Rudin: Chapter 3

Chapter 3

A man of about thirty-five entered, of a tall, somewhat stooping
figure, with crisp curly hair and swarthy complexion, an irregular but
expressive and intelligent face, a liquid brilliance in his quick,
dark blue eyes, a straight, broad nose, and well-curved lips. His
clothes were not new, and were somewhat small, as though he had
outgrown them.

He walked quickly up to Darya Mihailovna, and with a slight bow told
her that he had long wished to have the honour of an introduction to
her, and that his friend the baron greatly regretted that he could not
take leave of her in person.

The thin sound of Rudin's voice seemed out of keeping with his tall
figure and broad chest.

'Pray be seated . . . very delighted,' murmured Darya Mihailovna, and,
after introducing him to the rest of the company, she asked him
whether he belonged to those parts or was a visitor.

'My estate is in the T---- province,' replied Rudin, holding his hat
on his knees. 'I have not been here long. I came on business and
stayed for a while in your district town.'

'With whom?'

'With the doctor. He was an old chum of mine at the university.'

'Ah! the doctor. He is highly spoken of. He is skilful in his work,
they say. But have you known the baron long?'

'I met him last winter in Moscow, and I have just been spending about
a week with him.'

'He is a very clever man, the baron.'

'Yes.'

Darya Mihailovna sniffed at her little crushed-up handkerchief steeped
in _eau de cologne_.

'Are you in the government service?' she asked.

'Who? I?'

'Yes.'

'No. I have retired.'

There followed a brief pause. The general conversation was resumed.

'If you will allow me to be inquisitive,' began Pigasov, turning to
Rudin, 'do you know the contents of the essay which his excellency
the baron has sent?'

'Yes, I do.'

'This essay deals with the relations to commerce--or no, of
manufactures to commerce in our country. . . . That was your
expression, I think, Darya Mihailovna?'

'Yes, it deals with'. . . began Darya Mihailovna, pressing her hand to
her forehead.

'I am, of course, a poor judge of such matters,' continued Pigasov,
'but I must confess that to me even the title of the essay seems
excessively (how could I put it delicately?) excessively obscure and
complicated.'

'Why does it seem so to you?'

Pigasov smiled and looked across at Darya Mihailovna.

'Why, is it clear to you?' he said, turning his foxy face again
towards Rudin.

'To me? Yes.'

'H'm. No doubt you must know better.'

'Does your head ache?' Alexandra Pavlovna inquired of Darya
Mihailovna.

'No. It is only my--_c'est nerveux_.'

'Allow me to inquire,' Pigasov was beginning again in his nasal tones,
'your friend, his excellency Baron Muffel--I think that's his name?'

'Precisely.'

'Does his excellency Baron Muffel make a special study of political
economy, or does he only devote to that interesting subject the hours
of leisure left over from his social amusements and his official
duties?'

Rudin looked steadily at Pigasov.

'The baron is an amateur on this subject,' he replied, growing rather
red, 'but in his essay there is much that is interesting and just.'

'I am not able to dispute it with you; I have not read the essay. But
I venture to ask--the work of your friend Baron Muffel is no doubt
founded more upon general propositions than upon facts?'

'It contains both facts and propositions founded upon the facts.'

'Yes, yes. I must tell you that, in my opinion--and I've a right to
give my opinion, on occasion; I spent three years at Dorpat . . . all
these, so-called general propositions, hypotheses, these
systems--excuse me, I am a provincial, I speak the truth bluntly--are
absolutely worthless. All that's only theorising--only good for
misleading people. Give us facts, sir, and that's enough!'

'Really!' retorted Rudin, 'why, but ought not one to give the
significance of the facts?'

'General propositions,' continued Pigasov, 'they're my abomination,
these general propositions, theories, conclusions. All that's based on
so-called convictions; every one is talking about his convictions, and

attaches importance to them, prides himself on them. Ah!'

And Pigasov shook his fist in the air. Pandalevsky laughed.

'Capital!' put in Rudin, 'it follows that there is no such thing as
conviction according to you?'

'No, it doesn't exist.'

'Is that your conviction?'

'Yes.'

'How do you say that there are none then? Here you have one at the
very first turn.'

All in the room smiled and looked at one another.

'One minute, one minute, but----,' Pigasov was beginning.

But Darya Mihailovna clapped her hands crying, 'Bravo, bravo, Pigasov's
beaten!' and she gently took Rudin's hat from his hand.

'Defer your delight a little, madam; there's plenty of time!'
Pigasov began with annoyance. 'It's not sufficient to say a witty
word, with a show of superiority; you must prove, refute. We had
wandered from the subject of our discussion.'

'With your permission,' remarked Rudin, coolly, 'the matter is very
simple. You do not believe in the value of general propositions--you
do not believe in convictions?'

'I don't believe in them, I don't believe in anything!'

'Very good. You are a sceptic.'

