Rudin Part 26

Alexandra Pavlovna did not at once recognise the man who was sitting behind her husband's back.

'Ah! Mr. Ba.s.sistoff!' she cried at last

'It's he,' answered Lezhnyov; 'and he has brought such glorious news.

Wait a minute, you shall know directly.'

And he drove into the courtyard.

Some minutes later he came with Ba.s.sistoff into the balcony.

'Hurrah!' he cried, embracing his wife, 'Serezha is going to be married.'

'To whom?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna, much agitated.

'To Natalya, of course. Our friend has brought the news from Moscow, and there is a letter for you.'

'Do you hear, Misha,' he went on, s.n.a.t.c.hing his son into his arms, 'your uncle's going to be married? What criminal indifference! he only blinks his eyes!'

'He is sleepy,' remarked the nurse.

'Yes,' said Ba.s.sistoff, going up to Alexandra Pavlovna, 'I have come to-day from Moscow on business for Darya Mihailovna--to go over the accounts on the estate. And here is the letter.'

Alexandra Pavlovna opened her brother's letter in haste. It consisted of a few lines only. In the first transport of joy he informed his sister that he had made Natalya an offer, and received her consent and Darya Mihailovna's; and he promised to write more by the next post, and sent embraces and kisses to all. It was clear he was writing in a state of delirium.

Tea was served, Ba.s.sistoff sat down. Questions were showered upon him.

Every one, even Pigasov, was delighted at the news he had brought.

'Tell me, please,' said Lezhnyov among the rest, 'rumours reached us of a certain Mr. Kortchagin. That was all nonsense, I suppose?'

Kortchagin was a handsome young man, a society lion, excessively conceited and important; he behaved with extraordinary dignity, just as if he had not been a living man, but his own statue set up by public subscription.

'Well, no, not altogether nonsense,' replied Ba.s.sistoff with a smile; 'Darya Mihailovna was very favourable to him; but Natalya Alexyevna would not even hear of him.'

'I know him,' put in Pigasov, 'he's a double dummy, a noisy dummy, if you like! If all people were like that, it would need a large sum of money to induce one to consent to live--upon my word!'

'Very likely,' answered Ba.s.sistoff; 'but he plays a leading part in society.'

'Well, never mind him!' cried Alexandra Pavlovna. 'Peace be with him!

Ah! how glad I am for my brother I And Natalya, is she bright and happy?'

'Yes. She is quiet, as she always is. You know her--but she seems contented.'

The evening was spent in friendly and lively talk. They sat down to supper.

'Oh, by the way,' inquired Lezhnyov of Ba.s.sistoff, as he poured him out some Lafitte, 'do you know where Rudin is?'

'I don't know for certain now. He came last winter to Moscow for a short time, and then went with a family to Simbirsk. I corresponded with him for some time; in his last letter he informed me he was leaving Simbirsk--he did not say where he was going--and since then I have heard nothing of him.'

'He is all right!' put in Pigasov. 'He is staying somewhere sermonising.

That gentleman will always find two or three adherents everywhere, to listen to him open-mouthed and lend him money. You will see he will end by dying in some out-of-the-way corner in the arms of an old maid in a wig, who will believe he is the greatest genius in the world.'

'You speak very harshly of him,' remarked Ba.s.sistoff, in a displeased undertone.

'Not a bit harshly,' replied Pigasov; 'but perfectly fairly. In my opinion, he is simply nothing else than a sponge. I forgot to tell you,'

he continued, turning to Lezhnyov, 'that I have made the acquaintance of that Terlahov, with whom Rudin travelled abroad. Yes! Yes! What he told me of him, you cannot imagine--it's simply screaming! It's a remarkable fact that all Rudin's friends and admirers become in time his enemies.'

'I beg you to except me from the number of such friends!' interposed Ba.s.sistoff warmly.

'Oh, you--that's a different thing! I was not speaking of you.'

'But what did Terlahov tell you?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna.

'Oh, he told me a great deal; there's no remembering it all. But the best of all was an anecdote of what happened to Rudin. As he was incessantly developing (these gentlemen always are developing; other people simply sleep and eat; but they manage their sleeping and eating in the intervals of development; isn't that it, Mr. Ba.s.sistoff?'

