Fathers and Sons
"So much the worse! But I have received sufficient punishment, have I
not? My position now (I am sure that you will agree with me) is a very
awkward one. True, you wrote in your message: 'Why need you depart?'
but I cannot and will not remain. By to-morrow, therefore, I shall have
departed."
"But why need you, need you----?"
"Why need I depart?"
"No, I was going to have said something quite different."
"We cannot recover the past," he continued, "and it was only a question
of time before this should happen. I know only of one condition under
which I could remain. And that condition is never likely to arise. For
(pardon my presumption) I suppose you neither love me now nor could
ever do so?"
With the words there came a flash from under his dark brows.
She did not reply. Through her brain there flitted only the one
thought: "I am afraid of this man!"
"Farewell," he continued, as though he had divined that thought. Then
he moved away towards the house.
Entering the house a little later, Anna Sergievna called to Katia, and
took the girl by the arm: nor throughout the rest of the evening did
she once part from her. Also, instead of joining in a game of cards,
she sat uttering laugh after laugh of a nature which ill consorted with
her blanched and careworn face. Gazing at her perplexedly, as a young
man will do, Arkady kept asking himself the question: "What can this
mean?" As for Bazarov, he locked himself in his room, and only appeared
to join the rest at tea. When he did so, Anna Sergievna yearned to say
something kind to him, but could think of no words for the purpose. To
her dilemma, however, an unexpected incident put an end. This was the
entry of the butler to announce Sitnikov!
To describe the craven fashion in which the young Progressive
entered the room would be impossible. Although, with characteristic
importunity, he had decided to repair to the residence of a lady
with whom he was barely acquainted, and who had not accorded him an
invitation (his pretext for such presumption being that, according
to information received, she happened to be entertaining guests who
were both intellectual and "very intimate" with himself), he had since
felt his courage ebb to the marrow of his bones, and now, instead of
proffering all the excuses and compliments which he had prepared in
advance, blurted out some ridiculous story to the effect that Evdoksia
Kukshin had sent him to inquire after the health of Anna Sergievna,
and that Arkady Nikolaievitch had always spoken of him in terms of the
highest respect. But at this point he began to stammer, and so lost his
head as to sit down upon his own hat! No one bade him depart, however,
and Anna Sergievna even went so far as to present him to her aunt and
sister. Accordingly it was not long before he recovered his equanimity,
and shone forth with his accustomed brilliancy. Often the appearance
of the paltry represents a convenient phenomenon in life, since it
relaxes over-taut strings, and sobers natures prone to conceit and
self-assurance by reminding them of their kinship with the newcomer.
Thus Sitnikov's arrival caused everything to become duller and a trifle
more futile, but also rendered things simpler, and enabled the company
to partake of supper with a better appetite, and to part for the night
half an hour earlier than usual.
"Let me recall to you some words of your own," said Arkady when he had
got into bed, and Bazarov was still undressing. "I refer to the words:
'Why are you down-hearted? Have you just fulfilled a sacred duty?'"
Between the two there had become established those half-quizzical
relations which are always a sign of tacit distrust and a smouldering
grudge.
"To-morrow I intend to set out for my father's place," remarked
Bazarov, in disregard of what Arkady had said.
The latter raised himself on his elbow. Though surprised, he also, for
some reason, felt glad.
"Ah!" he exclaimed. "Then _that_ is why you are down-hearted?"
Bazarov yawned.
"When you are come to be a little older," he replied, "you will know
more."
"And what of Anna Sergievna?" continued Arkady.
"Well? What of her?"
"Is it likely that she will let you go?"
"I am not her hireling."
Arkady relapsed into thought, and Bazarov sought his bed, and turned
his face to the wall.
For a few moments silence reigned.
"Evgenii," said Arkady suddenly.
"Yes?"
"I too intend to leave to-morrow."
Bazarov made no reply.
"True, I shall be returning to Marino," continued Arkady, "but we might
bear one another company as far as Khokhlovskïe Viselki, and there you
could hire horses of Thedot. Of course, I should have been delighted to
make your family's acquaintance, but, were I to accompany you, I might
act as a source of constraint upon them and yourself alike. You must
pay us another visit at Marino later."
"I will. As a matter of fact, I have left some of my things there."
Bazarov still had his face turned to the wall.
"Why does he not ask _me_ the reason of _my_ departure--a departure as
sudden as his?" reflected Arkady. "Why is either of us departing, for
that matter?"
As he continued to reflect he realised that, while unable to return a
satisfactory answer to the question propounded, he seemed to have got
a heartache somehow, to be feeling that he would find it hard to part
with the life at Nikolsköe to which he was grown so accustomed. Yet he
could not remain there alone. That would be worse still.
"Between him and her there is something in the wind," he reflected.
"That being so, what would my sticking here avail after he had gone? I
should weary Anna Sergievna, and lose my last chance of pleasing her."
Then he began to draw a mental picture of the lady whom he had just
named: until there cut across the fair presentment of the young widow
another set of features.
"Katia too I shall miss," he whispered to his pillow (which had already
received one of his tears). At length, raising his curly poll, he
exclaimed:
"What, in the devil's name, brought that idiot Sitnikov here?"
