Rudin Part 11

'Well, I have come for a personal interview,' he said at last.

Darya Mihailovna smiled.

'I see you have come. You say that in such a tone.... You could not have been very anxious to come to see me.'

'I never go anywhere,' rejoined Lezhnyov phlegmatically.

'Not anywhere? But you go to see Alexandra Pavlovna.'

'I am an old friend of her brother's.'

'Her brother's! However, I never wish to force any one.... But pardon me, Mihailo Mihailitch, I am older than you, and I may be allowed to give you advice; what charm do you find in such an unsociable way of living? Or is my house in particular displeasing to you? You dislike me?'

'I don't know you, Darya Mihailovna, and so I can't dislike you. You have a splendid house; but I will confess to you frankly I don't like to have to stand on ceremony. And I haven't a respectable suit, I haven't any gloves, and I don't belong to your set.'

'By birth, by education, you belong to it, Mihailo Mihailitch! _vous etes des notres_.'

'Birth and education are all very well, Darya Mihailovna; that's not the question.'

'A man ought to live with his fellows, Mihailo Mihailitch! What pleasure is there in sitting like Diogenes in his tub?'

'Well, to begin with, he was very well off there, and besides, how do you know I don't live with my fellows?'

Darya Mihailovna bit her lip.

'That's a different matter! It only remains for me to express my regret that I have not the honour of being included in the number of your friends.'

'Monsieur Lezhnyov,' put in Rudin, 'seems to carry to excess a laudable sentiment--the love of independence.'

Lezhnyov made no reply, he only looked at Rudin. A short silence followed.

'And so,' began Lezhnyov, getting up, 'I may consider our business as concluded, and tell your manager to send me the papers.'

'You may,... though I confess you are so uncivil I ought really to refuse you.'

'But you know this rearrangement of the boundary is far more in your interest than in mine.'

Darya Mihailovna shrugged her shoulders.

'You will not even have luncheon here?' she asked.

'Thank you; I never take luncheon, and I am in a hurry to get home.'

Darya Mihailovna got up.

'I will not detain you,' she said, going to the window. 'I will not venture to detain you.'

Lezhnyov began to take leave.

'Good-bye, Monsieur Lezhnyov! Pardon me for having troubled you.'

'Oh, not at all!' said Lezhnyov, and he went away.

'Well, what do you say to that?' Darya Mihailovna asked of Rudin. 'I had heard he was eccentric, but really that was beyond everything!'

'His is the same disease as Pigasov's,' observed Rudin, 'the desire of being original. One affects to be a Mephistopheles--the other a cynic.

In all that, there is much egoism, much vanity, but little truth, little love. Indeed, there is even calculation of a sort in it. A man puts on a mask of indifference and indolence so that some one will be sure to think. "Look at that man; what talents he has thrown away!" But if you come to look at him more attentively, there is no talent in him whatever.'

'_Et de deux!_' was Darya Mihailovna's comment. 'You are a terrible man at hitting people off. One can hide nothing from you.'

'Do you think so?' said Rudin.... 'However,' he continued, 'I ought not really to speak about Lezhnyov; I loved him, loved him as a friend...

but afterwards, through various misunderstandings...'

'You quarrelled?'

'No. But we parted, and parted, it seems, for ever.'

'Ah, I noticed that the whole time of his visit you were not quite yourself.... But I am much indebted to you for this morning. I have spent my time extremely pleasantly. But one must know where to stop.

I will let you go till lunch time and I will go and look after my business. My secretary, you saw him--Constantin, _c'est lui qui est mon secretaire_--must be waiting for me by now. I commend him to you; he is an excellent, obliging young man, and quite enthusiastic about you.

_Au revoir, cher_ Dmitri Nikolaitch! How grateful I am to the baron for having made me acquainted with you!'

And Darya Mihailovna held out her hand to Rudin. He first pressed it, then raised it to his lips and went away to the drawing-room and from there to the terrace. On the terrace he met Natalya.

V

Darya Mihailovna's daughter, Natalya Alexyevna, at a first glance might fail to please. She had not yet had time to develop; she was thin, and dark, and stooped slightly. But her features were fine and regular, though too large for a girl of seventeen. Specially beautiful was her pure, smooth forehead above fine eyebrows, which seemed broken in the middle. She spoke little, but listened to others, and fixed her eyes on them as though she were forming her own conclusions. She would often stand with listless hands, motionless and deep in thought; her face at such moments showed that her mind was at work within.... A scarcely perceptible smile would suddenly appear on her lips and vanish again; then she would slowly raise her large dark eyes. '_Qu'a-vez-vous?_'

Mlle, Boncourt would ask her, and then she would begin to scold her, saying that it was improper for a young girl to be absorbed and to appear absent-minded. But Natalya was not absent-minded; on the contrary, she studied diligently; she read and worked eagerly. Her feelings were strong and deep, but reserved; even as a child she seldom cried, and now she seldom even sighed and only grew slightly pale when anything distressed her. Her mother considered her a sensible, good sort of girl, calling her in a joke '_mon honnete homme de fille_' but had not a very high opinion of her intellectual abilities. 'My Natalya happily is cold,' she used to say, 'not like me--and it is better so.

She will be happy.' Darya Mihailovna was mistaken. But few mothers understand their daughters.

Natalya loved Darya Mihailovna, but did not fully confide in her.

'You have nothing to hide from me,' Darya Mihailovna said to her once, 'or else you would be very reserved about it; you are rather a close little thing.'

Natalya looked her mother in the face and thought, 'Why shouldn't I be reserved?'

When Rudin met her on the terrace she was just going indoors with Mlle, Boncourt to put on her hat and go out into the garden. Her morning occupations were over. Natalya was not treated as a school-girl now.

Mlle, Boncourt had not given her lessons in mythology and geography for a long while; but Natalya had every morning to read historical books, travels, or other instructive works with her. Darya Mihailovna selected them, ostensibly on a special system of her own. In reality she simply gave Natalya everything which the French bookseller forwarded her from Petersburg, except, of course, the novels of Dumas Fils and Co. These novels Darya Mihailovna read herself. Mlle, Boncourt looked specially severely and sourly through her spectacles when Natalya was reading historical books; according to the old French lady's ideas all history was filled with _impermissible_ things, though for some reason or other of all the great men of antiquity she herself knew only one--Cambyses, and of modern times--Louis XIV. and Napoleon, whom she could not endure.

But Natalya read books too, the existence of which Mlle, Boncourt did not suspect; she knew all Pushkin by heart.

Natalya flushed slightly at meeting Rudin.

'Are you going for a walk?' he asked her.

'Yes. We are going into the garden.'