Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (10 page)

‘“Of purity exalted speaks,”‘ quoted Lezhnyov.

‘You make me angry, and I shall cry. I am heartily sorry I did not go to Darya Mihailovna’s, but stopped with you. You don’t deserve it. Leave off teasing me,’ she added, in an appealing voice, ‘You had much better tell me about his youth.’

‘Rudin’s youth?’

‘Yes, of course. Didn’t you tell me you knew him well, and had known him a long time?’

Lezhnyov got up and walked up and down the room.

‘Yes,’ he began, ‘I do know him well. You want me to tell you about his youth? Very well. He was born in T —
 
— , and was the son of a poor landowner, who died soon after. He was left alone with his mother. She was a very good woman, and she idolised him; she lived on nothing but oatmeal, and every penny she had she spent on him. He was educated in Moscow, first at the expense of some uncle, and afterwards, when he was grown up and fully fledged, at the expense of a rich prince whose favour he had courted — there, I beg your pardon, I won’t do it again — with whom he had made friends. Then he went to the university. At the university I got to know him and we became intimate friends. I will tell you about our life in those days some other time, I can’t now. Then he went abroad....’

Lezhnyov continued to walk up and down the room; Alexandra Pavlovna followed him with her eyes.

‘While he was abroad,’ he continued, ‘Rudin wrote very rarely to his mother, and paid her altogether only one visit for ten days.... The old lady died without him, cared for by strangers; but up to her death she never took her eyes off his portrait. I went to see her when I was staying in T —
 
— . She was a kind and hospitable woman; she always used to feast me on cherry jam. She loved her Mitya devotedly. People of the Petchorin type tell us that we always love those who are least capable of feeling love themselves; but it’s my idea that all mothers love their children especially when they are absent. Afterwards I met Rudin abroad. Then he was connected with a lady, one of our countrywomen, a bluestocking, no longer young, and plain, as a bluestocking is bound to be. He lived a good while with her, and at last threw her over — or no, I beg pardon, — she threw him over. It was then that I too threw him over. That’s all.’

Lezhnyov ceased speaking, passed his hand over his brow, and dropped into a chair as if he were exhausted.

‘Do you know, Mihailo Mihailitch,’ began Alexandra Pavlovna, ‘you are a spiteful person, I see; indeed you are no better than Pigasov. I am convinced that all you have told me is true, that you have not made up anything, and yet in what an unfavourable light you have put it all! The poor old mother, her devotion, her solitary death, and that lady — What does it all amount to? You know that it’s easy to put the life of the best of men in such colours — and without adding anything, observe — that every one would be shocked! But that too is slander of a kind!’

Lezhnyov got up and again walked about the room.

‘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 expanse, 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.