As we all know, time sometimes flies like a bird, and sometimes crawls like a worm, but people may be unusually happy when they do not even notice whether time has passed quickly or slowly; in this way Arkady and Bazarov spent a whole fortnight with Madame Odintsov. Such a result was achieved partly by the order and regularity which she had established in her house and mode of life. She adhered strictly to this order herself and obliged others to submit to it as well. Everything during the day was done at a fixed time. In the morning, at eight o’clock precisely, the whole party assembled for tea; from then till breakfast everyone did what he liked, the hostess herself was engaged with her bailiff (the estate was run on the rental system), her butler, and her head housekeeper. Before dinner the party met again for conversation or reading; the evening was devoted to walking, cards, or music; at half-past ten Anna Sergeyevna retired to her own room, gave her orders for the next day and went to bed. Bazarov did not care for this measured and rather formal regularity in daily life, like “gliding along rails” he called it; livened footmen and stately butlers offended his democratic sentiments. He declared that once you went so far you might as well dine in the English style — in tail coats and white ties. He once spoke out his views on the subject to Anna Sergeyevna. Her manner was such that people never hesitated to say what they thought in front of her. She heard him out, and then remarked, “From your point of view you are right — and perhaps in that way I am too much of a lady — but one must lead an orderly life in the country; otherwise one is overcome by boredom,” — and she continued to go her own way. Bazarov grumbled, but both he and Arkady found life easy at Madame Odintsov’s just because everything in the house ran so smoothly “on rails.” Nevertheless some change had occurred in both the young men since the first days of their stay at Nikolskoe. Bazarov, whose company Anna Sergeyevna obviously enjoyed, though she rarely agreed with him, began to show quite unprecedented signs of unrest; he was easily irritated, spoke with reluctance, often looked angry, and could not sit still in one place, as if moved about by some irresistible desire; while Arkady, who had conclusively made up his mind that he was in love with Madame Odintsov, began to abandon himself to a quiet melancholy. This melancholy, however, did not prevent him from making friends with Katya; it even helped him to develop a more affectionate relationship with her. “She does not appreciate me!” he thought. “So be it . . . ! but here is a kind person who does not repulse me,” and his heart again knew the sweetness of generous emotions. Katya vaguely understood that he was seeking a kind of consolation in her company, and did not deny him or herself the innocent pleasure of a shy confidential friendship. They did not talk to each other in Anna Sergeyevna’s presence; Katya always shrank into herself under her sister’s sharp eyes, while Arkady naturally could pay attention to nothing else when he was close to the object of his love; but he felt happy with Katya when he was alone with her. He knew that it was beyond his power to interest Madame Odintsov; he was shy and at a loss when he was left in her company, nor had she anything special to say to him; he was too young for her. On the other hand, with Katya Arkady felt quite at home; he treated her indulgently, encouraged her to talk about her own impressions of music, novels, verses and other trifles, without noticing or acknowledging that these trifles interested him also. Katya, for her part, did not interfere with his melancholy. Arkady felt at ease with Katya, and Madame Odintsov with Bazarov, so it usually happened that after the two couples had been together for a while, they went off on their separate ways, especially during walks. Katya adored nature, and so did Arkady, though he did not dare to admit it; Madame Odintsov, like Bazarov, was rather indifferent to natural beauties. The continued separation of the two friends produced its consequences; their relationship began to change. Bazarov gave up talking to Arkady about Madame Odintsov, he even stopped abusing her “aristocratic habits”; however, he continued to praise Katya, and advised Arkady only to restrain her sentimental tendencies, but his praises were hurried and perfunctory, his advice was dry, and in general he talked much less to Arkady than before . . . he seemed to avoid him, he was ill at ease in his presence . . .

Arkady observed all this, but kept his observations to himself.

The real cause of all this “novelty” was the feeling inspired in Bazarov by Madame Odintsov, a feeling which at once tortured and maddened him, and which he would have promptly denied with contemptuous laughter and cynical abuse if anyone had even remotely hinted at the possibility of what was happening within him. Bazarov was very fond of women and of feminine beauty, but love in the ideal, or as he called it romantic, sense, he described as idiocy, unpardonable folly; he regarded chivalrous feelings as a kind of deformity or disease, and had more than once expressed his amazement that Toggenburg and all the minnesingers and troubadours had not been shut up in a lunatic asylum. “If a woman appeals to you,” he used to say, “try to gain your end; and if you can’t — well, just turn your back on her — there are lots more good fish in the sea.” Madame Odintsov appealed to him; the rumors he had heard about her, the freedom and independence of her ideas, her obvious liking for him — all seemed to be in his favor; but he soon saw that with her he could not “gain his end,” and as for turning his back on her, he found, to his own amazement, he had no strength to do so. His blood was on fire directly he thought about her; he could easily have mastered his blood, but something else was taking possession of him, something he had never allowed, at which he had always scoffed and at which his pride revolted. In his conversations with Anna Sergeyevna he expressed more strongly than ever his calm indifference to any kind of “romanticism”; but when he was alone he indignantly recognized romanticism in himself. Then he would go off into the forest, and stride about smashing the twigs which came in his way and cursing under his breath both her and himself; or he would go into the hayloft in the barn, and obstinately closing his eyes, force himself to sleep, in which, of course, he did not always succeed. Suddenly he would imagine those chaste hands twining themselves around his neck, those proud lips responding to his kisses, those intelligent eyes looking with tenderness — yes, with tenderness — into his, and his head went round, and he forgot himself for a moment, till indignation boiled up again within him. He caught himself indulging in all sorts of “shameful thoughts,” as though a devil were mocking at him. It seemed to him sometimes that a change was also taking place in Madame Odintsov, that her face expressed something unusual, that perhaps . . . but at that point he would stamp on the ground, grind his teeth or clench his fist.

Meanwhile he was not entirely mistaken. He had struck Madame Odintsov’s imagination; he interested her; she thought a lot about him. In his absence she was not exactly bored, she did not wait for him with impatience, but when he appeared she immediately became livelier; she enjoyed being left alone with him and she enjoyed talking to him, even when he annoyed her or offended her taste and her refined habits. She seemed eager both to test him and to analyse herself.

One day, walking with her in the garden, he abruptly announced in a surly voice that he intended to leave very soon to go to his father’s place . . . She turned white, as if something had pricked her heart; she was surprised at the sudden pain she felt and pondered long afterwards on what it could mean. Bazarov had told her about his departure without any idea of trying out the effect of the news upon her; he never fabricated stories. That same morning he had seen his father’s bailiff, Timofeich, who had looked after him as a child. This Timofeich, an experienced and astute little old man, with faded yellow hair, a weather-beaten red face and with tiny teardrops in his shrunken eyes, had appeared quite unexpectedly in front of Bazarov, in his short coat of thick grey-blue cloth, leather girdle and tarred boots.

“Hullo, old man, how are you?” exclaimed Bazarov.

“How do you do, Evgeny Vassilich?” began the little old man, smiling with joy, so that his whole face was immediately covered with wrinkles.

“What have you come here for? They sent you to find me, eh?”

