Fathers and Sons
"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