Darya Mihailovna

“ Darya Mihailovna herself was a wealthy and distinguished lady, the widow of a privy councillor. Pandalevsky said of her, that she knew all Europe and all Europe knew her! However, Europe knew her very little; even at Petersburg she had not played a very prominent part; but on the other hand at Moscow every one knew her and visited her. She belonged to the highest society, and was spoken of as a rather eccentric woman, not wholly good-natured, but excessively clever. In her youth she had been very pretty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ That’s just like our modern literature; other people do the work, and it does the groaning.’
Darya Mihailovna smiled.
‘And that is called expressing contemporary life,’ continued Pigasov indefatigably, ‘profound sympathy with the social question and so on. . . . Oh, how I hate those grand words!’
‘Well, the women you attack so—they at least don’t use grand words.’
Pigasov shrugged his shoulders.
‘They don’t use them because they don’t understand them.’
Darya Mihailovna flushed slightly.
‘You are beginning to be impertinent, African Semenitch!’ she remarked with a forced smile. ”

“ In the evening Darya Mihailovna appeared for a couple of hours in the drawing-room. She was polite to Rudin, but kept him somehow at a distance, and smiled and frowned, talking through her nose, and in hints more than ever. Everything about her had the air of the society lady of the court. She had seemed of late rather cooler to Rudin. ‘What is the secret of it?’ he thought, with a sidelong look at her haughtily-lifted head. ”

“ Every one who saw her now for the first time was impelled to ask himself, if this woman—skinny, sharp-nosed, and yellow-faced, though still not old in years—could once have been a beauty, if she was really the same woman who had been the inspiration of poets . . . And every one marvelled inwardly at the mutability of earthly things. It is true that Pandalevsky discovered that Darya Mihailovna had preserved her magnificent eyes in a marvellous way; but we have seen that Pandalevsky also maintained that all Europe knew her. ”

“ Philanthropy ought to be entirely personal, and education too, all that is the soul’s work . . . that’s how she expresses herself, I believe. From whom did she pick up that opinion I should like to know?’
Alexandra Pavlovna laughed.
‘Darya Mihailovna is a clever woman, I like and esteem her very much; but she may make mistakes, and I don’t put faith in everything she says.’
‘And it’s a very good thing you don’t,’ rejoined Mihailo Mihailitch, who all the while remained sitting in his droshky, ‘for she doesn’t put much faith in what she says herself. ”

“ Volintsev shook hands with Darya Mihailovna and went up to Natalya Alexyevna.
‘But how about that baron, your new acquaintance, is he coming to-day?’ asked Pigasov.
‘Yes, he is coming.’
‘He is a great philosopher, they say; he is just brimming over with Hegel, I suppose?’
Darya Mihailovna made no reply, and making Alexandra Pavlovna sit down on the sofa, established herself near her.
‘Philosophies,’ continued Pigasov, ‘are elevated points of view! That’s another abomination of mine; these elevated points of view. And what can one see from above? ”

“ This is what Rudin wrote:
‘SIR—
‘I am going away from Darya Mihailovna’s house to-day, and leaving it for ever. This will certainly be a surprise to you, especially after what passed yesterday. I cannot explain to you what exactly obliges me to act in this way; but it seems to me for some reason that I ought to let you know of my departure. You do not like me, and even regard me as a bad man. I do not intend to justify myself; time will justify me. In my opinion it is even undignified in a man and quite unprofitable to try to prove to a prejudiced man the injustice of his prejudice. ”

“ Darya Mihailovna looked attentively at Rudin.
‘He has anticipated me; it must be because he has some suspicion,’ she thought. ‘He spares one a disagreeable explanation. So much the better. Ah! clever people for ever!’
‘Really?’ she replied aloud. ‘Ah! how disappointing! Well, I suppose there’s no help for it. I shall hope to see you this winter in Moscow. We shall soon be leaving here.’
‘I don’t know, Darya Mihailovna, whether I shall succeed in getting to Moscow, but, if I can manage it, I shall regard it as a duty to call on you.’
‘Aha, my good sir!’ Pandalevsky in his turn reflected ”

“ But it’s a pity!’
‘That was my own idea,’ observed Darya Mihailovna. ‘I read his article.... Entre nous... cela a assez peu de fond!’
‘Who else have you here?’ asked Rudin, after a pause.
Darya Mihailovna knocked off the ash of her cigarette with her little finger.
‘Oh, there is hardly any one else. Madame Lipin, Alexandra Pavlovna, whom you saw yesterday; she is very sweet—but that is all. Her brother is also a capital fellow—un parfait honnête homme. The Prince Garin you know. Those are all. ”

“ Rudin got up. The whole conversation between him and Darya Mihailovna had a special character. In the same way actors repeat their parts, and diplomatic dignitaries interchange their carefully-worded phrases.
Rudin went away. He knew by now through experience that men and women of the world do not even break with a man who is of no further use to them, but simply let him drop, like a kid glove after a ball, like the paper that has wrapped up sweets, like an unsuccessful ticket for a lottery. ”

“ Darya Mihailovna made his acquaintance lately at the Prince Garin’s, and speaks of him in high terms as an agreeable and cultivated young man. His Excellency the baron is interested, too, in literature, or more strictly speaking——ah! what an exquisite butterfly! pray look at it!——more strictly speaking, in political economy. He has written an essay on some very interesting question, and wants to submit it to Darya Mihailovna’s criticism.’
‘An article on political economy?’
‘From the literary point of view, Alexandra Pavlovna, from the literary point of view. ”

“ As she talked of them, like a rich setting round a worthless stone, their names ranged themselves in a brilliant circlet round the principal name—around Darya Mihailovna.
Rudin listened, smoking a cigarette, and said little. He could speak well and liked speaking; carrying on a conversation was not in his line, though he was also a good listener. All men—if only they had not been intimidated by him to begin with—opened their hearts with confidence in his presence; he followed the thread of another man’s narrative so readily and sympathetically. ”

