The next morning Rudin had only just finished dressing when a servant came to him with an invitation from Darya Mihailovna to come to her boudoir and drink tea with her. Rudin found her alone. She greeted him very cordially, inquired whether he had passed a good night, poured him out a cup of tea with her own hands, asked him whether there was sugar enough in it, offered him a cigarette, and twice again repeated that she was surprised that she had not met him long before. Rudin was about to take a seat some distance away; but Darya Mihailovna motioned him to an easy chair, which stood near her lounge, and bending a little towards him began to question him about his family, his plans and intentions. Darya Mihailovna spoke carelessly and listened with an air of indifference; but it was perfectly evident to Rudin that she was laying herself out to please him, even to flatter him. It was not for nothing that she had arranged this morning interview, and had dressed so simply yet elegantlya la Madame Récamier! But Darya Mihailovna soon left off questioning him. She began to tell him about herself, her youth, and the people she had known. Rudin gave a sympathetic attention to her lucubrations, though—a curious fact—whatever personage Darya Mihailovna might be talking about, she always stood in the foreground, she alone, and the personage seemed to be effaced, to slink away in the background, and to disappear. But to make up for that, Rudin learnt in full detail precisely what Darya Mihailovna had said to a certain distinguished statesman, and what influence she had had on such and such a celebrated poet. To judge from Darya Mihailovna’s accounts, one might fancy that all the distinguished men of the last five-and-twenty years had dreamt of nothing but how they could make her acquaintance, and gain her good opinion. She spoke of them simply, without particular enthusiasm or admiration, as though they were her daily associates, calling some of them queer fellows. As she talked of them, like a rich setting round a worthless stone, their names ranged themselves in a brilliant circlet round the principal name—around Darya Mihailovna.
Rudin listened, smoking a cigarette, and said little. He could speak well and liked speaking; carrying on a conversation was not in his line, though he was also a good listener. All men—if only they had not been intimidated by him to begin with—opened their hearts with confidence in his presence; he followed the thread of another man’s narrative so readily and sympathetically. He had a great deal of good-nature—that special good-nature of which men are full, who are accustomed to feel themselves superior to others. In arguments he seldom allowed his antagonist to express himself fully, he crushed him by his eager, vehement and passionate dialectic.
Darya Mihailovna expressed herself in Russian. She prided herself on her knowledge of her own language, though French words and expressions often escaped her. She intentionally made use of simple popular terms of speech; but not always successfully. Rudin’s ear was not outraged by the strange medley of language on Darya Mihailovna’s lips, indeed he hardly had an ear for it.
Darya Mihailovna was exhausted at last and letting her head fall on the cushions of her easy-chair she fixed her eyes on Rudin and was silent.
‘I understand now,’ began Rudin, speaking slowly, ‘I understand why you come every summer into the country. This period of rest is essential for you; the peace of the country after your life in the capital refreshes and strengthens you. I am convinced that you must be profoundly sensitive to the beauties of nature.’
Darya Mihailovna gave Rudin a sidelong look.
‘Nature—yes—yes—of course.... I am passionately fond of it; but do you know, Dmitri Nikolaitch, even in the country one cannot do without society. And here there is practically none. Pigasov is the most intelligent person here.’
‘The cross old gentleman who was here last night?’ inquired Rudin.
‘Yes.... In the country though, even he is of use—he sometimes makes one laugh.’
‘He is by no means stupid,’ returned Rudin, ‘but he is on the wrong path. I don’t know whether you will agree with me, Darya Mihailovna, but in negation—in complete and universal negation—there is no salvation to be found? Deny everything and you will easily pass for a man of ability; it’s a well-known trick. Simple-hearted people are quite ready to conclude that you are worth more than what you deny. And that’s often an error. In the first place, you can pick holes in anything; and secondly, even if you are right in what you say, it’s the worse for you; your intellect, directed by simple negation, grows colourless and withers up. While you gratify your vanity, you are deprived of the true consolations of thought; life—the essence of life—evades your petty and jaundiced criticism, and you end by scolding and becoming ridiculous. Only one who loves has the right to censure and find fault.’
‘Voilà, Monsieur Pigasov enteré,’ observed Darya Mihailovna. ‘What a genius you have for defining a man! But Pigasov certainly would not have even understood you. He loves nothing but his own individuality.’
‘And he finds fault with that so as to have the right to find fault with others,’ Rudin put in.
Darya Mihailovna laughed.
‘“He judges the sound,” as the saying is, “the sound by the sick.” By the way, what do you think of the baron?’
‘The baron? He is an excellent man, with a good heart and a knowledge ... but he has no character... and he will remain all his life half a savant, half a man of the world, that is to say, a dilettante, that is to say, to speak plainly,—neither one thing nor the other. ... But it’s a pity!’
‘That was my own idea,’ observed Darya Mihailovna. ‘I read his article....Entre nous... cela a assez peu de fond!’
‘Who else have you here?’ asked Rudin, after a pause.
Darya Mihailovna knocked off the ash of her cigarette with her little finger.
‘Oh, there is hardly any one else. Madame Lipin, Alexandra Pavlovna, whom you saw yesterday; she is very sweet—but that is all. Her brother is also a capital fellow—un parfait honnête homme. The Prince Garin you know. Those are all. There are two or three neighbours besides, but they are really good for nothing. They either give themselves airs or are unsociable, or else quite unsuitably free and easy. The ladies, as you know, I see nothing of. There is one other of our neighbours said to be a very cultivated, even a learned, man, but a dreadfully queer creature, a whimsical character.Alexandrineknows him, and I fancy is not indifferent to him.... Come, you ought to talk to her, Dmitri Nikolaitch; she’s a sweet creature. She only wants developing.’
