At Nikolskoe Katya and Arkady were sitting in the garden on a turf seat in the shade of a tall ash tree; Fifi had placed herself on the ground near them, giving her long body that graceful curve which is known among sportsmen as the “hare’s bend.” Both Arkady and Katya were silent; he held in his hands a half-open book, while she was picking out of a basket some remaining crumbs of white bread and throwing them to the small family of sparrows which with their peculiar cowardly impudence were chirping and hopping around right up to her feet. A faint breeze, stirring the ash leaves, kept gently moving pale gold patches of sunlight up and down across the shady path and over Fifi’s back; an unbroken shadow fell on Arkady and Katya; only from time to time a bright streak gleamed in her hair. Both were silent, but the way in which they were silent and sitting together indicated a certain confidential friendliness; each of them seemed not to be thinking of the other, while secretly rejoicing at each other’s presence. Their faces, too, had changed since we saw them last; Arkady seemed more composed and Katya brighter and more self-confident.

“Don’t you think,” began Arkady, “that the ash has been very well named in Russian Yasen;not a single other tree is so light and translucently clear (yasno) against the sky.”

Katya raised her eyes upwards and murmured, “Yes,” and Arkady thought, “Well, she doesn’t reproach me for talking poetically.”

“I don’t care for Heine,” said Katya, glancing at the book which Arkady held in his hands, “either when he laughs or when he weeps. I like him when he is thoughtful and sad.”

“And I like him when he laughs,” remarked Arkady.

“Those are the relics of your old satirical tendency.” (“Relics,” thought Arkady. “If Bazarov could have heard that!”) “Wait a bit; we shall transform you.

“Who will transform me? You?”

“Who? My sister, Porfiry Platonovich, whom you’ve stopped quarreling with, my aunt, whom you escorted to church the day before yesterday.”

“Well, I couldn’t refuse. But, as for Anna Sergeyevna, you remember she agreed with Evgeny in a great many things.”

“My sister was under his influence then, just as you were.”

“As I was! Have you noticed that I’ve already shaken off his influence?”

Katya remained silent.

“I know,” continued Arkady, “you never liked him.”

“I’m unable to judge him.”

“Do you know, Katerina Sergeyevna, every time I hear that answer, I don’t believe it . . . there is no one beyond the capacity of judgment of any of us! That is just a pretext for getting out of it.”

“Well, I’ll tell you then, he is . . . not because I don’t like him, but I feel he is quite alien to me, and I am alien to him . . . and you too are alien to him.”

“Why is that?”

“How can I tell you? He’s a wild beast, while we are both domestic animals.”

“And am I a domestic animal?”

Katya nodded her head.

Arkady scratched his ear. “Listen, Katerina Sergeyevna, surely that is in the nature of an insult.”

“Why, would you rather be wild?”

“Not wild, but powerful, energetic.”

“It’s no good wishing to be that . . . your friend, you see, doesn’t wish for it, but he has it.”

“Hm! So you suppose he had a great influence on Anna Sergeyevna?”

“Yes. But no one can keep the upper hand of her for long,” added Katya in a low voice.

“Why do you think that?”

“She’s very proud . . . I didn’t mean to say that . . she values her independence very much.”

“Who doesn’t value it?” asked Arkady, and the thought flashed through his mind: “What is it for?” The same thought occurred to Katya. Young people who are friendly and often together constantly find themselves thinking the same thoughts.

Arkady smiled and, coming a little closer to Katya, he said in a whisper: “Confess, you are a little afraid of her.”

“Of whom?”

“Of her,” repeated Arkady significantly.

“And how about you?” asked Katya in her turn.

“I am also. Please note I said, I am also.”

Katya wagged her finger at him threateningly.

“I wonder at that,” she began; “my sister has never felt so friendly towards you as just now; much more than when you first came here.”

“Fancy that!”

“And you haven’t noticed it? Aren’t you glad about it?”

Arkady became thoughtful.

“How have I succeeded in winning Anna Sergeyevna’s favor? Could it be because I brought her your mother’s letters?”

“Both for that and for other reasons which I won’t tell you.”

“Why?”

“I shan’t say.”

“Oh, I know, you’re very obstinate.”

“Yes, I am.”

“And observant.”

Katya cast a sidelong glance at Arkady. “Perhaps so; does that annoy you? What are you thinking about?”

“I’m wondering how you have grown to be so observant as you certainly are. You are so shy and distrustful; you keep everyone at a distance . . .”

“I live so much alone; that in itself leads to thoughtfulness. But do I keep everyone at a distance?”

Arkady flung a grateful glance at Katya.

“That’s all very well,” he went on; “but people in your position — I mean with your fortune, seldom possess that gift; it is hard for them, as it is for emperors, to get at the truth.”

“But, you see, I am not rich.”

Arkady was surprised and did not at once understand Katya. “Why, as a matter of fact, the property is all her sister’s!” struck him suddenly; the thought was not disagreeable to him.

“How nicely you said that,” he remarked.

“What?”

“You said it nicely, simply, without either being ashamed or making much of it. By the way, I imagine there must always be something special, a kind of pride in the feeling of a person who knows and says that he is poor.”

“I have never experienced anything of that sort, thanks to my sister. I referred to my position just now only because it happened to come up in our conversation.”

“Well, but you must admit that even you have something of that pride I spoke of just now.”

“For instance?”

“For instance, surely you — excuse my question — you wouldn’t be willing to marry a rich man?”

“If I loved him very much . . . no, probably even then I wouldn’t marry him.”

“There, you see!” cried Arkady, and after a moment’s pause he added, “And why wouldn’t you marry him?”

“Because even in the ballads unequal matches are always unlucky.”

“Perhaps you want to dominate, or . . .”

“Oh, no! What’s the good of that? On the contrary, I’m ready to obey; only inequality is difficult. But to keep one’s self-respect and to obey — that I can understand; that is happiness; but a subordinate existence . . . no, I’ve had enough of that as it is.”

“Had enough of that,” repeated Arkady after Katya. “You’re not Anna Sergeyevna’s sister for nothing; you’re just as independent as she is; but you’re more reserved. I’m sure you would never be the first to express your feelings, however strong or sacred . . .”

“Well, what would you expect?” asked Katya.

“You are equally intelligent; you have as much character, if not more, than she . . .”

“Don’t compare me with my sister, please,” interrupted Katya hurriedly; “it puts me too much at a disadvantage. You seem to forget that my sister is beautiful and clever and . . . you in particular, Arkady Nikolaich, ought not to say such things and with such a serious face too.”

“What does that mean? ‘You in particular.’ And what makes you conclude that I’m joking?”

“Of course you’re joking.”

“Do you think so? But what if I’m convinced of what I say? If I find that I’ve not even put it strongly enough?”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Really? Well, now I see that I certainly overestimated your powers of observation.”

“How is that?”

Arkady made no answer and turned away, but Katya searched for a few more crumbs in the basket and began throwing them to the sparrows; but she moved her arm too vigorously and the birds flew away without stopping to pick them up.

“Katerina Sergeyevna,” began Arkady suddenly, “it is probably a matter of indifference to you; but you should know, I would not exchange you, neither for your sister, nor for anyone else in the world.”

He got up and walked quickly away, as if he were frightened by the words which had burst from his lips.

Katya let her two hands drop together with the basket, on to her knees, and with bowed head she gazed for some time after Arkady. Gradually a crimson flush spread a little to her cheeks, but her lips did not smile, and her dark eyes had a look of perplexity and of some other still undefined feeling.

“Are you alone?” sounded the voice of Anna Sergeyevna, quite close to her. “I thought you came into the garden with Arkady.”

Katya slowly raised her eyes to her sister (elegantly, almost elaborately dressed, she was standing on the path and tickling Fifi’s ears with the tip of her parasol) and slowly answered, “I’m alone.”

“So I see,” answered the other sister with a laugh. “I suppose he has gone back to his room.”

“Yes.”

“Were you reading together?”

“Yes.”

Anna Sergeyevna took Katya under the chin and raised her face.

“You didn’t quarrel, I hope.”

“No,” said Katya, quietly moving away her sister’s hand.

“How solemnly you answer. I thought I should find him here and was going to suggest a walk with him. He keeps on asking me about it. They have brought your new shoes from the town; go and try them on; I noticed yesterday that your old ones are quite worn out. Really you don’t pay enough attention to these things; but all the same you’ve got such lovely little feet! And your hands are good . . . only rather large; so you must make the most of your feet. But you’re not a flirt.”