He heard Bazarov stir under the bedclothes, then remark:
"You yourself are an idiot. We need the Sitnikovs of this world. Such
donkeys are absolutely necessary to us, to _me_. The gods ought not to
have to bake pots."
"Ah!" reflected Arkady. For, as in a flash, there had become revealed
to him the bottomless profundity of Bazarov's conceit.
"Then you and I are the gods?" he said aloud. "Or are you a god, and I
a donkey?"
"You are," came the gruff reply. "As yet, at all events, you are."
No particular astonishment was evinced by Madame Odintsov when, on
the following day, Arkady informed her that it was his intention to
accompany Bazarov. Rather, she looked distraught and weary. Katia
glanced at him gravely and in silence, and the Princess went so far as
to cross herself under her shawl--a precaution against the young men
observing the gesture. Sitnikov too was dumbfounded at having just
entered the breakfast-room in a new and most elegant suit (this time
_not_ of "Slavophil" cut, not to mention the fact that he had also had
the pleasure of amazing his temporary valet with the multitude of his
shirts), only to find himself confronted with the prospect of being
deserted by his comrades! He shuffled and wriggled like a hare driven
to the edge of a covert, and blurted out, almost in panic-stricken
fashion, that he too had a great mind to depart. Nor did Madame
Odintsov make any great effort to dissuade him.
"I have an exceedingly comfortable _koliaska_," the unfortunate young
man said to Arkady, "and I could give you a lift in it, and leave
Evgenii Vasilitch to use your _tarantass_, which would suit him better
than the _koliaska_."
"But I should not like to take you so far out of your way, for the
distance to my home is considerable."
"That would not matter, that would not matter. I have plenty of time to
spare, and also some business to do in that direction."
"What? Leasehold business again?" inquired Arkady disparagingly. But
Sitnikov was so distraught that he forbore to giggle in his usual
fashion.
"I can guarantee that the _koliaska_ is comfortable," he repeated.
"Indeed, it could hold all three of us."
"Do not vex Monsieur Sitnikov by refusing," put in Madame Odintsov.
So, with a meaning glance at her, Arkady nodded assent to Sitnikov.
Breakfast over, the guests departed. Anna Sergievna offered Bazarov her
hand.
"I hope we shall meet again?" she said.
"Only if you wish it," he replied.
"Then we _shall_ meet again."
The first to issue upon the verandah and enter Sitnikov's _koliaska_
was Arkady. The butler assisted him obsequiously, although Arkady could
with equal readiness have struck the man or burst into tears. As for
Bazarov, he took possession of the _tarantass_.
Khokhlovskïe Viselki reached, Arkady waited until Thedot, the local
posting-master, had harnessed fresh horses, and then, approaching the
_tarantass_, said to Bazarov with his old smile:
"Evgenii, take me with you. I should like to come to your place, after
all."
"Get in, then," muttered Bazarov.
This made Sitnikov, who had been walking up and down beside his
conveyance, and whistling, fairly gasp. Nevertheless the heartless
Arkady removed his luggage from the _koliaska_, seated himself beside
Bazarov, and, according his late fellow-traveller a courteous bow,
shouted: "Right away!" The _tarantass_ started, and soon was lost to
view. Much taken aback, Sitnikov gazed at his coachman. But the latter
was flicking the flanks of the trace horse with his whip, and therefore
Sitnikov had no choice but to leap into the vehicle, to shout to a
couple of peasants: "Off with your caps, you rascals!" and be driven
to the town, whither he arrived at a late hour, and where, on the
following day, he declared to Madame Kukshin that he had had enough of
"those odious churls and upstarts."
On Arkady seating himself beside Bazarov in the _tarantass_, he pressed
his hand, and Bazarov seemed to divine the meaning of the silent
hand-clasp, and to appreciate it. During the previous night the elder
man had never once closed his eyes. Also, for several days past he had
neither smoked a cigar nor eaten more than the merest scrap of food.
Indeed, as he sat in the _tarantass_, his fine-drawn profile, under the
overshadowing cap, looked sharper and grimmer than ever.
"Give me a cigar, will you?" he said. "Also, pray look at my tongue,
and tell me if it has a bilious appearance."
"Yes, it has," replied Arkady.
"I thought so, for this cigar seems tasteless. Moreover, the infernal
thing has come unrolled."
"You have changed a good deal of late?" hazarded Arkady.
"I daresay. But I shall be myself again, soon. The only thing now
troubling me is the fact that my mother is so good-naturedly fussy.
Should one's paunch not be projecting, or should one not eat at least
ten meals a day, she relapses into despair. My father, of course, is
different, for he has been all over the world, and knows what is what.
This cigar is simply unsmokable." And Bazarov consigned it to the dust
of the roadway.
"The distance to your place is twenty-five versts, I suppose?" queried
Arkady.
"It is so. But inquire of that sage there." And Bazarov pointed to the
peasant (an _employé_ of Thedot's) who was seated on the box.
The "sage" in question replied that he "could not say exactly," since
the verst-posts in those parts had not been measured out; after
which he went on to swear at the shaft horse for "kicking" its "jowl
about"--that is to say, jerking its head up and down.
"Aye, aye," commented Bazarov. "Take warning from me, my young friend.
An instructive example sits before you--an example of the vanity of