The Avduhin pond, near which Natalya had fixed the place of meeting, had long ceased to be a pond. Thirty years before it had burst through its banks and it had been given up since then. Only by the smooth flat surface of the hollow, once covered with slimy mud, and the traces of the banks, could one guess that it had been a pond. A farm-house had stood near it. It had long ago passed away. Two huge pine-trees preserved its memory; the wind was for ever droning and sullenly murmuring in their high gaunt green tops. There were mysterious tales among the people of a fearful crime supposed to have been committed under them; they used to tell, too, that not one of them would fall without bringing death to some one; that a third had once stood there, which had fallen in a storm and crushed a girl.
The whole place near the old pond was supposed to be haunted; it was a barren wilderness, dark and gloomy, even on a sunny day—it seemed darker and gloomier still from the old, old forest of dead and withered oak-trees which was near it. A few huge trees lifted their grey heads above the low undergrowth of bushes like weary giants. They were a sinister sight; it seemed as though wicked old men had met together bent on some evil design. A narrow path almost indistinguishable wandered beside it. No one went near the Avduhin pond without some urgent reason. Natalya intentionally chose this solitary place. It was not more than half-a-mile from Darya Mihailovna’s house.
The sun had already risen some time when Rudin reached the Avduhin pond, but it was not a bright morning. Thick clouds of the colour of milk covered the whole sky, and were driven flying before the whistling, shrieking wind. Rudin began to walk up and down along the bank, which was covered with clinging burdocks and blackened nettles. He was not easy in his mind. These interviews, these new emotions had a charm for him, but they also troubled him, especially after the note of the night before. He felt that the end was drawing near, and was in secret perplexity of spirit, though none would have imagined it, seeing with what concentrated determination he folded his arms across his chest and looked around him. Pigasov had once said truly of him, that he was like a Chinese idol, his head was constantly overbalancing him. But with the head alone, however strong it may be, it is hard for a man to know even what is passing in himself.... Rudin, the clever, penetrating Rudin, was not capable of saying certainly whether he loved Natalya, whether he was suffering, and whether he would suffer at parting from her. Why then, since he had not the least disposition to play the Lovelace—one must do him that credit—had he turned the poor girl’s head? Why was he awaiting her with a secret tremor? To this the only answer is that there are none so easily carried away as those who are without passion.
He walked on the bank, while Natalya was hurrying to him straight across country through the wet grass.
‘Natalya Alexyevna, you’ll get your feet wet!’ said her maid Masha, scarcely able to keep up with her.
Natalya did not hear and ran on without looking round.
‘Ah, supposing they’ve seen us!’ cried Masha; ‘indeed it’s surprising how we got out of the house... and ma’mselle may wake up... It’s a mercy it’s not far.... Ah, the gentleman’s waiting already,’ she added, suddenly catching sight of Rudin’s majestic figure, standing out picturesquely on the bank; ‘but what does he want to stand on that mound for—he ought to have kept in the hollow.’
Natalya stopped.
‘Wait here, Masha, by the pines,’ she said, and went on to the pond.
Rudin went up to her; he stopped short in amazement. He had never seen such an expression on her face before. Her brows were contracted, her lips set, her eyes looked sternly straight before her.
‘Dmitri Nikolaitch,’ she began, ‘we have no time to lose. I have come for five minutes. I must tell you that my mother knows everything. Mr. Pandalevsky saw us the day before yesterday, and he told her of our meeting. He was always mamma’s spy. She called me in to her yesterday.’
‘Good God!’ cried Rudin, ‘this is terrible.... What did your mother say?’
‘She was not angry with me, she did not scold me, but she reproached me for my want of discretion.’
‘That was all?’
‘Yes, and she declared she would sooner see me dead than your wife!’
‘Is it possible she said that?’
‘Yes; and she said too that you yourself did not want to marry me at all, that you had only been flirting with me because you were bored, and that she had not expected this of you; but that she herself was to blame for having allowed me to see so much of you... that she relied on my good sense, that I had very much surprised her... and I don’t remember now all she said to me.’
Natalya uttered all this in an even, almost expressionless voice.
‘And you, Natalya Alexyevna, what did you answer?’ asked Rudin.
‘What did I answer?’ repeated Natalya.... ‘What doyouintend to do now?’
‘Good God, good God!’ replied Rudin, ‘it is cruel! So soon... such a sudden blow!... And is your mother in such indignation?’