Ba.s.sistoff made no reply.) 'And so, as he was continually developing, Rudin arrived at the conclusion, by means of philosophy, that he ought to fall in love. He began to look about for a sweetheart worthy of such an astonis.h.i.+ng conclusion. Fortune smiled upon him. He made the acquaintance of a very pretty French dressmaker. The whole incident occurred in a German town on the Rhine, observe. He began to go and see her, to take her various books, to talk to her of Nature and Hegel.

Can you fancy the position of the dressmaker? She took him for an astronomer. However, you know he's not a bad-looking fellow--and a foreigner, a Russian, of course--he took her fancy. Well, at last he invited her to a rendezvous, and a very poetical rendezvous, in a boat on the river. The Frenchwoman agreed; dressed herself in her best and went out with him in a boat. So they spent two hours. How do you think he was occupied all that time? He patted the Frenchwoman on the head, gazed thoughtfully at the sky, and frequently repeated that he felt for her the tenderness of a father. The Frenchwoman went back home in a fury, and she herself told the story to Terlahov afterwards! That's the kind of fellow he is.'

And Pigasov broke into a loud laugh.

'You old cynic!' said Alexandra Pavlovna in a tone of annoyance, 'but I am more and more convinced that even those who attack Rudin cannot find any harm to say of him.'

'No harm? Upon my word! and his perpetual living at other people's expense, his borrowing money.... Mihailo Mihailitch, he borrowed of you too, no doubt, didn't he?'

'Listen, African s.e.m.e.nitch!' began Lezhnyov, and his face a.s.sumed a serious expression, 'listen; you know, and my wife knows, that the last time I saw him I felt no special attachment for Rudin, and I even often blamed him. For all that (Lezhnyov filled up the gla.s.ses with champagne) this is what I suggest to you now; we have just drunk to the health of my dear brother and his future bride; I propose that you drink now to the health of Dmitri Rudin!'

Alexandra Pavlovna and Pigasov looked in astonishment at Lezhnyov, but Ba.s.sistoff sat wide-eyed, blus.h.i.+ng and trembling all over with delight.

'I know him well,' continued Lezhnyov, 'I am well aware of his faults.

They are the more conspicuous because he himself is not on a small scale.'

'Rudin has character, genius!' cried Ba.s.sistoff.

'Genius, very likely he has!' replied Lezhnyov, 'but as for character ... That's just his misfortune, that there's no character in him... But that's not the point. I want to speak of what is good, of what is rare in him. He has enthusiasm; and believe me, who am a phlegmatic person enough, that is the most precious quality in our times. We have all become insufferably reasonable, indifferent, and slothful; we are asleep and cold, and thanks to any one who will wake us up and warm us! It is high time! Do you remember, Sasha, once when I was talking to you about him, I blamed him for coldness? I was right, and wrong too, then. The coldness is in his blood--that is not his fault--and not in his head. He is not an actor, as I called him, nor a cheat, nor a scoundrel; he lives at other people's expense, not like a swindler, but like a child....

Yes; no doubt he will die somewhere in poverty and want; but are we to throw stones at him for that? He never does anything himself precisely, he has no vital force, no blood; but who has the right to say that he has not been of use? that his words have not scattered good seeds in young hearts, to whom nature has not denied, as she has to him, powers for action, and the faculty of carrying out their own ideas? Indeed, I myself, to begin with, have gained all that from him.... Sasha knows what Rudin did for me in my youth. I also maintained, I recollect, that Rudin's words could not produce an effect on men; but I was speaking then of men like myself, at my present age, of men who have already lived and been broken in by life. One false note in a man's eloquence, and the whole harmony is spoiled for us; but a young man's ear, happily, is not so over-fine, not so trained. If the substance of what he hears seems fine to him, what does he care about the intonation! The intonation he will supply for himself!'

'Bravo, bravo!' cried Ba.s.sistoff, 'that is justly spoken! And as regards Rudin's influence, I swear to you, that man not only knows how to move you, he lifts you up, he does not let you stand still, he stirs you to the depths and sets you on fire!'

'You hear?' continued Lezhnyov, turning to Pigasov; 'what further proof 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 princ.i.p.al 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 nonent.i.ty--worse than a nonent.i.ty; 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 G.o.d 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 gla.s.ses with Lezhnyov. Ba.s.sistoff, in his enthusiasm, almost cracked his gla.s.s 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 Ba.s.sistoff.

'Oh yes, he is still there. She has managed to get him a very profitable place.'

Lezhnyov smiled.