“Fancy that, sir! How is it possible?” mumbled Timofeich (he remembered the strict injunctions he had received from his master before he left). “We were sent to town on the master’s business and heard news of your honor, so we turned off on the way — well — to have a look at your honor . . . as if we could think of disturbing you!”

“Now then, don’t lie!” Bazarov cut him short. “It’s no use your pretending this is on the road to the town.”

Timofeich hesitated and said nothing.

“Is my father well?”

“Thank God, yes!”

“And my mother?”

“Arina Vlasyevna too, glory be to God.”

“They’re expecting me, I suppose.”

The old man leaned his little head on one side.

“Oh, Evgeny Vassilich, how they wait for you! Believe me, it makes the heart ache to see them.”

“All right, all right, don’t rub it in. Tell them I’m coming soon.”

“I obey,” answered Timofeich with a sigh.

As he left the house he pulled his cap down with both hands over his head, then clambered into a dilapidated racing carriage, and went off at a trot, but not in the direction of the town.

On the evening of that day Madame Odintsov was sitting in one room with Bazarov while Arkady walked up and down the hall listening to Katya playing the piano. The princess had gone upstairs to her own room; she always loathed visitors, but she resented particularly the “new raving lunatics,” as she called them. In the main rooms she only sulked, but she made up for that in her own room by bursting into such a torrent of abuse in front of her maid that the cap danced on her head, wig and all. Madame Odintsov knew all about this.

“How is it that you are proposing to leave us,” she began; “what about your promises?”

Bazarov made a movement of surprise. “What promises?”

“Have you forgotten? You intended to give me some chemistry lessons.”

“It can’t be helped! My father expects me; I can’t put it off any longer. Besides, you can read Pelouse et Frémy, Notions Générales de Chimie; it’s a good book and clearly written. You will find in it all you need.”

“But you remember you assured me that a book can’t take the place of . . . I forget how you put it, but you know what I mean . . . don’t you remember?”

“It can’t be helped,” repeated Bazarov.

“Why should you go?” said Madame Odintsov, dropping her voice.

He glanced at her. Her head had fallen on the back of the armchair and her arms, bare to the elbow, were folded over her bosom. She seemed paler in the light of the single lamp covered with a translucent paper shade. A broad white dress covered her completely in its soft folds; even the tips of her feet, also crossed, were hardly visible.

“And why should I stay?” answered Bazarov.

Madame Odintsov turned her head slightly. “You ask why. Have you not enjoyed staying here? Or do you think no one will miss you when you are gone?”

“I am sure of that.”

Madame Odintsov was silent for a moment. “You are wrong in thinking so. But I don’t believe you. You can’t say that seriously.” Bazarov continued to sit motionless. “Evgeny Vassilich, why don’t you speak?”

“What am I to say to you? There is no point in missing people, and that applies to me even more than to most.”

“Why so?”

“I’m a straightforward uninteresting person. I don’t know how to talk.”

“You are fishing for compliments, Evgeny Vassilich.”

“That’s not my custom. Don’t you know yourself that the graceful side of life, which you value so highly, is beyond my reach?”

Madame Odintsov bit the corner of her handkerchief.

“You may think what you like, but I shall find it dull when you go away.”

“Arkady will stay on,” remarked Bazarov. Madame Odintsov slightly shrugged her shoulders.

“It will be dull for me,” she repeated.

“Really? In any case you won’t feel like that for long.”

“What makes you suppose so?”

“Because you told me yourself that you are bored only when your orderly routine is disturbed. You have organized your life with such impeccable regularity that there can’t be any place left in it for boredom or sadness . . . for any painful emotions.”

“And do you consider that I am so impeccable . . . I mean, that I have organized my life so thoroughly . . .”

“I should think so! For example, in five minutes the clock will strike ten and I already know in advance that you will turn me out of the room.”

“No, I won’t turn you out, Evgeny Vassilich. You may stay. Open that window . . . I feel half stifled.”

Bazarov got up and pushed the window; it flew wide open with a crash . . . he had not expected it to open so easily; also, his hands were trembling. The soft dark night looked into the room, with its nearly black sky, its faintly rustling trees, and the fresh fragrance of the pure open air.

“Draw the blind and sit down,” said Madame Odintsov. “I want to have a talk with you before you go away. Tell me something about yourself; you never talk about yourself.”

“I try to talk to you about useful subjects, Anna Sergeyevna.”

“You are very modest . . . but I should like to know something about you, about your family and your father, for whom you are forsaking us.”

“Why is she talking like this?” thought Bazarov.

“All that is very uninteresting,” he said aloud, “particularly for you. We are obscure people.”

“You regard me as an aristocrat?”

Bazarov lifted his eyes and looked at Madame Odintsov.

“Yes,” he said with exaggerated harshness.

She smiled. “I see you know me very little, though of course you maintain that all people are alike and that it is not worth while studying individuals. I will tell the story of my life sometime . . . but first tell me yours.”

“I know you very little,” repeated Bazarov. “Perhaps you are right; perhaps really everyone is a riddle. You, for instance; you avoid society, you find it tedious — and you invited two students to stay with you. What makes you, with your beauty and your intelligence, live permanently in the country?”

“What? What did you say?” Madame Odintsov interposed eagerly, “with . . . my beauty?”

Bazarov frowned. “Never mind about that,” he muttered; “I wanted to say that I don’t properly understand why you settled in the country!”

“You don’t understand it . . . yet you explain it to yourself somehow?”

“Yes . . . I suppose that you prefer to remain in one place because you are self-indulgent, very fond of comfort and ease and very indifferent to everything else.”

Madame Odintsov smiled again.

“You absolutely refuse to believe that I am capable of being carried away by anything?”

Bazarov glanced at her from under his brows.

“By curiosity — perhaps, but in no other way.”

“Indeed? Well, now I understand why we have become such friends, you are just like me — ”

“We have become friends . . . ,” Bazarov muttered in a hollow voice.

“Yes. . . . Why, I had forgotten that you want to go away.”

Bazarov got up. The lamp burned dimly in the darkening, isolated fragrant room; the blind swayed from time to time and let in the stimulating freshness of the night and its mysterious whispers. Madame Odintsov did not stir, but a hidden excitement gradually took possession of her . . . It communicated itself to Bazarov. He suddenly felt he was alone with a young and beautiful woman . . .

“Where are you going?” she said slowly. He made no answer and sank into a chair.

“And so you consider me a placid, pampered, self-indulgent creature,” she continued in the same tone and without taking her eyes off the window. “But I know so much about myself that I am unhappy.”

“You unhappy! What for? Surely you can’t attach any importance to slanderous gossip!”

Madame Odintsov frowned. She was upset that he had understood her words in that way.

“Such gossip does not even amuse me, Evgeny Vassilich, and I am too proud to allow it to disturb me. I am unhappy because . . . I have no desires, no love of life. You look at me suspiciously; you think those are the words of an aristocrat who sits in lace on a velvet chair. I don’t deny for a moment that I like what you call comfort, and at the same time I have little desire to live. Reconcile that contradiction as best you can. Of course it is all sheer romanticism to you.”

Bazarov shook his head; “You are healthy, independent and rich; what more is left? What do you want?”

