Rudin

en 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 r

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 him

patience 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, thou

e 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 somew

ya 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

used privately to give her books, to confide his plans to her, and to read her the first pages of the

gether pleasing to Darya Mihailovna. 'However,' she thought, 'let her chatter away with him in the country. She amuses him as a lit

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 he

y, sitting by the window at her embroidery-fra

book he had been glancing through fall upon h

he felt tired, and ha

are sure to f

hook hi

think

ked away e

oint of replying, bu

'do you see that apple-tree? It is broken by the weigh

se it had no suppor

yevna, but it is not so easy fo

y of others . . . in any ca

er confused, and

the country in the wint

- on "Tragedy in Life and in Art." I described to you the out

will pu

N

e sake will y

it were

dropped

be far a

e essay?' Bassistoff inquired modestly

read it. But I have not altogether settled on the fundamental motive. I

rt started, and pricked up her eyes like an old war-horse at the sound of the trumpet; but aft

ya timidly, 'that the tragic

y 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 w

in grew

en Sergei Pavlitch for so

bent her head over

know,' sh

Rudin declared, standing up. 'It is one

a sidelong look out of

d up and do

eels, 'that on the oak - and the oak is a strong tree - the

atalya slowly, 'I

heart; it is dead already, but still it holds i

made n

at mean?' she

tossed his hair bac

l at once she clasped her hands and began to weep bitterly. What she was weeping for - who can tell? She herself could no

Lezhnyov about Rudin. At first he bore all her attacks in

ely refrained from questioning you till now; but now you have had time to make up you

abitual phlegm, 'since your patience is e

begin,

have my say

, of cours

y on to the sofa; 'I admit that I certainl

uld th

ver man, though in real

sy to sa

no great harm in that; we are all shallow. I will not even qua

vlovna clasp

l-informed!

es to live at other people's expanse, to cut a good figure, and so forth -

soul cold!' interrupt

nyov, gradually growing warm, 'he is playing a dangerous game - not dangerous for him,

ng of? I don't understand yo

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, fin

all the same for those who hear him

word to me and it thrills me all over, another may say the same thing

aps,' put in Ale

nt is, that Rudin's words seem to remain mere words, and never to pass into de

ou mean, Mihai

yov p

now whom I mean,

back for a moment, but she beg

Natalya is still a child; and besides, if there were any

o 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 wom

ou mean that h

ilovna's house? To be the idol, the oracle of the household, to meddle in the arrangements, al

na looked at Lez

n to say. 'You are flushed and excited. I believ

ver rest easy till she has invented some petty outside cause quite beside

vlovna began

y what you like, penetrating as you are, it's hard for me to believe that you understand every on

ffe. Tartuffe at least knew what he was aiming

? Finish your sentence,

yov g

ht 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 remembe

me, te

well,

steps about the room, coming to a s

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

n?' asked Alex

h 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 shi

ional in this Pokorsky?'

. For all his clear, broad intellect he was as sweet and simple as a child.

is midn

e holy an

fellow, the poet of o

k?' Alexandra Pavlo

d, but not remarkably so. Rudin even t

d still and f

ugh 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, fas

ly; 'why should you think so? I don't altogether

ften 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 i

avlovna, 'why do you keep mo

es 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

; his colourless

rel with Rudin?' said Alexandra Pavl

came to know him thoroughly abroad. But I might well have

was

does not accord very well with my appearance, b

ou

ll in love in those days with a very pretty young girl. . . . But why do you look at me li

hat something,

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 ch

ts with the lime-tree?' in

a sweet, good creature, with clear

iption of her,' commented Al

u 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

. 'Rudin cut you out with your charmer, and you have never been a

g 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

e?' cried Alex

ound - 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

Alexandra Pavlovna, naively bending her h

nd 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

ble to forgive Rudin, all the same,

ll, to tell the truth, even then there was the germ in my heart. And when I met him later a

xactly you dis

l right. I only wanted to show you that, if I do judge him hardly, it is not because I don't know him.

other!

m. Do you really

Pavlovna l

my brother - for some time he has not been

is not a child, believe me, though unluckily she is as inexperi

what

drown themselves, take poison, and so forth? Don't be misled by her loo

ght of fancy now. To a phlegmatic person

smile. 'And as for character - you h

ertinence

highest complime

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