Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (83 page)

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

‘This is unexpected! What good luck brought you?’ he kept repeating, bustling about the room like one who both imagines himself and wishes to show himself delighted. ‘I suppose everything’s all right at home; every one’s well, eh?’

‘Everything’s all right, but not every one’s well,’ said Bazarov. ‘Don’t be a chatterbox, but send for some kvass for me, sit down, and listen while I tell you all about it in a few, but, I hope, pretty vigorous sentences.’

Arkady was quiet while Bazarov described his duel with Pavel Petrovitch. Arkady was very much surprised, and even grieved, but he did not think it necessary to show this; he only asked whether his uncle’s wound was really not serious; and on receiving the reply that it was most interesting, but not from a medical point of view, he gave a forced smile, but at heart he felt both wounded and as it were ashamed. Bazarov seemed to understand him.

‘Yes, my dear fellow,’ he commented, ‘you see what comes of living with feudal personages. You turn a feudal personage yourself, and find yourself taking part in knightly tournaments. Well, so I set off for my father’s,’ Bazarov wound up, ‘and I’ve turned in here on the way ... to tell you all this, I should say, if I didn’t think a useless lie a piece of foolery. No, I turned in here — the devil only knows why. You see, it’s sometimes a good thing for a man to take himself by the scruff of the neck and pull himself up, like a radish out of its bed; that’s what I’ve been doing of late.... But I wanted to have one more look at what I’m giving up, at the bed where I’ve been planted.’

‘I hope those words don’t refer to me,’ responded Arkady with some emotion; ‘I hope you don’t think of giving me up?’

Bazarov turned an intent, almost piercing look upon him.

‘Would that be such a grief to you? It strikes me
you
have given me up already, you look so fresh and smart.... Your affair with Anna Sergyevna must be getting on successfully.’

‘What do you mean by my affair with Anna Sergyevna?’

‘Why, didn’t you come here from the town on her account, chicken? By the way, how are those Sunday schools getting on? Do you mean to tell me you’re not in love with her? Or have you already reached the stage of discretion?’

‘Yevgeny, you know I have always been open with you; I can assure you, I will swear to you, you’re making a mistake.’

‘Hm! That’s another story,’ remarked Bazarov in an undertone. ‘But you needn’t be in a taking, it’s a matter of absolute indifference to me. A sentimentalist would say, “I feel that our paths are beginning to part,” but I will simply say that we’re tired of each other.’

‘Yevgeny ...’

‘My dear soul, there’s no great harm in that. One gets tired of much more than that in this life. And now I suppose we’d better say good - bye, hadn’t we? Ever since I’ve been here I’ve had such a loathsome feeling, just as if I’d been reading Gogol’s effusions to the governor of Kalouga’s wife. By the way, I didn’t tell them to take the horses out.’

‘Upon my word, this is too much!’

‘Why?’

‘I’ll say nothing of myself; but that would be discourteous to the last degree to Anna Sergyevna, who will certainly wish to see you.’

‘Oh, you’re mistaken there.’

‘On the contrary, I am certain I’m right,’ retorted Arkady. ‘And what are you pretending for? If it comes to that, haven’t you come here on her account yourself?’

‘That may be so, but you’re mistaken any way.’

But Arkady was right. Anna Sergyevna desired to see Bazarov, and sent a summons to him by a steward. Bazarov changed his clothes before going to her; it turned out that he had packed his new suit so as to be able to get it out easily.

Madame Odintsov received him not in the room where he had so unexpectedly declared his love to her, but in the drawing - room. She held her finger tips out to him cordially, but her face betrayed an involuntary sense of tension.

‘Anna Sergyevna,’ Bazarov hastened to say, ‘before everything else I must set your mind at rest. Before you is a poor mortal, who has come to his senses long ago, and hopes other people too have forgotten his follies. I am going away for a long while; and though, as you will allow, I’m by no means a very soft creature, it would be anything but cheerful for me to carry away with me the idea that you remember me with repugnance.’

