RUDIN
‘Yes, I remember. Well?’
Natalya stole a look at Rudin.
‘Why did you—what did you mean by that comparison?’
Rudin bent his head and fastened his eyes on the distance.
‘Natalya Alexyevna!’ he began with the intense and pregnant intonation peculiar to him, which always made the listener believe that Rudin was not expressing even the tenth part of what he held locked in his heart—‘Natalya Alexyevna! you may have noticed that I speak little of my own past. There are some chords which I do not touch upon at all. My heart—who need know what has passed in it? To expose that to view has always seemed sacrilege to me. But with you I cast aside reserve; you win my confidence. . . . I cannot conceal from you that I too have loved and have suffered like all men. . . . When and how? it’s useless to speak of that; but my heart has known much bliss and much pain. . . .’
Rudin made a brief pause.
‘What I said to you yesterday,’ he went on, ‘might be applied in a degree to me in my
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