The small detached house in Moscow style inhabited by Avdotya Nikitishna — or Evdoksya Kukshina, stood in one of those streets of X. which had been lately burnt down (it is well known that our Russian provincial towns are burnt down once every five years). At the door, above a visiting card nailed on at a slant, hung a bell handle, and in the hall the visitors were met by someone in a cap, not quite a servant nor quite a companion — unmistakable signs of the progressive aspirations of the lady of the house. Sitnikov asked if Avdotya Nikitishna was at home.

“Is that you, Viktor?” sounded a shrill voice from the other room. “Come in!”

The woman in the cap disappeared at once.

“I’m not alone,” said Sitnikov, casting a sharp look at Arkady and Bazarov as he briskly pulled off his cloak, beneath which appeared something like a leather jacket.

“No matter,” answered the voice. “Entrez.”

The young men went in. The room which they entered was more like a working study than a drawing room. Papers, letters, fat issues of Russian journals, for the most part uncut, lay thrown about on dusty tables; white cigarette ends were scattered all over the place. A lady, still young, was half lying on a leather-covered sofa; her blonde hair was disheveled and she was wearing a crumpled silk dress, with heavy bracelets on her short arms and a lace kerchief over her head. She rose from the sofa, and carelessly drawing over her shoulders a velvet cape trimmed with faded ermine, she murmured languidly, “Good morning, Viktor,” and held out her hand to Sitnikov.

“Bazarov, Kirsanov,” he announced abruptly, successfully imitating Bazarov’s manner.

“So glad to meet you,” answered Madame Kukshina, fixing on Bazarov her round eyes, between which appeared a forlorn little turned-up red nose, “I know you,” she added, and pressed his hand.

Bazarov frowned. There was nothing definitely ugly in the small plain figure of the emancipated woman; but her facial expression produced an uncomfortable effect on the spectator. One felt impelled to ask her, “What’s the matter, are you hungry? Or bored? Or shy? Why are you fidgeting?” Both she and Sitnikov had the same nervous manner. Her movements and speech were very unconstrained and at the same time awkward; she evidently regarded herself as a good-natured simple creature, yet all the time, whatever she did, it always struck one that it was not exactly what she wanted to do; everything with her seemed, as children say, done on purpose, that is, not spontaneously or simply.

“Yes, yes, I know you, Bazarov,” she repeated. (She had the habit — peculiar to many provincial and Moscow ladies — of calling men by their bare surnames from the moment she first met them.) “Would you like a cigar?”

“A cigar is all very well,” interjected Sitnikov, who was already lolling in an armchair with his legs in the air, “but give us some lunch. We’re frightfully hungry; and tell them to bring us up a little bottle of champagne.”

“You sybarite ,” cried Evdoksya with a laugh. (When she laughed the gums showed over her upper teeth.) “Isn’t it true, Bazarov, he’s a sybarite?”

“I like comfort in life,” pronounced Sitnikov gravely. “But that doesn’t prevent me from being a liberal.”

“It does, though, it does!” exclaimed Evdoksya, and nevertheless gave instructions to her maid both about the lunch and about the champagne. “What do you think about that?” she added, turning to Bazarov. “I’m sure you share my opinion.”

“Well, no,” retorted Bazarov; “a piece of meat is better than a piece of bread even from the point of view of chemistry.”

“You are studying chemistry? That’s my passion. I’ve invented a new sort of paste.”

“A paste? You?”

“Yes. And do you know what it’s for? To make dolls’ heads, so that they can’t break. I’m practical also, you see. But it’s not quite ready yet. I’ve still got to read Liebig. By the way, have you read Kislyakov’s article on female labor in the Moscow News? Please read it. Of course you’re interested in the woman’s question — and in the schools, too? What does your friend do? What is his name?”

Madame Kukshina poured out her questions one after another, with affected negligence, without waiting for the answers; spoilt children talk like that to their nurses.

“My name is Arkady Nikolaich Kirsanov, and I do nothing.” Evdoksya giggled. “Oh, how charming! What, don’t you smoke? Viktor, you know I’m very angry with you.”

“What for?”

“They tell me you’ve begun praising George Sand . A backward woman and nothing else! How can people compare her with Emerson ? She hasn’t a single idea about education or physiology or anything. I’m sure she’s never even heard of embryology and in these days what can be done without that? (Evdoksya actually threw up her hands.) Oh, what a wonderful article Elisyevich has written about it! He’s a gentleman of genius. (Evdoksya constantly used the word “gentleman” instead of the word “man.”) Bazarov, sit by me on the sofa. You don’t know, perhaps, but I’m awfully afraid of you.”

“And why, may I ask?”

“You’re a dangerous gentleman, you’re such a critic. My God, how absurd! I’m talking like some provincial landowner — but I really am one. I manage my property myself, and just imagine, my bailiff Yerofay — he’s a wonderful type, just like Fenimore Cooper’s Pathfinder — there’s something so spontaneous about him! I’ve come to settle down here; it’s an intolerable town, isn’t it? But what is one to do?”

“The town’s like any other town,” remarked Bazarov coolly.

“All its interests are so petty, that’s what is so dreadful! I used to spend the winters in Moscow . . . but now my lawful husband Monsieur Kukshin lives there. And besides, Moscow nowadays — I don’t know, it’s not what it was. I’m thinking of going abroad — I almost went last year.”

“To Paris, I suppose,” said Bazarov.

