‘I did not want to shock you at all, Alexandra Pavlovna,’ he brought
out at last, ‘I am not given to slander. However,’ he added, after a
moment’s thought, ‘in reality there is a foundation of fact in what you
said. I did not mean to slander Rudin; but--who knows! very likely he
has had time to change since those days--very possibly I am unjust to
him.’
‘Ah! you see. So promise me that you will renew your acquaintance with
him, and will get to know him thoroughly and then report your final
opinion of him to me.’
‘As you please. But why are you so quiet, Sergei Pavlitch?’
Volintsev started and raised his head, as though he had just waked up.
‘What can I say? I don’t know him. Besides, my head aches to-day.’
‘Yes, you look rather pale this evening,’ remarked Alexandra Pavlovna;
‘are you unwell?’
‘My head aches,’ repeated Volintsev, and he went away.
Alexandra Pavlovna and Lezhnyov looked after him, and exchanged glances,
though they said nothing. What was passing in Volintsev’s heart was no
mystery to either of them.
VI
More than two months had passed; during the whole of that period Rudin
had scarcely been away from Darya Mihailovna’s house. She could not
get on without him. To talk to him about herself and to listen to his
eloquence became a necessity for her. He would have taken his leave on
one occasion, on the ground that all his money was spent; she gave
him five hundred roubles. He borrowed two hundred roubles more from
Volintsev. Pigasov visited Darya Mihailovna much less frequently than
before; Rudin crushed him by his presence. And indeed it was not only
Pigasov who was conscious of an oppression.
‘I don’t like that prig,’ Pigasov used to say, ‘he expresses himself so
affectedly like a hero of a romance. If he says “I,” he stops in rapt
admiration, “I, yes, I!” and the phrases he uses are all so drawn-out;
if you sneeze, he will begin at once to explain to you exactly why you
sneezed and did not cough. If he praises you, it’s just as if he were
creating you a prince. If he begins to abuse himself, he humbles himself
into the dust--come, one thinks, he will never dare to face the light
of day after that. Not a bit of it! It only cheers him up, as if he’d
treated himself to a glass of grog.’
Pandalevsky was a little afraid of Rudin, and cautiously tried to win
his favour. Volintsev had got on to curious terms with him. Rudin called
him a knight-errant, and sang his praises to his face and behind his
back; but Volintsev could not bring himself to like him and always felt
an involuntary impatience and annoyance when Rudin devoted himself to
enlarging on his good points in his presence. ‘Is he making fun of me?’
he thought, and he felt a throb of hatred in his heart. He tried to keep
his feelings in check, but in vain; he was jealous of him on Natalya’s
account. And Rudin himself, though he always welcomed Volintsev with
effusion, though he called him a knight-errant, and borrowed money from
him, did not feel exactly friendly towards him. It would be difficult
to define the feelings of these two men when they pressed each other’s
hands like friends and looked into each other’s eyes.
Bassistoff continued to adore Rudin, and to hang on every word he
uttered. Rudin paid him very little attention. Once he spent a whole
morning with him, discussing the weightiest problems of life, and
awakening his keenest enthusiasm, but afterwards he took no further
notice of him. Evidently it was only a phrase when he said that he was
seeking for pure and devoted souls. With Lezhnyov, who began to be a
frequent visitor at the house, Rudin did not enter into discussion;
he seemed even to avoid him. Lezhnyov, on his part, too, treated him
coldly. He did not, however, report his final conclusions about him,
which somewhat disquieted Alexandra Pavlovna. She was fascinated
by Rudin, but she had confidence in Lezhnyov. Every one in Darya
Mihailovna’s house humoured Rudin’s fancies; his slightest preferences
were carried out. He determined the plans for the day. Not a single
_partie de plaisir_ was arranged without his co-operation.
He was not, however, very fond of any kind of impromptu excursion or
picnic, and took part in them rather as grown-up people take part
in children’s games, with an air of kindly, but rather wearied,
friendliness. He took interest in everything else, however. He discussed
with Darya Mihailovna her plans for the estate, the education of her
children, her domestic arrangements, and her affairs generally; he
listened to her schemes, and was not bored by petty details, and, in his
turn, proposed reforms and made suggestions. Darya Mihailovna agreed to
them in words--and that was all. In matters of business she was really
guided by the advice of her bailiff--an elderly, one-eyed Little
Russian, a good-natured and crafty old rogue. ‘What is old is fat,
what is new is thin,’ he used to say, with a quiet smile, winking his
solitary eye.
