‘When he has known its pang, for himThe torturing ghost of days that are no more,For him no more illusion, but remorseAnd memory’s serpent gnawing at his heart.’
She stopped, and with a cold smile looked at herself in the glass, slightly nodded her head, and went down to the drawing-room.
Darya Mihailovna, directly she saw her, called her into her study, made her sit near her, and caressingly stroked her cheek. Meanwhile she gazed attentively, almost with curiosity, into her eyes. Darya Mihailovna was secretly perplexed; for the first time it struck her that she did not really understand her daughter. When she had heard from Pandalevsky of her meeting with Rudin, she was not so much displeased as amazed that her sensible Natalya could resolve upon such a step. But when she had sent for her, and fell to upbraiding her—not at all as one would have expected from a lady of European renown, but with loud and vulgar abuse—Natalya’s firm replies, and the resolution of her looks and movements, had confused and even intimidated her.
Rudin’s sudden, and wholly unexplained, departure had taken a great load off her heart, but she had expected tears, and hysterics.... Natalya’s outward composure threw her out of her reckoning again.
‘Well, child,’ began Darya Mihailovna, ‘how are you to-day?’ Natalya looked at her mother. ‘He is gone, you see... your hero. Do you know why he decided on going so quickly?’
‘Mamma!’ said Natalya in a low voice, ‘I give you my word, if you will not mention him, you shall never hear his name from me.’
‘Then you acknowledge how wrongly you behaved to me?’
Natalya looked down and repeated:
‘You shall never hear his name from me.’
‘Well, well,’ answered Darya Mihailovna with a smile, ‘I believe you. But the day before yesterday, do you remember how—There, we will pass that over. It is all over and buried and forgotten. Isn’t it? Come, I know you again now; but I was altogether puzzled then. There, kiss me like a sensible girl!’
Natalya lifted Darya Mihailovna’s hand to her lips, and Darya Mihailovna kissed her stooping head.
‘Always listen to my advice. Do not forget that you are a Lasunsky and my daughter,’ she added, ‘and you will be happy. And now you may go.’
Natalya went away in silence. Darya Mihailovna looked after her and thought: ‘She is like me—she too will let herself be carried away by her feelings;mais ella aura moins d’abandon.’ And Darya Mihailovna fell to musing over memories of the past... of the distant past.
Then she summoned Mlle. Boncourt and remained a long while closeted with her.
When she had dismissed her she sent for Pandalevsky. She wanted at all hazards to discover the real cause of Rudin’s departure... but Pandalevsky succeeded in completely satisfying her. It was what he was there for.
The next day Volintsev and his sister came to dinner. Darya Mihailovna was always very affable to him, but this time she was especially cordial to him. Natalya felt unbearably miserable; but Volintsev was so respectful, and addressed her so timidly, that she could not but be grateful to him in her heart. The day passed quietly, rather tediously, but all felt as they separated that they had fallen back into the old order of things; and that means much, very much.
Yes, all had fallen back into their old order—all except Natalya. When at last she was able to be alone, she dragged herself with difficulty into her bed, and, weary and worn out, fell with her face on the pillow. Life seemed so cruel, so hateful, and so sordid, she was so ashamed of herself, her love, and her sorrow, that at that moment she would have been glad to die.... There were many sorrowful days in store for her, and sleepless nights and torturing emotions; but she was young—life had scarcely begun for her, and sooner or later life asserts its claims. Whatever blow has fallen on a man, he must—forgive the coarseness of the expression—eat that day or at least the next, and that is the first step to consolation.
Natalya suffered terribly, she suffered for the first time.... But the first sorrow, like first love, does not come again—and thank God for it!
About two years had passed. The first days of May had come. Alexandra Pavlovna, no longer Lipin but Lezhnyov, was sitting on the balcony of her house; she had been married to Mihailo Mihailitch for more than a year. She was as charming as ever, and had only grown a little stouter of late. In front of the balcony, from which there were steps leading into the garden, a nurse was walking about carrying a rosy-cheeked baby in her arms, in a white cloak, with a white cap on his head. Alexandra Pavlovna kept her eyes constantly on him. The baby did not cry, but sucked his thumb gravely and looked about him. He was already showing himself a worthy son of Mihailo Mihailitch.
On the balcony, near Alexandra Pavlovna, was sitting our old friend, Pigasov. He had grown noticeably greyer since we parted from him, and was bent and thin, and he lisped when he spoke; one of his front teeth had gone; and this lisp gave still greater asperity to his words.... His spitefulness had not decreased with years, but his sallies were less lively, and he more frequently repeated himself. Mihailo Mihailitch was not at home; they were expecting him in to tea. The sun had already set. Where it had gone down, a streak of pale gold and of lemon colour stretched across the distant horizon; on the opposite quarter of the sky was a stretch of dove-colour below and crimson lilac above. Light clouds seemed melting away overhead. There was every promise of prolonged fine weather.
Suddenly Pigasov burst out laughing.
‘What is it, African Semenitch?’ inquired Alexandra Pavlovna.
‘Oh, yesterday I heard a peasant say to his wife—she had been chattering away—“don’t squeak!” I liked that immensely. And after all, what can a woman talk about? I never, you know, speak of present company. Our ancestors were wiser than we. The beauty in their stories always sits at the window with a star on her brow and never utters a syllable. That’s how it ought to be. Think of it! the day before yesterday, our marshal’s wife—she might have sent a pistol-shot into my head!—says to me she doesn’t like my tendencies! Tendencies! Come, wouldn’t it be better for her and for every one if by some beneficent ordinance of nature she were suddenly deprived of the use of her tongue?’
‘Oh, you are always like that, African Semenitch; you are always attacking us poor... Do you know it’s a misfortune of a sort, really? I am sorry for you.’
‘A misfortune! Why do you say that? To begin with, in my opinion, there are only three misfortunes: to live in winter in cold lodgings, in summer to wear tight shoes, and to spend the night in a room where a baby cries whom you can’t get rid of with Persian powder; and secondly, I am now the most peaceable of men. Why, I’m a model! You know how properly I behave!’
‘Fine behaviour, indeed! Only yesterday Elena Antonovna complained to me of you.’
‘Well! And what did she tell you, if I may know?’
‘She told me that for one whole morning you would make no reply to all her questions but “what? what?” and always in the same squeaking voice.’
