Mihailovna.

Pigasov shrugged his shoulders.

'Well, where's the harm if I do? I ask: where is truth? Even the
philosophers don't know what it is. Kant says it is one thing; but
Hegel--no, you're wrong, it's something else.'

'And do you know what Hegel says of it?' asked Rudin, without raising
his voice.

'I repeat,' continued Pigasov, flying into a passion, 'that I cannot
understand what truth means. According to my idea, it doesn't exist
at all in the world, that is to say, the word exists but not the thing
itself.'

'Fie, fie!' cried Darya Mihailovna, 'I wonder you're not ashamed to say
so, you old sinner! No truth? What is there to live for in the world
after that?'

'Well, I go so far as to think, Darya Mihailovna,' retorted Pigasov, in
a tone of annoyance, 'that it would be much easier for you, in any case,
to live without truth than without your cook, Stepan, who is such a
master hand at soups! And what do you want with truth, kindly tell me?
you can't trim a bonnet with it!'

'A joke is not an argument,' observed Darya Mihailovna, 'especially when
you descend to personal insult.'

'I don't know about truth, but I see speaking it does not answer,'
muttered Pigasov, and he turned angrily away.

And Rudin began to speak of pride, and he spoke well. He showed that man
without pride is worthless, that pride is the lever by which the earth
can be moved from its foundations, but that at the same time he alone
deserves the name of man who knows how to control his pride, as the
rider does his horse, who offers up his own personality as a sacrifice
to the general good.

'Egoism,' so he ended, 'is suicide. The egoist withers like a solitary
barren tree; but pride, ambition, as the active effort after perfection,
is the source of all that is great.... Yes! a man must prune away
the stubborn egoism of his personality to give it the right of
self-expression.'

'Can you lend me a pencil?' Pigasov asked Bassistoff.

Bassistoff did not at once understand what Pigasov had asked him.

'What do you want a pencil for?' he said at last

'I want to write down Mr. Rudin's last sentence. If one doesn't write it
down, one might forget it, I'm afraid! But you will own, a sentence like
that is such a handful of trumps.'

'There are things which it is a shame to laugh at and make fun of,
African Semenitch!' said Bassistoff warmly, turning away from Pigasov.

Meanwhile Rudin had approached Natalya. She got up; her fac