not know me. Do not be uneasy... you do not love me, and I will never
force myself on any one.'

'I love you!' cried Rudin.

Natalya drew herself up.

'Perhaps; but how do you love me? Remember all your words, Dmitri
Nikolaitch. You told me: "Without complete equality there is no
love."... You are too exalted for me; I am no match for you.... I am
punished as I deserve. There are duties before you more worthy of you. I
shall not forget this day.... Good-bye.'

'Natalya Alexyevna, are you going? Is it possible for us to part like
this?'

He stretched out his hand to her. She stopped. His supplicating voice
seemed to make her waver.

'No,' she uttered at last. 'I feel that something in me is broken. ... I
came here, I have been talking to you as if it were in delirium; I must
try to recollect. It must not be, you yourself said, it will not be.
Good God, when I came out here, I mentally took a farewell of my home,
of my past--and what? whom have I met here?--a coward... and how did you
know I was not able to bear a separation from my family? "Your mother
will not consent... It is terrible!" That was all I heard from you, that
you, you, Rudin?--No! good-bye.... Ah! if you had loved me, I should
have felt it now, at this moment.... No, no, goodbye!'

She turned swiftly and ran towards Masha, who had begun to be uneasy and
had been making signs to her a long while.

'It is _you_ who are afraid, not I!' cried Rudin after Natalya.

She paid no attention to him, and hastened homewards across the fields.
She succeeded in getting back to her bedroom; but she had scarcely
crossed the threshold when her strength failed her, and she fell
senseless into Masha's arms.

But Rudin remained a long while still standing on the bank. At last
he shivered, and with slow steps made his way to the little path and
quietly walked along it. He was deeply ashamed... and wounded. 'What a
girl!' he thought, 'at seventeen!... No, I did not know her!... She is
a remarkable girl. What strength of will!... She is right; she deserves
another love than what I felt for her. I felt for her?' he asked
himself. 'Can it be I already feel no more love for her? So this is how
it was all to end! What a pitiful wretch I was beside her!'

The slight rattle of a racing droshky made Rudin raise his head.
Lezhnyov was driving to meet him with his invariable trotting pony.
Rudin bowed to him without speaking, and as though struck with a sudden
thought, tur