Next to Darya Mihailovna, it was Natalya to whom Rudin used to talk
most often and at most length. He used privately to give her books, to
confide his plans to her, and to read her the first pages of the essays
and other works he had in his mind. Natalya did not always fully grasp
the significance of them.
But Rudin did not seem to care much about her understanding, so long
as she listened to him. His intimacy with Natalya was not altogether
pleasing to Darya Mihailovna. ‘However,’ she thought, ‘let her chatter
away with him in the country. She amuses him as a little girl now. There
is no great harm in it, and, at any rate, it will improve her mind. At
Petersburg I will soon put a stop to it.’
Darya Mihailovna was mistaken. Natalya did not chatter to Rudin like a
school-girl; she eagerly drank in his words, she tried to penetrate to
their full significance; she submitted her thoughts, her doubts to him;
he became her leader, her guide. So far, it was only the brain that
was stirred, but in the young the brain is not long stirred alone. What
sweet moments Natalya passed when at times in the garden on the seat,
in the transparent shade of the aspen tree, Rudin began to read Goethe’s
_Faust_, Hoffman, or Bettina’s letters, or Novalis, constantly stopping
and explaining what seemed obscure to her. Like almost all Russian
girls, she spoke German badly, but she understood it well, and Rudin was
thoroughly imbued with German poetry, German romanticism and philosophy,
and he drew her after him into these forbidden lands. Unimagined
splendours were revealed there to her earnest eyes from the pages of the
book which Rudin held on his knee; a stream of divine visions, of new,
illuminating ideas, seemed to flow in rhythmic music into her soul, and
in her heart, moved with the high delight of noble feeling, slowly was
kindled and fanned into a flame the holy spark of enthusiasm.
‘Tell me, Dmitri Nikolaitch,’ she began one day, sitting by the window
at her embroidery-frame, ‘shall you be in Petersburg in the winter?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Rudin, as he let the book he had been glancing
through fall upon his knee; ‘if I can find the means, I shall go.’
He spoke dejectedly; he felt tired, and had done nothing all day.
‘I think you are sure to find the means.’
Rudin shook his head.
‘You think so!’
And he looked away expressively.
Natalya was on the point of replying, but she checked herself.
‘Look.’ began Rudin, with a gesture towards the window, ‘do you see that
apple-tree? It is broken by the weight and abundance of its own fruit.
True emblem of genius.’
‘It is broken because it had no support,’ replied Natalya.
‘I understand you, Natalya Alexyevna, but it is not so easy for a man to
find such a support.’
‘I should think the sympathy of others... in any case isolation
always....’
Natalya was rather confused, and flushed a little.
‘And what will you do in the country in the winter?’ she added
hurriedly.
‘What shall I do? I shall finish my larger essay--you know it--on
“Tragedy in Life and in Art.” I described to you the outline of it the
day before yesterday, and shall send it to you.’
‘And you will publish it?’
‘No.’
‘No? For whose sake will you work then?’
‘And if it were for you?’
Natalya dropped her eyes.
‘It would be far above me.’
‘What, may I ask, is the subject of the essay?’ Bassistoff inquired
modestly. He was sitting a little distance away.
‘“Tragedy in Life and in Art,”’ repeated Rudin. ‘Mr. Bassistoff too will
read it. But I have not altogether settled on the fundamental motive. I
have not so far worked out for myself the tragic significance of love.’
Rudin liked to talk of love, and frequently did so. At first, at the
word ‘love,’ Mlle. Boncourt started, and pricked up her eyes like an old
war-horse at the sound of the trumpet; but afterwards she had grown used
to it, and now only pursed up her lips and took snuff at intervals.
‘It seems to me,’ said Natalya timidly, ‘that the tragic in love is
unrequited love.’
‘Not at all!’ replied Rudin; ‘that is rather the comic side of love.
... The question must be put in an altogether different way... one must
attack it more deeply.... Love!’ he pursued, ‘all is mystery in love;
how it comes, how it develops, how it passes away. Sometimes it comes
all at once, undoubting, glad as day; sometimes it smoulders like fire
under ashes, and only bursts into a flame in the heart when all is over;
sometimes it winds its way into the heart like a serpent, and suddenly
slips out of it again.... Yes, yes; it is the great problem. But who
does love in our days? Who is so bold as to love?’
And Rudin grew pensive.
