simple. You do not believe in the value of general propositions--you do
not believe in convictions?’
‘I don’t believe in them, I don’t believe in anything!’
‘Very good. You are a sceptic.’
‘I see no necessity for using such a learned word. However----’
‘Don’t interrupt!’ interposed Darya Mihailovna.
‘At him, good dog!’ Pandalevsky said to himself at the same instant, and
smiled all over.
‘That word expresses my meaning,’ pursued Rudin. ‘You understand it; why
not make use of it? You don’t believe in anything. Why do you believe in
facts?’
‘Why? That’s good! Facts are matters of experience, every one knows what
facts are. I judge of them by experience, by my own senses.’
‘But may not your senses deceive you? Your senses tell you that the sun
goes round the earth,... but perhaps you don’t agree with Copernicus?
You don’t even believe in him?’
Again a smile passed over every one’s face, and all eyes were fastened
on Rudin. ‘He’s by no means a fool,’ every one was thinking.
‘You are pleased to keep on joking,’ said Pigasov. ‘Of course that’s
very original, but it’s not to the point.’
‘In what I have said hitherto,’ rejoined Rudin, ‘there is,
unfortunately, too little that’s original. All that has been well known
a very long time, and has been said a thousand times. That is not the
pith of the matter.’
‘What is then?’ asked Pigasov, not without insolence.
In discussions he always first bantered his opponent, then grew cross,
and finally sulked and was silent.
‘Here it is,’ continued Rudin. ‘I cannot help, I own, feeling sincere
regret when I hear sensible people attack----’
‘Systems?’ interposed Pigasov.
‘Yes, with your leave, even systems. What frightens you so much in that
word? Every system is founded on a knowledge of fundamental laws, the
principles of life----’
‘But there is no knowing them, no discovering them.’
‘One minute. Doubtless they are not easy for every one to get at, and to
make mistakes is natural to man. However, you will certainly agree
with me that Newton, for example, discovered some at least of these
fundamental laws? He was a genius, we grant you; but the grandeur of
the discoveries of genius is that they become the heritage of all. The
effort to discover universal principles in the multiplicity of phenomena
is one of the radical characteristics of human thought, and all our
civilisation----’
‘That’s what you’re driving at!’ Pigasov broke in in a drawling tone. ‘I
am a practical man and all these metaphysical subtleties I don’t enter
into and don’t want to enter into.’
‘Very good! That’s as you prefer. But take note that your very desire
to be exclusively a practical man is itself your sort of system--your
theory.’
‘Civilisation you talk about!’ blurted in Pigasov; ‘that’s another
admirable notion of yours! Much use in it, this vaunted civilisation! I
would not give a brass farthing for your civilisation!’
‘But what a poor sort of argument, African Semenitch!’ observed
Darya Mihailovna, inwardly much pleased by the calmness and perfect
good-breeding of her new acquaintance. ‘_C’est un homme comme il faut_,’
she thought, looking with well-disposed scrutiny at Rudin; ‘we must be
nice to him!’ Those last words she mentally pronounced in Russian.
‘I will not champion civilisation,’ continued Rudin after a short pause,
‘it does not need my championship. You don’t like it, every one to his
own taste. Besides, that would take us too far. Allow me only to remind
you of the old saying, “Jupiter, you are angry; therefore you are in the
wrong.” I meant to say that all those onslaughts upon systems--general
propositions--are especially distressing, because together with these
systems men repudiate knowledge in general, and all science and faith in
it, and consequently also faith in themselves, in their own powers. But
this faith is essential to men; they cannot exist by their sensations
alone, they are wrong to fear ideas and not to trust in them. Scepticism
is always characterised by barrenness and impotence.’
‘That’s all words!’ muttered Pigasov.
‘Perhaps so. But allow me to point out to you that when we say “that’s
all words!” we often wish ourselves to avoid the necessity of saying
anything more substantial than mere words.’
‘What?’ said Pigasov, winking his eyes.
‘You understood what I meant,’ retorted Rudin, with involuntary,
but instantly repressed impatience. ‘I repeat, if man has no steady
principle in which he trusts, no ground on which he can take a firm
stand, how can he form a just estimate of the needs, the tendencies and
the future of his country? How can he know what he ought to do, if----’
‘I leave you the field,’ ejaculated Pigasov abruptly, and with a bow he
turned away without looking at any one.
