On getting up, Arkady opened the window, and the first object which met his eyes was Vassily Ivanovich. In a Turkish dressing gown tied round the waist with a pocket handkerchief, the old man was zealously digging his kitchen garden. He noticed his young visitor and leaning on his spade he called out, “Good health to you! How did you sleep?”

“Splendidly,” answered Arkady.

“And here I am, as you see, like some Cincinnatus, preparing a bed for late turnips. The time has come now — and thank God for it! — when everyone should secure his sustenance by the work of his own hands: it is useless to rely on others; one must labor oneself. So it turns out that Jean Jacques Rousseau is right. Half an hour ago, my dear young sir, you could have seen me in an entirely different position. One peasant woman, who complained of looseness — that’s how they express it, but in our language, dysentery — I — how shall I express it? I injected her with opium; and for another I extracted a tooth. I offered her an anesthetic, but she refused. I do all that gratis — anamatyer. However, I’m used to it; you see I’m a plebeian, homo nous — not one of the old stock, not like my wife . . . But wouldn’t you like to come over here in the shade and breathe the morning freshness before having tea?”

Arkady went out to him.

“Welcome once more!” said Vassily Ivanovich, raising his hand in a military salute to the greasy skullcap which covered his head. “You, I know, are accustomed to luxury and pleasures, but even the great ones of this world do not disdain to spend a brief time under a cottage roof.”

“Gracious heavens,” protested Arkady, “as if I were a great one of this world! And I’m not accustomed to luxury either.”

“Pardon me, pardon me,” replied Vassily Ivanovich with an amiable grimace. “Though I am a back number now, I also have knocked about the world — I know a bird by its flight. I am something of a psychologist in my way, and a physiognomist. If I had not, I venture to say, been granted that gift, I should have come to grief long ago; a little man like me would have been blotted out. I must tell you without flattery, the friendship I observe between you and my son sincerely delights me. I have just seen him; he got up very early as he habitually does — you probably know that — and ran off for a ramble in the neighborhood. Permit me to be so inquisitive — have you known my Evgeny long?”

“Since last winter.”

“Indeed. And permit me to question you further — but why shouldn’t we sit down? Permit me as a father to ask you frankly: what is your opinion of my Evgeny?”

“Your son is one of the most remarkable men I have ever met,” answered Arkady emphatically.

Vassily Ivanovich’s eyes suddenly opened wide, and a slight flush suffused his cheeks. The spade dropped from his hand.

“And so you expect . . . ,” he began.

“I’m convinced,” interrupted Arkady, “that your son has a great future before him, that he will do honor to your name. I’ve felt sure of that ever since I met him.”

“How — how did it happen?” articulated Vassily Ivanovich with some effort. An enthusiastic smile parted his broad lips and would not leave them.

“Would you like me to tell you how we met?”

“Yes . . . and all about it — ”

Arkady began his story and spoke of Bazarov with even greater warmth, even greater enthusiasm than he had done on that evening when he danced a mazurka with Madame Odintsov.

Vassily Ivanovich listened and listened, blew his nose, rolled his handkerchief up into a ball with both hands, cleared his throat, ruffled up his hair — and at length could contain himself no longer; he bent down to Arkady and kissed him on the shoulder. “You have made me perfectly happy,” he said, without ceasing to smile. “I ought to tell you, I . . . idolize my son; I won’t even speak of my old wife — naturally, a mother — but I dare not show my feelings in front of him, because he disapproves of that. He is opposed to every demonstration of emotion; many people even find fault with him for such strength of character, and take it for a sign of pride or lack of feeling; but people like him ought not to be judged by any ordinary standards, ought they? Look at this, for example; others in his place would have been a constant drag on their parents; but he — would you believe it? — from the day he was born he has never taken a farthing more than he could help, that’s God’s truth.”

“He is a disinterested, honest man,” remarked Arkady.

“Exactly so, disinterested. And I not only idolize him, Arkady Nikolaich, I am proud of him, and the height of my only ambition is that some day there will be the following words in his biography: ‘The son of an ordinary army doctor, who was able, however, to recognize his talent early and spared no pains for his education . . .’” The old man’s voice broke.

Arkady pressed his hand.

“What do you think?” inquired Vassily Ivanovich after a short silence, “surely he will not attain in the sphere of medicine the celebrity which you prophesy for him?”

“Of course, not in medicine, though even there he will be one of the leading scientific men.”

“In what then, Arkady Nikolaich?”

“It would be hard to say now, but he will be famous.”

“He will be famous,” repeated the old man, and he relapsed into thought.

“Arina Vlasyevna sent me to call you in to tea,” announced Anfisushka, passing by with a huge dish of ripe raspberries.

Vassily Ivanovich started. “And will the cream be cooled for the raspberries?”

“Yes.”

“Be sure it is cold! Don’t stand on ceremony. Arkady Nikolaich — take some more. How is it Evgeny doesn’t come back?”

“I’m here,” called Bazarov’s voice from inside Arkady’s room.

Vassily Ivanovich turned round quickly.

“Aha, you wanted to pay a visit to your friend; but you were too late, amice, and we have already had a long conversation. Now we must go in to tea; mother has sent for us. By the way, I want to have a talk with you.”

“What about?”

“There’s a peasant here; he’s suffering from icterus . . .”

“You mean jaundice?”

“Yes, a chronic and very obstinate case of icterus. I have prescribed him centaury and St. John’s wort, told him to eat carrots, given him soda; but all those are palliative measures; we need some more radical treatment. Although you laugh at medicine, I’m sure you can give me some practical advice. But we will talk about that later. Now let us go and drink tea.”

Vassily Ivanovich jumped up briskly from the garden seat and hummed the air from Robert le Diable.

“The law, the law we set ourselves,
To live, to live, for pleasure.”

“Astonishing vitality,” observed Bazarov, moving away from the window.

Midday arrived. The sun was burning from under a thin veil of unbroken whitish clouds. All was still; only the cocks in the village broke the silence by their vigorous crowing, which produced in everyone who heard it a strange sense of drowsiness and tedium; and from somewhere high up in a treetop sounded the plaintive and persistent chirp of a young hawk. Arkady and Bazarov lay in the shade of a small haystack, and put under themselves two armfuls of rustling dry but still green and fragrant grass.

“That poplar tree,” began Bazarov, “reminds me of my childhood; it grows on the edge of the pit where the brick shed used to be, and in those days I firmly believed that the poplar and the pit possessed the peculiar power of a talisman; I never felt dull when I was near them. I did not understand then that I was not dull just because I was a child. Well, now I’m grown up, the talisman no longer works.”

“How long did you live here altogether?” asked Arkady.

“Two years on end; after that we traveled about. We led a roving life, chiefly wandering from town to town.”

“And has this house been standing long?”

“Yes. My grandfather built it, my mother’s father.”

“Who was he, your grandfather?”

“The devil knows — some kind of second-major. He served under Suvorov and always told stories about marching across the Alps — inventions probably.”

“You have a portrait of Suvorov hanging in the drawing room. I like such little houses as yours, old-fashioned and warm; and they always have a special kind of scent about them.”

“A smell of lamp oil and clover,” remarked Bazarov, yawning. “And the flies in these dear little houses . . . fugh!”

“Tell me,” began Arkady after a short pause, “were they strict with you as a child?”

“You see what my parents are like. They’re not a severe sort.”

“Are you fond of them, Evgeny?”

“I am, Arkady.”

“How they adore you!”

Bazarov was silent for a while. “Do you know what I’m thinking about?” he said at last, clasping his hands behind his head.

“No. What is it?”

“I’m thinking how happy life is for my parents! My father at the age of sixty can fuss around, chat about ‘palliative measures,’ heal people; he plays the magnanimous master with the peasants — has a gay time in fact; and my mother is happy too; her day is so crammed with all sorts of jobs, with sighs and groans, that she hasn’t a moment to think about herself; while I . . .”

“While you?”

“While I think; here I lie under a haystack . . . The tiny narrow space I occupy is so minutely small in comparison with the rest of space where I am not and which has nothing to do with me; and the portion of time in which it is my lot to live is so insignificant beside the eternity where I have not been and will not be . . . And in this atom, in this mathematical point, the blood circulates, the brain works and wants something . . . how disgusting! how petty!”

“Allow me to point out that what you say applies generally to everyone.”

“You’re right,” interrupted Bazarov. “I wanted to say that they, my parents I mean, are occupied and don’t worry about their own nothingness; it doesn’t sicken them . . . while I . . . I feel nothing but boredom and anger.”

“Anger? Why anger?”

“Why? How can you ask why? Have you forgotten?”

“I remember everything, but still I can’t agree that you have any right to be angry. You’re unhappy, I realize, but . . .”

“Ugh! I can see, Arkady Nikolaich, that you regard love like all modern young men; cluck, cluck, cluck, you call to the hen, and the moment the hen comes near, off you run! I’m not like that. But enough of it all. It’s a shame to talk about what can’t be helped.” He turned over on his side. “Ah, there goes a brave ant dragging along a half-dead fly. Take her away, brother, take her! Don’t pay any attention to her resistance; take full advantage of your animal privilege to be without pity — not like us self-destructive creatures!”

“What are you talking about, Evgeny? When did you destroy yourself?”

Bazarov raised his head.

“That’s the only thing I’m proud of. I have not crushed myself, so a little woman can’t crush me. Amen! It’s all over. You won’t hear another word from me about it.”

Both friends lay for a time in silence.

“Yes,” began Bazarov, “man is a strange animal. When one gets a side view from a distance of the dumb life our ‘fathers’ lead here, one thinks: what could be better? You eat and drink and know you are acting in the most righteous and sensible way. If not, you’re devoured by the tedium of it. One wants to have dealings with people even if it’s only to abuse them.”

