Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (66 page)

‘Good - evening,’ she whispered, not coming out of her ambush.

By degrees she began to be more at home with him, but was still shy in his presence, when suddenly her mother, Arina, died of cholera. What was to become of Fenitchka? She inherited from her mother a love for order, regularity, and respectability; but she was so young, so alone. Nikolai Petrovitch was himself so good and considerate.... It’s needless to relate the rest....

‘So my brother came in to see you?’ Nikolai Petrovitch questioned her. ‘He knocked and came in?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, that’s a good thing. Let me give Mitya a swing.’

And Nikolai Petrovitch began tossing him almost up to the ceiling, to the huge delight of the baby, and to the considerable uneasiness of the mother, who every time he flew up stretched her arms up towards his little bare legs.

Pavel Petrovitch went back to his artistic study, with its walls covered with handsome bluish - grey hangings, with weapons hanging upon a variegated Persian rug nailed to the wall; with walnut furniture, upholstered in dark green velveteen, with a
renaissance
bookcase of old black oak, with bronze statuettes on the magnificent writing - table, with an open hearth. He threw himself on the sofa, clasped his hands behind his head, and remained without moving, looking with a face almost of despair at the ceiling. Whether he wanted to hide from the very walls that which was reflected in his face, or for some other reason, he got up, drew the heavy window curtains, and again threw himself on the sofa.

CHAPTER IX

On the same day Bazarov made acquaintance with Fenitchka. He was walking with Arkady in the garden, and explaining to him why some of the trees, especially the oaks, had not done well.

‘You ought to have planted silver poplars here by preference, and spruce firs, and perhaps limes, giving them some loam. The arbour there has done well,’ he added, ‘because it’s acacia and lilac; they’re accommodating good fellows, those trees, they don’t want much care. But there’s some one in here.’

In the arbour was sitting Fenitchka, with Dunyasha and Mitya. Bazarov stood still, while Arkady nodded to Fenitchka like an old friend.

‘Who’s that?’ Bazarov asked him directly they had passed by. ‘What a pretty girl!’

‘Whom are you speaking of?’

‘You know; only one of them was pretty.’

Arkady, not without embarrassment, explained to him briefly who Fenitchka was.

‘Aha!’ commented Bazarov; ‘your father’s got good taste, one can see. I like him, your father, ay, ay! He’s a jolly fellow. We must make friends though,’ he added, and turned back towards the arbour.

‘Yevgeny!’ Arkady cried after him in dismay; ‘mind what you are about, for mercy’s sake.’

‘Don’t worry yourself,’ said Bazarov; ‘I know how to behave myself — I’m not a booby.’

Going up to Fenitchka, he took off his cap.

‘Allow me to introduce myself,’ he began, with a polite bow. ‘I’m a harmless person, and a friend of Arkady Nikolaevitch’s.’

Fenitchka got up from the garden seat and looked at him without speaking.

‘What a splendid baby!’ continued Bazarov; ‘don’t be uneasy, my praises have never brought ill - luck yet. Why is it his cheeks are so flushed? Is he cutting his teeth?’

‘Yes,’ said Fenitchka; ‘he has cut four teeth already, and now the gums are swollen again.’

‘Show me, and don’t be afraid, I’m a doctor.’

Bazarov took the baby up in his arms, and to the great astonishment both of Fenitchka and Dunyasha the child made no resistance, and was not frightened.

‘I see, I see.... It’s nothing, everything’s as it should be; he will have a good set of teeth. If anything goes wrong, tell me. And are you quite well yourself?’

‘Quite, thank God.’

‘Thank God, indeed — that’s the great thing. And you?’ he added, turning to Dunyasha.

Dunyasha, a girl very prim in the master’s house, and a romp outside the gates, only giggled in answer.

‘Well, that’s all right. Here’s your gallant fellow.’

Fenitchka received the baby in her arms.

‘How good he was with you!’ she commented in an undertone.

‘Children are always good with me.’ answered Bazarov; ‘I have a way with them.’

‘Children know who loves them,’ remarked Dunyasha.

‘Yes, they certainly do,’ Fenitchka said. ‘Why, Mitya will not go to some people for anything.’

‘Will he come to me?’ asked Arkady, who, after standing in the distance for some time, had gone up to the arbour.

He tried to entice Mitya to come to him, but Mitya threw his head back and screamed, to Fenitchka’s great confusion.

‘Another day, when he’s had time to get used to me,’ said Arkady indulgently, and the two friends walked away.

‘What’s her name?’ asked Bazarov.