Rudin stared at him, and smiled slightly, saying nothing.
‘Aha! he has taken to flight!’ said Darya Mihailovna. ‘Never mind,
Dmitri...! I beg your pardon,’ she added with a cordial smile, ‘what is
your paternal name?’
‘Nikolaitch.’
‘Never mind, my dear Dmitri Nikolaitch, he did not deceive any of us. He
wants to make a show of not _wishing_ to argue any more. He is conscious
that he _cannot_ argue with you. But you had better sit nearer to us and
let us have a little talk.’
Rudin moved his chair up.
‘How is it we have not met till now?’ was Darya Mihailovna’s question.
‘That is what surprises me. Have you read this book? _C’est de
Tocqueville, vous savez_?’
And Darya Mihailovna held out the French pamphlet to Rudin.
Rudin took the thin volume in his hand, turned over a few pages of
it, and laying it down on the table, replied that he had not read that
particular work of M. de Tocqueville, but that he had often reflected
on the question treated by him. A conversation began to spring up. Rudin
seemed uncertain at first, and not disposed to speak out freely; his
words did not come readily, but at last he grew warm and began to speak.
In a quarter of an hour his voice was the only sound in the room, All
were crowding in a circle round him.
Only Pigasov remained aloof, in a corner by the fireplace. Rudin spoke
with intelligence, with fire and with judgment; he showed much learning,
wide reading. No one had expected to find in him a remarkable man. His
clothes were so shabby, so little was known of him. Every one felt it
strange and incomprehensible that such a clever man should have suddenly
made his appearance in the country. He seemed all the more wonderful
and, one may even say, fascinating to all of them, beginning with
Darya Mihailovna. She was pluming herself on having discovered him, and
already at this early date was dreaming of how she would introduce Rudin
into the world. In her quickness to receive impressions there was much
that was almost childish, in spite of her years. Alexandra Pavlovna, to
tell the truth, understood little of all that Rudin said, but was full
of wonder and delight; her brother too was admiring him. Pandalevsky was
watching Darya Mihailovna and was filled with envy. Pigasov thought,
‘If I have to give five hundred roubles I will get a nightingale to
sing better than that!’ But the most impressed of all the party were
Bassistoff and Natalya. Scarcely a breath escaped Bassistoff; he sat the
whole time with open mouth and round eyes and listened--listened as
he had never listened to any one in his life--while Natalya’s face was
suffused by a crimson flush, and her eyes, fastened unwaveringly on
Rudin, were both dimmed and shining.
‘What splendid eyes he has!’ Volintsev whispered to her.
‘Yes, they are.’
‘It’s only a pity his hands are so big and red.’
Natalya made no reply.
Tea was brought in. The conversation became more general, but still by
the sudden unanimity with which every one was silent, directly Rudin
opened his mouth, one could judge of the strength of the impression he
had produced. Darya Mihailovna suddenly felt inclined to tease Pigasov.
She went up to him and said in an undertone, ‘Why don’t you speak
instead of doing nothing but smile sarcastically? Make an effort,
challenge him again,’ and without waiting for him to answer, she
beckoned to Rudin.
‘There’s one thing more you don’t know about him,’ she said to him,
with a gesture towards Pigasov,--‘he is a terrible hater of women, he is
always attacking them; pray, show him the true path.’
Rudin involuntarily looked down upon Pigasov; he was a head and
shoulders taller. Pigasov almost withered up with fury, and his sour
face grew pale.
‘Darya Mihailovna is mistaken,’ he said in an unsteady voice, ‘I do not
only attack women; I am not a great admirer of the whole human species.’
‘What can have given you such a poor opinion of them?’ inquired Rudin.
Pigasov looked him straight in the face.
‘The study of my own heart, no doubt, in which I find every day more
and more that is base. I judge of others by myself. Possibly this too is
erroneous, and I am far worse than others, but what am I to do? it’s a
habit!’
‘I understand you and sympathise with you!’ was Rudin’s rejoinder. ‘What
generous soul has not experienced a yearning for self-humiliation? But
one ought not to remain in that condition from which there is no outlet
beyond.’
‘I am deeply indebted for the certificate of generosity you confer on
my soul,’ retorted Pigasov. ‘As for my condition, there’s not much amiss
with it, so that even if there were an outlet from it, it might go to
the deuce, I shouldn’t look for it!’
‘But that means--pardon the expression--to prefer the gratification of
your own pride to the desire to be and live in the truth.’
