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RUDIN he was eccentric, but really that was beyond everything!’

‘His is the same disease as Pigasov’s,’ observed Rudin, ‘the desire of being original. One affects to be a Mephistopheles—the other a cynic. In all that, there is much egoism, much vanity, but little truth, little love. Indeed, there is even calculation of a sort in it. A man puts on a mask of indifference and indolence so that some one will be sure to think. “Look at that man; what talents he has thrown away!” But if you come to look at him more attentively, there is no talent in him whatever.’

‘Et de deux!’ was Darya Mihailovna’s comment. ‘You are a terrible man at hitting people off. One can hide nothing from you.’

‘Do you think so?’ said Rudin. ‘However,’ he continued, ‘I ought not really to speak about Lezhnyov; I loved him, loved him as a friend but afterwards, through various misunderstandings. . .’

‘You quarrelled?’

‘No. But we parted, and parted, it seems, for ever.’

‘Ah, I noticed that the whole time of his 81