Pigasov laughed.
‘But that was a happy idea, you’ll allow, Alexandra Pavlovna, eh?’
‘Admirable, indeed! Can you really have behaved so rudely to a lady, African Semenitch?’
‘What! Do you regard Elena Antonovna as a lady?’
‘What do you regard her as?’
‘A drum, upon my word, an ordinary drum such as they beat with sticks.’
‘Oh,’ interrupted Alexandra Pavlovna, anxious to change the conversation, ‘they tell me one may congratulate you.’
‘Upon what?’
‘The end of your lawsuit. The Glinovsky meadows are yours.’
‘Yes, they are mine,’ replied Pigasov gloomily.
‘You have been trying to gain this so many years, and now you seem discontented.’
‘I assure you, Alexandra Pavlovna,’ said Pigasov slowly, ‘nothing can be worse and more injurious than good-fortune that comes too late. It cannot give you pleasure in any way, and it deprives you of the right—the precious right—of complaining and cursing Providence. Yes, madam, it’s a cruel and insulting trick—belated fortune.’
Alexandra Pavlovna only shrugged her shoulders.
‘Nurse,’ she began, ‘I think it’s time to put Misha to bed. Give him to me.’
While Alexandra Pavlovna busied herself with her son, Pigasov walked off muttering to the other corner of the balcony.
Suddenly, not far off on the road that ran the length of the garden, Mihailo Mihailitch made his appearance driving his racing droshky. Two huge house-dogs ran before the horse, one yellow, the other grey, both only lately obtained. They incessantly quarrelled, and were inseparable companions. An old pug-dog came out of the gate to meet them. He opened his mouth as if he were going to bark, but ended by yawning and turning back again with a friendly wag of the tail.
‘Look here, Sasha,’ cried Lezhnyov, from the distance, to his wife, ‘whom I am bringing you.’
Alexandra Pavlovna did not at once recognise the man who was sitting behind her husband’s back.
‘Ah! Mr. Bassistoff!’ she cried at last.
‘It’s he,’ answered Lezhnyov; ‘and he has brought such glorious news. Wait a minute, you shall know directly.’
And he drove into the courtyard.
Some minutes later he came with Bassistoff into the balcony.
‘Hurrah!’ he cried, embracing his wife, ‘Serezha is going to be married.’
‘To whom?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna, much agitated.
‘To Natalya, of course. Our friend has brought the news from Moscow, and there is a letter for you.’
‘Do you hear, Misha,’ he went on, snatching his son into his arms, ‘your uncle’s going to be married? What criminal indifference! he only blinks his eyes!’
‘He is sleepy,’ remarked the nurse.
‘Yes,’ said Bassistoff, going up to Alexandra Pavlovna, ‘I have come to-day from Moscow on business for Darya Mihailovna—to go over the accounts on the estate. And here is the letter.’
Alexandra Pavlovna opened her brother’s letter in haste. It consisted of a few lines only. In the first transport of joy he informed his sister that he had made Natalya an offer, and received her consent and Darya Mihailovna’s; and he promised to write more by the next post, and sent embraces and kisses to all. It was clear he was writing in a state of delirium.
Tea was served, Bassistoff sat down. Questions were showered upon him. Every one, even Pigasov, was delighted at the news he had brought.
‘Tell me, please,’ said Lezhnyov among the rest, ‘rumours reached us of a certain Mr. Kortchagin. That was all nonsense, I suppose?’
Kortchagin was a handsome young man, a society lion, excessively conceited and important; he behaved with extraordinary dignity, just as if he had not been a living man, but his own statue set up by public subscription.
‘Well, no, not altogether nonsense,’ replied Bassistoff with a smile; ‘Darya Mihailovna was very favourable to him; but Natalya Alexyevna would not even hear of him.’
‘I know him,’ put in Pigasov, ‘he’s a double dummy, a noisy dummy, if you like! If all people were like that, it would need a large sum of money to induce one to consent to live—upon my word!’
‘Very likely,’ answered Bassistoff; ‘but he plays a leading part in society.’
‘Well, never mind him!’ cried Alexandra Pavlovna. ‘Peace be with him! Ah! how glad I am for my brother! And Natalya, is she bright and happy?’
‘Yes. She is quiet, as she always is. You know her—but she seems contented.’
The evening was spent in friendly and lively talk. They sat down to supper.
‘Oh, by the way,’ inquired Lezhnyov of Bassistoff, as he poured him out some Lafitte, ‘do you know where Rudin is?’
‘I don’t know for certain now. He came last winter to Moscow for a short time, and then went with a family to Simbirsk. I corresponded with him for some time; in his last letter he informed me he was leaving Simbirsk—he did not say where he was going—and since then I have heard nothing of him.’
‘He is all right!’ put in Pigasov. ‘He is staying somewhere sermonising. That gentleman will always find two or three adherents everywhere, to listen to him open-mouthed and lend him money. You will see he will end by dying in some out-of-the-way corner in the arms of an old maid in a wig, who will believe he is the greatest genius in the world.’
‘You speak very harshly of him,’ remarked Bassistoff, in a displeased undertone.
‘Not a bit harshly,’ replied Pigasov; ‘but perfectly fairly. In my opinion, he is simply nothing else than a sponge. I forgot to tell you,’ he continued, turning to Lezhnyov, ‘that I have made the acquaintance of that Terlahov, with whom Rudin travelled abroad. Yes! Yes! What he told me of him, you cannot imagine—it’s simply screaming! It’s a remarkable fact that all Rudin’s friends and admirers become in time his enemies.’
‘I beg you to except me from the number of such friends!’ interposed Bassistoff warmly.
‘Oh, you—that’s a different thing! I was not speaking of you.’
‘But what did Terlahov tell you?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna.
