one laugh.'

'He is by no means stupid,' returned Rudin, 'but he is on the wrong
path. I don't know whether you will agree with me, Darya Mihailovna,
but in negation--in complete and universal negation--there is no
salvation to be found? Deny everything and you will easily pass for a
man of ability; it's a well-known trick. Simple-hearted people are
quite ready to conclude that you are worth more than what you deny.
And that's often an error. In the first place, you can pick holes in
anything; and secondly, even if you are right in what you say, it's
the worse for you; your intellect, directed by simple negation, grows
colourless and withers up. While you gratify your vanity, you are
deprived of the true consolations of thought; life--the essence of
life--evades your petty and jaundiced criticism, and you end by
scolding and becoming ridiculous. Only one who loves has the right to
censure and find fault.'

'Voila, Monsieur Pigasov enterre,' observed Darya Mihailovna. 'What a
genius you have for defining a man! But Pigasov certainly would not
have even understood you. He loves nothing but his own individuality.'

'And he finds fault with that so as to have the right to find fault
with others,' Rudin put in.

Darya Mihailovna laughed.

'"He judges the sound," as the saying is, "the sound by the sick." By
the way, what do you think of the baron?'

'The baron? He is an excellent man, with a good heart and a knowledge