Anna Sergeyevna went farther down the path, her beautiful dress rustling slightly as she walked.

Katya rose from the bench, and taking Heine with her, also went off — only not to try on the new shoes.

“Lovely little feet,” she thought, as she slowly and lightly mounted the stone steps of the terrace which were burning from the heat of the sun. “Lovely little feet, you call them . . . Well, he shall be at my feet.”

But a feeling of shame came over her at once, and she ran swiftly upstairs.

Arkady was going along the passage to his room when he was overtaken by the butler, who announced that Mr. Bazarov was sitting in his room.

“Evgeny!” muttered Arkady in a startled tone. “Has he been here long?”

“He has arrived only this minute, and gave orders not to be announced to Anna Sergeyevna but to be shown straight up to you.”

“Can any misfortune have happened at home?” thought Arkady, and running hurriedly up the stairs he opened the door at once. The sight of Bazarov immediately reassured him, though a more experienced eye would probably have discerned signs of inward excitement in the sunken but still energetic face of the unexpected visitor. With a dusty cloak over his shoulders, and a cap on his head, he was sitting by the window; he did not even get up when Arkady flung himself on his neck with loud exclamations.

“Well, how unexpected! What good luck has brought you?” he kept on repeating, bustling about the room like someone who both imagines and wants to show that he is pleased. “I suppose everything is all right at home; they’re all well, aren’t they?”

“Everything is all right there, but not everyone is well,” said Bazarov. “But don’t go on chattering, get them to bring me some kvass, sit down and listen to what I’m going to tell you, in a few, but, I hope, fairly vigorous sentences.”

Arkady kept quiet while Bazarov told him about his duel with Pavel Petrovich. Arkady was greatly surprised and even upset, but he did not think it necessary to show this; he asked only whether his uncle’s wound was really not serious, and on receiving the reply that it was — most interesting, though not from a medical point of view — he gave a forced smile, but he felt sick at heart and somehow ashamed. Bazarov seemed to understand him.

“Yes, brother,” he said, “you see what comes of living with feudal people. One becomes feudal oneself and takes part in knightly tournaments. Well, so I set off for my father’s place,” Bazarov concluded, “and on the way I turned in here . . . to tell you all this, I should say, if I didn’t think it a useless and stupid lie. No, I turned in here — the devil knows why. You see it’s sometimes a good thing for a man to take himself by the scruff of the neck and pull himself away, like a radish out of its bed; that’s what I’ve just done . . . But I wanted to take one more look at what I’ve parted company with, at the bed where I’ve been sitting.”

“I hope that those words don’t apply to me,” retorted Arkady excitedly. “I hope you don’t think of parting from me.”

Bazarov looked at him intently; his eyes were almost piercing.

“Would that upset you so much? It strikes me that you have parted from me already; you look so fresh and smart . . . your affairs with Anna Sergeyevna must be proceeding very well.”

“What do you mean by my affairs with Anna Sergeyevna?”

“Why, didn’t you come here from the town on her account, my little bird? By the way, how are those Sunday schools getting on? Do you mean to tell me you’re not in love with her? Or have you already reached the stage of being bashful about it?”

“Evgeny, you know I’ve always been frank with you; I can assure you, I swear to you, you’re making a mistake.”

“Hm! A new story,” remarked Bazarov under his breath, “but you needn’t get agitated about it, for it’s a matter of complete indifference to me. A romantic would say: I feel that our roads are beginning to branch out in different directions, but I will simply say that we’re tired of each other.”

“Evgeny . . .”

“There’s no harm in that, my good soul; one gets tired of plenty of other things in the world! And now I think we had better say good-by. Ever since I’ve been here I’ve felt so disgusting, just as if I’d been reading Gogol’s letters to the wife of the Governor of Kaluga. By the way, I didn’t tell them to unharness the horses.”

“Good heavens, that’s impossible!”

“And why?”

“I say nothing of myself, but it would be the height of discourtesy to Anna Sergeyevna, who will certainly want to see you.”

“Well, you’re mistaken there.”

“On the contrary, I’m convinced that I’m right,” retorted Arkady. “And what are you pretending for? For that matter, haven’t you come here because of her?”

“That might even be true, but you’re mistaken all the same.” But Arkady was right. Anna Sergeyevna wanted to see Bazarov and sent a message to him to that effect through the butler. Bazarov changed his clothes before he went to her; it turned out that he had packed his new suit in such a way as to be able to take it out easily.

Madame Odintsov received him, not in the room where he had so unexpectedly declared his love to her, but in the drawing room. She held her finger tips out to him amiably, but her face showed signs of involuntary tension.

“Anna Sergeyevna,” Bazarov hastened to say, “first of all I must set your mind at rest. Before you stands a simple mortal, who came to his senses long ago, and hopes that other people too have forgotten his follies. I am going away for a long time, and though I’m by no means a soft creature, I should be sorry to carry away with me the thought that you remember me with abhorrence.”

Anna Sergeyevna gave a deep sigh like one who has just climbed to the top of a high mountain, and her face lit up with a smile. She held out her hand to Bazarov a second time and responded to his pressure.

“Let bygones be bygones,” she said, “all the more so, since, to say what is on my conscience, I was also to blame then, either for flirting or for something else. In a word, let us be friends as we were before. The other was a dream, wasn’t it? And who remembers dreams?”

“Who remembers them? And besides, love . . . surely it’s an imaginary feeling.”

“Indeed? I am very pleased to hear that.” Anna Sergeyevna expressed herself thus and so did Bazarov; they both thought they were speaking the truth. Was the truth, the whole truth, to be found in their words? They themselves did not know, much less could the author. But a conversation ensued between them, just as if they believed one another completely.

Anna Sergeyevna asked Bazarov, among other things, what he had been doing at the Kirsanovs’. He was on the point of telling her about his duel with Pavel Petrovich, but he checked himself with the thought that she might suppose he was trying to make himself interesting, and answered that he had been working the whole time.

“And I,” observed Anna Sergeyevna, “had a fit of depression to start with, goodness knows why; I even planned to go abroad, just fancy! But that passed off; your friend Arkady Nikolaich arrived, and I settled down to my routine again, to my proper function.”

“And what is that function, may I ask?”

“To be an aunt, guardian, mother — call it what you like. Incidentally, do you know I used not to understand before your close friendship with Arkady Nikolaich; I found him rather insignificant. But now I have got to know him better, and I recognize his intelligence . . . but he is young, so young, it’s a great thing . . . not like you and me, Evgeny Vassilich.”

“Is he still shy in your presence?” asked Bazarov.

“But was he . . .” began Anna Sergeyevna, and after a short pause she went on. “He has grown more trustful now; he talks to me; formerly he used to avoid me; though, as a matter of fact, I didn’t seek his society either. He is more Katya’s friend.”

Bazarov felt vexed. “A woman can’t help being a hypocrite,” he thought.

“You say he used to avoid you,” he said aloud with a cold smile; “but probably it’s no secret to you that he was in love with you?”

“What? He too?” ejaculated Anna Sergeyevna.

“He too,” repeated Bazarov, with a submissive bow. “Can it be that you didn’t know it and that I’ve told you something new?”

Anna Sergeyevna lowered her eyes. “You are mistaken, Evgeny Vassilich.”

“I don’t think so. But perhaps I ought not to have mentioned it.”

“And don’t you try to fool me any more,” he added to himself.

“Why not mention it? But I imagine that here as well you attach too much importance to a transitory impression. I begin to suspect that you are inclined to exaggerate.”

“We had better not talk about that, Anna Sergeyevna.”

“And why?” she replied, but herself diverted the conversation into another channel. She still felt ill at ease with Bazarov, though she had both told and assured herself that everything was forgotten. While exchanging the simplest remarks with him, even when she joked with him, she was conscious of an embarrassed fear. Thus do people on a steamer at sea talk and laugh carelessly, for all the world as if they were on dry land; but the moment there is some hitch, if the smallest sign appears of something unusual, there emerges at once on every face an expression of peculiar alarm, revealing the constant awareness of constant danger.

Anna Sergeyevna’s conversation with Bazarov did not last long. She began to he absorbed in her own thoughts, to answer absentmindedly and ended by suggesting that they should go into the hall, where they found the princess and Katya.