“One ought to arrange one’s life so that every moment of it becomes significant,” remarked Arkady thoughtfully.

“I dare say. The significant may be deceptive but sweet, though it’s even quite possible to put up with the insignificant . . . But petty squabbles, petty squabbles . . . that’s a misery.”

“Petty squabbles don’t exist for the man who refuses to recognize them as such.”

“Hm . . . what you have said is a commonplace turned upside-down.”

“What? What do you mean by that phrase?”

“I’ll explain; to say for instance that education is beneficial, that’s a commonplace, but to say that education is harmful is a commonplace turned upside-down. It sounds more stylish, but fundamentally it’s one and the same thing!”

“But where is the truth — on which side?”

“Where? I answer you like an echo; where?”

“You’re in a melancholy mood today, Evgeny.”

“Really? The sun must have melted my brain and I ought not to have eaten so many raspberries either.”

“In that case it wouldn’t be a bad plan to doze a bit,” remarked Arkady.

“Certainly. Only don’t look at me; everyone has a stupid face when he’s asleep.”

“But isn’t it all the same to you what people think of you?”

“I don’t quite know how to answer you. A real man ought not to worry about such things; a real man is not meant to be thought about, but is someone who must be either obeyed or hated.”

“It’s odd! I don’t hate anyone,” observed Arkady after a pause.

“And I hate so many. You’re a tenderhearted listless creature; how could you hate anyone . . . ? You’re timid, you haven’t much self-reliance.”

“And you,” interrupted Arkady, “do you rely on yourself? Have you a high opinion of yourself?”

Bazarov paused. “When I meet a man who can hold his own beside me,” he said with slow deliberation, “then I’ll change my opinion of myself. Hatred! You said, for instance, today as we passed the cottage of our bailiff Philip — the one that’s so neat and clean — well, you said, Russia will achieve perfection when the poorest peasant has a house like that, and every one of us ought to help to bring it about . . . And I felt such a hatred for this poorest peasant, this Philip or Sidor, for whom I have to be ready to sacrifice my skin and who won’t even thank me for it — and why should he thank me? Well, suppose he lives in a clean house, while weeds grow out of me — so, what next?”

“That’s enough, Evgeny . . . listening to you today one would be driven to agree with those who reproach us for absence of principles.”

“You talk like your uncle. Principles don’t exist in general — you haven’t yet managed to understand even that much! — but there are sensations. Everything depends on them.”

“How is that?”

“Well, take me for instance; I adopt a negative attitude by virtue of my sensations; I like to deny, my brain is made like that — and there’s nothing more to it. Why does chemistry appeal to me? Why do you like apples? — also by virtue of our sensations. It’s all the same thing. People will never penetrate deeper than that. Not everyone would tell you so, and another time I shouldn’t tell you so myself.”

“What, and is honesty also — a sensation?”

“I should think so.”

“Evgeny . . . !” began Arkady in a dejected tone.

“Well? What? That’s not to your taste?” broke in Bazarov. “No, brother. If you’ve made up your mind to mow down everything — don’t spare your own legs . . . ! But we’ve philosophized enough. ‘Nature heaps up the silence of sleep,’ said Pushkin.”

“He never said anything of the kind,” retorted Arkady.

“Well, if he didn’t, he might have and ought to have said it as a poet. By the way, he must have served in the army.”

“Pushkin was never in the army!”

“Why, on every page of his one reads, to arms! to arms! for Russia’s honor!”

“What legends you invent! Really, it’s positive slander.”

“Slander? There’s a weighty matter. He’s found a solemn word to frighten me with. Whatever slander you may utter against a man, you may be sure he deserves twenty times worse than that in reality.”

“We had better go to sleep,” said Arkady with vexation.

“With the greatest of pleasure,” answered Bazarov.

But neither of them slept. Some kind of almost hostile feeling had taken hold of both young men. Five minutes later, they opened their eyes and glanced at each other in silence.

“Look,” said Arkady suddenly, “a dry maple leaf has broken off and is falling to the ground; its movements are exactly like a butterfly’s flight. Isn’t it strange? Such a gloomy dead thing so like the most care-free and lively one.”

“Oh, my friend Arkady Nikolaich,” exclaimed Bazarov, “one thing I implore of you; no beautiful talk.”

“I talk as I best know how to . . . yes, really this is sheer despotism. A thought came into my head; why shouldn’t I express it?”

“All right, and why shouldn’t I express my thoughts? I think that sort of beautiful talk is positively indecent.”

“And what is decent? Abuse?”

“Ah, so I see clearly you intend to follow in your uncle’s footsteps. How pleased that idiot would be if he could hear you now!”

“What did you call Pavel Petrovich?”

“I called him, as he deserves to be called, an idiot.”

“Really, this is unbearable,” cried Arkady.

“Aha! family feeling spoke out,” remarked Bazarov coolly. “I’ve noticed how obstinately it clings to people. A man is ready to give up everything and break with every prejudice; but to admit, for instance, that his brother who steals other people’s handkerchiefs is a thief — that’s beyond his power. And as a matter of fact — to think — my brother, mine — and no genius — that’s more than one can swallow!”

“A simple sense of justice spoke in me and no family feeling at all,” retorted Arkady vehemently. “But since you don’t understand such a feeling, as it’s not among your sensations, you’re in no position to judge it!”

“In other words, Arkady Kirsanov is too exalted for my understanding. I bow down to him and say no more.”

“That’s enough, Evgeny; we shall end by quarreling.”

“Ah, Arkady, do me a favor, let’s quarrel properly for once, to the bitter end, to the point of destruction.”

“But then perhaps we should end by . . .”

“By fighting?” broke in Bazarov. “Well? Here in the hay, in such idyllic surroundings, far from the world and from human eyes, it wouldn’t matter. But you’d be no match for me. I’d have you by the throat at once . . .”

Barazov stretched out his long tough fingers.

Arkady turned round and prepared, as if joking, to resist . . . But his friend’s face struck him as so sinister — he saw such a grim threat in the crooked smile which twisted his lips, in his glaring eyes, that he felt instinctively taken aback . . .

“So that is where you have got to,” said the voice of Vassily Ivanovich at this moment, and the old army doctor appeared before the young men dressed in a homemade linen jacket, with a straw hat, also homemade, on his head. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere . . . But you’ve picked out a splendid place and you’re perfectly employed. Lying on the earth and gazing up to heaven — do you know there’s a special significance in that?”

“I gaze up to heaven only when I want to sneeze,” growled Bazarov, and turning to Arkady, he added in an undertone: “A pity he interrupted us.”

“Well, that’s enough,” whispered Arkady, and secretly squeezed his friend’s hand. But no friendship can withstand such shocks for long.

“I look at you, my youthful friends,” said Vassily Ivanovich meanwhile, shaking his head and leaning his folded arms on a skillfully bent stick which he himself had carved with a Turk’s figure for a knob. “I look, and I can’t refrain from admiration. You have so much strength, such youthful bloom, abilities and talents! Truly . . . A Castor and Pollux.”

“Get along with you — shooting off into mythology!” said Bazarov. “You can see he was a Latin scholar in his day. Why, I seem to remember, you won the silver medal for Latin composition, didn’t you?”

“The Dioscuri, the Dioscuri!” ; repeated Vassily Ivanovich.

“Come, stop that, father; don’t go sentimental.”

“Just once in an age, surely it’s permissible,” murmured the old man. “Anyhow, I have not been searching for you, gentlemen, in order to pay you compliments, but in order to tell you, in the first place, that we shall soon be dining; and secondly, I wanted to warn you, Evgeny . . . you are a sensible man, you know the world and you know what women are, and therefore you will excuse . . . your mother wanted a service held for you in thanksgiving, for your arrival. Don’t imagine that I’m asking you to attend that service — it’s already over; but Father Alexei . . .”

“The parson?”

“Well, yes, the priest; he is — to dine with us . . . I did not expect this and was not even in favor of it — but somehow it turned out like that — he misunderstood me — and, well, Arina Vlasyevna — besides, he’s a worthy and reasonable man.”

“I suppose he won’t eat my share at dinner?” inquired Bazarov.

Vassily Ivanovich laughed. “The things you say!”

“Well, I ask nothing more. I’m ready to sit down at table with anyone.”

Vassily Ivanovich set his hat straight.

“I was sure in advance,” he said, “that you were above all such prejudices. Here am I, an old man of sixty-two, and even I have none.” (Vassily Ivanovich dared not confess that he had himself wanted the thanksgiving service — he was no less devout than his wife.) “And Father Alexei very much wanted to make your acquaintance. You will like him, you’ll see. He doesn’t mind playing cards even, and he sometimes — but this is between ourselves — goes so far as to smoke a pipe.”

“Fancy that. We’ll have a round of whist after dinner and I’ll beat him.”

“Ha! ha! ha! we shall see; that’s an open question.”

“Well, won’t it remind you of old times?” said Bazarov with a peculiar emphasis.

Vassily Ivanovich’s bronzed cheeks blushed with confusion. “For shame, Evgeny, . . . Let bygones be bygones. Well, I’m ready to confess before this gentleman, I had that very passion in my youth — and how I paid for it too . . . ! But how hot it is. May I sit down with you? I hope I shan’t be in your way.”

“Not in the least,” answered Arkady.

Vassily Ivanovich lowered himself, sighing, into the hay. “Your present quarters, my dear sirs,” he began, “remind me of my military bivouacking existence, the halts of the field hospital somewhere like this under a haystack — and even for that we thanked God.” He sighed. “What a lot I’ve experienced in my time. For instance, if you allow me, I will tell you a curious episode about the plague in Bessarabia.”

“For which you won the Vladimir cross?” interposed Bazarov. “We know — we know . . . By the way, why aren’t you wearing it?”