“To Paris and to Heidelberg.”

“Why to Heidelberg?”

“How can you ask! Bunsen lives there!”

Bazarov could find no reply to that one.

“Pierre Sapozhnikov . . . do you know him?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Not know Pierre Sapozhnikov . . . he’s always at Lydia Khostatov’s.”

“I don’t know her either.”

“Well, he undertook to escort me. Thank God I’m independent — I’ve no children . . . what did I say? Thank God! Never mind though!”

Evdoksya rolled a cigarette between her fingers, brown with tobacco stains, put it across her tongue, licked it and started to smoke. The maid came in with a tray.

“Ah, here’s lunch! Will you have an apéritif first? Viktor, open the bottle; that’s in your line.”

“Yes, it’s in my line,” mumbled Sitnikov, and again uttered a piercing convulsive laugh.

“Are there any pretty women here?” asked Bazarov, as he drank down a third glass.

“Yes, there are,” answered Evdoksya, “but they’re all so empty-headed. For instance, my friend Odintsova is nice looking. It’s a pity she’s got such a reputation . . . Of course that wouldn’t matter, but she has no independent views, no breadth of outlook, nothing . . . of that kind. The whole system of education wants changing. I’ve thought a lot about it; our women are so badly educated.”

“There’s nothing to be done with them,” interposed Sitnikov; “one ought to despise them and I do despise them utterly and completely.” (The possibility of feeling and expressing contempt was the most agreeable sensation to Sitnikov; he attacked women in particular, never suspecting that it would be his fate a few months later to cringe to his wife merely because she had been born a princess Durdoleosov.) “Not one of them would be capable of understanding our conversation; not one of them deserves to be spoken about by serious men like us.”

“But there’s no need whatsoever for them to understand our conversation,” remarked Bazarov.

“Whom do you mean?” sad Evdoksya.

“Pretty women.”

“What? Do you then share the ideas of Proudhon ?”

Bazarov drew himself up haughtily.

“I share no one’s ideas; I have my own.”

“Damn all authorities!” shouted Sitnikov, delighted to have an opportunity of expressing himself boldly in front of the man he slavishly admired.

“But even Macaulay . . . ,” Madame Kukshina was trying to say.

“Damn Macaulay!” thundered Sitnikov. “Are you going to stand up for those silly females?”

“Not for silly females, no, but for the rights of women which I have sworn to defend to the last drop of my blood.”

“Damn . . . ,” but here Sitnikov stopped. “But I don’t deny you that,” he said.

“No, I see you’re a Slavophil!”

“No, I’m not a Slavophil, though, of course . . . .”

“No, no, no! You are a Slavophil. You’re a supporter of patriarchal despotism. You want to have the whip in your hand!”

“A whip is a good thing,” said Bazarov, “but we’ve got to the last drop . . .”

“Of what?” interrupted Evdoksya.

“Of champagne, most honored Avdotya Nikitishna, of champagne — not of your blood.”

“I can never listen calmly when women are attacked,” went on Evdoksya. “It’s awful, awful. Instead of attacking them you should read Michelet’s book De l’Amour ! That’s something exquisite! Gentlemen, let us talk about love,” added Evdoksya, letting her arm rest on the crumpled sofa cushion.

A sudden silence followed.

“No, why should we talk of love?” said Bazarov. “But you mentioned just now a Madame Odintsov . . . That was the name, I think — who is the lady?”

“She’s charming, delightful,” squeaked Sitnikov. “I’ll introduce you. Clever, rich, a widow. It’s a pity she’s not yet advanced enough; she ought to see more of our Evdoksya. I drink to your health, Eudoxie, clink glasses! Et toc et toc et tin-tin-tin! Et toc, et toc, et tin-tin-tin!”

“Viktor, you’re a rascal!”

The lunch was prolonged. The first bottle of champagne was followed by another, by a third, and even by a fourth . . . Evdoksya chattered away without drawing breath; Sitnikov seconded her. They talked a lot about whether marriage was a prejudice or a crime, whether men were born equal or not, and precisely what constitutes individuality. Finally things went so far that Evdoksya, flushed from the wine she had drunk, began tapping with her flat finger tips on a discordant piano, and singing in a husky voice, first gipsy songs, then Seymour Schiff’s song Granada lies slumbering, while Sitnikov tied a scarf round his head and represented the dying lover at the words

“And thy lips to mine
In burning kiss entwine. . .”

Arkady could stand no more. “Gentlemen, this is approaching bedlam,” he remarked aloud.

Bazarov, who at rare intervals had thrown a sarcastic word or two into the conversation — he paid more attention to the champagne — yawned loudly, rose to his feet and without taking leave of their hostess, he walked off with Arkady. Sitnikov jumped up and followed them.

“Well, what do you think of her?” he asked, hopping obsequiously from one side to another. “As I told you, a remarkable personality! If only we had more women like that! She is, in her own way, a highly moral phenomenon.”

“And is that establishment of your father’s also a moral phenomenon?” muttered Bazarov, pointing to a vodka shop which they were passing at that moment.

Sitnikov again gave vent to his shrill laugh. He was much ashamed of his origin, and hardly knew whether to feel flattered or offended by Bazarov’s unexpected familiarity.