‘Oh, he told me a great deal; there’s no remembering it all. But the best of all was an anecdote of what happened to Rudin. As he was incessantly developing (these gentlemen always are developing; other people simply sleep and eat; but they manage their sleeping and eating in the intervals of development; isn’t that it, Mr. Bassistoff?’ Bassistoff made no reply.) ‘And so, as he was continually developing, Rudin arrived at the conclusion, by means of philosophy, that he ought to fall in love. He began to look about for a sweetheart worthy of such an astonishing conclusion. Fortune smiled upon him. He made the acquaintance of a very pretty French dressmaker. The whole incident occurred in a German town on the Rhine, observe. He began to go and see her, to take her various books, to talk to her of Nature and Hegel. Can you fancy the position of the dressmaker? She took him for an astronomer. However, you know he’s not a bad-looking fellow—and a foreigner, a Russian, of course—he took her fancy. Well, at last he invited her to a rendezvous, and a very poetical rendezvous, in a boat on the river. The Frenchwoman agreed; dressed herself in her best and went out with him in a boat. So they spent two hours. How do you think he was occupied all that time? He patted the Frenchwoman on the head, gazed thoughtfully at the sky, and frequently repeated that he felt for her the tenderness of a father. The Frenchwoman went back home in a fury, and she herself told the story to Terlahov afterwards! That’s the kind of fellow he is.’
And Pigasov broke into a loud laugh.
‘You old cynic!’ said Alexandra Pavlovna in a tone of annoyance, ‘but I am more and more convinced that even those who attack Rudin cannot find any harm to say of him.’
‘No harm? Upon my word! and his perpetual living at other people’s expense, his borrowing money.... Mihailo Mihailitch, he borrowed of you too, no doubt, didn’t he?’
‘Listen, African Semenitch!’ began Lezhnyov, and his face assumed a serious expression, ‘listen; you know, and my wife knows, that the last time I saw him I felt no special attachment for Rudin, and I even often blamed him. For all that (Lezhnyov filled up the glasses with champagne) this is what I suggest to you now; we have just drunk to the health of my dear brother and his future bride; I propose that you drink now to the health of Dmitri Rudin!’
Alexandra Pavlovna and Pigasov looked in astonishment at Lezhnyov, but Bassistoff sat wide-eyed, blushing and trembling all over with delight.
‘I know him well,’ continued Lezhnyov, ‘I am well aware of his faults. They are the more conspicuous because he himself is not on a small scale.’
‘Rudin has character, genius!’ cried Bassistoff.
‘Genius, very likely he has!’ replied Lezhnyov, ‘but as for character ... That’s just his misfortune, that there’s no character in him... But that’s not the point. I want to speak of what is good, of what is rare in him. He has enthusiasm; and believe me, who am a phlegmatic person enough, that is the most precious quality in our times. We have all become insufferably reasonable, indifferent, and slothful; we are asleep and cold, and thanks to any one who will wake us up and warm us! It is high time! Do you remember, Sasha, once when I was talking to you about him, I blamed him for coldness? I was right, and wrong too, then. The coldness is in his blood—that is not his fault—and not in his head. He is not an actor, as I called him, nor a cheat, nor a scoundrel; he lives at other people’s expense, not like a swindler, but like a child.... Yes; no doubt he will die somewhere in poverty and want; but are we to throw stones at him for that? He never does anything himself precisely, he has no vital force, no blood; but who has the right to say that he has not been of use? that his words have not scattered good seeds in young hearts, to whom nature has not denied, as she has to him, powers for action, and the faculty of carrying out their own ideas? Indeed, I myself, to begin with, have gained all that from him.... Sasha knows what Rudin did for me in my youth. I also maintained, I recollect, that Rudin’s words could not produce an effect on men; but I was speaking then of men like myself, at my present age, of men who have already lived and been broken in by life. One false note in a man’s eloquence, and the whole harmony is spoiled for us; but a young man’s ear, happily, is not so over-fine, not so trained. If the substance of what he hears seems fine to him, what does he care about the intonation! The intonation he will supply for himself!’
‘Bravo, bravo!’ cried Bassistoff, ‘that is justly spoken! And as regards Rudin’s influence, I swear to you, that man not only knows how to move you, he lifts you up, he does not let you stand still, he stirs you to the depths and sets you on fire!’
‘You hear?’ continued Lezhnyov, turning to Pigasov; ‘what further proof do you want? You attack philosophy; speaking of it, you cannot find words contemptuous enough. I myself am not excessively devoted to it, and I know little enough about it; but our principal misfortunes do not come from philosophy! The Russian will never be infected with philosophical hair-splittings and nonsense; he has too much common-sense for that; but we must not let every sincere effort after truth and knowledge be attacked under the name of philosophy. Rudin’s misfortune is that he does not understand Russia, and that, certainly, is a great misfortune. Russia can do without every one of us, but not one of us can do without her. Woe to him who thinks he can, and woe twofold to him who actually does do without her! Cosmopolitanism is all twaddle, the cosmopolitan is a nonentity—worse than a nonentity; without nationality is no art, nor truth, nor life, nor anything. You cannot even have an ideal face without individual expression; only a vulgar face can be devoid of it. But I say again, that is not Rudin’s fault; it is his fate—a cruel and unhappy fate—for which we cannot blame him. It would take us too far if we tried to trace why Rudins spring up among us. But for what is fine in him, let us be grateful to him. That is pleasanter than being unfair to him, and we have been unfair to him. It’s not our business to punish him, and it’s not needed; he has punished himself far more cruelly than he deserved. And God grant that unhappiness may have blotted out all the harm there was in him, and left only what was fine! I drink to the health of Rudin! I drink to the comrade of my best years, I drink to youth, to its hopes, its endeavours, its faith, and its honesty, to all that our hearts beat for at twenty; we have known, and shall know, nothing better than that in life.... I drink to that golden time—to the health of Rudin!’
All clinked glasses with Lezhnyov. Bassistoff, in his enthusiasm, almost cracked his glass and drained it off at a draught. Alexandra Pavlovna pressed Lezhnyov’s hand.
‘Why, Mihailo Mihailitch, I did not suspect you were an orator,’ remarked Pigasov; ‘it was equal to Mr. Rudin himself; even I was moved by it.’
‘I am not at all an orator,’ replied Lezhnyov, not without annoyance, ‘but to move you, I fancy, would be difficult. But enough of Rudin; let us talk of something else. What of—what’s his name—Pandalevsky? is he still living at Darya Mihailovna’s?’ he concluded, turning to Bassistoff.
‘Oh yes, he is still there. She has managed to get him a very profitable place.’
Lezhnyov smiled.
‘That’s a man who won’t die in want, one can count upon that.’