“Why, I told you that I have no prejudices,” muttered Vassily Ivanovich (only the evening before he had had the red ribbon unpicked from his coat) and he started to tell his story about the plague. “Why, he has fallen asleep,” he whispered suddenly to Arkady, pointing to Evgeny, and winked good-naturedly. “Evgeny, get up!” he added loudly. “Let’s go in to dinner.”

Father Alexei, a handsome stout man with thick, carefully combed hair, with an embroidered belt round his mauve silk cassock, appeared to be a very skillful and adaptable person. He made haste to be the first to offer his hand to Arkady and Bazarov, as though realizing in advance that they did not want his blessing, and in general he behaved without constraint. He neither betrayed his own opinions nor provoked the other members of the company; he made an appropriate joke about seminary Latin and stood up in defense of his bishop; he drank two glasses of wine and refused a third; he accepted a cigar from Arkady, but did not smoke it on the spot, saying he would take it home with him. Only he had a somewhat unpleasant habit of raising his hand from time to time, slowly and carefully, to catch the flies on his face, and sometimes managing to squash them. He took his seat at the green card table with a measured expression of satisfaction, and ended by winning from Bazarov two and a half rubles in notes (they had no idea of how to reckon in silver in Arina Vlasyevna’s house). She sat, as before, close to her son — she did not play cards — and as before she leaned her cheek on her little clenched hand; she got up only to order some fresh sweetmeat to be served. She was afraid to caress Bazarov, and he gave her no encouragement, for he did nothing to invite her caresses; and besides, Vassily Ivanovich had advised her not to “disturb” him too much. “Young men are not fond of that sort of thing,” he explained to her. (There is no need to say what dinner was like that day; Timofeich in person had galloped off at dawn to procure some special Circassian beef; the bailiff had gone off in another direction for turbot, perch and crayfish; for mushrooms alone the peasant woman had been paid forty-two kopeks in copper); but Arina Vlasyevna’s eyes, looking steadfastly at Bazarov, expressed not devotion and tenderness alone, for sorrow was visible in them also, mingled with curiosity and fear, and with a trace of humble reproachfulness.

Bazarov, however, was in no state of mind to analyze the exact expression of his mother’s eyes; he seldom turned to her and then only with some short question. Once he asked her for her hand “for luck”; she quietly placed her soft little hand on his rough broad palm.

“Well,” she asked after waiting for a time, “did it help?”

“Worse luck than before,” he answered with a careless smile. “He plays too rashly,” pronounced Father Alexei, as it were compassionately, and stroked his handsome beard.

“That was Napoleon’s principle, good Father, Napoleon’s,” interposed Vassily Ivanovich, leading with an ace.

“But it brought him to the isle of St. Helena,” observed Father Alexei, and trumped his ace.

“Wouldn’t you like some black-currant tea, Enyushka?” asked Arina Vlasyevna.

Bazarov merely shrugged his shoulders.

“No!” he said to Arkady the following day, “I go away from here tomorrow. I’m bored; I want to work but I can’t here. I will come again to your place; I left all my apparatus there. In your house at least one can shut oneself up, but here my father keeps on repeating to me, ‘My study is at your disposal — nobody shall interfere with you,’ and all the time he himself is hardly two steps away. And I’m ashamed somehow to shut myself away from him. It’s the same thing with my mother. I hear how she sighs on the other side of the wall, and then if one goes in to see her — one has nothing to say.”

“She will be most upset,” said Arkady, “and so will he.”

“I shall come back to them.”

“When?”

“Well, when I’m on my way to Petersburg.”

“I feel particularly sorry for your mother.”

“How’s that? Has she won your heart with her raspberries?”

Arkady lowered his eyes.

“You don’t understand your mother, Evgeny. She’s not only a very good woman, she’s really very wise. This morning she talked to me for half an hour, and so interestingly, so much to the point.”

“I suppose she was expatiating about me the whole time.”

“We didn’t talk about you only.”

“Maybe as an outsider you see more. If a woman can keep up a conversation for half an hour, it’s already a good sign. But I’m going away, all the same.”

“It won’t be easy for you to break the news to them. They are making plans for us a fortnight ahead.”

“No; it won’t be easy. Some devil drove me to tease my father today; he had one of his rent-paying peasants flogged the other day and quite rightly too — yes, yes, don’t look at me in such horror — he did right because that peasant is a frightful thief and drunkard; only my father had no idea that I, as they say, became aware of the facts. He was very much embarrassed, and now I shall have to upset him as well . . . Never mind! He’ll get over it.”

Bazarov said, “Never mind,” but the whole day passed before he could bring himself to tell Vassily Ivanovich about his decision. At last when he was just saying good night to him in the study, he remarked with a strained yawn: “Oh yes . . . I almost forgot to tell you — will you send to Fedot’s for our horses tomorrow?”

Vassily Ivanovich was dumbfounded.

“Is Mr. Kirsanov leaving us then?”

“Yes, and I’m going with him.”

Vassily Ivanovich almost reeled over. “You are going away?”

“Yes . . . I must. Make the arrangements about the horses, please.”

“Very good . . . to the posting station . . . very good — only — only — why is it?”

“I must go to stay with him for a short time. Afterwards I will come back here again.”

“Ah! for a short time . . . very good.”

Vassily Ivanovich took out his handkerchief and as he blew his nose bent himself almost double to the ground. “All right, it will — all be done. I had thought you were going to stay with us . . . a little longer. Three days . . . after three years. . . that’s rather little, rather little, Evgeny.”

“But I tell you I’m coming back soon. I have to go.”

“You have to . . . Well! Duty comes before everything else . . . So you want the horses sent? All right. Of course Anna and I never expected this. She has just managed to get some flowers from a neighbor; she wanted to decorate your room.” (Vassily Ivanovich did not even mention that every morning the moment it was light he consulted with Timofeich, and standing with his bare feet in slippers, pulling out with trembling fingers one crumpled ruble note after another, entrusted him with various purchases, particularly of good things to eat, and of red wine, which, as far as he could observe, the young men liked extremely.) “Liberty — is the main thing — that is my principle . . . one has no right to interfere. . . no . . .”

He suddenly fell silent and made for the door.

“We shall soon see each other again, father, really.”

But Vassily Ivanovich did not turn round, he only waved his hand and went out. When he got back to the bedroom, he found his wife in bed and began to say his prayers in a whisper in order not to wake her up. She woke, however.

“Is that you, Vassily Ivanovich?” she asked.

“Yes, little mother.”

“Have you come from Enyusha? Do you know, I’m afraid he may not be comfortable on that sofa. I told Anfisushka to put out for him your traveling mattress and the new pillows; I should have given him our feather bed, but I seem to remember he doesn’t like sleeping soft.”

“Never mind, little mother, don’t you worry. He’s all right. Lord have mercy on us sinners,” he continued his prayer in a low voice. Vassily Ivanovich felt sorry for his old wife; he did not wish to tell her overnight what sorrow there was in store for her.

Bazarov and Arkady left on the following day. From early morning the house was filled with gloom; Anfisushka let the dishes slip out of her hand; even Fedka became bewildered and at length took off his boots. Vassily Ivanovich fussed more than ever; obviously he was trying to make the best of it, talked loudly and stamped his feet, but his face looked haggard and he continually avoided looking his son in the eyes. Arina Vlasyevna wept quietly; she would have broken down and lost all control of herself if her husband had not spent twc whole hours exhorting her early that morning. When Bazarov, after repeated promises to come back within a month at the latest, tore himself at last from the embraces detaining him, and took his seat in the tarantass, when the horses started, the bell rang and the wheels were moving — and when it was no longer any use gazing after them, when the dust had settled down, and Timofeich, all bent and tottering as he walked, had crept back to his little room; when the old people were left alone in the house, which also seemed to have suddenly shrunk and grown decrepit — Vassily Ivanovich, who a few moments before had been heartily waving his handkerchief on the steps, sank into a chair and his head fell on his breast.

“He has abandoned us, cast us off!” he muttered. “Abandoned us, he only feels bored with us now. Alone, all alone, like a solitary finger,” he repeated several times, stretching out his hand with the forefinger standing out from the others.

Then Arina Vlasyevna came up to him and leaning her grey head against his grey head, she said: “What can we do, Vasya? A son is a piece broken off. He’s like a falcon that flies home and flies away again when it wants; but you and I are like mushrooms growing in the hollow of a tree, we sit side by side without moving from the same place. Only I will never change for you, and you will always be the same for me.”

Vassily Ivanovich took his hands from his face and embraced his wife, his friend, more warmly than he had ever embraced her in his youth; she comforted him in his sorrow.

Chapter 22

In silence, only rarely exchanging a few words, our friends traveled as far as Fedot’s.

Bazarov was not altogether pleased with himself, and Arkady was displeased with him. He also felt gripped by that melancholy without a cause, which only very young people experience. The coachman changed the horses and getting up on to the box, inquired: “To the right or to the left?”

Arkady shuddered. The road to the right led to the town, and from there home; the road to the left led to Madame Odintsov’s place. He looked at Bazarov. “Evgeny,” he asked, “to the left?”

Bazarov turned away.

“What folly is this?” he muttered.

“I know it is folly,” answered Arkady. “But what harm does it do? It’s not for the first time.”

Bazarov pulled his cap down over his forehead. “As you like,” he said at last.

“Turn to the left,” shouted Arkady.

The tarantass rolled off in the direction of Nikolskoe. But having decided on committing the folly, the friends maintained an even more obstinate silence than before, and seemed positively bad tempered.

