Rudin Part 14

'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?' Ba.s.sistoff inquired modestly. He was sitting a little distance away.

'"Tragedy in Life and in Art,"' repeated Rudin. 'Mr. Ba.s.sistoff 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 p.r.i.c.ked 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 pa.s.ses 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.

'What's bad, he isn't honest. He's a clever man, certainly; he ought to know the value of his own words, and he brings them out as if 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, fine speaking is pardonable in a boy, but at his years it is disgraceful to take pleasure in the sound of his own voice, and to show off!'

'I think, Mihailo Mihailitch, it's all the same for those who hear him, whether he is showing off or not.'

'Excuse me, Alexandra Pavlovna, it is not all the same. One man says a word to me and it thrills me all over, another may say the same thing, or something still finer--and I don't p.r.i.c.k up my ears. Why is that?'

'You don't, perhaps,' put in Alexandra Pavlovna.

'I don't,' retorted Lezhnyov, 'though perhaps my ears are long enough.

The point is, that Rudin's words seem to remain mere words, and never to pa.s.s into deeds--and meanwhile even words may trouble a young heart, may be the ruin of it.'