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 hair _à 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.
EPILOGUE
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.