Already, by the manner in which the butler met them in the porch of Madame Odintsov’s house, the friends could guess that they had acted injudiciously in giving way so suddenly to a passing caprice. They were obviously not expected. They sat for quite a long time in the drawing room with rather stupid faces. At length Madame Odintsov came in to them. She greeted them with her usual politeness, but showed surprise at their rapid return, and judging by the, deliberation of her gestures and words, she was not over pleased about it. They hastened to explain that they had only called there on their way, and within four hours must continue their journey to the town. She confined herself to a mild exclamation, asked Arkady to convey her greetings to his father, and sent for her aunt. The princess appeared, looking half asleep, which gave her wrinkled old face an even more hostile expression. Katya was unwell and did not leave her room. Arkady suddenly realized that he was at least as anxious to see Katya as to see Anna Sergeyevna herself. The four hours passed in small talk about one thing or another; Anna Sergeyevna both listened and talked without smiling. It was only when they were already saying good-by that her former friendliness seemed somehow to light up again in her.

“I have an attack of spleen just now,” she said, “but don’t pay any attention to that, and come here again — I say that to both of you — before long.”

Both Bazarov and Arkady responded with a silent bow, took their seats in the carriage, and without stopping again anywhere, drove straight home to Maryino, where they arrived safely on the evening of the following day. During the whole journey neither of them so much as mentioned the name of Madame Odintsov; Bazarov, in particular, hardly opened his mouth, and kept staring sideways at the road with a kind of embittered concentration.

At Maryino everyone was overjoyed to see them. The prolonged absence of his son had begun to make Nikolai Petrovich uneasy; he uttered a joyful exclamation and bounced up and down on the sofa, dangling his legs, when Fenichka ran in to him with sparkling eyes and announced the arrival of the “young gentlemen”; even Pavel Petrovich felt to some degree pleasantly excited, and smiled indulgently as he shook hands with the returned wanderers. Talk and questions followed quickly; Arkady talked most, especially at supper, which lasted till long after midnight. Nikolai Petrovich ordered up some bottles of porter which had just been brought from Moscow, and he himself made merry till his cheeks turned purple, laughing repeatedly with a rather childlike but nervous laughter. Even the servants were affected by the general gaiety. Dunyasha ran up and down like one possessed, slamming doors from time to time; while Pyotr at three o’clock in the morning was still trying to play a Cossack waltz on the guitar. The strings emitted their sweet and plaintive sounds in the motionless air, but except for some short preliminary flourishes the cultured valet’s efforts failed to produce any tune; nature had granted him no more talent for music than it had for anything else.

But meanwhile things had not been going too well at Maryino, and poor Nikolai Petrovich was having a hard time. Every day difficulties arose on the farm — senseless, distressing difficulties. The troubles with the hired laborers had become intolerable. Some gave notice or asked for higher wages, while others walked off with wages they had received in advance; the horses fell sick; the harness was damaged as though it had been burnt; the work was carelessly done; a threshing machine ordered from Moscow turned out to be unusable because it was too heavy; another winnowing machine was ruined the very first time it was used; half the cattle sheds were burned down because a blind old woman on the farm went with a blazing firebrand in windy weather to fumigate her cow . . . of course, the old woman maintained that the whole mishap was due to the master’s plan of introducing new-fangled cheeses and dairy products. The bailiff suddenly turned lazy and began to grow fat as every Russian grows fat when he gets an easy living. When he caught sight of Nikolai Petrovich in the distance, he would try to demonstrate his zeal by throwing a stick at a passing pig, or by threatening some half-naked ragamuffin, but for the rest of the time he was generally asleep. The peasants who had been put on the rent system did not pay in time and stole wood from the forest; almost every night the watchmen caught peasants’ horses in the farm meadows and sometimes removed them after a scrimmage. Nikolai Petrovich would fix a money fine for damages, but the matter usually ended by the horses being returned to their owners after they had been kept for a day or two on the master’s forage. On top of all this the peasants began to quarrel among themselves; brothers asked for their property to be divided, their wives could not get on together in one house; suddenly a quarrel would flare up, they would all rise to their feet, as though at a given signal, would run to the porch of the estate office, and crawl in front of the master, often in a drunken state with battered faces, demanding justice and retribution; an uproar and clamor would ensue, the shrill screams of the women mingling with the curses of the men. The contending parties had to be examined, and one had to shout oneself hoarse, knowing in advance that it was in any case quite impossible to reach a just settlement. There were not enough hands for the harvest; a neighboring yeoman, in the most benevolent manner, contracted to supply him with reapers for a commission of two rubles per acre — and cheated him in the most shameless way; his peasant women demanded exorbitant prices, and meanwhile the corn got spoiled; the harvest was not in the common ownership, but at the same time the Council of Guardians issued threats and demanded immediate and full payment of interest due . . .

“It’s beyond my power!” exclaimed Nikolai Petrovich several times in despair. “I can’t flog them myself; to send for the police — is against my principles, but without the fear of punishment you can do absolutely nothing with them!”

“Du calme, du calme,” Pavel Petrovich would remark on these occasions, but he hummed to himself, frowned and twisted his mustache.

Bazarov held himself aloof from all the “squabbles,” and indeed as a guest it was not incumbent on him to meddle in other people’s affairs. On the day after his arrival in Maryino he set to work on his frogs, his infusoria, and his chemical experiments, and spent all his time over them. Arkady, on the contrary, considered it his duty, if not to help his father, at least to create an impression of being ready to help him. He listened to him patiently and sometimes gave his advice, not that he expected it to be acted upon, but in order to show his concern. The details of agricultural management were not repugnant to him; he even indulged in pleasant dreams about agricultural work, but at this time his mind was preoccupied with other ideas. To his own surprise Arkady found he was thinking incessantly of Nikolskoe; formerly he would have just shrugged his shoulders if anyone had told him he could feel bored under the same roof as Bazarov — particularly in his own home — but now he was bored and longed to get away. He tried walking till he was tired out, but that did not help either. One day when talking to his father, he found out that Nikolai Petrovich possessed a number of quite interesting letters, written to his wife by Madame Odintsov’s mother, and Arkady gave him no peace until he had taken out the letters, for which Nikolai Petrovich was obliged to rummage in twenty different drawers and boxes. Having gained possession of these crumbling papers, Arkady somehow calmed down as if he had secured a clearer vision of the goal towards which he ought now to move. “‘I say that to both of you,’” he kept on repeating to himself, “those were the words she added. I shall go there, I shall go, hang it all!” Then he recalled his last visit, the cold reception and his previous embarrassment, and shyness overwhelmed him. But the adventurous daring of youth, the secret desire to try his luck, to test his powers independently without anyone else’s protection — prevailed at last. Before ten days had passed after his return to Maryino, on the pretext of going to study the organization of Sunday schools, he galloped off again to the town, and from there on to Nikolskoe.

Uninterruptedly urging the driver forward, he dashed on like a young officer riding into battle; he felt at once frightened and lighthearted and breathless with impatience. “The main thing is — I mustn’t think,” he kept on saying to himself. His driver happened to be a high-spirited fellow, who stopped in front of every inn and exclaimed, “A drink?” or “What about a drink?” but, to make up for that, after the drink he did not spare his horses. At length there came into sight the high roof of the familiar house . . . “What shall I do?” suddenly flashed through Arkady’s mind. “Anyhow, I can’t turn back now!” The three horses sped gaily on; the driver yelled and whistled at them. Already the little bridge was echoing under the wheels and the horses’ hoofs, and the avenue of lopped pines was drawing nearer . . . he caught a glimpse of a woman’s pink dress moving among the dark green trees, and a young face peeped out from under the light fringe of a parasol . . . he recognized Katya, and she recognized him. Arkady ordered the driver to stop the galloping horses, jumped out of the carriage and went up to her.

“It’s you!” she murmured and slowly blushed all over; “let us go to my sister, she’s here in the garden; she will be pleased to see you.”

Katya led Arkady into the garden. His meeting with her struck him as a particularly happy omen; he was delighted to see her, as though she were someone close to his heart. Everything had happened so agreeably; no butler, no formal announcement. At a turn in the path he caught sight of Anna Sergeyevna. She was standing with her back to him; hearing his footsteps, she gently turned round.

Arkady would have felt embarrassed again, but the first words which she uttered immediately set him at ease. “Welcome, you runaway!” she said in her smooth caressing voice, and came forward to meet him, smiling and screwing up her eyes from the sun and breeze. “Where did you find him, Katya?”

“I have brought you something, Anna Sergeyevna,” he began, “which you certainly don’t expect . . .”

“You have brought yourself; that’s better than anything else.”

Chapter 23

Having seen Arkady off with ironical sympathy, and given him to understand that he was not in the least deceived about the real object of his journey, Bazarov shut himself up in solitude, and set to work with feverish intensity. He no longer argued with Pavel Petrovich, particularly since the latter assumed in his presence an oppressively aristocratic manner and expressed his opinions more by inarticulate sounds than by words. Only on one occasion Pavel Petrovich fell into a controversy with the nihilist over the then much discussed question about the rights of the nobles in the Baltic provinces, but he quickly stopped himself, remarking with a chilly politeness: “However, we cannot understand one another; I, at least, have not the honor of understanding you.”

“I should think not!” exclaimed Bazarov. “A human being can understand everything — how the ether vibrates, and what’s going on in the sun; but how another person can blow his nose differently from him, that he’s incapable of understanding.”

“What, is that a joke?” remarked Pavel Petrovich in a questioning tone and walked away.

