‘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.