his senses, to say nothing of her velvety dark\neyes, her golden brown hair, the dimples in her smoothly curved cheeks,\nand her other beauties. But best of all was the sweet expression of her\nface; confiding, good and gentle, it touched and attracted at the same\ntime. Alexandra Pavlovna had the glance and the smile of a child; other\nladies found her a little simple.... Could one wish for anything more?\n\n'Darya Mihailovna sent you to me, did you say?' she asked Pandalevsky.\n\n'Yes; she sent me,' he answered, pronouncing the letter _s_ like the\nEnglish _th_. 'She particularly wishes and told me to beg you very\nurgently to be so good as to dine with her to-day. She is expecting a\nnew guest whom she particularly wishes you to meet.'\n\n'Who is it?'\n\n'A certain Muffel, a baron, a gentleman of the bed-chamber from\nPetersburg. Darya Mihailovna made his acquaintance lately at the Prince\nGarin's, and speaks of him in high terms as an agreeable and cultivated\nyoung man. His Excellency the baron is interested, too, in literature,\nor more strictly speaking----ah! what an exquisite butterfly! pray look\nat it!----more strictly speaking, in political economy. He has written\nan essay on some very interesting question, and wants to submit it to\nDarya Mihailovna's criticism.'\n\n'An article on political economy?'\n\n'From the literary point of view, Alexandra Pavlovna, from the literary\npoint of view. You are well aware, I suppose, that in that line Darya\nMihailovna is an authority. Zhukovsky used to ask her advice, and\nmy benefactor, who lives at Odessa, that benevolent old man, Roxolan\nMediarovitch Ksandrika----No doubt you know the name of that eminent\nman?'\n\n'No; I have never heard of him.'\n\n'You never heard of such a man? surprising! I was going to say that\nRoxolan Mediarovitch always had the very highest opinion of Darya\nMihailovna's knowledge of Russian!\n\n'Is this baron a pedant then?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna.\n\n'Not in the very least. Darya Mihailovna says, on the contrary, that you\nsee that he belongs to the best society at once. He spoke of Beethoven\nwith such eloquence that even the old prince was quite delighted by it.\nThat, I own, I should like to have heard; you know that is in my line.\nAllow me to offer you this lovely wild-flower.'\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna took the flower, and when she had walked a few steps\nfarther, let it drop on the path. They were not more than two hundred\npaces from her house. It had been recently built and whitewashed, and\nlooked out hospitably with its wide light windows from the thick foliage\nof the old limes and maples.\n\n'So what message do you give me for Darya Mihailovna?' began\nPandalevsky, slightly hurt at the fate of the flower he had given her.\n'Will you come to dinner? She invites your brother too.'\n\n'Yes; we will come, most certainly. And how is Natasha?'\n\n'Natalya Alexyevna is well, I am glad to say. But we have already passed\nthe road that turns off to Darya Mihailovna's. Allow me to bid you\ngood-bye.'\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna stopped. 'But won't you come in?' she said in a\nhesitating voice.\n\n'I should like to, indeed, but I am afraid it is late. Darya Mihailovna\nwishes to hear a new etude of Thalberg's, so I must practise and have\nit ready. Besides, I am doubtful, I must confess, whether my visit could\nafford you any pleasure.'\n\n'Oh, no! why?'\n\nPandalevsky sighed and dropped his eyes expressively.\n\n'Good-bye, Alexandra Pavlovna!' he said after a slight pause; then he\nbowed and turned back.\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna turned round and went home.\n\nKonstantin Diomiditch, too, walked homewards. All softness had vanished\nat once from his face; a self-confident, almost hard expression came\ninto it. Even his walk was changed; his steps were longer and he trod\nmore heavily. He had walked about two miles, carelessly swinging his\ncane, when all at once he began to smile again: he saw by the roadside a\nyoung, rather pretty peasant girl, who was driving some calves out of an\noat-field. Konstantin Diomiditch approached the girl as warily as a cat,\nand began to speak to her. She said nothing at first, only blushed and\nlaughed, but at last she hid her face in her sleeve, turned away, and\nmuttered:\n\n'Go away, sir; upon my word...'\n\nKonstantin Diomiditch shook his finger at her and told her to bring him\nsome cornflowers.\n\n'What do you want with cornflowers?--to make a wreath?' replied the\ngirl; 'come now, go along then.'\n\n'Stop a minute, my pretty little dear,' Konstantin Diomiditch was\nbeginning.\n\n'There now, go along,' the girl interrupted him, 'there are the young\ngentlemen coming.'\n\nKonstantin Diomiditch looked round. There really were Vanya and Petya,\nDarya Mihailovna's sons, running along the road; after them walked their\ntutor, Bassistoff, a young man of two-and-twenty, who had only just left\ncollege. Bassistoff was a well-grown youth, with a simple face, a large\nnose, thick lips, and small pig's eyes, plain and awkward, but kind,\ngood, and upright. He dressed untidily and wore his hair long--not from\naffectation, but from laziness; he liked eating and he liked sleeping,\nbut he also liked a good book, and an earnest conversation, and he hated\nPandalevsky from the depths of his soul.\n\nDarya Mihailovna's children worshipped Bassistoff, and yet were not in\nthe least afraid of him; he was on a friendly footing with all the\nrest of the household, a fact which was not altogether pleasing to\nits mistress, though she was fond of declaring that for her social\nprejudices did not exist.\n\n'Good-morning, my dears,' began Konstantin Diomiditch, 'how early you\nhave come for your walk to-day! But I,' he added, turning to Bassistoff,\n'have been out a long while already; it's my passion--to enjoy nature.'\n\n'We saw how you were enjoying nature,' muttered Bassistoff.\n\n'You are a materialist, God knows what you are imagining! I know\nyou.' When Pandalevsky spoke to Bassistoff or people like him, he grew\nslightly irritated, and pronounced the letter _s_ quite clearly, even\nwith a slight hiss.\n\n'Why, were you asking your way of that girl, am I to suppose?' said\nBassistoff, shifting his eyes to right and to left.\n\nHe felt that Pandalevsky was looking him straight in the face, and this\nfact was exceedingly unpleasant to him. 'I repeat, a materialist and\nnothing more.'\n\n'You certainly prefer to see only the prosaic side in everything.'\n\n'Boys!' cried Bassistoff suddenly, 'do you see that willow at the\ncorner? let's see who can get to it first. One! two! three! and away!'\n\nThe boys set off at full speed to the willow. Bassistoff rushed after\nthem.\n\n'What a lout!' thought Pandalevsky, 'he is spoiling those boys. A\nperfect peasant!'\n\nAnd looking with satisfaction at his own neat and elegant figure,\nKonstantin Diomiditch struck his coat-sleeve twice with his open hand,\npulled up his collar, and went on his way. When he had reached his own\nroom, he put on an old dressing-gown and sat down with an anxious face\nto the piano.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nDarya Mihailovna's house was regarded as almost the first in the whole\nprovince. It was a huge stone mansion, built after designs of Rastrelli\nin the taste of last century, and in a commanding position on the summit\nof a hill, at whose base flowed one of the principal rivers of central\nRussia. Darya Mihailovna herself was a wealthy and distinguished lady,\nthe widow of a privy councillor. Pandalevsky said of her, that she\nknew all Europe and all Europe knew her! However, Europe knew her very\nlittle; even at Petersburg she had not played a very prominent part;\nbut on the other hand at Moscow every one knew her and visited her. She\nbelonged to the highest society, and was spoken of as a rather eccentric\nwoman, not wholly good-natured, but excessively clever. In her youth\nshe had been very pretty. Poets had written verses to her, young men\nhad been in love with her, distinguished men had paid her homage. But\ntwenty-five or thirty years had passed since those days and not a trace\nof her former charms remained. Every one who saw her now for the first\ntime was impelled to ask himself, if this woman--skinny, sharp-nosed,\nand yellow-faced, though still not old in years--could once have been a\nbeauty, if she was really the same woman who had been the inspiration of\npoets.... And every one marvelled inwardly at the mutability of earthly\nthings. It is true that Pandalevsky discovered that Darya Mihailovna\nhad preserved her magnificent eyes in a marvellous way; but we have seen\nthat Pandalevsky also maintained that all Europe knew her.\n\nDarya Mihailovna went every summer to her country place with her\nchildren (she had three: a daughter of seventeen, Natalya, and two sons\nof nine and ten years old). She kept open house in the country, that is,\nshe received men, especially unmarried ones; provincial ladies she could\nnot endure. But what of the treatment she received from those ladies in\nreturn?\n\nDarya Mihailovna, according to them, was a haughty, immoral, and\ninsufferable tyrant, and above all--she permitted herself such liberties\nin conversation, it was shocking! Darya Mihailovna certainly did not\ncare to stand on ceremony in the country, and in the unconstrained\nfrankness of her manners there was perceptible a slight shade of\nthe contempt of the lioness of the capital for the petty and obscure\ncreatures who surrounded her. She had a careless, and even a sarcastic\nmanner with her own set; but the shade of contempt was not there.\n\nBy the way, reader, have you observed that a person who is exceptionally\nnonchalant with his inferiors, is never nonchalant with persons of a\nhigher rank? Why is that? But such questions lead to nothing.\n\nWhen Konstantin Diomiditch, having at last learnt by heart the _etude_\nof Thalberg, went down from his bright and cheerful room to the\ndrawing-room, he already found the whole household assembled. The salon\nwas already beginning. The lady of the house was reposing on a wide\ncouch, her feet gathered up under her, and a new French pamphlet in her\nhand; at the window behind a tambour frame, sat on one side the daughter\nof Darya Mihailovna, on the other, Mlle. Boncourt, the governess, a\ndry old maiden lady of sixty, with a false front of black curls under a\nparti-coloured cap and cotton wool in her ears; in the corner near the\ndoor was huddled Bassistoff reading a paper, near him were Petya and\nVanya playing draughts, and leaning by the stove, his hands clasped\nbehind his back, was a gentleman of low stature, with a swarthy face\ncovered with bristling grey hair, and fiery black eyes--a certain\nAfrican Semenitch Pigasov.\n\nThis Pigasov was a strange person. Full of acerbity against everything\nand every one--especially against women--he was railing from morning to\nnight, sometimes very aptly, sometimes rather stupidly, but always with\ngusto. His ill-humour almost approached puerility; his laugh, the sound\nof his voice, his whole being seemed steeped in venom. Darya Mihailovna\ngave Pigasov a cordial reception; he amused her with his sallies. They\nwere certainly absurd enough. He took delight in perpetual exaggeration.\nFor example, if he were told of any disaster, that a village had been\nstruck by lightning, or that a mill had been carried away by floods, or\nthat a peasant had cut his hand with an axe, he invariably asked with\nconcentrated bitterness, 'And what's her name?' meaning, what is the\nname of the woman responsible for this calamity, for according to his\nconvictions, a woman was the cause of every misfortune, if you only\nlooked deep enough into the matter. He once threw himself on his knees\nbefore a lady he hardly knew at all, who had been effusive in her\nhospitality to him and began tearfully, but with wrath written on his\nface, to entreat her to have compassion on him, saying that he had done\nher no harm and never would come to see her for the future. Once a horse\nhad bolted with one of Darya Mihailovna's maids, thrown her into a ditch\nand almost killed her. From that time Pigasov never spoke of that horse\nexcept as the 'good, good horse,' and he even came to regard the hill\nand the ditch as specially picturesque spots. Pigasov had failed in\nlife and had adopted this whimsical craze. He came of poor parents.\nHis father had filled various petty posts, and could scarcely read and\nwrite, and did not trouble himself about his son's education; he fed\nand clothed him and nothing more. His mother spoiled him, but she died\nearly. Pigasov educated himself, sent himself to the district school and\nthen to the gymnasium, taught himself French, German, and even Latin,\nand, leaving the gymnasiums with an excellent certificate, went to\nDorpat, where he maintained a perpetual struggle with poverty, but\nsucceeded in completing his three years' course. Pigasov's abilities did\nnot rise above the level of mediocrity; patience and perseverance were\nhis strong points, but the most powerful sentiment in him was ambition,\nthe desire to get into good society, not to be inferior to others in\nspite of fortune. He had studied diligently and gone to the Dorpat\nUniversity from ambition. Poverty exasperated him, and made him watchful\nand cunning. He expressed himself with originality; from his youth he\nhad adopted a special kind of stinging and exasperated eloquence. His\nideas did not rise above the common level; but his way of speaking made\nhim seem not only a clever, but even a very clever, man. Having taken\nhis degree as candidate, Pigasov decided to devote himself to the\nscholastic profession; he understood that in any other career he could\nnot possibly be the equal of his associates. He tried to select them\nfrom a higher rank and knew how to gain their good graces; even by\nflattery, though he was always abusing them. But to do this he had not,\nto speak plainly, enough raw material. Having educated himself through\nno love for study, Pigasov knew very little thoroughly. He broke down\nmiserably in the public disputation, while another student who had\nshared the same room with him, and who was constantly the subject of his\nridicule, a man of very limited ability who had received a careful and\nsolid education, gained a complete triumph. Pigasov was infuriated by\nthis failure, he threw all his books and manuscripts into the fire and\nwent into a government office. At first he did not get on badly, he made\na fair official, not very active, extremely self-confident and bold,\nhowever; but he wanted to make his way more quickly, he made a false\nstep, got into trouble, and was obliged to retire from the service. He\nspent three years on the property he had bought himself and suddenly\nmarried a wealthy half-educated woman who was captivated by his\nunceremonious and sarcastic manners. But Pigasov's character had become\nso soured and irritable that family life was unendurable to him. After\nliving with him a few years, his wife went off secretly to Moscow and\nsold her estate to an enterprising speculator; Pigasov had only just\nfinished building a house on it. Utterly crushed by this last blow,\nPigasov began a lawsuit with his wife, but gained nothing by it. After\nthis he lived in solitude, and went to see his neighbours, whom he\nabused behind their backs and even to their faces, and who welcomed him\nwith a kind of constrained half-laugh, though he did not inspire them\nwith any serious dread. He never took a book in his hand. He had about a\nhundred serfs; his peasants were not badly off.\n\n'Ah! _Constantin_,' said Darya Mihailovna, when Pandalevsky came into\nthe drawing-room, 'is _Alexandrine_ coming?'\n\n'Alexandra Pavlovna asked me to thank you, and they will be extremely\ndelighted,' replied Konstantin Diomiditch, bowing affably in all\ndirections, and running his plump white hand with its triangular cut\nnails through his faultlessly arranged hair.\n\n'And is Volintsev coming too?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'So, according to you, African Semenitch,' continued Darya Mihailovna,\nturning to Pigasov, 'all young ladies are affected?'\n\nPigasov's mouth twitched, and he plucked nervously at his elbow.\n\n'I say,' he began in a measured voice--in his most violent moods of\nexasperation he always spoke slowly and precisely. 'I say that young\nladies, in general--of present company, of course, I say nothing.'\n\n'But that does not prevent your thinking of them,' put in Darya\nMihailovna.\n\n'I say nothing of them,' repeated Pigasov. 'All young ladies, in\ngeneral, are affected to the most extreme point--affected in the\nexpression of their feelings. If a young lady is frightened, for\ninstance, or pleased with anything, or distressed, she is certain first\nto throw her person into some such elegant attitude (and Pigasov threw\nhis figure into an unbecoming pose and spread out his hands) and then\nshe shrieks--ah! or she laughs or cries. I did once though (and here\nPigasov smiled complacently) succeed in eliciting a genuine, unaffected\nexpression of emotion from a remarkably affected young lady!'\n\n'How did you do that?'\n\nPigasov's eyes sparkled.\n\n'I poked her in the side with an aspen stake, from behind. She did\nshriek, and I said to her, \"Bravo, bravo! that's the voice of nature,\nthat was a genuine shriek! Always do like that for the future!\"'\n\nEvery one in the room laughed.\n\n'What nonsense you talk, African Semenitch,' cried Darya Mihailovna. 'Am\nI to believe that you would poke a girl in the side with a stake!'\n\n'Yes, indeed, with a stake, a very big stake, like those that are used\nin the defence of a fort.'\n\n'_Mais c'est un horreur ce que vous dites la, Monsieur_,' cried Mlle.\nBoncourt, looking angrily at the boys, who were in fits of laughter.\n\n'Oh, you mustn't believe him,' said Darya Mihailovna. 'Don't you know\nhim?'\n\nBut the offended French lady could not be pacified for a long while, and\nkept muttering something to herself.\n\n'You need not believe me,' continued Pigasov coolly, 'but I assure you I\ntold the simple truth. Who should know if not I? After that perhaps you\nwon't believe that our neighbour, Madame Tchepuz, Elena Antonovna, told\nme herself, mind _herself_, that she had murdered her nephew?'\n\n'What an invention!'\n\n'Wait a minute, wait a minute! Listen and judge for yourselves. Mind,\nI don't want to slander her, I even like her as far as one can like a\nwoman. She hasn't a single book in her house except a calendar, and she\ncan't read except aloud, and that exercise throws her into a violent\nperspiration, and she complains then that her eyes feel bursting out of\nher head.... In short, she's a capital woman, and her servant girls grow\nfat. Why should I slander her?'\n\n'You see,' observed Darya Mihailovna, 'African Semenitch has got on his\nhobbyhorse, now he will not be off it to-night.'\n\n'My hobby! But women have three at least, which they are never off,\nexcept, perhaps, when they're asleep.'\n\n'What three hobbies are those?'\n\n'Reproof, reproach, recrimination.'\n\n'Do you know, African Semenitch,' began Darya Mihailovna, 'you cannot be\nso bitter against women for nothing. Some woman or other must have----'\n\n'Done me an injury, you mean?' Pigasov interrupted.\n\nDarya Mihailovna was rather embarrassed; she remembered Pigasov's\nunlucky marriage, and only nodded.\n\n'One woman certainly did me an injury,' said Pigasov, 'though she was a\ngood, very good one.'\n\n'Who was that?'\n\n'My mother,' said Pigasov, dropping his voice.\n\n'Your mother? What injury could she have done you?'\n\n'She brought me into the world.'\n\nDarya Mihailovna frowned.\n\n'Our conversation,' she said, 'seems to have taken a gloomy turn.\n_Constantin_, play us Thalberg's new _etude_. I daresay the music will\nsoothe African Semenitch. Orpheus soothed savage beasts.'\n\nKonstantin Diomiditch took his seat at the piano, and played the etude\nvery fairly well. Natalya Alexyevna at first listened attentively, then\nshe bent over her work again.\n\n'_Merci, c'est charmant_,' observed Darya Mihailovna, 'I love Thalberg.\n_Il est si distingue_. What are you thinking of, African Semenitch?'\n\n'I thought,' began African Semenitch slowly, 'that there are three kinds\nof egoists; the egoists who live themselves and let others live; the\negoists who live themselves and don't let others live; and the egoists\nwho don't live themselves and don't let others live. Women, for the most\npart, belong to the third class.'\n\n'That's polite! I am very much astonished at one thing, African\nSemenitch; your confidence in your convictions; of course you can never\nbe mistaken.'\n\n'Who says so? I make mistakes; a man, too, may be mistaken. But do you\nknow the difference between a man's mistakes and a woman's? Don't you\nknow? Well, here it is; a man may say, for example, that twice two makes\nnot four, but five, or three and a half; but a woman will say that twice\ntwo makes a wax candle.'\n\n'I fancy I've heard you say that before. But allow me to ask what\nconnection had your idea of the three kinds of egoists with the music\nyou have just been hearing?'\n\n'None at all, but I did not listen to the music.'\n\n'Well, \"incurable I see you are, and that is all about it,\"' answered\nDarya Mihailovna, slightly altering Griboyedov's line. 'What do you\nlike, since you don't care for music? Literature?'\n\n'I like literature, only not our contemporary literature.'\n\n'Why?'\n\n'I'll tell you why. I crossed the Oka lately in a ferry boat with a\ngentleman. The ferry got fixed in a narrow place; they had to drag the\ncarriages ashore by hand. This gentleman had a very heavy coach. While\nthe ferrymen were straining themselves to drag the coach on to the bank,\nthe gentleman groaned so, standing in the ferry, that one felt quite\nsorry for him.... Well, I thought, here's a fresh illustration of the\nsystem of division of labour! That's just like our modern literature;\nother people do the work, and it does the groaning.'\n\nDarya Mihailovna smiled.\n\n'And that is called expressing contemporary life,' continued Pigasov\nindefatigably, 'profound sympathy with the social question and so on.\n... Oh, how I hate those grand words!'\n\n'Well, the women you attack so--they at least don't use grand words.'\n\nPigasov shrugged his shoulders.\n\n'They don't use them because they don't understand them.'\n\nDarya Mihailovna flushed slightly.\n\n'You are beginning to be impertinent, African Semenitch!' she remarked\nwith a forced smile.\n\nThere was complete stillness in the room.\n\n'Where is Zolotonosha?' asked one of the boys suddenly of Bassistoff.\n\n'In the province of Poltava, my dear boy,' replied Pigasov, 'in the\ncentre of Little Russia.' (He was glad of an opportunity of changing the\nconversation.) 'We were talking of literature,' he continued, 'if I had\nmoney to spare, I would at once become a Little Russian poet.'\n\n'What next? a fine poet you would make!' retorted Darya Mihailovna. 'Do\nyou know Little Russian?'\n\n'Not a bit; but it isn't necessary.'\n\n'Not necessary?'\n\n'Oh no, it's not necessary. You need only take a sheet of paper and\nwrite at the top \"A Ballad,\" then begin like this, \"Heigho, alack, my\ndestiny!\" or \"the Cossack Nalivaiko was sitting on a hill and then on\nthe mountain, under the green tree the birds are singing, grae, voropae,\ngop, gop!\" or something of that kind. And the thing's done. Print it\nand publish it. The Little Russian will read it, drop his head into his\nhands and infallibly burst into tears--he is such a sensitive soul!'\n\n'Good heavens!' cried Bassistoff. 'What are you saying? It's too absurd\nfor anything. I have lived in Little Russia, I love it and know the\nlanguage... \"grae, grae, voropae\" is absolute nonsense.'\n\n'It may be, but the Little Russian will weep all the same. You speak\nof the \"language.\"... But is there a Little Russian language? Is it a\nlanguage, in your opinion? an independent language? I would pound my\nbest friend in a mortar before I'd agree to that.'\n\nBassistoff was about to retort.\n\n'Leave him alone!' said Darya Mihailovna, 'you know that you will hear\nnothing but paradoxes from him.'\n\nPigasov smiled ironically. A footman came in and announced the arrival\nof Alexandra Pavlovna and her brother.\n\nDarya Mihailovna rose to meet her guests.\n\n'How do you do, Alexandrine?' she began, going up to her, 'how good of\nyou to come!... How are you, Sergei Pavlitch?'\n\nVolintsev shook hands with Darya Mihailovna and went up to Natalya\nAlexyevna.\n\n'But how about that baron, your new acquaintance, is he coming to-day?'\nasked Pigasov.\n\n'Yes, he is coming.'\n\n'He is a great philosopher, they say; he is just brimming over with\nHegel, I suppose?'\n\nDarya Mihailovna made no reply, and making Alexandra Pavlovna sit down\non the sofa, established herself near her.\n\n'Philosophies,' continued Pigasov, 'are elevated points of view! That's\nanother abomination of mine; these elevated points of view. And what can\none see from above? Upon my soul, if you want to buy a horse, you don't\nlook at it from a steeple!'\n\n'This baron was going to bring you an essay?' said Alexandra Pavlovna.\n\n'Yes, an essay,' replied Darya Mihailovna, with exaggerated\ncarelessness, 'on the relation of commerce to manufactures in Russia.\n... But don't be afraid; we will not read it here.... I did not invite\nyou for that. _Le baron est aussi aimable que savant_. And he speaks\nRussian beautifully! _C'est un vrai torrent... il vous entraine_!\n\n'He speaks Russian so beautifully,' grumbled Pigasov, 'that he deserves\na eulogy in French.'\n\n'You may grumble as you please, African Semenitch.... It's in keeping\nwith your ruffled locks.... I wonder, though, why he does not come. Do\nyou know what, _messieurs et mesdames_' added Darya Mihailovna, looking\nround, 'we will go into the garden. There is still nearly an hour to\ndinner-time and the weather is glorious.'\n\nAll the company rose and went into the garden.\n\nDarya Mihailovna's garden stretched right down to the river. There were\nmany alleys of old lime-trees in it, full of sunlight and shade and\nfragrance and glimpses of emerald green at the ends of the walks, and\nmany arbours of acacias and lilacs.\n\nVolintsev turned into the thickest part of the garden with Natalya and\nMlle. Boncourt. He walked beside Natalya in silence. Mlle. Boncourt\nfollowed a little behind.\n\n'What have you been doing to-day?' asked Volintsev at last, pulling the\nends of his handsome dark brown moustache.\n\nIn features he resembled his sister strikingly; but there was less\nmovement and life in his expression, and his soft beautiful eyes had a\nmelancholy look.\n\n'Oh! nothing,' answered Natalya, 'I have been listening to Pigasov's\nsarcasms, I have done some embroidery on canvas, and I've been reading.'\n\n'And what have you been reading?'\n\n'Oh! I read--a history of the Crusades,' said Natalya, with some\nhesitation.\n\nVolintsev looked at her.\n\n'Ah!' he ejaculated at last, 'that must be interesting.'\n\nHe picked a twig and began to twirl it in the air. They walked another\ntwenty paces.\n\n'What is this baron whom your mother has made acquaintance with?' began\nVolintsev again.\n\n'A Gentleman of the Bedchamber, a new arrival; _maman_ speaks very\nhighly of him.'\n\n'Your mother is quick to take fancies to people.'\n\n'That shows that her heart is still young,' observed Natalya.\n\n'Yes. I shall soon bring you your mare. She is almost quite broken in\nnow. I want to teach her to gallop, and I shall manage it soon.'\n\n'_Merci_!... But I'm quite ashamed. You are breaking her in yourself ...\nand they say it's so hard!'\n\n'To give you the least pleasure, you know, Natalya Alexyevna, I am\nready... I... not in such trifles----'\n\nVolintsev grew confused.\n\nNatalya looked at him with friendly encouragement, and again said\n'_merci_!'\n\n'You know,' continued Sergei Pavlitch after a long pause, 'that not such\nthings.... But why am I saying this? you know everything, of course.'\n\nAt that instant a bell rang in the house.\n\n'Ah! _la cloche du diner_!' cried Mlle. Boncourt, '_rentrons_.'\n\n'_Quel dommage_,' thought the old French lady to herself as she mounted\nthe balcony steps behind Volintsev and Natalya, '_quel dommage que ce\ncharmant garcon ait si peu de ressources dans la conversation_,' which\nmay be translated, 'you are a good fellow, my dear boy, but rather a\nfool.'\n\nThe baron did not arrive to dinner. They waited half-an-hour for him.\nConversation flagged at the table. Sergei Pavlitch did nothing but gaze\nat Natalya, near whom he was sitting, and zealously filled up her\nglass with water. Pandalevsky tried in vain to entertain his neighbour,\nAlexandra Pavlovna; he was bubbling over with sweetness, but she hardly\nrefrained from yawning.\n\nBassistoff was rolling up pellets of bread and thinking of nothing at\nall; even Pigasov was silent, and when Darya Mihailovna remarked to him\nthat he had not been very polite to-day, he replied crossly, 'When am\nI polite? that's not in my line;' and smiling grimly he added, 'have a\nlittle patience; I am only kvas, you know, _du simple_ Russian kvas; but\nyour Gentleman of the Bedchamber----'\n\n'Bravo!' cried Darya Mihailovna, 'Pigasov is jealous, he is jealous\nalready!'\n\nBut Pigasov made her no rejoinder, and only gave her a rather cross\nlook.\n\nSeven o'clock struck, and they were all assembled again in the\ndrawing-room.\n\n'He is not coming, clearly,' said Darya Mihailovna.\n\nBut, behold, the rumble of a carriage was heard: a small tarantass\ndrove into the court, and a few instants later a footman entered the\ndrawing-room and gave Darya Mihailovna a note on a silver salver. She\nglanced through it, and turning to the footman asked:\n\n'But where is the gentleman who brought this letter?'\n\n'He is sitting in the carriage. Shall I ask him to come up?'\n\n'Ask him to do so.'\n\nThe man went out.\n\n'Fancy, how vexatious!' continued Darya Mihailovna, 'the baron has\nreceived a summons to return at once to Petersburg. He has sent me\nhis essay by a certain Mr. Rudin, a friend of his. The baron wanted to\nintroduce him to me--he speaks very highly of him. But how vexatious it\nis! I had hoped the baron would stay here for some time.'\n\n'Dmitri Nikolaitch Rudin,' announced the servant\n\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nA man of about thirty-five entered, of a tall, somewhat stooping\nfigure, with crisp curly hair and swarthy complexion, an irregular but\nexpressive and intelligent face, a liquid brilliance in his quick, dark\nblue eyes, a straight, broad nose, and well-curved lips. His clothes\nwere not new, and were somewhat small, as though he had outgrown them.\n\nHe walked quickly up to Darya Mihailovna, and with a slight bow told her\nthat he had long wished to have the honour of an introduction to her,\nand that his friend the baron greatly regretted that he could not take\nleave of her in person.