Pokorsky’s set, I may tell you, Alexandra Pavlovna, I was quite
transformed; I grew humble and anxious to learn; I studied, and was
happy and reverent--in a word, I felt just as though I had entered a
holy temple. And really, when I recall our gatherings, upon my word
there was much that was fine, even touching, in them. Imagine a party of
five or six lads gathered together, one tallow candle burning. The tea
was dreadful stuff, and the cake was stale, very stale; but you should
have seen our faces, you should have heard our talk! Eyes were sparkling
with enthusiasm, cheeks flushed, and hearts beating, while we talked of
God, and truth, of the future of humanity, and poetry ... often what
we said was absurd, and we were in ecstasies over nonsense; but what of
that?... Pokorsky sat with crossed legs, his pale cheek on his hand, and
his eyes seemed to shed light. Rudin stood in the middle of the room and
spoke, spoke splendidly, for all the world like the young Demosthenes
by the resounding sea; our poet, Subotin of the dishevelled locks, would
now and then throw out some abrupt exclamation as though in his sleep,
while Scheller, a student forty years old, the son of a German pastor,
who had the reputation among us of a profound thinker, thanks to his
eternal, inviolable silence, held his peace with more rapt solemnity
than usual; even the lively Shtchitof, the Aristophanes of our reunions,
was subdued and did no more than smile, while two or three novices
listened with reverent transports.... And the night seemed to fly by on
wings. It was already the grey morning when we separated, moved, happy,
aspiring and sober (there was no question of wine among us at such
times) with a kind of sweet weariness in our souls... and one even
looked up at the stars with a kind of confidence, as though they had
become nearer and more comprehensible. Ah! that was a glorious time, and
I can’t bear to believe that it was altogether wasted! And it was not
wasted--not even for those whose lives were sordid afterwards. How often
have I chanced to come across such old college friends! You would think
the man had sunk altogether to the brute, but one had only to utter
Pokorsky’s name before him and every trace of noble feeling in him was
stirred at once; it was like uncorking a forgotten phial of fragrance in
some dark and dirty room.’
Lezhnyov stopped; his colourless face was flushed.
‘And what was the cause of your quarrel with Rudin?’ said Alexandra
Pavlovna, looking wonderingly at Lezhnyov.
‘I did not quarrel with him, but I parted from him when I came to know
him thoroughly abroad. But I might well have quarrelled with him in
Moscow, he did me a bad turn there.’
‘What was that?’
‘It was like this. I--how can I tell you?--it does not accord very well
with my appearance, but I was always much given to falling in love.’
‘You?’
‘Yes, I was indeed. That’s a curious idea, isn’t it? But, anyway, it
was so. Well, so I fell in love in those days with a very pretty young
girl.... But why do you look at me like that? I could tell you something
about myself a great deal more extraordinary than that!’
‘And what is that something, if I may know?’
‘Oh, just this. In those Moscow days I used to have a tryst at
nights--with whom, would you imagine? with a young lime-tree at the
bottom of my garden. I used to embrace its slender and graceful trunk,
and I felt as though I were embracing all nature, and my heart melted
and expanded as though it really were taking in the whole of nature.
That’s what I was then. And do you think, perhaps, I didn’t write
verses? Why, I even composed a whole drama in imitation of Manfred.
Among the characters was a ghost with blood on his breast, and not his
own blood, observe, but the blood of all humanity.... Yes, yes, you
need not wonder at that. But I was beginning to tell you about my love
affair. I made the acquaintance of a girl----’
‘And you gave up your trysts with the lime-tree?’ inquired Alexandra
Pavlovna.
‘Yes; I gave them up. This girl was a sweet, good creature, with clear,
lively eyes and a ringing voice.’
‘You give an excellent description of her,’ commented Alexandra Pavlovna
with a smile.
‘You are such a severe critic,’ retorted Lezhnyov. ‘Well, this girl
lived with her old father.... But I will not enter into details; I will
only tell you that this girl was so kind-hearted, if you only asked
her for half a cup of tea she would give it you brimming over! Two days
after first meeting her I was wild over her, and on the seventh day I
could hold out no longer, and confessed it in full to Rudin. At that
time I was completely under his influence, and his influence, I will
tell you frankly, was beneficial in many things. He was the first person
who did not treat me with contempt, but tried to lick me into shape. I
loved Pokorsky passionately, and felt a kind of awe before his purity of
soul, but I came closer to Rudin. When he heard about my love, he fell
into an indescribable ecstasy, congratulated me, embraced me, and at
once fell to disserting and enlarging upon all the dignity of my new
position. I pricked up my ears.... Well, you know how he can talk. His
words had an extraordinary effect on me. I at once assumed an amazing
consequence in my own eyes, and I put on a serious exterior and left off
laughing. I remember I used even to go about at that time with a kind
of circumspection, as though I had a sacred chalice within me, full of
a priceless liquid, which I was afraid of spilling over.... I was very
happy, especially as I found favour in her eyes. Rudin wanted to make my
beloved’s acquaintance, and I myself almost insisted on presenting him.’