‘I liked her very much,’ remarked Rudin.
‘A perfect child, Dmitri Nikolaitch, an absolute baby. She has been married,mais c’est tout comme.... If I were a man, I should only fall in love with women like that.’
‘Really?’
‘Certainly. Such women are at least fresh, and freshness cannot be put on.’
‘And can everything else?’ Rudin asked, and he laughed—a thing which rarely happened with him. When he laughed his face assumed a strange, almost aged appearance, his eyes disappeared, his nose was wrinkled up.
‘And who is this queer creature, as you call him, to whom Madame Lipin is not indifferent?’ he asked.
‘A certain Lezhnyov, Mihailo Mihailitch, a landowner here.’
Rudin seemed astonished; he raised his head.
‘Lezhnyov—Mihailo Mihailitch?’ he questioned. ‘Is he a neighbour of yours?’
‘Yes. Do you know him?’
Rudin did not speak for a minute.
‘I used to know him long ago. He is a rich man, I suppose?’ he added, pulling the fringe on his chair.
‘Yes, he is rich, though he dresses shockingly, and drives in a racing droshky like a bailiff. I have been anxious to get him to come here; he is spoken of as clever; I have some business with him.... You know I manage my property myself.’
Rudin bowed assent.
‘Yes; I manage it myself,’ Darya Mihailovna continued. ‘I don’t introduce any foreign crazes, but prefer what is our own, what is Russian, and, as you see, things don’t seem to do badly,’ she added, with a wave of her hand.
‘I have always been persuaded,’ observed Rudin urbanely, ‘of the absolutely mistaken position of those people who refuse to admit the practical intelligence of women.’
Darya Mihailovna smiled affably.
‘You are very good to us,’ was her comment ‘But what was I going to say? What were we speaking of? Oh, yes; Lezhnyov: I have some business with him about a boundary. I have several times invited him here, and even to-day I am expecting him; but there’s no knowing whether he’ll come... he’s such a strange creature.’
The curtain before the door was softly moved aside and the steward came in, a tall man, grey and bald, in a black coat, a white cravat, and a white waistcoat.
‘What is it?’ inquired Darya Mihailovna, and, turning a little towards Rudin, she added in a low voice, ‘n’est ce pas, comme il ressemble à Canning?’
‘Mihailo Mihailitch Lezhnyov is here,’ announced the steward. ‘Will you see him?’
‘Good Heavens!’ exclaimed Darya Mihailovna, ‘speak of the devil——ask him up.’
The steward went away.
‘He’s such an awkward creature. Now he has come, it’s at the wrong moment; he has interrupted our talk.’
Rudin got up from his seat, but Darya Mihailovna stopped him.
‘Where are you going? We can discuss the matter as well before you. And I want you to analyse him too, as you did Pigasov. When you talk,vous gravez comme avec un burin. Please stay.’ Rudin was going to protest, but after a moment’s thought he sat down.
Mihailo Mihailitch, whom the reader already knows, came into the room. He wore the same grey overcoat, and in his sunburnt hands he carried the same old foraging cap. He bowed tranquilly to Darya Mihailovna, and came up to the tea-table.
‘At last you have favoured me with a visit, Monsieur Lezhnyov!’ began Darya Mihailovna. ‘Pray sit down. You are already acquainted, I hear,’ she continued, with a gesture in Rudin’s direction.
Lezhnyov looked at Rudin and smiled rather queerly.
‘I know Mr. Rudin,’ he assented, with a slight bow.
‘We were together at the university,’ observed Rudin in a low voice, dropping his eyes.
‘And we met afterwards also,’ remarked Lezhnyov coldly.
Darya Mihailovna looked at both in some perplexity and asked Lezhnyov to sit down. He sat down.
‘You wanted to see me,’ he began, ‘on the subject of the boundary?’
‘Yes; about the boundary. But I also wished to see you in any case. We are near neighbours, you know, and all but relations.’
‘I am much obliged to you,’ returned Lezhnyov. ‘As regards the boundary, we have perfectly arranged that matter with your manager; I have agreed to all his proposals.’
‘I knew that. But he told me that the contract could not be signed without a personal interview with you.’
‘Yes; that is my rule. By the way, allow me to ask: all your peasants, I believe, pay rent?’
‘Just so.’
‘And you trouble yourself about boundaries! That’s very praiseworthy.’
Lezhnyov did not speak for a minute.
‘Well, I have come for a personal interview,’ he said at last.
Darya Mihailovna smiled.
‘I see you have come. You say that in such a tone.... You could not have been very anxious to come to see me.’
‘I never go anywhere,’ rejoined Lezhnyov phlegmatically.
‘Not anywhere? But you go to see Alexandra Pavlovna.’
‘I am an old friend of her brother’s.’
‘Her brother’s! However, I never wish to force any one.... But pardon me, Mihailo Mihailitch, I am older than you, and I may be allowed to give you advice; what charm do you find in such an unsociable way of living? Or is my house in particular displeasing to you? You dislike me?’
‘I don’t know you, Darya Mihailovna, and so I can’t dislike you. You have a splendid house; but I will confess to you frankly I don’t like to have to stand on ceremony. And I haven’t a respectable suit, I haven’t any gloves, and I don’t belong to your set.’
‘By birth, by education, you belong to it, Mihailo Mihailitch!vous êtes des notres.’
‘Birth and education are all very well, Darya Mihailovna; that’s not the question.’