‘Why is it we have not seen Sergei Pavlitch for so long?’ he asked
suddenly.
Natalya blushed, and bent her head over her embroidery frame.
‘I don’t know,’ she murmured.
‘What a splendid, generous fellow he is!’ Rudin declared, standing up.
‘It is one of the best types of a Russian gentleman.’
Mlle. Boncourt gave him a sidelong look out of her little French eyes.
Rudin walked up and down the room.
‘Have you noticed,’ he began, turning sharply round on his heels, ‘that
on the oak--and the oak is a strong tree--the old leaves only fall off
when the new leaves begin to grow?’
‘Yes,’ answered Natalya slowly, ‘I have noticed it.’
‘That is what happens to an old love in a strong heart; it is dead
already, but still it holds its place; only another new love can drive
it out.’
Natalya made no reply.
‘What does that mean?’ she was thinking.
Rudin stood still, tossed his hair back, and walked away.
Natalya went to her own room. She sat a long while on her little bed in
perplexity, pondering over Rudin’s last words. All at once she clasped
her hands and began to weep bitterly. What she was weeping for--who can
tell? She herself could not tell why her tears were falling so fast.
She dried them; but they flowed afresh, like water from a long-pent-up
source.
On this same day Alexandra Pavlovna had a conversation with Lezhnyov
about Rudin. At first he bore all her attacks in silence; but at last
she succeeded in rousing him into talk.
‘I see,’ she said to him, ‘you dislike Dmitri Nikolaitch, as you did
before. I purposely refrained from questioning you till now; but now you
have had time to make up your mind whether there is any change in him,
and I want to know why you don’t like him.’
‘Very well,’ answered Lezhnyov with his habitual phlegm, ‘since your
patience is exhausted; only look here, don’t get angry.’
‘Come, begin, begin.’
‘And let me have my say to the end.’
‘Of course, of course; begin.’
‘Very well,’ said Lezhnyov, dropping lazily on to the sofa; ‘I admit
that I certainly don’t like Rudin. He is a clever fellow.’
‘I should think so.’
‘He is a remarkably clever man, though in reality essentially shallow.’
‘It’s easy to say that.’
‘Though essentially shallow,’ repeated Lezhnyov; ‘but there’s no great
harm in that; we are all shallow. I will not even quarrel with him for
being a tyrant at heart, lazy, ill-informed!’
Alexandra Pavlovna clasped her hands.
‘Rudin--ill-informed!’ she cried.
‘Ill-informed!’ repeated Lezhnyov in precisely the same voice, ‘that he
likes to live at other people’s expense, to cut a good figure, and so
forth--all that’s natural enough. But what’s wrong is, that he is as
cold as ice.’
‘He cold! that fiery soul cold!’ interrupted Alexandra Pavlovna.
‘Yes, cold as ice, and he knows it, and pretends to be fiery. What’s
bad,’ pursued Lezhnyov, gradually growing warm, ‘he is playing a
dangerous game--not dangerous for him, of course; he does not risk a
farthing, not a straw on it--but others stake their soul.’
‘Whom and what are you talking of? I don’t understand you,’ said
Alexandra Pavlovna.
‘What’s bad, he isn’t honest. He’s a clever man, certainly; he ought to
know the value of his own words, and he brings them out as if they were
worth something to him. I don’t dispute that he’s a fine speaker,
but not in the Russian style. And indeed, after all, fine speaking is
pardonable in a boy, but at his years it is disgraceful to take pleasure
in the sound of his own voice, and to show off!’
‘I think, Mihailo Mihailitch, it’s all the same for those who hear him,
whether he is showing off or not.’
‘Excuse me, Alexandra Pavlovna, it is not all the same. One man says a
word to me and it thrills me all over, another may say the same thing,
or something still finer--and I don’t prick up my ears. Why is that?’
‘_You_ don’t, perhaps,’ put in Alexandra Pavlovna.
‘I don’t,’ retorted Lezhnyov, ‘though perhaps my ears are long enough.
The point is, that Rudin’s words seem to remain mere words, and never to
pass into deeds--and meanwhile even words may trouble a young heart, may
be the ruin of it.’
‘But whom do you mean, Mihailo Mihailitch?’
Lezhnyov paused.
‘Do you want to know whom I mean, Natalya Alexyevna?’
Alexandra Pavlovna was taken aback for a moment, but she began to smile
the instant after.
