Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (77 page)

‘One ought so to order one’s life that every moment in it should be of significance,’ Arkady affirmed reflectively.

‘I dare say! What’s of significance is sweet, however mistaken; one could make up one’s mind to what’s insignificant even. But pettiness, pettiness, that’s what’s insufferable.’

‘Pettiness doesn’t exist for a man so long as he refuses to recognise it.’

‘H’m ... what you’ve just said is a common - place reversed.’

‘What? What do you mean by that term?’

‘I’ll tell you; saying, for instance, that education is beneficial, that’s a common - place; but to say that education is injurious, that’s a common - place turned upside down. There’s more style about it, so to say, but in reality it’s one and the same.’

‘And the truth is — where, which side?’

‘Where? Like an echo I answer, Where?’

‘You’re in a melancholy mood to - day, Yevgeny.’

‘Really? The sun must have softened my brain, I suppose, and I can’t stand so many raspberries either.’

‘In that case, a nap’s not a bad thing,’ observed Arkady.

‘Certainly; only don’t look at me; every man’s face is stupid when he’s asleep.’

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

‘I don’t know what to say to you. A real man ought not to care; a real man is one whom it’s no use thinking about, whom one must either obey or hate.’

‘It’s funny! I don’t hate anybody,’ observed Arkady, after a moment’s thought.

‘And I hate so many. You are a soft - hearted, mawkish creature; how could you hate any one?... You’re timid; you don’t rely on yourself much.’

‘And you,’ interrupted Arkady, ‘do you expect much of yourself? Have you a high opinion of yourself?’

Bazarov paused. ‘When I meet a man who can hold his own beside me,’ he said, dwelling on every syllable, ‘then I’ll change my opinion of myself. Yes, hatred! You said, for instance, to - day as we passed our bailiff Philip’s cottage — it’s the one that’s so nice and clean — well, you said, Russia will come to perfection when the poorest peasant has a house like that, and every one of us ought to work to bring it about.... And I felt such a hatred for this poorest peasant, this Philip or Sidor, for whom I’m to be ready to jump out of my skin, and who won’t even thank me for it ... and why should he thank me? Why, suppose he does live in a clean house, while the nettles are growing out of me, — well what do I gain by it?’

‘Hush, Yevgeny ... if one listened to you to - day one would be driven to agreeing with those who reproach us for want of principles.’

‘You talk like your uncle. There are no general principles — you’ve not made out that even yet! There are feelings. Everything depends on them.’

‘How so?’

‘Why, I, for instance, take up a negative attitude, by virtue of my sensations; I like to deny — my brain’s made on that plan, and that’s all about it! Why do I like chemistry? Why do you like apples? — by virtue of our sensations. It’s all the same thing. Deeper than that men will never penetrate. Not every one will tell you that, and, in fact, I shan’t tell you so another time.’

‘What? and is honesty a matter of the senses?’

‘I should rather think so.’

‘Yevgeny!’ Arkady was beginning in a dejected voice ...

‘Well? What? Isn’t it to your taste?’ broke in Bazarov. ‘No, brother. If you’ve made up your mind to mow down everything, don’t spare your own legs. But we’ve talked enough metaphysics. “Nature breathes the silence of sleep,” said Pushkin.’

‘He never said anything of the sort,’ protested Arkady.

‘Well, if he didn’t, as a poet he might have — and ought to have said it. By the way, he must have been a military man.’

‘Pushkin never was a military man!’

‘Why, on every page of him there’s, “To arms! to arms! for Russia’s honour!”‘

‘Why, what stories you invent! I declare, it’s positive calumny.’

‘Calumny? That’s a mighty matter! What a word he’s found to frighten me with! Whatever charge you make against a man, you may be certain he deserves twenty times worse than that in reality.’

‘We had better go to sleep,’ said Arkady, in a tone of vexation.

‘With the greatest pleasure,’ answered Bazarov. But neither of them slept. A feeling almost of hostility had come over both the young men. Five minutes later, they opened their eyes and glanced at one another in silence.

‘Look,’ said Arkady suddenly, ‘a dry maple leaf has come off and is falling to the earth; its movement is exactly like a butterfly’s flight. Isn’t it strange? Gloom and decay — like brightness and life.’

