Fathers and Sons
does not know which to begin upon first! On the other hand, _I_----"
"Yes, you?"
"Am doing what you see--lying under a rick. The space occupied by my
body is small indeed compared with the surrounding immensity in which
it has neither part nor lot, and the portion of time allotted to me
here on earth is insignificant indeed compared with the eternity
which I have never known, and shall never enter! Yet in this same
atom, in this same mathematical point which I call my body, the blood
circulates, and the brain operates at will. A fine discrepancy for
you--a fine futility!"
"I would remark that what you have just said applies to every human
being in creation."
"True. What I mean is that my parents know not a single tedious
moment, nor are in the least distressed with the thought of their
insignificance--it is a thought which never stinks in their nostrils;
whereas _I_--well, I feel nothing but weariness and rancour in my
breast."
"Rancour? Why rancour?"
"How can you ask? Have you forgotten the recent past?"
"No: only, I do not recognise your right to be _angry_: unhappy,
perhaps, but not----"
"I perceive you to understand love as it is understood by all our
modern young men. That is to say, chirping 'Tsip, tsip, tsip!'
like pullets, you take to your heels as soon as ever you see love
approaching. I, however, am different.--But enough of this. What is
past help is best not talked about." Bazarov rolled over on to his
elbow. "Ah! Here is a young ant towing in its wake a half-dead fly.
Pull, brother, pull! Never mind that the fly hangs back, but avail
yourself of your animal right to abjure all sympathy, seeing that our
friend has only himself to thank for his trouble."
"Do not speak like that," expostulated Arkady. "How are you yourself to
thank for your trouble?"
Bazarov raised his head.
"Nay," he said, "I was but jesting. Never have I got myself into
trouble, and never shall any woman do it for me. Amen! I have spoken.
Never will you hear from me another word on the subject."
For a while the two friends lay without speaking.
"Yes," continued Bazarov, "man is a strange being. Contemplating from
a distance the dull life led by my parents, one would almost feel
inclined to say to oneself: 'What could be better than that, seeing
that in that existence one merely eats and drinks and knows oneself to
be acting in a sane and regular manner?' Yet a man will still become
depressed, and yearn for company, even though he may curse it when he
has got it."
"One ought so to order one's life that every moment in it shall be of
significance," said Arkady sententiously.
"Of course; but while the significant, and even the
pseudo-significant--yes, the absolutely insignificant as well--may be
bearable, it is trifles, trifles that matter."
"Unless a man recognise their existence, they do not exist."
"H'm! A contra-platitude."
"What is that?"
"This--that, should you say that education is useful, you will be
uttering a platitude; but, should you say that education is harmful,
you will be uttering a contra-platitude. The one is identical with the
other, except that they differ a little in elegance of expression."
"And which has right on its side?"
"'Which has right on its side?' I can only re-echo: 'Which?'"
"Come! You are out of spirits to-day."
"Am I? Then the sun must have touched me a little, or else I must have
eaten too many raspberries to be good for me."
"Then you would do well to have a sleep."
"I think you are right. Only, do not look at me while I sleep, for a
man cuts his very worst figure at such a time."
"Surely _you_ do not care for people's opinion?"
"I do, even though a man in the best sense of the term ought never to
trouble his head about such things, seeing that such a man is either
above criticism or too feared and hated for critics to wish to tackle
him."
"Curious! For I myself never hate any one."
"And I hate a great many people. You, you see, are a tender soul,
you are so much pap, and therefore hatred could never come within
your purview. People as retiring, as devoid of self-confidence as you
are----"
"What about your own self-confidence?" interrupted Arkady. "What about
your own opinion of yourself?"
Bazarov paused--then replied:
"As we were passing the hut of your _starosta_ to-day (what a neat,
pretty little place it looked!) you said to me: 'Not until every
peasant shall have come to own such a place as this, and every one of
us shall have contributed his mite to that end, will Russia attain
perfection.' But, for my part, I abominate the scurvy churl for whom
I am supposed to jump out of my skin, even though never a 'thank you'
should I get from him for doing so. For why should he thank me? His
_métier_ happens to be living in a white hut, and mine to be----"
"Come, come, Evgenii! One is almost forced to agree with those who
accuse us of being unprincipled."
"You talk like your uncle. No such thing as principle exists. That
you seem never to have divined. Instincts only exist, and upon them
everything depends."
"How so?"
"Thus. We will take myself as an example. Owing to the nature of my
instincts, I am prone to deny--I am prone to deny because my brain
is so constituted. In the same way, if you were to ask me why I am
interested in chemistry, and why you like apples, I should reply that
the same reason holds good in each case--that our respective instincts
are what they are. In other words, there exists between your instincts
and mine a certain affinity. Deeper it is not given us to probe."
"Then is honour an instinct?"
"It is."
"Oh, Evgenii!" cried Arkady sorrowfully.
"Do you dislike the conversation? Then let us philosophise no more, but
'permit nature to waft upon us the silence of sleep,' to quote Pushkin."
"Pushkin never said any such thing," objected Arkady.
"Then, if he did not, he ought, being a poet, to have done so. Perhaps
he had served in the army?"
"Never did he serve in the army."