Two days later the Governor’s ball took place. Matvei Ilyich was the real hero of the occasion. The marshal of nobility announced to all and sundry that he had come only out of respect for him, while the governor, even at the ball, and even while he was standing still, continued to “make arrangements.” The amiability of Matvei Ilyich’s manner was equaled only by his dignity. He behaved graciously to everyone, to some with a shade of disgust, to others with a shade of respect, he was gallant, “en vrai chevalier français,/” to all the ladies, and was continually bursting into hearty resounding laughter, in which no one else joined, as befits a high official. He slapped Arkady on the back and called him “nephew” loudly, bestowed on Bazarov — who was dressed in a shabby frock coat — an absent-minded but indulgent sidelong glance, and an indistinct but affable grunt in which the words “I” and “very” were vaguely distinguishable; held out a finger to Sitnikov and smiled at him though his head had already turned round to greet someone else; even to Madame Kukshina, who appeared at the ball without a crinoline, wearing dirty gloves and a bird of paradise in her hair, he said “enchanté/.” There were crowds of people and plenty of men dancers; most of the civilians stood in rows along the walls, but the officers danced assiduously, especially one who had spent six weeks in Paris, where he had mastered several daring exclamations such as — zut, Ah fichtre, pst, pst, mon bibi,and so on. He pronounced them perfectly with real genuine Parisian chic, and at the same time he said “si j’aurais“ instead of “si j’avais,/” and “absolument“ in the sense of “absolutely,” expressed himself in fact in that great Russo-French jargon which the French laugh at when they have no reason to assure us that we speak French like angels — ”comme des anges.”

Arkady danced badly, as we already know, and Bazarov did not dance at all. They both took up their position in a corner, where Sitnikov joined them. With an expression of contemptuous mockery on his face, he uttered one spiteful remark after another, looked insolently around him, and appeared to be thoroughly enjoying himself. Suddenly his face changed, and turning to Arkady he said in a rather embarrassed tone, “Odintsova has arrived.”

Arkady looked round and saw a tall woman in a black dress standing near the door. He was struck by her dignified bearing. Her bare arms lay gracefully across her slim waist; light sprays of fuchsia hung from her shining hair over her sloping shoulders; her clear eyes looked out from under a prominent white forehead; their expression was calm and intelligent — calm but not pensive — and her lips showed a scarcely perceptible smile. A sort of affectionate and gentle strength emanated from her face.

“Do you know her?” Arkady asked Sitnikov.

“Very well. Would you like me to introduce you?”

“Please . . . after this quadrille.”

Bazarov also noticed Madame Odintsov.

“What a striking figure,” he said. “She’s not like the other females.”

When the quadrille was over, Sitnikov led Arkady over to Madame Odintsov. But he hardly seemed to know her at all, and stumbled over his words, while she looked at him in some surprise. But she looked pleased when she heard Arkady’s family name, and she asked him whether he was not the son of Nikolai Petrovich.

“Yes!”

“I have seen your father twice and heard a lot about him,” she went on. “I am very glad to meet you.”

At this moment some adjutant rushed up to her and asked her for a quadrille. She accepted.

“Do you dance then?” asked Arkady respectfully.

“Yes, and why should you suppose I don’t dance? Do you think I’m too old?”

“Please, how could I possibly . . . but in that case may I ask you for a mazurka?”

Madame Odintsov smiled graciously. “Certainly,” she said, and looked at Arkady, not exactly patronizingly but in the way married sisters look at very young brothers. She was in fact not much older than Arkady — she was twenty-nine — but in her presence he felt like a schoolboy, so that the difference in their ages seemed to matter much more. Matvei Ilyich came up to her in a majestic manner and started to pay her compliments. Arkady moved aside, but he still watched her; he could not take his eyes off her even during the quadrille. She talked to her partner as easily as she had to the grand official, slightly turning her head and eyes, and once or twice she laughed softly. Her nose — like most Russian noses — was rather thick, and her complexion was not translucently clear; nevertheless Arkady decided that he had never before met such a fascinating woman. The sound of her voice clung to his ears, the very folds of her dress seemed to fall differently — more gracefully and amply than on other women — and her movements were wonderfully flowing and at the same time natural.

Arkady was overcome by shyness when at the first sounds of the mazurka he took a seat beside his partner; he wanted to talk to her, but he only passed his hand through his hair and could not find a single word to say. But his shyness and agitation soon passed; Madame Odintsov’s tranquillity communicated itself to him; within a quarter of an hour he was telling her freely about his father, his uncle, his life in Petersburg and in the country. Madame Odintsov listened to him with courteous sympathy, slowly opening and closing her fan. The conversation was broken off when her partners claimed her; Sitnikov, among others, asked her to dance twice. She came back, sat down again, took up her fan, and did not even breathe more rapidly, while Arkady started talking again, penetrated through and through by the happiness of being near her, talking to her, looking at her eyes, her lovely forehead and her whole charming, dignified and intelligent face. She said little, but her words showed an understanding of life; judging by some of her remarks Arkady came to the conclusion that this young woman had already experienced and thought a great deal . . .

“Who is that you were standing with,” she asked him, “when Mr. Sitnikov brought you over to me?”

“So you noticed him?” asked Arkady in his turn. “He has a wonderful face, hasn’t he? That’s my friend Bazarov.”

Arkady went on to discuss “his friend.” He spoke of him in such detail and with so much enthusiasm that Madame Odintsov turned round and looked at him attentively. Meanwhile the mazurka was drawing to a close. Arkady was sorry to leave his partner, he had spent almost an hour with her so happily! Certainly he had felt the whole time as though she were showing indulgence to him, as though he ought to be grateful to her . . . but young hearts are not weighed down by that feeling.

