RUDIN
essay?’ Bassistoff inquired modestly. He was sitting a little distance away.
‘“Tragedy in Life and in Art,”’ repeated Rudin. ‘Mr. Bassistoff too will read it. But I have not altogether settled on the fundamental motive. I have not so far worked out for myself the tragic significance of love.’
Rudin liked to talk of love, and frequently did so. At first, at the word ‘love,’ Mlle. Boncourt started, and pricked up her eyes like an old war-horse at the sound of the trumpet; but afterwards she had grown used to it, and now only pursed up her lips and took snuff at intervals.
‘It seems to me,’ said Natalya timidly, ‘that the tragic in love is unrequited love.’
‘Not at all!’ replied Rudin; ‘that is rather the comic side of love. . . . The question must be put in an altogether different way . . . one must attack it more deeply. . . . Love!’ he pursued, ‘all is mystery in love; how it comes, how it develops, how it passes away. Sometimes it comes all at once, undoubting, glad as day; sometimes it smoulders like fire under ashes, and only bursts into a flame in the heart when
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