“But where is Arkady Nikolaich?” asked the hostess, and on hearing that he had not been seen for more than an hour, she sent someone to look for him. He was not found at once; he had hidden himself away in the wildest part of the garden, and with his chin propped on his folded hands, he was sitting wrapped in thought. His thoughts were deep and serious, but not mournful. He knew that Anna Sergeyevna was sitting alone with Bazarov, and he felt no jealousy as he had before; on the contrary, his face slowly brightened; it seemed as if he was at once wondering and rejoicing and deciding to do something.

Chapter 26

The late Odintsov had disliked innovations, but he admitted “a certain play of ennobled taste” and had consequently erected in his garden, between the hothouse and the lake, a building in the style of a Creek temple, made of Russian brick. Along the windowless back wall of this temple or gallery were placed six niches for statues, which Odintsov proceeded to order from abroad. These statues were intended to represent Solitude, Silence, Meditation, Melancholy, Modesty and Sensibility. One of them, the Goddess of Silence, with her finger on her lips, had been delivered and placed in position; but on the very same day some of the farm boys knocked off her nose, and although the neighboring plasterer undertook to make her a new nose, “twice as good as the previous one,” Odintsov ordered her to be removed, and she could still be seen in the corner of the threshing barn, where she had stood for many years, a source of superstitious terror to the peasant women. The front part of the temple had long ago been overgrown with thick bushes; only the capitals of the columns could be seen above the thick green. Inside the temple itself it was cool even at midday. Anna Sergeyevna did not like visiting this place ever since she had seen a snake there; but Katya often came and sat on a wide stone seat constructed under one of the niches. Here, surrounded by shade and coolness, she used to read and work, or give herself up to that sensation of perfect peace, known probably to everyone, the charm of which consists in the half-conscious mute listening to that vast current of life which uninterruptedly flows both around us and within us.

On the day after Bazarov’s arrival, Katya was sitting on her favorite stone seat, and Arkady was sitting beside her again. He had begged her to come with him to the temple.

It was about an hour before lunchtime; the dewy morning had given place to a hot day. Arkady’s face retained the expression of the preceding day; Katya looked preoccupied. Her sister, immediately after their morning tea, had called her into her study, and after some preliminary caresses — which always rather alarmed Katya — advised her to be more guarded in her behavior with Arkady, and to avoid solitary talks with him, which had attracted the attention of her aunt and the household. Apart from that, Anna Sergeyevna was still in a bad mood from the evening before, and Katya herself felt embarrassed, as if she had done something wrong. When she yielded to Arkady’s entreaties, she said to herself that it was for the last time.

“Katerina Sergeyevna,” he began with a sort of bashful carelessness, “ever since I have had the happiness of living under the same roof with you, I have discussed many things with you, but meanwhile there is one very important question — for me — which I have not yet touched on. You remarked yesterday that I have been transformed here,” he went on, at once catching and avoiding the inquiring look which Katya fixed on him. “In fact I have changed a lot, and you know that better than anyone else — you to whom above all I owe this change.”

“I . . . ? Me . . . ?” said Katya.

“I am no longer now the conceited boy I was when I arrived here,” went on Arkady. “I’ve not reached the age of twenty-three for nothing; as before I want to be useful, I want to devote all my powers to the truth; but I don’t look for my ideals where I used to look before; they have shown themselves to me . . . so much nearer. Up till now I failed to understand myself, I set myself tasks which were beyond my strength . . . My eyes have recently been opened, thanks to one feeling . . . I’m not expressing myself quite clearly, but I hope you understand me . . .”

Katya made no reply, but she stopped looking at Arkady.

“I suppose,” he began again, this time in a more agitated voice, while above his head a chaffinch sang its song heedlessly among the leaves of a birch tree, “I suppose it is the duty of every honest person to be absolutely frank with those . . . with those people, who . . . in a word, with those who are near to him, and so I . . . I intend . . .”

But at this point Arkady’s eloquence abandoned him; he fumbled for words, stammered and was obliged to pause for a while. Katya still did not raise her eyes. It seemed as though she did not even understand what he was leading up to with all this, as though she were awaiting something.

“I foresee that I shall surprise you,” began Arkady, pulling himself together again with an effort; “all the more since this feeling is connected in a certain way — in a certain way, remember — with you. You reproached me yesterday, you remember, for a lack of seriousness,” Arkady went on with the air of a person who has walked into a swamp, feels that he is sinking in deeper and deeper at every step, and yet hurries forward in the hope of crossing it quicker; “that reproach is often aimed . . . often falls . . . on young men even when they no longer deserve it; and if I had more self-confidence . . .” (“Come, help me, do help me,” Arkady was thinking in desperation, but Katya kept her head averted as before.) “If I could hope . . .”

“If I could feel convinced of what you said,” sounded at that moment the clear voice of Anna Sergeyevna.

Arkady fell silent at once and Katya turned pale. Alongside the very bushes which screened the temple ran a little path. Anna Sergeyevna was walking along it accompanied by Bazarov. Katya and Arkady could not see them, but they heard every word, the rustle of their clothes, their very breathing. They walked on a few steps and then, as if on purpose, stopped right opposite the temple.

“You see,” continued Anna Sergeyevna, “you and I made a mistake; we have both passed our first youthful stage, I particularly; we have seen life, we are tired; we are both intelligent — why pretend otherwise? — at first we were interested in each other, our curiosity was aroused . . . and afterwards. . .”

“And afterwards my interest fell flat,” interposed Bazarov.

“You know that was not the cause of our misunderstanding. But however that may be, we did not need each other, that’s the main thing; there was in us . . . how shall I put it? . . . too much of the same thing. We did not realize that straight away. Now Arkady, on the contrary . . .”

“Do you need him?” asked Bazarov.

“Stop, Evgeny Vassilich. You say he is not indifferent to me, and it always seemed to me that he liked me. I know that I could well be his aunt, but I don’t want to conceal from you that I have begun to think about him more often. In that fresh youthful feeling there is a special charm . . .”

“The word fascination is more often used in such cases,” interrupted Bazarov; a violent suppressed bitterness could be detected in the steady but hollow tone of his voice. “Arkady was secretive with me about something yesterday, and wouldn’t talk about either you or your sister . . . that’s a serious symptom.”

“He’s just like a brother with Katya,” remarked Anna Sergeyevna, “and I like that in him, though perhaps I ought not to have let them become so intimate.”

“Is that idea prompted by your feelings . . . as a sister?” said Bazarov, dragging out his words.

“Of course . . . but why are we standing here? Let us go on. What a strange talk we’re having, aren’t we? I could never have believed I should talk to you like this. You know, I’m afraid of you . . . and at the same time I trust you, because at bottom you are very good.”

“In the first place, I’m far from good; and in the second place I no longer mean anything to you, and you tell me that I am good . . . It’s just like placing a wreath of flowers round the head of a corpse.”

“Evgeny Vassilich, we are not masters . . .” began Anna Sergeyevna; but a gust of wind blew across, started the leaves rustling and carried away her words.

“Of course, you are free,” said Bazarov after a pause. Nothing more could be distinguished; the steps went farther away . . . all became quiet again.

Arkady turned to Katya. She was sitting in the same position, but her head bent still lower.

“Katerina Sergeyevna,” he said; his voice shook and he clenched his hands; “I love you — forever and irrevocably, and I love no one except you. I wanted to tell you this, to find out what you will say and to ask you to marry me, because, of course, I’m not rich and I feel ready for any kind of sacrifice . . . You don’t answer? You don’t believe me? Do you think I’m talking lightly? But remember these last days! Surely you must be convinced by now that everything else — you understand me — absolutely everything else has vanished long ago and left no trace? Look at me, say one word to me . . . I love . . . I love you . . . believe me.”

Katya turned her eyes to Arkady with a grave and radiant look, and after a long reflective pause, she murmured, smiling slightly, “Yes.”

Arkady jumped up from the seat.

“Yes! You said ‘yes,’ Katerina Sergeyevna! What does that word mean? Just that I love you, that you believe me . . . or . . . I daren’t go on . .”

“Yes,” repeated Katya, and this time he understood her. He seized her large beautiful hands and, breathless with enthusiasm, he pressed them to his heart. He could hardly stand on his feet, and only kept on repeating, “Katya, Katya . . .” and she began to weep in such an innocent way, smiling gently at her own tears. Whoever has not seen such tears in the eyes of a beloved person has not yet experienced to what an extent, overwhelmed with gratitude and awe, a human being may find happiness on earth.

The next day in the early morning, Anna Sergeyevna sent a message asking Bazarov to come to her study, and with a strained laugh she handed him a folded sheet of notepaper. It was a letter from Arkady, in which he asked for her sister’s hand in marriage.