Anna Sergyevna gave a deep sigh like one who has just climbed up a high mountain, and her face was lighted up by a smile. She held out her hand a second time to Bazarov, and responded to his pressure.

‘Let bygones be bygones,’ she said. ‘I am all the readier to do so because, speaking from my conscience, I was to blame then too for flirting or something. In a word, let us be friends as before. That was a dream, wasn’t it? And who remembers dreams?’

‘Who remembers them? And besides, love ... you know, is a purely imaginary feeling.’

‘Really? I am very glad to hear that.’

So Anna Sergyevna spoke, and so spoke Bazarov; they both supposed they were speaking the truth. Was the truth, the whole truth, to be found in their words? They could not themselves have said, and much less could the author. But a conversation followed between them precisely as though they completely believed one another.

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

‘And I,’ observed Anna Sergyevna, ‘had a fit of depression at first, goodness knows why; I even made plans for going abroad, fancy!... Then it passed off, your friend Arkady Nikolaitch came, and I fell back into my old routine, and took up my real part again.’

‘What part is that, may I ask?’

‘The character of aunt, guardian, mother — call it what you like. By the way, do you know I used not quite to understand your close friendship with Arkady Nikolaitch; I thought him rather insignificant. But now I have come to know him better, and to see that he is clever.... And he’s young, he’s young ... that’s the great thing ... not like you and me, Yevgeny Vassilyitch.’

‘Is he still as shy in your company?’ queried Bazarov.

‘Why, was he?’ ... Anna Sergyevna began, and after a brief pause she went on: ‘He has grown more confiding now; he talks to me. He used to avoid me before. Though, indeed, I didn’t seek his society either. He’s more friends with Katya.’

Bazarov felt irritated. ‘A woman can’t help humbugging, of course!’ he thought. ‘You say he used to avoid you,’ he said aloud, with a chilly smile; ‘but it is probably no secret to you that he was in love with you?’

‘What! he too?’ fell from Anna Sergyevna’s lips.

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

Anna Sergyevna dropped her eyes. ‘You are mistaken, Yevgeny Vassilyitch.’

‘I don’t think so. But perhaps I ought not to have mentioned it.’ ‘And don’t you try telling me lies again for the future,’ he added to himself.

‘Why not? But I imagine that in this too you are attributing too much importance to a passing impression. I begin to suspect you are inclined to exaggeration.’

‘We had better not talk about it, Anna Sergyevna.’

‘Oh, why?’ she retorted; but she herself led the conversation into another channel. She was still ill at ease with Bazarov, though she had told him, and assured herself that everything was forgotten. While she was exchanging the simplest sentences with him, even while she was jesting with him, she was conscious of a faint spasm of dread. So people on a steamer at sea talk and laugh carelessly, for all the world as though they were on dry land; but let only the slightest hitch occur, let the least sign be seen of anything out of the common, and at once on every face there comes out an expression of peculiar alarm, betraying the constant consciousness of constant danger.

Anna Sergyevna’s conversation with Bazarov did not last long. She began to seem absorbed in thought, answered abstractedly, and suggested at last that they should go into the hall, where they found the princess and Katya. ‘But where is Arkady Nikolaitch?’ inquired the lady of the house; and on hearing that he had not shown himself for more than an hour, she sent for him. He was not very quickly found; he had hidden himself in the very thickest part of the garden, and with his chin propped on his folded hands, he was sitting lost in meditation. They were deep and serious meditations, but not mournful. He knew Anna Sergyevna was sitting alone with Bazarov, and he felt no jealousy, as once he had; on the contrary, his face slowly brightened; he seemed to be at once wondering and rejoicing, and resolving on something.