‘A man ought to live with his fellows, Mihailo Mihailitch! What pleasure is there in sitting like Diogenes in his tub?’
‘Well, to begin with, he was very well off there, and besides, how do you know I don’t live with my fellows?’
Darya Mihailovna bit her lip.
‘That’s a different matter! It only remains for me to express my regret that I have not the honour of being included in the number of your friends.’
‘Monsieur Lezhnyov,’ put in Rudin, ‘seems to carry to excess a laudable sentiment—the love of independence.’
Lezhnyov made no reply, he only looked at Rudin. A short silence followed.
‘And so,’ began Lezhnyov, getting up, ‘I may consider our business as concluded, and tell your manager to send me the papers.’
‘You may,... though I confess you are so uncivil I ought really to refuse you.’
‘But you know this rearrangement of the boundary is far more in your interest than in mine.’
Darya Mihailovna shrugged her shoulders.
‘You will not even have luncheon here?’ she asked.
‘Thank you; I never take luncheon, and I am in a hurry to get home.’
Darya Mihailovna got up.
‘I will not detain you,’ she said, going to the window. ‘I will not venture to detain you.’
Lezhnyov began to take leave.
‘Good-bye, Monsieur Lezhnyov! Pardon me for having troubled you.’
‘Oh, not at all!’ said Lezhnyov, and he went away.
‘Well, what do you say to that?’ Darya Mihailovna asked of Rudin. ‘I had heard he was eccentric, but really that was beyond everything!’
‘His is the same disease as Pigasov’s,’ observed Rudin, ‘the desire of being original. One affects to be a Mephistopheles—the other a cynic. In all that, there is much egoism, much vanity, but little truth, little love. Indeed, there is even calculation of a sort in it. A man puts on a mask of indifference and indolence so that some one will be sure to think. “Look at that man; what talents he has thrown away!” But if you come to look at him more attentively, there is no talent in him whatever.’
‘Et de deux!’ was Darya Mihailovna’s comment. ‘You are a terrible man at hitting people off. One can hide nothing from you.’
‘Do you think so?’ said Rudin.... ‘However,’ he continued, ‘I ought not really to speak about Lezhnyov; I loved him, loved him as a friend... but afterwards, through various misunderstandings...’
‘You quarrelled?’
‘No. But we parted, and parted, it seems, for ever.’
‘Ah, I noticed that the whole time of his visit you were not quite yourself.... But I am much indebted to you for this morning. I have spent my time extremely pleasantly. But one must know where to stop. I will let you go till lunch time and I will go and look after my business. My secretary, you saw him—Constantin,c’est lui qui est mon secrétaire—must be waiting for me by now. I commend him to you; he is an excellent, obliging young man, and quite enthusiastic about you.Au revoir, cherDmitri Nikolaitch! How grateful I am to the baron for having made me acquainted with you!’
And Darya Mihailovna held out her hand to Rudin. He first pressed it, then raised it to his lips and went away to the drawing-room and from there to the terrace. On the terrace he met Natalya.
Darya Mihailovna’s daughter, Natalya Alexyevna, at a first glance might fail to please. She had not yet had time to develop; she was thin, and dark, and stooped slightly. But her features were fine and regular, though too large for a girl of seventeen. Specially beautiful was her pure, smooth forehead above fine eyebrows, which seemed broken in the middle. She spoke little, but listened to others, and fixed her eyes on them as though she were forming her own conclusions. She would often stand with listless hands, motionless and deep in thought; her face at such moments showed that her mind was at work within.... A scarcely perceptible smile would suddenly appear on her lips and vanish again; then she would slowly raise her large dark eyes. ‘Qu’avez-vous?’ Mlle. Boncourt would ask her, and then she would begin to scold her, saying that it was improper for a young girl to be absorbed and to appear absent-minded. But Natalya was not absent-minded; on the contrary, she studied diligently; she read and worked eagerly. Her feelings were strong and deep, but reserved; even as a child she seldom cried, and now she seldom even sighed and only grew slightly pale when anything distressed her. Her mother considered her a sensible, good sort of girl, calling her in a joke ‘mon honnête homme de fille’ but had not a very high opinion of her intellectual abilities. ‘My Natalya happily is cold,’ she used to say, ‘not like me—and it is better so. She will be happy.’ Darya Mihailovna was mistaken. But few mothers understand their daughters.
Natalya loved Darya Mihailovna, but did not fully confide in her.
‘You have nothing to hide from me,’ Darya Mihailovna said to her once, ‘or else you would be very reserved about it; you are rather a close little thing.’
Natalya looked her mother in the face and thought, ‘Why shouldn’t I be reserved?’
When Rudin met her on the terrace she was just going indoors with Mlle. Boncourt to put on her hat and go out into the garden. Her morning occupations were over. Natalya was not treated as a school-girl now. Mlle. Boncourt had not given her lessons in mythology and geography for a long while; but Natalya had every morning to read historical books, travels, or other instructive works with her. Darya Mihailovna selected them, ostensibly on a special system of her own. In reality she simply gave Natalya everything which the French bookseller forwarded her from Petersburg, except, of course, the novels of Dumas Fils and Co. These novels Darya Mihailovna read herself. Mlle. Boncourt looked specially severely and sourly through her spectacles when Natalya was reading historical books; according to the old French lady’s ideas all history was filled withimpermissiblethings, though for some reason or other of all the great men of antiquity she herself knew only one—Cambyses, and of modern times—Louis XIV. and Napoleon, whom she could not endure. But Natalya read books too, the existence of which Mlle. Boncourt did not suspect; she knew all Pushkin by heart.