“What do I want,” repeated Madame Odintsov and sighed. “I am very tired, I am old, I feel as if I had lived a very long time. Yes, I am old — ” she added, softly drawing the ends of her shawl over her bare arms. Her eyes met Bazarov’s and she blushed slightly. “So many memories are behind me; life in Petersburg, wealth, then poverty, then my father’s death, marriage, then traveling abroad, as was inevitable . . . so many memories and so little worth remembering, and in front of me — a long, long road without a goal . . . I have not even the desire to go on.”

“Are you so disappointed?” asked Bazarov.

“No,” answered Madame Odintsov, speaking with deliberation, “but I am dissatisfied. I think if I were strongly attached to something . . .”

“You want to fall in love,” Bazarov interrupted her, “but you can’t love. That is your unhappiness.”

Madame Odintsov started looking at the shawl over her sleeve.

“Am I incapable of love?” she murmured.

“Hardly! But I was wrong in calling it unhappiness. On the contrary, a person should rather be pitied when that happens to him.”

“When what happens to him?”

“Falling in love.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I have heard it,” answered Bazarov angrily. “You are flirting,” he thought. “You’re bored and are playing with me for want of anything better to do, while I . . .” Truly his heart was torn.

“Besides, you may be expecting too much,” he said, leaning forward with his whole body and playing with the fringe of his chair.

“Perhaps. I want everything or nothing. A life for a life, taking one and giving up another without hesitation and beyond recall. Or else better have nothing!”

“Well,” observed Bazarov, “those are fair terms, and I’m surprised that so far you . . . haven’t found what you want.”

“And do you think it would be easy to give oneself up entirely to anything?”

“Not easy, if you start reflecting, waiting, estimating your value, appraising yourself, I mean; but to give oneself unreasoningly is very easy.”

“How can one help valuing oneself? If I have no value, then who needs my devotion?”

“That is not my affair; it is for another person to investigate my value. The main thing is to know how to devote oneself.”

Madame Odintsov leaned forward from the back of her chair.

“You speak as if you had experienced it all yourself,” she said. “It happened to come up in the course of our conversation; but all that, as you know, is not in my line.”

“But could you devote yourself unreservedly?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to boast.”

Madame Odintsov said nothing and Bazarov remained silent. The sounds of the piano floated up to them from the drawing room.

“How is it that Katya is playing so late?” observed Madame Odintsov.

Bazarov got up.

“Yes, it really is late now, time for you to go to bed.”

“Wait a little, why should you hurry? . . . I want to say one word to you.”

“What is it?”

“Wait a little,” whispered Madame Odintsov. Her eyes rested on Bazarov; it seemed as if she was examining him attentively.

He walked across the room, then suddenly came up to her, hurriedly said “Good-by,” squeezed her hand so that she almost screamed and went out. She raised her compressed fingers to her lips, breathed on them, then rose impulsively from her armchair and moved rapidly towards the door, as if she wanted to bring Bazarov back . . . A maid entered the room carrying a decanter on a silver tray. Madame Odintsov stood still, told the maid she could go, and sat down again deep in thought. Her hair slipped loose and fell in a dark coil over her shoulders. The lamp went on burning for a long time in her room while she still sat there motionless, only from time to time rubbing her hands which were bitten by the cold night air.

Bazarov returned to his bedroom two hours later, his boots wet with dew, looking disheveled and gloomy. He found Arkady sitting at the writing desk with a book in his hands, his coat buttoned up to the neck.

“Not in bed yet?” he exclaimed with what sounded like annoyance.

“You were sitting a long time with Anna Sergeyevna this evening,” said Arkady without answering his question.

“Yes, I sat with her all the time you were playing the piano with Katerina Sergeyevna.”

“I was not playing . . .” began Arkady and stopped. He felt that tears were rising in his eyes and he did not want to cry in front of his sarcastic friend.

Chapter 18

The next day when Madame Odintsov came down to tea, Bazarov sat for a long time bending over his cup, then suddenly glanced up at her . . . she turned towards him as if he had touched her, and he fancied that her face was paler since the night before. She soon went off to her own room and did not reappear till breakfast. It had rained since early morning, so that there was no question of going for walks. The whole party assembled in the drawing room. Arkady took up the last number of a journal and began to read. The princess, as usual, first tried to express angry amazement by her facial expression, as though he were doing something indecent, then glared angrily at him, but he paid no attention to her.

“Evgeny Vassilich,” said Anna Sergeyevna, “let us go to my room. I want to ask you . . . you mentioned a textbook yesterday...”

She got up and went to the door. The princess looked round as if she wanted to say, “Look at me; see how shocked I am!” and again stared at Arkady, but he merely raised his head, and exchanging glances with Katya, near whom he was sitting, he went on reading.

Madame Odintsov walked quickly into her study. Bazarov followed her without raising his eyes, and only listening to the delicate swish and rustle of her silk dress gliding in front of him. Madame Odintsov sat down in the same armchair in which she had sat the evening before, and Bazarov also sat down in his former place.

“Well, what is that book called?” she began after a short silence.

“Pelouse et Fré, Notions Générales . . . ,” answered Bazarov. “However, I might recommend to you also Ganot, Traité élémentaire de Physique Expérimentale. In that book the illustrations are clearer, and as a complete textbook — ”

Madame Odintsov held out her hand.

“Evgeny Vassilich, excuse me, but I didn’t invite you here to discuss textbooks. I wanted to go on with our conversation of last night. You went away so suddenly . . . It won’t bore you?”

“I am at your service, Anna Sergeyevna. But what were we talking about last night?”

Madame Odintsov cast a sidelong glance at Bazarov.

“We were talking about happiness, I believe. I told you about myself. By the way, I just mentioned the word ‘happiness.’ Tell me, why is it that even when we are enjoying, for instance, music, a beautiful evening, or a conversation with agreeable people, it all seems to be rather a hint of immeasurable happiness existing somewhere apart, rather than genuine happiness, such, I mean, as we ourselves can really possess? Why is it? Or perhaps you never experience that kind of feeling?”

“You know the saying, ‘Happiness is where we are not,’” replied Bazarov. “Besides, you told me yesterday that you are discontented. But it is as you say, no such ideas ever enter my head.”

“Perhaps they seem ridiculous to you?”

“No, they just don’t enter my head.”

“Really. Do you know, I should very much like to know what you do think about?”

“How? I don’t understand you.”

“Listen, I have long wanted to have a frank talk with you. There is no need to tell you — for you know it yourself — that you are not an ordinary person; you are still young — your whole life lies before you. For what are you preparing yourself? What future awaits you? I mean to say, what purpose are you aiming at, in what direction are you moving, what is in your heart? In short, who and what are you?”

“You surprise me, Anna Sergeyevna. You know, that I am studying natural science and who I . . .”

“Yes, who are you?”

“I have already told you that I am going to be a district doctor.”

Anna Sergeyevna made an impatient movement.

“What do you say that for? You don’t believe it yourself. Arkady might answer me in that way, but not you.”

“How does Arkady come in?”