However, he sometimes asked permission to be present at Bazarov’s experiments and once even placed his perfumed face, washed with the finest soap, over the microscope, in order to see how a transparent protozoon swallowed a green speck and busily chewed it with two very adroit organs which were in its throat. Nikolai Petrovich visited Bazarov much oftener than his brother; he would have come every day “to learn,” as he expressed it, if the worries of his farm had not kept him too busy. He did not interfere with the young research worker; he used to sit down in a corner of the room and watch attentively, occasionally permitting himself some discreet question. During dinner and supper he used to try to turn the conversation to physics, geology or chemistry, since all other subjects, even agriculture, to say nothing of politics, might lead, if not to collisions, at least to mutual dissatisfaction. Nikolai Petrovich guessed that his brother’s dislike of Bazarov had not diminished. A minor incident, among many others, confirmed his surmise. Cholera began to break out in some places in the neighborhood, and even “carried off” two people from Maryino itself. One night Pavel Petrovich had a rather severe attack of illness. He was in pain till the morning, but he never asked for Bazarov’s help; when he met him the next day, in reply to his question why he had not sent for him, he answered, still very pale, but perfectly brushed and shaved. “Surely I remember you said yourself you don’t believe in medicine.” So the days passed. Bazarov went on working obstinately and grimly . . . and meanwhile there was in Nikolai Petrovich’s house one person to whom, if he did not open his heart, he was at least glad to talk . . . that person was Fenichka.

He used to meet her chiefly in the early morning, in the garden or the farmyard; he never went to see her in her room and she had only once come to his door to inquire — should she give Mitya his bath or not? She not only had confidence in him and was not afraid of him, she felt freer and more at ease with him than she did with Nikolai Petrovich himself. It is hard to say how this came about; perhaps because unconsciously she felt in Bazarov the absence of anything aristocratic, of all that superiority which at once attracts and overawes. In her eyes he was both an excellent doctor and a simple man. She attended to her baby in his presence without any embarrassment, and once when she was suddenly overcome by giddiness and headache she took a spoonful of medicine from his hands. When Nikolai Petrovich was there she kept Bazarov somehow at a distance; she did this not out of hypocrisy but from a definite sense of propriety. Of Pavel Petrovich she was more afraid than ever; for some time he had begun to watch her, and would suddenly appear, as if he had sprung out of the earth behind her back, in his English suit with an impassive vigilant face and with his hands in his pockets.

“It’s like having cold water thrown over one,” said Fenichka to Dunyasha, who sighed in response and thought of another “heartless” man. Bazarov, without the faintest suspicion of the fact, had become the “cruel tyrant” of her heart.

Fenichka liked Bazarov, and he liked her also. His face was even transformed when he talked to her; it took on an open kindly expression, and his habitual nonchalance was modified by a kind of jocular attentiveness. Fenichka was growing prettier every day. There is a period in the life of young women when they suddenly begin to expand and blossom like summer roses; such a time had come for Fenichka. Everything contributed to it, even the June heat which was then at its height. Dressed in a light white dress, she seemed herself whiter and more graceful; the sun had not tanned her skin; but the heat, from which she could not protect herself, spread a slight flush over her cheeks and ears and a gentle languor through her whole body, reflected in the dreamy expression of her charming eyes. She was almost unable to work and kept on sighing and complaining with a comic helplessness.

“You should go oftener to bathe,” Nikolai Petrovich told her. He had arranged a large bathing place covered with an awning in the only one of his ponds which had not yet completely dried up.

“Oh, Nikolai Petrovich! But you die before you get to the pond and on the way back you die again. You see, there’s no shade in the garden.”

“That’s true, there’s no shade,” said Nikolai Petrovich, wiping his forehead.

One day at seven o’clock in the morning, Bazarov was returning from a walk and encountered Fenichka in the lilac arbor, which had long ceased to flower but was still thick with green leaves. She was sitting on the bench and had as usual thrown a white kerchief over her head; beside her lay a whole heap of red and white roses still wet with dew. He said good morning to her.

“Oh, Evgeny Vassilich!” she said and lifted the edge of her kerchief a little in order to look at him, in doing which her arm was bared to the elbow.

“What are you doing here?” said Bazarov, sitting down beside her. “Are you making a bouquet?”

“Yes, for the table at lunch. Nikolai Petrovich likes it.”

“But lunch is still a long way off. What a mass of flowers.”

“I gathered them now, for it will be hot later on and one can’t go out. Even now one can only just breathe. I feel quite weak from the heat. I’m quite afraid I may get ill.”

“What an idea! Let me feel your pulse.”

Bazarov took her hand, felt for the evenly throbbing pulse but did not even start to count its beats.

“You’ll live a hundred years,” he said, dropping her hand.

“Ah, God forbid!” she cried.

“But why? Don’t you want a long life?”

“Well, but a hundred years! We had an old woman of eighty-five near us — and what a martyr she was! Dirty, deaf, bent, always coughing, she was only a burden to herself. What kind of a life is that?”

“So it’s better to be young.”

“Well, isn’t it?”

“But why is it better? Tell me!”

“How can you ask why? Why, here am I, now I’m young, I can do everything — come and go and carry, and I don’t need to ask anyone for anything . . . What can be better?”

“But it’s all the same to me, whether I’m young or old.”

“How do you mean — all the same? It’s impossible what you say.”

“Well, judge for yourself, Fedosya Nikolayevna, what good is my youth to me? I live alone, a solitary man . . .”

“That always depends on you.”

“It doesn’t all depend on me! At least someone ought to take pity on me.”

Fenichka looked sideways at Bazarov, but said nothing. “What’s that book you have?” she said, after a short pause.

“That? It’s a scientific book, a difficult one.”

“Are you still studying? Don’t you find it dull? I should think you must know everything already.”

“Evidently not everything. You try to read a little of it.”

“But I don’t understand a word of it. Is it Russian?” asked Fenichka, taking the heavily bound book in both hands. “How thick it is!”

“Yes, it’s Russian.”

“All the same I shan’t understand anything.”

“Well and I don’t want you to understand it. I want to look at you while you are reading. When you read the tip of your nose moves so nicely.”

Fenichka, who had started to spell out in a low voice an article “On Creosote” she had chanced upon, laughed and threw down the book . . . it slipped from the bench to the ground. “I like it too when you laugh,” remarked Bazarov.

“Oh, stop!”

“I like it when you talk. It’s like a little brook babbling.”

Fenichka turned her head away.

“What a one you are!” she murmured, as she went on sorting out the flowers. “And how can you like listening to me? You have talked with such clever ladies.”

“Ah, Fedosya Nikolayevna! Believe me, all the clever ladies in the world aren’t worth your little elbow.”

“There now, what will you invent next!” whispered Fenichka, clasping her hands together.

Bazarov picked up the book from the ground.

“That’s a medical book. Why do you throw it away?”

“Medical?” repeated Fenichka, and turned round to him. “Do you know, ever since you gave me those drops — do you remember? — Mitya has slept so well. I really don’t know how to thank you; you are so good, really.”

“But actually you have to pay doctors,” said Bazarov with a smile. “Doctors, you know yourself, are grasping people.”

Fenichka raised her eyes which seemed still darker from the whitish reflection cast on the upper part of her face, and looked at Bazarov. She did not know whether he was joking or not.

“If you want, we shall be very glad . . . I shall have to ask Nikolai Petrovich . . .”

“You think I want money?” interrupted Bazarov. “No, I don’t want money from you.”

“What then?” asked Fenichka.

“What?” repeated Bazarov. “Guess.”

“As if I’m likely to guess.”

“Well, I will tell you; I want — one of those roses.” Fenichka laughed again and even threw up her hands — so amused she was by Bazarov’s request. She laughed and at the same time she felt flattered. Bazarov was watching her intently. “By all means,” she said at length, and bending over the bench she began to pick out some roses. “Which will you have — a red or a white one?”

“Red, and not too large.”

She sat up again. “Here, take it,” she said, but at once drew back her outstretched hand, and biting her lips, looked towards the entrance of the summerhouse and then listened.

“What is it?” asked Bazarov. “Nikolai Petrovich?”

“No — he has gone to the fields . . . and I’m not afraid of him . . . but Pavel Petrovich . . . I fancied .” .

“What?”

“It seemed to me he was passing by. No . . . it was no one. Take it.” Fenichka gave Bazarov the rose.

“What makes you afraid of Pavel Petrovich?”

“He always frightens me. One talks — and he says nothing, but just looks knowing. Of course, you don’t like him either. You remember you were always quarreling with him. I don’t know what you quarreled about, but I can see you turning him this way and that . . .”

Fenichka showed with her hands how in her opinion Bazarov turned Pavel Petrovich round about.

Bazarov smiled. “And if he defeated me,” he asked, “would you stand up for me?”

“How could I stand up for you? But no, one doesn’t get the better of you.”

“You think so? But I know a hand which, if it wanted to, could knock me down with one finger.”

“What hand is that?”

“Why, don’t you know really? Smell the wonderful scent of this rose you gave me.”

Fenichka stretched her little neck forward and put her face close to the flower, . . . The kerchief slipped from her hair on to her shoulders, disclosing a soft mass of black shining and slightly ruffled hair.

“Wait a moment; I want to smell it with you,” said Bazarov; he bent down and kissed her vigorously on her parted lips.

She shuddered, pushed him back with both her hands on his breast, but pushed weakly, so that he was able to renew and prolong his kiss.

A dry cough made itself heard behind the lilac bushes. Fenichka instantly moved away to the other end of the bench. Pavel Petrovich showed himself in the entrance, bowed slightly, muttered in a tone of sorrowful anger, “You are here!” and walked away. Fenichka at once gathered up all her roses and went out of the summerhouse.

“That was wrong of you, Evgeny Vassilich,” she whispered as she left; there was a tone of sincere reproach in her whisper.

Bazarov remembered another recent scene and he felt both ashamed and contemptuously annoyed. But he shook his head at once, ironically congratulated himself on his formal assumption of the rôle of a Don Juan, and went back to his own room.

Pavel Petrovich went out of the garden and made his way with slow steps to the wood. He stayed there quite a long time, and when he returned to lunch, Nikolai Petrovich inquired anxiously whether he felt unwell; his face had turned so dark.

“You know I sometimes suffer from bilious attacks,” Pavel Petrovich answered calmly.