“ 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. ”

“ While you gratify your vanity, you are deprived of the true consolations of thought; life—the essence of life—evades your petty and jaundiced criticism, and you end by scolding and becoming ridiculous. Only one who loves has the right to censure and find fault.’
‘Voilà, Monsieur Pigasov enterré,’ observed Darya Mihailovna. ‘What a genius you have for defining a man! But Pigasov certainly would not have even understood you. He loves nothing but his own individuality.’
‘And he finds fault with that so as to have the right to find fault with others,’ Rudin put in.
Darya Mihailovna laughed. ”

“ Pardon me for having troubled you.’
‘Oh, not at all!’ said Lezhnyov, and he went away.
‘Well, what do you say to that?’ Darya Mihailovna asked of Rudin. ‘I had heard he was eccentric, but really that was beyond everything!’
‘His is the same disease as Pigasov’s,’ observed Rudin, ‘the desire of being original. One affects to be a Mephistopheles—the other a cynic. In all that, there is much egoism, much vanity, but little truth, little love. Indeed, there is even calculation of a sort in it. A man puts on a mask of indifference and indolence so that some one will be sure to think. ”

“ In short, she’s a capital woman, and her servant girls grow fat. Why should I slander her?’
‘You see,’ observed Darya Mihailovna, ‘African Semenitch has got on his hobbyhorse, now he will not be off it to-night.’
‘My hobby! But women have three at least, which they are never off, except, perhaps, when they’re asleep.’
‘What three hobbies are those?’
‘Reproof, reproach, recrimination.’
‘Do you know, African Semenitch,’ began Darya Mihailovna, ‘you cannot be so bitter against women for nothing. Some woman or other must have⸻’
‘Done me an injury, you mean?’ Pigasov interrupted. ”

“ 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 ”

“ He is a rich man, I suppose?’ he added, pulling the fringe on his chair.
‘Yes, he is rich, though he dresses shockingly, and drives in a racing droshky like a bailiff. I have been anxious to get him to come here; he is spoken of as clever; I have some business with him.... You know I manage my property myself.’
Rudin bowed assent.
‘Yes; I manage it myself,’ Darya Mihailovna continued. ‘I don’t introduce any foreign crazes, but prefer what is our own, what is Russian, and, as you see, things don’t seem to do badly,’ she added, with a wave of her hand. ”

“ Her straight, ever so slightly tilted nose would have been enough alone to drive any man out of his senses, to say nothing of her velvety dark eyes, her golden brown hair, the dimples in her smoothly curved cheeks, and her other beauties. But best of all was the sweet expression of her face; confiding, good and gentle, it touched and attracted at the same time. Alexandra Pavlovna had the glance and the smile of a child; other ladies found her a little simple. . . . Could one wish for anything more?
‘Darya Mihailovna sent you to me, did you say?’ she asked Pandalevsky. ”

“ Note by what simple, natural steps one passes from the outer circle of the neighbours of the wealthy patroness of art and letters, Darya Mihailovna, to the inner circle of her household. The cold, suave egoism of the lady of the manor is admirably set off by the sketches of her dependents, the simple young tutor, Bassistoff, her young Jewish protégé Pandalevsky, and the cynic Pigasov. The household is expecting the arrival of a guest, a Baron Muffel, but in his place arrives his acquaintance, Dmitri Rudin, slightly shabby, but of pre-possessing address. ”

“ Only Pigasov remained aloof, in a corner by the fireplace. Rudin spoke with intelligence, with fire and with judgment; he showed much learning, wide reading. No one had expected to find in him a remarkable man. His clothes were so shabby, so little was known of him. Every one felt it strange and incomprehensible that such a clever man should have suddenly made his appearance in the country. He seemed all the more wonderful and, one may even say, fascinating to all of them, beginning with Darya Mihailovna. ”

“ He straightened his tall figure, shook back his locks, and walked quickly into the garden, with a happy gesture of his hands.
Meanwhile the bushes of the lilac arbour moved apart, and Pandalevsky appeared. He looked around warily, shook his head, pursed up his mouth, and said, significantly, ‘So that’s how it is. That must be brought to Darya Mihailovna’s knowledge.’ And he vanished. ”

“ Pigasov is the most intelligent person here.’
‘The cross old gentleman who was here last night?’ inquired Rudin.
‘Yes.... In the country though, even he is of use—he sometimes makes one laugh.’
‘He is by no means stupid,’ returned Rudin, ‘but he is on the wrong path. I don’t know whether you will agree with me, Darya Mihailovna, but in negation—in complete and universal negation—there is no salvation to be found? Deny everything and you will easily pass for a man of ability; it’s a well-known trick. ”

“ Darya Mihailovna’s children worshipped Bassistoff, and yet were not in the least afraid of him; he was on a friendly footing with all the rest of the household, a fact which was not altogether pleasing to its mistress, though she was fond of declaring that for her social prejudices did not exist.
‘Good-morning, my dears,’ began Konstantin Diomiditch, ‘how early you have come for your walk to-day! But I,’ he added, turning to Bassistoff, ‘have been out a long while already; it’s my passion—to enjoy nature.’
‘We saw how you were enjoying nature,’ muttered Bassistoff. ”

“ I was going to say that Roxolan Mediarovitch always had the very highest opinion of Darya Mihailovna’s knowledge of Russian!
‘Is this baron a pedant then?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna.
‘Not in the very least. Darya Mihailovna says, on the contrary, that you see that he belongs to the best society at once. He spoke of Beethoven with such eloquence that even the old prince was quite delighted by it. That, I own, I should like to have heard ”