Supper was over. The guests dispersed. When she was left alone with her husband, Alexandra Pavlovna looked smiling into his face.
‘How splendid you were this evening, Misha,’ she said, stroking his forehead, ‘how cleverly and nobly you spoke! But confess, you exaggerated a little in Rudin’s praise, as in old days you did in attacking him.’
‘I can’t let them hit a man when he’s down. And in those days I was afraid he was turning your head.’
‘No,’ replied Alexandra Pavlovna naively, ‘he always seemed too learned for me. I was afraid of him, and never knew what to say in his presence. But wasn’t Pigasov nasty in his ridicule of him to-day?’
‘Pigasov?’ responded Lezhnyov. ‘That was just why I stood up for Rudin so warmly, because Pigasov was here. He dare to call Rudin a sponge indeed! Why, I consider the part he plays—Pigasov I mean—is a hundred times worse! He has an independent property, and he sneers at every one, and yet see how he fawns upon wealthy or distinguished people! Do you know that that fellow, who abuses everything and every one with such scorn, and attacks philosophy and women, do you know that when he was in the service, he took bribes and that sort of thing! Ugh! That’s what he is!’
‘Is it possible?’ cried Alexandra Pavlovna, ‘I should never have expected that! Misha,’ she added, after a short pause, ‘I want to ask you——’
‘What?’
‘What do you think, will my brother be happy with Natalya?’
‘How can I tell you?... there’s every likelihood of it. She will take the lead... there’s no reason to hide the fact between us... she is cleverer than he is; but he’s a capital fellow, and loves her with all his soul. What more would you have? You see we love one another and are happy, aren’t we?’
Alexandra Pavlovna smiled and pressed his hand.
On the same day on which all that has been described took place in Alexandra Pavlovna’s house, in one of the remote districts of Russia, a wretched little covered cart, drawn by three village horses was crawling along the high road in the sultry heat. On the front seat was perched a grizzled peasant in a ragged cloak, with his legs hanging slanting on the shaft; he kept flicking with the reins, which were of cord, and shaking the whip. Inside the cart there was sitting on a shaky portmanteau a tall man in a cap and old dusty cloak. It was Rudin. He sat with bent head, the peak of his cap pulled over his eyes. The jolting of the cart threw him from side to side; but he seemed utterly unconscious, as though he were asleep. At last he drew himself up.
‘When are we coming to a station?’ he inquired of the peasant sitting in front.
‘Just over the hill, little father,’ said the peasant, with a still more violent shaking of the reins. ‘There’s a mile and a half farther to go, not more.... Come! there! look about you.... I’ll teach you,’ he added in a shrill voice, setting to work to whip the right-hand horse.
‘You seem to drive very badly,’ observed Rudin; ‘we have been crawling along since early morning, and we have not succeeded in getting there yet. You should have sung something.’
‘Well, what would you have, little father? The horses, you see yourself, are overdone... and then the heat; and I can’t sing. I’m not a coachman.... Hullo, you little sheep!’ cried the peasant, suddenly turning to a man coming along in a brown smock and bark shoes downtrodden at heel. ‘Get out of the way!’
‘You’re a nice driver!’ muttered the man after him, and stood still. ‘You wretched Muscovite,’ he added in a voice full of contempt, shook his head and limped away.
‘What are you up to?’ sang out the peasant at intervals, pulling at the shaft-horse. ‘Ah, you devil! Get on!’
The jaded horses dragged themselves at last up to the posting-station. Rudin crept out of the cart, paid the peasant (who did not bow to him, and kept shaking the coins in the palm of his hand a long while—evidently there was too little drink-money) and himself carried the portmanteau into the posting-station.
A friend of mine who has wandered a great deal about Russia in his time made the observation that if the pictures hanging on the walls of a posting-station represent scenes from ‘the Prisoner of the Caucasus,’ or Russian generals, you may get horses soon; but if the pictures depict the life of the well-known gambler George de Germany, the traveller need not hope to get off quickly; he will have time to admire to the full the hairà la cockatoo, the white open waistcoat, and the exceedingly short and narrow trousers of the gambler in his youth, and his exasperated physiognomy, when in his old age he kills his son, waving a chair above him, in a cottage with a narrow staircase. In the room into which Rudin walked precisely these pictures were hanging out of ‘Thirty Years, or the Life of a Gambler.’ In response to his call the superintendent appeared, who had just waked up (by the way, did any one ever see a superintendent who had not just been asleep?), and without even waiting for Rudin’s question, informed him in a sleepy voice that there were no horses.
‘How can you say there are no horses,’ said Rudin, ‘when you don’t even know where I am going? I came here with village horses.’
‘We have no horses for anywhere,’ answered the superintendent. ‘But where are you going?’
‘To Sk——.’
‘We have no horses,’ repeated the superintendent, and he went away.
Rudin, vexed, went up to the window and threw his cap on the table. He was not much changed, but had grown rather yellow in the last two years; silver threads shone here and there in his curls, and his eyes, still magnificent, seemed somehow dimmed, fine lines, the traces of bitter and disquieting emotions, lay about his lips and on his temples. His clothes were shabby and old, and he had no linen visible anywhere. His best days were clearly over: as the gardeners say, he had gone to seed.
He began reading the inscriptions on the walls—the ordinary distraction of weary travellers; suddenly the door creaked and the superintendent came in.
‘There are no horses for Sk——, and there won’t be any for a long time,’ he said, ‘but here are some ready to go to V——.’
‘To V——?’ said Rudin. ‘Why, that’s not on my road at all. I am going to Penza, and V—— lies, I think, in the direction of Tamboff.’
‘What of that? you can get there from Tamboff, and from V—— you won’t be at all out of your road.’
Rudin thought a moment.
‘Well, all right,’ he said at last, ‘tell them to put the horses to. It is the same to me; I will go to Tamboff.’
The horses were soon ready. Rudin carried his own portmanteau, climbed into the cart, and took his seat, his head hanging as before. There was something helpless and pathetically submissive in his bent figure.... And the three horses went off at a slow trot.
Some years had passed by.