‘Ah! I see, I see now what it is,’ interrupted Alexandra Pavlovna.
‘Rudin cut you out with your charmer, and you have never been able to
forgive him.... I am ready to take a wager I am right!’
‘You would lose your wager, Alexandra Pavlovna; you are wrong. Rudin did
not cut me out; he did not even try to cut me out; but, all the same,
he put an end to my happiness, though, looking at it in cool blood, I am
ready to thank him for it now. But I nearly went out of my mind at the
time. Rudin did not in the least wish to injure me--quite the contrary!
But through his cursed habit of pinning every emotion--his own and other
people’s--with a phrase, as one pins butterflies in a case, he set to
making clear to ourselves our relations to one another, and how we ought
to treat each other, and arbitrarily compelled us to take stock of
our feelings and ideas, praised us and blamed us, even entered into
a correspondence with us--fancy! Well, he succeeded in completely
disconcerting us! I should hardly, even then, have married the young
lady (I had so much sense still left), but, at least, we might have
spent some months happily a _la Paul et Virginie_; but now came strained
relations, misunderstandings of every kind. It ended by Rudin, one fine
morning, arriving at the conviction that it was his sacred duty as a
friend to acquaint the old father with everything--and he did so.’
‘Is it possible?’ cried Alexandra Pavlovna.
‘Yes, and did it with my consent, observe. That’s where the wonder comes
in!... I remember even now what a chaos my brain was in; everything
was simply turning round--things looked as they do in a camera
obscura--white seemed black and black white; falsehood was truth, and a
whim was duty.... Ah! even now I feel shame at the recollection of it!
Rudin--he never flagged--not a bit of it! He soared through all sorts of
misunderstandings and perplexities, like a swallow over a pond.’
‘And so you parted from the girl?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna, naively
bending her head on one side, and raising her eyebrows.
‘We parted--and it was a horrible parting--outrageously awkward and
public, quite unnecessarily public.... I wept myself, and she wept, and
I don’t know what passed.... It seemed as though a kind of Gordian knot
had been tied. It had to be cut, but it was painful! However, everything
in the world is ordered for the best. She has married an excellent man,
and is well off now.’
‘But confess, you have never been able to forgive Rudin, all the same,’
Alexandra Pavlovna was beginning.
‘Not at all!’ interposed Lezhnyov, ‘why, I cried like a child when he
was going abroad. Still, to tell the truth, even then there was the germ
in my heart. And when I met him later abroad... well, by that time I had
grown older.... Rudin struck me in his true light.’
‘What was it exactly you discovered in him?’
‘Why, all I have been telling you the last hour. But enough of him.
Perhaps everything will turn out all right. I only wanted to show you
that, if I do judge him hardly, it is not because I don’t know him.
... As far as concerns Natalya Alexyevna, I won’t say any more, but you
should observe your brother.’
‘My brother! Why?’
‘Why, look at him. Do you really notice nothing?’
Alexandra Pavlovna looked down.
‘You are right,’ she assented. ‘Certainly--my brother--for some time he
has not been himself.... But do you really think----’
‘Hush! I think he is coming,’ whispered Lezhnyov. ‘But Natalya is not a
child, believe me, though unluckily she is as inexperienced as a child.
You will see, that girl will astonish us all.’
‘In what way?’
‘Oh! in this way.... Do you know it’s precisely girls like that who
drown themselves, take poison, and so forth? Don’t be misled by
her looking so calm. Her passions are strong, and her character--my
goodness!’
‘Come! I think you are indulging in a flight of fancy now. To a
phlegmatic person like you, I suppose even I seem a volcano?’
‘Oh, no!’ answered Lezhnyov, with a smile. ‘And as for character--you
have no character at all, thank God!’
‘What impertinence is that?’
‘That? It’s the highest compliment, believe me.’
Volintsev came in and looked suspiciously at Lezhnyov and his sister. He
had grown thin of late. They both began to talk to him, but he scarcely
smiled in response to their jests, and looked, as Pigasov once said of
him, like a melancholy hare. But there has certainly never been a man in
the world who, at some time in his life, has not looked worse than that.
