‘Yes; I gave them up. This girl was a sweet, good creature, with clear, lively eyes and a ringing voice.’
‘You give an excellent description of her,’ commented Alexandra Pavlovna with a smile.
‘You are such a severe critic,’ retorted Lezhnyov. ‘Well, this girl lived with her old father.... But I will not enter into details; I will only tell you that this girl was so kind-hearted, if you only asked her for half a cup of tea she would give it you brimming over! Two days after first meeting her I was wild over her, and on the seventh day I could hold out no longer, and confessed it in full to Rudin. At that time I was completely under his influence, and his influence, I will tell you frankly, was beneficial in many things. He was the first person who did not treat me with contempt, but tried to lick me into shape. I loved Pokorsky passionately, and felt a kind of awe before his purity of soul, but I came closer to Rudin. When he heard about my love, he fell into an indescribable ecstasy, congratulated me, embraced me, and at once fell to disserting and enlarging upon all the dignity of my new position. I pricked up my ears.... Well, you know how he can talk. His words had an extraordinary effect on me. I at once assumed an amazing consequence in my own eyes, and I put on a serious exterior and left off laughing. I remember I used even to go about at that time with a kind of circumspection, as though I had a sacred chalice within me, full of a priceless liquid, which I was afraid of spilling over.... I was very happy, especially as I found favour in her eyes. Rudin wanted to make my beloved’s acquaintance, and I myself almost insisted on presenting him.’
‘Ah! I see, I see now what it is,’ interrupted Alexandra Pavlovna. ‘Rudin cut you out with your charmer, and you have never been able to forgive him.... I am ready to take a wager I am right!’
‘You would lose your wager, Alexandra Pavlovna; you are wrong. Rudin did not cut me out; he did not even try to cut me out; but, all the same, he put an end to my happiness, though, looking at it in cool blood, I am ready to thank him for it now. But I nearly went out of my mind at the time. Rudin did not in the least wish to injure me—quite the contrary! But through his cursed habit of pinning every emotion—his own and other people’s—with a phrase, as one pins butterflies in a case, he set to making clear to ourselves our relations to one another, and how we ought to treat each other, and arbitrarily compelled us to take stock of our feelings and ideas, praised us and blamed us, even entered into a correspondence with us—fancy! Well, he succeeded in completely disconcerting us! I should hardly, even then, have married the young lady (I had so much sense still left), but, at least, we might have spent some months happily a la Paul et Virginie; but now came strained relations, misunderstandings of every kind. It ended by Rudin, one fine morning, arriving at the conviction that it was his sacred duty as a friend to acquaint the old father with everything—and he did so.’
‘Is it possible?’ cried Alexandra Pavlovna.
‘Yes, and did it with my consent, observe. That’s where the wonder comes in!... I remember even now what a chaos my brain was in; everything was simply turning round—things looked as they do in a camera obscura—white seemed black and black white; falsehood was truth, and a whim was duty.... Ah! even now I feel shame at the recollection of it! Rudin—he never flagged—not a bit of it! He soared through all sorts of misunderstandings and perplexities, like a swallow over a pond.’
‘And so you parted from the girl?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna, naively bending her head on one side, and raising her eyebrows.
‘We parted—and it was a horrible parting—outrageously awkward and public, quite unnecessarily public.... I wept myself, and she wept, and I don’t know what passed.... It seemed as though a kind of Gordian knot had been tied. It had to be cut, but it was painful! However, everything in the world is ordered for the best. She has married an excellent man, and is well off now.’
‘But confess, you have never been able to forgive Rudin, all the same,’ Alexandra Pavlovna was beginning.