'I have never spoken so openly of myself to any one before—this is my confession.
'But enough of me. I should like to speak of you, to give you some advice; I can be no use to you further.... You are still young; but as long as you live, always follow the impulse of your heart, do not let it be subordinated to your mind or the mind of others. Believe me, the simpler, the narrower the circle in which life is passed the better; the great thing is not to open out new sides, but that all the phases of life should reach perfection in their own time. "Blessed is he who has been young in his youth." But I see that this advice applies far more to myself than to you.
'I confess, Natalya Alexyevna, I am very unhappy. I never deceived myself as to the nature of the feeling which I inspired in Darya Mihailovna; but I hoped I had found at least a temporary home.... Now I must take the chances of the rough world again. What will replace for me your conversation, your presence, your attentive and intelligent face?... I myself am to blame; but admit that fate seems to have designed a jest at my expense. A week ago I did not even myself suspect that I loved you. The day before yesterday, that evening in the garden, I for the first time heard from your lips,... but why remind you of what you said then? and now I am going away to-day. I am going away disgraced, after a cruel explanation with you, carrying with me no hope.... And you do not know yet to what a degree I am to blame as regards you... I have such a foolish lack of reserve, such a weak habit of confiding. But why speak of this? I am leaving you for ever!'
(Here Rudin had related to Natalya his visit to Volintsev, but on second thoughts he erased all that part, and added the second postscript to his letter to Volintsev.)
'I remain alone upon earth to devote myself, as you said to me this morning with bitter irony, to other interests more congenial to me. Alas! if I could really devote myself to these interests, if I could at last conquer my inertia.... But no! I shall remain to the end the incomplete creature I have always been.... The first obstacle, ... and I collapse entirely; what has passed with you has shown me that If I had but sacrificed my love to my future work, to my vocation; but I simply was afraid of the responsibility that had fallen upon me, and therefore I am, truly, unworthy of you. I do not deserve that you should be torn out of your sphere for me.... And indeed all this, perhaps, is for the best. I shall perhaps be the stronger and the purer for this experience.
'I wish you all happiness. Farewell! Think sometimes of me. I hope that you may still hear of me.
'RUDIN.'
Natalya let Rudin's letter drop on to her lap, and sat a long time motionless, her eyes fixed on the ground. This letter proved to her clearer than all possible arguments that she had been right, when in the morning, at her parting with Rudin, she had involuntarily cried out that he did not love her! But that made things no easier for her. She sat perfectly still; it seemed as though waves of darkness without a ray of light had closed over her head, and she had gone down cold and dumb to the depths. The first disillusionment is painful for every one; but for a sincere heart, averse to self-deception and innocent of frivolity or exaggeration, it is almost unendurable. Natalya remembered her childhood, how, when walking in the evening, she always tried to go in the direction of the setting sun, where there was light in the sky, and not toward the darkened half of the heavens. Life now stood in darkness before her, and she had turned her back on the light for ever....
Tears started into Natalya's eyes. Tears do not always bring relief. They are comforting and salutary when, after being long pent up in the breast, they flow at last—at first with violence, and then more easily, more softly; the dumb agony of sorrow is over with the tears. ... But there are cold tears, tears that flow sparingly, wrung out drop by drop from the heart by the immovable, weary weight of pain laid upon it: they are not comforting, and bring no relief. Poverty weeps such tears; and the man has not yet been unhappy who has not shed them. Natalya knew them on that day.
Two hours passed. Natalya pulled herself together, got up, wiped her eyes, and, lighting a candle, she burnt Rudin's letter in the flame, and threw the ash out of window. Then she opened Pushkin at random, and read the first lines that met her. (She often made it her oracle in this way.) This is what she saw:
'When he has known its pang, for him
The torturing ghost of days that are no more,
For him no more illusion, but remorse
And memory's serpent gnawing at his heart.'
She stopped, and with a cold smile looked at herself in the glass, slightly nodded her head, and went down to the drawing-room.
Darya Mihailovna, directly she saw her, called her into her study, made her sit near her, and caressingly stroked her cheek. Meanwhile she gazed attentively, almost with curiosity, into her eyes. Darya Mihailovna was secretly perplexed; for the first time it struck her that she did not really understand her daughter. When she had heard from Pandalevsky of her meeting with Rudin, she was not so much displeased as amazed that her sensible Natalya could resolve upon such a step. But when she had sent for her, and fell to upbraiding her—not at all as one would have expected from a lady of European renown, but with loud and vulgar abuse—Natalya's firm replies, and the resolution of her looks and movements, had confused and even intimidated her.
Rudin's sudden, and wholly unexplained, departure had taken a great load off her heart, but she had expected tears, and hysterics.... Natalya's outward composure threw her out of her reckoning again.
'Well, child,' began Darya Mihailovna, 'how are you to-day?' Natalya looked at her mother. 'He is gone, you see... your hero. Do you know why he decided on going so quickly?'
'Mamma!' said Natalya in a low voice, 'I give you my word, if you will not mention him, you shall never hear his name from me.'
'Then you acknowledge how wrongly you behaved to me?'
Natalya looked down and repeated:
'You shall never hear his name from me.'
'Well, well,' answered Darya Mihailovna with a smile, 'I believe you. But the day before yesterday, do you remember how—There, we will pass that over. It is all over and buried and forgotten. Isn't it? Come, I know you again now; but I was altogether puzzled then. There, kiss me like a sensible girl!'
Natalya lifted Darya Mihailovna's hand to her lips, and Darya Mihailovna kissed her stooping head.
'Always listen to my advice. Do not forget that you are a Lasunsky and my daughter,' she added, 'and you will be happy. And now you may go.'
Natalya went away in silence. Darya Mihailovna looked after her and thought: 'She is like me—she too will let herself be carried away by her feelings; mais ella aura moins d'abandon.' And Darya Mihailovna fell to musing over memories of the past... of the distant past.
Then she summoned Mlle. Boncourt and remained a long while closeted with her.
When she had dismissed her she sent for Pandalevsky. She wanted at all hazards to discover the real cause of Rudin's departure... but Pandalevsky succeeded in completely satisfying her. It was what he was there for.
The next day Volintsev and his sister came to dinner. Darya Mihailovna was always very affable to him, but this time she was especially cordial to him. Natalya felt unbearably miserable; but Volintsev was so respectful, and addressed her so timidly, that she could not but be grateful to him in her heart. The day passed quietly, rather tediously, but all felt as they separated that they had fallen back into the old order of things; and that means much, very much.