‘Yes, yes, she will not hear of you.’
‘It is terrible! You mean there is no hope?’
‘None.’
‘Why should we be so unhappy! That abominable Pandalevsky!... You ask me, Natalya Alexyevna, what I intend to do? My head is going round—I cannot take in anything... I can feel nothing but my unhappiness... I am amazed that you can preserve such self-possession!’
‘Do you think it is easy for me?’ said Natalya.
Rudin began to walk along the bank. Natalya did not take her eyes off him.
‘Your mother did not question you?’ he said at last.
‘She asked me whether I love you.’
‘Well... and you?’
Natalya was silent a moment. ‘I told the truth.’
Rudin took her hand.
‘Always, in all things generous, noble-hearted! Oh, the heart of a girl—it’s pure gold! But did your mother really declare her decision so absolutely on the impossibility of our marriage?’
‘Yes, absolutely. I have told you already; she is convinced that you yourself don’t think of marrying me.’
‘Then she regards me as a traitor! What have I done to deserve it?’ And Rudin clutched his head in his hands.
‘Dmitri Nikolaitch!’ said Natalya, ‘we are losing our time. Remember I am seeing you for the last time. I came here not to weep and lament—you see I am not crying—I came for advice.’
‘And what advice can I give you, Natalya Alexyevna?’
‘What advice? You are a man; I am used to trusting to you, I shall trust you to the end. Tell me, what are your plans?’
‘My plans.... Your mother certainly will turn me out of the house.’
‘Perhaps. She told me yesterday that she must break off all acquaintance with you.... But you do not answer my question?’
‘What question?’
‘What do you think we must do now?’
‘What we must do?’ replied Rudin; ‘of course submit.’
‘Submit,’ repeated Natalya slowly, and her lips turned white.
‘Submit to destiny,’ continued Rudin. ‘What is to be done? I know very well how bitter it is, how painful, how unendurable. But consider yourself, Natalya Alexyevna; I am poor. It is true I could work; but even if I were a rich man, could you bear a violent separation from your family, your mother’s anger?... No, Natalya Alexyevna; it is useless even to think of it. It is clear it was not fated for us to live together, and the happiness of which I dreamed is not for me!’
All at once Natalya hid her face in her hands and began to weep. Rudin went up to her.
‘Natalya Alexyevna! dear Natalya!’ he said with warmth, ‘do not cry, for God’s sake, do not torture me, be comforted.’
Natalya raised her head.
‘You tell me to be comforted,’ she began, and her eyes blazed through her tears; ‘I am not weeping for what you suppose—I am not sad for that; I am sad because I have been deceived in you.... What! I come to you for counsel, and at such a moment!—and your first word is, submit! submit! So this is how you translate your talk of independence, of sacrifice, which...’
Her voice broke down.
‘But, Natalya Alexyevna,’ began Rudin in confusion, ‘remember—I do not disown my words—only——’
‘You asked me,’ she continued with new force, ‘what I answered my mother, when she declared she would sooner agree to my death than my marriage to you; I answered that I would sooner die than marry any other man... And you say, “Submit!” It must be that she is right; you must, through having nothing to do, through being bored, have been playing with me.’
‘I swear to you, Natalya Alexyevna—I assure you,’ maintained Rudin.
But she did not listen to him.
‘Why did you not stop me? Why did you yourself—or did you not reckon upon obstacles? I am ashamed to speak of this—but I see it is all over now.’
‘You must be calm, Natalya Alexyevna,’ Rudin was beginning; ‘we must think together what means——’
‘You have so often talked of self-sacrifice,’ she broke in, ‘but do you know, if you had said to me to-day at once, “I love you, but I cannot marry you, I will not answer for the future, give me your hand and come with me”—do you know, I would have come with you; do you know, I would have risked everything? But there’s all the difference between word and deed, and you were afraid now, just as you were afraid the day before yesterday at dinner of Volintsev.’
The colour rushed to Rudin’s face. Natalya’s unexpected energy had astounded him; but her last words wounded his vanity.
