The sky was almost cloudless again when Natalya came into the garden. It was full of sweetness and peace — that soothing14, blissful peace in which the heart of man is stirred by a sweet languor16 of undefined desire and secret emotion.
Natalya walked along a long line of silver poplars beside the pond; suddenly, as if he had sprung out of the earth, Rudin stood before her. She was confused. He looked her in the face.
‘You are alone?’ he inquired.
‘Yes, I am alone,’ replied Natalya, ‘but I was going back directly. It is time I was home.’
‘I will go with you.’
And he walked along beside her.
‘You seem melancholy17,’ he said.
‘I— I was just going to say that I thought you were out of spirits.’
‘Very likely — it is often so with me. It is more excusable in me than in you.’
‘Why? Do you suppose I have nothing to be melancholy about?’
‘At your age you ought to find happiness in life.’
Natalya walked some steps in silence.
‘Dmitri Nikolaitch!’ she said.
‘Well?’
‘Do you remember — the comparison you made yesterday — do you remember — of the oak?’
‘Yes, I remember. Well?’
Natalya stole a look at Rudin.
‘Why did you — what did you mean by that comparison?’
Rudin bent18 his head and fastened his eyes on the distance.
‘Natalya Alexyevna!’ he began with the intense and pregnant intonation19 peculiar20 to him, which always made the listener believe that Rudin was not expressing even the tenth part of what he held locked in his heart —‘Natalya Alexyevna! you may have noticed that I speak little of my own past. There are some chords which I do not touch upon at all. My heart — who need know what has passed in it? To expose that to view has always seemed sacrilege to me. But with you I cast aside reserve; you win my confidence. . . . I cannot conceal21 from you that I too have loved and have suffered like all men. . . . When and how? it’s useless to speak of that; but my heart has known much bliss15 and much pain . . . .’
Rudin made a brief pause.
‘What I said to you yesterday,’ he went on, ‘might be applied22 in a degree to me in my present position. But again it is useless to speak of this. That side of life is over for me now. What remains23 for me is a tedious and fatiguing24 journey along the parched25 and dusty road from point to point . . . When I shall arrive — whether I arrive at all — God knows. . . . Let us rather talk of you.’
‘Can it be, Dmitri Nikolaitch,’ Natalya interrupted him, ‘you expect nothing from life?’
‘Oh, no! I expect much, but not for myself. . . . Usefulness, the content that comes from activity, I shall never renounce26; but I have renounced27 happiness. My hopes, my dreams, and my own happiness have nothing in common. Love’—(at this word he shrugged28 his shoulders)—‘love is not for me; I am not worthy29 of it; a woman who loves has a right to demand the whole of a man, and I can never now give the whole of myself. Besides, it is for youth to win love; I am too old. How could I turn any one’s head? God grant I keep my own head on my shoulders.’
‘I understand,’ said Natalya, ‘that one who is bent on a lofty aim must not think of himself; but cannot a woman be capable of appreciating such a man? I should have thought, on the contrary, that a woman would be sooner repelled30 by an egoist. . . . All young men — the youth you speak of — all are egoists, they are all occupied only with themselves, even when they love. Believe me, a woman is not only able to value self-sacrifice; she can sacrifice herself.’
Natalya’s cheeks were slightly flushed and her eyes shining. Before her friendship with Rudin she would never have succeeded in uttering such a long and ardent31 speech.
‘You have heard my views on woman’s mission more than once,’ replied Rudin with a condescending32 smile. ‘You know that I consider that Joan of Arc alone could have saved France. . . . but that’s not the point. I wanted to speak of you. You are standing33 on the threshold of life. . . . To dwell on your future is both pleasant and not unprofitable. . . . Listen: you know I am your friend; I take almost a brother’s interest in you. And so I hope you will not think my question indiscreet; tell me, is your heart so far quite untouched?’
Natalya grew hot all over and said nothing, Rudin stopped, and she stopped too.
‘You are not angry with me?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she answered, ‘but I did not expect ——’
‘However,’ he went on, ‘you need not answer me. I know your secret.’
