‘I should think so.’
‘He is a remarkably clever man, though in reality essentially shallow.’
‘It’s easy to say that.’
‘Though essentially shallow,’ repeated Lezhnyov; ‘but there’s no great harm in that; we are all shallow. I will not even quarrel with him for being a tyrant at heart, lazy, ill-informed!’
Alexandra Pavlovna clasped her hands.
‘Rudin—ill-informed!’ she cried.
‘Ill-informed!’ repeated Lezhnyov in precisely the same voice, ‘that he likes to live at other people’s expense, to cut a good figure, and so forth—all that’s natural enough. But what’s wrong is, that he is as cold as ice.’
‘He cold! that fiery soul cold!’ interrupted Alexandra Pavlovna.
‘Yes, cold as ice, and he knows it, and pretends to be fiery. What’s bad,’ pursued Lezhnyov, gradually growing warm, ‘he is playing a dangerous game—not dangerous for him, of course; he does not risk a farthing, not a straw on it—but others stake their soul.’
‘Whom and what are you talking of? I don’t understand you,’ said Alexandra Pavlovna.