'I see no necessity for using such a learned word. However----'

'Don't interrupt!' interposed Darya Mihailovna.

'At him, good dog!' Pandalevsky said to himself at the same instant,
and smiled all over.

'That word expresses my meaning,' pursued Rudin. 'You understand it;
why not make use of it? You don't believe in anything. Why do you
believe in facts?'

'Why? That's good! Facts are matters of experience, every one knows
what facts are. I judge of them by experience, by my own senses.'

'But may not your senses deceive you? Your senses tell you that the
sun goes round the earth, . . . but perhaps you don't agree with
Copernicus? You don't even believe in him?'

Again a smile passed over every one's face, and all eyes were fastened
on Rudin. 'He's by no means a fool,' every one was thinking.

'You are pleased to keep on joking,' said Pigasov. 'Of course that's
very original, but it's not to the point.'

'In what I have said hitherto,' rejoined Rudin, 'there is,
unfortunately, too little that's original. All that has been well
known a very long time, and has been said a thousand times. That is
not the pith of the matter.'

'What is then?' asked Pigasov, not without insolence.

In discussions he always first bantered his opponent, then grew cross,
and finally sulked and was silent.

'Here it is,' continued Rudin. 'I cannot help, I own, feeling sincere
regret when I hear sensible people attack----'

'Systems?' interposed Pigasov.

'Yes, with your leave, even systems. What frightens you so much in
that word? Every system is founded on a knowledge of fundamental laws,
the principles of life----'

'But there is no knowing them, no discovering them.'

'One minute. Doubtless they are not easy for every one to get at, and
to make mistakes is natural to man. However, you will certainly agree
with me that Newton, for example, discovered some at least of these
fundamental laws? He was a genius, we grant you; but the grandeur of
the discoveries of genius is that they become the heritage of all. The
effort to discover universal principles in the multiplicity of
phenomena is one of the radical characteristics of human thought, and
all our civilisation----'

'That's what you're driving at!' Pigasov broke in in a drawling tone.
'I am a practical man and all these metaphysical subtleties I don't
enter into and don't want to enter into.'

'Very good! That's as you prefer. But take note that your very desire
to be exclusively a practical man is itself your sort of system--your
theory.'

'Civilisation you talk about!' blurted in Pigasov; 'that's another
admirable notion of yours! Much use in it, this vaunted civilisation!
I would not give a brass farthing for your civilisation!'

'But what a poor sort of argument, African Semenitch!' observed Darya
Mihailovna, inwardly much pleased by the calmness and perfect
good-breeding of her new acquaintance. '_Cest un homme comme il faut_,'
she thought, looking with well-disposed scrutiny at Rudin; 'we must
be nice to him!' Those last words she mentally pronounced in Russian.

'I will not champion civilisation,' continued Rudin after a short
pause, 'it does not need my championship. You don't like it, every one
to his own taste. Besides, that would take us too far. Allow me only
to remind you of the old saying, "Jupiter, you are angry; therefore
you are in the wrong." I meant to say that all those onslaughts upon
systems--general propositions--are especially distressing, because
together with these systems men repudiate knowledge in general, and
all science and faith in it, and consequently also faith in
themselves, in their own powers. But this faith is essential to men;
they cannot exist by their sensations alone they are wrong to fear
ideas and not to trust in them. Scepticism is always characterised by
barrenness and impotence.'

'That's all words!' muttered Pigasov.

'Perhaps so. But allow me to point out to you that when we say "that's
all words!" we often wish ourselves to avoid the necessity of
saying anything more substantial than mere words.'

'What?' said Pigasov, winking his eyes.

'You understood what I meant,' retorted Rudin, with involuntary, but
instantly repressed impatience. 'I repeat, if man has no steady
principle in which he trusts, no ground on which he can take a firm
stand, how can he form a just estimate of the needs, the tendencies
and the future of his country? How can he know what he ought to do,
if----'

'I leave you the field,' ejaculated Pigasov abruptly, and with a bow
he turned away without looking at any one.

Rudin stared at him, and smiled slightly, saying nothing.

'Aha! he has taken to flight!' said Darya Mihailovna. 'Never mind,
Dmitri. . .! I beg your pardon,' she added with a cordial smile,
'what is your paternal name?'

'Nikolaitch.'

'Never mind, my dear Dmitri Nikolaitch, he did not deceive any of us.
He wants to make a show of not wishing to argue any more. He is
conscious that he cannot argue with you. But you had better sit nearer
to us and let us have a little talk.'

Rudin moved his chair up.

'How is it we have not met till now?' was Darya Mihailovna's question.
'That is what surprises me. Have you read this book? _C'est de
Tocqueville, vous savez_?'

And Darya Mihailovna held out the French pamphlet to Rudin.