\n\nThe thin sound of Rudin's voice seemed out of keeping with his tall\nfigure and broad chest.\n\n'Pray be seated... very delighted,' murmured Darya Mihailovna, and,\nafter introducing him to the rest of the company, she asked him whether\nhe belonged to those parts or was a visitor.\n\n'My estate is in the T---- province,' replied Rudin, holding his hat on\nhis knees. 'I have not been here long. I came on business and stayed for\na while in your district town.'\n\n'With whom?'\n\n'With the doctor. He was an old chum of mine at the university.'\n\n'Ah! the doctor. He is highly spoken of. He is skilful in his work, they\nsay. But have you known the baron long?'\n\n'I met him last winter in Moscow, and I have just been spending about a\nweek with him.'\n\n'He is a very clever man, the baron.'\n\n'Yes.'\n\nDarya Mihailovna sniffed at her little crushed-up handkerchief steeped\nin _eau de cologne_.\n\n'Are you in the government service?' she asked.\n\n'Who? I?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'No. I have retired.'\n\nThere followed a brief pause. The general conversation was resumed.\n\n'If you will allow me to be inquisitive,' began Pigasov, turning to\nRudin, 'do you know the contents of the essay which his excellency the\nbaron has sent?'\n\n'Yes, I do.'\n\n'This essay deals with the relations to commerce--or no, of manufactures\nto commerce in our country.... That was your expression, I think, Darya\nMihailovna?'\n\n'Yes, it deals with'... began Darya Mihailovna, pressing her hand to her\nforehead.\n\n'I am, of course, a poor judge of such matters,' continued Pigasov, 'but\nI must confess that to me even the title of the essay seems excessively\n(how could I put it delicately?) excessively obscure and complicated.'\n\n'Why does it seem so to you?'\n\nPigasov smiled and looked across at Darya Mihailovna.\n\n'Why, is it clear to you?' he said, turning his foxy face again towards\nRudin.\n\n'To me? Yes.'\n\n'H'm. No doubt you must know better.'\n\n'Does your head ache?' Alexandra Pavlovna inquired of Darya Mihailovna.\n\n'No. It is only my--_c'est nerveux_.'\n\n'Allow me to inquire,' Pigasov was beginning again in his nasal tones,\n'your friend, his excellency Baron Muffel--I think that's his name?'\n\n'Precisely.'\n\n'Does his excellency Baron Muffel make a special study of political\neconomy, or does he only devote to that interesting subject the hours of\nleisure left over from his social amusements and his official duties?'\n\nRudin looked steadily at Pigasov.\n\n'The baron is an amateur on this subject,' he replied, growing rather\nred, 'but in his essay there is much that is interesting and just.'\n\n'I am not able to dispute it with you; I have not read the essay. But I\nventure to ask--the work of your friend Baron Muffel is no doubt founded\nmore upon general propositions than upon facts?'\n\n'It contains both facts and propositions founded upon the facts.'\n\n'Yes, yes. I must tell you that, in my opinion--and I've a right to give\nmy opinion, on occasion; I spent three years at Dorpat... all these,\nso-called general propositions, hypotheses, these systems--excuse me,\nI am a provincial, I speak the truth bluntly--are absolutely worthless.\nAll that's only theorising--only good for misleading people. Give us\nfacts, sir, and that's enough!'\n\n'Really!' retorted Rudin, 'why, but ought not one to give the\nsignificance of the facts?'\n\n'General propositions,' continued Pigasov, 'they're my abomination,\nthese general propositions, theories, conclusions. All that's based on\nso-called convictions; every one is talking about his convictions, and\nattaches importance to them, prides himself on them. Ah!'\n\nAnd Pigasov shook his fist in the air. Pandalevsky laughed.\n\n'Capital!' put in Rudin, 'it follows that there is no such thing as\nconviction according to you?'\n\n'No, it doesn't exist.'\n\n'Is that your conviction?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'How do you say that there are none then? Here you have one at the very\nfirst turn.'\n\nAll in the room smiled and looked at one another.\n\n'One minute, one minute, but----,' Pigasov was beginning.\n\nBut Darya Mihailovna clapped her hands crying, 'Bravo, bravo, Pigasov's\nbeaten!' and she gently took Rudin's hat from his hand.\n\n'Defer your delight a little, madam; there's plenty of time!' Pigasov\nbegan with annoyance. 'It's not sufficient to say a witty word, with a\nshow of superiority; you must prove, refute. We had wandered from the\nsubject of our discussion.'\n\n'With your permission,' remarked Rudin, coolly, 'the matter is very\nsimple. You do not believe in the value of general propositions--you do\nnot believe in convictions?'\n\n'I don't believe in them, I don't believe in anything!'\n\n'Very good. You are a sceptic.'\n\n'I see no necessity for using such a learned word. However----'\n\n'Don't interrupt!' interposed Darya Mihailovna.\n\n'At him, good dog!' Pandalevsky said to himself at the same instant, and\nsmiled all over.\n\n'That word expresses my meaning,' pursued Rudin. 'You understand it; why\nnot make use of it? You don't believe in anything. Why do you believe in\nfacts?'\n\n'Why? That's good! Facts are matters of experience, every one knows what\nfacts are. I judge of them by experience, by my own senses.'\n\n'But may not your senses deceive you? Your senses tell you that the sun\ngoes round the earth,... but perhaps you don't agree with Copernicus?\nYou don't even believe in him?'\n\nAgain a smile passed over every one's face, and all eyes were fastened\non Rudin. 'He's by no means a fool,' every one was thinking.\n\n'You are pleased to keep on joking,' said Pigasov. 'Of course that's\nvery original, but it's not to the point.'\n\n'In what I have said hitherto,' rejoined Rudin, 'there is,\nunfortunately, too little that's original. All that has been well known\na very long time, and has been said a thousand times. That is not the\npith of the matter.'\n\n'What is then?' asked Pigasov, not without insolence.\n\nIn discussions he always first bantered his opponent, then grew cross,\nand finally sulked and was silent.\n\n'Here it is,' continued Rudin. 'I cannot help, I own, feeling sincere\nregret when I hear sensible people attack----'\n\n'Systems?' interposed Pigasov.\n\n'Yes, with your leave, even systems. What frightens you so much in that\nword? Every system is founded on a knowledge of fundamental laws, the\nprinciples of life----'\n\n'But there is no knowing them, no discovering them.'\n\n'One minute. Doubtless they are not easy for every one to get at, and to\nmake mistakes is natural to man. However, you will certainly agree\nwith me that Newton, for example, discovered some at least of these\nfundamental laws? He was a genius, we grant you; but the grandeur of\nthe discoveries of genius is that they become the heritage of all. The\neffort to discover universal principles in the multiplicity of phenomena\nis one of the radical characteristics of human thought, and all our\ncivilisation----'\n\n'That's what you're driving at!' Pigasov broke in in a drawling tone. 'I\nam a practical man and all these metaphysical subtleties I don't enter\ninto and don't want to enter into.'\n\n'Very good! That's as you prefer. But take note that your very desire\nto be exclusively a practical man is itself your sort of system--your\ntheory.'\n\n'Civilisation you talk about!' blurted in Pigasov; 'that's another\nadmirable notion of yours! Much use in it, this vaunted civilisation! I\nwould not give a brass farthing for your civilisation!'\n\n'But what a poor sort of argument, African Semenitch!' observed\nDarya Mihailovna, inwardly much pleased by the calmness and perfect\ngood-breeding of her new acquaintance. '_Cest un homme comme il faut_,'\nshe thought, looking with well-disposed scrutiny at Rudin; 'we must be\nnice to him!' Those last words she mentally pronounced in Russian.\n\n'I will not champion civilisation,' continued Rudin after a short pause,\n'it does not need my championship. You don't like it, every one to his\nown taste. Besides, that would take us too far. Allow me only to remind\nyou of the old saying, \"Jupiter, you are angry; therefore you are in the\nwrong.\" I meant to say that all those onslaughts upon systems--general\npropositions--are especially distressing, because together with these\nsystems men repudiate knowledge in general, and all science and faith in\nit, and consequently also faith in themselves, in their own powers. But\nthis faith is essential to men; they cannot exist by their sensations\nalone they are wrong to fear ideas and not to trust in them. Scepticism\nis always characterised by barrenness and impotence.'\n\n'That's all words!' muttered Pigasov.\n\n'Perhaps so. But allow me to point out to you that when we say \"that's\nall words!\" we often wish ourselves to avoid the necessity of saying\nanything more substantial than mere words.'\n\n'What?' said Pigasov, winking his eyes.\n\n'You understood what I meant,' retorted Rudin, with involuntary,\nbut instantly repressed impatience. 'I repeat, if man has no steady\nprinciple in which he trusts, no ground on which he can take a firm\nstand, how can he form a just estimate of the needs, the tendencies and\nthe future of his country? How can he know what he ought to do, if----'\n\n'I leave you the field,' ejaculated Pigasov abruptly, and with a bow he\nturned away without looking at any one.\n\nRudin stared at him, and smiled slightly, saying nothing.\n\n'Aha! he has taken to flight!' said Darya Mihailovna. 'Never mind,\nDmitri...! I beg your pardon,' she added with a cordial smile, 'what is\nyour paternal name?'\n\n'Nikolaitch.'\n\n'Never mind, my dear Dmitri Nikolaitch, he did not deceive any of us. He\nwants to make a show of not wishing to argue any more. He is conscious\nthat he cannot argue with you. But you had better sit nearer to us and\nlet us have a little talk.'\n\nRudin moved his chair up.\n\n'How is it we have not met till now?' was Darya Mihailovna's question.\n'That is what surprises me. Have you read this book? _C'est de\nTocqueville, vous savez_?'\n\nAnd Darya Mihailovna held out the French pamphlet to Rudin.\n\nRudin took the thin volume in his hand, turned over a few pages of\nit, and laying it down on the table, replied that he had not read that\nparticular work of M. de Tocqueville, but that he had often reflected\non the question treated by him. A conversation began to spring up. Rudin\nseemed uncertain at first, and not disposed to speak out freely; his\nwords did not come readily, but at last he grew warm and began to speak.\nIn a quarter of an hour his voice was the only sound in the room, All\nwere crowding in a circle round him.\n\nOnly Pigasov remained aloof, in a corner by the fireplace. Rudin spoke\nwith intelligence, with fire and with judgment; he showed much learning,\nwide reading. No one had expected to find in him a remarkable man. His\nclothes were so shabby, so little was known of him. Every one felt it\nstrange and incomprehensible that such a clever man should have suddenly\nmade his appearance in the country. He seemed all the more wonderful\nand, one may even say, fascinating to all of them, beginning with\nDarya Mihailovna. She was pluming herself on having discovered him, and\nalready at this early date was dreaming of how she would introduce Rudin\ninto the world. In her quickness to receive impressions there was much\nthat was almost childish, in spite of her years. Alexandra Pavlovna, to\ntell the truth, understood little of all that Rudin said, but was full\nof wonder and delight; her brother too was admiring him. Pandalevsky was\nwatching Darya Mihailovna and was filled with envy. Pigasov thought,\n'If I have to give five hundred roubles I will get a nightingale to\nsing better than that!' But the most impressed of all the party were\nBassistoff and Natalya. Scarcely a breath escaped Bassistoff; he sat the\nwhole time with open mouth and round eyes and listened--listened as\nhe had never listened to any one in his life--while Natalya's face was\nsuffused by a crimson flush, and her eyes, fastened unwaveringly on\nRudin, were both dimmed and shining.\n\n'What splendid eyes he has!' Volintsev whispered to her.\n\n'Yes, they are.'\n\n'It's only a pity his hands are so big and red.'\n\nNatalya made no reply.\n\nTea was brought in. The conversation became more general, but still by\nthe sudden unanimity with which every one was silent, directly Rudin\nopened his mouth, one could judge of the strength of the impression he\nhad produced. Darya Mihailovna suddenly felt inclined to tease Pigasov.\nShe went up to him and said in an undertone, 'Why don't you speak\ninstead of doing nothing but smile sarcastically? Make an effort,\nchallenge him again,' and without waiting for him to answer, she\nbeckoned to Rudin.\n\n'There's one thing more you don't know about him,' she said to him,\nwith a gesture towards Pigasov,--'he is a terrible hater of women, he is\nalways attacking them; pray, show him the true path.'\n\nRudin involuntarily looked down upon Pigasov; he was a head and\nshoulders taller. Pigasov almost withered up with fury, and his sour\nface grew pale.\n\n'Darya Mihailovna is mistaken,' he said in an unsteady voice, 'I do not\nonly attack women; I am not a great admirer of the whole human species.'\n\n'What can have given you such a poor opinion of them?' inquired Rudin.\n\nPigasov looked him straight in the face.\n\n'The study of my own heart, no doubt, in which I find every day more\nand more that is base. I judge of others by myself. Possibly this too is\nerroneous, and I am far worse than others, but what am I to do? it's a\nhabit!'\n\n'I understand you and sympathise with you!' was Rudin's rejoinder. 'What\ngenerous soul has not experienced a yearning for self-humiliation? But\none ought not to remain in that condition from which there is no outlet\nbeyond.'\n\n'I am deeply indebted for the certificate of generosity you confer on\nmy soul,' retorted Pigasov. 'As for my condition, there's not much amiss\nwith it, so that even if there were an outlet from it, it might go to\nthe deuce, I shouldn't look for it!'\n\n'But that means--pardon the expression--to prefer the gratification of\nyour own pride to the desire to be and live in the truth.'\n\n'Undoubtedly,' cried Pigasov, 'pride--that I understand, and you, I\nexpect, understand, and every one understands; but truth, what is truth?\nWhere is it, this truth?'\n\n'You are repeating yourself, let me warn you,' remarked Darya\nMihailovna.\n\nPigasov shrugged his shoulders.\n\n'Well, where's the harm if I do? I ask: where is truth? Even the\nphilosophers don't know what it is. Kant says it is one thing; but\nHegel--no, you're wrong, it's something else.'\n\n'And do you know what Hegel says of it?' asked Rudin, without raising\nhis voice.\n\n'I repeat,' continued Pigasov, flying into a passion, 'that I cannot\nunderstand what truth means. According to my idea, it doesn't exist\nat all in the world, that is to say, the word exists but not the thing\nitself.'\n\n'Fie, fie!' cried Darya Mihailovna, 'I wonder you're not ashamed to say\nso, you old sinner! No truth? What is there to live for in the world\nafter that?'\n\n'Well, I go so far as to think, Darya Mihailovna,' retorted Pigasov, in\na tone of annoyance, 'that it would be much easier for you, in any case,\nto live without truth than without your cook, Stepan, who is such a\nmaster hand at soups! And what do you want with truth, kindly tell me?\nyou can't trim a bonnet with it!'\n\n'A joke is not an argument,' observed Darya Mihailovna, 'especially when\nyou descend to personal insult.'\n\n'I don't know about truth, but I see speaking it does not answer,'\nmuttered Pigasov, and he turned angrily away.\n\nAnd Rudin began to speak of pride, and he spoke well. He showed that man\nwithout pride is worthless, that pride is the lever by which the earth\ncan be moved from its foundations, but that at the same time he alone\ndeserves the name of man who knows how to control his pride, as the\nrider does his horse, who offers up his own personality as a sacrifice\nto the general good.\n\n'Egoism,' so he ended, 'is suicide. The egoist withers like a solitary\nbarren tree; but pride, ambition, as the active effort after perfection,\nis the source of all that is great.... Yes! a man must prune away\nthe stubborn egoism of his personality to give it the right of\nself-expression.'\n\n'Can you lend me a pencil?' Pigasov asked Bassistoff.\n\nBassistoff did not at once understand what Pigasov had asked him.\n\n'What do you want a pencil for?' he said at last\n\n'I want to write down Mr. Rudin's last sentence. If one doesn't write it\ndown, one might forget it, I'm afraid! But you will own, a sentence like\nthat is such a handful of trumps.'\n\n'There are things which it is a shame to laugh at and make fun of,\nAfrican Semenitch!' said Bassistoff warmly, turning away from Pigasov.\n\nMeanwhile Rudin had approached Natalya. She got up; her face expressed\nher confusion. Volintsev, who was sitting near her, got up too.\n\n'I see a piano,' began Rudin, with the gentle courtesy of a travelling\nprince; 'don't you play on it?'\n\n'Yes, I play,' replied Natalya, 'but not very well. Here is Konstantin\nDiomiditch plays much better than I do.'\n\nPandalevsky put himself forward with a simper. 'You should not say that,\nNatalya Alexyevna; your playing is not at all inferior to mine.'\n\n'Do you know Schubert's \"Erlkonig\"?' asked Rudin.\n\n'He knows it, he knows it!' interposed Darya Mihailovna. 'Sit down,\nKonstantin. You are fond of music, Dmitri Nikolaitch?'\n\nRudin only made a slight motion of the head and ran his hand through his\nhair, as though disposing himself to listen. Pandalevsky began to play.\n\nNatalya was standing near the piano, directly facing Rudin. At the first\nsound his face was transfigured. His dark blue eyes moved slowly about,\nfrom time to time resting upon Natalya. Pandalevsky finished playing.\n\nRudin said nothing and walked up to the open window. A fragrant mist\nlay like a soft shroud over the garden; a drowsy scent breathed from\nthe trees near. The stars shed a mild radiance. The summer night was\nsoft--and softened all. Rudin gazed into the dark garden, and looked\nround.\n\n'That music and this night,' he began, 'reminded me of my student days\nin Germany; our meetings, our serenades.'\n\n'You have been in Germany then?' said Darya Mihailovna.\n\n'I spent a year at Heidelberg, and nearly a year at Berlin.'\n\n'And did you dress as a student? They say they wear a special dress\nthere.'\n\n'At Heidelberg I wore high boots with spurs, and a hussar's jacket\nwith braid on it, and I let my hair grow to my shoulders. In Berlin the\nstudents dress like everybody else.'\n\n'Tell us something of your student life,' said Alexandra Pavlovna.\n\nRudin complied. He was not altogether successful in narrative. There\nwas a lack of colour in his descriptions. He did not know how to be\nhumorous. However, from relating his own adventures abroad, Rudin soon\npassed to general themes, the special value of education and science,\nuniversities, and university life generally. He sketched in a large and\ncomprehensive picture in broad and striking lines. All listened to him\nwith profound attention. His eloquence was masterly and attractive, not\naltogether clear, but even this want of clearness added a special charm\nto his words.\n\nThe exuberance of his thought hindered Rudin from expressing himself\ndefinitely and exactly. Images followed upon images; comparisons started\nup one after another--now startlingly bold, now strikingly true. It was\nnot the complacent effort of the practised speaker, but the very breath\nof inspiration that was felt in his impatient improvising. He did not\nseek out his words; they came obediently and spontaneously to his lips,\nand each word seemed to flow straight from his soul, and was burning\nwith all the fire of conviction. Rudin was the master of almost the\ngreatest secret--the music of eloquence. He knew how in striking\none chord of the heart to set all the others vaguely quivering and\nresounding. Many of his listeners, perhaps, did not understand very\nprecisely what his eloquence was about; but their bosoms heaved, it\nseemed as though veils were lifted before their eyes, something radiant,\nglorious, seemed shimmering in the distance.\n\nAll Rudin's thoughts seemed centred on the future; this lent him\nsomething of the impetuous dash of youth... Standing at the window, not\nlooking at any one in special, he spoke, and inspired by the general\nsympathy and attention, the presence of young women, the beauty of the\nnight, carried along by the tide of his own emotions, he rose to the\nheight of eloquence, of poetry.... The very sound of his voice, intense\nand soft, increased the fascination; it seemed as though some higher\npower were speaking through his lips, startling even to himself....\nRudin spoke of what lends eternal significance to the fleeting life of\nman.\n\n'I remember a Scandinavian legend,' thus he concluded, 'a king is\nsitting with his warriors round the fire in a long dark barn. It was\nnight and winter. Suddenly a little bird flew in at the open door and\nflew out again at the other. The king spoke and said that this bird\nis like man in the world; it flew in from darkness and out again into\ndarkness, and was not long in the warmth and light.... \"King,\" replies\nthe oldest of the warriors, \"even in the dark the bird is not lost, but\nfinds her nest.\" Even so our life is short and worthless; but all that\nis great is accomplished through men. The consciousness of being the\ninstrument of these higher powers ought to outweigh all other joys for\nman; even in death he finds his life, his nest.'\n\nRudin stopped and dropped his eyes with a smile of involuntary\nembarrassment.\n\n'_Vous etes un poete_,' was Darya Mihailovna's comment in an undertone.\nAnd all were inwardly agreeing with her--all except Pigasov. Without\nwaiting for the end of Rudin's long speech, he quietly took his hat and\nas he went out whispered viciously to Pandalevsky who was standing near\nthe door:\n\n'No! Fools are more to my taste.'\n\nNo one, however, tried to detain him or even noticed his absence.\n\nThe servants brought in supper, and half an hour later, all had taken\nleave and separated. Darya Mihailovna begged Rudin to remain the night.\nAlexandra Pavlovna, as she went home in the carriage with her brother,\nseveral times fell to exclaiming and marvelling at the extraordinary\ncleverness of Rudin. Volintsev agreed with her, though he observed that\nhe sometimes expressed himself somewhat obscurely--that is to say, not\naltogether intelligibly, he added,--wishing, no doubt, to make his own\nthought clear, but his face was gloomy, and his eyes, fixed on a corner\nof the carriage, seemed even more melancholy than usual.\n\nPandalevsky went to bed, and as he took off his daintily embroidered\nbraces, he said aloud 'A very smart fellow!' and suddenly, looking\nharshly at his page, ordered him out of the room. Bassistoff did not\nsleep the whole night and did not undress--he was writing till morning\na letter to a comrade of his in Moscow; and Natalya, too, though she\nundressed and lay down in her bed, had not an instant's sleep and never\nclosed her eyes. With her head propped on her arm, she gazed fixedly\ninto the darkness; her veins were throbbing feverishly and her bosom\noften heaved with a deep sigh.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nThe next morning Rudin had only just finished dressing when a servant\ncame to him with an invitation from Darya Mihailovna to come to her\nboudoir and drink tea with her. Rudin found her alone. She greeted him\nvery cordially, inquired whether he had passed a good night, poured him\nout a cup of tea with her own hands, asked him whether there was sugar\nenough in it, offered him a cigarette, and twice again repeated that she\nwas surprised that she had not met him long before. Rudin was about to\ntake a seat some distance away; but Darya Mihailovna motioned him to an\neasy chair, which stood near her lounge, and bending a little towards\nhim began to question him about his family, his plans and intentions.\nDarya Mihailovna spoke carelessly and listened with an air of\nindifference; but it was perfectly evident to Rudin that she was laying\nherself out to please him, even to flatter him. It was not for nothing\nthat she had arranged this morning interview, and had dressed so simply\nyet elegantly _a la Madame Recamier_! But Darya Mihailovna soon left off\nquestioning him. She began to tell him about herself, her youth, and\nthe people she had known. Rudin gave a sympathetic attention to\nher lucubrations, though--a curious fact--whatever personage Darya\nMihailovna might be talking about, she always stood in the foreground,\nshe alone, and the personage seemed to be effaced, to slink away in the\nbackground, and to disappear. But to make up for that, Rudin learnt\nin full detail precisely what Darya Mihailovna had said to a certain\ndistinguished statesman, and what influence she had had on such and such\na celebrated poet. To judge from Darya Mihailovna's accounts, one might\nfancy that all the distinguished men of the last five-and-twenty years\nhad dreamt of nothing but how they could make her acquaintance, and\ngain her good opinion. She spoke of them simply, without particular\nenthusiasm or admiration, as though they were her daily associates,\ncalling some of them queer fellows. As she talked of them, like a rich\nsetting round a worthless stone, their names ranged themselves in a\nbrilliant circlet round the principal name--around Darya Mihailovna.\n\nRudin listened, smoking a cigarette, and said little. He could speak\nwell and liked speaking; carrying on a conversation was not in his line,\nthough he was also a good listener. All men--if only they had not been\nintimidated by him to begin with--opened their hearts with confidence\nin his presence; he followed the thread of another man's narrative so\nreadily and sympathetically. He had a great deal of good-nature--that\nspecial good-nature of which men are full, who are accustomed to feel\nthemselves superior to others. In arguments he seldom allowed his\nantagonist to express himself fully, he crushed him by his eager,\nvehement and passionate dialectic.\n\nDarya Mihailovna expressed herself in Russian. She prided herself on her\nknowledge of her own language, though French words and expressions\noften escaped her. She intentionally made use of simple popular terms of\nspeech; but not always successfully. Rudin's ear was not outraged by the\nstrange medley of language on Darya Mihailovna's lips, indeed he hardly\nhad an ear for it.\n\nDarya Mihailovna was exhausted at last and letting her head fall on the\ncushions of her easy-chair she fixed her eyes on Rudin and was silent.\n\n'I understand now,' began Rudin, speaking slowly, 'I understand why you\ncome every summer into the country. This period of rest is essential for\nyou; the peace of the country after your life in the capital refreshes\nand strengthens you. I am convinced that you must be profoundly\nsensitive to the beauties of nature.'\n\nDarya Mihailovna gave Rudin a sidelong look.\n\n'Nature--yes--yes--of course.... I am passionately fond of it; but do\nyou know, Dmitri Nikolaitch, even in the country one cannot do without\nsociety. And here there is practically none. Pigasov is the most\nintelligent person here.'\n\n'The cross old gentleman who was here last night?' inquired Rudin.\n\n'Yes.... In the country though, even he is of use--he sometimes makes\none laugh.'\n\n'He is by no means stupid,' returned Rudin, 'but he is on the wrong\npath. I don't know whether you will agree with me, Darya Mihailovna, but\nin negation--in complete and universal negation--there is no salvation\nto be found? Deny everything and you will easily pass for a man of\nability; it's a well-known trick. Simple-hearted people are quite ready\nto conclude that you are worth more than what you deny. And that's\noften an error. In the first place, you can pick holes in anything; and\nsecondly, even if you are right in what you say, it's the worse for\nyou; your intellect, directed by simple negation, grows colourless and\nwithers up. While you gratify your vanity, you are deprived of the true\nconsolations of thought; life--the essence of life--evades your\npetty and jaundiced criticism, and you end by scolding and becoming\nridiculous. Only one who loves has the right to censure and find fault.'\n\n'Voila, Monsieur Pigasov enterre,' observed Darya Mihailovna. 'What a\ngenius you have for defining a man! But Pigasov certainly would not have\neven understood you. He loves nothing but his own individuality.'\n\n'And he finds fault with that so as to have the right to find fault with\nothers,' Rudin put in.\n\nDarya Mihailovna laughed.\n\n'\"He judges the sound,\" as the saying is, \"the sound by the sick.\" By\nthe way, what do you think of the baron?'\n\n'The baron? He is an excellent man, with a good heart and a knowledge\n... but he has no character... and he will remain all his life half a\nsavant, half a man of the world, that is to say, a dilettante, that is\nto say, to speak plainly,--neither one thing nor the other. ... But it's\na pity!'\n\n'That was my own idea,' observed Darya Mihailovna. 'I read his\narticle.... _Entre nous... cela a assez peu de fond!_'\n\n'Who else have you here?' asked Rudin, after a pause.\n\nDarya Mihailovna knocked off the ash of her cigarette with her little\nfinger.\n\n'Oh, there is hardly any one else. Madame Lipin, Alexandra Pavlovna,\nwhom you saw yesterday; she is very sweet--but that is all. Her brother\nis also a capital fellow--_un parfait honnete homme_. The Prince Garin\nyou know. Those are all. There are two or three neighbours besides, but\nthey are really good for nothing. They either give themselves airs or\nare unsociable, or else quite unsuitably free and easy. The ladies, as\nyou know, I see nothing of. There is one other of our neighbours said\nto be a very cultivated, even a learned, man, but a dreadfully queer\ncreature, a whimsical character. _Alexandrine_, knows him, and I fancy\nis not indifferent to him.... Come, you ought to talk to her, Dmitri\nNikolaitch; she's a sweet creature. She only wants developing.'\n\n'I liked her very much,' remarked Rudin.\n\n'A perfect child, Dmitri Nikolaitch, an absolute baby. She has been\nmarried, _mais c'est tout comme_.... If I were a man, I should only fall\nin love with women like that.'\n\n'Really?'\n\n'Certainly. Such women are at least fresh, and freshness cannot be put\non.'\n\n'And can everything else?' Rudin asked, and he laughed--a thing which\nrarely happened with him. When he laughed his face assumed a strange,\nalmost aged appearance, his eyes disappeared, his nose was wrinkled up.\n\n'And who is this queer creature, as you call him, to whom Madame Lipin\nis not indifferent?' he asked.\n\n'A certain Lezhnyov, Mihailo Mihailitch, a landowner here.'\n\nRudin seemed astonished; he raised his head.\n\n'Lezhnyov--Mihailo Mihailitch?' he questioned. 'Is he a neighbour of\nyours?'