Volintsev felt that Natalya was drifting away from him, and with her it
seemed as if the earth was giving way under his feet.
VII
The next day was Sunday, and Natalya got up late. The day before she had
been very silent all day; she was secretly ashamed of her tears, and she
slept very badly. Sitting half-dressed at her little piano, at times she
played some chords, hardly audibly for fear of waking Mlle. Boncourt,
and then let her forehead fall on the cold keys and remained a long
while motionless. She kept thinking, not of Rudin himself, but of some
word he had uttered, and she was wholly buried in her own thought.
Sometimes she recollected Volintsev. She knew that he loved her. But her
mind did not dwell on him more than an instant.... She felt a strange
agitation. In the morning she dressed hurriedly and went down, and after
saying good-morning to her mother, seized an opportunity and went out
alone into the garden.... It was a hot day, bright and sunny in spite of
occasional showers of rain. Slight vapoury clouds sailed smoothly over
the clear sky, scarcely obscuring the sun, and at times a downpour
of rain fell suddenly in sheets, and was as quickly over. The thickly
falling drops, flashing like diamonds, fell swiftly with a kind of dull
thud; the sunshine glistened through their sparkling drops; the grass,
that had been rustling in the wind, was still, thirstily drinking in the
moisture; the drenched trees were languidly shaking all their leaves;
the birds were busily singing, and it was pleasant to hear their
twittering chatter mingling with the fresh gurgle and murmur of the
running rain-water. The dusty roads were steaming and slightly spotted
by the smart strokes of the thick drops. Then the clouds passed over,
a slight breeze began to stir, and the grass began to take tints of
emerald and gold. The trees seemed more transparent with their wet
leaves clinging together. A strong scent arose from all around.
The sky was almost cloudless again when Natalya came into the garden. It
was full of sweetness and peace--that soothing, blissful peace in which
the heart of man is stirred by a sweet languor of undefined desire and
secret emotion.
Natalya walked along a long line of silver poplars beside the pond;
suddenly, as if he had sprung out of the earth, Rudin stood before her.
She was confused. He looked her in the face.
‘You are alone?’ he inquired.
‘Yes, I am alone,’ replied Natalya, ‘but I was going back directly. It
is time I was home.’
‘I will go with you.’
And he walked along beside her.
‘You seem melancholy,’ he said.
‘I--I was just going to say that I thought you were out of spirits.’
‘Very likely--it is often so with me. It is more excusable in me than in
you.’
‘Why? Do you suppose I have nothing to be melancholy about?’
‘At your age you ought to find happiness in life.’
Natalya walked some steps in silence.
‘Dmitri Nikolaitch!’ she said.
‘Well?’
‘Do you remember--the comparison you made yesterday--do you remember--of
the oak?’
‘Yes, I remember. Well?’
Natalya stole a look at Rudin.
‘Why did you--what did you mean by that comparison?’
Rudin bent his head and fastened his eyes on the distance.
‘Natalya Alexyevna!’ he began with the intense and pregnant intonation
peculiar to him, which always made the listener believe that Rudin
was not expressing even the tenth part of what he held locked in his
heart--‘Natalya Alexyevna! you may have noticed that I speak little of
my own past. There are some chords which I do not touch upon at all. My
heart--who need know what has passed in it? To expose that to view has
always seemed sacrilege to me. But with you I cast aside reserve; you
win my confidence.... I cannot conceal from you that I too have loved
and have suffered like all men.... When and how? it’s useless to speak
of that; but my heart has known much bliss and much pain....’
Rudin made a brief pause.
‘What I said to you yesterday,’ he went on, ‘might be applied in a
degree to me in my present position. But again it is useless to speak
of this. That side of life is over for me now. What remains for me is
a tedious and fatiguing journey along the parched and dusty road from
point to point... When I shall arrive--whether I arrive at all--God
knows.... Let us rather talk of you.’
‘Can it be, Dmitri Nikolaitch,’ Natalya interrupted him, ‘you expect
nothing from life?’
‘Oh, no! I expect much, but not for myself.... Usefulness, the content
that comes from activity, I shall never renounce; but I have renounced
happiness. My hopes, my dreams, and my own happiness have nothing in
common. Love’--(at this word he shrugged his shoulders)--‘love is not
for me; I am not worthy of it; a woman who loves has a right to demand
the whole of a man, and I can never now give the whole of myself.
Besides, it is for youth to win love; I am too old. How could I turn any
one’s head? God grant I keep my own head on my shoulders.’