‘Oh, my friend, Arkady Nikolaitch!’ cried Bazarov, ‘one thing I entreat of you; no fine talk.’

‘I talk as best I can.... And, I declare, its perfect despotism. An idea came into my head; why shouldn’t I utter it?’

‘Yes; and why shouldn’t I utter my ideas? I think that fine talk’s positively indecent.’

‘And what is decent? Abuse?’

‘Ha! ha! you really do intend, I see, to walk in your uncle’s footsteps. How pleased that worthy imbecile would have been if he had heard you!’

‘What did you call Pavel Petrovitch?’

‘I called him, very justly, an imbecile.’

‘But this is unbearable!’ cried Arkady.

‘Aha! family feeling spoke there,’ Bazarov commented coolly. ‘I’ve noticed how obstinately it sticks to people. A man’s ready to give up everything and break with every prejudice; but to admit that his brother, for instance, who steals handkerchiefs, is a thief — that’s too much for him. And when one comes to think of it: my brother, mine — and no genius ... that’s an idea no one can swallow.’

‘It was a simple sense of justice spoke in me and not in the least family feeling,’ retorted Arkady passionately. ‘But since that’s a sense you don’t understand, since you haven’t that sensation, you can’t judge of it.’

‘In other words, Arkady Kirsanov is too exalted for my comprehension. I bow down before him and say no more.’

‘Don’t, please, Yevgeny; we shall really quarrel at last.’

‘Ah, Arkady! do me a kindness. I entreat you, let us quarrel for once in earnest....’

‘But then perhaps we should end by ...’

‘Fighting?’ put in Bazarov. ‘Well? Here, on the hay, in these idyllic surroundings, far from the world and the eyes of men, it wouldn’t matter. But you’d be no match for me. I’ll have you by the throat in a minute.’

Bazarov spread out his long, cruel fingers.... Arkady turned round and prepared, as though in jest, to resist.... But his friend’s face struck him as so vindictive — there was such menace in grim earnest in the smile that distorted his lips, and in his glittering eyes, that he felt instinctively afraid.

‘Ah! so this is where you have got to!’ the voice of Vassily Ivanovitch was heard saying at that instant, and the old army - doctor appeared before the young men, garbed in a home - made linen pea - jacket, with a straw hat, also home - made, on his head. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you.... Well, you’ve picked out a capital place, and you’re excellently employed. Lying on the “earth, gazing up to heaven.” Do you know, there’s a special significance in that?’

‘I never gaze up to heaven except when I want to sneeze,’ growled Bazarov, and turning to Arkady he added in an undertone. ‘Pity he interrupted us.’

‘Come, hush!’ whispered Arkady, and he secretly squeezed his friend’s hand. But no friendship can long stand such shocks.

‘I look at you, my youthful friends,’ Vassily Ivanovitch was saying meantime, shaking his head, and leaning his folded arms on a rather cunningly bent stick of his own carving, with a Turk’s figure for a top, — ’I look, and I cannot refrain from admiration. You have so much strength, such youth and bloom, such abilities, such talents! Positively, a Castor and Pollux!’

‘Get along with you — going off into mythology!’ commented Bazarov. ‘You can see at once that he was a great Latinist in his day! Why, I seem to remember, you gained the silver medal for Latin prose — didn’t you?’

‘The Dioscuri, the Dioscuri!’ repeated Vassily Ivanovitch.

‘Come, shut up, father; don’t show off.’

‘Once in a way it’s surely permissible,’ murmured the old man. ‘However, I have not been seeking for you, gentlemen, to pay you compliments; but with the object, in the first place, of announcing to you that we shall soon be dining; and secondly, I wanted to prepare you, Yevgeny.... You are a sensible man, you know the world, and you know what women are, and consequently you will excuse.... Your mother wished to have a Te Deum sung on the occasion of your arrival. You must not imagine that I am inviting you to attend this thanksgiving — it is over indeed now; but Father Alexey ...’

‘The village parson?’