‘You are too angry now, Natalya Alexyevna,’ he began; ‘you cannot realise how bitterly you wound me. I hope that in time you will do me justice; you will understand what it has cost me to renounce the happiness which you have said yourself would have laid upon me no obligations. Your peace is dearer to me than anything in the world, and I should have been the basest of men, if I could have taken advantage——’
‘Perhaps, perhaps,’ interrupted Natalya, ‘perhaps you are right; I don’t know what I am saying. But up to this time I believed in you, believed in every word you said.... For the future, pray keep a watch upon your words, do not fling them about at hazard. When I said to you, “I love you,” I knew what that word meant; I was ready for everything.... Now I have only to thank you for a lesson—and to say good-bye.’
‘Stop, for God’s sake, Natalya Alexyevna, I beseech you. I do not deserve your contempt, I swear to you. Put yourself in my position. I am responsible for you and for myself. If I did not love you with the most devoted love—why, good God! I should have at once proposed you should run away with me.... Sooner or later your mother would forgive us—and then... But before thinking of my own happiness——’
He stopped. Natalya’s eyes fastened directly upon him put him to confusion.
‘You try to prove to me that you are an honourable man, Dmitri Nikolaitch,’ she said. ‘I do not doubt that. You are not capable of acting from calculation; but did I want to be convinced of that? did I come here for that?’
‘I did not expect, Natalya Alexyevna——’
‘Ah! you have said it at last! Yes, you did not expect all this—you did not know me. Do not be uneasy... you do not love me, and I will never force myself on any one.’
‘I love you!’ cried Rudin.
Natalya drew herself up.
‘Perhaps; but how do you love me? Remember all your words, Dmitri Nikolaitch. You told me: “Without complete equality there is no love.”... You are too exalted for me; I am no match for you.... I am punished as I deserve. There are duties before you more worthy of you. I shall not forget this day.... Good-bye.’
‘Natalya Alexyevna, are you going? Is it possible for us to part like this?’
He stretched out his hand to her. She stopped. His supplicating voice seemed to make her waver.
‘No,’ she uttered at last. ‘I feel that something in me is broken. ... I came here, I have been talking to you as if it were in delirium; I must try to recollect. It must not be, you yourself said, it will not be. Good God, when I came out here, I mentally took a farewell of my home, of my past—and what? whom have I met here?—a coward... and how did you know I was not able to bear a separation from my family? “Your mother will not consent... It is terrible!” That was all I heard from you, that you, you, Rudin?—No! good-bye.... Ah! if you had loved me, I should have felt it now, at this moment.... No, no, goodbye!’
She turned swiftly and ran towards Masha, who had begun to be uneasy and had been making signs to her a long while.
‘It isyouwho are afraid, not I!’ cried Rudin after Natalya.
She paid no attention to him, and hastened homewards across the fields. She succeeded in getting back to her bedroom; but she had scarcely crossed the threshold when her strength failed her, and she fell senseless into Masha’s arms.
But Rudin remained a long while still standing on the bank. At last he shivered, and with slow steps made his way to the little path and quietly walked along it. He was deeply ashamed... and wounded. ‘What a girl!’ he thought, ‘at seventeen!... No, I did not know her!... She is a remarkable girl. What strength of will!... She is right; she deserves another love than what I felt for her. I felt for her?’ he asked himself. ‘Can it be I already feel no more love for her? So this is how it was all to end! What a pitiful wretch I was beside her!’
The slight rattle of a racing droshky made Rudin raise his head. Lezhnyov was driving to meet him with his invariable trotting pony. Rudin bowed to him without speaking, and as though struck with a sudden thought, turned out of the road and walked quickly in the direction of Darya Mihailovna’s house.
Lezhnyov let him pass, looked after him, and after a moment’s thought he too turned his horse’s head round, and drove back to Volintsev’s, where he had spent the night. He found him asleep, and giving orders he should not be waked, he sat down on the balcony to wait for some tea and smoked a pipe.
Volintsev got up at ten o’clock. When he heard that Lezhnyov was sitting in the balcony, he was much surprised, and sent to ask him to come to him.
‘What has happened?’ he asked him. ‘I thought you meant to drive home?’
‘Yes; I did mean to, but I met Rudin.... He was wandering about the country with such a distracted countenance. So I turned back at once.’
‘You came back because you met Rudin?’
‘That’s to say,—to tell the truth, I don’t know why I came back myself, I suppose because I was reminded of you; I wanted to be with you, and I have plenty of time before I need go home.’
Volintsev smiled bitterly.
‘Yes; one cannot think of Rudin now without thinking of me.... Boy!’ he cried harshly, ‘bring us some tea.’