Natalya flushed slightly at meeting Rudin.
‘Are you going for a walk?’ he asked her.
‘Yes. We are going into the garden.’
‘May I come with you?’
Natalya looked at Mlle. Boncourt
‘Mais certainement, monsieur; avec plaisir,’ said the old lady promptly.
Rudin took his hat and walked with them.
Natalya at first felt some awkwardness in walking side by side with Rudin on the same little path; afterwards she felt more at ease. He began to question her about her occupations and how she liked the country. She replied not without timidity, but without that hasty bashfulness which is so often taken for modesty. Her heart was beating.
‘You are not bored in the country?’ asked Rudin, taking her in with a sidelong glance.
‘How can one be bored in the country? I am very glad we are here. I am very happy here.’
‘You are happy—that is a great word. However, one can understand it; you are young.’
Rudin pronounced this last phrase rather strangely; either he envied Natalya or he was sorry for her.
‘Yes! youth!’ he continued, ‘the whole aim of science is to reach consciously what is bestowed on youth for nothing.’
Natalya looked attentively at Rudin; she did not understand him.
‘I have been talking all this morning with your mother,’ he went on; ‘she is an extraordinary woman. I understand why all our poets sought her friendship. Are you fond of poetry?’ he added, after a pause.
‘He is putting me through an examination,’ thought Natalya, and aloud: ‘Yes, I am very fond of it.’
‘Poetry is the language of the gods. I love poems myself. But poetry is not only in poems; it is diffused everywhere, it is around us. Look at those trees, that sky—on all sides there is the breath of beauty, and of life, and where there is life and beauty, there is poetry also.’
‘Let us sit down. Here on this bench,’ he added. ‘Here—so. I somehow fancy that when you are more used to me (and he looked her in the face with a smile) ‘we shall be friends, you and I. What do you think?’
‘He treats me like a school-girl,’ Natalya reflected again, and, not knowing what to say, she asked him whether he intended to remain long in the country.
‘All the summer and autumn, and perhaps the winter too. I am a very poor man, you know; my affairs are in confusion, and, besides, I am tired now of wandering from place to place. The time has come to rest.’
Natalya was surprised.
‘Is it possible you feel that it is time for you to rest?’ she asked him timidly.
Rudin turned so as to face Natalya.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean,’ she replied in some embarrassment, ‘that others may rest; but you... you ought to work, to try to be useful. Who, if not you——’
‘I thank you for your flattering opinion,’ Rudin interrupted her. ‘To be useful... it is easy to say!’ (He passed his hand over his face.) ‘To be useful!’ he repeated. ‘Even if I had any firm conviction, how could I be useful?—even if I had faith in my own powers, where is one to find true, sympathetic souls?’
And Rudin waved his hand so hopelessly, and let his head sink so gloomily, that Natalya involuntarily asked herself, were those really his—those enthusiastic words full of the breath of hope, she had heard the evening before.
‘But no,’ he said, suddenly tossing back his lion-like mane, ‘that is all folly, and you are right. I thank you, Natalya Alexyevna, I thank you truly.’ (Natalya absolutely did not know what he was thanking her for.) ‘Your single phrase has recalled to me my duty, has pointed out to me my path.... Yes, I must act. I must not bury my talent, if I have any; I must not squander my powers on talk alone—empty, profitless talk—on mere words,’ and his words flowed in a stream. He spoke nobly, ardently, convincingly, of the sin of cowardice and indolence, of the necessity of action. He lavished reproaches on himself, maintained that to discuss beforehand what you mean to do is as unwise as to prick with a pin the swelling fruit, that it is only a vain waste of strength and sap. He declared that there was no noble idea which would not gain sympathy, that the only people who remained misunderstood were those who either did not know themselves what they wanted, or were not worthy to be understood. He spoke at length, and ended by once more thanking Natalya Alexyevna, and utterly unexpectedly pressed her hand, exclaiming. ‘You are a noble, generous creature!’
This outburst horrified Mlle. Boncourt, who in spite of her forty years’ residence in Russia understood Russian with difficulty, and was only moved to admiration by the splendid rapidity and flow of words on Rudin’s lips. In her eyes, however, he was something of the nature of a virtuoso or artist; and from people of that kind, according to her notions, it was impossible to demand a strict adherence to propriety.
She got up and drew her skirts with a jerk around her, observed to Natalya that it was time to go in, especially as M. Volinsoff (so she spoke of Volintsev) was to be there to lunch.
‘And here he is,’ she added, looking up one of the avenues which led to the house, and in fact Volintsev appeared not far off.
He came up with a hesitating step, greeted all of them from a distance, and with an expression of pain on his face he turned to Natalya and said:
‘Oh, you are having a walk?’
‘Yes,’ answered Natalya, ‘we were just going home.’
‘Ah!’ was Volintsev’s reply. ‘Well, let us go,’ and they all walked towards the house.
‘How is your sister?’ Rudin inquired, in a specially cordial tone, of Volintsev. The evening before, too, he had been very gracious to him.
‘Thank you; she is quite well. She will perhaps be here to-day.... I think you were discussing something when I came up?’
‘Yes; I have had a conversation with Natalya Alexyevna. She said one thing to me which affected me strongly.’
Volintsev did not ask what the one thing was, and in profound silence they all returned to Darya Mihailovna’s house.