‘Undoubtedly,’ cried Pigasov, ‘pride--that I understand, and you, I
expect, understand, and every one understands; but truth, what is truth?
Where is it, this truth?’
‘You are repeating yourself, let me warn you,’ remarked Darya
Mihailovna.
Pigasov shrugged his shoulders.
‘Well, where’s the harm if I do? I ask: where is truth? Even the
philosophers don’t know what it is. Kant says it is one thing; but
Hegel--no, you’re wrong, it’s something else.’
‘And do you know what Hegel says of it?’ asked Rudin, without raising
his voice.
‘I repeat,’ continued Pigasov, flying into a passion, ‘that I cannot
understand what truth means. According to my idea, it doesn’t exist
at all in the world, that is to say, the word exists but not the thing
itself.’
‘Fie, fie!’ cried Darya Mihailovna, ‘I wonder you’re not ashamed to say
so, you old sinner! No truth? What is there to live for in the world
after that?’
‘Well, I go so far as to think, Darya Mihailovna,’ retorted Pigasov, in
a tone of annoyance, ‘that it would be much easier for you, in any case,
to live without truth than without your cook, Stepan, who is such a
master hand at soups! And what do you want with truth, kindly tell me?
you can’t trim a bonnet with it!’
‘A joke is not an argument,’ observed Darya Mihailovna, ‘especially when
you descend to personal insult.’
‘I don’t know about truth, but I see speaking it does not answer,’
muttered Pigasov, and he turned angrily away.
And Rudin began to speak of pride, and he spoke well. He showed that man
without pride is worthless, that pride is the lever by which the earth
can be moved from its foundations, but that at the same time he alone
deserves the name of man who knows how to control his pride, as the
rider does his horse, who offers up his own personality as a sacrifice
to the general good.
‘Egoism,’ so he ended, ‘is suicide. The egoist withers like a solitary
barren tree; but pride, ambition, as the active effort after perfection,
is the source of all that is great.... Yes! a man must prune away
the stubborn egoism of his personality to give it the right of
self-expression.’
‘Can you lend me a pencil?’ Pigasov asked Bassistoff.
Bassistoff did not at once understand what Pigasov had asked him.
‘What do you want a pencil for?’ he said at last
‘I want to write down Mr. Rudin’s last sentence. If one doesn’t write it
down, one might forget it, I’m afraid! But you will own, a sentence like
that is such a handful of trumps.’
‘There are things which it is a shame to laugh at and make fun of,
African Semenitch!’ said Bassistoff warmly, turning away from Pigasov.
Meanwhile Rudin had approached Natalya. She got up; her face expressed
her confusion. Volintsev, who was sitting near her, got up too.
‘I see a piano,’ began Rudin, with the gentle courtesy of a travelling
prince; ‘don’t you play on it?’
‘Yes, I play,’ replied Natalya, ‘but not very well. Here is Konstantin
Diomiditch plays much better than I do.’
Pandalevsky put himself forward with a simper. ‘You should not say that,
Natalya Alexyevna; your playing is not at all inferior to mine.’
‘Do you know Schubert’s “Erlkonig”?’ asked Rudin.
‘He knows it, he knows it!’ interposed Darya Mihailovna. ‘Sit down,
Konstantin. You are fond of music, Dmitri Nikolaitch?’
Rudin only made a slight motion of the head and ran his hand through his
hair, as though disposing himself to listen. Pandalevsky began to play.
Natalya was standing near the piano, directly facing Rudin. At the first
sound his face was transfigured. His dark blue eyes moved slowly about,
from time to time resting upon Natalya. Pandalevsky finished playing.
Rudin said nothing and walked up to the open window. A fragrant mist
lay like a soft shroud over the garden; a drowsy scent breathed from
the trees near. The stars shed a mild radiance. The summer night was
soft--and softened all. Rudin gazed into the dark garden, and looked
round.
‘That music and this night,’ he began, ‘reminded me of my student days
in Germany; our meetings, our serenades.’
‘You have been in Germany then?’ said Darya Mihailovna.
‘I spent a year at Heidelberg, and nearly a year at Berlin.’
‘And did you dress as a student? They say they wear a special dress
there.’
‘At Heidelberg I wore high boots with spurs, and a hussar’s jacket
with braid on it, and I let my hair grow to my shoulders. In Berlin the
students dress like everybody else.’