It was a cold autumn day. A travelling carriage drew up at the steps of the principal hotel of the government town of C——; a gentleman yawning and stretching stepped out of it. He was not elderly, but had had time to acquire that fulness of figure which habitually commands respect. He went up the staircase to the second story, and stopped at the entrance to a wide corridor. Seeing no one before him he called out in a loud voice asking for a room. A door creaked somewhere, and a long waiter jumped up from behind a low screen, and came forward with a quick flank movement, an apparition of a glossy back and tucked-up sleeves in the half-dark corridor. The traveller went into the room and at once throwing off his cloak and scarf, sat down on the sofa, and with his fists propped on his knees, he first looked round as though he were hardly awake yet, and then gave the order to send up his servant. The hotel waiter made a bow and disappeared. The traveller was no other than Lezhnyov. He had come from the country to C—— about some conscription business.
Lezhnyov’s servant, a curly-headed, rosy-cheeked youth in a grey cloak, with a blue sash round the waist, and soft felt shoes, came into the room.
‘Well, my boy, here we are,’ Lezhnyov said, ‘and you were afraid all the while that a wheel would come off.’
‘We are here,’ replied the boy, trying to smile above the high collar of his cloak, ‘but the reason why the wheel did not come off——’
‘Is there no one in here?’ sounded a voice in the corridor.
Lezhnyov started and listened.
‘Eh? who is there?’ repeated the voice.
Lezhnyov got up, walked to the door, and quickly threw it open.
Before him stood a tall man, bent and almost completely grey, in an old frieze coat with bronze buttons.
‘Rudin!’ he cried in an excited voice.
Rudin turned round. He could not distinguish Lezhnyov’s features, as he stood with his back to the light, and he looked at him in bewilderment.
‘You don’t know me?’ said Lezhnyov.
‘Mihailo Mihailitch!’ cried Rudin, and held out his hand, but drew it back again in confusion. Lezhnyov made haste to snatch it in both of his.
‘Come, come in!’ he said to Rudin, and drew him into the room.
‘How you have changed!’ exclaimed Lezhnyov after a brief silence, involuntarily dropping his voice.
‘Yes, they say so!’ replied Rudin, his eyes straying about the room. ‘The years... and you not much. How is Alexandra—your wife?’
‘She is very well, thank you. But what fate brought you here?’
‘It is too long a story. Strictly speaking, I came here by chance. I was looking for a friend. But I am very glad...’
‘Where are you going to dine?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. At some restaurant. I must go away from here to-day.’
‘You must.’
Rudin smiled significantly.
‘Yes, I must. They are sending me off to my own place, to my home.’
‘Dine with me.’
Rudin for the first time looked Lezhnyov straight in the face.
‘You invite me to dine with you?’ he said.
‘Yes, Rudin, for the sake of old times and old comradeship. Will you? I did not expect to meet you, and God only knows when we shall see each other again. I cannot part from you like this!’
‘Very well, I agree!’
Lezhnyov pressed Rudin’s hand, and calling his servant, ordered dinner, and told him to have a bottle of champagne put in ice.
In the course of dinner, Lezhnyov and Rudin, as though by agreement, kept talking of their student days, recalling many things and many friends—dead and living. At first Rudin spoke with little interest, but when he had drunk a few glasses of wine his blood grew warmer. At last the waiter took away the last dish, Lezhnyov got up, closed the door, and coming back to the table, sat down facing Rudin, and quietly rested his chin on his hands.
‘Now, then,’ he began, ‘tell me all that has happened to you since I saw you last.’
Rudin looked at Lezhnyov.
‘Good God!’ thought Lezhnyov, ‘how he has changed, poor fellow!’
Rudin’s features had undergone little change since we saw him last at the posting-station, though approaching old age had had time to set its mark upon them; but their expression had become different. His eyes had a changed look; his whole being, his movements, which were at one time slow, at another abrupt and disconnected, his crushed, benumbed manner of speaking, all showed an utter exhaustion, a quiet and secret dejection, very different from the half-assumed melancholy which he had affected once, as it is generally affected by youth, when full of hopes and confident vanity.
‘Tell you all that has happened to me?’ he said; ‘I could not tell you all, and it is not worth while. I am worn out; I have wandered far—in spirit as well as in flesh. What friends I have made—good God! How many things, how many men I have lost faith in! Yes, how many!’ repeated Rudin, noticing that Lezhnyov was looking in his face with a kind of special sympathy. ‘How many times have my own words grown hateful to me! I don’t mean now on my own lips, but on the lips of those who had adopted my opinions! How many times have I passed from the petulance of a child to the dull insensibility of a horse who does not lash his tail when the whip cuts him!... How many times I have been happy and hopeful, and have made enemies and humbled myself for nothing! How many times I have taken flight like an eagle—and returned crawling like a snail whose shell has been crushed!... Where have I not been! What roads have I not travelled!... And the roads are often dirty,’ added Rudin, slightly turning away. ‘You know ...’ he was continuing.... ‘Listen,’ interrupted Lezhnyov. ‘We used once to say “Dmitri and Mihail” to one another. Let us revive the old habit,... will you? Let us drink to those days!’
Rudin started and drew himself up a little, and there was a gleam in his eyes of something no word can express.
‘Let us drink to them,’ he said. ‘I thank you, brother, we will drink to them!’
Lezhnyov and Rudin drained their glasses.
‘You know, Mihail,’ Rudin began again with a smile and a stress on the name, ‘there is a worm in me which gnaws and worries me and never lets me be at peace till the end. It brings me into collision with people,—at first they fall under my influence, but afterwards...’
Rudin waved his hand in the air.
‘Since I parted from you, Mihail, I have seen much, have experienced many changes.... I have begun life, have started on something new twenty times—and here—you see!’
‘You had no stability,’ said Lezhnyov, as though to himself.
‘As you say, I had no stability. I never was able to construct anything; and it’s a difficult thing, brother, to construct when one has to create the very ground under one’s feet, to make one’s own foundation for one’s self! All my adventures—that is, speaking accurately, all my failures, I will not describe. I will tell of two or three incidents—those incidents of my life when it seemed as if success were smiling on me, or rather when I began to hope for success—which is not altogether the same thing...’
Rudin pushed back his grey and already sparse locks with the same gesture which he used once to toss back his thick, dark curls.
