Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (68 page)

‘No, you can tell them to take the samovar,’ answered Nikolai Petrovitch, and he got up to meet her. Pavel Petrovitch said
‘bon soir’
to him abruptly, and went away to his study.

CHAPTER XI

Half an hour later Nikolai Petrovitch went into the garden to his favourite arbour. He was overtaken by melancholy thoughts. For the first time he realised clearly the distance between him and his son; he foresaw that every day it would grow wider and wider. In vain, then, had he spent whole days sometimes in the winter at Petersburg over the newest books; in vain had he listened to the talk of the young men; in vain had he rejoiced when he succeeded in putting in his word too in their heated discussions. ‘My brother says we are right,’ he thought, ‘and apart from all vanity, I do think myself that they are further from the truth than we are, though at the same time I feel there is something behind them we have not got, some superiority over us.... Is it youth? No; not only youth. Doesn’t their superiority consist in there being fewer traces of the slaveowner in them than in us?’

Nikolai Petrovitch’s head sank despondently, and he passed his hand over his face.

‘But to renounce poetry?’ he thought again; ‘to have no feeling for art, for nature ...’

And he looked round, as though trying to understand how it was possible to have no feeling for nature. It was already evening; the sun was hidden behind a small copse of aspens which lay a quarter of a mile from the garden; its shadow stretched indefinitely across the still fields. A peasant on a white nag went at a trot along the dark, narrow path close beside the copse; his whole figure was clearly visible even to the patch on his shoulder, in spite of his being in the shade; the horse’s hoofs flew along bravely. The sun’s rays from the farther side fell full on the copse, and piercing through its thickets, threw such a warm light on the aspen trunks that they looked like pines, and their leaves were almost a dark blue, while above them rose a pale blue sky, faintly tinged by the glow of sunset. The swallows flew high; the wind had quite died away, belated bees hummed slowly and drowsily among the lilac blossom; a swarm of midges hung like a cloud over a solitary branch which stood out against the sky. ‘How beautiful, my God!’ thought Nikolai Petrovitch, and his favourite verses were almost on his lips; he remembered Arkady’s
Stoff und Kraft
— and was silent, but still he sat there, still he gave himself up to the sorrowful consolation of solitary thought. He was fond of dreaming; his country life had developed the tendency in him. How short a time ago, he had been dreaming like this, waiting for his son at the posting station, and what a change already since that day; their relations that were then undefined, were defined now — and how defined! Again his dead wife came back to his imagination, but not as he had known her for many years, not as the good domestic housewife, but as a young girl with a slim figure, innocently inquiring eyes, and a tight twist of hair on her childish neck. He remembered how he had seen her for the first time. He was still a student then. He had met her on the staircase of his lodgings, and, jostling by accident against her, he tried to apologise, and could only mutter,
‘Pardon, monsieur,’
while she bowed, smiled, and suddenly seemed frightened, and ran away, though at the bend of the staircase she had glanced rapidly at him, assumed a serious air, and blushed. Afterwards, the first timid visits, the half - words, the half - smiles, and embarrassment; and melancholy, and yearnings, and at last that breathing rapture.... Where had it all vanished? She had been his wife, he had been happy as few on earth are happy.... ‘But,’ he mused, ‘these sweet first moments, why could one not live an eternal, undying life in them?’

He did not try to make his thought clear to himself; but he felt that he longed to keep that blissful time by something stronger than memory; he longed to feel his Marya near him again to have the sense of her warmth and breathing, and already he could fancy that over him....

‘Nikolai Petrovitch,’ came the sound of Fenitchka’s voice close by him; ‘where are you?’

He started. He felt no pang, no shame. He never even admitted the possibility of comparison between his wife and Fenitchka, but he was sorry she had thought of coming to look for him. Her voice had brought back to him at once his grey hairs, his age, his reality....

The enchanted world into which he was just stepping, which was just rising out of the dim mists of the past, was shaken — and vanished.