Before dinner the party was again assembled in the drawing-room. Pigasov, however, did not come. Rudin was not at his best; he did nothing but press Pandalevsky to play Beethoven. Volintsev was silent and stared at the floor. Natalya did not leave her mother’s side, and was at times lost in thought, and then bent over her work. Bassistoff did not take his eyes off Rudin, constantly on the alert for him to say something brilliant. About three hours were passed in this way rather monotonously. Alexandra Pavlovna did not come to dinner, and when they rose from table Volintsev at once ordered his carriage to be ready, and slipped away without saying good-bye to any one.
His heart was heavy. He had long loved Natalya, and was repeatedly resolving to make her an offer.... She was kindly disposed to him,—but her heart remained unmoved; he saw that clearly. He did not hope to inspire in her a tenderer sentiment, and was only waiting for the time when she should be perfectly at home with him and intimate with him. What could have disturbed him? what change had he noticed in these two days? Natalya had behaved to him exactly the same as before....
Whether it was that some idea had come upon him that he perhaps did not know Natalya’s character at all—that she was more a stranger to him than he had thought,—or jealousy had begun to work in him, or he had some dim presentiment of ill... anyway, he suffered, though he tried to reason with himself.
When he came in to his sister’s room, Lezhnyov was sitting with her.
‘Why have you come back so early?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna.
‘Oh! I was bored.’
‘Was Rudin there?’
‘Yes.’
Volintsev flung down his cap and sat down. Alexandra Pavlovna turned eagerly to him.
‘Please, Serezha, help me to convince this obstinate man (she signified Lezhnyov) that Rudin is extraordinarily clever and eloquent.’
Volintsev muttered something.
‘But I am not disputing at all with you,’ Lezhnyov began. ‘I have no doubt of the cleverness and eloquence of Mr. Rudin; I only say that I don’t like him.’
‘But have you seen him?’ inquired Volintsev.
‘I saw him this morning at Darya Mihallovna’s. You know he is her first favourite now. The time will come when she will part with him—Pandalevsky is the only man she will never part with—but now he is supreme. I saw him, to be sure! He was sitting there,—and she showed me off to him, “see, my good friend, what queer fish we have here!” But I am not a prize horse, to be trotted out on show, so I took myself off.’
‘But how did you come to be there?’
‘About a boundary; but that was all nonsense; she simply wanted to have a look at my physiognomy. She’s a fine lady,—that’s explanation enough!’
‘His superiority is what offends you—that’s what it is!’ began Alexandra Pavlovna warmly, ‘that’s what you can’t forgive. But I am convinced that besides his cleverness he must have an excellent heart as well. You should see his eyes when he——’
‘“Of purity exalted speaks,”’ quoted Lezhnyov.
‘You make me angry, and I shall cry. I am heartily sorry I did not go to Darya Mihailovna’s, but stopped with you. You don’t deserve it. Leave off teasing me,’ she added, in an appealing voice, ‘You had much better tell me about his youth.’
‘Rudin’s youth?’
‘Yes, of course. Didn’t you tell me you knew him well, and had known him a long time?’
Lezhnyov got up and walked up and down the room.
‘Yes,’ he began, ‘I do know him well. You want me to tell you about his youth? Very well. He was born in T——, and was the son of a poor landowner, who died soon after. He was left alone with his mother. She was a very good woman, and she idolised him; she lived on nothing but oatmeal, and every penny she had she spent on him. He was educated in Moscow, first at the expense of some uncle, and afterwards, when he was grown up and fully fledged, at the expense of a rich prince whose favour he had courted—there, I beg your pardon, I won’t do it again—with whom he had made friends. Then he went to the university. At the university I got to know him and we became intimate friends. I will tell you about our life in those days some other time, I can’t now. Then he went abroad....’
Lezhnyov continued to walk up and down the room; Alexandra Pavlovna followed him with her eyes.
‘While he was abroad,’ he continued, ‘Rudin wrote very rarely to his mother, and paid her altogether only one visit for ten days.... The old lady died without him, cared for by strangers; but up to her death she never took her eyes off his portrait. I went to see her when I was staying in T——. She was a kind and hospitable woman; she always used to feast me on cherry jam. She loved her Mitya devotedly. People of the Petchorin type tell us that we always love those who are least capable of feeling love themselves; but it’s my idea that all mothers love their children especially when they are absent. Afterwards I met Rudin abroad. Then he was connected with a lady, one of our countrywomen, a bluestocking, no longer young, and plain, as a bluestocking is bound to be. He lived a good while with her, and at last threw her over—or no, I beg pardon,—she threw him over. It was then that I too threw him over. That’s all.’
Lezhnyov ceased speaking, passed his hand over his brow, and dropped into a chair as if he were exhausted.
‘Do you know, Mihailo Mihailitch,’ began Alexandra Pavlovna, ‘you are a spiteful person, I see; indeed you are no better than Pigasov. I am convinced that all you have told me is true, that you have not made up anything, and yet in what an unfavourable light you have put it all! The poor old mother, her devotion, her solitary death, and that lady—What does it all amount to? You know that it’s easy to put the life of the best of men in such colours—and without adding anything, observe—that every one would be shocked! But that too is slander of a kind!’
Lezhnyov got up and again walked about the room.
‘I did not want to shock you at all, Alexandra Pavlovna,’ he brought out at last, ‘I am not given to slander. However,’ he added, after a moment’s thought, ‘in reality there is a foundation of fact in what you said. I did not mean to slander Rudin; but—who knows! very likely he has had time to change since those days—very possibly I am unjust to him.’
‘Ah! you see. So promise me that you will renew your acquaintance with him, and will get to know him thoroughly and then report your final opinion of him to me.’
‘As you please. But why are you so quiet, Sergei Pavlitch?’