‘Fenitchka ... Fedosya,’ answered Arkady.

‘And her father’s name? One must know that too.’

‘Nikolaevna.’

‘Bene
. What I like in her is that she’s not too embarrassed. Some people, I suppose, would think ill of her for it. What nonsense! What is there to embarrass her? She’s a mother — she’s all right.’

‘She’s all right,’ observed Arkady, — ’but my father.’

‘And he’s right too,’ put in Bazarov.

‘Well, no, I don’t think so.’

‘I suppose an extra heir’s not to your liking?’

‘I wonder you’re not ashamed to attribute such ideas to me!’ retorted Arkady hotly; ‘I don’t consider my father wrong from that point of view; I think he ought to marry her.’

‘Hoity - toity!’ responded Bazarov tranquilly. ‘What magnanimous fellows we are! You still attach significance to marriage; I did not expect that of you.’

The friends walked a few paces in silence.

‘I have looked at all your father’s establishment,’ Bazarov began again. ‘The cattle are inferior, the horses are broken down; the buildings aren’t up to much, and the workmen look confirmed loafers; while the superintendent is either a fool, or a knave, I haven’t quite found out which yet.’

‘You are rather hard on everything to - day, Yevgeny Vassilyevitch.’

‘And the dear good peasants are taking your father in to a dead certainty. You know the Russian proverb, “The Russian peasant will cheat God Himself.”‘

‘I begin to agree with my uncle,’ remarked Arkady; ‘you certainly have a poor opinion of Russians.’

‘As though that mattered! The only good point in a Russian is his having the lowest possible opinion of himself. What does matter is that two and two make four, and the rest is all foolery.’

‘And is nature foolery?’ said Arkady, looking pensively at the bright - coloured fields in the distance, in the beautiful soft light of the sun, which was not yet high up in the sky.

‘Nature, too, is foolery in the sense you understand it. Nature’s not a temple, but a workshop, and man’s the workman in it.’

At that instant, the long drawn notes of a violoncello floated out to them from the house. Some one was playing Schubert’s
Expectation
with much feeling, though with an untrained hand, and the melody flowed with honey sweetness through the air.

‘What’s that?’ cried Bazarov in amazement.

‘It’s my father.’

‘Your father plays the violoncello?’

‘Yes.’

‘And how old is your father?’

‘Forty - four.’

Bazarov suddenly burst into a roar of laughter.

‘What are you laughing at?’

‘Upon my word, a man of forty - four, a
paterfamilias
in this out - of - the - way district, playing on the violoncello!’

Bazarov went on laughing; but much as he revered his master, this time Arkady did not even smile.

CHAPTER X

About a fortnight passed by. Life at Maryino went on its accustomed course, while Arkady was lazy and enjoyed himself, and Bazarov worked. Every one in the house had grown used to him, to his careless manners, and his curt and abrupt speeches. Fenitchka, in particular, was so far at home with him that one night she sent to wake him up; Mitya had had convulsions; and he had gone, and, half joking, half - yawning as usual, he stayed two hours with her and relieved the child. On the other hand Pavel Petrovitch had grown to detest Bazarov with all the strength of his soul; he regarded him as stuck - up, impudent, cynical, and vulgar; he suspected that Bazarov had no respect for him, that he had all but a contempt for him — him, Pavel Kirsanov!

Nikolai Petrovitch was rather afraid of the young ‘nihilist,’ and was doubtful whether his influence over Arkady was for the good; but he was glad to listen to him, and was glad to be present at his scientific and chemical experiments. Bazarov had brought with him a microscope, and busied himself for hours together with it. The servants, too, took to him, though he made fun of them; they felt, all the same, that he was one of themselves, not a master. Dunyasha was always ready to giggle with him, and used to cast significant and stealthy glances at him when she skipped by like a rabbit; Piotr, a man vain and stupid to the last degree, for ever wearing an affected frown on his brow, a man whose whole merit consisted in the fact that he looked civil, could spell out a page of reading, and was diligent in brushing his coat — even he smirked and brightened up directly Bazarov paid him any attention; the boys on the farm simply ran after the ‘doctor’ like puppies. The old man Prokofitch was the only one who did not like him; he handed him the dishes at table with a surly face, called him a ‘butcher’ and ‘an upstart,’ and declared that with his great whiskers he looked like a pig in a stye. Prokofitch in his own way was quite as much of an aristocrat as Pavel Petrovitch.