\n\n'Yes. Do you know him?'\n\nRudin did not speak for a minute.\n\n'I used to know him long ago. He is a rich man, I suppose?' he added,\npulling the fringe on his chair.\n\n'Yes, he is rich, though he dresses shockingly, and drives in a racing\ndroshky like a bailiff. I have been anxious to get him to come here;\nhe is spoken of as clever; I have some business with him.... You know I\nmanage my property myself.'\n\nRudin bowed assent.\n\n'Yes; I manage it myself,' Darya Mihailovna continued. 'I don't\nintroduce any foreign crazes, but prefer what is our own, what is\nRussian, and, as you see, things don't seem to do badly,' she added,\nwith a wave of her hand.\n\n'I have always been persuaded,' observed Rudin urbanely, 'of the\nabsolutely mistaken position of those people who refuse to admit the\npractical intelligence of women.'\n\nDarya Mihailovna smiled affably.\n\n'You are very good to us,' was her comment 'But what was I going to say?\nWhat were we speaking of? Oh, yes; Lezhnyov: I have some business with\nhim about a boundary. I have several times invited him here, and even\nto-day I am expecting him; but there's no knowing whether he'll come...\nhe's such a strange creature.'\n\nThe curtain before the door was softly moved aside and the steward came\nin, a tall man, grey and bald, in a black coat, a white cravat, and a\nwhite waistcoat.\n\n'What is it?' inquired Darya Mihailovna, and, turning a little towards\nRudin, she added in a low voice, '_n'est ce pas, comme il ressemble a\nCanning?_'\n\n'Mihailo Mihailitch Lezhnyov is here,' announced the steward. 'Will you\nsee him?'\n\n'Good Heavens!' exclaimed Darya Mihailovna, 'speak of the devil----ask\nhim up.'\n\nThe steward went away.\n\n'He's such an awkward creature. Now he has come, it's at the wrong\nmoment; he has interrupted our talk.'\n\nRudin got up from his seat, but Darya Mihailovna stopped him.\n\n'Where are you going? We can discuss the matter as well before you. And\nI want you to analyse him too, as you did Pigasov. When you talk, _vous\ngravez comme avec un burin_. Please stay.' Rudin was going to protest,\nbut after a moment's thought he sat down.\n\nMihailo Mihailitch, whom the reader already knows, came into the room.\nHe wore the same grey overcoat, and in his sunburnt hands he carried the\nsame old foraging cap. He bowed tranquilly to Darya Mihailovna, and came\nup to the tea-table.\n\n'At last you have favoured me with a visit, Monsieur Lezhnyov!' began\nDarya Mihailovna. 'Pray sit down. You are already acquainted, I hear,'\nshe continued, with a gesture in Rudin's direction.\n\nLezhnyov looked at Rudin and smiled rather queerly.\n\n'I know Mr. Rudin,' he assented, with a slight bow.\n\n'We were together at the university,' observed Rudin in a low voice,\ndropping his eyes.\n\n'And we met afterwards also,' remarked Lezhnyov coldly.\n\nDarya Mihailovna looked at both in some perplexity and asked Lezhnyov to\nsit down He sat down.\n\n'You wanted to see me,' he began, 'on the subject of the boundary?'\n\n'Yes; about the boundary. But I also wished to see you in any case. We\nare near neighbours, you know, and all but relations.'\n\n'I am much obliged to you,' returned Lezhnyov. 'As regards the boundary,\nwe have perfectly arranged that matter with your manager; I have agreed\nto all his proposals.'\n\n'I knew that. But he told me that the contract could not be signed\nwithout a personal interview with you.'\n\n'Yes; that is my rule. By the way, allow me to ask: all your peasants, I\nbelieve, pay rent?'\n\n'Just so.'\n\n'And you trouble yourself about boundaries! That's very praiseworthy.'\n\nLezhnyov did not speak for a minute.\n\n'Well, I have come for a personal interview,' he said at last.\n\nDarya Mihailovna smiled.\n\n'I see you have come. You say that in such a tone.... You could not have\nbeen very anxious to come to see me.'\n\n'I never go anywhere,' rejoined Lezhnyov phlegmatically.\n\n'Not anywhere? But you go to see Alexandra Pavlovna.'\n\n'I am an old friend of her brother's.'\n\n'Her brother's! However, I never wish to force any one.... But pardon\nme, Mihailo Mihailitch, I am older than you, and I may be allowed to\ngive you advice; what charm do you find in such an unsociable way of\nliving? Or is my house in particular displeasing to you? You dislike\nme?'\n\n'I don't know you, Darya Mihailovna, and so I can't dislike you. You\nhave a splendid house; but I will confess to you frankly I don't like to\nhave to stand on ceremony. And I haven't a respectable suit, I haven't\nany gloves, and I don't belong to your set.'\n\n'By birth, by education, you belong to it, Mihailo Mihailitch! _vous\netes des notres_.'\n\n'Birth and education are all very well, Darya Mihailovna; that's not the\nquestion.'\n\n'A man ought to live with his fellows, Mihailo Mihailitch! What pleasure\nis there in sitting like Diogenes in his tub?'\n\n'Well, to begin with, he was very well off there, and besides, how do\nyou know I don't live with my fellows?'\n\nDarya Mihailovna bit her lip.\n\n'That's a different matter! It only remains for me to express my regret\nthat I have not the honour of being included in the number of your\nfriends.'\n\n'Monsieur Lezhnyov,' put in Rudin, 'seems to carry to excess a laudable\nsentiment--the love of independence.'\n\nLezhnyov made no reply, he only looked at Rudin. A short silence\nfollowed.\n\n'And so,' began Lezhnyov, getting up, 'I may consider our business as\nconcluded, and tell your manager to send me the papers.'\n\n'You may,... though I confess you are so uncivil I ought really to\nrefuse you.'\n\n'But you know this rearrangement of the boundary is far more in your\ninterest than in mine.'\n\nDarya Mihailovna shrugged her shoulders.\n\n'You will not even have luncheon here?' she asked.\n\n'Thank you; I never take luncheon, and I am in a hurry to get home.'\n\nDarya Mihailovna got up.\n\n'I will not detain you,' she said, going to the window. 'I will not\nventure to detain you.'\n\nLezhnyov began to take leave.\n\n'Good-bye, Monsieur Lezhnyov! Pardon me for having troubled you.'\n\n'Oh, not at all!' said Lezhnyov, and he went away.\n\n'Well, what do you say to that?' Darya Mihailovna asked of Rudin. 'I had\nheard he was eccentric, but really that was beyond everything!'\n\n'His is the same disease as Pigasov's,' observed Rudin, 'the desire of\nbeing original. One affects to be a Mephistopheles--the other a cynic.\nIn all that, there is much egoism, much vanity, but little truth, little\nlove. Indeed, there is even calculation of a sort in it. A man puts on\na mask of indifference and indolence so that some one will be sure to\nthink. \"Look at that man; what talents he has thrown away!\" But if\nyou come to look at him more attentively, there is no talent in him\nwhatever.'\n\n'_Et de deux!_' was Darya Mihailovna's comment. 'You are a terrible man\nat hitting people off. One can hide nothing from you.'\n\n'Do you think so?' said Rudin.... 'However,' he continued, 'I ought not\nreally to speak about Lezhnyov; I loved him, loved him as a friend...\nbut afterwards, through various misunderstandings...'\n\n'You quarrelled?'\n\n'No. But we parted, and parted, it seems, for ever.'\n\n'Ah, I noticed that the whole time of his visit you were not quite\nyourself.... But I am much indebted to you for this morning. I have\nspent my time extremely pleasantly. But one must know where to stop.\nI will let you go till lunch time and I will go and look after my\nbusiness. My secretary, you saw him--Constantin, _c'est lui qui est mon\nsecretaire_--must be waiting for me by now. I commend him to you; he is\nan excellent, obliging young man, and quite enthusiastic about you.\n_Au revoir, cher_ Dmitri Nikolaitch! How grateful I am to the baron for\nhaving made me acquainted with you!'\n\nAnd Darya Mihailovna held out her hand to Rudin. He first pressed it,\nthen raised it to his lips and went away to the drawing-room and from\nthere to the terrace. On the terrace he met Natalya.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nDarya Mihailovna's daughter, Natalya Alexyevna, at a first glance might\nfail to please. She had not yet had time to develop; she was thin, and\ndark, and stooped slightly. But her features were fine and regular,\nthough too large for a girl of seventeen. Specially beautiful was her\npure, smooth forehead above fine eyebrows, which seemed broken in the\nmiddle. She spoke little, but listened to others, and fixed her eyes\non them as though she were forming her own conclusions. She would often\nstand with listless hands, motionless and deep in thought; her face\nat such moments showed that her mind was at work within.... A scarcely\nperceptible smile would suddenly appear on her lips and vanish again;\nthen she would slowly raise her large dark eyes. '_Qu'a-vez-vous?_'\nMlle, Boncourt would ask her, and then she would begin to scold her,\nsaying that it was improper for a young girl to be absorbed and\nto appear absent-minded. But Natalya was not absent-minded; on the\ncontrary, she studied diligently; she read and worked eagerly. Her\nfeelings were strong and deep, but reserved; even as a child she seldom\ncried, and now she seldom even sighed and only grew slightly pale when\nanything distressed her. Her mother considered her a sensible, good sort\nof girl, calling her in a joke '_mon honnete homme de fille_' but had\nnot a very high opinion of her intellectual abilities. 'My Natalya\nhappily is cold,' she used to say, 'not like me--and it is better so.\nShe will be happy.' Darya Mihailovna was mistaken. But few mothers\nunderstand their daughters.\n\nNatalya loved Darya Mihailovna, but did not fully confide in her.\n\n'You have nothing to hide from me,' Darya Mihailovna said to her once,\n'or else you would be very reserved about it; you are rather a close\nlittle thing.'\n\nNatalya looked her mother in the face and thought, 'Why shouldn't I be\nreserved?'\n\nWhen Rudin met her on the terrace she was just going indoors with Mlle,\nBoncourt to put on her hat and go out into the garden. Her morning\noccupations were over. Natalya was not treated as a school-girl now.\nMlle, Boncourt had not given her lessons in mythology and geography for\na long while; but Natalya had every morning to read historical books,\ntravels, or other instructive works with her. Darya Mihailovna selected\nthem, ostensibly on a special system of her own. In reality she simply\ngave Natalya everything which the French bookseller forwarded her from\nPetersburg, except, of course, the novels of Dumas Fils and Co. These\nnovels Darya Mihailovna read herself. Mlle, Boncourt looked specially\nseverely and sourly through her spectacles when Natalya was reading\nhistorical books; according to the old French lady's ideas all history\nwas filled with _impermissible_ things, though for some reason or other\nof all the great men of antiquity she herself knew only one--Cambyses,\nand of modern times--Louis XIV. and Napoleon, whom she could not endure.\nBut Natalya read books too, the existence of which Mlle, Boncourt did\nnot suspect; she knew all Pushkin by heart.\n\nNatalya flushed slightly at meeting Rudin.\n\n'Are you going for a walk?' he asked her.\n\n'Yes. We are going into the garden.'\n\n'May I come with you?'\n\nNatalya looked at Mlle, Boncourt\n\n'_Mais certainement, monsieur; avec plaisir_,' said the old lady\npromptly.\n\nRudin took his hat and walked with them.\n\nNatalya at first felt some awkwardness in walking side by side with\nRudin on the same little path; afterwards she felt more at ease. He\nbegan to question her about her occupations and how she liked the\ncountry. She replied not without timidity, but without that hasty\nbashfulness which is so often taken for modesty. Her heart was beating.\n\n'You are not bored in the country?' asked Rudin, taking her in with a\nsidelong glance.\n\n'How can one be bored in the country? I am very glad we are here. I am\nvery happy here.'\n\n'You are happy--that is a great word. However, one can understood it;\nyou are young.'\n\nRudin pronounced this last phrase rather strangely; either he envied\nNatalya or he was sorry for her.\n\n'Yes! youth!' he continued, 'the whole aim of science is to reach\nconsciously what is bestowed on youth for nothing.'\n\nNatalya looked attentively at Rudin; she did not understand him.\n\n'I have been talking all this morning with your mother,' he went on;\n'she is an extraordinary woman. I understand why all our poets sought\nher friendship. Are you fond of poetry?' he added, after a pause.\n\n'He is putting me through an examination,' thought Natalya, and aloud:\n'Yes, I am very fond of it.'\n\n'Poetry is the language of the gods. I love poems myself. But poetry is\nnot only in poems; it is diffused everywhere, it is around us. Look at\nthose trees, that sky on all sides there is the breath of beauty, and of\nlife, and where there is life and beauty, there is poetry also.'\n\n'Let us sit down here on this bench,' he added. 'Here--so. I somehow\nfancy that when you are more used to me (and he looked her in the face\nwith a smile) 'we shall be friends, you and I. What do you think?'\n\n'He treats me like a school-girl,' Natalya reflected again, and, not\nknowing what to say, she asked him whether he intended to remain long in\nthe country.\n\n'All the summer and autumn, and perhaps the winter too. I am a very poor\nman, you know; my affairs are in confusion, and, besides, I am tired now\nof wandering from place to place. The time has come to rest.'\n\nNatalya was surprised.\n\n'Is it possible you feel that it is time for you to rest?' she asked him\ntimidly.\n\nRudin turned so as to face Natalya.\n\n'What do you mean by that?'\n\n'I mean,' she replied in some embarrassment, 'that others may rest; but\nyou... you ought to work, to try to be useful. Who, if not you----'\n\n'I thank you for your flattering opinion,' Rudin interrupted her. 'To be\nuseful... it is easy to say!' (He passed his hand over his face.) 'To be\nuseful!' he repeated. 'Even if I had any firm conviction, how could I\nbe useful?--even if I had faith in my own powers, where is one to find\ntrue, sympathetic souls?'\n\nAnd Rudin waved his hand so hopelessly, and let his head sink so\ngloomily, that Natalya involuntarily asked herself, were those really\nhis--those enthusiastic words full of the breath of hope, she had heard\nthe evening before.\n\n'But no,' he said, suddenly tossing back his lion-like mane, 'that is\nall folly, and you are right. I thank you, Natalya Alexyevna, I thank\nyou truly.' (Natalya absolutely did not know what he was thanking her\nfor.) 'Your single phrase has recalled to me my duty, has pointed out\nto me my path.... Yes, I must act. I must not bury my talent, if I have\nany; I must not squander my powers on talk alone--empty, profitless\ntalk--on mere words,' and his words flowed in a stream. He spoke nobly,\nardently, convincingly, of the sin of cowardice and indolence, of the\nnecessity of action. He lavished reproaches on himself, maintained that\nto discuss beforehand what you mean to do is as unwise as to prick with\na pin the swelling fruit, that it is only a vain waste of strength\nand sap. He declared that there was no noble idea which would not gain\nsympathy, that the only people who remained misunderstood were those who\neither did not know themselves what they wanted, or were not worthy\nto be understood. He spoke at length, and ended by once more thanking\nNatalya Alexyevna, and utterly unexpectedly pressed her hand,\nexclaiming. 'You are a noble, generous creature!'\n\nThis outburst horrified Mlle, Boncourt, who in spite of her forty years'\nresidence in Russia understood Russian with difficulty, and was only\nmoved to admiration by the splendid rapidity and flow of words on\nRudin's lips. In her eyes, however, he was something of the nature of\na virtuoso or artist; and from people of that kind, according to her\nnotions, it was impossible to demand a strict adherence to propriety.\n\nShe got up and drew her skirts with a jerk around her, observed to\nNatalya that it was time to go in, especially as M. Volinsoff (so she\nspoke of Volintsev) was to be there to lunch.\n\n'And here he is,' she added, looking up one of the avenues which led to\nthe house, and in fact Volintsev appeared not far off.\n\nHe came up with a hesitating step, greeted all of them from a distance,\nand with an expression of pain on his face he turned to Natalya and\nsaid:\n\n'Oh, you are having a walk?'\n\n'Yes,' answered Natalya, 'we were just going home.'\n\n'Ah!' was Volintsev's reply. 'Well, let us go,' and they all walked\ntowards the house.\n\n'How is your sister?' Rudin inquired, in a specially cordial tone, of\nVolintsev. The evening before, too, he had been very gracious to him.\n\n'Thank you; she is quite well. She will perhaps be here to-day.... I\nthink you were discussing something when I came up?'\n\n'Yes; I have had a conversation with Natalya Alexyevna. She said one\nthing to me which affected me strongly.'\n\nVolintsev did not ask what the one thing was, and in profound silence\nthey all returned to Darya Mihailovna's house.\n\nBefore dinner the party was again assembled in the drawing-room.\nPigasov, however, did not come. Rudin was not at his best; he did\nnothing but press Pandalevsky to play Beethoven. Volintsev was silent\nand stared at the floor. Natalya did not leave her mother's side, and\nwas at times lost in thought, and then bent over her work. Bassistoff\ndid not take his eyes off Rudin, constantly on the alert for him to say\nsomething brilliant. About three hours were passed in this way rather\nmonotonously. Alexandra Pavlovna did not come to dinner, and when they\nrose from table Volintsev at once ordered his carriage to be ready, and\nslipped away without saying good-bye to any one.\n\nHis heart was heavy. He had long loved Natalya, and was repeatedly\nresolving to make her an offer.... She was kindly disposed to him,--but\nher heart remained unmoved; he saw that clearly. He did not hope to\ninspire in her a tenderer sentiment, and was only waiting for the time\nwhen she should be perfectly at home with him and intimate with him.\nWhat could have disturbed him? what change had he noticed in these two\ndays? Natalya had behaved to him exactly the same as before....\n\nWhether it was that some idea had come upon him that he perhaps did not\nknow Natalya's character at all--that she was more a stranger to him\nthan he had thought,--or jealousy had begun to work in him, or he had\nsome dim presentiment of ill... anyway, he suffered, though he tried to\nreason with himself.\n\nWhen he came in to his sister's room, Lezhnyov was sitting with her.\n\n'Why have you come back so early?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna.\n\n'Oh! I was bored.'\n\n'Was Rudin there?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\nVolintsev flung down his cap and sat down. Alexandra Pavlovna turned\neagerly to him.\n\n'Please, Serezha, help me to convince this obstinate man (she signified\nLezhnyov) that Rudin is extraordinarily clever and eloquent.'\n\nVolintsev muttered something.\n\n'But I am not disputing at all with you,' Lezhnyov began. 'I have no\ndoubt of the cleverness and eloquence of Mr. Rudin; I only say that I\ndon't like him.'\n\n'But have you seen him?' inquired Volintsev.\n\n'I saw him this morning at Darya Mihallovna's. You know he is her\nfirst favourite now. The time will come when she will part with\nhim--Pandalevsky is the only man she will never part with--but now he is\nsupreme. I saw him, to be sure! He was sitting there,--and she showed me\noff to him, \"see, my good friend, what queer fish we have here!\" But I\nam not a prize horse, to be trotted out on show, so I took myself off.'\n\n'But how did you come to be there?'\n\n'About a boundary; but that was all nonsense; she simply wanted to\nhave a look at my physiognomy. She's a fine lady,--that's explanation\nenough!'\n\n'His superiority is what offends you--that's what it is!' began\nAlexandra Pavlovna warmly, 'that's what you can't forgive. But I am\nconvinced that besides his cleverness he must have an excellent heart as\nwell. You should see his eyes when he----'\n\n'\"Of purity exalted speaks,\"' quoted Lezhnyov.\n\n'You make me angry, and I shall cry. I am heartily sorry I did not go\nto Darya Mihailovna's, but stopped with you. You don't deserve it. Leave\noff teasing me,' she added, in an appealing voice, 'You had much better\ntell me about his youth.'\n\n'Rudin's youth?'\n\n'Yes, of course. Didn't you tell me you knew him well, and had known him\na long time?'\n\nLezhnyov got up and walked up and down the room.\n\n'Yes,' he began, 'I do know him well. You want me to tell you about\nhis youth? Very well. He was born in T----, and was the son of a poor\nlandowner, who died soon after. He was left alone with his mother. She\nwas a very good woman, and she idolised him; she lived on nothing but\noatmeal, and every penny she had she spent on him. He was educated in\nMoscow, first at the expense of some uncle, and afterwards, when he was\ngrown up and fully fledged, at the expense of a rich prince whose favour\nhe had courted--there, I beg your pardon, I won't do it again--with whom\nhe had made friends. Then he went to the university. At the university\nI got to know him and we became intimate friends. I will tell you\nabout our life in those days some other time, I can't now. Then he went\nabroad....'\n\nLezhnyov continued to walk up and down the room; Alexandra Pavlovna\nfollowed him with her eyes.\n\n'While he was abroad,' he continued, 'Rudin wrote very rarely to his\nmother, and paid her altogether only one visit for ten days.... The old\nlady died without him, cared for by strangers; but up to her death\nshe never took her eyes off his portrait. I went to see her when I was\nstaying in T----. She was a kind and hospitable woman; she always used\nto feast me on cherry jam. She loved her Mitya devotedly. People of the\nPetchorin type tell us that we always love those who are least capable\nof feeling love themselves; but it's my idea that all mothers love their\nchildren especially when they are absent. Afterwards I met Rudin\nabroad. Then he was connected with a lady, one of our countrywomen, a\nbluestocking, no longer young, and plain, as a bluestocking is bound to\nbe. He lived a good while with her, and at last threw her over--or no, I\nbeg pardon,--she threw him over. It was then that I too threw him over.\nThat's all.'\n\nLezhnyov ceased speaking, passed his hand over his brow, and dropped\ninto a chair as if he were exhausted.\n\n'Do you know, Mihailo Mihailitch,' began Alexandra Pavlovna, 'you are\na spiteful person, I see; indeed you are no better than Pigasov. I am\nconvinced that all you have told me is true, that you have not made up\nanything, and yet in what an unfavourable light you have put it all! The\npoor old mother, her devotion, her solitary death, and that lady--What\ndoes it all amount to? You know that it's easy to put the life of the\nbest of men in such colours--and without adding anything, observe--that\nevery one would be shocked! But that too is slander of a kind!'\n\nLezhnyov got up and again walked about the room.\n\n'I did not want to shock you at all, Alexandra Pavlovna,' he brought\nout at last, 'I am not given to slander. However,' he added, after a\nmoment's thought, 'in reality there is a foundation of fact in what you\nsaid. I did not mean to slander Rudin; but--who knows! very likely he\nhas had time to change since those days--very possibly I am unjust to\nhim.'\n\n'Ah! you see. So promise me that you will renew your acquaintance with\nhim, and will get to know him thoroughly and then report your final\nopinion of him to me.'\n\n'As you please. But why are you so quiet, Sergei Pavlitch?'\n\nVolintsev started and raised his head, as though he had just waked up.\n\n'What can I say? I don't know him. Besides, my head aches to-day.'\n\n'Yes, you look rather pale this evening,' remarked Alexandra Pavlovna;\n'are you unwell?'\n\n'My head aches,' repeated Volintsev, and he went away.\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna and Lezhnyov looked after him, and exchanged glances,\nthough they said nothing. What was passing in Volintsev's heart was no\nmystery to either of them.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nMore than two months had passed; during the whole of that period Rudin\nhad scarcely been away from Darya Mihailovna's house. She could not\nget on without him. To talk to him about herself and to listen to his\neloquence became a necessity for her. He would have taken his leave on\none occasion, on the ground that all his money was spent; she gave\nhim five hundred roubles. He borrowed two hundred roubles more from\nVolintsev. Pigasov visited Darya Mihailovna much less frequently than\nbefore; Rudin crushed him by his presence. And indeed it was not only\nPigasov who was conscious of an oppression.\n\n'I don't like that prig,' Pigasov used to say, 'he expresses himself so\naffectedly like a hero of a romance. If he says \"I,\" he stops in rapt\nadmiration, \"I, yes, I!\" and the phrases he uses are all so drawn-out;\nif you sneeze, he will begin at once to explain to you exactly why you\nsneezed and did not cough. If he praises you, it's just as if he were\ncreating you a prince. If he begins to abuse himself, he humbles himself\ninto the dust--come, one thinks, he will never dare to face the light\nof day after that. Not a bit of it! It only cheers him up, as if he'd\ntreated himself to a glass of grog.'\n\nPandalevsky was a little afraid of Rudin, and cautiously tried to win\nhis favour. Volintsev had got on to curious terms with him. Rudin called\nhim a knight-errant, and sang his praises to his face and behind his\nback; but Volintsev could not bring himself to like him and always felt\nan involuntary impatience and annoyance when Rudin devoted himself to\nenlarging on his good points in his presence. 'Is he making fun of me?'\nhe thought, and he felt a throb of hatred in his heart. He tried to keep\nhis feelings in check, but in vain; he was jealous of him on Natalya's\naccount. And Rudin himself, though he always welcomed Volintsev with\neffusion, though he called him a knight-errant, and borrowed money from\nhim, did not feel exactly friendly towards him. It would be difficult\nto define the feelings of these two men when they pressed each other's\nhands like friends and looked into each other's eyes.\n\nBassistoff continued to adore Rudin, and to hang on every word he\nuttered. Rudin paid him very little attention. Once he spent a whole\nmorning with him, discussing the weightiest problems of life, and\nawakening his keenest enthusiasm, but afterwards he took no further\nnotice of him. Evidently it was only a phrase when he said that he was\nseeking for pure and devoted souls. With Lezhnyov, who began to be a\nfrequent visitor at the house, Rudin did not enter into discussion;\nhe seemed even to avoid him. Lezhnyov, on his part, too, treated him\ncoldly. He did not, however, report his final conclusions about him,\nwhich somewhat disquieted Alexandra Pavlovna. She was fascinated\nby Rudin, but she had confidence in Lezhnyov. Every one in Darya\nMihailovna's house humoured Rudin's fancies; his slightest preferences\nwere carried out He determined the plans for the day. Not a single\n_partie de plaisir_ was arranged without his co-operation.\n\nHe was not, however, very fond of any kind of impromptu excursion or\npicnic, and took part in them rather as grown-up people take part\nin children's games, with an air of kindly, but rather wearied,\nfriendliness. He took interest in everything else, however. He discussed\nwith Darya Mihailovna her plans for the estate, the education of her\nchildren, her domestic arrangements, and her affairs generally; he\nlistened to her schemes, and was not bored by petty details, and, in his\nturn, proposed reforms and made suggestions. Darya Mihailovna agreed to\nthem in words--and that was all. In matters of business she was really\nguided by the advice of her bailiff--an elderly, one-eyed Little\nRussian, a good-natured and crafty old rogue. 'What is old is fat,\nwhat is new is thin,' he used to say, with a quiet smile, winking his\nsolitary eye.\n\nNext to Darya Mihailovna, it was Natalya to whom Rudin used to talk\nmost often and at most length. He used privately to give her books, to\nconfide his plans to her, and to read her the first pages of the essays\nand other works he had in his mind. Natalya did not always fully grasp\nthe significance of them.\n\nBut Rudin did not seem to care much about her understanding, so long\nas she listened to him. His intimacy with Natalya was not altogether\npleasing to Darya Mihailovna. 'However,' she thought, 'let her chatter\naway with him in the country. She amuses him as a little girl now. There\nis no great harm in it, and, at any rate, it will improve her mind. At\nPetersburg I will soon put a stop to it.'\n\nDarya Mihailovna was mistaken. Natalya did not chatter to Rudin like a\nschool-girl; she eagerly drank in his words, she tried to penetrate to\ntheir full significance; she submitted her thoughts, her doubts to him;\nhe became her leader, her guide. So far, it was only the brain that\nwas stirred, but in the young the brain is not long stirred alone. What\nsweet moments Natalya passed when at times in the garden on the seat,\nin the transparent shade of the aspen tree, Rudin began to read Goethe's\n_Faust_, Hoffman, or Bettina's letters, or Novalis, constantly stopping\nand explaining what seemed obscure to her. Like almost all Russian\ngirls, she spoke German badly, but she understood it well, and Rudin was\nthoroughly imbued with German poetry, German romanticism and philosophy,\nand he drew her after him into these forbidden lands. Unimagined\nsplendours were revealed there to her earnest eyes from the pages of the\nbook which Rudin held on his knee; a stream of divine visions, of new,\nilluminating ideas, seemed to flow in rhythmic music into her soul, and\nin her heart, moved with the high delight of noble feeling, slowly was\nkindled and fanned into a flame the holy spark of enthusiasm.\n\n'Tell me, Dmitri Nikolaitch,' she began one day, sitting by the window\nat her embroidery-frame, 'shall you be in Petersburg in the winter?'\n\n'I don't know,' replied Rudin, as he let the book he had been glancing\nthrough fall upon his knee; 'if I can find the means, I shall go.'\n\nHe spoke dejectedly; he felt tired, and had done nothing all day.\n\n'I think you are sure to find the means.'\n\nRudin shook his head.\n\n'You think so!'\n\nAnd he looked away expressively.\n\nNatalya was on the point of replying, but she checked herself.\n\n'Look.' began Rudin, with a gesture towards the window, 'do you see that\napple-tree? It is broken by the weight and abundance of its own fruit.\nTrue emblem of genius.'\n\n'It is broken because it had no support,' replied Natalya\n\n'I understand you, Natalya Alexyevna, but it is not so easy for a man to\nfind such a support.'\n\n'I should think the sympathy of others... in any case isolation\nalways....'