Bazarov quickly read through the letter, and could only with some effort conceal the malicious impulse which at once flared up within him.

“So there it is,” he remarked, “and apparently you thought no longer ago than yesterday that his feelings for Katerina Sergeyevna were of the brotherly sort. What do you intend to do now?”

“What would you advise me to do?” asked Anna Sergeyevna, continuing to laugh.

“Well, I suppose,” answered Bazarov, also with a laugh, though he felt anything but gay and no more wanted to laugh than she did; “I suppose you ought to give the young people your blessing. It’s a good match from every point of view; Kirsanov is tolerably well off, he’s the only son, and his father’s a good-natured fellow; he won’t object.”

Madame Odintsov walked up and down the room. Her face flushed and turned pale by turns.

“You think so?” she said. “Well, I see no obstacles . . . I’m glad for Katya . . . and for Arkady Nikolaich. Of course, I shall wait for his father’s answer. I will send him in person to him. So it turns out that I was right yesterday when I told you that we have both become old people. . . . How was it I noticed nothing? That surprises me.”

Anna Sergeyevna laughed again and quickly turned her head away.

“The younger generation of today has grown painfully cunning,” remarked Bazarov, and he also gave a short laugh. “Good-by,” he began again after a short silence. “I hope you will bring this affair to the most agreeable conclusion; and I will rejoice from a distance.”

Madame Odintsov turned to him quickly. “Are you going away? Why shouldn’t you stay now?Do stay . . . it’s such fun talking to you . . . one seems to be walking on the edge of a precipice. At first one feels timid, but one gets somehow exhilarated as one goes along. Won’t you stay?”

“Thank you for the invitation, Anna Sergeyevna, and for your flattering opinion of my conversational talents. But I find I’ve already been moving around for too long in a sphere which is alien to me. Flying fish can hold out for a time in the air, but soon they have to splash back into the water; you must allow me too to flop down into my natural element.”

Madame Odintsov looked at Bazarov. A bitter smile twisted his pale face. “This man loved me,” she thought, and she felt sorry for him and held out her hand with sympathy.

But he too understood her. “No,” he said, stepping back a pace. “I’m a poor man, but I’ve never accepted charity so far. Good-by and good luck.”

“I am sure that we are not seeing each other for the last time,” said Anna Sergeyevna with an unconscious movement.

“Anything can happen in this world,” answered Bazarov, and he bowed and went out.

“So you propose to build yourself a nest?” he said the same day to Arkady, crouching on the floor as he packed his trunk. “Well, it’s a good thing. Only you needn’t have been such a humbug about it. I expected you’d go in quite a different direction. Perhaps, though, it took you unawares?”

“I certainly didn’t expect this when I left you,” answered Arkady; “but why are you being a humbug yourself and calling it a ‘good thing,’ as if I didn’t know your opinion of marriage?”

“Ah, my dear friend,” said Bazarov, “how you express yourself. You see what I’m doing; there happened to be an empty space in my trunk, and I’m putting hay into it; that’s how it is with the luggage of our life; we would stuff it up with anything rather than leave a void. Don’t be offended, please; you probably remember what I always thought of Katerina Sergeyevna. Many a young lady is called intelligent simply because she can sigh intelligently; but yours can hold her own, and indeed she’ll hold it so well that she’ll have you under her thumb — well, and that’s quite as it should be.” He slammed the lid and got up from the floor. “And now I say again, farewell . . . because it’s useless to deceive ourselves; we are parting forever, and you know it yourself . . . you acted sensibly; you were not made for our bitter, rough, lonely existence. There’s no daring in you, no hatred, though you’ve got youthful dash and youthful fervor; that’s not enough for our business. Your sort, the nobility, can never go farther than noble resignation or noble indignation, but those things are trifles. For instance, you won’t fight — and yet you fancy yourselves as brave fellows — but we want to fight. So there! Our dust would get into your eyes, our mud would soil you, but you’re not up to our standard, you unconsciously admire yourselves and you enjoy finding fault with yourselves; but we’re fed up with all that — we want something else! We want to smash people! You’re a fine fellow, but all the same you’re a mild little liberal gentleman — ay volatoo,as my parent would say.”

“You are bidding good-by to me for ever, Evgeny,” said Arkady sadly, “and you have nothing else to say to me.”

Bazarov scratched the back of his head.

“Yes, Arkady, I have other things to say to you, but I won’t say them, because that’s romanticism — that means sentimental trash. But you hurry up and marry, settle down in your nest and have as many children as you like. They’ll have the gumption to be born in a better time than you and me. Aha! I see the horses are ready. It’s time to go. I’ve said good-by to everyone . . . well, what’s this? Embracing, eh?”

Arkady threw himself on the neck of his former teacher and friend, and tears fairly streamed from his eyes.

“That’s what comes of being young!” remarked Bazarov calmly. “But I rely on Katerina Sergeyevna. You’ll see how quickly she can console you.”

“Farewell, brother,” he called out to Arkady, as he was already climbing into the cart, and pointing to a pair of jackdaws, sitting side by side on the roof of the stables, he added, “There you are! Learn from the example.”

“What does that mean?” asked Arkady.

“What? Are you so weak in natural history or have you forgotten that the jackdaw is a most respectable family bird! An example to you . . . ! Good-by.”

The cart creaked and rolled away.

Bazarov spoke the truth. Talking that evening with Katya, Arkady had completely forgotten about his former teacher. He had already begun to follow her lead, and Katya felt this and was not surprised. He was to set off the next day to Maryino to see Nikolai Petrovich. Anna Sergeyevna had no wish to hamper the freedom of the young people, but on account of decorum she did not leave them alone for too long. She generously kept the princess out of their way; the old lady had been reduced to a state of tearful frenzy by the news of the approaching marriage. At first Anna Sergeyevna was afraid that the sight of their happiness would prove rather upsetting to herself, but it turned out to the contrary; it not only did not upset her to see their happiness, it occupied her mind, and in the end it even soothed her heart. This outcome both gladdened and grieved Anna Sergeyevna. “Evidently Bazarov was right,” she thought, “I have curiosity, nothing but curiosity, and love of a quiet life, and egoism . . .”

“Children,” she said aloud, “do you think love is an imaginary feeling?”

But neither Katya nor Arkady even understood her. They were shy with her; the fragment of conversation which they had accidentally overheard haunted their minds. But Anna Sergeyevna soon relieved their anxieties, and that was not difficult for her; she had set her own mind at rest.

Chapter 27

Bazarov’s old parents were all the more overjoyed by their son’s sudden arrival on account of its complete unexpectedness. Arina Vlasyevna was so agitated, continually bustling about all over the house, that Vassily Ivanovich said she was like a partridge; the short flat tail of her little jacket certainly gave her a birdlike look. He himself made noises and bit the amber mouthpiece of his pipe, or, clutching his neck with his fingers, turned his head round, as though he were trying to find out if it was properly screwed on, then suddenly opened his wide mouth and laughed noiselessly.

“I’ve come to stay with you for six whole weeks, old man,” Bazarov said to him. “I want to work, so please don’t interrupt me.”

“You will forget what my face looks like, that’s how I will interrupt you!” answered Vassily Ivanovich.

He kept his promise. After installing his son in his study as before, he almost hid himself away from him and he restrained his wife from any kind of superfluous demonstration of affection. “Last time Enyushka visited us, little mother, we bored him a little; we must be wiser this time.” Arina Vlasyevna agreed with her husband, but she gained nothing thereby, since she saw her son only at meals and was in the end afraid to say a word to him.

“Enyushenka,” she would sometimes start to say — but before he had time to look round she would nervously finger the tassels of her handbag and murmur, “Never mind, I only . . . .” and afterwards she would go to Vassily Ivanovich and ask him, her cheek leaning on her hand, “If only you could find out, darling, what Enyusha would like best for dinner today, beet-root soup or cabbage broth?” “But why didn’t you ask him yourself?” “Oh, he’ll get tired of me!” Bazarov, however, soon ceased to shut himself up; his fever for work abated and was replaced by painful boredom and a vague restlessness. A strange weariness began to show itself in all his movements; even his walk, once so firm, bold and impetuous, was changed. He gave up his solitary rambles and began to seek company; he drank tea in the drawing room, strolled about the kitchen garden with Vassily Ivanovich, smoked a pipe with him in silence and once even inquired after Father Alexei. At first Vassily Ivanovich rejoiced at this change, but his joy was short-lived.