Chapter 24

Two hours later he knocked at Bazarov’s door.

“I must apologize for hindering you in your scientific researches,” he began, seating himself in a chair by the window and leaning with both hands on a handsome walking-stick with an ivory knob (he usually walked without a stick), “but I am obliged to ask you to spare me five minutes of your time . . . no more.”

“All my time is at your disposal,” answered Bazarov, whose face quickly changed its expression the moment Pavel Petrovich crossed the threshold.

“Five minutes will be enough for me. I have come to put one question to you.”

“A question? What about?”

“I will tell you if you will be good enough to listen to me. At the beginning of your stay in my brother’s house, before I had renounced the pleasure of conversing with you, I had occasion to hear your opinion on many subjects; but as far as I can remember, neither between us, nor in my presence, was the subject of singlecombats or dueling discussed. Allow me to hear what are your views on that subject?”

Bazarov, who had stood up to meet Pavel Petrovich, sat down on the edge of the table and folded his arms.

“My view is,” he said, “that from the theoretical point of view dueling is absurd; but from the practical point of view — well, that’s quite another matter.”

“So, you mean to say, if I understand you rightly, that whatever theoretical views you may hold about dueling, you would in practice not allow yourself to be insulted without demanding satisfaction?”

“You have guessed my meaning completely.”

“Very good. I am very glad to hear that from you. Your words release me from a state of uncertainty . . ”

“Of indecision, do you mean?”

“That is all the same; I express myself in order to be understood; I . . . am not a seminary rat. Your words have saved me from a rather grievous necessity. I have made up my mind to fight you.”

Bazarov opened his eyes wide.

“Me?”

“Undoubtedly you.”

“And what for, may I ask?”

“I could explain the reason to you,” began Pavel Petrovich, “but I prefer to keep silent about it. To my mind your presence here is superfluous. I find you intolerable, I despise you, and if that is not enough for you . . .”

Pavel Petrovich’s eyes flashed . . . Bazarov’s too were glittering.

“Very good,” he said. “Further explanations are unnecessary. You’ve taken it into your head to try out on me your chivalrous spirit. I could refuse you this pleasure — but it can’t be helped!”

“I am sensible of my obligations to you,” answered Pavel Petrovich, “and I may count then on your accepting my challenge, without compelling me to resort to violent measures?”

“That means, speaking without metaphor, to that stick?” Bazarov remarked coolly. “That is entirely correct. You have no need to insult me; indeed it would not be quite safe . . . you can remain a gentleman . . . I accept your challenge also like a gentleman.”

“Excellent,” observed Pavel Petrovich, and put his stick down in the corner. “We will say a few words now about the conditions of our duel; but I should first like to know whether you consider it necessary to resort to the formality of a trifling dispute which might serve as a pretext for my challenge?”

“No, it’s better without formalities.”

“I also think so. I suggest it is also inappropriate to dwell further on the real reason for our skirmish. We cannot endure one another. What more is necessary?”

“What more is necessary?” repeated Bazarov ironically. “As regards the conditions of the duel itself, since we shall have no seconds — for where could we get them?”

“Exactly, where could we get any?”

“I therefore have the honor to put the following proposals to you; we shall fight early tomorrow morning, at six, let us say, behind the plantation, with pistols, at a distance of ten paces . . .”

“At ten paces? That will do; we can still hate each other at that distance.”

“We could make it eight,” remarked Pavel Petrovich.

“We could; why not?”

“We fire twice, and to be prepared for everything, let each put a letter in his pocket, accepting responsibility for his own end.”

“I don’t quite agree with that,” said Bazarov. “It smacks too much of a French novel, a bit unreal.”

“Perhaps. You will agree, however, that it would be unpleasant to incur the suspicion of murder?”

“I agree. But there is a means of avoiding that painful accusation. We shall have no seconds, but we could have a witness.”

“And who, may I ask?”

“Why, Pyotr.”

“Which Pyotr?”

“Your brother’s valet. He’s a man standing at the height of contemporary culture, who would play his part in such an affair with all the necessary ; repeated Vassily comilfo .”

“I think you are joking, sir.”

“Not in the least. If you think over my suggestion you will be convinced that it is full of common sense and simplicity. Murder will out — but I can undertake to prepare Pyotr in a suitable manner and bring him to the field of battle.”

“You persist in joking,” said Pavel Petrovich, getting up from his chair. “But after the courteous readiness you have shown, I have no right to claim . . . so everything is arranged . . . by the way, I suppose you have no pistols?”

“How should I have pistols, Pavel Petrovich? I’m not an army man.”

“In that case, I offer you mine. You may rest assured that I have not shot with them for five years.”

“That’s a very consoling piece of news. — ”

Pavel Petrovich picked up his stick . . . “And now, my dear sir, it only remains for me to thank you and to leave you to your studies. I have the honor to take leave of you.”

“Until we have the pleasure of meeting again, my dear sir,” said Bazarov, conducting his visitor to the door.

Pavel Petrovich went out; Bazarov remained standing for a moment in front of the door, then suddenly exclaimed, “What the devil — How fine and how stupid! A pretty farce we’ve been acting; like trained dogs dancing on their hind legs. But it was out of the question to refuse; I really believe he would have struck me, and then . . .” (Bazarov turned pale at the very thought; all his pride stood up on end.) “I might have had to strangle him like a kitten.” He went back to his microscope, but his heart was beating fast and the composure so essential for accurate observation had disappeared. “He saw us today,” he thought, “but can it be that he would do all this on account of his brother? And how serious a matter is it — a kiss? There must be something else in it. Bah! Isn’t he in love with her himself? Obviously he’s in love — it’s as clear as daylight. What a mess, just think . . . it’s a bad business!” he decided at last. “It’s bad from whatever angle one looks at it. In the first place to risk a bullet through one’s brain, and then in any case to go away from here; and what about Arkady . . . and that good-natured creature Nikolai Petrovich? It’s a bad business.”

The day passed in a peculiar calm and dullness. Fenichka gave no sign of life at all; she sat in her little room like a mouse in its hole. Nikolai Petrovich had a careworn look. He had just heard that his wheat crop on which he had set high hopes had begun to show signs of blight, Pavel Petrovich overwhelmed everyone, even Prokovich, with his icy politeness. Bazarov began a letter to his father, but tore it up and threw it under the table. “If I die,” he thought, “they will hear about it; but I shan’t die; no, I shall struggle along in this world for a long time yet.” He gave Pyotr an order to come to him on important business the next morning as soon as it was light. Pyotr imagined that Bazarov wanted to take him to Petersburg. Bazarov went to bed late, and all night long he was oppressed by disordered dreams . . . Madame Odintsov kept on appearing in them; now she was his mother and she was followed by a kitten with black whiskers, and this kitten was really Fenichka; then Pavel Petrovich took the shape of a great forest, with which he had still to fight. Pyotr woke him at four o’clock; he dressed at once and went out with him.

It was a lovely fresh morning; tiny flecked clouds stood overhead like fleecy lambs in the clear blue sky; fine dewdrops lay on the leaves and grass, sparkling like silver on the spiders’ webs; the damp dark earth seemed still to preserve the rosy traces of the dawn; the songs of larks poured down from all over the sky. Bazarov walked as far as the plantation, sat down in the shade at its edge and only then disclosed to Pyotr the nature of the service he expected from him. The cultured valet was mortally alarmed; but Bazarov quieted him down by the assurance that he would have nothing to do except to stand at a distance and look on, and that he would not incur any sort of responsibility. “And besides,” he added, “only think what an important part you have to play.” Pyotr threw up his hands, cast down his eyes, and leaned against a birch tree, looking green with terror.

The road from Maryino skirted the plantation; a light dust lay on it, untouched by wheel or foot since the previous day. Bazarov found himself staring along this road, picking and chewing a piece of grass, and he kept on repeating to himself: “What a piece of idiocy!” The morning chill made him shiver twice . . . Pyotr looked at him dismally, but Bazarov only smiled; he was not frightened.

The tramp of horses’ hoofs could be heard coming along the road . . . A peasant came into sight from behind the trees. He was driving before him two horses hobbled together, and as he passed Bazarov he looked at him rather strangely, without removing his cap, which evidently disturbed Pyotr, as an unlucky omen.

“There’s someone else up early too,” thought Bazarov, “but he at least has got up for work while we . . .”

“It seems the gentleman is coming,” whispered Pyotr suddenly.

Bazarov raised his head and caught sight of Pavel Petrovich. Dressed in a light checked coat and snow-white trousers, he was walking quickly along the road; under his arm he carried a box wrapped in green cloth.

“Excuse me, I think I have kept you waiting,” he said, bowing first to Bazarov and then to Pyotr, whom he treated respectfully at that moment as representing some kind of second. “I did not want to wake up my man.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Bazarov. “We’ve only just arrived ourselves.”

“Ah! so much the better!” Pavel Petrovich looked around. “There’s no one in sight; no one to interfere with us . . we can proceed?”

“Let us proceed.”

“You don’t demand any more explanations, I suppose.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Would you like to load?” inquired Pavel Petrovich, taking the pistols out of the box.

“No; you load, and I will measure out the paces. My legs are longer,” added Bazarov with a smile. “One, two, three . . .”

“Evgeny Vassilich,” stammered Pyotr with difficulty (he was trembling as if he had fever), “say what you like, but I am going farther off.”

“Four, five . . . all right, move away, my good fellow; you can even stand behind a tree and stop up your ears, only don’t shut your eyes; and if anyone falls, run and pick him up. Six . . . seven . . . eight . . .” Bazarov stopped. “Is that enough?” he asked, turning to Pavel Petrovich, “or shall I add two paces more?”

“As you like,” replied the latter, pressing the second bullet into the barrel.