‘Well, I will tell you, Mihail,’ he began. ‘In Moscow I came across a rather strange man. He was very wealthy and was the owner of extensive estates. His chief and only passion was love of science, universal science. I have never yet been able to arrive at how this passion arose in him! It fitted him about as well as a saddle on a cow. He managed with difficulty to maintain himself at his mental elevation, he was almost without the power of speech, he only rolled his eyes with expression and shook his head significantly. I never met, brother, a poorer and less gifted nature than his.... In the Smolensk province there are places like that—nothing but sand and a few tufts of grass which no animal can eat. Nothing succeeded in his hands; everything seemed to slip away from him; but he was still mad on making everything plain complicated. If it had depended on his arrangements, his people would have eaten standing on their heads. He worked, and wrote, and read indefatigably. He devoted himself to science with a kind of stubborn perseverance, a terrible patience; his vanity was immense, and he had a will of iron. He lived alone, and had the reputation of an eccentric. I made friends with him... and he liked me. I quickly, I must own, saw through him; but his zeal attracted me. Besides, he was the master of such resources; so much good might be done, so much real usefulness through him.... I was installed in his house and went with him to the country. My plans, brother, were on a vast scale; I dreamed of various reforms, innovations...’
‘Just as at the Lasunsky’s, do you remember, Dmitri?’ responded Lezhnyov, with an indulgent smile.
‘Ah, but then I knew in my heart that nothing would come of my words; but this time... an altogether different field of activity lay open before me.... I took with me books on agriculture... to tell the truth, I did not read one of them through.... Well, I set to work. At first it did not progress as I had expected; but afterwards it did get on in a way. My new friend looked on and said nothing; he did not interfere with me, at least not to any noticeable extent. He accepted my suggestions, and carried them out, but with a stubborn sullenness, a secret want of faith; and he bent everything his own way. He prized extremely every idea of his own. He got to it with difficulty, like a ladybird on a blade of grass, and he would sit and sit upon it, as though pluming his wings and getting ready for a flight, and suddenly he would fall off and begin crawling again.... Don’t be surprised at these comparisons; at that time they were always crowding on my imagination. So I struggled on there for two years. The work did not progress much in spite of all my efforts. I began to be tired of it, my friend bored me; I had come to sneer at him, and he stifled me like a featherbed; his want of faith had changed into a dumb resentment; a feeling of hostility had laid hold of both of us; we could scarcely now speak of anything; he quietly but incessantly tried to show me that he was not under my influence; my arrangements were either set aside or altogether transformed. I realised, at last, that I was playing the part of a toady in the noble landowner’s house by providing him with intellectual amusement. It was very bitter to me to have wasted my time and strength for nothing, most bitter to feel that I had again and again been deceived in my expectations. I knew very well what I was losing if I went away; but I could not control myself, and one day after a painful and revolting scene of which I was a witness, and which showed my friend in a most disadvantageous light, I quarrelled with him finally, went away, and threw up this newfangled pedant, made of a queer compound of our native flour kneaded up with German treacle.’
‘That is, you threw up your daily bread, Dmitri,’ said Lezhnyov, laying both hands on Rudin’s shoulders.
‘Yes, and again I was turned adrift, empty-handed and penniless, to fly whither I listed. Ah! let us drink!’
‘To your health!’ said Lezhnyov, getting up and kissing Rudin on the forehead. ‘To your health and to the memory of Pokorsky. He, too, knew how to be poor.’
‘Well, that was number one of my adventures,’ began Rudin, after a short pause. ‘Shall I go on?’
‘Go on, please.’
‘Ah! I have no wish for talking. I am tired of talking, brother.... However, so be it. After knocking about in various parts—by the way, I might tell you how I became the secretary of a benevolent dignitary, and what came of that; but that would take me too long.... After knocking about in various parts, I resolved to become at last—don’t smile, please—a practical business man. The opportunity came in this way. I became friendly with—he was much talked of at one time—a man called Kurbyev.’
‘Oh, I never heard of him. But, really, Dmitri, with your intelligence, how was it you did not suspect that to be a business man was not the business for you?’
‘I know, brother, that it was not; but, then, what is the business for me? But if you had seen Kurbyev! Do not, pray, fancy him as some empty-headed chatterer. They say I was eloquent once. I was simply nothing beside him. He was a man of wonderful learning and knowledge,—an intellect, brother, a creative intellect, for business and commercial enterprises. His brain seemed seething with the boldest, the most unexpected schemes. I joined him and we decided to turn our powers to a work of public utility.’
‘What was it, may I know?’
Rudin dropped his eyes.
‘You will laugh at it, Mihail.’
‘Why should I? No, I will not laugh.’
‘We resolved to make a river in the K—— province fit for navigation,’ said Rudin with an embarrassed smile.
‘Really! This Kurbyev was a capitalist, then?’
‘He was poorer than I,’ responded Rudin, and his grey head sank on his breast.
Lezhnyov began to laugh, but he stopped suddenly and took Rudin by the hand.
‘Pardon me, brother, I beg,’ he said, ‘but I did not expect that. Well, so I suppose your enterprise did not get further than paper?’
‘Not so. A beginning was made. We hired workmen, and set to work. But then we were met by various obstacles. In the first place the millowners would not meet us favourably at all; and more than that, we could not turn the water out of its course without machinery, and we had not money enough for machinery. For six months we lived in mud huts. Kurbyev lived on dry bread, and I, too, had not much to eat. However, I don’t complain of that; the scenery there is something magnificent. We struggled and struggled on, appealing to merchants, writing letters and circulars. It ended in my spending my last farthing on the project.’
‘Well!’ observed Lezhnyov, ‘I imagine to spend your last farthing, Dmitri, was not a difficult matter?’
‘It was not difficult, certainly.’
Rudin looked out of the window.
‘But the project really was not a bad one, and it might have been of immense service.’
‘And where did Kurbyev go to?’ asked Lezhnyov.
‘Oh, he is now in Siberia, he has become a gold-digger. And you will see he will make himself a position; he will get on.’
‘Perhaps; but then you will not be likely to make a position for yourself, it seems.’
‘Well, that can’t be helped! But I know I was always a frivolous creature in your eyes.’
‘Hush, brother; there was a time, certainly, when I saw your weak side; but now, believe me, I have learnt to value you. You will not make yourself a position. And I love you, Dmitri, for that, indeed I do!’
Rudin smiled faintly.
‘Truly?’
‘I respect you for it!’ repeated Lezhnyov. ‘Do you understand me?’