“Stop! Is it possible you could content yourself with such a humble career, and aren’t you always declaring that medicine doesn’t exist for you? You — with your ambition — a district doctor! You answer me like that in order to put me off because you have no confidence in me. But you know, Evgeny Vassilich, I should be able to understand you; I also have been poor and ambitious, like you; perhaps I went through the same trials as you.”

“That’s all very well, Anna Sergeyevna, but you must excuse me . . . I am not in the habit of talking freely about myself in general, and there is such a gulf between you and me . . .”

“In what way, a gulf? Do you mean to tell me again that I am an aristocrat? Enough of that, Evgeny Vassilich; I thought I had convinced you . . .”

“And apart from all that,” broke in Bazarov, “how can we want to talk and think about the future, which for the most part doesn’t depend on ourselves? If an opportunity turns up of doing something — so much the better, and if it doesn’t turn up — at least one can be glad that one didn’t idly gossip about it beforehand.”

“You call a friendly conversation gossip! Or perhaps you consider me as a woman unworthy of your confidence? I know you despise us all!”

“I don’t despise you, Anna Sergeyevna, and you know that.”

“No, I don’t know anything . . . but let us suppose so. I understand your disinclination to talk about your future career, but as to what is taking place within you now . . .”

“Taking place!” repeated Bazarov. “As if I were some kind of government or society! In any case, it is completely uninteresting, and besides, can a person always speak out loud of everything which ‘takes place’ within him!”

“But I don’t see why you shouldn’t speak freely, about everything you have in your heart.”

“Can you?” asked Bazarov.

“I can,” answered Anna Sergeyevna, after a moment’s hesitation.

Bazarov bowed his head. “You are luckier than I.”

“As you like,” she continued, “but still something tells me that we did not get to know each other for nothing, that we shall become good friends. I am sure that your — how shall I say — your constraint, your reserve, will disappear eventually.”

“So you have noticed in me reserve . . . and, how did you put it — constraint?”

“Yes.”

Bazarov got up and went to the window.

“And would you like to know the reason for this reserve, would you like to know what is happening within me?”

“Yes,” repeated Madame Odintsov, with a sort of dread which she did not quite understand.

“And you will not be angry?”

“No.”

“No?” Bazarov was standing with his back to her. “Let me tell you then that I love you like a fool, like a madman . . . There, you’ve got that out of me.”

Madame Odintsov raised both her hands in front of her, while Bazarov pressed his forehead against the windowpane. He was breathing hard; his whole body trembled visibly. But it was not the trembling of youthful timidity, not the sweet awe of the first declaration that possessed him: it was passion beating within him, a powerful heavy passion not unlike fury and perhaps akin to it . . . Madame Odintsov began to feel both frightened and sorry for him.

“Evgeny Vassilich . . . ,” she murmured, and her voice rang with unconscious tenderness.

He quickly turned round, threw a devouring look at her — and seizing both her hands, he suddenly pressed her to him.

She did not free herself at once from his embrace, but a moment later she was standing far away in a corner and looking from there at Bazarov. He rushed towards her . . .

“You misunderstood me,” she whispered in hurried alarm. It seemed that if he had made one more step she would have screamed . . . Bazarov bit his lips and went out.

Half an hour later a maid gave Anna Sergeyevna a note from Bazarov; it consisted merely of one line: “Am I to leave today, or can I stop till tomorrow?”

“Why should you leave? I did not understand you — you did not understand me,” Anna Sergeyevna answered, but to herself she thought “I did not understand myself either.”

She did not show herself till dinnertime, and kept walking up and down her room, with her arms behind her back, sometimes stopping in front of the window or the mirror, and sometimes slowly rubbing her handkerchief over her neck, on which she still seemed to feel a burning spot. She asked herself what had impelled her to get that out of him, as Bazarov had expressed it, to secure his confidence, and whether she had really suspected nothing . . . “I am to blame,” she concluded aloud, “but I could not have foreseen this.” She became pensive and blushed when she recalled Bazarov’s almost animal face when he had rushed at her . . .

“Or?” she suddenly uttered aloud, stopped short and shook her curls . . . she caught sight of herself in the mirror; her tossed-back head, with a mysterious smile on the half-closed, half-open eyes and lips, told her, it seemed, in a flash something at which she herself felt confused . . .

“No,” she decided at last. “God alone knows what it would lead to; he couldn’t be trifled with; after all, peace is better than anything else in the world.”

Her own peace of mind was not deeply disturbed; but she felt sad and once even burst into tears, without knowing why — but not on account of the insult she had just experienced. She did not feel insulted; she was more inclined to feel guilty. Under the influence of various confused impulses, the consciousness that life was passing her by, the craving for novelty, she had forced herself to move on to a certain point, forced herself also to look beyond it — and there she had seen not even an abyss, but only sheer emptiness . . . or something hideous.

Chapter 19

In spite of her masterly self-control and superiority to every kind of prejudice, Madame Odintsov felt awkward when she entered the dining room for dinner. However, the meal went off quite satisfactorily. Porfiri Platonich turned up and told various anecdotes; he had just returned from the town. Among other things, he announced that the governor had ordered his secretaries on special commissions to wear spurs, in case he might want to send them off somewhere on horseback, at greater speed. Arkady talked in an undertone to Katya, and attended diplomatically to the princess. Bazarov maintained a grim and obstinate silence. Madame Odintsov glanced at him twice, not furtively, but straight in his face, which looked stern and choleric, with downcast eyes and a contemptuous determination stamped on every feature, and she thought: “No . . . no . . . no.” After dinner, she went with the whole company into the garden, and seeing that Bazarov wanted to speak to her, she walked a few steps to one side and stopped. He approached her, but even then he did not raise his eyes and said in a husky voice: “I have to apologize to you, Anna Sergeyevna. You must be furious with me.”

“No, I’m not angry with you, Evgeny Vassilich, but I’m upset.”

“So much the worse. In any case I’ve been punished enough. I find myself, I’m sure you will agree, in a very stupid position. You wrote to me, ‘Why go away?’ But I can’t stay and I don’t want to. Tomorrow I shall no longer be here.”

“Evgeny Vassilich, why are you . . .”

“Why am I going away?”

“No, I didn’t mean that.”

“The past won’t return, Anna Sergeyevna, but sooner or later this was bound to happen. Therefore I must go. I can imagine only one condition which would have enabled me to stay: but that condition will never be. For surely — excuse my impudence — you don’t love me and never will love me?”

Bazarov’s eyes glittered for a moment from under his dark brows.

Anna Sergeyevna did not answer him.

“I’m afraid of this man,” was the thought that flashed through her mind.

“Farewell then,” muttered Bazarov, as if he guessed her thought, and he turned back to the house.

Anna Sergeyevna followed him slowly, and calling Katya to her, she took her arm. She kept Katya by her side till the evening. She did not play cards and kept on laughing, which was not at all in keeping with her pale and worried face. Arkady was perplexed, and looked at her, as young people do, constantly wondering: “What can it mean?” Bazarov shut himself up in his room and only reappeared at teatime. Anna Sergeyevna wanted to say a kind word to him, but she could not bring herself to address him . . .

An unexpected incident rescued her from her embarrassment: the butler announced the arrival of Sitnikov.