Volintsev started and raised his head, as though he had just waked up.
‘What can I say? I don’t know him. Besides, my head aches to-day.’
‘Yes, you look rather pale this evening,’ remarked Alexandra Pavlovna; ‘are you unwell?’
‘My head aches,’ repeated Volintsev, and he went away.
Alexandra Pavlovna and Lezhnyov looked after him, and exchanged glances, though they said nothing. What was passing in Volintsev’s heart was no mystery to either of them.
More than two months had passed; during the whole of that period Rudin had scarcely been away from Darya Mihailovna’s house. She could not get on without him. To talk to him about herself and to listen to his eloquence became a necessity for her. He would have taken his leave on one occasion, on the ground that all his money was spent; she gave him five hundred roubles. He borrowed two hundred roubles more from Volintsev. Pigasov visited Darya Mihailovna much less frequently than before; Rudin crushed him by his presence. And indeed it was not only Pigasov who was conscious of an oppression.
‘I don’t like that prig,’ Pigasov used to say, ‘he expresses himself so affectedly like a hero of a romance. If he says “I,” he stops in rapt admiration, “I, yes, I!” and the phrases he uses are all so drawn-out; if you sneeze, he will begin at once to explain to you exactly why you sneezed and did not cough. If he praises you, it’s just as if he were creating you a prince. If he begins to abuse himself, he humbles himself into the dust—come, one thinks, he will never dare to face the light of day after that. Not a bit of it! It only cheers him up, as if he’d treated himself to a glass of grog.’
Pandalevsky was a little afraid of Rudin, and cautiously tried to win his favour. Volintsev had got on to curious terms with him. Rudin called him a knight-errant, and sang his praises to his face and behind his back; but Volintsev could not bring himself to like him and always felt an involuntary impatience and annoyance when Rudin devoted himself to enlarging on his good points in his presence. ‘Is he making fun of me?’ he thought, and he felt a throb of hatred in his heart. He tried to keep his feelings in check, but in vain; he was jealous of him on Natalya’s account. And Rudin himself, though he always welcomed Volintsev with effusion, though he called him a knight-errant, and borrowed money from him, did not feel exactly friendly towards him. It would be difficult to define the feelings of these two men when they pressed each other’s hands like friends and looked into each other’s eyes.
Bassistoff continued to adore Rudin, and to hang on every word he uttered. Rudin paid him very little attention. Once he spent a whole morning with him, discussing the weightiest problems of life, and awakening his keenest enthusiasm, but afterwards he took no further notice of him. Evidently it was only a phrase when he said that he was seeking for pure and devoted souls. With Lezhnyov, who began to be a frequent visitor at the house, Rudin did not enter into discussion; he seemed even to avoid him. Lezhnyov, on his part, too, treated him coldly. He did not, however, report his final conclusions about him, which somewhat disquieted Alexandra Pavlovna. She was fascinated by Rudin, but she had confidence in Lezhnyov. Every one in Darya Mihailovna’s house humoured Rudin’s fancies; his slightest preferences were carried out. He determined the plans for the day. Not a singlepartie de plaisirwas arranged without his co-operation.
He was not, however, very fond of any kind of impromptu excursion or picnic, and took part in them rather as grown-up people take part in children’s games, with an air of kindly, but rather wearied, friendliness. He took interest in everything else, however. He discussed with Darya Mihailovna her plans for the estate, the education of her children, her domestic arrangements, and her affairs generally; he listened to her schemes, and was not bored by petty details, and, in his turn, proposed reforms and made suggestions. Darya Mihailovna agreed to them in words—and that was all. In matters of business she was really guided by the advice of her bailiff—an elderly, one-eyed Little Russian, a good-natured and crafty old rogue. ‘What is old is fat, what is new is thin,’ he used to say, with a quiet smile, winking his solitary eye.
Next to Darya Mihailovna, it was Natalya to whom Rudin used to talk most often and at most length. He used privately to give her books, to confide his plans to her, and to read her the first pages of the essays and other works he had in his mind. Natalya did not always fully grasp the significance of them.
But Rudin did not seem to care much about her understanding, so long as she listened to him. His intimacy with Natalya was not altogether pleasing to Darya Mihailovna. ‘However,’ she thought, ‘let her chatter away with him in the country. She amuses him as a little girl now. There is no great harm in it, and, at any rate, it will improve her mind. At Petersburg I will soon put a stop to it.’
Darya Mihailovna was mistaken. Natalya did not chatter to Rudin like a school-girl; she eagerly drank in his words, she tried to penetrate to their full significance; she submitted her thoughts, her doubts to him; he became her leader, her guide. So far, it was only the brain that was stirred, but in the young the brain is not long stirred alone. What sweet moments Natalya passed when at times in the garden on the seat, in the transparent shade of the aspen tree, Rudin began to read Goethe’sFaust, Hoffman, or Bettina’s letters, or Novalis, constantly stopping and explaining what seemed obscure to her. Like almost all Russian girls, she spoke German badly, but she understood it well, and Rudin was thoroughly imbued with German poetry, German romanticism and philosophy, and he drew her after him into these forbidden lands. Unimagined splendours were revealed there to her earnest eyes from the pages of the book which Rudin held on his knee; a stream of divine visions, of new, illuminating ideas, seemed to flow in rhythmic music into her soul, and in her heart, moved with the high delight of noble feeling, slowly was kindled and fanned into a flame the holy spark of enthusiasm.
