Fathers and Sons
Princess, she had gone to bed, for she could not abide the presence
of guests--least of all, of "those upstarts and good-for-nothings" as
she termed our friends. In fact, though she confined herself, in the
drawing-room or the dining-room, to sulking, she resorted, when alone
with her maid in the bedroom, to abuse of Arkady and Bazarov which made
her cap and her false front fairly dance on her head. These things, of
course, Madame Odintsov knew.
"Why need you depart?" she said to Bazarov. "Have you forgotten your
promise?"
Bazarov started.
"What promise?" he asked.
"Then you _have_ forgotten it! I mean the promise to give me a few
lessons in chemistry?"
"How can I fulfil it? My father is expecting me at home, and I ought
not to stay a day longer. You had better read through _Notions
Générales de Chimie_, by Pelouse and Frémy. It is an excellent work,
and clearly written--the very thing you want."
"But you said that no book can adequately replace--I forget the exact
phrase you used, but you know what I mean, do you not?"
"I cannot help myself," he muttered.
"Nevertheless, why go?" She lowered her voice as she spoke. Bazarov
glanced at her as she leant back in her chair and crossed her arms
(which were bare to the elbow), and saw that by the light of the lamp
(softened with a shade of pleated paper) she was looking paler than
usual--also that the outlines of her figure were almost buried in a
soft white gown, from underneath which there peeped forth the tips of
her toes, posed crosswise.
"What reason should I have for remaining?" he replied.
She gave her head the faintest toss.
"What reason should you have?" she re-echoed. "Well, are you not happy
here? Do you think that there will be no one to regret your departure?"
"There will be no one. Of that I am certain."
"Then you are wrong," came the reply after a pause. "But I do not
believe you--I have an idea that you are not speaking seriously."
Bazarov said nothing.
"Why do you not answer me?" she persisted.
"What is there to say? In general, to regret people's absence is not
worth while, and, least of all, the absence of people like myself."
"Why, again?"
"Because I am a prosaic and eminently uninteresting individual. Nor do
I know how to talk."
"But you know how to play the esquire?"
"No, not even that. And, as you know, the softer aspect of life, the
aspect which you hold so dear, lies altogether beyond me."
Madame Odintsov nibbled the corner of her handkerchief.
"Think what you like," she said, "but at least _I_ shall find things
dull when you are gone."
"Arkady will remain," he hazarded.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Nevertheless I shall find the time wearisome," she repeated.
"Not for long."
"Why not?"
"Because, as you have very truly said, things never seem dull to you
save when your _régime_ is infringed. In fact, with such faultless
regularity have you ordered your life that there abides in it no room
for dullness or depression or any other burdensome feeling."
"And I too am faultless, I suppose--I have ordered my life too
regularly ever to err?"
"I daresay. Take an example of it. In a few minutes it will be ten
o'clock; when, as I know by experience, you will request me to leave
your presence."
"Oh no, I shall not. You may remain. By the way, please open that
window. The room is simply stifling."
Bazarov rose and unfastened the casement, which swung backwards with a
snap, for the reason that he had not expected it to open so easily, and
that his hands were trembling. Into the aperture glanced the soft, warm
night with its vista of dark vault of heaven, faintly rustling trees,
and pure, free, sweet-scented air.
"Also, please pull down the blind, and then resume your seat. I wish to
have a little further talk with you before you go. Tell me something
about yourself--a person to whom, by the way, you never refer."
"I would rather converse with you on more profitable subjects."
"What modesty! Nevertheless I wish to learn something of you, and of
your family, and of the father for whose sake you are soon going to
abandon me."
"Why the word 'abandon'?" reflected Bazarov. Then he added aloud:
"Things of that kind interest no one--least of all you. I and my people
are obscure folk."
"Whereas I, you imagine, am an aristocrat?"
Bazarov looked up.
"Yes," he replied with emphasis.
She smiled.
"Then I can see that your knowledge of me is small," she remarked.
"But of course--you believe all human beings to be identical, and
therefore not worth the trouble of studying. Some day I will tell you
my history. But first tell me yours."
"You say that my knowledge of you is small?" queried Bazarov. "You may
be right. Possibly _every_ human being is an enigma. Let us take an
example of that. You have withdrawn from society, and find it irksome,
and limit your visitors' list to a couple of students. Yet why, with
your intellect and your beauty, do you live in the country?"
"Why?" came the sharp rejoinder. "But first be so good as to explain
what you mean by my 'beauty.'"
Bazarov frowned.
"That lies beside the point," he muttered. "The point is that I cannot
understand why you settle in a rural spot of this kind."
"You cannot understand it, you cannot explain it?"
"No. There is only one possible explanation: and that is that you
remain here because you are a person of self-indulgence who love
comfort and the amenities of life, and are indifferent to aught else."
Again Madame Odintsov smiled.
"Then you are still determined to believe that I am incapable of being
moved?" she said.
Bazarov glanced at her from under his brows.
"By curiosity, yes," he said. "But by nothing else."
"Indeed? Then I cease to wonder that you and I do not get on together.
You are exactly like myself."
"That you and I do not get on together?" echoed Bazarov vaguely.