The music stopped.

“Merci,” murmured Madame Odintsov, rising.

“You promised to pay me a visit; bring your friend with you. I am very curious to meet a man who has the courage to believe in nothing.”

The governor came up to Madame Odintsov, announced that supper was ready, and with a worried look offered her his arm. As she went out, she turned to smile once more at Arkady. He bowed low, followed her with his eyes (how graceful her figure seemed to him, how radiant in the sober luster of the black silk folds!) and he was conscious of some kind of refreshing humility of soul as he thought, “This very minute she has forgotten my existence.”

“Well?” Bazarov asked Arkady as soon as he had returned to the corner. “Did you have a good time? A man has just told me that your lady is — oh never mind what — but the fellow is probably a fool. What do you think? Is she?”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” said Arkady.

“My goodness, what innocence!”

“In that case I don’t understand the man you quote. Madame Odintsov is very charming, but she is so cold and reserved that . . .”

“Still waters run deep, you know,” interposed Bazarov. “You say she is cold; that just adds to the flavor. You like ices, I expect.”

“Perhaps,” muttered Arkady. “I can’t express any opinion about that. She wants to meet you and asked me to bring you over to visit her.”

“I can imagine how you described me! Never mind, you did well. Take me along. Whoever she may be, whether she’s just a provincial climber or an ‘emancipated’ woman like Kukshina — anyhow she’s got a pair of shoulders the like of which I haven’t seen for a long time.”

Arkady was hurt by Bazarov’s cynicism, but — as often happens — he did not blame his friend for those particular things which he disliked in him . . .

“Why do you disagree with free thought for women?” he asked in a low voice.

“Because, my lad, as far as I can see, free-thinking women are all monsters.”

The conversation was cut short at this point. Both young men left immediately after supper. They were pursued by a nervously angry but fainthearted laugh from Madame Kukshina, whose vanity had been deeply wounded by the fact that neither of them had paid the slightest attention to her. She stayed later than anyone else at the ball, and at four o’clock in the morning she was dancing a polka-mazurka in Parisian style with Sitnikov. The governor’s ball culminated in this edifying spectacle.

Chapter 15

“We’ll soon see to what species of mammal this specimen belongs,” Bazarov said to Arkady the following day as they mounted the staircase of the hotel where Madame Odintsov was staying. “I can smell something wrong here.”

“I’m surprised at you,” cried Arkady. “What? You, of all people, Bazarov, clinging to that narrow morality which . . .”

“What a funny fellow you are!” said Bazarov carelessly, cutting him short. “Don’t you know that in my dialect and for my purpose ‘something wrong’ means ‘something right’? That’s just my advantage. Didn’t you tell me yourself this morning that she made a strange marriage, though, to my mind to marry a rich old man is far from a strange thing to do — but on the contrary, sensible enough. I don’t believe the gossip of the town, but I should like to think, as our enlightened governor says, that it’s just.”

Arkady made no answer, and knocked at the door of the apartment. A young servant in livery ushered the two friends into a large room, furnished in bad taste like all Russian hotel rooms, but filled with flowers. Madame Odintsov soon appeared in a simple morning dress. In the light of the spring sunshine she looked even younger than before. Arkady introduced Bazarov, and noticed with concealed astonishment that he seemed embarrassed, while Madame Odintsov remained perfectly calm, as she had been on the previous day. Bazarov was himself conscious of feeling embarrassed and was annoyed about it. “What an idea! Frightened of a female,” he thought, and lolling in an armchair, quite like Sitnikov, he began to talk in an exaggeratedly casual manner, while Madame Odintsov kept her clear eyes fixed on him.

Anna Sergeyevna Odintsova was the daughter of Sergei Nikolayevich Loktev, notorious for his personal beauty, speculations and gambling, who after fifteen years of a stormy and sensational life in Petersburg and Moscow, ended by ruining himself completely at cards and was obliged to retire to the country, where soon afterwards he died, leaving a very small property to his two daughters — Anna, a girl of twenty at that time, and Katya, a child of twelve. Their mother, who belonged to an impoverished princely family, had died in Petersburg while her husband was still in his heyday. Anna’s position after her father’s death was a very difficult one. The brilliant education which she had received in Petersburg had not fitted her for the cares of domestic and household economy — nor for an obscure life buried in the country. She knew no one in the whole neighborhood, and there was no one she could consult. Her father had tried to avoid all contact with his neighbors; he despised them in his way and they despised him in theirs. However, she did not lose her head, and promptly sent for a sister of her mother’s, Princess Avdotya Stepanovna X. — a spiteful, arrogant old lady who, on installing herself in her niece’s house, appropriated the best rooms for herself, grumbled and scolded from morning till night and refused to walk a step, even in the garden, without being attended by her one and only serf, a surly footman in a threadbare pea-green livery with light-blue trimming and a three-cornered hat. Anna patiently put up with all her aunt’s caprices, gradually set to work on her sister’s education and, it seemed, was already reconciled to the idea of fading away in the wilderness . . . But fate had decreed otherwise. She happened to be seen by a certain Odintsov, a wealthy man of forty-six, an eccentric hypochondriac, swollen, heavy and sour, but not stupid and quite good-natured; he fell in love with her and proposed marriage. She agreed to become his wife, and they lived together for six years; then he died, leaving her all his property. For nearly a year after his death Anna Sergeyevna remained in the country; then she went abroad with her sister, but stayed only in Germany; she soon grew tired of it and came back to live at her beloved Nikolskoe, nearly thirty miles from the town of X. Her house was magnificent, luxuriously furnished and had a beautiful garden with conservatories; her late husband had spared no expense to gratify his wishes. Anna Sergeyevna rarely visited the town, and as a rule only on business; even then she did not stay long. She was not popular in the province; there had been a fearful outcry when she married Odintsov; all sorts of slanderous stories were invented about her; it was asserted that she had helped her father in his gambling escapades and even that she had gone abroad for a special reason to conceal some unfortunate consequences . . . “You understand?” the indignant gossips would conclude. “She has been through fire and water,” they said of her, to which a noted provincial wit added “And through the brass instruments.” All this talk reached her, but she turned a deaf ear to it; she had an independent and sufficiently determined character.