Words can hardly describe the strange figure cut by the young champion of progress as he fluttered into the room. He had decided with his characteristic impudence to go to the country to visit a woman whom he hardly knew, who had never invited him, but with whom, as he had ascertained, such talented people and intimate friends of his were staying; nevertheless, he was trembling to the marrow of his bones with fright, and instead of bringing out the excuses and compliments which he had learned by heart beforehand, he muttered something idiotic about Evdoksya Kukshina having sent him to inquire after Anna Sergeyevna’s health and that Arkady Nikolayevich had always spoken to him in terms of the highest praise . . . At this point he faltered and lost his presence of mind so completely that he sat down on his hat. However, since no one turned him out, and Anna Sergeyevna even introduced him to her aunt and sister, he soon recovered himself and began to chatter to his heart’s content. The introduction of something commonplace is often useful in life; it relieves an overstrained tension, and sobers down self-confident or self-sacrificing feelings by recalling how closely it is related to them. With Sitnikov’s appearance everything became somehow duller, more trivial — and easier: they all even ate supper with a better appetite, and went to bed half an hour earlier than usual.

“I can now repeat to you,” said Arkady, as he lay down in bed, to Bazarov, who was also undressing, “what you once said to me: ‘Why are you so melancholy? It looks as though you were fulfilling some sacred duty.’”

For some time past a tone of artificially free-and-easy banter had sprung up between the two young men, always a sure sign of secret dissatisfaction or of unexpressed suspicion.

“I’m going to my father’s place tomorrow,” said Bazarov.

Arkady raised himself and leaned on his elbow. He felt both surprised and somehow pleased. “Ah,” he remarked, “and is that why you are sad?”

Bazarov yawned. “If you know too much, you grow old.”

“And what about Anna Sergeyevna?”

“What about her?”

“I mean, will she let you go?”

“I’m not in her employment.”

Arkady became thoughtful while Bazarov lay down and turned his face to the wall. Some minutes passed in silence.

“Evgeny!” suddenly exclaimed Arkady.

“Well?”

“I shall also leave tomorrow.”

Bazarov made no answer.

“Only I shall go home,” continued Arkady. “We will go together as far as Khokhlovsky, and there you can get horses at Fedot’s. I should have been delighted to meet your people, but I’m afraid I should only get in their way and yours. Of course you’re coming back to stay with us?”

“I’ve left all my things with you,” said Bazarov, without turning round.

“Why doesn’t he ask me why I’m going away? — and just as suddenly as he is?” thought Arkady. “As a matter of fact, why am I going, and why is he?” he went on reflecting. He could find no satisfactory answer to his own question, though his heart was filled with some bitter feeling. He felt he would find it hard to part from this life to which he had grown so accustomed; but for him to stay on alone would also be queer. “Something has happened between them,” he reasoned to himself; “what’s the good of my hanging around here after he has gone? Obviously I should bore her stiff, and lose even the little that remains for me.” He began to conjure up a picture of Anna Sergeyevna; then other features gradually eclipsed the lovely image of the young widow.

“I’m sorry about Katya too,” Arkady whispered to his pillow, on which a tear had already fallen . . . Suddenly he shook back his hair and said aloud: “What the devil brought that idiotic Sitnikov here?”

Bazarov started to move about in his bed, and then made the following answer: “I see you’re still stupid, my boy. Sitnikovs are indispensable to us. For me, don’t you understand — I need such blockheads. In fact, it’s not for the gods to bake bricks . . .”

“Oho!” thought Arkady, and only then he saw in a flash the whole fathomless depth of Bazarov’s conceit. “So you and I are gods, in that case? At least, you’re a god, but I suppose I’m one of the blockheads.”

“Yes,” repeated Bazarov gloomily. “You’re still stupid.”

Madame Odintsov expressed no particular surprise when Arkady told her the next day that he was going with Bazarov; she seemed tired and preoccupied. Katya looked at him with silent gravity. The princess went so far as to cross herself under her shawl, so that he could not help noticing it; but Sitnikov, on the other hand, was most disconcerted. He had just appeared for. breakfast in a smart new costume, not this time in the Slavophil fashion; the previous evening he had astonished the man appointed to look after him by the quantity of linen he had brought, and now all of a sudden his comrades were deserting him! He took a few quick steps, darted round like a hunted hare on the edge of a wood, and abruptly, almost with terror, almost with a wail, he announced that he also proposed to leave. Madame Odintsov made no attempt to detain him.

“My carriage is very comfortable,” added the unlucky young man, turning to Arkady; “I can take you, while Evgeny Vassilich takes your tarantass, so that will be even more convenient.”

“But really, it’s quite off your road, and it’s a long way to where I live.”

“Never mind, that’s nothing; I’ve plenty of time, besides I have business in that direction.”

“Selling vodka?” asked Arkady, rather too contemptuously. But Sitnikov was already reduced to such despair that he did not even laugh as he usually did. “I assure you, my carriage is extremely comfortable,” he muttered, “and there will be room for everyone.”

“Don’t upset Monsieur Sitnikov by refusing . . . ,” murmured Anna Sergeyevna.

Arkady glanced at her and bowed his head significantly.

The visitors left after breakfast. As she said good-by to Bazarov, Madame Odintsov held out her hand to him, and said, “We shall meet again, shan’t we?”

“As you command,” answered Bazarov.

“In that case, we shall.”

Arkady was the first to go out into the porch; he climbed into Sitnikov’s carriage. The butler tucked him in respectfully, but Arkady would gladly have struck him or burst into tears. Bazarov seated himself in the tarantass. When they reached Khokhlovsky, Arkady waited till Fedot, the keeper of the posting station, had harnessed the horses, then going up to the tarantass, he said with his old smile to Bazarov, “Evgeny, take me with you, I want to come to your place.”

“Get in,” muttered Bazarov between his teeth.

Sitnikov, who had been walking up and down by the wheels of his carriage, whistling boldly, could only open his mouth and gape when he heard these words; while Arkady coolly pulled his luggage out of the carriage, took his seat beside Bazarov, and, bowing politely to his former traveling companion, shouted, “Drive off!” The tarantass rolled away and was soon out of sight . . . Sitnikov, utterly confused, looked at his coachman, but he was flicking his whip round the tail of the off-side horse. Finally Sitnikov jumped into his carriage — and yelling at two passing peasants, “Put on your caps, fools!” he drove to the town, where he arrived very late, and where the next day, at Madame Kukshin’s he spoke severely about two “disgustingly stuck-up and ignorant fellows.”

Sitting in the tarantass alongside Bazarov, Arkady pressed his friend’s hand warmly, and for a long time he said nothing. It seemed as though Bazarov appreciated both Arkady’s action and his silence. He had not slept at all the previous night, neither had he smoked, and for several days he had scarcely eaten anything. His thin profile stood out darkly and sharply from under his cap, which was pulled down over his eyebrows.

“Well, brother,” he said at last, “give me a cigar . . . but look, I say, is my tongue yellow?”

“It’s yellow,” answered Arkady.

“Hm — yes . . . and the cigar has no taste. The machine is out of gear.”

“You have certainly changed lately,” observed Arkady.