\n\nNatalya was rather confused, and flushed a little.\n\n'And what will you do in the country in the winter?' she added\nhurriedly.\n\n'What shall I do? I shall finish my larger essay--you know it--on\n\"Tragedy in Life and in Art.\" I described to you the outline of it the\nday before yesterday, and shall send it to you.'\n\n'And you will publish it?'\n\n'No.'\n\n'No? For whose sake will you work then?'\n\n'And if it were for you?'\n\nNatalya dropped her eyes.\n\n'It would be far above me.'\n\n'What, may I ask, is the subject of the essay?' Bassistoff inquired\nmodestly. He was sitting a little distance away.\n\n'\"Tragedy in Life and in Art,\"' repeated Rudin. 'Mr. Bassistoff too will\nread it. But I have not altogether settled on the fundamental motive. I\nhave not so far worked out for myself the tragic significance of love.'\n\nRudin liked to talk of love, and frequently did so. At first, at the\nword 'love,' Mlle, Boncourt started, and pricked up her eyes like an old\nwar-horse at the sound of the trumpet; but afterwards she had grown used\nto it, and now only pursed up her lips and took snuff at intervals.\n\n'It seems to me,' said Natalya timidly, 'that the tragic in love is\nunrequited love.'\n\n'Not at all!' replied Rudin; 'that is rather the comic side of love.\n... The question must be put in an altogether different way... one must\nattack it more deeply.... Love!' he pursued, 'all is mystery in love;\nhow it comes, how it develops, how it passes away. Sometimes it comes\nall at once, undoubting, glad as day; sometimes it smoulders like fire\nunder ashes, and only bursts into a flame in the heart when all is over;\nsometimes it winds its way into the heart like a serpent, and suddenly\nslips out of it again.... Yes, yes; it is the great problem. But who\ndoes love in our days? Who is so bold as to love?'\n\nAnd Rudin grew pensive.\n\n'Why is it we have not seen Sergei Pavlitch for so long?' he asked\nsuddenly.\n\nNatalya blushed, and bent her head over her embroidery frame.\n\n'I don't know,' she murmured.\n\n'What a splendid, generous fellow he is!' Rudin declared, standing up.\n'It is one of the best types of a Russian gentleman.'\n\nMlle, Boncourt gave him a sidelong look out of her little French eyes.\n\nRudin walked up and down the room.\n\n'Have you noticed,' he began, turning sharply round on his heels, 'that\non the oak--and the oak is a strong tree--the old leaves only fall off\nwhen the new leaves begin to grow?'\n\n'Yes,' answered Natalya slowly, 'I have noticed it'\n\n'That is what happens to an old love in a strong heart; it is dead\nalready, but still it holds its place; only another new love can drive\nit out.'\n\nNatalya made no reply.\n\n'What does that mean?' she was thinking.\n\nRudin stood still, tossed his hair back, and walked away.\n\nNatalya went to her own room. She sat a long while on her little bed in\nperplexity, pondering over Rudin's last words. All at once she clasped\nher hands and began to weep bitterly. What she was weeping for--who can\ntell? She herself could not tell why her tears were falling so fast.\nShe dried them; but they flowed afresh, like water from a long-pent-up\nsource.\n\nOn this same day Alexandra Pavlovna had a conversation with Lezhnyov\nabout Rudin. At first he bore all her attacks in silence; but at last\nshe succeeded in rousing him into talk.\n\n'I see,' she said to him, 'you dislike Dmitri Nikolaitch, as you did\nbefore. I purposely refrained from questioning you till now; but now you\nhave had time to make up your mind whether there is any change in him,\nand I want to know why you don't like him.'\n\n'Very well,' answered Lezhnyov with his habitual phlegm, 'since your\npatience is exhausted; only look here, don't get angry.'\n\n'Come, begin, begin.'\n\n'And let me have my say to the end.'\n\n'Of course, of course; begin.'\n\n'Very well,' said Lezhnyov, dropping lazily on to the sofa; 'I admit\nthat I certainly don't like Rudin. He is a clever fellow.'\n\n'I should think so.'\n\n'He is a remarkably clever man, though in reality essentially shallow.'\n\n'It's easy to say that.'\n\n'Though essentially shallow,' repeated Lezhnyov; 'but there's no great\nharm in that; we are all shallow. I will not even quarrel with him for\nbeing a tyrant at heart, lazy, ill-informed!'\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna clasped her hands.\n\n'Rudin--ill-informed!' she cried.\n\n'Ill-informed!' repeated Lezhnyov in precisely the same voice, 'that he\nlikes to live at other people's expanse, to cut a good figure, and so\nforth--all that's natural enough. But what's wrong is, that he is as\ncold as ice.'\n\n'He cold! that fiery soul cold!' interrupted Alexandra Pavlovna.\n\n'Yes, cold as ice, and he knows it, and pretends to be fiery. What's\nbad,' pursued Lezhnyov, gradually growing warm, 'he is playing a\ndangerous game--not dangerous for him, of course; he does not risk a\nfarthing, not a straw on it--but others stake their soul.'\n\n'Whom and what are you talking of? I don't understand you,' said\nAlexandra Pavlovna.\n\n'What's bad, he isn't honest. He's a clever man, certainly; he ought to\nknow the value of his own words, and he brings them out as if they were\nworth something to him. I don't dispute that he's a fine speaker,\nbut not in the Russian style. And indeed, after all, fine speaking is\npardonable in a boy, but at his years it is disgraceful to take pleasure\nin the sound of his own voice, and to show off!'\n\n'I think, Mihailo Mihailitch, it's all the same for those who hear him,\nwhether he is showing off or not.'\n\n'Excuse me, Alexandra Pavlovna, it is not all the same. One man says a\nword to me and it thrills me all over, another may say the same thing,\nor something still finer--and I don't prick up my ears. Why is that?'\n\n'You don't, perhaps,' put in Alexandra Pavlovna.\n\n'I don't,' retorted Lezhnyov, 'though perhaps my ears are long enough.\nThe point is, that Rudin's words seem to remain mere words, and never to\npass into deeds--and meanwhile even words may trouble a young heart, may\nbe the ruin of it.'\n\n'But whom do you mean, Mihailo Mihailitch?'\n\nLezhnyov paused.\n\n'Do you want to know whom I mean, Natalya Alexyevna?'\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna was taken aback for a moment, but she began to smile\nthe instant after.\n\n'Really,' she began, 'what queer ideas you always have! Natalya is still\na child; and besides, if there were anything in what you say, do you\nsuppose Darya Mihailovna----'\n\n'Darya Mihailovna is an egoist to begin with, and lives for herself; and\nthen she is so convinced of her own skill in educating her children that\nit does not even enter her head to feel uneasy about them. Nonsense! how\nis it possible: she has but to give one nod, one majestic glance--and\nall is over, all is obedience again. That's what that lady imagines; she\nfancies herself a female Maecenas, a learned woman, and God knows what,\nbut in fact she is nothing more than a silly, worldly old woman. But\nNatalya is not a baby; believe me, she thinks more, and more profoundly\ntoo, than you and I do. And that her true, passionate, ardent nature\nmust fall in with an actor, a flirt like this! But of course that's in\nthe natural order of things.'\n\n'A flirt! Do you mean that he is a flirt?'\n\n'Of course he is. And tell me yourself, Alexandra Pavlovna, what is his\nposition in Darya Mihailovna's house? To be the idol, the oracle of\nthe household, to meddle in the arrangements, all the gossip and petty\ntrifles of the house--is that a dignified position for a man to be in?'\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna looked at Lezhnyov in surprise.\n\n'I don't know you, Mihailo Mihailitch,' she began to say. 'You are\nflushed and excited. I believe there must be something else hidden under\nthis.'\n\n'Oh, so that's it! Tell a woman the truth from conviction, and she will\nnever rest easy till she has invented some petty outside cause quite\nbeside the point which has made you speak in precisely that manner and\nno other.'\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna began to get angry.\n\n'Bravo, Monsieur Lezhnyov! You begin to be as bitter against women as\nMr. Pigasov; but you may say what you like, penetrating as you are, it's\nhard for me to believe that you understand every one and everything.\nI think you are mistaken. According to your ideas, Rudin is a kind of\nTartuffe.'\n\n'No, the point is, that he is not even a Tartuffe. Tartuffe at least\nknew what he was aiming at; but this fellow, for all his cleverness----'\n\n'Well, well, what of him? Finish your sentence, you unjust, horrid man!'\n\nLezhnyov got up.\n\n'Listen, Alexandra Pavlovna,' he began, 'it is you who are unjust, not\nI. You are cross with me for my harsh criticism of Rudin; I have the\nright to speak harshly of him! I have paid dearly enough, perhaps, for\nthat privilege. I know him well: I lived a long while with him. You\nremember I promised to tell you some time about our life at Moscow. It\nis clear that I must do so now. But will you have the patience to hear\nme out?'\n\n'Tell me, tell me!'\n\n'Very well, then.'\n\nLezhnyov began walking with measured steps about the room, coming to a\nstandstill at times with his head bent.\n\n'You know, perhaps,' he began, 'or perhaps you don't know, that I was\nleft an orphan at an early age, and by the time I was seventeen I had no\none in authority over me. I lived at my aunt's at Moscow, and did just\nas I liked. As a boy I was rather silly and conceited, and liked to\nbrag and show off. After my entrance at the university I behaved like\na regular schoolboy, and soon got into a scrape. I won't tell you\nabout it; it's not worth while. But I told a lie about it, and rather\na shameful lie. It all came out, and I was put to open shame. I lost my\nhead and cried like a child. It happened at a friend's rooms before a\nlot of fellow-students. They all began to laugh at me, all except one\nstudent, who, observe, had been more indignant with me than any, so long\nas I had been obstinate and would not confess my deceit. He took pity\non me, perhaps; anyway, he took me by the arm and led me away to his\nlodging.'\n\n'Was that Rudin?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna.\n\n'No, it was not Rudin... it was a man... he is dead now... he was an\nextraordinary man. His name was Pokorsky. To describe him in a few words\nis beyond my powers, but directly one begins to speak of him, one does\nnot want to speak of any one else. He had a noble, pure heart, and an\nintelligence such as I have never met since. Pokorsky lived in a little,\nlow-pitched room, in an attic of an old wooden house. He was very poor,\nand supported himself somehow by giving lessons. Sometimes he had not\neven a cup of tea to offer to his friends, and his only sofa was so\nshaky that it was like being on board ship. But in spite of these\ndiscomforts a great many people used to go to see him. Every one loved\nhim; he drew all hearts to him. You would not believe what sweetness and\nhappiness there was in sitting in his poor little room! It was in his\nroom I met Rudin. He had already parted from his prince before then.'\n\n'What was there so exceptional in this Pokorsky?' asked Alexandra\nPavlovna.\n\n'How can I tell you? Poetry and truth--that was what drew all of us to\nhim. For all his clear, broad intellect he was as sweet and simple as a\nchild. Even now I have his bright laugh ringing in my ears, and at the\nsame time he\n\n  Burnt his midnight lamp\n  Before the holy and the true,\n\nas a dear half-cracked fellow, the poet of our set, expressed it.'\n\n'And how did he talk?' Alexandra Pavlovna questioned again.\n\n'He talked well when he was in the mood, but not remarkably so. Rudin\neven then was twenty times as eloquent as he.'\n\nLezhnyov stood still and folded his arms.\n\n'Pokorsky and Rudin were very unlike. There was more flash and\nbrilliance about Rudin, more fluency, and perhaps more enthusiasm. He\nappeared far more gifted than Pokorsky, and yet all the while he was a\npoor creature by comparison. Rudin was excellent at developing any idea,\nhe was capital in argument, but his ideas did not come from his own\nbrain; he borrowed them from others, especially from Pokorsky. Pokorsky\nwas quiet and soft--even weak in appearance--and he was fond of women to\ndistraction, and fond of dissipation, and he would never take an insult\nfrom any one. Rudin seemed full of fire, and courage, and life, but at\nheart he was cold and almost a coward, until his vanity was touched,\nthen he would not stop at anything. He always tried to get an ascendency\nover people, but he got it in the name of general principles and ideas,\nand certainly had a great influence over many. To tell the truth, no one\nloved him; I was the only one, perhaps, who was attached to him. They\nsubmitted to his yoke, but all were devoted to Pokorsky. Rudin never\nrefused to argue and discuss with any one he met. He did not read very\nmuch, though far more anyway than Pokorsky and all the rest of us;\nbesides, he had a well-arranged intellect, and a prodigious memory, and\nwhat an effect that has on young people! They must have generalisations,\nconclusions, incorrect if you like, perhaps, but still conclusions! A\nperfectly sincere man never suits them. Try to tell young people that\nyou cannot give them the whole truth, and they will not listen to you.\nBut you mustn't deceive them either. You want to half believe yourself\nthat you are in possession of the truth. That was why Rudin had such a\npowerful effect on all of us. I told you just now, you know, that he\nhad not read much, but he read philosophical books, and his brain was\nso constructed that he extracted at once from what he had read all the\ngeneral principles, penetrated to the very root of the thing, and then\nmade deductions from it in all directions--consecutive, brilliant,\nsound ideas, throwing up a wide horizon to the soul. Our set consisted\nthen--it's only fair to say--of boys, and not well-informed boys.\nPhilosophy, art, science, and even life itself were all mere words\nto us--ideas if you like, fascinating and magnificent ideas, but\ndisconnected and isolated. The general connection of those ideas, the\ngeneral principle of the universe we knew nothing of, and had had no\ncontact with, though we discussed it vaguely, and tried to form an idea\nof it for ourselves. As we listened to Rudin, we felt for the first time\nas if we had grasped it at last, this general connection, as if a veil\nhad been lifted at last! Even admitting he was not uttering an original\nthought--what of that! Order and harmony seemed to be established in all\nwe knew; all that had been disconnected seemed to fall into a whole,\nto take shape and grow like a building before our eyes, all was full of\nlight and inspiration everywhere.... Nothing remained meaningless\nand undesigned, in everything wise design and beauty seemed apparent,\neverything took a clear and yet mystic significance; every isolated\nevent of life fell into harmony, and with a kind of holy awe and\nreverence and sweet emotion we felt ourselves to be, as it were, the\nliving vessels of eternal truth, her instruments destined for some\ngreat... Doesn't it all seem very ridiculous to you?'\n\n'Not the least!' replied Alexandra Pavlovna slowly; 'why should you\nthink so? I don't altogether understand you, but I don't think it\nridiculous.'\n\n'We have had time to grow wiser since then, of course,' Lezhnyov\ncontinued, 'all that may seem childish to us now.... But, I repeat, we\nall owed a great deal to Rudin then. Pokorsky was incomparably nobler\nthan he, no question about it; Pokorsky breathed fire and strength into\nall of us; but he was often depressed and silent. He was nervous and not\nrobust; but when he did stretch his wings--good heavens!--what a flight!\nup to the very height of the blue heavens! And there was a great deal\nof pettiness in Rudin, handsome and stately as he was; he was a gossip,\nindeed, and he loved to have a hand in everything, arranging and\nexplaining everything. His fussy activity was inexhaustible--he was a\ndiplomatist by nature. I speak of him as I knew him then. But unluckily\nhe has not altered. On the other hand, his ideals haven't altered at\nfive-and-thirty! It's not every one who can say that of himself!'\n\n'Sit down,' said Alexandra Pavlovna, 'why do you keep moving about like\na pendulum?'\n\n'I like it better,' answered Lezhnyov. 'Well, after I had come into\nPokorsky's set, I may tell you, Alexandra Pavlovna, I was quite\ntransformed; I grew humble and anxious to learn; I studied, and was\nhappy and reverent--in a word, I felt just as though I had entered a\nholy temple. And really, when I recall our gatherings, upon my word\nthere was much that was fine, even touching, in them. Imagine a party of\nfive or six lads gathered together, one tallow candle burning. The tea\nwas dreadful stuff, and the cake was stale, very stale; but you should\nhave seen our faces, you should have heard our talk! Eyes were sparkling\nwith enthusiasm, cheeks flushed, and hearts beating, while we talked of\nGod, and truth, of the future of humanity, and poetry ... often what\nwe said was absurd, and we were in ecstasies over nonsense; but what of\nthat?... Pokorsky sat with crossed legs, his pale cheek on his hand, and\nhis eyes seemed to shed light. Rudin stood in the middle of the room and\nspoke, spoke splendidly, for all the world like the young Demosthenes\nby the resounding sea; our poet, Subotin of the dishevelled locks, would\nnow and then throw out some abrupt exclamation as though in his sleep,\nwhile Scheller, a student forty years old, the son of a German pastor,\nwho had the reputation among us of a profound thinker, thanks to his\neternal, inviolable silence, held his peace with more rapt solemnity\nthan usual; even the lively Shtchitof, the Aristophanes of our reunions,\nwas subdued and did no more than smile, while two or three novices\nlistened with reverent transports.... And the night seemed to fly by on\nwings. It was already the grey morning when we separated, moved, happy,\naspiring and sober (there was no question of wine among us at such\ntimes) with a kind of sweet weariness in our souls... and one even\nlooked up at the stars with a kind of confidence, as though they had\nbecome nearer and more comprehensible. Ah! that was a glorious time, and\nI can't bear to believe that it was altogether wasted! And it was not\nwasted--not even for those whose lives were sordid afterwards. How often\nhave I chanced to come across such old college friends! You would think\nthe man had sunk altogether to the brute, but one had only to utter\nPokorsky's name before him and every trace of noble feeling in him was\nstirred at once; it was like uncorking a forgotten phial of fragrance in\nsome dark and dirty room.'\n\nLezhnyov stopped; his colourless face was flushed.\n\n'And what was the cause of your quarrel with Rudin?' said Alexandra\nPavlovna, looking wonderingly at Lezhnyov.\n\n'I did not quarrel with him, but I parted from him when I came to know\nhim thoroughly abroad. But I might well have quarrelled with him in\nMoscow, he did me a bad turn there.'\n\n'What was that?'\n\n'It was like this. I--how can I tell you?--it does not accord very well\nwith my appearance, but I was always much given to falling in love.'\n\n'You?'\n\n'Yes, I was indeed. That's a curious idea, isn't it? But, anyway, it\nwas so. Well, so I fell in love in those days with a very pretty young\ngirl.... But why do you look at me like that? I could tell you something\nabout myself a great deal more extraordinary than that!'\n\n'And what is that something, if I may know?'\n\n'Oh, just this. In those Moscow days I used to have a tryst at\nnights--with whom, would you imagine? with a young lime-tree at the\nbottom of my garden. I used to embrace its slender and graceful trunk,\nand I felt as though I were embracing all nature, and my heart melted\nand expanded as though it really were taking in the whole of nature.\nThat's what I was then. And do you think, perhaps, I didn't write\nverses? Why, I even composed a whole drama in imitation of Manfred.\nAmong the characters was a ghost with blood on his breast, and not his\nown blood, observe, but the blood of all humanity.... Yes, yes, you\nneed not wonder at that. But I was beginning to tell you about my love\naffair. I made the acquaintance of a girl----'\n\n'And you gave up your trysts with the lime-tree?' inquired Alexandra\nPavlovna.\n\n'Yes; I gave them up. This girl was a sweet, good creature, with clear,\nlively eyes and a ringing voice.'\n\n'You give an excellent description of her,' commented Alexandra Pavlovna\nwith a smile.\n\n'You are such a severe critic,' retorted Lezhnyov. 'Well, this girl\nlived with her old father.... But I will not enter into details; I will\nonly tell you that this girl was so kind-hearted, if you only asked\nher for half a cup of tea she would give it you brimming over! Two days\nafter first meeting her I was wild over her, and on the seventh day I\ncould hold out no longer, and confessed it in full to Rudin. At that\ntime I was completely under his influence, and his influence, I will\ntell you frankly, was beneficial in many things. He was the first person\nwho did not treat me with contempt, but tried to lick me into shape. I\nloved Pokorsky passionately, and felt a kind of awe before his purity of\nsoul, but I came closer to Rudin. When he heard about my love, he fell\ninto an indescribable ecstasy, congratulated me, embraced me, and at\nonce fell to disserting and enlarging upon all the dignity of my new\nposition. I pricked up my ears.... Well, you know how he can talk. His\nwords had an extraordinary effect on me. I at once assumed an amazing\nconsequence in my own eyes, and I put on a serious exterior and left off\nlaughing. I remember I used even to go about at that time with a kind\nof circumspection, as though I had a sacred chalice within me, full of\na priceless liquid, which I was afraid of spilling over.... I was very\nhappy, especially as I found favour in her eyes. Rudin wanted to make my\nbeloved's acquaintance, and I myself almost insisted on presenting him.'\n\n'Ah! I see, I see now what it is,' interrupted Alexandra Pavlovna.\n'Rudin cut you out with your charmer, and you have never been able to\nforgive him.... I am ready to take a wager I am right!'\n\n'You would lose your wager, Alexandra Pavlovna; you are wrong. Rudin did\nnot cut me out; he did not even try to cut me out; but, all the same,\nhe put an end to my happiness, though, looking at it in cool blood, I am\nready to thank him for it now. But I nearly went out of my mind at the\ntime. Rudin did not in the least wish to injure me--quite the contrary!\nBut through his cursed habit of pinning every emotion--his own and other\npeople's--with a phrase, as one pins butterflies in a case, he set to\nmaking clear to ourselves our relations to one another, and how we ought\nto treat each other, and arbitrarily compelled us to take stock of\nour feelings and ideas, praised us and blamed us, even entered into\na correspondence with us--fancy! Well, he succeeded in completely\ndisconcerting us! I should hardly, even then, have married the young\nlady (I had so much sense still left), but, at least, we might have\nspent some months happily a _la Paul et Virginie_; but now came strained\nrelations, misunderstandings of every kind. It ended by Rudin, one fine\nmorning, arriving at the conviction that it was his sacred duty as a\nfriend to acquaint the old father with everything--and he did so.'\n\n'Is it possible?' cried Alexandra Pavlovna.\n\n'Yes, and did it with my consent, observe. That's where the wonder comes\nin!... I remember even now what a chaos my brain was in; everything\nwas simply turning round--things looked as they do in a camera\nobscura--white seemed black and black white; falsehood was truth, and a\nwhim was duty.... Ah! even now I feel shame at the recollection of it!\nRudin--he never flagged--not a bit of it! He soared through all sorts of\nmisunderstandings and perplexities, like a swallow over a pond.'\n\n'And so you parted from the girl?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna, naively\nbending her head on one side, and raising her eyebrows.\n\n'We parted--and it was a horrible parting--outrageously awkward and\npublic, quite unnecessarily public.... I wept myself, and she wept, and\nI don't know what passed.... It seemed as though a kind of Gordian knot\nhad been tied. It had to be cut, but it was painful! However, everything\nin the world is ordered for the best. She has married an excellent man,\nand is well off now.'\n\n'But confess, you have never been able to forgive Rudin, all the same,'\nAlexandra Pavlovna was beginning.\n\n'Not at all!' interposed Lezhnyov, 'why, I cried like a child when he\nwas going abroad. Still, to tell the truth, even then there was the germ\nin my heart. And when I met him later abroad... well, by that time I had\ngrown older.... Rudin struck me in his true light.'\n\n'What was it exactly you discovered in him?'\n\n'Why, all I have been telling you the last hour. But enough of him.\nPerhaps everything will turn out all right. I only wanted to show you\nthat, if I do judge him hardly, it is not because I don't know him.\n... As far as concerns Natalya Alexyevna, I won't say any more, but you\nshould observe your brother.'\n\n'My brother! Why?'\n\n'Why, look at him. Do you really notice nothing?'\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna looked down.\n\n'You are right,' she assented. 'Certainly--my brother--for some time he\nhas not been himself.... But do you really think----'\n\n'Hush! I think he is coming,' whispered Lezhnyov. 'But Natalya is not a\nchild, believe me, though unluckily she is as inexperienced as a child.\nYou will see, that girl will astonish us all.'\n\n'In what way?'\n\n'Oh! in this way.... Do you know it's precisely girls like that who\ndrown themselves, take poison, and so forth? Don't be misled by\nher looking so calm. Her passions are strong, and her character--my\ngoodness!'\n\n'Come! I think you are indulging in a flight of fancy now. To a\nphlegmatic person like you, I suppose even I seem a volcano?'\n\n'Oh, no!' answered Lezhnyov, with a smile. 'And as for character--you\nhave no character at all, thank God!'\n\n'What impertinence is that?'\n\n'That? It's the highest compliment, believe me.'\n\nVolintsev came in and looked suspiciously at Lezhnyov and his sister. He\nhad grown thin of late. They both began to talk to him, but he scarcely\nsmiled in response to their jests, and looked, as Pigasov once said of\nhim, like a melancholy hare. But there has certainly never been a man in\nthe world who, at some time in his life, has not looked worse than that.\nVolintsev felt that Natalya was drifting away from him, and with her it\nseemed as if the earth was giving way under his feet.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\n\nThe next day was Sunday, and Natalya got up late. The day before she had\nbeen very silent all day; she was secretly ashamed of her tears, and she\nslept very badly. Sitting half-dressed at her little piano, at times she\nplayed some chords, hardly audibly for fear of waking Mlle. Boncourt,\nand then let her forehead fall on the cold keys and remained a long\nwhile motionless. She kept thinking, not of Rudin himself, but of some\nword he had uttered, and she was wholly buried in her own thought.\nSometimes she recollected Volintsev. She knew that he loved her. But her\nmind did not dwell on him more than an instant.... She felt a strange\nagitation. In the morning she dressed hurriedly and went down, and after\nsaying good-morning to her mother, seized an opportunity and went out\nalone into the garden.... It was a hot day, bright and sunny in spite of\noccasional showers of rain. Slight vapoury clouds sailed smoothly over\nthe clear sky, scarcely obscuring the sun, and at times a downpour\nof rain fell suddenly in sheets, and was as quickly over. The thickly\nfalling drops, flashing like diamonds, fell swiftly with a kind of dull\nthud; the sunshine glistened through their sparkling drops; the grass,\nthat had been rustling in the wind, was still, thirstily drinking in the\nmoisture; the drenched trees were languidly shaking all their leaves;\nthe birds were busily singing, and it was pleasant to hear their\ntwittering chatter mingling with the fresh gurgle and murmur of the\nrunning rain-water. The dusty roads were steaming and slightly spotted\nby the smart strokes of the thick drops. Then the clouds passed over,\na slight breeze began to stir, and the grass began to take tints of\nemerald and gold. The trees seemed more transparent with their wet\nleaves clinging together. A strong scent arose from all around.\n\nThe sky was almost cloudless again when Natalya came into the garden. It\nwas full of sweetness and peace--that soothing, blissful peace in which\nthe heart of man is stirred by a sweet languor of undefined desire and\nsecret emotion.\n\nNatalya walked along a long line of silver poplars beside the pond;\nsuddenly, as if he had sprung out of the earth, Rudin stood before her.\nShe was confused. He looked her in the face.\n\n'You are alone?' he inquired.\n\n'Yes, I am alone,' replied Natalya, 'but I was going back directly. It\nis time I was home.'\n\n'I will go with you.'\n\nAnd he walked along beside her.\n\n'You seem melancholy,' he said.\n\n'I--I was just going to say that I thought you were out of spirits.'\n\n'Very likely--it is often so with me. It is more excusable in me than in\nyou.'\n\n'Why? Do you suppose I have nothing to be melancholy about?'\n\n'At your age you ought to find happiness in life.'\n\nNatalya walked some steps in silence.\n\n'Dmitri Nikolaitch!' she said.\n\n'Well?'\n\n'Do you remember--the comparison you made yesterday--do you remember--of\nthe oak?'\n\n'Yes, I remember. Well?'\n\nNatalya stole a look at Rudin.\n\n'Why did you--what did you mean by that comparison?'\n\nRudin bent his head and fastened his eyes on the distance.\n\n'Natalya Alexyevna!' he began with the intense and pregnant intonation\npeculiar to him, which always made the listener believe that Rudin\nwas not expressing even the tenth part of what he held locked in his\nheart--'Natalya Alexyevna! you may have noticed that I speak little of\nmy own past. There are some chords which I do not touch upon at all. My\nheart--who need know what has passed in it? To expose that to view has\nalways seemed sacrilege to me. But with you I cast aside reserve; you\nwin my confidence.... I cannot conceal from you that I too have loved\nand have suffered like all men.... When and how? it's useless to speak\nof that; but my heart has known much bliss and much pain....'\n\nRudin made a brief pause.\n\n'What I said to you yesterday,' he went on, 'might be applied in a\ndegree to me in my present position. But again it is useless to speak\nof this. That side of life is over for me now. What remains for me is\na tedious and fatiguing journey along the parched and dusty road from\npoint to point... When I shall arrive--whether I arrive at all--God\nknows.... Let us rather talk of you.'