RUDIN
mind? Do you want to know what I think of you, Dmitri? Well! I think: here is a man—with his abilities, what might he not have attained to, what worldly advantages might he not have possessed by now, if he had liked! . . . and I meet him hungry and homeless. . . .’
‘I rouse your compassion,’ Rudin murmured in a choked voice.
‘No, you are wrong. You inspire respect in me—that is what I feel. Who prevented you from spending year after year at that landowner’s, who was your friend, and who would, I am fully persuaded, have made provision for you, if you had only been willing to humour him? Why could you not live harmoniously at the gymnasium, why have you—strange man!—with whatever ideas you have entered upon an undertaking, infallibly every time ended by sacrificing your personal interests, ever refusing to take root in any but good ground, however profitable it might be?’
‘I was born a rolling stone,’ Rudin said, with a weary smile. ‘I cannot stop myself.’
‘That is true; but you cannot stop, not because there is a worm gnawing you, as you
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