“That’s nothing; we shall soon recover. One thing bothers me — my mother is so softhearted; if your tummy doesn’t grow round as a barrel and you don’t eat ten times a day, she’s in despair. My father’s all right, he’s been everywhere and known all the ups and downs. No, I can’t smoke,” he added, and flung the cigar away into the dusty road.

“Do you think it’s another sixteen miles to your place?” asked Arkady.

“Yes, but ask this wise man.” He pointed to the peasant sitting on the box, a laborer of Fedot’s.

But the wise man only answered: “Who’s to know? miles aren’t measured hereabouts,” and went on swearing under his breath at the shaft horse for “kicking with her headpiece,” by which he meant, jerking her head.

“Yes, yes,” began Bazarov, “it’s a lesson for you, my young friend, an instructive example. The devil knows what rubbish it is. Every man hangs by a thread, any minute the abyss may open under his feet, and yet he must go and invent for himself all kinds of troubles and spoil his life.”

“What are you hinting at?” asked Arkady.

“I’m not hinting at anything; I’m saying plainly that we both behaved like fools. What’s the use of talking about it? But I’ve noticed in hospital work, the man who’s angry with his illness — he’s sure to get over it.”

“I don’t quite understand you,” remarked Arkady, “it seems you have nothing to complain about.”

“Well, if you don’t quite understand me, I’ll tell you this; to my mind it’s better to break stones on the road than to let a woman get the mastery of even the end of one’s little finger. That’s all . . . ,” Bazarov was about to utter his favorite word “romanticism,” but checked himself and said “rubbish.” “You won’t believe me now, but I’ll tell you; you and I fell into feminine society and very nice we found it; but we throw off that sort of society — it’s like taking a dip in cold water on a hot day. A man has no time for these trifles. A man must be untamed, says an old Spanish proverb. Now you, my wise friend,” he added, addressing the peasant on the box. “I suppose you have a wife?”

The peasant turned his dull bleary-eyed face towards the two young friends.

“A wife? Yes. How could it be otherwise?”

“Do you beat her?”

“My wife? Anything may happen. We don’t beat her without a reason.”

“That’s fine. Well, and does she beat you?”

The peasant tugged at the reins. “What things you say, sir. You like a joke.” He was obviously offended.

“You hear, Arkady Nikolayevich. But we’ve been properly beaten — that’s what comes of being educated people.”

Arkady gave a forced laugh, while Bazarov turned away and did not open his mouth again for the rest of the journey.

Those sixteen miles seemed to Arkady quite like double the distance. But at last on the slope of some rising ground the little village where Bazarov’s parents lived came into sight. Close to it, in a young birch copse, stood a small house with a thatched roof. Two peasants with their hats on stood near the first hut swearing at each other. “You’re a great swine,” said one, “you’re worse than a little sucking pig.” “And your wife’s a witch,” retorted the other.

“By their unconstrained behavior,” remarked Bazarov to Arkady, “and by the playfulness of their phraseology, you can guess that my father’s peasants are not overmuch oppressed. But there he is himself coming out on the steps of the house. He must have heard the bells; it’s him all right, I recognize his figure; ay! ay! only how grey he’s grown, poor old chap!”

Chapter 20

Bazarov leaned out of the tarantass, while Arkady stretched out his head from behind his companion’s back and saw standing on the steps of the little house a tall thinnish man with ruffled hair and a sharp aquiline nose, dressed in an old military coat, not buttoned up. He stood with his legs wide apart, smoking a long pipe and screwing up his eyes to keep the sun out of them.

The horses stopped.

“Arrived at last!” exclaimed Bazarov’s father, still continuing to smoke, though the pipe was fairly jumping up and down between his fingers. “Come, get out, get out, let me hug you.”

He began embracing his son . . . “Enyusha, Enyusha,” resounded a woman’s quavering voice. The door flew open and on the threshold appeared a plump little old woman in a white cap and short colored jacket. She cried, staggered, and would probably have fallen if Bazarov had not supported her. Her plump little hands were instantly twined round his neck, her head was pressed to his breast, and there followed a complete hush, only interrupted by the sound of her broken sobs.

Old Bazarov breathed hard and screwed up his eyes more than before.

“There, that’s enough, enough, Arisha! leave off!” he said, exchanging a look with Arkady, who remained standing motionless by the tarantass, while even the peasant on the box turned his head away. “That’s quite unnecessary! Please leave off.”

“Ah, Vassily Ivanich,” faltered the old woman, “for what ages, my dear one, my darling, Enyushenka . . . ,” and without unclasping her hands, she drew back her wrinkled face, wet with tears, and overwhelmed with tenderness, and looked at him with blissful and somehow comic eyes and then again fell on his neck.

“Well, yes of course, that’s all in the nature of things,” remarked Vassily Ivanich. “Only we had better come indoors. Here’s a visitor arrived with Evgeny. You must excuse this,” he added, turning to Arkady and slightly scraping the ground with his foot: “You understand, a woman’s weakness, and well, a mother’s heart.”

His own lips and eyebrows were quivering and his chin shook — but obviously he was trying to master his feelings and to appear almost indifferent. Arkady bowed.

“Let’s go in, mother, really,” said Bazarov, and he led the enfeebled old woman into the house. He put her in a comfortable armchair, once more hurriedly embraced his father, and introduced Arkady to him.

“Heartily glad to make your acquaintance,” said Vassily Ivanich, “but you mustn’t expect anything grand: we live very simply here, like military people. Arina Vlasyevna, pray calm yourself; what faintheartedness! Our guest will think ill of you.”

“My good sir,” said the old woman through her tears, “I haven’t the honor of knowing your name and your father’s.”

“Arkady Nikolayevich,” interposed Vassily Ivanich solemnly, in a low voice.

“Excuse a foolish old woman like me.” She blew her nose, and bending her head from left to right, she carefully wiped one eye after the other. “You must excuse me. I really thought I should die, that I should not live to see again my darling — ”

“Well and here we have lived to see him again, madam,” put in Vassily Ivanovich. “Tanyushka,” he said, turning to a bare-legged little girl of thirteen in a bright red cotton dress, who was shyly peeping in at the door, “bring your mistress a glass of water — on a tray, do you hear? — and you, gentlemen,” he added with a kind of old-fashioned playfulness — “allow me to invite you into the study of a retired veteran.”

“Just once more let me embrace you, Enyushka,” groaned Arina Vlasyevna. Bazarov bent down to her. “Gracious, how handsome you’ve grown!”

“Well, I don’t know about being handsome,” remarked Vassily Ivanovich. “But he’s a man, as the saying goes — ommfay. And now I hope, Arina Vlasyevna, having satisfied your maternal heart, you will turn your thoughts to satisfying the appetites of our dear guests, because, as you know, even nightingales can’t be fed on fairy tales.”

The old lady rose from her chair. “This very minute, Vassily Ivanovich, the table shall be laid. I will myself run to the kitchen and order the samovar to be brought in; everything will be ready, everything. Why, for three whole years I have not seen him, have not been able to give him food or drink — is that nothing?”

“Well, you see to things, little hostess, bustle about, don’t put us to shame; and you, gentlemen, I beg you to follow me. Here is Timofeich come to pay his respects to you, Evgeny. And the old dog, I dare say he too is delighted. Ay, aren’t you delighted, old dog? Be so good as to follow me.”