\n\n'Can it be, Dmitri Nikolaitch,' Natalya interrupted him, 'you expect\nnothing from life?'\n\n'Oh, no! I expect much, but not for myself.... Usefulness, the content\nthat comes from activity, I shall never renounce; but I have renounced\nhappiness. My hopes, my dreams, and my own happiness have nothing in\ncommon. Love'--(at this word he shrugged his shoulders)--'love is not\nfor me; I am not worthy of it; a woman who loves has a right to demand\nthe whole of a man, and I can never now give the whole of myself.\nBesides, it is for youth to win love; I am too old. How could I turn any\none's head? God grant I keep my own head on my shoulders.'\n\n'I understand,' said Natalya, 'that one who is bent on a lofty aim must\nnot think of himself; but cannot a woman be capable of appreciating such\na man? I should have thought, on the contrary, that a woman would be\nsooner repelled by an egoist.... All young men--the youth you speak\nof--all are egoists, they are all occupied only with themselves,\neven when they love. Believe me, a woman is not only able to value\nself-sacrifice; she can sacrifice herself.'\n\nNatalya's cheeks were slightly flushed and her eyes shining. Before her\nfriendship with Rudin she would never have succeeded in uttering such a\nlong and ardent speech.\n\n'You have heard my views on woman's mission more than once,' replied\nRudin with a condescending smile. 'You know that I consider that Joan of\nArc alone could have saved France.... but that's not the point. I wanted\nto speak of you. You are standing on the threshold of life.... To dwell\non your future is both pleasant and not unprofitable.... Listen: you\nknow I am your friend; I take almost a brother's interest in you. And so\nI hope you will not think my question indiscreet; tell me, is your heart\nso far quite untouched?'\n\nNatalya grew hot all over and said nothing, Rudin stopped, and she\nstopped too.\n\n'You are not angry with me?' he asked.\n\n'No,' she answered, 'but I did not expect----'\n\n'However,' he went on, 'you need not answer me. I know your secret.'\n\nNatalya looked at him almost with dismay.\n\n'Yes, yes, I know who has won your heart. And I must say that you could\nnot have made a better choice. He is a splendid man; he knows how\nto value you; he has not been crushed by life--he is simple and\npure-hearted in soul... he will make your happiness.'\n\n'Of whom are you speaking, Dmitri Niklaitch?'\n\n'Is it possible you don't understand? Of Volintsev, of course. What?\nisn't it true?'\n\nNatalya turned a little away from Rudin. She was completely overwhelmed.\n\n'Do you imagine he doesn't love you? Nonsense! he does not take his eyes\noff you, and follows every movement of yours; indeed, can love ever be\nconcealed? And do not you yourself look on him with favour? So far as I\ncan observe, your mother, too, likes him.... Your choice----'\n\n'Dmitri Nikolaitch,' Natalya broke in, stretching out her hand in her\nconfusion towards a bush near her, 'it is so difficult, really, for me\nto speak of this; but I assure you... you are mistaken.'\n\n'I am mistaken!' repeated Rudin. 'I think not. I have not known you very\nlong, but I already know you well. What is the meaning of the change I\nsee in you? I see it clearly. Are you just the same as when I met you\nfirst, six weeks ago? No, Natalya Alexyevna, your heart is not free.'\n\n'Perhaps not,' answered Natalya, hardly audibly, 'but all the same you\nare mistaken.'\n\n'How is that?' asked Rudin.\n\n'Let me go! don't question me!' replied Natalya, and with swift steps\nshe turned towards the house.\n\nShe was frightened herself by the feelings of which she was suddenly\nconscious in herself.\n\nRudin overtook her and stopped her.\n\n'Natalya Alexyevna,' he said, 'this conversation cannot end like this;\nit is too important for me too.... How am I to understand you?'\n\n'Let me go!' repeated Natalya.\n\n'Natalya Alexyevna, for mercy's sake!'\n\nRudin's face showed his agitation. He grew pale.\n\n'You understand everything, you must understand me too!' said Natalya;\nshe snatched away her hand and went on, not looking round.\n\n'Only one word!' cried Rudin after her\n\nShe stood still, but did not turn round.\n\n'You asked me what I meant by that comparison yesterday. Let me tell\nyou, I don't want to deceive you. I spoke of myself, of my past,--and of\nyou.'\n\n'How? of me?'\n\n'Yes, of you; I repeat, I will not deceive you. You know now what was\nthe feeling, the new feeling I spoke of then.... Till to-day I should\nnot have ventured...'\n\nNatalya suddenly hid her face in her hands, and ran towards the house.\n\nShe was so distracted by the unexpected conclusion of her conversation\nwith Rudin, that she ran past Volintsev without even noticing him. He\nwas standing motionless with his back against a tree. He had arrived at\nthe house a quarter of an hour before, and found Darya Mihailovna in the\ndrawing-room; and after exchanging a few words got away unobserved and\nwent in search of Natalya. Led by a lover's instinct, he went straight\ninto the garden and came upon her and Rudin at the very instant when she\nsnatched her hand away from him. Darkness seemed to fall upon his eyes.\nGazing after Natalya, he left the tree and took two strides, not knowing\nwhither or wherefore. Rudin saw him as he came up to him. Both looked\neach other in the face, bowed, and separated in silence.\n\n'This won't be the end of it,' both were thinking.\n\nVolintsev went to the very end of the garden. He felt sad and sick;\na load lay on his heart, and his blood throbbed in sudden stabs at\nintervals. The rain began to fall a little again. Rudin turned into\nhis own room. He, too, was disturbed; his thoughts were in a whirl. The\ntrustful, unexpected contact of a young true heart is agitating for any\none.\n\nAt table everything went somehow wrong. Natalya, pale all over, could\nscarcely sit in her place and did not raise her eyes. Volintsev sat as\nusual next her, and from time to time began to talk in a constrained way\nto her. It happened that Pigasov was dining at Darya Mihailovna's that\nday. He talked more than any one at table. Among other things he began\nto maintain that men, like dogs, can be divided into the short-tailed\nand the long-tailed. People are short-tailed, he said, either from birth\nor through their own fault. The short-tailed are in a sorry plight;\nnothing succeeds with them--they have no confidence in themselves.\nBut the man who has a long furry tail is happy. He may be weaker and\ninferior to the short-tailed; but he believes in himself; he displays\nhis tail and every one admires it. And this is a fit subject for wonder;\nthe tail, of course, is a perfectly useless part of the body, you admit;\nof what use can a tail be? but all judge of their abilities by their\ntail. 'I myself,' he concluded with a sigh, 'belong to the number of the\nshort-tailed, and what is most annoying, I cropped my tail myself.'\n\n'By which you mean to say,' commented Rudin carelessly, 'what La\nRochefoucauld said long before you: Believe in yourself and others will\nbelieve in you. Why the tail was brought in, I fail to understand.'\n\n'Let every one,' Volintsev began sharply and with flashing eyes, 'let\nevery one express himself according to his fancy. Talk of despotism! ...\nI consider there is none worse than the despotism of so-called clever\nmen; confound them!'\n\nEveryone was astonished at this outbreak from Volintsev; it was received\nin silence. Rudin tried to look at him, but he could not control his\neyes, and turned away smiling without opening his lips.\n\n'Aha! so you too have lost your tail!' thought Pigasov; and Natalya's\nheart sank in terror. Darya Mihailovna gave Volintsev a long puzzled\nstare and at last was the first to speak; she began to describe an\nextraordinary dog belonging to a minister So-and-So.\n\nVolintsev went away soon after dinner. As he bade Natalya good-bye he\ncould not resist saying to her:\n\n'Why are you confused, as though you had done wrong? You cannot have\ndone wrong to any one!'\n\nNatalya did not understand at all, and could only gaze after him. Before\ntea Rudin went up to her, and bending over the table as though he were\nexamining the papers, whispered:\n\n'It is all like a dream, isn't it? I absolutely must see you alone--if\nonly for a minute.' He turned to Mlle, Boncourt 'Here,' he said to her,\n'this is the article you were looking for,' and again bending towards\nNatalya, he added in a whisper, 'Try to be near the terrace in the lilac\narbour about ten o'clock; I will wait for you.'\n\nPigasov was the hero of the evening. Rudin left him in possession of the\nfield. He afforded Darya Mihailovna much entertainment; first he told\na story of one of his neighbours who, having been henpecked by his\nwife for thirty years, had grown so womanish that one day in crossing a\nlittle puddle when Pigasov was present, he put out his hand and picked\nup the skirt of his coat, as women do with their petticoats. Then he\nturned to another gentleman who to begin with had been a freemason, then\na hypochondriac, and then wanted to be a banker.\n\n'How were you a freemason, Philip Stepanitch?' Pigasov asked him.\n\n'You know how; I wore the nail of my little finger long.'\n\nBut what most diverted Darya Mihailovna was when Pigasov set off on a\ndissertation upon love, and maintained that even he had been sighed\nfor, that one ardent German lady had even given him the nickname of her\n'dainty little African' and her 'hoarse little crow.' Darya Mihailovna\nlaughed, but Pigasov spoke the truth; he really was in a position to\nboast of his conquests. He maintained that nothing could be easier than\nto make any woman you chose fall in love with you; you only need repeat\nto her for ten days in succession that heaven is on her lips and bliss\nin her eyes, and that the rest of womankind are all simply rag-bags\nbeside her; and on the eleventh day she will be ready to say herself\nthat there is heaven on her lips and bliss in her eyes, and will be\nin love with you. Everything comes to pass in the world; so who knows,\nperhaps Pigasov was right?\n\nAt half-past nine Rudin was already in the arbour. The stars had come\nout in the pale, distant depths of the heaven; there was still a red\nglow where the sun had set, and there the horizon seemed brighter and\nclearer; a semi-circular moon shone golden through the black network\nof the weeping birch-tree. The other trees stood like grim giants, with\nthousands of chinks looking like eyes, or fell into compact masses of\ndarkness. Not a leaf was stirring; the topmost branches of the lilacs\nand acacias seemed to stretch upwards into the warm air, as though\nlistening for something. The house was a dark mass now; patches of red\nlight showed where the long windows were lighted up. It was a soft and\npeaceful evening, but under this peace was felt the secret breath of\npassion.\n\nRudin stood, his arms folded on his breast, and listened with strained\nattention. His heart beat violently, and involuntarily he held his\nbreath. At last he caught the sound of light, hurrying footsteps, and\nNatalya came into the arbour.\n\nRudin rushed up to her, and took her hands. They were cold as ice.\n\n'Natalya Alexyevna!' he began, in an agitated whisper, 'I wanted to see\nyou.... I could not wait till to-morrow. I must tell you what I did not\nsuspect--what I did not realise even this morning. I love you!'\n\nNatalya's hands trembled feebly in his.\n\n'I love you!' he repeated, 'and how could I have deceived myself so\nlong? How was it I did not guess long ago that I love you? And you?\nNatalya Alexyevna, tell me!'\n\nNatalya could scarcely draw her breath.\n\n'You see I have come here,' she uttered, at last\n\n'No, say that you love me!'\n\n'I think--yes,' she whispered.\n\nRudin pressed her hands still more warmly, and tried to draw her to him.\n\nNatalya looked quickly round.\n\n'Let me go--I am frightened.... I think some one is listening to us....\nFor God's sake, be on your guard. Volintsev suspects.'\n\n'Never mind him! You saw I did not even answer him to-day.... Ah,\nNatalya Alexyevna, how happy I am! Nothing shall sever us now!'\n\nNatalya looked into his eyes.\n\n'Let me go,' she whispered; 'it's time.'\n\n'One instant,' began Rudin.\n\n'No, let me go, let me go.'\n\n'You seem afraid of me.'\n\n'No, but it's time.'\n\n'Repeat, then, at least once more.'...\n\n'You say you are happy?' asked Natalya.\n\n'I? No man in the world is happier than I am! Can you doubt it?'\n\nNatalya lifted up her head. Very beautiful was her pale, noble, young\nface, transformed by passion, in the mysterious shadows of the arbour,\nin the faint light reflected from the evening sky.\n\n'I tell you then,' she said, 'I will be yours.'\n\n'Oh, my God!' cried Rudin.\n\nBut Natalya made her escape, and was gone.\n\nRudin stood still a little while, then walked slowly out of the arbour.\nThe moon threw a light on his face; there was a smile on his lips.\n\n'I am happy,' he uttered in a half whisper. 'Yes, I am happy,' he\nrepeated, as though he wanted to convince himself.\n\nHe straightened his tall figure, shook back his locks, and walked\nquickly into the garden, with a happy gesture of his hands.\n\nMeanwhile the bushes of the lilac arbour moved apart, and Pandalevsky\nappeared. He looked around warily, shook his head, pursed up his mouth,\nand said, significantly, 'So that's how it is. That must be brought to\nDarya Mihailovna's knowledge.' And he vanished.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n\nOn his return home, Volintsev was so gloomy and dejected, he gave his\nsister such listless answers, and so quickly locked himself up in his\nroom, that she decided to send a messenger to Lezhnyov. She always had\nrecourse to him in times of difficulty. Lezhnyov sent her word that he\nwould come in the next day.\n\nVolintsev was no more cheerful in the morning. After tea he was starting\nto superintend the work on the estate, but he stayed at home instead,\nlay on the sofa, and took up a book--a thing he did not often do.\nVolintsev had no taste for literature, and poetry simply alarmed\nhim. 'This is as incomprehensible as poetry,' he used to say, and, in\nconfirmation of his words, he used to quote the following lines from a\nRussian poet:--\n\n  'And till his gloomy lifetime's close\n  Nor reason nor experience proud\n  Will crush nor crumple Destiny's\n  Ensanguined forget-me-nots.'\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna kept looking uneasily at her brother, but she did not\nworry him with questions. A carriage drew up at the steps.\n\n'Ah!' she thought, 'Lezhnyov, thank goodness!'\n\nA servant came in and announced the arrival of Rudin.\n\nVolintsev flung his book on the floor, and raised his head. 'Who has\ncome?' he asked.\n\n'Rudin, Dmitri Nikolaitch,' repeated the man. Volintsev got up.\n\n'Ask him in,' he said, 'and you, sister,' he added, turning to Alexandra\nPavlovna, 'leave us alone.'\n\n'But why?' she was beginning.\n\n'I have a good reason,' he interrupted, passionately. 'I beg you to\nleave us.'\n\nRudin entered. Volintsev, standing in the middle of the room, received\nhim with a chilly bow, without offering his hand.\n\n'Confess you did not expect me,' began Rudin, and he laid his hat down\nby the window His lips were slightly twitching. He was ill at ease, but\ntried to conceal his embarrassment.\n\n'I did not expect you, certainly,' replied Volintsev, 'after yesterday.\nI should have more readily expected some one with a special message from\nyou.'\n\n'I understand what you mean,' said Rudin, taking a seat, 'and am very\ngrateful for your frankness. It is far better so. I have come myself to\nyou, as to a man of honour.'\n\n'Cannot we dispense with compliments?' observed Volintsev.\n\n'I want to explain to you why I have come.'\n\n'We are acquainted; why should you not come? Besides, this is not the\nfirst time you have honoured me with a visit.'\n\n'I came to you as one man of honour to another,' repeated Rudin, 'and\nI want now to appeal to your sense of justice.... I have complete\nconfidence in you.'\n\n'What is the matter?' said Volintsev, who all this time was still\nstanding in his original position, staring sullenly at Rudin, and\nsometimes pulling the ends of his moustache.\n\n'If you would kindly... I came here to make an explanation, certainly,\nbut all the same it cannot be done off-hand.'\n\n'Why not?'\n\n'A third person is involved in this matter.'\n\n'What third person?'\n\n'Sergei Pavlitch, you understand me?'\n\n'Dmitri Nikolaitch, I don't understand you in the least.'\n\n'You prefer----'\n\n'I prefer you should speak plainly!' broke in Volintsev.\n\nHe was beginning to be angry in earnest.\n\nRudin frowned.\n\n'Permit... we are alone... I must tell you--though you certainly are\naware of it already (Volintsev shrugged his shoulders impatiently)--I\nmust tell you that I love Natalya Alexyevna, and I have the right to\nbelieve that she loves me.'\n\nVolintsev turned white, but made no reply. He walked to the window and\nstood with his back turned.\n\n'You understand, Sergei Pavlitch,' continued Rudin, 'that if I were not\nconvinced...'\n\n'Upon my word!' interrupted Volintsev, 'I don't doubt it in the\nleast.... Well! so be it! Good luck to you! Only I wonder what the devil\ninduced you to come with this news to me.... What have I to do with it?\nWhat is it to me whom you love, or who loves you? It simply passes my\ncomprehension.'\n\nVolintsev continued to stare out of the window. His voice sounded\nchoked.\n\nRudin got up.\n\n'I will tell you, Sergei Pavlitch, why I decided to come to you, why\nI did not even think I had the right to hide from you our--our mutual\nfeelings. I have too profound an esteem for you--that is why I have\ncome; I did not want... we both did not wish to play a part before you.\nYour feeling for Natalya Alexyevna was known to me.... Believe me, I\nhave no illusions about myself; I know how little I deserve to supplant\nyou in her heart, but if it was fated this should be, is it made any\nbetter by pretence, hypocrisy, and deceit? Is it any better to expose\nourselves to misunderstandings, or even to the possibilities of such\na scene as took place yesterday at dinner? Sergei Pavlitch, tell me\nyourself, is it?'\n\nVolintsev folded his arms on his chest, as though he were trying to hold\nhimself in.\n\n'Sergei Pavlitch!' Rudin continued, 'I have given you pain, I feel\nit--but understand us--understand that we had no other means of proving\nour respect to you, of proving that we know how to value your honour and\nuprightness. Openness, complete openness with any other man would have\nbeen misplaced; but with you it took the form of duty. We are happy to\nthink our secret is in your hands.'\n\nVolintsev gave vent to a forced laugh.\n\n'Many thanks for your confidence in me!' he exclaimed, 'though, pray\nobserve, I neither wished to know your secret, nor to tell you mine,\nthough you treat it as if it were your property. But excuse me, you\nspeak as though for two. Does it follow I am to suppose that Natalya\nAlexyevna knows of your visit, and the object of it?'\n\nRudin was a little taken aback.\n\n'No, I did not communicate my intention to Natalya Alexyevna; but I know\nshe would share my views.'\n\n'That's all very fine indeed,' Volintsev began after a short pause,\ndrumming on the window pane with his fingers, 'though I must confess it\nwould have been far better if you had had rather less respect for me. I\ndon't care a hang for your respect, to tell you the truth; but what do\nyou want of me now?'\n\n'I want nothing--or--no! I want one thing; I want you not to regard me\nas treacherous or hypocritical, to understand me... I hope that now you\ncannot doubt of my sincerity... I want us, Sergei Pavlitch, to part as\nfriends... you to give me your hand as you once did.'\n\nAnd Rudin went up to Volintsev.\n\n'Excuse me, my good sir,' said Volintsev, turning round and stepping\nback a few paces, 'I am ready to do full justice to your intentions, all\nthat's very fine, I admit, very exalted, but we are simple people, we do\nnot gild our gingerbread, we are not capable of following the flight\nof great minds like yours.... What you think sincere, we regard as\nimpertinent and disingenuous and indiscreet.... What is clear and\nsimple to you, is involved and obscure to us.... You boast of what\nwe conceal.... How are we to understand you! Excuse me, I can neither\nregard you as a friend, nor will I give you my hand.... That is petty,\nperhaps, but I am only a petty person.'\n\nRudin took his hat from the window seat.\n\n'Sergei Pavlitch!' he said sorrowfully, 'goodbye; I was mistaken in my\nexpectations. My visit certainly was rather a strange one... but I had\nhoped that you... (Volintsev made a movement of impatience). ... Excuse\nme, I will say no more of this. Reflecting upon it all, I see indeed,\nyou are right, you could not have behaved otherwise. Good-bye, and allow\nme, at least once more, for the last time, to assure you of the purity\nof my intentions.... I am convinced of your discretion.'\n\n'That is too much!' cried Volintsev, shaking with anger, 'I never asked\nfor your confidence; and so you have no right whatever to reckon on my\ndiscretion!'\n\nRudin was about to say something, but he only waved his hands, bowed and\nwent away, and Volintsev flung himself on the sofa and turned his face\nto the wall.\n\n'May I come in?' Alexandra Pavlovna's voice was heard saying at the\ndoor.\n\nVolintsev did not answer at once, and stealthily passed his hand over\nhis face. 'No, Sasha,' he said, in a slightly altered voice, 'wait a\nlittle longer.'\n\nHalf an hour later, Alexandra Pavlovna again came to the door.\n\n'Mihailo Mihailitch is here,' she said, 'will you see him?'\n\n'Yes,' answered Volintsev, 'let them show him up here.'\n\nLezhnyov came in.\n\n'What, aren't you well?' he asked, seating himself in a chair near the\nsofa.\n\nVolintsev raised himself, and, leaning on his elbow gazed a long,\nlong while into his friend's face, and then repeated to him his whole\nconversation with Rudin word for word. He had never before given\nLezhnyov a hint of his sentiments towards Natalya, though he guessed\nthey were no secret to him.\n\n'Well, brother, you have surprised me!' Lezhnyov said, as soon as\nVolintsev had finished his story. 'I expected many strange things from\nhim, but this is----Still I can see him in it.'\n\n'Upon my honour!' cried Volintsev, in great excitement, 'it is simply\ninsolence! Why, I almost threw him out of the window. Did he want to\nboast to me or was he afraid? What was the object of it? How could he\nmake up his mind to come to a man----?'\n\nVolintsev clasped his hands over his head and was speechless.\n\n'No, brother, that's not it,' replied Lezhnyov tranquilly; 'you won't\nbelieve me, but he really did it from a good motive. Yes, indeed. It\nwas generous, do you see, and candid, to be sure, and it would offer an\nopportunity of speechifying and giving vent to his fine talk, and, of\ncourse, that's what he wants, what he can't live without. Ah! his tongue\nis his enemy. Though it's a good servant to him too.'\n\n'With what solemnity he came in and talked, you can't imagine!'\n\n'Well, he can't do anything without that. He buttons his great-coat\nas if he were fulfilling a sacred duty. I should like to put him on a\ndesert island and look round a corner to see how he would behave there.\nAnd he discourses on simplicity!'\n\n'But tell me, my dear fellow,' asked Volintsev, 'what is it, philosophy\nor what?'\n\n'How can I tell you? On one side it is philosophy, I daresay, and on the\nother something altogether different It is not right to put every folly\ndown to philosophy.'\n\nVolintsev looked at him.\n\n'Wasn't he lying then, do you imagine?'\n\n'No, my son, he wasn't lying. But, do you know, we've talked enough of\nthis. Let's light our pipes and call Alexandra Pavlovna in here. It's\neasier to talk when she's with us and easier to be silent. She shall\nmake us some tea.'\n\n'Very well,' replied Volintsev. 'Sasha, come in,' he cried aloud.\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna came in. He grasped her hand and pressed it warmly to\nhis lips.\n\nRudin returned in a curious and mingled frame of mind. He was annoyed\nwith himself, he reproached himself for his unpardonable precipitancy,\nhis boyish impulsiveness. Some one has justly said: there is nothing\nmore painful than the consciousness of having just done something\nstupid.\n\nRudin was devoured by regret.\n\n'What evil genius drove me,' he muttered between his teeth, 'to call on\nthat squire! What an idea it was! Only to expose myself to insolence!'\n\nBut in Darya Mihailovna's house something extraordinary had been\nhappening. The lady herself did not appear the whole morning, and did\nnot come in to dinner; she had a headache, declared Pandalevsky, the\nonly person who had been admitted to her room. Natalya, too, Rudin\nscarcely got a glimpse of: she sat in her room with Mlle. Boncourt When\nshe met him at the dinner-table she looked at him so mournfully that\nhis heart sank. Her face was changed as though a load of sorrow had\ndescended upon her since the day before. Rudin began to be oppressed by\na vague presentiment of trouble. In order to distract his mind in some\nway he occupied himself with Bassistoff, had much conversation with him,\nand found him an ardent, eager lad, full of enthusiastic hopes and still\nuntarnished faith. In the evening Darya Mihailovna appeared for a couple\nof hours in the drawing-room. She was polite to Rudin, but kept him\nsomehow at a distance, and smiled and frowned, talking through her nose,\nand in hints more than ever. Everything about her had the air of the\nsociety lady of the court. She had seemed of late rather cooler to\nRudin. 'What is the secret of it?' he thought, with a sidelong look at\nher haughtily-lifted head.\n\nHe had not long to wait for the solution of the enigma. As he was\nreturning at twelve o'clock at night to his room, along a dark corridor,\nsome one suddenly thrust a note into his hand. He looked round; a girl\nwas hurrying away in the distance, Natalya's maid, he fancied. He went\ninto his room, dismissed the servant, tore open the letter, and read the\nfollowing lines in Natalya's handwriting:--\n\n'Come to-morrow at seven o'clock in the morning, not later, to Avduhin\npond, beyond the oak copse. Any other time will be impossible. It will\nbe our last meeting, all will be over, unless... Come. We must make\nour decision.--P.S. If I don't come, it will mean we shall not see each\nother again; then I will let you know.'\n\nRudin turned the letter over in his hands, musing upon it, then laid it\nunder his pillow, undressed, and lay down. For a long while he could not\nget to sleep, and then he slept very lightly, and it was not yet five\no'clock when he woke up.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\n\nThe Avduhin pond, near which Natalya had fixed the place of meeting, had\nlong ceased to be a pond. Thirty years before it had burst through\nits banks and it had been given up since then. Only by the smooth flat\nsurface of the hollow, once covered with slimy mud, and the traces of\nthe banks, could one guess that it had been a pond. A farm-house\nhad stood near it. It had long ago passed away. Two huge pine-trees\npreserved its memory; the wind was for ever droning and sullenly\nmurmuring in their high gaunt green tops. There were mysterious tales\namong the people of a fearful crime supposed to have been committed\nunder them; they used to tell, too, that not one of them would fall\nwithout bringing death to some one; that a third had once stood there,\nwhich had fallen in a storm and crushed a girl.\n\nThe whole place near the old pond was supposed to be haunted; it was\na barren wilderness, dark and gloomy, even on a sunny day--it seemed\ndarker and gloomier still from the old, old forest of dead and withered\noak-trees which was near it. A few huge trees lifted their grey heads\nabove the low undergrowth of bushes like weary giants. They were a\nsinister sight; it seemed as though wicked old men had met together bent\non some evil design. A narrow path almost indistinguishable wandered\nbeside it. No one went near the Avduhin pond without some urgent reason.\nNatalya intentionally chose this solitary place. It was not more than\nhalf-a-mile from Darya Mihailovna's house.\n\nThe sun had already risen some time when Rudin reached the Avduhin pond,\nbut it was not a bright morning. Thick clouds of the colour of milk\ncovered the whole sky, and were driven flying before the whistling,\nshrieking wind. Rudin began to walk up and down along the bank, which\nwas covered with clinging burdocks and blackened nettles. He was not\neasy in his mind. These interviews, these new emotions had a charm for\nhim, but they also troubled him, especially after the note of the\nnight before. He felt that the end was drawing near, and was in secret\nperplexity of spirit, though none would have imagined it, seeing with\nwhat concentrated determination he folded his arms across his chest and\nlooked around him. Pigasov had once said truly of him, that he was like\na Chinese idol, his head was constantly overbalancing him. But with the\nhead alone, however strong it may be, it is hard for a man to know even\nwhat is passing in himself.... Rudin, the clever, penetrating Rudin, was\nnot capable of saying certainly whether he loved Natalya, whether he was\nsuffering, and whether he would suffer at parting from her. Why then,\nsince he had not the least disposition to play the Lovelace--one must do\nhim that credit--had he turned the poor girl's head? Why was he awaiting\nher with a secret tremor? To this the only answer is that there are none\nso easily carried away as those who are without passion.\n\nHe walked on the bank, while Natalya was hurrying to him straight across\ncountry through the wet grass.\n\n'Natalya Alexyevna, you'll get your feet wet!' said her maid Masha,\nscarcely able to keep up with her.\n\nNatalya did not hear and ran on without looking round.\n\n'Ah, supposing they've seen us!' cried Masha; 'indeed it's surprising\nhow we got out of the house... and ma'mselle may wake up... It's a\nmercy it's not far.... Ah, the gentleman's waiting already,' she\nadded, suddenly catching sight of Rudin's majestic figure, standing out\npicturesquely on the bank; 'but what does he want to stand on that mound\nfor--he ought to have kept in the hollow.'\n\nNatalya stopped.\n\n'Wait here, Masha, by the pines,' she said, and went on to the pond.\n\nRudin went up to her; he stopped short in amazement. He had never seen\nsuch an expression on her face before. Her brows were contracted, her\nlips set, her eyes looked sternly straight before her.\n\n'Dmitri Nikolaitch,' she began, 'we have no time to lose. I have come\nfor five minutes. I must tell you that my mother knows everything. Mr.\nPandalevsky saw us the day before yesterday, and he told her of our\nmeeting. He was always mamma's spy. She called me in to her yesterday.'