RUDIN
‘So you are going now to your country place,’ Lezhnyov began again. ‘I don’t think you will stay there long, and I cannot imagine where and how you will end. . . . But remember, whatever happens to you, you have always a place, a nest where you can hide yourself. That is my home,—do you hear, old fellow? Thought, too, has its veterans; they, too, ought to have their home.’
Rudin got up.
‘Thanks, brother,’ he said, ‘thanks! I will not forget this in you. Only I do not deserve a home. I have wasted my life, and have not served thought, as I ought.’
‘Hush!’ said Lezhnyov. ‘Every man remains what Nature has made him, and one cannot ask more of him! You have called yourself the Wandering Jew. . . . But how do you know,—perhaps it was right for you to be ever wandering, perhaps in that way you are fulfilling a higher calling than you know; popular wisdom says truly that we are all in God’s hands. You are going, Dmitri,’ continued Lezhnyov, seeing that Rudin was taking his hat. ‘You will not stop the night?’
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