"Yes. But I had forgotten--you must be longing to retire?"
Bazarov rose. The lamp was casting a dim light, while into the
fragrant, darkened, isolated room there came wafted at intervals, under
the swinging blind, the sensuous freshness of the night, and the sounds
of its mysterious whisperings. Madame Odintsov did not stir. Over her
was stealing the same strange agitation which had infected Bazarov.
Suddenly he realised that he was alone with a young and beautiful woman.
"Need you go?" she asked slowly.
He made no reply--he merely resumed his seat.
"Then you think me a spoilt, pampered, indolent person?" she continued
in the same slow tone as she fixed her eyes upon the window. "Yet this
much I know about myself: that I am very unhappy."
"Unhappy? For what reason? Because you attach too much importance to
petty slanders?"
She frowned. Somehow she felt vexed that he should have understood her
thus.
"No; things of that kind do not disturb me," she said. "Never should
I allow them to do so--I am too proud. The reason why I am unhappy is
that I have no wish, no enthusiasm, to live. I daresay you will not
believe me, and will think that a mere 'petty aristocrat,' a person who
is lapped in lace and seated in an armchair, is saying all this (and I
will not conceal from you that I love what you call 'the comforts of
life'): yet all the while I feel as though I had no desire to continue
my existence. Pray reconcile that contradiction if you can. But perhaps
you consider what I say 'Romanticism'?"
Bazarov shook his head.
"You are yet young," he said. "Also, you are rich and independent. What
more could you have? What more do you desire?"
"What more?" she re-echoed with a sigh. "I do not know. I only know
that I feel tired, antiquated; I feel as though I had been living a
long, long time. Yes, I am growing old," she continued as she drew
the ends of her mantilla around her bare shoulders. In doing so, she
glanced at Bazarov. Her eyes met his, and the faintest of blushes stole
into her face. "Behind me lie many memories--memories of my life in St.
Petersburg, of a period of wealth followed by poverty, of my father's
death, of my marriage, of my travels abroad--yes, many such memories
there are. Yet none of them are worth cherishing. And before me lies
only a weary road with no goal to it, along which I have no desire to
travel."
"You are disenchanted," said Bazarov.
"No," she replied with a shiver. "Rather, I am dissatisfied. Oh that I
could form a strong attachment of some kind!"
"To fall in love _might_ save you," remarked Bazarov. "But you are
incapable of that. That is where your misfortune lies."
Madame dropped her eyes upon the sleeve of her mantilla.
"I am incapable of falling in love?" she murmured.
"Not altogether. Moreover, I did wrong to call it a misfortune: for the
person most to be pitied is the person who meets with that experience."
"What experience do you mean?"
"The experience of falling in love."
"How come you to know that?"
"By hearsay," he replied irritably, while to himself he added: "You are
a mere coquette whom sheer idleness is leading to weary and madden me."
And his heart swelled within him.
"On the other hand," he went on, "it may be that you are too exacting?"
As he spoke he bent forward and fell to playing with the tassels of his
chair.
"Possibly I am," she agreed. "But, you see, I conceive that it ought to
be everything or nothing. 'A life for a life.' 'Take my all, give your
all, and put a truce to regrets and any thought of return.' That is the
best rule."
"Indeed?" queried Bazarov. "Well, it is not a bad rule, and I am
surprised that you should have failed to attain your desire."
"Self-surrender, you think, is an easy thing?"
"Not if one considers matters first, and appraises oneself, and
sets upon oneself a definite value. It is only surrender _without_
consideration that is easy."
"But how could one not value oneself? If one had value, no one would
desire one's surrender."
"That would not be your concern nor mine: some one else's business
would it be to determine our respective values. The one thing that
would immediately concern us would be to know _how_ to surrender."
Madame Odintsov sat up sharply.
"I still believe you to be speaking from experience," she said.
"No; words, idle words--words not meant to be taken personally."
"Then you yourself might be capable of surrendering?"
"I might. But in any case I should not care to boast."
Both remained silent for a moment. From the drawing-room came the notes
of the piano.
"How late Katia is playing!" remarked Anna Sergievna.
Bazarov raised his head.
"Yes, it _is_ late," he said. "Time for you to go to rest."
"Wait a moment, however. Why should you hurry away? I have something
more to say to you."
"What may it be?"
"Wait," she repeated. As she did so, her eyes gazed at him as though
studying his personality. For a few moments he paced the room--then
suddenly approached her, said "Good night," squeezed her hand until she
could have shrieked with the pain, and departed.
Raising her fingers to her lips, she blew after him a kiss. Then,
rising with an abrupt, convulsive movement, she ran towards the door
as though to call him back. But at that moment her maid entered with
a decanter on a silver tray, and Madame halted, bid the maid begone,
reseated herself, and sank into a reverie. Her hair, like a winding
black snake, had broken loose from its fastenings. Dimly illumined by
the lamp, she sat motionless, save that at intervals she chafed her
hands, for the night air was beginning to grow chilly.
Two hours later Bazarov re-entered his bedroom in a state of
dishevelment and despondency, and with his boots soaked with dew.
Arkady was seated, fully dressed, at the writing-table, with a book in
his hands.