The friends began to drink tea. Lezhnyov talked of agricultural matters,—of a new method of roofing barns with paper....
Suddenly Volintsev leaped up from his chair and struck the table with such force that the cups and saucers rang.
‘No!’ he cried, ‘I cannot bear this any longer! I will call out this witty fellow, and let him shoot me,—at least I will try to put a bullet through his learned brains!’
‘What are you talking about? Upon my word!’ grumbled Lezhnyov, ‘how can you scream like that? I dropped my pipe.... What’s the matter with you?’
‘The matter is, that I can’t hear his name and keep calm; it sets all my blood boiling!’
‘Hush, my dear fellow, hush! aren’t you ashamed?’ rejoined Lezhnyov, picking up his pipe from the ground. ‘Leave off! Let him alone!’
‘He has insulted me,’ pursued Volintsev, walking up and down the room. ‘Yes! he has insulted me. You must admit that yourself. At first I was not sharp enough; he took me by surprise; and who could have expected this? But I will show him that he cannot make a fool of me. ... I will shoot him, the damned philosopher, like a partridge.’
‘Much you will gain by that, indeed! I won’t speak of your sister now. I can see you’re in a passion... how could you think of your sister! But in relation to another individual—what! do you imagine, when you’ve killed the philosopher, you can improve your own chances?’
Volintsev flung himself into a chair.
‘Then I must go away somewhere! For here my heart is simply being crushed by misery; only I can find no place to go.’
‘Go away... that’s another matter! That I am ready to agree to. And do you know what I should suggest? Let us go together—to the Caucasus, or simply to Little Russia to eat dumplings. That’s a capital idea, my dear fellow!’
‘Yes; but whom shall we leave my sister with?’
‘And why should not Alexandra Pavlovna come with us? Upon my soul, it will be splendid. As for looking after her—yes, I’ll undertake that! There will be no difficulty in getting anything we want: if she likes, I will arrange a serenade under her window every night; I will sprinkle the coachmen witheau de cologneand strew flowers along the roads. And we shall both be simply new men, my dear boy; we shall enjoy ourselves so, we shall come back so fat that we shall be proof against the darts of love!’
‘You are always joking, Misha!’
‘I’m not joking at all. It was a brilliant idea of yours.’
‘No; nonsense!’ Volintsev shouted again. ‘I want to fight him, to fight him!...’
‘Again! What a rage you are in!’
A servant entered with a letter in his hand.
‘From whom?’ asked Lezhnyov.
‘From Rudin, Dmitri Nikolaitch. The Lasunsky’s servant brought it.’
‘From Rudin?’ repeated Volintsev, ‘to whom?’
‘To you.’
‘To me!... give it me!’
Volintsev seized the letter, quickly tore it open, and began to read. Lezhnyov watched him attentively; a strange, almost joyful amazement was expressed on Volintsev’s face; he let his hands fall by his side.
‘What is it?’ asked Lezhnyov.
‘Read it,’ Volintsev said in a low voice, and handed him the letter.
Lezhnyov began to read. This is what Rudin wrote:
‘SIR—
‘I am going away from Darya Mihailovna’s house to-day, and leaving it for ever. This will certainly be a surprise to you, especially after what passed yesterday. I cannot explain to you what exactly obliges me to act in this way; but it seems to me for some reason that I ought to let you know of my departure. You do not like me, and even regard me as a bad man. I do not intend to justify myself; time will justify me. In my opinion it is even undignified in a man and quite unprofitable to try to prove to a prejudiced man the injustice of his prejudice. Whoever wishes to understand me will not blame me, and as for any one who does not wish, or cannot do so,—his censure does not pain me. I was mistaken in you. In my eyes you remain as before a noble and honourable man, but I imagined you were able to be superior to the surroundings in which you were brought up. I was mistaken. What of that? It is not the first, nor will it be the last time. I repeat to you, I am going away. I wish you all happiness. Confess that this wish is completely disinterested, and I hope that now you will be happy. Perhaps in time you will change your opinion of me. Whether we shall ever meet again, I don’t know, but in any case I remain your sincere well-wisher,
‘D. R.
‘P.S. The two hundred roubles I owe you I will send directly I reach my estate in T—— province. Also I beg you not to speak to Darya Mihailovna of this letter.