Natalya looked at him almost with dismay.
‘Yes, yes, I know who has won your heart. And I must say that you could not have made a better choice. He is a splendid man; he knows how to value you; he has not been crushed by life — he is simple and pure-hearted in soul . . . he will make your happiness.’
‘Of whom are you speaking, Dmitri Niklaitch?’
‘Is it possible you don’t understand? Of Volintsev, of course. What? isn’t it true?’
Natalya turned a little away from Rudin. She was completely overwhelmed.
‘Do you imagine he doesn’t love you? Nonsense! he does not take his eyes off you, and follows every movement of yours; indeed, can love ever be concealed34? And do not you yourself look on him with favour? So far as I can observe, your mother, too, likes him. . . . Your choice ——’
‘Dmitri Nikolaitch,’ Natalya broke in, stretching out her hand in her confusion towards a bush near her, ‘it is so difficult, really, for me to speak of this; but I assure you . . . you are mistaken.’
‘I am mistaken!’ repeated Rudin. ‘I think not. I have not known you very long, but I already know you well. What is the meaning of the change I see in you? I see it clearly. Are you just the same as when I met you first, six weeks ago? No, Natalya Alexyevna, your heart is not free.’
‘Perhaps not,’ answered Natalya, hardly audibly, ‘but all the same you are mistaken.’
‘How is that?’ asked Rudin.
‘Let me go! don’t question me!’ replied Natalya, and with swift steps she turned towards the house.
She was frightened herself by the feelings of which she was suddenly conscious in herself.
Rudin overtook her and stopped her.
‘Natalya Alexyevna,’ he said, ‘this conversation cannot end like this; it is too important for me too. . . . How am I to understand you?’
‘Let me go!’ repeated Natalya.
‘Natalya Alexyevna, for mercy’s sake!’
Rudin’s face showed his agitation. He grew pale.
‘You understand everything, you must understand me too!’ said Natalya; she snatched away her hand and went on, not looking round.
‘Only one word!’ cried Rudin after her
She stood still, but did not turn round.
‘You asked me what I meant by that comparison yesterday. Let me tell you, I don’t want to deceive you. I spoke35 of myself, of my past — and of you.’
‘How? of me?’
‘Yes, of you; I repeat, I will not deceive you. You know now what was the feeling, the new feeling I spoke of then. . . . Till to-day I should not have ventured . . .’
Natalya suddenly hid her face in her hands, and ran towards the house.
She was so distracted by the unexpected conclusion of her conversation with Rudin, that she ran past Volintsev without even noticing him. He was standing motionless with his back against a tree. He had arrived at the house a quarter of an hour before, and found Darya Mihailovna in the drawing-room; and after exchanging a few words got away unobserved and went in search of Natalya. Led by a lover’s instinct, he went straight into the garden and came upon her and Rudin at the very instant when she snatched her hand away from him. Darkness seemed to fall upon his eyes. Gazing after Natalya, he left the tree and took two strides, not knowing whither or wherefore. Rudin saw him as he came up to him. Both looked each other in the face, bowed, and separated in silence.
‘This won’t be the end of it,’ both were thinking.
Volintsev went to the very end of the garden. He felt sad and sick; a load lay on his heart, and his blood throbbed36 in sudden stabs at intervals37. The rain began to fall a little again. Rudin turned into his own room. He, too, was disturbed; his thoughts were in a whirl. The trustful, unexpected contact of a young true heart is agitating38 for any one.
At table everything went somehow wrong. Natalya, pale all over, could scarcely sit in her place and did not raise her eyes. Volintsev sat as usual next her, and from time to time began to talk in a constrained39 way to her. It happened that Pigasov was dining at Darya Mihailovna’s that day. He talked more than any one at table. Among other things he began to maintain that men, like dogs, can be divided into the short-tailed and the long-tailed. People are short-tailed, he said, either from birth or through their own fault. The short-tailed are in a sorry plight40; nothing succeeds with them — they have no confidence in themselves. But the man who has a long furry41 tail is happy. He may be weaker and inferior to the short-tailed; but he believes in himself; he displays his tail and every one admires it. And this is a fit subject for wonder; the tail, of course, is a perfectly42 useless part of the body, you admit; of what use can a tail be? but all judge of their abilities by their tail. ‘I myself,’ he concluded with a sigh, ‘belong to the number of the short-tailed, and what is most annoying, I cropped my tail myself.’