“Well, we’ll make two paces more,” Bazarov drew a line on the ground with the toe of his boot. “There’s the barrier. By the way, how many paces may each of us go back from the barrier? That’s an important question too. It was not discussed yesterday.”

“I suppose, ten,” replied Pavel Petrovich, handing Bazarov both pistols. “Will you be so good as to choose?”

“I will be so good. But you must admit, Pavel Petrovich, that our duel is unusual to the point of absurdity. Only look at the face of our second.”

“You are disposed to laugh at everything,” answered Pavel Petrovich. “I don’t deny the strangeness of our duel, but I think it is my duty to warn you that I intend to fight seriously. A bon entendeur, salut !”

“Oh! I don’t doubt that we’ve made up our minds to do away with each other; but why not laugh and unite utile dulci ? So you can talk to me in French and I’ll reply in Latin.”

“I intend to fight seriously,” repeated Pavel Petrovich and he walked off to his place. Bazarov on his side counted off ten paces from the barrier and stood still.

“Are you ready?” asked Pavel Petrovich.

“Perfectly.”

“We can approach each other.”

Bazarov moved slowly forward and Pavel Petrovich walked towards him, his left hand thrust in his pocket, gradually raising the muzzle of his pistol . . . “He’s aiming straight at my nose,” thought Bazarov, “and how carefully he screws up his eyes, the scoundrel! Not an agreeable sensation. I’d better look at his watch-chain Something whizzed by sharply close to Bazarov’s ear, and a shot rang out at that moment. “I heard it, so it must be all right,” managed to flash through Bazarov’s brain. He took one more step, and without taking aim, pressed the trigger.

Pavel Petrovich swayed slightly and clutched at his thigh. A thin stream of blood began to trickle down his white trousers.

Bazarov threw his pistol aside and went up to his antagonist. “Are you wounded?” he asked.

“You had the right to call me up to the barrier,” said Pavel Petrovich. “This is a trifle. According to our agreement, each of us has the right to one more shot.”

“Well, but excuse me, we’ll leave that to another time,” answered Bazarov, and caught hold of Pavel Petrovich, who was beginning to turn pale. “Now I’m no longer a duelist but a doctor, and first of all I must have a look at your wound. Pyotr! Come here, Pyotr! Where have you hidden yourself?”

“What nonsense . . . I need help from nobody,” said Pavel Petrovich jerkily, “and — we must — again . . .” He tried to pull at his mustache, but his hand failed him, his eyes grew dim, and he fainted.

“Here’s a pretty pass. A fainting-fit! What next!” Bazarov exclaimed involuntarily as he laid Pavel Petrovich on the grass. “Let’s see what is wrong.” He pulled out a handkerchief, wiped away the blood, and began to feel around the wound . . . “The bone’s not touched,” he muttered through his teeth, “the bullet didn’t go deep; only one muscle vastus externus grazed. He’ll be dancing about in three weeks. Fainting! Oh these nervous people! Fancy, what a delicate skin.”

“Is he killed?” whispered the trembling voice of Pyotr behind his back.

Bazarov looked round.

“Go for some water quickly, my good fellow, and he’ll outlive you and me yet.”

But the perfect servant failed apparently to understand his words and did not move from the spot. Pavel Petrovich slowly opened his eyes. “He’s dying,” murmured Pyotr and started crossing himself. “You are right . . . what an idiotic face!” remarked the wounded gentleman with a forced smile.

“Go and fetch the water, damn you!” shouted Bazarov.

“There’s no need . . . it was a momentary vertigo. Help me to sit up . . . there, that’s right . . . I only need something to bind up this scratch, and I can reach home on foot, or else you can send for a droshky for me. The duel, if you agree, need not be renewed. You have behaved honorably . . . today, today — take note.”

“There’s no need to recall the past,” answered Bazarov, “and as regards the future, it’s not worth breaking your head about that either, for I intend to move off from here immediately. Let me bind up your leg now; your wound — is not dangerous, but it’s always better to stop the bleeding. But first I must bring this corpse to his senses.”

Bazarov shook Pyotr by the collar and sent him off to fetch a droshky.

“Mind you don’t frighten my brother,” Pavel Petrovich said to him; “don’t inform him on any account.”

Pyotr dashed off, and while he was running for a droshky, the two antagonists sat on the ground in silence. Pavel Petrovich tried not to look at Bazarov; he did not want to be reconciled to him in any case; he felt ashamed of his own arrogance, of his failure; he was ashamed of the whole affair he had arranged even though he realized it could not have ended more auspiciously. “At least he won’t go on hanging around here,” he consoled himself by thinking: “one should be thankful even for that.” The prolonged silence was oppressive and awkward. Both of them felt ill at ease; each was conscious that the other understood him. For friends such a feeling is agreeable, but for those who are not friends it is most unpleasant, especially when it is impossible either to come to an understanding or to separate.

“Haven’t I bound up your leg too tight?” asked Bazarov at last.

“No, not at all, it’s excellent,” answered Pavel Petrovich, and added after a pause, “we can’t deceive my brother, he will have to be told that we quarreled about politics.”

“Very good,” said Bazarov. “You can say that I cursed all Anglomaniacs.”

“All right. What do you suppose that man thinks about us now?” continued Pavel Petrovich, pointing at the same peasant who had driven the hobbled horses past Bazarov a few minutes before the duel, and who was now going back again along the same road and took off his cap at the sight of the “masters.”

“Who knows him!” answered Bazarov. “Most likely of all he thinks about nothing. The Russian peasant is that mysterious unknown person about whom Mrs. Radcliffe used to say so much. Who can understand him? He doesn’t understand himself.”

“Ah, so that’s what you think,” Pavel Petrovich began, then suddenly exclaimed, “Look what your fool of a Pyotr has done! Here’s my brother galloping towards us.”

Bazarov turned round and saw Nikolai Petrovich sitting in a droshky, his face pale. He jumped out before it had stopped and ran up to his brother.

“What does this mean?” he called out in an agitated voice. “Evgeny Vassilich, what is this?”

“Nothing,” answered Pavel Petrovich, “they have alarmed you quite unnecessarily. We had a little dispute, Mr. Bazarov and I — and I have had to pay for it a little.”

“But for heaven’s sake, what was it all about?”

“How shall I explain? Mr. Bazarov alluded disrespectfully to Sir Robert Peel. I hasten to add that I am the only person to blame in all this, and Mr. Bazarov has behaved honorably. I challenged him.”

“But you’re covered with blood!”

“Well, did you suppose I had water in my veins? But this bloodletting positively does me good. Isn’t that so, doctor? Help me to get into the droshky and don’t give way to gloomy thoughts. I shall be quite well tomorrow. That’s it; excellent. Drive off, coachman.”

Nikolai Petrovich followed the droshky on foot. Bazarov lagged behind . . .

“I must ask you to look after my brother,” Nikolai Petrovich said to him, “until we get another doctor from the town.”

Bazarov nodded his head without speaking. An hour later Pavel Petrovich was already lying in bed with a skillfully bandaged leg. The whole house was upset; Fenichka felt ill; Nikolai Petrovich was silently wringing his hands, while Pavel Petrovich laughed and joked, especially with Bazarov; he had put on a fine cambric nightshirt, an elegant morning jacket, and a fez; he did not allow the blinds to be drawn down, and humorously complained about the necessity of not being allowed to eat.

Towards night, however, he grew feverish; his head ached. The doctor arrived from the town. (Nikolai Petrovich would not listen to his brother, nor did Bazarov want him to; he sat the whole day in his room, looking yellow and angry, and only went in to the invalid for as brief a visit as possible; twice he happened to meet Fenichka, but she shrank away from him in horror.) The new doctor advised a cooling diet; he confirmed, however, Bazarov’s assurance that there was no danger. Nikolai Petrovich told him that his brother had hurt himself accidentally, to which the doctor replied “Hm!” but on having twenty-five silver rubles slipped into his hand on the spot, he remarked, “You don’t say so! Well, such things often happen, of course.”

No one in the house went to bed or undressed. Nikolai Petrovich from time to time went in on tiptoe to his brother’s room and tiptoed out again; Pavel Petrovich dozed, sighed a little, told his brother in French “Couchez-vous,” and asked for something to drink. Nikolai Petrovich sent Fenichka in to him once with a glass of lemonade; Pavel Petrovich looked at her intently and drank off the glass to the last drop. Towards morning the fever had increased a little; a slight delirium started. At first Pavel Petrovich uttered incoherent words; then suddenly he opened his eyes, and seeing his brother beside his bed, anxiously leaning over him, he murmured, “Don’t you think, Nikolai, Fenichka has something in common with Nellie?”

“What Nellie, Pavel dear?”

“How can you ask that? With Princess R . Especially in the upper part of the face. C’est de la même famille.”

Nikolai Petrovich made no answer, but inwardly he marveled at the persistent vitality of old passions in a man. “This is what happens when it comes to the surface,” he thought.

“Ah, how I love that empty creature!” groaned Pavel Petrovich, mournfully clasping his hands behind his head. “I can’t bear that any insolent upstart should dare to touch . . .” he muttered a few minutes later.

Nikolai Petrovich only sighed; he never even suspected to whom these words referred.

Bazarov came to see him on the following day at eight o’clock. He had already managed to pack and had set free all his frogs, insects and birds.

“You have come to say good-by to me?” said Nikolai Petrovich, getting up to meet him.

“Exactly.”

“I understand and fully approve of you. My poor brother is of course to blame; but he has been punished for it. He told me that he made it impossible for you to act otherwise. I believe that you could not avoid this duel, which . . . which to some extent is explained by the almost constant antagonism of your different points of view.” (Nikolai Petrovich began to get rather mixed up in his words.) “My brother is a man of the old school, hot-tempered and obstinate . . . thank God that it has only ended in this way. I have taken all possible precautions to avoid publicity.”