Rudin took the thin volume in his hand, turned over a few pages of it,
and laying it down on the table, replied that he had not read that
particular work of M. de Tocqueville, but that he had often reflected
on the question treated by him. A conversation began to spring up.
Rudin seemed uncertain at first, and not disposed to speak out freely;
his words did not come readily, but at last he grew warm and began to
speak. In a quarter of an hour his voice was the only sound in the
room, All were crowding in a circle round him.

Only Pigasov remained aloof, in a corner by the fireplace. Rudin spoke
with intelligence, with fire and with judgment; he showed much
learning, wide reading. No one had expected to find in him a
remarkable man. His clothes were so shabby, so little was known of
him. Every one felt it strange and incomprehensible that such a clever
man should have suddenly made his appearance in the country. He seemed
all the more wonderful and, one may even say, fascinating to all of
them, beginning with Darya Mihailovna. She was pluming herself on
having discovered him, and already at this early date was dreaming of
how she would introduce Rudin into the world. In her quickness to
receive impressions there was much that was almost childish, in spite
of her years. Alexandra Pavlovna, to tell the truth, understood little
of all that Rudin said, but was full of wonder and delight; her
brother too was admiring him. Pandalevsky was watching Darya
Mihailovna and was filled with envy. Pigasov thought, 'If I have to
give five hundred roubles I will get a nightingale to sing better than
that!' But the most impressed of all the party were Bassistoff and
Natalya. Scarcely a breath escaped Bassistoff; he sat the whole time
with open mouth and round eyes and listened--listened as he had never
listened to any one in his life--while Natalya's face was suffused by
a crimson flush, and her eyes, fastened unwaveringly on Rudin, were
both dimmed and shining.

'What splendid eyes he has!' Volintsev whispered to her.

'Yes, they are.'

'It's only a pity his hands are so big and red.'

Natalya made no reply.

Tea was brought in. The conversation became more general, but still by
the sudden unanimity with which every one was silent, directly Rudin
opened his mouth, one could judge of the strength of the impression he
had produced. Darya Mihailovna suddenly felt inclined to tease
Pigasov. She went up to him and said in an undertone, 'Why don't you
speak instead of doing nothing but smile sarcastically? Make an
effort, challenge him again,' and without waiting for him to answer,
she beckoned to Rudin.

'There's one thing more you don't know about him,' she said to him,
with a gesture towards Pigasov,--'he is a terrible hater of women, he
is always attacking them; pray, show him the true path.'

Rudin involuntarily looked down upon Pigasov; he was a head and
shoulders taller. Pigasov almost withered up with fury, and his sour
face grew pale.

'Darya Mihailovna is mistaken,' he said in an unsteady voice, 'I do
not only attack women; I am not a great admirer of the whole human
species.'

'What can have given you such a poor opinion of them?' inquired
Rudin.

Pigasov looked him straight in the face.

'The study of my own heart, no doubt, in which I find every day more
and more that is base. I judge of others by myself. Possibly this too
is erroneous, and I am far worse than others, but what am I to do?
it's a habit!'

'I understand you and sympathise with you!' was Rudin's rejoinder.
'What generous soul has not experienced a yearning for
self-humiliation? But one ought not to remain in that condition from
which there is no outlet beyond.'

'I am deeply indebted for the certificate of generosity you confer on
my soul,' retorted Pigasov. 'As for my condition, there's not much
amiss with it, so that even if there were an outlet from it, it might
go to the deuce, I shouldn't look for it!'

'But that means--pardon the expression--to prefer the gratification
of your own pride to the desire to be and live in the truth.'

'Undoubtedly,' cried Pigasov, 'pride--that I understand, and you, I
expect, understand, and every one understands; but truth, what is
truth? Where is it, this truth?'

'You are repeating yourself, let me warn you,' remarked Darya
Mihailovna.

Pigasov shrugged his shoulders.

'Well, where's the harm if I do? I ask: where is truth? Even the
philosophers don't know what it is. Kant says it is one thing; but
Hegel--no, you're wrong, it's something else.'

'And do you know what Hegel says of it?' asked Rudin, without raising
his voice.

'I repeat,' continued Pigasov, flying into a passion, 'that I cannot
understand what truth means. According to my idea, it doesn't exist at
all in the world, that is to say, the word exists but not the thing
itself.'

'Fie, fie!' cried Darya Mihailovna, 'I wonder you're not ashamed to
say so, you old sinner! No truth? What is there to live for in the
world after that?'

'Well, I go so far as to think, Darya Mihailovna,' retorted Pigasov,
in a tone of annoyance, 'that it would be much easier for you, in any
case, to live without truth than without your cook, Stepan, who is
such a master hand at soups! And what do you want with truth, kindly
tell me? you can't trim a bonnet with it!'

'A joke is not an argument,' observed Darya Mihailovna, 'especially
when you descend to personal insult.'

'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 Bassistoff.

Bassistoff 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 Semenitch!' said Bassistoff 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
passed 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 shimmering 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
embarrassment.

'_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,--wishing, 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. Bassistoff 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.

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