And Vassily Ivanovich went bustling ahead, shuffling and flapping with his down-at-heel slippers.

His whole house consisted of six tiny rooms. One of these — the one into which he led our friends — was called the study. A thick-legged table, littered with papers blackened by an ancient accumulation of dust as if they had been smoked, occupied the whole space between the two windows; on the walls hung Turkish firearms, whips, a saber, two maps, some anatomical diagrams, a portrait of Hufeland, a monogram woven out of hair in a blackened frame, and a diploma under glass; a leather sofa, torn and worn hollow in places, stood between two huge cupboards of Karelian birchwood; on the shelves, books, little boxes, stuffed birds, jars and phials were crowded together in confusion; in one corner lay a broken electric battery.

“I warned you, my dear guest,” began Vassily Ivanovich, “that we live, so to speak, bivouacking . . .”

“Now stop that, what are you apologizing for?” Bazarov interrupted. “Kirsanov knows very well that we’re not Croesuses and that you don’t live in a palace. Where are we going to put him, that’s the question?”

“To be sure, Evgeny, there’s an excellent room in the little wing; he will be very comfortable there.”

“So you’ve had a wing built on?”

“Of course, where the bathhouse is,” put in Timofeich. “That is next to the bathroom,” Vassily Ivanovich added hurriedly. “It’s summer now . . . I will run over there at once and arrange things; and you, Timofeich, bring in their luggage meanwhile. Of course I hand over my study to you, Evgeny. Suum cuique.”

“There you have him! A most comical old chap and very good-natured,” remarked Bazarov, as soon as Vassily Ivanovich had gone. “Just as queer a fish as yours, only in a different way. He chatters too much.”

“And your mother seems a wonderful woman,” remarked Arkady.

“Yes, there’s no humbug about her. You just see what a dinner she’ll give us.”

“They weren’t expecting you today, sir, they’ve not brought any beef,” observed Timofeich, who was just dragging in Bazarov’s trunk.

“We shall manage all right even without beef; you can’t squeeze water from a stone. Poverty, they say, is no crime.”

“How many serfs has your father?” asked Arkady suddenly. “The property is not his, but mother’s; there are fifteen serfs, if I remember.”

“Twenty-two in all,” added Timofeich in a dissatisfied tone. The shuffling of slippers was heard and Vassily Ivanovich reappeared. “In a few minutes your room will be ready to receive you,” he exclaimed triumphantly. “Arkady — Nikolaich? I think that’s how I should call you. And here is your servant,” he added, indicating a boy with close-cropped hair, who had come in with him, wearing a long blue caftan with holes in the elbows and a pair of boots which did not belong to him. “His name is Fedka, I repeat again, though my son has forbidden it, you must not expect anything grand. But this fellow knows how to fill a pipe. You smoke, of course?”

“I prefer to smoke cigars,” answered Arkady.

“And you’re quite right there. I like cigars myself, but in these remote parts it is extremely difficult to get them.”

“Enough crying poverty,” interrupted Bazarov. “You had better sit down on the sofa here and let us have a look at you.”

Vassily Ivanovich laughed and sat down. His face was very much like his son’s, only his brow was lower and narrower, his mouth rather wider, and he never stopped making restless movements, shrugged his shoulders as though his coat cut him under the armpits, blinked, cleared his throat and gesticulated with his fingers, whereas his son’s most striking characteristic was the nonchalant immobility of his manner.

“Crying poverty,” repeated Vassily Ivanovich. “You must suppose, Evgeny, that I want our guest, so to speak, to take pity on us, by making out that we live in such a wilderness. On the contrary I maintain that for a thinking man there is no such thing as a wilderness. At least I try, as far as possible, not to grow rusty, so to speak, not to fall behind the times.”

Vassily Ivanovich drew out of his pocket a new yellow silk handkerchief, which he had found time to snatch up when he ran over to Arkady’s room, and flourishing it in the air, he went on: “I am not speaking now of the fact that I, for instance, at the cost of quite considerable sacrifices to myself, have put my peasants on the rent system and given up my land to them in return for half the proceeds. I considered it my duty; common sense alone demands that it should be done, though other landowners don’t even think about doing it. But I speak now of the sciences, of education.”

“Yes, I see you have here the Friend of Health for 1855,” remarked Bazarov.

“That was sent me by an old comrade as a friendly gesture,” Vassily Ivanovich hastily announced; “but we have, for instance, some idea even of phrenology,” he added, addressing himself principally to Arkady, and pointing out a small plaster head on the cupboard, divided into numbered squares; “even Sch¨nlein is not unknown to us — and Rademacher.”

“Do people still believe in Rademacher in this province?” inquired Bazarov.

Vassily Ivanovich cleared his throat. “In this province . . . of course gentlemen, you know better; how could we keep pace with you? You are here to take our places. Even in my time, there was a so-called humoralist Hoffman, and a certain Brown with his vitalism — they seemed very ridiculous to us, but they, too, had great reputations at one time. Someone new has taken Rademacher’s place with you; you bow down to him, but in another twenty years it will probably be his turn to be laughed at.”

“For your consolation I can tell you,” said Bazarov, “that we nowadays laugh at medicine altogether and bow down to nobody.”

“How do you mean? Surely you want to be a doctor.”

“Yes, but the one doesn’t prevent the other.”

Vassily Ivanovich poked his middle finger into his pipe, where a little smoldering ash was left. “Well, perhaps, perhaps — I’m not going to dispute. What am I? A retired army doctor, valla too; and now farming has fallen to my lot. I served in your grandfather’s brigade,” he addressed himself to Arkady again. “Yes, yes, I have seen many sights in my time. And I mixed with every kind of society. I myself, the man you see before you, have felt the pulse of Prince Wittgenstein and of Zhukovsky! They were in the southern army, the fourteenth, you understand” (and here Vassily Ivanovich pursed his lips significantly). “I knew them all inside out. Well, well, but my work was only on one side; stick to your lancet and be content! Your grandfather was a very honorable man and a real soldier.”

“Confess, he was a regular blockhead,” remarked Bazarov lazily.

“Ah, Evgeny, how can you use such an expression? Do consider . . . of course General Kirsanov was not one of those . . .”

“Well, drop him,” interrupted Bazarov. “As I was driving along I was pleased to see your birch plantation; it has sprung up admirably.”

Vassily Ivanovich brightened. “And you must see the little garden I’ve got now. I planted every tree myself. I have fruit, raspberries and all kinds of medicinal herbs. However much you young gentlemen may know, old Paracelsus spoke the sacred truth; in herbis, verbis et lapidibus . . . I’ve retired from practice, as you know, but at least twice a week something happens to bring me back to my old work. They come for advice — I can’t drive them away — and sometimes the poor people need help. Indeed there are no doctors here at all. One of the neighbors here, a retired major, just imagine it, he doctors the people too. I ask the question: ‘Has he studied medicine?’ They answer: ‘No, he hasn’t studied, he does it more from philanthropy’ . . . ha! ha! from philanthropy! What do you think of that? Ha! ha!”