\n\n'Good God!' cried Rudin, 'this is terrible.... What did your mother\nsay?'\n\n'She was not angry with me, she did not scold me, but she reproached me\nfor my want of discretion.'\n\n'That was all?'\n\n'Yes, and she declared she would sooner see me dead than your wife!'\n\n'Is it possible she said that?'\n\n'Yes; and she said too that you yourself did not want to marry me at\nall, that you had only been flirting with me because you were bored, and\nthat she had not expected this of you; but that she herself was to blame\nfor having allowed me to see so much of you... that she relied on my\ngood sense, that I had very much surprised her... and I don't remember\nnow all she said to me.'\n\nNatalya uttered all this in an even, almost expressionless voice.\n\n'And you, Natalya Alexyevna, what did you answer?' asked Rudin.\n\n'What did I answer?' repeated Natalya.... 'What do you intend to do\nnow?'\n\n'Good God, good God!' replied Rudin, 'it is cruel! So soon... such a\nsudden blow!... And is your mother in such indignation?'\n\n'Yes, yes, she will not hear of you.'\n\n'It is terrible! You mean there is no hope?\n\n'None.'\n\n'Why should we be so unhappy! That abominable Pandalevsky!... You ask\nme, Natalya Alexyevna, what I intend to do? My head is going round--I\ncannot take in anything... I can feel nothing but my unhappiness... I am\namazed that you can preserve such self-possession!'\n\n'Do you think it is easy for me?' said Natalya.\n\nRudin began to walk along the bank. Natalya did not take her eyes off\nhim.\n\n'Your mother did not question you?' he said at last.\n\n'She asked me whether I love you.'\n\n'Well... and you?'\n\nNatalya was silent a moment. 'I told the truth.'\n\nRudin took her hand.\n\n'Always, in all things generous, noble-hearted! Oh, the heart of a\ngirl--it's pure gold! But did your mother really declare her decision so\nabsolutely on the impossibility of our marriage?'\n\n'Yes, absolutely. I have told you already; she is convinced that you\nyourself don't think of marrying me.'\n\n'Then she regards me as a traitor! What have I done to deserve it?' And\nRudin clutched his head in his hands.\n\n'Dmitri Nikolaitch!' said Natalya, 'we are losing our time. Remember I\nam seeing you for the last time. I came here not to weep and lament--you\nsee I am not crying--I came for advice.'\n\n'And what advice can I give you, Natalya Alexyevna?'\n\n'What advice? You are a man; I am used to trusting to you, I shall trust\nyou to the end. Tell me, what are your plans?'\n\n'My plans.... Your mother certainly will turn me out of the house.'\n\n'Perhaps. She told me yesterday that she must break off all acquaintance\nwith you.... But you do not answer my question?'\n\n'What question?'\n\n'What do you think we must do now?'\n\n'What we must do?' replied Rudin; 'of course submit.'\n\n'Submit,' repeated Natalya slowly, and her lips turned white.\n\n'Submit to destiny,' continued Rudin. 'What is to be done? I know\nvery well how bitter it is, how painful, how unendurable. But consider\nyourself, Natalya Alexyevna; I am poor. It is true I could work; but\neven if I were a rich man, could you bear a violent separation from your\nfamily, your mother's anger?... No, Natalya Alexyevna; it is useless\neven to think of it. It is clear it was not fated for us to live\ntogether, and the happiness of which I dreamed is not for me!'\n\nAll at once Natalya hid her face in her hands and began to weep. Rudin\nwent up to her.\n\n'Natalya Alexyevna! dear Natalya!' he said with warmth, 'do not cry, for\nGod's sake, do not torture me, be comforted.'\n\nNatalya raised her head.\n\n'You tell me to be comforted,' she began, and her eyes blazed through\nher tears; 'I am not weeping for what you suppose--I am not sad for\nthat; I am sad because I have been deceived in you.... What! I come to\nyou for counsel, and at such a moment!--and your first word is, submit!\nsubmit! So this is how you translate your talk of independence, of\nsacrifice, which...'\n\nHer voice broke down.\n\n'But, Natalya Alexyevna,' began Rudin in confusion, 'remember--I do not\ndisown my words--only----'\n\n'You asked me,' she continued with new force, 'what I answered my\nmother, when she declared she would sooner agree to my death than my\nmarriage to you; I answered that I would sooner die than marry any other\nman... And you say, \"Submit!\" It must be that she is right; you must,\nthrough having nothing to do, through being bored, have been playing\nwith me.'\n\n'I swear to you, Natalya Alexyevna--I assure you,' maintained Rudin.\n\nBut she did not listen to him.\n\n'Why did you not stop me? Why did you yourself--or did you not reckon\nupon obstacles? I am ashamed to speak of this--but I see it is all over\nnow.'\n\n'You must be calm, Natalya Alexyevna,' Rudin was beginning; 'we must\nthink together what means----'\n\n'You have so often talked of self-sacrifice,' she broke in, 'but do you\nknow, if you had said to me to-day at once, \"I love you, but I cannot\nmarry you, I will not answer for the future, give me your hand and come\nwith me\"--do you know, I would have come with you; do you know, I would\nhave risked everything? But there's all the difference between word and\ndeed, and you were afraid now, just as you were afraid the day before\nyesterday at dinner of Volintsev.'\n\nThe colour rushed to Rudin's face. Natalya's unexpected energy had\nastounded him; but her last words wounded his vanity.\n\n'You are too angry now, Natalya Alexyevna,' he began; 'you cannot\nrealise how bitterly you wound me. I hope that in time you will do\nme justice; you will understand what it has cost me to renounce the\nhappiness which you have said yourself would have laid upon me no\nobligations. Your peace is dearer to me than anything in the world,\nand I should have been the basest of men, if I could have taken\nadvantage----'\n\n'Perhaps, perhaps,' interrupted Natalya, 'perhaps you are right; I don't\nknow what I am saying. But up to this time I believed in you, believed\nin every word you said.... For the future, pray keep a watch upon your\nwords, do not fling them about at hazard. When I said to you, \"I love\nyou,\" I knew what that word meant; I was ready for everything.... Now I\nhave only to thank you for a lesson--and to say good-bye.'\n\n'Stop, for God's sake, Natalya Alexyevna, I beseech you. I do not\ndeserve your contempt, I swear to you. Put yourself in my position. I am\nresponsible for you and for myself. If I did not love you with the most\ndevoted love--why, good God! I should have at once proposed you should\nrun away with me.... Sooner or later your mother would forgive us--and\nthen... But before thinking of my own happiness----'\n\nHe stopped. Natalya's eyes fastened directly upon him put him to\nconfusion.\n\n'You try to prove to me that you are an honourable man, Dmitri\nNikolaitch,' she said. 'I do not doubt that. You are not capable of\nacting from calculation; but did I want to be convinced of that? did I\ncome here for that?'\n\n'I did not expect, Natalya Alexyevna----'\n\n'Ah! you have said it at last! Yes, you did not expect all this--you did\nnot know me. Do not be uneasy... you do not love me, and I will never\nforce myself on any one.'\n\n'I love you!' cried Rudin.\n\nNatalya drew herself up.\n\n'Perhaps; but how do you love me? Remember all your words, Dmitri\nNikolaitch. You told me: \"Without complete equality there is no\nlove.\"... You are too exalted for me; I am no match for you.... I am\npunished as I deserve. There are duties before you more worthy of you. I\nshall not forget this day.... Good-bye.'\n\n'Natalya Alexyevna, are you going? Is it possible for us to part like\nthis?'\n\nHe stretched out his hand to her. She stopped. His supplicating voice\nseemed to make her waver.\n\n'No,' she uttered at last. 'I feel that something in me is broken. ... I\ncame here, I have been talking to you as if it were in delirium; I must\ntry to recollect. It must not be, you yourself said, it will not be.\nGood God, when I came out here, I mentally took a farewell of my home,\nof my past--and what? whom have I met here?--a coward... and how did you\nknow I was not able to bear a separation from my family? \"Your mother\nwill not consent... It is terrible!\" That was all I heard from you, that\nyou, you, Rudin?--No! good-bye.... Ah! if you had loved me, I should\nhave felt it now, at this moment.... No, no, goodbye!'\n\nShe turned swiftly and ran towards Masha, who had begun to be uneasy and\nhad been making signs to her a long while.\n\n'It is _you_ who are afraid, not I!' cried Rudin after Natalya.\n\nShe paid no attention to him, and hastened homewards across the fields.\nShe succeeded in getting back to her bedroom; but she had scarcely\ncrossed the threshold when her strength failed her, and she fell\nsenseless into Masha's arms.\n\nBut Rudin remained a long while still standing on the bank. At last\nhe shivered, and with slow steps made his way to the little path and\nquietly walked along it. He was deeply ashamed... and wounded. 'What a\ngirl!' he thought, 'at seventeen!... No, I did not know her!... She is\na remarkable girl. What strength of will!... She is right; she deserves\nanother love than what I felt for her. I felt for her?' he asked\nhimself. 'Can it be I already feel no more love for her? So this is how\nit was all to end! What a pitiful wretch I was beside her!'\n\nThe slight rattle of a racing droshky made Rudin raise his head.\nLezhnyov was driving to meet him with his invariable trotting pony.\nRudin bowed to him without speaking, and as though struck with a sudden\nthought, turned out of the road and walked quickly in the direction of\nDarya Mihailovna's house.\n\nLezhnyov let him pass, looked after him, and after a moment's thought he\ntoo turned his horse's head round, and drove back to Volintsev's, where\nhe had spent the night. He found him asleep, and giving orders he should\nnot be waked, he sat down on the balcony to wait for some tea and smoked\na pipe.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\n\nVolintsev got up at ten o'clock. When he heard that Lezhnyov was sitting\nin the balcony, he was much surprised, and sent to ask him to come to\nhim.\n\n'What has happened?' he asked him. 'I thought you meant to drive home?'\n\n'Yes; I did mean to, but I met Rudin.... He was wandering about the\ncountry with such a distracted countenance. So I turned back at once.'\n\n'You came back because you met Rudin?'\n\n'That's to say,--to tell the truth, I don't know why I came back myself,\nI suppose because I was reminded of you; I wanted to be with you, and I\nhave plenty of time before I need go home.'\n\nVolintsev smiled bitterly.\n\n'Yes; one cannot think of Rudin now without thinking of me.... Boy!' he\ncried harshly, 'bring us some tea.'\n\nThe friends began to drink tea. Lezhnyov talked of agricultural\nmatters,--of a new method of roofing barns with paper....\n\nSuddenly Volintsev leaped up from his chair and struck the table with\nsuch force that the cups and saucers rang.\n\n'No!' he cried, 'I cannot bear this any longer! I will call out this\nwitty fellow, and let him shoot me,--at least I will try to put a bullet\nthrough his learned brains!'\n\n'What are you talking about? Upon my word!' grumbled Lezhnyov, 'how can\nyou scream like that? I dropped my pipe.... What's the matter with you?'\n\n'The matter is, that I can't hear his name and keep calm; it sets all my\nblood boiling!'\n\n'Hush, my dear fellow, hush! aren't you ashamed?' rejoined Lezhnyov,\npicking up his pipe from the ground. 'Leave off! Let him alone!'\n\n'He has insulted me,' pursued Volintsev, walking up and down the room.\n'Yes! he has insulted me. You must admit that yourself. At first I was\nnot sharp enough; he took me by surprise; and who could have expected\nthis? But I will show him that he cannot make a fool of me. ... I will\nshoot him, the damned philosopher, like a partridge.'\n\n'Much you will gain by that, indeed! I won't speak of your sister now.\nI can see you're in a passion... how could you think of your sister!\nBut in relation to another individual--what! do you imagine, when you've\nkilled the philosopher, you can improve your own chances?'\n\nVolintsev flung himself into a chair.\n\n'Then I must go away somewhere! For here my heart is simply being\ncrushed by misery; only I can find no place to go.'\n\n'Go away... that's another matter! That I am ready to agree to. And do\nyou know what I should suggest? Let us go together--to the Caucasus, or\nsimply to Little Russia to eat dumplings. That's a capital idea, my dear\nfellow!'\n\n'Yes; but whom shall we leave my sister with?'\n\n'And why should not Alexandra Pavlovna come with us? Upon my soul, it\nwill be splendid. As for looking after her--yes, I'll undertake that!\nThere will be no difficulty in getting anything we want: if she likes,\nI will arrange a serenade under her window every night; I will sprinkle\nthe coachmen with _eau de cologne_ and strew flowers along the roads.\nAnd we shall both be simply new men, my dear boy; we shall enjoy\nourselves so, we shall come back so fat that we shall be proof against\nthe darts of love!'\n\n'You are always joking, Misha!'\n\n'I'm not joking at all. It was a brilliant idea of yours.'\n\n'No; nonsense!' Volintsev shouted again. 'I want to fight him, to fight\nhim!...'\n\n'Again! What a rage you are in!'\n\nA servant entered with a letter in his hand.\n\n'From whom?' asked Lezhnyov.\n\n'From Rudin, Dmitri Nikolaitch. The Lasunsky's servant brought it.'\n\n'From Rudin?' repeated Volintsev, 'to whom?'\n\n'To you.'\n\n'To me!... give it me!'\n\nVolintsev seized the letter, quickly tore it open, and began to read.\nLezhnyov watched him attentively; a strange, almost joyful amazement was\nexpressed on Volintsev's face; he let his hands fall by his side.\n\n'What is it?' asked Lezhnyov.\n\n'Read it,' Volintsev said in a low voice, and handed him the letter.\n\nLezhnyov began to read. This is what Rudin wrote:\n\n'SIR--\n\n'I am going away from Darya Mihailovna's house to-day, and leaving it\nfor ever. This will certainly be a surprise to you, especially after\nwhat passed yesterday. I cannot explain to you what exactly obliges me\nto act in this way; but it seems to me for some reason that I ought to\nlet you know of my departure. You do not like me, and even regard me as\na bad man. I do not intend to justify myself; time will justify me. In\nmy opinion it is even undignified in a man and quite unprofitable to\ntry to prove to a prejudiced man the injustice of his prejudice. Whoever\nwishes to understand me will not blame me, and as for any one who does\nnot wish, or cannot do so,--his censure does not pain me. I was mistaken\nin you. In my eyes you remain as before a noble and honourable man, but\nI imagined you were able to be superior to the surroundings in which you\nwere brought up. I was mistaken. What of that? It is not the first, nor\nwill it be the last time. I repeat to you, I am going away. I wish you\nall happiness. Confess that this wish is completely disinterested, and\nI hope that now you will be happy. Perhaps in time you will change your\nopinion of me. Whether we shall ever meet again, I don't know, but in\nany case I remain your sincere well-wisher,\n\n'D. R.\n\n'P.S. The two hundred roubles I owe you I will send directly I reach\nmy estate in T---- province. Also I beg you not to speak to Darya\nMihailovna of this letter.\n\n'P.P.S. One last, but important request more; since I am going away, I\nhope you will not allude before Natalya Alexyevna to my visit to you.'\n\n'Well, what do you say to that?' asked Volintsev, directly Lezhnyov had\nfinished the letter.\n\n'What is one to say?' replied Lezhnyov, 'Cry \"Allah! Allah!\" like a\nMussulman and sit gaping with astonishment--that's all one can do....\nWell, a good riddance! But it's curious: you see he thought it his\n_duty_ to write you this letter, and he came to see you from a sense\nof _duty_... these gentlemen find a duty at every step, some duty they\nowe... or some debt,' added Lezhnyov, pointing with a smile to the\npostscript.\n\n'And what phrases he rounds off!' cried Volintsev. 'He was mistaken\nin me. He expected I would be superior to my surroundings. What a\nrigmarole! Good God! it's worse than poetry!'\n\nLezhnyov made no reply, but his eyes were smiling. Volintsev got up.\n\n'I want to go to Darya Mihailovna's,' he announced. 'I want to find out\nwhat it all means.'\n\n'Wait a little, my dear boy; give him time to get off. What's the good\nof running up against him again? He is to vanish, it seems. What more do\nyou want? Better go and lie down and get a little sleep; you have been\ntossing about all night, I expect. But everything will be smooth for\nyou.'\n\n'What leads you to that conclusion?'\n\n'Oh, I think so. There, go and have a nap; I will go and see your\nsister. I will keep her company.'\n\n'I don't want to sleep in the least. What's the object of my going to\nbed? I had rather go out to the fields,' said Volintsev, putting on his\nout-of-door coat.\n\n'Well, that's a good thing too. Go along, and look at the fields....'\n\nAnd Lezhnyov betook himself to the apartments of Alexandra Pavlovna.\nHe found her in the drawing-room. She welcomed him effusively. She was\nalways pleased when he came; but her face still looked sorrowful. She\nwas uneasy about Rudin's visit the day before.\n\n'You have seen my brother?' she asked Lezhnyov. 'How is he to-day?'\n\n'All right, he has gone to the fields.'\n\nAlexandra Favlovna did not speak for a minute.\n\n'Tell me, please,' she began, gazing earnestly at the hem of her\npocket-handkerchief, 'don't you know why...'\n\n'Rudin came here?' put in Lezhnyov. 'I know, he came to say good-bye.'\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna lifted up her head.\n\n'What, to say good-bye!'\n\n'Yes. Haven't you heard? He is leaving Darya Mihailovna's.'\n\n'He is leaving?'\n\n'For ever; at least he says so.'\n\n'But pray, how is one to explain it, after all?...'\n\n'Oh, that's a different matter! To explain it is impossible, but it is\nso. Something must have happened with them. He pulled the string too\ntight--and it has snapped.'\n\n'Mihailo Mihailitch!' began Alexandra Pavlovna, 'I don't understand; you\nare laughing at me, I think....'\n\n'No indeed! I tell you he is going away, and he even let his friends\nknow by letter. It's just as well, I daresay, from one point of view;\nbut his departure has prevented one surprising enterprise from being\ncarried out that I had begun to talk to your brother about.'\n\n'What do you mean? What enterprise?'\n\n'Why, I proposed to your brother that we should go on our travels, to\ndistract his mind, and take you with us. To look after you especially I\nwould take on myself....'\n\n'That's capital!' cried Alexandra Pavlovna. 'I can fancy how you would\nlook after me. Why, you would let me die of hunger.'\n\n'You say so, Alexandra Pavlovna, because you don't know me. You think I\nam a perfect blockhead, a log; but do you know I am capable of melting\nlike sugar, of spending whole days on my knees?'\n\n'I should like to see that, I must say!'\n\nLezhnyov suddenly got up. 'Well, marry me, Alexandra Pavlovna, and you\nwill see all that'\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna blushed up to her ears.\n\n'What did you say, Mihailo Mihailitch?' she murmured in confusion.\n\n'I said what it has been for ever so long,' answered Lezhnyov, 'on the\ntip of my tongue to say a thousand times over. I have brought it out at\nlast, and you must act as you think best. But I will go away now, so as\nnot to be in your way. If you will be my wife... I will walk away... if\nyou don't dislike the idea, you need only send to call me in; I shall\nunderstand....'\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna tried to keep Lezhnyov, but he went quickly away, and\ngoing into the garden without his cap, he leaned on a little gate and\nbegan looking about him.\n\n'Mihailo Mihailitch!' sounded the voice of a maid-servant behind him,\n'please come in to my lady. She sent me to call you.'\n\nMihailo Mihailitch turned round, took the girl's head in both his hands,\nto her great astonishment, and kissed her on the forehead, then he went\nin to Alexandra Pavlovna.\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\n\nOn returning home, directly after his meeting with Lezhnyov, Rudin shut\nhimself up in his room, and wrote two letters; one to Volintsev (already\nknown to the reader) and the other to Natalya. He sat a very long time\nover this second letter, crossed out and altered a great deal in it,\nand, copying it carefully on a fine sheet of note-paper, folded it up as\nsmall as possible, and put it in his pocket. With a look of pain on his\nface he paced several times up and down his room, sat down in the chair\nbefore the window, leaning on his arm; a tear slowly appeared upon his\neyelashes. He got up, buttoned himself up, called a servant and told him\nto ask Darya Mihailovna if he could see her.\n\nThe man returned quickly, answering that Darya Mihailovna would be\ndelighted to see him. Rudin went to her.\n\nShe received him in her study, as she had that first time, two months\nbefore. But now she was not alone; with her was sitting Pandalevsky,\nunassuming, fresh, neat, and agreeable as ever.\n\nDarya Mihailovna met Rudin affably, and Rudin bowed affably to her; but\nat the first glance at the smiling faces of both, any one of even small\nexperience would have understood that something of an unpleasant nature\nhad passed between them, even if it had not been expressed. Rudin knew\nthat Darya Mihailovna was angry with him. Darya Mihailovna suspected\nthat he was now aware of all that had happened.\n\nPandalevsky's disclosure had greatly disturbed her. It touched on the\nworldly pride in her. Rudin, a poor man without rank, and so far\nwithout distinction, had presumed to make a secret appointment with her\ndaughter--the daughter of Darya Mihailovna Lasunsky.\n\n'Granting he is clever, he is a genius!' she said, 'what does that\nprove? Why, any one may hope to be my son-in-law after that?'\n\n'For a long time I could not believe my eyes.' put in Pandalevsky. 'I am\nsurprised at his not understanding his position!'\n\nDarya Mihailovna was very much agitated, and Natalya suffered for it\n\nShe asked Rudin to sit down. He sat down, but not like the old Rudin,\nalmost master of the house, not even like an old friend, but like a\nguest, and not even a very intimate guest. All this took place in a\nsingle instant... so water is suddenly transformed into solid ice.\n\n'I have come to you, Darya Mihailovna,' began Rudin, 'to thank you for\nyour hospitality. I have had some news to-day from my little estate, and\nit is absolutely necessary for me to set off there to-day.'\n\nDarya Mihailovna looked attentively at Rudin.\n\n'He has anticipated me; it must be because he has some suspicion,' she\nthought. 'He spares one a disagreeable explanation. So much the better.\nAh! clever people for ever!'\n\n'Really?' she replied aloud. 'Ah! how disappointing! Well, I suppose\nthere's no help for it. I shall hope to see you this winter in Moscow.\nWe shall soon be leaving here.'\n\n'I don't know, Darya Mihailovna, whether I shall succeed in getting to\nMoscow, but, if I can manage it, I shall regard it as a duty to call on\nyou.'\n\n'Aha, my good sir!' Pandalevsky in his turn reflected; 'it's not long\nsince you behaved like the master here, and now this is how you have to\nexpress yourself!'\n\n'Then I suppose you have unsatisfactory news from your estate?' he\narticulated, with his customary ease.\n\n'Yes,' replied Rudin drily.\n\n'Some failure of crops, I suppose?'\n\n'No; something else. Believe me, Darya Mihailovna,' added Rudin, 'I\nshall never forget the time I have spent in your house.'\n\n'And I, Dmitri Nikolaitch, shall always look back upon our acquaintance\nwith you with pleasure. When must you start?'\n\n'To-day, after dinner.'\n\n'So soon!... Well, I wish you a successful journey. But, if your affairs\ndo not detain you, perhaps you will look us up again here.'\n\n'I shall scarcely have time,' replied Rudin, getting up. 'Excuse me,'\nhe added; 'I cannot at once repay you my debt, but directly I reach my\nplace----'\n\n'Nonsense, Dmitri Nikolaitch!' Darya Mihailovna cut him short. 'I wonder\nyou're not ashamed to speak of it!... What o'clock is it?' she asked.\n\nPandalevsky drew a gold and enamel watch out of his waistcoat pocket,\nand looked at it carefully, bending his rosy cheek over his stiff, white\ncollar.\n\n'Thirty-three minutes past two,' he announced.\n\n'It is time to dress,' observed Darya Mihailovna. 'Good-bye for the\npresent, Dmitri Nikolaitch!'\n\nRudin got up. The whole conversation between him and Darya Mihailovna\nhad a special character. In the same way actors repeat their parts, and\ndiplomatic dignitaries interchange their carefully-worded phrases.\n\nRudin went away. He knew by now through experience that men and women of\nthe world do not even break with a man who is of no further use to them,\nbut simply let him drop, like a kid glove after a ball, like the paper\nthat has wrapped up sweets, like an unsuccessful ticket for a lottery.\n\nHe packed quickly, and began to await with impatience the moment of his\ndeparture. Every one in the house was very much surprised to hear of\nhis intentions; even the servants looked at him with a puzzled air.\nBassistoff did not conceal his sorrow. Natalya evidently avoided Rudin.\nShe tried not to meet his eyes. He succeeded, however, in slipping his\nnote into her hand. After dinner Darya Mihailovna repeated once more\nthat she hoped to see him before they left for Moscow, but Rudin made\nher no reply. Pandalevsky addressed him more frequently than any one.\nMore than once Rudin felt a longing to fall upon him and give him a slap\non his rosy, blooming face. Mlle. Boncourt often glanced at Rudin with\na peculiarly stealthy expression in her eyes; in old setter dogs one may\nsometimes see the same expression.\n\n'Aha!' she seemed to be saying to herself, 'so you're caught!'\n\nAt last six o'clock struck, and Rudin's carriage was brought to the\ndoor. He began to take a hurried farewell of all. He had a feeling of\nnausea at his heart. He had not expected to leave this house like this;\nit seemed as though they were turning him out. 'What a way to do it all!\nand what was the object of being in such a hurry? Still, it is better\nso.' That was what he was thinking as he bowed in all directions with\na forced smile. For the last time he looked at Natalya, and his heart\nthrobbed; her eyes were bent upon him in sad, reproachful farewell.\n\nHe ran quickly down the steps, and jumped into his carriage. Bassistoff\nhad offered to accompany him to the next station, and he took his seat\nbeside him.\n\n'Do you remember,' began Rudin, directly the carriage had driven from\nthe courtyard into the broad road bordered with fir-trees, 'do you\nremember what Don Quixote says to his squire when he is leaving the\ncourt of the duchess? \"Freedom,\" he says, \"my friend Sancho, is one of\nthe most precious possessions of man, and happy is he to whom Heaven has\ngiven a bit of bread, and who need not be indebted to any one!\" What Don\nQuixote felt then, I feel now.... God grant, my dear Bassistoff, that\nyou too may some day experience this feeling!'\n\nBassistoff pressed Rudin's hand, and the honest boy's heart beat\nviolently with emotion. Till they reached the station Rudin spoke of\nthe dignity of man, of the meaning of true independence. He spoke nobly,\nfervently, and justly, and when the moment of separation had come,\nBassistoff could not refrain from throwing himself on his neck and\nsobbing. Rudin himself shed tears too, but he was not weeping because he\nwas parting from Bassistoff. His tears were the tears of wounded vanity.\n\nNatalya had gone to her own room, and there she read Rudin's letter.\n\n'Dear Natalya Alexyevna,' he wrote her, 'I have decided to depart. There\nis no other course open to me. I have decided to leave before I am told\nplainly to go. By my departure all difficulties will be put an end to,\nand there will be scarcely any one who will regret me. What else did I\nexpect?... It is always so, but why am I writing to you?\n\n'I am parting from you probably for ever, and it would be too painful to\nme to leave you with a worse recollection of me than I deserve. This is\nwhy I am writing to you. I do not want either to justify myself or to\nblame any one whatever except myself; I want, as far as possible, to\nexplain myself.... The events of the last days have been so unexpected,\nso sudden....\n\n'Our interview to-day will be a memorable lesson to me. Yes, you are\nright; I did not know you, and I thought I knew you! In the course of my\nlife I have had to do with people of all kinds. I have known many women\nand young girls, but in you I met for the first time an absolutely true\nand upright soul. This was something I was not used to, and I did not\nknow how to appreciate you fittingly. I felt an attraction to you from\nthe first day of our acquaintance; you may have observed it. I spent\nwith you hour after hour without learning to know you; I scarcely even\ntried to know you--and I could imagine that I loved you! For this sin I\nam punished now.\n\n'Once before I loved a woman, and she loved me. My feeling for her was\ncomplex, like hers for me; but, as she was not simple herself, it was\nall the better for her. Truth was not told to me then, and now I did not\nrecognise it when it was offered me.... I have recognised it at last,\nwhen it is too late.... What is past cannot be recalled.... Our lives\nmight have become united, and they never will be united now. How can I\nprove to you that I might have loved you with real love--the love of the\nheart, not of the fancy--when I do not know myself whether I am capable\nof such love?\n\n'Nature has given me much. I know it, and I will not disguise it from\nyou through false modesty, especially now at a moment so bitter, so\nhumiliating for me.... Yes, Nature has given me much, but I shall die\nwithout doing anything worthy of my powers, without leaving any trace\nbehind me. All my wealth is dissipated idly; I do not see the fruits of\nthe seeds I sow. I am wanting in something. I cannot say myself exactly\nwhat it is I am wanting in.... I am wanting, certainly, in something\nwithout which one cannot move men's hearts, or wholly win a woman's\nheart; and to sway men's minds alone is precarious, and an empire ever\nunprofitable. A strange, almost farcical fate is mine; I would devote\nmyself--eagerly and wholly to some cause,--and I cannot devote myself. I\nshall end by sacrificing myself to some folly or other in which I shall\nnot even believe.... Alas! at thirty-five to be still preparing for\nsomething!...\n\n'I have never spoken so openly of myself to any one before--this is my\nconfession.