The best days of the year had come — the first days of June. The weather kept splendidly fine; in the distance, it is true, the cholera was threatening, but the inhabitants of that province had had time to get used to its visits. Bazarov used to get up very early and go out for two or three miles, not for a walk — he couldn’t bear walking without an object — but to collect specimens of plants and insects. Sometimes he took Arkady with him.

On the way home an argument usually sprang up, and Arkady was usually vanquished in it, though he said more than his companion.

One day they had lingered rather late; Nikolai Petrovitch went to meet them in the garden, and as he reached the arbour he suddenly heard the quick steps and voices of the two young men. They were walking on the other side of the arbour, and could not see him.

‘You don’t know my father well enough,’ said Arkady.

‘Your father’s a nice chap,’ said Bazarov, ‘but he’s behind the times; his day is done.’

Nikolai Petrovitch listened intently.... Arkady made no answer.

The man whose day was done remained two minutes motionless, and stole slowly home.

‘The day before yesterday I saw him reading Pushkin,’ Bazarov was continuing meanwhile. ‘Explain to him, please, that that’s no earthly use. He’s not a boy, you know; it’s time to throw up that rubbish. And what an idea to be a romantic at this time of day! Give him something sensible to read.’

‘What ought I to give him?’ asked Arkady.

‘Oh, I think Büchner’s
Stoff und Kraft
to begin with.’

‘I think so too,’ observed Arkady approving,
‘Stoff und Kraft
is written in popular language....’

‘So it seems,’ Nikolai Petrovitch said the same day after dinner to his brother, as he sat in his study, ‘you and I are behind the times, our day’s over. Well, well. Perhaps Bazarov is right; but one thing I confess, makes me feel sore; I did so hope, precisely now, to get on to such close intimate terms with Arkady, and it turns out I’m left behind, and he has gone forward, and we can’t understand one another.’

‘How has he gone forward? And in what way is he so superior to us already?’ cried Pavel Petrovitch impatiently. ‘It’s that high and mighty gentleman, that nihilist, who’s knocked all that into his head. I hate that doctor fellow; in my opinion, he’s simply a quack; I’m convinced, for all his tadpoles, he’s not got very far even in medicine.’

‘No, brother, you mustn’t say that; Bazarov is clever, and knows his subject.’

‘And his conceit’s something revolting,’ Pavel Petrovitch broke in again.

‘Yes,’ observed Nikolai Petrovitch, ‘he is conceited. But there’s no doing without that, it seems; only that’s what I did not take into account. I thought I was doing everything to keep up with the times; I have started a model farm; I have done well by the peasants, so that I am positively called a “Red Radical” all over the province; I read, I study, I try in every way to keep abreast with the requirements of the day — and they say my day’s over. And, brother, I begin to think that it is.’

‘Why so?’

‘I’ll tell you why. This morning I was sitting reading Pushkin.... I remember, it happened to be
The Gipsies
... all of a sudden Arkady came up to me, and, without speaking, with such a kindly compassion on his face, as gently as if I were a baby, took the book away from me, and laid another before me — a German book ... smiled, and went away, carrying Pushkin off with him.’

‘Upon my word! What book did he give you?’

‘This one here.’

And Nikolai Petrovitch pulled the famous treatise of Büchner, in the ninth edition, out of his coat - tail pocket.

Pavel Petrovitch turned it over in his hands. ‘Hm!’ he growled. ‘Arkady Nikolaevitch is taking your education in hand. Well, did you try reading it?’

‘Yes, I tried it.’

‘Well, what did you think of it?’

‘Either I’m stupid, or it’s all — nonsense. I must be stupid, I suppose.’

‘Haven’t you forgotten your German?’ queried Pavel Petrovitch.

‘Oh, I understand the German.’

Pavel Petrovitch again turned the book over in his hands, and glanced from under his brows at his brother. Both were silent.

‘Oh, by the way,’ began Nikolai Petrovitch, obviously wishing to change the subject, ‘I’ve got a letter from Kolyazin.’

‘Matvy Ilyitch?’

‘Yes. He has come to —
 
— to inspect the province. He’s quite a bigwig now; and writes to me that, as a relation, he should like to see us again, and invites you and me and Arkady to the town.’

‘Are you going?’ asked Pavel Petrovitch.

‘No; are you?’

‘No, I shan’t go either. Much object there would be in dragging oneself over forty miles on a wild - goose chase.
Mathieu
wants to show himself in all his glory. Damn him! he will have the whole province doing him homage; he can get on without the likes of us. A grand dignity, indeed, a privy councillor! If I had stayed in the service, if I had drudged on in official harness, I should have been a general - adjutant by now. Besides, you and I are behind the times, you know.’