“Fedka! fill me a pipe!” said Bazarov sternly.

“And there’s another doctor here who had just visited a patient,” continued Vassily Ivanovich in a kind of desperation, “but the patient had already gone ad patres; the servant wouldn’t let the doctor in, and tells him: ‘You’re no longer needed.’ He never expected this, got confused and asked: ‘Well, did your master hiccup before he died?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Did he hiccup much?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Ah, well, that’s all right,’ and off he went again. Ha! ha! ha!”

The old man laughed alone. Arkady managed to show a smile on his face. Bazarov merely stretched himself. The conversation continued in this way for about an hour. Arkady found time to go to his room which turned out to be the anteroom to the bathroom, but it was very cosy and clean. At last Tanyushka came in and announced that dinner was ready.

Vassily Ivanovich was the first to get up. “Come, gentlemen, you must pardon me generously if I have bored you. Maybe my good wife will give you better satisfaction.”

The dinner, though hastily prepared, was very good and even abundant; only the wine was not quite up to the mark; it was sherry, almost black, bought by Timofeich in the town from a well-known merchant, and it had a flavor of copper or resin; the flies also were a nuisance. On ordinary days a serf boy used to keep driving them away with a big green branch, but on this occasion Vassily Ivanovich had sent him away for fear of adverse criticism from the younger generation. Arina Vlasyevna had changed her dress, and was wearing a high cap with silk ribbons and a pale blue flowered shawl. She started crying again as soon as she caught sight of her Enyusha, but her husband did not need to admonish her; she herself made haste to dry her tears in order not to spoil her shawl. Only the young men ate; the host and hostess had both dined long ago. Fedka waited at table, obviously encumbered by his unfamiliar boots; he was helped by a woman with a masculine cast of face and one eye, called Anfisushka; she fulfilled the duties of housekeeper, poultry woman and laundress. Vassily Ivanovich walked up and down throughout the dinner, and with a perfectly contented and even blissful face talked about the grave anxieties he had felt about Napoleon’s policy and the complications of the Italian question. Arina Vlasyevna took no notice of Arkady and did not press him to eat; leaning her round face on her little fist, her full cherry-colored lips and the little moles on her cheeks and over her eyebrows adding to her extremely kind, good-natured expression, she did not take her eyes off her son and constantly sighed; she was dying to know for how long he would stay, but she was afraid to ask him. “What if he stays for two days?” she thought, and her heart sank. After the roast Vassily Ivanovich disappeared for a moment and returned with an opened half-bottle of champagne.

“Here,” he exclaimed, “though we do live in the wilds, we have something to make merry with on festive occasions!” He poured out three full glasses and a little wineglass, proposed the health of “our invaluable guests,” and at once tossed off his glass in military fashion and made Arina Vlasyevna drink her wineglass to the last drop. When the time came for the sweet preserves, Arkady, who could not bear anything sweet, thought it his duty, however, to taste four different kinds which had been freshly made — all the more since Bazarov flatly refused them and began at once to smoke a cigar. Afterwards tea was served with cream, butter and rolls; then Vassily Ivanovich took them all out into the garden to admire the beauty of the evening. As they passed a garden seat he whispered to Arkady, “This is the spot where I love to meditate as I watch the sunset; it suits a recluse like me. And there, a little farther off, I have planted some of the trees beloved by Horace.”

“What trees?” asked Bazarov, overhearing, “Oh . . . acacias.”

Bazarov began to yawn.

“I suppose it is time our travelers were in the embrace of Morpheus,” observed Vassily Ivanovich.

“In other words, it’s time for bed,” Bazarov interposed. “That’s a correct judgment; it certainly is high time!”

Saying good night to his mother, he kissed her on the forehead while she embraced him and secretly behind his back she gave him her blessing three times. Vassily Ivanovich showed Arkady to his room and wished him “as refreshing repose as I also enjoyed at your happy years.” In fact Arkady slept extremely well in his bathhouse; it smelt of mint, and two crickets behind the stove rivaled each other in their prolonged drowsy chirping. Vassily Ivanovich went from Arkady’s room to his own study and, settling down on the sofa at his son’s feet, was looking forward to having a chat with him; but Bazarov sent him away at once, saying he felt sleepy, but he did not fall asleep till morning. With wide-open eyes he stared angrily into the darkness; memories of childhood had no power over him, and besides he had not yet been able to rid himself of the impression of his recent bitter experiences. Arina Vlasyevna first prayed to her heart’s content, then she had a long, long conversation with Anfisushka, who stood rooted to the spot in front of her mistress, and fixing her solitary eye upon her, communicated in a mysterious whisper all her observations and conjectures about Evgeny Vassilevich. The old lady’s head was giddy with happiness, wine and tobacco smoke; her husband tried to talk to her — but with a wave of the hand he gave it up.

Arina Vlasyevna was a genuine Russian lady of olden times; she ought to have lived two centuries before, in the ancient Moscow days. She was very devout and emotional; she believed in fortunetelling, charms, dreams and omens of every conceivable kind; she believed in the prophecies of crazy people, in house spirits, in wood spirits, in unlucky meetings, in the evil eye, in popular remedies; she ate specially prepared salt on Holy Thursday and believed that the end of the world was close at hand; she believed that if on Easter Sunday the candles did not go out at Vespers, then there would be a good crop of buckwheat, and that a mushroom will not grow after a human eye has seen it; she believed that the devil likes to be where there is water, and that every Jew has a blood-stained spot on his breast; she was afraid of mice, of snakes, of frogs, of sparrows, of leeches, of thunder, of cold water, of draughts, of horses, of goats, of red-haired people and of black cats; she regarded crickets and dogs as unclean animals; she never ate veal, pigeons, crayfish, cheese, asparagus, Jerusalem artichokes, hares, or watermelons because a cut watermelon suggested the head of John the Baptist; she could not speak of oysters without a shudder; she enjoyed eating — but strictly observed fasts; she slept ten hours out of the twenty-four — and never went to bed at all if Vassily Ivanovich had so much as a headache; she had never read a single book except Alexis or the Cottage in the Forest; she wrote one or at most two letters in a year, but she was an expert housewife, knew all about preserving and jam making, though she touched nothing with her own hands and was usually reluctant to move from her place. Arina Vlasyevna was very kindhearted and in her own way far from stupid. She knew that the world is divided into masters whose duty it is to command, and simple people whose duty it is to serve — and so she felt no disgust for servile behavior or bowing to the ground; but she treated affectionately and gently those in subjection to her, never let a single beggar go away empty-handed, and never spoke ill of anyone, though she was fond of gossip. In her youth she had been very pretty, had played the clavichord and spoken a little French; but in the course of many years of wandering with her husband, whom she had married against her will, she had grown stout and forgotten both music and French. Her son she loved and feared unutterably; she had handed over the management of her little estate to Vassily Ivanovich — and she no longer took any part in it; she would groan, wave her handkerchief and raise her eyebrows higher and higher in horror directly her old husband began to discuss impending land reforms and his own plans. She was apprehensive, always expecting some great calamity, and would weep at once whenever she remembered anything sad . . . Nowadays such women have almost ceased to exist. God knows whether this should be a cause for rejoicing!

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