‘Tell me, Dmitri Nikolaitch,’ she began one day, sitting by the window at her embroidery-frame, ‘shall you be in Petersburg in the winter?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Rudin, as he let the book he had been glancing through fall upon his knee; ‘if I can find the means, I shall go.’
He spoke dejectedly; he felt tired, and had done nothing all day.
‘I think you are sure to find the means.’
Rudin shook his head.
‘You think so!’
And he looked away expressively.
Natalya was on the point of replying, but she checked herself.
‘Look.’ began Rudin, with a gesture towards the window, ‘do you see that apple-tree? It is broken by the weight and abundance of its own fruit. True emblem of genius.’
‘It is broken because it had no support,’ replied Natalya.
‘I understand you, Natalya Alexyevna, but it is not so easy for a man to find such a support.’
‘I should think the sympathy of others... in any case isolation always....’
Natalya was rather confused, and flushed a little.
‘And what will you do in the country in the winter?’ she added hurriedly.
‘What shall I do? I shall finish my larger essay—you know it—on “Tragedy in Life and in Art.” I described to you the outline of it the day before yesterday, and shall send it to you.’
‘And you will publish it?’
‘No.’
‘No? For whose sake will you work then?’
‘And if it were for you?’
Natalya dropped her eyes.
‘It would be far above me.’
‘What, may I ask, is the subject of the essay?’ Bassistoff inquired modestly. He was sitting a little distance away.
‘“Tragedy in Life and in Art,”’ repeated Rudin. ‘Mr. Bassistoff too will read it. But I have not altogether settled on the fundamental motive. I have not so far worked out for myself the tragic significance of love.’
Rudin liked to talk of love, and frequently did so. At first, at the word ‘love,’ Mlle. Boncourt started, and pricked up her eyes like an old war-horse at the sound of the trumpet; but afterwards she had grown used to it, and now only pursed up her lips and took snuff at intervals.
‘It seems to me,’ said Natalya timidly, ‘that the tragic in love is unrequited love.’
‘Not at all!’ replied Rudin; ‘that is rather the comic side of love. ... The question must be put in an altogether different way... one must attack it more deeply.... Love!’ he pursued, ‘all is mystery in love; how it comes, how it develops, how it passes away. Sometimes it comes all at once, undoubting, glad as day; sometimes it smoulders like fire under ashes, and only bursts into a flame in the heart when all is over; sometimes it winds its way into the heart like a serpent, and suddenly slips out of it again.... Yes, yes; it is the great problem. But who does love in our days? Who is so bold as to love?’
And Rudin grew pensive.
‘Why is it we have not seen Sergei Pavlitch for so long?’ he asked suddenly.
Natalya blushed, and bent her head over her embroidery frame.
‘I don’t know,’ she murmured.
‘What a splendid, generous fellow he is!’ Rudin declared, standing up. ‘It is one of the best types of a Russian gentleman.’
Mlle. Boncourt gave him a sidelong look out of her little French eyes.
Rudin walked up and down the room.
‘Have you noticed,’ he began, turning sharply round on his heels, ‘that on the oak—and the oak is a strong tree—the old leaves only fall off when the new leaves begin to grow?’
‘Yes,’ answered Natalya slowly, ‘I have noticed it.’
‘That is what happens to an old love in a strong heart; it is dead already, but still it holds its place; only another new love can drive it out.’
Natalya made no reply.
‘What does that mean?’ she was thinking.
Rudin stood still, tossed his hair back, and walked away.
Natalya went to her own room. She sat a long while on her little bed in perplexity, pondering over Rudin’s last words. All at once she clasped her hands and began to weep bitterly. What she was weeping for—who can tell? She herself could not tell why her tears were falling so fast. She dried them; but they flowed afresh, like water from a long-pent-up source.
On this same day Alexandra Pavlovna had a conversation with Lezhnyov about Rudin. At first he bore all her attacks in silence; but at last she succeeded in rousing him into talk.
‘I see,’ she said to him, ‘you dislike Dmitri Nikolaitch, as you did before. I purposely refrained from questioning you till now; but now you have had time to make up your mind whether there is any change in him, and I want to know why you don’t like him.’
‘Very well,’ answered Lezhnyov with his habitual phlegm, ‘since your patience is exhausted; only look here, don’t get angry.’
‘Come, begin, begin.’
‘And let me have my say to the end.’
‘Of course, of course; begin.’
‘Very well,’ said Lezhnyov, dropping lazily on to the sofa; ‘I admit that I certainly don’t like Rudin. He is a clever fellow.’
‘I should think so.’
‘He is a remarkably clever man, though in reality essentially shallow.’
‘It’s easy to say that.’
‘Though essentially shallow,’ repeated Lezhnyov; ‘but there’s no great harm in that; we are all shallow. I will not even quarrel with him for being a tyrant at heart, lazy, ill-informed!’
Alexandra Pavlovna clasped her hands.
‘Rudin—ill-informed!’ she cried.
‘Ill-informed!’ repeated Lezhnyov in precisely the same voice, ‘that he likes to live at other people’s expense, to cut a good figure, and so forth—all that’s natural enough. But what’s wrong is, that he is as cold as ice.’
‘He cold! that fiery soul cold!’ interrupted Alexandra Pavlovna.
‘Yes, cold as ice, and he knows it, and pretends to be fiery. What’s bad,’ pursued Lezhnyov, gradually growing warm, ‘he is playing a dangerous game—not dangerous for him, of course; he does not risk a farthing, not a straw on it—but others stake their soul.’
‘Whom and what are you talking of? I don’t understand you,’ said Alexandra Pavlovna.