Both were silent for a little.
‘Well, shall I proceed to number three?’ asked Rudin.
‘Please do.’
‘Very well. The third and last. I have only now got clear of number three. But am I not boring you, Mihail?’
‘Go on, go on.’
‘Well,’ began Rudin, ‘once the idea occurred to me at some leisure moment—I always had plenty of leisure moments—the idea occurred to me; I have knowledge enough, my intentions are good. I suppose even you will not deny me good intentions?’
‘I should think not!’
‘In all other directions I had failed more or less... why should I not become an instructor, or speaking simply a teacher... rather than waste my life?’
Rudin stopped and sighed.
‘Rather than waste my life, would it not be better to try to pass on to others what I know; perhaps they may extract at least some use from my knowledge. My abilities are above the ordinary anyway, I am a master of language. So I resolved to devote myself to this new work. I had difficulty in obtaining a post; I did not want to give private lessons; there was nothing I could do in the lower schools. At last I succeeded in getting an appointment as professor in the gymnasium here.’
‘As professor of what?’ asked Lezhnyov.
‘Professor of literature. I can tell you I never started on any work with such zest as I did on this. The thought of producing an effect upon the young inspired me. I spent three weeks over the composition of my opening lecture.’
‘Have you got it, Dmitri?’ interrupted Lezhnyov.
‘No! I lost it somewhere. It went off fairly well, and was liked. I can see now the faces of my listeners—good young faces, with an expression of pure-souled attention and sympathy, and even of amazement. I mounted the platform and read my lecture in a fever; I thought it would fill more than an hour, but I had finished it in twenty minutes. The inspector was sitting there—a dry old man in silver spectacles and a short wig—he sometimes turned his head in my direction. When I had finished, he jumped up from his seat and said to me, “Good, but rather over their heads, obscure, and too little said about the subject.” But the pupils followed me with appreciation in their looks—indeed they did. Ah, that is how youth is so precious! I gave a second written lecture, and a third. After that I began to lecture extempore.’
‘And you had success?’ asked Lezhnyov.
‘I had a great success. I gave my audience all that was in my soul. Among them were two or three really remarkable boys; the rest did not understand me much. I must confess though that even those who did understand me sometimes embarrassed me by their questions. But I did not lose heart. They all loved me; I gave them all full marks in examinations. But then an intrigue was started against me—or no! it was not an intrigue at all; it simply was, that I was not in my proper place. I was a hindrance to the others, and they were a hindrance to me. I lectured to the gymnasium pupils in a way lectures are not given every day, even to students; they carried away very little from my lectures.... I myself did not know the facts enough. Besides, I was not satisfied with the limited sphere assigned to me—you know that is always my weakness. I wanted radical reforms, and I swear to you that these reforms were both sensible and easy to carry out. I hoped to carry them through the director, a good and honest man, over whom I had at first some influence. His wife aided me. I have not, brother, met many women like her in my life. She was about forty; but she believed in goodness, and loved everything fine with the enthusiasm of a girl of fifteen, and was not afraid to give utterance to her convictions before any one whatever. I shall never forget her generous enthusiasm and goodness. By her advice I drew up a plan.... But then my influence was undermined, I was misrepresented to her. My chief enemy was the professor of mathematics, a little sour, bilious man who believed in nothing, a character like Pigasov, but far more able than he was.... By the way, how is Pigasov, is he living?’
‘Oh, yes; and only fancy, he is married to a peasant woman, who, they say, beats him.’
‘Serve him right! And Natalya Alexyevna—is she well?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is she happy?’
‘Yes.’
Rudin was silent for a little.
‘What was I talking about?... Oh yes! about the professor of mathematics. He perfectly hated me; he compared my lectures to fireworks, pounced upon every expression of mine that was not altogether clear, once even put me to confusion over some monument of the sixteenth century.... But the most important thing was, he suspected my intentions; my last soap-bubble struck on him as on a spike, and burst. The inspector, whom I had not got on with from the first, set the director against me. A scene followed. I was not ready to give in; I got hot; the matter came to the knowledge of the authorities; I was forced to resign. I did not stop there; I wanted to prove that they could not treat me like that.... But they could treat me as they liked.... Now I am forced to leave the town.’
A silence followed. Both the friends sat with bowed heads.
Rudin was the first to speak.
‘Yes, brother,’ he began, ‘I can say now, in the words of Koltsov, “Thou hast led me astray, my youth, till there is nowhere I can turn my steps.”... And yet can it be that I was fit for nothing, that for me there was, as it were, no work on earth to do? I have often put myself this question, and, however much I tried to humble myself in my own eyes, I could not but feel the existence of faculties within me which are not given to every one! Why have these faculties remained fruitless? And let me say more; you know, when I was with you abroad, Mihail, I was conceited and full of erroneous ideas.... Certainly I did not then realise clearly what I wanted; I lived upon words, and believed in phantoms. But now, I swear to you, I could speak out before all men every desire I feel. I have absolutely nothing to hide; I am absolutely, in the fullest meaning of the word, a well-intentioned man. I am humble, I am ready to adapt myself to circumstances; I want little; I want to do the good that lies nearest, to be even a little use. But no! I never succeed. What does it mean? What hinders me from living and working like others?... I am only dreaming of it now. But no sooner do I get into any definite position when fate throws the dice from me. I have come to dread it—my destiny.... Why is it so? Explain this enigma to me!’
‘An enigma!’ repeated Lezhnyov. ‘Yes, that’s true; you have always been an enigma for me. Even in our young days, when, after some trifling prank, you would suddenly speak as though you were pierced to the heart, and then you would begin again... well you know what I mean... even then I did not understand. That is why I grew apart from you.... You have so much power, such unwearying striving after the ideal.’
‘Words, all words! There was nothing done!’ Rudin broke in.
‘Nothing done! What is there to do?’
‘What is there to do! To keep an old blind woman and all her family by one’s work, as, do you remember, Mihail, Pryazhentsov did... That’s doing something.’
‘Yes, but a good word—is also something done.’
Rudin looked at Lezhnyov without speaking and faintly shook his head.
Lezhnyov wanted to say something, and he passed his hand over his face.
‘And so you are going to your country place?’ he asked at last.
‘Yes.’
‘There you have some property left?’