Madame Odintsov sat leaning back in her armchair, her hands folded, and listened to Bazarov. Contrary to his habit, he was talking a lot and was obviously trying to interest her — which also surprised Arkady. He could not be sure whether Bazarov had achieved his object, for it was difficult to learn from Anna Sergeyevna’s face what impression was being made on her; it retained the same gracious refined look; her bright eyes shone with attention, but it was an unruffled attention. During the first minutes of the visit, Bazarov’s awkward manners had impressed her disagreeably, like a bad smell, or a discordant sound; but she saw at once that he was nervous and that flattered her. Only the commonplace was repulsive to her, and no one would have accused Bazarov of being commonplace. Arkady had several surprises in store for him that day. He had expected that Bazarov would talk to an intelligent woman like Madame Odintsov about his convictions and views; she herself had expressed a desire to hear the man “who dares to believe in nothing,” but instead of that Bazarov talked about medicine, about homeopathy and about botany. It turned out that Madame Odintsov had not wasted her time in solitude; she had read a number of good books and herself spoke an excellent Russian. She turned the conversation to music, but, observing that Bazarov had no appreciation of art, quietly turned it back to botany, although Arkady was just launching out on a discourse about the significance of national melodies. Madame Odintsov continued to treat him as though he were a younger brother; she seemed to appreciate his good nature and youthful simplicity — and that was all. A lively conversation went on for over three hours, ranging freely over a variety of subjects.

At last the friends got up and began to take their leave. Anna Sergeyevna looked at them kindly, held out her beautiful white hand to each in turn, and after a moment’s thought, said with a diffident but delightful smile, “If you are not afraid of being bored, gentlemen, come and see me at Nikolskoe.”

“Oh, Anna Sergeyevna,” cried Arkady, “that will be the greatest happiness for me.”

“And you, Monsieur Bazarov?”

Bazarov only bowed — and Arkady had yet another surprise; he noticed that his friend was blushing.

“Well,” he said to him in the street, “do you still think she’s . . .”

“Who can tell! Just see how frozen she is!” answered Bazarov; then after a short pause he added, “She’s a real Grand Duchess, a commanding sort of person; she only needs a train behind her, and a crown on her head.”

“Our Grand Duchesses can’t talk Russian like that,” observed Arkady.

“She has known ups and downs, my lad; she’s been hard up.”

“Anyhow, she’s delightful,” said Arkady.

“What a magnificent body,” went on Bazarov. “How I should like to see it on the dissecting table.”

“Stop, for heaven’s sake, Evgeny! You go too far!”

“Well, don’t get angry, you baby! I meant it’s first-rate. We must go to stay with her.”

“When?”

“Well, why not the day after tomorrow. What is there to do here? Drink champagne with Kukshina? Listen to your cousin, the liberal statesman? . . . Let’s be off the day after tomorrow. By the way — my father’s little place is not far from there. This Nikolskoe is on the X. road, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent. Why hesitate? Leave that to fools — and intellectuals. I say — what a splendid body!”

Three days later the two friends were driving along the road to Nikolskoe. The day was bright and not too hot, and the plump post horses trotted smartly along, flicking their tied and plaited tails. Arkady looked at the road, and, without knowing why, he smiled.

“Congratulate me,” exclaimed Bazarov suddenly. “Today’s the 22nd of June, my saint’s day. Let us see how he will watch over me. They expect me home today,” he added, dropping his voice . . . “Well, they can wait — what does it matter!”

Chapter 16

The country house in which Anna Sergeyevna lived stood on the slope of a low hill not far from a yellow stone church with a green roof, white columns, and decorated with a fresco over the main entrance, representing The Resurrection of Christ in the Italian style. Especially remarkable for its voluminous contours was the figure of a swarthy soldier in a helmet, sprawling in the foreground of the picture. Behind the church stretched a long village street with chimneys peeping out here and there from thatched roofs. The manor house was built in the same style as the church, the style now famous as that of Alexander I; the whole house was painted yellow, and it had a green roof, white columns and a pediment with a coat of arms carved on it. The provincial architect had designed both buildings according to the instructions of the late Odintsov, who could not endure — as he expressed it — senseless and arbitrary innovations. The house was flanked on both sides by the dark trees of an old garden; an avenue of clipped pines led up to the main entrance,

Our friends were met in the hall by two tall footmen in livery; one of them ran at once to fetch the butler. The butler, a stout man in a black tail coat, promptly appeared and led the visitors up a staircase covered with rugs into a specially prepared room in which two beds had been arranged with every kind of toilet accessory. It was evident that order reigned in the house; everything was clean, and there was everywhere a peculiar dignified fragrance such as one encounters in ministerial reception rooms.

