oke in in a drawling tone. 'I
am a practical man and all these metaphysical subtleties I don't enter
into and don't want to enter into.'

'Very good! That's as you prefer. But take note that your very desire
to be exclusively a practical man is itself your sort of system--your
theory.'

'Civilisation you talk about!' blurted in Pigasov; 'that's another
admirable notion of yours! Much use in it, this vaunted civilisation! I
would not give a brass farthing for your civilisation!'

'But what a poor sort of argument, African Semenitch!' observed
Darya Mihailovna, inwardly much pleased by the calmness and perfect
good-breeding of her new acquaintance. '_Cest un homme comme il faut_,'
she thought, looking with well-disposed scrutiny at Rudin; 'we must be
nice to him!' Those last words she mentally pronounced in Russian.

'I will not champion civilisation,' continued Rudin after a short pause,
'it does not need my championship. You don't like it, every one to his
own taste. Besides, that would take us too far. Allow me only to remind
you of the old saying, "Jupiter, you are angry; therefore you are in the
wrong." I meant to say that all those onslaughts upon systems--general
propositions--are especially distressing, because together with these
systems men repudiate knowledge in general, and all science and faith in
it, and consequently also faith in themselves, in their own powers. But
this faith is essential to men; they cannot exist by their sensations
alone they are wrong to fear ideas and not to trust in them. Scepticism
is always characterised by barrenness and impotence.'

'That's all words!' muttered Pigasov.

'Perhaps so. But allow me to point out to you that when we say "that's
all words!" we often wish ourselves to avoid the necessity of saying
anything more substantial than mere words.'

'What?' said Pigasov, winking his eyes.

'You understood what I meant,' retorted Rudin, with involuntary,
but instantly repressed impatience. 'I repeat, if man has no steady
principle in which he trusts, no ground on which he can take a firm
stand, how can he form a just estimate of the needs, the tendencies and
the future of his country? How can he know what he ought to do, if----'

'I leave you the field,' ejaculated Pigasov abruptly, and with a bow he
turned away without looking at any one.

Rudin stared at him, and smiled slightly, saying nothing.

'Aha! he has taken to flight!' said Darya Mihailovna. 'Never mind,
D