\n\n'But enough of me. I should like to speak of you, to give you some\nadvice; I can be no use to you further.... You are still young; but as\nlong as you live, always follow the impulse of your heart, do not let\nit be subordinated to your mind or the mind of others. Believe me, the\nsimpler, the narrower the circle in which life is passed the better;\nthe great thing is not to open out new sides, but that all the phases of\nlife should reach perfection in their own time. \"Blessed is he who has\nbeen young in his youth.\" But I see that this advice applies far more to\nmyself than to you.\n\n'I confess, Natalya Alexyevna, I am very unhappy. I never deceived\nmyself as to the nature of the feeling which I inspired in Darya\nMihailovna; but I hoped I had found at least a temporary home.... Now I\nmust take the chances of the rough world again. What will replace for\nme your conversation, your presence, your attentive and intelligent\nface?... I myself am to blame; but admit that fate seems to have\ndesigned a jest at my expense. A week ago I did not even myself suspect\nthat I loved you. The day before yesterday, that evening in the garden,\nI for the first time heard from your lips,... but why remind you of\nwhat you said then? and now I am going away to-day. I am going away\ndisgraced, after a cruel explanation with you, carrying with me no\nhope.... And you do not know yet to what a degree I am to blame as\nregards you... I have such a foolish lack of reserve, such a weak habit\nof confiding. But why speak of this? I am leaving you for ever!'\n\n(Here Rudin had related to Natalya his visit to Volintsev, but on second\nthoughts he erased all that part, and added the second postscript to his\nletter to Volintsev.)\n\n'I remain alone upon earth to devote myself, as you said to me this\nmorning with bitter irony, to other interests more congenial to me.\nAlas! if I could really devote myself to these interests, if I could\nat last conquer my inertia.... But no! I shall remain to the end the\nincomplete creature I have always been.... The first obstacle, ... and\nI collapse entirely; what has passed with you has shown me that If I had\nbut sacrificed my love to my future work, to my vocation; but I simply\nwas afraid of the responsibility that had fallen upon me, and therefore\nI am, truly, unworthy of you. I do not deserve that you should be torn\nout of your sphere for me.... And indeed all this, perhaps, is for the\nbest. I shall perhaps be the stronger and the purer for this experience.\n\n'I wish you all happiness. Farewell! Think sometimes of me. I hope that\nyou may still hear of me.\n\n'RUDIN.'\n\n\nNatalya let Rudin's letter drop on to her lap, and sat a long time\nmotionless, her eyes fixed on the ground. This letter proved to her\nclearer than all possible arguments that she had been right, when in the\nmorning, at her parting with Rudin, she had involuntarily cried out that\nhe did not love her! But that made things no easier for her. She sat\nperfectly still; it seemed as though waves of darkness without a ray of\nlight had closed over her head, and she had gone down cold and dumb to\nthe depths. The first disillusionment is painful for every one; but for\na sincere heart, averse to self-deception and innocent of frivolity\nor exaggeration, it is almost unendurable. Natalya remembered her\nchildhood, how, when walking in the evening, she always tried to go in\nthe direction of the setting sun, where there was light in the sky, and\nnot toward the darkened half of the heavens. Life now stood in darkness\nbefore her, and she had turned her back on the light for ever....\n\nTears started into Natalya's eyes. Tears do not always bring relief.\nThey are comforting and salutary when, after being long pent up in the\nbreast, they flow at last--at first with violence, and then more easily,\nmore softly; the dumb agony of sorrow is over with the tears. ... But\nthere are cold tears, tears that flow sparingly, wrung out drop by drop\nfrom the heart by the immovable, weary weight of pain laid upon it: they\nare not comforting, and bring no relief. Poverty weeps such tears; and\nthe man has not yet been unhappy who has not shed them. Natalya knew\nthem on that day.\n\nTwo hours passed. Natalya pulled herself together, got up, wiped her\neyes, and, lighting a candle, she burnt Rudin's letter in the flame, and\nthrew the ash out of window. Then she opened Pushkin at random, and\nread the first lines that met her. (She often made it her oracle in this\nway.) This is what she saw:\n\n  'When he has known its pang, for him\n  The torturing ghost of days that are no more,\n  For him no more illusion, but remorse\n  And memory's serpent gnawing at his heart.'\n\nShe stopped, and with a cold smile looked at herself in the glass,\nslightly nodded her head, and went down to the drawing-room.\n\nDarya Mihailovna, directly she saw her, called her into her study, made\nher sit near her, and caressingly stroked her cheek. Meanwhile she gazed\nattentively, almost with curiosity, into her eyes. Darya Mihailovna was\nsecretly perplexed; for the first time it struck her that she did not\nreally understand her daughter. When she had heard from Pandalevsky of\nher meeting with Rudin, she was not so much displeased as amazed that\nher sensible Natalya could resolve upon such a step. But when she had\nsent for her, and fell to upbraiding her--not at all as one would\nhave expected from a lady of European renown, but with loud and vulgar\nabuse--Natalya's firm replies, and the resolution of her looks and\nmovements, had confused and even intimidated her.\n\nRudin's sudden, and wholly unexplained, departure had taken a great load\noff her heart, but she had expected tears, and hysterics.... Natalya's\noutward composure threw her out of her reckoning again.\n\n'Well, child,' began Darya Mihailovna, 'how are you to-day?' Natalya\nlooked at her mother. 'He is gone, you see... your hero. Do you know why\nhe decided on going so quickly?'\n\n'Mamma!' said Natalya in a low voice, 'I give you my word, if you will\nnot mention him, you shall never hear his name from me.'\n\n'Then you acknowledge how wrongly you behaved to me?'\n\nNatalya looked down and repeated:\n\n'You shall never hear his name from me.'\n\n'Well, well,' answered Darya Mihailovna with a smile, 'I believe you.\nBut the day before yesterday, do you remember how--There, we will pass\nthat over. It is all over and buried and forgotten. Isn't it? Come, I\nknow you again now; but I was altogether puzzled then. There, kiss me\nlike a sensible girl!'\n\nNatalya lifted Darya Mihailovna's hand to her lips, and Darya Mihailovna\nkissed her stooping head.\n\n'Always listen to my advice. Do not forget that you are a Lasunsky and\nmy daughter,' she added, 'and you will be happy. And now you may go.'\n\nNatalya went away in silence. Darya Mihailovna looked after her and\nthought: 'She is like me--she too will let herself be carried away by\nher feelings; _mais ella aura moins d'abandon_.' And Darya Mihailovna\nfell to musing over memories of the past... of the distant past.\n\nThen she summoned Mlle. Boncourt and remained a long while closeted with\nher.\n\nWhen she had dismissed her she sent for Pandalevsky. She wanted at\nall hazards to discover the real cause of Rudin's departure... but\nPandalevsky succeeded in completely satisfying her. It was what he was\nthere for.\n\n\n\nThe next day Volintsev and his sister came to dinner. Darya Mihailovna\nwas always very affable to him, but this time she was especially\ncordial to him. Natalya felt unbearably miserable; but Volintsev was\nso respectful, and addressed her so timidly, that she could not but be\ngrateful to him in her heart. The day passed quietly, rather tediously,\nbut all felt as they separated that they had fallen back into the old\norder of things; and that means much, very much.\n\nYes, all had fallen back into their old order--all except Natalya. When\nat last she was able to be alone, she dragged herself with difficulty\ninto her bed, and, weary and worn out, fell with her face on the pillow.\nLife seemed so cruel, so hateful, and so sordid, she was so ashamed of\nherself, her love, and her sorrow, that at that moment she would have\nbeen glad to die.... There were many sorrowful days in store for her,\nand sleepless nights and torturing emotions; but she was young--life\nhad scarcely begun for her, and sooner or later life asserts its claims.\nWhatever blow has fallen on a man, he must--forgive the coarseness of\nthe expression--eat that day or at least the next, and that is the first\nstep to consolation.\n\nNatalya suffered terribly, she suffered for the first time.... But the\nfirst sorrow, like first love, does not come again--and thank God for\nit!\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\n\nAbout two years had passed. The first days of May had come. Alexandra\nPavlovna, no longer Lipin but Lezhnyov, was sitting on the balcony of\nher house; she had been married to Mihailo Mihailitch for more than a\nyear. She was as charming as ever, and had only grown a little stouter\nof late. In front of the balcony, from which there were steps leading\ninto the garden, a nurse was walking about carrying a rosy-cheeked baby\nin her arms, in a white cloak, with a white cap on his head. Alexandra\nPavlovna kept her eyes constantly on him. The baby did not cry, but\nsucked his thumb gravely and looked about him. He was already showing\nhimself a worthy son of Mihailo Mihailitch.\n\nOn the balcony, near Alexandra Pavlovna, was sitting our old friend,\nPigasov. He had grown noticeably greyer since we parted from him, and\nwas bent and thin, and he lisped when he spoke; one of his front teeth\nhad gone; and this lisp gave still greater asperity to his words....\nHis spitefulness had not decreased with years, but his sallies were less\nlively, and he more frequently repeated himself. Mihailo Mihailitch was\nnot at home; they were expecting him in to tea. The sun had already\nset. Where it had gone down, a streak of pale gold and of lemon colour\nstretched across the distant horizon; on the opposite quarter of the sky\nwas a stretch of dove-colour below and crimson lilac above. Light clouds\nseemed melting away overhead. There was every promise of prolonged fine\nweather.\n\nSuddenly Pigasov burst out laughing.\n\n'What is it, African Semenitch?' inquired Alexandra Pavlovna.\n\n'Oh, yesterday I heard a peasant say to his wife--she had been\nchattering away--\"don't squeak!\" I liked that immensely. And after\nall, what can a woman talk about? I never, you know, speak of present\ncompany. Our ancestors were wiser than we. The beauty in their stories\nalways sits at the window with a star on her brow and never utters\na syllable. That's how it ought to be. Think of it! the day before\nyesterday, our marshal's wife--she might have sent a pistol-shot into\nmy head!--says to me she doesn't like my tendencies! Tendencies! Come,\nwouldn't it be better for her and for every one if by some beneficent\nordinance of nature she were suddenly deprived of the use of her\ntongue?'\n\n'Oh, you are always like that, African Semenitch; you are always\nattacking us poor... Do you know it's a misfortune of a sort, really? I\nam sorry for you.'\n\n'A misfortune! Why do you say that? To begin with, in my opinion, there\nare only three misfortunes: to live in winter in cold lodgings, in\nsummer to wear tight shoes, and to spend the night in a room where a\nbaby cries whom you can't get rid of with Persian powder; and secondly,\nI am now the most peaceable of men. Why, I'm a model! You know how\nproperly I behave!'\n\n'Fine behaviour, indeed! Only yesterday Elena Antonovna complained to me\nof you.'\n\n'Well! And what did she tell you, if I may know?'\n\n'She told me that far one whole morning you would make no reply to all\nher questions but \"what? what?\" and always in the same squeaking voice.'\n\nPigasov laughed.\n\n'But that was a happy idea, you'll allow, Alexandra Pavlovna, eh?'\n\n'Admirable, indeed! Can you really have behaved so rudely to a lady,\nAfrican Semenitch?'\n\n'What! Do you regard Elena Antonovna as a lady?'\n\n'What do you regard her as?'\n\n'A drum, upon my word, an ordinary drum such as they beat with sticks.'\n\n'Oh,' interrupted Alexandra Pavlovna, anxious to change the\nconversation, 'they tell me one may congratulate you.'\n\n'Upon what?'\n\n'The end of your lawsuit. The Glinovsky meadows are yours.'\n\n'Yes, they are mine,' replied Pigasov gloomily.\n\n'You have been trying to gain this so many years, and now you seem\ndiscontented.'\n\n'I assure you, Alexandra Pavlovna,' said Pigasov slowly, 'nothing can\nbe worse and more injurious than good-fortune that comes too late.\nIt cannot give you pleasure in any way, and it deprives you of the\nright--the precious right--of complaining and cursing Providence. Yes,\nmadam, it's a cruel and insulting trick--belated fortune.'\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna only shrugged her shoulders.\n\n'Nurse,' she began, 'I think it's time to put Misha to bed. Give him to\nme.'\n\nWhile Alexandra Pavlovna busied herself with her son, Pigasov walked off\nmuttering to the other corner of the balcony.\n\nSuddenly, not far off on the road that ran the length of the garden,\nMihailo Mihailitch made his appearance driving his racing droshky. Two\nhuge house-dogs ran before the horse, one yellow, the other grey, both\nonly lately obtained. They incessantly quarrelled, and were inseparable\ncompanions. An old pug-dog came out of the gate to meet them. He opened\nhis mouth as if he were going to bark, but ended by yawning and turning\nback again with a friendly wag of the tail.\n\n'Look here, Sasha,' cried Lezhnyov, from the distance, to his wife,\n'whom I am bringing you.'\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna did not at once recognise the man who was sitting\nbehind her husband's back.\n\n'Ah! Mr. Bassistoff!' she cried at last\n\n'It's he,' answered Lezhnyov; 'and he has brought such glorious news.\nWait a minute, you shall know directly.'\n\nAnd he drove into the courtyard.\n\nSome minutes later he came with Bassistoff into the balcony.\n\n'Hurrah!' he cried, embracing his wife, 'Serezha is going to be\nmarried.'\n\n'To whom?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna, much agitated.\n\n'To Natalya, of course. Our friend has brought the news from Moscow, and\nthere is a letter for you.'\n\n'Do you hear, Misha,' he went on, snatching his son into his arms, 'your\nuncle's going to be married? What criminal indifference! he only blinks\nhis eyes!'\n\n'He is sleepy,' remarked the nurse.\n\n'Yes,' said Bassistoff, going up to Alexandra Pavlovna, 'I have come\nto-day from Moscow on business for Darya Mihailovna--to go over the\naccounts on the estate. And here is the letter.'\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna opened her brother's letter in haste. It consisted of\na few lines only. In the first transport of joy he informed his sister\nthat he had made Natalya an offer, and received her consent and Darya\nMihailovna's; and he promised to write more by the next post, and sent\nembraces and kisses to all. It was clear he was writing in a state of\ndelirium.\n\nTea was served, Bassistoff sat down. Questions were showered upon him.\nEvery one, even Pigasov, was delighted at the news he had brought.\n\n'Tell me, please,' said Lezhnyov among the rest, 'rumours reached us of\na certain Mr. Kortchagin. That was all nonsense, I suppose?'\n\nKortchagin was a handsome young man, a society lion, excessively\nconceited and important; he behaved with extraordinary dignity, just\nas if he had not been a living man, but his own statue set up by public\nsubscription.\n\n'Well, no, not altogether nonsense,' replied Bassistoff with a smile;\n'Darya Mihailovna was very favourable to him; but Natalya Alexyevna\nwould not even hear of him.'\n\n'I know him,' put in Pigasov, 'he's a double dummy, a noisy dummy, if\nyou like! If all people were like that, it would need a large sum of\nmoney to induce one to consent to live--upon my word!'\n\n'Very likely,' answered Bassistoff; 'but he plays a leading part in\nsociety.'\n\n'Well, never mind him!' cried Alexandra Pavlovna. 'Peace be with him!\nAh! how glad I am for my brother I And Natalya, is she bright and\nhappy?'\n\n'Yes. She is quiet, as she always is. You know her--but she seems\ncontented.'\n\nThe evening was spent in friendly and lively talk. They sat down to\nsupper.\n\n'Oh, by the way,' inquired Lezhnyov of Bassistoff, as he poured him out\nsome Lafitte, 'do you know where Rudin is?'\n\n'I don't know for certain now. He came last winter to Moscow for a short\ntime, and then went with a family to Simbirsk. I corresponded with\nhim for some time; in his last letter he informed me he was leaving\nSimbirsk--he did not say where he was going--and since then I have heard\nnothing of him.'\n\n'He is all right!' put in Pigasov. 'He is staying somewhere sermonising.\nThat gentleman will always find two or three adherents everywhere, to\nlisten to him open-mouthed and lend him money. You will see he will end\nby dying in some out-of-the-way corner in the arms of an old maid in a\nwig, who will believe he is the greatest genius in the world.'\n\n'You speak very harshly of him,' remarked Bassistoff, in a displeased\nundertone.\n\n'Not a bit harshly,' replied Pigasov; 'but perfectly fairly. In my\nopinion, he is simply nothing else than a sponge. I forgot to tell you,'\nhe continued, turning to Lezhnyov, 'that I have made the acquaintance of\nthat Terlahov, with whom Rudin travelled abroad. Yes! Yes! What he told\nme of him, you cannot imagine--it's simply screaming! It's a remarkable\nfact that all Rudin's friends and admirers become in time his enemies.'\n\n'I beg you to except me from the number of such friends!' interposed\nBassistoff warmly.\n\n'Oh, you--that's a different thing! I was not speaking of you.'\n\n'But what did Terlahov tell you?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna.\n\n'Oh, he told me a great deal; there's no remembering it all. But\nthe best of all was an anecdote of what happened to Rudin. As he was\nincessantly developing (these gentlemen always are developing; other\npeople simply sleep and eat; but they manage their sleeping and eating\nin the intervals of development; isn't that it, Mr. Bassistoff?'\nBassistoff made no reply.) 'And so, as he was continually developing,\nRudin arrived at the conclusion, by means of philosophy, that he ought\nto fall in love. He began to look about for a sweetheart worthy of\nsuch an astonishing conclusion. Fortune smiled upon him. He made the\nacquaintance of a very pretty French dressmaker. The whole incident\noccurred in a German town on the Rhine, observe. He began to go and see\nher, to take her various books, to talk to her of Nature and Hegel.\nCan you fancy the position of the dressmaker? She took him for an\nastronomer. However, you know he's not a bad-looking fellow--and a\nforeigner, a Russian, of course--he took her fancy. Well, at last he\ninvited her to a rendezvous, and a very poetical rendezvous, in a boat\non the river. The Frenchwoman agreed; dressed herself in her best and\nwent out with him in a boat. So they spent two hours. How do you think\nhe was occupied all that time? He patted the Frenchwoman on the head,\ngazed thoughtfully at the sky, and frequently repeated that he felt\nfor her the tenderness of a father. The Frenchwoman went back home in a\nfury, and she herself told the story to Terlahov afterwards! That's the\nkind of fellow he is.'\n\nAnd Pigasov broke into a loud laugh.\n\n'You old cynic!' said Alexandra Pavlovna in a tone of annoyance, 'but I\nam more and more convinced that even those who attack Rudin cannot find\nany harm to say of him.'\n\n'No harm? Upon my word! and his perpetual living at other people's\nexpense, his borrowing money.... Mihailo Mihailitch, he borrowed of you\ntoo, no doubt, didn't he?'\n\n'Listen, African Semenitch!' began Lezhnyov, and his face assumed a\nserious expression, 'listen; you know, and my wife knows, that the last\ntime I saw him I felt no special attachment for Rudin, and I even often\nblamed him. For all that (Lezhnyov filled up the glasses with champagne)\nthis is what I suggest to you now; we have just drunk to the health of\nmy dear brother and his future bride; I propose that you drink now to\nthe health of Dmitri Rudin!'\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna and Pigasov looked in astonishment at Lezhnyov, but\nBassistoff sat wide-eyed, blushing and trembling all over with delight.\n\n'I know him well,' continued Lezhnyov, 'I am well aware of his faults.\nThey are the more conspicuous because he himself is not on a small\nscale.'\n\n'Rudin has character, genius!' cried Bassistoff.\n\n'Genius, very likely he has!' replied Lezhnyov, 'but as for character\n... That's just his misfortune, that there's no character in him... But\nthat's not the point. I want to speak of what is good, of what is rare\nin him. He has enthusiasm; and believe me, who am a phlegmatic person\nenough, that is the most precious quality in our times. We have all\nbecome insufferably reasonable, indifferent, and slothful; we are asleep\nand cold, and thanks to any one who will wake us up and warm us! It is\nhigh time! Do you remember, Sasha, once when I was talking to you about\nhim, I blamed him for coldness? I was right, and wrong too, then. The\ncoldness is in his blood--that is not his fault--and not in his head. He\nis not an actor, as I called him, nor a cheat, nor a scoundrel; he lives\nat other people's expense, not like a swindler, but like a child....\nYes; no doubt he will die somewhere in poverty and want; but are we to\nthrow stones at him for that? He never does anything himself precisely,\nhe has no vital force, no blood; but who has the right to say that he\nhas not been of use? that his words have not scattered good seeds in\nyoung hearts, to whom nature has not denied, as she has to him, powers\nfor action, and the faculty of carrying out their own ideas? Indeed,\nI myself, to begin with, have gained all that from him.... Sasha knows\nwhat Rudin did for me in my youth. I also maintained, I recollect, that\nRudin's words could not produce an effect on men; but I was speaking\nthen of men like myself, at my present age, of men who have already\nlived and been broken in by life. One false note in a man's eloquence,\nand the whole harmony is spoiled for us; but a young man's ear, happily,\nis not so over-fine, not so trained. If the substance of what he\nhears seems fine to him, what does he care about the intonation! The\nintonation he will supply for himself!'\n\n'Bravo, bravo!' cried Bassistoff, 'that is justly spoken! And as regards\nRudin's influence, I swear to you, that man not only knows how to move\nyou, he lifts you up, he does not let you stand still, he stirs you to\nthe depths and sets you on fire!'\n\n'You hear?' continued Lezhnyov, turning to Pigasov; 'what further proof\ndo you want? You attack philosophy; speaking of it, you cannot find\nwords contemptuous enough. I myself am not excessively devoted to it,\nand I know little enough about it; but our principal misfortunes do\nnot come from philosophy! The Russian will never be infected with\nphilosophical hair-splittings and nonsense; he has too much common-sense\nfor that; but we must not let every sincere effort after truth and\nknowledge be attacked under the name of philosophy. Rudin's misfortune\nis that he does not understand Russia, and that, certainly, is a great\nmisfortune. Russia can do without every one of us, but not one of us can\ndo without her. Woe to him who thinks he can, and woe twofold to him\nwho actually does do without her! Cosmopolitanism is all twaddle, the\ncosmopolitan is a nonentity--worse than a nonentity; without nationality\nis no art, nor truth, nor life, nor anything. You cannot even have an\nideal face without individual expression; only a vulgar face can be\ndevoid of it. But I say again, that is not Rudin's fault; it is his\nfate--a cruel and unhappy fate--for which we cannot blame him. It would\ntake us too far if we tried to trace why Rudins spring up among us. But\nfor what is fine in him, let us be grateful to him. That is pleasanter\nthan being unfair to him, and we have been unfair to him. It's not our\nbusiness to punish him, and it's not needed; he has punished himself far\nmore cruelly than he deserved. And God grant that unhappiness may have\nblotted out all the harm there was in him, and left only what was fine!\nI drink to the health of Rudin! I drink to the comrade of my best years,\nI drink to youth, to its hopes, its endeavours, its faith, and its\nhonesty, to all that our hearts beat for at twenty; we have known, and\nshall know, nothing better than that in life.... I drink to that golden\ntime--to the health of Rudin!'\n\nAll clinked glasses with Lezhnyov. Bassistoff, in his enthusiasm, almost\ncracked his glass and drained it off at a draught. Alexandra Pavlovna\npressed Lezhnyov's hand.\n\n'Why, Mihailo Mihailitch, I did not suspect you were an orator,'\nremarked Pigasov; 'it was equal to Mr. Rudin himself; even I was moved\nby it.'\n\n'I am not at all an orator,' replied Lezhnyov, not without annoyance,\n'but to move you, I fancy, would be difficult. But enough of Rudin; let\nus talk of something else. What of--what's his name--Pandalevsky? is\nhe still living at Darya Mihailovna's?' he concluded, turning to\nBassistoff.\n\n'Oh yes, he is still there. She has managed to get him a very profitable\nplace.'\n\nLezhnyov smiled.\n\n'That's a man who won't die in want, one can count upon that.'\n\nSupper was over. The guests dispersed. When she was left alone with her\nhusband, Alexandra Pavlovna looked smiling into his face.\n\n'How splendid you were this evening, Misha,' she said, stroking\nhis forehead, 'how cleverly and nobly you spoke! But confess, you\nexaggerated a little in Rudin's praise, as in old days you did in\nattacking him.'\n\n'I can't let them hit a man when he's down. And in those days I was\nafraid he was turning your head.'\n\n'No,' replied Alexandra Pavlovna naively, 'he always seemed too learned\nfor me. I was afraid of him, and never knew what to say in his presence.\nBut wasn't Pigasov nasty in his ridicule of him to-day?'\n\n'Pigasov?' responded Lezhnyov. 'That was just why I stood up for Rudin\nso warmly, because Pigasov was here. He dare to call Rudin a sponge\nindeed! Why, I consider the part he plays--Pigasov I mean--is a hundred\ntimes worse! He has an independent property, and he sneers at every one,\nand yet see how he fawns upon wealthy or distinguished people! Do you\nknow that that fellow, who abuses everything and every one with such\nscorn, and attacks philosophy and women, do you know that when he was in\nthe service, he took bribes and that sort of thing! Ugh! That's what he\nis!'\n\n'Is it possible?' cried Alexandra Pavlovna, 'I should never have\nexpected that! Misha,' she added, after a short pause, 'I want to ask\nyou----'\n\n'What?'\n\n'What do you think, will my brother be happy with Natalya?'\n\n'How can I tell you?... there's every likelihood of it. She will take\nthe lead... there's no reason to hide the fact between us... she is\ncleverer than he is; but he's a capital fellow, and loves her with all\nhis soul. What more would you have? You see we love one another and are\nhappy, aren't we?'\n\nAlexandra Pavlovna smiled and pressed his hand.\n\n\nOn the same day on which all that has been described took place in\nAlexandra Pavlovna's house, in one of the remote districts of Russia, a\nwretched little covered cart, drawn by three village horses was crawling\nalong the high road in the sultry heat. On the front seat was perched\na grizzled peasant in a ragged cloak, with his legs hanging slanting\non the shaft; he kept flicking with the reins, which were of cord,\nand shaking the whip. Inside the cart there was sitting on a shaky\nportmanteau a tall man in a cap and old dusty cloak. It was Rudin.\nHe sat with bent head, the peak of his cap pulled over his eyes. The\njolting of the cart threw him from side to side; but he seemed utterly\nunconscious, as though he were asleep. At last he drew himself up.\n\n'When are we coming to a station?' he inquired of the peasant sitting in\nfront.\n\n'Just over the hill, little father,' said the peasant, with a still more\nviolent shaking of the reins. 'There's a mile and a half farther to go,\nnot more.... Come! there! look about you.... I'll teach you,' he added\nin a shrill voice, setting to work to whip the right-hand horse.\n\n'You seem to drive very badly,' observed Rudin; 'we have been crawling\nalong since early morning, and we have not succeeded in getting there\nyet. You should have sung something.'\n\n'Well, what would you have, little father? The horses, you see\nyourself, are overdone... and then the heat; and I can't sing. I'm not\na coachman.... Hullo, you little sheep!' cried the peasant, suddenly\nturning to a man coming along in a brown smock and bark shoes\ndowntrodden at heel. 'Get out of the way!'\n\n'You're a nice driver!' muttered the man after him, and stood still.\n'You wretched Muscovite,' he added in a voice full of contempt, shook\nhis head and limped away.\n\n'What are you up to?' sang out the peasant at intervals, pulling at the\nshaft-horse. 'Ah, you devil! Get on!'\n\nThe jaded horses dragged themselves at last up to the posting-station.\nRudin crept out of the cart, paid the peasant (who did not bow to\nhim, and kept shaking the coins in the palm of his hand a long\nwhile--evidently there was too little drink-money) and himself carried\nthe portmanteau into the posting-station.\n\nA friend of mine who has wandered a great deal about Russia in his time\nmade the observation that if the pictures hanging on the walls of a\nposting-station represent scenes from 'the Prisoner of the Caucasus,'\nor Russian generals, you may get horses soon; but if the pictures depict\nthe life of the well-known gambler George de Germany, the traveller need\nnot hope to get off quickly; he will have time to admire to the full\nthe hair _a la cockatoo_, the white open waistcoat, and the exceedingly\nshort and narrow trousers of the gambler in his youth, and his\nexasperated physiognomy, when in his old age he kills his son, waving a\nchair above him, in a cottage with a narrow staircase. In the room into\nwhich Rudin walked precisely these pictures were hanging out of\n'Thirty Years, or the Life of a Gambler.' In response to his call the\nsuperintendent appeared, who had just waked up (by the way, did any one\never see a superintendent who had not just been asleep?), and without\neven waiting for Rudin's question, informed him in a sleepy voice that\nthere were no horses.\n\n'How can you say there are no horses,' said Rudin, 'when you don't even\nknow where I am going? I came here with village horses.'\n\n'We have no horses for anywhere,' answered the superintendent. 'But\nwhere are you going?'\n\n'To Sk----.'\n\n'We have no horses,' repeated the superintendent, and he went away.