Rudin Part 9

'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 Ba.s.sistoff.

Ba.s.sistoff 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 s.e.m.e.nitch!' said Ba.s.sistoff 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.h.i.+mmering 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 embarra.s.sment.

'_Vous etes un poete_,' 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,--wis.h.i.+ng, 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. Ba.s.sistoff 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 pa.s.sed 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 Recamier_! 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 a.s.sociates, 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 princ.i.p.al 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 pa.s.sionate 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 cus.h.i.+ons 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 pa.s.sionately 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 pa.s.s 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.'

'Voila, Monsieur Pigasov enterre,' 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.