s often so with me. It is more excusable in me than in
you.'

'Why? Do you suppose I have nothing to be melancholy about?'

'At your age you ought to find happiness in life.'

Natalya walked some steps in silence.

'Dmitri Nikolaitch!' she said.

'Well?'

'Do you remember--the comparison you made yesterday--do you remember--of
the oak?'

'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 present position. But again it is useless to speak
of this. That side of life is over for me now. What remains for me is
a tedious and fatiguing journey along the parched and dusty road from
point to point... When I shall arrive--whether I arrive at all--God
knows.... Let us rather talk of you.'

'Can it be, Dmitri Nikolaitch,' Natalya interrupted him, 'you expect
nothing from life?'

'Oh, no! I expect much, but not for myself.... Usefulness, the content
that comes from activity, I shall never renounce; but I have renounced
happiness. My hopes, my dreams, and my own happiness have nothing in
common. Love'--(at this word he shrugged his shoulders)--'love is not
for me; I am not worthy of it; a woman who loves has a right to demand
the whole of a man, and I can never now give the whole of myself.
Besides, it is for youth to win love; I am too old. How could I turn any
one's head? God grant I keep my own head on my shoulders.'

'I understand,' said Natalya, 'that one who is bent on a lofty aim must
not think of himself; but cannot a woman be capable of appreciating such
a man? I should have thought, on the c