‘Tell us something of your student life,’ said Alexandra Pavlovna.
Rudin complied. He was not altogether successful in narrative. There
was a lack of colour in his descriptions. He did not know how to be
humorous. However, from relating his own adventures abroad, Rudin soon
passed to general themes, the special value of education and science,
universities, and university life generally. He sketched in a large and
comprehensive picture in broad and striking lines. All listened to him
with profound attention. His eloquence was masterly and attractive, not
altogether clear, but even this want of clearness added a special charm
to his words.
The exuberance of his thought hindered Rudin from expressing himself
definitely and exactly. Images followed upon images; comparisons started
up one after another--now startlingly bold, now strikingly true. It was
not the complacent effort of the practised speaker, but the very breath
of inspiration that was felt in his impatient improvising. He did not
seek out his words; they came obediently and spontaneously to his lips,
and each word seemed to flow straight from his soul, and was burning
with all the fire of conviction. Rudin was the master of almost the
greatest secret--the music of eloquence. He knew how in striking
one chord of the heart to set all the others vaguely quivering and
resounding. Many of his listeners, perhaps, did not understand very
precisely what his eloquence was about; but their bosoms heaved, it
seemed as though veils were lifted before their eyes, something radiant,
glorious, seemed shimmering in the distance.
All Rudin’s thoughts seemed centred on the future; this lent him
something of the impetuous dash of youth... Standing at the window, not
looking at any one in special, he spoke, and inspired by the general
sympathy and attention, the presence of young women, the beauty of the
night, carried along by the tide of his own emotions, he rose to the
height of eloquence, of poetry.... The very sound of his voice, intense
and soft, increased the fascination; it seemed as though some higher
power were speaking through his lips, startling even to himself....
Rudin spoke of what lends eternal significance to the fleeting life of
man.
‘I remember a Scandinavian legend,’ thus he concluded, ‘a king is
sitting with his warriors round the fire in a long dark barn. It was
night and winter. Suddenly a little bird flew in at the open door and
flew out again at the other. The king spoke and said that this bird
is like man in the world; it flew in from darkness and out again into
darkness, and was not long in the warmth and light.... “King,” replies
the oldest of the warriors, “even in the dark the bird is not lost, but
finds her nest.” Even so our life is short and worthless; but all that
is great is accomplished through men. The consciousness of being the
instrument of these higher powers ought to outweigh all other joys for
man; even in death he finds his life, his nest.’
Rudin stopped and dropped his eyes with a smile of involuntary
embarrassment.
‘_Vous êtes un poète_,’ was Darya Mihailovna’s comment in an undertone.
And all were inwardly agreeing with her--all except Pigasov. Without
waiting for the end of Rudin’s long speech, he quietly took his hat and
as he went out whispered viciously to Pandalevsky who was standing near
the door:
‘No! Fools are more to my taste.’
No one, however, tried to detain him or even noticed his absence.
The servants brought in supper, and half an hour later, all had taken
leave and separated. Darya Mihailovna begged Rudin to remain the night.
Alexandra Pavlovna, as she went home in the carriage with her brother,
several times fell to exclaiming and marvelling at the extraordinary
cleverness of Rudin. Volintsev agreed with her, though he observed that
he sometimes expressed himself somewhat obscurely--that is to say, not
altogether intelligibly, he added,--wishing, no doubt, to make his own
thought clear, but his face was gloomy, and his eyes, fixed on a corner
of the carriage, seemed even more melancholy than usual.
Pandalevsky went to bed, and as he took off his daintily embroidered
braces, he said aloud ‘A very smart fellow!’ and suddenly, looking
harshly at his page, ordered him out of the room. Bassistoff did not
sleep the whole night and did not undress--he was writing till morning
a letter to a comrade of his in Moscow; and Natalya, too, though she
undressed and lay down in her bed, had not an instant’s sleep and never
closed her eyes. With her head propped on her arm, she gazed fixedly
into the darkness; her veins were throbbing feverishly and her bosom
often heaved with a deep sigh.
IV
The next morning Rudin had only just finished dressing when a servant
came to him with an invitation from Darya Mihailovna to come to her
boudoir and drink tea with her. Rudin found her alone. She greeted him
very cordially, inquired whether he had passed a good night, poured him
out a cup of tea with her own hands, asked him whether there was sugar
enough in it, offered him a cigarette, and twice again repeated that she
was surprised that she had not met him long before. Rudin was about to
take a seat some distance away; but Darya Mihailovna motioned him to an
easy chair, which stood near her lounge, and bending a little towards
him began to question him about his family, his plans and intentions.
