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RUDIN I have come to dread it—my destiny. Why is it so? Explain this enigma to me!’

‘An enigma!’ repeated Lezhnyov. ‘Yes, that’s true; you have always been an enigma for me. Even in our young days, when, after some trifling prank, you would suddenly speak as though you were pierced to the heart, and then you would begin again well you know what I mean  even then I did not understand. That is why I grew apart from you. You have so much power, such unwearying striving after the ideal.’

‘Words, all words! There was nothing done!’ Rudin broke in.

‘Nothing done! What is there to do?’

‘What is there to do! To keep an old blind woman and all her family by one’s work, as, do you remember, Mihail, Pryazhentsov did. That’s doing something.’

‘Yes, but a good word—is also something done.’

Rudin looked at Lezhnyov without speaking and faintly shook his head.

Lezhnyov wanted to say something, and he passed his hand over his face. 252