“Anna Sergeyevna asks you to come to see her in half an hour,” the butler announced. “Have you any orders to give meanwhile?”

“No orders, my good sir,” answered Bazarov, “but perhaps you will kindly trouble yourself to bring a glass of vodka.”

“Certainly, sir,” said the butler, looking rather surprised, and went out, his boots creaking.

“What grand genre,” remarked Bazarov, “that’s what you call it in your set, I think. A Grand Duchess complete.”

“A nice Grand Duchess,” answered Arkady, “to invite straight away such great aristocrats as you and me to stay with her.”

“Especially me, a future doctor and a doctor’s son, and grandson of a village priest . . . you know that, I suppose . . . a village priest’s grandson, like the statesman Speransky ,” added Bazarov, after a brief silence, pursing his lips. “Anyhow, she gives herself the best of everything, this pampered lady! Shan’t we soon find ourselves wearing tail coats?”

Arkady only shrugged his shoulders . . . but he, too, felt a certain embarrassment.

Half an hour later Bazarov and Arkady made their way together into the drawing room. It was a large lofty room, luxuriously furnished but with little personal taste. Heavy expensive furniture stood in a conventional stiff arrangement along the walls, which were covered in a buff wall paper decorated with golden arabesques. Odintsov had ordered the furniture from Moscow through a wine merchant who was a friend and agent of his. Over a sofa in the center of one wall hung a portrait of a flabby fair-haired man, which seemed to look disapprovingly at the visitors. “It must be the late husband,” whispered Bazarov to Arkady. “Shall we dash off?” But at that moment the hostess entered. She wore a light muslin dress; her hair, smoothly brushed back behind her ears, imparted a girlish expression to her pure, fresh face.

“Thank you for keeping your promise,” she began. “You must stay a little while; you won’t find it so bad here. I will introduce you to my sister; she plays the piano well. That’s a matter of indifference to you, Monsieur Bazarov, but you, Monsieur Kirsanov, are fond of music, I believe. Apart from my sister, an old aunt lives with me, and a neighbor sometimes comes over to play cards. That makes up our whole circle. And now let us sit down.”

Madame Odintsov delivered this whole little speech very fluently and distinctly, as if she had learned it by heart; then she turned to Arkady. It appeared that her mother had known Arkady’s mother and had even been her confidante in her love for Nikolai Petrovich. Arkady began to talk with warm feeling about his dead mother; meanwhile Bazarov sat and looked through some albums. “What a tame cat I’ve become,” he thought.

A beautiful white wolfhound with a blue collar ran into the drawing room and tapped on the floor with its paws; it was followed by a girl of eighteen with a round and pleasing face and small dark eyes. In her hands she held a basket filled with flowers.

“This is my Katya,” said Madame Odintsov, nodding in her direction.

Katya made a slight curtsey, sat down beside her sister and began arranging the flowers. The wolfhound, whose name was Fifi, went up to both visitors in turn, wagging its tail and thrusting its cold nose into their hands.

“Did you pick them all yourself?” asked Madame Odintsov.

“Yes,” answered Katya.

“Is auntie coming down for tea?”

“She’s coming.”

When Katya spoke, her face had a charming smile, at once bashful and candid, and she looked up from under her eyebrows with a kind of amusing severity. Everything about her was naive and undeveloped, her voice, the downy bloom on her face, the rosy hands with white palms and the rather narrow shoulders . . . she was constantly blushing and she breathed quickly.

Madame Odintsov turned to Bazarov. “You are looking at pictures out of politeness, Evgeny Vassilich,” she began. “It doesn’t interest you, so you had better come and join us, and we will have a discussion about something.”

Bazarov moved nearer. “What have you decided to discuss?” he muttered.

“Whatever you like. I warn you, I am dreadfully argumentative.”

“You?”

“Yes. That seems to surprise you. Why?”

“Because, so far as I can judge, you have a calm and cool temperament and to be argumentative one needs to get excited.”

“How have you managed to sum me up so quickly? In the first place I am impatient and persistent — you should ask Katya; and secondly I am very easily carried away.”

Bazarov looked at Anna Sergeyevna.

“Perhaps. You know best. Very well, if you want a discussion — so be it. I was looking at the views of Swiss mountains in your albums, and you remarked that they couldn’t interest me. You said that because you suppose I have no artistic feeling — and it is true I have none; but those views might interest me from a geological standpoint, for studying the formation of mountains, for instance.”

“Excuse me; but as a geologist, you would rather study a book, some special work on the subject and not a drawing.”

“The drawing shows me at one glance what might be spread over ten pages in a book.”

Anna Sergeyevna was silent for a few moments.

“So you have no feeling whatsoever for art?” she said, leaning her elbow on the table and by so doing bringing her face nearer to Bazarov. “How do you manage without it?”

“Why, what is it needed for, may I ask?”

“Well, at least to help one to know and understand people.”

