'To V——?' said Rudin. 'Why, that's not on my road at all. I am going to Penza, and V—— lies, I think, in the direction of Tamboff.'
'What of that? you can get there from Tamboff, and from V—— you won't be at all out of your road.'
Rudin thought a moment.
'Well, all right,' he said at last, 'tell them to put the horses to. It is the same to me; I will go to Tamboff.'
The horses were soon ready. Rudin carried his own portmanteau, climbed into the cart, and took his seat, his head hanging as before. There was something helpless and pathetically submissive in his bent figure.... And the three horses went off at a slow trot.
EPILOGUE
Some years had passed by.
It was a cold autumn day. A travelling carriage drew up at the steps of the principal hotel of the government town of C——; a gentleman yawning and stretching stepped out of it. He was not elderly, but had had time to acquire that fulness of figure which habitually commands respect. He went up the staircase to the second story, and stopped at the entrance to a wide corridor. Seeing no one before him he called out in a loud voice asking for a room. A door creaked somewhere, and a long waiter jumped up from behind a low screen, and came forward with a quick flank movement, an apparition of a glossy back and tucked-up sleeves in the half-dark corridor. The traveller went into the room and at once throwing off his cloak and scarf, sat down on the sofa, and with his fists propped on his knees, he first looked round as though he were hardly awake yet, and then gave the order to send up his servant. The hotel waiter made a bow and disappeared. The traveller was no other than Lezhnyov. He had come from the country to C—— about some conscription business.
Lezhnyov's servant, a curly-headed, rosy-cheeked youth in a grey cloak, with a blue sash round the waist, and soft felt shoes, came into the room.
'Well, my boy, here we are,' Lezhnyov said, 'and you were afraid all the while that a wheel would come off.'
'We are here,' replied the boy, trying to smile above the high collar of his cloak, 'but the reason why the wheel did not come off——'
'Is there no one in here?' sounded a voice in the corridor.
Lezhnyov started and listened.
'Eh? who is there?' repeated the voice.
Lezhnyov got up, walked to the door, and quickly threw it open.
Before him stood a tall man, bent and almost completely grey, in an old frieze coat with bronze buttons.
'Rudin!' he cried in an excited voice.
Rudin turned round. He could not distinguish Lezhnyov's features, as he stood with his back to the light, and he looked at him in bewilderment.
'You don't know me?' said Lezhnyov.
'Mihailo Mihailitch!' cried Rudin, and held out his hand, but drew it back again in confusion. Lezhnyov made haste to snatch it in both of his.
'Come, come in!' he said to Rudin, and drew him into the room.
'How you have changed!' exclaimed Lezhnyov after a brief silence, involuntarily dropping his voice.
'Yes, they say so!' replied Rudin, his eyes straying about the room. 'The years... and you not much. How is Alexandra—your wife?'
'She is very well, thank you. But what fate brought you here?'
'It is too long a story. Strictly speaking, I came here by chance. I was looking for a friend. But I am very glad...'
'Where are you going to dine?'
'Oh, I don't know. At some restaurant. I must go away from here to-day.'
'You must.'
Rudin smiled significantly.
'Yes, I must. They are sending me off to my own place, to my home.'
'Dine with me.'
Rudin for the first time looked Lezhnyov straight in the face.
'You invite me to dine with you?' he said.
'Yes, Rudin, for the sake of old times and old comradeship. Will you? I did not expect to meet you, and God only knows when we shall see each other again. I cannot part from you like this!'
'Very well, I agree!'
Lezhnyov pressed Rudin's hand, and calling his servant, ordered dinner, and told him to have a bottle of champagne put in ice.
In the course of dinner, Lezhnyov and Rudin, as though by agreement, kept talking of their student days, recalling many things and many friends—dead and living. At first Rudin spoke with little interest, but when he had drunk a few glasses of wine his blood grew warmer. At last the waiter took away the last dish, Lezhnyov got up, closed the door, and coming back to the table, sat down facing Rudin, and quietly rested his chin on his hands.
'Now, then,' he began, 'tell me all that has happened to you since I saw you last.'
Rudin looked at Lezhnyov.
'Good God!' thought Lezhnyov, 'how he has changed, poor fellow!'
Rudin's features had undergone little change since we saw him last at the posting-station, though approaching old age had had time to set its mark upon them; but their expression had become different. His eyes had a changed look; his whole being, his movements, which were at one time slow, at another abrupt and disconnected, his crushed, benumbed manner of speaking, all showed an utter exhaustion, a quiet and secret dejection, very different from the half-assumed melancholy which he had affected once, as it is generally affected by youth, when full of hopes and confident vanity.
'Tell you all that has happened to me?' he said; 'I could not tell you all, and it is not worth while. I am worn out; I have wandered far—in spirit as well as in flesh. What friends I have made—good God! How many things, how many men I have lost faith in! Yes, how many!' repeated Rudin, noticing that Lezhnyov was looking in his face with a kind of special sympathy. 'How many times have my own words grown hateful to me! I don't mean now on my own lips, but on the lips of those who had adopted my opinions! How many times have I passed from the petulance of a child to the dull insensibility of a horse who does not lash his tail when the whip cuts him!... How many times I have been happy and hopeful, and have made enemies and humbled myself for nothing! How many times I have taken flight like an eagle—and returned crawling like a snail whose shell has been crushed!... Where have I not been! What roads have I not travelled!... And the roads are often dirty,' added Rudin, slightly turning away. 'You know ...' he was continuing.... 'Listen,' interrupted Lezhnyov. 'We used once to say 'Dmitri and Mihail' to one another. Let us revive the old habit,... will you? Let us drink to those days!'
Rudin started and drew himself up a little, and there was a gleam in his eyes of something no word can express.
'Let us drink to them,' he said. 'I thank you, brother, we will drink to them!'
Lezhnyov and Rudin drained their glasses.
'You know, Mihail,' Rudin began again with a smile and a stress on the name, 'there is a worm in me which gnaws and worries me and never lets me be at peace till the end. It brings me into collision with people,—at first they fall under my influence, but afterwards...'
Rudin waved his hand in the air.
'Since I parted from you, Mihail, I have seen much, have experienced many changes.... I have begun life, have