‘I’m here,’ he answered; ‘I’m coming, run along.’ ‘There it is, the traces of the slave owner,’ flashed through his mind. Fenitchka peeped into the arbour at him without speaking, and disappeared; while he noticed with astonishment that the night had come on while he had been dreaming. Everything around was dark and hushed. Fenitchka’s face had glimmered so pale and slight before him. He got up, and was about to go home; but the emotion stirred in his heart could not be soothed at once, and he began slowly walking about the garden, sometimes looking at the ground at his feet, and then raising his eyes towards the sky where swarms of stars were twinkling. He walked a great deal, till he was almost tired out, while the restlessness within him, a kind of yearning, vague, melancholy restlessness, still was not appeased. Oh, how Bazarov would have laughed at him, if he had known what was passing within him then! Arkady himself would have condemned him. He, a man forty - four years old, an agriculturist and a farmer, was shedding tears, causeless tears; this was a hundred times worse than the violoncello.

Nikolai Petrovitch continued walking, and could not make up his mind to go into the house, into the snug peaceful nest, which looked out at him so hospitably from all its lighted windows; he had not the force to tear himself away from the darkness, the garden, the sense of the fresh air in his face, from that melancholy, that restless craving.

At a turn in the path, he was met by Pavel Petrovitch. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ he asked Nikolai Petrovitch; ‘you are as white as a ghost; you are not well; why don’t you go to bed?’

Nikolai Petrovitch explained to him briefly his state of feeling and moved away. Pavel Petrovitch went to the end of the garden, and he too grew thoughtful, and he too raised his eyes toward the heavens. But in his beautiful dark eyes, nothing was reflected but the light of the stars. He was not born an idealist, and his fastidiously dry and sensuous soul, with its French tinge of cynicism was not capable of dreaming....

‘Do you know what?’ Bazarov was saying to Arkady the same night. ‘I’ve got a splendid idea. Your father was saying to - day that he’d had an invitation from your illustrious relative. Your father’s not going; let us be off to X —
 
— ; you know the worthy man invites you too. You see what fine weather it is; we’ll stroll about and look at the town. We’ll have five or six days’ outing, and enjoy ourselves.’

‘And you’ll come back here again?’

‘No; I must go to my father’s. You know, he lives about twenty - five miles from X —
 
— . I’ve not seen him for a long while, and my mother too; I must cheer the old people up. They’ve been good to me, especially my father; he’s awfully funny. I’m their only one too.’

‘And will you be long with them?’

‘I don’t suppose so. It will be dull, of course.’

‘And you’ll come to us on your way back?’

‘I don’t know ... I’ll see. Well, what do you say? Shall we go?’

‘If you like,’ observed Arkady languidly.

In his heart he was highly delighted with his friend’s suggestion, but he thought it a duty to conceal his feeling. He was not a nihilist for nothing!

The next day he set off with Bazarov to X —
 
— . The younger part of the household at Maryino were sorry at their going; Dunyasha even cried ... but the old folks breathed more easily.