\n\nRudin, vexed, went up to the window and threw his cap on the table. He\nwas not much changed, but had grown rather yellow in the last two years;\nsilver threads shone here and there in his curls, and his eyes, still\nmagnificent, seemed somehow dimmed, fine lines, the traces of bitter and\ndisquieting emotions, lay about his lips and on his temples. His clothes\nwere shabby and old, and he had no linen visible anywhere. His best days\nwere clearly over: as the gardeners say, he had gone to seed.\n\nHe began reading the inscriptions on the walls--the ordinary distraction\nof weary travellers; suddenly the door creaked and the superintendent\ncame in.\n\n'There are no horses for Sk----, and there won't be any for a long\ntime,' he said, 'but here are some ready to go to V----.'\n\n'To V----?' said Rudin. 'Why, that's not on my road at all. I am going\nto Penza, and V---- lies, I think, in the direction of Tamboff.'\n\n'What of that? you can get there from Tamboff, and from V---- you won't\nbe at all out of your road.'\n\nRudin thought a moment.\n\n'Well, all right,' he said at last, 'tell them to put the horses to. It\nis the same to me; I will go to Tamboff.'\n\nThe horses were soon ready. Rudin carried his own portmanteau, climbed\ninto the cart, and took his seat, his head hanging as before. There was\nsomething helpless and pathetically submissive in his bent figure....\nAnd the three horses went off at a slow trot.\n\n\n\n\nEPILOGUE\n\n\nSome years had passed by.\n\nIt was a cold autumn day. A travelling carriage drew up at the steps of\nthe principal hotel of the government town of C----; a gentleman yawning\nand stretching stepped out of it. He was not elderly, but had had time\nto acquire that fulness of figure which habitually commands respect. He\nwent up the staircase to the second story, and stopped at the entrance\nto a wide corridor. Seeing no one before him he called out in a loud\nvoice asking for a room. A door creaked somewhere, and a long waiter\njumped up from behind a low screen, and came forward with a quick flank\nmovement, an apparition of a glossy back and tucked-up sleeves in\nthe half-dark corridor. The traveller went into the room and at once\nthrowing off his cloak and scarf, sat down on the sofa, and with his\nfists propped on his knees, he first looked round as though he were\nhardly awake yet, and then gave the order to send up his servant. The\nhotel waiter made a bow and disappeared. The traveller was no other than\nLezhnyov. He had come from the country to C---- about some conscription\nbusiness.\n\nLezhnyov's servant, a curly-headed, rosy-cheeked youth in a grey cloak,\nwith a blue sash round the waist, and soft felt shoes, came into the\nroom.\n\n'Well, my boy, here we are,' Lezhnyov said, 'and you were afraid all the\nwhile that a wheel would come off.'\n\n'We are here,' replied the boy, trying to smile above the high collar of\nhis cloak, 'but the reason why the wheel did not come off----'\n\n'Is there no one in here?' sounded a voice in the corridor.\n\nLezhnyov started and listened.\n\n'Eh? who is there?' repeated the voice.\n\nLezhnyov got up, walked to the door, and quickly threw it open.\n\nBefore him stood a tall man, bent and almost completely grey, in an old\nfrieze coat with bronze buttons.\n\n'Rudin!' he cried in an excited voice.\n\nRudin turned round. He could not distinguish Lezhnyov's features, as he\nstood with his back to the light, and he looked at him in bewilderment.\n\n'You don't know me?' said Lezhnyov.\n\n'Mihailo Mihailitch!' cried Rudin, and held out his hand, but drew it\nback again in confusion. Lezhnyov made haste to snatch it in both of\nhis.\n\n'Come, come in!' he said to Rudin, and drew him into the room.\n\n'How you have changed!' exclaimed Lezhnyov after a brief silence,\ninvoluntarily dropping his voice.\n\n'Yes, they say so!' replied Rudin, his eyes straying about the room.\n'The years... and you not much. How is Alexandra--your wife?'\n\n'She is very well, thank you. But what fate brought you here?'\n\n'It is too long a story. Strictly speaking, I came here by chance. I was\nlooking for a friend. But I am very glad...'\n\n'Where are you going to dine?'\n\n'Oh, I don't know. At some restaurant. I must go away from here to-day.'\n\n'You must.'\n\nRudin smiled significantly.\n\n'Yes, I must. They are sending me off to my own place, to my home.'\n\n'Dine with me.'\n\nRudin for the first time looked Lezhnyov straight in the face.\n\n'You invite me to dine with you?' he said.\n\n'Yes, Rudin, for the sake of old times and old comradeship. Will you?\nI did not expect to meet you, and God only knows when we shall see each\nother again. I cannot part from you like this!'\n\n'Very well, I agree!'\n\nLezhnyov pressed Rudin's hand, and calling his servant, ordered dinner,\nand told him to have a bottle of champagne put in ice.\n\nIn the course of dinner, Lezhnyov and Rudin, as though by agreement,\nkept talking of their student days, recalling many things and many\nfriends--dead and living. At first Rudin spoke with little interest, but\nwhen he had drunk a few glasses of wine his blood grew warmer. At last\nthe waiter took away the last dish, Lezhnyov got up, closed the door,\nand coming back to the table, sat down facing Rudin, and quietly rested\nhis chin on his hands.\n\n'Now, then,' he began, 'tell me all that has happened to you since I saw\nyou last.'\n\nRudin looked at Lezhnyov.\n\n'Good God!' thought Lezhnyov, 'how he has changed, poor fellow!'\n\nRudin's features had undergone little change since we saw him last at\nthe posting-station, though approaching old age had had time to set its\nmark upon them; but their expression had become different. His eyes had\na changed look; his whole being, his movements, which were at one time\nslow, at another abrupt and disconnected, his crushed, benumbed\nmanner of speaking, all showed an utter exhaustion, a quiet and secret\ndejection, very different from the half-assumed melancholy which he had\naffected once, as it is generally affected by youth, when full of hopes\nand confident vanity.\n\n'Tell you all that has happened to me?' he said; 'I could not tell you\nall, and it is not worth while. I am worn out; I have wandered far--in\nspirit as well as in flesh. What friends I have made--good God! How\nmany things, how many men I have lost faith in! Yes, how many!' repeated\nRudin, noticing that Lezhnyov was looking in his face with a kind of\nspecial sympathy. 'How many times have my own words grown hateful to\nme! I don't mean now on my own lips, but on the lips of those who had\nadopted my opinions! How many times have I passed from the petulance of\na child to the dull insensibility of a horse who does not lash his tail\nwhen the whip cuts him!... How many times I have been happy and hopeful,\nand have made enemies and humbled myself for nothing! How many times\nI have taken flight like an eagle--and returned crawling like a snail\nwhose shell has been crushed!... Where have I not been! What roads\nhave I not travelled!... And the roads are often dirty,' added Rudin,\nslightly turning away. 'You know ...' he was continuing.... 'Listen,'\ninterrupted Lezhnyov. 'We used once to say \"Dmitri and Mihail\" to one\nanother. Let us revive the old habit,... will you? Let us drink to those\ndays!'\n\nRudin started and drew himself up a little, and there was a gleam in his\neyes of something no word can express.\n\n'Let us drink to them,' he said. 'I thank you, brother, we will drink to\nthem!'\n\nLezhnyov and Rudin drained their glasses.\n\n'You know, Mihail,' Rudin began again with a smile and a stress on the\nname, 'there is a worm in me which gnaws and worries me and never\nlets me be at peace till the end. It brings me into collision with\npeople,--at first they fall under my influence, but afterwards...'\n\nRudin waved his hand in the air.\n\n'Since I parted from you, Mihail, I have seen much, have experienced\nmany changes.... I have begun life, have started on something new twenty\ntimes--and here--you see!'\n\n'You had no stability,' said Lezhnyov, as though to himself.\n\n'As you say, I had no stability. I never was able to construct anything;\nand it's a difficult thing, brother, to construct when one has to create\nthe very ground under one's feet, to make one's own foundation for one's\nself! All my adventures--that is, speaking accurately, all my failures,\nI will not describe. I will tell of two or three incidents--those\nincidents of my life when it seemed as if success were smiling on me,\nor rather when I began to hope for success--which is not altogether the\nsame thing...'\n\nRudin pushed back his grey and already sparse locks with the same\ngesture which he used once to toss back his thick, dark curls.\n\n'Well, I will tell you, Mihail,' he began. 'In Moscow I came across a\nrather strange man. He was very wealthy and was the owner of extensive\nestates. His chief and only passion was love of science, universal\nscience. I have never yet been able to arrive at how this passion arose\nin him! It fitted him about as well as a saddle on a cow. He managed\nwith difficulty to maintain himself at his mental elevation, he was\nalmost without the power of speech, he only rolled his eyes with\nexpression and shook his head significantly. I never met, brother, a\npoorer and less gifted nature than his.... In the Smolensk province\nthere are places like that--nothing but sand and a few tufts of grass\nwhich no animal can eat. Nothing succeeded in his hands; everything\nseemed to slip away from him; but he was still mad on making everything\nplain complicated. If it had depended on his arrangements, his people\nwould have eaten standing on their heads. He worked, and wrote, and read\nindefatigably. He devoted himself to science with a kind of stubborn\nperseverance, a terrible patience; his vanity was immense, and he had a\nwill of iron. He lived alone, and had the reputation of an eccentric.\nI made friends with him... and he liked me. I quickly, I must own, saw\nthrough him; but his zeal attracted me. Besides, he was the master of\nsuch resources; so much good might be done, so much real usefulness\nthrough him.... I was installed in his house and went with him to the\ncountry. My plans, brother, were on a vast scale; I dreamed of various\nreforms, innovations...'\n\n'Just as at the Lasunsky's, do you remember, Dmitri?' responded\nLezhnyov, with an indulgent smile.\n\n'Ah, but then I knew in my heart that nothing would come of my words;\nbut this time... an altogether different field of activity lay open\nbefore me.... I took with me books on agriculture... to tell the truth,\nI did not read one of them through.... Well, I set to work. At first it\ndid not progress as I had expected; but afterwards it did get on in a\nway. My new friend looked on and said nothing; he did not interfere with\nme, at least not to any noticeable extent. He accepted my suggestions,\nand carried them out, but with a stubborn sullenness, a secret want of\nfaith; and he bent everything his own way. He prized extremely every\nidea of his own. He got to it with difficulty, like a ladybird on a\nblade of grass, and he would sit and sit upon it, as though pluming his\nwings and getting ready for a flight, and suddenly he would fall off\nand begin crawling again.... Don't be surprised at these comparisons; at\nthat time they were always crowding on my imagination. So I struggled on\nthere for two years. The work did not progress much in spite of all my\nefforts. I began to be tired of it, my friend bored me; I had come to\nsneer at him, and he stifled me like a featherbed; his want of faith had\nchanged into a dumb resentment; a feeling of hostility had laid hold\nof both of us; we could scarcely now speak of anything; he quietly but\nincessantly tried to show me that he was not under my influence;\nmy arrangements were either set aside or altogether transformed. I\nrealised, at last, that I was playing the part of a toady in the noble\nlandowner's house by providing him with intellectual amusement. It was\nvery bitter to me to have wasted my time and strength for nothing,\nmost bitter to feel that I had again and again been deceived in my\nexpectations. I knew very well what I was losing if I went away; but\nI could not control myself, and one day after a painful and revolting\nscene of which I was a witness, and which showed my friend in a most\ndisadvantageous light, I quarrelled with him finally, went away, and\nthrew up this newfangled pedant, made of a queer compound of our native\nflour kneaded up with German treacle.'\n\n'That is, you threw up your daily bread, Dmitri,' said Lezhnyov, laying\nboth hands on Rudin's shoulders.\n\n'Yes, and again I was turned adrift, empty-handed and penniless, to fly\nwhither I listed. Ah! let us drink!'\n\n'To your health!' said Lezhnyov, getting up and kissing Rudin on the\nforehead. 'To your health and to the memory of Pokorsky. He, too, knew\nhow to be poor.'\n\n'Well, that was number one of my adventures,' began Rudin, after a short\npause. 'Shall I go on?'\n\n'Go on, please.'\n\n'Ah! I have no wish for talking. I am tired of talking, brother....\nHowever, so be it. After knocking about in various parts--by the way, I\nmight tell you how I became the secretary of a benevolent dignitary, and\nwhat came of that; but that would take me too long.... After knocking\nabout in various parts, I resolved to become at last--don't smile,\nplease--a practical business man. The opportunity came in this way. I\nbecame friendly with--he was much talked of at one time--a man called\nKurbyev.'\n\n'Oh, I never heard of him. But, really, Dmitri, with your intelligence,\nhow was it you did not suspect that to be a business man was not the\nbusiness for you?'\n\n'I know, brother, that it was not; but, then, what is the business\nfor me? But if you had seen Kurbyev! Do not, pray, fancy him as some\nempty-headed chatterer. They say I was eloquent once. I was\nsimply nothing beside him. He was a man of wonderful learning and\nknowledge,--an intellect, brother, a creative intellect, for business\nand commercial enterprises. His brain seemed seething with the boldest,\nthe most unexpected schemes. I joined him and we decided to turn our\npowers to a work of public utility.'\n\n'What was it, may I know?'\n\nRudin dropped his eyes.\n\n'You will laugh at it, Mihail.\n\n'Why should I? No, I will not laugh.'\n\n'We resolved to make a river in the K---- province fit for navigation,'\nsaid Rudin with an embarrassed smile.\n\n'Really! This Kurbyev was a capitalist, then?'\n\n'He was poorer than I,' responded Rudin, and his grey head sank on his\nbreast.\n\nLezhnyov began to laugh, but he stopped suddenly and took Rudin by the\nhand.\n\n'Pardon me, brother, I beg,' he said, 'but I did not expect that. Well,\nso I suppose your enterprise did not get further than paper?'\n\n'Not so. A beginning was made. We hired workmen, and set to work. But\nthen we were met by various obstacles. In the first place the millowners\nwould not meet us favourably at all; and more than that, we could not\nturn the water out of its course without machinery, and we had not money\nenough for machinery. For six months we lived in mud huts. Kurbyev lived\non dry bread, and I, too, had not much to eat. However, I don't complain\nof that; the scenery there is something magnificent. We struggled and\nstruggled on, appealing to merchants, writing letters and circulars. It\nended in my spending my last farthing on the project.'\n\n'Well!' observed Lezhnyov, 'I imagine to spend your last farthing,\nDmitri, was not a difficult matter?'\n\n'It was not difficult, certainly.'\n\nRudin looked out of the window.\n\n'But the project really was not a bad one, and it might have been of\nimmense service.'\n\n'And where did Kurbyev go to?' asked Lezhnyov.\n\n'Oh, he is now in Siberia, he has become a gold-digger. And you will see\nhe will make himself a position; he will get on.'\n\n'Perhaps; but then you will not be likely to make a position for\nyourself, it seems.'\n\n'Well, that can't be helped! But I know I was always a frivolous\ncreature in your eyes.'\n\n'Hush, brother; there was a time, certainly, when I saw your weak side;\nbut now, believe me, I have learnt to value you. You will not make\nyourself a position. And I love you, Dmitri, for that, indeed I do!'\n\nRudin smiled faintly.\n\n'Truly?'\n\n'I respect you for it!' repeated Lezhnyov. 'Do you understand me?'\n\nBoth were silent for a little.\n\n'Well, shall I proceed to number three?' asked Rudin.\n\n'Please do.'\n\n'Very well. The third and last. I have only now got clear of number\nthree. But am I not boring you, Mihail?'\n\n'Go on, go on.'\n\n'Well,' began Rudin, 'once the idea occurred to me at some leisure\nmoment--I always had plenty of leisure moments--the idea occurred to me;\nI have knowledge enough, my intentions are good. I suppose even you will\nnot deny me good intentions?'\n\n'I should think not!'\n\n'In all other directions I had failed more or less... why should I not\nbecome an instructor, or speaking simply a teacher... rather than waste\nmy life?'\n\nRudin stopped and sighed.\n\n'Rather than waste my life, would it not be better to try to pass on to\nothers what I know; perhaps they may extract at least some use from my\nknowledge. My abilities are above the ordinary anyway, I am a master\nof language. So I resolved to devote myself to this new work. I had\ndifficulty in obtaining a post; I did not want to give private lessons;\nthere was nothing I could do in the lower schools. At last I succeeded\nin getting an appointment as professor in the gymnasium here.'\n\n'As professor of what?' asked Lezhnyov.\n\n'Professor of literature. I can tell you I never started on any work\nwith such zest as I did on this. The thought of producing an effect upon\nthe young inspired me. I spent three weeks over the composition of my\nopening lecture.'\n\n'Have you got it, Dmitri?' interrupted Lezhnyov.\n\n'No! I lost it somewhere. It went off fairly well, and was liked. I can\nsee now the faces of my listeners--good young faces, with an expression\nof pure-souled attention and sympathy, and even of amazement. I mounted\nthe platform and read my lecture in a fever; I thought it would\nfill more than an hour, but I had finished it in twenty minutes. The\ninspector was sitting there--a dry old man in silver spectacles and\na short wig--he sometimes turned his head in my direction. When I had\nfinished, he jumped up from his seat and said to me, \"Good, but rather\nover their heads, obscure, and too little said about the subject.\" But\nthe pupils followed me with appreciation in their looks--indeed they\ndid. Ah, that is how youth is so precious! I gave a second written\nlecture, and a third. After that I began to lecture extempore.'\n\n'And you had success?' asked Lezhnyov.\n\n'I had a great success. I gave my audience all that was in my soul.\nAmong them were two or three really remarkable boys; the rest did\nnot understand me much. I must confess though that even those who did\nunderstand me sometimes embarrassed me by their questions. But I did\nnot lose heart. They all loved me; I gave them all full marks in\nexaminations. But then an intrigue was started against me--or no! it\nwas not an intrigue at all; it simply was, that I was not in my proper\nplace. I was a hindrance to the others, and they were a hindrance to me.\nI lectured to the gymnasium pupils in a way lectures are not given\nevery day, even to students; they carried away very little from my\nlectures.... I myself did not know the facts enough. Besides, I was\nnot satisfied with the limited sphere assigned to me--you know that is\nalways my weakness. I wanted radical reforms, and I swear to you that\nthese reforms were both sensible and easy to carry out. I hoped to carry\nthem through the director, a good and honest man, over whom I had at\nfirst some influence. His wife aided me. I have not, brother, met many\nwomen like her in my life. She was about forty; but she believed in\ngoodness, and loved everything fine with the enthusiasm of a girl of\nfifteen, and was not afraid to give utterance to her convictions before\nany one whatever. I shall never forget her generous enthusiasm and\ngoodness. By her advice I drew up a plan.... But then my influence\nwas undermined, I was misrepresented to her. My chief enemy was the\nprofessor of mathematics, a little sour, bilious man who believed in\nnothing, a character like Pigasov, but far more able than he was.... By\nthe way, how is Pigasov, is he living?'\n\n'Oh, yes; and only fancy, he is married to a peasant woman, who, they\nsay, beats him.'\n\n'Serve him right! And Natalya Alexyevna--is she well?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'Is she happy?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\nRudin was silent for a little.\n\n'What was I talking about?... Oh yes! about the professor of\nmathematics. He perfectly hated me; he compared my lectures to\nfireworks, pounced upon every expression of mine that was not altogether\nclear, once even put me to confusion over some monument of the\nsixteenth century.... But the most important thing was, he suspected my\nintentions; my last soap-bubble struck on him as on a spike, and burst.\nThe inspector, whom I had not got on with from the first, set the\ndirector against me. A scene followed. I was not ready to give in; I got\nhot; the matter came to the knowledge of the authorities; I was forced\nto resign. I did not stop there; I wanted to prove that they could not\ntreat me like that.... But they could treat me as they liked.... Now I\nam forced to leave the town.'\n\nA silence followed. Both the friends sat with bowed heads.\n\nRudin was the first to speak.\n\n'Yes, brother,' he began, 'I can say now, in the words of Koltsov,\n\"Thou hast led me astray, my youth, till there is nowhere I can turn\nmy steps.\"... And yet can it be that I was fit for nothing, that for me\nthere was, as it were, no work on earth to do? I have often put myself\nthis question, and, however much I tried to humble myself in my own\neyes, I could not but feel the existence of faculties within me which\nare not given to every one! Why have these faculties remained fruitless?\nAnd let me say more; you know, when I was with you abroad, Mihail, I\nwas conceited and full of erroneous ideas.... Certainly I did not then\nrealise clearly what I wanted; I lived upon words, and believed in\nphantoms. But now, I swear to you, I could speak out before all men\nevery desire I feel. I have absolutely nothing to hide; I am absolutely,\nin the fullest meaning of the word, a well-intentioned man. I am humble,\nI am ready to adapt myself to circumstances; I want little; I want to\ndo the good that lies nearest, to be even a little use. But no! I never\nsucceed. What does it mean? What hinders me from living and working like\nothers?... I am only dreaming of it now. But no sooner do I get into\nany definite position when fate throws the dice from me. I have come to\ndread it--my destiny.... Why is it so? Explain this enigma to me!'\n\n'An enigma!' repeated Lezhnyov. 'Yes, that's true; you have always been\nan enigma for me. Even in our young days, when, after some trifling\nprank, you would suddenly speak as though you were pierced to the heart,\nand then you would begin again... well you know what I mean... even then\nI did not understand. That is why I grew apart from you.... You have so\nmuch power, such unwearying striving after the ideal.'\n\n'Words, all words! There was nothing done!' Rudin broke in.\n\n'Nothing done! What is there to do?'\n\n'What is there to do! To keep an old blind woman and all her family\nby one's work, as, do you remember, Mihail, Pryazhentsov did... That's\ndoing something.'\n\n'Yes, but a good word--is also something done.'\n\nRudin looked at Lezhnyov without speaking and faintly shook his head.\n\nLezhnyov wanted to say something, and he passed his hand over his face.\n\n'And so you are going to your country place?' he asked at last\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'There you have some property left?'\n\n'Something is left me there. Two souls and a half. It is a corner to\ndie in. You are thinking perhaps at this moment: \"Even now he cannot do\nwithout fine words!\" Words indeed have been my ruin; they have consumed\nme, and to the end I cannot be free of them. But what I have said was\nnot mere words. These white hairs, brother, these wrinkles, these\nragged elbows--they are not mere words. You have always been hard on me,\nMihail, and you were right; but now is not a time to be hard, when all\nis over, when there's no oil left in the lamp, and the lamp itself is\nbroken, and the wick is just smouldering out. Death, brother, should\nreconcile at last...'\n\nLezhnyov jumped up.\n\n'Rudin!' he cried, 'why do you speak like that to me? How have I\ndeserved it from you? Am I such a judge, and what kind of a man should\nI be, if at the sight of your hollow cheeks and wrinkles, \"mere words\"\ncould occur to my mind? Do you want to know what I think of you, Dmitri?\nWell! I think: here is a man--with his abilities, what might he not have\nattained to, what worldly advantages might he not have possessed by now,\nif he had liked!... and I meet him hungry and homeless....'\n\n'I rouse your compassion,' Rudin murmured in a choked voice.\n\n'No, you are wrong. You inspire respect in me--that is what I feel. Who\nprevented you from spending year after year at that landowner's, who was\nyour friend, and who would, I am fully persuaded, have made provision\nfor you, if you had only been willing to humour him? Why could you not\nlive harmoniously at the gymnasium, why have you--strange man!--with\nwhatever ideas you have entered upon an undertaking, infallibly every\ntime ended by sacrificing your personal interests, ever refusing to take\nroot in any but good ground, however profitable it might be?'\n\n'I was born a rolling stone,' Rudin said, with a weary smile. 'I cannot\nstop myself.'\n\n'That is true; but you cannot stop, not because there is a worm gnawing\nyou, as you said to me at first.... It is not a worm, not the spirit\nof idle restlessness--it is the fire of the love of truth that burns in\nyou, and clearly, in spite of your failings; it burns in you more hotly\nthan in many who do not consider themselves egoists and dare to call\nyou a humbug perhaps. I, for one, in your place should long ago have\nsucceeded in silencing that worm in me, and should have given in to\neverything; and you have not even been embittered by it, Dmitri. You are\nready, I am sure, to-day, to set to some new work again like a boy.'\n\n'No, brother, I am tired now,' said Rudin. 'I have had enough.'\n\n'Tired! Any other man would have been dead long ago. You say that death\nreconciles; but does not life, don't you think, reconcile? A man who has\nlived and has not grown tolerant towards others does not deserve to meet\nwith tolerance himself. And who can say he does not need tolerance? You\nhave done what you could, Dmitri... you have struggled so long as you\ncould... what more? Our paths lay apart,'...\n\n'You were utterly different from me,' Rudin put in with a sigh.\n\n'Our paths lay apart,' continued Lezhnyov, 'perhaps exactly because,\nthanks to my position, my cool blood, and other fortunate circumstances,\nnothing hindered me from being a stay-at-home, and remaining a spectator\nwith folded hands; but you had to go out into the world, to turn up your\nshirt-sleeves, to toil and labour. Our paths lay apart--but see how near\none another we are. We speak almost the same language, with half a hint\nwe understand one another, we grew up on the same ideas. There is little\nleft us now, brother; we are the last of the Mohicans! We might differ\nand even quarrel in old days, when so much life still remained before\nus; but now, when the ranks are thinned about us, when the younger\ngeneration is coming upon us with other aims than ours, we ought to keep\nclose to one another! Let us clink glasses, Dmitri, and sing as of old,\n_Gaudeamus igitur_!'\n\nThe friends clinked their glasses, and sang the old student song in\nstrained voices, all out of tune, in the true Russian style.\n\n'So you are going now to your country place,' Lezhnyov began again. 'I\ndon't think you will stay there long, and I cannot imagine where and how\nyou will end.... But remember, whatever happens to you, you have always\na place, a nest where you can hide yourself. That is my home,--do you\nhear, old fellow? Thought, too, has its veterans; they, too, ought to\nhave their home.'\n\nRudin got up.\n\n'Thanks, brother,' he said, 'thanks! I will not forget this in you.\nOnly I do not deserve a home. I have wasted my life, and have not served\nthought, as I ought.'\n\n'Hush!' said Lezhnyov. 'Every man remains what Nature has made him,\nand one cannot ask more of him! You have called yourself the Wandering\nJew.... But how do you know,--perhaps it was right for you to be ever\nwandering, perhaps in that way you are fulfilling a higher calling than\nyou know; popular wisdom says truly that we are all in God's hands. You\nare going, Dmitri,' continued Lezhnyov, seeing that Rudin was taking his\nhat 'You will not stop the night?'\n\n'Yes, I am going! Good-bye. Thanks.... I shall come to a bad end.'\n\n'God only knows.... You are resolved to go?'\n\n'Yes, I am going. Good-bye. Do not remember evil against me.'\n\n'Well, do not remember evil against me either,--and don't forget what I\nsaid to you. Good-bye.'...\n\nThe friends embraced one another. Rudin went quickly away.\n\nLezhnyov walked up and down the room a long while, stopped before the\nwindow thinking, and murmured half aloud, 'Poor fellow!' Then sitting\ndown to the table, he began to write a letter to his wife.\n\nBut outside a wind had risen, and was howling with ill-omened moans, and\nwrathfully shaking the rattling window-panes. The long autumn night came\non. Well for the man on such a night who sits under the shelter of\nhome, who has a warm corner in safety.... And the Lord help all homeless\nwanderers!\n\n\n\nOn a sultry afternoon on the 26th of July in 1848 in Paris, when\nthe Revolution of the _ateliers nationaux_ had already been almost\nsuppressed, a line battalion was taking a barricade in one of the narrow\nalleys of the Faubourg St Antoine. A few gunshots had already broken it;\nits surviving defenders abandoned it, and were only thinking of their\nown safety, when suddenly on the very top of the barricade, on the frame\nof an overturned omnibus, appeared a tall man in an old overcoat, with\na red sash, and a straw hat on his grey dishevelled hair. In one hand he\nheld a red flag, in the other a blunt curved sabre, and as he scrambled\nup, he shouted something in a shrill strained voice, waving his flag\nand sabre. A Vincennes tirailleur took aim at him--fired. The tall man\ndropped the flag--and like a sack he toppled over face downwards, as\nthough he were falling at some one's feet. The bullet had passed through\nhis heart.\n\n'_Tiens_!' said one of the escaping revolutionists to another, '_on\nvient de tuer le Polonais_!\n\n'_Bigre_!' answered the other, and both ran into the cellar of a house,\nthe shutters of which were all closed, and its wall streaked with traces\nof powder and shot.\n\nThis 'Polonais' was Dmitri Rudin.\n\n\nTHE END."