‘By which you mean to say,’ commented Rudin carelessly, ‘what La Rochefoucauld said long before you: Believe in yourself and others will believe in you. Why the tail was brought in, I fail to understand.’
‘Let every one,’ Volintsev began sharply and with flashing eyes, ‘let every one express himself according to his fancy. Talk of despotism! . . . I consider there is none worse than the despotism of so-called clever men; confound them!’
Everyone was astonished at this outbreak from Volintsev; it was received in silence. Rudin tried to look at him, but he could not control his eyes, and turned away smiling without opening his lips.
‘Aha! so you too have lost your tail!’ thought Pigasov; and Natalya’s heart sank in terror. Darya Mihailovna gave Volintsev a long puzzled stare and at last was the first to speak; she began to describe an extraordinary dog belonging to a minister So-and-So.
Volintsev went away soon after dinner. As he bade Natalya good-bye he could not resist saying to her:
‘Why are you confused, as though you had done wrong? You cannot have done wrong to any one!’
Natalya did not understand at all, and could only gaze after him. Before tea Rudin went up to her, and bending over the table as though he were examining the papers, whispered:
‘It is all like a dream, isn’t it? I absolutely must see you alone — if only for a minute.’ He turned to Mlle, Boncourt ‘Here,’ he said to her, ‘this is the article you were looking for,’ and again bending towards Natalya, he added in a whisper, ‘Try to be near the terrace in the lilac arbour about ten o’clock; I will wait for you.’
Pigasov was the hero of the evening. Rudin left him in possession of the field. He afforded Darya Mihailovna much entertainment; first he told a story of one of his neighbours who, having been henpecked by his wife for thirty years, had grown so womanish that one day in crossing a little puddle43 when Pigasov was present, he put out his hand and picked up the skirt of his coat, as women do with their petticoats. Then he turned to another gentleman who to begin with had been a freemason, then a hypochondriac, and then wanted to be a banker.
‘How were you a freemason, Philip Stepanitch?’ Pigasov asked him.
‘You know how; I wore the nail of my little finger long.’
But what most diverted Darya Mihailovna was when Pigasov set off on a dissertation44 upon love, and maintained that even he had been sighed for, that one ardent German lady had even given him the nickname of her ‘dainty little African’ and her ‘hoarse little crow.’ Darya Mihailovna laughed, but Pigasov spoke the truth; he really was in a position to boast of his conquests. He maintained that nothing could be easier than to make any woman you chose fall in love with you; you only need repeat to her for ten days in succession that heaven is on her lips and bliss in her eyes, and that the rest of womankind are all simply rag-bags beside her; and on the eleventh day she will be ready to say herself that there is heaven on her lips and bliss in her eyes, and will be in love with you. Everything comes to pass in the world; so who knows, perhaps Pigasov was right?
At half-past nine Rudin was already in the arbour. The stars had come out in the pale, distant depths of the heaven; there was still a red glow where the sun had set, and there the horizon seemed brighter and clearer; a semi-circular moon shone golden through the black network of the weeping birch-tree. The other trees stood like grim giants, with thousands of chinks looking like eyes, or fell into compact masses of darkness. Not a leaf was stirring; the topmost branches of the lilacs and acacias seemed to stretch upwards45 into the warm air, as though listening for something. The house was a dark mass now; patches of red light showed where the long windows were lighted up. It was a soft and peaceful evening, but under this peace was felt the secret breath of passion.
Rudin stood, his arms folded on his breast, and listened with strained attention. His heart beat violently, and involuntarily he held his breath. At last he caught the sound of light, hurrying footsteps, and Natalya came into the arbour.
Rudin rushed up to her, and took her hands. They were cold as ice.