‘What’s bad, he isn’t honest. He’s a clever man, certainly; he ought to know the value of his own words, and he brings them out as if they were worth something to him. I don’t dispute that he’s a fine speaker, but not in the Russian style. And indeed, after all, fine speaking is pardonable in a boy, but at his years it is disgraceful to take pleasure in the sound of his own voice, and to show off!’
‘I think, Mihailo Mihailitch, it’s all the same for those who hear him, whether he is showing off or not.’
‘Excuse me, Alexandra Pavlovna, it is not all the same. One man says a word to me and it thrills me all over, another may say the same thing, or something still finer—and I don’t prick up my ears. Why is that?’
‘Youdon’t, perhaps,’ put in Alexandra Pavlovna.
‘I don’t,’ retorted Lezhnyov, ‘though perhaps my ears are long enough. The point is, that Rudin’s words seem to remain mere words, and never to pass into deeds—and meanwhile even words may trouble a young heart, may be the ruin of it.’
‘But whom do you mean, Mihailo Mihailitch?’
Lezhnyov paused.
‘Do you want to know whom I mean, Natalya Alexyevna?’
Alexandra Pavlovna was taken aback for a moment, but she began to smile the instant after.
‘Really,’ she began, ‘what queer ideas you always have! Natalya is still a child; and besides, if there were anything in what you say, do you suppose Darya Mihailovna——’
‘Darya Mihailovna is an egoist to begin with, and lives for herself; and then she is so convinced of her own skill in educating her children that it does not even enter her head to feel uneasy about them. Nonsense! how is it possible: she has but to give one nod, one majestic glance—and all is over, all is obedience again. That’s what that lady imagines; she fancies herself a female Maecenas, a learned woman, and God knows what, but in fact she is nothing more than a silly, worldly old woman. But Natalya is not a baby; believe me, she thinks more, and more profoundly too, than you and I do. And that her true, passionate, ardent nature must fall in with an actor, a flirt like this! But of course that’s in the natural order of things.’
‘A flirt! Do you mean that he is a flirt?’
‘Of course he is. And tell me yourself, Alexandra Pavlovna, what is his position in Darya Mihailovna’s house? To be the idol, the oracle of the household, to meddle in the arrangements, all the gossip and petty trifles of the house—is that a dignified position for a man to be in?’
Alexandra Pavlovna looked at Lezhnyov in surprise.
‘I don’t know you, Mihailo Mihailitch,’ she began to say. ‘You are flushed and excited. I believe there must be something else hidden under this.’
‘Oh, so that’s it! Tell a woman the truth from conviction, and she will never rest easy till she has invented some petty outside cause quite beside the point which has made you speak in precisely that manner and no other.’
Alexandra Pavlovna began to get angry.
‘Bravo, Monsieur Lezhnyov! You begin to be as bitter against women as Mr. Pigasov; but you may say what you like, penetrating as you are, it’s hard for me to believe that you understand every one and everything. I think you are mistaken. According to your ideas, Rudin is a kind of Tartuffe.’
‘No, the point is, that he is not even a Tartuffe. Tartuffe at least knew what he was aiming at; but this fellow, for all his cleverness——’
‘Well, well, what of him? Finish your sentence, you unjust, horrid man!’
Lezhnyov got up.
‘Listen, Alexandra Pavlovna,’ he began, ‘it is you who are unjust, not I. You are cross with me for my harsh criticism of Rudin; I have the right to speak harshly of him! I have paid dearly enough, perhaps, for that privilege. I know him well: I lived a long while with him. You remember I promised to tell you some time about our life at Moscow. It is clear that I must do so now. But will you have the patience to hear me out?’
‘Tell me, tell me!’
‘Very well, then.’
Lezhnyov began walking with measured steps about the room, coming to a standstill at times with his head bent.
‘You know, perhaps,’ he began, ‘or perhaps you don’t know, that I was left an orphan at an early age, and by the time I was seventeen I had no one in authority over me. I lived at my aunt’s at Moscow, and did just as I liked. As a boy I was rather silly and conceited, and liked to brag and show off. After my entrance at the university I behaved like a regular schoolboy, and soon got into a scrape. I won’t tell you about it; it’s not worth while. But I told a lie about it, and rather a shameful lie. It all came out, and I was put to open shame. I lost my head and cried like a child. It happened at a friend’s rooms before a lot of fellow-students. They all began to laugh at me, all except one student, who, observe, had been more indignant with me than any, so long as I had been obstinate and would not confess my deceit. He took pity on me, perhaps; anyway, he took me by the arm and led me away to his lodging.’
‘Was that Rudin?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna.
‘No, it was not Rudin... it was a man... he is dead now... he was an extraordinary man. His name was Pokorsky. To describe him in a few words is beyond my powers, but directly one begins to speak of him, one does not want to speak of any one else. He had a noble, pure heart, and an intelligence such as I have never met since. Pokorsky lived in a little, low-pitched room, in an attic of an old wooden house. He was very poor, and supported himself somehow by giving lessons. Sometimes he had not even a cup of tea to offer to his friends, and his only sofa was so shaky that it was like being on board ship. But in spite of these discomforts a great many people used to go to see him. Every one loved him; he drew all hearts to him. You would not believe what sweetness and happiness there was in sitting in his poor little room! It was in his room I met Rudin. He had already parted from his prince before then.’
‘What was there so exceptional in this Pokorsky?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna.
‘How can I tell you? Poetry and truth—that was what drew all of us to him. For all his clear, broad intellect he was as sweet and simple as a child. Even now I have his bright laugh ringing in my ears, and at the same time he