‘Really,’ she began, ‘what queer ideas you always have! Natalya is still
a child; and besides, if there were anything in what you say, do you
suppose Darya Mihailovna----’
‘Darya Mihailovna is an egoist to begin with, and lives for herself; and
then she is so convinced of her own skill in educating her children that
it does not even enter her head to feel uneasy about them. Nonsense! how
is it possible: she has but to give one nod, one majestic glance--and
all is over, all is obedience again. That’s what that lady imagines; she
fancies herself a female Maecenas, a learned woman, and God knows what,
but in fact she is nothing more than a silly, worldly old woman. But
Natalya is not a baby; believe me, she thinks more, and more profoundly
too, than you and I do. And that her true, passionate, ardent nature
must fall in with an actor, a flirt like this! But of course that’s in
the natural order of things.’
‘A flirt! Do you mean that he is a flirt?’
‘Of course he is. And tell me yourself, Alexandra Pavlovna, what is his
position in Darya Mihailovna’s house? To be the idol, the oracle of
the household, to meddle in the arrangements, all the gossip and petty
trifles of the house--is that a dignified position for a man to be in?’
Alexandra Pavlovna looked at Lezhnyov in surprise.
‘I don’t know you, Mihailo Mihailitch,’ she began to say. ‘You are
flushed and excited. I believe there must be something else hidden under
this.’
‘Oh, so that’s it! Tell a woman the truth from conviction, and she will
never rest easy till she has invented some petty outside cause quite
beside the point which has made you speak in precisely that manner and
no other.’
Alexandra Pavlovna began to get angry.
‘Bravo, Monsieur Lezhnyov! You begin to be as bitter against women as
Mr. Pigasov; but you may say what you like, penetrating as you are, it’s
hard for me to believe that you understand every one and everything.
I think you are mistaken. According to your ideas, Rudin is a kind of
Tartuffe.’
‘No, the point is, that he is not even a Tartuffe. Tartuffe at least
knew what he was aiming at; but this fellow, for all his cleverness----’
‘Well, well, what of him? Finish your sentence, you unjust, horrid man!’
Lezhnyov got up.
‘Listen, Alexandra Pavlovna,’ he began, ‘it is you who are unjust, not
I. You are cross with me for my harsh criticism of Rudin; I have the
right to speak harshly of him! I have paid dearly enough, perhaps, for
that privilege. I know him well: I lived a long while with him. You
remember I promised to tell you some time about our life at Moscow. It
is clear that I must do so now. But will you have the patience to hear
me out?’
‘Tell me, tell me!’
‘Very well, then.’
Lezhnyov began walking with measured steps about the room, coming to a
standstill at times with his head bent.
‘You know, perhaps,’ he began, ‘or perhaps you don’t know, that I was
left an orphan at an early age, and by the time I was seventeen I had no
one in authority over me. I lived at my aunt’s at Moscow, and did just
as I liked. As a boy I was rather silly and conceited, and liked to
brag and show off. After my entrance at the university I behaved like
a regular schoolboy, and soon got into a scrape. I won’t tell you
about it; it’s not worth while. But I told a lie about it, and rather
a shameful lie. It all came out, and I was put to open shame. I lost my
head and cried like a child. It happened at a friend’s rooms before a
lot of fellow-students. They all began to laugh at me, all except one
student, who, observe, had been more indignant with me than any, so long
as I had been obstinate and would not confess my deceit. He took pity
on me, perhaps; anyway, he took me by the arm and led me away to his
lodging.’
‘Was that Rudin?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna.
‘No, it was not Rudin... it was a man... he is dead now... he was an
extraordinary man. His name was Pokorsky. To describe him in a few words
is beyond my powers, but directly one begins to speak of him, one does
not want to speak of any one else. He had a noble, pure heart, and an
intelligence such as I have never met since. Pokorsky lived in a little,
low-pitched room, in an attic of an old wooden house. He was very poor,
and supported himself somehow by giving lessons. Sometimes he had not
even a cup of tea to offer to his friends, and his only sofa was so
shaky that it was like being on board ship. But in spite of these
discomforts a great many people used to go to see him. Every one loved
him; he drew all hearts to him. You would not believe what sweetness and
happiness there was in sitting in his poor little room! It was in his
room I met Rudin. He had already parted from his prince before then.’
‘What was there so exceptional in this Pokorsky?’ asked Alexandra
Pavlovna.
