awakening his keenest enthusiasm, but afterwards he took no further
notice of him. Evidently it was only a phrase when he said that he was
seeking for pure and devoted souls. With Lezhnyov, who began to be a
frequent visitor at the house, Rudin did not enter into discussion; he
seemed even to avoid him. Lezhnyov, on his part, too, treated him
coldly. He did not, however, report his final conclusions about him,
which somewhat disquieted Alexandra Pavlovna. She was fascinated by
Rudin, but she had confidence in Lezhnyov. Every one in Darya
Mihailovna's house humoured Rudin's fancies; his slightest preferences
were carried out He determined the plans for the day. Not a single
_partie de plaisir_ was arranged without his co-operation.
He was not, however, very fond of any kind of impromptu excursion or
picnic, and took part in them rather as grown-up people take part in
children's games, with an air of kindly, but rather wearied,
friendliness. He took interest in everything else, however. He
discussed with Darya Mihailovna her plans for the estate, the
education of her children, her domestic arrangements, and her affairs
generally; he listened to her schemes, and was not bored by petty
details, and, in his turn, proposed reforms and made suggestions.
Darya Mihailovna agreed to them in words--and that was all. In
matters of business she was really guided by the advice of her
bailiff--an elderly, one-eyed Little Russian, a good-natured and
crafty old rogue. 'What is old is fat, what is new is thin,' he used
to say, with a quiet smile, winking his solitary eye.
Next to Darya Mihailovna, it was Natalya to whom Rudin used to talk
most often and at most length. He used privately to give her books, to
confide his plans to her, and to read her the first pages of the
essays and other works he had in his mind. Natalya did not always
fully grasp the significance of them.
But Rudin did not seem to care much about her understanding, so long
as she listened to him. His intimacy with Natalya was not altogether
pleasing to Darya Mihailovna. 'However,' she thought, 'let her chatter
away with him in the country. She amuses him as a little girl now.
There is no great harm in it, and, at any rate, it will improve her
mind. At Petersburg I will soon put a stop to it.'
Darya Mihailovna was mistaken. Natalya did not chatter to Rudin like a
school-girl; she eagerly drank in his words, she tried to penetrate to
their full significance; she submitted her thoughts, her doubts to
him; he became her leader, her guide. So far, it was only the brain
that was stirred, but in the young the brain is not long stirred
alone. What sweet moments Natalya passed when at times in the garden
on the seat, in the transparent shade of the aspen tree, Rudin began
to read Goethe's _Faust_, Hoffman, or Bettina's letters, or Novalis,
constantly stopping and explaining what seemed obscure to her. Like
almost all Russian girls, she spoke German badly, but she understood
it well, and Rudin was thoroughly imbued with German poetry, German
romanticism and philosophy, and he drew her after him into these
forbidden lands. Unimagined splendours were revealed there to her
earnest eyes from the pages of the book which Rudin held on his knee;
a stream of divine visions, of new, illuminating ideas, seemed to
flow in rhythmic music into her soul, and in her heart, moved with the
high delight of noble feeling, slowly was kindled and fanned into a
flame the holy spark of enthusiasm.
'Tell me, Dmitri Nikolaitch,' she began one day, sitting by the window