‘Well, yes, the priest; he ... is to dine ... with us.... I did not anticipate this, and did not even approve of it ... but it somehow came about ... he did not understand me.... And, well ... Arina Vlasyevna ... Besides, he’s a worthy, reasonable man.’

‘He won’t eat my share at dinner, I suppose?’ queried Bazarov.

Vassily Ivanovitch laughed. ‘How you talk!’

‘Well, that’s all I ask. I’m ready to sit down to table with any man.’

Vassily Ivanovitch set his hat straight. ‘I was certain before I spoke,’ he said, ‘that you were above any kind of prejudice. Here am I, an old man at sixty - two, and I have none.’ (Vassily Ivanovitch did not dare to confess that he had himself desired the thanksgiving service. He was no less religious than his wife.) ‘And Father Alexey very much wanted to make your acquaintance. You will like him, you’ll see. He’s no objection even to cards, and he sometimes — but this is between ourselves ... positively smokes a pipe.’

‘All right. We’ll have a round of whist after dinner, and I’ll clean him out.’

‘He! he! he! We shall see! That remains to be seen.’

‘I know you’re an old hand,’ said Bazarov, with a peculiar emphasis.

Vassily Ivanovitch’s bronzed cheeks were suffused with an uneasy flush.

‘For shame, Yevgeny.... Let bygones be bygones. Well, I’m ready to acknowledge before this gentleman I had that passion in my youth; and I have paid for it too! How hot it is, though! Let me sit down with you. I shan’t be in your way, I hope?’

‘Oh, not at all,’ answered Arkady.

Vassily Ivanovitch lowered himself, sighing, into the hay. ‘Your present quarters remind me, my dear sirs,’ he began, ‘of my military bivouacking existence, the ambulance halts, somewhere like this under a haystack, and even for that we were thankful.’ He sighed. ‘I had many, many experiences in my life. For example, if you will allow me, I will tell you a curious episode of the plague in Bessarabia.’

‘For which you got the Vladimir cross?’ put in Bazarov. ‘We know, we know.... By the way, why is it you’re not wearing it?’

‘Why, I told you that I have no prejudices,’ muttered Vassily Ivanovitch (he had only the evening before had the red ribbon unpicked off his coat), and he proceeded to relate the episode of the plague. ‘Why, he’s fallen asleep,’ he whispered all at once to Arkady, pointing to Yevgeny, and winking good - naturedly. ‘Yevgeny! get up,’ he went on aloud. ‘Let’s go in to dinner.’

Father Alexey, a good - looking stout man with thick, carefully - combed hair, with an embroidered girdle round his lilac silk cassock, appeared to be a man of much tact and adaptability. He made haste to be the first to offer his hand to Arkady and Bazarov, as though understanding beforehand that they did not want his blessing, and he behaved himself in general without constraint. He neither derogated from his own dignity, nor gave offence to others; he vouchsafed a passing smile at the seminary Latin, and stood up for his bishop; drank two small glasses of wine, but refused a third; accepted a cigar from Arkady, but did not proceed to smoke it, saying he would take it home with him. The only thing not quite agreeable about him was a way he had of constantly raising his hand with care and deliberation to catch the flies on his face, sometimes succeeding in smashing them. He took his seat at the green table, expressing his satisfaction at so doing in measured terms, and ended by winning from Bazarov two roubles and a half in paper money; they had no idea of even reckoning in silver in the house of Arina Vlasyevna.... She was sitting, as before, near her son (she did not play cards), her cheek, as before, propped on her little fist; she only got up to order some new dainty to be served. She was afraid to caress Bazarov, and he gave her no encouragement, he did not invite her caresses; and besides, Vassily Ivanovitch had advised her not to ‘worry’ him too much. ‘Young men are not fond of that sort of thing,’ he declared to her. (It’s needless to say what the dinner was like that day; Timofeitch in person had galloped off at early dawn for beef; the bailiff had gone off in another direction for turbot, gremille, and crayfish; for mushrooms alone forty - two farthings had been paid the peasant women in copper); but Arina Vlasyevna’s eyes, bent steadfastly on Bazarov, did not express only devotion and tenderness; in them was to be seen sorrow also, mingled with awe and curiosity; there was to be seen too a sort of humble reproachfulness.