‘I understand,’ said Natalya, ‘that one who is bent on a lofty aim must
not think of himself; but cannot a woman be capable of appreciating such
a man? I should have thought, on the contrary, that a woman would be
sooner repelled by an egoist.... All young men--the youth you speak
of--all are egoists, they are all occupied only with themselves,
even when they love. Believe me, a woman is not only able to value
self-sacrifice; she can sacrifice herself.’
Natalya’s cheeks were slightly flushed and her eyes shining. Before her
friendship with Rudin she would never have succeeded in uttering such a
long and ardent speech.
‘You have heard my views on woman’s mission more than once,’ replied
Rudin with a condescending smile. ‘You know that I consider that Joan of
Arc alone could have saved France.... but that’s not the point. I wanted
to speak of you. You are standing on the threshold of life.... To dwell
on your future is both pleasant and not unprofitable.... Listen: you
know I am your friend; I take almost a brother’s interest in you. And so
I hope you will not think my question indiscreet; tell me, is your heart
so far quite untouched?’
Natalya grew hot all over and said nothing, Rudin stopped, and she
stopped too.
‘You are not angry with me?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she answered, ‘but I did not expect----’
‘However,’ he went on, ‘you need not answer me. I know your secret.’
Natalya looked at him almost with dismay.
‘Yes, yes, I know who has won your heart. And I must say that you could
not have made a better choice. He is a splendid man; he knows how
to value you; he has not been crushed by life--he is simple and
pure-hearted in soul... he will make your happiness.’
‘Of whom are you speaking, Dmitri Niklaitch?’
‘Is it possible you don’t understand? Of Volintsev, of course. What?
isn’t it true?’
Natalya turned a little away from Rudin. She was completely overwhelmed.
‘Do you imagine he doesn’t love you? Nonsense! he does not take his eyes
off you, and follows every movement of yours; indeed, can love ever be
concealed? And do not you yourself look on him with favour? So far as I
can observe, your mother, too, likes him.... Your choice----’
‘Dmitri Nikolaitch,’ Natalya broke in, stretching out her hand in her
confusion towards a bush near her, ‘it is so difficult, really, for me
to speak of this; but I assure you... you are mistaken.’
‘I am mistaken!’ repeated Rudin. ‘I think not. I have not known you very
long, but I already know you well. What is the meaning of the change I
see in you? I see it clearly. Are you just the same as when I met you
first, six weeks ago? No, Natalya Alexyevna, your heart is not free.’
‘Perhaps not,’ answered Natalya, hardly audibly, ‘but all the same you
are mistaken.’
‘How is that?’ asked Rudin.
‘Let me go! don’t question me!’ replied Natalya, and with swift steps
she turned towards the house.
She was frightened herself by the feelings of which she was suddenly
conscious in herself.
Rudin overtook her and stopped her.
‘Natalya Alexyevna,’ he said, ‘this conversation cannot end like this;
it is too important for me too.... How am I to understand you?’
‘Let me go!’ repeated Natalya.
‘Natalya Alexyevna, for mercy’s sake!’
Rudin’s face showed his agitation. He grew pale.
‘You understand everything, you must understand me too!’ said Natalya;
she snatched away her hand and went on, not looking round.
‘Only one word!’ cried Rudin after her
She stood still, but did not turn round.
‘You asked me what I meant by that comparison yesterday. Let me tell
you, I don’t want to deceive you. I spoke of myself, of my past,--and of
you.’
‘How? of me?’
‘Yes, of you; I repeat, I will not deceive you. You know now what was
the feeling, the new feeling I spoke of then.... Till to-day I should
not have ventured...’
Natalya suddenly hid her face in her hands, and ran towards the house.
She was so distracted by the unexpected conclusion of her conversation
with Rudin, that she ran past Volintsev without even noticing him. He
was standing motionless with his back against a tree. He had arrived at
the house a quarter of an hour before, and found Darya Mihailovna in the
drawing-room; and after exchanging a few words got away unobserved and
went in search of Natalya. Led by a lover’s instinct, he went straight
into the garden and came upon her and Rudin at the very instant when she
snatched her hand away from him. Darkness seemed to fall upon his eyes.
Gazing after Natalya, he left the tree and took two strides, not knowing
whither or wherefore. Rudin saw him as he came up to him. Both looked
each other in the face, bowed, and separated in silence.
‘This won’t be the end of it,’ both were thinking.
Volintsev went to the very end of the garden. He felt sad and sick;
a load lay on his heart, and his blood throbbed in sudden stabs at
intervals. The rain began to fall a little again. Rudin turned into
his own room. He, too, was disturbed; his thoughts were in a whirl. The
trustful, unexpected contact of a young true heart is agitating for any
one.