“Enyusha is breaking my heart,” he plaintively confided to his wife. “It’s not that he’s dissatisfied or angry — that would be almost nothing; but he’s distressed, he’s downcast — and that is terrible. He’s always silent; if only he would start to scold us; he’s growing thin, and he’s lost all the color in his face.”

“Lord have mercy on us!” whispered the old woman. “I would hang a charm round his neck, but of course he won’t allow it.”

Vassily Ivanovich tried several times in a very tactful manner to question Bazarov about his work, his health, and about Arkady . . . But Bazarov’s replies were reluctant and casual, and once, noticing that his father was trying gradually to lead up to something in the conversation, he remarked in a vexed tone, “Why do you always seem to be following me about on tiptoe? That way is even worse than the old one.”

“Well, well, I didn’t mean anything!” hurriedly answered poor Vassily Ivanovich. So his diplomatic hints remained fruitless.

One day, talking about the approaching liberation of the serfs, he hoped to arouse his son’s sympathy by making some remarks about progress; but Bazarov only answered indifferently, “Yesterday I was walking along the fence and heard our peasant boys, instead of singing an old folk song, bawling some street ditty about ‘the time has come for love’ . . . that’s what your progress amounts to.”

Sometimes Bazarov went into the village and in his usual bantering tone got into conversation with some peasant. “Well,” he would say to him, “expound your views on life to me, brother; after all, they say the whole strength and future of Russia lies in your hands, that a new era in history will be started by you — that you will give us our real language and our laws.” The peasant either answered nothing, or pronounced a few words like these, “Oh, we’ll try . . . also, because, you see, in our position . . .”

“You explain to me what your world is,” Bazarov interrupted, “and is it the same world which is said to rest on three fishes?”

“No, batyushka,it’s the land that rests on three fishes,” the peasant explained soothingly in a good-natured patriarchal sing-song voice; “and over against our ‘world’ we know there’s the master’s will, because you are our fathers. And the stricter the master’s rule, the better it is for the peasant.”

After hearing such a reply one day, Bazarov shrugged his shoulders contemptuously and turned away, while the peasant walked homewards.

“What was he talking about?” inquired another peasant, a surly middle-aged man who from the door of his hut had witnessed at a distance the conversation with Bazarov. “Was it about arrears of taxes?”

“Arrears? No fear of that, brother,” answered the first peasant, and his voice had lost every trace of the patriarchal sing-song; on the contrary, a note of scornful severity could be detected in it. “He was just chattering about something, felt like exercising his tongue. Of course, he’s a gentleman. What can he understand?”

“How could he understand!” answered the other peasant, and pushing back their caps and loosening their belts they both started discussing their affairs and their needs. Alas! Bazarov, shrugging his shoulders contemptuously, he who knew how to talk to the peasants (as he had boasted in his dispute with Pavel Petrovich), the self-confident Bazarov did not for a moment suspect that in their eyes he was all the same a kind of buffoon . . . .

However, he found an occupation for himself at last. One day Vassily Ivanovich was bandaging a peasant’s injured leg in his presence, but the old man’s hands trembled and he could not manage the bandages; his son helped him and from that time regularly took part in his father’s practice, though without ceasing to joke both about the remedies he himself advised and about his father, who immediately applied them. But Bazarov’s gibes did not upset Vassily Ivanovich in the least; they even comforted him. Holding his greasy dressing gown with two fingers over his stomach and smoking his pipe, he listened to Bazarov with enjoyment, and the more malicious his sallies, the more good-humoredly did his delighted father chuckle, showing all his discolored black teeth. He even used to repeat these often blunt or pointless witticisms, and for instance, with no reason at all, went on saying for several days, “Well, that’s a far away business,” simply because his son, on hearing that he was going to the early church service, had used that expression. “Thank God, he has got over his melancholy,” he whispered to his wife. “How he went for me today, it was marvelous!” Besides, the idea of having such an assistant filled him with enthusiasm and pride. “Yes, yes,” he said to a peasant woman wearing a man’s cloak and a horn-shaped hood, as he handed her a bottle of Goulard’s extract or a pot of white ointment, “you, my dear, ought to be thanking God every minute that my son is staying with me; you will be treated now by the most up-to-date scientific methods; do you know what that means? The Emperor of the French, Napoleon, even he has no better doctor.” But the peasant woman, who had come to complain that she felt queer all over (though she was unable to explain what she meant by these words), only bowed low and fumbled in her bosom where she had four eggs tied up in the corner of a towel.

Once Bazarov pulled out a tooth for a traveling pedlar of cloth, and although this tooth was quite an ordinary specimen, Vassily Ivanovich preserved it like some rare object and incessantly repeated, as he showed it to Father Alexei, “Only look, what roots! The strength Evgeny has! That pedlar was just lifted up in the air . . . even if it had been an oak, he would have rooted it up!”

“Admirable!” Father Alexei would comment at last, not knowing what to answer or how to get rid of the ecstatic old man.

One day a peasant from a neighboring village brought over to Vassily Ivanovich his brother, who was stricken with typhus. The unhappy man, lying flat on a truss of straw, was dying; his body was covered with dark patches, he had long ago lost consciousness. Vassily Ivanovich expressed his regret that no one had taken any steps to secure medical aid earlier and said it was impossible to save the man. In fact the peasant never got his brother home again; he died as he was, lying in the cart.

Three days later Bazarov came into his father’s room and asked him if he had any silver nitrate.

“Yes; what do you want it for?”

“I want it . . . to burn out a cut.”

“For whom?”

“For myself.”

“How for yourself? What is that? What sort of a cut? Where is it?”

“Here, on my finger. I went today to the village where they brought that peasant with typhus, you know. They wanted to open the body for some reason, and I’ve had no practice at that sort of thing for a long time.”

“Well?”

“Well, so I asked the district doctor to help; and so I cut myself.”

Vassily Ivanovich suddenly turned completely white, and without saying a word rushed into his study and returned at once with a piece of silver nitrate in his hand. Bazarov was about to take it and go away.

“For God’s sake,” muttered Vassily Ivanovich, “let me do it myself.”

Bazarov smiled.

“What a devoted practitioner you are!”

“Don’t laugh, please. Show me your finger. It’s a small cut. Am I hurting you?”

“Press harder; don’t be afraid.”

Vassily Ivanovich stopped.

“What do you think, Evgeny; wouldn’t it be better to burn it with a hot iron?”

“That ought to have been done sooner, now really even the silver nitrate is useless. If I’ve caught the infection, it’s too late now.”

“How . . . too late . . . ?” murmured Vassily Ivanovich almost inaudibly.

“I should think so! It’s over four hours ago.”

Vassily Ivanovich burned the cut a little more.

“But hadn’t the district doctor got any caustic?”

“No.”

“How can that be, good heavens! A doctor who is without such an indispensable thing!”

“You should have seen his lancets,” remarked Bazarov, and went out.

Till late that evening and all the following day Vassily Ivanovich kept seizing on every possible pretext to go into his son’s room, and though, far from mentioning the cut, he even tried to talk about the most irrelevant subjects, he looked so persistently into his son’s face and watched him with so much anxiety that Bazarov lost patience and threatened to leave the house. Vassily Ivanovich then promised not to bother him, and he did this the more readily since Arina Vlasyevna, from whom, of course, he had kept it all secret, was beginning to worry him about why he did not sleep and what trouble had come over him. For two whole days he held firm, though he did not at all like the look of his son, whom he kept watching on the sly . . . but on the third day at dinner he could bear it no longer. Bazarov was sitting with downcast eyes and had not touched a single dish.

“Why don’t you eat, Evgeny?” he inquired, putting on a perfectly carefree expression. “The food, I think, is very well prepared.”

“I don’t want anything, so I don’t eat.”

“You have no appetite? And your head,” he added timidly, “does it ache?”

“Yes, of course it aches.”

Arina Vlasyevna sat bolt upright and became very alert.

“Please don’t be angry, Evgeny,” went on Vassily Ivanovich, “but won’t you let me feel your pulse?”

Bazarov got up.

“I can tell you without feeling my pulse, I’m feverish.”

“And have you been shivering?”

“Yes, I’ve been shivering. I’ll go and lie down; and you can send me in some lime-flower tea. I must have caught cold.”

“Of course, I heard you coughing last night,” murmured Arina Vlasyevna.

“I’ve caught cold,” repeated Bazarov, and left the room.

Arina Vlasyevna busied herself with the preparation of the lime-flower tea, while Vassily Ivanovich went into the next room and desperately clutched at his hair in silence.

Bazarov did not get up again that day and passed the whole night in heavy half-conscious slumber. At one o’clock in the morning, opening his eyes with an effort, he saw by the light of a lamp his father’s pale face bending over him, and told him to go away; the old man obeyed, but immediately returned on tiptoe, and half-hidden behind the cupboard door he gazed persistently at his son. Arina Vlasyevna did not go to bed either, and leaving the study door a little open, she kept coming up to it to listen “how Enyusha was breathing,” and to look at Vassily Ivanovich. She could see only his motionless bent back, but even that have her some kind of consolation. In the morning Bazarov tried to get up; he was seized with giddiness, and his nose began to bleed; he lay down again. Vassily Ivanovich waited on him in silence; Arina Vlasyevna went up to him and asked him how he felt. He answered, “Better,” and turned his face to the wall. Vassily Ivanovich made a gesture to his wife with both hands; she bit her lip to stop herself from crying and left the room. The whole house seemed to have suddenly darkened; every person had a drawn face and a strange stillness reigned; the servants carried off from the courtyard into the village a loudly crowing cock, who for a long time was unable to grasp what they were doing with him. Bazarov continued to lie with his face to the wall. Vassily Ivanovich tried to ask him various questions, but they wearied Bazarov, and the old man sank back in his chair, only occasionally cracking the joints of his fingers. He went into the garden for a few minutes, stood there like a stone idol, as though overwhelmed with unutterable amazement (a bewildered expression never left his face), then went back again to his son, trying to avoid his wife’s questions. At last she caught him by the arm, and convulsively, almost threateningly, asked, “What is wrong with him?” Then he collected his thoughts and forced himself to smile at her in reply, but to his own horror, instead of smiling, he suddenly started to laugh. He had sent for a doctor at daybreak. He thought it necessary to warn his son about this, in case he might be angry.

Bazarov abruptly turned round on the sofa, looked fixedly with dim eyes at his father and asked for something to drink.

Vassily Ivanovich gave him some water and in so doing felt his forehead; it was burning.

“Listen, old man,” began Bazarov in a slow husky voice, “I’m in a bad way. I’ve caught the infection and in a few days you’ll have to bury me.”

Vassily Ivanovich staggered as though someone had knocked his legs from under him.

“Evgeny,” he muttered, “what are you saying? God have mercy on you! You’ve caught cold . . .”

“Stop that,” interrupted Bazarov in the same slow, deliberate voice; “a doctor has no right to talk like that. I’ve all the symptoms of infection, you can see for yourself.”

“What symptoms . . . of infection, Evgeny? . . . Good heavens!”

“Well, what’s this?” said Bazarov, and pulling up his shirt sleeve he showed his father the ominous red patches coming out on his arm.

Vassily Ivanovich trembled and turned cold from fear.

“Supposing,” he said at last, “supposing . . . even supposing . . . there is something like an infection . . .”

“Blood poisoning,” repeated Bazarov severely and distinctly; “have you forgotten your textbooks?”

“Well, yes, yes, as you like . . . all the same we shall cure you!”

“Oh, that’s rubbish. And it’s not the point. I never expected to die so soon; it’s a chance, a very unpleasant one, to tell the truth. You and mother must now take advantage of your strong religious faith; here’s an opportunity of putting it to the test.” He drank a little more water. “But I want to ask you one thing — while my brain is still under control. Tomorrow or ,the day after, you know, my brain will cease to function. I’m not quite certain even now, if I’m expressing myself clearly. While I was lying here I kept on imagining that red dogs were running round me, and you made them point at me, as if I were a blackcock. I thought I was drunk. Do you understand me all right?”

“Of course, Evgeny, you talk perfectly clearly.”

“So much the better. You told me you’d sent for the doctor . . . you did that to console yourself . . . now console me too; send a messenger . . .”

“To Arkady Nikolaich?” interposed the old man.

“Who’s Arkady Nikolaich?” said Bazarov with some hesitation . . . “Oh, yes, that little fledgeling! No, leave him alone, he’s turned into a jackdaw now. Don’t look surprised, I’m not raving yet. But you send a messenger to Madame Odintsov, Anna Sergeyevna, she’s a landowner near by — do you know?” (Vassily Ivanovich nodded his head.) “Say ‘Evgeny Bazarov sends his greetings, and sent to say he is dying.’ Will you do that?”

“I will . . . But is it a possible thing, that you should die, you, Evgeny . . . judge for yourself. Where would divine justice be after that?”

“I don’t know; only you send the messenger.”

“I’ll send him this minute, and I’ll write a letter myself.”

“No, why? Say, I send my greetings, and nothing more is necessary. And now I’ll go back to my dogs. How strange! I want to fix my thoughts on death, and nothing comes of it. I see a kind of patch . . . and nothing more.”

He turned over heavily towards the wall; and Vassily Ivanovich went out of the study and, struggling as far as his wife’s bedroom, collapsed on his knees in front of the sacred images.

“Pray, Arina, pray to God!” he groaned. “Our son is dying.”

The doctor, that same district doctor who had been without any caustic, arrived, and after examining the patient, advised them to persevere with a cooling treatment and threw in a few words about the possibility of recovery.

“Have you ever seen people in my state not setting off for the Elysian fields?” asked Bazarov, and suddenly snatching the leg of a heavy table standing near his sofa, he swung it round and pushed it away.

“There’s strength enough,” he murmured. “It’s all there still, and I must die . . . An old man has time at least to outgrow the habit of living, but I . . . well, let me try to deny death. It will deny me, and that’s the end of it! Who’s crying there?” he added after a pause. “Mother? Poor mother! Whom will she feed now with her wonderful cabbage soup? And I believe you’re whimpering too, Vassily Ivanovich! Why, if Christianity doesn’t help you, be a philosopher, a Stoic, and that sort of thing! Surely you prided yourself on being a philosopher?”

“What kind of philosopher am I!” sobbed Vassily Ivanovich, and the tears streamed down his cheeks.

Bazarov got worse with every hour; the disease progressed rapidly, as usually happens in cases of surgical poisoning. He had not yet lost consciousness and understood what was said to him; he still struggled. “I don’t want to start raving,” he muttered, clenching his fists; “what rubbish it all is!” And then he said abruptly, “Come, take ten from eight, what remains?” Vassily Ivanovich wandered about like one possessed, proposing first one remedy, then another, and ended by doing nothing except cover up his son’s feet. “Try wrapping up in cold sheets . . . emetic . . . mustard plasters on the stomach . . . bleeding,” he said with an effort. The doctor, whom he had begged to stay, agreed with everything he said, gave the patient lemonade to drink, and for himself asked for a pipe and for something “warming and strengthening” — meaning vodka. Arina Vlasyevna sat on a low stool near the door and only went out from time to time to pray. A few days previously, a little mirror had slipped out of her hands and broken, and she had always considered this as a bad omen; even Anfisushka was unable to say anything to her. Timofeich had gone off to Madame Odintsov’s place.

The night passed badly for Bazarov . . . High fever tortured him. Towards the morning he felt a little easier. He asked Arina Vlasyevna to comb his hair, kissed her hand and swallowed a few sips of tea. Vassily Ivanovich revived a little.

“Thank God!” he repeated, “the crisis is near . . . the crisis is coming.”

“There, think of that!” muttered Bazarov. “What a lot a word can do! He’s found one; he said ‘crisis’ and is comforted. It’s an astounding thing how human beings have faith in words. You tell a man, for instance, that he’s a fool, and even if you don’t thrash him he’ll be miserable; call him a clever fellow, and he’ll be delighted even if you go off without paying him.”

This little speech of Bazarov’s, recalling his old sallies, greatly moved Vassily Ivanovich.

“Bravo! splendidly said, splendid!” he exclaimed, making as though to clap his hands.

Bazarov smiled ruefully.

“Well, so do you think the crisis is over or approaching?”

“You’re better, that’s what I see, that’s what rejoices me.

“Very well; there’s never any harm in rejoicing. And, do you remember, did you send the message to her?”

“Of course I did.”

The change for the better did not last long. The disease resumed its onslaughts. Vassily Ivanovich was sitting close to Bazarov. The old man seemed to be tormented by some particular anguish. He tried several times to speak — but could not.

“Evgeny!” he ejaculated at last, “My son, my dear, beloved son!”

This unexpected outburst produced an effect on Bazarov . . . He turned his head a little, evidently trying to fight against the load of oblivion weighing down on him, and said, “What is it, father?”

“Evgeny,” went on Vassily Ivanovich, and fell on his knees in front of his son, who had not opened his eyes and could not see him. “You’re better now; please God, you will recover; but make good use of this interval, comfort your mother and me, fulfill your duty as a Christian! How hard it is for me to say this to you — how terrible; but still more terrible would be . . . forever and ever, Evgeny . . . just think what . . .”

The old man’s voice broke and a strange look passed over his son’s face, though he still lay with his eyes closed.

“I won’t refuse, if it’s going to bring any comfort to you, he muttered at last; “but it seems to me there’s no need to hurry about it. You say yourself, I’m better.”

“Yes, Evgeny, you’re better, certainly, but who knows, all that is in God’s hands, and in fulfilling your duty . .”

“No, I’ll wait a bit,” interrupted Bazarov. “I agree with you that the crisis has come. But if we’re mistaken, what then? Surely they give the sacrament to people who are already unconscious.”

“For heaven’s sake, Evgeny, . .”

“I’ll wait, I want to sleep now. Don’t disturb me.”

And he laid his head back on the pillow. The old man rose from his knees, sat down on a chair and clutching at his chin began to bite his fingers. . . .”

The sound of a carriage on springs, a sound so remarkably distinguishable in the depths of the country, suddenly struck upon his hearing. The light wheels rolled nearer and nearer; the snorting of the horses was already audible. . . . Vassily Ivanovich jumped up and ran to the window. A two-seated carriage harnessed with four horses was driving into the courtyard of his little house. Without stopping to consider what this could mean, feeling a kind of senseless outburst of joy, he ran out into the porch . . . A livened groom was opening the carriage door; a lady in a black shawl, her face covered with a black veil, stepped out of it . . .

“I am Madame Odintsov,” she murmured. “Is Evgeny Vassilich still alive? Are you his father? I have brought a doctor with me.”

“Benefactress!” exclaimed Vassily Ivanovich, and seizing her hand, he pressed it convulsively to his lips, while the doctor brought by Anna Sergeyevna, a little man in spectacles, with a German face, climbed very deliberately out of the carriage. “He’s still alive, my Evgeny is alive and now he will be saved! Wife! Wife! An angel from heaven has come to us . . .”

“What is this, my God!” stammered the old woman, running out of the drawing room, and understanding nothing, she fell on the spot in the hall at Anna Sergeyevna’s feet and began kissing her skirt like a mad woman.

“What are you doing?” protested Anna Sergeyevna; but Arina Vlasyevna did not heed her and Vassily Ivanovich could only repeat, “An angel! An angel!”

“Wo ist der Kranke?Where is the patient?” said the doctor at last in some indignation.

Vassily Ivanovich came to his senses.

“Here, this way, please follow me, werthester Herr Kollege,” he added, remembering his old habits.

“Ah!” said the German with a sour grin.

Vassily Ivanovich led him into the study.

“A doctor from Anna Sergeyevna Odintsov,” he said, bending right down to his son’s ear, “and she herself is here.”

Bazarov suddenly opened his eyes.

“What did you say?”

“I tell you that Anna Sergeyevna is here and has brought this gentleman, a doctor, with her.”

Bazarov’s eyes looked round the room.

“She is here . . . I want to see her.”

“You will see her, Evgeny; but first we must have a talk with the doctor. I will tell him the whole history of your illness, as Sidor Sidorich (this was the district doctor’s name) has gone, and we will have a little consultation.”

Bazarov glanced at the German.

“Well, talk away quickly, only not in Latin; you see I know the meaning of‘jam moritur.’”

“Der Herr scheint des Deutschen mächtig zu sein,” began the new disciple of Aesculapius, turning to Vassily Ivanovich.”

“Ich . . . gabe . . . We had better speak Russian,” said the old man.

“Ah! so that’s how it is . . . by all means . . .” And the consultation began.

Half an hour later Anna Sergeyevna, accompanied by Vassily Ivanovich, entered the study. The doctor managed to whisper to her that it was hopeless even to think that the patient might recover.

She looked at Bazarov, and stopped short in the doorway — so abruptly was she struck by his inflamed and at the same time deathlike face and by his dim eyes fixed on her. She felt a pang of sheer terror, a cold and exhausting terror; the thought that she would not have felt like this if she had really loved him — flashed for a moment through her mind.

“Thank you,” he said in a strained voice; “I never expected this. It is a good deed. So we see each other once more, as you promised.”

“Anna Sergeyevna was so good . . .” began Vassily Ivanovich.

“Father, leave us alone . . . Anna Sergeyevna, you will allow it, I think, now . . .” With a motion of his head he indicated his prostrate helpless body.

Vassily Ivanovich went out.

“Well, thank you,” repeated Bazarov. “This is royally done. They say that emperors also visit the dying.”

“Evgeny Vassilich, I hope . . .”

“Ah, Anna Sergeyevna, let’s speak the truth. It’s all over with me. I’ve fallen under the wheel. So it turns out that there was no point in thinking about the future. Death is an old joke, but it comes like new to everyone. So far I’m not afraid . . . but soon I’ll lose consciousness and that’s the end!” (He waved his hand feebly.) “Well, what have I to say to you . . . I loved you? That had no sense even before, and less than ever now. Love is a form, but my own form is already dissolving. Better for me to say — how wonderful you are! And now you stand there, so beautiful. . .”

Anna Sergeyevna involuntarily shuddered.

“Never mind, don’t be agitated . . . Sit down over there . . . Don’t come close to me; you know my disease is infectious.”

Anna Sergeyevna walked quickly across the room and sat down in the armchair near the sofa on which Bazarov was lying.

“Noble-hearted,” he whispered. “Oh, how near, and how young, fresh and pure . . . in this disgusting room! Well, good-by! Live long, that’s best of all, and made the most of it while there is time. You see, what a hideous spectacle, a worm, half-crushed, but writhing still. Of course I also thought, I’ll break down so many things, I won’t die, why should I? There are problems for me to solve, and I’m a giant! And now the only problem of this giant is how to die decently, though that too makes no difference to anyone . . . Never mind; I’m not going to wag my tail.”

Barazov fell silent and began feeling with his hand for the glass. Anna Sergeyevna gave him some water to drink, without taking off her glove and breathing apprehensively.

“You will forget me,” he began again. “The dead is no companion for the living. My father will tell you what a man Russia has lost in me . . . That’s nonsense, but don’t disillusion the old man. Whatever toy comforts the child . . . you know. And be kind to my mother. People like them can’t be found in your great world even if you search for them by day with a torch . . . Russia needed me . . . no, clearly I wasn’t needed. And who is needed? The shoemaker’s needed, the tailor’s needed, the butcher . . . sells meat . . . the butcher — wait a bit, I’m getting mixed up . . . there’s a forest here . . .”

Bazarov put his hand on his forehead.

Anna Sergeyevna bent over him. “Evgeny Vassilich, I am here . . .”

He at once took his hand away and raised himself.

“Good-by,” he said with sudden force, and his eyes flashed with a parting gleam. “Good-by . . . Listen . . . you know I never kissed you then . . . Breathe on the dying lamp and let it go out.”

Anna Sergeyevna touched his forehead with her lips.

“Enough,” he murmured, and fell back on the pillow. “And now . . . darkness . . .”

Anna Sergeyevna slipped softly out.

“Well?” Vassily Ivanovich asked her in a whisper.

“He has fallen asleep,” she answered, almost inaudibly.

Bazarov was not destined to awaken again. Towards evening he sank into a complete coma, and the following day he died. Father Alexei performed the last rites of religion over him. When they anointed him, and the holy oil touched his breast, one of his eyes opened, and it seemed as though, at the sight of the priest in his vestments, of the smoking censer, of the candle burning in front of the image, something like a shudder of horror passed through his death-stricken face. When at last he had stopped breathing and a general lamentation arose in the house, Vassily Ivanovich was seized by a sudden fit of frenzy.

“I said I should rebel!” he shouted hoarsely, his face red and distorted, and shaking his fist in the air as if he were threatening someone. “And I rebel, I rebel!”

But Arina Vlasyevna, all in tears, flung her arms round his neck and both fell on their knees together. “So side by side,” related Anfisushka afterwards in the servants’ room, “they bowed their poor heads like lambs in the heat of noon-day. . .”

But the heat of noonday passes and is followed by evening and night, and there comes the return to a quiet refuge where sleep is sweet for the tormented and weary . . .

Chapter 28

Six months passed. White winter had set in with the cruel stillness of cloudless frosts, with its thick crunching snow, rosy hoarfrost on the trees, pale emerald sky, wreaths of smoke curling above the chimneys, steam emerging from momentarily opened doors, with those fresh faces which look bitten by cold, and the hurried trot of shivering horses. A January day was drawing to its close; the evening cold pierced keenly through the motionless air, and a brilliant sunset was rapidly dying away. Lights were burning in the windows of the house at Maryino; Prokovich in a black tail coat and white gloves, with an air of unusual solemnity, was laying the table for seven. A week earlier in the small parish church, two weddings had taken place quietly, almost without witnesses — Arkady’s marriage to Katya and that of Nikolai Petrovich to Fenichka; and on this day Nikolai Petrovich was giving a farewell dinner for his brother, who was going away to Moscow on some business. Anna Sergeyevna had also gone there directly the wedding was over, after making generous presents to the young couple.

Punctually at three o’clock the whole company assembled at the table. Mitya was brought along too and with him appeared a nurse in an embroidered peasant headdress. Pavel Petrovich sat between Katya and Fenichka; the husbands sat next to their wives. Our friends had somewhat changed lately; they all seemed to have grown better looking and stronger; only Pavel Petrovich had become thinner, which, incidentally, still further enhanced the elegant and“grand seigneur”quality of his expressive features . . . Fenichka, too, was different. In a fresh-colored silk dress with a wide velvet headdress on her hair, and a gold chain round her neck, she sat respectfully motionless, respectful towards herself and everyone around her, and smiled, as if she wanted to say: “Excuse me, I’m not to blame.” And not only she — the others also all smiled and seemed to excuse themselves; they all felt a little awkward, a little sad, but fundamentally happy. They all helped each other with an amusing attentiveness, as if they had agreed in advance to act some good-natured comedy. Katya was quieter than any of the others; she looked confidently around her, and it was already noticeable that Nikolai Petrovich had managed to become quite devoted to her. Just before the dinner was over he stood up and, holding his glass in his hand, turned to Pavel Petrovich.

“You are leaving us . . . you are leaving us, dear brother,” he began, “not for long, of course; but still I can’t help telling you what I . . . what we . . . how much I . . . how much we . . . That’s the worst of it, we don’t know how to make speeches. Arkady, you speak.”

“No, daddy, I’m not prepared for it.”

“And I’m so well prepared! Well, brother, I simply say, allow us to embrace you, to wish you all the best, and come back to us soon!”

Pavel Petrovich exchanged kisses with everyone, not excluding Mitya, of course; moreover, he kissed Fenichka’s hand, which she had not yet learned to offer properly, and drinking off his refilled glass, he said with a deep sigh: “Be happy, my friends! Farewell!” This English ending passed unnoticed; but everyone was deeply touched.

“To Bazarov’s memory,” whispered Katya in her husband’s ear as she clinked glasses with him. Arkady pressed her hand warmly in response, but he did not venture to propose that toast aloud.

This would seem to be the end; but perhaps some of our readers would care to know what each of the characters we have introduced is doing now, at the present moment. We are ready to satisfy that interest.

Anna Sergeyevna has recently married again, not for love but out of reasonable conviction, a man who may be one of the future leaders of Russia, a very clever lawyer with vigorous practical sense, a strong will and a remarkable gift of eloquence — still young, good-natured, and cold as ice. They live very harmoniously together and may live to the point of attaining happiness . . . perhaps even love. Princess X. is dead, forgotten on the day of her death. The Kirsanovs, father and son, live at Maryino. Their fortunes are beginning to mend. Arkady has become assiduous in the management of the estate, and the “farm” now yields a fairly substantial income. Nikolai Petrovich has become one of the arbitrators in the land reforms and works with all his energy; he is constantly driving about the district, delivers long speeches (he belongs to those who believe that the peasants must be “made to understand,” meaning that by frequent repetition of the same words they should be brought into a state of quiescence); and yet, to tell the truth, he does not fully satisfy either the cultured landowners, talking with a hiss or with a sigh about the emancipation (pronouncing it like a French word) or the uncultured ones who without ceremony curse the “damned emancipation.” He is too softhearted for either set. Katerina Sergeyevna has a son, Kolya, and Mitya already runs about fearlessly, and talks a lot. Fenichka, Fedosya Nikolaevna, after her husband and Mitya, adores no one so much as her daughter-in-law, and when Katerina plays the piano, she would gladly spend the whole day at her side. A passing word about Pyotr. He has grown quite rigid with stupidity and self-importance, and pronounces all his o’s like u’s,but he too is married, and received a respectable dowry with his wife, the daughter of a market gardener in the town, who had refused two excellent suitors, only because they had no watches; while Pyotr not only had a watch — he even had a pair of patent leather shoes.

In Dresden on the Brühl terrace, between two and four o’clock — the most fashionable time for walking — you may meet a man of about fifty, already quite grey and looking as though he suffered from gout, but still handsome, elegantly dressed and with that special style which comes only to those who have long been accustomed to move in the higher ranks of society. This man is Pavel Petrovich. From Moscow he went abroad for his health, and has settled down in Dresden, where he associates chiefly with English people and with Russian visitors. With the English he behaves simply, almost modestly, but with dignity; they find him a trifle boring but respect him for being, as they say, “a perfect gentleman.” With Russians he is more free and easy, gives vent to his spleen, makes fun of them and of himself, but he does all this very agreeably, with an air of ease and civility. He holds Slavophil views; this is known to be regarded in the best society as très distingué.He reads nothing in Russian, but on his writing-desk there stands a silver ash tray in the shape of a peasant’s plaited shoe. He is much sought after by our Russian tourists. Matvei Ilyich Kolyazin, happening to be “in temporary opposition,” paid him a ceremonious visit on his way to a Bohemian watering place; and the local population, with whom, incidentally, he has little to do, treat him with an almost awestruck veneration. No one can so readily and quickly secure tickets for the court choir and the theater as the Herr Baron von Kirsanov.He does as much good as he can; he still causes some stir in the world, not for nothing was he once such a great social lion; but his life is a burden to him . . . a heavier burden than he himself suspects. One should look at him in the Russian church: when leaning against the wall on one side, he stands absorbed in thought without stirring for a long time, bitterly compressing his lips, then suddenly recollects himself and begins almost imperceptibly to cross himself . . .

Madame Kukshina also settled abroad. She is now in Heidelberg, and is no longer studying natural history but has turned to architecture, in which, according to her own account, she has discovered new laws. As before, she associates with students, especially with young Russians studying physics and chemistry with whom Heidelberg is crowded, and who at first astonish the naïve German professors by their sober outlook on things, but later on astound the same professors by their complete incapability and absolute laziness. In company with two or three such young chemistry students, who cannot distinguish oxygen from nitrogen, but are brimming over with destructive criticism and conceit, Sitnikov, together with the great Elisyevich, also prepares to become a great man; he roams about in Petersburg, convinced that he is carrying on the “task” of Bazarov. There is a story that someone recently gave him a beating, but that he secured his revenge: in an obscure little article, hidden away in some obscure little periodical, he hinted that the man who had beaten him was — a coward. He calls this irony. His father bullies him as before, while his wife regards him as a fool . . . and a literary man.

There is a small village graveyard in one of the remote corners of Russia. Like almost all our graveyards, it has a melancholy look; the ditches surrounding it have long been overgrown; grey wooden crosses have fallen askew and rotted under their once painted gables; the gravestones are all out of position, just as if someone had pushed them from below; two or three bare trees hardly provide some meager shade; the sheep wander unchecked among the tombs . . . But among them is one grave untouched by human beings and not trampled on by any animal; only the birds perch on it and sing at daybreak. An iron railing surrounds it and two young fir trees have been planted there, one at each end; Evgeny Bazarov is buried in this tomb. Often from the near-by village two frail old people come to visit it — a husband and wife. Supporting one another, they walk with heavy steps; they go up to the iron railing, fall on their knees and weep long and bitterly, and gaze intently at the silent stone under which their son lies buried; they exchange a few words, wipe away the dust from the stone or tidy up some branches of a fir tree, then start to pray again and cannot tear themselves away from that place where they seem to be nearer to their son, to their memories of him . . . Can it be that their prayers and their tears are fruitless? Can it be that love, sacred devoted love, is not all powerful? Oh, no! However passionate, sinful or rebellious the heart hidden in the tomb, the flowers growing over it peep at us serenely with their innocent eyes; they tell us not only of eternal peace, of that great peace of “indifferent” nature; they tell us also of eternal reconciliation and of life without end.