CHAPTER XII

The town of X —
 
— to which our friends set off was in the jurisdiction of a governor who was a young man, and at once a progressive and a despot, as often happens with Russians. Before the end of the first year of his government, he had managed to quarrel not only with the marshal of nobility, a retired officer of the guards, who kept open house and a stud of horses, but even with his own subordinates. The feuds arising from this cause assumed at last such proportions that the ministry in Petersburg had found it necessary to send down a trusted personage with a commission to investigate it all on the spot. The choice of the authorities fell upon Matvy Ilyitch Kolyazin, the son of the Kolyazin, under whose protection the brothers Kirsanov had once found themselves. He, too, was a ‘young man’; that is to say, he had not long passed forty, but he was already on the high road to becoming a statesman, and wore a star on each side of his breast — one, to be sure, a foreign star, not of the first magnitude. Like the governor, whom he had come down to pass judgment upon, he was reckoned a progressive; and though he was already a bigwig, he was not like the majority of bigwigs. He had the highest opinion of himself; his vanity knew no bounds, but he behaved simply, looked affable, listened condescendingly, and laughed so good - naturedly, that on a first acquaintance he might even be taken for ‘a jolly good fellow.’ On important occasions, however, he knew, as the saying is, how to make his authority felt. ‘Energy is essential,’ he used to say then,
‘l’énergie est la première qualité d’un homme d’état;’
and for all that, he was usually taken in, and any moderately experienced official could turn him round his finger. Matvy Ilyitch used to speak with great respect of Guizot, and tried to impress every one with the idea that he did not belong to the class of
routiniers
and high - and - dry bureaucrats, that not a single phenomenon of social life passed unnoticed by him.... All such phrases were very familiar to him. He even followed, with dignified indifference, it is true, the development of contemporary literature; so a grown - up man who meets a procession of small boys in the street will sometimes walk after it. In reality, Matvy Ilyitch had not got much beyond those political men of the days of Alexander, who used to prepare for an evening party at Madame Svyetchin’s by reading a page of Condillac; only his methods were different, more modern. He was an adroit courtier, a great hypocrite, and nothing more; he had no special aptitude for affairs, and no intellect, but he knew how to manage his own business successfully; no one could get the better of him there, and, to be sure, that’s the principal thing.

Matvy Ilyitch received Arkady with the good - nature, we might even call it playfulness, characteristic of the enlightened higher official. He was astonished, however, when he heard that the cousins he had invited had remained at home in the country. ‘Your father was always a queer fellow,’ he remarked, playing with the tassels of his magnificent velvet dressing - gown, and suddenly turning to a young official in a discreetly buttoned - up uniform, he cried, with an air of concentrated attention, ‘What?’ The young man, whose lips were glued together from prolonged silence, got up and looked in perplexity at his chief. But, having nonplussed his subordinate, Matvy Ilyitch paid him no further attention. Our higher officials are fond as a rule of nonplussing their subordinates; the methods to which they have recourse to attain that end are rather various. The following means, among others, is in great vogue,
‘is quite a favourite,’
as the English say; a high official suddenly ceases to understand the simplest words, assuming total deafness. He will ask, for instance, What’s to - day?’

He is respectfully informed, ‘To - day’s Friday, your Ex - s - s - s - lency.’

‘Eh? What? What’s that? What do you say?’ the great man repeats with intense attention.

‘To - day’s Friday, your Ex — s — s — lency.’

‘Eh? What? What’s Friday? What Friday?’

‘Friday, your Ex — s — s — s — lency, the day of the week.’

‘What, do you pretend to teach me, eh?’

Matvy Ilyitch was a higher official all the same, though he was reckoned a liberal.

‘I advise you, my dear boy, to go and call on the Governor,’ he said to Arkady; ‘you understand, I don’t advise you to do so because I adhere to old - fashioned ideas of the necessity of paying respect to authorities, but simply because the Governor’s a very decent fellow; besides, you probably want to make acquaintance with the society here.... You’re not a bear, I hope? And he’s giving a great ball the day after to - morrow.’

‘Will you be at the ball?’ inquired Arkady.

‘He gives it in my honour,’ answered Matvy Ilyitch, almost pityingly. ‘Do you dance?’

‘Yes; I dance, but not well.’

‘That’s a pity! There are pretty girls here, and it’s a disgrace for a young man not to dance. Again, I don’t say that through any old - fashioned ideas; I don’t in the least imagine that a man’s wit lies in his feet, but Byronism is ridiculous,
il a fait son temps.’

‘But, uncle, it’s not through Byronism, I ...’

‘I will introduce you to the ladies here; I will take you under my wing,’ interrupted Matvy Ilyitch, and he laughed complacently. ‘You’ll find it warm, eh?’

A servant entered and announced the arrival of the superintendent of the Crown domains, a mild - eyed old man, with deep creases round his mouth, who was excessively fond of nature, especially on a summer day, when, in his words, ‘every little busy bee takes a little bribe from every little flower.’ Arkady withdrew.