Bazarov smiled. “In the first place, experience of life does that, and in the second, I assure you the study of separate individuals is not worth the trouble it involves. All people resemble each other, in soul as well as in body; each of us has a brain, spleen, heart and lungs of similar construction; the so-called moral qualities are the same in all of us; the slight variations are insignificant. It is enough to have one single human specimen in order to judge all the others. People are like trees in a forest; no botanist would think of studying each individual birch tree.”

Katya, who was arranging the flowers one by one in a leisurely way, raised her eyes to Bazarov with a puzzled expression, and meeting his quick casual glance, she blushed right up to her ears. Anna Sergeyevna shook her head.

“The trees in a forest,” she repeated. “Then according to you there is no difference between a stupid and an intelligent person, or between a good and a bad one.”

“No, there is a difference, as there is between the sick and the healthy. The lungs of a consumptive person are not in the same condition as yours or mine, although their construction is the same. We know more or less what causes physical ailments; but moral diseases are caused by bad education, by all the rubbish with which people’s heads are stuffed from childhood onwards, in short, by the disordered state of society. Reform society, and there will be no diseases.”

Bazarov said all this with an air as though he were all the while thinking to himself. “Believe me or not as you wish, it’s all the same to me!” He slowly passed his long fingers over his whiskers and his eyes strayed round the room.

“And you suppose,” said Anna Sergeyevna, “that when society is reformed there will be no longer any stupid or wicked people?”

“At any rate, in a properly organized society it will make no difference whether a man is stupid or clever, bad or good.”

“Yes, I understand. They will all have the same spleen.”

“Exactly, madam.”

Madame Odintsov turned to Arkady. “And what is your opinion, Arkady Nikolayevich?”

“I agree with Evgeny,” he answered.

Katya looked at him from under her eyelids.

“You amaze me, gentlemen,” commented Madame Odintsov, “but we will talk about this again. I hear my aunt now coming in to tea — we must spare her.”

Anna Sergeyevna’s aunt, Princess X., a small shriveled woman with a pinched-up face like a fist, with staring bad-tempered eyes under her grey brows, came in, and scarcely bowing to the guests, sank into a broad velvet-covered armchair, in which no one except herself was privileged to sit. Katya put a stool under her feet; the old lady did not thank her or even look at her, only her hands shook under the yellow shawl which almost covered her decrepit body. The princess liked yellow, even her cap had yellow ribbons.

“How did you sleep, auntie?” asked Madame Odintsov, raising her voice.

“That dog here again,” mumbled the old lady in reply, and noticing that Fifi was making two hesitating steps in her direction, she hissed loudly.

Katya called Fifi and opened the door for her. Fifi rushed out gaily, imagining she was going to be taken for a walk, but when she found herself left alone outside the door she began to scratch and whine. The princess frowned. Katya rose to go out . . .

“I expect tea is ready,” said Madame Odintsov. “Come, gentlemen; auntie, will you go in to tea?”

The princess rose from her chair without speaking and led the way out of the drawing room. They all followed her into the dining room. A little Cossack page drew back noisily from the table a chair covered with cushions, also dedicated to the princess, who sank into it. Katya, who poured out tea, handed her first a cup decorated with a coat of arms. The old lady helped herself to honey, which she put in her cup (she considered it both sinful and extravagant to drink tea with sugar in it, although she never spent a penny of her own on anything), and suddenly asked in a hoarse voice, “And what does Prince Ivan write?”

No one made any reply. Bazarov and Arkady soon observed that the family paid no attention to her although they treated her respectfully. “They put up with her because of her princely family,” thought Bazarov. After tea Anna Sergeyevna suggested that they should go out for a walk, but it began to rain a little, and the whole party, except the princess, returned to the drawing room. The neighbor arrived, the devoted cardplayer; his name was Porfiri Platonich, a plump greyish little man with short spindly legs, very polite and jocular. Anna Sergeyevna, who still talked principally to Bazarov, asked him whether he would like to play an old-fashioned game of preference with them. Bazarov accepted, saying that he certainly needed to prepare himself in advance for the duties in store for him as a country doctor.

“You must be careful,” remarked Anna Sergeyevna; “Porfiri Platonich and I will defeat you. And you, Katya,” she added, “play something to Arkady Nikolaich; he’s fond of music, and we shall enjoy listening too.”

Katya went unwillingly to the piano, and Arkady, although he was genuinely fond of music, unwillingly followed her; it seemed to him that Madame Odintsov was getting rid of him, and he felt already like most young men of his age, a vague and oppressive excitement, like a foretaste of love. Katya lifted the lid of the piano, and without looking at Arkady, asked in an undertone “What am I to play to you?”

“What you like,” answered Arkady indifferently.

“What sort of music do you prefer?” went on Katya, without changing her attitude.

“Classical,” answered Arkady in the same tone of voice.

“Do you like Mozart?”

“Yes, I like Mozart.”

Katya pulled out Mozart’s Sonata Fantasia in C minor. She played very well, although a little too precisely and drily. She sat upright and motionless without taking her eyes off the music, her lips tightly compressed, and only towards the end of the sonata her face started to glow, her hair loosened and a little lock fell over her dark brow.

Arkady was especially struck by the last part of the sonata, the part where the enchanting gaiety of the careless melody at its height is suddenly broken into by the pangs of such a sad and almost tragic suffering . . . but the ideas inspired in him by the sounds of Mozart were not related to Katya. Looking at her, he merely thought, “Well, that young lady doesn’t play too badly, and she’s not bad looking, either.”