At table everything went somehow wrong. Natalya, pale all over, could
scarcely sit in her place and did not raise her eyes. Volintsev sat as
usual next her, and from time to time began to talk in a constrained way
to her. It happened that Pigasov was dining at Darya Mihailovna’s that
day. He talked more than any one at table. Among other things he began
to maintain that men, like dogs, can be divided into the short-tailed
and the long-tailed. People are short-tailed, he said, either from birth
or through their own fault. The short-tailed are in a sorry plight;
nothing succeeds with them--they have no confidence in themselves.
But the man who has a long furry tail is happy. He may be weaker and
inferior to the short-tailed; but he believes in himself; he displays
his tail and every one admires it. And this is a fit subject for wonder;
the tail, of course, is a perfectly useless part of the body, you admit;
of what use can a tail be? but all judge of their abilities by their
tail. ‘I myself,’ he concluded with a sigh, ‘belong to the number of the
short-tailed, and what is most annoying, I cropped my tail myself.’
‘By which you mean to say,’ commented Rudin carelessly, ‘what La
Rochefoucauld said long before you: Believe in yourself and others will
believe in you. Why the tail was brought in, I fail to understand.’
‘Let every one,’ Volintsev began sharply and with flashing eyes, ‘let
every one express himself according to his fancy. Talk of despotism! ...
I consider there is none worse than the despotism of so-called clever
men; confound them!’
Everyone was astonished at this outbreak from Volintsev; it was received
in silence. Rudin tried to look at him, but he could not control his
eyes, and turned away smiling without opening his lips.
‘Aha! so you too have lost your tail!’ thought Pigasov; and Natalya’s
heart sank in terror. Darya Mihailovna gave Volintsev a long puzzled
stare and at last was the first to speak; she began to describe an
extraordinary dog belonging to a minister So-and-So.
Volintsev went away soon after dinner. As he bade Natalya good-bye he
could not resist saying to her:
‘Why are you confused, as though you had done wrong? You cannot have
done wrong to any one!’
Natalya did not understand at all, and could only gaze after him. Before
tea Rudin went up to her, and bending over the table as though he were
examining the papers, whispered:
‘It is all like a dream, isn’t it? I absolutely must see you alone--if
only for a minute.’ He turned to Mlle. Boncourt. ‘Here,’ he said to her,
‘this is the article you were looking for,’ and again bending towards
Natalya, he added in a whisper, ‘Try to be near the terrace in the lilac
arbour about ten o’clock; I will wait for you.’
Pigasov was the hero of the evening. Rudin left him in possession of the
field. He afforded Darya Mihailovna much entertainment; first he told
a story of one of his neighbours who, having been henpecked by his
wife for thirty years, had grown so womanish that one day in crossing a
little puddle when Pigasov was present, he put out his hand and picked
up the skirt of his coat, as women do with their petticoats. Then he
turned to another gentleman who to begin with had been a freemason, then
a hypochondriac, and then wanted to be a banker.
‘How were you a freemason, Philip Stepanitch?’ Pigasov asked him.
‘You know how; I wore the nail of my little finger long.’
But what most diverted Darya Mihailovna was when Pigasov set off on a
dissertation upon love, and maintained that even he had been sighed
for, that one ardent German lady had even given him the nickname of her
‘dainty little African’ and her ‘hoarse little crow.’ Darya Mihailovna
laughed, but Pigasov spoke the truth; he really was in a position to
boast of his conquests. He maintained that nothing could be easier than
to make any woman you chose fall in love with you; you only need repeat
to her for ten days in succession that heaven is on her lips and bliss
in her eyes, and that the rest of womankind are all simply rag-bags
beside her; and on the eleventh day she will be ready to say herself
that there is heaven on her lips and bliss in her eyes, and will be
in love with you. Everything comes to pass in the world; so who knows,
perhaps Pigasov was right?
At half-past nine Rudin was already in the arbour. The stars had come
out in the pale, distant depths of the heaven; there was still a red
glow where the sun had set, and there the horizon seemed brighter and
clearer; a semi-circular moon shone golden through the black network
of the weeping birch-tree. The other trees stood like grim giants, with
thousands of chinks looking like eyes, or fell into compact masses of
darkness. Not a leaf was stirring; the topmost branches of the lilacs
and acacias seemed to stretch upwards into the warm air, as though
listening for something. The house was a dark mass now; patches of red
light showed where the long windows were lighted up. It was a soft and
peaceful evening, but under this peace was felt the secret breath of
passion.