‘P.P.S. One last, but important request more; since I am going away, I hope you will not allude before Natalya Alexyevna to my visit to you.’
‘Well, what do you say to that?’ asked Volintsev, directly Lezhnyov had finished the letter.
‘What is one to say?’ replied Lezhnyov, ‘Cry “Allah! Allah!” like a Mussulman and sit gaping with astonishment—that’s all one can do.... Well, a good riddance! But it’s curious: you see he thought it hisdutyto write you this letter, and he came to see you from a sense ofduty... these gentlemen find a duty at every step, some duty they owe... or some debt,’ added Lezhnyov, pointing with a smile to the postscript.
‘And what phrases he rounds off!’ cried Volintsev. ‘He was mistaken in me. He expected I would be superior to my surroundings. What a rigmarole! Good God! it’s worse than poetry!’
Lezhnyov made no reply, but his eyes were smiling. Volintsev got up.
‘I want to go to Darya Mihailovna’s,’ he announced. ‘I want to find out what it all means.’
‘Wait a little, my dear boy; give him time to get off. What’s the good of running up against him again? He is to vanish, it seems. What more do you want? Better go and lie down and get a little sleep; you have been tossing about all night, I expect. But everything will be smooth for you.’
‘What leads you to that conclusion?’
‘Oh, I think so. There, go and have a nap; I will go and see your sister. I will keep her company.’
‘I don’t want to sleep in the least. What’s the object of my going to bed? I had rather go out to the fields,’ said Volintsev, putting on his out-of-door coat.
‘Well, that’s a good thing too. Go along, and look at the fields....’
And Lezhnyov betook himself to the apartments of Alexandra Pavlovna. He found her in the drawing-room. She welcomed him effusively. She was always pleased when he came; but her face still looked sorrowful. She was uneasy about Rudin’s visit the day before.
‘You have seen my brother?’ she asked Lezhnyov. ‘How is he to-day?’
‘All right, he has gone to the fields.’
Alexandra Favlovna did not speak for a minute.
‘Tell me, please,’ she began, gazing earnestly at the hem of her pocket-handkerchief, ‘don’t you know why...’
‘Rudin came here?’ put in Lezhnyov. ‘I know, he came to say good-bye.’
Alexandra Pavlovna lifted up her head.
‘What, to say good-bye!’
‘Yes. Haven’t you heard? He is leaving Darya Mihailovna’s.’
‘He is leaving?’
‘For ever; at least he says so.’
‘But pray, how is one to explain it, after all?...’
‘Oh, that’s a different matter! To explain it is impossible, but it is so. Something must have happened with them. He pulled the string too tight—and it has snapped.’
‘Mihailo Mihailitch!’ began Alexandra Pavlovna, ‘I don’t understand; you are laughing at me, I think....’
‘No indeed! I tell you he is going away, and he even let his friends know by letter. It’s just as well, I daresay, from one point of view; but his departure has prevented one surprising enterprise from being carried out that I had begun to talk to your brother about.’
‘What do you mean? What enterprise?’
‘Why, I proposed to your brother that we should go on our travels, to distract his mind, and take you with us. To look after you especially I would take on myself....’
‘That’s capital!’ cried Alexandra Pavlovna. ‘I can fancy how you would look after me. Why, you would let me die of hunger.’
‘You say so, Alexandra Pavlovna, because you don’t know me. You think I am a perfect blockhead, a log; but do you know I am capable of melting like sugar, of spending whole days on my knees?’
‘I should like to see that, I must say!’
Lezhnyov suddenly got up. ‘Well, marry me, Alexandra Pavlovna, and you will see all that’
Alexandra Pavlovna blushed up to her ears.
‘What did you say, Mihailo Mihailitch?’ she murmured in confusion.
‘I said what it has been for ever so long,’ answered Lezhnyov, ‘on the tip of my tongue to say a thousand times over. I have brought it out at last, and you must act as you think best. But I will go away now, so as not to be in your way. If you will be my wife... I will walk away... if you don’t dislike the idea, you need only send to call me in; I shall understand....’
Alexandra Pavlovna tried to keep Lezhnyov, but he went quickly away, and going into the garden without his cap, he leaned on a little gate and began looking about him.
‘Mihailo Mihailitch!’ sounded the voice of a maid-servant behind him, ‘please come in to my lady. She sent me to call you.’