When she had finished the sonata, Katya, without taking her hands from the keys, asked, “Is that enough?”

Arkady said that he would not venture to trouble her further, and began talking to her about Mozart; he asked her whether she had chosen that sonata herself, or someone else had recommended it to her. But Katya answered him in monosyllables and withdrew into herself. When this happened, she did not come out again quickly; at such times her face took on an obstinate, almost stupid expression. She was not exactly shy, but she was diffident and rather overawed by her sister, who had educated her, but who never even suspected that such a feeling existed in Katya. Arkady was at length reduced to calling Fifi over to him and stroking her on the head with a benevolent smile in order to create the impression of being at his ease. Katya went on arranging her flowers.

Meanwhile Bazarov was losing and losing. Anna Sergeyevna played cards with masterly skill; Porfiri Platonich also knew how to hold his own. Bazarov lost a sum, which though trifling in itself, was none too pleasant for him. At supper Anna Sergeyevna again turned the conversation to botany.

“Let us go for a walk tomorrow morning,” she said to him; “I want you to teach me the Latin names of several wild plants and their species.”

“What’s the good of the Latin names to you?” asked Bazarov.

“Order is needed for everything,” she answered.

“What a wonderful woman Anna Sergeyevna is!” cried Arkady, when he was alone in their room with his friend.

“Yes,” answered Bazarov, “a female with brains; and she’s seen life too.”

“In what sense do you mean that, Evgeny Vassilich?”

“In a good sense, in a good sense, my worthy Arkady Nikolayevich! I’m sure she also manages her estate very efficiently. But what is wonderful is not her, but her sister.”

“What? That little dark creature?”

“Yes, the little dark creature — she’s fresh, untouched and shy and silent, anything you want . . . one could work on her and make something out of her — but the other — she’s an experienced hand.”

Arkady did not answer Bazarov, and each of them got into bed occupied with his own particular thoughts.

Anna Sergeyevna was also thinking about her guests that evening. She liked Bazarov for his absence of flattery and for his definite downright views. She found in him something new, which she had not met before, and she was curious. Anna Sergeyevna was a rather strange person. Having no prejudices at all, and no strong convictions either, she neither avoided things nor went out of her way to secure anything special. She was clear-sighted and she had many interests, but nothing completely satisfied her; indeed, she hardly desired any complete satisfaction. Her mind was at once inquiring and indifferent; though her doubts were never soothed by forgetfulness, they never grew powerful enough to agitate her disagreeably. Had she not been rich and independent, she would probably have thrown herself into the struggle and experienced passion . . . But life ran easily for her, although she was sometimes bored, and she went on from day to day without hurrying and only rarely feeling disturbed. Rainbow-colored visions sometimes glowed before her eyes, but she breathed more peacefully when they faded away, and she did not hanker after them. Her imagination certainly overstepped the limits of conventional morality, but all the time her blood flowed as quietly as ever in her charmingly graceful, tranquil body. Sometimes, emerging from her fragrant bath, warm and languid, she would start musing on the emptiness of life, its sorrow, labor and vindictiveness . . . her soul would be filled with sudden daring and burn with generous ardor; but then a draught would blow from a half-open window and Anna Sergeyevna would shrink back into herself with a plaintive, almost angry feeling, and there was only one thing she needed at that particular moment — to get away from that nasty draught.

Like all women who have not succeeded in loving, she wanted something without knowing what it was. Actually she wanted nothing, though it seemed to her that she wanted everything. She could hardly endure the late Odintsov (she married him for practical reasons though she might not have agreed to become his wife if she had not regarded him as a good-natured man), and she had conceived a hidden repugnance for all men, whom she could think of only as slovenly, clumsy, dull, feebly irritating creatures. Once, somewhere abroad, she had met a handsome young Swede with a chivalrous expression and with honest eyes under an open brow; he made a strong impression on her, but that had not prevented her from returning to Russia.

“A strange man this doctor,” she thought as she lay in her magnificent bed, on lace pillows under a light silk eiderdown. Anna Sergeyevna had inherited from her father some of his passion for luxury. She had been devoted to him, and he had idolized her, used to joke with her as though she were a friend and equal, confided his secrets to her and asked her advice. Her mother she scarcely remembered.

“This doctor is a strange man,” she repeated to herself. She stretched, smiled, clasped her hands behind her head, ran her eyes over two pages of a stupid French novel, dropped the book — and fell asleep, pure and cold in her clean and fragrant linen.

The following morning Anna Sergeyevna went off botanizing with Bazarov immediately after breakfast and returned just before dinner; Arkady did not go out anywhere, but spent about an hour with Katya. He was not bored in her company. She offered of her own accord to play the Mozart sonata again; but when Madame Odintsov came back at last and he caught sight of her, he felt a sudden pain in his heart . . . She walked through the garden with a rather tired step, her cheeks were burning and her eyes shone more brightly than usual under her round straw hat. She was twirling in her fingers the thin stalk of some wild flower, her light shawl had slipped down to her elbows, and the broad grey ribbons of her hat hung over her bosom. Bazarov walked behind her, self-confident and casual as ever, but Arkady disliked the expression of his face, although it was cheerful and even affectionate. Bazarov muttered “Good day” between his teeth and went straight to his room, and Madame Odintsov shook Arkady’s hand absent-mindedly and also walked past him.

“Why good day?” thought Arkady. “As if we had not seen each other already today!”

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