‘Something is left me there. Two souls and a half. It is a corner to die in. You are thinking perhaps at this moment: “Even now he cannot do without fine words!” Words indeed have been my ruin; they have consumed me, and to the end I cannot be free of them. But what I have said was not mere words. These white hairs, brother, these wrinkles, these ragged elbows—they are not mere words. You have always been hard on me, Mihail, and you were right; but now is not a time to be hard, when all is over, when there’s no oil left in the lamp, and the lamp itself is broken, and the wick is just smouldering out. Death, brother, should reconcile at last...’
Lezhnyov jumped up.
‘Rudin!’ he cried, ‘why do you speak like that to me? How have I deserved it from you? Am I such a judge, and what kind of a man should I be, if at the sight of your hollow cheeks and wrinkles, “mere words” could occur to my mind? Do you want to know what I think of you, Dmitri? Well! I think: here is a man—with his abilities, what might he not have attained to, what worldly advantages might he not have possessed by now, if he had liked!... and I meet him hungry and homeless....’
‘I rouse your compassion,’ Rudin murmured in a choked voice.
‘No, you are wrong. You inspire respect in me—that is what I feel. Who prevented you from spending year after year at that landowner’s, who was your friend, and who would, I am fully persuaded, have made provision for you, if you had only been willing to humour him? Why could you not live harmoniously at the gymnasium, why have you—strange man!—with whatever ideas you have entered upon an undertaking, infallibly every time ended by sacrificing your personal interests, ever refusing to take root in any but good ground, however profitable it might be?’
‘I was born a rolling stone,’ Rudin said, with a weary smile. ‘I cannot stop myself.’
‘That is true; but you cannot stop, not because there is a worm gnawing you, as you said to me at first.... It is not a worm, not the spirit of idle restlessness—it is the fire of the love of truth that burns in you, and clearly, in spite of your failings; it burns in you more hotly than in many who do not consider themselves egoists and dare to call you a humbug perhaps. I, for one, in your place should long ago have succeeded in silencing that worm in me, and should have given in to everything; and you have not even been embittered by it, Dmitri. You are ready, I am sure, to-day, to set to some new work again like a boy.’
‘No, brother, I am tired now,’ said Rudin. ‘I have had enough.’
‘Tired! Any other man would have been dead long ago. You say that death reconciles; but does not life, don’t you think, reconcile? A man who has lived and has not grown tolerant towards others does not deserve to meet with tolerance himself. And who can say he does not need tolerance? You have done what you could, Dmitri... you have struggled so long as you could... what more? Our paths lay apart,’...
‘You were utterly different from me,’ Rudin put in with a sigh.
‘Our paths lay apart,’ continued Lezhnyov, ‘perhaps exactly because, thanks to my position, my cool blood, and other fortunate circumstances, nothing hindered me from being a stay-at-home, and remaining a spectator with folded hands; but you had to go out into the world, to turn up your shirt-sleeves, to toil and labour. Our paths lay apart—but see how near one another we are. We speak almost the same language, with half a hint we understand one another, we grew up on the same ideas. There is little left us now, brother; we are the last of the Mohicans! We might differ and even quarrel in old days, when so much life still remained before us; but now, when the ranks are thinned about us, when the younger generation is coming upon us with other aims than ours, we ought to keep close to one another! Let us clink glasses, Dmitri, and sing as of old,Gaudeamus igitur!’
The friends clinked their glasses, and sang the old student song in strained voices, all out of tune, in the true Russian style.
‘So you are going now to your country place,’ Lezhnyov began again. ‘I don’t think you will stay there long, and I cannot imagine where and how you will end.... But remember, whatever happens to you, you have always a place, a nest where you can hide yourself. That is my home,—do you hear, old fellow? Thought, too, has its veterans; they, too, ought to have their home.’
Rudin got up.
‘Thanks, brother,’ he said, ‘thanks! I will not forget this in you. Only I do not deserve a home. I have wasted my life, and have not served thought, as I ought.’
‘Hush!’ said Lezhnyov. ‘Every man remains what Nature has made him, and one cannot ask more of him! You have called yourself the Wandering Jew.... But how do you know,—perhaps it was right for you to be ever wandering, perhaps in that way you are fulfilling a higher calling than you know; popular wisdom says truly that we are all in God’s hands. You are going, Dmitri,’ continued Lezhnyov, seeing that Rudin was taking his hat ‘You will not stop the night?’
‘Yes, I am going! Good-bye. Thanks.... I shall come to a bad end.’
‘God only knows.... You are resolved to go?’
‘Yes, I am going. Good-bye. Do not remember evil against me.’
‘Well, do not remember evil against me either,—and don’t forget what I said to you. Good-bye.’...
The friends embraced one another. Rudin went quickly away.
Lezhnyov walked up and down the room a long while, stopped before the window thinking, and murmured half aloud, ‘Poor fellow!’ Then sitting down to the table, he began to write a letter to his wife.
But outside a wind had risen, and was howling with ill-omened moans, and wrathfully shaking the rattling window-panes. The long autumn night came on. Well for the man on such a night who sits under the shelter of home, who has a warm corner in safety.... And the Lord help all homeless wanderers!
On a sultry afternoon on the 26th of July in 1848 in Paris, when the Revolution of theateliers nationauxhad already been almost suppressed, a line battalion was taking a barricade in one of the narrow alleys of the Faubourg St Antoine. A few gunshots had already broken it; its surviving defenders abandoned it, and were only thinking of their own safety, when suddenly on the very top of the barricade, on the frame of an overturned omnibus, appeared a tall man in an old overcoat, with a red sash, and a straw hat on his grey dishevelled hair. In one hand he held a red flag, in the other a blunt curved sabre, and as he scrambled up, he shouted something in a shrill strained voice, waving his flag and sabre. A Vincennes tirailleur took aim at him—fired. The tall man dropped the flag—and like a sack he toppled over face downwards, as though he were falling at some one’s feet. The bullet had passed through his heart.
‘Tiens!’ said one of the escaping revolutionists to another, ‘on vient de tuer le Polonais!’
‘Bigre!’ answered the other, and both ran into the cellar of a house, the shutters of which were all closed, and its wall streaked with traces of powder and shot.
This ‘Polonais’ was Dmitri Rudin.
THE END.