“I’ll leave you my address, in case there’s any fuss,” said Bazarov casually.

“I hope there will be no fuss, Evgeny Vassilich . . . I am very sorry that your stay in my house should have come to . . . such an end. It distresses me all the more on account of Arkady’s . . .”

“I expect I shall see him,” replied Bazarov, in whom every kind of “explanation” and “pronouncement” always aroused a feeling of impatience. “In case I don’t, may I ask you to say good-by to him for me and to accept the expression of my regret.”

“And I, too, ask . . .” began Nikolai Petrovich with a bow. But Bazarov did not wait for him to finish his sentence and went out of the room.

On hearing that Bazarov was going, Pavel Petrovich expressed a desire to see him and shook him by the hand. But even then Bazarov remained as cold as ice; he realized that Pavel Petrovich wanted to display magnanimity. He found no opportunity of saying good-by to Fenichka; he only exchanged glances with her from the window. Her face struck him by its sad look. “She’ll come to grief, probably,” he said to himself, “though she may pull through somehow!”

Pyotr, however, was so overcome that he wept on his shoulder, until Bazarov cooled him down by asking if he had a constant water supply in his eyes; and Dunyasha felt obliged to run away into the plantation to hide her emotion. The originator of all this distress climbed into a country cart, lit a cigar, and when, three miles further on at a bend in the road, he saw for the last time the Kirsanovs’ farmstead and its new manor house standing together on the sky line, he merely spat and muttering, “Damned noblemen,” wrapped himself more tightly in his cloak.

Pavel Petrovich was soon better; but he had to lie in bed for about a week. He bore his captivity, as he called it, fairly patiently, though he took great trouble over his toilet and had everything scented with eau de Cologne. Nikolai Petrovich read papers to him; Fenichka waited on him as before, brought him soup, lemonade, boiled eggs and tea; but a secret dread seized her every time she came into his room. Pavel Petrovich’s unexpected action had alarmed everyone in the house, and her most of all; Prokovich was the only person not troubled by it, and he discoursed on how gentlemen used to fight in his day only with real gentlemen, but such low scoundrels they would have ordered to be horsewhipped in the stables for their insolence.

Fenichka’s conscience scarcely reproached her, but she was tormented at times by the thought of the real cause of the quarrel; and Pavel Petrovich, too, looked at her so strangely . . . so that even when her back was turned she felt his eyes fixed on her. She grew thinner from constant inward agitation and, as it happened, became still more charming.

One day — the incident took place in the early morning — Pavel Petrovich felt better and moved from his bed to the sofa, while Nikolai Petrovich, having previously made inquiries about his brother’s health, went off to the threshing floor. Fenichka brought him a cup of tea, and setting it down on a little table, was about to withdraw, Pavel Petrovich detained her.

“Where are you going in such a hurry, Fedosya Nikolayevna,” he began, “are you so busy?”

“No . . . yes, I have to pour out tea.”

“Dunyasha will do that without you; sit down for a little while with an invalid. By the way, I must have a talk with you.”

Fenichka sat down on the edge of an armchair without speaking.

“Listen,” said Pavel Petrovich, pulling at his mustache, “I have wanted to ask you for a long time; you seem somehow afraid of me.”

“I . . . ?”

“Yes, you. You never look me in the face, as if your conscience were not clear.”

Fenichka blushed but looked up at Pavel Petrovich. He seemed so strange to her and her heart began quietly throbbing. “Surely you have a clear conscience?” he asked her.

“Why should it not be clear?” she whispered.

“Why indeed. Besides, whom could you have wronged? Me? That is unlikely. Any other people living in the house? That is also a fantastic idea. Could it be my brother? But surely you love him?”

“I love him.”

“With your whole soul, with your whole heart?”

“I love Nikolai Petrovich with my whole heart.”

“Truly? Look at me, Fenichka.” (He called her by that name for the first time.) . . . “You know, it is a great sin to tell lies!”

“I am not lying, Pavel Petrovich. If I did not love Nikolai Petrovich, there would be no point in my living any longer.”

“And you will never give him up for anyone else?”

“For whom else could I give him up?”

“For whom indeed! Well, what about that gentleman who has just gone away from here?”

Fenichka got up.

“My God, Pavel Petrovich, why are you torturing me? What have I done to you? How can you say such things?”

“Fenichka,” said Pavel Petrovich in a sad voice, “you know I saw . . .”

“What did you see?”

“Well, there . . . in the summerhouse.”

Fenichka blushed to the roots of her hair and to her ears. “How can I be blamed for that?” she pronounced with an effort.

Pavel Petrovich raised himself up. “You were not to blame? No? Not at all?”

“I love Nikolai Petrovich and no one else in the world and I shall always love him!” cried Fenichka with sudden force, while sobs rose in her throat. “As for what you saw, I will say on the dreadful day of last judgment that I am innocent of any blame for it and always was, and I would rather die at once if people can suspect me of any such thing against my benefactor, Nikolai Petrovich . . .”

But here her voice failed, and at the same moment she felt that Pavel Petrovich was seizing and pressing her hand . . . She looked at him and was almost petrified. He had turned even paler than before; his eyes were shining, and most surprising of all — one large solitary tear was rolling down his cheek. “Fenichka!” he said in a strange whisper. “Love him, love my brother! He is such a good kind man. Don’t give him up for anyone, don’t listen to anyone else’s talk. Only think, what can be more terrible than to love and not to be loved in return. Never leave my poor Nikolai!” Fenichka’s eyes were dry and her fright had vanished — so great was her amazement. But what were her feelings when Pavel Petrovich, Pavel Petrovich of all people, pressed her hand to his lips and seemed to pierce into it without kissing it, only breathing convulsively from time to time . . .

“Good heavens!” she thought, “is he suffering from some attack?”

At that moment his whole ruined life stirred within him.

The staircase creaked under rapidly approaching footsteps. . . . He pushed her away from him and let his head drop back on the pillow. The door opened, and Nikolai Petrovich came in, looking cheerful, fresh and ruddy. Mitya, just as fresh and rosy as his father, with nothing but his little shirt on, was frisking about in his arms, snatching with bare little toes at the buttons of his rough country coat.

Fenichka simply flung herself upon him and clasping him and her son together in her arms, dropped her head on his shoulder. Nikolai Petrovich was astonished; Fenichka, so shy and modest, never demonstrated her feelings for him in front of a third person.

“What’s the matter?” he said, and glancing at his brother he handed Mitya to her. “You don’t feel worse?” he asked, going up to Pavel Petrovich, who buried his face in a cambric handkerchief.

“No . . . not at all . . . on the contrary, I am much better.”

“You shouldn’t have been in such a hurry to move to the sofa. Where are you going?” added Nikolai Petrovich, turning towards Fenichka, but she had already closed the door behind her. “I was bringing my young hero in to show you; he has been crying for his uncle. Why did she carry him off? What’s wrong with you, though? Has anything happened between you?”

“Brother!” said Pavel Petrovich gravely. “Give me your word to carry out my one request.”

“What request, tell me.”

“It is very important; it seems to me the whole happiness of your life depends on it. I have been thinking a lot all this time about what I want to say to you now . . . Brother, do your duty, the duty of an honest and generous man, put an end to the scandal and the bad example you are setting — you, the best of men!”

“What do you mean, Pavel?”

“Marry Fenichka . . . she loves you; she is — the mother of your son.”

Nikolai Petrovich moved a step backwards and threw up his hands. “You say that, Pavel? You, whom I always took for the most relentless opponent of such marriages! You say that! But don’t you know that it was only out of respect for you that I have not done what you rightly called my duty!”

“Your respect for me was quite mistaken in this case,” said Pavel Petrovich with a weary smile. “I begin to think that Bazarov was right when he accused me of being an aristocratic snob. No, dear brother, let us stop worrying ourselves about the opinion of the outside world; we are elderly humble people by now; it’s high time we laid aside all these empty vanities. We must do our duty, just as you say, and maybe we shall find happiness that way in addition.”

Nikolai Petrovich rushed over to embrace his brother. “You have really opened my eyes,” he exclaimed. “I was right in always maintaining that you are the kindest and wisest man in the world, and now I see you are just as reasonable as you are generous-minded.”

“Softly, softly,” Pavel Petrovich interrupted him. “Don’t knock the leg of your reasonable brother who at close on fifty has been fighting a duel like a young lieutenant. So, then, the matter is settled; Fenichka is to be my . . . belle-soeur .”

“My darling Pavel! But what will Arkady say?”

“Arkady? He’ll be enthusiastic, of course! Marriage is not a principle for him, but on the other hand his sentiment of equality will be gratified. Yes, and after all what is the good of caste divisions au dix-neuvième siècle ?”

“Ah, Pavel, Pavel! let me kiss you once more! Don’t be afraid, I’ll be careful.”

The brothers embraced each other.

“What do you think, shouldn’t you tell her straight away what you intend to do?”

“Why should we hurry?” answered Nikolai Petrovich. “Did you have a conversation with her?”

“A conversation, between us? Quelle idée!”

“Well, that’s all right. First of all, you must get well; it won’t run away from us, and meanwhile we must think it over and consider . . .”

“But surely you have made up your mind?”

“Of course I have, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I will leave you now; you must rest; any excitement is bad for you . . . But we will talk it over another time. Go to sleep, my dear, and God grant you good health!”

“Why does he thank me like that?” thought Pavel Petrovich, when he was left alone. “As if it did not depend on himself! Then as soon as he marries I will go away somewhere, far from here, to Dresden or Florence, and I will live there till I expire.” Pavel Petrovich moistened his forehead with eau de Cologne and closed his eyes. Lit up by the brilliant daylight, his beautiful emaciated head lay on the white pillow like the head of a dead man . . . And indeed he was a dead man.

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