‘Yes, brother; it’s time, it seems, to order a coffin and cross one’s arms on ones breast,’ remarked Nikolai Petrovitch, with a sigh.

‘Well, I’m not going to give in quite so soon,’ muttered his brother. ‘I’ve got a tussle with that doctor fellow before me, I feel sure of that.’

A tussle came off that same day at evening tea. Pavel Petrovitch came into the drawing - room, all ready for the fray, irritable and determined. He was only waiting for an excuse to fall upon the enemy; but for a long while an excuse did not present itself. As a rule, Bazarov said little in the presence of the ‘old Kirsanovs’ (that was how he spoke of the brothers), and that evening he felt out of humour, and drank off cup after cup of tea without a word. Pavel Petrovitch was all aflame with impatience; his wishes were fulfilled at last.

The conversation turned on one of the neighbouring landowners. ‘Rotten aristocratic snob,’ observed Bazarov indifferently. He had met him in Petersburg.

‘Allow me to ask you,’ began Pavel Petrovitch, and his lips were trembling, ‘according to your ideas, have the words “rotten” and “aristocrat” the same meaning?’

‘I said “aristocratic snob,”‘ replied Bazarov, lazily swallowing a sip of tea.

‘Precisely so; but I imagine you have the same opinion of aristocrats as of aristocratic snobs. I think it my duty to inform you that I do not share that opinion. I venture to assert that every one knows me for a man of liberal ideas and devoted to progress; but, exactly for that reason, I respect aristocrats — real aristocrats. Kindly remember, sir’ (at these words Bazarov lifted his eyes and looked at Pavel Petrovitch), ‘kindly remember, sir,’ he repeated, with acrimony — ’the English aristocracy. They do not abate one iota of their rights, and for that reason they respect the rights of others; they demand the performance of what is due to them, and for that reason they perform their own duties. The aristocracy has given freedom to England, and maintains it for her.’

‘We’ve heard that story a good many times,’ replied Bazarov; ‘but what are you trying to prove by that?’

‘I am tryin’ to prove by that, sir’ (when Pavel Petrovitch was angry he intentionally clipped his words in this way, though, of course, he knew very well that such forms are not strictly grammatical. In this fashionable whim could be discerned a survival of the habits of the times of Alexander. The exquisites of those days, on the rare occasions when they spoke their own language, made use of such slipshod forms; as much as to say, ‘We, of course, are born Russians, at the same time we are great swells, who are at liberty to neglect the rules of scholars’); ‘I am tryin’ to prove by that, sir, that without the sense of personal dignity, without self - respect — and these two sentiments are well developed in the aristocrat — there is no secure foundation for the social ...
bien public
... the social fabric. Personal character, sir — that is the chief thing; a man’s personal character must be firm as a rock, since everything is built on it. I am very well aware, for instance, that you are pleased to consider my habits, my dress, my refinements, in fact, ridiculous; but all that proceeds from a sense of self - respect, from a sense of duty — yes, indeed, of duty. I live in the country, in the wilds, but I will not lower myself. I respect the dignity of man in myself.’

‘Let me ask you, Pavel Petrovitch,’ commented Bazarov; ‘you respect yourself, and sit with your hands folded; what sort of benefit does that do to the
bien public?
If you didn’t respect yourself, you’d do just the same.’

Pavel Petrovitch turned white. ‘That’s a different question. It’s absolutely unnecessary for me to explain to you now why I sit with folded hands, as you are pleased to express yourself. I wish only to tell you that aristocracy is a principle, and in our days none but immoral or silly people can live without principles. I said that to Arkady the day after he came home, and I repeat it now. Isn’t it so, Nikolai?’

Nikolai Petrovitch nodded his head.

‘Aristocracy, Liberalism, progress, principles,’ Bazarov was saying meanwhile; ‘if you think of it, what a lot of foreign ... and useless words! To a Russian they’re good for nothing.’

‘What is good for something according to you? If we listen to you, we shall find ourselves outside humanity, outside its laws. Come — the logic of history demands ...’

‘But what’s that logic to us? We call get on without that too.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Why, this. You don’t need logic, I hope, to put a bit of bread in your mouth when you’re hungry. What’s the object of these abstractions to us?’

Pavel Petrovitch raised his hands in horror.

‘I don’t understand you, after that. You insult the Russian people. I don’t understand how it’s possible not to acknowledge principles, rules! By virtue of what do you act then?’

‘I’ve told you already, uncle, that we don’t accept any authorities,’ put in Arkady.