Mihailo Mihailitch turned round, took the girl’s head in both his hands, to her great astonishment, and kissed her on the forehead, then he went in to Alexandra Pavlovna.
On returning home, directly after his meeting with Lezhnyov, Rudin shut himself up in his room, and wrote two letters; one to Volintsev (already known to the reader) and the other to Natalya. He sat a very long time over this second letter, crossed out and altered a great deal in it, and, copying it carefully on a fine sheet of note-paper, folded it up as small as possible, and put it in his pocket. With a look of pain on his face he paced several times up and down his room, sat down in the chair before the window, leaning on his arm; a tear slowly appeared upon his eyelashes. He got up, buttoned himself up, called a servant and told him to ask Darya Mihailovna if he could see her.
The man returned quickly, answering that Darya Mihailovna would be delighted to see him. Rudin went to her.
She received him in her study, as she had that first time, two months before. But now she was not alone; with her was sitting Pandalevsky, unassuming, fresh, neat, and agreeable as ever.
Darya Mihailovna met Rudin affably, and Rudin bowed affably to her; but at the first glance at the smiling faces of both, any one of even small experience would have understood that something of an unpleasant nature had passed between them, even if it had not been expressed. Rudin knew that Darya Mihailovna was angry with him. Darya Mihailovna suspected that he was now aware of all that had happened.
Pandalevsky’s disclosure had greatly disturbed her. It touched on the worldly pride in her. Rudin, a poor man without rank, and so far without distinction, had presumed to make a secret appointment with her daughter—the daughter of Darya Mihailovna Lasunsky.
‘Granting he is clever, he is a genius!’ she said, ‘what does that prove? Why, any one may hope to be my son-in-law after that?’
‘For a long time I could not believe my eyes,’ put in Pandalevsky. ‘I am surprised at his not understanding his position!’
Darya Mihailovna was very much agitated, and Natalya suffered for it
She asked Rudin to sit down. He sat down, but not like the old Rudin, almost master of the house, not even like an old friend, but like a guest, and not even a very intimate guest. All this took place in a single instant... so water is suddenly transformed into solid ice.
‘I have come to you, Darya Mihailovna,’ began Rudin, ‘to thank you for your hospitality. I have had some news to-day from my little estate, and it is absolutely necessary for me to set off there to-day.’
Darya Mihailovna looked attentively at Rudin.
‘He has anticipated me; it must be because he has some suspicion,’ she thought. ‘He spares one a disagreeable explanation. So much the better. Ah! clever people for ever!’
‘Really?’ she replied aloud. ‘Ah! how disappointing! Well, I suppose there’s no help for it. I shall hope to see you this winter in Moscow. We shall soon be leaving here.’
‘I don’t know, Darya Mihailovna, whether I shall succeed in getting to Moscow, but, if I can manage it, I shall regard it as a duty to call on you.’
‘Aha, my good sir!’ Pandalevsky in his turn reflected; ‘it’s not long since you behaved like the master here, and now this is how you have to express yourself!’
‘Then I suppose you have unsatisfactory news from your estate?’ he articulated, with his customary ease.
‘Yes,’ replied Rudin drily.
‘Some failure of crops, I suppose?’
‘No; something else. Believe me, Darya Mihailovna,’ added Rudin, ‘I shall never forget the time I have spent in your house.’
‘And I, Dmitri Nikolaitch, shall always look back upon our acquaintance with you with pleasure. When must you start?’
‘To-day, after dinner.’
‘So soon!... Well, I wish you a successful journey. But, if your affairs do not detain you, perhaps you will look us up again here.’
‘I shall scarcely have time,’ replied Rudin, getting up. ‘Excuse me,’ he added; ‘I cannot at once repay you my debt, but directly I reach my place——’
‘Nonsense, Dmitri Nikolaitch!’ Darya Mihailovna cut him short. ‘I wonder you’re not ashamed to speak of it!... What o’clock is it?’ she asked.
Pandalevsky drew a gold and enamel watch out of his waistcoat pocket, and looked at it carefully, bending his rosy cheek over his stiff, white collar.
‘Thirty-three minutes past two,’ he announced.
‘It is time to dress,’ observed Darya Mihailovna. ‘Good-bye for the present, Dmitri Nikolaitch!’
Rudin got up. The whole conversation between him and Darya Mihailovna had a special character. In the same way actors repeat their parts, and diplomatic dignitaries interchange their carefully-worded phrases.