"Indeed? Why, in his every line we come across 'To battle, to battle,
for the honour of Russia!'"
"That is a mere invention on your part. The statement is an absolute
calumny."
"A calumny? What matters a calumny? What is there in the term to be
afraid of? Slander a man as much as you like, yet for himself he will
hear things twenty times worse."
"Suppose we sleep," said Arkady irritably.
"With pleasure," Bazarov replied.
Nevertheless neither succeeded in the effort, for almost every
sleep-destroying sentiment happened to be in the ascendant. So, after
five minutes of such ineffectual striving, both opened their eyes, and
lay mutely gazing about then.
"Look!" cried Arkady after a pause. "Do you see that withered maple
leaf fluttering to the ground? Are not its movements exactly like those
of a butterfly? Strange that an object so joyous and full of life
should be able so to counterfeit an object mournful and dead!"
"My friend," protested Bazarov, "let me make at least _this_ request of
you: that you do not talk in 'beautiful language.'"
"I talk as I am able. I decline to be domineered over. Should a thought
chance to enter my head, why should I not express it?"
"Similarly am I at liberty to express the thought that to talk in
'beautiful language' is sheerly indecent."
"Indecent? Then swearing is _not_ indecent?"
"Aha! I perceive you still to be minded to follow in your uncle's
footsteps. How the idiot would have rejoiced if he could have heard
you!"
"_What_ did you call Paul Petrovitch?"
"I called him merely what he is--merely an idiot."
"Have done!" shouted Arkady.
"Therein I detect the tie of blood," said Bazarov calmly. "It is a
very stubborn factor, I have noticed, in some people. A man may abjure
everything else, and cut himself adrift from every other prejudice,
yet still remain powerless to confess that the brother who habitually
steals his shirts is a thief. You see, the difficulty lies in the word
'my.' Is not that so?"
"No. It was from a sense of justice, rather than from a sense of
kinship, that I spoke. But since you have no understanding of the
former, as an instinct which you simply do not possess, you are not in
a position to pass judgment upon such a feeling."
"In other words, 'I, Arkady Kirsanov, am altogether above your
comprehension,' Well, I make mute obeisance to that."
"Come, come, Evgenii! We shall end by quarrelling."
"Oh that you _would_ do me the favour to quarrel! We could have a real
set-to _à outrance_, and with our coats off."
"To the end that----?"
"To the end that we might rend one another in pieces. Why not? Here,
amid the hay, in this idyllic setting, far from the madding crowd and
every human eye, it would be not at all a bad thing. No, you shall
_not_ make it up with me! Rather will I seize you by the throat!"
As he extended his long, sharp fingers, Arkady rolled over and prepared
jestingly to grapple with his assailant. But the next moment the sight
of Bazarov's face, with its expression of malice and the non-jesting
menace which lurked in the twisted smile and the flashing eyes, gave
him a shock, and filled him with involuntary awe.
"_This_, then, is where you have got to!" cried Vasili Ivanitch from
behind them as, vested in a home-made cotton pea-jacket and a home-made
straw hat, the old military doctor suddenly confronted the pair. "I
have been searching for you everywhere, and certainly you have chosen
a capital spot, and are engaged also in a capital occupation--in the
occupation of lying on the earth and gazing at the heavens. For my
part, I believe that such an occupation can have its uses."
"I gaze at the heavens only when I am going to sneeze," said Bazarov.
Then, turning to Arkady, he added in an undertone: "Forgive me if I
hurt you."
"Do not mention it," was Arkady's rejoinder in a similar undertone, as
covertly he pressed his friend's hand.
Shocks of such a kind, however, were bound, in time, to react upon
their friendship.
"As I look at you, young gentlemen," Vasili Ivanitch continued as,
nodding his head, he rested his hands upon a crooked stick, his
own manufacture, which had a Turk's head for a handle, "I cannot
sufficiently admire you. What strength you embody! How you speak of
the flower of youth, of capacity, and of talent! You resemble Castor
and Pollux themselves."
"To think of your flaunting your mythology like that!" said Bazarov.
"At the same time, you must have been a fine Latin scholar in your day.
In fact, did not you once receive a silver medal for an essay?"
"The Dioscuri, the Dioscuri themselves!" continued the old man
ecstatically.
"Come, come, father! Do not play the fool,"
"Ah, well! No, I have not sought you out to pay you compliments: I have
come to inform the pair of you that dinner is nearly ready, and also to
give you, Evgenii, a warning. I know that, as a man of sense, as well
as a man well versed in the world, you will be charitable. The case
is this. This morning your mother took it into her head to organise a
thanksgiving ceremony on the occasion of your return.--No, do not think
that I am inviting you to the ceremony: on the contrary, it is over.
All that I am going to say is that Father Alexis----"
"The priest?"
"Yes, and our private confessor. Well, this Father Alexis is going
to dine with us, even though I had not expected it, and it was
not my suggestion, but merely an arrangement which has come about
somehow--probably through his having failed to understand me aright.
Not that we look upon him as anything but a man of rectitude and good
sense."
"Surely you do not mean to imply that he is likely to devour my portion
of the food, do you?"
Vasili Ivanitch burst out laughing.
"Ha, ha, ha!" he cried.