CHAPTER XXVI

The deceased Odintsov had not liked innovations, but he had tolerated ‘the fine arts within a certain sphere,’ and had in consequence put up in his garden, between the hothouse and the lake, an erection after the fashion of a Greek temple, made of Russian brick. Along the dark wall at the back of this temple or gallery were placed six niches for statues, which Odintsov had proceeded to order from abroad. These statues were to represent Solitude, Silence, Meditation, Melancholy, Modesty, and Sensibility. One of them, the goddess of Silence, with her finger on her lip, had been sent and put up; but on the very same day some boys on the farm had broken her nose; and though a plasterer of the neighbourhood undertook to make her a new nose ‘twice as good as the old one,’ Odintsov ordered her to be taken away, and she was still to be seen in the corner of the threshing barn, where she had stood many long years, a source of superstitious terror to the peasant women. The front part of the temple had long ago been overgrown with thick bushes; only the pediments of the columns could be seen above the dense green. In the temple itself it was cool even at mid - day. Anna Sergyevna had not liked visiting this place ever since she had seen a snake there; but Katya often came and sat on the wide stone seat under one of the niches. Here, in the midst of the shade and coolness, she used to read and work, or to give herself up to that sensation of perfect peace, known, doubtless, to each of us, the charm of which consists in the half - unconscious, silent listening to the vast current of life that flows for ever both around us and within us.

The day after Bazarov’s arrival Katya was sitting on her favourite stone seat, and beside her again was sitting Arkady. He had besought her to come with him to the ‘temple.’

There was about an hour still to lunch - time; the dewy morning had already given place to a sultry day. Arkady’s face retained the expression of the preceding day; Katya had a preoccupied look. Her sister had, directly after their morning tea, called her into her room, and after some preliminary caresses, which always scared Katya a little, she had advised her to be more guarded in her behaviour with Arkady, and especially to avoid solitary talks with him, as likely to attract the notice of her aunt and all the household. Besides this, even the previous evening Anna Sergyevna had not been herself; and Katya herself had felt ill at ease, as though she were conscious of some fault in herself. As she yielded to Arkady’s entreaties, she said to herself that it was for the last time.

‘Katerina Sergyevna,’ he began with a sort of bashful easiness, ‘since I’ve had the happiness of living in the same house with you, I have discussed a great many things with you; but meanwhile there is one, very important ... for me ... one question, which I have not touched upon up till now. You remarked yesterday that I have been changed here,’ he went on, at once catching and avoiding the questioning glance Katya was turning upon him. ‘I have changed certainly a great deal, and you know that better than any one else — you to whom I really owe this change.’

‘I?... Me?...’ said Katya.

‘I am not now the conceited boy I was when I came here,’ Arkady went on. ‘I’ve not reached twenty - three for nothing; as before, I want to be useful, I want to devote all my powers to the truth; but I no longer look for my ideals where I did; they present themselves to me ... much closer to hand. Up till now I did not understand myself; I set myself tasks which were beyond my powers.... My eyes have been opened lately, thanks to one feeling.... I’m not expressing myself quite clearly, but I hope you understand me.’

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

‘I suppose,’ he began again, this time in a more agitated voice, while above his head a chaffinch sang its song unheeding among the leaves of the birch — ’I suppose it’s the duty of every one to be open with those ... with those people who ... in fact, with those who are near to him, and so I ... I resolved ...’

But here Arkady’s eloquence deserted him; he lost the thread, stammered, and was forced to be silent for a moment. Katya still did not raise her eyes. She seemed not to understand what he was leading up to in all this, and to be waiting for something.

‘I foresee I shall surprise you,’ began Arkady, pulling himself together again with an effort, ‘especially since this feeling relates in a way ... in a way, notice ... to you. You reproached me, if you remember, yesterday with a want of seriousness,’ Arkady went on, with the air of a man who has got into a bog, feels that he is sinking further and further in at every step, and yet hurries onwards in the hope of crossing it as soon as possible; ‘that reproach is often aimed ... often falls ... on young men even when they cease to deserve it; and if I had more self - confidence ...’ (‘Come, help me, do help me!’ Arkady was thinking, in desperation; but, as before, Katya did not turn her head.) ‘If I could hope ...’

‘If I could feel sure of what you say,’ was heard at that instant the clear voice of Anna Sergyevna.