Rudin went away. He knew by now through experience that men and women of the world do not even break with a man who is of no further use to them, but simply let him drop, like a kid glove after a ball, like the paper that has wrapped up sweets, like an unsuccessful ticket for a lottery.
He packed quickly, and began to await with impatience the moment of his departure. Every one in the house was very much surprised to hear of his intentions; even the servants looked at him with a puzzled air. Bassistoff did not conceal his sorrow. Natalya evidently avoided Rudin. She tried not to meet his eyes. He succeeded, however, in slipping his note into her hand. After dinner Darya Mihailovna repeated once more that she hoped to see him before they left for Moscow, but Rudin made her no reply. Pandalevsky addressed him more frequently than any one. More than once Rudin felt a longing to fall upon him and give him a slap on his rosy, blooming face. Mlle. Boncourt often glanced at Rudin with a peculiarly stealthy expression in her eyes; in old setter dogs one may sometimes see the same expression.
‘Aha!’ she seemed to be saying to herself, ‘so you’re caught!’
At last six o’clock struck, and Rudin’s carriage was brought to the door. He began to take a hurried farewell of all. He had a feeling of nausea at his heart. He had not expected to leave this house like this; it seemed as though they were turning him out. ‘What a way to do it all! and what was the object of being in such a hurry? Still, it is better so.’ That was what he was thinking as he bowed in all directions with a forced smile. For the last time he looked at Natalya, and his heart throbbed; her eyes were bent upon him in sad, reproachful farewell.
He ran quickly down the steps, and jumped into his carriage. Bassistoff had offered to accompany him to the next station, and he took his seat beside him.
‘Do you remember,’ began Rudin, directly the carriage had driven from the courtyard into the broad road bordered with fir-trees, ‘do you remember what Don Quixote says to his squire when he is leaving the court of the duchess? “Freedom,” he says, “my friend Sancho, is one of the most precious possessions of man, and happy is he to whom Heaven has given a bit of bread, and who need not be indebted to any one!” What Don Quixote felt then, I feel now.... God grant, my dear Bassistoff, that you too may some day experience this feeling!’
Bassistoff pressed Rudin’s hand, and the honest boy’s heart beat violently with emotion. Till they reached the station Rudin spoke of the dignity of man, of the meaning of true independence. He spoke nobly, fervently, and justly, and when the moment of separation had come, Bassistoff could not refrain from throwing himself on his neck and sobbing. Rudin himself shed tears too, but he was not weeping because he was parting from Bassistoff. His tears were the tears of wounded vanity.
Natalya had gone to her own room, and there she read Rudin’s letter.
‘Dear Natalya Alexyevna,’ he wrote her, ‘I have decided to depart. There is no other course open to me. I have decided to leave before I am told plainly to go. By my departure all difficulties will be put an end to, and there will be scarcely any one who will regret me. What else did I expect?... It is always so, but why am I writing to you?
‘I am parting from you probably for ever, and it would be too painful to me to leave you with a worse recollection of me than I deserve. This is why I am writing to you. I do not want either to justify myself or to blame any one whatever except myself; I want, as far as possible, to explain myself.... The events of the last days have been so unexpected, so sudden....
‘Our interview to-day will be a memorable lesson to me. Yes, you are right; I did not know you, and I thought I knew you! In the course of my life I have had to do with people of all kinds. I have known many women and young girls, but in you I met for the first time an absolutely true and upright soul. This was something I was not used to, and I did not know how to appreciate you fittingly. I felt an attraction to you from the first day of our acquaintance; you may have observed it. I spent with you hour after hour without learning to know you; I scarcely even tried to know you—and I could imagine that I loved you! For this sin I am punished now.
‘Once before I loved a woman, and she loved me. My feeling for her was complex, like hers for me; but, as she was not simple herself, it was all the better for her. Truth was not told to me then, and now I did not recognise it when it was offered me.... I have recognised it at last, when it is too late.... What is past cannot be recalled.... Our lives might have become united, and they never will be united now. How can I prove to you that I might have loved you with real love—the love of the heart, not of the fancy—when I do not know myself whether I am capable of such love?