Darya Mihailovna spoke carelessly and listened with an air of
indifference; but it was perfectly evident to Rudin that she was laying
herself out to please him, even to flatter him. It was not for nothing
that she had arranged this morning interview, and had dressed so simply
yet elegantly _a la Madame Récamier_! But Darya Mihailovna soon left off
questioning him. She began to tell him about herself, her youth, and
the people she had known. Rudin gave a sympathetic attention to
her lucubrations, though--a curious fact--whatever personage Darya
Mihailovna might be talking about, she always stood in the foreground,
she alone, and the personage seemed to be effaced, to slink away in the
background, and to disappear. But to make up for that, Rudin learnt
in full detail precisely what Darya Mihailovna had said to a certain
distinguished statesman, and what influence she had had on such and such
a celebrated poet. To judge from Darya Mihailovna’s accounts, one might
fancy that all the distinguished men of the last five-and-twenty years
had dreamt of nothing but how they could make her acquaintance, and
gain her good opinion. She spoke of them simply, without particular
enthusiasm or admiration, as though they were her daily associates,
calling some of them queer fellows. As she talked of them, like a rich
setting round a worthless stone, their names ranged themselves in a
brilliant circlet round the principal name--around Darya Mihailovna.
Rudin listened, smoking a cigarette, and said little. He could speak
well and liked speaking; carrying on a conversation was not in his line,
though he was also a good listener. All men--if only they had not been
intimidated by him to begin with--opened their hearts with confidence
in his presence; he followed the thread of another man’s narrative so
readily and sympathetically. He had a great deal of good-nature--that
special good-nature of which men are full, who are accustomed to feel
themselves superior to others. In arguments he seldom allowed his
antagonist to express himself fully, he crushed him by his eager,
vehement and passionate dialectic.
Darya Mihailovna expressed herself in Russian. She prided herself on her
knowledge of her own language, though French words and expressions
often escaped her. She intentionally made use of simple popular terms of
speech; but not always successfully. Rudin’s ear was not outraged by the
strange medley of language on Darya Mihailovna’s lips, indeed he hardly
had an ear for it.
Darya Mihailovna was exhausted at last and letting her head fall on the
cushions of her easy-chair she fixed her eyes on Rudin and was silent.
‘I understand now,’ began Rudin, speaking slowly, ‘I understand why you
come every summer into the country. This period of rest is essential for
you; the peace of the country after your life in the capital refreshes
and strengthens you. I am convinced that you must be profoundly
sensitive to the beauties of nature.’
Darya Mihailovna gave Rudin a sidelong look.
‘Nature--yes--yes--of course.... I am passionately fond of it; but do
you know, Dmitri Nikolaitch, even in the country one cannot do without
society. And here there is practically none. Pigasov is the most
intelligent person here.’
‘The cross old gentleman who was here last night?’ inquired Rudin.
‘Yes.... In the country though, even he is of use--he sometimes makes
one laugh.’
‘He is by no means stupid,’ returned Rudin, ‘but he is on the wrong
path. I don’t know whether you will agree with me, Darya Mihailovna, but
in negation--in complete and universal negation--there is no salvation
to be found? Deny everything and you will easily pass for a man of
ability; it’s a well-known trick. Simple-hearted people are quite ready
to conclude that you are worth more than what you deny. And that’s
often an error. In the first place, you can pick holes in anything; and
secondly, even if you are right in what you say, it’s the worse for
you; your intellect, directed by simple negation, grows colourless and
withers up. While you gratify your vanity, you are deprived of the true
consolations of thought; life--the essence of life--evades your
petty and jaundiced criticism, and you end by scolding and becoming
ridiculous. Only one who loves has the right to censure and find fault.’
‘_Voilà, Monsieur Pigasov enterré_,’ observed Darya Mihailovna. ‘What a
genius you have for defining a man! But Pigasov certainly would not have
even understood you. He loves nothing but his own individuality.’
‘And he finds fault with that so as to have the right to find fault with
others,’ Rudin put in.
Darya Mihailovna laughed.
‘“He judges the sound,” as the saying is, “the sound by the sick.” By
the way, what do you think of the baron?’