Arkady was still at once, while Katya turned pale. Close by the bushes that screened the temple ran a little path. Anna Sergyevna was walking along it escorted by Bazarov. Katya and Arkady could not see them, but they heard every word, the rustle of their clothes, their very breathing. They walked on a few steps, and, as though on purpose, stood still just opposite the temple.

‘You see,’ pursued Anna Sergyevna, ‘you and I made a mistake; we are both past our first youth, I especially so; we have seen life, we are tired; we are both — why affect not to know it? — clever; at first we interested each other, curiosity was aroused ... and then ...’

‘And then I grew stale,’ put in Bazarov.

‘You know that was not the cause of our misunderstanding. But, however, it was to be, we had no need of one another, that’s the chief point; there was too much ... what shall I say? ... that was alike in us. We did not realise it all at once. Now, Arkady ...’

‘So you need him?’ queried Bazarov.

‘Hush, Yevgeny Vassilyitch. You tell me he is not indifferent to me, and it always seemed to me he liked me. I know that I might well be his aunt, but I don’t wish to conceal from you that I have come to think more often of him. In such youthful, fresh feeling there is a special charm ...’

‘The word
fascination
is most usual in such cases,’ Bazarov interrupted; the effervescence of his spleen could be heard in his choked though steady voice. ‘Arkady was mysterious over something with me yesterday, and didn’t talk either of you or your sister.... That’s a serious symptom.’

‘He is just like a brother with Katya,’ commented Anna Sergyevna, ‘and I like that in him, though, perhaps, I ought not to have allowed such intimacy between them.’

‘That idea is prompted by ... your feelings as a sister?’ Bazarov brought out, drawling.

‘Of course ... but why are we standing still? Let us go on. What a strange talk we are having, aren’t we? I could never have believed I should talk to you like this. You know, I am afraid of you ... and at the same time I trust you, because in reality you are so good.’

‘In the first place, I am not in the least good; and in the second place, I have lost all significance for you, and you tell me I am good.... It’s like a laying a wreath of flowers on the head of a corpse.’

‘Yevgeny Vassilyitch, we are not responsible ...’ Anna Sergyevna began; but a gust of wind blew across, set the leaves rustling, and carried away her words. ‘Of course, you are free ...’ Bazarov declared after a brief pause. Nothing more could be distinguished; the steps retreated ... everything was still.

Arkady turned to Katya. She was sitting in the same position, but her head was bent still lower. ‘Katerina Sergyevna,’ he said with a shaking voice, and clasping his hands tightly together, ‘I love you for ever and irrevocably, and I love no one but you. I wanted to tell you this, to find out your opinion of me, and to ask for your hand, since I am not rich, and I feel ready for any sacrifice.... You don’t answer me? You don’t believe me? Do you think I speak lightly? But remember these last days! Surely for a long time past you must have known that everything — understand me — everything else has vanished long ago and left no trace? Look at me, say one word to me ... I love ... I love you ... believe me!’

Katya glanced at Arkady with a bright and serious look, and after long hesitation, with the faintest smile, she said, ‘Yes.’

Arkady leapt up from the stone seat. ‘Yes! You said Yes, Katerina Sergyevna! What does that word mean? Only that I do love you, that you believe me ... or ... or ... I daren’t go on ...’

‘Yes,’ repeated Katya, and this time he understood her. He snatched her large beautiful hands, and, breathless with rapture, pressed them to his heart. He could scarcely stand on his feet, and could only repeat, ‘Katya, Katya ...’ while she began weeping in a guileless way, smiling gently at her own tears. No one who has not seen those tears in the eyes of the beloved, knows yet to what a point, faint with shame and gratitude, a man may be happy on earth.

The next day, early in the morning, Anna Sergyevna sent to summon Bazarov to her boudoir, and with a forced laugh handed him a folded sheet of notepaper. It was a letter from Arkady; in it he asked for her sister’s hand.

Bazarov quickly scanned the letter, and made an effort to control himself, that he might not show the malignant feeling which was instantaneously aflame in his breast.

‘So that’s how it is,’ he commented; ‘and you, I fancy, only yesterday imagined he loved Katerina Sergyevna as a brother. What are you intending to do now?’