‘Natalya Alexyevna!’ he began, in an agitated46 whisper, ‘I wanted to see you. . . . I could not wait till to-morrow. I must tell you what I did not suspect — what I did not realise even this morning. I love you!’
Natalya’s hands trembled feebly in his.
‘I love you!’ he repeated, ‘and how could I have deceived myself so long? How was it I did not guess long ago that I love you? And you? Natalya Alexyevna, tell me!’
Natalya could scarcely draw her breath.
‘You see I have come here,’ she uttered, at last
‘No, say that you love me!’
‘I think — yes,’ she whispered.
Rudin pressed her hands still more warmly, and tried to draw her to him.
Natalya looked quickly round.
‘Let me go — I am frightened. . . . I think some one is listening to us. . . . For God’s sake, be on your guard. Volintsev suspects.’
‘Never mind him! You saw I did not even answer him to-day. . . . Ah, Natalya Alexyevna, how happy I am! Nothing shall sever47 us now!’
Natalya looked into his eyes.
‘Let me go,’ she whispered; ‘it’s time.’
‘One instant,’ began Rudin.
‘No, let me go, let me go.’
‘You seem afraid of me.’
‘No, but it’s time.’
‘Repeat, then, at least once more.’ . . .
‘You say you are happy?’ asked Natalya.
‘I? No man in the world is happier than I am! Can you doubt it?’
Natalya lifted up her head. Very beautiful was her pale, noble, young face, transformed by passion, in the mysterious shadows of the arbour, in the faint light reflected from the evening sky.
‘I tell you then,’ she said, ‘I will be yours.’
‘Oh, my God!’ cried Rudin.
But Natalya made her escape, and was gone.
Rudin stood still a little while, then walked slowly out of the arbour. The moon threw a light on his face; there was a smile on his lips.
‘I am happy,’ he uttered in a half whisper. ‘Yes, I am happy,’ he repeated, as though he wanted to convince himself.
He straightened his tall figure, shook back his locks, and walked quickly into the garden, with a happy gesture of his hands.
Meanwhile the bushes of the lilac arbour moved apart, and Pandalevsky appeared. He looked around warily48, shook his head, pursed up his mouth, and said, significantly, ‘So that’s how it is. That must be brought to Darya Mihailovna’s knowledge.’ And he vanished.
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1
recollected
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| adj.冷静的；镇定的；被回忆起的；沉思默想的v.记起，想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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4
glistened
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| v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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6
drenched
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| adj.湿透的；充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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7
chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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8
mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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9
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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tints
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| 色彩( tint的名词复数 )； 带白的颜色； （淡色）染发剂； 痕迹 | |
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transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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14
soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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languor
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| n.无精力，倦怠 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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18
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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intonation
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| n.语调，声调；发声 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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fatiguing
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| a.使人劳累的 | |
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parched
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| adj.焦干的；极渴的；v.（使）焦干 | |
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renounce
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| v.放弃；拒绝承认，宣布与…断绝关系 | |
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27
renounced
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| v.声明放弃( renounce的过去式和过去分词 )；宣布放弃；宣布与…决裂；宣布摒弃 | |
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28
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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29
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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30
repelled
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| v.击退( repel的过去式和过去分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
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31
ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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32
condescending
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| adj.谦逊的,故意屈尊的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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34
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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35
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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throbbed
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| 抽痛( throb的过去式和过去分词 )； （心脏、脉搏等）跳动 | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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38
agitating
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| 搅动( agitate的现在分词 )； 激怒； 使焦虑不安； （尤指为法律、社会状况的改变而）激烈争论 | |
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39
constrained
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| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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40
plight
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| n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定 | |
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41
furry
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| adj.毛皮的；似毛皮的；毛皮制的 | |
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42
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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43
puddle
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| n.(雨)水坑，泥潭 | |
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44
dissertation
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| n.（博士学位）论文，学术演讲，专题论文 | |
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45
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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46
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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47
sever
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| v.切开，割开；断绝，中断 | |
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48
warily
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| adv.留心地 | |
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