Page:Rudin - a novel (IA rudinnovel00turgrich).pdf/65

RUDIN spent three years on the property he had bought himself and suddenly married a wealthy half-educated woman who was captivated by his unceremonious and sarcastic manners. But Pigasov’s character had become so soured and irritable that family life was unendurable to him. After living with him a few years, his wife went off secretly to Moscow and sold her estate to an enterprising speculator; Pigasov had only just finished building a house on it. Utterly crushed by this last blow, Pigasov began a lawsuit with his wife, but gained nothing by it. After this he lived in solitude, and went to see his neighbours, whom he abused behind their backs and even to their faces, and who welcomed him with a kind of constrained half-laugh, though he did not inspire them with any serious dread. He never took a book in his hand. He had about a hundred serfs; his peasants were not badly off.

‘Ah! Constantin,’ said Darya Mihailovna, when Pandalevsky came into the drawing-room, ‘is Alexandrine coming?’

‘Alexandra Pavlovna asked me to thank you, and they will be extremely delighted,’ replied 27