‘What do you advise me?’ asked Anna Sergyevna, still laughing.

‘Well, I suppose,’ answered Bazarov, also with a laugh, though he felt anything but cheerful, and had no more inclination to laugh than she had; ‘I suppose you ought to give the young people your blessing. It’s a good match in every respect; Kirsanov’s position is passable, he’s the only son, and his father’s a good - natured fellow, he won’t try to thwart him.’

Madame Odintsov walked up and down the room. By turns her face flushed and grew pale. ‘You think so,’ she said. ‘Well, I see no obstacles ... I am glad for Katya ... and for Arkady Nikolaevitch too. Of course, I will wait for his father’s answer. I will send him in person to him. But it turns out, you see, that I was right yesterday when I told you we were both old people.... How was it I saw nothing? That’s what amazes me!’ Anna Sergyevna laughed again, and quickly turned her head away.

‘The younger generation have grown awfully sly,’ remarked Bazarov, and he too laughed. ‘Good - bye,’ he began again after a short silence. ‘I hope you will bring the matter to the most satisfactory conclusion; and I will rejoice from a distance.’

Madame Odintsov turned quickly to him. ‘You are not going away? Why should you not stay
now?
Stay ... it’s exciting talking to you ... one seems walking on the edge of a precipice. At first one feels timid, but one gains courage as one goes on. Do stay.’

‘Thanks for the suggestion, Anna Sergyevna, and for your flattering opinion of my conversational talents. But I think I have already been moving too long in a sphere which is not my own. Flying fishes can hold out for a time in the air; but soon they must splash back into the water; allow me, too, to paddle in my own element.’

Madame Odintsov looked at Bazarov. His pale face was twitching with a bitter smile. ‘This man did love me!’ she thought, and she felt pity for him, and held out her hand to him with sympathy.

But he too understood her. ‘No!’ he said, stepping back a pace. ‘I’m a poor man, but I’ve never taken charity so far. Good - bye, and good luck to you.’

‘I am certain we are not seeing each other for the last time,’ Anna Sergyevna declared with an unconscious gesture.

‘Anything may happen!’ answered Bazarov, and he bowed and went away.

‘So you are thinking of making yourself a nest?’ he said the same day to Arkady, as he packed his box, crouching on the floor. ‘Well, it’s a capital thing. But you needn’t have been such a humbug. I expected something from you in quite another quarter. Perhaps, though, it took you by surprise yourself?’

‘I certainly didn’t expect this when I parted from you,’ answered Arkady; ‘but why are you a humbug yourself, calling it “a capital thing,” as though I didn’t know your opinion of marriage.’

‘Ah, my dear fellow,’ said Bazarov, ‘how you talk! You see what I’m doing; there seems to be an empty space in the box, and I am putting hay in; that’s how it is in the box of our life; we would stuff it up with anything rather than have a void. Don’t be offended, please; you remember, no doubt, the opinion I have always had of Katerina Sergyevna. Many a young lady’s called clever simply because she can sigh cleverly; but yours can hold her own, and, indeed, she’ll hold it so well that she’ll have you under her thumb — to be sure, though, that’s quite as it ought to be.’ He slammed the lid to, and got up from the floor. ‘And now, I say again, good - bye, for it’s useless to deceive ourselves — we are parting for good, and you know that yourself ... you have acted sensibly; you’re not made for our bitter, rough, lonely existence. There’s no dash, no hate in you, but you’ve the daring of youth and the fire of youth. Your sort, you gentry, can never get beyond refined submission or refined indignation, and that’s no good. You won’t fight — and yet you fancy yourselves gallant chaps — but we mean to fight. Oh well! Our dust would get into your eyes, our mud would bespatter you, but yet you’re not up to our level, you’re admiring yourselves unconsciously, you like to abuse yourselves; but we’re sick of that — we want something else! we want to smash other people! You’re a capital fellow; but you’re a sugary, liberal snob for all that —
ay volla - too,
as my parent is fond of saying.’