‘Nature has given me much. I know it, and I will not disguise it from you through false modesty, especially now at a moment so bitter, so humiliating for me.... Yes, Nature has given me much, but I shall die without doing anything worthy of my powers, without leaving any trace behind me. All my wealth is dissipated idly; I do not see the fruits of the seeds I sow. I am wanting in something. I cannot say myself exactly what it is I am wanting in.... I am wanting, certainly, in something without which one cannot move men’s hearts, or wholly win a woman’s heart; and to sway men’s minds alone is precarious, and an empire ever unprofitable. A strange, almost farcical fate is mine; I would devote myself—eagerly and wholly to some cause,—and I cannot devote myself. I shall end by sacrificing myself to some folly or other in which I shall not even believe.... Alas! at thirty-five to be still preparing for something!...
‘I have never spoken so openly of myself to any one before—this is my confession.
‘But enough of me. I should like to speak of you, to give you some advice; I can be no use to you further.... You are still young; but as long as you live, always follow the impulse of your heart, do not let it be subordinated to your mind or the mind of others. Believe me, the simpler, the narrower the circle in which life is passed the better; the great thing is not to open out new sides, but that all the phases of life should reach perfection in their own time. “Blessed is he who has been young in his youth.” But I see that this advice applies far more to myself than to you.
‘I confess, Natalya Alexyevna, I am very unhappy. I never deceived myself as to the nature of the feeling which I inspired in Darya Mihailovna; but I hoped I had found at least a temporary home.... Now I must take the chances of the rough world again. What will replace for me your conversation, your presence, your attentive and intelligent face?... I myself am to blame; but admit that fate seems to have designed a jest at my expense. A week ago I did not even myself suspect that I loved you. The day before yesterday, that evening in the garden, I for the first time heard from your lips,... but why remind you of what you said then? and now I am going away to-day. I am going away disgraced, after a cruel explanation with you, carrying with me no hope.... And you do not know yet to what a degree I am to blame as regards you... I have such a foolish lack of reserve, such a weak habit of confiding. But why speak of this? I am leaving you for ever!’
(Here Rudin had related to Natalya his visit to Volintsev, but on second thoughts he erased all that part, and added the second postscript to his letter to Volintsev.)
‘I remain alone upon earth to devote myself, as you said to me this morning with bitter irony, to other interests more congenial to me. Alas! if I could really devote myself to these interests, if I could at last conquer my inertia.... But no! I shall remain to the end the incomplete creature I have always been.... The first obstacle, ... and I collapse entirely; what has passed with you has shown me that. If I had but sacrificed my love to my future work, to my vocation; but I simply was afraid of the responsibility that had fallen upon me, and therefore I am, truly, unworthy of you. I do not deserve that you should be torn out of your sphere for me.... And indeed all this, perhaps, is for the best. I shall perhaps be the stronger and the purer for this experience.
‘I wish you all happiness. Farewell! Think sometimes of me. I hope that you may still hear of me.
‘RUDIN.’
Natalya let Rudin’s letter drop on to her lap, and sat a long time motionless, her eyes fixed on the ground. This letter proved to her clearer than all possible arguments that she had been right, when in the morning, at her parting with Rudin, she had involuntarily cried out that he did not love her! But that made things no easier for her. She sat perfectly still; it seemed as though waves of darkness without a ray of light had closed over her head, and she had gone down cold and dumb to the depths. The first disillusionment is painful for every one; but for a sincere heart, averse to self-deception and innocent of frivolity or exaggeration, it is almost unendurable. Natalya remembered her childhood, how, when walking in the evening, she always tried to go in the direction of the setting sun, where there was light in the sky, and not toward the darkened half of the heavens. Life now stood in darkness before her, and she had turned her back on the light for ever....
Tears started into Natalya’s eyes. Tears do not always bring relief. They are comforting and salutary when, after being long pent up in the breast, they flow at last—at first with violence, and then more easily, more softly; the dumb agony of sorrow is over with the tears. ... But there are cold tears, tears that flow sparingly, wrung out drop by drop from the heart by the immovable, weary weight of pain laid upon it: they are not comforting, and bring no relief. Poverty weeps such tears; and the man has not yet been unhappy who has not shed them. Natalya knew them on that day.
Two hours passed. Natalya pulled herself together, got up, wiped her eyes, and, lighting a candle, she burnt Rudin’s letter in the flame, and threw the ash out of window. Then she opened Pushkin at random, and read the first lines that met her. (She often made it her oracle in this way.) This is what she saw: