IVAN S. TURGENEV (continued 2)

"Well, you look all right. Here! Take your hero back again."

He replaced the baby in Thenichka's arms.

"How quiet he has been with you!" she exclaimed under her breath.

"Always children are quiet with me," he remarked. "You see, I know how to handle them."

"And they know when people are fond of them," put in Duniasha.

"True," assented Thenichka. "Though it is seldom that Mitia will go to any one's arms but mine."

"Would he come to me?" ventured Arkady, who, until now standing in the background, at this moment came forward towards the arbour. But on his attempting to wheedle Mitia to his arms, the infant threw back its head, and started to cry—a circumstance which greatly perturbed Thenichka.

"Another time—when he has come to be more used to me," said Arkady indulgently. And the two friends departed.

"What is her name?" asked Bazarov.

"Thenichka—Theodosia," replied Arkady.

"And her patronymic?"

"Nikolaievna."

"Bene! What I like about her is her total absence of shyness. True, that is a trait which some might have condemned in her, but I say, 'What rubbish!' For why need she be bashful? She is a mother, and therefore justified."

"I agree," said Arkady. "And my father——"

"Also is justified," concluded Bazarov.

"No, I do not agree in that respect."

"You do not altogether welcome a superfluous heir?"

"For shame, Evgenii!" cried Arkady heatedly. "How can you impute such motives? What I mean is that my father is not justified from one point of view. That is to say, he ought to marry her."

"Oh, ho!" said Bazarov quietly. "How high and mighty we are getting! So you still attribute importance to the marriage rite? This I should not have expected of you."

For some paces the friends walked on in silence. Then Bazarov continued:

"I have been inspecting your father's establishment. The cattle look poor, the horses seem broken-down, the buildings have a tipsy air, the workmen manifest a tendency to loaf, and I cannot yet determine whether the new steward is a fool or a rogue."

"You are censorious to-day?"

"I am; and the reason is that these good peasants are cheating your father—exemplifying the proverb that 'The Russian muzhik will break even the back of God.'"

"Soon I shall have to agree with my uncle in his opinion that you think but poorly of Russia."

"Rubbish! The Russian's very best point is that he holds a poor opinion of himself. Two and two make four. Nothing but that matters."

"And is nature also rubbish?" queried Arkady with a musing glance at the mottled fields where they lay basking in the soft, kindly rays of the morning sun.

"Nature is rubbish—at least in the sense in which you understand her. She is not a church, but a workshop wherein man is the labourer."

At this moment there came wafted to their ears the long-drawn strains of a violoncello, on which a sensitive, but inexperienced, hand was playing Schubert's Erwartung. Like honey did the voluptuous melody suffuse the air.

"Who is the musician?" asked Bazarov in astonishment.

"My father."

"What? Your father plays the 'cello?"

"He does."

"At his age?"

"Yes—he is only forty-four."

Bazarov burst out laughing.

"Why do you laugh?" asked Arkady.

"Pardon me, but the idea that your father—a man of forty-four, a paterfamilias, and a notable in the county—should play the 'cello!"

And he continued laughing, though Arkady, for all his reverence for his mentor, failed to accomplish even a smile.

X

During the next two weeks life at Marino pursued its normal course. Arkady took things easily, and Bazarov worked. In passing, it may be said that, for all his careless manner and abrupt, laconic speech, the latter had become an accepted phenomenon in the house. In particular had Thenichka so completely lost her shyness of him that one night she sent to awake him because Mitia had been seized with convulsions; whereupon Bazarov arrived, and, half-joking, half-yawning, according to his usual manner, helped her for two hours in the task of attending to the baby. Only Paul Petrovitch disliked the man with the whole strength of his soul, for he accounted him a proud, cynical, conceited plebeian, and suspected him not only of failing to respect, but even of holding in contempt, the personality of Paul Petrovitch Kirsanov. Also, Nikolai Petrovitch stood in slight awe of the young Nihilist, since he doubted the likelihood of any good accruing from Bazarov's influence over Arkady. Yet always he would listen with pleasure to Bazarov's discourses, and gladly attend the chemical or physical experiments with which the young doctor (who had brought a microscope with him) would occupy himself for hours at a stretch. On the other hand, in spite of Bazarov's domineering manner, all the servants had become attached to him, for they felt him to be less a barin than their brother; and in particular did Duniasha readily joke and talk with him, and throw him many meaning glances as she sped past in quail-like fashion, while Peter himself, though a man full of conceit and stupidity, with a forehead perpetually puckered, and a dignity which consisted of a deferential demeanour, a practice of reading journals syllable by syllable, and a habit of constantly brushing his coat; even Peter, I say, would brighten and strike an attitude when he was noticed by Bazarov. In fact, the only servant to disapprove of Bazarov was old Prokofitch, the butler, who looked sour whenever he handed the young doctor a dish, and called him a "sharper" and a "flaunter," and declared that, for all his whiskers, Bazarov was no better than "a dressed-up pig," whereas he, Prokofitch, was practically as good an aristocrat as Paul Petrovitch himself.

In the early days of June, the best season of the year, the weather became beautiful. True, from afar there came threatenings of cholera, but to the local inhabitants such visitations had become a commonplace. Each day Bazarov rose early to set forth upon a tramp of some two or three versts; nor were those tramps undertaken merely for the sake of the exercise (he could not abide aimless expeditions), but, rather, for the sake of collecting herbs and insects. Sometimes, too, he would succeed in inducing Arkady to accompany him; and whenever this was the case the pair would, on the way back, engage in some dispute which always left Arkady vanquished in spite of his superior profusion of argument.

One morning the pair lingered considerably by the way, and Nikolai Petrovitch set out across the garden to meet them. Just as he reached the arbour, he heard their voices and brisk footsteps approaching, though he himself was invisible to the returning friends.

"You do not understand my father," Arkady was saying.

Nikolai Petrovitch halted instead of revealing himself.

"Oh, he is a good fellow enough," replied Bazarov. "But also he is a man on the shelf, a man whose song has been sung."

Though Nikolai Petrovitch strained his ears, he failed to catch Arkady's reply. So the "man on the shelf" lingered for a minute or two—then walked slowly back to the house.

"For the past three days I have noted him reading Pushkin," continued Bazarov. "You ought to explain to him that no good can come of that, for he is no longer a boy, and ought to have shaken himself free of such fiddlesticks. Who would desire to be a Romanticist? Give him something practical."

"For instance?"

"Let me consider. For a start, give him Büchner's[1] Stoff und Kraft."

"Good!" Arkady's tone was approving. "Stoff und Kraft is at least written in a popular style."

The same day Nikolai Petrovitch was sitting with his brother. At length he said:

"I find that you and I are men on the shelf, that our songs have been sung. Eh? And perhaps Bazarov is right. Yet I confess that one thing hurts me: and that is that, though I had hoped to draw nearer to Arkady, I am being left in the rear, and he is for ever marching ahead. No longer do he and I understand one another."

"And why is he for ever marching ahead?" asked Paul Petrovitch indignantly. "How comes he to stand at such a distance from us? The reason is simply the ideas which that precious 'Nihilist' is putting into his head. For myself, I detest the fellow, and think him a charlatan. Also, I am certain that, in spite of his frogs, he is making no real progress in physics."

"We ought not to say that, brother. For my own part, I look upon him as a man of culture and ability."

"If so, a detestably conceited one."

"Perhaps he is conceited," Nikolai Petrovitch allowed. "But then it would appear that nothing can be done without something of the kind. What I cannot make out is the following. As you know, I have done everything possible to keep up with the times—I have organised my peasantry, I have set up such a farm that throughout the province I am known as 'Fine Kirsanov,' persistently I read and educate myself, in general I try to march abreast of the needs of the day. Yet, though I do all this, I am now given to understand that my day is past and gone! And, brother, I do not say that I am not partially inclined to accept that view."

"For what reason?"

"For the following. To-day, as I was reading Pushkin (I think it was 'The Gipsies' that I had lighted upon), there suddenly entered the room Arkady. Silently, and with an air of kindly regret, and as gently as a child, he withdrew the book from my hand, and laid before me another book—a German production of some kind. That done, he gave me another smile, and departed with my volume of Pushkin under his arm."

"Good gracious! And what might be the book which he has given you?"

"This."

Nikolai Petrovitch extracted from the tail pocket of his frock-coat a copy (ninth edition) of Büchner's well-known work.

Paul Petrovitch turned it over in his hands.

"H'm!" he grunted. "Arkady does indeed seem solicitous for your education! Have you tried reading the book?"

"Yes."

"And how do you like it?"

"Well, either I am a fool or the thing is rubbish. Of the two views, the former seems to me the most probable."

"It is not because you have forgotten your German, I suppose?"

"Oh no. I understand the language perfectly."

Again Paul Petrovitch turned over the book, and again he glanced at his brother from under his brows. A moment's silence ensued.

"By the way," continued Nikolai Petrovitch with an evident desire to change the conversation, "I have received a letter from Koliazin."

"From Matvei Ilyitch?"

"From the same. It seems that he has just arrived at ——, for the purpose of carrying out the Revision[2] of the province, and he writes very civilly that, as our kinsman, he would be glad to see Arkady and you and myself."

"Do you intend to accept his invitation?" asked Paul Petrovitch.

"I do not. Do you?"

"No. We have no need to drag ourselves fifty versts to eat blanc-mange. The good Mathieu wants to show off a little—that is all. He can do without us. But what an honour to be a Privy Councillor! Had I continued in the Service, continued hauling at the old tow-rope, I myself might have been Adjutant-General! As it is, I, like yourself, am on the shelf."

"Yes, brother. Clearly it is time that we ordered our tombstones, and folded our hands upon our breasts."

A sigh concluded Nikolai Petrovitch's speech.

"But I do not intend to give in so soon," muttered his brother. "There is first going to be a skirmish between that chirurgeon of Arkady's and myself. That I can see beyond a doubt."

And, sure enough, the "skirmish" occurred the same evening. Ready for battle as soon he repaired to the drawing-room for tea, Paul Petrovitch entered angrily, but firmly, and sat waiting for an excuse to advance upon the foe. Yet for a while that excuse hung fire, since Bazarov never said much in the presence of "the old Kirsanovs," and to-night was feeling out of spirits, and drank his tea in absolute silence. However, Paul Petrovitch was so charged with impatience that his wish was bound to attain fulfilment.

It happened that the conversation became turned upon a neighbouring landowner.

"He is just a petty aristocrat," Bazarov drily remarked (it seemed that he and the landowner had met in St. Petersburg).

"Allow me," put in Paul Petrovitch, his lips quivering. "In your view, do the terms 'good-for-nothing' and 'aristocrat' connote the same thing?"

"I said 'petty aristocrat,'" replied Bazarov as he lazily sipped his tea.

"Quite so. Then I take it that you hold the same opinion of aristocrats as of 'petty aristocrats'? Well, I may remark that your opinion is not mine. And to that I would add that, while I myself possess a reputation for Liberal and progressive views, I possess that reputation for the very reason that I can respect real aristocrats. For instance, my dear sir" (the latter term was so heatedly uttered that Bazarov raised his eyebrows), "for instance, my dear sir, take the aristocracy of England. While yielding upon their rights not an iota, they yet know how to respect the rights of others. While demanding fulfilment of obligations due to themselves, they yet fulfil their own obligations. And for those reasons it is to her aristocratic caste that England stands indebted for her freedom. It is because the English aristocratic caste itself supports that freedom."

"A tale which we have heard many times before!" commented Bazarov. "But what are you seeking to prove?"

"I am seeking to prove this," replied Paul Petrovitch. "That without a certain sense of personal dignity, without a sense of self-respect (both of which senses are inborn in the true aristocrat), the social edifice, the bien public, cannot rest upon a durable basis. It is personality that matters, my dear sir: and the human personality requires to be as firm as a rock, in that there rests upon it the entire structure of society. For example, I know that you ridicule my customs, my dress, my fastidious tastes. Yet do those very things proceed from that sense of duty—yes, of duty, I repeat—to which I have just alluded. In other words, I may live in the depths of the country, yet I do not let myself go. For I respect in myself the man."

"Allow me, Paul Petrovitch," said Bazarov. "You say that you respect yourself. Very good. Yet you can sit there with your hands folded! How will that benefit the bien public, seeing that inaction would scarcely seem to argue self-respect?"

Paul Petrovitch blanched a little.

"That is another question altogether," he said. "However, I do not feel called upon to explain the reason why I sit with my hands folded (according to your own estimable term). It will suffice merely to remark that in the aristocratic idea there is contained a principle, and that nowadays men who live without principles are as destitute of morality as they are of moral substance. The same thing did I say to Arkady on the day after his arrival, and I say it now to you. You agree with me, Nikolai, do you not?"

Nikolai Petrovitch nodded assent, while Bazarov exclaimed:

"The aristocratic idea, forsooth! Liberalism, progress, principles! Why, have you ever considered the vanity of those terms? The Russian of to-day does not need them."

"Then what, in your opinion, does he need? To listen to you, one would suppose that we stood wholly divorced from humanity and humanity's laws; whereas, pardon me, the logic of history demands——"

"What has that logic to do with us? We can get on quite well without it."

"How can we do so?"

"Even as I have said. When you want to put a piece of bread into your mouth do you need logic for the purpose? What have these abstractions to do with ourselves?"

Paul Petrovitch waved his hand in disgust.

"I cannot understand you," he said. "You seem to me to be insulting the Russian people. How you or any one else can decline to recognise principles and precepts is a thing which passes my comprehension. For what other basis for action in life have we got?"

Arkady put in a word.

"Both I and Bazarov have told you," he said, "that we recognise no authority of any sort."

"Rather, that we recognise no basis for action save the useful," corrected Bazarov. "At present the course most useful is denial. Therefore we deny."

"Deny everything?"

"Deny everything."

"What? Both poetry and art and—I find it hard to express it?——"

"I repeat, everything," said Bazarov with an ineffable expression of insouciance.

Paul Petrovitch stared. He had not quite expected this. For his part, Arkady reddened with pleasure.

"Allow me," interposed Nikolai Petrovitch. "You say that you deny everything—rather, that you would consign everything to destruction. But also you ought to construct."

"That is not our business," said Bazarov. "First must the site be cleared."

"Yes; for the present condition of the people demands it," affirmed Arkady. "And that demand we are bound to fulfil, seeing that no one has the right merely to devote himself to the satisfaction of his own personal egotism."

With this last Bazarov did not seem altogether pleased, since the phrase smacked too much of philosophy—rather, of "Romanticism," as Bazarov termed that science; but he did not trouble to confute his pupil.

"No, no!" Paul Petrovitch exclaimed with sudden heat. "I cannot believe that gentlemen of your type possess sufficient knowledge of the people to be rightful representatives of its demands and aspirations. For the Russian people is not what you think it to be. It holds traditions sacred, and is patriarchal, and cannot live without faith."

"I will not dispute that," observed Bazarov. "Nay, I will even agree that you are right."

"And, granting that I am right——"

"You have proved nothing."

"Yes, proved nothing," echoed Arkady with the assurance of a chess-player who, having foreseen a dangerous move on the part of his opponent, awaits the attack with expert composure.

"But how have I proved nothing?" muttered Paul Petrovitch, rather taken aback. "Do you mean to say that you are opposed to, not in favour of, the people?"

"Good gracious! Do not the common folk believe, when it thunders, that the Prophet Elijah is going up to Heaven in his chariot? You and I do not agree with that? The point is that the people is Russian, and that I am the same."

"Not after what you have just said! Henceforth must I decline to recognise you as any countryman of mine."

With a sort of indolent hauteur Bazarov replied:

"With his own hand did my grandfather guide the plough. Ask, therefore, of your favourite peasant which of us two—you or myself—he rates most truly as his countryman. Why, you do not know even how to speak to him!"

"And you, while speaking to him, despise him."

"Should he merit contempt, yes. Reprobate, therefore, my views as much as you like, but who told you that they have come to me fortuitously rather than been derived from the very national spirit of which you are so ardent an upholder?"

"Phaugh! We need you Nihilists, do we not?"

"Not ours is it to decide the need or otherwise, seeing that even a man like yourself considers that he has a use."

"Gentlemen, gentlemen!" interposed Nikolai Petrovitch as he rose to his feet. "I beg of you to indulge in no personalities!"

Paul Petrovitch smiled. Then, laying his hand upon his brother's shoulder, he forced him to resume his seat.

"Do not be alarmed," he said. "That very sense of dignity at which this gentleman pokes such bitter fun will keep me from forgetting myself."

And he turned to Bazarov again.

"Do you suppose your doctrine to be a new one?" he continued. "If so, you are wasting your time. More than once has the Materialism which you preach been mooted; and each time it has been proved bankrupt."

"Another foreign term!" muttered Bazarov. He was now beginning to lose his temper, and his face had turned a dull, copperish tint. "In the first place, we Nihilists preach nothing at all. For to preach is not our custom."

"What, then, is your custom?"

"To proclaim facts such as that our civil servants accept bribes, that we lack highways, commerce, and a single upright judge, and that——"

"Of course, of course! In other words, you and yours are to act as our 'censors' (I believe that to be the correct term?). Well, I agree with many of your censures, but——"

"Other tenets which we hold are that to chatter, and to do nothing but chatter, concerning our differences is not worth the trouble, seeing that it is a pursuit which merely leads to pettiness and doctrinairism; that beyond question are our so-called leaders and censors not worth their salt, seeing that they engage in sheer futilities, and waste their breath on discussions on art and still life and Parliamentarism and legal points and the devil only knows what, when all the time it is the bread of subsistence alone that matters, and we are being stifled with gross superstition, and all our commercial enterprises are failing for want of honest directors, and the freedom of which the Government is for ever prating is destined never to become a reality, for the reason that, so long as the Russian peasant is allowed to go and drink himself to death in a dram-shop, he is ready to submit to any sort of despoilment."

"You have decided, then, you feel conscious, that your true métier is to apply yourselves seriously to nothing?"

"Even so," came the sullen reply, for Bazarov had suddenly become vexed with himself for having exposed his mind with such completeness to this barin.

"You have decided merely to deny everything?"

"We have decided merely to deny everything."

"And that you call Nihilism?"

"That we call Nihilism." In Bazarov's repetition of Paul Petrovitch's words there echoed, this time, a note of pride.

Paul Petrovitch knit his brows.

"So, so!" he said in a voice that was curiously calm. "Nihilism is designed to combat our every ill, and you alone are to act as our saviours and our heroes! Well, well! But in what consider you yourselves and your censorious friends to excel the rest of us? For you chatter as much as does every one else."

"No, no!" muttered Bazarov. "At least we are not guilty of that, however we may err in other ways."

"You do things, then? At all events, you are preparing to do things?"

Bazarov did not reply, although, in his excitement, Paul Petrovitch had started up and then quickly recovered his self-command.

"H'm!" continued Paul Petrovitch. "With you to act is to demolish. But how is such demolition to benefit when you do not even know its purpose?"

"We demolish because we are a force," interposed Arkady.

Paul Petrovitch stared—then smiled.

"And a force need render account to no one," added Arkady with a self-conscious straightening of his form.

"Fool!" gasped Paul Petrovitch. Evidently he could contain himself no longer. "Have you ever considered what you are maintaining with your miserable creed? Even an angel would lose patience! 'A force,' forsooth! You might as well say that the wild Kalmuck, or the barbaric Mongol, represents a force. What boots such a force? Civilisation and its fruits are what we value. And do not tell me that those fruits are to be overlooked, seeing that even the meanest barbouilleur,[3] the meanest piano-player who ever earned five kopecks a night, is of more use to society than you. For men of that kind at least stand for culture rather than for some rude, Mongolian propelling-power. Yes, you may look upon yourselves as 'the coming race,' yet you are fit but to sit in a Kalmuck shanty. 'A force,' forsooth! Good and 'forceful' sirs, I beg to tell you that you number but four men and a boy, whereas those others number millions, and are folk of the kind who will not permit such as you to trample upon their sacred beliefs, but will first trample upon your worthy selves."

"Let them trample upon us," retorted Bazarov. "We are more in number than you think."

"What? You really believe that you will succeed in inoculating the nation as a whole?"

"From a little candle," replied Bazarov, "there arose, as you know, the conflagration of Moscow."[4]

"A pride almost Satanic in its nature, and then banter! And thus you would seek to attract our youth, thus you would attempt to win the inexperienced hearts of our boys! For sitting beside you is one of those very boys, and he is absolutely worshipping you!" (Upon this Arkady knit his brows, and averted his head a little.) "Yes, the canker has spread far already. For instance, they tell me that in Rome our artists decline to enter the Vatican, and look upon Raphael as next-door to a fool, just because he is an 'authority'! Yet those very artists are themselves so barren and impotent that their fancy cannot rise above 'Girls at Fountains,' and so forth, villainously executed! And such artists you account fine fellows, I presume?"

"Like those artists," said Bazarov, "I consider Raphael to be worth not a copper groat. And as for the artists themselves, I appraise them at about a similar sum."

"Bravo, bravo!" cried Paul Petrovitch. "Listen, O Arkady—listen to the way in which the young men of the present day ought to express themselves! Surely our youth will now rally to your side? For once upon a time they had to go to school, since they did not like to be taken for dunces, and therefore worked at their studies; but now they have but to say: 'Everything in the world is rubbish,' and, behold! the trick is done. They consider that delightful—and naturally! In other words, the blockheads of former days are become the Nihilists of the present."

"Your self-sufficiency—I mean, your self-respect—is carrying you away," Bazarov remarked nonchalantly (as for Arkady, his eyes had flashed, and his whole form was quivering with indignation). "But our dispute has gone far enough. Let us end it. Whenever you may feel that you can point out to me a single institution in our family or our public life which does not call for complete and unsparing rejection, I shall be pleased to accept your view."

"Of institutions of that kind I could cite you millions," exclaimed Paul Petrovitch. "For example, take the village commune."

Bazarov's lips twisted themselves into a contemptuous smile.

"The village commune," said he, "is a subject which you would do better to discuss with your brother, since he is learning by experience the meaning of that commune, and of its circular guarantee, and of its enforced sobriety and other contrivances."

"Take the family, then—yes, take the family, since at least among the peasantry it is still a surviving institution."

"And that question, too, I should imagine were best not dissected by you in detail. But see here, Paul Petrovitch. Allow yourself a minimum of two days to think over these things (you will need quite that amount of time to do so); and cite to yourself in succession our various social conditions, and give them your best attention. Meanwhile Arkady and myself will go and——"

"Go and make sport of everything, I presume?"

"No, go and dissect frogs. Come, Arkady! Au revoir, gentlemen."

And the two friends departed. Left alone, the brothers looked at one another.

"So," at last said Paul Petrovitch, "you see the young men of the day—you see our successors!"

"Our successors—yes," re-echoed Nikolai Petrovitch despondently. Throughout the conversation he had been sitting simply on pins and needles; throughout it he had dared do no more than throw an occasional pained glance at Arkady. "My brother, there came to me just now a curious reminiscence. It was of a quarrel which once I had with my mother. During the contest she raised a great outcry, and refused to listen to a single word I said; until at length I told her that for her to understand me was impossible, seeing that she and I came of different generations. Of course this angered her yet more, but I thought to myself: 'What else could I do? The pill must have been a bitter one, but it was necessary that she should swallow it.' And now our turn is come; now is it for us to be told by our heirs that we come of a different generation from theirs, and must kindly swallow the pill."

"You are too magnanimous and retiring," expostulated Paul Petrovitch. "For my part, I feel sure that we are more in the right than these two youngsters, even though we may express ourselves in old-fashioned terms, and lack their daring self-sufficiency. Indeed, what a puffed-up crowd is the youth of to-day! Should you ask one of them whether he will take white wine or red, he will reply, in a bass voice, and with a face as though the whole universe were looking at him: 'Red is my customary rule.'"

"Should you like some more tea?" interrupted Thenichka, who had been peeping through the doorway, but had not dared to enter during the progress of the dispute.

"No," was Nikolai Petrovitch's reply as he rose to meet her. "So you can order the samovar to be removed."

Meanwhile, with a brief "Bon soir," Paul Petrovitch betook himself to his study.

XI

Half an hour later Nikolai Petrovitch sought his favourite arbour. Despondent thoughts were thronging through his brain, for the rift between himself and his son was only too evident. Also, he knew that that rift would widen from day to day. For nothing had he spent whole days, during those winters in St. Petersburg, in the perusal of modern works! For nothing had he listened to the young men's discourses! For nothing had he been delighted when he had been able to interpolate a word into their tempestuous debates!

"My brother says that we are more in the right than they," he reflected. "And certainly I too can say without vanity that I believe these young fellows to stand at a greater distance from the truth than ourselves. Yet also I believe that they have in them something which we lack—something which gives them an advantage over us. What is that something? Is it youth? No, it is not youth alone. Is it that there hovers about them less of the barin than hovers about ourselves? Possibly!"

Bending his head, he passed his hand over his face.

"Yet to reject poetry!" he muttered. "To fail to sympathise with art and nature!"

And he gazed around as though he were trying to understand how any one could be out of sympathy with the natural world. Evening was just closing in, and the sun sinking behind a small aspen copse which, situated half a verst from the garden, was trailing long shadows over the motionless fields. Along the narrow, dark track beside the copse a peasant on a white pony was trotting; and though the pair were overshadowed by the trees, the rider was as clearly visible, even to a patch on his shoulder, as the twinkling legs of his steed. Piercing the tangled aspens, the sun's beams were bathing the trunks in so brilliant a glow that trunks and beams were one bright mass, and only the foliage on the boughs above formed a dusky blur against the lighter tints of the flame-coloured sky. Overhead bats were whirling; the wind had sunk to rest; a few late-homing bees were buzzing somnolently, sluggishly amid the lilac blossoms; and a pillared swarm of gnats was dancing over a projecting bough.

"O God, how fair!" was Nikolai's involuntary thought as his lips breathed a favourite couplet.

Suddenly he remembered Arkady and Stoff und Kraft; and though he continued to sit where he was, he quoted poetry no more, but surrendered his mind wholly to the play of his lonely, irregular, mournful thoughts. At all times he was a man fond of dreaming; and to this tendency his life in the country had added confirmation. To think of what only a short while ago he had been dreaming as he waited for his son on the post-house verandah! For since that hour a change had come about, and in the vague relations between himself and his son there had dawned a more definite phase. Next, he saw before him his dead wife. Yet he saw her, not as she had appeared to him during the later years of her life—that is to say, as a kindly, thrifty châtelaine—but as a young girl slim of figure and innocently inquiring of eye. Yes, there flitted before his vision a picture only of neatly plaited tresses falling over a childish neck. And he thought of his first meeting with her when, as a student, he had encountered her on the staircase leading to his suite of rooms. He remembered how, having accidentally brushed against her, he had stopped to apologise, but had only succeeded in muttering "Pardon, monsieur"; where-upon she had bowed, and smiled, and fled as in sudden alarm—but only to turn, the next moment, at the bend of the staircase, to look swiftly back, and then, as swiftly, to blush, and assume a more demure demeanour. Ah, those first timid meetings, those half-spoken words, those bashful smiles, those alternate fits of rapture and despair, that courtship that was destined to be crowned with swooning joy! Whither was it all fled? True, she had become his wife, and had conferred upon him such happiness as falls to the lot of few men on earth; but ever the thought recurred to him, and recurred again: "Why could those days of sweetness not have lasted for ever, so that we might have lived a life which should never have known death?"

He made no attempt to co-ordinate his thoughts. The predominant feeling in his mind was that he would give worlds to be able to connect himself with those blessed days by something stronger than the mere power of memory. He wanted to feel his Maria near him once more, to scent her dear breath. A curious mood had him in its grip.

"Nikolai Petrovitch!" came the voice of Thenichka from a spot somewhere in the vicinity. "Where are you?"

As he heard the call, a feeling that was neither vexation nor shame passed over him. No comparison between his dead wife and Thenichka was possible, yet he gave a start, and felt a passing regret that Thenichka had seized that moment to seek him. For in some way did the sound of her voice bring back to him his grey hairs, his old age, all that constituted the present. So for an instant the enchanted world which he had just entered, and which he had just seen emerge from the misty waves of the past, quivered—then disappeared.

"I am here, Thenichka," he called. "Please go away. I will come presently."

"Another reminder that I am a barin," he reflected.

Thenichka retired, and suddenly he became aware of the fact that since the moment when he had sunk into a reverie nightfall had come. Yes, all around him there lay a motionless obscurity, with, gleaming amid it, as a small, pale blur, Thenichka's face. Rising, he started to return to the house, but his unstrung nerves could not calm themselves, and, glancing now at the ground, now towards the heavens where there swarmed myriads of twinkling stars, he fell to pacing the garden. He continued this pacing until he was almost worn out; for still did the vague, despondent, insistent sense of agitation refuse to leave his breast. Could Bazarov have divined his thoughts, how the Nihilist would have laughed! And even Arkady would have condemned him. For from the eyes of Nikolai Petrovitch—from the eyes of a man of forty-four who was the proprietor of an estate and a household—there were welling slow, uncalled-for tears. This was a hundred times worse than the 'cello-playing!

And still he continued his pacing, for he could not make up his mind to enter the peaceful, inviting retreat which beckoned to him so cheerfully with its lighted windows, and to leave the darkness of the garden, to forego the touch of fresh air upon his face, to throw off his present mood of sadness and emotion.

At a turn in the path he encountered Paul Petrovitch.

"What is the matter with you?" Paul inquired. "You are looking as white as a ghost. Are you ill? Why not go to bed?"

Nikolai Petrovitch explained to him in a few words his frame of mind—then moved towards the house. Paul Petrovitch sauntered down towards the other end of the garden, and ever and anon, as he did so, indulged in wrapt contemplation of the heavens. Yet, save for the reflection of the starlight, there was nothing to be seen in his dark, handsome eyes; for he had not been born a Romanticist, and his drily fastidious, passionate, Frenchified, misanthropic soul was incapable of castle-building.

"I tell you what," Bazarov said to Arkady the same night. "A splendid idea has come into my head. You know that to-day your father said that a certain eminent relation had sent him an invitation which he had no intention of accepting. Well, how would it be if you and I were to accept it, seeing that you too have been included in the honour? The weather has turned beautiful, and we might drive over and look at the town, and thus, incidentally, secure a few days' uninterrupted talk together."

"Should you then return here?"

"No. I should go on to my father's. You see, he lives thirty versts away only, and it is a long time since last I saw either him or my mother. Moreover, the old folk deserve to be humoured a little, seeing that they have been very good to me—especially my father—and that I am their only son."

"And shall you stay long?"

"No. Staying in that place is dull work."

"Then pay us a second visit on your way back?"

"I will if possible. We will go, then, eh?"

"At your pleasure," Arkady replied with a show of indifference. But, as a matter of fact, he was delighted with Bazarov's proposal; and only the thought that he must keep up his "Nihilism" prevented him from manifesting his feelings.

So, the next day, the pair set out for the town of ——; while with one consent the youth of Marino broke into lamentations over their going, and Duniasha even went so far as to weep. Only their elders breathed more freely.

XII

The town of ——, whither our friends now proceeded, lay under the dominion of one of those young, progressive, despotic provincial governors who afflict Russia in an unending sequence. As early as the first year of his rule this particular potentate had succeeded in quarrelling, not only with the President of the Provincial Council (who was a retired staff officer, a horse breeder, and an agriculturist), but also with his whole gubernatorial staff of tchinovniks: with the result that at the time of our story the commotion therefrom had attained a pitch which had just necessitated the sending down of a commissary empowered to hold an investigation. The Government's choice for this purpose had fallen upon Matvei Ilyitch Koliazin, the son of the Koliazin who had once acted as guardian to the brothers Kirsanov, and a man of the younger school—that is to say, a man who, though a little over forty, still aimed at attaining the dignity of a statesman, and having a breast covered with stars (including at least one of a foreign minor order), and who, also like the Governor whom he had come to examine, was accounted a Progressive, and held a high opinion of himself. Yet never did Matvei allow his boundless vanity to prevent him from affecting a stereotyped air of simplicity and good humour, or from listening indulgently to anything that might be said to him, or from cultivating so pleasant a laugh that everywhere he contrived to pass for "not a bad sort of a fellow." True, he could on important occasions (if I may quote the trite saying) "make dust fly" ("Energy is indispensable for a State worker," was a frequent saw of his—"L'énergie est la première qualité d'un homme d'état"); yet almost invariably did he end by being set down as a fool, while tchinovniks of more experience rode roughshod over him. Amongst other things, he had a custom of expressing a great respect for Guizot,[1] and also of striving to convince every one that he (Koliazin) was not one of "your men of routine, your retired bureaucrats," but, rather, a man who noted "every new and more important phenomenon of our social life." In fact, such phrases he had at his finger ends, and also he studied (though with a sort of careless pomposity only) the development of contemporary literature. Lastly, it not seldom befell that, on meeting a street procession of students, he would, though maturer of years than the majority of its members, add himself to its ranks. In short, only his circumstances and his epoch caused Matvei Ilyitch in any way to differ from those officials of the Alexandrine period who, before setting out to attend a reception at Madame Svietchin's[2] (then resident in St. Petersburg), would read a few pages of Condillac's[3] works. Yet, though an adroit courtier, Matvei was a mere glittering fraud, since, save that he knew how to hold his own against all comers (though, certainly, that is a great achievement in life), he was, in all matters of State, a complete stranger to common sense.

On the present occasion he welcomed Arkady with all the bonhomie, all the jocosity, of an "enlightened" bigwig. Nevertheless his face fell a little when he learned that the other relatives whom he had invited had preferred remaining in the country. "Your father always was a queer fish," he remarked as he parted the tails of a velvet "cutaway." And, having said this, he turned to a young tchinovnik in a tightly buttoned uniform, and asked him irritably what he wanted; at which onslaught the young tchinovnik (whose lips looked as though a confirmed habit of keeping their own counsel had gummed them permanently together) straightened himself with a sharp, apprehensive look at his superior. But, once Matvei had effected this "settling" of his subordinate, the great man paid the little one no further attention.

In passing, I may observe that to most of our bigwigs is this species of "settling" very dear, and that many are the expedients resorted to for its achievement. Particularly is the following method "quite a favourite," as the English say—in other words, much in request. Suddenly a given bigwig will cease to be able to grasp with his intelligence even the simplest sentence, and assume an air of abysmal density. For example, he will inquire what the day of the week may be, and be told (with great and stammering deference) that the day is, say, Friday.

"What?" will roar the bigwig with an air of being forced to strain his ears to the utmost. "Eh? what do you say?"

"I-It is F-Friday, your E-E-Excellency."

"Eh, what? Friday? What mean you by Friday?"

"Y-Your Excellency, F-Friday is, is—F-F-Friday is a day in the week."

"Come, come! You need not have taken so much time to tell me that."

Matvei Ilyitch was just such a bigwig, although he called himself a Liberal.

"My good fellow," he now continued to Arkady, "I should advise you to go and leave your card upon the Governor. Of course you understand that my reason for counselling you to adopt this procedure is, not that I in any way hold with any bygone ideas about kow-towing to authority, but, rather, because the Governor is a good fellow, and I know that you would like to see a little society. For you too are not a bear, I hope? No? Well, the Governor is giving a grand ball the day after to-morrow."

"And shall you be there?" asked Arkady.

"I shall, of course, receive tickets for it," replied Matvei Ilyitch with an assumed air of regret. "You dance, I presume?"

"I do—though very badly."

"Never mind, never mind. There exists here plenty of good society, and it would never do for a young fellow like yourself to be a non-dancer. Again I say this, not because I in any way revere antiquated notions, nor yet because I think that intellect ought to go kicking its heels about, but because Byronism has become absurd—il a fait son temps."

"But I belong to neither the Byronists nor——"

"Well, well! I will introduce you to some of our ladies—I myself will take you under my wing." And Matvei Ilyitch smiled in a self-satisfied way. "In fact, you shall have a gay time here."

At this point a servant entered to announce the President of the Provincial Treasury. The latter, a mild-eyed veteran with wrinkles around his lips and a great love for nature, was accustomed to remark on summer days that "of every little flower each little bee is now taking its toll." So Arkady seized the occasion to depart.

He found Bazarov at the hotel where the pair were putting up, and had great difficulty in persuading him to join in the projected call upon the Governor.

"Well, well!" eventually said Bazarov. "I have laid a hand upon the tow-rope, so it ill becomes me to complain of its weight. As we are here to inspect the local lions, let us inspect them."

To the young men the Governor accorded a civil enough welcome, but neither bade them be seated nor set the example himself. A man in a perpetual hurry and ferment, he, on rising in the morning, was accustomed to don a tight uniform and stiff collar, and then to give himself up to such an orgy of orders-giving that he never finished a single meal. As the result, he was known throughout the province as "Bardeloue"—in reference, be it said, not to the great French preacher,[4] but to burda, fermented liquor. After inviting Arkady and Bazarov to the coming ball, the Governor, two minutes later, repeated the invitation as though he had never given it; while likewise he mistook the pair for brothers, and addressed them throughout as "the Messieurs Kaiserov."

Subsequently, as the pair were proceeding homewards, a man of small stature, and dressed in a "Slavophil" costume, leapt from a passing drozhki, and, with a cry of "Evgenii Vasilitch!" flung himself upon Bazarov.

"Is that you, Herr Sitnikov?" remarked Bazarov without even checking his stride. "What chance brings you hither?"

"A pure accident," was the other's reply as, turning to the drozhki, he signed to the coachman to follow at a foot's pace. "You see, I had business to do with my father, and he invited me to pay him a visit." Sitnikov hopped across a puddle. "Also, on learning of your arrival, I have been to call at your place." (True enough, on subsequently reaching the hotel, the two friends found awaiting them Sitnikov's visiting-card, with the corners turned down, and one side of it inscribed with his name in the French fashion, and the other with his name in Slavonic characters.)

"You are from the Governor's, I suppose?" continued the little man. "I sincerely hope not, however."

"Your hopes are vain."

"Then I too, alas, must pay him my devoirs. But first introduce me to your friend."

"Sitnikov—Kirsanov," responded Bazarov without halting.

"Delighted!" minced Sitnikov as he stepped back, struck an attitude, and hurriedly doffed his super-elegant gloves. "I have heard much of you, Monsieur Kirsanov. I too am an old acquaintance—I might even say, an old pupil—of Evgenii Vasilitch's. Through him it was that I came by my spiritual regeneration."

Arkady glanced at Bazarov's "old pupil," and saw that he had small, dull, pleasant, nervous features; also that his narrow, sunken eyes expressed a great restlessness, and that his lips were parted in a perpetual smile of a wooden and ingratiating order.

"Do you know," Sitnikov continued, "when Evgenii Vasilitch first told me that we ought to ignore every species of authority I experienced a sense of rapture, I felt as though I had suddenly ripened. 'Ah,' I thought, 'at last have I found my man!' By the way, Evgenii Vasilitch, you must come and see a certain lady of my acquaintance—one who, beyond all others, is the person to understand you, and to look upon your coming as a red-letter event. Perhaps you have heard of her already?"

"No. Who is she?" asked Bazarov reluctantly.

"A Madame Kukshin—a Madame, I should say, Evdoksia Kukshin. And she is not merely a remarkable character and a woman of light and leading; she is also representative of the émancipée, in the best sense of the word. But look here. How would it be if all three of us were to go and see her? She lives only two steps away, and she would give us luncheon. You have not lunched already, I presume?"

"No, we have not."

"Then the arrangement would suit us all. By the way, she is independent, but a married woman."

"Good-looking?" queried Bazarov.

"N-No—one could not exactly say that."

"Then why ask us to go and see her?"

"Ah, ha! You will have your jest, I see. But remember that she will stand us a bottle of champagne."

"The practicality of the man!"

Sitnikov gave a shrill giggle.

"Shall we go?" he added.

"I cannot decide."

Here Arkady put in a word.

"We have come to inspect the local people," he remarked, "so let us inspect them."

"True enough," seconded Sitnikov. "And, of course, you must come, Monsieur Kirsanov. We could not go without you."

"What? Are all three of us to descend upon her?"

"What matter? She herself is an odd person."

"And you say that she will stand us a bottle of champagne."

"Yes; or even a bottle apiece," asserted Sitnikov. "I will go bail upon that."

"Go bail with what?"

"With my head."

"Your purse would have been better; but lead on."

XIII

The villa in which Avdotia, or Evdoksia, Nikitishna Kukshin resided was one of the usual Moscow pattern, and stood in one of the recently consumed streets (for as we know, every fifth year sees each of our provincial capitals burnt to the ground) of the town of ——. Beside the front door there hung (over a cracked, crooked visiting-card) a bell-handle, while in the hall the visitors were met by a female who constituted, not exactly a maidservant, but a mob-capped "lady companion." And it need hardly be added that these two phenomena, the bell-handle and the "lady companion," constituted clear evidence of the "progressiveness" of the hostess's views.

On Sitnikov inquiring whether Avdotia Nikitishna were within, a shrill voice interrupted him from an adjoining room:

"Is that you, Victor? Pray enter."

The female in the mob-cap disappeared.

"I have not come alone," Sitnikov responded as, after an inquiring glance at Arkady and Bazarov, he divested himself of his greatcoat, and revealed thereunder a sort of sack jacket.

"Never mind," the voice replied. "Entrez, s'il vous plaît."

The young men did as bidden, and found themselves in a room which resembled a workshop rather than a parlour. On tables were piled promiscuous papers, letters and Russian magazines (most of the latter uncut); everywhere on the floor were to be seen gleaming the fag-ends of cigarettes; and on a leather-padded sofa a lady—youngish, flaxen-haired, and clad in a négligée soiled silk gown—was lolling in a semi-recumbent position. About her stumpy wrists were clasped a large pair of bracelets, and over her head was thrown a lace mantilla. Rising, she draped her shoulders carelessly in a velvet tippet with faded ermine trimming, and, saying indolently, "Good day, Victor," pressed Sitnikov's hand.

"Bazarov—Kirsanov," he said in abrupt imitation of the former; whereupon she responded, "How do you do?" and then added, as she fixed upon Bazarov a pair of large eyes between which glimmered a correspondingly small, pink, upturned nose: "I have met you before."

That said, she pressed his hand even as she had done Sitnikov's.

Bazarov frowned, for though the plain, insignificant features of the emancipated lady contained nothing actually to repel, there was something in their mien which produced upon the beholder the sort of unpleasant impression which might have inclined him to ask her: "Are you hungry, or bored, or afraid? At all events, what is it you want?" Also, like Sitnikov, she kept pawing the air as she spoke, and her every word, her every gesture, revealed such a lack of control as at times amounted to sheer awkwardness. In short, though she conceived herself to be just a simple, good-hearted creature, her bearing was of the kind to lead the beholder to reflect that, no matter what she did, it was not what she had intended to do, and that everything was done (to use the children's term) "on purpose"—that is to say, non-simply and non-naturally.

"Yes, I have met you before, Bazarov," she repeated (like many other contemporary females of Moscow and the provinces, she had adopted the fashion of calling men by their surnames alone on first introduction). "Will you have a cigar?"

"I thank you," interposed Sitnikov (who had deposited his person in an armchair, and crossed his legs). "Also, pray give us some luncheon, for we are absolutely ravenous. Also, you might order us a bottle of champagne."

"You Sybarite!" exclaimed Evdoksia with a smile (a smile always brought her upper gum prominently into view). "Is he not, Bazarov?"

"No; it is merely that I love the comforts of life," protested Sitnikov pompously. "Nor need that in any way prevent me from being a Liberal."

"But it does, it does," cried Evdoksia. However, she gave orders to her servant to see both to the luncheon and to the champagne. "What is your opinion on the matter?" she added, turning to Bazarov. "I feel convinced that you share mine."

"No, I do not," he replied. "On the contrary, I think that, even from the chemical point of view, a piece of meat is better than a piece of bread."

"Then you study chemistry?" she exclaimed. "Chemistry is my passion also. In fact, I have invented a special liniment."

"A liniment? You?"

"Yes, I. And please guess its use. It is for making unbreakable dolls and pipe-bowls. You see that, like yourself, I am of a practical turn of mind. But, as yet, I have not completed my course of study. It still remains for me to read up my Liebig. Apropos, have you seen an article in the Viedomosti on Woman's Work—an article by Kisliakov? If not, you should read it (for I presume that you take an interest in the Feminine Question, and also in the Question of the Schools?). But what is your friend's line? Apropos, what is his name?"

These questions Madame Kukshin, as it were, mouthed, and did so with an affected carelessness which waited for no reply, even as a spoilt child propounds conundrums to its nurse.

"My name is Arkady Nikolaievitch Kirsanov," Arkady answered for himself. "And my particular line is doing nothing at all."

Evdoksia tittered.

"How nice!" she exclaimed. "Then you do not even smoke? Victor, I am furious with you!"

"Why?" enquired Sitnikov.

"Because I have just heard that you are again standing up for Georges Sand, that played-out woman. How is she even to be compared (that creature, who lacks a single idea on education or physiology or anything else) with Emerson? In fact, I believe that never in her life has she so much as heard of embryology—though in these days no one can get on without it." The speaker flung out her arms in an expressive gesture. "But what a splendid article was that of Elisievitch's! He is indeed a talented gentleman!" (This was another habit of Evdoksia's—the habit of persistently using the term "gentleman" for the ordinary word "man"). "Bazarov, pray come and sit beside me on the sofa. You may not know it, but I am dreadfully afraid of you."

"Why are you afraid of me (if you will forgive my curiosity)?"

"Because you are a dangerous gentleman—you are a critic so caustic that in your presence my confusion leads me to begin speaking like a lady-landowner of the Steppes. Apropos, I am a lady-landowner myself; for, though I employ a local steward named Erothei (a sort of Cooper's 'Pathfinder,' but compounded with a blend of independence in his composition), I retain the ultimate reins of management in my own hands. But how unbearable this town is!—yes, even though I have made it my permanent home, seeing that nothing else was to be done!"

"The town is what a town always is," remarked Bazarov indifferently.

"But its interests are so petty!" continued Evdoksia.

"That is what troubles me. Once upon a time I used to winter in Moscow, but now good Monsieur Kukshin has to dwell there alone. And Moscow itself is, is—well, not what it used to be. As a matter of fact, I contemplate going abroad. I have spent the whole year in making my preparations for the journey."

"You will go to Paris, I presume?"

"Yes, and to Heidelberg."

"Why to Heidelberg?"

"Because there the great Herr Bunsen[1] has his home."

Bazarov could not think of a suitable reply.

"Do you know Pierre Sapozhnikov?" continued she.

"No, I do not."

"He is always to be found at Lydia Khostatov's."

"Even with her I am not acquainted."

"Well, Sapozhnikov is going to escort me on my travels. For at least I am free—I have no children, thank God! Why I should have put in that 'Thank God!' I scarcely know."

She rolled another cigarette between her nicotine-stained fingers, licked it, placed it between her lips, and struck a match. The servant entered with a tray.

"Ah! Here comes luncheon! Will you have some? Victor, pray uncork the bottle. It is your function to do so."

"Mine, yes, mine," he hummed; then gave another of his shrill giggles.

"Have you any good-looking ladies in this town?" Bazarov asked after a third glassful of champagne.

"Yes," replied Evdoksia. "But uniformly they are futile. For example, a friend of mine, a Madame Odintsov, is not bad-looking, and has nothing against her except a doubtful reputation (a thing of no consequence in itself); but, alas! she combines with it such a complete lack of freedom, or of breadth of view, or, in fact, of anything! The system of bringing up women needs a radical change. I myself have given much thought to the matter, and come to the conclusion that our women are ill-educated."

"Yes; the only thing to be done with them is to hold them in contempt," agreed Sitnikov. To him any opportunity of despising, of expressing scornful sentiments, was the most agreeable of sensations. Yet, though he thus chose women for his especial censure, he little suspected that before many months were over he himself would be grovelling at the feet of a wife—and doing so merely for the reason that she had been born a Princess Durdoleosov!

"No, to none of them would our conversation convey anything," he continued. "Nor is there a single one of them upon whom the attention of a serious-minded man would be anything but thrown away."

"Scarcely need they desire to have anything conveyed to them by our conversation," remarked Bazarov.

"Of whom are you speaking?" interposed Evdoksia.

"Of the smart women of the day."

"What? I suppose you agree with Proudhon's[2] opinion on the subject?"

Bazarov drew himself up.

"I agree with no man's opinions," he remarked. "I have some of my own."

"A bas les autorités!" cried Sitnikov, delighted at this unlooked-for opportunity of showing off in the presence of the man whom he worshipped.

"But even Macaulay——" began Madame Kukshin.

"A bas Macaulay!" roared Sitnikov. "How can you defend those dolls of ours?"

"I am not defending them at all," said Madame Kukshin. "I am merely standing up for the rights of women—rights which I have sworn to defend to the last drop of my blood."

"A bas——" began Sitnikov—then paused. "I do not reject them," he added in a lower tone.

"But you do reject them, for you are a Slavophil, as I can see very clearly."

"On the contrary, I am not a Slavophil; although, of course, I——"

"But you are a Slavophil: you believe in the principles of the Domostroi,[3] and would like always to be holding over women a scourge."

"A scourge is not a bad thing in its proper place," observed Bazarov. "But, seeing that we have reached the last drop of, of——"

"Of what?" said Evdoksia.

"Of champagne, most respected Avdotia Nikitishna—not of your blood."

"Never when I hear my sex abused can I listen with indifference," resumed Evdoksia. "It is all too horrible, too horrible! Instead of attacking us, people ought to read Michel's[4] De l'Amour. What a wonderful work it is! Let us talk of love."

She posed her arm gracefully upon the tumbled cushions of the sofa.

There fell a sudden silence.

"What is there to say concerning love?" at length said Bazarov. "In passing, you mentioned a certain Madame Odintsov (I think that was the name?). Who is she?"

"A very charming woman," squeaked Sitnikov, "as well as clever, rich, and a widow. Unfortunately, she is not sufficiently developed, and a closer acquaintance with our Evdoksia would do her a world of good. Evdoksia, I drink to your health! Let us sing the honours. 'Et toc, et toc, et tin, tin, tin! Et toc, et toc, et tin, tin, tin!'"

"You scamp, Victor!"

The luncheon proved a lengthy affair, for to the first bottle of champagne there succeeded a second, and to the latter a third, and to that a fourth. Meanwhile Evdoksia kept up an unceasing flow of chatter, and received effective assistance from Sitnikov. In particular did the pair discuss the nature of marriage ("the outcome of prejudice and vice"), the question whether people are born "single," and the consistency of "individuality." Then Evdoksia seated herself at the piano, and, red in the face with wine which she had drunk, clattered her flat finger-nails upon the keys, and essayed hoarsely to sing, first of all some gipsy ditties, and then the ballad, "Dreaming Granada lies asleep"; while, throwing a scarf over his head to represent the dying lover, Sitnikov joined her at the words "Your lips meet mine in a burning kiss."

At length Arkady could stand it no longer.

"Gentlemen," he exclaimed, "this is sheer Bedlam!"

As for Bazarov, he yawned, for he had done little more than interject a satirical word or two—his attention had been devoted, rather, to the champagne. At length he rose, and, accompanied by Arkady, left the house without so much as a word of farewell to the hostess. Sitnikov pursued the pair.

"Ah, ha!" he exclaimed as he skipped about the roadway. "Did I not tell you that she would prove a most remarkable personality? Would that more of our women were like her! In her way, she is a moral phenomenon."

"And your father's establishment?" remarked Bazarov as he pointed to a tavern which they happened to be passing. "Is that also a moral phenomenon?"

Sitnikov vented another of his shrill giggles. But, being also ashamed of his origin, he felt at a loss whether to plume himself upon, or to take offence at, Bazarov's unexpected pleasantry.

XIV

A few days later, the ball was held at the Governor's, and Matvei Ilyitch figured thereat as the guest of honour. For his part, the President of the Provincial Council (who was at loggerheads with the Governor) explained at large that only out of respect for Matvei had he deigned to be present, while the Governor continued, even when stationary, his usual process of orders-giving. With Matvei's suavity of demeanour nothing could be compared save his pomposity. Upon every man he smiled—upon some with a hint of superciliousness, upon others with a shade of deference; whilst to the ladies he bowed and scraped en vrai chevalier français, and laughed, throughout, the great, resonant, conspicuous laugh which a bigwig ought to do. Again, he clapped Arkady upon the back, addressed him loudly as "young nephew," and honoured Bazarov (who had been with difficulty coaxed into an ancient tail-coat) both with a distant, yet faintly condescending, glance which skimmed that individual's cheek, and with a vague, but affable, murmur in which there could be distinguished only the fragments "I," "Yes," and "'xtremely." Lastly, he accorded Sitnikov a finger and a smile (in the very act, turning his head away), and bestowed upon Madame Kukshin (who had appeared minus a crinoline and in dirty gloves, but with a bird of paradise stuck in her hair) an "Enchanté!" The throng present was immense; nor was a sufficiency of cavaliers lacking. True, most of the civilian element crowded against the walls, but the military section danced with enthusiasm, especially an officer who, being fresh from six weeks in Paris, where he had become acquainted with daring cries of the type of "Zut!" "Ah, fichtrrre!" "Pst, pst, mon bibi!" and so forth, pronounced these quips to perfection, with true Parisian chic; while also he said "Si j'aurais" for "Si j'avais," and "absolument" in the sense of "certainly." In short, he employed that Franco-Russian jargon which affords the French such intense amusement whenever they do not think it more prudent to assure their Russian friends that the latter speak the tongue of France comme des anges.

As we know, Arkady was a poor dancer, and Bazarov did not dance at all; wherefore the pair sought a corner, and were there joined by Sitnikov. Summoning to his visage his accustomed smile of contempt, and emitting remarks mordantly sarcastic in their nature, the great Sitnikov glanced haughtily about him, and appeared to derive some genuine pleasure from thus striking an attitude. But suddenly his face underwent a change. Turning to Arkady, he said in a self-conscious way: "Here is Madame Odintsov just entering."

Looking up, Arkady beheld, halted in the doorway, a tall woman in a black gown. In particular was he struck with the dignity of her carriage, and with the manner in which her bare arms hung beside her upright figure. From her gleaming hair to her sloping shoulders trailed sprays of fuchsia flowers, while quietly, intelligently—I say quietly, not dreamily—there gazed, with a barely perceptible smile, from under a white and slightly prominent forehead a pair of brilliant eyes. In general, the countenance suggested latent, but gentle, kindly force.

"Do you know her?" Arkady inquired.

"I do—intimately," replied Sitnikov. "Shall I introduce you?"

"If you please; but only when this quadrille has come to an end."

Bazarov's attention also had been caught by this Madame Odintsov.

"What a face!" he exclaimed. "No other woman in the room has one anything like it."

As soon, therefore, as the quadrille was over, Sitnikov conducted Arkady to Madame Odintsov; and though at first—whether through the excessive "intimacy" of Sitnikov's acquaintance, or whether through the fact that he happened to stumble over his words—she gazed at him with a shade of astonishment, she no sooner heard Arkady's family name than her face brightened, and she inquired whether he was the son of Nikolai Petrovitch.

"I am," replied Arkady.

"Then I have twice had the pleasure of meeting your father. Also, I have heard much about him, and shall be most glad to know you."

At this point an aide-de-camp sidled up, and requested the honour of a quadrille: which request she granted.

"Then you dance?" exclaimed Arkady, but with great deference.

"I do. What made you think that I do not? Is it that I look too old?"

"Oh no, pardon me! By no means! Then perhaps I too might ask for a mazurka?"

Smiling indulgently, she replied, "If you wish," and then looked at him not so much in a "superior" manner as in that of a married sister who is regarding a very, very young brother. Though she was not greatly older than Arkady (she had just attained her twenty-ninth year), her presence made him feel the veriest schoolboy, and caused the difference of years to seem infinitely greater than it was. Next, Matvei Ilyitch approached her with a majestic air and a few obsequious words; whereupon Arkady moved away a little, while continuing to observe her. In fact, not until the quadrille was over did he find himself able to withdraw his eyes from her bewitching person. Throughout, her conversation with her partner and the guest of honour was accompanied with small movements of the head and eyes, and twice she uttered a low laugh. True, her nose erred a little on the side of thickness (as do those of most Russian women), nor was the colour of her skin unimpeachable; yet Arkady came to the conclusion that never in his life had he encountered a woman so charming of personality. Continuously the sound of her voice murmured in his ears, and the very folds of her dress looked different from those of other women—they seemed to hang straighter and more symmetrically, and her every movement was smooth and natural.

Nevertheless, when the strains of the mazurka struck up, and, reseating himself beside his partner, he prepared to enter into conversation with her, he felt a distinct touch of diffidence. Nor, though he kept passing his hand over his hair, could he find a word to say. However, this timidity, this state of agitation, did not last long, for soon her calmness infected him, and within a quarter of an hour he was talking to her of his father, his uncle, and life in St. Petersburg and the country. For her part, she listened with kindly interest, while gently opening and closing her fan. Thus only at moments when other cavaliers came to ask her for dances (Sitnikov did this twice) did Arkady's chatter become interrupted; and whenever she returned to her place, to reseat herself with her bosom heaving not a whit more rapidly than it had done before, he would plunge into renewed conversation, so delighted was he at the fact that he had found some one to sympathise with him, to whom he could talk, at whose beautiful eyes and forehead and gentle, refined, intellectual features he could gaze at leisure. She herself said little, but her every word showed a knowledge of life which pointed to the fact that already this young woman had thought and felt much.

"Who was the man with you before Sitnikov brought you to me?" she inquired.

"So you noticed my friend?" exclaimed Arkady. "Has he not a splendid face? His name is Bazarov."

And, once launched upon the subject, Arkady descanted so fully, and with such enthusiasm, that Madame Odintsov turned to observe his friend more closely. But soon the mazurka began to draw to a close, and Arkady found himself regretting the prospect of losing the companion with whom he had spent such a pleasant hour. True, he had felt, throughout, that he was being treated with condescension, and ought to be grateful; but upon young hearts such an obligation does not press with any great weight.

The music stopped with a jerk.

"Merci!" said Madame Odintsov—then rose. "You have promised to come and see me. Also, bring with you your friend, for I am filled with curiosity to behold a man who has the temerity to believe in nothing."

Next, the Governor approached Madame with a distraught air and an intimation that supper was ready; whereupon she took his proffered arm, and, as she departed, turned with a last smile and nod to Arkady, who, in answer, bowed and stood following her with his eyes. How straight her figure looked under the sheen of her black gown!

"Already she will have forgotten my existence," he thought to himself, while an exquisite humility pervaded his soul. Then he rejoined Bazarov in their joint corner.

"Well?" his friend said. "Have you enjoyed yourself? Some man or other has just been telling me that the lady in question is—— But in all probability the man was a fool. What do you think of her?"

"The allusion escapes me," replied Arkady.

"Come, come, young innocence!"

"Or at all events your informant's meaning escapes me. Madame is nice, but as cold and formal as, as——"

"As a stagnant pool," concluded Bazarov. "Yes, we all know the sort of thing. You say that she is cold, but that is purely a matter of taste. Perhaps you yourself like ice?"

"Perhaps I do," the other muttered. "But of such things I am no judge; and in any case she wishes to make your acquaintance as well as mine, and has asked me to bring you with me to call."

"The description of me which you gave is easily imagined! On the other hand, you did rightly to offer her us both, for no matter who she may be—whether a provincial lioness or only an 'émancipée' like the Kukshin woman, she has at least such a pair of shoulders as I have not seen this many a day."

Arkady recoiled from this cynicism, yet, as often happens in such cases, started to reproach his friend for something wholly unconnected with the utterance which had given umbrage.

"Why do you refuse women freedom of thought?" he asked under his breath.

"For the reason, dear sir, that, according to my observation of life, no woman, unless she be a freak, thinks with freedom."

And here the conversation terminated, for supper had come to an end, and the friends departed. As they left the room Madame Kukshin followed them with a nervous and wrathful, yet slightly apprehensive, smile in her eyes. The reason of this was that she felt wounded in her conceit at the fact that neither of the young men had taken any notice of her. Nevertheless, she remained at the ball until most of the rest of the company had left; whereafter, it being four o'clock in the morning, she danced a polka-mazurka, à la Parisienne, with Sitnikov, and with this edifying spectacle brought the Governor's fête to a close.

XV

"Now let us see to what category of mortals to assign this young person," said Bazarov to Arkady as, on the following day, the pair mounted the staircase of the hotel where Madame Odintsov was staying. "Somehow I seem to scent impropriety in the air."

"You surprise me!" burst forth Arkady. "Do you, Bazarov, do you hold with the narrow-minded morality which——"

"Idiot!" exclaimed Bazarov contemptuously. "Do you not know that both in our jargon and in the understanding of the ordinary person the term 'improper' has now come to mean the same as 'proper'? In any case I seem to scent money here. You yourself told me, did you not, that Madame's marriage was a very strange one?—though, for my part, I look upon marrying a rich old man as anything but a strange proceeding—rather, as a measure of prudence. True, I place little reliance upon the gossip of townsfolk, but at least I prefer to suppose that that gossip has, as our cultured Governor would say, 'a basis in fact.'"

Arkady did not respond, but knocked at the door of Madame's suite; and, the door having been opened, a liveried man-servant ushered the visitors into a large, hideously furnished room of the type which is always to be found in Russian hotels—the only exception in the present case being that the apartment was adorned with flowers. Presently Madame herself entered, clad in a plain morning gown, and looking even younger in the spring sunlight than she had done in the ballroom. Arkady duly presented Bazarov, and, as he did so, remarked with surprise that his friend seemed confused, while Madame was as imperturbable as ever. This gaucherie on his part Bazarov realised, and felt vexed at.

"Phaugh!" he thought to himself. "The idea that I should be afraid of a woman!"

Yet, like Sitnikov, he could only subside into a chair, and fall to talking with an exaggerated emphasis to the woman who sat with her brilliant eyes riveted with such attention upon him.

Anna Sergievna Odintsov had had for father one Sergei Nikolaievitch Loktev, a well-known gambler, speculator, and beau. After fifteen years of flaunting it in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and dissipating his whole substance, he had been forced to retire to the country, where soon afterwards he had died and left to his daughter Anna (aged twenty) and his daughter Katerina (aged twelve) only a small joint competence. As for the girls' mother (who had come of the impoverished house of the Princes X.), she had expired during the heyday of her husband's career in St. Petersburg. Anna's position after her father's death was therefore a very difficult one, for the brilliant education which she had received in the capital had in no way fitted her for the care of a household and an estate, nor yet for the endurance of a life in the country. Moreover, she possessed not a single acquaintance in that country neighbourhood, nor any one to whom to turn for advice, since her father had done his best to avoid associating with his neighbours, in that he had despised them as much as they, in their several ways, had despised him. Howbeit, Anna kept her head, and straightway sent for her mother's sister, the Princess Avdotia Stepanovna X., who, a malicious, presuming old woman, annexed, on the day of her arrival, all the best rooms in the house, raged and stormed from morning till night, and even declined to walk in the garden unless she could be accompanied by her only serf, a sullen-looking lacquey who wore a faded green livery, a blue collar, and a three-cornered hat. Nevertheless Anna put up with these tantrums of her aunt's, superintended the education of her sister, and resigned herself to the idea of living in seclusion for the rest of her life. But fate had ordained otherwise. That is to say, a certain Odintsov—a rich, bloated, unwieldy, soured, semi-imbecile hypochondriac of forty-six who was, nevertheless, neither stupid nor cruel—happened to see her, and became so enamoured that he offered her marriage: and to this proposal she consented. For six years the pair lived together, before the husband died, leaving her all his property. The following year she spent in the country; after which she went abroad with her sister—but only as far as Germany, since she quickly wearied of foreign parts, and was only too thankful to return to her beloved Nikolsköe, which lay some forty versts from the provincial town of ——. At Nikolsköe she had at her disposal a splendid, tastefully furnished mansion, a beautiful garden, and a range of orangeries (the late Odintsov having denied himself in nothing); but inasmuch as she made but rare appearances in the town, and then only on flying visits connected with business, the provincial gentry conceived a grudge against her, and took to gossiping of her marriage with Odintsov, and relating such impossible tales as that she had assisted her father in his nefarious schemes, that she had had her reasons for going abroad, and that certain unfortunate results of that tour had had to be concealed. "I tell you," the ardent retailer of such fables would say, "that she has been through the mill right enough." Eventually these rumours reached her ears, but she ignored them altogether, since her nature was at once bold and independent.

Seating herself at full length in an armchair, and crossing one hand over the other, she set herself to listen to Bazarov's harangue. Contrary to his usual custom, he spoke without restraint, for he was clearly anxious to interest his listener. Arkady again felt surprised at this, though he failed to detect whether or not Bazarov was succeeding in his aim, seeing that Anna Sergievna's face gave no clue to the effect produced, so fixedly did her features retain their faintly polite expression, so unvaryingly did her beautiful eyes reflect unruffled attention. True, at first Bazarov's vehemence gave her an unpleasant impression as of a bad smell or a jarring note; but in time she began to understand that it came of his being ill at ease, and she felt flattered at the fact. Only the paltry repelled her; and no one could well have accused Bazarov of that quality. Indeed wonders were never to cease for Arkady, since, though he had expected Bazarov to talk to Madame Odintsov as to a woman of intellect—to speak to her of his views and convictions (seeing that she had expressed a desire to behold a man who had "the temerity to believe in nothing"), he discoursed only on medicine, homoeopathy, and botany. At the same time, Madame had not wasted her life of solitude, but had read a large number of standard works, and could express herself in the best of Russian; and though at one point she diverted the conversation to music, she no sooner perceived that he declined to recognise the existence of the art than she returned to botany, even though Arkady would gladly have continued the discussion of the importance of national melodies. In passing, her treatment of Arkady as a younger brother remained the same. What she valued in him was, evidently, the good humour and simplicity of youth—nothing more. Thus there was held, for three hours, an animated, but intermittent, discursive conversation.

At length the friends rose to say farewell. With a kindly glance Anna Sergievna offered them her beautiful white hand; then, after a moment's reflection, said irresolutely, but with a pleasant smile:

"If neither of you fear finding the time tedious, will you come and pay me a visit at Nikolsköe?"

"I should deem it the greatest pleasure!" cried Arkady.

"And you, Monsieur Bazarov?"

Bazarov merely bowed: which again surprised Arkady, while also he noticed that his friend's face looked flushed.

"Well?" the younger man said as the pair issued into the street. "Are you still of the opinion that she is, is——?"

"I cannot say. But what an icicle she has made of herself!" There was a pause. "At all events, she is an imposing personage, a grande dame who lacks but a train to her gown and a coronet to her head."

"But none of our grandes dames speak Russian as she does," remarked Arkady.

"No; for she has undergone a rebirth, and eaten of our bread."

"And what a charm is hers!"

"You mean, what a splendid body—the very thing for a dissecting theatre!"

"Stop, stop, for God's sake! Her body differs from all other women's."

"No need to lose your temper, young innocent. Have I not said that she stands in the front rank of women? Yes, we must pay her that visit."

"When?"

"The day after to-morrow. Nothing else is to be done here, for we need not stay to drink champagne with the Kukshin woman, and listen to the harangues of your kinsman, the Liberal bigwig. Not we! The day after to-morrow, therefore, let us give the whole thing the go-by. A propos, my father's place lies near Nikolsköe. For Nikolsköe is on the ---- road, is it not?"

"It is."

"Optime! Then we shall gain nothing by delay: only fools and clever people procrastinate. Her anatomy, I repeat, is splendid."

Within three days, in bright, but not too warm, weather, the two friends were bowling along the road to Nikolsköe. With a will did the well-fed stage horses trot out, and lightly swish their flanks with their plaited, knotted tails; and as Arkady glanced along the road, he, for some unknown reason, smiled.

"Congratulate me!" cried Bazarov of a sudden. "To-day is the 22nd of June—the feast of my Patron Saint. Certainly he looks after me, does he not?" Then the speaker added in a lower tone: "But to-day, also, they are expecting me at home.... Well, let them expect me."

XVI

The manor-house in which Anna Sergievna resided stood on an open hillock, and close to a yellow stone church with a green roof, white columns, and an entrance surmounted by a fresco representative of Our Lord's Resurrection—the latter executed in the "Italian" style, and having as its most noticeable feature the figure of a swarthy warrior whose rounded contours filled the entire foreground. Behind the church, the village extended into two long wings, and had thatched roofs surmounted by a medley of chimneys; while the manor-house itself was built in a style homogeneous with the design of the church—that is to say, in the style commonly known as "Alexandrine," and embracing yellow-painted walls, a green roof, white columns, and a front adorned with a coat-of-arms. In fact, both buildings had been erected by a provincial architect to the order of the late Odintsov, a man impatient (so he himself always expressed it) of "vain and arbitrary innovations." Lastly, to right and left of the house there showed the trees of an antique garden, while an avenue of clipped firs led the way to the principal entrance.

The friends having been met in the hall by two strapping lacqueys in livery, one of the latter immediately ran for the butler; who (a stout man in a black tail-coat) proceeded to usher the guests up a carpeted staircase, and into a room which contained a couple of beds and the usual appurtenances of the toilet. Evidently neatness was the order of the day in the establishment, for everything was both spotlessly clean and as fragrant as the chamber wherein a Minister of State holds his receptions.

"Anna Sergievna will be glad to see you in half an hour," the butler said. "Meanwhile, have you any orders for me?"

"No, worthy one," replied Bazarov. "Except that you might so far condescend as to bring me a small glassful of vodka."

"It shall be done, sir," said the butler with a shade of hesitation; whereafter he departed with creaking boots.

"What grandeur!" commented Bazarov. "In your opinion, how ought our hostess to be addressed? In the style of a duchess?"

"Yes, and of a very great duchess," replied Arkady. "The more so, seeing that she has invited such influential aristocrats as ourselves to visit her."

"I presume that you are referring to your humble servant—a future doctor, the son of a doctor, and the grandson of a sexton? By the way, are you aware that my grandparent was a sexton, even as was Speransky's?"[1] A smile curled his lips. "Thus you see that the lady is mistaken, woefully mistaken. We haven't such a thing as a tail-coat, have we?"

Arkady shrugged his shoulders bravely; but he too was feeling a little awe-stricken.

At the close of the half-hour the pair entered the drawing-room, which they found to be a large, lofty apartment of rich, but tasteless, appointments. Against the walls, in the usual affected style, stood heavy, expensive furniture, the walls themselves were hung with brown curtains to which were florid gilt borders (all these things the late Odintsov had ordered through a Muscovite friend who kept a wineshop), and above a divan in the centre of the room hung a portrait of a wrinkled, sandy-haired individual who seemed to be regarding the newcomers with extreme distaste.

"He," whispered Bazarov.

The hostess herself then entered. She was clad in a light dress, and had her hair dressed behind the ears—a style which communicated to her pure, fresh countenance an air of almost girlish juvenility.

"Thank you for having kept your promise," she said. "And now that you are come, I think that you will find the time not altogether dull. For one thing, I intend to introduce you to my sister, who is a skilful piano-player (of course, Monsieur Bazarov, to you such things are a matter of indifference, but you, Monsieur Kirsanov, I know, adore the art of music). Also, an elderly aunt lives with me as my companion, and at intervals a neighbour looks in for a game of cards. You see our home circle. Now let us seat ourselves."

Madame delivered this little speech with the precision of a lesson which she had learnt by heart, and then turned to converse with Arkady. On finding that her mother had known his, and that the latter had made the former her confidant during her love affair with Nikolai Petrovitch, the lad fell to speaking enthusiastically of his dead parent, while Bazarov applied himself to the inspection of some albums.

"What a domesticated individual I am!" thought he to himself.

Presently, with much pattering of paws, there burst into the room a splendid Russian greyhound with a blue collar; and it was followed by a young girl of eighteen with a dark complexion, dark hair, a round, but pleasant, face, and small, dark eyes. She was carrying a basket of flowers.

"My sister Katia," said Madame Odintsov, indicating the girl with her head.

Katia seated herself beside Madame, and fell to arranging her flowers; while the greyhound (whose name was Fifi) approached each of the guests in turn, laid his cold nose in their hands, and wagged his tail.

"Have you gathered those flowers yourself?" asked Madame Odintsov.

"Yes, Anna Sergievna," the girl replied.

"And is your aunt going to join us at tea?"

"Yes."

These replies of Katia's were accompanied with a frank, but gentle and bashful, smile, and an upward glance half grave, half sportive. Everything in her betokened youth and freshness—her voice, the down on her cheeks, her little pink hands with their white, dimpled palms, and the slightly contracted shoulders. Also, she blushed without ceasing, and drew her breath with a fluttering respiration.

Presently Madame Odintsov turned to Bazarov.

"Surely it is only out of politeness that you are looking at those photographs?" she said. "They cannot possibly interest you. Pray move nearer to us, and let us engage in an argument."

Bazarov approached her.

"What shall we argue about?" he inquired.

"About anything you like. But first let me warn you that I am a redoubtable opponent."

"You?"

"Yes, certainly. You look surprised? Why so?"

"Because, so far as I can tell, your temperament is one of the cold and lethargic order, whereas argument needs impulsiveness."

"How have you contrived so quickly to appraise me? To begin with, I am both impatient and exacting. Ask Katia if I am not. Also, I am easily moved to impulse."

Bazarov darted a glance at her.

"Possibly," he said. "Certainly you ought to know best. But, since you desire to argue, let us argue. While looking at those views of Saxon Switzerland, I heard you remark that they could not interest me. This you said, I presume, because you suppose me to be lacking in the artistic sense. Well, I am so. But might not those pictures be interesting to me solely from the geological point of view—from the standpoint of an observer, say, of the formation of mountains?"

"Pardon me, but, as a geologist, you would prefer to resort to some special work on that science, not to a few pictures."

"Oh, not necessarily. For a picture may instantly present what a book could set forth only in a hundred pages."

Anna Sergievna made no reply.

"Well," she resumed, leaning forward upon the table—a movement which brought her face closer to Bazarov's, "since you possess not a grain of the artistic instinct, how do you contrive to get on without it?"

"Rather, I would ask you: What is the artistic instinct able to effect?"

"It is able at least to help one to examine and to instruct one's fellow man."

Bazarov smiled.

"In the first place," he retorted, "the prime requisite in that connection is experience of life; and, in the second place, the study of detached personalities is scarcely worth the trouble. For all we human beings are alike, in body as in spirit. In each of us there is an identical brain, an identical spleen, an identical heart, an identical pair of lungs, an identical stock of the so-called moral qualities (trifling variations between which we need not take into account). Therefore from a single specimen of the human race may all the rest be judged. In fact, human beings are like trees in a forest. You never find a botanist studying its individual trunks."

Katia, who had been arranging her flowers, glanced at Bazarov in amazement, and, in so doing, encountered his keen, contemptuous gaze, and blushed to her ears. Anna Sergievna shook her head.

"Trees in a forest!" she exclaimed. "Think you, then, that there is no difference between the wise man and the fool, the good and the bad?"

"No, I do not," replied Bazarov. "On the contrary, I believe that such differences do exist. The point is that they exist only as between the sound and the ailing. For instance, a consumptive's lungs are not as yours and mine; yet they have been fashioned precisely as our own have been. Also, whereas, to a certain extent, we know whence bodily disorders arise, moral disorders come of faulty education, the thousand and one follies with which the human brain is afflicted, in short, any irregular condition of the social body. Rectify that body, and moral sickness will soon cease to be."

Speaking as though he were saying to himself, "Believe me or not as you like, it is all one to me," Bazarov drew his long fingers through his whiskers, while his eyes glowed like coals.

"Then you think," pursued Anna Sergievna, "that, once the social body has been rectified, stupid and evil people will cease to exist?"

"At all events, once the social body is properly organised, the fact that a man be wise or stupid, good or bad, will cease to be of importance."

"Ah! I understand! That is because we all possess an identical spleen?"

"Precisely so, madam."

She turned to Arkady.

"And what is your opinion, Arkady Nikolaievitch?" she enquired.

"I agree with Evgenii," was his reply as, in his turn, he received a glance of astonishment from Katia.

"I am surprised, gentlemen," said Madame. "However, I can hear my aunt approaching, so let us spare her ears, and discuss this later."

Anna Sergievna's aunt—a small, spare woman with a mallet-shaped face, a pair of narrow, malicious eyes, and a grey false front—bestowed scarcely so much as a bow upon the guests, but at once relapsed into a huge velvet armchair which no one but herself was allowed to use. And even when Katia hastened to place for her a footstool, the old woman did not thank her, nor even look at her, but chafed her hands under the yellow shawl which covered the whole of her frail figure. Beyond all things was she fond of yellow; wherefore she had had her cap trimmed with ribands of the same hue.

"Have you slept well, Auntie?" Madame Odintsov inquired with a raising of her voice.

"That dog is here again!" the old woman muttered on noticing that Fifi was taking an irresolute step or two in her direction. "Turn the beast out, I say! Out with it!"