Page:Rudin - a novel (IA rudinnovel00turgrich).pdf/273

RUDIN many friends—dead and living. At first Rudin spoke with little interest, but when he had drunk a few glasses of wine his blood grew warmer. At last the waiter took away the last dish, Lezhnyov got up, closed the door, and coming back to the table, sat down facing Rudin, and quietly rested his chin on his hands.

‘Now, then,’ he began, ‘tell me all that has happened to you since I saw you last.’

Rudin looked at Lezhnyov.

‘Good God!’ thought Lezhnyov, ‘how he has changed, poor fellow!’

Rudin’s features had undergone little change since we saw him last at the posting-station, though approaching old age had had time to set its mark upon them; but their expression had become different. His eyes had a changed look; his whole being, his movements, which were at one time slow, at another abrupt and disconnected, his crushed, benumbed manner of speaking, all showed an utter exhaustion, a quiet and secret dejection, very different from the half-assumed melancholy which he had affected once, as it is generally affected by youth, when full of hopes and confident vanity. 235