"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 bra.s.s farthing for your civilisation!"
"But what a poor sort of argument, African s.e.m.e.nitch!" 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 p.r.o.nounced 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," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 Ba.s.sistoff and Natalya. Scarcely a breath escaped Ba.s.sistoff; 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 pa.s.sion, "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."