‘How can I tell you? Poetry and truth--that was what drew all of us to
him. For all his clear, broad intellect he was as sweet and simple as a
child. Even now I have his bright laugh ringing in my ears, and at the
same time he
Burnt his midnight lamp
Before the holy and the true,
as a dear half-cracked fellow, the poet of our set, expressed it.’
‘And how did he talk?’ Alexandra Pavlovna questioned again.
‘He talked well when he was in the mood, but not remarkably so. Rudin
even then was twenty times as eloquent as he.’
Lezhnyov stood still and folded his arms.
‘Pokorsky and Rudin were very unlike. There was more flash and
brilliance about Rudin, more fluency, and perhaps more enthusiasm. He
appeared far more gifted than Pokorsky, and yet all the while he was a
poor creature by comparison. Rudin was excellent at developing any idea,
he was capital in argument, but his ideas did not come from his own
brain; he borrowed them from others, especially from Pokorsky. Pokorsky
was quiet and soft--even weak in appearance--and he was fond of women to
distraction, and fond of dissipation, and he would never take an insult
from any one. Rudin seemed full of fire, and courage, and life, but at
heart he was cold and almost a coward, until his vanity was touched,
then he would not stop at anything. He always tried to get an ascendency
over people, but he got it in the name of general principles and ideas,
and certainly had a great influence over many. To tell the truth, no one
loved him; I was the only one, perhaps, who was attached to him. They
submitted to his yoke, but all were devoted to Pokorsky. Rudin never
refused to argue and discuss with any one he met. He did not read very
much, though far more anyway than Pokorsky and all the rest of us;
besides, he had a well-arranged intellect, and a prodigious memory, and
what an effect that has on young people! They must have generalisations,
conclusions, incorrect if you like, perhaps, but still conclusions! A
perfectly sincere man never suits them. Try to tell young people that
you cannot give them the whole truth, and they will not listen to you.
But you mustn’t deceive them either. You want to half believe yourself
that you are in possession of the truth. That was why Rudin had such a
powerful effect on all of us. I told you just now, you know, that he
had not read much, but he read philosophical books, and his brain was
so constructed that he extracted at once from what he had read all the
general principles, penetrated to the very root of the thing, and then
made deductions from it in all directions--consecutive, brilliant,
sound ideas, throwing up a wide horizon to the soul. Our set consisted
then--it’s only fair to say--of boys, and not well-informed boys.
Philosophy, art, science, and even life itself were all mere words
to us--ideas if you like, fascinating and magnificent ideas, but
disconnected and isolated. The general connection of those ideas, the
general principle of the universe we knew nothing of, and had had no
contact with, though we discussed it vaguely, and tried to form an idea
of it for ourselves. As we listened to Rudin, we felt for the first time
as if we had grasped it at last, this general connection, as if a veil
had been lifted at last! Even admitting he was not uttering an original
thought--what of that! Order and harmony seemed to be established in all
we knew; all that had been disconnected seemed to fall into a whole,
to take shape and grow like a building before our eyes, all was full of
light and inspiration everywhere.... Nothing remained meaningless
and undesigned, in everything wise design and beauty seemed apparent,
everything took a clear and yet mystic significance; every isolated
event of life fell into harmony, and with a kind of holy awe and
reverence and sweet emotion we felt ourselves to be, as it were, the
living vessels of eternal truth, her instruments destined for some
great... Doesn’t it all seem very ridiculous to you?’
‘Not the least!’ replied Alexandra Pavlovna slowly; ‘why should you
think so? I don’t altogether understand you, but I don’t think it
ridiculous.’
‘We have had time to grow wiser since then, of course,’ Lezhnyov
continued, ‘all that may seem childish to us now.... But, I repeat, we
all owed a great deal to Rudin then. Pokorsky was incomparably nobler
than he, no question about it; Pokorsky breathed fire and strength into
all of us; but he was often depressed and silent. He was nervous and not
robust; but when he did stretch his wings--good heavens!--what a flight!
up to the very height of the blue heavens! And there was a great deal
of pettiness in Rudin, handsome and stately as he was; he was a gossip,
indeed, and he loved to have a hand in everything, arranging and
explaining everything. His fussy activity was inexhaustible--he was a
diplomatist by nature. I speak of him as I knew him then. But unluckily
he has not altered. On the other hand, his ideals haven’t altered at
five-and-thirty! It’s not every one who can say that of himself!’
‘Sit down,’ said Alexandra Pavlovna, ‘why do you keep moving about like
a pendulum?’