He found Bazarov at the tavern where they were staying, and was a long while persuading him to go with him to the Governor’s. ‘Well, there’s no help for it,’ said Bazarov at last. ‘It’s no good doing things by halves. We came to look at the gentry; let’s look at them!’

The Governor received the young men affably, but he did not ask them to sit down, nor did he sit down himself. He was in an everlasting fuss and hurry; in the morning he used to put on a tight uniform and an excessively stiff cravat; he never ate or drank enough; he was for ever making arrangements. He invited Kirsanov and Bazarov to his ball, and within a few minutes invited them a second time, regarding them as brothers, and calling them Kisarov.

They were on their way home from the Governor’s, when suddenly a short man, in a Slavophil national dress, leaped out of a trap that was passing them, and crying, ‘Yevgeny Vassilyitch!’ dashed up to Bazarov.

‘Ah! it’s you, Herr Sitnikov,’ observed Bazarov, still stepping along on the pavement; ‘by what chance did you come here?’

‘Fancy, absolutely by chance,’ he replied, and returning to the trap, he waved his hand several times, and shouted, ‘Follow, follow us! My father had business here,’ he went on, hopping across the gutter, ‘and so he asked me.... I heard to - day of your arrival, and have already been to see you....’ (The friends did, in fact, on returning to their room, find there a card, with the corners turned down, bearing the name of Sitnikov, on one side in French, on the other in Slavonic characters.) ‘I hope you are not coming from the Governor’s?’

‘It’s no use to hope; we come straight from him.’

‘Ah! in that case I will call on him too.... Yevgeny Vassilyitch, introduce me to your ... to the ...’

‘Sitnikov, Kirsanov,’ mumbled Bazarov, not stopping.

‘I am greatly flattered,’ began Sitnikov, walking sidewise, smirking, and hurriedly pulling off his really over - elegant gloves. ‘I have heard so much.... I am an old acquaintance of Yevgeny Vassilyitch, and, I may say — his disciple. I am indebted to him for my regeneration....’

Arkady looked at Bazarov’s disciple. There was an expression of excitement and dulness imprinted on the small but pleasant features of his well - groomed face; his small eyes, that seemed squeezed in, had a fixed and uneasy look, and his laugh, too, was uneasy — a sort of short, wooden laugh.

‘Would you believe it,’ he pursued, ‘when Yevgeny Vassilyitch for the first time said before me that it was not right to accept any authorities, I felt such enthusiasm ... as though my eyes were opened! Here, I thought, at last I have found a man! By the way, Yevgeny Vassilyitch, you positively must come to know a lady here, who is really capable of understanding you, and for whom your visit would be a real festival; you have heard of her, I suppose?’

‘Who is it?’ Bazarov brought out unwillingly.

‘Kukshina,
Eudoxie
, Evdoksya Kukshin. She’s a remarkable nature,
émancipée
in the true sense of the word, an advanced woman. Do you know what? We’ll all go together to see her now. She lives only two steps from here. We will have lunch there. I suppose you have not lunched yet?’

‘No; not yet.’

‘Well, that’s capital. She has separated, you understand, from her husband; she is not dependent on any one.’

‘Is she pretty?’ Bazarov cut in.

‘N - no, one couldn’t say that.’

‘Then, what the devil are you asking us to see her for?’

‘Fie; you must have your joke.... She will give us a bottle of champagne.’

‘Oh, that’s it. One can see the practical man at once. By the way, is your father still in the gin business?’

‘Yes,’ said Sitnikov, hurriedly, and he gave a shrill spasmodic laugh. ‘Well? Will you come?’

‘I don’t really know.’

‘You wanted to see people, go along,’ said Arkady in an undertone.

‘And what do you say to it, Mr. Kirsanov?’ Sitnikov put in. ‘You must come too; we can’t go without you.’

‘But how can we burst in upon her all at once?’

‘That’s no matter. Kukshina’s a brick!’

‘There will be a bottle of champagne?’ asked Bazarov.

‘Three!’ cried Sitnikov; ‘that I answer for.’

‘What with?’

‘My own head.’

‘Your father’s purse would be better. However, we are coming.’