ssing himself
definitely and exactly. Images followed upon images; comparisons started
up one after another--now startlingly bold, now strikingly true. It was
not the complacent effort of the practised speaker, but the very breath
of inspiration that was felt in his impatient improvising. He did not
seek out his words; they came obediently and spontaneously to his lips,
and each word seemed to flow straight from his soul, and was burning
with all the fire of conviction. Rudin was the master of almost the
greatest secret--the music of eloquence. He knew how in striking
one chord of the heart to set all the others vaguely quivering and
resounding. Many of his listeners, perhaps, did not understand very
precisely what his eloquence was about; but their bosoms heaved, it
seemed as though veils were lifted before their eyes, something radiant,
glorious, seemed shimmering in the distance.

All Rudin's thoughts seemed centred on the future; this lent him
something of the impetuous dash of youth... Standing at the window, not
looking at any one in special, he spoke, and inspired by the general
sympathy and attention, the presence of young women, the beauty of the
night, carried along by the tide of his own emotions, he rose to the
height of eloquence, of poetry.... The very sound of his voice, intense
and soft, increased the fascination; it seemed as though some higher
power were speaking through his lips, startling even to himself....
Rudin spoke of what lends eternal significance to the fleeting life of
man.

'I remember a Scandinavian legend,' thus he concluded, 'a king is
sitting with his warriors round the fire in a long dark barn. It was
night and winter. Suddenly a little bird flew in at the open door and
flew out again at the other. The king spoke and said that this bird
is like man in the world; it flew in from darkness and out again into
darkness, and was not long in the warmth and light.... "King," replies
the oldest of the warriors, "even in the dark the bird is not lost, but
finds her nest." Even so our life is short and worthless; but all that
is great is accomplished through men. The consciousness of being the
instrument of these higher powers ought to outweigh all other joys for
man; even in death he finds his life, his nest.'

Rudin stopped and dropped his eyes with a smile of involuntary
embarrassment.

'_Vous etes un poete_,' was Darya Mihailovna's comment in an undertone.
And all were inwardly agreeing